tramitem_log | 2020 June Summer Solstice Plot

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2020 June Summer Solstice Plot - Catch All!

Who: Anyone and everyone in Trames - Please use this as a catach all for all your Summer Solstice Plot fun!
What: Exploring a whole knew world
When: Anytime between June 20 - July 4
Where: Around Krajina Božstiev
Rating/Warnings: Please add warnings to your top-levels/threads as needed

The streets of Krajina Božstiev are dusty and crowded. So many people on their way to live their lives. Markets, taverns, the Temple, the Palace. What do you look at first? What do you buy? Where to do you find yourself exploring?

Take a moment to appreciate the shine of the Temple. The beauty of the Palace gardens. The quiet serenity of the Library. The simplistic, but filling food in the taverns. Or the peaceful quaintness of the hills. A new world has opened up and somehow it all just seems simpler over here. People seem happy (mostly) in this existence.

Maybe...

Watch out for the occasional person going into a rage on the other side of the street or tavern. That can't mean anything...

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Library

Fell can be found taking extensive notes on whatever the librarian permits him to read, but he's particularly keen on magic (both for himself and to share with Alec), religion and if anything resembles demonology (go ahead and guess why) and the history and culture of the world. Why was this the place the portals opened to, he hopes to discover. And has it happened before?

The library's collection of books stirs something familiar in him, and by the middle/end of the week, that stirring has risen up into a full on covetousness. Getting him to leave the books will be just short of an argument.

Market & Tavern

Fell has been trading for some local textiles, dyes, and food. It's rather enchanting, like going to a farmers market or craft fair, only far more complex, noisy, and bustling. The whole atmosphere feels ancient and strangely not nearly as foreign as he expected it might. He's swept up by the novelty of it all. You'll find him chatting with the vendors about the different delicacies ("Eggs in this one also?!"), and snacking as he goes.

"I really should have brought a bag. You'd think I would remember by now." Plastic carryout bags had been banned in NYC since March, and yet.

Eventually he arrives at the tavern and orders a drink and a meal. He's already been to dine with Anthony at one of these establishments, but he's eager to try new things and he suspects the tavern is a good place to pick up local news. At least it always seems that way in the stories.

A few drinks in and he's giggly and regailing the nearest people with a story, but he's lost the point of the whole thing halfway through.

The Temple of the Unknowable God

Why are gods always unknowable? Or rather, what makes THIS god so unknowable, when readings in the library suggest there are paired off gods that ARE knowable, at least for their thematic attributes. A word teases at his mind, suggestive of something he can't quite place, something to do with unknowable, unfathomable things. It's all very- very- It was right there, on the tip of his tongue... Just give him a moment to think of it and it will surely- No, no, the word whatever it was, is lost.

He looks around, put off and intrigued by the gaudy radiance of it all.

"Is it so lavish, I wonder, because the god is unknowable?" How better to court the approval, he supposes, of a god you do not understand but do not want to anger, than with gilded gifts and a shrine of incredible wealth and spoil. "Or do they favor all the gods so opulently?"

The Hills & The Eastern Gates

"I've been locked out!" Fell has made the mistake of enjoying sundown outside the city. He is not exactly dressed for an evening in the wilderness, and even though he's not freezing, he's not keen on spending the night outside the city walls. It is a bit on the chilly side, and there might be vicious animals out here! Or worse! And he's entirely without the means to make a campfire or any such thing.

And that rumbling ground business has him, pardon the pun, shaken up. What was that, a volcano? An active fault line? A sleeping giant eldritch horror awaiting the summer solstice sacrifice?

Good lord, he's never really liked camping. Grandfather used to say it was where you separated the men from the boys, but all it ever seemed to do for Aziraphale was separate him from a warm shower, good food, and indoor plumbing. He's lucky he had the foresight to buy snacks back at the market.

"Surely there must be another portal around here somewhere..."

"Mr. Fell?"

A small fire flickers into existence, held aloft- the better to see by. Elliott grins something both rueful and relieved.

"Thank the Goddess I'm not the only one."

"Elliott!" Oh, is he glad to see a familiar face. He shuffles closer, straightening out the hem of his light sweater and smoothing down his bow-tie as if that saves him from the fact that he's got a leaf or two in his hair and looks frazzled.

"Oh, yes, thank...someone. I did not realize there was a curfew! I had no idea, though I guess I should have expected they would close the gates at night, but anyway. Dear boy, what are you doing this far out at this late in the day?"

Elliott frowned at himself. He really was saying that more often now, wasn't he? Well, he could think about that later. Right now, he was locked outside of the city with Mr. Fell.

"Oh, uh, well I decided I wanted to see more outside the city. Thought I had enough time to get back, but.." He gestured at the closed gate with a free hand.

"There probably is another portal around here somewhere, though."

