♥ September Intro Mingle Log

[hugtopiamods]

September Intro Mingle Log
Welcome to Hugtopia, and to the city of Havenwell. This mingle is meant for new arrivals to get settled and meet the other inhabitants. New characters should be the only top-levels but everyone should feel free to tag around and make new friends. Who knows, you may find that Perfect Hug in here. You can use the prompts here, or create a wildcard of your own.

ICly, this takes place from the 2nd to the 16th and then we'll have a shiny new event post up for you all soon after that date range. The prompts below are optional, but are a way to get you started if you wish. To help you create your own prompts, please take a look through our Settings and FAQ. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread below.

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❥ PROMPT I: Awakening

When you awaken, you're in the last outfit you remember wearing, three of your belongings laid nearby or your animal friend curled up by you, waking as you do. It's not the most comfortable place to sleep, a stone slab, but once you're awake, a humanoid-looking robot comes in and explains you're in Havenwell and leads you out of the room and into the main portion of the temple where a welcoming committee of similarly humanoid-looking robots hand over a clear smartphone-sized tablet, some starting funds, and explain their dilemma. Then they release you into Havenwell to pick your new home from free housing in the city and give you the chance to settle. It might be a bit disorienting, but thankfully there seem to be a lot of robots and even some non-robots around. Maybe ask them for help?

❥ PROMPT II: Buddy System

With all the changes going on, it might be hard to be a new arrival to Havenwell. The natives understand! Sort of. When some new arrivals begin to appear at the temples, receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, they get taken to the front of the temple by a helpful robotic priest. Rather than turn the newcomers loose right away, they pull someone seemingly at random off the street and push the two people together with a cheerful, "Here's your guide to Havenwell! It's dangerous to go alone, so be buddies!" before going back inside.

They try to place a new arrival with one of those who previously arrived, but who can keep track of all that, right? Characters may find themselves thrown together with an actual veteran or with another new arrival who only came here a day or even just an hour before them! Good luck helping each other out, offworlders, and don't lose your buddy!

❥ PROMPT III: Weather Wildcard

Havenwell's weather is generally so well controlled, with beautiful blue skies and temperate climes that it's hard to remember that there's a whole world out there that might not be so nice. Every so often, however, the controls break and something not so nice and temperate comes through. Pockets of unpleasant weather happens all over the city at random intervals and new arrivals might find themselves and others caught without warning. Is that a snowstorm with green snow? Sure is. A windstorm that only seems to affect three streets? Yup. Did a deluge of rain just pour the equivalent of an Olympic sized swimming pool of water on you? Uh-huh, sure did. A deep cold fog that suddenly rolls in and blankets your entire area? Yeeaaah... hopefully there's someone around to help you get about and find shelter or just dry off and get away from it all. Good luck, offworlder.

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Comments

[unsunderworld]

He notices, and of course he has questions, but - the creature doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and she isn't 'bleeding,' so to speak, so they will wait.

She is aglow, in an unnatural way, and some part of him is satisfied that she will bear at least that mark, that there is some obvious physical sign of what happened to her (what he put her through) in a way that the rest of those who have fallen before her didn't get.

"And rather exposed, not to mention the risk of those storms," he points out, perfectly mildly and reasonably. "Certain you wouldn't rather be elsewhere?"

[astralera]

Her gaze goes downcast again and she seems to sag and wilt in a way far deeper than merely the physical.

"Home."

[unsunderworld]

"Well, obviously, but I was speaking more locally," he says. After a moment, his tone softens. "I'm afraid missing home is one of the things that never goes away."

[astralera]

His soft comment receives a faint rush of pained longing from deep within her twisted aether. Era taps the tip of her tail nervously against her leg. "I know nothing local," she responds. "I care not where I am in this place so long as it is quiet and dark."

[unsunderworld]

"I may know of a place or two more suitable," he says, leaning forward just a hair. His hand offered, palm-up in the space between them - "Should you so desire."

His mouth quirks, a weak smile. "No trickery, you have my word."

[astralera]

At his words she glances back to his face, then to his outstretched hand. She goes still, weighing her options (to stay where she is, or let her enemy-friend take her elsewhere unknown?) until she eventually uncurls herself enough to reach out, placing her palm warily against his. Era doesn't distrust him, but... Neither does she trust him wholly.

But she also finds that, in the end, she is too tired to really care.

[unsunderworld]

It's good enough.

(He hates how much effort it takes, for something that should come as easily as breathing. Try as he might, the effort isn't invisible on his face.)

The darkness opens around them, and then fades, to a living room not yet given any touches of living. Her back is against a couch, the both of them on the floor. The lighting is the dimness of curtains closed against the daytime sky.

"Better?" he asks.

[astralera]

The darkness is soothing to such an extent that Era feels a sense of loss when it fades away. Her fingers curl into his palm on reflex, as though reaching for more of that sensation, but she is quick to recoil, drawing her arm back to herself. She occupies her fingers by stroking Ardbert, who seems equally rattled, albeit in a different way.

His question is answered by a faint shake of her head in the negative.

"Something went wrong when they stole me from that place," Era elaborates, voice quiet as a whisper, but loud enough to cross the distance between them. "I think something was torn away."

[unsunderworld]

"...Your soul looks it," he says, carefully. His hand released, he scoots around to sit beside her, both their backs to the couch. "You are not in any way well, my dear."

