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

[braceforimpact]

[They make eye contact. He's almost surprised--not really, because they are the same, no matter what she said back in the hall.

But if she had any awareness of her AT Field, she'd been hiding it before. He steps off the tree branch, doesn't bother to obey gravity. He hovers there, even with the limb before lowering himself to the ground.

Mostly.

No words are yet spoken, though.]

[youngmother]

[There is an action she should take here. She's sure of it. The feeling of his presence...it means something, but she can't be sure of what. He looks...human. No, he looks like her, his coloration just as unnatural, but she had been the only one. The only one needed.]

[So who made him?]

[...should she care?]

[Uncertainty holds her still, her mind racing as she tries to decide what she should do, what Gendo would want--]





[Abruptly, she realizes something quite terrifying. She is free.]

Who are you?

[braceforimpact]

[His reply is equal parts helpful and unhelpful--arguably less so considering that as far as he is concerned, he has had this exchange with her already.

But that's just it.

They had this conversation already.

It somehow doesn't occur to him to respond any differently.]

The same as you.

[youngmother]

[Her eyes narrow, and the line of her lips tightens--an echo of the past, though she doesn't know it yet.]

No. We are different.

[Even with a similar source...they are not the same.]

[braceforimpact]

[It's Kaworu's turn to look unimpressed, and his own mouth tightens into a wider, thinner line.]

That's what you said last time, too.

[What's so different between you and him?]

[youngmother]

[Uh.]

Last time?

[But the previous Rei...she had died as a child. And surely if she had met another like her, NERV would have known...?]

[braceforimpact]

[.....]

......in the hall?

[Come on, First. He knows you're not this stupid.]

[youngmother]

[She's definitely not, but also:]

I've never seen you before now.

[There is a long pause before she continues in an almost hesitant tone.]

Was I younger, then?

[braceforimpact]

[.....?]

I assume so.

[That is how time works. Then again--]

But maybe not.

[youngmother]

[She is silent for a few long moments.]

If I was, that was a different me. But if not...

It may still have been.

[She's always known she was replaceable.]

[braceforimpact]

That doesn't matter.

[Kaworu is very factual about it. He isn't even fazed. Maybe it's because he is made of the same stuff as she is. Maybe it's because he doesn't expect any other way to be. They are the same.]

Anyway, if I'm here and so are you....

[youngmother]

[It takes a moment for all the pieces to click together--her continuing to exist, what source he must then come from. And from that, she can assume the purpose he serves.]

[Seeing it now, it should have been obvious.]

It is troublesome, isn't it?

[braceforimpact]

Not for me.

[Kaworu doesn't even bother to pretend otherwise--what does he care about the aspirations of Lilim?

Other than the part where they hold his life in their hand. But not here it doesn't.]