ASGARD GENESIS - TEST DRIVE #1

[asgardmods]

the test drive meme. ❧ let's do this. Anyone can post to the test drive meme, including duplicates! Please put your character name and canon in the title of your comment. All threads are considered open to everyone! Tag around and make some friends (or enemies)! If you decide to apply to the game, you can use your TDM threads for your app samples! You only need to provide seven comments if you use TDM samples. You can't be "late" to a TDM! This will be considered open until the next one goes live next month. You can make up your own scenario, interact with one of the locations in the game, use the welcome process of your character selecting a god house, or use our optional prompt below! You do not need to pick a god house to play on the TDM! You can have your character still in the process of discussing/deciding/despairing instead. If you are accepted to the game, you can keep TDM threads as game canon as long as you fudge some of the details depending on your original thread. If you aren't sure exactly how to do this, you can always ask a mod. Reserves open on May 25 at 12:01AM PST and close on May 31 at 11:59PM PST. Applications open on June 1 at 12:01AM PST and close on June 7 at 11:59PM PST. Please always feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions! Have fun, dear (future?) Wanderers. ♥ ❧ optional scenario. As you enter Asgard proper, many of the natives have gathered into curious crowds to greet these mysterious children of the World Tree. Some of them carry baskets of flowers and nervously offer one to any Wanderers that come near. They are vibrant and colorful, picked from the wilds surrounding Asgard, and they might have an odd effect on your character if they sniff the flowers directly. Purple flowers will make your character very giggly and easily amused by everything they see and hear. Orange flowers will make your character feel very warm all over, like the sun is beating down on them directly. Blue flowers will make your character somewhat short and impatient with anything that seems like even a minor inconvenience to them. Effects of the flowers can wear off anywhere between a few minutes to an hour. And for those new to Asgard, this scenario aligns with some of the general curses we might have in the game! navigation.

Comments

[nineteenfortyfive]

It's all right. [Manners, this one. But it's appreciated.] I am. Though I lived in Boston before... finding myself here.

[She motions to, well. Everything around them.]

[iustise]

Boston?

[John raises his eyebrows at the mention of it. His own knowledge of Boston of course being somewhat different than Claire's herself.]

I've heard that it's quite the lively city. I haven't yet had the chance to visit the Colonies myself.

[Just in case you were wondering exactly what time period he was from, if the clothes were not enough of a give away.]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She can't hide the slight widening of her eyes. Colonies. The last time she gave any thought to the historical colonies was when Bree had to research them for a high school history project. Lord help her.

Stranger things have happened, and yet Claire still finds herself surprised. Maybe that's a good thing.]

Where were you before you found yourself here?

[iustise]

Oh.

[John doesn't seem to be too surprised at the question. He speaks with the accent of a well-bred man, but that hardly answers the question she's posed of him.]

The Lake District, actually. My -- wife. Her family home is there.

[They've only been married for a few years yet, he and Isobel. He hopes that Claire will forgive him the slight stumble over the word he still makes, at times.]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[If there's a stumble over the word, she assumes it's only because the man misses her. Still, Claire asks:]

Have you happened to find your wife here? I've been looking for my daughter, but... I don't think it works that way.

[Whatever that means.]

[iustise]

Ah, no. I have not, as of yet.

[Lord John's expression pinches slightly. In truth, he had not even thought to look for Isobel. A fact which he does feel somewhat guilty for. Though Isobel herself would insist that his main priority be Willie. Speaking of which.]

In truth, it is my son for whom I had been searching. I do not suppose...

[John reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the portrait held within. Unfolding it from its protective handkerchief before holding it out towards her. Young William Ransom stares up at her in return. A young boy, perhaps nine or ten, with a soft childish tenderness still lingering about his face and his hair a soft chestnut brown. Yet if she looks hard enough she might recognize the slanted blue eyes looking boldly out over a straight nose a fraction of an inch too long, or the high Viking cheekbones pressed tight against smooth skin. The tilt of his head holding the same confident carriage as that of the man who had given him that face.

Or perhaps she may only see a stranger's son. The recognition of her husband's son in the young boy's portrait is entirely up to her and her alone.]

I do not suppose you have seen him about the city at any point in your travels?

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Surprised to be presented with a portrait, Claire steps closer to get a better look at it. Truth be told, she hasn't seen a child that young here, though there's something striking about his face. Maybe all little boys have it, but it's not a face that reminds her of any of Bree's schoolmates when she was that young. It's something else that grips her heart uncomfortably. There's something more Bree like, she thinks. Except no. Not quite.

Jamie shouldn't come to mind.

If he were a young boy, and Claire can vaguely remember a painting in Lallybroch done by his mother, he'd look similar, albeit the red hair. He'd been two or three in that portrait with his older brother Willie, but the images overlay in her mind and there's just something uncanny that unsettles her and has her looking at the portrait for far too long.]

I--don't believe I have. I'm sorry. I'll keep an eye out for him, though. What's his name?

[Oh, manners. Claire forgets, sometimes.]

And yours, for that matter? I'm Claire Randall.

[iustise]

Ah, yes.

[He shifts the portrait in his hands so that he might offer his hand to take her own in greeting.]

Please forgive my manners. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Randall.

