areyto | EVENT | SETTLING IN

Entry tags:

EVENT | SETTLING IN

SETTLING IN

Initial quarantine period is over, but the newest arrivals in Llave, known colloquially as “Los Aparecidos” (The Appeared), remain largely restricted to the shelter for two primary reasons: one, as they are currently stateless, meaning they have no rights to citizenship anywhere, what to do with them continues to be debated; and two, it has become rapidly obvious that many have zero knowledge not just of the nation they find themselves in, but of the wider world around them.

The former has been explained to them via the lawyers who have taken their collective case, and further clarified by the prime minister, Rosario Alonzo de León, when she and several members of her government return to speak again with the arrivals. A highly intelligent and capable woman in her late forties, she makes a point of sitting with each newcomer to Llave to converse about their experiences thus far and what concerns they have.

As for the lagoons in characters’ knowledge, steps are being taken to address these.

Classes are being held now, in order to prepare the arrivals for whatever happens next. Characters will be taught a variety of skills, including but not limited to communication methods such as mail, phones, television, radio and the Internet; use of appliances, including basic lessons on modern utilities; and general safety rules both inside and outside the home. Characters can request specific classes or volunteer to help teach their companions. (And for anyone learning or helping to teach how to read and write, a reminder that the Spanish alphabet consists of 27 letters: ‘ñ’ has its place after ‘n’. And ‘ll’ and ‘rr’ have their own sounds.)

The woman organizing the classes has become well-known to the arrivals: Evelyn Burgos Peña was a clinical social worker before leaving her previous work to assume the duties of First Lady when her wife was elected. Aside from spearheading the new education efforts for the arrivals, she has also been working diligently with the Bajari Bara to establish the second change in the daily routine.

Due to the generally acceptable behavior during the Day of Heroes, characters are now sometimes permitted to leave the shelter to visit Old Nona. These group excursions are not every day, and last only a few hours. One of these excursions is tied to a class to which all are invited. Rather than make learning more about Llave itself a tedious lecture, on the week of November 22nd, the museum characters arrived at has opened its doors to them for a special exhibit on the island's early history. Characters are accompanied as they were during the Day of Heroes by a guide and an escort of Bajari Bara.

Characters are reminded being permitted outside is a privilege. Until the matter of their legal status is resolved, they have few rights and fewer legal protections. Behavior and curfew are both strictly enforced, and violations will result in the loss of this privilege.

Otherwise, the routine in the shelter remains the same. Caseworkers still check in daily and will refer those who present a need or who request it to the appropriate mental health professionals. Hot meals continue to be provided three times a day along with snacks. A projector was brought in and a different movie is aired every night (General Audiences only—remember, there are children present), with the shelter staff providing snacks to make it a movie theater experience. Entertainment items—books, games, sports equipment, art supplies, etc.—are available and can also be requested (though no promises are made that characters will get exactly what they want, especially if the item can double as a weapon).

Possession of weapons remains strictly prohibited and any visible weapons will be confiscated. Any who attempts to flout this rule, starts fights in the shelter or in Nona or attempts to break out will be swiftly separated from the rest by the Bajari Bara. Further violence will result in consequences according to their actions.

THE MONTH'S HEADLINES

Red chickcharney seen celebrating during the Day of Heroes.
Tombs found disturbed in Nona's Old Cemetery.
Santa Cecilia cattle farmers on high alert after cows, sheep found mauled.
Unidentified flying object spotted off the coast of Bimini.

OOC PLANNING POST • NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Having fun?

[ sandals crunching on the dead and dying grass, mal leans against the wall next to him. her tone is casual.

too casual.

be afraid, nico. be very, very afraid. ]

[He lets out a deep sigh, shoulders slumping. Eventually, his gaze turns to land on her.]

Hi Mal. [He's not answering her question given the answer should be obvious.]

[ flatly, ] Wow. Reel in the excitement a bit.

