paixaorpg | A dazzling place I never knew... [Active]

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A dazzling place I never knew... [Active]

Character(s): Freya (and anybody else who might like to join)
Content: Intro post. You know the drill.
Setting: Muspelheim gate
Time: Afternoon
Warnings: None

This...definitely did not look like the interior of a tree of ANY sort.

Freya leaned on her spear for a moment, quite confused as to how she'd gotten here. This was most definitely not the interior of the trunk that led upwards to the city of Cleyra. She knew there'd been something odd about Cleyra's fabled sandstorm suddenly subsiding. Now she knew why.

"Zidane?" she called out, looking for them or anybody else who'd been with her. "Vivi?" She didn't see any sign of them. Which meant...

She was alone. Mentally alone, at least - definitely not physically, as there was a rather long line of people that spanned between her and the large gate that stood some distance ahead. But these were people she didn't know, people with whom she had no sort of connection.

She grit her teeth and stood back up straight. She had to make it back to Cleyra somehow, to warn the people of the Queen and her plans...but as she tried turning around and leaving, she found there was no way to escape this throng of people. The only way to go was forward, toward that awe-inspiring gate...and so she did, holding her head high, not letting anybody see the worry that she felt at the moment.

She had to be strong...of course she'd make it back there, she reassured herself. Somehow.

For a moment she wondered if all these people were going, or maybe coming from, somewhere, and then she noticed the booth that perched close to the gate. Whatever was going on in that booth, it seemed important, as it appeared that everyone who happened to be in line (if it could be called that at this point) had to stop there. An inspection, perhaps?

As she approached it, she heard: "Name please." This was said in a slightly bored voice from the man who sat behind the booth. He flicked his gaze towards Freya, showing nothing more than impassive patience.

"...Freya," she said after a moment. "The name's Freya Cre-"

What the gatekeeper handed her so suddenly wasn't too normal to her at all - a red rectangular thing that was something she'd never seen before. "Your journal," he said to her before she could respond. "Now go in and have fun in Paixao...or try to, anyways."

The forward surging of the line prevented Freya from asking the gatekeeper any questions. She hoisted her spear over her shoulder, tucked the strange red device somewhere under her coat, and strode in through the gates...with a good few questions still on her mind.

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Briar Rose had struggled through the crowd, thinking it might have been wiser to walk around rather than through. It had seemed doable at first, but the massive throng of people had quickly turned against her. There was such a crowd pouring through the gates that Briar Rose found herself ducking and weaving around people -- and creatures of all shapes and sizes, too.

She felt, needless to say, a bit silly. Having collected various leaves, some of which she could not identify, she had tucked them carefully in her journal, lacking her purse or an appropriately-sized pocket. While she was certain the Mayor (or Mayor-Elect, was it?) had not intended to mislead her, animals thought differently than humans. Bigby was a shining example.

Besides, leaves were probably acceptable barter from animals, but Briar Rose was human.

Briar was chiding herself silently when her shoulder caught someone, hard enough to cause her to stumble a little. Immediately forgetting her own problems, she turned with a look of angelic innocence and regret on her face, the look seemingly emphasized by the dirty smudge on her cheek.

"I am so sorry!" she exclaimed at once. Her words paused, however, as she looked the woman? over. She carried a spear, Briar noted, and she wasn't entirely human... Rather than dwell on it, however, Briar smiled easily. "I'm afraid I wasn't quick enough. This crowd..." She gestured about her. "It's an absolute nightmare."

After a heartbeat, she also admitted sheepishly, "And I was dreaming a little, I suppose. I'm Briar Rose."

Saïx, on the contrary, managed to weave through crowd as if he could read the patterns of the moving people - which for all anyone knew, he might well be able to. Although it was more his intent to merely pass on by, he couldn't help but notice the most recent arrival.

Or more accurately, couldn't help but notice the spear she carried so openly - pausing momentarily in his travels to look the weapon over, although he made no attempt to start a conversation.

As worried as she might be about getting back to where she'd been before, Freya still couldn't help but be awed at the city around her. Wherever she'd been taken to, at least it was a pretty sight...even if pretty sights weren't exactly the most consoling of things at the moment.

She might have been nimble on her feet otherwise, but there were just so many people around here that it was near impossible to avoid them all; this was further proven by someone bumping into her. Freya stumbled once and then whirled to face the other woman, her mouth half-open as if she was about to say something to her. If she was about to say something, then it never came, especially after Briar Rose started speaking.

