ARRIVAL LOG 006

[larkers]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: Night of September 3 to night of September 4
WHAT: The sixth arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion and loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #006

Awareness comes to you in blurred snatches, cloudy fragments of sound and light, color, sensation. Hazy and difficult to grasp on to, but slowly aligning into focus. A series of regular, rhythmic beeps. A medicinal, astringent smell. The sensation of movement, a low hum and accompanying vibration under you. Your eyes are heavy, hard to keep open, but in the glimpses between slow, dark blinks you see four people in black body armor seated opposite you, as well as a man in dark gray scrubs.

You realize there are others next to you. All of you in white scrubs, hair recently cut but at various stages of growth, restrained by straps across your chests, arms, feet, holding you to the bench under you. To your left, an armored interior door, two more people visible, the movement of streets passing through a windshield. You try to open your mouth to speak, but it's as if your tongue is coated in tar, and you manage nothing more than an empty parting of lips.

The vehicle stops. The guard opposite you stands and comes to unbuckle you from the bench, helping you to your feet. Your limbs feel wooden and heavy, slow to move. One guard opens the back of the vehicle, and false, colored light, illuminating the streets in the distance will first alert your senses of being somewhere else, combined with warm air that's only cooled with the setting of the sun. The nurse moves to stand at the back, checking each passenger over one by one just before they're helped out of the vehicle, quick and methodical. He doesn't climb out after you, moving to sit as the last passenger is unloaded.

The guards keep their heads down. Their actions are quick, firm, but not entirely unkind. Once all the passengers are out, they climb back into the vehicle and close the doors. The engine powers up again, and then the bus is gone.

You're left alone in an alley, with no idea of where you are or why you've been brought here.

Around the corner of the alley, the streets are lined with bright orange, yellow, and red ball-shaped lights cluttered together overhead. Despite seeming rather tangible in nature, the balls themselves are merely well-designed projections. These lights illuminate the streets filled with people – some of which seem indifferent to the festivities, while others move in dense clusters toward a city square filled with countless trucks and tables. They disperse as they arrive – to trucks, to stations to have faces painted, to admire the wide array of sweet confections available. Numerous bits of signage announce various additional activities – but anyone new won't be able to interact, won't know what information is there.

◉ Though entirely capable of independent action and thought, new characters will find themselves completely, unquestioningly compliant to any verbal statement which could be taken as a command or request.

> LANTERN FESTIVAL

The message from El – no, wait. It's Gaby this time. Otherwise, it's the same as previous: insistent, not waiting for any active attempt to open it. Scrolling within your vision as if being written while you're reading it.

I'm on announcement duty this time. Bus #6, for anyone who's counting. The location? Well, the heart of the lantern festival. A short walk from the safehouse.

Like many of these festivities, the New Amsterdam Lantern Festival is an annual event, dating back decades as a means of celebrating the mish-mash of culture that influences New Amsterdam as it's seen today. Sponsored by Polarized – a known subsidiary of Pulsar – the lights go bright just as the sun begins to set late in the evening, spreading over the city, acting as a dense layer of luminescence for 24 hours. Even in the daytime hours, the lights remain, and the technology seems to make them seem just as bright – which acts as a sign that the lights themselves are not natural, projected outward by numerous devices set up throughout the city.

Most of the events are concentrated in a district square that was once known as the city's Chinatown. At the heart of this festival is a large gathering where numerous food trucks and restaurants come out to advertise their wares. Specializing in desserts and little else, these businesses flood the street every year in hopes of bolstering their business because they can't partake in the restaurant promotion throughout September. The festival concludes with a competition, with each chef revealing their unique lantern festival dessert. These are often rather impressive in nature: cake pops strung together like a dragon, ice creams that make people's mouths look like they're glowing, and large cakes, shaped and designed to celebrate New Amsterdam's arts and festival scene. Many of this year's offerings will both celebrate the year before and offer a somber reminder of the lives lost in the monster attack just months ago. Smaller, sample sizes of these desserts will be available for purchase, which also grants people access to one vote for their favorite dessert.

As the lantern festival comes to a close almost a full day later, the lights clear a path to the river, where countless people will be stretched out and looking skyward for this year's fireworks. Loud, symphonic music featuring some of New Amsterdam's most popular composers will play throughout the area, synced up with the bombastic explosions themselves.

