event } lime, coconut, explosions

[seeingyou]

WHO: All y’all
WHAT: A nice vacation to ease everyone in
WHERE: Various locations on Alkonost Island, including Navi
WHEN: Sept 12-30
WARNINGS: Use ‘em in your threads if needed!

Welcome to Alkonost, the beautiful tropical island on the planet Tetagari where you have just made an emergency crash landing! You’ll be here for a while, so settle in and get cozy with your new shipmates until Navi is repaired and ready for takeoff.

Alkonost is a small island with an eponymous beachfront village, with the rest of the land covered in tropical rainforest, dry forest, and grasslands. Most of the land is still wild, as the Alkonost population is centered at the beach, though ancient ruins can be found a bit more inland. Alkonostians are a humanoid, amphibious people, with light green skin, gills, and webbed fingers; they are friendly and welcoming to tourists, business contacts, and intergalactic refugees alike.

Speaking of business, the main exports of Alkonost are various types of fish, shell jewelry, and a unique, dark red pearl that is only cultivated in the waters surrounding the island. These red pearls are highly prized on other islands and provide the bulk of income for the Alkonost population. They’ve also recently attracted a band of pesky pirates, which has taken to raiding export ships and even the pearl farms themselves, on occasion. Warning signs are posted near the shoreline and will be explained by locals if asked.

While visiting, you can elect to work as part of a fishing or pearl farming crew, or with one of the island’s fruit collection squads, and you’ll be paid daily in fresh fish and equally fresh fruit. For necessities of the non-consumable sort, the village open-air market is open every day for all of your shopping needs. Otherwise, grab some sun on the beach, dance and sing around bonfires at night, get to know your fellow passengers, or just chill on the ship and get to know Navi.

Comments

[sisterswitch]

“It’s called ‘Killing an Arab,’ but it’s not about what it sounds like, which is something most people can’t seem to comprehend.” She flips the journal closed with pen still inside and sets it aside, then pats the patch of ground next to her - an invitation for Murmur to come sit with her, if he’d like. “It’s about a book called The Stranger - I’m guessing you haven’t read it?”

[albatrossomen]

"What is it about?" He asks as he moves over to accept the offered seat. Much better than continuing to cosplay a statue. He settles in a little heavier than he'd like, staying in mortal form so long was taking something of a toll on him. He'd adjust, of course, he was just internally complaining to himself about it. "No, unfortunately I have been away for some time. Tell me more?" He has so much to catch up on! Maybe he'll do that, if they ever get back.

[sisterswitch]

"Well, the idiots think it's a song about promoting racism and murder, but it's really about coming to grips with your sense of existential angst. See, in the book, the protagonist ends up shooting a man to death on a beach, watching him die, and reflecting on the absurdity of existence. The murder isn't the point of the story, it's just the catalyst for the protagonist's revelation." She shrugs and leans back, stretching out her legs in front of her.

"Anyway, it's not the Cure's best song ever, but for some reason it's the one I've been thinking about. I read that book for a class a long time ago, but it stuck with me. I guess I found the protagonist sort of relatable? He's a stranger in his own world, set apart from society because he refuses to play the same game that everyone else does."

And she knows something about feeling like a stranger to the rest of the world. Jack digs a bare toe into the sand and glances over at Murmur.

"What about you? Got any beaches where you're from?"

[albatrossomen]

Existential angst huh? Yeah, Murmur could relate. He was having something of an existential crisis lately himself, not that he was exactly the type to let that be known. Not very becoming of an angel to question whether or not they should even be an angel now is it?

"Interesting, now I think I'd like to hear this song. Should we get the chance," He knows out here, so very far from where they began, it's unlikely. A quiet, rueful laugh escaped him. A stranger in the world, yes they did have more in common than he realized. "Or at least read the book." Who said they couldn't learn anything from mortals?

Now, at that question, he let out a quiet thoughtful hum. "I suppose it depends on how you define where I'm from," Which, again, always just had to be complicated didn't it? "If we are speaking Earth of course, all of them. When we were more free to roam the world of mortals they were some of my favored destinations. If we're speaking the Eternal City... not technically. It is mutable, there could be a beach if it was desired, it could also just be a sea of cloud. Or stars." Which in a way was fun also, but the mutability of Heaven made it so much less real.

"And of course one would be hard-pressed to find water, much less desirable water, in the Halls of Morning." Jack caught him in a mood to reminisce. Fortunate for her, this is probably some of the most he's spoken plainly in a while, what with how prone to keeping his own council Murmur was.

[sisterswitch]

“Well, if we ever end up in a place with interdimensional wi-fi, I’m sure I can show you the song on YouTube.”

Jack laughs quietly at her own half-joke. Stranger things have happened, after all - meeting an actual celestial, for example. Jack never would’ve had that square on a bingo card for any year, and yet, here she is, listening to one reminisce about places Jack never imagined were real.

“How do you define where you’re from? Like, if you had to tell someone where home is, what would you say?”

[albatrossomen]

"Given our current situation that may not be impossible,"

He offered quietly, a hint of amusement in his tone as well. Never had he expected he'd be kidnapped twice in short order by interdimensional shenanigans, and yet here they were. So why not interdimensional wi-fi? He grew quiet at her next question, staring off into the distance while he considered.

