INTRO LOG: AS COLD AS ICE

[asgardmods]

Who: EVERYONE
What: our December intro log and the As Cold As Ice event
When: December 8-13
Where: Gladsheim Palace, the castle of the gods (and potentially elsewhere)
Warnings: cw: minor mentions of animal death and blood

december 8: season's greetings Morning arrives with news of new Wanderers in the kingdom and a party to greet them on the castle grounds, where Odin holds news for their other-worldly visitors. If you choose to attend, you will have to make your way to the palace through the heavy downpour of rain that hasn't left the city for weeks now. As you arrive to find festive tents and new faces mingling alongside older ones within them, the gods barely have time to make an appearance before rain becomes snow in a bizarrely immediate changing of the weather. As visibility drops to zero and it becomes quickly apparent the snow has a wicked magic woven into it, you are hurried into the castle and offered room and board until the storm lets up. Once everyone has been accounted for and settled down, Odin resumes his deliverance of new information gathered about the Wanderers' circumstances and the connections between their worlds and this one. To test these new findings, the gods offer the Wanderers their choice of a gift from home to be brought into Asgard, as real and authentic as one might expect or hope, although without any technological or magical components to it. Please remember to submit your gift requests on this thread by December 31! After presents have been delivered, everyone is welcomed to a grand meal in the lavish dining hall before retreating to their strange bedrooms for the night. december 9: idling around Not much happens. You are given free reign of the common areas of the castle, including the foyer, the dining hall and ballrooms, and the library, but the maids and sometimes even the gods themselves will stop you from venturing any further into the castle. You will be largely left to your own devices as the storm continues raging just outside. december 10: the winter ball As the maids greet you in the morning, they are excited to deliver news of a celebration later that evening, and they'd like to provide formalwear for the occasion. Your character can request something specific or something can be delivered to their room, but the message is clear: there will be a winter ball full of dance and drink to celebrate winter and urge the sun to return quickly. There is a massive feast plied with various kinds of alcohol alongside music that varies from classic ballroom to brightly dancy to more traditional songs. While the main festivities all take place in the grand ballroom, those keen for such a thing might be invited to another ballroom on the other side of the castle where a very tasteful animal sacrifice is taking place. This room is darkly lit with torches and candles, and the guests are still wearing all their finery as they pass around goblets of blood to drink or shower each other in. Two starkly different celebrations that are nonetheless equally jovial, and the party lasts all throughout the night and into the next morning. december 11: time after time Early in the morning, while many are still lost in drunken revelry, a different sort of chill starts creeping into the castle itself. The outer walls ooze cold into the air and any outward facing doors or windows become encased in ice. As people begin to investigate, they will find that anyone still partying is actually frozen in place, leaving half of the castle suspended in time as cheerful statuettes. For this part of the event, only those less influenced by the passage of time will be able to resist this new magic as the adults in the castle begin to slow to a stop. Characters under the age of 18 will be the only ones unaffected, leaving them largely to their own devices in search of a way to restart time. (There is, of course, also nothing to stop them from getting up to any mischief or nonsensery while the adults are incapacitated!) Younger characters can search the castle for fun or answers, the latter of which can be unraveled OOCly on this thread, where you can also plot with your fellow players to piece the puzzle together. Please submit your maps for this quest by December 10. Time resumes its normal pace by nightfall, releasing the encapsulated adults from one evening into another despite never quite seeing the morning. Surely it is sign enough that winter's hold is still firmly upon them - so they take to another night of worshipping the sun through warm meals and close affection as they dance the night away... again. december 12: losing steam People stumble away from the party drained and weary in the early morning, disgruntled to find that the storm still hasn't let up in any way. The day passes with nothing terribly exciting to do once more as everyone sits around waiting for the chance to go home. Should they continue partying? Kill another cow? Gods, but it all just sounds exhausting now. december 13: winter wonderland Sometime during the day, having had quite enough of these mortals bellyaching around their castle, the gods ask Sigyn as the reigning deity of nature to do something about their less-than-dire but still-bothersome circumstances. Early in the morning, she can be seen stepping out in the storm only to be lost in the dark flurry. Hours later, there is a loud reverberation that echoes and rattles within the castle, and those that poke their heads outside will find that snow lingers but the worst of the storm has cleared. Everyone will be free to return to their homes at good, long last.

[ OOC NOTES: This is the December intro log for the As Cold As Ice event! Your characters will be trapped in the castle for the whole week, although there are options for being outside in the storm described on the event post as well. Please remember to submit gift requests on this thread by December 31 and quest maps on this thread by December 10. Please let us know if you have any questions, and enjoy! ]

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Comments

December 9th

[madcuriosity]

Alice was not too far from Kol, as she was in the poetry section and currently trying to find the book she saw the day before, something about pavement ending? She wasn't sure what the title was but she wanted to find it again. Her fingers were lightly brushing over the bindings, some of the titles she didn't recognize at all.

"Oh what was his name! Something to do with the ocean..." she mumbled to herself. She only jumped when the gentleman suddenly spoke and she turned to regard him. Shakespeare? A prat?

"Do you not like his writing, sir?" she thought near everyone liked Shakespeare! That's why he was called the bard. You didn't become a "the" unless you were thoroughly, well, something. And Shakespeare was thoroughly considered a master of poetry and rhymes and the sort, thus the bard.

[itchtokill]

"Oh, who couldn't manage it? It's just a load of--" but as he turns toward the owner of the voice, he stops just short of what he was really about to say and edits it, just a bit, because she's a child. "--bad jokes and sword fights, really. Not the high-brow thing people want it to be, when you really break it down." Kol might also have some very specific Shakespeare-related memories that he's sour about. But that was several centuries ago, and he supposes it's all moot.

