02 ; Things To Do

[scarsolderthanyou]

WHO. Stone and OTA
WHERE. Various places, see prompts
WHEN. October 11 and onwards
WHAT. Stone has a few things to follow up on
WARNINGS. Rated E for Everything


I. Trekking Across Spring, open to anybody who'd be in or visiting Spring!

The day after the festival in Spring, Stone sets off to follow the instructions the spirit gave him towards the spring he "should visit". For the first half of the trip, he flies, following broad instructions, carrying anyone who wanted to come along. He's hard to miss in his dragon-sized winged form, pitch black and gliding along sedately, eyes on the ground.

He lands when the trees start to get too thick to follow the trail from the air, shifting back to groundling form once any passengers have been set on their feet again, and waiting for anyone who might have wound up following. "Going to be slower going, here on in," he muses, not exactly cheerfully.


II. Mission Across the Moon, open to Bramble and maybe Lucius

Several days later, there's another job that needs doing. Standing at the fallen terminal, the "meteor", Stone peers up at the "sky", the opposite side of the moon that it must have fallen from. Bramble has a mirror, to communicate with Lucius if need be, and they have whatever preparations Lucius gave them for crossing the center of the moon. Stone's pack has a pair of crystals for them both to get in to any terminals on the other side.

They may not be the best choice to send on this mission, given neither of them are particularly familiar with technology, but they're what Lucius has.

"Ready to go?" Stone asks Bramble, still in groundling form.


III. Peering Across Blood, OTA

The big black Raksura passed over the protests a couple times before swooping down onto a rampart or roof somewhere and promptly vanishing, turning into the lean old man with gray skin, to stare down at the chanting people with a thoughtful frown.

To the nearest person, he asks, "What are they complaining about? What did this queen do wrong?"

Comments

III

[whatsina_name]

This is probably not a great time to show up here, but really, when is a good time to be magically summoned to a moon world rocketing through space to somewhere unknown? But the riots don't really help, especially since no one has seen fit to explain them to Phillip yet.

He's also been trying to get someone to fucking talk to him, but of course the one person who does has the same questions. "No idea," Phillip says with a long-suffering sigh, "I just got here, and no one's stopped yelling long enough to explain."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Hmm." Not helpful, that the first person he got to answer him also didn't know. It looks like they're both in the same predicament. "I could go grab one of them, I guess," Stone muses. "Though I hear they have magic."

He'd rather not get struck down or anything by their foreign gods.

[whatsina_name]

"...You want me to go grab one, then?" Sure, they have magic, but he doesn't really give a shit. Go ahead, gods, try and curse him or whatever. Honestly he's kind of curious about how that would even go.

[scarsolderthanyou]

That wasn't what Stone expected to hear from the boy. He frowns at Phillip thoughtfully. "I take it that means you're not worried about magic."

[whatsina_name]

Hmm. Maybe he shouldn't have said that. But he does want to know about what's going on... "I mean... some people have it in my world and I still get up in their faces sometimes. Is it not a thing at all in yours?" Yes, let's try and make it seem like this guy is the weird one. Solid plan.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"It's a different kind of thing in mine," Stone explains, looking back down at the crowd. "And the sort of magic I have is very limited, and not very good at dealing with the sort of magic they have. I suppose I could shift, swoop down, and flatten them all, but that won't help us get any answers."

[whatsina_name]

...Huh. "The hell can you shift into that would flatten all of them?" Sounds like he can only shift into the one thing after all...

[scarsolderthanyou]

Stone rumbles a little in the back of his throat, and looks up, until he spots the shadow of one of the dragons flying overhead. Then he points. "Kinda like one of those, except in black. And with more spines, and a flatter face."

[whatsina_name]

"...You can turn into a dragon?" Ok, he's not going to lie, that's kind of awesome. (Maybe he could try doing that sometime. He can probably turn into a dragon if he wanted to.)

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Technically, I'm called a Raksura," Stone corrects with half a smile. "Not a dragon. But I look similar enough to be mistaken for one at a distance." And it makes for a nice short-hand for people who have never heard of his species before.

2

[lasteden]

[ Lucius cannot leave the Sanctum for obvious reasons, and his attendant is away on some other business - so long-distance communication will have to do. He is able to monitor the entire Moon using the environmental arrays, so it's an easy effort to focus on where Stone and Bramble had gone. At this range, communication is still possible.

There's no image on the mirror yet, but if the two Raksura address the mirror, he'll be able to speak with them. ]

[carried_away]

1. "I don't mind." Bramble could shift and climb if she needed to, and she liked being around trees. Spring was full of thing to learn about, but it was nice to be in a forest again. It was a thing she liked about being a hunter back home -- spending time away from the colony to see the rest of the forest (or the part in Indigo Cloud's territory).

2. "Yes. wait, hang on. I'm going to shift." Because while Bramble knew Stone wouldn't drop her because this was Stone, who had been flying Arbora around since before Bramble was born, she had never done anything like this, and wanted the extra protection of her scales and grip of her claws. "Will we get the same sickness we got last time by going up high?" That wasn't on a moon, but Bramble was still learning why that sort of thing happened; most Arbora didn't get carried that high that quickly.

1.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Of course you don't," Stone sighs, giving her head a gentle shove. He eyes the trees a moment more, then starts walking, making sure to keep at a pace Bramble is comfortable with. He still wants to find this place, wherever it is, even if he has to go the long way.

"Though I'm told there's some big enough for me to climb in, around somewhere," he adds. "Probably not as big as the ones back home, but big enough."

Re: 1.

[carried_away]

"That big and we would have seen it from the air," Bramble noted. "We've really only seen mountain-trees in the Reaches, as far as I've read."

[scarsolderthanyou]

Let an old man hope that he might have missed something by not flying far enough, Bramble, geez. "I wasn't expecting a mountain-tree," he says, grumpy. "Just something bigger than the saplings we see in the villages. If they had mountain-trees, I'm sure someone would have already had the smart idea to live in one."

[carried_away]

"I would say that they can't climb or fly, but some of the buildings in the Light part of the moon are tall enough that living high up doesn't seem to bother these groundlings."

They weren't high at all compared to a mountain tree, but still of a height that groundlings would probably die if they fell. And they didn't have Aeriat watching for accidents that meant that meant that sometimes higher gave someone enough time for a mid-air catch.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"There are groundings who build up rather than out even where we come from," Stone comments, eyes roving around the path and trees for the signs the spirit gave him to keep them on the right track. "Maybe they all wish they had wings, so they pretend the only way they can without proper flying boats."

[carried_away]

"Groundlings haven't hard to work with cranky warriors all their lives," Bramble said. "It makes you rethink wanting wings." Because even if there aren't any warriors around, Bramble still occasionally likes to give them a hard time.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Could be they wish they were queens or consorts," Stone suggests wryly. "Unless you think we're that bad, too."

[carried_away]

"You just have far too much to do, looking after the rest of us," Bramble said. "I like being a hunter."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I've found groundlings don't seem to notice how much work being a leader really is," Stone comments. "They just want it." Even a few Aeriat get that way, to Stone's bafflement. "At least you Arbora are smarter than that. -- Look at that," he says, pausing to narrow his eyes at the forest ahead of them.

A couple of the trees on the path ahead are... see-through. "Now that's not a thing I've seen before."

[lasteden]

As they walk, the two Raksura may notice that the trees have taken on a slight ethereal quality. Some of the leaves glow with a soft light, while others have become largely translucent, allowing one to see through to the other side. One of the spirit's instructions was to walk until they reached a 'tree whose leaves were like stars'. If they consciously head in the direction of trees that look less and less like trees, they will ultimately reach one that is entirely transparent like glass. Fireflies swarm about its leaves, giving the impression of twinkling stars. A spring wells up from beneath its roots, forming a small pool.

2.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"You might," Stone allows. "I'll take it slow, if I can. And Lucius might have suggestions." He taps the communication mirror lightly with the back of one finger, then offers it to Bramble. He won't be able to do much with it while flying, but Bramble might.

Re: 2.

[carried_away]

Bramble shifted and took it. She could still carry her pack in shifted form. "All right. Let's get going."

[scarsolderthanyou]

He ruffles her frills, then shifts, himself, giving his slightly-smaller-than-usual self a shake before taking Bramble around the waist and gathering her up against his chest. It's a pleasant kind of familiar, carrying Arbora, compared to carrying the humans he's been exposed to before her arrival here.

Once she's settled, he spreads his wings and leaps into the air, starting straight across the empty center of the moon towards the other side. If Lucius has anything to say as they climb, he'll have to say it to Bramble.