Entry tags:

tdm 20

test drive meme

Ingress travel can be disorienting. Your trip? More than most. Your body may experience several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. A voice, just out of hearing, calling a name you think is yours. You may have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. You catch a glimpse of a space filled with a soft cerulean light, a feeling of dankness despite the glow around you. Regardless of your current state, however, the stress of initial Ingress travel forces your body into unconsciousness.

Waking up is another story. Or is it?

Certainly, it's not where you are now.

sleep, perchance to...

You're dreaming.

You have to be. Certainly, you don't remember arriving in this strange, dim forest of your own accord. Gnarled trees form a solid barrier and a thin cage blocking the sky, silvery light illuminating the ground below in patchwork on all sides. The path beneath you seems to stretch out ahead and back for an eternity, though a light (an exit?) can be seen in the distance. Movement too, down the myriad array of branching side roads.

If you hurry, you can catch up.

* Take the Path:

No matter how quickly you travel, you won't ever reach that glow of light on the horizon. You may, however, encounter other walkers in the night. Friends, foes, strangers. Whoever is sharing your dreaming vigil, you might be grateful for the company. Certainly it's better than the feeling you get traveling alone: a prickle of paranoia and the sense that something just past view is watching.

* Less Traveled By:

The roads lead nowhere. The prickle at the back of your neck hasn't ceased. They're out there; they're watching you, and it's infuriating. But you can stop them. You can break free of it all.

The trees are firm and unyielding, but eventually, your efforts force them to give way. Through cut limbs and snapped branches, magic or agility or sheer, brute strength, you make a hole large enough to crawl through. And just as quickly, you realize your mistake.

The trees aren't there to keep you in.

Inky darkness roils from the gap between the paths, looking to devour you. If you run, it follows. If you hide, it seeks. It calls in voices only you can hear: your friends and your tormentors, the cries of everyone you've left behind. Find help to face your nightmares, or be consumed by them.

* All the Difference:

The light in the distance might still be out of reach, but through long searching, you've found a different sort of exit. Fog chokes off this opening between the trees, thick and obscuring. One step into the mist, and you lose all sight of anything outside it.

Two steps? Three? Ten? You're not sure how many it took before the world around you began to change. Perhaps you've found yourself in someone's worst moments. Perhaps you've landed in a fantasy. Perhaps this is your dream, with a stranger's face or voice intruding. Either way, you'll have to work together to get out.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFO

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For mature or graphic content, please label.For questions, please direct them to the FAQ or the Feedback page.

Please Note: due to the chaotic nature of upcoming events, players who intend to preserve their threads for game use should not assume they were given the usual introduction to Thisavrou at the Ingress Complex. The above scenarios are, however, valid as game canon.

As always, be kind and have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Take the Path
     How long he'd been walking, he isn't sure, but it's only now that he slows as the realization dawns on him. It's with the reaction of someone snapping out of a daze that he stops and actually looks around, his brow furrowing now that he properly takes in his surroundings.

     With his white and gold armor, he's a difficult figure to miss, catching what light does manage to filter through the leafy canopy above. There's a regal bearing with which he carries himself, underlying the caution with which he proceeds to move along the path. Ahead, there's a light. Surely that's a good sign!

     His dark cloak flows after him with each step, his head turning just slightly as he looks towards the trees flanking him, certain that he'd seen something moving beyond. He doesn't like the feeling that he's being watched, and it only makes his grip tighten around the sword he carries, its blade as white as his armor, trimmed in gold with a dark gray hilt, and a glowing line of blue cutting right through the center of the blade itself although only about two-thirds its length.

Less Traveled By
     It's only inevitable that the Altean has become tired of being watched. It might not seem a good idea, but thus far, nothing has struck, and yet something still lingers. And clearly the best idea is to deal with it before whatever it is decides to finally deal with him. He'd rather be the ambusher than the ambushed.

     His blade makes short work of the branches that form a natural barrier from the pathway he'd been following, although he'd not realized the density of the underbrush until he attemps to make a way through. Alfor is nothing if not persistent, and he puts in the effort to get through, looking slightly proud of himself. It's only for a moment as he realizes it's...rather dark here. The darkness doesn't make sense for how light the path just behind him had been, and indeed it seems to almost have a life of its own.

     "Surely I'm imagining things," he mutters, although his stance shifts, betraying his true concern of the situation. "...perhaps remaining on the path would be best after all...."

     He turns, about to do so, but halts just as abruptly, eyes widening. Just now, he's sure he'd heard someone call his name. Spinning full circle, Alfor once again faces the darkness of the woods, his cloak billowing around him with his movement. "Where are you?" he calls out, a slight edge of desperation in his voice.

All that business about duplicates and shadows must have left Allura more tired than she realizes.

Because she catches sight of a man up ahead, and at the very first glance, it's as though an alarm has gone off in her head. She recognizes the armor, the posture, the white hair, the glimpse of an ear. She sees him, and her heart isn't sure whether to be giddy and light or heavy with loneliness, and feels like it's twisting and spinning in her chest.

It's only a moment later that she realizes that this can't be right, and she must be going mad. She's already lost him, twice. There's no way he could have come back again.