Most of the six newcomers will have hopefully been gathered long before the fireworks go off – but anyone else is free to enjoy them and the festivities leading up to that final conclusion. The festivities vary in nature, from a place for someone to claim a lantern of their own with a wish, to using UV paint to legally cover the ground in unique symbols and lights, to joining competitions where people place chess and checkers for a wider audience. Each of these activities is monetized, so don't expect anything to be for free.

> A VISUAL DETOUR

There will be several new and persistent additions along the most likely path to the festival from the safehouse: small, man-made shrines that have appeared just hours before the dense layer of lights settled over the city. Depending upon their makeup, these shrines vary in structure, size, and design, but have several unique, persistent similarities between them.

Some of the shrines are fully formed, with candles lying underneath them, and cloth blankets acting as an overhang for the art within. At the heart of each of these shrines is an image of a person, with a large, upside down triangle projecting from their chest – blue and noticeable – with their arms spread wide. Some of these triangles project from the chest as if a piece of a 3D pop-up structure, while others are simply a part of the image itself, a flat, smooth surface. Beneath them, there will be a scene from a familiar event for anyone who's been here for a while: a car flying into a monster's mouth, a person healing someone else, bright blue eyes and fingertips, showing the artist's personal interpretation in motion. Any of the cloth is covered in geometric symbols, intersecting circles and triangles, many of them in specific and particular patterns.

Other shrines are two dimensional in nature – painted, to be more specific, on the walls themselves – both hidden bits of scenery meant to blend in with the surroundings, or large and spread out, splashing wide arrays of colors and symbols. Whoever set up many of these artistic displays had a special paint and familiarity with the lantern festival lighting, as it draws special attention to the blue light that pours out of the people featured, whether it comes from their eyes, mouths, or the traditional chests. Silver and gold geometric symbols stretch around these images, framing the scene portrayed.

These additions aren't only located near the safehouse, but that's where they're concentrated for now. Within days, they'll be elsewhere: on walls in oft-frequented public restrooms, behind popular nightclubs and bars, and just about anywhere else – popping up and coming down as people tire of their presence – or are simply bothered that they're there at all.

> THE SAFEHOUSE

Access to the safehouse is a hatch hidden behind stacks of empty storage shelves in the back of an abandoned supermarket in an outer district of the city. The immediate area is similarly abandoned, empty stores, flanked by several blocks of dive bars and clubs which cater to more niche tastes. A place where people can come and go unseen, or, if seen, not spoken of. A dark haired woman called Gaby is ready to greet the new arrivals and get them settled in, brusque and no-nonsense – she'll be open for in depth questions later, but will advise everyone to ask the people who brought them in for the beginning bits of information.

◉ The safe house is a large open space, filled with rows of basic cots set up to sleep a large amount of people. Basic, but outfitted with everything necessary for daily life. A few doors lead to back rooms for storage, medical care and a large communal bathroom, and past the long rows of cots there is a communal kitchen, fully stocked, and an eating area. Privacy is at a minimum.

◉ New characters will be asked to pick their beds, and provided with a change of (second-hand, mismatched and somewhat threadbare) clothes and basic toiletries.

◉ While there were previously also NPC occupants of the safehouse, natives to New Amsterdam, these people have now been moved on to somewhere safer. A few of their belongings remain, discarded or accidentally abandoned.

◉ Gaby will make it clear to all new arrivals that if they have any requests or queries, they should contact her or El.

◉ The drugs making new characters compliant will remain in their systems for a few hours after their arrival at the safehouse before finally beginning to fade. They will be gone entirely after a night's rest. In the meantime, they may want to be careful of what others say to them.

◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network on arrival in the safehouse, but will not have their ID set up yet. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet.

◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until SEPTEMBER 7. These 4 days are for them to adjust, learn about the world they've arrived in from their fellows, and for El to speak with them and work on setting up their IDs.

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will have no IDs or inboxes, nor be allowed out of the safehouse until September 7 (January 14). At that point it's expected they'll have gotten a good idea of their new situation from their fellow characters, and will have discussed their background and job potentials with El in order for their false IDs to be set up.

If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, or if they'd like to join Morningstar, please head over to the plot engagement post and drop us a comment! For questions specific to this log, there is a thread below.

