station72 | [mission: hyrypia] then the holy paths we'll travel strew'd with rubies thick as gravel

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[mission: hyrypia] then the holy paths we'll travel strew'd with rubies thick as gravel

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Graze
WHEN: DAY :014 - 016
SUMMARY: Two days of horseback hunting training, followed by the second round of competition.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

THE GRAZE
DAY :014 - :015
THE DAY FOLLOWING the festivities finds the majority of competitors and spectators still buzzing with the competition’s failures and successes, but there is little time to gloat or moan about the results. By the time the sun has risen over the graze there's a new announcement: there will be two days of additional training followed by another day of competition. Today and tomorrow will be dedicated to learning skills vital to the hunt.

0. TRAINING
THE TRAINING FIELD has become familiar, but the decor has changed- as have the the teachers. Unlike the previous riding and herding lessons which featured ropes and hooks, today's syllabus includes a series of more dangerous tools. The short spears that line the racks may be dulled but they still look painful, and the speed at which they're hurled from the intricately carved Sarvat - the traditional spear throwers - is intimidating.

At first glance, the slings of woven and stained Gryer leather are less impressive-- but the different ammo that can be loaded in them proves interesting: a bio-luminescent tagging liquid that stains the targets that it hits and leaves distinct trails, hard metal weights, and carefully handled poison globes.

Over the next day the envoys are are trained to use the weapons from Elinback in addition to being schooled in a number of simple traps and snares that leave little confusion as to the nature of the next challenge events...

THE GRAZE &
THE MINIATURE FINGER MAZE
DAY :016

I. THE CHASE
THE HERD of technomanced automaton Gryer sits idle in the knee-high silvery grass of the Graze. They're nothing like the Elin (who exhibit all the traits of live animals); these automatons seem to know only two basic concepts: don't run, and run. Right now they're practicing the former as the competing riders are divided into large, mixed hunting parties. Once the parties have been formed, they take turns taking their runs at the herd. Among the herd of thirty, four Gryer have been painted a brilliant sapphire. To strike one down requires either two metal weights to the head, a spear to the neck piece, or two spears to its midsection.

When the hunting parties take off so do the automaton Gryer. And they're fast, moving as of one mind - a school of mechanical fish through a sea of silver grass. It'll take cleverness, skill and a bit of daring riding to either cut the targets free of the herd or go crashing through among the running Gryer to strike a target down among its brainless brothers and sisters. Once struck enough times or in the right place, the sapphire Gryer will lose power and drive spectacularly into the earth.

The attentive audience (many of them armed with an array of binoculars from their personal belongings) might cheer when appropriate, but due to the distance at which much of the action takes place most of the observation is spent eating, drinking, and enjoying the shockingly pleasant weather.

II. THE ~~75th HUNGER GAMES~~ PURSUIT
THE BREEZE GROANS through the shadowy pocket of the canyon system, whistling tiredly through the coral structures - along narrow bridges and between tight passages. Familiar to anyone who competed in the individual race on Day :013, this shadowy miniature canyon is crawling with automated creatures to 'kill.' The only problem? Beating everyone else to one of them. With the blare of that now-familiar horn, the hunters mounted on their Elin take off into the canyon and rapidly splinter into disparate groups or simply go off on their own into the tangle. It doesn't take long at all to lose sight of other riders, to begin to feel completely alone in the low light of early evening. Mist rises from the canyon floor and the breeze moans ominously through the pockmarked coral structures.

It'll take more cleverness and accuracy than high speed riding skill to claim a prize here. But best work quickly and quietly to avoid having your target poached out from under your nose…

III. THE AFTERMATH
THE SECOND CHALLENGE ENDS with a long, mournful cry of the now-familiar horn. All of the possible targets have been captured and to the victors go the spoils in the form of the accumulated scores, carefully kept by the judges. The losers are left empty handed-- at least until the spectators and competitors alike have made it back to the tent encampment. Then their hands are filled with the same liquor and a new spread of simple, filling, and delicious dishes expertly prepared by the servants of the manor.