But then, strange things have happened here already, haven't they?

She starts jogging, and then running, to catch up with him. She should cry out for his attention, but words briefly fail her. He's sure to hear her approaching before calling out to him in a soft voice:

"E-- excuse me, are you--" -- she pauses for a split second, realizing she didn't think this through, if that's not her father then this would be the most awkward question in all space and time -- "--lost?"

     It's impossible not to hear the sound of someone's approach, although it comes from along the path, and not from the depths beyond the trees where he's been sensing unseen eyes upon him. Certainly if someone meant to ambush him, they would have taken care to be more silent with their movement. Alfor frowns, turning, sword-hand lifting as his left also moves to brace the blade in his preferred stance.

     And then he sees who runs towards him, his eyes widening. His lips frame the name, no more than a whisper, and even then, barely to his own ears. But then the young Altean woman speaks, and his brow furrows in slight confusion. No, it's not his wife. She looks so similar, but he can see the differences as she draws closer, and as she talks. And yet...

     "I..." The question is almost ludicrous that he nearly laughs, but then perhaps somehow this woman knows where they might be. "Why yes, it would very much appear so," he admits, a sheepish smile touching his face. He lowers his sword, seeming to hesitate in whatever he would say next, and then chuckles a little awkwardly as he realizes he must appear foolish for staring so long. "My apologies. I... Well, you just look so much like someone I know..."

It's sort of silly to be worried about he looks, because she's staring back at him with wide-eyes, in disbelief and mild shock. As if he had three heads, or if he had brought one of the lions and was riding it around the forest.

Beyond any doubt, this is another Altean. But his face is more familiar than that, in a way that can't be chalked up to how little she's seen of her own kind since she awoke from stasis. Wrinkles or not, she recognizes every detail of his face, from the color of his eyes to the way his hair falls.

Under different circumstances, she might dismiss the idea and try to figure out what relative he could be that she's never met; but she's already learned that they aren't in their own universe, in a way that's detached from their time continuum.

"It... can't be," she says in a hushed voice, even though she's certain it is. But just to remove any lingering doubt, she asks, "Are you Alfor, the king of Altea?"

Maybe he's not even king yet. He looks so young, in a way that brings back memories of when she was small enough to ride on his shoulders.

     "...I am indeed," comes his response, carefully made as though he might in some way offend. He really has no idea how to take her reaction. She appears to be Altean, and what Altean would not recognize their king? Alfor supposes that it might just be her own uncertainty for this place, as he recalls even his own circumstances aren't quite clear as to his being here.

     Of course, there's also the possibility that his being here may cause one to question what they're seeing. Yes, that would also make sense. "I suppose it would seem a little unusual, finding a king traipsing about the woods on his own," he admits, actually chuckling at that. Laughing about the silliness of the situation helps to disperse the tension he'd felt.

     "It might sound strange, but I can't at all recall just how it was I came to be in this place. That in itself is a bit troubling. Perhaps you might be able to enlighten me? And...may I ask your name?"

Recognizing the king is one thing. However, she seems to be starting to tear up. So, either she's allergic to something in these woods, or she is extremely passionate about patriotism, or--

"Allura," she answers. And then, in case it needs clarifying, "Princess Allura." But that's still going to be confusing, isn't it? So she keeps going, as if he had asked the obvious question.

"This might sound difficult to believe, but this world -- no, this entire universe is one outside our own. And we've had our friends arriving before and after us, as if -- no, certainly because -- we've been separated from our own times, as well."

Forgive her. She's rushing her words and it's making her tongue-tied.

"I'm your daughter, from a future you haven't seen. And you would never guess how long it's been since I last saw you."

     That's certainly one way to get a smile to freeze on one's face. The humor of the moment has quite suddenly dissipated at the drop of a hat, or in this case, a single name.

     It's so jarring to hear her speak this name, and it might almost seem too easy to be angry that someone would so dare to claim such a thing to his face. Alfor however realizes that it's not something he can denounce. He's not sure he can explain it. Emotions war plainly upon his face, and perhaps just as well that he can find no words, none proper for the reaction he has, as Allura rallies on.

     He hangs on to her every word, seeking explanation, no, demanding it. There has to be some sense to all this, unless he's gone completely mad!

     "Allura..." The things she says are difficult to believe, and yet there's no denying those tears, nor the words she speaks. And indeed it would explain so very much why she resembles his beloved so closely.

     His blade falls from his hand, stabbing into the ground beside him at an angle, for the moment forgotten as he starts towards her. "You look so much like your mother... I nearly thought..." He smiles faintly. "My little girl, not nearly so little." His own eyes seem to betray him, glistening with tears too stubborn to fall. It's like he's already missed his baby's childhood and he hadn't even realized it. "Hn. I know it's said that children grow up so fast, but I'm sure they never meant it in such a way as this..."

His gentle reassurance is the kind she thought she would never hear again. Even now, the memory seeps into her mind of the final trace of him, the AI left to guide her, disappearing into light at her own remorseful command.

That's the tipping point, and she lunges forward to embrace him tightly, as if she were afraid that he might disappear in a blink of an eye, too. The tears start falling, and her voice is choked with a sob as she tells him, "I missed you. I missed you so much. I never thought I would see you again..."

