+ The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to You +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Saturday, May 19th - Wednesday, May 23rd.
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch-all for the Kyln / Sierra Madre event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, the entire mansion will be part space jail, part apocalyptic wasteland desert with an abandoned hotel/casino. On the third day an escape route not previously discovered in the Kyln appears and breakouts can be planned...

...Only for everyone to find themselves walking through a large glass prison toward the toxic gas filled wasteland of a desert, the Sierra Madre. Does the prison look better than the toxic cloud outside? If you're stuck in the prison after dark beyond day 3, you'll be forced into and locked in your cell for the night. But at least locked away, nothing from the outside can hurt you. If you try to brave the actual elements in the desert it might be a little hard to breathe. The air has pockets of toxic gas and even a few seconds of exposure could prove deadly. And watch out for the Ghost People.

Inside the abandoned hotel/casino you'll find shelter from the gas and ghosts, but beware the holograms that are 50/50 with their attitude. Prison beatings, a beating from the holograms, which one Would You Rather? And whatever you do, don't try on the collars lying around unless you like to explode. Literally.

[ This is a catch-all for all your prison/desert needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and either a cell number or just a location if you didn't feel like randomizing it or you're making a top level for a public place (like the dining hall or wandering the hotel/casino). Here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun! ]

Comments

[mucked]

[ -- there's that word again. her expression pinches. deflection, disappointment, and maybe a touch of discouragement all swing from the furrow in her brow to the grimace on her lips. peggy does have friends! honestly! but they are so few and far between that she stays visibly uncomfortable when once again confronted with the notion that sunburst should so easily affix the description to the two of them.

perhaps she's been too nice, too kind, too friendly. perhaps she should have kept better distance. ]

Friends, [ she picks her way around the word, ] aren't who I go asking for help. Allies are.

[ friends (with one or two notable exceptions) she keeps far far away from the kind of trouble she attracts. ]

[bibliocorn]

There's a difference?

[It's a lot simpler in Equestria. The lines are more blurred. It's easy to have an ally simply be considered a friend. ]

I mean, friends are generally there for you no matter what. That's kind of the point, right?

[mucked]

Friends are to be protected. Safeguarded, if you will.

[ peggy winces -- as though a pain along her ribs is troubling her again. leaving her just a little out of breath as she explains. ]

Allies, on the other hand, form a different bond altogether. As deep as friendship, maybe, but with the pragmatic understanding that either one of you might need to...dive on the grenade, as it were. For the cause.

[ a dispassionate answer. and a hypocritical one, too. not that peggy will ever admit as much. ]

[bibliocorn]

Oh.

[Sunburst takes a moment to consider that, his muzzle wrinkling a little in thought. ]

...I guess it doesn't help that friendship is a literal magical force back home- that's actively used to protect our borders. Generally, friends in Equestria are your allies. Metaphorical grenades and all.

[mucked]

No, I suppose it doesn't much help at all -- not from my perspective, at least. But for you lot, where you're from, it sounds jolly nice.

[ she means it, too. it's not a facetious statement. once upon a time it may very well have been, but as peggy has gotten to know sunburst she's managed to take his home world a bit more seriously. ]

Truthfully? [ oh, christ, what has she got to lose these days? her trumped up prison sentence was all about breaking the official secrets act. ] Mine is the sort of work where you can't leave the office and talk about it with friends. You keep them safe by keeping them as uninvolved as possible.

[bibliocorn]

I guess it's something you can take for granted only too easily- I'm learning that much while I'm here.

[Especially here- sure in Equestria, friendships can fracture, that much he knows from experience- but never beyond repair. Friendship is, ultimately, something you can always rely on. ]

That seems...awfully lonely. Not having anyone you can talk to about the troubles you're dealing with.

[mucked]

In an ideal world, [ she comments, ] you'll have your colleagues. Your comrades in arms.

[ -- although the word comrade has grown quite charged, of late, back home. so she speaks it with a touch of wry displeasure, both for the language and for the idea that she should have too many of those colleagues willing to be the needed sympathetic ear. ]

But, even then, depending on the circumstances? You'll still be doing them a kindness by not telling them too much. [ she leans her head back against the cell wall, taking a needed break from the food. ] It's a bit like being a librarian, Sunburst, but you can't actually lend the books out to anyone because the information inside will more than likely get them hurt. Or worse. You simply have to...

Keep them. [ she taps her temple. ] Until they're needed.

