Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

[callada]

characters: EVERYONE??
location: General Store + around Beacon
date/time: October 18-31
content: This is the costume prompt from the TDM, delivered to you all in mingle-style by popular request and with mod approval
warnings: n/a for now but will update

Although the month is already well underway, residents of Beacon will notice a brand new shipment being delivered to the general store—only this one comes via the forest, as a small legion of spirits quickly drop off crates of boxes at its doorstep before scampering back into the woods. Hopefully nobody is riding too hard on hoping for further rations or supplies, because opening them up quickly squashes any notions of a full month's restock. Instead, it looks like each crate is bursting with costumes! Coming in all shapes and sizes to fit anyone of any age or decree, there’s plenty to choose from. Something scary? Magical? Clever? Or maybe even a bit on the sultry side? Dig deep enough, and you’re sure to find something to suit your tastes, props, accessories, wigs and all!

If nothing else, surely you can find an alternate use for a bit of spare fabric in your size, but what's the harm of having a bit of fun? But, oh, be careful if you're playing dress-up while the hallucinations from the event are in play... These costumes might just have a funny effect on you. 🤔!

Comments

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Nope. Never heard of the place until I got here. Never smelled a human before, either. We call where I'm from the Three Worlds, but it's only one-- what is it, planet? Only one planet, with the three worlds of ground, sea, and sky contained in it."

[callada]

"Oh. Not human," he replies, surprised. The guy looks human enough, right? Completely within the normal sort of variation he's used to, but he's glad Stone mentioned it before he could state that assumption of his aloud.

"Well, then I hope you don't mind being thrown in with so many of us," he says with a bit of a smile and a half-shrug. "What do your people call yourselves?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I'm a Raksura," Stone answers. "A shapeshifter, and an aerial predator. My other form has wings, and is a lot bigger than this one. I don't mind you people, though. I spent a lot of time traveling after my queen died, I'm used to spending time among other species. It's kind of funny watching you all not consider that you're not alone in the universe, though. Most of you don't seem to have any other intelligent species on your planets."

[callada]

Well, cool! A new race. A shapeshifter race at that, which is absolutely astounding in his mind. Doesn't everyone dream of that sometimes? The ability to take any form at will? His smile grows into a grin.

"Never heard of the Raksura, that's a new one for me. It's those people from Earth who aren't used to other types of people," he says. "We have several where I'm from. No flying shapeshifters, though! Not as far as I've seen. Why choose to look human, then? You could be anything!"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I can only turn into the two shapes," Stone says, tilting his head with a wry smile. "And I didn't get to pick either one. Conformation is determined by bloodlines. I've never met a shapeshifter that had more than two forms. Historians think that the groundling one-- this one I'm in right now-- that form was used to prey on other groundlings, back when our ancestors actually ate people. That's what the Fell use it for. We're born scaly and winged, though."

[callada]

"Like dragons." Real ones, though. Somewhere out there in another world, there are actual dragons - Raksura, rather - living their lives, and they're nothing like the ones in those old stories. That's the sort of spite toward his ancestors that makes him smile.

"That is, if you know what those are. Maybe you don't. Different worlds, after all."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Never heard of them," Stone answers cheerfully enough. He likes hearing stories about other people's cultures almost as much as he enjoys talking about his own, so he suggests: "Why don't you fill me in?"

[callada]

"Oh, just stories. Myth. Enormous reptiles with scales and wings that breathe fire and eat virgins and hoard treasure and rule the land, sea, and sky all at once. The sort of creature that people of status like to associate themselves with, to keep the people below them afraid and in awe," he says with a shrug.

Very casually, as if it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter here anyway. Shouldn't.

"But you're the real thing, kind of, only you're here looking at clothing and not trying to eat everyone," he says with a shrug and a half-smile. "So I'd say you're all right."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Huh." Stone considers that, fascinated. Groundlings have the most interesting stories. "Sounds more like the Fell than the Raksura. No interest in virgins, and from what I'm told we're terrible about trading away really valuable things. Besides, most of us aren't really all that big. We keep growing as we get older, and I'm older than pretty much everybody. Also, no fire. That sounds really uncomfortable."

[callada]

"I didn't make it up," he chuckles. "And I suppose it has to be coincidence, anyway. Maybe lots of worlds have stories about large creatures with wings and scales. Or maybe some of them out there could fly from world to world."

Space dragons, the ultimate creature. Actually, that would be truly fascinating, the more he thinks about it. Like sea kings, but of the skies beyond planets? Huh.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Never tried that," Stone admits. "Going too high means the air changes. That never bothered me that much, but I know it bothers Arbora if you take them too high, too fast, and there was never any reason to go that high anyway." He looks thoughtful. "Our ancestors had machines they kept higher up in the sky than we ever bothered to go. One that makes a portal to transport people around the Three Worlds. Who knows what else they could have done."

Now that is an idea, now that he knows other planets even exist.

[callada]

"I don't know the first thing about flight, to be honest," he says. "I know some people in my world have ways to fly, but it's not really something most of us have access to. I guess the sea keeps us busy enough."

