asgardchrysalis | INTRO LOG + SKADI CURSE.

INTRO LOG + SKADI CURSE.

FEBRUARY INTRO LOG( FEB 16TH & 17TH )

february 16 ↴
INTRO: NEW WANDERERS' ARRIVAL!

Our batch of new Wanderers wake this morning, as all new Wanderers have before, on a plush bed with a mild but lingering sense of recent disorientation. Frigg greets them as per normal, though rather than outright escorting Wanderers to the front doors this time, she and Sigyn allow the Wanderers time and space to leave their bed, meet the pantheon, and even depart the palace at their own pace - but not without a warning. All Wanderers must choose a deity to tether to before dawn the next day, or else one of the gods will choose them. This is of grave importance, as that's precisely how long the magic giving them form is able to last untethered before the Mother's own magic overwhelms it.

(Though the gods are more than willing to allow Wanderers to leave, it's worth noting that many a castle servant - natives, born in this land - might see fit to intercede and insist on the choosing of a god before Wanderers step off the Gladsheim Palace grounds.)

Stepping outside, you're greeted by an almost bright and sunny day... Undermined thoroughly by a sharp, biting wind that permeates any small gap in your clothing. I bet the gods might give you a sweater, if you ask. It probably won't even look that absurd, depending on which one you ask. A trail of what seems like stringless balloons float at eye level from just outside the palace door, guiding Wanderers down the path to a notice board just outside the palace grounds. On this notice board, Wanderers find a brief handwritten guide to accessing the city map on their cuffs, specifically denoting the little colored house icons ( ⌂ ) to help Wanderers make their way to each god's housing.

Also on this board appear to be a variety of job listings, for those who want to get more involved in Asgard as a whole. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? There's more than enough time for that once you've chosen a god to tether to in the first place.

february 17 ↴
GOD CURSE: CHARACTER-BUILDING WITH SKADI.

The storm brewing within Skadi is hardly a secret. She was impatient during the gods' supposedly unanimous address, and in the days to follow, Sigyn (with all her desperately good intentions) tried to balm the irritation but only abraded the goddess further still. She attended the Wanderers' arrival purely by the letter of her duty and swept back out the doors as soon as that duty released her, and since then she's been holed up in her temple, her pointy-faced statues positioned just outside as sentinels meant to intimidate mortals away.

They dared to tell her that she does nothing. Nothing for the Wanderers, that is. Nothing to help them grow and self-actualize, as if these 'Wanderers' are so much more important than Asgard itself, which weakens by the day as her fellow gods fling their magic about to overprotect the Wanderers, or even to satisfy their whims. The consensus to draw back some of that wasteful protection would have pleased her, if she weren't so thoroughly fixated on the slight that preceded it.

They want her to help the Wanderers self-actualize? So be it. There's no better way, truly, than to confront and overcome the ways in which you're flawed.

So the morning after arrival day, many Wanderers wake up with a stinging, itching spot somewhere on their body. Maybe their arm, maybe their back, maybe their throat. In that spot, as it turns out, is a set of words in a deep ruddy brown (almost like old blood) under their skin as if tattooed in place. But these aren't just any words - they prey directly into the Wanderer's fears, their regrets, their insecurities, and their mistakes. They're facing down some of the worst things they've ever thought or feared about themselves.

The other gods, of course, are eager and willing to try to relieve the poor Wanderers of these cursed marks... but they find that it's not quite so easy. Wanderers who seek a god's removal of the words find that not only do the words remain, but a new set appears: Flees the truth.

But that's fine = For most Wanderers, these words disappear on their own in a day or two. A handful of unlucky souls find that their marks linger indefinitely, or seem to disappear but return at truly inopportune occasions down the line.

MOD NOTES

This is the February intro log and Skadi's curse, our mini-event for this month!

Skadi's curse is is entirely opt-in - not all Wanderers are affected - and is detailed more fully in the 'This Month's Events' section of the February Bulletin, and you're welcome to direct any follow-up questions to the Bulletin's mod questions top-level.

You've also likely noticed that god jobs are now live! The listings themselves can be found here (same link as within the 'arrival' prompt), with a brief FAQ featured over here.