Please check out our January calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month.

As a reminder, AC for new characters accepted in December and January will be 10 comments across 2-4 threads, while current characters will need to provide the full AC of 20 comments across 2-4 threads. AC will be posted on January 20 and close on January 27. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Comments

hei, darker than black.

[dipolar]

1▸ LANTERN FESTIVAL

A▹ FIREWORKS
(fireworks crack like a discharging rifle in his ear. multiple rounds, one burst. they pop and shower the city with spectacular displays, fill the air with smoke from their leavings, block the stars overhead.

but hei’s paying them no attention, save for the occasional tensing. it’s visible, running from one shoulder to the next, showing in a slight duck of the head. he’s got plans for the stock the city has set up behind one of the grandiose chinese displays that ironically make him feel right at home in this foreign land he’s been trafficked to — laughable, really, if the man knew how to take a joke. instead, he takes armfuls of the gunpowder filled mini-bombs, attempting to jerry-rig himself something lethal.

there aren’t any weapons on the streets save for a knife he picked up from one of the food trucks.

that’s why making himself up an ied or two won’t go amiss. under the light of walkway paint behind a large riverside building less populated with people, hei makes cherry bombs. quick to light, easy to deploy, stings the eyes, and confuses attackers. might not want to sneak up on him, lest one snap in your face, but a fellow scrub-wearer might be introduced to something safer than the “safehouse” he keeps hearing about.

no thanks.)

B▹ DESSERTS
(‘yeah yeah, eat up, you look unhealthy. jesus, what an animal.’

hei’s just following directions.

called in from off the street by a man luring him in with sweets and a commanding ‘get over here and try my award-winning dragon pops — ten creds for the whole batch!’ well. there’s really nothing he could’ve done about that one, now jamming stick after stick of chinese-inspired treats down his throat, stomach giving him hell when the sugar starts conflicting with whatever angry drug making him everyone on the street’s marionette.

help a bastard pay his bills or join him in a dine-and-dash, because either way he's got no id. which means no currency.)

2▸ BACK ALLEYS

(hair short, well above the brow in a bedhead sprawl over the crown of his head, there’s nothing shielding dark eyes mottled by abuse, medicated sleep, and the courses of drugs in his system. they’re haunting, threatening, unhinged — he’s dangerous and broad shoulders curve in to demonstrate it, like an animal hunching before a strike… but someone’s foggy on body language. someone can’t take the hint.

hei faces a larger man, heavy-set, at least seventy pounds thicker, who slaps at chest tattoos like an ape, who bellows his outrage at the vibrant vomit that’s covered his street art. ‘hey, wait just a second. you got nothin’ to say to me? you think fuckin’ with our art’s funny?’

fuck, what the fuck is going on? every light’s too bright, every building’s too tall. he’s been shucked out of a truck into an alley of modified freaks with no inch of unmarked skin and all he can do is stare unevenly through the cracks his fingers make when they spread down the length of a drained face. the action drags sweat from his forehead into brows that crease with frustration. it’s hot, he’s suffocating, drowning. feels so sick, he swallows around the excess bile slicking his throat from the last minute he spent upheaving dessert onto ultraviolet paint-covered asphalt.

‘can’t say i care for that asshole look you’re givin’ us. tell ya what, you wanna start somethin’ then you take the first shot, huh?’

a first shot that may be the guy’s last mistake. because that order’s like a kick to the back of the knees and it sends hei forward like a point-blank bullet from the chamber of a very unforgiving gun. the artist may be bigger, but there’s no way the beating — within an inch of his life or narrower — he’ll receive is what he expected from the plain-faced chinese man staggering like a drunk through the streets of new amsterdam.)

3▸ SAFEHOUSE

Hey, (it comes from the opposite cot, hei flagging with bloody fingers,) pass me that.

(it’s a coat hanger. it looks rusted. he nods to it like his pointing wasn’t good enough, when the obvious problem may be the fact that handing someone a tool to try stabbing the implant out of the back of their neck isn’t the best idea in the world.)

No advice, just hand it over.

three!

[merced]

[ Aranea is in the safehouse, not because she still lives here - obviously, she doesn't - but for the sake of sussing out any more familiar faces. A cast cap is hardly IC knowledge, after all. Wandering up and down the cots, searching out familiar faces, noted voices - nothing. Nothing, except a rusted hanger on one side and a young man on the other side, with her apparently as the bridge between.

