TEST DRIVE MEME 004

[rubimods]

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ 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: spiders, animated skeletons, aphrodisiac effects, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bdsm, kink negotiation, knifeplay, potential dismemberment.

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

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 despite the growing chill.

wildlife encounters

The longer you hike, the more unsettling sights await you: animal remains, some partially stripped of their flesh or discarded entrails left exposed to the cold. As you continue on your way, you might even swear you catch a glimpse of what appears to be a fully-formed skeletal creature observing you from a distance. Surely, that’s just your mind playing tricks on you... These creatures may be unsettling, but they show no signs of aggression to folks who keep their distance.

In the forest, 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.

SETTING: CRIME

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. It's already full of people who appeared in the village just as you did today.

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!

RECUMITA

The festival fills the streets with dancing locals and all the stuffs of a street market. Despite the challenges posed by the snow-in-summer, farmers are grateful to announce that the situation is not as dire as initially feared. As a result, the harvest festival of Recūmita becomes a celebration of unity and gratitude to their fellow townspeople for salvaging an almost-frozen harvest, the Duchess' magic for protecting and reviving it, and the 'Void-Touched' who braved the Void to strengthen her.

Over the weekend, all regular work is put on hold, except for the necessary festival preparations. The streets come alive with vibrant stalls and stands, offering a wide array of delectable treats and refreshing beverages. From barrels of beer and cups of kvas to mouthwatering roasted meats, delightful squash-based dishes like pumpkin latkes, honey-glazed brussel sprouts on skewers, hot borscht in both pork and vegetarian variations, and tantalizing mushrooms stuffed with leeks, cranberries, and bryndza cheese, there is an abundance of flavors to indulge in.

The first day of the festival transforms the streets into a bustling night market, where shopkeepers organize an assortment of carnival-style games. Test your strength in arm-wrestling contests or challenge your pain tolerance in contests where individuals whip each other to determine who yields first, whether to pain or pleasure. In one corner, Terry's Rubean student sets up an unsanctioned fighting tournament, while in another area, a path of hot coals awaits the daring souls who wish to traverse it. Instead of traditional pie-throwing stands, knife-throwing stands attract participants who willingly become targets.

Enthusiastic Rubeans, particularly those involved in integrating the Void-touched, take it upon themselves to enhance the festivities. They recruit local participants and willing Void-touched individuals to partake in an impromptu stage performance, with no need for rehearsals. Come as you are and join the spectacle! Once the performance begins, the passion and excitement behind their efforts become truly evident, as all the performances call for explicitly sexual or violent acts to be performed together.

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

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.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

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.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

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

Rubilykskoye's performance troupe is thrown into a state of panic as they make a shocking discovery: Vyanchaslav, their unofficial manager and conductor, has vanished without a trace! Vyanchaslav plays a crucial role in the troupe, overseeing small inter-troupe matters and having the final say on casting and rehearsal time. He is known for his reliability, making his sudden disappearance all the more perplexing, especially right before a major event.

The last time anyone saw Vyanchaslav was in their usual rehearsal space, just before a crucial run-through of their upcoming performance. His absence during that rehearsal was highly unusual, and it left the troupe members worried and confused. They are now frantically trying to piece together what might have happened to him.

As they search for Vyanchaslav, they notice a faint sound lingering in the air – the distant whine of a fiddle. However, there is something unsettling about it. As they follow the source of the sound, the room grows darker, and an eerie chill runs down their spines. Those who draw close enough to properly hear Vyanchaslav's song will feel inclined to dance themselves til their feet bleed, til their lungs give out. That is, provided they don't cut a devil's bargain with him first, selling something else to the devil in exchange for their freedom.

(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?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Comments

marcus lopez arguello | deadly class | wilk

[needlebomb]

the woods.

[ the last time marcus woke up confused, wet and naked, he had had the smell of brain matter in his throat and immediately threw up over his hotel room's balcony. there's no dry blood under his fingernails or the sickly afterglow of killing a middle-aged man this time, though — just the smell of the woods, the tactile earth. the dead leaves and the sharp sticks digging into his back are uncomfortable, but it's the kind of uncomfortable he's used to. he's good at sleeping in the streets, sleeping in parks, so his first thought isn't so much where am i as it is what the fuck, who stole my shit.

but he orients himself before long, and he paces through the woods, quiet and listening and slow. he finds the corpse of a rat, most of the meat picked off of its bones already, and for a while, he just stares at it. he sees other things, too, shifting in the shadows, but the tension those eyes instill in him eases fast. he stays for a while, tiny skeleton in his fist, watching the dark for movement. it's only when he starts to freeze that he turns his back and moves.

