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chismosos2020-10-17 10:54 pm
historiadores) wrote in chismosos2020-10-17 10:54 pm
Entry tags:
test drive meme #1
TDM #1
LA LLEGADA
The Museum of Art and History is the largest and oldest in Llave, and contains a grand collection spanning from the time the first humans landed on its shores to the modern day. The building encircles an open courtyard where an art installation sits amidst many of the plants important to the settlers of Llave. Behind the museum is a wide, shallow field of hard-packed dirt lined by large stones, the petroglyphs on their surface worn by time—the earliest known playing field in all of the Caribbean. And further out are the areas where excavations are ongoing, uncovering the pottery, jewelry and artifacts of the ancestors.After awakening, things move quickly. The museum is closed, and the characters ushered into the courtyard to wait. Any needing emergency medical attention are kept in one of the air conditioned galleries until the paramedics arrive. A group of women with a military bearing take charge of the situation; identified as the Bajari Bara, they question the healthy and able. They cede authority only to the Prime Minister when she arrives. Two more of their group flank the nation's leader, though they step aside when she begins to walk among the new arrivals to speak with them.
Each side has many questions and few answers. Characters are informed they are in Llave. It's October 2020. And efforts will be made to return them to their homes. But how they came to be here and why remain mysteries…as does how they’ll find their way back.
A hurricane shelter nearby is activated for use by the recent arrivals. There, characters are provided with food and clothing, a cot and other basic supplies. No one is allowed out, but through the windows they can see the lush green of the their surroundings. At night, coquí sing them to sleep. Those taken to a hospital will remain there until they are discharged. Each patient is allowed one visitor to stay with them overnight. Over the next several days, all characters undergo physical and mental evaluations; are provided with their first immunizations; have the next legal steps explained to them; and are taught about Llave. Every character, regardless of age, has a caseworker who checks in with them daily. None have been arrested, they are assured. But they must also complete the quarantine process. To enforce quarantine, at both the hospital and the shelter, the Bajari Bara guard every entrance and exit.
Welcome to Llave.
EL AREYTO
As luck would have it, around the time quarantine ends, all of Llave is in the midst of celebration. Today is the Day of Heroes, celebrated every last weekend in October, which this year happens to fall on the eve of All Saints’ Day. So when the new arrivals venture out for the first time, Nona, the capital, welcomes them with color and music. 
The people of Llave have a special love for music and dance, and it shows. All day, groups gather to play, and many more to dance. The songs center around heroes of Llave with the chief of these being Nuna, a beloved figure who is said to have led her people here to freedom. Those performing wear traditional clothes: guayaberas, long circle skirts, palm hats and headwraps, all brightly colored.From early morning, artisans have set up under tents tables laden with goods. Clothing, jewelry, musical instruments, paintings, and more made from leather and wood, seashells and fish scales, aluminum and copper. Many create right at the table. Most popular are those working on cemís: sculptural objects, said to house the spirits of ancestors. Many carry them as amulets especially on this the eve to the days of the dead.
The food is equally rich and one of the cooks takes an interest in the new arrivals. Those who eat his food find their mood changing depending on what they ate. The tostones he prepared while speaking of his childhood home in Santa Cecilia bring on feelings of joy and contentment. The alcapurrias fried while arguing with a customer about last night’s wrestling match cause those who eat them to feel irritated. And the casabe, a flatbread made of cassava, that he explains he learned to make from his wife who passed, induces a profound nostalgia for lost loves. His wife, recognizable from the photo he keeps on the wall, sits beside those most affected and comforts them until the melancholy passes.
More dead can be found. An old man in a fine guayabera recalls composing the lyrics to a particular song. He points out the man playing the congas and proudly says his great-grandson will soon outplay him. When characters look back to the old man, he’s gone. Those with a sense for it will recognize many dead walking among the living. These next few days honor and celebrate the departed, and the dead have seized the rare opportunity to join the festivities once more.
For those who prefer the sea, the impossibly blue waters of the Caribbean are just a short walk away.
