Entries tagged with sherlock holmes (bbc)

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So much doggrel

Suddenly, the lemon sun is high in the sky and all the cocoa-dusted shadows are short, so it must be noon. There is singing in the distance, but the songs never get too far. A few lines in, something interrupts, there's a scream and the singing stops. A moment later, it starts again in a different voice.

( So many bad rhymes )

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Ta-ta-ta-taxon! Where everything is sweet!

The sun rises on Taxon, but this is a different sun. It's brighter. Yellower.

Lemony-er.

Specifically, it's a big slice of candied lemon, shining through pink and white drifts of cotton candy clouds. Wherever the golden light of dawn lands, surfaces are left sticky with a thin glaze of honey. Mercifully, this soaks in quickly.

The buildings are different, too, made of gingerbread and decorated in icing. Windows are panes of glassy sugar, shot through with wavy bands of bubbles.The streets are paved in hard candies, and, for alien reasons, the sidewalks are pancakes, light and fluffy and squashy underfoot. Inside, furniture is made of chocolate, and the faucets dispense everything from lemonade to simple syrup. The homes of all the real people of Taxon have been gathered together and arranged into a cheery little village set a short distance from the sugar-glittering city. Everyone is neighbors now, and isn't that great!? They can all borrow cups of sugar from each other!

The changes have extended to the citizens, turning the Extras into a pastel rainbow of sugar people. Off to the east, there is a new bit of landscape: a mountain made of massive slabs of cookie and cake. A river coils down from it, shimmery pink and foaming with scoops of rainbow sherbert.

Everything is bright and colorful, over saturated and – this is a telling detail – outlined in heavy black lines that are always at the edges of objects, no matter how you turn your head. In such cheery surroundings, surely the newly candied people of Taxon will wake with joy in their hearts and a snazzy group song on their lips.

Look, the Extras have already started.

“How do you say good morning
To a hundred different friends?
How do you give a good wish
That never ever ends?

Ta-ta-ta-taxon! It's the city that can't be beat!
Ta-ta-ta-taxon! Where everything is sweet!
Ta-ta-ta-taxon! Making friends is work that's never done
Ta-ta-ta-taxon! Where learning can be fun!

And for five disturbing seconds, bubbly, cheerful credits flick across everyone's vision. Your chief writer for this episode is Tinae Crice, Taxon.

LOGO! The word Taxon flares, then vanishes in a shimmery puff of sugar crystals and tumbling candies. Another beautiful day in Taxon has begun, so let's all get to learning, sharing, and just plain having FUN!!

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[Holo] [Arrival] Is there anybody out there?

A faint ping hits the holos across Taxon, alerting everyone to a new person entering the city. A 'Novak, Jimmy' by the tag.

Anyone interested in checking the new arrival out can see a small representation of a man in a tan trenchcoat and a black suit sprawled on the floor of an arrival chamber. Which turns into a very active representation as the man wakes up and startles away from... the tablet, apparently. Sending it skittering across the floor of the chamber and him skittering to the opposite corner. There's a few minutes of desperate cowering and trying to look very small and easily overlooked by anything ( Castiel ) before he settles enough to start focusing on things around him instead of the Regularly Scheduled Morning Delirium And Panic.

- Easy, Jimmy. It's okay. You're okay. Just waking up. You know how this goes. Just waking up, like... every other day. - He waits for the shakes to stop before he tries reaching for the whatever it was that he smacked across the.... wherever he is. Finally noticing the metal bracelet on his wrist makes him stop again. It's skin temperature, so he didn't notice it at first, but he notices it now. A smooth silver band, not quite as wide as the watch he'd had... before. His thumb runs along the edge to try and find a seam before trying to wedge the nail under it. There's a twinge of pain and he's stopping before he draws blood. - Okay. Metal bracelet grafted onto my wrist, smooth metal room, and a flat plastic thing. Still not the strangest place I've been dumped. -

