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cityofhex2016-12-05 08:43 pm
modmachine) wrote in cityofhex2016-12-05 08:43 pm
WEEK 03
Preparation for the holidays continues at a steady - if slow - pace. Almost all traces of Halloween are gone by now, except for a few rotting pumpkins shoved into compost heaps, but with over a month until Christmas and the Day of Lights, nobody is yet in a hurry. Still, a few early holiday shoppers are out and about, usually in pairs if they aren't families with children, happily chattering about gift plans.
Weather forecast: The rain has passed, and days grow clear again for this week. Hex’s weather has been getting colder, and people are bundling up a bit more - even those who don’t need to, just in an effort to fit in. Hats and gloves are being prominently displayed in stores, even if they’re not strictly needed yet.
Moon phase: The moon is full on Monday the fourteenth, reaching peak fullness over the city at about 2AM. Afterwards, it begins to wane.
More employment: More decorations for the Day of Lights are going up, with some stronger-backed labor being recruited for the stockrooms in preparation for the incoming holiday rush. No one seems concerned about work history, a boon for people without a human paper trail. The park lights aren't finished yet, either, though things are on schedule to open next week.
Hitting the books: To prepare for the holidays, and raise funds for their community party, the library near the university is selling some of its used books. Most of them are fine, if an odd selection - you might find a cookbook, or you might find a book of poetry. There’s something weird about the books, though - a few of them smell faintly of mint. Watching over all of this is a sharp-eyed librarian. Don’t take a book without paying, or she’ll get up from her desk and try to block the door. She keeps having to chase away teenagers with dirty hands, too.
Bake sale: Some of the local schools are starting to take up donations for their holiday parties. One in particular in the residential district is holding a bake sale in front of the elementary school for an hour each day after classes let out. If you can fight through the sea of small children hoping someone will buy them something, you’ll find a variety of brownies, cookies, and tiny cakes. Many of them are lopsided, but a few look put together by expert hands. They cost more, of course, but it’s all for a good cause. A grouchy mother can be found near the cash box at all times, making sure no one steals the money.
Whoo are you?: Malin will notice that owls seem to be happening at her; they're hard to see, just shapes against the lesser-dark of the night sky, but they definitely seem to be watching her. They particularly seem to gather when she feeds. If she doesn't confront them, this will increase slowly but measurably throughout the week.
Time waits for no one: An old clock tower in the part of downtown leading into the Sixth has been restored to functionality... Mostly. The belltower stands empty, though there's a visible place where a bell should be hung, several stories above the floor. Ryoji might find the scene familiar. On Wednesday evening, there is some kind of reopening gathering at the church below it; the brief service and meet-and-greet is not particularly unusual, save that the young Acolyte handing out papers in the entry won't step into the congregation hall itself.
Like a dog with a bad...: In the Sixth, the construction is ongoing, still with the same handful of men, who rotate through almost like randomly generated NPCs. Lurking around outside is a thickly built man, who watches the whole goings-on with suspicion; strangely, he seems to be watching it mostly through the camera on his phone. On Friday morning, though it shouldn't be cold enough for frost, three of the strangely similar men slip on patches of ice and fall behind a half-finished wall... Where they vanish completely. They reappear after lunch, if it's even the same men, with no signs of injury. That afternoon, the man with his phone looks smug.
A touch of the season: And speaking of ice, passage into many of the city's Avernian Gates is blocked this week by a thick frost that seals the entries shut. An Unsettling Youth and his girlfriend can occasionally be seen investigating them; though they're constantly together, they don't seem much inclined to talk to each other. Occasionally, she'll drape her arm over his shoulders and giggle, while he looks confused; other times, she seems almost to shy away from him.
Weather forecast: The rain has passed, and days grow clear again for this week. Hex’s weather has been getting colder, and people are bundling up a bit more - even those who don’t need to, just in an effort to fit in. Hats and gloves are being prominently displayed in stores, even if they’re not strictly needed yet.
Moon phase: The moon is full on Monday the fourteenth, reaching peak fullness over the city at about 2AM. Afterwards, it begins to wane.
More employment: More decorations for the Day of Lights are going up, with some stronger-backed labor being recruited for the stockrooms in preparation for the incoming holiday rush. No one seems concerned about work history, a boon for people without a human paper trail. The park lights aren't finished yet, either, though things are on schedule to open next week.
Hitting the books: To prepare for the holidays, and raise funds for their community party, the library near the university is selling some of its used books. Most of them are fine, if an odd selection - you might find a cookbook, or you might find a book of poetry. There’s something weird about the books, though - a few of them smell faintly of mint. Watching over all of this is a sharp-eyed librarian. Don’t take a book without paying, or she’ll get up from her desk and try to block the door. She keeps having to chase away teenagers with dirty hands, too.
Bake sale: Some of the local schools are starting to take up donations for their holiday parties. One in particular in the residential district is holding a bake sale in front of the elementary school for an hour each day after classes let out. If you can fight through the sea of small children hoping someone will buy them something, you’ll find a variety of brownies, cookies, and tiny cakes. Many of them are lopsided, but a few look put together by expert hands. They cost more, of course, but it’s all for a good cause. A grouchy mother can be found near the cash box at all times, making sure no one steals the money.
Whoo are you?: Malin will notice that owls seem to be happening at her; they're hard to see, just shapes against the lesser-dark of the night sky, but they definitely seem to be watching her. They particularly seem to gather when she feeds. If she doesn't confront them, this will increase slowly but measurably throughout the week.