Cobblestone and concrete paths line La Bahía de Nona. On one of the larger rock outcroppings jutting into the bay sits a silver-white dog. If called, he will trot over. Up close, one can see his color is due to the sand and salt that has collected on its coat. Though he allows himself to be petted, he does not step off the rocks. A passerby comments that the dog has been waiting for his master to return. How long? The man shrugs. When he was a boy, the dog was keeping watch; now he’s forty-three, and the dog is still there.EL TRAVIESO
Or perhaps the characters were more distracted by how clean the water was, how clear. Enough so that the sight of a bottle bobbing in the waves seems offensively out of place. Anyone who chooses to snag it out of the water will find it’s a corked bottle of rum, apparently empty.From a nearby restaurant, someone yells and waves their hands—too late. By uncorking it, they have freed the bacoo. Immediately, everyone backs away. Two cross themselves.
Only one stays long enough to warn, “You have to trick it back into the bottle. It likes milk and bananas. Don’t ask it for anything.”
Turn around, and the bacoo is there.
Short and rugged with large eyes, long arms and legs, covered in unkempt hair and its fingers and toes ending in claws, the bacoo is a strange little creature. Stranger still, it can grant any wish—so long as it is kept appeased with a steady diet of milk and bananas.
A hungry bacoo will pelt walls with stones, move objects, keep its owner up at night, and otherwise wreak havoc until it is fed. A shapeshifter, they can be difficult to locate, much less trap. And a starving bacoo will turn vicious and its pranks malicious.
Best find a way to trick it into the bottle. Fast.
OOC NOTES
This TDM covers from mid-to-end of October. The first prompt lasts approximately two weeks; the second, a day. For now, all characters are restricted to Nona. Any attempting to leave will be gently, but firmly escorted back.The TDM will also double as the first IC post of the game. Threads between any two or more characters who were all apped and approved will be considered game canon. As such, actions characters take in this TDM will impact the game once it opens. How characters behave will shape the inhabitants’ first impressions of them. Make it count.
Questions regarding this TDM can be asked below, while questions regarding the game at large should be directed to the FAQ.
Thank you for your interest and we hope to have you join!
no subject
Only one man? [More than that, he’d imagine.] Ygritte only ever went south of the Wall to raid. She climbed the Wall to do it. North of the Wall... well, you’ve seen what it’s like.
no subject
[ But they're here at a feast, joyful and intriguing, and he is maudlin. Dany peers at him for a moment, then at the casabe still before him. The words float over from the man making them, and she frowns as the possibility strikes her. ]
Were you happy, before you ate of this bread?
no subject
He knows that she was married to some khal when she was still a very young girl; he knows that she had no choice in the matter, no more than most highborn women do. He does not like to think of her being married to someone like one of her guards — in truth, he does not like to think of her being married to anyone who isn’t him — but it’s in the past. And despite what they’ve become, that wedding, one where he loses her to another man, may still come one day.]
I am happy.
[He says it quietly, with reassurance, holding her hand.]
Not happy to be here with no way out, but happy enough otherwise.
The Dothraki — they will have furs against the cold. Did you see the story in the dance? I thought of Nymeria, but maybe there’s a little of you in it too.
no subject
We will speak on that some other time, [ she says, but it is not meant to silence him. It is meant to draw him away from this place, and toward brighter, cheerier things.
As to the dance, the praise makes her smile. ]
If I lead my people to freedom -- true freedom, after I've broken the wheel, [ she says, ] I should be honored to hear the bards write such stories. [ If they are ever to return from this place. ] Will you write a song for me?
[ It is said teasingly, but she leans in closer, slightly. ]
no subject
No. I’m no bard, no poet. Hope I never said anything to make you think I was.
I wanted them to sing songs of my deeds, when I was a boy first setting off for the Wall. They don’t sing songs for those men anymore, and even if they did... I was a fool to want it. It means someone died, someone who might have had as much courage and honor as anyone.
If you lead your people to freedom, I’ll find someone else to write a song for you.
no subject
[ More teasing. Dany feels no great attraction to bards or singers, much preferring warriors. ]
If -- when it is done, [ she corrects herself, ] then you needn't pay coin to anyone. I shall invite it myself, in a great feast with bards. I would better know my people, and they will have supped enough on war.
[ Speaking of which, she rises, his hands in hers. ]
Come, [ she invites. ] The sea is even bluer than the one I looked upon in Pentos.
no subject
Maybe it’s better to let her distract him. Nothing he can do will bring Ygritte back. She is ash and air in a weirwood grove, and he has another love now.
So he rises with Daenerys. It’s strange, that his mind should fix on anyone else while she is there.]
