Tanuchan

As extra info, Marisia is Seara's little sister. She's 11, a bit plumpish but very energetic; she sees no point in being a "proper lady", as she sees marriage as something to be avoided ("see how Sea changed after her betrothal, now she just talk about houses and babies, she doesn't have the time to be with me anymore"). She would rather stay with the boys than with her sister, and in this journey would probably try to escape her and talk to every person around who is not expecting her to be a "proper lady".

Seara looked at Marisia with an exasperated sigh. Reaching out with a hand, she grabbed her little sister's hair and yanked hard, having the satisfaction of hearing a yelp. "Searaaaaaaaaaaaa!" "Don't you Seara me, Mari!" She frowned, looking at her sister's wrinkled clothes. "Where do you think you are going? Stay here with your escort, and don't you start trying to hide behind every bush." "I'm not hiding, Sea! I'm looking for wolves!" "Wolves don't hide under bushes, and they don't come where there are men. And ladies of House Ryswell most certainly do not go hunting wolves. Now stay here!" "But the ladies of House Stark..." "It was Lord Stark who found the direwolves, not the ladies. Now come here and ride at my side!" Marisia would have pouted if she weren't sure her big sister would yank her hair again if she did, so she just sulked and rode, longing for the freedom she had when Seara wasn't around. For the thousandth time in the trip, she wondered why their father had sent her away. After all, it was Seara who was going to marry, and not her... Seara glanced at her sister, and frowned again. She muttered something under her breath, and as she felt the look of Joran on her, she smoothed her face and gave a smile. I'm glad father sent Joran to look for us. At least he is not scandalized by Mari's behavior, and will not be whispering behind our backs about how unfit she is to be a proper lady... She straightened her back, and let her gaze fall on their traveling companions, surreptitiously studying them.

I'm ready I'll see if Mith can play. When are you planning to start the game?

Thanks to Vene for writing with me ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tanny stretched, playing with a throwing knife in her hand while talking softly to Stephen. "It wasn't that bad, you stubborn ranger! What is the problem with some skill practice early in the morning?" Stephen made his best to hide a yawn, mumbling something that made Tanny laugh. "Alright, but it was not my fault that you decided to practice your tracking skills in the dead of the night right where I was practicing with my knives... and you were silent enough that I missed your fingers." "But not my sleeve!" His left hand's fingers checked again the tear on his right sleeve where Tanny had buried a knife about an hour ago, almost sending both of them into a blind fight at dawn. It was lucky for both of them that by then Stephen had put his stealth aside and grabbed more forcefully an earth thread, immediately making Tanny recognize him. "And besides, you are supposed to know when I am around. You always complain of my earthly presence whenever you are touching your threads near me." "Not when I'm practicing throwing without using earth energy..." She looked at him, amused. "I don't like trusting solely in my elemental abilities, just in case I am somehow blocked from them." "And so you decide to practice right at dawn in the most secluded spot you can find?" "Well, what were you doing there?" Stephen decided not to answer, still muttering about wolves and women and tricky beings in general. Tanny smiled, but as she turned to say something else she stopped abruptly. ::Hush!:: Stephen automatically grabbed his quarterstaff more firmly, finding the perfect balance as he immediately recognized the undertone of danger in Tanny's mind-voice. ::What?:: He scanned ahead using his touch with earth and so was able to feel the trampling of feet nearby, most likely pretty close to Tanny's cottage. ::Troglodytes::, he warned. Tanny nodded. Both approached her cottage silently and ready for fighting, and Tanny was the first to hear the cry and the ruffling sound. "I know that cry...?!" She frowned, suddenly sprinting ahead of Stephen. Her eyebrows shot up as she saw what seemed to be a mexican jumping bean bush dancing at the back of her house, squirming and wriggling, then she heard another shrill cry. "Oh, Wyv... like, what a terrific dance... you are soooooo, totally like cool!" Tanny froze. It took her a minute to take in everything around her house, and accept the unbelievable... there were an almost-dragon and a cheerline, and a crew of troglodytes, jumping and crying and cursing and spitting right at her back porch. Stephen closed in behind her, mouth agape while not wanting to believe what his ears told him. "Wyvern!!" Tanny hissed, and her icy voice cut straight through the din to stab Wyvern's ears. He turned and stared, for a moment forgetting his wet disguise. "Tanuchan! What a pleasure... it'sss been sssuch a long time... and I sssee our dear Ssstephen with you..." He grinned, glancing around frantically for some support. CheerMynx beamed, jumping up and down and clapping hands, oblivious to Snuffles protesting mewling as he tried to stay on his perch. "Tanny!!! Oooh, are you like going to be all cute and furry again? It's like so totally nice of you to come to our report, we could so totally have you sparkling in golden glitter to show how wolves love the season, and a cute little green bow on your tail and..." Tanny's hand flew to her face as she sighed, shaking her head. CheerMynx kept babbling about what a nice wolf outfit she had for her takes, while Wyvern got his prosthetic limb and talked about Almost Draconic Prosthetic Limbs ™, perfect for baiting prey into her range. Then she heard a gasp, half-cry and half-wail, and turned to see Stephen stepping backwards. "Oh no ... nonononono ... ooooohhh no ... NOT the Almost Report! Not the Almost Anytyhing, for that matter!" She blinked, watching Stephen running off at incredible speed back toward the woods. She heard him crashing into the bushes and vines, and just hoped he wouldn't hit his hard head into any fragile tree as she turned back to Wyvern. "What are you doing here?", she growled, glaring at him.