Looking straight at Hei, her eyebrows lift fractionally, and then she hands him the hanger. Presently, she can't imagine what he intends to do with it, but she's perfectly prepared to incapacitate him if he tries anything weird.

And, speaking of - ]

This isn't some weird fetish thing, is it?

[ He probably doesn't want to give himself an abortion. What does that even leave? Hanging his clothes? ...What a novel concept. ]

merc lyfe

[dipolar]

No. (a short answer, but that question deserves one.

grabbing for the hanger, the length of it slipping an inch in his grip from where slick fingers pinch too lightly, hei leans onto his elbows and begins to bend it. once he's got a good enough tool made, his arm's up and the point of it is promptly dug — without ceremony — into the back of his neck.

it hurts like a bitch.)

This... isn't a show. You can go.

[merced]

[ You idiot! ]

... you idiot.

[ It definitely isn't a show, because this boy is a pretty crappy bit of entertainment. She would demand to speak to a manager, try to get her money back, the whole nine yards. As it is, she moves closer rather than away, and in one slick movement, is pinning his neck down with her hand. His cheek, at least one of them, will be digging into the fibers of the bedsheet.

She pulls the hanger back out and tosses it to the side, with the faint 'pop' sound of the rusted metal sliding out. Deftly, Aranea presses one thumb over the now opened wound that's torn through his fresh scar tissue.

As for Hei? He, uh, remains pinned. (It still isn't a fetish thing, probably.) ]

Can't imagine you thought that plan through for more than a few seconds.

[dipolar]

(he's faster than this, than the grab, but fuck the vicious tail-end of these drugs giving his body a hell of a time. the woman manages to throw the coat hanger and get a vice grip on the back of his neck by the time his arms are lowering — cheek shoving into the crude springs of the stained, shitty cot, hei's lips curl back from baring teeth and grunts through them.)

A few seconds. (it bears repeating, because that's how long it takes for his patience to run out.

his blood is on her fingers, now, the pain from his self-inflicted wound being pressed into reminding him. his dirty, dirty blood. not exactly something wants thrown up at their face when it's riddled with foreign contaminants, hei wrenching his arm back to try for her face with his own red hand, intent on dragging a wide swath of it across a cheek, searching for eyes, a nose, a mouth.

it gives him enough leverage to get a powerful leg up onto the bed with them, shoving the smaller woman up with his entire body, deceptively strong despite the telltale shake in his arms that this move is causing a tired body stress.)

Get the fuck off of me.

1-b, I'M HERE

[fessus]

[ Noctis has been keeping to himself for the better part of the last week and a half. A wise choice? Maybe, maybe not, but one he didn't even feel as if he had a part in making. If he hadn't then he wouldn't have had time to put together a solid poker face, but hearing about this festival actually encouraged him to get out and socialize a little. Maybe it'd be good for him.

If by "socialize" he could also mean "eat a lot of sugar and then go nap it off".

He only gets the message from Gaby after he's already arrived, fate dealing him a lucky hand for once as it coincides perfectly with a flash of white that he spots at a nearby food stall. Seriously? Well, time to intervene. ]

Hey! [ His newly healed arm comes up in a wave as he jogs closer, approaching the poor bastard unwillingly stuffing his face at one of the small tables set up next to the stand. ]

... Todd. I can't believe you're out here; I told you to wait up at the restaurant -- ah, yeah, I'll take an order too, and put his on my bill.

I got really lucky finding you. Last night was... you know... Well, you look a little rough, but don't worry about paying me back. [ His lying is getting better, at least under these specific circumstances, and yet it still leaves so much to be desired. ]

THERE YOU ARRREEE

[dipolar]

(hei shoves another cake pop into an already full mouth, crumbs being huffed out onto the table in his nausea. he's trying valiantly not to throw up when he's addressed, knowing he needs food in his stomach but nothing like what's currently being introduced. it's deliciously disgusting.

there are more pressing matters to deal with, like who this kid is and why he's calling him todd.)

Ah, he— (his mouth is dry, his throat closing around his words. hei swallows thickly and tries again.) Yeah, hey. You took too long, so I...

