aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

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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She had learned to loosen the reins a little, although Carolina was still far from carefree. It was a work in progress, or it had been before she had found herself here. Even with 'training', being lazy or idle wasn't something that came naturally to her. Her armor was a second skin, as much a part of her as any other piece of her flesh.

It was mix-matched attire- a dark t-shirt which may well be worn inside out, aqua pants and a pair of boots- that she found herself in tonight. That she was out of her armor was something that didn't happen too often since arriving here, but one of the issues with this place was the lack of technology.

The surprise was there when the bottle clipped her shoulder, the tang of spice and alcohol in the air as it soaked down the side of her pants. It's that flash of anger, bending down to the pick up the bottle before moving out of the dim forest. "You don't just throw your crap in to-"

Yet she froze the moment her face caught sight of who it was. Dumbfounded would be putting it nicely and it was for several heart beats that a myriad of emotions shifted across her face before settling in a tense closed-lip stance. No. It couldn't be.

He hadn't noticed the color of her hair until she turned, seeing as how it was dark on the beach, but a lick of firelight caught it just then in a way that allowed him to see its bright-red hue for an instant. Of course, he would know that voice and body language anywhere—the glimpse of red hair only served to confirm it.

It's not been long, according to his perspective, since she'd recently spared his life, in a manner of speaking anyway, and his momentary shock gives way to a wearied expression of resignation, thin-lipped, his eyes downcast.

If she chooses to walk away now, he won't stop her again, either.

Ghosts. Always ghosts. She'd been one herself for a time, not quite the shell that her father had turned in to, but she'd been dead to the world. A misnomer, but one that she had allowed to perpetuate. That York had had faith in her- she'd never be able to tell him the truth of it, even if it was Texas all those years ago that had been stirring up trouble and not her.

"When did you get here?" That clipped tone. There's not much change to her, perhaps a few lines erased from her features but that was hard to tell at the moment given the hawk-like precision that those mirrored green eyes gave. Yet unlike him, Carolina didn't turn her gaze away, rather continued with that challenging expression.

He raises his eyes to look at her. If she's going to address him, he's not going to shy away from answering back.

"Not long ago. Perhaps half an hour."

He does not rise from his position in the beach chair. Her tone is almost accusatory, as though he had chosen to come here rather than showing up here against his own will.

"And yourself?"

"Longer." Not by much, but longer. It's an open ended answer, she knows, but she can say that she doesn't really care. He doesn't seem... quite like he had the last time that she had seen him, locked away, watching that same video over and over and over...

Not that he's exactly looking much better right now either. Then again, they haven't exactly had a family relationship in years, now since her mother passed... It's few and far between that Carolina can recall those memories. "Might want to find someone to explain this place."

He isn't quite the same as that. Something about being out in the open air again seems to be causing it. But he knows if no one keeps him engaged he'll become that again, withdrawn and defeated.

"I suppose that will have to do," he says. "Unless you'd be willing."

He doesn't have the authority anymore to order her to do so, he knows that.

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

not a magical night

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