"A difficult question," He finally confessed. "I have existed since before place was a concept. Before the Eternal City where most of my brethren reside, or the Halls of Morning where the rest have gone. Neither are my home." He sounds genuinely a little sad about that, realizing that he doesn't really have a place that he belongs. So, since he doesn't have a time nor point of origin, does he have a home?

There's a huffed laugh. "Of course were I asked by someone I was not comfortable revealing what I am I'd simply lie and tell them something like Detroit," That's close to Hell, right? "But, if I must consider somewhere I choose to reside, perhaps my study." Which still sounds lonely.

[sisterswitch]

Jack recognizes the loneliness in Murmur’s answer because she too has spent most of her life feeling alone and out of step with the rest of the world, with no real place to call her own. Sure, she’d lived in the same city for her entire life, until she found herself in Dualis, but nowhere in that city truly felt like home to her. The only place that came close to feeling like home was her Lair, and she couldn’t stay there all of the time.

“So where’s your study? Hopefully not really in Detroit, because I’ve seen pictures of that town, and yikes.”

[albatrossomen]

It was a similar situation for him; Sure he could stay in his study forever, but he'd only be more severed from existence. At least this strange vacation stuck in the mortal realm offered a glimpse of reality he'd left behind long ago.

Whether that was a boon or not had yet to be determined.

He laughed lightly at her comment. "Goodness no, it does not exist within the mortal realm. It's a small pocket dimension of my own design, much like the Celestial Library I also created. Granted I no longer hold the Lorekeeper's key, that title has been passed to another."

At least no one needs to have access to that. "So, in essence it is with me at all times. Since it exists somewhere in between."

[sisterswitch]

"Someone who's more poetically inclined would probably say something like, 'Home is a place you take with you, wherever you go,'" she says, grinning at her own words. "I have something like that too, actually - it's called the Primordial Dream. I don't know if it's a pocket dimension or just another plane of existence or something else, but it's where we make our nightmares. The collective unconscious, you might say, and I have a special place in part of it, my Lair. It's ... comfortable there. It feels like I belong there, in a way I've never felt in the physical world."

She shrugs, and lies back on the sand, hands folded across her stomach. "But I don't tell people about that, usually. If asked, I'm from Omaha, born and bred and never quite got around to leaving. Well, until about three years ago, of course."

[albatrossomen]

"I think you have just demonstrated your poetic inclination splendidly," Jack has officially earned the title of poetic! Congratulations. "Really? It is nice having somewhere to retreat to away from all the noise, isn't it?" Maybe he'll show her his study. He's not brought anyone in there... ever, come to think of it. He nods in understanding at her description, it was really exactly how he felt about his study. It was lonely, certainly, but it was the only place he felt truly comfortable and belonging.

"A boon that we both have access to something like that when need be."

Not that Jack needed to worry about Murmur spreading things around, they both had their mutual supernatural secret to keep. "When you arrived in Dualis?"

[sisterswitch]

"Yeah." She smiles faintly at being called poetic. She's not an expert in verse, but she has a decent appreciation for the art form. Never thought she'd be any good at producing anything poetic herself, though.

"Neon hellscape city wasn't quite the upgrade I imagined, as far as cities go. I thought maybe someday I'd move to Chicago, or Denver. Definitely someplace without a murderbot at the heart of everything."

She frowns then - while she'd been smart and mostly avoided trouble, it wasn't easy to pull off, and it wasn't easy to watch so many others fail at it, either. "Most people only got a year there, sometimes less."

[albatrossomen]

Practice makes perfect and all that. She could be, should she desire to pursue that as an art. Now more than ever she certainly has time and little else on her hands.

A huffed sound of amusement. "No, I should think not. So I take that to mean not Detroit?" He doesn't actually have anything against Detroit, he just likes to make the joke. They could use some levity in these strange and trying times. At least for the moment they were free?

"How did no one notice? With that in mind, how long were you there?" As he expected that she was not one of the ones swept up after her year was over.

[sisterswitch]

Nope, not Detroit. Jack grins and shakes her head - she has no real interest in that level of urban decay.

"Nobody noticed me because I took precautions," she says, and continues to explain: "One of the first things I did was get into their databases and wipe all traces of the file they had on me. I've been a hacktivist for a while now, so while it wasn't a cakewalk, it was still doable. My apartment was warded, 'cause that's just common sense, and none of the surveillance equipment was able to see me."

Jack sits up and rolls her right jeans leg to halfway up her calf to show Murmur an tattoo placed a few inches above her inside ankle. It's a fairly simple design in worn black ink, an amateur stick-and-poke piece Jack created herself about a decade ago.

"I gave myself this tattoo when I was in college and got really involved in activism and started doing a lot of protesting. It's a sigil I designed to make myself invisible to technology."

[albatrossomen]

"What is a 'hacktivist'?" Forgive him, Jack, he's new to these terms. Although he does nod in approval at her mentioning warding her apartment. That is just common sense in his opinion. However, how did she keep herself invisible? Fortunately he wasn't forced to ask, as she kindly showed him the sigil she designed for just such a task.

Amateur or no, it was evidently effective and that's all that matters in the long run. "And it works? I have a mind to ask if you'd put one on me, as it's become clear I am quite behind the times as far as my own defenses go. A trade, perhaps?" He has quite the arsenal of various warding and protection spells he's written over time, he could hook Jack up with something in kind.