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calderamemes2025-09-30 11:55 pm
calderaevents) wrote in calderamemes2025-09-30 11:55 pm
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TDM #9
ARRIVAL
It happens in an instant. A heavy weight in your gut, a trembling of your limbs, the world spins and you barely have time to register that you're falling before you lose consciousness. And when you awaken, it's not where you were last. Dark, unadorned oak walls surround you in a tiny room, the only furniture the bed you are currently resting upon, and the bedside table with a folded piece of parchment resting atop it that simply reads:
As you exit you find others like yourself emerging from the surrounding rooms. You are indeed in a tavern, but there is no hustle and bustle one might think to hear in such a place. The only person down on the main floor is a humanoid figure wiping down the bar, who smiles when they see you. They're familiar, but not, and you can't quite place their face. For some reason, however, their presence is comforting and warm.
"Welcome, Visitor. I'm sure you have a lot of questions."
And you most certainly do.
Due to popular demand, the starter tavern and the drinks provided are available to in game characters via a portal accessible only to those with a faction gem.
DRINK MENU
PUMPKIN SPICE The second this delectable drink hits your tongue, you have the overwhelming urge to tell someone a story - specifically about something unbelievable that happened to you, be it true or not.
BLACK CAT You finish most sentences with cat-like mewls, trills, and other such sounds.
SINFUL CIDER made from a particular variety of apples with a sharp intense flavor and a smooth caramel finish, the tart sweetness blends perfectly with the spices. Suddenly you feel like you need to confess something.
BEETLEJUICE A Calderan fall delicacy, the drink is made by marinating beetles in a strong liquor reminiscent of malort. drinking 3 of them in a row is a common challenge, if you can stomach it...
HOT CHOCOLATE The standard fare with or without marshmallows. Drinking this makes you want to cuddle up with someone - anyone, really - especially by a fire.
HAZELNUTTY A hazelnut latté sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. You regard the first person you see as though you're their biggest fan and you're thrilled to meet them in the flesh.
BLACK CAT You finish most sentences with cat-like mewls, trills, and other such sounds.
SINFUL CIDER made from a particular variety of apples with a sharp intense flavor and a smooth caramel finish, the tart sweetness blends perfectly with the spices. Suddenly you feel like you need to confess something.
BEETLEJUICE A Calderan fall delicacy, the drink is made by marinating beetles in a strong liquor reminiscent of malort. drinking 3 of them in a row is a common challenge, if you can stomach it...
HOT CHOCOLATE The standard fare with or without marshmallows. Drinking this makes you want to cuddle up with someone - anyone, really - especially by a fire.
HAZELNUTTY A hazelnut latté sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. You regard the first person you see as though you're their biggest fan and you're thrilled to meet them in the flesh.
BEASTS ABOUND
The tavern is quiet. The crackling hearth, the soft clink of glassware, the Tavernkeeper's steady presence — it all feels strangely safe, as though this place was built to calm the soul. You've spoken, you've asked questions, and now the Tavernkeeper smiles gently, gesturing toward the far door.
"It is time, my friends, for you to find your new homes."
But before you can take a step, a sound rattles the tavern windows. A howl — low, mournful, and too close. The lanternlight flickers silver. Then the door you are meant to pass through slams open with a deafening bang.
Moonlight floods in.
Creatures spill across the threshold — animals, but not as you know them. Their bodies are marked with fractures of pale light, their eyes glazed in silver. A wolf pads forward, its jaw open unnaturally wide, teeth glinting in the silvery light. Behind it, crows scatter through the rafters, eyes wicked red and hinted with malice. A deer stumbles into the room, antlers sharpened and twisted into crescent moon shapes that scrape the tavern beams.
The Tavernkeeper's hand stills on the bar, their smile finally faltering. "Moon touched," they murmur, voice low. "They are not meant to cross this threshold... but it seems the moon has grown impatient."
The fire in the hearth sputters, extinguishes, leaving only the unnaturally bright moonlight that casts shifting shadows about the room. Old Visitors and new alike are faced with the same dawning horror: the tavern is no longer safe unless you make it so.
The beasts surge forward.
