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
With Drenak came rain, everyone knew that. The downpour started one day and didn't stop until the season decided to be over, which always felt like it would be a decade after it began.
It felt different on the Plates than it had in the Drench - there, perhaps because the rain had run down the edge of the Plates and dripped in, the water felt more humid and stagnant, rife with disease. Here on the Plates, it was cool and fresh. No less unpleasant to be caught in, but in the rare moments of reprieve the air smelt like fresh nature and not clogged mud drains.
The place where one could see the worst effects of the weather in the Plates was in the reservoirs, which flooded with the arrival on the rain almost on schedule. Along with the rain every year came the rumours, which did not hesitate to enter the Enforcer's training rooms: bodies washing up, children slipping into the waves, Enforcers who had not come in after a night on the town pushed into the rising waters. Normally Sam could ignore these horror stories as they flowed through the locker and classrooms, but his officers had been particularly upset lately after a story had arisen following the discovery of an Enforcer helmet in one of the reservoirs. Was it a decades old body giving up it's gear? Was it a recent murder, the only evidence left behind? Was it a show of betrayal from an Enforcer going to join the resistance?
It was someone who had been careless with their uniform and needed to pay a fine, as far as Sam was concerned. However, the theorising wouldn't stop and so, in an effort to shut them up, he'd agreed to go down to the edge of the water himself and take a look. At the very least, it could be a pleasant walk if he timed it when the rain wasn't falling.
So, in one of the rare dry days of Drenak, Sam found himself carefully picking his way across the edge of the reservoir, looking into the water for any signs of...anything, he supposed, other than the expected water and occasional food wrapper. So far, no luck. Leaning on his cane, he sighed and rolled his eyes out at the lapping water - this was such a waste of time.
you never were the safest bet the hardest to forget like a song stuck in my head
Being someone that never had too much conversation with enforcers or the military at all, Rexanna has not heard of the rumors (surprisingly). If she had, she might not have decided today to go and do her usual weekly ritual — training her magic. It’s made easier when it rains, but she sticks to the reservoirs just on the off chance things get out of hand. She doesn’t want to be the art curator that burned down half of the Plate, at least.
Today, it isn’t raining. A dry day in what felt like years. But the ground remains damp and the reservoir is full to the brim, and she stands beside it working on her hand motions in little bits of practice with a foldable stool beside her that a book sits on with a pen in between to keep her place. Her hair is tied up, no soft sweaters worn, simply a pair of nice jeans, boots, and a windbreaker of a jacket adorn her as she makes a few motions, jots something down, sparks the flame from a lighter and repeats the motion to see if it changes anything.
And it does, sparking off a little flicker of flame to the ground, catching the damp blades of grass on fire for a moment before it snuffs itself out in a plume of white smoke all while Rexanna curses quite not lady like in the comfort of thinking she’s alone.
That is, until she turns around to grab the book and make some more adjustments, when she notices a figure standing by the water and she freezes, trying to pick out who it was. There’s some relief and some shame when she realizes it’s Samuel, however, and she offers him a small wave if he were to look over, praying to the saints he hadn’t seen her blunder.
Rexanna
(This post was last modified: 05-28-2023, 01:03 AM by Rexanna.)
There was something hypnotic about the water. It didn't have the large, rolling waves of the ocean, but wind whipping across the surface made little ridges that disppeared into themselves after only a few feet travelled. Sam watched them appear and vanish again, almost forgetting he was meant to be looking for evidence of a heinous crime (not that he'd ever been too interested in that goal to begin with).
He was about to continue on again, drag his attention away from the water, when it was done for him by a sudden series of curse words nearby. Raising his eyebrows, Sam glanced over - after growing up in the Drench, he was not one to be offended by bad language, but it wasn't something one expected to hear out in public in the Plates.
Seeing Rexanna was a surprise too: Sam paused, but thinking she might need help, began to head over, the clink of his cane against the ground making it obvious he was approaching. It seemed she had seen him anyway, since she gave a wave - no running away now.
"Ah, hello, Ms.Revanti. Are you quite alright? You sounded...upset." He asked diplomatically.
you never were the safest bet the hardest to forget like a song stuck in my head
She should have known that she’d catch his attention with the string of curses that have slipped from her lips, so when he looks over and she offers a short wave, it’s not without its fair share of embarrassment that colors her cheeks a vibrant pink. She looks away from him back to her little stool with the journal, not noticing his approach until she can hear the clinking of his cane, and looking a little flustered and still quite red when he meets up with her, she flashes him an apologetic smile and a shrug as if it was nothing big.
“I’m fine, thank you for the concern.” She pauses, trying not to sound so short, but the frustration is entirely internal and she reaches up to brush back a few of the stray hairs from her forehead that have lost its hold in her pony tail from the humidity. “Sorry, Mr. Tsinbrog. I was just out training and things hadn’t gone as expected.” So saying, there’s still the small plume of white smoke that billows in the wind behind her, certainly within his line of sight now. “What brings you out here?” She didn’t think he was one to stroll along the reservoirs in POD just on a whim, but she could be wrong.
Rexanna
(This post was last modified: 05-28-2023, 01:03 AM by Rexanna.)
Had Rexanna just left their interaction at 'I'm fine', Sam would have happily walked off. She continued though, mentioning training, something that had him humming and tilting his head just slightly to the side. "Training? For what?" Out here, by the reservoir, seemed an odd place to learn anything; in a rather limited view of what Plates Nobles did, he assumed she had be trying to learn to dance with the restriction of the walkway, or perhaps thinking of comments one could make about water in polite company.
That was until he noticed the smoke, his eyes following it up as his eyebrows raised along with it.