he tracks someone down eventually, half-heartedly covering himself with his hand when he does, less out of modesty and more out of the underlying belief that it's probably his own damn fault he woke up out here, and if it is, the least he could do is spare some stranger an eyeful of cock. he let go of the rat skeleton, thankfully, so the slightly awkward wave he gives isn't as morbid as it could have been. ]

Hey, uh — did you see anything in the trees back there?

recumita.
( cw: aphro/probable smut )

[ it's funny; back home, marcus is the kind of kid who acts like he's too cool for parties like this. he'll stand in the shadows with his solo cup and his walkman, listening to something heavy and cliche like the cure while he thinks his daily downer thoughts. he would alternate between a sincere disinterest in people and a more overt desperation that someone would think he looked sick and smart and different and come talk to him, already impressed.

recumita isn't that much different, but being homeless taught him the value of free food. while other people are playing games and having fun, marcus will linger just far enough away from the crowd to technically not be a part of it. he'll roll his eyes at the people who think running on coals actually means anything, he'll put his hands up in mock surrender and walk away when someone tries to involve him in something. he'll admit the knife throwing shit looks pretty cool, but until he gets to the market, that's all he'll choose to give.

an hour in and marcus has drunk a little too much liquor and eaten a bit of everything on the menu. there's a warm, easy feeling in his chest, and that cool guy front he puts up melts away enough for him to just feel like himself. not quite happy, not quite free, but definitely close to it. someone is playing the drums somewhere, people are splitting into couples and dancing in the street, and it all just feels electric. he barely even sees who he's talking to before he starts hitting on them. ]

Man, you're beautiful. Anyone ever tell you that?

[ marcus' face is warm and his head is spinning, but there's a heat in his belly he wants to chase. he leans in close, flicks his hair out of his eyes, puts on his best smile. they'll be looking for performers soon, and marcus is in just malleable enough of a mood to take this on stage if his new partner won't slink off into an alley with him somewhere. ]

Seriously. You look like - like the fucking stars. So, so pretty.

you waited too long.
( cw: monsterfucking and/or monstermurder )

[ someone said something to marcus, once: you don't have to absorb the stains you clean. when it comes to trauma, it's all in your head, you know? why carry that guilt around with you when you could just seperate yourself from it entirely? justification, morality, everything you need to tell yourself to sleep at night... it's all mental, man. they're just thoughts, so don't think them. mind over matter, bro!

it goes without saying that that is bullshit.

marcus is a killer, and when his skin rips and his bones shift and he turns into something hulking and vicious and heavy, there's a vague, prescient thought in his head swimming in the mindless need to fuck and bite and tear and kill and hurt. this power is not going to be good in his hands. this is not going to be okay for the people in this town he might one day love.

he's outside when he transforms, grows three times his size and then three times more. he's all coarse black-brown fur and tremendous, inhuman muscle, vaguely canine and vaguely ursine but too big and too long and too out of place. marcus bends and breaks and changes with a howl that pours from his mouth like it's cutting up his throat on the way out. spit and blood drools from now steel-sharp teeth born to pierce and bite and sever. something thick and red pools beneath claws made to rip and shread and tear. the beast stands, bipedal, back arched, and then drops to all fours, crushing stone and gouging earth.

everything about this thing screams danger. this is a killer. this thing exists to fight and fuck and maim and take without reservation, and if you're the unlucky soul who gets pinned to the cobblestone under one huge, monstrous paw, then... shit, that sucks for you. marcus sprints deeper into the town, and he hunts. ]

wildcard.

[ or anything else! come at me, dm for questions/whatever. i was here with an oc (duke that old dilf demon guy) for like A Month but life got the better of me - hoping to dive back in with this shitty little twink. ]

recumita

[ghostface]

( this particular star, smelling like sweat and sex and bad ideas, has been tailing marcus for the past hour. no reason, really, just for fun. through a tangle of bodies, over the beehive press of sweaty heads, he's watched his evolution from moody wallflower to the toothy thing that scatters into danny's proximity now, pupils blown wide, aphro-fucked and hungry for more. in turn, in reward for his primal courage, danny goes prey still, slanting chin and mouth and dark, dead star eyes toward marcus' face.

he grins, lopsided, fiendishly boyish. )

You think I'm pretty? I think you're pretty.

( he thinks he's his type. inked knuckles graze marcus' jawline gently. his thumb hooks his bottom lip and presses in, exploring his teeth and gums, his little human canines. now is he the kind of pretty who will let danny spit in his mouth, or who will take his tongue off for trying? only one way to find out.

with one hand wiring his jaw open, danny uses his other hand to steer marcus by the wrist to his thigh and the leather sheath wrapped tightly around it, skimming the exposed hilt of the bone knife tucked away inside, warmed from danny's body like another limb. a silent suggestion, then he keeps him moving, depositing his palm flush onto his hip, and nods to the empty stage. more directly: )

You wanna see how pretty I bleed?