If she was thinking more clearly about this, she might have avoided talking about the fact that in her time, he was gone. It's the kind of statement that raises a lot of questions, all of which have terrible answers. None of which she's considered how to tell him.

So, let's keep focused on the present situation. She pulls back, just enough so she can talk to him more. "Never mind seeing you like this! We've only encountered small anomalies -- such as our paladins, they've come knowing things I had yet to tell them -- but this is the first time I've heard of anyone coming from an entirely different era!"

     Perhaps it's due to parental instinct. One might think it otherwise awkward to wrap one's arms around someone obviously seeking comfort. This isn't just someone, however, and the gesture feels so natural, his embrace both firm and gentle, responding to the need he both sees and feels, as though in doing so he could protect Allura from all the pain she's obviously experienced.

     Her honest words hint enough of something terrible that's happened. From a future you haven't seen, she'd said. Ah... Alfor thinks he begins to understand now, and there's a pang in that realization, one that while he refuses to allow to surface upon his face, it still translates itself in the slightest tightening of his arms around his daughter.

     She seems to realize for herself what she's accidentally revealed, and as much as those questions burn for answers, Alfor isn't nearly so eager to find them out. He's certain that he will eventually, but he'll allow it to happen at their leisure. It's why he doesn't backtrack when Allura shifts the subject on them.

     "If there are those that can be summoned from the future, than certainly reaching back through the past cannot be any more or less difficult. And across a span of worlds and universes? But then there have been studies of the potential existence of other realities even in our universe..." He trails off, allowing his thoughts to veer towards a more scientific response than emotional, or at least, it helps a little in distracting him from pondering what sorts of things have happened that his Allura's had to go through.

     "-just how does this all occur, anyway? Is there a source? A rift of some sort?"

"That... is... a very good question." Her tone drops at the end. It's the sort of admittance that gives away the truth, that she doesn't know the full answer.

"Myself and the paladins, we arrived by an interdimensional technology, called an Ingress. But half of us were brought aboard a ship by a malfunctioning Ingress, and nearly lost half of our belongings for it. And then the second half arrive by another Ingress, one that acted as a sun for two planets in a system called Thisavrou."

She frowns. The situation has changed again, so neither of those were the case for her father. Which may be why...

"See, the problem isn't that you're from the past. It's how far. I'm not merely grown up, but... 10,000 years old, after a long sleep in the castle's stasis pods."

     There's nothing he can say until he has a better idea of the situation. Allura provides him with the answer for the means, although he can't necessarily say that the location of them should make much difference. Then again, he can't say that it doesn't either.

     "Was the second also malfunctioning? W-wait....how does this sort of thing act as a sun??" That seems quite the jump between things and it completely throws him, so much so that it takes him a moment to catch up with what Allura says next.

     "I-- You're what??" he blurts, staring at her as though she's grown a second head. He nearly sways where he stands, soaking that information where it does a terrible job of simmering through his scientific thought processes and filters right through to emotions. There are so many more questions that spring up from just that revelation alone. And of course none of them are what manages to make it from brain to mouth.

     "Ten thousand years.... So...not only is my daughter all grown up, but she's older than me..." That...is the strangest thing to process.

"It's complicated," Allura replies, which may also count as her submission for the understatement of the century.

"Just for example... we have these new paladins? They're called humans, from a planet called Earth. You'll find a lot of them here, actually, despite the fact that the ones I know had barely achieved interplanetary travel. They look like Alteans, with stubby, deformed ears."

"Anyway, whenever they heard about our science and technology, most of them looked as though their brains had overloaded, trying to process it. And that -- that is how I've started to feel, when dealing with the Ingress technology." Which is probably why she seems to be bouncing around in her explanation, going from the Moira to Thisavrou and back to the Altean universe again.

"But to tell the truth... I'm also excited by the prospects. Can you imagine, if we could learn to share knowledge not only across realities, but across time itself?" And that makes her smile. Even if she inherited her mother's looks, she still takes after her father in some ways.

     "Humans...?" Alfor strokes his chin as he sifts through the myriad of species and races that he's come to know over the years, but the term doesn't strike him as familiar. Fascinating. "Is that so? Is their hearing compromised? And are their looks the only similarity?" He supposes not everyone in the universe has been able to achieve such feats in space travel, but he considers it promising that these 'humans' have managed at all.

     Given the implications in that alone, he can see how Altean technology can be overwhelming. The faint smile that had been sneaking its way onto his face flickers as Allura relates the problem of the Ingress. Why yes, it is posing a curious puzzle.

     "That would be incredible... How much of this Ingress technology have you been able to study?" he asks, unable to help but feel a little enthusiastic about it himself. It pleases him to see that his daughter's interests aren't too unlike his own.

test drive meme

sleep, perchance to...

(King) Alfor || Voltron Legendary Defender

take the path aka screaming for ten minutes straight

8D

;v; Alfoooooor!

My little girl's all grown up and saving Chi- err, the universe Q^Q

let's get down to business to defeat the space huns

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TAKE THE PATH

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