LET'S TRY THIS AGAIN
As the beasts are dispatched, the Tavernkeeper speaks once more:
"As I was saying...""It is time, my friends, for you to find your new homes."
You are compelled to walk through the only door leading out of the tavern, finding yourself not outside, but in a deep black, seemingly endless room with five portals arranged in a circle. As the last of you leave and the door closes behind you, gone when you look back again and replaced with nothing but that black void, three of the portals illuminate:
The first portal is surrounded by an almost blinding light, prismatic rainbows shining brightly in the dewy air outside of the tavern. A soft breeze may gently caress you, pulling you toward it. The portal seems to lead to a city in the clouds, airships and winged beings of all sorts soaring through the skies. Of the little bits of visible land, much of it boasts giant waterfalls that look like clouds melting into the land below. The portal calls to those who crave independence and freedom; and especially to anyone that wishes to find the strong bond of a family not forged in blood.
The second portal is encircled by a fairy ring of spotted white capped mushrooms, the faint scent of damp stone and rich earth wafting from within the faint green glow. Peering inside, one can see a sprawling harbor city of gray hewn stone, a melting pot of humanoid beings going about their day, and beyond, rolling green farmland and cottages clustered in small villages. This portal is destined for those who crave stability and solid ground beneath their feet. A simple life, an adventurous one, and everything in between can be found within.
The last portal is adorned with shells and seaweed, the glow of blue around it catching on droplets cascading down the circular opening. Beyond it you see a city housed inside a massive bubble deep under the ocean, spiraling towers encrusted with coral, and a variety of different creatures mingling about the streets. Outside of that bubble, merfolk swim, a massive squid engulfs the view from the portal as it smoothly glides through the water, and schools of fish disperse as it passes. A sanctuary in the sea that calls to those with a hunger for knowledge and a desire to aid those in need. Or perhaps it is the mystery that beckons you - the lure of the unknown in the depths that bids you explore it.
Upon following the pull of the breeze through the first portal, you are thrust into the beauty of a lively city that goes by the name of Heaven's Bow. Much of this main city feels exactly as you would expect on a city below, but there are clouds surrounding every direction you look. The walls of buildings are made with light-colored limestone, and buildings are generally built up to heights made even more grandiose by their position in the sky.
The Skyfall Docks are the first thing you notice, boasting hundreds of airships sailing in and out across the clouds with shouts that accompany a typical port city. Just outside is a fantastic market with goods not only from the other regions of Caldera, but from what some shopkeepers claim are other worlds--items sold or left behind by Visitors. Almost anything can be found in the markets if one is willing to look hard enough. Transport to other locations throughout the sky and even to the land or sea can be found here.
If the docks are too lively for you, you may instead find yourself roaming the underbelly of Heaven's Bow and finding brothels and gambling parlors filled with the promise of pleasure and fortune. The guild house for the Sylphs can be found here as well, giving out quests and training to prospective adventurers and guards alike--though none of them seem concerned with the illicit activities that surround them. Perhaps the freedom the Sylphs boast of extends to what others may deem an undesirable activity.
But most curious of all, you find a shimmering opal gemstone in your hand. When placed anywhere on the body, it will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.
If it was the second portal that called to you, you will find yourself in the busy city of Grey Ward, with its cobblestone streets and sturdy grey stone buildings. You are in the heart of the city, the Glass Market, so named for the colorful stained glass windows of the surrounding buildings. The scent of cooking food and the sound of barkers fills the air; watchful guards keep an eye out for pickpockets and thieves, and citizens go about their day. From here, one can investigate the rest of the city: the Sundown Docks, where both sea and sky faring skips transport people and goods. The Soot Spire, home of inventors and engineers. The Hearthstill, the main residential area. The Downs, a smaller residential area for those with less means.
Outside the city walls, one can explore acres of farmlands to the east and west, or follow Terra's Pass to the less settled areas, but take care. Past the Skyward Range, out in the smaller burrows and villages, the influence of the city guard diminishes quickly, and you'll have to keep your wits about you. Bandits along the road are always a risk, and the wildlife are less controlled by regimented hunting.
In your hand is a gemstone, a brilliantly green emerald that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.
