TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #14

Hello, and welcome to LifeAftr! We’re pleased that you’re expressing an interest in the game. Here, you can test the waters, gauge how your character may fare in the world of LifeAftr, and even gain some in-game incentives, if you so choose.

Remember that Reserves will open on August 17th, and Applications on August 24th!

Two important notes:

1. LifeAftr's test drives take place on the island of Mu, which exists apart from the real world and possesses a dream-like quality that characters are innately aware of from the moment they appear on its shores. No need to panic or fret. Dreams are odd things, after all - and anything can happen in them. Why would anyone question where their mind chooses to wander in its sleep?

2. Due to the nature of Mu, threads in our test drive can not only be accepted as thread samples in your application, but can be accepted as game canon as well. In fact, certain choices your character makes in Mu have the potential to bear in-game consequences, largely in the form of test drive reward items.

One Magic Night
The waves are aglow. That might not be the first thing you notice when you wake, but it will probably draw your attention at some point: the way the sea foam glistens with an effervescent light as it rinses the beach in a crystalline, deep blue shimmer. Further out, lurid explosions of color ripple soundlessly beneath the waves - an underwater fireworks show. The atmosphere is peaceful, a blissed-out calm to suit the lazy lap of the surf-spray against the sand. Maybe turning around will shed a little more light on the situation. What this is, in fact, is the echo of a celebration that was held on Ensō back in June. Torches and campfires crackle with a merry, companionable blaze, and there is food and drink in abundance - including some of the alcoholic persuasion, for those of you who are over the age of twenty-one.

There is, naturally, all sorts to do in a celebration like this. Friendly sparring matches have sprung up along the shoreline; beach cushions and blankets decorate the party site; coconut shells laden with bioluminscent body paint can be dipped into at will, if you fancy shining like a glowstick throughout the artificial night.

Just because you've got no idea how you got here doesn't mean you can't enjoy a good party while it lasts, right?

Growing Pains
The island you've ended up on today is very, very beautiful, particularly if you're a botanist: it's covered in flowers of all sorts. They grow in rich clumps, seemingly at odds with any sense of convention. Here, you can find common dandelions flowering alongside tropical strelitzias, snowdrops spangled beside water lilies. No matter the impossibility of it, despite the discrepancies of seasons and temperatures in which these specimens should be blooming, you'll find that nearly every species can be found represented, flowering in tandem. It's gorgeous. Breathtaking, even.

There's only one problem.

That problem being that the flowers are growing out of you as well. As might be obvious, this is not exactly a pleasant sensation. There is, in fact, a full list of rather painful symptoms that has been very well-documented of late. All you have to worry about in particular, however, is what has caused these flowers to take root in you in the first place:

Lies.

Is there something you need to get off your chest? Some confession that's aching to be made? Some guilt or regret that you've repressed, that's been dragging you down for years?

Then you'd better get to it. Those flowers aren't leaving unless you spill. And if you'd rather not, well...they're more than happy to fertilize the earth with what's left of you.

Hoo Ha Ha
Stop us if you've heard this one: you and some stranger wake up on a boat. There are no landmasses in sight, and nothing as far as the eye can see but lapping waves and a peaceful, periwinkle, cloudless sky. It's good weather for sailing. Perfect, in fact. There's even a tight breeze that might helpfully guide you along.

The punchline, of course, is the fact that you're surrounded by sharks. Sorry, did we say sharks? We meant tigersharks, of the most literal sort possible. Part fish and part feline, these dual-headed beasts are summarily more naturally carnivorous and more aggressive than your bog standard tigers or sharks. They're wickedly fast in the water, and just as lethal on land.

And they're currently trying to climb aboard; armed with four sharp-clawed legs, they're more than capable of doing exactly that unless you can fend them off.

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[propugnator]

( colours sparkle along the ocean's waves, bright and shimmering. it's beautiful underneath the moonlight, but it feels uncomfortably familiar. almost like a dream. shiro is positive that he's already lived through this night before, sharing drinks and stories with a trusted teammate until they settled into a comfortable silence.

how long ago had that been?

he's not sure.

shiro's fingers twitch with the urge to touch the place where his prosthetic arm used to be as he looks out towards the ocean. there's nothing but air there, the limb missing without anything to replace it. he can be found standing on the beach for an extended amount of time. )

The ocean here is like nothing else.

( then he can be found sitting by a jormun, helping paint party-goers with bioluminscent body paints. )

Hold still. It'll smear.

[thermalwind]

[The waves crash against the shore and mask the sound of his approach. What little hints of it exist. He closes the distance between them and stops at Shiro's side. He's just a little shorter, his face marred by a burn on the right side.

It feels like a while ago he stood beside Shiro and yet, he'd just had him safe. He sighs.]

Back here again. I guess I was sent back like Lance.

[Keith turns his head to look at him one eyebrow raised.]

...both of us. Welcome back, Shiro. [He touches his shoulder lightly like that first day seemingly long ago back on Earth after Shiro had returned.]

