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TEST DRIVE MEME 002
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin. Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.
As you explore, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.
When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.
Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.
finding roommates
Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.
Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
OFFERINGS FOR ULANTI
The festival starts in the middle of the night, when the sun and the children are safely tucked into bed. The streets come alive with dancing locals, their faces painted red and purple and black and yellow. They all wear revealing clothing that, to your sensibilities, may seem sexually suggestive. Some individuals openly expose their breasts and nipples, while some others may incidentally reveal when they turn around to tend to their errands that their dress is backless — entirely! market stands and kind neighbors will gladly provide clothing befitting the occasion to anyone who asks.Notably, the locals' choice of clothes reveal a mark on their bodies. An astute person will notice that there are four varieties — and a very astute (
In addition to dancing and the lighting of any number of candles, you may stumble upon fighting rings inspired by Terry Silver's basement club, where the locals brawl until they're bloody and unable to move. Elsewhere, amongst the performance of a number of erotic dancers, you might come upon a face you recognize — naked and collared and caged, tongue pressed to the bars to taste anyone who'll stop and give them a little attention.
Temporary night market food stands offer various forms of alcoholic beverages and sweet and savory street food in suggestive shapes — sausages, popsicles, flowering cupcakes. many of them represent hedonistic indulgences and displays of wealth that the town usually does not seem to possess. This bounty, they attribute to the Duchess' patronage — and much of it is dosed with herbs and additives that enhance the sexual appetites and aggression in any who consume them.
Another kind of temporary stand has been erected — while new arrivals may at first mistake these for some kind of bathroom, it becomes apparent upon entry that they are partitioned stalls with gloryholes drilled between them. Some stalls are closed with an anonymous stranger waiting inside for someone to push a part of themselves through the hole to be lavished with mystery touches; others are fully unoccupied, should your character wish to lock themselves in and wait on the small wooden stool for a partner to offer themselves.
Anyone native to Rubilykskoye will take the time to answer questions about the festival of Ulanti, which functions as a way to purge their bad energy ("zadza") and sate their inner beasts ("duchozweirz"). They encourage characters to join the festivities — which range from staged sexual performances to sadism and masochism designed to feed the desire for violence. all appetites are welcome here, and there are only two rules: (1) stay away from the unmarked, which refers to the locals' prepubescent children; (2) hold nothing back.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try entering the fighting rings, watching or joining a live sex performance, or eating some aphro food (deliberately or otherwise)!
the fathomless dark of pajak wood
At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches. In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!
HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US
Uh oh spaghetti-os.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter.
Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
someone else transforms
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter. Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
you waited too long
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
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[ A promise easy enough to keep as he feels those tempting fingers of slumber start to press into his mind, slowly drawing away his conscious awareness.
He falls asleep, despite being so unsure about this place to start with, relaxed and secure. Warm and comfortable pressed naked against the body of somebody just as naked. It would blow his mind if he was more awake to really experience it.
Maybe it's clear he at least heard Ankari's words as he dozes off with the corners of his mouth only just starting to flatten out again from his smile. ]
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So, he's particularly relieved to wake up first, finding Tyler still curled up besides him by morning. It was a long, fitless sleep for the elf and he feels... honestly better than he has in decades. His bloom easily returns, covering the musk of undergrowth and wet moss his wither causes. Better to be scented like a spring warm field, sappy and freshly alive rather than part way rotting.
... they are a bit of a mess, aren't they? Dried cum and once slick fluids clung across them both in all manner of places. The memory of just how much passion they had for one another returns with embarrassing quickness. Oh, they did so much.
Ankari should grab the water basin and some hand towels for them. He delicately pulls himself from beneath Tyler to do so, sitting up and hoisting himself off the bed. Feeling so spritely, Ankari doesn't think twice about standing to stride over and grab-
Two steps and he's down flat. Seems even in his brightest bloom his hip and knee will still give out when pushed to quickly. What a snappy yelp and clatter of boney limbs the noises from him are, too.]
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He'd been dreaming until a thud crashes through his awareness and lands right in the pit of his stomach. Fear is what he feels first, bolting upright with a sudden and uncomfortable prickle of panic tweaking at his neck.
