3.0 Test Drive Meme

[wellie]

3.0 Test Drive Meme

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Welcome to Well! Characters arrive a little differently this month (see the first prompt). Your character arrives this month in the middle of the formless desert with only a handful of memories, clad in old west style clothes of your choosing, with no items from home.

Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.

This TDM takes place from the first week of August onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during August and September. This will be the only TDM for August, September, and October.

Applications are open July 26th until August 1st, and August 27th until September 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

A Little Lost

Content warnings: heat exhaustion, feelings of unreality

You wake up in a sea of sand. It’s hot, and dry, and it seems to go on forever. You don’t remember much about yourself except your name and a handful of memories that most likely aren’t useful right now.

The sand slip-slides under your feet with every step. Sun beats down heavy and hot on your neck and your head. You’re so thirsty. How did you get here? How long have you been walking? Where are you headed? You can’t know. You feel like you’ve been walking forever, but the sun stays high above you, like it’s always noon. It may have been hours, it may have been mere minutes. What are those things circling in the sky above you? Vultures? That can't mean anything good.

Eventually, you find someone else, another new arrival, maybe, or a resident of the town who may have wandered a little too far into the desert. Maybe they have some water on them? Either way, company is exactly what you need right now, because there sure isn’t anything else in this desolate place. Not a cactus, not an animal, not even hints of a town.

Once you’re together, it seems a little easier to move forward. Time starts to move, too. The sun dips in the sky, your feet tread through the sand, and together, eventually you find the town.

If you take too long after you find one another, and the sun sets, be careful. Cacti sprout up closer to town, and after the sun sets, the cacti start to move, and they seem hungry for blood.

tl;dr:

• This time, new arrivals wake up lost in the middle of a vast desert.
• There's too much sun, too much sand, vultures circling and too little water.
• Finding each other makes time start again, and lets you find the town.
• If you don't make it back to town before nightfall, vicious living cacti appear to attack you.

Face Your Fears

Content warnings: hallucinations, reality shifts

In this town, fear soaks the hot, dry air. It lurks in shadows and the corners of rooms, waiting for their moment. What is it that you fear? Monsters? Disappointing your parents? Maybe you’re afraid that everyone you love will leave you, or that you’ll end up alone. Whatever it is, right now, there’s a chance of becoming very real.

It happens suddenly. Your mind drifts. You lose focus on what you were doing, and when you look up again, the world around you has shifted. What was a nice lunch with a new friend or a fun visit to the saloon becomes a nightmare. What fear manifests is totally up to you, and it can be different every time. The person beside you could become a monster you think is trying to attack you, or you could be suddenly alone in a cold dark space, desolate and empty.

Whatever horror your mind conjures up for you, it will feel real in all ways and with all senses including, of course, your perception of pain. As far as you know, you’re trapped in a nightmare with no way out.

Except, of course, there is a way out: you just need to figure out that it isn’t real. Maybe you’re strong enough to do that on your own; maybe you’ll need help from a friend or a new pal, reaching through the illusion to pull you back. After all, these hallucinations are entirely in the mind of the beholder: to everyone around you, it sure just looks like you’re yelling at your pancakes!

tl;dr:

• You start hallucinating that the things you fear most are actually happening to you.
• These fears feel like real, concrete sensory experiences, even though they're only happening in your head.
• You can escape by recognizing that what's happening isn't real, either on your own or with help.

Bullrider

Content warnings: mild bovine coercion, alcohol

Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.

Bet you can’t stay on for more than half a minute.

You don’t look too tough.

You think you can tame me?

In the saloon, you hear a voice in your head. It calls to you, the words seductive and enticing: you want to prove it wrong, you want to find out what it’s promising, you hate to lose. Whatever the motivation, you find yourself abandoning your drink and making your way to the new attraction at the back of the saloon: the bull.

It’s a big boy: a massive mechanical bull. Covered in spotted cowhide, with a bull head and big horns, this thing sits on a massive pedestal like a challenge. Around it is spread... relatively thin padding and a flimsy rope to keep the audience back an appropriate distance.

The compulsion keeps a hold on you until you’re on the bull. Maybe you’re on it with a friend, or a stranger, and it starts up with a mechanical buzzing. It starts to sway under you, and now you have just one job: stay on.

It starts easy, but gets harder as it goes along. It’s incredibly difficult to stay on for more than a minute. But during that minute, you feel amazing. You feel hot as hell, in whatever way that works for you: sexy, powerful, bold, in control.

Until he throws you off onto the padding or into the crowd! When you get thrown, there's a good chance you'll go flying into the crowd. Hopefully they're ready to catch you!