There’s some ceremony to it - the meat they are eating is the same that they would have served if their hunt had been for something more than machines. However, mostly this seems to be a chance to relax sore muscles. That's aided by the addition of several leather-enclosed tents raised earlier in the day. Once the sun sets, these tents are filled with hot, relaxing steam and lined with benches: saunas! ...which might provide some comfort for anyone not stuck wearing a heavy robe. :(

((OOC Notes: This log covers the two days of mounted combat/hunting skills training and the competition which follows. You can find a full breakdown of the events/a place for mini-event specific questions HERE. Sign-ups will remain open until the next event log for the finale goes live, however going forward please make sure to either join the individual event or have a full team selected for the team events. Please be aware that signing up late won't give you extra time to finish your thread to qualify for the finale event.

Have more generalized questions? Drop them on the MISSION: HYRYPIA OOC POST or get in touch with us on the Mod Contact page.))

NAVIGATION • GAME CALENDAR • MISSION: HYRYPIA • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i. Infiltrator
Everyone loves a show. They're all looking to their gear, rushing around, or watching the competition for targets-- Out there, metal hoofbeats make thunder and sparks fly from glancing blows and true ones. In the camp, it's controlled chaos, all minds turned to the glories of competition and-- and Shepard, she knows her cue.

They won't catch the 'Enemy' out in conversation, not without knowing what they're looking for. But, like the datapads hidden in paper-bound books, whoever they are, they'll have discrepancies that are more material in nature. The problem, then, becomes finding them; there's a lot of people here, a lot of ground to cover, and very little time. Fortunately, she's not alone-- right?

ii. Engineer
Of course, any good crime needs an alibi, and what better alibi than to be publicly, obnoxiously, people-watching. Shepard sits, sipping at her water, to all appearances deep in some unknowable form of public meditation or prayer behind her robes and veil, but any with the wherewithal to know it can hear the running commentary.

( 'But Sara, how will I pay for the farm now that a diplomatic riding competition has taken my ability to walk? I will never again till the hard unforgiving soil of our homeland.'

'Love will see us through, Clem. We'll scrape by, somehow.' )

The Rabadocean in question limps by, injured in competition, but too proud, or too friendless, to be assisted on his way. The next stalks by, arms full of lumpy bundles and metallic cooking equipment.

( 'Oh no I overslept and now I'm late for cannibalism cooking class. If I'm the last one there, the chef might cook me instead!'

But she was not the last one to class, and they cooked Fred instead. His amputated foot was almost as delicious as his arm had been. )

A trio going the other direction, one of whom trips, briefly delaying the other two, before they leave him to push himself up out of the dust and catch up in his own time.

( Dammit, Fred. You'll never learn. )

iii. Soldier
She is the kind of person who travels light. Between necessity and regulation, it's always been so. If you were to look in on her, even when set up for habitation, her corner of the tent is just that-- a corner, compact, tidy from habit, and well-secured when not physically guarded. It takes a thief, after all, to know the true paranoia of thievery.

Shepard is, absolutely, a thief.

But right now she's a thief with her veil and gloves stripped off, laying back and watching something scroll past on her datapad-in-a-book, with a bulbous glass of something violently purple at her elbow. Maybe you want to leave well enough alone, or maybe you have a question, a curiosity, or are just looking for company. Regardless, Shepard will acknowledge your presence with a glance and a nod-- no reason to be rude, after all.

iv. Vanguard
wildcard, y'all

Edited 2017-09-16 21:31 (UTC)

❰ 'Damnit, Sara, love won't put food on the table!'

damon comes to stand next to shepard, the mental impression of an amused grin left in her mind. people watching isn't his favourite thing, that would require an interest in people, but mocking, oh boy, he sure does love that. ❱

[It's only Shepard's long training on the brutal battlefields of the Alliance's lowest poker-tables that saves her from an undignified laugh. As it is, the brood-bond is no barrier to her amusement, filtering mind-to-mind]

( 'Says you, Clem! I'll take to the streets and sell my body. Love is all that will keep us afloat!' )

[It's nice to have someone to play along with.]

❰ 'Sara, I think that's taking "love will keep us afloat" a little too literally. You don't have to jump straight to selling your body!'

what are they even doing, what is this, they are on a serious mission that could end in the whole planet getting blown up with their whole nest on it. this is not the time for snarky roleplay.

as if that's gonna stop him. ❱

[Look, if you let dire circumstances stop you from having fun, you're never going to do anything but suffer. And Shepard does plenty of suffering as-is, thank you; find joy where it lives.]

