smk_ooc | Character Meet and Greet~~ At Night

Entry tags:

tdm,
test drive

Character Meet and Greet~~ At Night

Rules | FAQ | Premise | Applications

I. Main Street Usa!

It's twilight, edging to evening, and yet the streets are still alive with citizens and Apprentices (that means you!) alike. Take the time to admire the lights, pop in and out of the cafes or just relax in the garden.

Weapon shops and magic shops are open late into the evening this time of year, so feel free to enjoy yourself before you equip yourself for the life head.

II. Apprentice Training 101- Evening Class

Same commons behind the fire house, same weapons and wands available for practicing your skills-- though this time under the cozy street lights and the bright blues and tired purples of a fading summer twilight. Strike at the training dummy or try to catch fireflies with whispers, its all up to you.

III. Things that Go Bump

Are bumping. And they mean business. A few level 1 corroded monsters are scurrying around Main Street causing havoc and it's up to you to stop them. The question is, is it early in the evening or do you dare to face the creatures at the night's darkest hour?

IV. It's time to Sparkle!

Everyone has a spark of imagination. That is, in fact, why you're here! It's time to shine with your own scenario! Just try to keep from causing too much trouble.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1. It was a funny kind of magic that didn't rank the power and capacity of one's Talent, but instead enabled a variety of different magic. Ivy caught on quickly though, in Xanth it was said you either were made of magic, or you had a magic talent. Now they were just all made of magic, it seemed. The idea of her enhancement no longer working was rather alarming, like being stuck in Mundania without warning! But apparently it would still work, just differently. Ivy had seen ripples of chaos swirl across Xanth before, changing everyone's magic talents and much of the landscape, so she supposed it was rather similar to that. But a different kingdom. Point of fact, she stopped and stared at the castle.

"Madame Cherie always made me study all the known castles of Xanth," she remarked to no one, all too used to the rocks and inanimate objects talking back to her. "I must admit, you're certainly different!"

She wondered if she could get away with getting a sword since they didn't seem inclined to force her to do the princessly thing of jewelery focuses, but she very much doubted it. Madame Cherie certainly would have been upset, and Ivy still didn't understand why anyone wouldn't love Chex as much as Ivy did. A flying centaur! How grand! But centaurs were different, and supposed it went back to the idea that you either were magic, or had magic.

Alas, munny was a constraining influence in the end, and no matter how much Ivy thought it might be amusing to get a sword like her father, her mother's practicality won out. It was a funny thing, munny. There was no such thing in Xanth, and Ivy had always assumed that it only existed in Mundania because of their lack of magic. Yet here there was both! She wondered if Xanth was the weird one then, and giggled out loud at the very idea of it.

2: Ivy has never directly fought anything in her life. Even at 3, she was a terror, directing her two best friends: Hugo her Knight in Shiny Armor now mysteriously missing without a trace; and Stanley Steamer, named after the Mundania inventions and who was the greatly rejuvenated baby Gap Dragon. And for all of Ivy's bravery; she's not about to change that particular way now!

"Hello!" she picks on every nearest person or even the whole group. "What are you doing? How does your magic work? You're all so clever and strong!" she pretty much radiated that kind of charm. "Can I help?" She was nothing, if not friendly.

3. A very very small, clearly child princess ran out to meet the corroded head on. "You don't want to do that!" she protested, "I know, you're just hurting and don't know how to make it stop! Please!" she cried, arms spread as if to hug the monster, "Let me help you!"

Suddenly there was a small girl, one that he had to raise a wing just to look at as she had been partially behind him. Crowley gave her a look, then glanced to whatever lame training thing the others were doing...

"Oh, not me kid. I've given up buying into this magical training business."

He paused and seemed to reconsider as he pulled a lollipop out of pocket.

"Well... unless you like candy? It's a new flavor that I suggested for the shop, something for Halloween, up for a taste test?"

"Why?" in the manner of all ten year olds!

And then she just stares. Crowley, ffs, you can't go around offering strange little ten year old girls candy, you're going to get a very very horrible reputation, and when you find out why: hurt yourself emotionally. "Um no," she politely demurs, reminded of the candy garden in the gourd -- which when eaten would trap you there forever. Sure, she had to eat here sometime, but maybe not candy from strangers. She might be demure, but she's still Ivy, and with a fearless lack of sense of danger for the most part. "You have very pretty wings! Can you fly?" Not everyone with wings could fly, after all, though Chex Centaur came really close with Ivy's help!