(god, he's gotten rusty. or the drugs are ruining his acting skills. either way, he knows he has to do better than that, but the sick feeling propagates until heat is creeping up the length of his neck and rolling under his sternum. there's no way he's going to be able to keep all of this down. but he hasn't received an order to stop, only an order not to worry about payment — something that wasn't on his mind in the first damn place.

so another bite's raised in a shaking hand.)

:eyes:

[fessus]

[ Oh... god... it's horrible to watch. But Noctis is immediately grateful for this man's intelligence in immediately abiding by the alibi, hoping that it shows in his eyes as he leans a little closer. ]

Whoa, easy... They, uh--

[ How does he weasel through this one without arousing suspicion? ]

They must be really good if you're eating that much when you're hungover, you know you're super sick. Make mine a double order while I take care of him! And a water, too. [ Noctis abandons his side long enough to get that bottle, not about to mourn the depletion of his funds when it's something this small. He returns to him, assuming he's set a good enough cover to allow for his next whispered order. ]

Stop eating, stand up and walk over to the side of the stall with me. You're gonna' crouch down and you're gonna' spit that out, okay? [ Which Noctis will stay with him for, a hand even moving to his shoulder in a faint touch. ]

[dipolar]

They're the best I've tasted, seriously... thanks again. (the last lie to top the lot of them, nodding to the stall owner who seems thrilled they're ordering more despite the twenty "tak" has already ingested.

hei struggles, however, to accept the orders in his mind. it's true that stopping, standing, and puking on the side of the road sounds like something he sorely needs. it's also true that this stranger seems to be too familiar with his state, his mandatory compliances, and how to take advantage of that. his body doesn't see the problem, betraying his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the picnic table, standing the moment noctis murmurs his aside.

damnit.

fingers find and scrape at the curb, spewing what's in his mouth up — far more follows it out.

his entire body heaving inches forward to empty what's poisoning his stomach, leaving him spitting at thick drool that beads from his lip, trembling under the palm that settles lightly on the back of his white tunic. everything else is chewable, hei can accept the fact that he's at the beck and call of someone he's never met, ready to spring free and duck away the second he screws up a demand. what makes him sicker, makes him grit his teeth and speak through them in a voice that drops far lower than the stammering one used at the table, is the hand.)

Don't touch me. (it'd be menacing if not for the fact that it wobbles out of him, choked by exhaustion.

vomiting takes effort and energy and he has neither.)

Pay and walk away.

:^) 1A duh

[sumio]

[Sumio has been here before. It was more dangerous, then; he'd almost died, the first time, so why is everything so different now-- as if he's been flung forward in time?

He doesn't start outside, but the safehouse makes his skin crawl and they don't question when he wanders away, spirited further and further into the festival by the kind suggestions of strangers who want him to play a game, or taste a dessert. (It's his own fault for lipreading instead of just looking away, but there's a bizarre comfort to following the orders. He hates it.)

At last, he breaks away. There's another man in scrubs he's kept spotting out of the corner of his eye that he's been attempting to tail for the last hour or two, and finally he reaches him: Hei's tinkering away at something by the riverbank.

It's probably stupid to walk up and ask. That said: he's stupid enough to walk up and ask. If he's been impressionable this whole time, there's a solid chance that the stranger must be as well.]

Tell me. Have you just arrived? [he tilts his head. yeah, that's suspicious work, there.] What are you doing?

[dipolar]

(looking bright and white in his standard-issue scrubs, hei doesn't need to answer the question posed by the stranger approaching from the side. and wouldn't have, if it weren't for that damnable "tell me." these drugs are a major inconvenience, loss of autonomy making him scowl well before looking over.

when he does, his face is coached into impassivity. maybe that's its default; it looks comfortable wearing nothing.)

Yeah. (hei doesn't have to elaborate, so he doesn't and continues with the second prompt, eyes falling to his crude project.) I'm making IEDs — explosives. Small ones I can protect myself with.

...

(lowering his head by force of habit, expecting to shield his eyes with a lengthy fringe he's unfortunately lacking. all it does is make him look old. tired.)

Aren't you in the same position?

[sumio]

[You're a walking target in the scrubs, Hei. Sumio, either nosy or bored or both, inches closer, his head tilted so as to see Hei's obscured face a little better.]

