[Event!]

[vitaelamorte]

Who: Everyone!
Where: Dream bubbles
When: 9/15-9/16
Rating: PG
Summary: Everyone is stuck with their memories. And some other people.
The Story:
This log's pretty straightforward. There is one thread per group for the first day or two of the event, before people are able to leave their initial dream bubble groupings. ♥ If you have any questions, grab a mod on AIM.

EDIT: The mods have decided to let everyone continue with phase two of the event in this one log, since there's overlap between being stuck in the bubbles and moving between them.

So if you're posting to a group thread that isn't your initial group, just your thread with what day of the event it takes place on so people will know it's not from the first day or so.

Comments

[sinkships]

Redglare has never been subtle, and she feels even less inclined to it now. She's died. Again. She never even bothered to pull the noose off her neck, and it hangs loosely like a tie, pulled down below ligature marks and bruising. She sits on the ball-retrieving machine, tap-tap-tapping away at the floor with her cane.

Tick tock, tick tock. Time to wake up.

[brainkegger]

Alice turns towards the sound. Her eyes land on the cane first, then travel up, her entire body recoiling at the sight of the bruises. Sure, the creature before her is beastly enough, and the bruises aren't quite the right color, but she can't help but touch her own throat sympathetically.

"Oh, goodness, are you alright?"

[sinkships]

"Do I look alright? I'd hope not."

Redglare tousles her own hair, making it even messier. She raises herself off the machine she was perched on and looks to Alice, then to the bowling alley. "What is this place," she raises her nose to sniff, and smells the scent of a person and more people in that person. It's a curiosity, and she had no opportunity to smell it up close.

[brainkegger]

Alice stiffens, not sure she likes that...sniffing. "It's a bowling alley. I don't suppose that means anything to you." She gestures vaguely at the lanes. "It's a sport."

[sinkships]

"No. It doesn't." Redglare tilts her head and sniffs some more.

"Why here, do you think?"

[brainkegger]

Alice considers this, looks around some more.

"I suppose...it's familiar. Comfortable." Alice looks at the empty seats beside her. "I would come here with my family."

[sinkships]

Familiar. Comfortable.

These words are alien to her, in the sense of humans. She found the pain of a lesson well taught to be familiar. She found her comfort in her duty to the Alternian people. Family is also alien to her, for the most part. She understands a concept as it was explained, but human family dynamics seem impractical to her.

"Were you a lusus?"

[brainkegger]

Alice frowns. She can't quite reason out what that word means.

"Is that an...occupation?" It didn't sound like an insult. She hoped she was at least on the right track.

[sinkships]

"On my planet, adult trolls did not raise their own young as we combined our genetics en masse and allowed the wrigglers to fend for themselves. In fact, we had an instinctual urge to kill them. Instead, young trolls were raised by their lusus, an animal whose blood called to our own."

[brainkegger]

Hm. That is actually a pretty apt description. After all, Marshall and Kate are Tara's children.

"In that case, I suppose it's similar. I cared for my...friend's children when she was not able to."

Alice hopes this explanation will suffice.

"I assume you had a lusus, then?"

[sinkships]

"Your friend's, hm? Such trepidation in those words. In Alternian, the word for friend is the same as the word for enemy. It is all about context, you see."

Redglare nods and looks at Alice like the question is a little ridiculous.

"Of course I had a lusus. He was a mighty dragon as large as several ships. He could lay waste to an entire fleet within seconds." It's all said with a sense of nostalgia and a smidge of longing. She misses him, sometimes. Misses his power, but mostly his comfort and the idea of him always being there.

[brainkegger]

"I suppose you might say our relationship is complicated."

Alice leaves it at that.

As for the dragon, well. "Where I come from, dragons only showed up in stories. It must have been quite exciting knowing one so intimately."

[sinkships]

"It was normal. All of my excitement came from my work. I reveled in hunting the criminal element and bringing them to their knees. Justice applies to all. No one should be allowed reprieve."