Putting his confusion about the bracelet aside for now, and with a wary glance at the door, he inches over to pick up the weird plastic thing. The screen is off due to inactivity at the moment, giving everyone a rapidly spinning viewpoint as Jimmy flips the tablet over a few times. What he really remembers predates common tablet use by about two years, so it takes him a few minutes of messing around with it before the screen comes on and he can interact with it, and a few more minutes of looking for a keyboard before he figures out the touch screen. - Huh. I knew laptops were getting thinner, but *this* is new. -

He thinks he might remember seeing things like this in that week in Atlanta before he got.... here. Wherever here is. But that's a big white blur, leading down into a big dark... - And that way lies the rabbit hole, Jimmy. You step away from it *right now*. You follow that any farther and who knows when you'll come back. - There's another headshake, and Jimmy's back in the here and now. Mostly. Staring at a touch screen and wondering what's waiting for him outside that door. But, little metal rooms aren't that far removed from little padded rooms, so he's leaving now.

Using the smooth metal wall as a makeshift mirror, Jimmy makes a last attempt at looking presentable. Straightening his tie, brushing himself off and trying his best to look like someone who hasn't lived in the same suit for the past six years, (Angelic dry-cleaning doesn't quite cut it, sorry Cas.) Once he's satisfied with his attempts, he'll tuck the tablet under his arm and carefully make his way out the door and onto the streets of Taxon.

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[visual: all > location: Kelebek Hotel] Town Hall

Horst Cabal is wearing a new suit. His skin is rosy and vibrant, his hair's been recently trimmed, and Taxon's never seen him look quite so healthy and non-vampiric. If some of that's makeup, or careful lighting and a deceptive camera angle, well, hopefully the Taxonians watching his video feed aren't interested enough to notice. The message itself is short:

Good evening, fellow residents. I believe most of us know each other by now, but this is Horst Cabal. I know the past few weeks have been hard on us all -- physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, socially, or in any other way which might matter to you -- and I understand from some of you that it can be difficult to bring ourselves to deal with things that have happened when we've already been through so much -- but please believe me that this is no way to live. Or to not-live, as your case may be. If you can in any way find it in your schedule to attend a gathering a few friends and I are hosting later this week at the Kelebek Hotel, we'd appreciate the opportunity to discuss what's happened recently with Mr. Blood and his demon in the city, and what things we can and should be doing to address situations like these. We promise to be brief, and not to waste your time, but nothing we discuss as a community is worthwhile unless everyone is on board, so please make every effort to attend. Precise time and date are enclosed in the attached note.

* * * *

The friends Horst Cabal has recruited to help him host this little gathering appear to be (and are) chosen for their social graces in this particular instance: the effortless Bagoas of Susa and the genial Metody Green, the two people in Taxon he best trusts to be on everyone else's good side, and to be able to stay there. They are non-threatening and likable in a way that a vampire cannot possibly manage, and he's counting on their combined neutral-to-positive social status to be able to offset his own position as a relative newcomer and a stranger. Things that might sound naive or pushy coming from Horst Cabal's mouth may sound more reasonable if Bagoas and Metody are espousing them.

Horst's own brother is not among the company of those invited to play host to this little soiree. While Horst certainly expects him to be present, a lifetime of having been Johannes's older brother has meant that Horst isn't nearly stupid enough to put Johannes in charge of anything that relies on his ability to seem likable. This is like putting a porcupine in charge of handing out balloons at the state fair: comically inadvisable, very loud, and quite likely to end with any number of tearful children.

The Kelebek is notoriously well-appointed and elegant, and it boasts the sorts of sumptuous lounges and ballrooms where a group like theirs can comfortably meet and talk in the illusion of a private setting. Horst and his companions have collaborated on an arrangment of chairs that encourage people to seat themselves rather than remaining standing, with the walls generally being lined with tables where food and drinks can be served (at Metody's suggestion). The feeling is of a formal meeting, rather than an informal community social.

This evening's hosts are there to greet people as they arrive, encourage them to help themselves to food, and to take seats, but true to their word, they don't intend to commence with business until everyone seems to have arrived.