[needlebomb]

[ self-preservation has never been marcus' game, even prior to where he is tonight, his neck tilted and his throat exposed to the touch of an armed, dead-eyed stranger. marcus is supposed to know when he's being hunted, being watched, but even in unknown, hostile territory, he chose not to put those guards up. if danny had been watching him tonight, marcus made every decision he could have made to prevent himself from noticing.

danny's a freak. marcus lets him explore the hills of his teeth, straight and white and deceptively harmless. the half of his mind that balks at vulnerability or restraint hits a deadlock with the need to be malleable, the need to not care, and so marcus keeps his jaw slack. he looks fascinated by danny's behaviour, at first, under the slightly mocking eyebrow raise and sarcastic start of a smile in the corner of his open mouth.

but marcus still bites at danny's thumb when he first tries to pull away. it's a little vicious, too painful for most people to consider playful, but it's not defiant. it's just to keep him there. he sucks danny's thumb, tastes whatever he's done tonight without a care, and he tilts his neck afterwards, moves so he's biting at danny's palm and kissing his wrist. when danny guides his hand to his thigh, marcus feels the bone, blindly grips the shape of the hilt, and it doesn't take much for him to recognize the knife for what it is.

he's at an impasse. if he says he wants to make danny scream, tear him open on stage, be the last person that ever gets to feel the warmth of his body as all that pretty blood drains out of him, then he runs the risk of isolating himself when it turns out that this stranger is just some edgy prick who wants to fuck with him. if he backs off, though... life has taught him that without a backbone, you miss every opportunity that comes your way. at the very least, without a backbone, people will walk all over you.

so he nods, head foggy, squeezes and grabs and tugs on the front of danny's waistband. he's impatient, but he's focused, zeroed in entirely on this guy like the rest of the world could burn around them and he would be physically incapable of noticing. under the boyish charm and perfect, white smile, marcus has an inhuman intensity about him. like he looks at danny too much, somehow. ]

Yeah. Yeah, I'll — I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

[ his blood, his lack of limits. whatever it takes to keep this moment on life support. ]

[ghostface]

( oh, he's young. sweet cocksucking mouth around danny's thumb, those little human canines gnawing a red ring into his skin to match the rings tattoed in black already there, he looks young even for danny, a tender cut, a premium slice of veal. but he doesn't flinch or choke at the knife or danny's implicit suggestion, holds his flaying stare like he wants to flay him right back for no reason, really, just for fun, because he can.

that's interesting. that's promising. his thumb fishhooks his bottom teeth, prying his mouth wide for danny to lick inside and say, softly — ) Good boy.

( under the bright pulse of stage lights, danny crowds marcus' space. the rubean hosting this specific demonstration prattles on in the background, going over rules and expectations, but it's all white noise as danny's hands skim marcus' shoulders and biceps, his little waist, his bony hips, then anchors him by the ass, humps hips and cock into him roughly. )

Except you ain't a good boy, are you?

( a good boy wouldn't have walked onto this stage with him. good boys don't have eyes like marcus' eyes.

the bone knife slithers from his sheath with a rattlesnake hiss. it's in the shape of a karambit or a cat's claw, viciously edged. the blade shaves razor burn along the slope of marcus' throat, tip pricking beneath his chin, angling his head back for danny's mouth and tongue to leisurely suck on his adam's apple. marcus' pulse throbs between his teeth. fuck, what a little whore. danny wants to fuck(ing chew on) him, fuck him stupid, fuck him full.

he flips the knife and offers it to him hilt-first. )

Show me.

( prove it. )

the woods.

[suzzie]

[It's one of those days again, apparently. Where you end up stumbling through the woods, half choking on fog and wondering where the fuck Kansas just went. It's not the first time Susie's been taken somewhere else, which is probably a statistical anomaly around here but at least last time she got to keep her fucking clothes.

It'd be a lie to say she had all that much self confidence to begin with, with her braces and oversized hoodies to hide all of her self perceived imperfections. Imperfections that are fully on display now - infuriating her, embarrassing her and making her temper short. She feels exposed right down to the bone, arms crossed over her chest from the moment she stood up until she spins around and reposition her hands over her groin after realizing she's not alone. Bubblegum pink hair hangs down just long enough to cover her breasts anyway, though it's far from enough to to make her feel less shy - she's average from head to toe, a little softer and shapeless than other girls her age. Bony in some spots, plump in others. Not pretty, not nice - just. Average.]

What? Keep your eyes over there- don't fucking look at me.