[She spoke of her daughter, so he's going to assume that she is married. (Forgive him, he is from the 18th century, and generally a woman with a daughter is married, in his personal experience. At least one so well-spoken as herself.)]

Lord John Grey, at your service, madam. And my son -- Willie. William, these days. He's -- starting something of a phase, I'm afraid. He can be awfully stubborn when he sets his mind to something.

[He winces slightly.]

As a mother, I'm sure you understand.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She takes his hand politely, inclining her head, remembering the formalities of the day. It feels strange in her 20th century clothing, but it's easier to act in a way more familiar to him. Especially if he's introducing himself as a lord--a thing that means little here, she imagines, but he can swallow that pill at a later time.]

Willie? [That's the thing she chooses to comment on, brows lifting. She knows she looks more surprised than she should, and so she explains.] I... someone I once knew had an older brother named William. Willie. I'd just been thinking that your son looks like he could be another brother.

[Or son. Claire takes a breath. Jamie had been stubborn, too. To the last. Claire musters up a smile, not wanting to get into that particular mood.]

My daughter was a menace around that age, too. They grow out of it... eventually. At least until the next one comes.

[iustise]

[John cannot help but quirk a smile at that comment. Until the next one comes.]

But of course. Until the next.

[He shakes his head, shifting his hat in his hands once more, before he offers:]

It's a family name. William, that is. My wife's father's name.

[Her sister's father's name, Geneva being the boy's mother, but that is neither here nor there.]

It was -- a friend who first called him Willie. After his own relation. Then I suppose the name just took.

[He smiles fondly at her.] But now he's got it in his head that at the age of eight and a half he is much too old and well-bred to be a Willie anymore.

[He shakes his head at the thought.] Perhaps he will want me to address him by his full title next. I really can't say.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Claire smiles fondly, knowing all too well that change in a child.]

I used to have a dozen nicknames for my daughter. Dinky. Smudge. Those were all well and good until she was about eight or nine, too. Then only Bree was allowed, if I must shorten her name. God forbid if I called her darling in front of her little friends.

[iustise]

[John smiles fondly at the nicknames she gives, even if he doesn't really understand Dinky.]

No, darling is expressly out, I should think.

[He laughs softly, before tilting his head at her inquisitively.]

Bree. Short for...?

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She laughs. She can't imagine a young boy enjoying that pet name, either.]

Bree, short for Brianna. Named after her grandfather, Brian.

[Brian would have been the name of a boy and so Claire had to improvise.]

[iustise]

Brianna.

[Lord John repeats the name, sounding it out slowly as he does and smiling in the process. It's different, but then again he had known a man named Perseverance, so he cannot really judge.]

It's lovely. Your father, or your husband's?

[nineteenfortyfive]

My--[Well, she's never had to explain this before. Clare visibly struggles to find the right words.]

My first husband's. He passed some years ago.

[In a manner of speaking.]

[iustise]

Ah.

[John understands when he has stumbled upon a delicate subject, though he is too British to acknowledge his mistake aloud.]

I am sorry for your loss, madam.

[He is quiet for a long moment, uncertain how to proceed before he admits, abruptly:] My father passed away. When I was twelve.

[He was murdered, he thinks to himself, but he best not tell her that. It's not exactly a conversation for polite company. In fact, he's not sure that even as much as he's said is, but he continues on regardless despite himself.]

It was a difficult time for all of us. Not the least of all because my mother saw fit to then ship me off to finish my schooling for the next few years with her family in Aberdeen.

[He flicks her something of a smile to lighten the mood. A joke. Though technically true. Aberdeen had been miserable, as far as he was concerned.]

[nineteenfortyfive]

I'm sorry to hear that. It's always difficult for a child to lose their parent, especially so young. I lost mine when I was a child, too. [So long ago now that it doesn't ache as much to talk about it. She thought about her father often, when Frank died, trying to draw something out of it to help Bree with her grief.]

... but I kicked and screamed and dug my fingers into the door frame before I could be shipped off to boarding school.

[Said with a rather smug smirk. A joke of her own, but also true.]

[iustise]

[He appreciates her sense of humor. His smile widening to match her smirk, despite their rather heavy topic of conversation between them.]

Ah, would that I could have done so myself. It was two against one, I'm afraid. My older brother -- Hal. Nine years older than me, and just enough for him to suppose that he knew best. I never stood a chance. Still don't, damn the man.

[Though for all Hal is something of an overbearing worrywart, he does love his brother. He's been there for him, looking out for him, all his life. It's strange. To be here in this strange land, without perhaps the one man in the world he knows he could always count on in his hour of need.]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Nine years is a considerable amount. Claire understands, nodding.]

Well, whatever schooling you were forced into, I think it helped shape you into a proper gentleman.

[He's the textbook definition, thus far.]

[iustise]

[He presses a hand to his chest, offering her a (rather charming) smile.]

You flatter me, madam. Though I can take no credit in it myself, save for the fact that I did my best. There is not that much to do up there, in Aberdeen.

[He flicks her something of a wry smile as he muses:]

I suppose that is why I was off on the biggest adventure I could find, as soon as they allowed me home.

[It's too bad that that adventure was joining up with the army, but then again his father was a soldier, as was his brother, and John had never really considered another path for himself either, stepping back and looking at it after the fact.]