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cityofhex2016-11-16 10:32 pm
modmachine) wrote in cityofhex2016-11-16 10:32 pm
WEEK 02
With Halloween past, the weekend of November 5-6 brings the beginnings of holiday trappings, as businesses begin to put up lights and other decorations for Monday. Residential areas, too, begin to pick up on the trend; throughout the whole month there will be a slow but steady increase in front lawn decorations.
Interestingly, though some are close parallels to the Christmas decorations that those from Earth will be familiar with, many aren't quite right. Locals, if asked, talk about something called the Day of Lights as much as they do Christmas or any other holiday; it's easy to find out that the amber-yellow and blue lights common in shops are for this holiday, and that it takes place on the last night of autumn, before the solstice. Snowflakes and candles are the most common motifs.
Changelings seem especially into the Day of Lights, and it is a near-assurance that they will be picking up blue candles for it as the month goes on.
Weather forecast: In a word: dreary. Small showers through Monday and Tuesday grow into full rain throughout Wednesday, continuing on Thursday and as a light misting on Friday. The weekend looks clear of rain, but is still chilly and cloudy. There is still no frost, though it's expected by the end of the month; gardeners are moving potted plants inside and putting cover over the more fragile ones for winter.
Moon phase: The moon reaches a first quarter on Monday the seventh, and continues to grow throughout the week.
Employment Opportunity: Those who are of adult age in the city can get work collecting holiday donations for charity, or, for those more inclined to physical labor, a park in the residential district is putting up lights for a holiday attraction. Additionally, plenty of shops are hiring for the upcoming retail season.
Free lunch?: Though there doesn't seem to be an equivalent to Thanksgiving in Hex, food banks are brimming with holiday spirit right now, and in addition to their usual offerings, many are handing out warm lunches to those in need, usually soup or hot sandwiches, sometimes pizza. While those at any given food bank will side-eye someone who tries to come in more than once, it's easily possible to make a circuit of them and get quite a bit of food, especially if you're familiar with the bus system.
Photo finish: Hajime gets a mild of small publicity for his candid photos of celebrations throughout the city, and on Friday will get a call about a potential contract for photos of decorations throughout December. He also gets sent an email about a campus-sponsored holiday fashion show at the end of the month - something Ryoji will hear about mostly via various rumours among the students.
Fueling the Art: At a coffee shop on the fringes of the campus, an Art Student can be found most every morning, sipping a latte and working on sketches. The Coffeeshop Manager, a man in his late thirties with a pair of small sunglasses perched on his cheeks in spite of the grey weather, occasionally offers her tips. Those with a keen eye will notice that walls made of gears are a common motif in the art that hangs around the shop.
The Ides of Fall: Out on the Island The Summer Queen is called before her Autumn peer and taken to task for her unauthorized gathering. She leaves his court fuming quietly to herself, and later in the week Makoto will receive a message - "Watch the falling leaves, but don't go chasing them." Several others of the Summer Court get the same message.
Sweet Loot: On the morning of the tenth, Kitty will find a locket and a note in with her stashed clothes. The locket is full of orange glitter that seems to stick to the inside, and the outside is worked with leaves. The note simply says TREAT in letters that are all distinctly different. When Kitty uses a finger to apply the glitter to something, it leaves glowing orange marks that only she can see, unless someone else sees her apply them or she intentionally shows them to someone.
Richter and Corwin, meanwhile, will each find a piece of candy hanging from their doorknobs the same morning, tied on with a ribbon that trails glitter on any surface it touches. The candy is wrapped in clear plastic, and has a strange flavor neither will be able to place.
Right on Schedule: The trains in Hex are going nowhere fast, but they do seem to have changed routes, frequently passing alongside an area of the wall that they used to avoid. New Arrivals, as well as Hajime and anyone else who can see Infrastructure, will note strangely runed plates of metal under this section of track - plates which seem to be directly attached to the Wall via cables. Every time a train passes over them, the plates spark with bright green, though nothing about the train itself seems to change.
Through the Grapevine: Though Network Zero is usually considered a Hunter organization, plenty of supernaturals also make use of it to keep their eyes out for threats - and their eyes on each other. One or two of Hajime's photos of the changeling gathering is making the rounds, with the odd horned skulls in the bonfire circled in Photoshop, but perhaps more relevantly, there's a couple photos of Malin from a distance that have fallen into the grasp of a current meme ("Is this bat ok?") and three photos of men doing construction work on a building in the Sixth that seems innocuous until it's pointed out that most of the men are completely identical.