::Stephen?:: Tanny's mind-voice sobered, reacting to Stephen's sudden withdrawal. He kept to himself, a faraway expression coming to his usual calm face. She went for their usual light mind-link, hoping it would soothe whatever memory her words had brought to her friend's mind. Usually their mind-link was smooth, as natural as dealing with earth threads was for both of them. For Tanny, it had always felt like the touch of soft, new leaves brushing against her. However, this time the association that came to her when she touched Stephen's mind was the rushing sound of leaves in a soft breeze, with the familiar feeling in the background. She held her breath, trying to pinpoint exactly what the change meant, something in the back of her mind insisting that it was important. But then, Stephen's voice came. Not in mindspeech, but in a solid, yet dream-like, voice. "A long time ago, the world where I come from was ruled by demons. There's little we know about that period, but when it ended, it was the human magi who took the lead. According to what is known of that time, it was actually better when the demons still ruled ..." Tanny listened to Stephen quietly, drawn by her friend's whispery voice and restrained emotions. Stephen paused briefly before continuing, and Tanny could feel in her mind how detached he was trying to be. "In a way, it was the demons who freed us of the magi and their experiments when they took away the mana, which is the basis of all magic. The magi followed it to the north, where they still are ... my country is one of those bordering on mage territory. The only reason they are not interested in it is because the mana is so erratic and weak. Of course, that doesn't stop the nobility from dabbling in magic ... after all, if they could, the magi would still rule, so it's only natural that magic and being important go hand in hand ..." His voice trailed off and he lapsed into silence. Tanny waited, and unconsciously reached out to elemental energies that her mind could sense all around, almost tranced. Suddenly Stephen spoke up again. "Do you know how they hunt?" The sudden question snapped Tanny back to reality, but Stephen continued without really giving her a chance to react. "They have servants going in the opposite direction, making noise to scare the animals away. Then, if their magic works, they just ... blast them and leave them. The servants ... they've mostly learned to be very careful when they approach the group. After all, what's one less nichma?" Tanny sensed the special bitterness around that last word, and the hesitation. She leaned to touch Stephen's hand, encouraging him, knowing as well as him that it had to come out. "A nichma?" "It is also what I was called whenever they thought that my parents or their informants wouldn't hear it ... a non-magic user. My parents were ... probably still are, very powerful. Using such a derogatory word when talking about their eldest son wouldn't do one much good. A hunting accident, on the other hand, is known to happen ..." It was instinctively woven, in answer to Stephen's pain that he could not hide completely. Threads of water started to form a protective shield, laced with earth. Tanny stretched and twisted each thread until it ressonated with Stephen's aura, reinforcing nature's protection. The vibration that seemed to pervade everything in that world gave her new ways of matching her friend's pattern, and she neatly tucked that information in a corner of her mind for later study. As the soothing from water and earth started to flow into Stephen, Tanny mentally stepped back to check her work... An extra twist here... and there... and... a snatch of this... She reached out naturally for a flimsy thread, entwining it expertly as a finishing touch. And as she came back to herself, what she had done sank in. "No... no!!" Tanny turned and, hands on her face, fled from the clearing shutting her mind to any and all elemental threads around her. For a brief moment, Stephen thought that she was reacting to his story, before he realized that he'd felt that fleeting sensation of wolf fur against his mind again - his reaction to her energy weaving. With a frown he got up and started going after her when he suddenly stopped. ::Tanny?:: Reaching out with his mind, he tried to sense her presence, but couldn't find it - it was as if she'd never been there at all. Tanny didn't hear Stephen, nor sensed his worry as she would normally have. Changing into a wolf mid-run, she kept her mind closed to all elemental energies; closed as she had never done except while under training at the distant Temple of Dyrenne. She changed her focus into a wolf's one, using smell and sound to keep her in a direction away from... anything behind her. Protests of her mind were stifled with a single-mindedness she had used very few times before. A forest. The smell of leaves being crushed under her paws. The sound of small branches snapping as her strong leaps took her away from the curse. The breeze touching her fur, and sunbeams telling her the direction away from the circle of stones and the tribe. The freedom of a wolf.