"I've already had to make my way through the crowd outside, so I can sympathize," the Burmecian replied, nodding slightly. "Don't worry about it too much."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the tall, blue-haired man. She shot a quick glance in his direction, but nothing more than that at the moment. It was mostly to show that she knew he was there, since it seemed like he was looking back at her - or in her general direction, at least. She wasn't surprised, since she realized that there were bound to be some people here who stopped to stare at her...especially if they'd never seen anybody like her before.

"..."

She turned her attention back to the woman. "And you may call me Freya."

"Freya," Briar repeated with a warm smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Did you just come through the gate?"

Although she had not been here for very long, Briar felt a little more confident. After all, Freya was likely to be slightly more confused than Briar herself, and so they might be able to puzzle things out together.

An optimist at heart, Briar at once seized upon the opportunity to make a friend.

"Let's get out of the crowd, shall we? I was just trying to find a cafe." A light blush tinted her pale cheeks. "Someone told me to try bartering leaves for food. And I've found plenty of those."

The worst she could do was make a fool out of herself, she decided.

Briar did not see Saix, for her back faced him, and when she turned to part from the crowd, she turned in the opposite direction. She hoped the woman would follow; after all, the gate was too noisy to converse near, and the crowd was distracting at best.

When it appeared that the two woman intended to head off together, Saïx was quite content to let them go - he had no need to follow them. And besides, it had never been his intent to stop long. And so he merely began to continue on his way. With any luck niether would wish to speak with him; letting him be own his way.

"I did," said Freya. "At a rather bad time, too, but..."

She went silent for a moment. "Never mind, that can wait until later. Let's just get out of here for now." A cafe sounded good at the moment - it would be nice and quiet (well, relatively)...somewhere to help her clear her mind and make sense of things, and possibly ask around about this place if need be.

She padded silently close behind the other woman, casting one more sidelong glance at the crowd in general before turning her back completely on them.

Once the crowd thinned, Briar fell back to walk beside the other woman. The point of an invitation to share her lunch had been to be social, after all, and that could hardly be done from a distance.

"I'm new here myself. I've only been here a few hours." The directions to the cafe had seemed simple enough, and she hoped they didn't walk by it. She kept an eye on the direction they were walking in as she spoke. "I left at a bad time, myself." Briar directed a smile at the other woman as she motioned to herself. "I was cleaning. I must look homeless, or something." With a good-natured laugh of embarassment, she added, "I wish I'd just had time to pack."

She wasn't as shallow as that, truthfully, but it was the sort of behavior she was accustomed to and most comfortable with.

[ooc: gah, so sorry for taking this long to reply. X_x]

Freya glanced over at Briar and gave her a brief glance before looking ahead again. "You look fine enough," she said, her eyes clouding over for a moment at the word 'homeless'. Compared to some things she'd seen within recent times, a person with slightly dirty clothes was nothing...

"If I may ask, how much longer until we reach the cafe?" she asked, trying to divert her attention before her mind could go any further into its current line of thinking.

(ooc: My turn to apologize... I was hoping someone would invite us into their thread, but I've gotten tired of asking, so...uh...pick a thread for us to resume in? Just make sure you let me know if you do, lol.)

"It should be right around this corner," Briar announced cheerfully as she followed the street around the corner -- and came face-to-face with the crowd exiting the Muspelheim Gate. Her expression fell, and her stomach rumbled in disappointed protest.

"Oh," she said, clearly embarassed. "Oh, dear." The auburn beauty gave her companion a most apologetic look, tinged with a hint of hopelessness. "This isn't right at all. I'm sorry. I've always been horrible with maps, and I suppose I haven't quite figured out how to use this." She patted the journal, wondering where it was she had gone wrong.

It was all very disappointing. Briar Rose considered herself fairly brave -- but she was tired of this strange city. She wanted to return to Fabletown and to her friends. She was supposed to be having a dinner party tonight. And here she was, lost in a strange city, filthy, and penniless. Not to mention, she was hungry. It wasn't fair!

Her only comfort was that, at least, people seemed nice. There was no word of the Adversary, and that, too, made her feel better.

"I'm sorry," she repeated helplessly. "I have a map. I suppose you do too. Maybe you'd have better luck."

Freya carried a sympathetic look on her face. She knew how difficult it could be to get used to larger cities; even if this city wasn't quite as big as some she'd seen before, it was certainly busy enough to be confusing...

She cast an eye over the crowd, and then turned to look in the opposite direction. "No, no need to apologize," she said. "Things like this happen from time to time, better to just go back and figure out which way was the wrong way...hmm."

