synodiporia_ooc | Test Drive #21

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Test Drive #21

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are two new prompts, and here are the prompts from previous test-drives, which you’re still welcome to use in this post. When you comment, be sure you specify what prompt you want to play with, and please put up your own threadstarter—it makes for a much more friendly environment than a forest of bare toplevels! OCs are especially welcome! Please take a quick look at our Directory & familiarize yourself with the concept and setting of the game before you jump in.

Our upcoming app round runs September 16th–26th. Our next Jaunt will be Night Falls on Yensid, a fantasy Jaunt taking place in a formerly magic kingdom whose history went awry when other Travelers failed to properly complete a previous Jaunt there, one of the many forgotten Jaunts from before Synodiporia properly began as a Dreamwidth game. There will be no Walkabout run alongside this Jaunt.

Prompt #55 takes place in a punishment Liminal Space for a Jaunt that the Travelers failed to solve.
Prompt #56 takes place during the first Jaunt the Travelers made to the Kingdom of Yensid, during its Golden Age.

#55

It’s difficult to make out the shape of this Liminal Space, at first, thanks to the decor; it’s somehow both pitch black and eye-searingly bright at the same time, the pulsing rainbow patterns cutting through the darkness making it all but impossible to properly judge distance. The truly persistent, or those who manage to abuse Liminal ‘down is relative’ gravity without hitting a pitfall for long enough, may eventually determine that it seems to be a giant egg. More so than many iterations of Liminal Space, it’s completely closed off.

Unfortunately, that’s going to be very difficult indeed to figure out. It’s not just the impossible coloration that makes navigation difficult; there’s a terrible storm raging, and the whipping winds and cracking thunder make it all too easy to stumble into a pitfall by accident. And those pitfalls don’t exactly want to let go of anyone they ensnare, either. Errant Travelers may find themselves supporting an impossibly heavy overhead weight, or pushing a boulder eternally uphill, or trying to catch an ever-lowering drink of water, or pouring water into a tub riddled with gaping cracks, or any number of other seemingly endless, pointless tasks. They can be escaped with help from another Traveler, or one person can be released from the task when another stumbles in.

The only respite from this - the colors, the storm, the punishments - is in the form of Travelers’ created spaces, but those are as difficult to get to right now as everything else. Good luck.

#56

It's a chaotic time for the Kingdom of Yensid. The Amulet of Yensid, that fabled magical artifact that must be rejoined each lunar year so that the kingdom's three races can continue their peaceful magical coexistence, has gone missing. Two-thirds of it, the humans' fragment and the Forest Folk's fragment, are nowhere to be found. The capital city is just as bustling as ever despite this, with reptilian Stonefolk flitting from place to place in their usual parkour-like fashion, small animal-like Forest Folk hawking various potions and crafts, and humans making all sorts of deals.

There's an undercurrent of urgency to the day's business. Small groups of three or four of various species move through the city with enchanted mirrors, dowsing rods, fishing lures, and all other manner of magical items designed to aid in the act of finding something, but so far, no one's turned up anything solid yet. A few of the stronger magicked items are leading their owners out towards the foreboding Birdlime Mountains, but that's the most promising lead anyone has.

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Realizing that Eliot knows precisely what he is doing, Jean moves back to enjoy the show and relish the scent of wine and ingredients. He's not good at cooking, or anything housework-related, but his strong love of good food runs in the family.

"ACCA." he replies, brow faintly furrowed. Everybody knows what the Inspection Department is. It's the sort of thing kids learn at grade school. Doesn't the figments of his imagination know better? "I inspect people. Usually district authorities or other ACCA inspectors."

He pours wine for the two of them. Just because he is a pathetic lightweight drinker, it doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate the value of alcohol.

"...People are not that difficult to read once one looks at them."

Edited 2017-09-17 21:49 (UTC)

"ACCA?" Eliot asks. "Never heard of them. So you must be some kind of internal affairs wonk, I bet the other cops love you."

Meanwhile, he's located some tomato sauce and fresh herbs, and he starts heating oil to sauteed the garlic he's chopping up. "Can you see what's in the fridge for protein? Seafood for preference."

Those thin blond eyebrows raise a millimeter. Not knowing about the Inspection Department is strange enough. But never hearing about ACCA is as impossible as lighting a cigarette with magical fire.

"Well, popularity has always been my sister's forte rather than mine." He steps forward to look into the refrigerator once more. "...Except perhaps for that time when my best friend was elected prom king but ditched the queen to spend the evening with me."

No, wait. Every single girl from their class hated him for that.

"Will salmon do?"

