fragileghost | 1 - [Action/Voice]

[Action]

[Here Luceti, have another New Feather. A young man with silver wings, wearing a strange mask and with only the thin pants of the newcomers to protect him from the world is currently just waking up in the forest not too far from the village. If you could see his face you'd see just how groggy and confused he is right now. He flinches a little as he realises there's a couple of new additions to his body upon coming to... wherever he is right now, and he reaches behind him to feel... feathers? Wings?

Thankfully it isn't long before he realises his clothes are piled up beside him, along with a book. Gin knows it's dangerous to be so exposed and doesn't hesitate to put on those clothes, strangely altered to accommodate those small wings on his back. Who did this to him? Where was he? He was certain by now this wasn't the forest of the Mountain God, unless he was trying to play some kind of trick on him.

Now for that book... Gin picks it up, taking a seat on the forest floor where he appeared and taking a moment to flick through the pages. The book was full of messages and pictures, presumably the ones who were trying to communicate. Some of the images moved as well and there were voices... the book was speaking to him.]

[Voice]

[After taking some time to try to get to know this odd journal and how it might work, Gin ends up trying to speak to the book himself.]

Hello? Can anyone hear me?

(OOC: Just a reminder and for those who might have missed it - if your character intends to touch Gin at all like taking his hand or something, please give me a chance to react before they make contact! Thanks~)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's that obvious?

[Come to think of it, if this happens to everyone who comes here, the responses are probably pretty similar. Wait...]

You mean I'm not the first one to end up here like this?

Oh definitely not; we've all been in your shoes one time or another.

[Sanji glances away from his journal, at his desk and bed - sights that have become so familiar, he'd started to associate the word "home" with them.] Some shitty longer than others.

[Gin gets that impression... that some of the people here had been here for a long time. Longer than any of them would have liked when they first got here at least. So he really was trapped?]

There must be some way out. We were brought here after all. That means there must be a way back.

There isn't.

[A pause. Then Sanji amends his rather abrupt rebuttal]

There isn't a way in our control. And the shitheads who keep us in this enclosure - the Malnosso - insist they have no way of sending us back home yet, though they're trying their damnedest.

Malnosso? [So they at least knew who was responsible... they had someone to target.]

Why don't they work with us to find a way then? Why trap us here and do all the work themselves? That... doesn't seem right. [Suspicious in fact.]

Because they need guinea pigs, among other things. You'll find out soon enough this ain't exactly a two-way street they're working.

Also, this enclosure is supposedly for our protection. There's another shitty faction called the Third Party -- and they don't give a shit if we go home or not. They just want us dead.

[The more he hears about this, the less Gin is liking the idea of living in this Luceti. Not that he has a choice.]

So one side wants to use us for experiments and the other want us to die. Is there anything nice about this place?

[Sanji offers a grin in his voice]

Everything's free. But gotta admit, it's pretty poor compensation.

[Then he grows serious again]

Oi. Has anyone told you about the drafts?

[He's right, if that's all then it really wasn't much at all.]

It's something, I guess. But... no I haven't heard anything about drafts.

[Something about the tone in his voice definitely catches Gin's attention however.]

We get 'em every few months or so. There's a call for fighters... though even if you can't fight, participation isn't really negotiable. They drag us out of the enclosure, usually to deal with the Third Party.

[That... seems to come as a shock to Gin.]

I can't. If they were expecting me to get involved in something like that then they chose the wrong person. I can't be of any use to them.

They've sent children on these drafts.

[His voice tightens briefly before he eases out a sigh] Something about quantity over quality. If your body can handle a Shift, they want you out there, even if you can't fight.

A Shift?

...my body's fragile. I'm not sure how much it can take if I'm honest.

[He'd lived an isolated life, trying to avoid anything that would break him apart. He hadn't put his body through much at all when he thought about it.]

[And Sanji can't promise him a shift wouldn't come with detrimental effects. He still remembers the time when one rendered him blind on the battlefield.]

Yeah, a Shift. Kinda hard for me to explain, so you might be better off asking someone else. [Still, he gives it a shot]

Here, let me give you an example. In this village we get Shifts a lot. Sometimes we'll start randomly teleporting, or we'll think something is true when it's not... like falling in love with someone you've never met before. Or swearing up and down you're a shitty scientist when before you were a seamstress.

It's always some type of abrupt change, and it can simple or complicated.

[That's quite a broad range of changes and Gin wonders how these Shifts are at all related if they could do anything from changing your thoughts and memories to warping you around.]

You say it's abrupt. Does that mean it can happen at any time? We don't get any warning?

[It's slightly terrifying really to think you could be fine one minute and not know what's going on the next.]

Not most of the shitty time, we don't. Some are annual and we expect them to happen, but others can happen whenever the hell the Malnosso feel like causing us grief.