The full seasonal event can be read here! Below are the main seasonal items for quick reference:
1. A thread reacting to the season's weather in some ways.
2. A thread in the part of the city your character doesn't live in!
3. A thread relating to your vocation.
Of The Season
Quote
"Tell Dr. Nate that Gale sent you, and he still owes me for the mushrooms. Except that it takes you a while to reach the clinic, and by the time you do your fever is spiking, and so instead of the requisite message you instead tell the poor soul who greets you that 'A gale'a m'shrooms sent me cus'a my hands.'" - Zephyr in Oh help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
hey mr. trailblazer, spare you a joint paper it's strange how the days layer, and weigh on you years later
The smirk born from his smart ass comment immediately shifts into a surprised wait what? the second that Adam does admit he’s on the radio. The paper is offered and he finds himself leaning a bit closer to the other man in order to read it, snatching the paper handed to him and sticks it into his pocket. “I’ll need to get a new radio.” He admits with a hum of a laugh, but it was an indication he’d give him a listen.
The conversation shifts toward him and why he’s here, and there’s a small crooked smirk that blooms on his face. “Wanted a chance to fuck with the Houses and my sisters here tryin’ to make a name for herself doing some-fuckin’-thing. Didn’t want her to have to go alone.” Uldren shrugs casually, as if that’s all the explanation needed when it’s glaringly obvious it isn’t.
“I get a lot of the gems and metals from back home. Mom and dad run a shop there, too. It’s where I learned all of this.” Just the art of scamming people had been a change of pace.
"I make 'em outta trash for people. Not pretty, but they work." It was pretty simple, once he'd learnt how - admittedly, most of the 'radios' had to be held in a very specific way to work, exposed wires leaning on each other in angles best suited to convey the power they needed. They did, technically, work.
Most people would never come towards the Plates. While they were indeed, fun to mess with (until the boot came down), Adam doubted that was a real reason Uldren was here. The sister sounded closer to the truth, but even that explanation was lacking. After a moment's hesitation, aware that parts of the story were probably being left out on purpose, he asked: "Some fucking thing? Like, being a hooker? Or something else?" A casual laugh, eyes on the street.
"Bet ya regret coming here right as they put the whole place in fuckin' lockdown, huh?"
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
hey mr. trailblazer, spare you a joint paper it's strange how the days layer, and weigh on you years later
“That so?” He asks curiously about the radio, letting the thought linger and filter away in his mind for later. As for his story of getting here, Uldren huffs a laugh as soon as Adam suggests his sister’s a hooker. He playfully rolls his eyes and shakes his head, shooting an amused grin over at him. “She’s smart and artistic and I think she was hoping that would be enough to get her Plate side and rich. Not like we’re exactly poor back in Undunli, but.” He shrugs a shoulder casually, before realizing it seems his answer isn’t good enough for Adam as to why he’s moved here.
So he hums another laugh, before pulling out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Adam before pulling one for himself, reaching for his lighter as he goes to answer. “Been here a few years now, was better when lockdown wasn’t a thing.” He admits with a small snort, dragging on the cigarette to light it before handing the lighter to the other man in case he needed one. “There is a sort of… Comfort being here around people in the same boat as you are. It’s a little bit different than Undunli in that way.”
"No offense, but being talented never got anyone up to the Plates. Only things that get you up there are dumb luck or being an evil son of a bitch." Adam's cynicism was plainly genuine, the eye roll bitter and one hand flicking out in a dismissive gesture. "Mostly I see people going up there as part of that fucked up Enforcer lottery...she doesn't wanna be an Enforcer, right?" His gaze turned a little suspicious, though if Adam had the self awareness he might have realised that having recently slept with an Enforcer, he had little room to talk.
Suspicions or not, he would never turned down a smoke. He had his own lighter, of course, but took Uldren's because hey, lighters weren't cheap. Lighting the cigarette in his lips, he cupped around the tip as it took, more of habit than of any necessity in the stagnant heat.
"No poor people in Undunli?" Adam asked, leaning back. He had a woefully incomplete knowledge of other regions, having been raised entirely in the Drench and never having received a proper education. He knew the names, what stuff came from where, but day to day life or in depth politics were only informed by the people who drifted into Kotoll, some of whom were less truthful than others.
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
hey mr. trailblazer, spare you a joint paper it's strange how the days layer, and weigh on you years later
Uldren can’t help the bark of a laugh that breaks from him as Adam asks if she’s an Enforcer. He shakes his head almost a little violently, hard enough that the red tips to his hair go flying about, before he focuses back on Adam with a playful grin on his face. “Fuck no.” As far as he was concerned, nobody in their right mind wanted to be an Enforcer.
As for the poor people of Undunli, he shrugs a shoulder and flicks his cigarette’s ash off the side of the table to land on the alley beneath them. “There’s poor people but just… Not like this. We don’t gotta fix our houses every year ‘cause of flooding.” He points out at first, before he huffs a sigh and cocks his head toward Adam with a curious gleam to the green of his gaze. “Y’don’t hear much about the Drench in the other parts of Kotoll. Jus’ mostly the Plates. The Drench is out to seem small and tiny. We were… Pretty shocked actually with how fuckin’ big it is.” And how terribly they were treated. But Uldren and his sister were stubborn and they didn’t want to turn around and go home, claiming it was a mistake, so here they were.