In the meantime, Taxonians, there seem to be only as many chairs available as there are known residents of the city. Those who arrive first get their pick of the seats available, but everyone's going to have to sit next to at least one other person. Have at it.

* * * *

[[OOC: Welcome to the post-Etrigan meeting! I hope everyone can tag in with their characters. We'll get to the meeting discussion within the next 24 hours (RL time), but wanted to give people a chance to tag in with their characters' arrival/reactions to the message/etc. before then, as this also gives people a chance to opt out of the meeting if your character wouldn't choose to attend. IF YOUR CHARACTER IS NOT ATTENDING, PLEASE MAKE AN OOC POST ON THIS POST SO WE KNOW NOT TO HANDWAVE YOUR CHARACTER'S PRESENCE. Otherwise you are entirely welcome to assume your character is in attendance even if you should decide you don't have time to RP in this thread (though we hope you can!).

Horst, Metody, and Bagoas are all here already, so feel free to say hi to any of them if you wish, or you can handwave that and just direct your character to a seat.

BY THE WAY, THERE ARE THREE ROWS OF FIVE CHAIRS. You can feel free to decide where your character sits (though this won't impact the meeting in any way other than giving you the chance to decide who your character will sit next to/who they'll be able to lean over to talk to/etc. should they decide to get chatty). This is not required, but you can OOCLY indicate your character's seat by putting an O on the following chart where they're sitting, for example, front and center would be:

XXOXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

We hope to see you all here -- and remember, you can tag in any time you like! Although Horst/Bagoas/Metody certainly share the goal of trying to convince everyone to be more of a community, ultimately how this meeting turns out is not scripted at all, and whatever we end up with will be totally great.]]

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04 [location: boardwalk by the beach; later: the dodgy jammer]

Make a hat, and get it to work...then I go home. At the time it had seemed crazy...mostly because it was explained to her at gunpoint. But if this works she's going to track Jefferson down, thank him, apologize for clocking him, and then maybe ask if he's ever heard of a place called Taxon.

The hat Emma's made isn't exactly stylish, sort of a misshapen bucket hat, but it fits on her head and as she'd sewn she'd thought of her family and Storybrooke's occasionally-blowing-up streets and the quaint waterfront. It's this last that inspires where she'll make her first attempt, and so she heads for the seaside.

It's a festive place with a boardwalk, midway games, souvenir shops and bars, umbrellas and lounge chairs. The lighthouse looms, the sun shines, the waves lap the beach, the Extras are all a bit more orange with their fake tans, and Emma marches across the planks. She's an incongruous figure, dressed in the outfit she arrived in, her (father's) sword slung across her back, gun at her hip, and a poorly-made bucket hat on her head.

She finds a quiet spot to crouch down and sets the hat top down on the boards. An Extra immediately drops a couple arcade tokens into it. Emma grits her teeth, pockets the tokens, and tries to remember what Regina had done. She take s a deep breath, grips the brim, and with a flick of her wrist tries to set the hat spinning.

Nothing happens. Nothing happens the next time either, or all the other attempts she makes through the day. Not on the boardwalk, not at the balloon pop, not in the arcade, not by the water gun game, not on the Ferris wheel. By mid afternoon she's got nothing to show for her troubles but a little sunburn, a grumpy mood, and a giant pink and orange rabbit plushie.

Disheartened, Emma makes her way to the Dodgy Jammer to open the pub for the night. She turns on the lights, puts the handles on the taps, takes the chairs from the tables, and turns the sign on the door from closed to open. On a whim she puts the rabbit on the stage and plops the hat on its head.

"It's a Mad March Hare Hatter," she remarks to herself and heads back to the bar, giving the back of Glitch's old chair a touch as she passes.

ooc: wow this was ramble-tacular. bother her anywhere through the day or evening!

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10 - Spare a little something for a man in need...? [Visual]

Spike appears on everyone's tablets. He's not wearing the jacket, since he's still trying to figure out how to fix it from the demon fight. It feels a little strange to be without it but he's still a fashionable man. The true difference, though, is that he looks almost a little bashful, perhaps nervous. It doesn't help that his movements aren't entirely correct and that he still seems injured.

