![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changelinged) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
pixieledmemes2025-03-15 08:32 am
Test Drive Meme #2
Welcome to the Pixie Led Test Drive Meme!
The prompts will always be game canon, provided both characters who participate in a thread are either already in the game, or get accepted in the next application round.
You do not need an invitation to join the Test Drive Meme, it's open for anyone!
Please indicate character name and canon in the subject line of your top-level. For current characters, you may also indicate your character's court.
For prospective players, Invites open on the 18th, Reserves on the 20th, and Applications on the 22nd. Thanks for checking us out and we hope you'll join us!
You wake up at a party.
You're not sure how, exactly, you got here. You may have just been walking in the woods or at a meeting for work or doing any other normal activity for you. But you know you weren't supposed to be at this party, you're fairly certain.
Anyone you ask about it will say the party is for you. You and the others also waking up and looking confused. Further questions will lead to the partygoers insisting you have something to eat. You're starving and others are eating the food without repercussion, so you figure there's no harm in a bite. You finish your portion.
It's a garden party at the crack of dawn, with the sun still in its early stages of climbing through the yonder, casting a good mix of pastel hues of blue, pink, and beige on everything. Heralding the first day of spring, the Ruler of the Spring Court has found it fitting to arrange this gathering where guests can feel the blades of grass touching their ankles, as well as the rich soil beneath their feet. Flowers of all kinds surround the party as if they were carefully curated. With spring as the "dawn of seasons," which marks a transition from winter's latency to the resurgence of life everywhere, the Ruler of the Dawn Court has also seen it fit to host aspects of this party during the one time of the year that dawn occurs the whole day. Tall candles and torches grace the outskirts of the garden party, providing warmth and an orange glow everywhere. Not one flame goes out even with the occasional wind, the Duchess always makes sure of this.
There are also freshly picked blossoms and branches with leaves on every table accenting the festive spread of food and drinks. This time, a lot of the food prepared for the Adopted guests are familiar to them with a little bit of a twist. Burgers might come in small packages and in toothpicks, while hotdogs in buns are also diminutive. Cookies look delectable but they have a flowery flavor to them, as if eating freshly picked daisies or daffodils. Fruits that may have been present in an Adopted's home, such as pineapples and watermelons, have seeds in odd places. Picking this selection of food is an attempt to be more welcoming and to appease the lovely guests the fae have invited.
As the party winds down and everyone's eaten, a tall, stately woman stands up and speaks. You feel her voice more than hear it.
I am the Lawspeaker of the Fae, elected by Seelie and Unseelie alike, and you are all, now, subjects of Faerie. You cannot leave this realm once you have eaten our food, and even if you could, there is no saying how much time has passed back where you're from. Your loved ones are likely dead, your problems have likely played out. We require assistance in various matters, and each of you has been chosen for your talent and skill. You will be adopted by one of the Seelie or Unseelie Courts based on your strengths and personality. Your Court will decide what to do with you from there.
As suddenly as she stood, she sits back down.
A party is not complete without dancing, of course, and while during the last gathering held for the Adopted, different fae danced to music exclusively for them around a glowing tree, this time they are insisting their guests to join in.
This is a party for you, after all.
If the prodding of the different fae hosts won't convince you, perhaps the music will. They play easily recognizable tunes that their wonderful guests must have heard before. These melodies have certain unique effects to their mortal attendees, which are as follows:
- Upbeat Music: You will believe that you and your dance partner have been friends forever and have known each other a long time.
- Romantic Music: You will become amorous and flirtatious towards your dance partner.
- Slow Music: You will develop some tension with your dance partner. It may be negative or sexual; completely up to you.
- Quiet Music: You will assume your dance partner is a threat and try to fight them.
At the Spring King's behest, every Adopted should wear a flower corsage or boutonnière to the gathering. After all, this is to celebrate the coming of spring and what better way to do that than to honor everything in bloom.
The thing is, though, the King of Spring, while amorous and friendly, also has a penchant for playing with mortals' memories, if not also affect their desires and despairs.
So, mischievous as he is, he made sure to enchant the different flowers present in every corsage and boutonnière for the party with the effects below:
- Rose: You will recall a horrific trauma
- Carnation: You will see a vision of your future, whether it's good or bad
- Orchid: You will remember a time you lost someone
- Chrysanthemum: You will believe someone among the Adopted is your soulmate
- Dahlia: You will believe you betrayed someone important to you, whether you actually did or not
It is perhaps a good thing that no one but the Adopted are allowed to see these visions and memories, but everyone who wears a corsage or boutonnière will be able to see each other's memories and visions when in close enough physical proximity to the vision-haver, for better or for worse.
You feel a vibration in your pocket sometime after the Lawspeaker addresses everyone. When you search for the source, you will pull out your Leaf, the device the Fae use to stay in touch with each other. Anyone who's used a smart phone will easily recognize how it works.
Greetings, Adopted. This is your Lawspeaker.
Tell us all of a time you gave someone a gift. Perhaps a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates. Was it appreciated or not? A reward might await the most meaningful gift given.
flower power
He's quick to react when he sees the woman start to stumble, reaching out to try to steady her if she'll allow him. But once he gets close, he can't help but see the contents of her vision.
"Is that..." the hallway under Charles' mansion? The one that leads to Cerebro. He ought to recognize it... After all, he helped design and build the thing.