His answer to her question was distracted, Sam's focus still on the smoke: "Looking for signs of a crime that I doubt ever occurred."
Tick-tocking away in my brain
(This post was last modified: 05-29-2023, 10:55 PM by Samuel.)
you never were the safest bet the hardest to forget like a song stuck in my head
Of course, she should have expected the question – just not the implications. Because as soon as she lets the words leave her lips and he questions why, she realizes they’d last parted when he’d told her that he thought an uprising was to start again. And while that isn’t the reason for her training, she can see now that it might relate to it in some aspects.
And then he sees the smoke still drifting from the damp grass and she purses her lips slightly, stepping aside to give a bit of distance as she tries to explain. “I have fire magic. I like to practice by the reservoirs because of the water.” She offers – while it wasn’t a wholly known fact about her, it was one that she kept relatively quiet – not wanting her worth to be defined by how good of a mage she was and rather what she chose to do professionally.
She lifts a hand back toward the lighter and lets a little spark dance around in the air between them, using a method she knows tried and true to work as she lets it skitter in its orange and red hues around the space between her hands as she lets her sapphire gaze lift back up to Samuel. “A crime at the reservoirs?” She asks, tilting her head and letting the fire sputter out into nothing but a bit of smoke.
Sam hadn't come to the conclusion that magic had been the cause of the smoke or cursing by the time Rexanna told him; he raised his eyebrows in surprise. Trying not to sound too suspicious (magic had always unnerved him), he asked: "Oh. For...safety's sake, I assume? That's good."
They had mages in the Enforcer's ranks, of course, and his military training had seen him up close and personal with plenty of magic; still, it scared him to know there was such a power he never had a chance of gaining, having never shown any aptitude. "What is it you're trying to learn?" Despite Rexanna's worry, he hadn't actually made any connection to the rumours of revolt yet.
His eyes stayed on the spark as it flew about, delaying his speech by a few seconds. "...well, as I said, not really. A fairy tale, I think. I'm just here to make sure - you haven't seen anything suspicious?"
Sam would be very surprised if she had, but he had to do his due diligence. As the spark disappeared, his eyes scanned back over to the water.
you never were the safest bet the hardest to forget like a song stuck in my head
“I’d rather not have my name known as the one that burned down half of POD.” She offers with a small sheepish and embarrassed smile, her cheeks brightening in pink as she regards him and the question he offers, perhaps a hint surprised that he’s interested in what she’s learning in. Or maybe, he’s just being polite, but she can’t say that she’s upset with sharing a little more about herself to someone so well regarded.
She isn’t practicing anything of note, really, but she doesn’t want to seem like she’s boring, so rather than shrugging off his question she turns back toward the journal set atop the stool she’s brought out. “Just how to control it better. Trying different movements, though I’m afraid I might not have stretched enough before hand because everything I try so far seems to have the opposite effect that I want.” Example A) the small piece of burnt grass in the space between the stool and the reservoir.
She turns back to him, though, as she asks about the crime, only to tilt her head slightly as a few dark stray hairs dance in a small gust of wind that causes ripples along the surface of the reservoir. “I can’t say that I have seen anything at all, really. Just… Rain here and there, but it’s been quiet.” Her face pinches slightly as she looks back out over the water with him, before shaking her head. “Though I have noticed some of the birds seem much more interested in a spot over by the walkway, though I can’t say way.” She didn’t investigate why, and maybe it’s an innocent reason such as nesting. She isn’t sure.
"It would be an impressive feat in Drenak." Sam replied with a half-smile. Not impossible for some mages, to be sure, but from what he'd seen of Rexanna's powers so far, it didn't look like there was too much to be worried about. She told him she was trying to practice her movements and Sam nodded along as if he knew which would help - truthfully, he had no experience in magic. "So..this is not representative of your skill?" He asked, smile still on his lips, as he looked at the burnt grass.
Sam found that he liked Rexanna, which was not something that happened very often. Something about her manner made him want to smile and be nice in a way that would surprise the majority of the people that knew him. As she turned, he looked back over the water with her, about to dismiss the idea entirely when she said she had seen something.
It was likely nothing, but he couldn't go back to HQ without investigating all leads, just in case. He sighed. "Could you take me there? So we can be sure it is nothing of import?"
you never were the safest bet the hardest to forget like a song stuck in my head
He’s right when he tells her it would be impressive, and she can’t hide the amused smile that replaces the embarrassment as she lets a soft laugh leave her, conceding the point, only to give him a look of pure amusement to his smile when he asks her if it wasn’t representative of her skill. She doesn’t know him well enough to tease him for it, and instead lets her soft laugh turn to one that chimes brighter, that settles when she shakes her head abruptly, her dark stray hairs flying around her face. “Oh, certainly not.” She wrinkles her nose at it as if for emphasis.
Somehow, being out here without any prying eyes, it almost comes off as more comfortable to talk with Samuel about anything – the fact she doesn’t have to worry about people reading into her words, into sharing the gossip that they’d had a drink together at the café despite it being purely coincidental. She finds it easier to offer what things she did and didn’t see to him, trusting him immediately and immensely despite knowing nothing but the gossip that surrounded him.
“Sure, it isn’t too far.” She says, folding up her notebook and pocketing the lighter, before she folds up the stool as well and hooks it under her arm and moves to step up beside him, flashing him a gentler smile than the more amused ones.
They start to walk toward it, and while it certainly seems like nothing outside of the bushes, there is the brief glint of something silver and metallic hidden within it. And while it might be nothing that relates to what Samuel’s case is that he’s working on, it is something of interest as Rexanna helps to pull back a few branches to make it easier for the strategic advisor to get into it.