With his heart racing, eyes crazed as he flicks his gaze around to find the source of the noise, it quickly settles on the back of Ankari. ...on the floor? ]
Ankari? What... are you doing down there?
[ It's a stupid question, something he realizes as he gets off the bed, still as naked as the night before, and crosses the few short strides to stoop down. ]
Are you okay?
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He hates to ask, but it's worse not too....]
S-s, some help, lad... if you please. [This should feel rather familiar, given Tyler helped him up from the stall, too. He'd played that off as being too drunk to not stagger himself upright. It's more obvious that he's bone sober, this is just something about him. He really just wants a boost up so he can shift back to sit on the bed again]
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Careful to deposit his previous cargo gently, he's concerned enough that not even his by-the-morning-light nakedness is registering. ]
Dead leg?
[ Had he thought more carefully maybe he'd have chosen his words better. For now he's just assuming that Ankari got up too fast. ]
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[too dark a joke to make, definitely. Ankari flopping onto the bed with a graceless groan. He shakes off being stunned from the fall as quick as he can, offering an apologetic look to Tyler]
My apologies, lad, for the rude awakening. You slept well enough, beforehand?
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[ The dark humor sails over Tyler's sleepy morning brain, awake only through shock and not quite up to speed on jokes. He looks concerned, eyes dipping to Ankari's leg as though there's something he can do about it.
But he's not a doctor or a physiotherapist so all he can really offer is his ears to listen. Though not enough to answer the question asked of him. ]
Can I help?
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[Tyler is owed an explanation, hiding it is going to just cause more concern and confusion than speaking truthfully. Ankari hates to do so, he worries he'll get hit with pity, but Tyler has been nothing if not kind.]
Weak hip and a bad knee on the same side. I got rather arrogant there, thinking it wouldn't catch up to me.
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It makes him wonder if Ankari was planning on never mentioning it. Or trying to hide it long-term? He has no idea how that's possible but regardless he sits on the bed next to him and jostles him lightly, taking care not to put too much strain on his hip. ]
After last night I feel like I could do anything, so. I kind of get it?
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Not regretting where you woke up, even with the rude awakening? That's a fine compliment, lad. I'm glad to find you still here. [he looks up to where he was trying to get to the room's water basin, gesturing vaguely at it]
I'd wanted to grab that for you, since we didn't much... clean up, before dozing off. [in one another's arms no less, what a sentimental thing that is]
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It's a sweet reason he'd been off for a trip to the other side of the room. One that Tyler gently jostles him for again and makes to get up. He definitely needs to wash, but life without a shower is proving interesting. Especially after last night. ]
I got it. Man, I'm missing showers.
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A shower... yes, that would be lovely. The Stilmyst Castle had a rain room in our bathhouse. A marvel of engineering and height of luxury. Are such things more common in your world?
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[ Tyler drags over a chair and places the wash bowl on it so they both have access, surrendering one of the clothes to Ankari before dipping his own in the water and starting to wash himself down.
Apparently he doesn't have any issue doing something so non-sexually intimate either. Washing in front of somebody else has never happened before like this but he takes to it like a duck. ]
Rain room sounds so much cooler than shower.
Most places have a shower. I'm not really a bath person so much now as when I was a kid, but... a shower is good.
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The water would collect and be filtered clean, for use by those in the castles. A clever internal aqueduct. A massive grate could be shifted and the open pin points from the ceiling, allowing the water in the basin above to rain down. It was a grand attraction for visiting nobility to marvel at. [he gestures a playful shh-shh of an extended finger to his lips, as if it could possibly matter anymore]
We wouldn't tell them we allowed the commoners in when guests weren't about.
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[ Tyler's gaze flicks up a few times to watch Ankari's hands as he cleans himself up. He's grinning now at the story, enjoying it for what it is as they wash up in companionable conversation. It's not the fervent filthy words from the night before but this is really nice too. He pays special attention to himself too, cleaning as best as he can without running water. ]
I'd be a commoner where you're from. Would you let me sneak in?