[Until she's stepped behind a tree, peering out around it with a scowl; lips parted thanks to the hardware in her mouth, she swallows hard. Wishes she had something to defend herself with because who knows what this douche could be thinking. That said, it is her eyes that dip down briefly to where his hands are before she's looking back up at his face.]

I didn't see shit. Did you?

[needlebomb]

[ they're hard to see, even in the right lighting, but marcus is covered chest-down in all manner of scars, from pin-sized holes to sweeping burns and deep cuts. they're all faded against his skin, leaving him deceptively unmarked from a distance, but they carry their own form of baggage. while susie seems to have let her insecurities bury themselves into her and grip onto whatever sense of shame she was forced to grow up with because of them, marcus has just kind of decided that whatever, who fucking cares, everything is shitty about him both inside and out. makes it a lot easier to forego modesty with that mindset.

susie snaps at him and tells him to keep his eyes down, and marcus does distantly think oops, oh shit, my bad. he doesn't let that show in his face, though; he just looks a little mean, a little mocking, as he stares at the tree with half a smirk. she darts her eyes down and he raises his eyebrows, silently letting her know that he totally fucking caught that. ]

I mean, I saw your tits.

[ he gestures with his free hand, a lazy spin with his finger as he points chest-level at susie. but extremely average breasts are, for once, not what marcus cares about. ]

There's something in the woods. Couldn't get a good look, but... it was big. White. I don't think it was alive, but it was... moving. Looking at me.

[suzzie]

Bitch.

[It's spit out without any particularly sharp venom, more like a verbal eye-roll as the reality of having to chit chat with a random dude is still sinking in. And talking about cryptids in the fucking woods, too? She looks around and feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up, wondering if Julie and the others are around - and if whatever this kid saw is just another killer. Arguably she should worry less but sometimes the hunters become the hunted and she's not exactly excited over that new prospect.]

If you're messing with me, that's not cool. Where was it?

[needlebomb]

In the woods?

[ marcus repeats himself without offering any new information, as if just saying the woods is answer enough. like susie is stupid for even asking. still, like her, there's no real venom behind it; he's not exactly afraid of being unsafe, but the cold is starting to squeeze into his bones, and that loneliness in him that craves attention is rattling around in his chest, hoping he'll stop being a fuck up long enough to make a friend. he bites the inside of his cheek, looks back over his shoulder, then towards susie again, adopting a calmer tone. ]

I was going to go check it out. After I, uh, arm up. Get some clothes. You could come with, if you want.

[suzzie]

I meant which direction, Einstein.

[But she's not that keen to go fucking hunting monsters right now - maybe with a little more warmth in her bones and some clothes she'll come around. Odds are she will, of course, because she tags along on everything just to feel a part of something. She leans her cheek against the rough bark of the tree, eyes to the side thoughtfully before they circle back to Marcus.]

I want clothes too, though. Whoever - whatever took them has to be nearby, right? If we look around, you walk ahead. I don't wanna see anything swinging.

recumita

[erosive]

[ Yes, she has—and too many times to count.

It doesn't matter to her that he's drunk. She's drunk enough liquor to loosen up considerably, and she has a skewer half-eaten in hand that she's considering dropping somewhere nearby. Zoya still cocks her brow. Ready to roll her eyes and push him into the arms of some other Void-touched with the temperament to deal with such drunkenness, he comes out with that.

That makes him instantly interesting. She shifts her stance and regards him with that cocked brow but an amused smile now. ]

No one's ever told me that before. Do you know your stars?

[needlebomb]

[ outwardly, marcus keeps his cool. he grins, lopsided and casual, charming in that good, all-american way of his he's somehow stumbled into knowing how to fake, and he casually moves a few inches closer. inwardly, however, there's this immediate, desperate clawing in his chest telling him not to fuck this up. he's passed the first hurdle — he can't step out of line and get himself rejected. ]

Yeah. My dad taught me all the constellations when I was a kid.

[ which is not something he usually talks about, and it's the first real sign he has that he's under the influence of something, but he doesn't care enough to stop and examine himself. he just keeps that grin up, keeps looking at zoya with this carefree, boyish flirtatiousness. ]

Pretty sure we're under a different sky than the one I'm used to, though. Couldn't tell you jack shit about the stars around here.

[erosive]

[ Zoya smiles. He's cute. At least his attempts to hit on her are somewhat original. (It's a touch refreshing.) ]

I can show you a few stars when they come out to play.

[ It's a little difficult to spot them now, what with the sky not liquid black and the stars feeling comfortable enough to peek through.

Giving him a once-over, ] You look like a Lev Minor. [ Leo Minor. A little lion. ] Cute.

wildcard.

[pulledback]

You know you look a little desperate the way you stare at people, right?