( 'Wow clem, you're right. With my flat chest and hideously ugly alien face, that'll never work. We should sell your body; after all, you're too crippled to farm now anyways.' )

❰ Wow, Sara's a bitch.

'How about we just take selling of bodies off the menu for right now, Sara? I can learn a trade! Surely there's something we can do that won't require use of my terribly disfigured leg or your disgusting face!'

sara and clem are apparently a shitty match made in shitty heaven. ❱

( Yeah, well. Clem's no prize either. Besides, he started it by getting his bone shattered during a diplomatic pony show. )

[So, there's that.]

( 'Who will feed us or our seventeen beautiful, starving children while you go back to trade school and struggle fruitlessly to get a job?' )

❰ Ouch. Wouldn't have taken you for one to blame the victim, Shep.

surely there is something more important they could be doing right now... ah well!

'Well, my leg's useless, and there is that cannibal cooking class...' ❱

Edited 2017-09-16 23:25 (UTC)

( And then the family ate his useless crippled leg and prospered. The end. )

[Doing things its dumb. Importance is relative.]

( Sometimes, when you go off-planet to participate in robotic blood-sport, abandoning your ugly wife and seventeen beautiful, starving children on the harsh, unforgiving soil of their homeland, you just have to accept the consequences of your choices, Damon. That's just how parenting works. )

[That's real, Damon. A real Shepard lesson, from her life. How dare you.]

( Seriously, though. You do one now-- stop stealing mine, we got a target-rich field here. )

[ She's not alone.

All right, well, technically none of them are really all that alone these days, with the hive mind, but that's beside the point.

The point is that she's not the only solider playing a being a spy. They're both out here trying to take advantage of most eyes being on the competition by poking into people's things. There's signs of the enemy somewhere, Sam knows - whatever the hell they'd found out in the forest had definitely not been local - they've just gotta find it.

Right now he's got his little alien bird on his shoulder, red feathers gleaming dimly, listening out for anyone approaching as they look. ]

( You know I only got one plan if we get caught at this, right? )

[Shepard is bound and determined to ignore the fact that Sam Wilson has achieved a transformation into an actual disney princess for as long as she possibly can; she makes no comment on the bird.]

( Is the plan, shoot someone and later claim you panicked? Because I'm not saying I condone it, but... )

[Compartmentalization is a beautiful life skill and everyone should try it.]

( --What? )

[ It's not his fault; sometimes you just go to an alien planet and end up taking a couple of birds back and - yeah, all right, there's a chance he might actually be a disney princess.

There's a soft huff of laughter, amusement flaring across the link. Of course that's her plan - honestly, Sam isn't even surprised. ]

( My plan involves getting physical, too, only the kind that's a little more personal. )

[Sam, come on. Be cool about the unprovoked murder of an inconvenient innocent would you? Be cool. Be-- wait a minute, is he suggesting what she thinks he's suggesting?]

( Now? ) [She's gonna have to have a discussion with him about timing. But that doesn't stop the little curl of aroused incredulity from winding its way across the bond between them. Oh yes, now.] ( Hell yeah. )

[She likes to live dangerous.]

[ LOOK Sam learned all his spy moves from James Bond all right, this is what he's got.

Well. James Bond and Clint Barton, but there's not really much of a difference except one of them is a suave British guy and one is a disaster with killer biceps.

...and a little bit Natasha, but she mostly taught him how to kill a guy with his thighs. ]

( No better time. ) [ By which he means holy shit he definitely heard the sound of soft voices and footsteps, and they have absolutely no excuse to be here rooting around in people's shit.

Except that it's private and out of the way, and Sam's just gonna pull his hood down a little more to hide everything better, tug his scarf down so his mouth is free, and tug her in to kiss her. ]

[This is part of her day where Shepard finds herself being thoroughly deeply, meaningfully kissed, made blind in both a literal and metaphorical sense, while standing in someone else's bedroom. And not the man she's kissing.