It’s still strange to me, to have any kind of lord’s seat at a feast. When I was a boy, Lady Stark sat me with the squires, way down the hall from the rest of the family. When the king came, I wasn’t allowed a seat in the hall at all. I spent the night in the training yard.
uses all these winter icons when it's freaking hot in-game
If Lord Stark raised you as his own son, he ought to have granted you that courtesy. [ For the sake of their own peace, she had extended her apologies for the Mad King's actions and asked for his forgiveness -- but rarely had she spoken on the matter of Eddard Stark. ] Bastards are raised up and given the names of their fathers, I have learned. [ Eddard Stark ought to have done that. ] Why should they be punished for being born?
[ She draws him away from the festivities, slowly. It is difficult to press their way through the crowds, but Dany is slender and determined enough to do it. ]
It is as well that you were training, [ she tells him, when at last they are free and the vast blue stretches a small distance before them. ] A queen must entertain her guests. Would that they came to entertain me.
[ The conversation would have been boring, or wretched. ]
no subject
A man who had an heir wouldn’t raise up his bastard son, whether or not he was the lord of a great house. A great lord with five heirs, even less. Most wouldn’t have their bastard in the same castle, unless it was as a servant. Lady Stark would not say my name; she did not like to look at me. It was a great insult for me to live among her children, no matter that I would never have stolen their birthright.
[He is grave and conversational as they walk along. He would never have stolen the birthright of any of his Stark siblings... yet it is him who came to her as King in the North, not Sansa as Queen.]
cw: got
And I say that when I am queen, bastards shall not be punished for being born. [ Her tone is firm. After all, it is the king or high lord who has seen fit to make a child. Why should he not be made to reward the child, whether by name or with coin? ] Laws can be made and abolished, or don't you remember the deeds of my forebears?
[ There was no more First Night, for one. Rhaenys had called for the gentler treatment of women by men, after a fashion. She listens to the rest, her hand in his as they walk. Ahead of them, sunlight glints off deep blue. ]
I am sorry Lady Stark treated you ill. [ When she speaks again, her voice is gentler. Perhaps it is the calm that the sea induces, or perhaps it is mere compassion. ] Yet you are here now.
[ She turns to face him, the sun turning the strands of gold in her hair into thin, shining beacons. ]
I am your queen, and I command you to be with me, [ she jests, reaching up to touch his face with both hands. As she looks into the solemnity of his face, though, some of the smile fades, leaving serenity and an affection that is worn mostly in her eyes.
The sound of the waves is gentle, calm. ]
no subject
The way people treat bastard children isn’t fair or right, but it’s the way of things. If it gets better, it won’t be in a day.
He wonders if it’s the way of things in Llave.
They’re closer to the sea, now: close enough to hear it, but it’s still hard for him to shake his grey mood. That flash of red hair, back after he’d eaten the bread — it had stabbed at his heart, and his heart does not feel whole again, for all that it should. His love is with him, in front of him, looking sweetly into his face as she holds it in both of her hands. She’s bright in the sunlight.
A softer look comes to his face, replacing the uncertain one, the one that is grim about the fates of children not born of their fathers’ wives.]
I’m with you. At your command. So what else would you command?
cw: nsfw
I would have you kiss me.
[ There are none of their world around them, and so she rises onto her tiptoes to meet his lips with her own. The sun warms her face, warming a kiss that is already enough to send a little thrill through her flesh. They have had little privacy, only stolen moments since their arrival. Yet she remembers their night on her ship, her breath shallow, the way their bodies had moved together as though in some sort of unsung song. ]
cw icky romance etc.
The kiss is not brief, and neither is the next, or the next, or the next. Some of the heaviness leaves him. When the string ends, when there is only small space between their lips, he murmurs,]
Why haven’t we been doing that all day?
[There have been nights where they’ve linked hands between cots, moments where he’s kissed her hard behind a door, but no chance for something like the hours before all this had happened.]
no subject
Your ghosts wished to visit you, [ she surmises. ] As did mine.
[ She had not said so, but she had seen her sun-and-stars walking among the living. Of that, she was nearly certain. She had run to him, cutting through crowds, calling her name for him in Dothraki. He had smiled proudly at her, his fierce countenance softening, made to sweep aside the people between them with a powerful arm -- but when Dany had reached him, he was gone. ]
We have both fallen prey to magic on this day. [ Her arms have not left his shoulders. ] Stay with me, [ she commands, slyly. ] We need not grow distracted again.
no subject
Yours?
no subject
[ He will surmise who she means. ]
He vanished before I could reach him. And -- [ she works to keep the regret from her face, ] -- and Ser Barristan. He served me faithfully in Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen. My good right hand, who gave me valuable counsel. He spoke to me.
no subject
Ygritte had red hair. I thought I saw it. They used to say it was lucky.