Sure. [flatly, an almost eerie mirror image Hei's own impassivity--] I don't care as much, but that's a pretty good idea.

[No further explanation on that. He raises an eyebrow.]

There's too many civilians. You really shouldn't use those now. [His expression doesn't change. It's not evident whether or not he knows what he's doing.] There's methods of self-defense that are a little less stupid and reckless.

[dipolar]

(hei needs no explanation. if the man says he doesn't care, he doesn't care. it's not his business.)

If I wanted a commentary, I'd've made them in a busy city centre. (but sumio suggests he avoid using them, so he won't — the drug's going to be a real bitch for him, even if hei has alternate methods of taking someone down.) Since you don't care, it doesn't really concern you.

(his head turns away, curling fingers caked with grey powder against the palm of his hand.)

Does it.

2 fuck it let's go

[blyat]

[On the return from another apartment-hunting venture, the message lights through his neural implant: bus six, lantern festival. Given his proximity to the safehouse, Cain dashes down the block in the boots with little sequin-stars he robbed off a drunk stranger at the party alongside his accomplice, Heine (fashion police cut him some slack, so far they've proven higher quality than anything Morningstar offered).

Cutting through an alley and smack into the fray, Cain's faced by gruesome violence. A smaller, scrub-dressed man on top of some guy, swinging fists that hit with gross fleshy cracks. Cain's boot heels almost slide through the puddle of vomit splattered across concrete. Never mind the smell...]

What the fuck?

[Impulsively, he forgets the influence of drugs - this is only his first arrival-stint, after all - and blurts,]

You trying to get arrested? Stop!

[dipolar]

(hei doesn't hear cain come into the alley. tough to let anything else flow in with the rush of blood, drugs, and adrenaline in his ears. it just means he's alive, something he doesn't want to be. he should be dead — and his body's willing to take that out on this innocent. his fist connects with the artist's eye, before aiming at a throat that intends to open for the expected cry for help.

the resulting wheeze is... satisfying.)

You wanted this. (spat in chinese that's immediately caught and translated by his implant, universally understood blame reverberating off of the walls of the narrow side-street.) You told me to do this.

(his nose cracks. the sternum follows, fracturing, prompting the man squeezed beneath strong thighs to choke and cough on a mouthful of tacky blood. it speckles hei's cheek, just another grim canvas he's been unfortunate enough to paint. time to stop. he has to stop. cain tells him to, echoing the hateful thought in his head that tells him what he's doing is monstrous but well beyond his control — the shout filters through the finger-snapping sound of cartilage giving way under busted knuckles.

the response is instantaneous. hei's arm freezes mid-swing, fingers held wide and bent like claws. and for the damage they've done, they might as well be.)

It's not enough. Tell me— (a heavy breath, needing to wipe the sweat out of an eye, but first:) tell me to get off of him. Now.

[blyat]

[Cain's gaze swivels the length of the alley from end to end, grateful to find no onlookers - they might still escape this by the skin of their teeth without outside interference. It doesn't comfort him. He'd prefer someone else take the reins on this, sharp metallic scent of blood overtaking bitter vomit as it's shed, stinging his nose, dizzying his head.

Violence is no strange beast to him, but he's never killed someone with his fists. Beaten to death, bluntly, must be a shitty way to die. Cain doesn't want to witness it right now if avoidance presents as an option.]

Get off of him. [Standing a few meters back toward the alley's mouth, his voice scales over the background din of the busy public street not far off.] Come over here.

[Using words to command - and realizing it works, remembering the sinister nature of that particular drug - is an eerie experience. Heady and powerful.]

option two busts in here like a koolaid man

[whitehair]

[ heine usually keeps to the back alleys when he is out; sure, there are more shady characters here hanging about, more trouble to get into, but what is some trouble if it meant staying out of the way of the milling crowd of people drawn to the festival like insects to light.

hands shoved into his pockets, heine follows the trail of a crumpled spray can down the alley, kicking it whenever he catches up to it, sending it rattling down the street. the message comes without warning, blurring across his vision and heine curses, stopping in his tracks; at least the disorientating feeling isn't as bad, but it's still not something he's used to. The contents of the message too, isn't really what he's used to, or particularly care for - who cares about some more new arrivals?