"Suit yourself."

The lollipop wasn't going to go to waste as he popped off the plastic wrap and stuck it in his own mouth. Odd flavor really, dragonfruit, but he liked it and gourmet flavors that couldn't be found anywhere else were bound to keep people returning to the shop.

"If your first and only training session consisted of being mauled by," a glance to the child and the word he was about to use, hell hounds, became, "dogs would you really want to risk it again? This looks safe enough though... have they told you what sort of magic you have yet?"

He skipped over that question about flight as he hadn't actually thought to try that here. Seems silly to have wings and not to use them but, there you were. He had lived without them so long he barely even thought of them.

Ahhhh tempting.... Not that Ivy would ever eat dragonfruit, in Xanth it's an actual dragon plant her mother grew to attack things. But Ivy is a princess, and has great willpower and puts the sweet firmly out of mind.

"Dogs dogs dogs," she repeated, rubbing her temples in thought. "Oh!" She said brightly, "Those mundane creatures that look like wolves!"

And then a gasp, "You were attacked? That's horrible! Are you all healed up now? You shouldn't give up on magic just because your first experience was bad though! Magic makes everything better!"

As for her own magic... Ivy just laughs. "I'm --" she hesitates on using her princess title. It means something different here, and it might be more confusing than clarifying. Furthermore, she might even be able to get away with un-princessly things if no one knew she wasn't supposed to play in the mud or the like! "Sorceress Ivy," she said slowly, but very truthfully. "My mother is Sorceress Irene, my father is Magician Dor." King Dor, it felt weird not to call him that. "Grandfather is --" King Trent. "Magician Trent and Grandmother Iris is the Sorceress of Illusions. I'm a mystic class! But I've had Enhancement magic my whole life! It's so weird that the castle walls and rocks don't talk! That's Daddy's magic. In Xanth, everyone born there has magic. Even the centaurs, but they're real fussy about it, they don't think it's proper, they only tolerate it in humans because we're considered weaker so we need it to survive."

"I never said I gave up magic, I said I gave up hopping through those hoops the powers that be dangle for us."

Which meant no training, no little innocent looking target practice. For all he knew he would zap that target with some sort of spell and it would come to life to gnaw on his wing.

"And yea, fine now. It happened months ago."

As if to proved that his wings flexed and flapped once to kick up a small breeze.

"Big family of magicians."

That was odd but he didn't know her world...

"Those centaurs sound rude, not wrong, but rude. Humans with magic could do a lot to protect themselves."

Ivy laughs. "It's just their way, but I can't understand it! Why would anyone not want to fly? Chex Centaur is one of the smartest, brightest, best, most kindest people I know! But just because she has wings, even her grandmare Cherie wouldn't listen to her!" A huff. "They're always correcting people too, but I think that's their job. They love teaching." And she loved teasing them. "Not all centaurs are like that, obviously. Arnolde Centaur was a Magician who even became King of Xanth! Grandmother Iris didn't much like centaurs until him, but he made her the next King, so she changed her mind real good then," a small laugh.

"What kind of magic do you do? Can we really skip out on classes like that? If I tried it at the Castle, all the rocks would tattle on me, and the centaurs would find me anyway. It's hard to hide there. I did it once for days and days, but Stanley's getting too big for most of our hiding spots. He's my dragon friend. And it probably wouldn't be fun without him." Yeah, Ivy's life is a bit weird.

First world Centaur problems? He could almost relate as he had never really fit in anywhere either. Not due to his wings though, that was a recent complication.

"Maybe she doesn't know how to fly. If you've never done it, or it has been a while, you can forget."

Questions all those questions! It was actually something he enjoyed about kids. They were always so full of them, always asking, always questioning, their little minds just aching to be filled with knowledge. He did hate to deny them answers but saying his powers were 'monstrous' wasn't likely to go down too well.

"My powers are more transformative."

Wait for it he wouldn't drop a big word like that and not explain it.

"I can take one thing and turn it into something else."

He snatched a passing leaf out of the air as he spoke and easily magically altered it's form to become a little pink barrette with a bow. What? Everyone's jewelry box needed one of these!