If by some miracle you manage to stay on for more than a minute and a half, the bartender slides you a bullrider special: a spicy whiskey cocktail with a hint of lime. Feel free to leave it up to pure chance, and have the mods roll a die for you to see whether you manage to stay on or not.


tl;dr:

• There's a mechanical bull in the back of the saloon!
• There's a strange deep voice in your head, coercing you into giving it a shot.
• It's hard to stay on, but when you're on it, you feel powerful, bold and in control.
• The padding's pretty thin and you'll get thrown hard when you do. You might hit someone!
• If you stay on for more than a minute and a half, you'll get a fun little drink as a reward.

Comments

[go_loud]

01. the wasteland

All she can see, all the way out to the horizon, is sand and sky. No plants, no real sign of life. Camilla has to tip back the wide brim of a stone-grey hat to mark the position of the sun in the sky, and she briefly thinks, where the hell would I have gotten a hat like this?. She startles at the conviction of it, flails for the self-knowledge of what it is she likes or doesn't like to wear, of why she is or is not familiar with anything from here.

It's gone. A classic mistake, darting too fast instead of approaching obliquely, of wanting too much, telegraphing her need to know, and like water through her hands any following knowledge slips away with just a sharp headache left behind.

Like her and the sand, even her memories won't stay.
At least, she thinks sardonically, if she's losing her mind, there's no one out here to see.

She takes another sharp look at the sun, squinting; it's not quite overhead. There's no other sign of where to go, so she points herself toward the half of the dome with more sky, judging from the light -- and the heat; she's already unconsciously stripping the jacket she's wearing off, a little stiff but still soft under her hands, some kind of real hide -- that it's past midday, not still rising. If she orients somewhat toward sunrise, she reckons, at least the sun won't travel toward her. She puts herself at a 45 degree angle to the imaginary path she's drawn, so the sun isn't quite as directly in her face, rolls up the sleeves of the woven shirt, and starts walking.

She doesn't know how long she does that for.
Long enough to know that she should have gone some distance for her calves to be aching on flat land -- and to recognize this is a thing she knows about herself; long enough to unbutton her shirt down to a sweat-soaked white undershirt and throw the jacket over her shoulders in the hopes of both layers swaying with her movement and generating some breeze.

Long enough to remember she isn't just alone here, now, but that she has lost everything. The only thing -- the only person who matters. To feel that emptiness in her gut like a weight, like a planet of weight.

Long enough to realize the sun hasn't moved.
She crouches down, squinting wearily in every direction, and scoops up a pinch of the scalding sand in her hands, looking at it for any indication of -- anything.
There's nothing. Nothing even that slips away from her memory.
Except a breeze, warm but something, that takes it away from her, whispering.
She shivers, a little. Or does the ground tremble, or is it sound? She lifts her head, slowly aware to be alert.

03. bull rider

Cam has decided three things: she doesn't at all mind an old fashioned, as recommended to her by the bartender; she doesn't prefer to drink as quickly as most others in the bar, and she's not as rattled by the bartender as a few of the others seem to be. She is intrigued by the few repetitive phrases in her lexicon, but she seems well meaning, and Cam can't say much about herself either, so she's happy enough to have another drink and stay in the cool.

Right now, though, she's drawn to the odd machine, the mechanical bull that's drawn a group. It's a clunky sort of device, dressed up with a patterned skin, rope and horns, and it bucks and pivots, challenging its rider to stay on. It looks ridiculous, really; she watches as someone goes flying off it after what looked like a promising start and collides.
You could do better. The thought enters her mind, in a voice she doesn't recognize -- or maybe she does, and can't recall. She could, she considers, feeling for once today a comfortable sort of pride settle into her stomach, sipping her drink and watching quietly, not cheering or jeering. You want to show them?

So she steps up.
It's not the worst display -- she lasts maybe half the time it'd take to get a free drink -- but as soon as the thing starts jerking and bucking under her, she can tell she doesn't have the first idea how to ride a mechanical bull and why should she? But she wants it. The worst part is, it's just out of reach: she can feel it under her skin, the idea of moving differently; she just can't quite get to it. It's as though her body's a puppet she hasn't gotten the hang of manipulating yet. In the last couple seconds, something clicks, somewhere, but she's half slid off by then, and the thing jerks upward and tosses her over the front of it.

Camilla hits the floor in front of a group of patrons hard; bristling as she hears aww and laughter. She rolls into it, instinct providing her with that much, rolls over one shoulder. Get up. You never learned anything by failing and giving up. The voice is more her own, this time, but there's a confident, patient undertone to it. You have this.

