Welcome to the Winter Wonderworld!

[dray]

⫸ WORLD: A crystalline pocket dimension
⫸ AGENCY: Shared
⫸ LOCATION: See above
⫸ EVENT: The Winter Gather Exchange!
⫸ NOTES: This is a general info post and a place to RP with one another and with the host, the enigmatic Noya Fosse


Part I: Arrival
You find yourself drifting off to sleep, or perhaps merely daydreaming, with the faintest sensation of a cold breeze tickling the back of your neck. Then, as darkness subsumes you, you feel the brush of hundreds of heavy flakes of the most beautiful, crystalline snow. This snow glints in all the colours of a frozen rainbow, prisms of sourceless light that blind you until you push your way forward into... into what, exactly?

The place you arrive is nothing like home: a frozen den of sharp pillars of ice support a mirror-smooth roof. Like the court of a powerful ruler, this place is fit to impress. Treasures of every kind and shape are frozen below the floor and along the walls: look but don't touch, please! The main hall is artfully littered with places to sit for creatures both large and small, and to one side is a never-ending buffet of cold and hot food (and drinks, and of course you know there are marshmallows) attended by little icy creatures not completely unlike flitters.

But what takes your first impressions and blows them away is the owner of this odd little place. A sinuous dragon of crystalline grace rests upon a raised dais on a throne molded of snow. Her scales seem to reflect the globes of light gently shining down on the room, and she is currently in deep conversation with a very furry creature made, it seems, to exist only in the deepest cold.

A chubby little flitter wings over to you (or perhaps it's a small fleet) with a pelt of heavy fur.

::Welcome to the Winter Gather! Noya chose you to partake in her riches and get to know one another. The Nexus is back! The Nexus is back!::

That thought fades from your mind as the flitter scoots off to its next duty, though it sounds like a triumphal cheer.

Welcome to the Winter Gather, it seems. What do you do next?


Part II: The Revelation
(To be posted on December 19th! For now, feel free to post a mingle starter and tag others, get to know them, etc!)

Comments

[naeodin]

:The Nexus is back! The Nexus is back!:

Shy used the movement of brushing down the thickly brocaded cloak with garish fur trimmings to school his expression. Slight, polite amusement settled on his features and a mild, inquisitive gleam brightened his eyes.

The Nexus was back. He had been waiting for this moment for eons, and finally, he was one step closer to finding his way back home.

Now if he could figure out what blind madman with a petty grudge had dressed him in this visually tone deaf manner.

Tugging at the front of the cloak held together with metallic tinsel, he peeked down at what lay closer to his body. A traditional qipao cut close to his slender frame, and of decadent enough material that it didn't itch or bunch under the *get this off me right now dammit* cloak.

Gold thread gleamed across silk of blood court red and dashes of purple, and green. And blue. And fuschia. And...

Shy fastened the tinsel cord tightly around his neck, his features frozen.

Well. At least the Nexus was back.

((Shy is dawdling at the entrance dressed in an ostentatious black and metallic embroidered cloak with even more ostentatious fur lining the edges. It is held together with metallic tinsel and he is NOT. Happy.
But he will mingle! As long as he doesn't have to take off the damn cloak.))

[dray]

Aenieso Landwerlen is dawdling, too. As a human, he stands a little under six feet tall, and sports the same blond hair plaited down his back in an intricate braid, a precisely trimmed beard to frame his oddly olive-coloured face. Dressed in a snow-white three-piece suit with a golden cummerbund and a tucked golden tie, golden cufflinks and other details, he's about as opposite of Shy as one could get while still being an elderly looking gentleman.

However, he spots the outrageously dressed guest and he is forced to ask: "Don't tell me you have arrived in your pajamas as well?"

[naeodin]

Shy made one long, sweeping gesture down his cloak, and then flicked at the tinsel tie holding it together.

"You should see what I'm wearing under this." Inappropriate? Maybe. Deliberate? Well. It was Shy after all. But unfortunately, this time it was just the truth.

"I'm afraid I did not have the chance to dress myself for this invitation" Shy wondered who had, and he turned an assessing eye to the man in front of him. No. Apparently not everyone had been dressed by the village idiot, and Shy was very sure that he too could carry a white and gold themed outfit VERY well.

"The Nexus is back, it seems, and I am looking forwards to reconnecting-" Hmm. Shy did not have that particular shade of blonde hair in his collection. What a beautiful combination it would make for some of his golden eyed projects. Just that perfect, complementary shade to bring out their eyes.

"But I have not introduced myself" he purred. Oh, and he would never want to be rude to a potential donor. "My name is Shy."