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He didn't hide the surprise at the way she seemed to ripple and shrug into a new skin. Interesting, that; he'd seen photostatic veils that could alter the appearance of a person's face, but this seemed something else entirely He briefly gave a thought to whether it was natural talent or something bestowed by this place before abandoning the question (for the moment at least).

Her explanation helps clear up one point at least. "Oh. An actual hydra, like in mythology." The Greeks? Or maybe the Romans, he couldn't be too sure; Bucky was certain that he'd studied the classics at one point but that, like much of his past, was still a slurry of barely-remembered mush in his brain. The name of the place didn't ring any bells either but that also didn't mean much.

"At least, I assume that's what you mean? They don't actually exist." Did it occur to him that might be rude to say? No. No, it did not.

For all of his bluntness, Ariadne looked more amused than offended. "I'm not sure you can say that they don't actually exist when I just told you I saw one," she pointed out. And she wondered why the word would be scrawled across his arm if they meant nothing to him. Clearly, they did. At least in a metaphorical sense.

Again, hydras didn't have fists. Or arms.

What a confusing man.

But she was intrigued now. Both for the words and the way he was reacting to it all.

And his hair. He wore it long, rather like an Alastrian. Well, maybe not quite as long as an Alastrian. But still.

She gave him a little curtsy. More of a bounce than anything else. Everything Ariadne did gave one the impression that gravity was just barely holding her down. As if, any moment, she would spread wings and start flitting about like a tiny sparrow or songbird. "Perhaps they only exist in stories in your world because they all died out?"

"And how do I know that you exist, and aren't just a figment of my imagination?" he countered. He didn't think she was but truly he couldn't be perfectly certain that this entire place wasn't a trick of the mind. Who knew? Maybe he'd finally cracked the rest of the way.

Still, it could be worse.

He blinked at her curtsey, partly because it seemed so odd a gesture in general and partly because of the grace in the movement. Bucky considered himself a pretty good judge of motion and movement because of his awareness of his own body's capabilities but she had a sense of grace that seemed unique, at least in terms of what he'd seen so far in this place. "Old stories. Myths and legends. They all beget symbols, and symbols have power. Doesn't really matter if they were real or not, does it?"

Ariadne had been accused of a lot of things in her life. Being a figment of someone's imagination was definitely a new one, though. She wasn't sure whether or not to be offended, but since she generally saw the best in people, she decided against it.

At least he wasn't coming at her with a knife.

Sometimes, that happened to Alastrians.

"I don't know," she replied. "I think it matters very much to me that I'm real." A pause. "I can prove it, I think."

He shrugged. Maybe he'd offended her or maybe not but he wasn't likely to apologize for it anyway. Privately he considered that of the two of them, he was less likely to be real — a side effect, perhaps, of an existence of not existing.

"You can save your proof." What good would it do her to show off anything to him? She didn't owe him her time or her indulgence and he still needed to work through his own thoughts about what made up existence anyway. "Imaginary or not, here you are. And if you only know HYDRA as a creature, then you're better off for it."

"Well, what else would I know it as?"

Oh, she'd heard his little speech about being better off. But Ariadne never shied away from asking a question. Besides, this strange man had her full attention now. And it wasn't because of any words scratched onto him.

They were all dealing with that game.

No. What intrigued her was the diatribe about real versus not real. She'd seen a lot of strange reactions to being in Asgard, but this was a new one. Part childish and part intellectual.

There was a story in it.

And she was her father's daughter. She loved a good story.

"An organization. People. Cut off one head and two more shall take its place." He said that last with the air of quoting something distasteful. He didn't know the true roots of HYDRA, not beyond its appearance in the Nazi regime. Even those details were hazy; Bucky was their weapon, not their historian. The most they'd ever needed him to know was the identity of his next target.

He shrugged again. "The symbolism matched something of the myth, I think. How deeply they meant it to go, I don't know." A beat. "Doesn't matter."

She frowned a little, a line forming between her eyes. "Well, it can't be terribly deep," she said, after a moment's consideration. "I mean, aside from a Hydra, I've never seen anything that could survive having its head chopped off. Let alone grow back two. I'm pretty sure that's not something people can actually do."