[ she turns her face up to the sky. in a normal tone, she continues, ] I’m personally happy for the good weather. Means I can stretch my wings.

[Well, that gets him to look up.

Against all sense and rationality, his eyes flicker to her back to check for wings. Satisfied that she hasn't grown any in the last several hours since he's seen her, he returns his gaze to her. That was probably an expression, right?]

What are you going to do?

[ she regards him with a mischievous smile. ]

You heard me.

[ pushing off the wall, mal steps forward.

over her shoulder, she adds, ] I’m going flying, of course.

[Nico stares at her and the grass stops withering.]

...in a plane? [He has questions. Mal is smiling and he has questions but also concerns.]

Wait, have you been flying before? [Different homes, right? Did Zeus's reach not stretch that far.]

No and yes.

[ hands clasped behind her back, she pauses, swinging neatly back around to face nico. she is still :) smiling :) ]

Want to join?

[Wait.]

What? I can't—I've never been flying. Zeus doesn't like it when Hades kids fly. You can fly without him...you know...zapping you out of the sky? [That's a thing???]

Edited 2020-11-20 02:27 (UTC)

[ mal

raises her eyebrows. ]

I’d like to see him try, [ she answers coolly. ]

Maybe Hades is grounded. But I’m not only his daughter. And thanks to my mother—

[ she looks down at her hand, as if studying her nails. strange arcs and zaps jump from finger to finger like electricity. but these are black.

when she looks up, her glow a bright, venomous green. ]

The sky is my domain too.

So. [ her eyes are their normal color again, her smile beckoning, and she holds out her hand for him to take. ] You coming?

[He takes it, on his feet before he even knows what he's doing. He still has a dozen questions, but like he's going to say no.]

How are you flying then? Do you-do you actually have wings? [He blinks and then another thought comes to him.]

How would I join you if you have wings? [Nico looks over his shoulder, staring at his back and then back at her. His question when he asks is as skeptical as it is dumb.]

Are you going to give me wings?

[ actually— ] Yes, Nico. I’m going to give you wings.

[ mal leads the way to a nearby and empty baseball field. as the walk through an opening in the fence, she weaves a spell into it. a bit of cover for takeoff and landing. no need to terrify the populace so soon.

mal let’s go of nico’s hand at home base and heads to the pitcher’s mound alone. ]

I need some space! [ she calls. excited, she hops a little when she reaches the mound. she gets to fly again, and bring nico with her. her mood cannot tank if she tries. ]

Once it’s over, I can’t talk. Don’t be scared.

[ she smiles at him again. then it fades as the green light returns to her eyes and she tilts her face up. a thick purple fog rises from her feet, envelops her legs, her waist, her body. the fog grows higher, wider, and something else grows too within it.

to mal, it is luxury: shedding a small, lean frame for something massive and powerful. replacing her fair skin with a tough hide. her hearing is better, her taste, her smell, her sight. the constant fire in her belly becomes an inferno whose heat seeps into her veins, lighting them aflame.

to a third party—to nico—shadows in the fog resembles horns, the outline of a massive head. as the fog clears, a sinuous creature of leather wings and purple scales sits in the field. a dragon. a great fell beast that slowly lowers its head to be eye level—or as close to it—with nico.

everything else changed, but mal’s eyes glowing are the same. ]

[Oh sure, worry about terrifying the populace but not your dumb brother.

Only terrified is actually the last thing Nico is feeling when the fog clears and he stares at Mal—or at what he assumes is Mal because those are Mal's eyes staring back at him even if the rest of her is...different. At least, he supposes, this does explain the wings comment.

Even with everything he's seen in his life and everything he's experienced, Nico can't deny the pure and utter awe, the delight at his sister turning into a dragon. An actual dragon, his sister is a dragon.]

Holy shit. [He lets out before he can stop himself, eyes blown wide and full of childish wonder.]

Mal, you're a dragon.