If the last portal beckoned you through it, you find yourself within that bubble covered city beneath the sea, the city of Salt Spire. Your ears pop with the change in pressure, and the smell of the salty sea fills your nostrils. All around you buildings made of dark stone encrusted with coral and seagrass tower high above your head, the backdrop outside the dome a deep blue, seemingly endless sea filled with fish and merfolk and all other manner of creature swimming through the water. You stand in the heart of it all, surrounded by people with gils on their necks and scales upon their vibrantly colored skin, all of whom seem intrigued by your arrival. You have many options of where to visit in the city under the sea, but where oh where will you go first?
The Salt Spire Library is right before you, an impossibly large building housing thousands upon thousands of books of all genres. Fiction, non-fiction, romance and mystery and all between. You may even find books from your world and others! Oddly enough though, no Calderan history books are to be found, and if you ask for them, the librarians and locals all choose to ignore your questions.
If scholarly pursuits aren't to your interest currently, perhaps a trip to Bluetide Market would be more your style? The marketplace is host to every manner of shop one might ever need: artisans of all varieties, apothecaries and healers in the Shimmer Quarter, the most in fashion undersea clothing shops, food stalls, and all between can be found in Bluetide. There are also the Tideshore and Fogbottom docks on either end of the city. The former allows transport to the surface via large, magical bubbles for those that cannot hold their breath or make the swim themselves yet. The latter allows people to venture further into the sea. Those without their underwater abilities are offered rebreathers for travel that last for four hours before needing to be replaced.
In your hand is a gemstone, a shining sapphire that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.
"As I was saying..."
You are compelled to walk through the only door leading out of the tavern, finding yourself not outside, but in a deep black, seemingly endless room with five portals arranged in a circle. As the last of you leave and the door closes behind you, gone when you look back again and replaced with nothing but that black void, three of the portals illuminate:
The first portal is surrounded by an almost blinding light, prismatic rainbows shining brightly in the dewy air outside of the tavern. A soft breeze may gently caress you, pulling you toward it. The portal seems to lead to a city in the clouds, airships and winged beings of all sorts soaring through the skies. Of the little bits of visible land, much of it boasts giant waterfalls that look like clouds melting into the land below. The portal calls to those who crave independence and freedom; and especially to anyone that wishes to find the strong bond of a family not forged in blood.
The second portal is encircled by a fairy ring of spotted white capped mushrooms, the faint scent of damp stone and rich earth wafting from within the faint green glow. Peering inside, one can see a sprawling harbor city of gray hewn stone, a melting pot of humanoid beings going about their day, and beyond, rolling green farmland and cottages clustered in small villages. This portal is destined for those who crave stability and solid ground beneath their feet. A simple life, an adventurous one, and everything in between can be found within.
The last portal is adorned with shells and seaweed, the glow of blue around it catching on droplets cascading down the circular opening. Beyond it you see a city housed inside a massive bubble deep under the ocean, spiraling towers encrusted with coral, and a variety of different creatures mingling about the streets. Outside of that bubble, merfolk swim, a massive squid engulfs the view from the portal as it smoothly glides through the water, and schools of fish disperse as it passes. A sanctuary in the sea that calls to those with a hunger for knowledge and a desire to aid those in need. Or perhaps it is the mystery that beckons you - the lure of the unknown in the depths that bids you explore it.
Upon following the pull of the breeze through the first portal, you are thrust into the beauty of a lively city that goes by the name of Heaven's Bow. Much of this main city feels exactly as you would expect on a city below, but there are clouds surrounding every direction you look. The walls of buildings are made with light-colored limestone, and buildings are generally built up to heights made even more grandiose by their position in the sky.
The Skyfall Docks are the first thing you notice, boasting hundreds of airships sailing in and out across the clouds with shouts that accompany a typical port city. Just outside is a fantastic market with goods not only from the other regions of Caldera, but from what some shopkeepers claim are other worlds--items sold or left behind by Visitors. Almost anything can be found in the markets if one is willing to look hard enough. Transport to other locations throughout the sky and even to the land or sea can be found here.