Edited 2017-09-18 01:32 (UTC)

"You know, something similar happened to me, but I suspect for entirely different reasons," Eliot muses, and then he looks over at Jean, eyeing him up and down with a critical gaze, putting his head to one side briefly. "Or maybe not."

There is that lapel pin, after all. And the cigarette case.

"And salmon, hm. Not as good as shellfish, definitely better than cod. Let's give it a try."

He points to a spot on the counter next to him. "I need a baking dish, the olive oil ... hmm, and see if you can find a lemon."

Edited 2017-09-18 04:17 (UTC)

Or maybe not. Feeling the weight of Eliot's attention - watching is infinitely easier than being watched - Jean obeys those simple orders, biddable like a good puppy. He feels particularly victorious when he finds fresh lemons.

After spending so long in the rain, the smell of the homely kitchen is like a blessing. Always easily swayed by sensorial stimuli, he takes off his wet overcoat and stretches his arms, thoroughly enjoying the warmth of the oven.

"Something similar?" he asks lazily, interested in Eliot's stories in general, but also trying to remove the focus of the conversation from himself.

"It wasn't the prom king, it was one of the runner-ups. And we weren't hanging out so much as I was giving him a blow job in the bathroom. Since we were both caught walking out of the bathroom together, he told his buddies I had come on to him in there and they proceeded to take turns kicking the shit out of me," Eliot says casually, the same way someone else might talk about taking the dog out for a walk.

He lays out the fish, glances over at Jean, and blinks as though remembering something. He claps his hands together, then twists them opposite directions to each other, before pulling them apart with his fingers point at odd angles, muttering to himself something that sounds like some kind of Scandanavian language. His fingertips shimmer with heat haze and the blond is enveloped in a toasty, cozy warmth, and all of his clothing, overcoat included, is suddenly dry.

Then Eliot goes back to what he was doing (chopping shallots), and asks lightly, "Were you fellating your best friend?"

There is a darker shade of pink to Jean's face, both at the newfound warm and Eliot's language, but oh well, he asked, didn't he.

However, that doesn't compare to the conclusion of Eliot's story. He reaches for his case, now completely dry, and offers him another cigarette. Those so called sloe eyes are staring directly at him.

"You don't have to do that if it makes you tired."

Whether he means drying people with magic or keeping a nonchalant facade while talking about being betrayed and beaten up is purposefully left open for interpretation.

He sighs quietly, knowing Eliot is poking him, but still unwilling to drive the focus to himself. So he talks about Nino instead.

"As much as he respects me more than he should, I don't think he would want that."

Jean is, of course, very bad at noticing Jean-related things.

Eliot glances up at Jean, meeting his frank gaze with a flat, brown-eyed stare. The corner of his mouth that already turns up due to the cast of his jaw quirks higher.

"Don't have to do what?" he asks, making it clear that the magician is not an easy person.

Which might be a little surprising to Jean - as a keen observer, he's no doubt noticed that almost everything about Eliot is affected, from the way he talks to his clothing and hair, to the air of bored nonchalance he puts on. He makes no effort to hide it - when one is talking to Eliot, one is seldom getting the genuine article, and he doesn't really care who knows it. He built who he is from the ground up, out of the ashes of a bullied misfit kid from Eastern Oregon, and he's not ashamed of that. So part of Eliot is all about appearances and not the slightest bit about hard truths, but for whatever reason, he seems unwilling to politely acknowledge Jean's out.

Then he shakes his head, his smile still slightly bitter and self-depreciating as adds, "I notice you didn't say that you don't want that."

The shallots are thrown into the bowl with the sauce, and then the herbs are added - fresh basil, rosemary, thyme, the garlic from the pan - and then mixed in with quick, easy movements. It's clear the magician is at home in the kitchen as he moves through it, turning on the oven to preheat while still holding the bowl and barely missing a beat with the mixing. It's almost balletic, the way his lanky body moves.

Edited (THAT TAG WAS NOT FINISHED OOPS) 2017-09-19 00:37 (UTC)

"Huh."

From where Jean stands, all that effort seems exhausting, even when he knows it is there for a very good reason. Jean has never tried to fit anywhere or cared about what others thought of him. Their opinions never caused pain or pleasure. He never felt like he should support or contradict their expectations in any way. Jean Otus moves through life being nothing but himself, caring only for the opinion of those very few who mean something to him. It never occurs to him to do otherwise.

It must be difficult to be Eliot. Difficult and desolate. It's nothing short of admirable that he manages to be how he is and even create beautiful things. Jean realizes that he really likes watching him cook. On top of that, it smells delicious.

