TEST DRIVE MEME: JULY / AUGUST

[ryslighelpers]

TDM: JULY / AUGUST

Welcome to the Ryslig Test Drive Meme! Below are a few prompts to get you started, but you may make up any prompt you desire! Please take a look at the navigation page for rules, setting information, and links to reserves and apps. Have fun!

SCENARIO ONE

You wake up on the beach thoroughly drenched, with your mouth full of sand. The salt water is making all the cuts and scrapes on your skin sting and the sand isn't helping. The air is slightly humid, ruining any feeling of refreshment you might have gotten from your dip in the ocean.

There are lights in the distance, but the unfriendly scent of gunpowder fills the air. If you're lucky, you're alone. If not - you might find yourself staring up into a pair of monstrous eyes or down the barrel of a local's shotgun.

SCENARIO TWO

So you've just arrived, and already some of the natives are trying to get on your good side with offers of food, shelter and other luxuries in return for hoping you don't eat them. They even have some helpful pamphlets to share with you. "How To Deal With Changes", "Alternatives to Human Flesh", "What to Expect When You're Expecting (to turn into a monster)" are all on the more informative end of the scale. There's even some detailing certain monsters, and the changes they go through. Some of these seem to have been passed down from one monster to the next.

Among these however, are some... not so helpful ones. "Bunnyipyips And You", "Axe Thief Axehounds," and "So you're becoming a Fur Bearing Trout" among others. Sometimes they have marks on them from previous readers saying they're lies, or pointing out good "jokes."

Then there are the people who aren't happy to see you at all. Glares and silent, judging stares if you're lucky, torches and pitchforks attempting to drive you out of the town if you're not. You may need a friend to help you.

SCENARIO THREE

"Seek us out," the voice whispers in your head, and before you have time to question it you've found yourself in someplace entirely alien.

Maybe it's the Fog God's ghostly town of Dyster, where exultant followers dance around bonfires and sing their praises to the skies above. Maybe it's the Fourth God's arcade, with small robots wheeling about amidst the lights and colors of old pinball machines.

Only one thing is certain: you are not alone, in this sacred place.

SCENARIO FOUR

The time has come and you've found yourself becoming a monster. Is the change instant, or gradual? Are you familiar enough with monsters to know what's happening, or is it a complete shock? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.

Comments

[ygwynbleidd]

[Perhaps it was because Geralt was used to the sounds of the forest, sought comfort in them over the bustle of the city or, perhaps it was because he had been so preoccupied in his thoughts; but, he hardly noticed the buzzing that neared him.

It was when the fae landed on the velvet of his growing antlers, that the very still-human-looking eyeballs present in his elongated deer skull turned upwards. Was it a natural resident of this forest? Or was it also like him: once human, now monster?]

...In a place born of darkness and primeval nature, resides a mighty and terrifying guardian. Immune to human steel, it is believed the leshen is nature's way of protecting the forest and the animals that live within it from the threat humans pose...

[The way he spoke sounded as if the cadence of crows echoed faintly in the base tones of his gravelly voice. He recited the script, and as he did, his amber eyes rolled in that deer-skull visage. His gaze settled back on the water, and he waved a hand over the surface of it.]

I have seen the worst of humanity. Kings and swineherds who would do whatever it takes to get what they want. Men would would desecrate lands and people. Leshens were born out of humanity's disrespect for nature. I've killed many for coin in the past... but it's almost comforting to become one, now.

[He pulled away from the water's edge and instead settled down onto his haunches. Once he was sitting, Geralt raised a bark-crusted claw up towards his antlers for the Fae to step out on.]

And you? Were you born a creature of the forest, or are you changing too?

[usurpers]

No less animals, huh.

[ kings and swineherds, ah yes. the rest of those that would burn the very nature eren felt tethered to now, along with an inkling of this beast that too was part of the green realm. eren lets out a mm, nearly a huff of irony but also a hum of understanding. without putting too much weight on his feet to claws held to him, the fae steps light and his wings blowing hovers of air to dislocate. it was— strange, to be in opposite positions, looking up rather than down. usually he was the one to hold people in his palm, and rarely the other way around. he doesn't know how to unshrink for the time being, so, patience. ]

I woke up on a beach, [ mouth opens, closes, ] time's muddy since then. [ the leshen's words still weigh heavy on his mind. perhaps not heavy; grim familiarity he finds himself clinging to with comprehension when during long nights and the roll of fog, the last of his compassion escapes him. he's also got an itch that's only growing, though, and it has to do with pulling a prank.

patience........ ]

A mercenary?

[ygwynbleidd]

[Geralt watched as the small fae stepped onto his bark-like claw, watched the way his wings flittered and those antennae twitched. He very much was like an insect and he probably, if he wasn't paying close enough attention, would have simply assumed him to be such.]