She orders a shot at the bar, downs it, stretches her sore shoulder and makes her way back up to the bull. The staff member looks a little surprised and a couple of the random onlookers toward the back of the bull call give it up, honey!, but he nods her up.

This time, it's like a light turns on. She can do this. She's done much harder things. She holds on tight with her thighs and finds the rhythm of the thing, using her hips and abs to counterbalance it, a duel, a dance. As people who'd initially chuckled at her trying again start to blink and watch, her lips curl at the edge with a smirk. It feels good. It feels great, their surprised gazes; she goes so far as to twist around as she rides it to tip her hat and lift an eyebrow at the ones who jeered aloud. She knocks her hat back and grins as the timer goes off, dismounting neatly.

04. wildcard

want something else? find cam anywhere in town or on the way! if you want to plot with me, i'm over at plurk at wingedvoices.

[OOC: OTA! I rolled a d20 for her to try again on the bull and got 19 vs her first 9, hence the spectacular second try. :P when she is sober and not in the saloon she will probably be incredibly embarrassed, but you know what, it's been a long day. you can absolutely use that as a wildcard situation though!]

01.

[hellonspectacles]

Due to some trick of the light, or mirage of the desert, or plain illogic of the little universe that is Wellstone (the Wellstone bubble Palamedes has begun to call it very recently, as his theory about its nature begins to coalesce), Camilla is, in fact, closer to town than she might realize. Just over the ridge, in fact, is a cluster of broken-down houses, once sheds and farmsteads, with Wellstone’s main street visible beyond. Palamedes walks among those houses now with a notebook in his hand, examining the buildings’ remains for possible changes after the latest storm. He’s lost in his own world, but when he pauses to take a drink of water from a canteen, his gaze falls on the horizon.

And that’s when he sees her.

In Palamedes’ head, Camilla Hect remains more a scattering of ever-growing but disparate images than a full person, the wild strings connecting them made of logic and reason more than emotion. But her face he knows. Pal has memories of that face gazing back at him from a mirror, and seen it, ghostly and pensive, on the dance floor, and heard Nona talk of it. He has drawn it dozens of times in nearly every notebook he owns. He knows it, as they say, like the back of his hand.

Better than the back of his hand. No one dreams about the back of their hand.

For a moment he remains still, heart in his throat. Does he run to her? Leap for joy? Hide? In the end, practicality wins out. She is probably dehydrated, and he has water.

He holds up his arms and waves. “Hello! Hello there! Over here, can you see me?”

Re: 01.

[go_loud]

Camilla's eyes catch on the shape breaking the monotonous dun of the rise, a shadow and then a figure drawing closer. She freezes for a moment, heart hammering in her chest, letting her hat fall back from her face and catch like some sort of huge backward pendant as she rises slowly to watch it. Him. Part of her is suspecting, uneasy in this strange place where the sun doesn't move and where there is so much nothing and practical enough to think that if she can't even remember -- most things, not for lack of trying and a pounding headache to match -- she's not past hallucination.

Part of her is desperate for any other sign of life.

He tips something to his mouth, tips his head back to drink and for a moment she's only and simply terribly jealous, struck by how thirsty she can't even remember being. (...Naturally.)

Then her mind takes in the sun's sketch of the man, the way light pools in recesses under cheekbones and throat and scales long limbs, the fingers of one hand clutching some sort of tablet or book, and her chest clenches around it. She's momentarily dizzied by familiarity, by the sudden respite granted to hours -- it feels like hours, anyway -- of not just confusion but isolation and the only memories she knows are true speaking of loss.

Then he shouts to her, waves his hands, and the voice is familiar too, though she's not sure if he does know her from what he says, or can see to know if he does.

It can't be real. It has to be a mirage, a trap; she can't trust anything here. Or he's real, and she's gone mad.

Who the fuck cares, right now?

"Yes," she says, and it's barely audible, half a whisper, half a choke against a parched throat. She resteels herself, raising a hand. "I see you," she calls, nodding, even as she starts moving, sand giving way under hasty feet, the world sliding backwards.

Re: 01.

[hellonspectacles]

For a few excruciating moments, Palamedes fears that she won't see him, that she will turn away and disappear into the desert, just another mirage that leaves him with the taste of his past life in his mouth, but nothing concrete to which he can cling. But then she looks his way, and she's calling back, and he replies, "Wonderful!" with pure relief. "Stay there, I'll come to you!"

He starts to jog at first, but jogging (as he learned all those weeks ago with Flynn) is not his forte, and the sand slows him down enough that finally he has to settle for walking. When he reaches her, the first thing he does is hand her the canteen.

"I'm afraid it's not very cold anymore, but at least it's wet. You must be parched. It's a dreadful thing they're doing now, dropping newcomers in the middle of the desert like this. We should probably set up patrols of some sort, just to ensure everyone's safety."