Perhaps gods. But they weren't exactly 'people.' It was complicated.

"Oh!" She snapped her fingers. "But you said symbolism, didn't you?"

This was, perhaps, progress on Ariadne's part. While she wasn't stupid by any possible stretch of the imagination...figures of speech always managed to trip her up.

"Well, in that case, isn't any organization like that? When the person in charge is no longer in charge, someone else has to be. Power vacuums create that naturally."

"There are some who would likely take that as a dare." Like the kind of people who grafted a metal arm onto a person with no thought for anything like willingness or consent, just as a completely random and nonspecific example.

He would have happily dropped the topic right there but it seemed like she wanted to dig into it. He probably should just walk away, save that he didn't trust it would actually end the line of conversation. Some people were truly too curious by half — and if she'd never heard of HYDRA, she didn't know of their evil. He knew he shouldn't hold that against her, no matter how disgruntled he felt.

"I said you were better off for not knowing them." What he didn't say was that if she was with HYDRA, he'd have killed her. The politics of the organization didn't much matter, not when its members were ruthless and cruel enough to change tactics and allegiances to suit themselves. He wanted to believe they were truly gone but he wasn't that stupid — or naïve.

"Ignorance is never better. At least, that's what my father used to say." He had a whole slew of expressions. As a child, she hadn't appreciated them as much as she ought. In an ironic twist of fate, now that she was older, of course, she missed them terribly.

She missed him.

Ariadne shrugged. "Suppose your Hydra showed up here? How would I know them? People are coming and going all the time. Sharing knowledge is our best protection."

Maybe she was going too far. Being in Asgard had made her forget her place, just a little bit.

Sighing, she dipped into another curtsy, dropping her eyes. "Forgive me, my lord. I'm curious by nature." And very, very hard to scare.

"And did your father never keep anything from you for your own good?" He waved vaguely at her from head to foot. "Or you, with your skin changing?"

Willful ignorance versus ignorance forced or enforced; he believed that there could be an ocean between the two, but also a very fine line. Despite himself, it made for an interesting intellectual puzzle.

"If this place sees fit to bring them here, then I'll kill them." Or die in the attempt, he thought, but decided against vocalizing that last. He felt mostly sure that he could accomplish it but knew it depended on who and whether or not the person had his triggers. If they did, well —

He refused to be their tool ever again. He would do what he needed in order to prevent that possibility.

"Stop that." It was likely just a form of courtesy where she was from, but Bucky didn't like being put on some sort of pedestal, even if just one constructed of polite address. "I'm no lord, and I don't want to be. None of this bowing and whatever else."

An angry man. He would have gotten along well with her mother. Rotspine was always angry, even when she was at her happiest. And between her two parents, Ariadne was certain that Rotspine was the more likely to withhold information, to keep things from her and the others for their own good.

She straightened out, pulling her long, rope-like braid over her left shoulder. Bound up like that, it nearly reached her bottom. When it was loose, it went down to her thighs. She carefully considered what to say next. She supposed she could apologize. But as far as she could tell, she'd done nothing wrong.

Sometimes, people were just angry.

"What should I call you, then?" she asked.

Better not to get into the matter of her skin, right now.

He'd heard an adage once claiming that anger was easy. He couldn't quite believe it though: anger didn't keep a man warm, or fill his belly, or quiet the ache in his soul. Anger didn't bring him peace, or peace of mind, or surrender of any sort. Anger kept him alive, and he supposed he should be thankful enough for that, save for the fact that the life he still had would never make up for those he'd ended.

He didn't want to think about that, not where his facial expressions might betray more to another person than he'd prefer. He considered his poker face good, but no one was perfect. No, better to focus on the conversation, to attempt to steer it elsewhere.

And to wonder, a little, at the fact that he hadn't driven her off in some sort of disgust. The fact that her curiosity held in the face of his own rude comments was, well, curious itself.

He hesitated a moment. "Bucky," he finally replied. The name still didn't feel entirely his own, belonging to a life that felt more like a fairy tale than her color-changing skin and talk of real hydras. "It's as good a name as anything else."