Out the corner of his eye, heine can see the lights of the lanterns, the festival in full swing before the fireworks start, and turns his back on it to walk further in.

Whatever was happening, it wasn't any of his business.

But then, it might be his bad luck - trouble find heine anyway regardless of whether he wants it or not.

He smells the blood before he even turn around the corner. Blood and sweat and adrenaline, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on. Slowing his steps down to be nearly silent (but not enough, maybe, his body not being what it used to be, haha), heine peers around the corner. it's some small guy, in what is now quite familiar hospital scrubs, up against someone much bigger. ]

EYYYY

[dipolar]

(the order, as it stood, was to take the first shot. not the last.

that's how hei was bred, that's all the training he knows in the world telling him that if you start something you have to finish it. if you don't, you get retaliated against. you bring hellfire down on your family. you watch them get caught and you watch them die, time and time again, while you somehow remain.

so he doesn't stop. not until the face beneath his bloody fingers shares its consistency with ground meat, the kind that still has the plastic wrap on. push it with your fingers and red liquid trickles down into the styrofoam packaging. his knees settle in it comfortably, white soaking through to skin that's been soaked with whole lakes of it too many times to count — only then does hei lean back to feel the twitches he's reduced the body to, waking to find he's not alone.

the man's alive, but barely, throat full of his own tissues. hei doesn't look away, canting his head to inspect his violence with a distracted stare.)

Are you with him?

[whitehair]

[ ah well, he's been spotted then.

Heine steps out from behind the corner of the building, his eyes flicking from the now unrecognisable man on the ground, to the blood all over the guy's scrubs, then finally to his face. A newcomer, that much is evident; it hasn't been that long since he himself was in that situation, though maybe, a little bit better than this. At least he had a chance to mug some drunk people for their clothes almost immediately upon arrival. ]

Nah, I'm not.

[ the guy seems ... a bit more subdued now, and heine crinkles his nose at the mess, side-stepping neatly over the sticky growing pool of blood on the pavement. ]

You think I'm some loser like him?

2

[memoriams]

[He’s only just been freed from being under the thrall of unwanted command, and not a damnable moment too soon — Alucard still sees neon imprints of splattered paint on the sidewalk seared into his vision when he so much as blinks — but it still does little for his confusion. So quickly had he been swept again into the crowd and festivities, he's back to square one. Looking to root himself in answers, looking to understand what’s happening, to find who’s at fault and threaten, perhaps, to tear their throats out unless he’s given ample reasoning why he shouldn’t.

Cyclical thoughts that turn over in his mind, granting him some manner of focus. UV paint clings to his fingertips, some of it sprayed across white scrubs, and more of it sticks underfoot as he follows the trail of psuedo-impromptu street art beneath his step, with nothing else to ground him in the moment—

A corner’s turned into a back alleyway. A violent scene greets him. The sound of an altercation is what reaches his ears long before the sight unravels itself, but what an act of ferocity it is, unmitigated and enough to draw anyone’s morbid attentions.

It should give him cause to look the other way, the dhampir having no particularly noble inclinations when he’s currently feeling the way he does; but moreover, when he doesn’t know the reasoning why one man is on the other with animal ferocity, making quick work of him — maybe he deserved it. Maybe.

But it’s the sight of the white scrubs that kills that thought. It’s the recognition of sameness; it labels the dark-haired man as one of the others like him, stowed away in some nondescript… transportation vehicle, and shuffled out into public celebration just as gracelessly. It sparks dread interest by way of commiseration and the potential for more answers to be shared between them, if he can be granted a moment of the stranger’s time.

Which means intervening. Which means closing the gap and reaching out to grab at Hei’s shoulder, making an attempt to pull him off the man with strength that hints at being inhuman.]

I think you’ve made your point.