All of this he says rapidly and without preamble, still trying to catch his breath.

Re: 01.

[go_loud]

Even that wonderful! feels so familiar it's as though she's taken a big breath after having been holding it -- though there's nothing she can quite tie it to, no remembered sentence, just a sense of the way of his speaking being right.

A protest catches on Camilla's lips, and she pauses for a moment, rocking up on her toes in indecision. Her mind is rocked by instinct countered by memory, every bit of filed information her brain has retained in some fold somewhere flooding into her at once. She does, at times, follow his instruction, doesn't she? Stay her hand, hold back on her instinct. And he's coming from the opposite direction, too: maybe he knows something she doesn't about what's behind him.

When she sees him attempting a jog toward her, though, an ungraceful, lanky but earnest lope made all the sillier by sand and being uphill from her for the beginning, she can't just stand there and let him try to run to her. Tired as she is, she closes the last few feet to him.

She has a million things in her mind -- not the least of which is the horrible realization that she doesn't know his name, but she's too desperately grateful for the canteen he presses into her hands, nodding and tipping it back. The water isn't icy, but it's still cold to her, and she has a stern word with herself at the urge to just guzzle half his canteen; she takes a long swallow that still feels greedy and pulls back, relishing the cool of it.

Cam has a million questions just based on everything he's said, glancing up to meet his eyes. They almost shimmer in the sunlight, and she's held there, not struck by them -- though they're objectively lovely -- but by his face. In her mind's eye, she sees the architecture of a skull trace occipital ridge, the beginning of a cheekbone, the dip at the temple that -- thank god -- is right now covered by very alive hair and the beginning dew of sweat. He's rattled off a whole paragraph, and she has so much she doesn't know -- who are they? where are we? who is everyone? how did we get here? -- and so much she's angry she can't remember, but the worst part is that she doesn't even know if he's seeing what she's seeing.

Her head throbs. When she wipes the remaining water away from her lips, the back of her hand comes away with a streak of blood and she glances at it distractedly before pressing her lips together. "Warden," she says, because she may not know enough, but she knows that.
And, she thinks, she has asked him to slow down with just a word before.

The world shifts around her and she can only see one way to still it.

"Do you know me?"

She wants to ask do you remember me but she can't ask that of him.

[hellonspectacles]

Warden makes him hesitate. It isn’t a name he quite associates with himself, though it floats through his memories: emblazoned on a fine paper invitation, spoken by a tape player. Indubitably, Warden. There’s an admonishment in her tone, something telling him to slow down, back up, start from the beginning.

The beginning.

Do you know me?

“I would know you blindfolded, Camilla Hect.”

He takes back the canteen and hands her a handkerchief, slightly clammy from his pocket.

“Be careful. There’s a bit of a trick to it, when you feel a memory might surface. You have to let it float away. The best you can do is make note of the trigger.”

[go_loud]

She doesn't have enough context for his slight pause, and too much relief at his answer, to interrogate what it means. Camilla lets out a long breath she didn't realize she was holding, feeling her muscles relax a little all the way down to her toes.

"All right," she says, as much to herself as anything else. "All right."

He knows her. He hasn't had his memory of her taken; he even knows that he would always know her, as she is certain she would know him. That's enough to start with; it has to be. But how is it that you can be certain of your love for someone and not know their name?

On impulse, she catches at his hand as he hands her the handkerchief, holds it between her own for just a moment as if to prove he's real, before straightening up and less sentimentally taking the cloth and pinching her nose, checking it again. "It's just a nosebleed," she says, affectionately bemused. "I'll live."

There's so much else that's worse. His worry. Appearing here, with the bizarre sun that doesn't move; knowing so little, so much of her self missing -- though unfortunately not devoid of the sense that she usually knows things. How little she can recall of specifics of the Master Warden but how much she can feel, under her skin, inside her ribs, reaching, stretching, longing: as though the two of them standing here facing each other is still not close enough.

She ought to be able to command the minutae of them: how they met, what they've been through, what it means to be his Hand. His name, at least, by the Emperor and all his Saints.

(That's new --
The pain behind her eye twinges insistently, and she can feel her nose wet and warm with new blood.)

She blinks at it, pinching it closed and leaning forward, making a little bit of a protesting noise in reaction to both the burst blood vessel and his words. "But --" She sighs, taking a long breath and trying to calm her heart rate. After a moment she lifts her eyes to his. "I don't have to make a note. You're my catalyst."

And isn't he always?