She thought for a moment about how she hadn't been given a map - at least not of the type that she recognized - and then took out her journal to take a look at it. She thought this hadn't been much more than just some sort of weird journal device, but testing out the various buttons there (with a few eyebrow quirks from her) led to something popping up on her screen that looked very much like a map of sorts.

"It seems like I do," she said. "Fair warning, though, I can't say how much better I'd be at reading it. I've never seen one like this before." She gave Briar a faint smile and then started to head away from the gate, hoping she was following the map correctly.

(ooc: I will be starting a new thread soon, if no one else does, but I just wanted to give Pegasus a chance to meet with us before doing so.)

If it was even possible, Freya and Briar would soon catch sight of someone that looked even more lost than they were at the moment; he was a fairly handsome young man despite having half of his face covered with hair, quite well-dressed (possibly a little over-the-top, even for someone well-to-do), with a closed journal in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He was wandering straight towards them, visible eye bright and alert as he peered at the buildings and gate that surrounded them.

He'd been looking around for a little while now, (Kyon-boy, whatever had become of him, had been wholly forgotten) almost like a tourist in the way he was studying the buildings. Still, his movements had a purpose, even if he didn't yet realize he had a map to help with it--surely if he was here, he must know this place? Maybe even be from it? So it stood to reason that all he had to do was find a familiar landmark to get his bearings, and perhaps he wouldn't be quite so lost. Such a shame that nothing at all looked familiar....

Briar had opened her journal as well. A study of the map, however, did not easily reveal where they had taken a wrong turn. Freya seemed perfectly capable of getting them from Point A to Point B, and so Briar left the matter in her (hopefully) capable hands.

Her stomach rumbled. With a light blush, Briar placed a slender hand over her stomach, as if to quell its complaints. Things could be much worse, she thought, trying to remain optimistic. Really, they could.

The once-princess lifted her eyes from the puzzling device, finding herself watching the approach of a fantastically-dressed figure with gorgeous silver hair. At once, she found herself swept back to another world and the home she had lost centuries ago. Silver hair, after all, had never been particularly common in the Homelands – but it was simply an impossibility in the Mundy world – of that shade, anyway.

“Wow,” she murmured in honest appreciation. “Would you look at that hair, Freya? It positively shines. It almost makes up for that outfi—oh, my.” Briar at once straightened and ran a hand uselessly through her auburn hair. “He’s coming in our direction, isn’t he?”

"It appears as though he is..." said the Burmecian. She kept her eye on this mysterious person, noticing that he was definitely different from a good deal of the other people around here. Maybe it was the clothes, maybe it was the hair which - and she had to agree with Briar here - did have quite a bit of a lustrous shine to it. Though it reminded her uncomfortably of someone else for a moment, and her hands twitched. "I wonder what he wants, though? Certainly he's not anybody I know."

Pegasus moved down the street towards them, hardly seeming to notice the pair at first; he was too busy fruitlessly trying to jog some memory, any memory of the surrounding area. Needless to say, it wasn't working very well. Damn! How ever was he going to figure this mystery out without a single clue to start from? He noted the fact that he was being watched soon enough, and deviated from his meandering path to head straight towards them, flashing a charming smile. "I beg your pardon, ladies, but do you happen to know where we are?"

Briar’s smile widened immediately. Oh, in another time and another place, this young man would have made a splendid gentleman – or a higher station yet. A dreamer always, those days were cherished by Briar, and Fabletown often played to such fantasies. Here, however…

“Paixao,” she responded, demurely clasping her hands in front of her. “I’m afraid that if you’re looking for specifics, well, we’re still trying to figure all that out.”

He must have just come in through the gate, Briar reasoned. After all, who else would be wandering around, asking where he happened to be?

“My name is Briar Rose. And this is Freya. We’re rather new here ourselves.”

Pegasus' widening smile mirrored Briar's own as he considered the young woman before him. "Paixao." He echoed, frowning thoughtfully--the expression only deepened as he felt the warm edge of something metal press into his cheek, as though he were wearing a monocle of some sort. Tucking his journal under one arm, he slipped his hand under the curtain of hair obscuring his face, fingers carefully tracing the curves of the Millennium Eye buried in his socket. Ugh! What was this thing, and why would he have it? He must have had to lose his eye to get it in like this! But he could still see through it just fine, strangely enough.... There was obviously a story behind it, but not one he was sure he wanted to know.