Interestingly, though some are close parallels to the Christmas decorations that those from Earth will be familiar with, many aren't quite right. Locals, if asked, talk about something called the Day of Lights as much as they do Christmas or any other holiday; it's easy to find out that the amber-yellow and blue lights common in shops are for this holiday, and that it takes place on the last night of autumn, before the solstice. Snowflakes and candles are the most common motifs.
Changelings seem especially into the Day of Lights, and it is a near-assurance that they will be picking up blue candles for it as the month goes on.
Weather forecast: In a word: dreary. Small showers through Monday and Tuesday grow into full rain throughout Wednesday, continuing on Thursday and as a light misting on Friday. The weekend looks clear of rain, but is still chilly and cloudy. There is still no frost, though it's expected by the end of the month; gardeners are moving potted plants inside and putting cover over the more fragile ones for winter.
Moon phase: The moon reaches a first quarter on Monday the seventh, and continues to grow throughout the week.
Employment Opportunity: Those who are of adult age in the city can get work collecting holiday donations for charity, or, for those more inclined to physical labor, a park in the residential district is putting up lights for a holiday attraction. Additionally, plenty of shops are hiring for the upcoming retail season.
Free lunch?: Though there doesn't seem to be an equivalent to Thanksgiving in Hex, food banks are brimming with holiday spirit right now, and in addition to their usual offerings, many are handing out warm lunches to those in need, usually soup or hot sandwiches, sometimes pizza. While those at any given food bank will side-eye someone who tries to come in more than once, it's easily possible to make a circuit of them and get quite a bit of food, especially if you're familiar with the bus system.
Photo finish: Hajime gets a mild of small publicity for his candid photos of celebrations throughout the city, and on Friday will get a call about a potential contract for photos of decorations throughout December. He also gets sent an email about a campus-sponsored holiday fashion show at the end of the month - something Ryoji will hear about mostly via various rumours among the students.
Fueling the Art: At a coffee shop on the fringes of the campus, an Art Student can be found most every morning, sipping a latte and working on sketches. The Coffeeshop Manager, a man in his late thirties with a pair of small sunglasses perched on his cheeks in spite of the grey weather, occasionally offers her tips. Those with a keen eye will notice that walls made of gears are a common motif in the art that hangs around the shop.
The Ides of Fall: Out on the Island The Summer Queen is called before her Autumn peer and taken to task for her unauthorized gathering. She leaves his court fuming quietly to herself, and later in the week Makoto will receive a message - "Watch the falling leaves, but don't go chasing them." Several others of the Summer Court get the same message.
Sweet Loot: On the morning of the tenth, Kitty will find a locket and a note in with her stashed clothes. The locket is full of orange glitter that seems to stick to the inside, and the outside is worked with leaves. The note simply says TREAT in letters that are all distinctly different. When Kitty uses a finger to apply the glitter to something, it leaves glowing orange marks that only she can see, unless someone else sees her apply them or she intentionally shows them to someone.
Richter and Corwin, meanwhile, will each find a piece of candy hanging from their doorknobs the same morning, tied on with a ribbon that trails glitter on any surface it touches. The candy is wrapped in clear plastic, and has a strange flavor neither will be able to place.
Right on Schedule: The trains in Hex are going nowhere fast, but they do seem to have changed routes, frequently passing alongside an area of the wall that they used to avoid. New Arrivals, as well as Hajime and anyone else who can see Infrastructure, will note strangely runed plates of metal under this section of track - plates which seem to be directly attached to the Wall via cables. Every time a train passes over them, the plates spark with bright green, though nothing about the train itself seems to change.
Through the Grapevine: Though Network Zero is usually considered a Hunter organization, plenty of supernaturals also make use of it to keep their eyes out for threats - and their eyes on each other. One or two of Hajime's photos of the changeling gathering is making the rounds, with the odd horned skulls in the bonfire circled in Photoshop, but perhaps more relevantly, there's a couple photos of Malin from a distance that have fallen into the grasp of a current meme ("Is this bat ok?") and three photos of men doing construction work on a building in the Sixth that seems innocuous until it's pointed out that most of the men are completely identical.