If the docks are too lively for you, you may instead find yourself roaming the underbelly of Heaven's Bow and finding brothels and gambling parlors filled with the promise of pleasure and fortune. The guild house for the Sylphs can be found here as well, giving out quests and training to prospective adventurers and guards alike--though none of them seem concerned with the illicit activities that surround them. Perhaps the freedom the Sylphs boast of extends to what others may deem an undesirable activity.
But most curious of all, you find a shimmering opal gemstone in your hand. When placed anywhere on the body, it will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.
If it was the second portal that called to you, you will find yourself in the busy city of Grey Ward, with its cobblestone streets and sturdy grey stone buildings. You are in the heart of the city, the Glass Market, so named for the colorful stained glass windows of the surrounding buildings. The scent of cooking food and the sound of barkers fills the air; watchful guards keep an eye out for pickpockets and thieves, and citizens go about their day. From here, one can investigate the rest of the city: the Sundown Docks, where both sea and sky faring skips transport people and goods. The Soot Spire, home of inventors and engineers. The Hearthstill, the main residential area. The Downs, a smaller residential area for those with less means.
Outside the city walls, one can explore acres of farmlands to the east and west, or follow Terra's Pass to the less settled areas, but take care. Past the Skyward Range, out in the smaller burrows and villages, the influence of the city guard diminishes quickly, and you'll have to keep your wits about you. Bandits along the road are always a risk, and the wildlife are less controlled by regimented hunting.
In your hand is a gemstone, a brilliantly green emerald that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.
If the last portal beckoned you through it, you find yourself within that bubble covered city beneath the sea, the city of Salt Spire. Your ears pop with the change in pressure, and the smell of the salty sea fills your nostrils. All around you buildings made of dark stone encrusted with coral and seagrass tower high above your head, the backdrop outside the dome a deep blue, seemingly endless sea filled with fish and merfolk and all other manner of creature swimming through the water. You stand in the heart of it all, surrounded by people with gils on their necks and scales upon their vibrantly colored skin, all of whom seem intrigued by your arrival. You have many options of where to visit in the city under the sea, but where oh where will you go first?
The Salt Spire Library is right before you, an impossibly large building housing thousands upon thousands of books of all genres. Fiction, non-fiction, romance and mystery and all between. You may even find books from your world and others! Oddly enough though, no Calderan history books are to be found, and if you ask for them, the librarians and locals all choose to ignore your questions.
If scholarly pursuits aren't to your interest currently, perhaps a trip to Bluetide Market would be more your style? The marketplace is host to every manner of shop one might ever need: artisans of all varieties, apothecaries and healers in the Shimmer Quarter, the most in fashion undersea clothing shops, food stalls, and all between can be found in Bluetide. There are also the Tideshore and Fogbottom docks on either end of the city. The former allows transport to the surface via large, magical bubbles for those that cannot hold their breath or make the swim themselves yet. The latter allows people to venture further into the sea. Those without their underwater abilities are offered rebreathers for travel that last for four hours before needing to be replaced.
In your hand is a gemstone, a shining sapphire that, when placed anywhere on the body, will transform into a piece of jewelry with the gemstone set in the center.
VEILWALKER'S EVE
The fog comes early this year, thick and suffocating, rolling over land, sea, and sky. The moon looms close, and the whispers of the dead grow louder, no longer confined to lonely corners. Doors slam shut at night, lanterns burn longer, and the locals speak not just in hushed rumors but in fearful certainty: the veil is breaking.
When the Veilwalkers arrive, they do not keep their distance as before. The tall, robed figures enter the cities with an odd sort of haste. Their faceless heads turn toward you, and instead of hostility, they extend their long, shadowed hands. In them are masks not unlike those made and worn by the Visitors the year before. Their voices rise in unison, echoing through your mind:
"The moon's shadow feeds the restless. Alone, we cannot hold them back. You will wear the masks. You will walk with us. You will bind the sigils, or all will be lost."
For the first time, the Veilwalkers ask for help. They teach the Visitors their symbols, strange geometric runes that must be drawn in deep red ink where the veil has frayed: carved into coral cliffs at Salt Spire, scrawled upon crypts in Grey Ward, branded into stone monoliths deep in the Wilds. Each one anchors the barrier, holding the rift closed against the moon's gnawing pull.