Well, we are not in a hurry... let's wait a bit and see what happens

Is it possible to volunteer a secondary character? An octopus approached the skeleton underling with a slow swim, using just his trailing arms to propel himself through the air. The skeleton was not concerned at all with something that seemed as out of place as an octopus out of water, but Octy definitely called Venefyxatu's attention. Oblivious to the Nether mage's presence (actually Octy had chosen to examine him later), Octy spread its mantle right above the skeleton's skull keeping his balance perfectly in the invisible and unsensed air currents. He examined the bones below, and frowned mentally as he tried to mimic it. The result was pretty close to a skeleton with eight limbs and no torso floating like an inverted, misshapen mirror of the original skeleton. Octy seemed a bit puzzled himself, raising each limb to his eyes to examine them better, and at each time making the "bones" pattern ripple. For anyone watching him, it suddenly looked like the skeleton "mirror" was dancing to some unheard tune, all "bones" shaking and rippling randomly. With a sigh that sounded like water gushing out of a narrow passage, Octy decided that the pattern he was trying to emulate wouldn't work as camouflage unless there was an army of the bonethings around him. And, having concluded that, he reached down with an arm, curled its tip around the quill, and yanked it from the skeleton's fingerbones. The purpose of the quill was not strange to Octy, who had seen it in one of the few planes he had visited before. The pattern of a smug smile appeared at the bottom of his head, then he brought the quill under his mantle, bubbled in laughter at the tickling of the feather, and brought it out inked on his own supply of ink. He scrawled the figure of an octopus on the parchment, curious also to see a Cartographer working.

Almost no one noticed a very soft, if somewhat long, ripping noise followed by a sudden "plop" in a corner of the room. The air in there seemed to ripple for a while,with something that looked like a balloon tumbling along the wavy unseen lines. After a few seconds, though, the balloon extended a couple of appendices that explored the space around tentatively. A pair of eyes opened, revealing curious, horizontally-split pupils, and then another six arms unwrapped carefully from under the round body. He stretched his arms carefully, one after the other, testing his balance. Then turned graciously and silently swam towards the ceiling, letting his body blend with the shadows while studying the beings around. He could not properly recognize them, although most were in a way or other very similar to what he knew. He was confused about how he had come to be in this place; he remembered just a very forceful tugging, like the pull of the Serat, the storm whirlwind that very few could ride, and then there had been a change around him. This was a new plane, at least that he could be sure of. There was the subtle change in air pressure and quality that was common in plane-traveling, and the initial disorientation that came in one he had never visited before. As he adapted to his surroundings, he sensed communication going through, a bit surprised that he could understand most of it. His overall expression looked quite amused, and he tilted his body so that he could listen better. He came slowly down, feeling safe enough in the warm atmosphere he could sense; there seemed to be no hostility around even if the smaller rat-like beings, and the leafy one, seemed to be afraid of predators. Still, he kept his body colors and transparency flickering, mimicking the light/shadow contrast to the best of his ability, while he was sliding down. Once around the people, though, it was harder to keep blended... but he tried, and also extended one of his arms towards the furry fellow on the hand of the human he had managed to approach unnoticed. The result of an octopus-like arm sneaking around The Researcher to touch Pig's soft fur was somewhat of a ruckus. "Hum... hello?" Octy blinked slowly, his warbly, watery voice sounding uncertain between being cheerful, curious, or wary. The tip of the arm he had on Pig's back curled, stroking the fur and learning what sensations it would give, but his other seven arms were curled up under his mantle, ready to propel him upwards to safety if he had been wrong about the friendly atmosphere. Note: you can consider Octy as an octopus, though swimming in the air currents instead of under the sea, and with the octopus bulbous "head" being at the front and not behind (giving the general impression of a big nose).