"And no you don't have to train. No one will chase you down if you decide not to. They will try to guilt trip you about it."

Wait, what? Back it up!

"You're friends with a dragon? Your world must really go in for this whole 'fantasy' thing."

"Madame Cherie doesn't have wings. None of the centaurs do, just Chex so far. And she doesn't know how to use her magic to fly yet, but I just know she can! She's been practicing and exercising real hard! No, the other centaurs are mean to her though, because she has wings. And the Isle Centaurs exile any centaurs with magic. Like Magician Arnolde."

Oh, monstrous is fine with Ivy. Chex is a flying monster after all. And Stanley is more than just monstrous. Although she would have mistaken Crowley's abilities for being similar to her little brother: able to change himself into any monster. As it is, she squints at the transformative -- "Like Grandfather Trent?" He could change other living beings into other living beings, but she's too used to everyone in all of Xanth knowing what Trent's magic power is, because he was pretty infamous in his youth, though much beloved now.

Ivy laughs in pure delight and claps her hands, as Crowley makes a bow barrette from the leaf. "That's wonderful!" A giant beam. "You must be Magician class too!" Or would be in Xanth -- although if she knew he was a demon, she'd be baffled at how he could change things other than himself; as all demons are able to change their own form, but not others' -- although there's always a first.

"Well..." she admitted, "Stanley and I are special. I don't know any other dragons, or any other little girls with dragon friends," another laugh! "I met him when he got hit with too much youth potion. My boyfriend," not like that, he's a boy and her friend, and she claimed him as her knight in shiny [but invisible] armor when she was 3, "Accidentally splashed Stanley and his Dad too much. Hugo's Dad, I mean, not Stanley's. Stanley Steamer is a very special dragon! He has a mate, Stacey Steamer, but she's hundreds of years old, and now Stanley's still kind of a baby. Magician Humphrey, that's Hugo's Dad, was able to reverse it on himself and go back to his favorite age, but Stanley said he didn't want to leave me too soon!" And part of it might have been that Ivy herself wasn't willing to lose her best friend dragon too. Besides, he wasn't needed patrolling the Gap Chasm with the current peace treaty between the harpies and goblins there, and Stacey patrolling instead of nesting.

But yes, Xanth is all in on the fantasy genre.

Also puns. Leading to: "What happens if you're guilt tripped? Could I use my magic to not get clumsy?"

"I've never met your Grandfather Trent. Or any of these other people. I think you might have been the only one from your world brought to the Kingdom."

He pointed out, not unkindly which was rare for him, but he did have a soft spot for kids and he wasn't trying to upset her.

"Stanley steamer?" Crowley's smile transformed into a laugh, "Like the cleaning company?"

It was an ODD name for some thing that wasn't a cleaning company! And he only laughed harder at the question. Guilt tripped, HA, kids!

"No, it's more like... when your tutor really wants you to sit down and read a book, but you would rather play, so they give you a line like, 'Too bad Herman Melville wasted his life writing this book just so you could throw it on the floor.' To make you feel guilty enough to pick the book back up and start reading it like they wanted you to in the first place."

Ivy considered this, and after closing her eyes, nodded reasonably. "I suppose that must be true, because this is neither Xanth nor Mundania, and has things from both."

But she beamed extra brightly at his laugh, and laughed with him, out of sheer joy and delight again! "You know it?! Yes! Daddy told me about his time in Mundania and I used to read whatever stories I could find about it or talk to the ghosts and others!" At age three, mind you. She did magically enhance herself, after all, but only when her parents weren't watching, because she believed she'd get in trouble if they knew how intelligent she actually was. Purely because everything fun in life is somehow forbidden by adults.

"Stanley the dragon is a steam dragon! And he cleans the gap chasm! So it was perfect!"

As for the guilt tripping... she tilts her head thinking it over. She's never met a book she didn't want to read, and usually if she wanted to play, she just would, and good luck to everyone who wanted otherwise! "Herman the Hermit? He's another centaur with magic. He saved Xanth from a wiggle swarm, like me and Hugo and Stanley, but it turns out Volney says wiggles aren't always bad, they're usually just so deep under rocks and ground that they don't hurt people. He met a queen who like air-flavored rock though, and it takes a special containment spell to keep the other wiggles from hurting anyone." Okay, but contextually how is this a guilt trip? Luckily, even without magically making herself brilliant, Ivy is naturally quite smart, [though she doesn't know it's not magic] and it works even in Mundania where magic does not, and therefore; now, even without directly wishing it to be so, [though lord knows she could... Beware the magic powers given to a ten year old], so she mulls this over.

