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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asgardchrysalis2020-02-16 10:08 pm
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Master Ye has been courteous and generous to Lan Zhan and Wei Ying both, helpful in ways Lan Zhan cannot repay and is owed at least this.
"Can Lan Wangji help? Master is bleeding under the mask."
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They were truths, but they didn't tell the whole story. Ye Zun admits that he paraphrased it when he told Wei Wuxian about the dark energy and how he had been removed from a physical form because of it. Of how it felt to have it's hunger in his veins. But not to the extent that the words hinted at.
"My brother and I were on opposite sides of a war, and we did fight each other on several occasions until recently," he says, reaching up to rub his thumb against his forehead were the word Monster and the cut was beneath the mask. "I... is there a place for salves near here?"
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"Lan Wangji has such salves in his room. Have scars as well that need treatment," he offers, grateful as always that his many wounds are hidden underneath his robes. Even the new brands on his hands are less noticeable than the face. "Can speak more privately there."
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"Scars? Did Young Master Lan get them in battle before coming here?"
He didn't recall if either him or Wei Wuxian talked about it or not. He knew that they had been in battle, and Wei Wuxian held scars from his entanglement with his form of dark energy. While it was nothing like the stuff his race could play with as a matter of birthright, it still was not an easy energy to use.
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But Lan Zhan has seen something deeply private of Master Ye's and it seems fitting to try and share something of his own.
"Thirty three on my back. Discipline whip. One on my chest done in a fit of despair," he answers, feeling all of them ache at their mention. "They are unsightly and am fortunate they are covered."
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He understood scarring oneself in despair, of how that sometimes the only way to let the pain out was to burn something into the skin, but the idea of someone finding a reason to harm the young man next to him and call it discipline was just laughable. He had never met anyone who was so strong in their convictions and still just enough to love like Lan Wangji. Even his brother might not be as pure as him.
"Were they trying to kill you?"
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"One whip for each member of my Sect I had injured," he answers, heartbeat quickening as he tells the story he's only ever told Wei Ying. "Wei Ying had just died. They wanted to destroy his home, prevent his possible return. I stopped them."
He carefully flexes the hand not carrying Bichen and takes a steadying breath. "I do not share easily as Wei Ying does. But I am glad to tell Master Ye this. Master Ye has been a good friend to me. Words carved against Master Ye's will does not change this."
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"What idiots," he says with a snort, his mouth curling in a smile that shows a hint of his old temper. "Were they blind? Wei Wuxian might have had an inner darkness but he never deserved such disrespect even if he was gone at the time."
He knew Lan Wangji did not liked being touched, but he leaned forward anyways, enough to pat him on the shoulder, careful of touching anywhere else.
"I'm sorry they felt you were in the wrong in their blinded pride."
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"Master Ye is wise to see Wei Ying for how he truly is. I thank you," he finally manages, pulling himself together to open the front door of Odinhaus for him. "Am glad Master Ye understands Wei Ying."
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"Besides, he and I share that taint, of having a dark energy that coils around us and through us. Energy is energy. How you use it, how you contain it, is what matters. Many people call themselves righteous and use their purity to destroy... and yet we are suppose to thank them for that?"
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"I was considered unimpeachably pure and righteous," he says as they move up the stairs to Lan Zhan's room. "But in the end, Wei Ying was the better man. He did what was right and what was brave and I did not, not until it no longer mattered. Wish I had understood what Master Ye understands."
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They were inside so Ye Zun removed the mask, making a face at the stain on the inside of it. He was going to have to clean that - a task that may not succeed after all. He could not lift away stains with a thought as he did when his powers worked.
"It's a hard thing, our affinity for dark energy. It can devour our reasoning and make it harder for others to understand that we aren't always what we may seem to be." A touch to the word under one eye. "It likes anger and hopelessness, and sometimes words do not get through the way they should."
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He pushes open the door to his always tidy room and starts to gather his supplies, laying out a rag and a small bowl of water along with the salve. He would not want his own face to be touched by anyone other than Wei Ying and presumes that Master Ye feels the same until told otherwise.
"I have given up trying to understand all of Wei Ying's choices in regards to demonic cultivation," he says as he steps aside to let Master Ye to the supplies. "I spent years with it maddening me but in the end all I cared about was he was gone. And all I wanted was him back, all of him. Try to make it known I accept all of him."
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"It came to me when I neared death; I had been powerless before then, sickly and broken and angered by both."
Angry at his brother, angry at his lot in life. Angry at the Chief as he yelled and choked him as if Ye Zun had any way to make the Hallows work being that he had lacked any spark of power until that moment. He probably would have died if his powers remained dormant, not that the Chief would have still be alive too much longer. Ye Zun was sure his brother would have torn the army apart in the end.
Finished cleaning his face, he sets the rag aside and opens the bottle of salve, sniffing it before taking a small amount and smoothing it over the cut.
"My brother and I were separated when we were about eight... ten? I don't remember what age, exactly." He cleaned his fingers, and closed the salve container. "There had been a war at the time, and we had stumbled onto a camp of so-called freedom fighters. The leader told me that my brother got rid of me because I was too weak. I grew up hearing that all the time until I hated my brother. Later we would meet and fight since I refused to listen to any excuse he had, until I finally managed to kill him.
"He then killed me, after. I suppose that's something to expect when you're immortal, or close to it."