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[Nothing like using bureaucracy for the betterment of the people's lives, rather than the mere complication of it. Ankari was put in charge of, really, much too much on the paperwork side, his siblings too lazy or occupied with their own ambitions to pay attention to what he was doing with pen and paper. Rewriting a few rules beneath the table was nothing short of expected.]
I got caught on that one about a decade after, but it was much too late. Turns out that the aristocracy do appreciate their subjects not being filthy.
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[ He's not about to go on a rant about capitalism or anything like that, but there is a certain part of him that's very eat the rich. He's from a poor, single-parent family in rural Alaska so he definitely doesn't have any airs or graces. It makes him appreciate Ankari all the more. ]
So you gave showers to the people. What other stuff did you write into the rules?
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It's a curiosity he shakes off quickly.]
Oh, many little things. The castle would be so wasteful, replacing or refurnishing what was still perfectly useful. If I was clever enough with the language, I could over supply a feast on royal ledgers then send the remains for temple donation, benefiting the publics. At times they must have thought me quite poor at mathematics. [he knew what he was doing, ordering "too much". More money to the field workers, farmers, and such... then plenty unused for donation.]
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[ The opposite is true as far as Tyler has experienced Ankari. Maybe it's a blunt thing to say, revealing Tyler's opinions on those in power, for the most part. But he's not surprised that the elf went out of his way to provide for those less fortunate. ]
I'm sure the people who needed it got it.
[ Whether they were grateful or not, Tyler couldn't say. He finishes up washing himself though and hangs the now wet cloth over the open ledge of the window to dry. ]
Would you prefer if I didn't ask about your leg?
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[Ankari didn't want to be some haughty, indignant royal. He could be, he has certain standards that a commoner would think him soft for. He's far from a rugged man, but Ankari would say there are certain resistances he has in spades. Not tough in a traditional way, that is for sure.
As for that question, he will sigh at it, also finishing wiping himself down to be... passably clean. A good soak would be better.]
It's fine, lad. There isn't much to know... I was born in poor health and it has haunted me all my life. I try to hide that as comfort and courtesy to others. [which is a terrible way to look at his own chronic illness, but what can he say? The truth is frightening and people don't want to hear it. Deception has always been required of him, even if it is counter to his very nature]
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[ The response is immediate and impassioned, something that Tyler doesn't intend to be as doused in flames as it comes out. He has the good grace to look apologetic for a moment, holding up a hand signaling his regret. Not over what he said but how he said it. ]
Sorry, I just...
It's not your responsibility to manage other people's feelings. You are who you are, you shouldn't have to hide any part of it.
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It's almost nice, even if Ankari feels compelled to... explain? Defend-? He doesn't know, even.]
Lad, I was a prince. ["was", he's already thrown that aside, it took him like a day, he's wanted to escape so badly-]
You cannot grasp the disgrace to my family I was. If I did not manage their feelings towards me I would have been disposed of.
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He doesn't snap out of it for long seconds, and even when he does the chills don't fully leave him. He can feel the ice in his veins. ]
I'm sorry that's how your life was.
[ His throat is too tight be able to share that he understands, at least to some degree. He isn't a prince but he knows what it feels like to be labelled as a disgrace, or a pariah. Othered out to the edges of society and therefore safety, supper and warmth. ]
You don't deserve that.
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... my apologies, in turn. You tell me I'm not stuck up and then I promptly condescend to you. A prince, indeed. [Something of a joke to try and lighten this heavy air.
A useful distraction, because what he "deserves" goes unaddressed, washes passed him. He cannot comprehend holding any inherent value, just being himself. He was always scrounging to be "worth" anything at all, it was his biggest challenge as a prince, one he always fell short on... sometimes this was out of his control and sometimes it was willful, him being stubborn in refusing to bend to terrible whims of his father.]
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[ Tyler tries to wave the apology away as he plucks up the same clothes as he'd been wearing the night before and starts to pull on the bottoms at least.
It's hard to say why he doesn't feel like opening up to share the real reason he feels raw. It's not Ankari's fault and he wouldn't want the elf to believe that. But he's also starting to feel that sensation of wanting to suck in a lungful of cold air and yell at the mountains. ]
You're not condescending. I just have a lot to say about people who are gaslit like that.
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