Sameen Shaw (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cactusy) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2024-09-02 11:52 am
cactusy) wrote in singillatim2024-09-02 11:52 am
[open] arrival
Who: Sameen Shaw & OTA
What: August 2024 TDM prompts, getting bearings
When: Mid- to late August
Where: Milton and the surrounding environs
arrival / you lying next to me TDM prompt
It doesn't make sense for this to be real, Shaw thinks, because reality rarely involves falling asleep in a New York City flophouse and waking up completely alone in the middle of nowhere - but it also doesn't make sense for it to be a simulation, because the simulations hadn't worked like this, either. That means that this is more confusing than unsettling - and all that confusion does is make her angry.
No enemies are in sight, which is a bust for her; it means she can't jump right into a shootout, take down some kidnapping bad guys, and get some answers. She does keep her handgun out and at the ready as she walks along, keeping up a brisk and steady pace in an attempt to ward off the chill that she can already feel seeping through her tight jeans and leather jacket. It just figures that this crap had to be pulled on her when she was woefully underdressed for winter weather - but she can at least count herself lucky that she'd passed out fully dressed. As much as this sucks, she knows it would be downright impossible if she were barefoot and wearing PJs.
Luckily, she spots the far-off lights of town in a matter of minutes, which spares her from having to cross her fingers and pick a random direction to walk in. She has no illusions that this place is going to be either safe or full of friendlies, but considering the lack of immediate options at her disposal, she can't afford to be picky. She'll sneak over and scope it out, do some recon, and get a feel for what's going on before she makes herself known. Whether she approaches as a civilian or as an agent going in guns a-blazing will depend on what she finds.
Or that's the plan, anyway. What actually happens is that she tromps across a small frozen pond that's been completely hidden by drifting snow, and the ice underfoot only makes itself known when it cracks unceremoniously under her feet, depositing her into two feet of slushy, marshy, freezing water.
Methuselah's feast TDM prompt
One way or another, Shaw will find her way to Milton. Maybe whoever helps her out of the water takes her there directly, or maybe they warm her up elsewhere and she makes her way to town on her own later. Either way, she eventually ends up in a free bed in the Community Hall, where she'll crash for ten or twelve hours straight.
Shaw herself isn't sure how long she sleeps, but it's comparatively warm, and there's no immediate, obvious danger, so she'd guess that it's a good long while before the smell of fish stew wakes her up. After that, barely a minute passes between her opening her eyes and dropping herself down into an empty chair at the feast table. Questions later. Sustenance first. She's halfway through with her bowl of stew and plate of grilled fish before she looks up for long enough to turn to one of her seatmates.
"So - where are we, and what's with the old guy?"
hot springs
Freezing cold water is fine for sponge baths and washing clothes, but for someone who just recently took an accidental bath in a pond and isn't looking to repeat the experience, the hot springs sound a lot more enticing. Shaw makes her way there a few days after her arrival, the blanket from her bed wrapped around her shoulders (she'll want a way to dry off and warm up before redressing, she figures). Once in the cave, she sets the blanket aside, the strips down bare and walks directly into the water, letting out a heavy, relieved sigh as she settles herself down on the rocky bottom and sinks in almost to her nose.
"That's more like it," she murmurs, more to herself than to anyone else that might be nearby. After a moment or two, though, she does glance over at her fellow bather. "Guessing the conditioner in town's all out, though."
[OOC: Feel free to reply with either prose or brackets; I'll match format!]
What: August 2024 TDM prompts, getting bearings
When: Mid- to late August
Where: Milton and the surrounding environs
arrival / you lying next to me TDM prompt
It doesn't make sense for this to be real, Shaw thinks, because reality rarely involves falling asleep in a New York City flophouse and waking up completely alone in the middle of nowhere - but it also doesn't make sense for it to be a simulation, because the simulations hadn't worked like this, either. That means that this is more confusing than unsettling - and all that confusion does is make her angry.
No enemies are in sight, which is a bust for her; it means she can't jump right into a shootout, take down some kidnapping bad guys, and get some answers. She does keep her handgun out and at the ready as she walks along, keeping up a brisk and steady pace in an attempt to ward off the chill that she can already feel seeping through her tight jeans and leather jacket. It just figures that this crap had to be pulled on her when she was woefully underdressed for winter weather - but she can at least count herself lucky that she'd passed out fully dressed. As much as this sucks, she knows it would be downright impossible if she were barefoot and wearing PJs.
Luckily, she spots the far-off lights of town in a matter of minutes, which spares her from having to cross her fingers and pick a random direction to walk in. She has no illusions that this place is going to be either safe or full of friendlies, but considering the lack of immediate options at her disposal, she can't afford to be picky. She'll sneak over and scope it out, do some recon, and get a feel for what's going on before she makes herself known. Whether she approaches as a civilian or as an agent going in guns a-blazing will depend on what she finds.
Or that's the plan, anyway. What actually happens is that she tromps across a small frozen pond that's been completely hidden by drifting snow, and the ice underfoot only makes itself known when it cracks unceremoniously under her feet, depositing her into two feet of slushy, marshy, freezing water.
Methuselah's feast TDM prompt
One way or another, Shaw will find her way to Milton. Maybe whoever helps her out of the water takes her there directly, or maybe they warm her up elsewhere and she makes her way to town on her own later. Either way, she eventually ends up in a free bed in the Community Hall, where she'll crash for ten or twelve hours straight.
Shaw herself isn't sure how long she sleeps, but it's comparatively warm, and there's no immediate, obvious danger, so she'd guess that it's a good long while before the smell of fish stew wakes her up. After that, barely a minute passes between her opening her eyes and dropping herself down into an empty chair at the feast table. Questions later. Sustenance first. She's halfway through with her bowl of stew and plate of grilled fish before she looks up for long enough to turn to one of her seatmates.
"So - where are we, and what's with the old guy?"
hot springs
Freezing cold water is fine for sponge baths and washing clothes, but for someone who just recently took an accidental bath in a pond and isn't looking to repeat the experience, the hot springs sound a lot more enticing. Shaw makes her way there a few days after her arrival, the blanket from her bed wrapped around her shoulders (she'll want a way to dry off and warm up before redressing, she figures). Once in the cave, she sets the blanket aside, the strips down bare and walks directly into the water, letting out a heavy, relieved sigh as she settles herself down on the rocky bottom and sinks in almost to her nose.
"That's more like it," she murmurs, more to herself than to anyone else that might be nearby. After a moment or two, though, she does glance over at her fellow bather. "Guessing the conditioner in town's all out, though."
[OOC: Feel free to reply with either prose or brackets; I'll match format!]
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And yeah, yeah she can see the 'not me though' coming, but it does it to everyone.
“It didn't come at Midsummer, but it influenced people. Made us do things. I did experience that one, but it's hard to talk about it.”
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Maybe whoever that is won't find all the juicy stuff too hard to talk about.
"He the guy who just calls himself the Doctor?"
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“Oh, no. I don't think The Doctor is a medical professional. I doubt he's even got a PhD. The boat doc is in that passel of Victorian sailors you see around. The shorter doe-eyed mutton chop guy. He did an autopsy on the first person it killed.”
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So, okay. Death from fear. That's one topic down. Now on to the other, more unsettling one.
"If you can't talk about the stuff you were influenced into doing, why don't you use someone else as an example. What did it do to, I dunno, the last person you sat across a feast table from?"
Gory description of zombie murder, sorry Shaw...
“It did something to our minds. Twisted us up, amplified fears, made us violent. The last guy I sat across a table from killed a woman in the street and smashed her skull open to get at her brain.”
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For the first time in nearly a week - a record that had taken her some time to reach, and one that she now suspects she won't be making again anytime soon - Shaw's fingers drift up to the skin behind her left ear, rubbing lightly at it. No surgery scar. Either Samaritan's chip is still in there, or it was never there to begin with.
"What happened to the guy?" she asks, in the same even, subdued tone that she's been using for this entire conversation.
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“It really fucked him up when he came to, right, and then he got paraded up in front of the whole town with everyone else who’d killed anyone in this dumbass 'trial' where we had to vote on who deserved to be punished. We voted no one, obviously, because they were under fucking mind control, so what was the point of that aside from letting all of us know they can vote to kill us at any time, but whatever. Fucked him up that he didn't get punished too, and he took off into the woods for a month, had a bunch of us worried half to death. But he's fine now. My friend Lalo says the Viking girl knows how to make some ward for the mind control part of it.”
In contrast to Shaw, Chloe speaks very animatedly in the sort of tone you might use to describe your dog chewing up your pillow while you're at work.
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Poor Billy probably wouldn't have handled all of that very well by himself. Hickey is kind of bulletproof at this point, but Billy is more sensitive.
“Methuselah was there, but it wasn't his show, I don't think.”
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That's more of a head's up than she usually gives, so feel special, Chloe.
"If I asked someone else, someone who goes to all the nerdy meetings - would they know? Because even the people who don't care about politics know who the president is; I don't get how someone can live here and have no idea who's in charge."
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She shrugs. “Sometimes Bigby holds meetings - he's a cop - but I don't think he did that one. People were giving these stupid speeches and stuff. Dramatics aren't really his style.”
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Not too surprising, considering the haphazard nature of their arrivals here; anyone who positioned themselves as in charge would be as likely to be a power-hungry dictator as a democratically-elected leader. More likely, given what she knows of power vacuums.
"But what about Methuselah? He seems like he knows what's up."
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“Oh, Methuselah. I wouldn't count on him for anything. He knows stuff but won't say anything unless you go on one of his stupid little field trips, and people almost die on those all the time.”
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Sorry, Chloe; she's not seeing the issue here.
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"So fucked up that none of them could explain whether or not their guide attacked them?"
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She's joking, technically - but also, hell if she wouldn't consider it. He'd live; it'd be fine.
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“Not that I've seen, but people have gotten into it with him before on banquet day. When I got here a guy lost it on him because a picture of his family was on the gift table and he wouldn't say anything.”
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Talk of knifing a random old guy who may not actually deserve it counts as a joke, but this? No, she'd totally try punching answers out of him. If you don't want to risk getting hit, don't be cagey for no reason.
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