multiversallogs | How many goodly creatures are there here!

How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

Welcome to Baedal.

These are the first words newcomers hear when the door opens and they are invited into their new world. Some fuss, some fight, some need time before they have the courage to step outside. Others, shell-shocked or jaded, go quietly along with the proceedings.

They are given brief instructions; a repeat of what's described in the pamphlet and a door key.

Please stay in your room. There will be dinner soon.

It's been almost a day for some. For others, only an hour's wait. The latest newcomer is lead straight from the arrival room to the dining hall where candles and lanterns have been set out to compensate for failing electricity. (Those who have been here longer explain about rolling blackouts.) The food, however, is warm, varied and plentiful. Seating is open, and less conventional chair are available to those who need them.

There are many strange faces around the table, the majority of these recent arrivals. The proprietor of the Valhalla Inn is here, as is some of her staff. The Sheriff of Mog Hill is introduced, his function detailed. The reason for the dinner is explained:

It's a celebration. A new cohort has finally been officiated; CeidaryBlue523. Your cohort. Please. Introduce yourself. Mingle. Get to know your fellows, they will be your brothers and sisters for as long as you live in this city.

((OOC post for discussion and coordination.))

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Well, would you look at that - something genuinely a little surprising. The brief flash in his eyes of something almost startled (and almost pleased) is irrelevant, however, because Martel's response is to study Balthier with a dry expression, glance down at his meal, look back up-

"I appear to be eating my dinner. Am I to be henpecked to death before the day's out?"

'Irrelevent' Balthier's well-toned leather-wrapped arse. That fraction of a moment is all he needs to confirm that Martel is in the very same proverbial boat he is, all bullshit aside. So he doesn't say anything, and just raises his eyebrows, because no you don't appear to be eating your dinner, sirrah, you appear to be tolerating being in yet another new dimensional prison that's not the afterlife with your usual self-imposed apathy.

But.

He sits down, moving with a particular and guarded sort of grace, like he's half-expecting all the furniture in this place to sprout tentacles and come at them. There's always a sense about Balthier that he might just flicker away into the light, a being of energy uncomfortably trapped in the world of the flesh, and it's so very pronounced, now.

"At least you're immune to whatever that's supposed to be." ...Inspecting Martel's dish, now.

It is an apathy that serves him well, Balthier, so get bent. (With love.)

"If I'm not, I expect we'll know in short order." Because using the dead man (who isn't dead any more; it's been months and he still doesn't know precisely what to do with that) as a canary in the proverbial coal mine is a good idea. After a moment, because even Martel's dedication to bland sass isn't limitless, "How long has it been?"

He can't be sure. (This irritates him.)

"How the hell should I know?" He makes a face and actually looks his age for a moment as he rubs the center of his forehead in irritation. "I remember being in the city of sin, falling asleep on the roof, a very long, abstract dream, and then waking up here. You'd think I'd end up at home in the interim, but no. Do we have blasted multiverse pheromones on us, or some other damn thing. Shiva's tits, man."

"Perhaps I should've had something stronger than water," Martel reflects, to no one in particular. (He is aware that a solid part of his indifference to the situation - or his ability to feign it - is the simple fact that he truly has no where better to be. He prefers not to think too hard about this, on the whole, since it only leads to brooding alone in the dark, and that's just sad.)

"Oh, shut up." How would you like to be kicked under the table, Martel - no, he's not actually going to do that. But he considered it. For a while, Balthier actually manages to look both like he's lounging and sulking at once (it's a skill), until he sighs and leans forward on his elbows, speaking to the older man but watching other people about the room.

"Think there's an apocalypse in this one?"

"I smell bureaucracy in action," he returns dryly, ostensibly returning his attention to his meal (but by now, Balthier likely knows him too well to think that means a damn thing). "There'll be something - mark me." Bete Noire fed on them in some way, as he understands it; Baedal lacks that same oppressive taint, but he has his doubts that any place wholesale pressgangs its population just for giggles.

Though, he thinks sourly, perhaps he shouldn't underestimate the ability of gods to go about a particular whim in the most arse-about-face fashion possible.

"My favorite things," he sighs. "Gods and politics." The familiarity of it only makes his impossible bitterness even more biting. Would it be too much to ask to have trapped Fran with him, if he had to be trapped?

Might as well grab something to eat.

"Just so." Right down to the part where they might as well eat something while they're here; if this is life for the foreseeable future, it isn't as though he serves anyone (least of all himself) by standing in a corner sulking. (...well, not right now, at least.) "We'll see which way it goes."

In time, which seems to be all Martel has an abundance of.

"Bugger everything." Deadpan.

The food isn't bad, and he manages not to seem too sullen as he eats it - it's a deceptive bit of posturing, anyway. He doesn't want any of these strangers in here to get too secure of an idea about him. The closeness of it all is positively unnerving; he's going to bolt at first opportunity, but then, it's likely Martel knows that already.

Having already found somewhere to stable Kalten, Martel won't be far behind Balthier when it comes to getting the hell out of here; he needs a job and a place to live, and practically speaking it'll likely come in that order. All the same, he (correctly) expects Balthier to be out before he is, and they'll do as suits them.

Conveniently, it tends to suit them to coordinate. (He doesn't really think in terms of 'friendship', even if he knows that's what it is.)

After a while, "I brought the horse."

With all the drama Martel is surely expecting from that, Balthier sighs and throws up his hands. "That thing."

Your world's animals, man. Why.

"I think he likes you," he adds, after a mouthful of whatever it is he's eating, his tone mild, even thoughtful. There are worse ways of relieving stress and tension than needling at each other in the dining hall, after all.

"Yes, my dear, most lower-functioning creatures are fascinated by shiny things." A drawl, this time, one elbow on the table with his chin propped on his hand, he picks through his food with the other.

Martel makes a faint, mocking 'tch' sound, lowly, amused. "Darling. You'll break his heart."

Presumably Balthier can celebrate that while he's revelling in being the first and last man that Martel will ever refer to thus.

They have a very special relationship, these two.

"That's fine, I am powered by misery, after all." How droll. He eats, tolerant of the food - it doesn't remind him of what was so pervasive all over Bete Noire, at least.

It is what it is - mostly strange and unsettling, to be honest, but there's something oddly reassuring about the knowledge that he isn't starting all over again (again). Loneliness is not something Martel wishes to admit to any more than homesickness, but it is the ache more readily eased.

"No doubt explaining a great deal. Have you seen anyone else you recognize as yet?"

"Not as such," he says. "I've only barely been about, and then I noticed your familiar brooding self." Balthier needs to check if Ashe is anywhere, though she was the first person he looked for. He'll look more - even though he hopes she's just been sent off home.

"But if we're here." Sigh.

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How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

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