Sense would dictate a certain decorum about this situation, given the relative danger involved. That even when licking your way into Sam Wilson's mouth, you ought to maintain at least a minimum of situational awareness. The mental link, the bond between them throws any such plan into total disarray. Shepard makes a sound, formless but not without meaning, and clutches him under their mingling robes, to emphasize her appreciation.

Behind her eyes, something else is mingling, psychadelic and strange. This isn't like it is with Annie, or Lavellan, or any other Host. Anyone can separate sex and love, and... and this is anything but separate. Even the too-bright slant of sunlight across the two of them is not enough to distract her.]

[ It's something he hadn't counted on. This plan was haphazard enough as it is, a pair of soldiers playing at being spies, and there probably wasn't ever a chance that they weren't gonna get caught at it, but he hadn't counted on the way their mental link blooms with color.

His mind knows hers, just as hers knows his, and he should have remembered that physical contact makes the connection stronger - but somehow he'd slipped that little detail. Or maybe he just hadn't cared, hadn't put any thought to it. Honestly, he's not putting all that much thought to it now.

How can he, when Shepard's making appreciative noises under his touch, and his mind hums with his own appreciation. His hand presses against the small of her back, holding her close, and he is - no, he's definitely not paying attention to the sounds he'd heard that made him think someone was coming. Instead his teethe graze her lower lip as he nips at it. ]

[The sound Shepard makes for that is like the sound a cat makes when it's to large and deep-throated to purr; a definite growl, where affection might prompt some other sound. She gives up on softness, hauling down on him with arms and shoulders while throwing herself into the motion, a mutual fitting-together of bone and curve.

Open-mouthed and wet, unthinking, alightly askew, and it's a voice that pulls her out of it. Not to sobriety, never that at this late hour, but Shepard whirls at the embarrassed exclamation at the tentflap, on fist upraised, wreathed in blue light, ready to--

Woah, girl. Easy.

She's panting, red-faced, veil mussed too far for safety, and absolutely ready to seek violent retribution for the interruptions. It's only the reflexive, startled way the Rabadocean at the entrance had jerked away from the sight of them that had saved their cover. Her fist is still curled around the collar of Sam's cloak, anrchoring, tethering, leashing him to her physically.

The mental connection grips much more tightly, roots and tendrils still stroking idly through the singing bond between them, tracing out the shape of Sam's personality, his mind, his self with all the casual intimacy of a lover tracing the musculature of his bared chest.]

Sam.

[Her voice is hoarse. She would clearly rather dosomething other than talking]

We should go.

[Back to their part of the compound. To a tent. A bed. Somewhere private, or a version of private where this can continue. Fuck these stupid information-gathering bullshit jobs, anyways.]

After all the racing is done - and she has well and truly recovered from her own strange moment with her abilities, is when she comes to call on Shepard - herself this time. Perhaps to follow up with a plan she might have, or just to see how the other woman has been keeping.

Stepping into the tent, her veils are still drawn, held careful in the way, the way she holds herself whenever there is a chance she might be dealing with an outsider. Lightly, the gold chains over her gloves fingers that are meant to be deliberately distracting displays of wealth. The embroidered blue and red set with gold to framed edges in wide images of lotuses - flashy and quick work.

Though in truth, she didn't know quite what she was expecting when she went looking for the other woman. The fierce flatness of all Shepard's words and actions finally given a face. Given a form outside of that deep ocean and broiling depths. Just a face, just another person's face and -

- something, she finds, she did not quite expect to see. Less to the notion of a carved loveliness of the statues of Lakshmi or Parvati. But the jut of a mountain range that ragged sat without repentance. Itself and unmake-ably so.

Lakshmi steps forward, the chime of bells at her ankles for it, her hand left in her own people's greeting in reply to the nod. The sweeping cup of her hand until her fingers hover above her brow.

"Commander."

"Rani," Shepard returns, low and almost amused. She's thinking of another exchange between warriors, though Lakshmi was no Krogan warlord, Shepard would absolutely love to see what they'd make of one another.

Lakshmi is... Well, Shepard didn't know that she was expecting anything particular. Something similar to this, had she been asked, the dark face, hair long and straight. The face of India, if such a thing could be said to exist-- or maybe just, the idea of a beautiful India, without scars or blemishes. Queen, was it? Apt.