"So, this most recent crisis has made me realize that I should probably ask for some help. While I've been here, I've been hunting deer in the forest for food," Spike pauses and glances down toward his feet for a few moments, "I'm not healing as I'm used to and I think it's the thin blood. I know that there's some official something or other but I haven't been paying it much mind."

He clears his throat and looks more directly at the tablet, pulling himself together, "So if anyone feels like donating once in awhile, I'd appreciate it." Uncertain how to go any further, he waves his hand vaguely in the air and turns off his the transmission.

Or at least he thinks he does. The tablet keeps broadcasting him for a little while longer, apparently making his way, hobbling, through Sanctuary.

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[holo] [arrival] another ark for another time

Reality has boundaries. There are things that separate one existence from another, things that unify or distinguish them. Constants and variables.

It's the sort of thing even the young girl, their little specimen, had been able to see. Even for Rosalind and Robert, denizens of the interstice between all those realities, constants and variables are the sorts of things one relies upon. They're guideposts by which one finds one's way. The girl had known it as well as anyone. There's always a lighthouse, she'd said. There's always a man. There's always a city.

The interstice was a constant as well. Rosalind had been fine with it, as a place to stay; it made for a nice control on their continuing experiments through realities, an unchanging and endless anchor point to which they could always return. It was Robert who'd insisted on finishing their old business, Robert who'd rocked the boat. Neither of them had known what the outcome might be if — when — they succeeded. When Dewitt unwrote himself.

Whatever this place is, it's unspecific enough to answer that particular conjecture: a big, metal room with an open door. "Ah," Rosalind says to herself, checking with feigned interest to see that her clothes are still in order and nothing's caught fire or any such inconvenience. "It would appear I'm no more or less dead than I was before. Well, that's something."

The disruption doesn't concern her, nor does the unfamiliarity of her surroundings. In fact, the woman who appears in miniature on the holo projections of Taxon's other residents’ tablets at this moment doesn't appear any more alarmed by the circumstances she finds herself in than she does about the slow, stark trickle of blood running from her nose. The latter she addresses with no more than a fascinated touch of her fingers to the injury and a thoughtful, "Hmm. I suppose that might logically follow."

She belatedly notices the bracelet framing her wrist with more obviously marked interest. Unlike the hemorrhaging, the bracelet is new. In moments she's investigating it, navigating her way through the tablet's initial screens till she arrives at the little introductory readme file; she spares a few minutes to glance it over. Then, that done, she closes the file with a smart nod and begins a broader explanation of the room.

There's not much of interest to beg her attention, but nonetheless, something brings a frown to her face. "Robert?" she calls out curiously. "Robert?"

After just two attempts, she puts the effort to one side, gathering herself up to quit the room. She really doesn't appear to be a woman who wastes much time on graceful segues once she's changed mental tracks, and apparently she’s done with the previous one.

This room has no more secrets to offer, she’s concluded, so there's no point in staying. A new reality means new work to be done. Best to have a look around.

==========

[[OOC: Rosalind will wander around the Sanctuary for a little while, please feel free to get in touch with her either while she's still dripping blood around the Sanctuary or else you can easily run afoul of her wandering around the city pretty much wherever.

PS Mods, can I get a character tag please and thank you <3]]

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[location: Central]

First A. Then D, E, and G, in perfect fifths. Sooner or later, life does have to go on.

Sherlock Holmes raises the pitch pipe to his lips and blows D, E, and G, shrill and pronounced in the summer air. He prefers to tune those in relation to one another and to A, generally, not by the pipe, but it never hurts to check his strings against them.

He fusses minutely with the fine tuners, leaned against the wall. His case is at his feet. Though he expects only Extras' custom today, the look of the thing matters. To him, at least. Unlike most of the matters he deals in, there are no absolute truths in violin tuning: only the perfect fifth, one in relation to another. One may vary the tuning as much as one pleases, as long as one varies them all. Sometimes he experiments with a particular scordatura for a time; generally he tunes just a fraction brighter than G-D-A-E, though, for clarity of sound and because he doesn't expect company in harmony.