It's clearly similar to the invisible pedestal she put Stanley on, and the invisible armor Hugo wore. But an external one from other people that they would be putting on Ivy instead. She snapped her fingers. "Like when Stanley went missing because of a banish monster spell, and my parents wouldn't let me go find him, and they kept me home by pointing out it was my spell that went wrong, even if I was trying to do the right thing and restore Jordan the Ghost to being Jordan the Barbarian so he and Threnody the Ghost could be happily alive and in love again." Nod. "And Grundy got Snortimer by saying he couldn't rescue Stanley without him, even though he's my monster under the bed. Or was. Stanley was protecting nymphs, so Grundy gave away Snortimer to protect them instead."

Ivy pouted cutely. [She thought it was cutely, and therefore indeed it was.] "I don't like guilt trips. I think I prefer can-trips instead. They're cans, that trip you," she added in case it wasn't obvious enough, since she knew they didn't exist in Mundania, and she didn't know if they existed in worlds other than Xanth since dragons and magic apparently did! "They think they can, so they do."

Oh no! Stanley Steamer... was a... a... Crowley burst out laughing long before any of these other stories could be told. A steamer dragon! Who cleans! BWHAHAHAHA!!! The poor demon practically doubled over and had to take a step back to find a bench to sit on. His sitting was more like lounging though and he ended up expanding over the bench to take up twice the amount of room a skinny demon like him ought to take up.

"That's terrible! His parents must really have had it out for him... He should probably think about changing his name!"

If she liked books she and Aziraphale had something in common, Crowley though, he preferred to avoid them. This did not mean however that he didn't know an author or two.

"No, not a hermit. I don't know your world remember? Herman Melville. He was a big American author, wrote a book about a huge angry whale."

It took a while but eventually the little princess cycled around to suss out his meaning... of course by the time she did he was off on a tangent of his ow again. Cans that tripped people.

The can's can? Sounds more like a dance than a good idea."

She beamed at the laughter! At least SOMEONE appreciated it!

"No! I named him!! And Stacey, his mate! He couldn't remember his parents anymore since he was very very old, but then he got shrunk, and became very very young, and couldn't remember his life from when he was older. Because Hugo splashed him with youth potion," a nod. "And anyway, I'm not sure his parents stayed with him. Dragons don't do that very often, but I think Stanley and Stacey might when they're older enough. Because he's special." Literally just through Ivy's love, which Stanley would then be able to express to a dragon baby of his own, when he stopped being a dragon baby himself, which Ivy hoped wouldn't be TOO soon.

A head tilt. Right! Mundanes had two names, like Stanley Steamer, of course. "Why was the whale angry?" Whales were also mundane creatures. "Your world... did it have magic too? You were born with wings, right?" So confusing.

"The cans do dance the can-can, but they have to be careful not to get cocooned by can-coons. So they avoid the beaches and beech trees."

"You named him. That makes a little more sense."

Aside from the youth potion and how a baby could have a mate... or why there were dragons in the first place, but whatever. There used to be unicorns on his Earth until that whole Ark business.

"He was angry because the men in the book were whalers and one in particular wanted to kill him. Moby-Dick, probably had a teen name him... his anger at humans seemed justified really."

Crowley's wings flapped lightly when they were mentioned.

"I was more created with wings."

No need to mention those wings had been white in his beginning.

"But yea, magic's old hat to me. I've always had it. Humans though, most of them don't. They are just people."

"Of course. Like I said, Daddy told me lots about Mundania. He traveled there with Arnolde Centaur."

She tilts her head about Moby Dick's wrath and nods slowly. "I could see that. Is it just a story, or is it historical?"

As for magic not being familiar to humans, she furrows her brow in thought. "Like Mundania? This place is a weird mix of it too. I sent my pun-pal Rapunzel a penny from Mundania once, but other than that, money's really rare in Xanth! We never use it! And pies don't grow in houses, they grow on plants. And there's no houses for food, there's just... kitchens."