OTA
Though Corwin is delighted to find the candy-- rather like he was with the dead bird the week before-- he doesn't eat it. After all, he doesn't need to eat. He brings it inside and sets it up with his experiments, and when he discovers the ribbon leaves glitter everywhere, he ties it around his wrist and spends the rest of the day getting glitter on absolutely everything, from the garbage truck to the garbage cans to the doors of various shops he stops by, including the coffee shop with the constant Art Student, not to mention all over his clothes and home.
He seems to find this pretty awesome, though, despite people around him being disgusted by the glitter.
II. Supernatural Activity
Corwin does, in fact, know about Network Zero. It's a survival strategy to know where the people who would be the most zealous and the most efficient about disanimating you are going to strike next, after all, so his maker included explaining about that, and how to find the sites in question to garner information, in the few things related to the supernatural community (such as it is) that he imparted before sending Corwin out on his own. Besides, it usually has such very interesting things in it!
So he spends one of his off-days visiting and curiously watching the construction building on Sixths out of curiosity-- are they perhaps created beings like himself?-- and he spends one harrowing night trying to find Malin, with a print-out of the picture of her and a guilty heart, certain that it's his fault she was discovered.
III. Etc
Of course, there's still the routine. Corwin is a creature of habit. He still spends the first half of each weekday hauling trash cans around and taking loads of garbage to the city dump. Then he spends his afternoon finding somewhere to sit and watch people, or even talk with them if they're amenable. It's a different place every day... just to be safe.
One day a week he spends his afternoon working for one of the food banks, volunteering, after delivering half a paycheck's worth of groceries. Even if he doesn't need to eat, he knows humans do, and he would hate for them to go hungry! He'll smile, greet anyone coming in for hot or storable food cheerfully if raspily, and do whatever is asked of him, within reason, to help.
Thankfully the weather makes his ubiquitous long coat and the hoodie underneath it standard attire for just about everyone, though for him it's less because of the cold and wet and more to hide the occasional dark rents in his skin and his gawky, unnatural bearing. The sunglasses he wears day, night, indoors, and outdoors are still weird no matter how you look at it. Oh, well. He's used to being weird.
II
Or, rather, let her notice that he is out and about and apparently searching for something.
It's three in the morning already when she spots him for the third time, and this time is absolutely sure that he isn't doing something specific except for searching.
During the last days, she's always worked the same way - using the Protean discipline to not appear in her usual body except for feeding and sleep. Making frequent use of disciplines obviously also meant that she needed to feed more, but it still seemed to be the safest option. And it wasn't like re-integrating into society was a concern to keep in mind, so getting used to being a fox or an owl wasn't an issue.
The thought tasted bitter now. The last days hadn't been particularly kind on her mood. She'd managed to disentangle herself from most of her human needs back home, but this place made her sharply aware of them. Corwin had both helped and furthered the problem, the one simple amiable conversation making her realize just how much the need for sentient company was still there.
Corwin will have an owl swoop down and land on his head, quietly as the night. While he doesn't know that she can take this form, too, she hopes that he'll be able to deduct her identity correctly from just landing on people's heads being a really weird behaviour for an owl.
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Though he can, at least, assume whatever this is, it isn't natural, because it isn't trying to hurt him. He can feel the sharp claws through his hood and hair, but they aren't pricking his skin, really. Thus, logic dictates this must be at least like Malin, even if it isn't actually her: a sentient being in another form.
So he clears his throat, still holding very, unnaturally still, and says, "Um, hello? I can't see you, but if you'd like a better perch, you may have my arm. It will be much easier to grip, I think, than my head." And to go along with the offer, he extends one arm, aiming for whatever this is to hop down onto it, if it so wishes.
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And then she sits there and rotates her head sidewards.
What brings you here?
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She uses one wing to bat him in the face when he reveals what he thinks to have been that mysterious second animal. Really?
But that's probably not a very conclusive way of telling him that he's looking at that fox right now. She'll have to lead him to a space here they can talk, probably. Hm.
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It turns out he can, in fact, babble a little when the moment hits him.
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She tilts her head at him. Why is he worried?
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I - Art Student
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"Oh, is that-- did I do that? It won't get in your way when you work, will it?" He doesn't seem terribly apologetic, because who can really complain about glitter? But if it gets in the way of her work, he might feel bad anyway.
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II
Ryoji's just chilling with a textbook on a bench near the construction, pretending to be studying but keeping an eye on them. And as such, he notices the other person lingering around and wonders what they're there for. If Corwin wanders by him, he'll give the... being (something is not quite right about him) a smile. "Hello! How are you?"
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