"What I want most is to see him living his life and having fun." he says honestly.

Eliot is a deeply unhappy person, probably because he does care. Because he feels things on a deep, gut level, and that damaged him when he was younger - his parents and brothers were kind-hearted but often thoughtlessly cruel in their inability to see that actually, there was nothing wrong with Eliot, he was just different. Now that he's no longer a child, he's narrowed his scope of people who's opinions mean a damn considerably but lately things haven't been going as well, and the depression, the darkness below the surface has been leaking out in all sorts of ways.

Not that he would ever, ever talk about that. But yes. It is difficult and exhausting to be him, and it is slowly hollowing him out.

Instead he takes a sip of wine and sets aside the tomato sauce, turning to the salmon. He takes the cigarette Jean had offered earlier and lights it with a snap of his fingers, sticking it in the corner of his mouth so he can use both hands.

"Very altruistic," he drawls, pulling a knife from the block so he can fillet the fish neatly, then slice it into steaks. "But apparently what he most wants is to hang out with you. Or he did, when you were teenagers. He single?"

Jean can see those signs. Depression is not unheard of where he comes from, and he wishes to help, because that's the sort of person he is. However, he wouldn't push too much if he can help it. They have just met and he knows the value of privacy. Besides, he fears that would only cause Eliot to buttress his very solid walls.

Doesn't stop him from stealing a fried garlic clove and tucking it into his mouth. It tastes like heaven and he has no regrets.

"We are very close." he acknowledges with a little affectionate smile, sipping his wine with great care. "But he could have anyone he wanted. I lost count of how many love letters I was asked to deliver to him."

And Nino thoroughly rejected all of them. Yes, Eliot can probably tell by Jean's quiet evasion that his friend is very much single. However, Jean attributes that to Nino's carefully woven secrets as a royal agent, and the fact that it was Nino's duty to shadow him.

Eliot is not off the mark when it comes to Jean's altruism either. He is ruled by necessities and low expectations. When his parents died, there was not much time for grieving because he had to take care of his sister's grief. She was much younger than him, and so he had to work, study and be a passable guardian, otherwise she would have been taken away. And if she were, what would be the point?

All he wants for himself is to keep those he cares about close, or at least safe and doing what they want of their lives. He has never learned how to expect more.

"He is perfectly capable of having all the lovers he wants. But I'm the only friend he has. Fifteen years." Thirty for Nino. "And neither of us are very good at making friends."

Not the sort of thing one would risk over a blowjob, he adds to himself. Nino deserves better.

"Pity, I was going to ask for his number," Eliot says lightly. "But I guess it wouldn't do any good if he's in love with you."

The magician is devastatingly intelligent - most magicians have to be - but he tends to come across as merely clever. Witty. The truth is, though, it doesn't take an in-depth description to see the writing on the wall. It makes narrative sense, doesn't it? The devoted, supposedly straight best friend. The oblivious cop, who never seems to make the connection between all the people apparently throwing themselves at this Nino and the fact that Nino only wants time with Jean. It's all so sweet, and stupid, and absolutely nothing like the depressing mess he's made with Janet and Quentin. Eliot, after all, knows what it is to be on both sides of that equation, but his life is much messier, much nastier than this cop's, he'd bet money.

"You might want to watch that, Mr. Inspector," he adds, and he sounds tired. Exhausted. He turns away from Jean to get the sauce, then lays the fish in the baking dish, squeezing lemon over each steak before covering them in the fragrant tomato sauce. He slides them into the oven silently, considering his choices for noodles as he slips the cigarette to the other side of his mouth.

If it is hard to watch Eliot, Jean can't even imagine what it's like to be Eliot.

"Mm, I don't know if you would get along." he says, lighting another cigarette for himself. "Too many sharp edges."

It is not the first time that Jean has been the source of envy, but Eliot seems too burrowed in his own pain to treat him with the usual malice. Or maybe - and he is more and more certain of that with every passing moment - Eliot is simply a good person in his own way.

"Why don't you take a minute to sit down and dry yourself?" he asks casually. "There's bread. Any other culinary miracle you have in mind can wait until you finish your glass."

In Jean's experience, bread solves most problems.

Eliot's quite amazed at Jean's ability to dodge any tricky questions or comments that he doesn't want to address. It makes the perverse side of him want to poke harder, but he suppresses the urge - the man's a stranger, and he's been nothing but pleasant and polite to the magician.

"Timing," he says instead, "Is everything in cooking. I'll sit down in a moment, but the water has to go on first ... I'm feeling too lazy today to do the noodles properly, so we'll have to go with boxed."