[propugnator]

( somehow it feels like a great length of time has passed as well as virtually none at all. he glances over at keith, barely having to look down at him unlike before. )

Guess we just can't stop coming back here.

( placing a gentle hand on top of keith's. )

Welcome back to you too, Keith. Hopefully Lance wasn't left alone for too long.

[thermalwind]

[He winces. Lance. Lance who watched him break down his walls and confess to some of the bleaker things in his soul. Hunk. Pidge. All of them needed him and he’d been pulled away.

He glances at his own right arm. It works. He flexes the fingers. Yep. No flowers.] Lance, Hunk, and Pidge now. Lance was...we need to get back.

I doubt I was gone for a while but... [Keith’s grip on Shiro’s shoulder subtly increases. It’s a testament to his control that he only squeezed a little.] you’ve been gone a month. I looked everywhere then...I was sent back too.

[propugnator]

( it's hard to tell how he feels. part of him is glad to know that the team has, by large, collected here but he's also a little horrified by the notion. what consequences would befall them for this? what about allura or coran? it hadn't seemed to register that he had been gone.

except here. no one had remembered before, but keith remembers. he can feel his fingers tightening against him. )

I'm sorry, Keith.

( he hadn't kept his word. )

We should go find the others and tell them that we're here.

[thermalwind]

...you couldn't help it. I couldn't either. [He shakes his head and his long hair falls into his eyes. He can taste the salt on the air. It feels like it's been years since he stood on this very shore and watched the waves.

He drops his hand from Shiro's shoulder and steps towards the shore. The tide rolls in and the water laps at his boots.] This is the far north shore. Or it should be.

[He turns his head to study the line of the beach.] We need to go south.

[It is night. Ember won't be around. He frowns and looks back at Shiro.]

...if this is the islands and not Mu.

I feel like I should apologize

[warlorded]

[He watches this scene for a long moment, the blue bands in his armor glowing faintly in the dim light, armor Shiro will certainly find familiar. Eventually he approaches slowly, trying to discern what it is about this boy that feels so strangely familiar.]

Is there significance to these markings?

[Golden eyes flick from Shiro to the festival at large.]

Are we celebrating a victory of some sort, perhaps?

[Is that what had happened? He couldn't remember exactly. Surely he'd recall if the Paladins had come to such a remote planet that he did not even recognize the stars overhead without the assistance of the navigator in his helmet which was hooked uselessly over two fingers.]

i feel like i should be thanking you

[propugnator]

( for a good while there, shiro was starting to think that nothing could surprise him anymore. every day was already weird enough as it was, dulling the edges of shock every time something truly strange happened, but this was something that shiro wasn't prepared for at all.

in retrospect, he really should have been considering that he happened to remember the least between their small group of paladins. nevertheless, his hand stills as zarkon approaches. he is nothing like the version that shiro knows from his mannerisms to his appearance, but he is still zarkon.

zarkon in paladin armour. )

We are.

( it's a little terse, but he glances away at some of the other party-goers that he's already painted the faces of. )

They're just for decoration. Their significance depends on what you ask for.

lmao well then I guess we're even

[warlorded]

[He nods, looking out at the others when Shiro does. A victory... why doesn't he remember anything of the sort?]

Would you mind telling me what, exactly, we're celebrating here. My memory seems to be... muddled.

[It's worrisome to admit such a thing but it is more detrimental to continue on with no idea of what is happening or how he got here. ]

[propugnator]

That's not unusual. It happens to a lot of us when we get here.

( it's starting to feel like the norm for shiro in general. he offers zarkon a small, awkward smile in hopes of reassuring him. he doesn't really want to be doing this, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that this isn't the version of him that shiro knows.

it's uncomfortable, but he's not exactly his enemy at the moment. )

Feels a bit like a dream, doesn't it?

( then a thought. )

What do you remember before you were here?

slams in five million years late

[thegoofball]

[Hold still? You mean wriggle around, right?]

It's not bad.

[Lance wiggles his toes in the sand, watching the patterns form around his arms.]

Still not sure it compares to the ones back home - no offense.

[He just...misses Cuba. So much.]

w/e w/e w/e

[propugnator]

( stop that. his hand slides backwards to cup the side of lance's head, holding him still as he swipes his thumb underneath lance's eye to create a soft glittering blue curve. )

I can't remember the last time I saw the ocean back home. We were landlocked for so long.

( he gives a quick glance over to the jormun who is decidedly uninterested in their conversation, staring off towards some of their fellows instead.

turning back to lance, he taps his thumb along the underside of the curve to make three small dots. )

I think about home all the time too. Especially the food.

[thegoofball]

[He will not stop!

Except he will, because he doesn't have much of a choice.]

I grew up near one, you know? So we'd go there all the time.

[He wiggles, nose wrinkling at the taps. Getting his face painted makes him feel like a kid again, like he's at some sort of fair.]

At least the food here is better than goo.