And why fly? Ships are easy enough to build, buy, or hire passage on. With so much water and so little land, there isn't much use for flight. That, and - well, it might be hard to keep people from getting to the Red Line if flight was widespread.

Huh. Hadn't thought about that before.

"You mostly use this form while around here, I guess, right?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I shift into my other one for a while whenever I get the chance, go for a little flight or a dip in the bay. This shape feels too small sometimes." He plucks at his own shirt with an expression of mild annoyance. "You're from the sea?"

[callada]

"If you mean from an island, yeah. Fishmen and merfolk are from the sea itself. The rest of us are born on land, but the world's mostly water."

He was, of course, not born on an island either, but details.

"And I've worked on ships most of my life. Can't remember the last time I was off the ocean for this long."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I've been on boats, but I didn't have to do anything on them. The Arbora and the groundlings who owned the boats did most of it," Stone admits. And because the question is probably going to come along sooner or later, he explains, "Arbora are the ones without wings, and who do most of the work and all of the art around the colony, and the only ones with magic besides the queens' connection to the court."

[callada]

"Huh." Okay, not his most intelligent remark, but he's actually interested and just not sure what to say. Stone speaks of a society that's highly organized into some sort of complex caste system, the like of which he's totally unfamiliar with.

"Do people choose what role they want? Or are they born to do a certain job in your, um, colony?" He'd guess it's the latter, from context. Probably something to do with being born in a certain shape or with certain abilities. With humans - and fishmen too, and probably minks as far as he knows - people are all born to do a variety of things, which makes a caste system feel really unfair but if that weren't the case? Would it ever make sense to be born into a role?

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Arbora do. An Arbora might spend time as a teacher, an artisan, a soldier, or a hunter, and change between roles if they want to. Warriors are pretty stuck, since they can't breed. Consorts and queens have some flexibility, but not as much-- we still have to make babies if the court is small, but a queen can choose whether to be a sister-queen or stay a daughter-queen, or eventually become the ruling queen. A consort can choose which queen to pair with, mostly." He shrugs. "Depending on how much responsibility we want. I was never part of the ruling pair, in my court."

[callada]

"Wow." He's smiling now, though. It really is completely foreign, and completely fascinating.

"Never heard anything like all that. Your world, and your people, it's so different from how any of the races live where I come from, or at least the ones I know about. But I like that!"

The universe is truly a huge and varied place, and he's fine with his world being one very small part of it. The differences are - well, beautiful, if he allows himself to be a little over the top in his own thoughts. Not only is humanity itself diverse and chaotic, but all of life might be, if this place has taught him anything.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Looking pleased at the response, Stone says, "It's not a bad way to live. I've seen better and worse. I spent a lot of time traveling after my queen died, met a lot of different groundlings, learned about a lot of different cultures. If it were any others from my court here, they'd be a lot more lost than I am." Except maybe Moon, but Moon was a moody ass, and also shouldn't be dying at his age, anyway.

[callada]

"Yeah. Well, there are probably people here who won't know what to make of you. They already think I'm strange just because I'm a little bit taller than them. But they seem to be pretty accepting, overall. I keep finding myself being surprised, for some reason, at how well everyone gets along."

Mostly. Sure, there are exceptions. But most people work together, let each other know what their skills are, seek help when they have problems, and keep each other updated on what they've learned. He expected that in the Marines but he hadn't thought this disparate group from across multiple worlds in the universe would cooperate as well as they do.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I haven't had anyone running and screaming, or thinking I'm going to eat them, so already this place is more accepting than where I come from," Stone chuckles. "Of course, you all aren't used to Fell, and I look a lot like a Fell greater kethel from my world. It's not an unreasonable thing for groundlings to think."

[callada]

Right, the ones that eat "groundlings," he'd said earlier. More like the monsters from myth. Lucky they don't have one like that among them.

"It must help that you seem pretty happy to explain it all. I've learned a lot already," he says. Far more interesting than poking around in the box of clothing, as colorful and different from the rest of the stock as they all are. "People here might be good to each other but not all of them are very forthcoming. Trying to learn about where they come from turns into me asking a ton of questions and getting short answers. I guess maybe they're not used to explaining themselves, though, if they're all humans from Earth."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Almost much everyone I've talked to is," Stone snorts. "None of them even imagined there'd be anyone who wasn't human around. I'm not sure whether this Earth place sounds boring because everyone's the same, or interesting, to see how they manage to fight amongst themselves even if they're all the same species. Well, feel free to ask me anything you like. I love telling stories. I'll just ask you to tell me some, in return."

[callada]

"Right. I don't even know where to start," he admits, amused. He's also absolutely one of those who doesn't like explaining much about himself, but he can handle talking about his world in general well enough, and fudging the rest as needed.

"You said you've traveled a good amount of your world, though, right? What was your favorite place you visited?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"The Golden Isles," Stone answers readily. "It's the remains of one of the floating island empires, mostly fishers, merchants, and and explorers now. The isles themselves float over a shallow sea with yellow silt that tints the water. It's a peaceful place, with good people-- golden skin, pale hair, mostly built like a human but with a kind of broader face and one less finger on each hand. I visited there twice during my travels alone, and a few times after that with others from my colony."