[ she cannot talk and neither can she laugh. yet the low growl with its spontaneous breaks sounds strangely like she is laughing at him.

mal lies down as if to achieve the utterly impossible goal of appearing harmless. her head alone takes up the span from home base to the pitcher’s mound. the rumble that begins in her chest has more in common with a cat’s purr—if the cat weighed several tons. mindful of her size and strength, she bumps him (very) lightly with her snout. her shoulder drops: an invitation.

the warmth she normally radiates is a heat to rival the sun’s rays—a necessity once she is high enough in the air. her scales are as purple as her hair, her head crowned by twin horns, three ridged lines traveling down her back. spikes grow in regular intervals down across her spine with the only significant break occurring just before her wings, those almost delicate-looking stretches of skin and sinew over bone.

the place where her long serpentine neck meets her new, powerful body. where a rider can theoretically grab onto the smaller spikes of her neck and be held in place by the larger ones on her back. ]

Edited 2020-11-28 04:29 (UTC)

I can't believe you didn't tell me you're a dragon. [It's whined with a huff, but he's all grins now, melancholy forgotten as he takes the invitation and climbs atop carefully.

Her scales are a heated blanket beneath him and he starts for a second, taken off guard before he acclimates to the warmth. He moves his way carefully along her neck, stepping lightly for fear of hurting her and then settling himself in a place where he can safely take hold of the spikes.]

Mal, you're a dragon! [He chirps excitedly, actually laughing.]

This is so cool!

[ no, she did not tell him. instead, she painted dragons on her clothing and in her art, arrayed herself in dragon-themed jewelry, and even her engagement ring's band is a golden dragon curling around a purple diamond. but nico is correct. she did not, in fact, tell him.

newly dragon mal huffs her agreement with him. when she feels him settle (a sensation like an ant tickling her skin), she raises her head. her wings open. each one is longer than a car. the skin drapes delicately over fine bones.

with a sharp downward beat, she launches them both into the air.

she has never felt awkward on land. daughter of hades, the earth, the dark, the underground is her inheritance. mal is a fairy before she is a demigoddess, though—and it is the sky that feels like home.

nona is a city of concrete and asphalt. she passes from thermal to thermal, each one tossing her higher and higher. within seconds, she has climbed above the city and keeps climbing. the ballpark shrinks away. nona grows small. the city is revealed to her: the mix of old and new, the cars on the streets, the green bay, the train snaking away into the mountains.

a view of green peaks dominates one half of the scene; the blue rolling waves of the caribbean sea rule the other. the sky above them is a clear, cloudless blue and the ground below them far, far away. opening her mouth, mal roars her joy. ]

[He's met horse girls, Mal??? Maybe he just thought you were like that but with DRAGONS.

The sensation of leaving the ground wipes the grin from his face for a minute and he holds tight to the spines in his grip, his entire body feeling like it's being turned inside out. It's different from the inside out of shadow travel, if just as abrupt. Once they're high enough though, he opens eyes that he hadn't realized he'd slammed closed and the sight of the island beneath them chases away the rest of his doubts.

He's been in the sky before, but never like this. And never when he wasn't so consumed by end of the world prophecies that he could actually appreciate it.]

Wow. [It's beautiful. It's wonderful. And all the better for being with Mal, for being with his sister. The boyish grin returns and he lets out an excited 'whoop,' growing brave enough to throw one arm in the air.]

You're amazing, Mal! This is amazing!

[ tell her something she doesn't know. 😌

she banks gently, and follows the coastline east. the sun hovers almost directly above them. nona's populated center surrenders to green and blue. the whole of the city looks like an act of defiance actually: humans exerting their influence over nature. an attempt to impose grids and straight lines onto weaving vines and crooked trees.

mal is betting on the plants.

before long, the ground shifts beneath them to rock and sand and inevitably gives way to water. they fly above magnificent rocky formations jutting out of the sea. now over the sea, mal decreases her altitude. coral reefs wind through the water below. she follows the line of them to a smaller island chain sitting off the coast of llave. many aren't islands, but cays and islets just barely rising above the white-crested waves. choosing the largest, mal spills air from her wings and descends.

mindful of her brother clinging to her back, mal brings them in for a gentle landing on a white beach littered with seashells and dry seaweed. various sea creatures retreat into burrows or the waves on her approach. lying down on the sun-warmed sand, mal turns her head that she may catch sight of nico from the corner of her eyes. her eye crinkles warmly. ]

[He's as careful dismounting as he was mounting, stepping lightly until he can catapult himself down into the sand to move in front of her for better eye contact.]