"One can only hope. There are certainly enough of those ...things loitering around New York, you'd think that we would get lucky and have one nearby."

Not that he had found one yet.

"I'm afraid we may be seeing more of the outside than anticipated. I do hope your mother isn't too upset about the unexpected field trip."

"Uhhh..." Considering he couldn't text her about it at the moment, Elliott grimaced.

"..Well worst-case, she'll probably lecture me a little, and I'll promise to be more careful. But if I manage to make it home by midnight-ish, it should be fine."

He turned on the spot, glancing about. "Which way did you come from? If you didn't see anything coming back, at least we have one less area to check."

Aziraphale was pretty sure that wouldn't be fine by anyone's mother, but who was he to know.

"I came out of one of the gates in the East and headed toward the hills there," he said, pointing the direction he had traveled. The last portal he had seen had been just inside the city at the gate. "Do you think there's anything around the other side of the city?" That seemed like an awfully long walk.

Elliott followed Mr. Fell's finger with a nod. Not a lot of point searching that way then, probably.

"I'm sure there's another portal somewhere," he assured, though all his entries had been into the city itself and primarily the marketplace at that. "There were a lot of them around New York, after all. We just gotta look a little. Any direction you want to try first?"

Martin's in the middle of examining the wooden beads that came in his second egg with interest, when he hears a voice he'd know anywhere. It's always strange hearing your own voice when it isn't coming from you ... years of setting voice mail messages and such have taught him that, but ... there had been that one time, at the Tavern on the Green ...

He turns, his fuzzy brow furrowed in concentration as he searches the crowd. It doesn't take him long at all to spot the blond curls of the man the Tavern's maitre-d had mistaken him for that March evening a few months ago. What were the odds, he wonders, that both of them should turn out to be Different? He raises a hand along with his voice.

"Fell? Good God, is that really you?"

"Dr. Whitly?" Aziraphale finds it strange to again hear himself with an American accent and from someone kind of with a passing resemblance. He still refuses to see how that maitre'd had confused the two of them, but then again, he had been a little confused by Alec the first time.

Still, Aziraphale maintained that the resemblance here was minimal at best.

With a smile, he shuffles through the crowd. "Of all the places--! Fancy meeting you here. I had no idea you-- You did meet that dreadful Mr. Martin, didn't you? I don't think anyone can just come through the portals by accident...or I rather hope not."

"I did, and I wish we didn't have a thing in common, not even the name." He rolls his eyes. "Rather rude, really, considering everything he infodumped on me. Still getting used to it all. ... How long ago did all of this start, for you? Is this -" Here, he gestures to the wide, undeniable strangeness and beauty of Krajina Božstiev, "- something you're used to?"

"That is unfortunate," the whole name thing he means, nodding sympathetically. He can't really relate. No one he knows, for better or worse, has ever shared his name.

"No, this whole portal business is a new development during the time I've been part of this. Which has been since sometime this February; so not very long, but enough time to have ...learned a few things."

Aziraphale debated what to mention, and the safety of mentioning it here in the other world, and then added: "The Bureau itself claims the Different and our particular circumstances go back only to last year, but I'm not sure I believe that. In any case, this is my first foray into an alternate world."

He could tell that there was something left out of the conversation during that brief pause, and nodded as he listened intently. "I'd love to hear some of the other things you've learned, some time. Maybe in less ... foreign circumstances?"

At that, his gaze shifted to the amount of purchases Fell was carrying, and he smiled. "Being new to it doesn't seem to have stopped you from enjoying yourself, at the least."

"Oh, yes, of course." Always pleased to be a repository of knowledge, he couldn't help wanting to tell more about what he learned, even if sometimes he thought the information was a bit scattered. The more minds they had working on the puzzle, the better, and Whitly was a doctor. Surely he could provide unique insight. "You'll have to let me know when you're available." They could also do lunch!

He blushed a little, slightly embarrassed at the collection he'd gathered, but that didn't stop the perky little: "Seize the, ah, moment! After all, there's no telling when these portals will cease. And I simply couldn't let this go by. I mean, it's just a few souvenirs. And gifts. And, you know...I really couldn't resist a handful of snacks; I had to try at least one of everything."

"I can give you my cell, if you like," he offers, in the spirit of cooperation. "Or do you prefer email? Either is fine, I keep on top of them. ... Oh! And of course, there's always that network, though I'm still getting used to it."

"I was too curious to pass it up myself, obviously. I haven't eaten anything yet, though. Maybe subconsciously I was thinking of Persephone in the Underworld." He gives a warm little chuckle. "What would you recommend?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

2020 June Summer Solstice Plot - Catch All!

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Hills & Gates

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Market

well this is just a little bit late. T_T god, I'm sorry

is ok I still wub u

thank u, wub u 2

<3

<3<3

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