"Just...let it float away. Perfect." She takes another long breath, rocking forward and back and feeling herself sink in the sand, then opens her eyes abruptly, all done with dwelling. "Current events, then. Who's they and what is this place?"

[hellonspectacles]

She says you’re my catalyst, and Palamedes’ chest tightens almost unbearably, with a sadness that tastes sweet, and a relief laden with guilt. How can he feel so much when looking into this woman’s eyes, and yet remember so little? He knows her face, her name, the practical cadence of her voice on a tape recorder. He knows she saved his life, probably at the cost of her own. He knows she looked after Nona, and that Nona would have been so very glad to see her.

He knows they have been apart for so very long, in one way or another, and to just have her standing in front of him is an opportunity so unfathomable he hadn’t even hoped for it in some time.

Their hands touch, pinkies hooking together, grounding them to each other. Pal nods encouragingly as she dabs her nose, even through the protests, and then his mouth twists in a dark smile because what is this place is such a complicated question to answer.

“They are…well, I don’t actually know, which is half driving me mad, believe you me.” He huffs, half a laugh, half a frustrated sigh. “Even the pronoun is more of a theory than an entity; I’m of the mind that someone, or someones, built this reality and are manipulating it in order to study our reactions to certain stimuli, but I can’t prove that. Do you think you can walk a bit further?” He looks her over with a faint frown. “Town is about ten minutes that way, and while it has its faults, it’s much more comfortable than here.”

[go_loud]

He hooks his pinky into hers, and the emotions that wash over her are so affecting as to be almost silly. It’s so little a thing, objectively, just the barest of intimacies, to raise a lump in her throat, and so familiar. There’s that familiarity — like muscle memory but for emotion: connection, almost a lightness, the instinct to smile — but with no expected flood of connected memories. And over the top of it a shattering, unsteadying loss — a sense of having not ever expected that little gesture again.

She almost wants to burst into tears like a child, but it’s so absurd, and she swallows against it; she does curl her own pinky, squeezing back, and looks back up at him to give him a steadying, if slightly apologetic, smile.

(The only thing Camilla can think all that grief must come from is the skull. She wants, badly, to tell him, but how do you tell someone you’ve just reunited with — and in some ways, just met — that they might be dead? No: they are honest with each other, she’s sure of that, but she has to be pragmatic. She would barely be able to tell him anything, anyway. And what does it matter? He’s not dead here. However uncertain she was of seeing him again, they have each other now, and also, they have to figure out this place.)

Camilla frowns as she listens, taking it in with a crease between her brows and a slow rock from her heels to the balls of her feet, and presses her lips together. She starts to reply, a million questions on the tip of her tongue, but he asks if she can walk and she nods. It’s a quick sharp movement; she lifts an eyebrow in faint judgement at his once over. “Yes, of course.”

As a small concession to his concern — she is exhausted, and her muscles are complaining, whether or not she wants him to know that — she adds, “It’ll be safer to walk a little to be out of the sun.” She pauses. “And I …” Cam exhales, forcing herself past feeling mad. “I don’t think town was just here until you saw me. I’d been walking in this direction for — hours, I think — and…the sun hadn’t even moved. I’d love to be done with dunes for a while.”

3 bullrider

[rustedknight]

"Wow!"

A bright-eyed, enthusiastic young man applauds as Cam dismounts. She may have seen him earlier getting brutally, embarrassingly thrown onto his rear end off this very machine, but besides a slight stiffness to how he's standing he seems no worse for wear.

"That was amazing! You really showed that stupid hunk of junk who was boss!" Not that he's vindictive, or anything, however dire the look he casts at the bull might be. He perks right back up when he returns his attention to Cam.

"You get a drink as a prize for staying on a while, I think. I saw some other people get one. Careful, though - a lot of the stuff they serve here is alcoholic! Not to mention the jello...watch out for the jello. It can't be trusted."

Re: 3 bullrider

[go_loud]

Cam laughs, more a huff of breath than a real sound. The young man looks -- well, it's hard to say; perhaps a little younger than her, clean-shaven and bright-eyed with blonde hair in spikes as exuberant as his reaction. It reminds her of -- something, but she's getting used to not knowing where that feeling comes from.

"Thank you," she says with a rare, warm smile, allowing herself to enjoy his enthusiasm and the lingering feeling of confidence. It turns up a little at his warning about the alcohol, and she wonders if, wherever he comes from, there aren't bars there. She isn't used to exactly what to ask for or what it is she's drinking, but she knew when she walked into this place that establishments like this one are just -- well, they're everywhere, aren't they?

Perhaps not.

Her brow does furrow, though, and she gestures with his head for him to accompany her to claim her free drink. "...Jello?"