Seara Ryswell, 16. Beautiful, with long whitish-blond hair and very light green eyes, she is traveling with her little sister and an escort to King's Landing, where she will meet her promised husband. Seara behaves as a proper young lady of a noble house, and is usually annoyed at her brattish sister who has just decided that in this trip she will find a wolf cub to have as a pet, like the sons and daughters of House Stark to whom their own House is sworn to. If anyone wants to play Seara's little sister, please go ahead

I'm in, will think about a character. Patrick, are we allowed to be members of one of the big or smaller families (that is, to have allegiances)?

*psssst....* You are already back

As long as you don't go for accuracy... I'm not sure I remember it well enough to RP in that universe, but I'd be in

Mmm... one more game gone... who is next? This is my last list, but I think Vene is MIA for now, and Katz also. Pat? Gryph? Someone else?

It happens to everybody, Gryph... no need for apologies, RL has this tendency of claiming us at the wrong times *hugs*

That's why I don't think I'll ever automatically trust a guy who votes a wolf out

Anya looked quite surprised at seeing her brother in there. She would never understand why someone who loved order so much would be dragged into the same kind of chaotic events she was so keen to follow to the end. She walked in her brisk pace towards him, grabbing a hot dog on her way. "Order and Chaos... will you tell me why you seem to always be tracking me to try and put some order in my life, dear brother?" She smiled, the easy banter coming off-handed and without stings after so long living under the same roof. "And yes, dear sir..." she turned to the curious-looking man, "... would you mind telling us why these seeds of chaos were sown in our normal ordered lives?"

Hehe... sorry, Degorram, but per usual rules of the game we are not supposed to speculate/influence others while OOC or in OOC threads We can do almost anything while IC, though -- so if your character asks that in the game thread, using whatever IC reason or gut feeling, I'm sure we can start interacting *grins*

Thank you

Sorry... I'm afraid I cannot cope well with 12-hour day phases... I can only post at around this time, since I don't have the time to post before going to work or during work hours. So forgive me is I miss some phases once in a while?

Anya blinked as the worm virus ate its way into the core of the computer, thoughts racing as she feverishly scrabbled down the info she had. I will figure it out later... She looked at the clock -- 4:22 pm. Who the hell is that, what is happening, and who is going to bang in my door? Without knowing exactly why, she grabbed a bag under the desktop table -- why did she had the emergency bag in there? -- and casted eyes about her. 4:23 pm. F***, why am I acting as if that email was real? But if genetics had taught her something, it was that sometimes -- just sometimes, but maybe the right times -- a very random, chaotic mutation was the nudge needed to turn a failed line into a promising one. She glanced at her brother's room on her way to the window, saw him staring at the computer. Sometimes I think he leads more of a life in there than out! 4:24, and she opened the window. She appraised the fire exit stairs, and hesitated just a moment. Why not? Chaos is my name... Instead of going down, she went up. As she entered the top-floor apartment through the open window, she heard muffled shouts somewhere below. Ignoring the startled gasp of the child in whose room she was, Anya quickly and silently left that apartment, crossed the corridor to the window that opened to the opposite set of fire exit stairs, and quickly went down. She crouched at the window above her floor, made sure there was no noise coming from the inside, and went back into the building. Nonchalantly, she called the elevator and then left the building, headed for the airport. "Paging...Chaos?" the voice on the intercom sounded uncertain "Er...there's a call for 'Chaos' at booth 13."

Anya Lestrova/Chaos 28, researcher at a biological lab. Specialist in genetics. Although she can be pretty charming when she wants to, she keeps mostly to herself. Her ideas and ideals have kept her away from most of the people who would call her a friend; her interest in genetics is driven by an almost obsessive wish to know where Humanity is going, besides where it came from. She can't escape the nagging sensation that there is something that does not fit in the general scenario. The alias Chaos comes from her unstated conviction that chaos should be considered a driving evolutionary force.

Same as Patrick

A wolf who had been watching the little scene with curious interest grinned, sensing Chiroq's annoyance and Patham's amusement. She silently padded toward the table, and while Blby had his attention divided between two possible dinners (although she knew he had already discarded the Wriggly Cabbage as possible food) she poked him firmly on his back with her wet nose. ::Hello little friend... do you remember me?:: she sent in mindspeech, even not being sure he could listen her.

Alright, it seems I will be able to be in. Character to come.