We just went flying, Mal. And Zeus didn't even try to knock us out of the sky! [He says it like it's a revelation even if Mal had insisted that wouldn't be a problem, because for him, it is a revelation.

Now that he's safely on the ground again, he gives her another once over, reaching out to run a gentle hand along he scales.]

You're really the coolest sister.

[ if nico has never seen a dragon winking at him before, he is definitely witness to it now.

the same purple fog as before envelops mal's dragon body. her head lifts to the sky as it covers her entirely. no sooner has it hidden her completely from sight, that it collapses inward as if being sucked by a vacuum. and it is mal in her humanesque form standing on the sand.

there is a change, though. instead of the clothes given to them, she wears a pale dress made of multiple layers of a fine, gauzy material varying in shade from deepest purple to palest blue. the dress features a dramatic high-low skirt. the cap sleeves are shaped like a dragon's wings. fingerless gloves made of the same gauzy material stretch up to her elbows. a gold and amethyst and sapphire hand chain stretches from her middle finger to her elbow, the metal and gemstones laid out resembling the bones in her hand and forearm. a gold dragon coils around her neck, its head resting against the hollow of her throat. another dragon wraps around her ankle, her feet bare on the hot sand. and across her brow a circlet of gold and purple diamonds marks her status.

mal looks down at herself. ]

Ah. We're doing this again.

[Nico, still grinning but now with an air of mischief widens his eyes at her appearance and then raises an eyebrow.]

...I feel like I should bow. Am I supposed to bow? [He doesn't exactly snicker but he's also not not snickering.]

I mean, you look very nice, Mal.

[ mal playfully smirks at him. ]

You are supposed to get on your knees and pray.

[ she makes a point of looking him up and down with a grandiose air. ]

Peasant.

[Nico laughs and gets on one knee, kneeling as if in fealty.]

Like this? [Only he can't hold it and he falls over laughing, cheeks aching from how hard he's smiling. He lays there in the sand and starfishes his arms and legs, blinking up into the bright sun and letting out a soft sigh.]

Still can't believe you can turn into a dragon. One of my friends back home can turn into a bunch of animals but you're so much cooler than him.

...thanks for taking me out like this. It was kind of a tough day.

I am very much one of a kind.

[ mal joins nico on the sand, though a second later a wide black parasol pops out of the ground. her skin has never been a fan of the sun, and her new clothes—while infinitely cooler and lighter than her previous attire—don’t provide much in the way of sun protection.

for a moment, she lies back, feeling the heat of the sand on her back, and listening to the sound of the waves. her hand finds nico’s.

turning her head, she catches his eye with a smile. ]

What else are sisters for?

[While Nico isn't especially great at tanning, he's also clearly not as smart as Mal and his lips turn up a bit at the shadow that falls over them both. It feels better, the heat of the sun still warming them but the comfort of darkness lying over them like a blanket.

His fingers curl around hers in response, saying all the things he doesn't know how to say. How the bad day was getting to him. How he couldn't stop thinking about Jason. How he missed his home. The thoughts aren't gone entirely, they linger in the back of his mind, but they don't feel nearly so overwhelming. Not in the shadows with his sister's hand tight in his.]

I can't think of a single thing. Man, I feel terrible for all those people out there who don't have sisters. How sad for them.

[ the corner of her mouth turning up in a smirk— ] Well, I’m stuck with a brother. Can I trade you in?

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