[rustedknight]

Being graced with that smile puts a glow in Jaune's chest that almost makes him forget how spectacularly he blew his own turn on the bull. On the tail of that thought, though, comes a pang of guilt. Should he really be happy to meet new people in this town, after everything that's happened?

But he can't start thinking like that. It'll be different this time. They'll make sure it's different, and one or more of these new people might be the key to figuring it all out.

In the meanwhile, he has important jello information to impart.

"So imagine juice, right?" Jaune holds up his hands as if to indicate an imaginary glass. "Now imagine that juice gets thick, but it's not frozen, just...jiggly. Delicious sounding, I know, but what they don't tell you is sometimes they put alcohol in that, too, or worse! Some of it is full of strange effects."

He emphasizes 'strange effects' with a wiggle of his fingers as they walk, then leans against the bar as the bartender slides Cam's prize over to her.

"Thank you, ma'am," he says, politely, before returning his attention to his conversational partner. "So, be careful around the jello."

[go_loud]

Juice is a thing she knows, or at least her brain doesn't struggle with it, and she's getting bored of headaches, so she doesn't question why or what kind or under what circumstances she's had juice and what else she can deduct from that: she just nods in understanding.

Cam's brow furrows a little as she listens, imagining first something heavy, coagulated almost when he says it thickens, then reconsidering entirely with the adjective jiggly. It sounds bizarre, and she can't help but chuckle at his assessment and quirk an eyebrow at strange effects.

Were they still just talking about alcohol? She thought maybe not from that waggle of the fingers. "Strange effects..." she echoes, her voice tipping up with a little bit of question in her tone that he can take as a prompt if he wants to.

She nods a quiet thank you as well, catching the tumbler reflexively. It warms her, if in a slightly amused way, that he also thanks the bartender despite not being the recipient. He seems very...wholesome. Kind, generous. Cam's tempted to group it in with naivete but -- it's not unlike some of the things she appreciates about the Warden. "I certainly will," she says with a little laugh of confusion, "thank you for the warning."

"I'm Camilla," she adds, after a pause. "Hect." She proffers a hand, a little awkwardly. Meeting new people makes her even more keenly aware of the lack of her necromancer. It's as though there's a missing space a half-step ahead where he should be doing the introductions, an amputated limb or unfinished sentence. She can't remember enough of him and can't stop remembering him at the same time, but it doesn't matter: it's just her right now.

[rustedknight]

Jaune doesn't notice any awkwardness in Cam, being too preoccupied with monitoring himself for the same thing. There's an aura of cool around Cam that she doesn't seem to be trying to project, which only makes it more impressive, and he's trying not to embarrass himself in front of two competent women in one day.

"Jaune Arc," he says, clasping her hand for a firm, friendly shake, "And I don't know what all of the effects are, but for example - I had one that made me honest. Too honest. Not that I lie a lot, or anything, but sometimes, well, people don't need to hear everything you think right when you think it."

It had turned out that an unfiltered honest Jaune was a touch more direct than Jaune usually likes to be. Remembering some of the things he said to Aizawa still makes his cheeks pink if he lingers on them. But he is, fortunately, not lingering on them now. Instead, his brain is catching up to Cam's name, and as soon as a certain thought occurs to him it's already tumbling out of his mouth.

"This might sound a little weird," he says, having the remaining good sense to let go of her hand before he keeps talking, "But do you know someone named - well, you might not know his name, but he's tall, glasses, dark hair," scrawny, "slim build, monochrome wardrobe, grey eyes - and I mean, really grey eyes? Palamedes Sextus?"

[go_loud]

She returns the firm handshake, relaxing a little at the solid clasp. Something about the way he shakes hands seems just as earnest as his demeanor: nothing overwrought and fancy nor leery of contact. Just a good, solid greeting.

"Oh," Cam says, blinking at the implications there, and winces just a little in sympathy. And honestly, slight horror. She can't remember all the things she's thought or the situation she's been in, but she's been in the bar for a good half hour, at least, and she has a general sense that it wouldn't be a good scene if it all came tumbling out at once. "Yes....I value honesty, but I think there's an art to timing."

She tips her head when he leads with This might sound a little weird, lifting an eyebrow. Cam's about to shake her head, ready to let Jaune down that she doesn't know anyone and she wouldn't know if she did, but -- as he starts describing the man, her eyes go a little wide.

There are a million people this could be: tall, glasses, dark hair, her mind points out, pragmatically. He says really grey eyes, though, that almost disbelieving or not-describing-it-enough tone to it that somehow, somewhere, she's heard before in the description of her necromancer, and her chest clenches.

Palamedes. It crosses her lips without sound. And without thinking, her mind tries to fit it backwards into a thousand feelings, and it's like a migraine hitting her all at once; she stumbles a little bit, pressing a hand to her eye. It comes away with a bright red smear of blood across her palm. Her gut twists, terrified, and yet there's a little part of her that wants to laugh, thinks, I'm not the one who cries blood, and she can't chase that either, can't try to make sense of it.

"I'm sorry," she says, absurdly, off balance, and catches at his arm, looking up at him even as the last vestiges of blood blink out of her vision. "Yes." Camilla nods urgently, and dabs at her eye half-apologetically with her cocktail napkin. "Yes, he's -- my -- " Everything? How to explain the Warden in a way that makes sense? She doesn't even remember all of it. But also --

"You know him?"

[rustedknight]

Going to steady Camilla is a reflex. He's in motion before he grasps what's wrong, which means that the spike of panic that comes with realization doesn't throw him off before he can be in place to support her with one practised arm. If it's something she's in a position to notice and think about later, it'll be obvious that he's done it before.

Jaune's not thinking about where he picked up any of his habits when he's staring at her bloody eye with wide ones of his own.

"I'm sorry," he says, urgently, parroting her words back to her with much more stressed intonation, "I didn't mean to - I should have known better - "

He almost says don't think about it, which would be a mistake for a host of reasons, starting with that being the most guaranteed way to make someone think about anything. More specific to the situation, this is the Camilla, and if there's one thing Jaune is willing to bet he already can guess about her it's that 'not thinking about Palamedes' isn't going to be an option now that it's been introduced.

Which means he might accidentally be responsible for scrambling her brain, which is just fantastic.

"I know him." Jaune nods, trying not to look too anxious and largely failing. "He, um. He mentioned you. Just...try not to press on anything that hurts? In your brain? It'll come back easier if you don't force it - do you want to sit down for a second? I think you should sit down for a second."

[go_loud]

She likely will remember that later, but right now she's too busy steadying herself, and feeling a little horrified that she had to grab onto the arm of a stranger to stay upright -- and right after being so competent at the bull, even.

Reflexes and pain tolerance, both without context, stabilize her. The sharp pain is dying back down, leaving a lingering ache behind; she feels entirely off-kilter but there's no way not to and she attributes that to -- everything that's happened today, and just happened. Mostly, at least. Not to mention having had a few drinks that she's not entirely sure of the alcohol content of.

Cam shakes her head, holding up a hand to stop him. "No, don't. Please." She shakes her head, dog-like, as though she can rid herself of whatever this is. "I'd figured out that there's --" She makes a face, frustrated. "Something that prevents trying too hard to remember. But, him." She glances at Jaune, still anxiously regarding her and takes a little breath. "I think I know him better than I know myself right now. And I still couldn't come up with -- Palamedes."

Camilla repeats the syllables, precise and careful and oddly warmed, as though someone's just told her a word in an entirely different language for something familiar and beloved and she's trying it out.

Which is almost the truth. If it wasn't his name, she'd still have no choice but to believe Jaune.

But how -- Does that mean he's not -- She tries to not think about any of the glimpses of memory she does have.

"I'm fine," she says instead, "It probably looked worse --"
It probably looked horrifying.
She gives Jaune a little rueful smile and allows, "Let's sit down," nodding at a booth and earning a little echo of dizziness for the nod.

cows

[necrolord]

The guy she'd been watching, the one who ate shit immediately, is at the bar as she touches down. He's still looking rumpled, shirt rucked up and black hat on crooked. As the bartender pours her victory drink, he raises his consolation beer in cheers.

It tips his hat up over his eyes, which flare white-on-black, awful as an event horizon.

"Go easy on my ego. I should've taken notes."

Re: cows

[go_loud]

Camilla nods a thank you as her free drink is slid to her. The bartender nods back -- perhaps? She can't tell quite if it's enough of a gesture to count as a response, or any proof one way or the other of whether the woman communicates outside of the few memorized lines Cam has heard.

She huffs, a breath and shrug of shoulders more than a laugh and takes a sip of her drink. "I think that might be your --" She pauses then, startled out of her cool demeanor as she turns to meet his eyes. "Problem," she finishes, because it's rude to be so obviously thrown.

His eyes are like a total eclipse. She can't remember seeing an eclipse -- if anything, all she gets is a general need to protect against light and heat, and she can't swear to that being any sort of real memory of home or just notes her brain has taken after trudging through the desert -- but it's still enough of a concept in her head for her to recognize the idea of a star blotted out by something in front of it. Only, his irises, so dark she can't quite differentiate the pupil without studying them, shimmer darkly, an oil slick more than a planet.