It was the same for me. Nothingness, then beach.

[There's a bestial look to his amber eyes, and even if they don't function quite like they used to, the fae would be able to notice his vertical slit pupils... like a cat's.]

Something like a mercenary. I was a witcher, a monster hunter. [A small rasp of a sigh escaped him, and despite not being able to emote with eyebrows, it's obvious there's a melancholy to his gaze,] I've met more men that are monsters, though, and beasts I could consider friend.

[He raised his claw a bit higher, so they were eye-level with one another,] you're a fighter too, aren't you?

[usurpers]

[ word, geralt?! their entire life story in like one sentence. it still utterly and deeply upsets him, disappoints him really, that even across dimensions . . . they’re all the god damn same or worse. which world would finally be his canvas—? he wonders if it’s this one. ]

Since I was born, I think. [ it’s hard to say to others if he actually knew that, but he has more than enough context to believe it. he’s always been trapped. the pause in between words now is long enough to show distinction between thoughts. he’s considering the latter words with care. ] It’s . . . Ironic.

[ making himself oddly comfortable, eren slouches down into a sit to stay eye to eye with the cat-like gaze blinking his way. rubbing his hands idly brings out the creation of dust— a sparkling cloud of gold that puffs down his subtle claps.

he’d wanted to do something “fun”, but the gaze in his eyes is familiar. it’s one he’s had for years and never got over because he could hardly see beyond it, and brings the fae’s hands subdued to his lap. ]

But it’s better than clinging to something surreal. “Humanity” hardly means anything.

[ like clinging to it. it meant so much more to let go of that illusion at this point. ]

[ygwynbleidd]

[Geralt followed suit, making himself comfortable as he watched the fae on his hand. Despite that faerie appearance, the way he carried himself certainly didn't come from a life of trickerstering and frolicking in leaves. Geralt was was more inclined to believe those words of turmoil.

A fighter since birth.

Geralt tried to remember a time when his life wasn't monsters and witchers. He didn't even know his own mother's face, as Vesemir had been the closest thing to a parent he'd ever had.

Still, he couldn't help the sound that left him. It was an attempt at a chuckle, but instead just sounded like a cough with the echo of crows behind it.] Tell that to a human, I'm sure they'd fight you over those words.

[He leaned back onto one gnarled wooden elbow, and laid on his side. He kept the faerie at eye-level,] What's your name?

[usurpers]

[ hah, he'd breath that sounded like a mix— a buzz and a unison of chirping, or sparrows and finches, cut quickly to a short stop. ]

Hypocrites. [ though he knows, knows very well, that it's all a matter of history, of how to world shapes you and a vast perspective that they're the same wherever they go. perhaps it was just the jaded fae in him being petty. it wouldn't be much of a change when so many were readily against him. his wings hum and beat to hover from where he sat, little winds bustling on a monstrous palm and only really settling when he does. ] It's Eren. Who're you, beyond an old man?

[ the light jest is nothing too . . . meaningful. just a jest to rise from the depths of something as sickening as lying, and simple extension of being all the damn same anyway. ]

[ygwynbleidd]

[Geralt could understand the fae's distaste. There was a kinship in it. Regardless of who they were, or where they came from, he knew that this faerie understood what it felt like. He knew what it meant to be seen as a monster, even before turning into a literal one.

How many people had cast you out, little fae? How many chose to demote you to subhuman, because they were afraid of you? Geralt didn't have to ask these questions to know the answer. He could see it in those eyes, in the way his tone held bitterness and contempt.

How many decades had it been since his own miasma of anger and hurt settled into something more quiet? More reserved?]

Geralt of Rivia... though I doubt the title means anything anymore. [He seemed to say the words with a small sigh of relief. His knighthood carried weight, and for every valorous song Dandelion had written of him, there was a children's tale that spoke of the evil Butcher of Blaviken.]

It's nice to meet you, Eren. I was beginning to think I'd go crazy out here with only the crows to talk to.

[usurpers]

[ it took eren a very, very long time to quell the storm inside and probably it never would, not fully— but hell if becoming a fairy didn't bring it all back and disassociate him further from time to time, especially when the fog came or when the moons were ripe with light. or when the faeness felt like it. who was to say, nowadays, when he hardly felt like he was apart of his world anymore? such was the life of a floating head.

some faerie dust gets thrown up and blown up, harmless intentions— geralt will only hear the cry of a murder flapping and picking branches to roost. they're not real, for the record, but they might be a little annoying. if he's feeling any ways lighter, the feeling of this meet and greet was mutual. ]

They're loud, aren't they?