The truth is, as much as he likes to play his violin, he would rather be doing it somewhere else right now. Squirreled away indoors in the heart of one of these abandoned buildings, maybe, where he can practice in peace and pretend the city is empty until he gets tired or slinks off to Jeremy's for food, either/or. Saying hello to the other prisoners in Taxon is not his idea of fun just today.

But he generates all of his income busking. Besides, on some level he supposes he owes it to the others to make himself available, for questions or tirades or whatever else they see fit. So Sherlock keeps his odd hours, ignores his tablet (with exceptions), and keeps more than ever to himself: except on his usual odd-numbered afternoons and even-numbered evenings, where he sets up somewhere on the Taxon streets and plays his violin, to raucous and randomly-generated Extra applause.

[ooc: corresponding to dien's everybody come yell at jason post, here's my everybody come yell at sherlock post! fire away!]

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[Location] [Big Brawly Doom] ~nighttime~

In a scene vaguely reminiscent of ~~King Kong~~ Emperor Ape, there's a figure clinging to the side of the top of the Sanctuary, tonight. Gouges in the white marble-like substance show where it has clawed its way up to the top, and now studies the greenhouse structure atop the Sanctuary through slitted red eyes.

Fire creates smoke, and more tellingly, light: bright light, a splendid beacon atop this pretty little tower to draw Heroes and Doers-of-Good. It rather ruins his stealth. Those who have taken exception to his jests will come forth, raging? Bitter? Crying tears of anger?

Only if he's lucky, he supposes.

Etrigan shrugs, opens his jaws, and breathes a gout of infernal fire upon the buildings at the top of the Sanctuary. Glass erupts in bursting shards, and the wooden frames of the greenhouse, as well as some of the plants within, begin to blaze.

The demon perches like a gargoyle on the white stone and waits, watching the streets and the sky. Surely someone in the city has enough of a self-righteous streak to come and play.

Because fun as this playing about with fears and whispers has been, he's very, very bored... and idle hands are indeed the devil's workshop.

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[Location] Adventure Zone [Sherlock Holmes and Jason Blood, for now]

It's surprisingly difficult to faithfully reproduce cave art while being badgered by questions from Sherlock Holmes.

Jason Blood sighs to himself as he closes up the leatherbound journal he'd been filling with sketches of the symbols (many of them completely unknown to him, which is novel in its own right, interesting), wraps the tie-cord shut, and slides it back into his leather messenger bag.

"Given that Taxon's stars are different from Earth's, Mr. Holmes, I'm afraid most of what I could tell you about traditional astrology may be somewhat moot. I have been charting the local stars since my arrival, and if you think that information would be useful, I suppose I can share it."

(And walking back to town to retrieve those things will feel like less of a waste of his personal time than sitting here attempting to draw while the terrier of empirical knowledge gnaws at his heels, so.)

Only half-listening to Holmes's reply, Jason Blood heads back out the shallow cave's mouth to the comparatively bright sunlight, squinting for a moment against it. Caves, caves; after the ice tunnels and now this, he's beginning to be tired of caves, but the art had been too interesting to pass up.

The path, or ledge might be a better term, that leads down the side of the cliff face to more level ground, is fairly treacherous going. Jason keeps one hand on the rock face, and minds his footing as he goes-- there's a granite scree underfoot which can wrench an ankle all too easily.

Judging only by the sounds of Sherlock Holmes moving behind him, he would wager Holmes is not quite so careful with his footing.

...if Holmes sprains his ankle, Jason resolves here and now he is not carrying him.

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[~THE SOUND OF WIIIINTER~ shut up I'll riff on Bush if I want to]

The snow has stopped falling.

The air is bitterly cold, still as a grave. If you listen very quietly you can hear the accumulated snow settling, settling, a little denser, a little thicker.

The silence is pierced at noon by a ragged scream.

One of the Extras comes floundering through the deep snow down one of the central streets of Taxon, leaving a bright scarlet trail behind him. One bloody hand points back towards the ominous mountain.