[madcuriosity]

Alice tilted her head and then smiled up at him. At the mention of it being bad jokes and sword fights she turned towards the book he was looking at, unable to see the title from her angle.

"Oh, I've not read any of his plays, just his poetry. I'm not old enough to attend the plays yet," what with her being seven and most plays being at night... also the content of almost all of Shakespeare's plays, as far as her parents were concerned. "But when it came to reciting, Shakespeare was one of the first things I had to learn to recite from my governess." She looked back to her own section to see if she could find... oh what was his name! Something to do with the ocean... and metal? She would figure this out.

"What does highbrow mean, sir?" she hadn't heard of such a thing and was already picturing someone with eyebrows near their hairline. Hmm, if eyebrows were in your hair, were they still considered eyebrows? Or were they just strips of hair now since eyebrows were made of hair themselves, though much shorter, of course. She was quite curious of the answer but brought her attention back to Kol, waiting for the answer so as not to be rude.

[itchtokill]

"Ah, yeah-- that makes sense. So..." He shoves the book back on the shelf, "what's your favorite one, then? Of the ones you've had to learn to recite?" "Uh-- hmm." How should he explain that concept to her. She looks so young, now that he really takes her in properly. "Smart. Cultured. Bookish." Those might be things that make more sense. He has no clue how to talk to children, but at least she seems rather well-mannered.

[madcuriosity]

She tapped her lips in thought. The Bard had well over 300 poems, of course, she hadn't even memorized 10. She knew Sonnet 18 was one of his most famous, but it wasn't something she personally liked. It was just something her governess insisted upon. She had been given monologues to recite, though she had no idea what plays they were from or why they were what they were. So she had to think on the few she knew.

"Oh, I don't know about... favorite, but I do like 'Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,' the most. I like that it's an entire poem about comforting someone. So many of his poems are about love. I've never been in love... but I have been scared before," she offered.

At his description of highbrow, she tilted her head. "Those all sound like very good things! If there's a highbrow, is there a low and middle brow? Is there a higher and highest brow? Are all professors highbrow then?" after all, no one was as bookish as a professor.

[itchtokill]

He looks thoughtful for a moment, thinking it through and trying to place the poem. It only takes a moment and then he nods, "I remember it. ...Are you sure it's about comfort?" He's quite certain it's more of a dark take on death being the end of life's hardships, but then... she's only a child. She may simply interpret the whole thing differently. He chuckles softly, "I'm not certain there's a middle brow, but lowbrow, sure. It's just the opposite, of course." He hums in thought at that question. "I suppose, technically they would be, yes."

[madcuriosity]

"Well... if it weren't about comfort, why would he keep saying 'fear no more?' You always hear such phrases when being comforted, after all. 'Oh, don't be afraid,' or 'you mustn't fear,' and 'don't be scared,' when something scary is about and so many are scared to die. Even if someone is dying, I should think they would wish the be comforted. So the poet... that is, the one speaking, is telling them about all the things they no longer need to worry about once they go on..." so she did, indeed, know it was about death, but her take was still a much brighter one than his.

At the mention of there not being a middle, only a low, she shook her head. "Well, that's not very fair for there only to be high and low but not the middle. How are you to get to one or the other without going through the middle first?" After all, she thought, to get from 1 to 5 you still needed to go through 2, 3, and 4, even if you mightn't think of them to get there. Or from right to left, you still needed to turn to regard the other. There was always a middle, she was quite sure of it. It certainly sounded like a rule, one of those laws, like gravity only simpler. "I think it's there, and simply no one has given it a name... yet."

[itchtokill]

He's pleasantly pleased to realize she realized that-- he knew it was possible she might not, after all-- and there's a small smile on his face for it. "I suppose you're right, luv." Despite his very long memory, he can't quite recall the time in his life where he still had that sort of childlike innocence, it was all so long ago.

"Perhaps." he muses, entertained by her perplexion by the whole matter.

[madcuriosity]

"Oh! I beg your pardon, I've not introduced myself," she realized when he called her 'luv' and not by her name. She turned to face him properly.

"My name is Alice Liddell, a pleasure to meet you, sir!" she offered with a proper curtsy. "What might your name be, sir?"

[itchtokill]

"Alice Liddel?" He echoes, perking an eyebrow at the introduction. He almost asks her if her parents had a very abnormal sense of humor, but something stops him and he decides better of it. "I'm Kol Mikaelson." he offers her in return with a slight bow, the kind of propriety that just doesn't exist in the current age, but he's not a stranger to it, himself.

[madcuriosity]

"Yes, sir!" she smiled, unaware of his thoughts about her name. "It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Mikaelson!" she looked back towards the books and then had a thought. "Ah! Sir, if you don't like Shakespeare, would you like a recommendation for a poet I've just discovered?"

[itchtokill]

He chuckles softly at her enthusiasm, "Sure," he nods a bit. "What's your suggestion?" She's so... excitable. He wonders if he was like that when he was quite so young. It was a long time ago, and he is rather more apt to remember more recent parts of his history that are much more to do with betrayal than anything else.

[madcuriosity]

She took his hand without thought and looked up and down the shelves, her free hand tapping her lips as she looked.

"Ah! Here it is!" she pulled out the book. "Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein! I've read his other books already, Light in the Attic, Falling Up, and The Giving Tree. The last one is a bit sad but his poems are absolutely lovely! I'm just about to start this one, but if you want to read it, I could read his other one about the rabbit!"