When the final night comes, the sigils blaze red across Caldera's cities. The Veilwalkers form their circles and begin to chant, their words vibrating like thunder in your bones. Rifts tear open in the air, spilling wraiths and revenants into the streets. The Visitors must hold the lines, defending the glowing symbols as the restless dead throw themselves against you. The battle stretches on until at last the sky itself splits, the spirits are dragged screaming back into the rift, and with a final surge of crimson light, the veil seals shut once more.
The fog retreats. The clouds break. The moon returns — pale, diminished, but still watching. The Veilwalkers vanish as they always do, but this time they leave words carved glowing into the walls of the cities:
"The veil endures. But the moon is not done."
When the Veilwalkers arrive, they do not keep their distance as before. The tall, robed figures enter the cities with an odd sort of haste. Their faceless heads turn toward you, and instead of hostility, they extend their long, shadowed hands. In them are masks not unlike those made and worn by the Visitors the year before. Their voices rise in unison, echoing through your mind:
"The moon's shadow feeds the restless. Alone, we cannot hold them back. You will wear the masks. You will walk with us. You will bind the sigils, or all will be lost."
For the first time, the Veilwalkers ask for help. They teach the Visitors their symbols, strange geometric runes that must be drawn in deep red ink where the veil has frayed: carved into coral cliffs at Salt Spire, scrawled upon crypts in Grey Ward, branded into stone monoliths deep in the Wilds. Each one anchors the barrier, holding the rift closed against the moon's gnawing pull.
When the final night comes, the sigils blaze red across Caldera's cities. The Veilwalkers form their circles and begin to chant, their words vibrating like thunder in your bones. Rifts tear open in the air, spilling wraiths and revenants into the streets. The Visitors must hold the lines, defending the glowing symbols as the restless dead throw themselves against you. The battle stretches on until at last the sky itself splits, the spirits are dragged screaming back into the rift, and with a final surge of crimson light, the veil seals shut once more.
The fog retreats. The clouds break. The moon returns — pale, diminished, but still watching. The Veilwalkers vanish as they always do, but this time they leave words carved glowing into the walls of the cities:
"The veil endures. But the moon is not done."
FLOOD OF MEMORY
The ritual is complete, the sigils blaze faintly as the last spirits are drawn back into the rift, and the Veilwalkers vanish as silently as they arrived. Yet the veil remains thin, trembling like a sheet of ice underfoot, and the restless energy lingers in the air. If a Visitor reaches out, touches, or is brushed by a Veilwalker — or even a spirit that has not yet fully returned to the veil — a sudden, icy pain pierces the mind.
Visions flood in without warning. Some see their own deaths, vivid and immediate, or replayed as distant echoes from a life not yet lived. Others glimpse the end of a stranger, the collapse of a friend, or fractured moments in the shadowed world the Veilwalkers inhabit: gray plains filled with drifting shapes, the endless murmur of lost souls. Time stretches and bends in these moments, the senses adrift, and for a moment the living and the dead seem to occupy the same space.
When the vision fades, the chill it leaves lingers in your bones, the images etched into memory. Though fleeting, the experience carries a heavy weight: a reminder that the veil is never truly safe and that even a brief touch can show what is hidden, what is coming, or what can never be avoided.
Visions flood in without warning. Some see their own deaths, vivid and immediate, or replayed as distant echoes from a life not yet lived. Others glimpse the end of a stranger, the collapse of a friend, or fractured moments in the shadowed world the Veilwalkers inhabit: gray plains filled with drifting shapes, the endless murmur of lost souls. Time stretches and bends in these moments, the senses adrift, and for a moment the living and the dead seem to occupy the same space.
When the vision fades, the chill it leaves lingers in your bones, the images etched into memory. Though fleeting, the experience carries a heavy weight: a reminder that the veil is never truly safe and that even a brief touch can show what is hidden, what is coming, or what can never be avoided.
QUESTBOARD
Settled in? Good. It's time to make your way to the Questboard located in every city in numerous, easy to access locations. That is, if you want to make any kind of impact on the world or just get some Bones for anything you might wish to purchase. Visitors are given a very small stipend in which to survive every month, but all it does is keep you fed and housed. These quests will assure you greater wealth, and they're the main reason you're here: each finished quest helps the Calderans fix their shattering world.