[Kissed by fire, he nearly says, but why would he say this to a woman who has embraced it completely?]
What did Ser Barristan say?
no subject
Many things. [ That the Westerlands may never love her for what she has done. That he would not trust Cersei Lannister to send her troops North farther than he could throw a sword. ]
I asked him if he was proud of me. He smiled so much in life, yet I could not have imagined how bright it was in death. [ She looks up at him. ] He says that I must find happiness here, however long I may stay. That -- that I must consider my alliances, even now.
[ The sort of alliance, she had known at once, that was sealed in marriage. He had been watching Jon Snow, not her, when she had first found him. ]
He judged you a good and honorable man. [ Her face turns up to his, the smallest of smiles curling up at the corners. ] And counseled that you ought to keep your feet farther apart when you cut upward with your sword.
[ And that his death had not been her fault, for all that she'd sent him into it. That he was proud that he had fallen in her service.
That he had chosen the right queen, and soon enough, Westeros would see her as he did. ]
no subject
How would Barristan Selmy know what sort of man I am?
[Dany has mentioned Selmy before, that she knew him, that he had been in her service the last few years of his life, and when Jon was a boy, his fame had spread up and down all the kingdoms, so that it’s hard to imagine any boy with a lord for a father who didn’t know the name.
But they had never met.
Do the dead watch, like the Old Gods? Why would a man he’s never met have been watching him?]
Been years since anyone has said that of my sword.
no subject
[ Perhaps the Dothraki khals look down, at times, from their great hunt in the sky.
The comment upon his sword makes her smile grow. ]
Then you must adjust your stance. The man who would have helmed my Queensguard has decreed it. [ She cups his cheeks with her hands. ] And I say you must return to me.
no subject
I will return to you.
I didn’t see my father. I would have given... [much and more? anything?]... I would have wanted to see him.
Maybe it’s better not to see people after you’ve made your farewells. It’s like an old wound opening.
no subject
The kiss she gives him is slow and sweet, but no longer hungry. Let him think upon his ghosts, if he must. She cannot deny him that. ]
Some, [ she agrees. ] Or perhaps it closes old wounds that were never healed.
Is that what you require? To look for them? [ One hand falls; the other remains, along with a faint smile. ] I will not detain you. Only do not search forever. I have no wish to lose you to this place again.
[ She has taken him to a beach, kissed him in the sun -- yet still, the magic plays upon his own melancholy. For the moment, she despises it. ]
no subject
Maybe he can’t really make that promise. It’s what he wants to happen, not necessarily what will happen. Until a few weeks ago, they had been in love at the end of the world.
This place... it may be some far corner of the world, but it doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.
He shakes his head.]
I don’t want to leave you to look for them. Dany, I don’t wish for Ygritte. She died in my arms. She might have killed me if she hadn’t. I wept for her, I burned her body, I didn’t think there would ever be another woman for me. But you were only a name to me then, a girl on the other side of the world.
When you said to come back to you, I thought you meant from any battle.
no subject
There is no need to say what I was, only what I am now. [ The words soften her, return her smile to her lips. ] I only thought you might wish to go to them, if they are here.
[ Her hands are rejoined with his own. ]
Let us be here, now. [ She likes the feeling of his returning to her from any battle, the idea sending a little rush of fluttering wings into her belly. ] It has seemed so long. I have needed you.
no subject
If he hadn’t seen him, or Robb, or the Old Bear, not one of them in the time he’d already spent there, what is the chance that they are only there when he is not, and will not be there when he returns?
And what are the chances that he would be thinking this way if he was alone here? Slim, he knows. He is not sure what Ned Stark would be proud of, what would make him frown and go silent. Jon had become King in the North, but he had given it up. Jon had sworn off women, and now loves the daughter of the Mad King. Jon had taken Winterfell, but to do it, he had left the Watch. He had had to die to do that, so why is he here as a man and not a spirit? Why is he anywhere? The question is with him more some days than others.
She can’t be the answer to it, can she? The Lord of Light did not raise him from death to be Daenerys Targaryen’s lover. Only... there are some days when it feels like he might have.
And this beach... it’s beautiful.]
Too long. I thought we had weeks on that ship, not hours. I dream of you. Even when you’re right there, I do.
cw: nsfw again