Well, either way, he hadn't the faintest idea where Paixao was, or if he should be familiar with it. "I see.... A positive pleasure to meet you both." A half bow, and Pegasus moved to kiss both of their hands--rodent-like appearance or not, Freya was a lady too, and deserved to be treated as such. Pegasus wasn't sure where the gestures had come from, but he had been raised in as high class a society as Las Vegas' wealthy socialite scene had to offer, and a good upbringing had instilled in him manners and habits too deeply ingrained for even amnesia to break. "My name is...."

It had gone smoothly enough up until it came time to introduce himself, which was aggravating, to say the least. How could he ever get by without knowing where he was, much less even who he was?! This was ridiculous! "....oh, dear. I'm dreadfully sorry...." His smile turned awkward and apologetic as he combed his non-existent memories for some kind of answer. A name, a memory, an intuition or hunch.... nothing. Damn!

"Yes?" Briar had prompted expectantly. When an apology rather than a name left his mouth, however, Briar pursed her lips together and drew her eyebrows together. "You don't know your name..?"

It was a disturbing and worrisome point, she felt, that went beyond the tales of mistaken or concealed identies she was accustomed to.

"Have you hit your head?" she questioned, a look of heartfelt concern marring her pretty face. "Should we find a doctor?" A place as large as this was certain to have doctors, she felt, or at least somebody familiar with healing. She tossed a confused look about herself, then lifted her journal. "We could probably use this! I think I saw a classified board, of sorts."

"I'm afraid not." Pegasus shook his head at that, hair ruffled a bit, but not disturbed. He hadn't thought about it before this, being more concerned with figuring out where he was, but the fact that he didn't know who he was.... that was undeniably unsettling. How could he conceal or mistake his own identity, when he didn't know it? "I don't believe so, no.... I feel fine, really." No sickness that he could feel, no pain or aches, it certainly didn't feel like he'd hit his head on anything.... As far as he could tell, the only thing wrong with him was his memory itself.

"Use these? I don't see why not, if it would help." Though he wasn't sure why they would try to be searching for a doctor, when they probably wouldn't even be able to help. Pegasus flipped open his own journal, noticing the post (http://dark-dealer.livejournal.com/3435.html) it was open to. He didn't remember ever using it before, but obviously, he had to have at some point, to get to this. "Oh, this is interesting...." And could be helpful, considering they all seemed to be lost and confused. Pegasus turned the journal to let Briar look at it too, if she wasn't already absorbed in her own search.

“Oh,” Briar murmured, pausing to read the entry. “Oh, my. That’s quite rude, isn’t it?” And also a little infuriating. “Really, does he think this is easy for us? New places – new worlds – are difficult at best, particularly when you’ve arrived alone and there is not a single Fable in sight! He could say something helpful, rather than blatantly calling us all idiots!” Delicate and quixotic, Briar was accustomed to being rescued by a handsome prince – not called an idiot. And, frankly, she had had just about all she could take of this world. She’d be happy to see her ex-husband, if he showed up!

“I spoke with the mayor-elect. Quite frankly, he was of more help, and he’s…” She trailed off, then waved her hand impatiently. “Some kind of rat, I think. It doesn’t matter.” With a toss of her head designed with the sole intention of angrily tossing her auburn curls over her shoulder (and rather unmindful of the fact the gesture meant little with her hair already in a tight ponytail behind her head) Briar added, “The absolute nerve of some people!”

Peering from beneath her long eyelashes, Briar smiled at her mysterious companion. “At least we’ve come across each other. Are you royalty, perchance? Oh, nevermind. You wouldn’t remember if you were, would you? It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve never been much of a classis—oh, we were going to find you a doctor, weren’t we?”

"Painfully so." Pegasus agreed, frowning. "Perhaps he travels the worlds for his career?" If he was so used to it, that seemed to be the most logical explanation. At least he provided information.... "Oh, my.... A rat is Paixao's mayor-elect?" Pegasus could only shake his head at that, incredulous. He couldn't imagine electing a rat to office, but he supposed if it was helpful.... Well, who was he to judge based on species? Still, he offered her a sympathetic shoulder squeeze.

"Royalty? If I am, I'm afraid I wouldn't remember either way...." Pegasus smiled sheepishly. "I so believe we were...." And so off they went, with Briar's map as a guide. Of course, things always have to go wrong on trips like these, it's an ironclad law; Pegasus ended up lost again, separated from his companions and wandering the city once more.

(OOC: And Pegasus is out. =3 Briar-mun, hope you don't mine the little bit of godmoding. But since you're on hiatus and Nep's on hiatus, I figured I'd just shepherd Pegasus along to other things.)

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A dazzling place I never knew... [Active]

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