His nose wrinkles with slight distaste, but the prospect of getting the dough ready and making the fettuccine from scratch is a bit much right now. Instead he fills a pot with water and sets it on the stove, turning the burner on low. "Let's just hope this isn't like fairy food ... "

Finally, though, he swallows the last of his wine, ambles over to pour himself another glass, and pulls himself up to sit on a clean section of counter on the kitchen island, his long legs hanging.

"So, I'm working on a theory here," Eliot says, finally looking over at Jean again. "Indulge me, Mr. Inspector. What country are you from? What does the ACCA stand for?"

Jean is the emperor of passive resistance. Dodging Eliot's questions is not very different from dodging his sister's.

Predictably, it drives her crazy.

He is happy to see the man sit down at last, and is ready to suffer the sad fate of boxed noodles just for that.Finding a chair for himself, he takes another sip of wine. Eliot's comment about fairy food only makes his next question more interesting.

"I like your theory. Shall we?"he asks smoothly, cheeks flushed with the first effects of alcohol. "My country is the kingdom of Dowa, and ACCA is an organization responsible for most public services. Police, firefighting, traffic control...You name it."

He picks up his overcoat and turns it around, showing the red bird shaped insignia on its shoulder badges.

"It's been around for a century, and any child would know that."

Edited 2017-09-19 14:01 (UTC)

Eliot looks at the bird - similar to others he's seen, but not as the marker of any organization or national emblem. Nor has he ever heard of Dowa, but then there are lots of countries who call themselves something different than what the rest of the world does. And why won't Jean say what it actually stands for? Is it not an acronym at all?

"So the ACCA must be a national organization ... under a king or queen, since Dowa is kingdom? And since you expected me to know it, you must assume I'm from there, too. What language are we speaking together?"

As he asks, Eliot picks up the wine bottle and tops off Jean's glass. It's an automatic gesture, something he seems to be paying little attention to - he's hosted plenty of dinner parties in his time, after all.

"It must always be a king." he informs, drinking slowly, but the wine gets a little to him anyway. "And the relationship between ACCA and the royal family is one of checks and balances. Why, it's in the constitution."

Jean doesn't think Eliot comes from anywhere but Jean's mind, but he says the name of the language they are speaking since he was asked, and it's definitively not English. He can't help but wonder why his subconscious is drilling him in grammar school's government and politics.

((ooc: definitively an acronym! But we don't know what it means. Canon only tells us it has a namesake: "acca" - the red bird they use as a symbol, their equivalent to the white dove of peace.))

"Mm," Eliot says, finishing up his second cigarette and stubbing it out before taking another thoughtful swallow of the wine. He is very much not a light-weight, though the warmth of the room is lending a flush to his cheeks, as well.

"And what would you say if I told you I come from a country called America, a republic with a president, and I hear us both speaking in English, the language of the English empire?" he asks after a moment. "Any of that sound familiar to you, at all?"

Yeah...Jean is going to put that glass down before he makes a spectacle of himself. He rubs his flushed face before looking up at Eliot with tired though compliant eyes, like a man who has been been preparing himself for bad news from his doctor, and got exactly what he expected.

"Those are merely random words to me."

Truth be told, some districts attempted to have presidents in the past, but that was long before ACCA was created. Back in the age of chaos and war.

"Is there a concept of alternate dimensions or other worlds were you're from?" Eliot asks, watching the blond with interest. He wonders what Jean had thought was going on. That this was just a dream, or a hallucination? That he was back home, but had been kidnapped somewhere unfamiliar?

"Well..." he replies tentatively. "Some of us believe in such things as God and angels..."

But he's quite sure that's not what Eliot is asking.

"We have fairytales and fiction, but nobody would be able to light a cigarette with magic.."

Jean's world is as non-magical as a world can get, which is why he's so certain nothing here can possibly be real.

"Where do you think we are?" Eliots asks, bluntly. "What do you think is going on?"

It's the sort of question he would have dodged if it was not for the kitchen warmth, the scent of delicious food and the soft wine buzz. He does, however, take his time to finish his cigarette, before looking up at Eliot once more with a faint sad smile.

"I think I'm insane."

Eliot smiles, and there's that bitter edge to it again, but his voice is, perhaps surprisingly, kind when he replies.

"So I'm just a marvelous figment that your mind has conjured up? You must be incredibly creative."

He ducks his head a little.

"I'm sorry. I had the feeling you wouldn't like that."

People usually don't enjoy being told they don't exist.

"...Marvelous, especially the salmon. That's a really nice touch."

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