"She's coming!" the man yells hoarsely, and collapses onto the virgin snow.

[OOC: Subthreads in the comments! Throw your characters wherever, whenever. A chaotic final huzzah to the Taxsicle plot, because organization somehow still eludes me.]

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Returning Favorites

To some, a familiar voice and memorable face - albeit one they haven't even thought about for quite some time - crackles into view on their screens.

"What the flamin' hell is goin' on in?! Where the hell did all this snow come from? And where the hell are all the damn hatch-maker things?"

His face looks strained, as if he's recently awakened from a long, heavy sleep that was somehow not all that restful.

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061 ± [visual / location: the black friar] done with all the circlin' round

"All right, I'll try and make this quick:"

Glitch? Getting to the point in a reasonable amount of time? Is it possible?

"For those who don't know me: my name's Glitch, I'm that guy who's been here since forever and kinda know the most about all the...stuff that goes on here. Sorta."

No, no it is not.

"Anyway, ah...I've been studying the lighthouse and found some peculiarities with the light-beam thingy which I wanna discuss with everyone. Or most of you, if you can make it. Plus there was that whole hanging out and having drinks thing which I mentioned before all the stuff north of the river happened-- hey we can talk about that too."

Yeah he is taking notes now, all frowny and confuzzled.

"Right! Unless you've got something drastic going on, let's meet at the Black Friar after sundown for the...sunlight-avoidant. First round of drinks is on me. See you later."

ooc: Gathering of the citizens! This is a mingle log so tag in, tag each other, frolic away. I will be adding a tag of Glitch discussing his Very Scientific Observations and there will e a Q&A to follow which I hope will e full of threadjacking. And here havesome pub details. Go go go!

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[Voice] | [Location]

Normally Long is fairly good about locking those posts which he wishes to remain private. 'Normally', however, he doesn't wake up curled into a ball beneath some trees, on ground that definitely not a soft mattress, with a light snow falling, without a stitch of clothing on his person, and experiencing the massive vertigo-like disorientation that comes from having one's sensory experiences once again jammed down into a body that exists on a 1:20 scale to what he should have.

He is therefore a little muzzy when he sits up, takes stock of himself, realizes he is once again sans raiment, checks blearily to ensure there are neither zombies nor motorcycles in the vicinity, processes that he is cold, and after one whole minute of looking on his own opens an unlocked voice message to Sherlock Holmes. Probably he was putting so much energy into making sure he had it on voice and not on visual that the locking bit slipped by him.

"Mr. Holmes," he says, rich voice muddled and fuzzy as it almost never is, "exactly where did you leave my clothes?"

Have fun with possible misconceptions, Taxon.

(eta) As a point of interest, while Long is still technically on the north side of the bridge, a good deal of the faux-medieval landscape seems to have cleared out. Anyone visiting Adventure Zone will note that the terrain remains the same, but the castles, villages, and dungeons are gone. However.... one solitary mountain remains, a peak that superficially resembles the Matterhorn. The mountainside is white with snow, and more snow is gently drifting down on the hills and forests of the district.

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[Location: Adventure Zone] [open to any] / [text - locked - Selina and Horst ]

[Locked to Selina/Horst] (two different texts, but identical wording in both save for the name)

Miss Kyle, (Mister Brauer,)

I apologize for my actions of the other day. I was under some duress, but this does not excuse my exorcising my difficulties upon your person.

In the future I shall be sure to leave instead.

-Jason Blood

********

He felt better.

This likely had something to do with what he'd been up to in the last several days in the pseudo-medieval landscape. He had found a sword, and an open hole in the earth in the side of a hill, with steps leading down into the dark.

( blah blah shlocky horror extra-killing behind the cut )

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[Holo] [Arrival] this is the first day of the rest of your life

[Maybe 20 minutes after Johannes eventually leaves the arrival room]

Another new arrival, as shown by the holographic image being broadcast to the tablets of everyone in Taxon, as usual. However, this man is lying on the floor of the arrival room, tangled up in a blanket, curled half-around a body pillow. He is snoring. And maybe drooling a little.