[bibliocorn]

[That is not the sort of tone he would expect paired with the word 'comrade'. That's more than a touch concerning. Has she been betrayed, he wonders? For such bitterness to be in her tone. Still using a book allegory is always going to get his attention.]

...So like a restricted section. Where the books inside are actually dangerous and shouldn't be used by just anybody.

[He doesn't sound entirely sure with that comparison, but he's genuinely trying. ]

I'm sure they'd rather be able to help you, all the same. They wouldn't really be your friends if they didn't.

[mucked]

I'm afraid it doesn't much matter what they'd rather. [ and that's the sticking point, isn't it? ] It would be an act of treason for me to so much as hint at the nature of my work. Some of it, at any rate.

[ even here, in wonderland, it's not a simple prospect. ]

At least during the time I'm from. I've been told it changes -- there are people now, stuck like us, who know more about my career than I do.

[bibliocorn]

[Realisation dawns on his face. ]

Oh, I see. It's to do with matters of State. I understand that much, at least. I doubt Princess Cadence would go so far as to call spilling secrets of the Empire's inner sanctum as treason- but I feel it's generally best not to do that sort of thing anyway. Loyalty and all that.

[Plus after the last two invasions he'd rather not say or do anything that jeopardises his home. A whole year has gone by without anything crazy happening, he'd like to keep it that way. ]

Ah yes. The people from your future.

[mucked]

Some secrets, when spilled, are hanging offenses. I signed my name on papers stating something to that effect -- that should I speak, I should also consider my life forfeit. So yes. It becomes rather tricky when what's top secret in my year has long since been declassified for those people from my future.

[ it's deeply unsettling that they so much as know her name. ]

Which is all a rather dour way of saying it's a challenge to make friends in my line of work. Provided you'd like those friends to stay alive.

[bibliocorn]

I see. Yes, that would make it very difficult- how would you even know what secrets are still classified or not? By asking about them, you are, in essence, bringing them to light anyway. It sounds like a very difficult juggling act.

[He doesn't envy her at all. ]

At least things are different here, right?

[mucked]

[ it is absolutely a juggling act -- one that peggy has been performing since she was nineteen. and it turns out she's rather good at it. wheedling truths and circumstances out of the others from her world has become something of a game to her: drawing out only so much as she dares to know, leaving aside the details that will only haunt her. it's an imprecise science and one she keeps (mostly) to herself. the one person she might talk to about it, the one person she might want to confide in, would only chastise her for it.

so she keeps secrets even here. but that doesn't mean that sunburst is wrong. ]

Quite different. [ and in her distraction, she continues to eat. ] But I suppose old habits die hard.

[ but! before she gets another lecture on friendship? ]

There was something I wanted to talk to you about.

[bibliocorn]

[Sunburst has kept his secrets in the past, bundled them up into a lie to make the truth more bearable. It didn't turn out well for him, in the end. But his world is very different from Peggy's, by its very nature, Equestria is considerably more forgiving for past miststeps.

He brightens at her last comment. ]

Oh? Ask away, what do you need?

[mucked]

It's not so much what I need -- but rather what the mansion might.

[ this, she thinks, will adequately pull the conversation sharply away from her, her injury, her friendships, her secrets. honestly she should have started with this distraction. ]

The library doesn't have a librarian. I was talking to someone who was once rather close to the previous one and I'm afraid he's in no position to fill the vacancy on her behalf. [ ... ] I mentioned I might know a chap.

[bibliocorn]

[She would be absolutely right in that assessment. The one thing that would always be guaranteed to deviate Sunburst from any particular subject was his favourite subject of all. He smile turns into a full-on beam. ]

Oh yes! I remember the rather surly fellow asking about it.

[That's probably the nicest assessment of Rick that there ever will be. He claps his forehooves together happily.]

I'd be delighted to lend a helping hoof. I mean, I already know the library inside out anyway.

[mucked]

I haven't heard tell of anyone else showing an interest in picking up the slack.

[ now, just now, she sets aside the food tray. she folds her hands firmly in her lap -- as though gripping onto her own fingers might help ease the sharpness in her pain. ]

So I don't think you'll be jockeying with anyone else for the position. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask around.

[bibliocorn]

OH, well that's just awful. Those books need to have a caretaker.

[At least the subject of BOOKS means he doesn't notice the action. He's a good friend, to be certain, but get him distracted and it's game over. ]

I could send a message to um- Rick was it? Ask him if he's okay with it.

[He doesn't really have a choice, it's an empty gesture. He's on a BOOK MISSION now.]

Once we're out of this mess, anyway.