Time waits for no one: An old clock tower in the part of downtown leading into the Sixth has been restored to functionality... Mostly. The belltower stands empty, though there's a visible place where a bell should be hung, several stories above the floor. Ryoji might find the scene familiar. On Wednesday evening, there is some kind of reopening gathering at the church below it; the brief service and meet-and-greet is not particularly unusual, save that the young Acolyte handing out papers in the entry won't step into the congregation hall itself.
Like a dog with a bad...: In the Sixth, the construction is ongoing, still with the same handful of men, who rotate through almost like randomly generated NPCs. Lurking around outside is a thickly built man, who watches the whole goings-on with suspicion; strangely, he seems to be watching it mostly through the camera on his phone. On Friday morning, though it shouldn't be cold enough for frost, three of the strangely similar men slip on patches of ice and fall behind a half-finished wall... Where they vanish completely. They reappear after lunch, if it's even the same men, with no signs of injury. That afternoon, the man with his phone looks smug.
A touch of the season: And speaking of ice, passage into many of the city's Avernian Gates is blocked this week by a thick frost that seals the entries shut. An Unsettling Youth and his girlfriend can occasionally be seen investigating them; though they're constantly together, they don't seem much inclined to talk to each other. Occasionally, she'll drape her arm over his shoulders and giggle, while he looks confused; other times, she seems almost to shy away from him.
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That's easier to state than to explain why, or why it is such a risk, but ...it's dangerous. It's foolish. But she feels like she owes him an answer. Wants to answer. And if she keeps it a bit vague, maybe it will not be that bad.
"I'm a lot more vulnerable during the day than during the night, so for anyone to know where I am during that time..." Anyone whose loyalty she hasn't made certain. Or anyone whose knowledge of her whereabouts she can't help, but that's still dangerous. Just something that she couldn't help for the longest time. "I haven't known you for very long, and I can't enforce your loyalty." At least she's fairly sure that he can't be blood bonded, and she very much wouldn't want to, either.
For more reasons than that she likes having him as this... friend? Maybe. But also because she still feels really uneasy about blood bonding in general.
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"I can look at it."
She's still not sure, and honestly ...she trusts Corwin more than anyone else, though that really doesn't mean much. But she trusts him enough to at least consider this. Still, he's probably capable of breaking down the door, so at least for the first couple of nights, she might want to push something in front of it to secure it further.
"There is only one key?"
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...days not nights lmao
That is a 'most likely, yes', though. There are reasons for and reasons against it, and only some of them area rational. There is also the odd unrest that settles on her when she's around Corwin, the feeling of being on edge, and warring with it the feeling that he's ...a friend. Or something closer to it than she's known in a very long time, at least. What does being friends even entail?
I didn't even notice, haha XD
It isn't far. Past the den, around the corner, and there's the single open bedroom right there, door ajar. This one looks a little nicer than the rest of the house, with an only slightly threadbare quilt on the bed and a dresser painted carefully white. It's as if he's kept it in constant readiness in the hopes of someday, maybe, having a guest for the night-and-or-day. There is a window, but like the rest its curtains are heavy and drawn tight against outsiders. The window, if peeked through, opens onto the tiny snow-dotted backyard, neatly fenced in and mostly bare except for a few more pieces of lab equipment and a picnic table.
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Once in the room, she'll eye the curtains critically, and wander over to poke at them with a hand - her sleeves are still covering all of them, but the motion makes it very clear that the fingers underneath aren't quite human. Normal human fingers aren't that long and pointy.
"Are they black-out curtains?" Even then, sun might filter in through cracks... she should probably just pull a blanket over herself and perhaps sleep behind or under the bed. Just to be safe.
She's not really used to sleeping in rooms any more, but she has slept under much worse conditions when she was still in Copenhagen. Before meeting Lars she'd alternated between squatting or just finding a tucked away corner. And even after meeting Lars she'd returned to that sometimes, unable to give up on her relative freedom ...the one upside of living in Lise's house had been that she'd been so deep down in the basement that sunlight wasn't a concern.
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Or something like that. Somewhere where she can be absolutely sure that no sunlight can hit her.
Really, she's slept in a lot worse places than on a rug under a bed. ...Though, she realizes, she might not fit.
She'll very likely not fit, not with her wings (and to be fair she got the idea from something that she did back when she still lived in her parents' place, and she was a good deal smaller than just because she wasn't fully grown yet). She looks around the room, trying to see if there is an alternative.
"...We could shove the wardrobe in front of the window." It should be big enough to block it completely.
yikes, missed this one in my last round, sorry about that!
np!
"We can move the furniture together." She has no supernatural strength, but she can still pull some weight, and doing this together will be easier either way. Being able to lift more corners and such.
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She's really doing this, isn't she? Is it a good idea? She's putting a lot of trust in Corwin here. More than she thinks she has in her. But anything else isn't a solution in the long run, either.
No. She has to try this. She'll just have to get out during the nights - as much as she likes being around Corwin for the factor of having someone to talk to and having someone to look like herself around to and someone to cautiously lower her shields around and... well, someone like a friend. As much as she likes it (as much as she likes that he seems to be so excited about all of this) she is well aware that he's putting her on edge, and she just can't risk frenzying because she keeps exposing herself to him too much.
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So she just nods and helps him put them up. "Do you pick everything you can out of the trash?"
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Really, if anything they seem to shun the place.
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...Speaking of which, she should really pick up something to do that is not survival now that she has a place to stay for the day and settled into a routine for feeding.