Quests can be accepted at the questboard via magically signed parchment upon the board. Just sign your name to accept and the paper will be whisked away... somewhere. You're not actually sure. Probably nothing to concern yourself with.
Once quests are completed, earned Bones will be dropped off at the character's residence by Bonita, the mysterious artisan who has supposedly handcrafted every Bone circulating in Caldera. Please do not speak to her, she startles easily.
OOC NOTES
Welcome to Caldera's 9th TDM! All characters awaken in a strange tavern with nothing save the clothes on their backs, all of their powers stripped, and a piece of parchment directing them downstairs to the Tavernkeeper. There is a thread of all questions answered by the Tavernkeeper here, and if you have more, feel free to ask there for what would be offered ICly.
◾For OOC questions, please direct themhere.
◾The winners of the Revel of Wonders have been chosen!
◾For OOC questions, please direct themhere.
◾The winners of the Revel of Wonders have been chosen!
In 1st place: Beleth Lavellan and Solas!
In 2nd place: Nina Ironfist!
and in 3rd place: Pomni!
Please refer here for your prizes and congrats to the winners! Never forget that Nymion likes you best, for now!Have fun, Visitors!
main navigation
no subject
Oxana locates the two, introduces herself, and in short order is holding court. On the left, the dignified Elder Mosswick, gesticulating at the apple trees, and expounding upon the generations of effort he has committed to them. Oxana listens without blinking, and nodding where appropriate. How sad, the attitudes of the unappreciative! How long, the years of patient service required, for a proper fruit orchard to thrive. And the children these days, do they possess such patience?
Clearly not.
To the left is the equally-incensed Grover Petalby, a profoundly round man with a stooped back, bow legs, bald head, and a face built to smile with all the joy and warmth of the spring sunrise. It is a pity therefore that he, pruning scissors waved threateningly in one hand, is indicating the greed and unfairness of his neighbor from a face wreathed in poisonous scowls. The ingratitude of people! The lack of neighborly spirit! The refusal of responsibility for natural consequence, or the boundaries of common decency! You know how it is, don't you my dear?
Of course, of course she does. Many such cases.
Soon enough, however, the two men have forgotten her entirely; one argument in good faith leads to a sarcastic rebuttal, and then a return volley, and soon they're screaming directly into each other's faces while the curious, gleeful, and exhausted expressions of their neighbors and family peer out from the windows of surrounding houses. What a spectacle!
"All men are stupid," Oxana says, tilting her head towards Loki in a sly aside. She's stood with both hands on her cane, planted firmly in front of her, "If this was important I will threaten to kill, see who cries hardest— but is not. Go dig up vine while they are shouting, that puts this to the end. Go."
no subject
He lets her lead, because she said she wanted him to be her legs, not a partner in judging the dispute, but the way she handles the men--calm, matter-of-fact, letting both be heard until they dissolve into insults--is clever and practical. His method, were he in this alone, would probably be needling them until one of them did something truly foolish, but that's Loki for you. He's not a problem solver, he's a problem encourager.
Still, when she turns to him, he laughs quietly at her aside. "No arguments here."
An ambiguous thing to say, actually. He vanishes, moving off obediently, but she knew who he was when she brought him, she had to have anticipated him adding his own spin to this theatrical event.
He returns, but twined around his shoulders and along his left arm is not a vine but a snake, impossibly beautiful in shades of gleaming silver and leaf-green. In his other hand is one of Mosswick's apples, which he can attest are very tasty, indeed. He's eaten half already.
"Gentlemen, I thought we were missing the input of an important third party in this dispute," he says. "And so I took the liberty of bringing her here. This is Moonvine, temporarily transformed."
Well. Temporarily unless they can't control themselves, in which case he's keeping her.
"What I wanted to do was to turn her into a pretty little greyhound and have the both of you make fools of yourselves trying to call her to come to the person she belongs to. It would have been funny. Honestly, I still could, but in deference to Wisewoman, who one presumes doesn't want to stand here all millennium, I opted for this."