[astralera]

"I would rather suffer with the Lightwardens' aether again," she murmurs, finding herself growing almost angry now that she has confirmation. "It would be less painful than what they've done to me... And still I am expected to help them?"

[unsunderworld]

"Considering that that nearly tore you apart as well..."

He doesn't begrudge her her anger. In another circumstance, surely, he would join with it.

As it is, merely existing is a gain in his accounts, and even if he is lessened in an undeniable, uncomfortable way, his soul is not so injured by her blow of Light as it was in those last moments before he slipped away. Therefore, he doesn't have any grounds on which to complain.

[astralera]

Era can't help the way her body tenses and shudders, a visceral reaction from body and soul at the recollection regardless of how much effort she's put into have her mind detach itself from it. Even Ardbert lets out a little whimper, crawling down her arm to plant itself firmly in the space between her and Hades, seeking out the Darkness he exudes whilst still refraining from outright touch.

"My mind is... muddled," she confesses. "Like the first time I awoke, when I was absent of all memory. I think I've... forgotten things, where my mind stumbles over thought."

Era moves closer to Ardbert, so that her hip touches the weasel again. It also means she's moved closer to Hades, though much like the soul-creature the Warrior of Light doesn't seem bothered by this.

"...But worry not, for I haven't forgotten you, Hades."

The attempt at lightheartedness falls flat, for that promise to her fallen enemy-friend weighs far too heavy on her heart.

[unsunderworld]

Even if it may fall flat for her, it makes him smile - and not a quick one that portrays only amusement, but one quite genuine and slowly warming. And at the sound of his name there's a flicker of his aether towards her. He shifts his posture to lean in her direction, slightly over the strange her-aspected creature between them, following her lead in stopping just shy of touching.

"I appreciate it," he says, quiet. "It's been longer than anyone can recount since anyone called me by that name."

[astralera]

She doesn't look at him until she senses the shift in his aether. It's still strange to her, to sense things like this, but after living so long in a place devoid of aether... Era supposes it makes sense that she would be more keenly attuned to it now.

He looks almost content, with that small, earnest smile upon his face. Something inside of her stirs at the sight, because it seems familiar in the oddest of ways. Like the memory of a memory.

Era makes no move to bridge the distance between them, but Hades' shifting aether seems to spur Ardbert into action — the weasel quickly stands and makes the small jump onto the man's lap. From there, it limps in circles until it finds what it deems to be the most comfortable place and promptly curls itself up into a deceptively small sphere of soft, white fur.

Era feels... She feels... It is a sensation she cannot put to words, simultaneously deeply unsettling and intimately comforting. Her breath catches and she goes still, not sure of how to react, nor what she thinks of this strange development.

[unsunderworld]

He raises his eyebrows at the weasel's movements, but it is - as is usually the case - far less expressive than what he's actually feeling. Because the sensation is so very deeply her, in a way that takes him back to fargone days far more acutely than any passing similarity of their current circumstances of physical recreation could. This is -

(Elidibus was the one with the duty to uplift their fellows, their lost shards, but he has done it, and it is something like this, to hold a fragment of a soul in your hands.)

"And what a strange creature you are," he says to the curl of fluff in his lap, unsure if the automatic reaction of a gentle stroke is appropriate. Only a tiny portion of how off-balance he is shows, but showing anything at all is quite telling, and he's sure she's aware of that.

[astralera]

"My dream guide," Era says as though that explains anything, voice a bit higher and strained than it was before. She tries to ignore how disconcertingly nice it feels when Hades strokes his fingers along the curve of her guide's body. "Ardbert."

She speaks its name pointedly, and Ardbert lifts its head to stare at her blandly. It uncurls itself to stretch the impossible stretch of a mustelid, then remain sprawled out across Emet-Selch's lap. It continues to stare at Era, as though daring her to take action. As though it knows she can't find it in herself to pull it away.

(Of course it knows — it is a piece of her soul. Not that she's aware of that fact.)

{ I am her protector, } it confides in Hades, never breaking eye contact with its charge. { I represent the most vulnerable and honest parts of her. }

Given Era's unchanged expression, it's evident enough that she's not privy to her dream guide's words. She sighs, curling up into herself once more as though unconsciously protecting herself from harm. As though if she's small enough she may be forgotten about.

"Dream guides are not wont to seek contact with others."

Ardbert presses itself against Hades' hand. { But to Hemera's soul you are not like others. }

[unsunderworld]

It's possible to see precisely the moment - the name - that his hair stands, metaphorically, on end. Only, of course, to those who are familiar enough to see past the mask, for the slide back into one of so many stage personas isn't so obvious as a look of surprise or a frown.

It is the flatness in his voice, as he says, "Is that so?"

It is the tiniest flicker of his eyes, down and to the side, to where memories dwell.

And yet, he runs his fingers along the creature's back again, as though nothing were amiss. Strange enough to hear his own name. That one...

Elidibus does not even know it, he thinks. It is beyond ancient, now.

Instead of questioning it, he continues, "And know you what it truly is?"

[astralera]

Neither facing nor touching him, Era misses the silent reactions. Instead her tail flicks absently, restlessly, until he asks that and she's forced to look at him, confused.

"A gift, meant to offer me aid and protection from the horrors of Deerington," she says. "It reminds me of my Carbuncle, if my Carbuncle were in possession of sapience. The connection feels similar."