After twenty seconds or so, the chill of the hard metal floor starts to penetrate the sleeping man's consciousness. He grimaces, shifts around as if trying to get comfortable, and then slowly cracks an eye open.

"Whussat?"

Eyes squeezed shut, unshaven face squinching into a grimace. Man, what the hell... 's cold, and hard, and this is not his bed, he's pretty sure he went to bed in his bed last night, and yeah, he was doing shots pretty heavily, but he's pretty sure he did not drink to the point of passing out on a sidewalk, or... He risks opening his eyes again.

Definitely not the Strip. Not anywhere he knows. Fuzzily, Jeremy Fischer sits up, blanket falling down around his waist, showing that he's not wearing a shirt. He is still clutching the body pillow to him like a protective talisman. The holo shows a man in his probable late thirties, extremely scruffy, with an enormous amount of untamed curly brown hair and a stocky body.

"Uh...." He looks around him at the steel walls, the weird thing overheard, the utter alienness of his current surroundings. He runs a hand over his face, through his shaggy curly hair, and scratches at his head.

"The fuck...?"

Then he starts laughing. "Okay. Nice. Good one, Charlie! Not sure how the hell you got me here without waking me up, but seriously, nice one. Lunch is on me. It might be our last, right?"

There's a few beats of silence. He shivers a little in the coldness of the room and pulls the blanket up over his shoulders, grin slowly fading.

"Charlie?"

***

Sometime later, Jeremy is outside. This is a problem, since he's wearing his underwear, socks, and a blanket wrapped around himself, and it's freaking cold.

"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Jeremy hollers at anyone who might listen, trying to avoid the patches of snow on the sidewalk as he looks around the Bazaar for clothes.

Or shoes. Shoes at least would be a great fuckin' start.

eta to add in alternate run-in location of Jeremy at the Bazaar

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[location: Greenline - West]

Horst Cabal (or, according to the listed name on the Taxon map that people can actually see, Horst Brauer) has had an eventful first day in Taxon. He's gotten a shiny new bracelet, sat down for tea and chitchat and househunting with a supernatural librarian, walked around a city of the future, and picked out a temporary home for himself. That last was more than a little harrowing, in his opinion -- he arrived at his new residence just near the airstrip, placed his hand on the lock, and was promptly greeted by a man and a woman and their large dog. The man welcomed him in and wished him good evening while the woman snapped the leash on the dog. They already had their coats on. "Good evening," Horst remembers saying to them, "I'm Horst Brauer. What's your name?" The man and the woman had given him bland looks and introduced themselves and their dog like a pre-scripted theatre routine. Then they'd wished him luck, and the Winslows had gone down the walkway, through the wrought iron front gate with their dog tugging them away on the sidewalk, and they very politely allowed Horst Cabal to steal their home without so much as a backward glance.

Two o'clock in the morning is awfully late to be out walking your dog, Horst remembers thinking.

He can't shake that last image of the Winslows -- the man with a smoking pipe in his mouth, the woman with a smart little veiled cap tilted jauntily on her head. Shiny white shoes and a pointelle apron. The dog's ears waving back and forth.

He'd changed the sheets on their bed before sleeping in it, even though Long had led him to believe that Extras didn't always lead full enough lives to actually use all of the things they appeared to own. It just seemed more respectful.

Then he'd wandered for a few hours, meeting a strange, otherworldy man hammering some kind of sword. That had been a long day.

Today, his second day, he can only hope will be a bit quieter. There's less he needs to do, for the time being, but he still needs to make an effort to fit in for the moment, until he eventually finds a way to escape. That in mind, he's taken back out into the city to learn a little bit more about life in Taxon.