"Boys, this is a living thing, who belongs to herself and has no emotional attachment to either of you or your agendas for her. And given the activity of the moon for which she was named," he gestures at the sky with the apple in his hand, "you may wish to ask yourselves whether it's accidental that discord has come between such long-term neighbors, of whether it's by design."
"This is not me rendering a verdict, merely a suggestion, however my recommendation is this: Moonvine needs fertile ground and lively arguments. But you'll all do a worse job at getting along when she lives in your gardens. Build her a shrine outside the village, collect and sell the blooms, and distribute the money for the good of you all. And go yell at one another under her branches every few days, sometimes it's good to vent."
"Petalby, you've had your investment in this plant back tenfold already. Let her go and reap new rewards, knowing you've built a foundation of wealth for your community."
no subject
Though perhaps she had said it more true, when she had called him, obliquely, an idiot. Diplomacy was sparsely grown, in her garden.
Mosswick whirls to see if indeed his plants have been tampered with, while Petalby gapes in horror and rising outrage. A vine into a snake! How terrible! How scandalous! It's.... it's unheard of! It's ridiculous! It's—
'It's true!' shrieks Mosswick, cornering around the fence with a haste unbefitting a man of his dignified years, 'He's dug up my vine!'
'You mean my vine!'
"Your snake," Oxana mutters, acrimoniously.
'Now see here, you... you outsider! This is not what you were summoned here for!'
'Quite right. You—'
'Thank you.'
'Shut up. YOU, sir were meant to choose who's right, not involve this business with snakes and the moon falling!'
'It's nothing to do with dogs!'
'Yes, it's nothing to— Will you shut UP, Petalby!?'
'Just as soon as you get MY vine back from this snake-man you've cursed our streets with!'
'And why should I when it was YOUR idea!'
"Enough!"
Both of the men paused in their bickering, and turned their heads, eyes wide. Old women were not meant to shout, and certainly not meant to do it that loudly.
"Both of you stupid men, be quiet. You," she jerks her chin at Loki, "Cut snake in half."
'No!'
'But you can't— the vine!'
'It'll die, won't it... If he?'
"I don't care anymore. You want solution, this is choice you get: share or you get nothing."
no subject
"You're falling prey to the same fallacy all over again," he tells them when they start yelling at him, and strokes the snake's snout gently. "Living things, and people, don't exist for your pleasure. You don't control us, and you don't control your moonvine. If you behave yourselves, you can work withher. If not, you lose everything."
Case in point. He looks politely toward the Wisewoman after she shouts, attentive. And he is absolutely NOT going to cut the snake in half. He likes the snake. This is a creature of discord and chaos, like himself. She's loving the argument. He can all but hear her laughing.
So, no, he's not hurting her, but he's loath to undermine his questing companion either, so he only makes a sad face at her and adjusts his grip on the animal. "I mean, I suppose if--wait, do you mean lengthwise, or across the middle? How do you graft a snake?"
If these men are less stupid than they seem, one of them MIGHT suddenly remember that while you can't graft a snake, you can take cuttings of a vine, and sprout them anew. They're both growers. They probably should have thought of that long before now.
no subject
True to the tale, the men fall over themselves, to bluster and beg, and fall briefly to arguing, first with one another and with guilty glances at Oxana's implacable face to discard their feud.
How do you graft a snake?
"There, first sensible thing anyone says today," She points out, slapping her cane clumsily in Loki's direction, so that it can clap against his legs in a satisfying illustration of blindness, "You understand him? Are you thinking with head, now?"
'Yes, madam— ah, sir! We should...'
A glance, sidelong, at Loki's infinitely more encouraging face, and the expectant gaze of the snake herself.
'...share the... snake?'
'We should graft the snake, you lummox!'
'It's a vine, not a snake! You can't graft snakes, you—'
'I know that, damn your eyes! Shut up for a minute or we'll never get out of this.'
Thus did they learn what most children learn by the age of ten: one must never resprt to asking a grown-up to solve your problems for you. They only ever make things so much harder, after all. And so it goes.
"Good. Now, cut vine in half. Each of you grow vine of your own. Do not bother job board for stupid argument again. You agree?"
Well, Loki? Are we in agreement?