But, his focus snaps back to what's more important— the woman in front of him.
"Are you alright? Do you need to sit down?"
Re: flower power
It's not just seeing Bobby die in such a brutal way (though it's absolutely also that), but the deep sense of despair, the fragile feeling of hope popped like a soap bubble, and the alarming certainty that whatever had come for Bobby is coming for the rest of them.
"I..." Her voice wavers and, for once, she doesn't even care if it makes her sound weak. She's entirely too shaken to worry about how she's coming across.
"No. Yes. I think I'm okay. But sitting down might not be the worst idea."
no subject
"Here, right over here..."
He leads her to the nearest table, pulling out a chair and guiding her down into it. There's a pitcher of water on the table, and as much as Hank isn't sure if they should trust the food and drink here, water seems like it would be a good idea, so he pours her a glass and sets it in front of her.
He wants to ask her about the vision, but figures it's best to get her settled first.
no subject
"Sorry... I'm..." She wants to say she's okay again, maybe to convince herself of it more than Hank, but she can't manage to force the words out. She's still racking her brain, trying to figure out who the other person in her... memory? vision? is. It had felt like a memory, but what had happened in it had never happened to her. She certainly would remember Bobby's death if she'd witnessed it. She'd also remember the sickly way she'd felt while watching, like her limbs were weak from underuse, and how everything felt a little fuzzy, like she'd taken or been given some sort of sedative that she'd woken up too early from.
Reaching for the glass, her hand's obviously shaking, a noticeable tremor she can't seem to clamp down on. And she pauses before wrapping gloved fingers around it. "Do you think it's safe?" The water.
no subject
"It's... hard to say. If I had any of my lab equipment I could at least test it for any chemical interference. But something tells me if it has been tampered with in some way, chemistry wouldn't be the way to tell."
Someone isn't all that fond of this magic-heavy place. Hank is much more a man of science.
no subject
She obviously doesn't recognize Hank, and why would she? She's used to Dr. McCoy being a lumbering, blue and furry politician-slash-doctor in a lab coat.
Anyway, focusing on something simple like the water and whether or not it's safe to drink is, for the first time since waking up here, preferable. But she's feeling the same about magic at this point. After less than a day, she's already had enough of anything with a whiff of magic to it.
no subject
None of which involve fairies or spellcasting, so he isn't exactly qualified to vouch for the safety of the water.
He pulls out a chair across from the woman and takes a seat for himself. "I'm Hank. Hank McCoy."
no subject
He doesn't look like Hank McCoy. Which is... putting it pretty lightly.
Not that it's impossible for there to be another scientist-slash-engineer-slash-medic named Hank McCoy. It just seems pretty unlikely that he'd also be here. Unless, of course, this is all a bizarre dream, which she hasn't taken off the table yet.
"You... do you know an Xavier? Charles?" It feels weird to call the Professor by his first name but that's hardly the oddest thing she's dealing with right now.
no subject
"Let me guess," he says in something of a deadpan tone, "you were expecting me to be a little more... blue?"
no subject
She hadn't expected him to ask that, but now that he has, there's no doubt in her mind that he's who she thinks he is. "...Yeah... sort of. Furrier too. But..."
It's not just that (though it's mostly that, if she's being honest... it's actually almost entirely that). "And older too." But also that.
no subject
"The older part, I at least have an answer for." Given everyone else he's run into at this point. "The people who brought us here seem to have taken us all not only from different worlds or realities, but from different points in time, as well. For me, it was 1973 before I woke up here."
As for the rest of it... "You'll see me like you remember soon enough. The serum that lets me control my appearance is a limited resource, and I don't anticipate being able to create any more of it any time soon."
no subject
And anyway... "1973?" The look she gives him is similar to something she'd give someone with two heads. Because as strange as all of this has been, somehow that feels the strangest, leaving her with the most disturbing sense of vertigo.
Then... "You found a way to... control it? Suppress it?" Which, for someone like her, piques her interest even if it also makes her feel unsettled.
no subject
"Control is more accurate, though I suppose suppression is also an apt description." Take enough of it, you can suppress the expression of the mutant gene entirely. But Hank is always careful to only give himself a high enough dose to revert his appearance to something more 'normal.'
"It's a form of gene therapy, that I designed myself. It's not universal, but I've designed a similar serum to work on someone else's mutation."
It's only now that he realizes why she might have been so interested. Surely he's not the only mutant who was desperate for a way to control— or hide— his mutation.
"I... don't have any of my equipment here, to be able to make more of it, unfortunately." He glances around the party, at the outlandish fae dancing and reveling around them. "And somehow I doubt that lab equipment and the necessary chemical components will be easy to come by."
no subject
Her smile's lop-sided and a little wry when she follows his gaze. "It's okay... I mean. There was a Cure back home. Didn't work out so well. It's just..."
Rogue shrugs a little, embarrassed. But it's easier to talk to someone who she knows tried to suppress his own mutation. She thinks he might get it in a way a lot of people hadn't. "If something worked, if it was safe, if it wasn't hurting anyone... it's hard not to think about wanting that, you know?" Her lips twitch, eyes landing on one of the fae. "But you're right. These don't seem like the Bunsen burner types. 'Course, I've been wrong before."
no subject