For the past three hours, Horst has been riding the tram line back and forth. For the most part, he alternates between flipping through the pages of a large stack of magazines with studious concentration, or poking warily at the screen of his tablet as though it's a sleeping viper he expects might wake and jump out at him at any moment, or standing at one of the tram windows, staring out at the passing cityscape in obvious fascination and wonder. Occasionally, the train comes to the end of the line in one direction or the other, and Horst looks up from one of these activities for a moment, delighted that the tram ingeniously starts moving itself again in the opposite direction, without having to rotate on a turntable or hitch its cars to a new locomotive at all -- so clever! -- but then he returns to whatever he was doing the minute before with a self-amused shake of his head.

The tram makes all its regular stops quite faithfully, but Horst never makes any attempt to disembark. At this rate, it looks like he might, in fact, just as soon ride the tram for another few hours.

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02: Who says you can't appropriate a forge?

If there's one thing that can be said for Nuada, it is that he does not suffer idleness. Since his arrival he has gathered information from Long, traded for tools with Glitch, found a friend in an upside-down skull monstrosity under the delusion it's a canine companion, proposed a bargain with a werewolf - and generally made quite a nuisance of himself.

He has a standing arrangement with the barriers surrounding the city, for instance, and he knows for certain there are two residents here who would like nothing more than for him to make an untoward move. Or, well, one of them; the would-be knight, the tarnished champion of the 'peaceful' residents. The other one, the woman, he's not so sure would raise a hand unless it served her own agenda.

If she sets her filthy paws on his crown, he'll rip her voicebox right out. That goes for anyone, human or simply a fool.

But, all that aside, as mentioned, idleness sits very poorly with him. Having ventured into the Northern district, it seemed to him a natural progression to see about weapons. The Extra patron wasn't too happy about relinquishing his forge, but Nuada can be very persuasive.

And so, one elven prince can be found in the Medieval village's forge, day or night, fashioning himself a pair of blades. Bare from the waist up and perfectly covered in soot and grime, handling the metal and the heat as if he's done so a thousand times before. Perhaps so. But a more relevant question is this:

Do you dare approach?

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[location: lobby of the Kelebek, to start]

He had a picnic hamper. It was quite a pretty thing, Long thought with abstract appreciation for the aesthetics: the traditional woven basket with two hinged lids, with a blue-and-white checked cloth peeping out neatly folded. It was a pleasing combination of colors, the cornflower blue and the starched white and the pale yellow of the wicker. Very Edouard Manet, he thought. Or perhaps Antonio Garcia y Mencia.

The scents rising from the hamper were fairly appealing. Long made his way down the stairs to the lobby of his hotel. He was wearing a heavy coat against the chill, even if the Northern Zone itself had seemed freer of winter than the city proper. Also tucked within the hamper he had a notebook, and pencils. For the purposes of cataloging.

In the lobby he looked around for Holmes.

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060 ± [visual] you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were

"Hey everyone, Glitch here." Yeah starting out like that has gone beyond self-parody but if it ain't broke he's not gonna try and fix it.

If anything of late has been (for lack of a better word) broken, it's been himself. The winter, particularly January and February, particularly when it's as bitter cold and snowy as it's been, saps his energy, curiosity, and drive. In their place are ennui, sulking, and hopeless dread since this time of year typically brings out the worst in the aliens. To avoid inflicting his moodiness on the population he's mostly avoided his tablet and only kept company with his nearest and dearest, but he knows himself enough to realize the need to break out of his self-imposed isolation.

Plus he'd very nearly spilled his coffee when he'd checked tablet this morning and seen a few names he hadn't realized he'd been missing. Later he'll probably go punch an Extra, if only to keep up with his traditional reaction to these kinds of shenanigans.

"I see a few of you have been returned and...I'm glad." He smiles sheepishly at his selfishness, but it's nice, really, to be that much less alone here. "Az, if you're up for it, we should have tea. Everyone else: I'm kinda thinking we need a gathering that includes alcohol and music. And comfy couches. I'll see about getting that together this week cuz...well, why not?"

Legit question, really.

"And, uh, with Mick gone-- " A pause because that one stings a bit. "--we're out a doctor again and need to figure out what resources we have. I know some folks know first aid but if anyone gets really hurt..."

That can dangle as a thing he doesn't want to think about too hard.