She's never going to get over the jewelry, though.

"It's about time we met face-to-face, I guess," Shepard tips her chin up, very slightly, a gesture of challenge. Well, here I am. What of it? She knows her face was never beautiful, even before Cerberus cybernetics split it with fissures and scars, "Still carrying around a bunch of questions?"

"About time." a faint echoed amusement, as she strides a little further in, not the Shepard's side so immediately, but in her own brief check of the perimeter. Done under the guise of settling her veils straight about herself, pulling them all the way back to lay again her hair, settled neatly as she folds it with the ease of long practise.

"And of course, always. Though perhaps I thought, this time..."

Safe, for now, and she steps to face Shepard fully. Yes, the earth, she cannot help but think of it. Raw and unforgiving in how it had been shaped.

But no less inviting in the indulgence of sinking your hands into it, she had been mud and stick soak child, and there was something to that wildness she simple had shaped otherwise.

But the scars that run like rivers on Shepard's face say that she did not. A pull, planet like - did the scholars that Tesla prattled on about, say that sun called to planets called to moons and so too-

Did Lakshmi take a step forward towards Shepard. Slow and careful, toes to flat heel as her hands move down to settle by her side. "You may have questions for me too?" The faint appraisal in her face is mild, a lifetime of dimming herself to expressions. But her gaze and her eyes don't leave her face, a constant watch, without pause or hesitation that sits in selfishness that she will take and take and take.

She will not stop watching her, she will keep doing it as long as Shepard lets her.

Edited 2017-10-02 09:13 (UTC)

If that surprises Shepard, it doesn't show in her face. She seems to consider it, then cocks her head slightly as if making an agreement with herself; well, why not?

"Alright, how about this; Quid Pro Quo. You ask me, then answer it for yourself. Then I get question," Something in that is dangerous, in the way that when her face falls momentarily into shadow, her eyes have red at their heart. She does not merely resemble a volcano in metaphor, "Want me to start?"

She settles near by. Sweeping skirts to settle around her as she finds a comfortable way to seat herself, turning to rest her weight on her side, arm catching her weight. The flick and curl of her fingers to gesture agreement.

"Very well. What would you like to know?"

"I like to start with the basics. Where you from?" She says it in that flippant, rote way that people do when they ask how you are-- you're fine, and they're not expecting any other answer. But Shepard's eyes are sharp on Lakshmi, and her interest is clearly genuine, despite the affect, "I assume you got family."

She knows these answers, in some capacity: the husband, the nation, the struggle. But all journeys begin on the launchpad, and this one is no different.

"Had, yes, I did." She threads the material of her veil between two of her fingers, as she thinks, speaks, smoothing the motions out to measured pace and measured words. "I grew up in Varanasai, in what you would call India, I suspect."

The veils glitter, swinging with the gold. "My father was a poor man, and my mother died when I was young. I married when I was 13, to the Maharaja of Jhansi. Jhansi is a kingdom, far into the deserts of Bundelkhand. From then, that is where I resided."

It is without emotion, as it ever happens. The story of another woman. Or else, what is her option? Weep over it? "I bore him a son. The one. He..." a pause, and that, she cannot pretend over - that, she blinks, looks at - something. A place not here, not Shepard, not herself. The flicker, of a little boys laugh. "We adopted another, a year later. I had to leave him, after the war." The material unwinds and she lets it sit loose in front of her. "I do not know if my father's second and my half brother survived, by I am a daughter and sister as well to them, respectively."

She might be miserable, if it were someone else that - did not know war. That was not familiar with the notion of these stories end. But they simply are.

"I'm from Earth."

For a moment, that seems to be all she'll say on the matter of location. Shepard regards the ceiling of the tent with a thoughtful squint, however, and after a few second's thought...

"...Might be...American? I never really cared about the place-names, back then. Grew up on the streets, no family, no parents, got in line at the recruitment office as soon as I could," She shrugged, vast and uncaring. If you can gloss over that much detail, so can she, "I had a good mentor, he got me into an officer's program; I studied in London, did the N-school training, got a command position-- that's a whole other story."

A long one. She shrugs again; sorry, Lakshmi.

"Your turn."

Shepard | OTA

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