[dipolar]

(there's catharsis in the way the man's bones break beneath his fists, breathing over him in laboured gulps, but his arms have to slow after one last, weaker hit. he's surprised that it took them this long. his muscle feels shredded, biceps aching from the minor disuse being strapped to a gurney caused him on the long trip — he can only imagine it was long, considering where he is and in what state, surrounded by building heights he's never seen and technology corporations have only dreamt of.

time to deal with this, take care of the loose end still barely managing to suck wetly at air through swollen lips. his fingers hook, land on the man's forehead to take a rough grip of his hair—

it's the next off-guard moment, after the attempted use of his true abilities that lands him a painful throb in the chest, that hei's hauled up and away from the body he's been battering. his first instinct? lash out at it, get it off with a sharp shrug and a backward reel to disengage it. winds up staggering instead into a small crowd of ultraviolet paint canisters. they scatter, clatter loudly in echoes down the alley, and leave the contractor searching for the nearest wall to slap bloody hands against, keeping himself upright with a jaw clamped tight around a bark of a response.

be calm.)

What point is that. (it's not a question; hei's uninterested in an answer.

eyes drop to the white getup the towering man wears better, taking an unnecessary moment to glance down at his own — dirtied, stained like he's been wandering for hours. stands to reason that they came off of the same truck, shucked into the world like newborns left to fend for themselves. his hazy memory supplies that there weren't many others with him, so alucard finding him here is like finding a needle in a proverbial haystack if the haystack was an upright city reaching high into the clouds.

deducing the rest is easy. alucard's drugged too, so what follows from hei makes perfect sense to him.)

Stay there, don't move any closer. (if he has to follow orders, so too will his new friend.) If you lay another hand on me, break it.

[memoriams]

[The man’s pulled up by his grasp, until he’s not — until he’s lurching away from Alucard’s grip, as if his touch were a poisonous thing, but he recognizes it for what it must be. Instinct. The way a predator reacts when startled mid-hunt, and the comparison is an apt one, given the bloodied state of the man he’s left with a pulpy-face still sprawled out on the ground. Mauled by an animal.

Paint canisters clatter and roll, one lazily encroaching upon one of his heels. Alucard frowns at the raucous, tinny noise, snapping his gaze up to meet the other, opening his mouth to let a retort fly out.

But he’s met with nothing more than another command, and his body goes still, and the threat of ‘laying a hand’ on the stranger becomes imbued with much more danger than a mere passing phrase.]

You’re a charming one.

[He said to stay, but he didn’t say not to speak, and so Alucard utilizes what daggers he can fling back, in the form of tried-and-true sarcasm. Something petty flares in his gut, unappreciative of being commanded yet another time, tired and frustrated and confused and continually pushing down the anxiety of the unknown; and Alucard’s mind churns, debating between returning the favor or simply employing patience.]

...I’m not here to hurt you; like is merely drawn to like. [Gold eyes flicking down to Hei’s quite unfortunate victim, then back up to the other. A tenuous beat passes between them.]

Free me from this state, then don’t fling any more commands my way.

1/2

[kometes]

[ It's late at night and Achilles is out and about in the streets, eager to stretch his legs after having been forced to stay cooped up in the safehouse for so long. With Noctis busy working, he has nothing to do but try and entertain himself, or look for work. Truthfully, he's putting off finding a job, since nothing he'd be willing to do is what he's qualified for on paper.

He's seen quite a fair number of familiar faces since waking up here, but after having been reunited with Noctis he hasn't cared to search for anyone else who he would maybe recognize. That is, until he spots the handsome profile of a man he'd known from COST.

Hei is standing at the food truck, shovelling food into his mouth like he's been starving for days. There's no mistaking it. No one else has such a vigorous and impressive method of eating. ]

[kometes]

[ He keeps in mind that Hei might not know who he is as he approaches, slinking in beside him and -- he's about to reach for one of those treats, but they're pretty much all gone. The vendor is already working their grill, trying to keep up with the surprising demand that has cleaned them right out of their product.

Figures. ]

Have your fill yet, sweetheart? [ Kardoula mou. ]

[dipolar]

("sweetheart?"

hei pauses the cake pop eating competition he's waging against himself just long enough to turn his head, squint at the man addressing him, and battle the overwhelming urge to curl a lip in abject disgust. sweetheart, really? this day wasn't long enough? now he's getting hit on in the middle of it all.

it's a dangerous situation with a couple of solutions. tell him to get fucked and go away, or—)

Yeah, just about. (or play along, wring this guy of his money for the bill he can't pay, then leave while he's speaking with the owner.

he swallows his mouthful, feels it roll in his stomach in painful disagreement, and smiles through it. it's subtle, crooked from disuse, but warm. inviting. easily and breezily manipulative.)

Want the rest? We can share.