They're impossible eyes. And there's something about them that makes Camilla feel that she should drop her own, or -- or something, and that twists in her stomach. She can't tell what, except that they're deeply unsettling.

(She hates these unassociated feelings. She's lived her entire life laying out data and evidence when she had any doubt about anything. So far, aside from his eyes, this guy hasn't done anything except tell some random patron hold my beer and do abominably on the mechanical bull; and also, she supposes, assume she had any intention of doing anything to his ego.)

So she holds his gaze after that first stutter and curls the corner of her mouth just a touch upward in what, for Cam, is a smirk but a good-humored one. "Taking notes, I mean," she adds, more collectedly, and tilts her head at the bull. "I don't think you can learn this one that way."

She presses her lips together for a second and decides to just joke about the elephant in the room. "Did your sclera --" Camilla taps her eyelid under the white of her eye. "Look anything like mine before you got on that bull? Because I might have some bad news."

[necrolord]

Since arrival, he's had his fair share of odd looks and little flinches. Her reaction is bigger than most: more of a stumble, a wary hesitation, some wall gone up between them that he does not comprehend. But it makes sense, right? He looks spooky as hell.

She's bold enough to startle him into a laugh, regardless.

"Two black eyes," he jokes, and takes a pull of the beer. "Sounds about right. At this rate, I'll never make it as a real cowboy."

[go_loud]

That’s a terrible pun, and she makes a really? sort of face even as she smirks into her cocktail. This one — she hadn’t cared what you got for free and she isn’t getting a whole lot from the names of drinks — is sharper, sweeter, less smoky. It’s all right.

“You did wipe the floor pretty hard,” she parries, absolutely deadpan. His lack of concern makes her think that’s a no to his sclera having been white in the last couple of hours, and she wonders why.

“Got one on me. I don’t even know what a cow looks like, much less how to…cowboy.” Camilla takes a long sip. “Not that I’d know, I guess,” she notes, her tone a little sardonic, “But no headache if I try. So I assume it isn’t forbidden knowledge.”

[necrolord]

To this, John's mouth twists with exasperation.

"I know cows," he says, more darkly than cows probably deserve. "Migraines the moment I try to call up a cow fact. For me, they're up there with the secrets of the universe. Don't write them off just yet."

He's clearly fucking around, but the hard lines at the edges of his smile are real. It's been a long string of headaches since arrival.

[go_loud]

She smirks a little, arching an eyebrow; she can't quite read him -- the eyes don't help with this at all -- and she presumes he's joking, but there's a slightly odd edge to him that she's not sure she can put a finger on.

(Besides the eyes.)

"Maybe that's why the bull cleaned up with you," she says, picking up her drink, and gesturing with it vaguely at the metal thing. "Maybe at home you're a wrangler of...dangerous...quadripeds." She can't keep a straight face through wrangler of dangerous quadripeds, and grins; it flashes wide and white and disappears. "But it can't let you remember."

Cam presses her lips together at that, rocking onto the balls of her feet in thought. "Whoever did this to us didn't think that much through very well," she says slowly, and takes a drink. "You might not get the memory back, but you can figure out what kinds of things hurt to think about."

[necrolord]

"What you're saying," he says, mock-serious, "is maybe I am a true cowboy." He flicks his big black hat up by the brim, raises his beer in toast, and intones gravely: "Yeehaw."

John drinks long enough to let this very stupid pronouncement ring, then clicks his beer back down. He tips his head to her in agreement.

"Gives us the broad shape of things, I guess, if only by process of elimination. Somewhere to start."

[go_loud]

Cam laughs a little, a huff that might be amusement and might just be a standin for knowing what the hell any of that means. She has no idea what yeehaw is. If she had to guess, either something to do with cowboys (True Cowboys? There's sort of a capital letter attached the way the guy keeps saying it) or a cheer that goes with alcohol wherever he's from.

Her head twinges a little then, but she can't pay attention to it for too long, because someone passing drunkenly echoes yeehaw! (cowboys, then, statistically) and she snorts at it and lifts her glass to that and takes a drink.

"Exactly," she says. "It's not that useful as a tactic, I suppose you can't dig very far. But it's better than nothing. Or potentially, worse than. I don't know about you, but I've got the feeling that wherever I'm from, waking up somewhere you don't recognize with no memories isn't an every-day occurrence." She raises her eyebrows at the middle distance and examines the dregs of her glass, setting it back down on the bar.

"I'm Camilla," she says, realizing they've been chatting without having ever introduced themselves. Forcing herself to actually meet those nebulously-empty halos -- feeling that disproportionate unease and smallness in their reflection -- she extends a hand toward Black Hat Cowboy Guy.