Not blue-bloods nor low-bloods. If she could, Redglare would have dragged the Empress down from her throne to see that her own justice was applied to her. Still, she owed the Condesce the continued existence of the trolls species, so it is complex.

[brainkegger]

Alice tilted her head a little. While all the language was awfully violent, she supposed she followed what it was that Redglare did.

"You must be a very strong...lady, then." She is a lady, right? "Did you have a family besides your lusus? It'd be a shame if you didn't."

[sinkships]

Redglare smells her hesitation and raises her a too sharp smile. "Yes. Lady. Not that it matter on my planet." She shakes her head at the following question.

"No. A lusus is the closest thing we have that is similar to your human families, I suppose. We are all somewhat vaguely related on a genetic level, but there is no emotional bond." She says this like it's not something that is all that big of a deal. Trolls don't have families and if they did, the body count would probably be much higher than it is already.

"I believe this is the first time I've spoken to you in a situation that didn't involve prayer."

[brainkegger]

Alice smiles a little sheepishly.

"It's kind of nice to not be at each other's throats." Er. "As it were."

There's an uncomfortable pause as she wonders whether this means they are friends, and if it does, whether she's alright with that. Part of her-- the parts that talk to T and the others, probably --realizes that it'd be a bit like racism to dislike this woman for her, well, species. And she doesn't want to be rude.

And she doesn't care for being disliked, either.

She supposes she'll have to ask.

"May I ask what you think of me?"

[sinkships]

"I am as unlikely to rip your throat out now as it is possible for any member of my species. It isn't much, granted, but it's a start of sorts."

Redglare shrugs and pauses to think for a moment. Being friends with someone is difficult. Souji is her prodigy, Athos is her dueling partner (and maybe something more), but friends is something she lacks.

"I think it is still ridiculous that you place so much faith in a higher power when you are perfectly capable of doing anything on your own. I find the thought of most higher powers to be ridiculous, aside from the Mirthful Messiahs. That is less a feeling of devotion as it is one of tolerance, as they are the worshiped figures of the Grand Highblood."

[brainkegger]

Alice has no idea what the Mirthful Messiahs are, but they sound horrible. She is glad that Redglare is merely tolerant. She doesn't have to ask.

As far as her finding religion ridiculous, well.

"I think you overestimate the capabilities of human beings-- and troll beings, I suppose. We're all fallible. Having a higher power lets us...well. Aspire to be better than we are, even if can never be that good."

[sinkships]

"Simple being fallible does not make belief in something higher necessary. It is a flaw that can be remedied or accepted without such beliefs."

Even with her belief in the Signless' teachings, there is no room for a higher power. The knowledge that they could be better as a species came from one troll, and the ability to change had to come from them. There was nothing to help them, nothing to help her when she needed it but herself.

"In the end, when all else fails and you are alone, the only person you can rely on is yourself."

[brainkegger]

Alice tilts her head, uncertain.

"I think you should talk to my friend Tara. She...she might need to hear that."

As awkward as that conversation would be, at first.

[sinkships]

"Oh? Does she have a habit of relying too much on others? Perhaps her human family?"

Sometimes, when she sniffs close at Alice, she can smell more scents than any one person should rightfully have. It's confusing sometimes, so she focuses on the figure rather than the scent of characteristics.

"Perhaps one day I will."

[brainkegger]

"It's...more that she doesn't believe she is capable of much. And she doesn't really trust--" Alice clears her throat, tucks some hair behind her ear "--all sides of herself."

[sinkships]

"Well, that's a vague enough answer to assuage my curiosity."

It isn't though. That is the joke. Still, they are stuck in some place that is decidedly not the mansion, and that is decidedly not a place they should be. She can wait 'til she has the time to know more. Dying taught her a lesson, though poorly. She is selective, but sometimes she knows when to be patient.

"We should leave."

[brainkegger]

Alice nods, agreeing, but, "Can we?"

Knowing this place, they'd just stumble into another dreamland. And even if they get back to the mansion, well. That isn't home.

[sinkships]

"We can go somewhere that isn't here. Unless you'd like to stay."

She shrugs and chuckles.

"Either way, it matters not to me."