"It's a story... mostly, there have been a few great big white whales... It's a more a study on human nature."

He glanced briefly around to make sure there wasn't an angel looking over his shoulder, being smug that he knew so much about the book.

"You could probably create a pie plant here. But on Earth, no... there pies are made in kitchens, with flour and recipes and things."

"I see. And the centaurs make children read it?"

A pout about the pies and the rest. "That sounds tedious." And a pause as she thought it over. "But not pie flowers? Shouldn't it be reci-pies?" She's actually quite serious about this.

"Worse, school teachers."

Though the book had largely fallen out of fashion in the modern age, it had been a favorite of classic school teachers.

"I don't think you would want to try and eat a reci-pie... thats bound to taste like paper."

"Don't they just teach fish?"

Ivy giggled enthusiastically, and nodded, "I'll remember that!" she promised!

"I.. what? No. Why would they only teach fish?"

And that one out of everything she had said was what puzzled him the most.

"Schools."

She just... looks at him both patiently and innocently. There are no schools in Xanth; except of course, for fish. That's where they learn to swim. And avoid dragons.

"They aren't just for fish."

And he looked back very puzzled.

"You have gone to school before haven't you? Must have done. Schools are where kids go to learn about the world."

"No, I had centaur tutors. And Madame Cherie and her husband Chester usually didn't teach anything I wasn't interested in."

Because Ivy was interested in... basically everything ever.

"Although, like I said, it was hard to hide away with Stanley when he got even bigger. If we were out in the orchards, then Madame Cherie could just follow his trail. Smash the ogre said I might have had an eye-queue plant dropped on me, like one was on him, so sometimes he'd take me into the woods and teach me everything there is to know about the wilds! And that's more fun than books, but usually, tutoring sessions were just talking about stuff, like this, and I like that! Don't you?"

She thinks patiently puzzling over this development. To be fair, did non-royal students go to schools maybe? Like fish? A headshake! "Hugo didn't go to school either! But his father's the Magician of Information, so he just learned everything from Magician Humphrey. He's very smart." He wasn't actually, Hugo's kind of an idiot, except around Ivy. But baby Ivy isn't big on doing all the thinking, so she bossed around Hugo to do it for her. That worked somehow. "Oh, and he said Mare Imbri brought him daydreams a lot, so he didn't always pay attention to his Dad, but he definitely knows more than almost ANYONE! Except Magician Humphrey himself, of course."

Ivy puzzles this over. She has, unfortunately, an extremely limited experience with normal children. Point of fact... "Lacuna and Hiatus didn't go to school either, but their father's a Magician too." She thinks hard! "They had centaur tutors too, and they also lived with Magician Humphrey before Hugo was born because that was where the Zombie Master's castle used to be, so they had to make a new one -- but that was easy, because he could have zombies make it." Did zombies go to school? No, they did not.

"Zora the zombie didn't go to school either, not even during her life. She told me lots and lots about her life! And she's not Magician-related, her magic was making people age twice as fast, so she came to the castle to babysit and help Stanley grow up faster, and sometimes Magician Humphrey, since he was too young too at first. So I think schools are only for fish in Xanth." A firm nod. "Yeah. Elves and harpies and goblins don't have schools either. And Jordan and Esk and Threnody and Rapunzel neither." She wavered a hand back and forth. "Jordan's a special case, and Rapunzel was trapped in an ivory tower, and Threnody is half demon, and Esk is half ogre -- he's Smash's son, so it's all a bit... different, but still. No school for any of them. Chex was taught by her dam, Chem, and her Uncle Chet. Cherie was mad that Chex has wings and turned her back on her and Chem, which is really unfair!"

Although she wondered where normal centaurs got their education. From their parents, same as Chex? Presumably so! At least she never heard of formal "schools" on Centaur Isle, though, there was a lot she didn't know about it. She could ask her father of course! But he wasn't there. Maybe Grey. Grey would definitely know, because he grew up in Mundania too, and said he was acting as Humphrey's assistant!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Character Meet and Greet~~ At Night

Princess Ivy [age 10] / Xanth / OTA

2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I had to look up 5 things for this stupid response so you must suffer with me.

:P Your welcome

this time I just made shit up because if it's not in Xanth yet, I'm sure someone will suggest it...

:P Ah! Easier for you that way.

Definitely

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject