lunarwhite | NOVEMBER MINGLE.

Entry tags:

!monthly mingle

NOVEMBER MINGLE.

STARS WHICH FALL FROM THE SKIES...

WHO. Everyone.
WHERE. Inside the White Moon.
WHEN. November 1 - 15.
WHAT. Mingling and exploration.
WARNINGS. None for now.

FOR THE NEWLY AWAKENED.

You are asleep. The dreamscape ripples, resolves into a vision of a foreign land, and then a world of pure white. There is the sensation of rising through deep water, and then you find yourself in a room of white marble. Your items may be set on the floor around you, or you could have arrived bare-handed - whichever it is, you'll soon be addressed by a couple of tired-looking people in white coats. It seems they're as confused as you are.

Upon receiving an introduction to the White Moon and choosing your faction, you will be allowed to leave the Sanctum - but there will also be an announcement made later on in the afternoon to all of the Moon's foreigners. Will you attend?

COLLECT AND RENEW.

Those who do attend will be ushered into one of the Sanctum's meeting halls, where Lucius waits with a woman in green by his side. The Empress and Wintersmith have arrived as well, taking their places to the side of the room - one austere, the other radiating a chill that befits his name.

"Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks to your help, we've been able to assess the condition of the terminal. In the best interests for the Moon, it will be decommissioned permanently. We need to retrieve the crystals still inside it, and transport it back here."

Now, the Wintersmith speaks:

"Crystals are a unique type of substance in this world. They have the capability to store a great deal of energy within themselves, so they were chosen to power the environmental systems here. They are however a limited resource, so we need to conserve as much as we can. Understood?"

The Empress shoots him a glance, though her manner remains placid as ever.

"I will assist all that I can. If you have any queries, we are here to answer."

What will you do?

ADMIN.

Welcome to Last Eden's November monthly mingle! It is intended as a catch-all for threads that are not put in log posts. New characters are encouraged to use this post as an 'intro log' of sorts, for prompts both in the Sanctum and around the Moon. Please direct any questions about this log to the OOC post here.

The faction leaders (or their stand-ins, for Blood and Light) will be available to interact with upon arrival. To thread with them, tag in to the NPC toplevel and mention who you would wish to thread with. If you wish to have your character meet them later on in the month, please submit this to either the interaction turn-in on the OOC post, or contact the mods to arrange it.

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He pulls his hand back, startled by the look of fear. She hasn't acted afraid of him as long as she's known him, even knowing his other form. Why the sudden look now? And when it's gone as quickly as it came, replaced by the tentative and thoughtful expression, he carefully doesn't frown, not wanting to discourage her in any way-- but he's thinking. Hard.

The child has been through trauma. That's the only explanation. He's seen that reaction before, though never in one so young.

He slowly reaches down to ruffle her hair once more, more gently and with more warning this time, in the hopes of reaccustoming her to it as a positive thing. "We'll do that, then. Here's my load, and your mother will bring you hers."

She nods, again, not quite able to speak at the moment. She had never spoken, there - not needed to speak, known that it was bad to speak. Talking, making sounds, was something that she'd only really learned after being rescued, and she is too stuck still in the memory to be able to bring forward words.

But going through the motions of what Stone suggested will work. She can do that. And the touch, once she's sure that it comes from someone who is safe, helps too. She calms down a bit.

And then Louise is at both their side, without many crystals to show for, kneeling down next to Lottie with a worried look on her face. She had hoped that this would somehow blow over, that Stone wouldn't notice, that Lottie wouldn't have too hard of a time breaking out of it, but apparently neither of that worked out.

She should have noticed. Should have twigged that this could turn disastrous the moment Lucius described the crystals.

But she'd been too fascinated by the thought of them, bu the idea of learning more, of making a good first impression on the local political system. And Lottie had been excited, so why not-? She should have noticed.

"I'm here." It's a simple sentence, and she's hoping for an even simpler signal. The first thing that her presence meant to Lottie was leaving her Keeper. It ended her Durance. Sometimes, her presence alone is reassurance enough that Lottie isn't there any more.

Stone steps back to give the pair room, not interrupting or questioning anything out loud yet. Whatever the cause of the trauma, he's fairly sure Louise isn't it, but he would certainly be happy for more evidence to prove that she isn't. If Lottie doesn't react poorly to her presence after what he can only guess is a flashback, if it helps her come back, then that will be more proof.

So he doesn't get back to his collecting, either, he waits to make sure Lottie is all right.

Louise just sits there, not reaching out, not moving in closer, but not moving away either. Waiting.

It takes a some time more, longer than feels comfortable, but Louise has learned to just wait.

And then, eventually, Lottie crawls over towards her and curls up where her Fetch can pick her up. Louise does so, scooping what just looks like a tightly curled up child to Stone and actually is a solid ball of stone-like segments to Louise. She's sitting down a bit more comfortably and rests the heavy child in her lap, wrapping both arms around her to make her feel more shielded.

"Sorry about that," she finally offers in Stone's direction, tone soft and neutral. "I failed to realize that this might happen."

Good, more signs the trauma probably didn't come from Louise. Stone drops slowly to a crouch where he stands, to be on their level. "If I asked you what that was about, would you answer me?" he asks, voice and expression also carefully neutral. Who puts a child that young through abuse enough to leave that sort of scars? The Fell, maybe, but he's never actually had to deal with Fell children, and Lottie is very obviously not one of them.

Louise looks down at the child in her arms, raising an arm a bit to run her fingers over the smooth rocky scales where Stone should see the child's back. Lottie will likely not feel it, but it does calm her down, and that will only benefit both of them.

"No." She shakes her head at length. "I cannot. It's not my answer to give." In more ways than one. Even in a place like this, or perhaps especially here, it is much too dangerous to admit to them not being regular humans. "All I can say is that... for a while, she wasn't in a good place, and not with people that had her best interest in mind." She is still looking down at Lottie as she speaks, her arm resting still around the child once more. "As you probably already guessed. We took her away from there as soon as we found out." As soon as she found out that Lottie existed, but that is a whole other story, and certainly something that she will not get into.

Too late, Louise, he's pretty sure you're not normal humans. But that doesn't bother him at all, since he's never heard of humans before he came to this moon. He considers that, decides it's probably good enough to get along with for now, and moves on to the practical: "Is there anything I should or should not do with her? Like making her carry things around seems like a bad idea, now." He can't imagine why that would be a trigger, but he'll still accept that it is.

"It may not be an issue if they are big, but I don't know that." She's a medical professional, but psychology is so not her field, and from what she's seen these kinds of violent flashbacks are fairly hard to predict, anyway. You can figure out patterns and things that are more or less likely to cause trouble, but in the end it differs between days and sometimes minutes.

"...Don't tell her to not speak or be quiet. Or try to be as gentle as possible about it if you have to." It's another one of those that may or may not be an issue. "...Not that it should be necessary." Lottie is a quiet child, anyway. Probably unsurprising for a Darkling. "I think she's decided that you are nice and normal and safe, so that'll help you with not ...startling her."

He quirks a little smile, with a bit of fang showing. "Funny that she'd decide I'm normal and nice." The big scaled creature with sharp teeth and spines, who happens to be able to change shape to hide among groundlings, is normal... the grumpy old line-grandfather who doesn't care about the rules of politeness is nice. She's right, though, in that he's not about to hurt either of them, and would probably protect them with everything he had if the need arose.

"I'll remember those things. And I'm not going to make a baby carry anything bigger than these, anyway. You hold her as long as you need to. I'll worry about all this shit until she's ready." He jerks his head at the chamber.

"...Thank you." There is a thankful smile on her lips, a motion learned and habitualised, but no less genuine for it. "And you have been nothing but nice towards her," and it has been genuine, and showed a clear concept of other people's needs and boundaries, which is a very important piece, even though Lottie probably processes that a lot more subconsciously and with a lot less words than Louise applies to it, "she has no reason to think in any other way of you."

"Well, I love babies. So she's got that going for her." He's about to ruin that "respect for boundaries" thing, though. Because this time it's Louise who gets a hand on her hair, though he's respectful enough to keep it to a pat rather than a ruffle. Just barely. Then he pushes back up to his feet and ambles off to start another collection round, leaving the two to finish recovering.

Considering what boundary breaches both of them, and especially Lottie, have experienced, Louise doesn't worry about it too much. It may be a bit patronizing in her opinion, and she doesn't approve, but at least it is in line with the mood and kept to a bare minimum. She may say something if he tries again at another time.

For now, she's just glad that he doesn't prod further and gives Lottie time, and thus settles down and wait for the child to relax enough to set her down.

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NOVEMBER MINGLE.

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