"Okay, good." Adam nodded, deciding not to mention Sunjata or their relationship for now. In some Drencher circles, having slept with an enforcer (and the Arbiter's son, no less!) would probably earn a high five, but in others it would get you a swift black eye.
It took Adam a moment to realise, after Uldren said it, that repairing ones flooded home wasn't just a normal part of life. He, for the most part, avoided it with his higher apartment nowadays, but his childhood years and plenty of his adult ones had been spent emptying out buckets back out into the canals and patching up rotten sections of wall - that was just life. "Huh. Guess the Plates don't want it getting out just how shitty they are to us around here." Adam supposed it made sense, that those outside the city didn't know the scope of it.
In the back of his mind, an idea about pushing his radio show further somehow blossomed.
"So when the lockdown lifts...are you gonna go back? Or stay in this too-big flooded shit hole?" He asked, a sad smile on his lips as he casually breathed the smoke out into the air and watched how the neon lights reflected off of it.
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
hey mr. trailblazer, spare you a joint paper it's strange how the days layer, and weigh on you years later
Uldren can’t help the laugh that leaves him, the knowing nod. “Yeah they really don’t.” He hadn’t heard much about it until he’d gotten here to witness it, but he supposes that’s what you get when you live with the mural Nobles in the state. Back in Undunli it was fairly spread out, making for a decent ability to avoid them if necessary, though they rarely made an appearance regardless.
He drags from the cigarette as Adam asks his question and there’s a flash of surprise that cuts across Uldren’s face when he looks back at the fellow Drencher. “Nah, we’ve been here a couple years already. We know how it goes. Wouldn't be opposed to some change, though. Make it less of a flooded shit hole.” A crooked smile blooms on his face as he regards Adam again, wondering if that would shift away from the almost sad smile the other man has.
"Not really any bloody wonder, given how shit it is. I mean, people were complaining 20 years ago-" Don't think about dad, don't think about-- shit. "-But uh..uh...Ahem. Shit's a lot worse now I think." Hoping his falter wasn't too obvious, Adam gave a tired sigh and watched the smoke that rose out of it, flopping back against the wall as his eyes followed the pattern up to the Plates above.
The mention of change brought a easy, if slightly cynical, smile to Adam's face. "Mmm. Question is, are you willing to do anything for that? I mean like, dangerous shit? Cos if we're gonna change anything, it's gonna be dangerous." When his eyes met Uldren's, they were sharp now, issuing a sort of challenge, an initiation test.
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
hey mr. trailblazer, spare you a joint paper it's strange how the days layer, and weigh on you years later
If Uldren thinks back to the class of history he’d taken, there would be a little blip talked about what happened twenty years ago – but the artisan is a crafter and with as focused on his trade as he is, he’s completely forgotten about it and doesn’t put forth the effort to try and pull it out of the dregs of his mind. So as it stands, Adam is lucky in the fact that Uldren makes no comment on it – doesn’t even think about his blunder aside from a shrug of his shoulder. “Feels worse year by year.” He admits with a hum, dragging on his cigarette again as he glances back over toward the fellow Drencher and the smile to his face.
It is a good question, Uldren thinks. And he meets Adam’s eye with a sharper one of his own, lips twitching into a sort of playful smile. “Not really a big ol’ revolution without the danger, right?” He poses back at him before he waves the hand with the cigarette casually. “Not to be a ‘save my own skin’ kinda guy, but I think if any of it’s gonna work, the Drench Kings gotta have a hand in it, right? Like… They can’t just sit by idly in their towers or wherever the fuck they are down here just waiting for the smaller underdogs to do something, right?” He hopes that’s the case, because a larger part of him imagines if it were just them, with the power the Platers and the Enforcers had, they’d be all stamped out like ants.
It did feel worse by the year, though a bit of Adam that was awfully sensible wondered if everyone ever had felt that way, all the way back into the beginnings of time. Had his dad thought things were the worse they could be? Had he looked back at ten years before that and seen a decline? When so much of life in the Drench was being stepped on, it became hard to work out if the pressure had increased.
Uldren's answer to his question was a unique one, one that Adam hadn't heard before. The Drench Kings, while certainly influential, had little to do with his own life. He'd never taken well to Authority, Plates or Drench born. "Huh. I guess. Never really had the chance to chat with any of them about it - not exactly guys you call up for a beer or whatever." He'd just been doing these things himself, hoping others would join - which, in comparison to Uldren's considered answer, suddenly felt quite childish.
Adam took a final long draw from the cigarette and blotted it out against the wall. "I mean, I wouldn't blame ya for saving your own skin. Y'not from here. Doesn't have to be your fight. Fuck knows, if I could up and leave after this lockdown, I bloody would. Leave it all to rot."
Just because I made poetry a mission
You might as well punish a kid for coloring outside the lines