His hesitation was, perhaps, more interesting than the unusual name itself. It implied that he either wasn't sure to share it, that he'd made it up, or that he'd somehow forgotten. That last one wasn't likely, but Asgard did funny things.

So, then. Either he was lying to her, or he'd made the choice to share, to engage, to trust her with something as important as a name.

She preferred the latter possibility. But she could hardly hold a fake name against anyone. She'd used plenty, back home.

Lady Sophiana Gemini was a personal favorite.

"Bucky," she said, giving him a friendly smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Would you like some strawberries?" She gestured back to the strawberry bushes in the corner of her garden. They were her absolute pride and joy. The berries were bright and beautiful, shining like bells. And in the dead of winter, too.

She might be surprised to find her last thought closest to the actual truth. But as she didn't volunteer those thoughts and he didn't volunteer his past, that particular conversation didn't come to pass. It was likely for the best, truth be told: nothing good came of looking for the dead, and in many ways Bucky Barnes had died at the hands of HYDRA again and again and again.

Still, what other name was he to use?

The smile threw him a little; despite her overly friendly manner through the entire interaction thus far, he still considered himself poor company. That someone showed willingness to see past that was shocking. Perhaps it was an effect of this place, that a man with a metal arm was not so unusual. Or perhaps it was something else. Either way he considered her again, another sweep from head to toe before following the line of her arm. She clearly prided herself on her work here; could he fault her industry when he'd found none of his own?

"Why?" he asked finally, eyes returning to her face. "I'm not pleasant to be around, so why would you think it's a pleasure enough to offer to share something with me?" At least his words had let go some of the anger to replace it with a thread of curiosity instead.

"A good deed is always its own reward," she replied, without even so much as a trace of irony. Sadly, Ariadne's optimism knew no boundaries. Not even in the middle of a multiversal muddle. And in her experience, the grumpiest of the grumpy were no exception to one universal truth: "And strawberries are delicious."

That was it. Simple and plain. There might be mountains and valleys between one person and the next. But almost everyone could agree on strawberries.

At least, she hadn't yet met anyone who said otherwise.

She spun on her toes and trotted over to the bush, her hair swinging behind her like an eager puppy's tail. Without waiting for him to accept the offer, she started carefully shifting the branches of the bush, pulling out the ripest strawberries she could find, all of them the color of the last few seconds of a sunset. They were large. About the size of goldfish. She picked up the front of her dress and turned it into a little basket, dropping the berries in one at a time.

"Come over, it's all right. There are plenty."

"Does anyone even believe that." He didn't bother phrasing it as a question, because clearly she did. And he knew he was jaded; if good deeds were their own reward, what kind of evil had he truly been to deserve his lot in life?

He didn't want to think about that; he did not.

Eventually he acquiesced to her invitation, only because he had the sinking feeling that she'd ramp it up if she felt him to be the sort to need encouragement. He stepped carefully through the plants to follow her; he knew nothing about gardening and couldn't comment on the state of the garden, save that it was very green and that was probably a good thing. Instead he studied her back, her braid, her dress, the words on her skin; none of them gave up any clues as to why she'd bother with being so friendly.

"What's your name?" he asked finally, belatedly. He thought he must have had better manners once, but he couldn't quite remember them anymore. Or couldn't remember to care.

Ariadne believed it. Which was funny, given the number of times and ways the universe--multiverse?--had of trying to disprove her. But hope was what separated her from everyone else. What made her feel comfortable in her own skin. What guided her when things looked too bleak for a way out.

It was working. So far.

"Ariadne," she said, shifting the basket of her skirts toward him, so he could help himself to the strawberries. "But most people call me 'Airy.'" Which made a lot of sense, given the way she talked and the way she moved.

Even the way she breathed.

She was just so incredibly light. Lighter than air. Except that Lighter-Than-Air sounded like a terrible nickname to her.

"I'm from Valeria, although I don't expect that to mean anything to you. No one here seems to have heard of it."

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INTRO LOG + SKADI CURSE.

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