[dray]

Aeni' wasn't used to being ogled, nor objectified, so the sneer he grew as Shy looked him up and down was wholly unschooled. By the time that Shy introduced himself, the Asandus mutt had his repose once again, and he offered his palm, upon the back of which were keratinous brown plates along both fingers and the back of the hand.

"Charmed to meet you." Oh, that tone could melt metal. "You may call me Aenieso Landwerlen. I am..." a burgeoning sigh, here, "the foremost representative of Nidus Novalux, it would seem. And you, Shy, what is your tale?"

[naeodin]

"Nidus Novalux" Shy murmured. It sounded familiar- he knew he had stuck into visited a few Nidus' himself, but he couldn't remember if there had been a Novlaux. Clasping the offered hand and dipping into a shallow curtsy, Shy took a moment to examine plates.

An offensive project then, maybe combine the blonde hair with plates of a slightly more complementary shade. "Aeni" Because a formal, distinguished foremost representative of the Nidus Novalux must surely be used to people bastardizing his name. "Has the Nidus Novalux come across many worlds within the Nexus that have vanished, or reappeared?"

[dray]

"Aeni'" very much does not enjoy the nickname, and were he in the form to express it, his ears would go back, his tail would lash. For the better, probably; there were other people here and flits that had a habit of swooping dangerously close.

"We have been in... a contemplatory phase," he responds, irritatingly vague in the face of Shy's mountingly over-close examination. "Can one really call a planet vanished when it has sunk over the horizon? Only an idiot would pull his hair and scream over a sun fallen out of the sky, after all." Turning half away from Shy--never fully away, not now that he knows this hideously dressed creature is observing him so closely--Aenieso gestures towards the buffet. It's something to do.

"You haven't told me about yourself yet."

[kinrrataiyath]

Thayer flitted from group to group like a firelizard at a socialite gala. He smiled, he laughed, he made introductions and sparked new friendships. He was every part the charismatic future leader that he needed to be.

Bane, on the other hand, was not charismatic. He did not want to meet new people. He had no interest in idle chatter. He simply wanted to do his duty and ensure that his brother remained safe and happy. Then, maybe by some miracle, Thayer would want to go home early and Bane could enjoy the peace and quiet of his own den. For now, he could only hope to find little pockets of quiet amidst the gathering while still maintaining a watchful eye on Thayer.

So it was Bane found himself gravitating toward the one solitary person at the gathering who was not griping or experimenting, or looking to start some meaningful new relationship. The man had an odd sense of fashion, but then again, Bane stood in the midst of a winter wonderland while dressed in full black plate that shone like the depths of an oil pit.

The tall, dark-haired man sidled up to Shy while maintaining a respectful distance. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his face set in a mask of neutrality, and his eyes ever fixated on Thayer, save for one brief moment where he glanced at the other occupant of the space and gave Shy a small nod of greeting.

[naeodin]

Shy tried very hard not to grimace- it pulled his skin in unflattering ways, and he did not know what interesting specimen might be watching him.

It would not do to scare his future donors away so soon.

He was used to having a keen awareness of his surroundings (all the better to run away, of course), but he hadn't quite noticed the dark shadow until it detached itself from the brighter, chattier man.

It was the movement, the steady, controlled mannerisms that drew his attention, at first just a cursory glance. He had collected enough tall dark and silent specimens to build his own army. He automatically nodded his greeting in return, and then it was as if his brain hiccuped.

He knew that face.

Shy turned, fully focused on the figure who stood with a warrior's bearing. Older, perhaps. But he recognized that face, and he was sure, so sure, he had seen it not just once, but maybe a few times.

Shy's eyes narrowed and he took a slow, considering step towards the dark haired man. It would not do to scare him away so soon.

[kinrrataiyath]

Bane did not notice the approach right away. His eyes were trained for threats to Thayer's personal space, not his own. When at last Shy's attention tickled at the back of his neck like a thousand tiny insects, Bane tilted his head a fraction of a degree and looked down at the man in the ostentatious cloak.

"May I help you," he asked in a voice that said he would rather be of no help at all.

[naeodin]

Shy's incredibly stealth approach had brought him close enough to that they were almost, but not quite, in touching distance.

"I was there at the hatching" he said by way of answer, extending a rather limp hand as a greeting. Not to be shaken, mind you. No, Shy was too _classy_ for that.

"I am Shy, of the-" he caught in his throat again.

Well, if the Nexus was back. He knew it was only a matter of time until he found the Vella Crean.

[kinrrataiyath]

Bane did not react outwardly other than a slight widening of his eyes. Inwardly, even the warmth of his air spell could not remove the frozen block that had become his stomach.

Shy.

Shy of the Vella Crean.

He knew that name. He had heard Mystic utter it with the same dripping poison to her tone that she reserved for his father.

And then there were the words. He was there, all those years ago, when Bane Iktari, son of Krent Iktari, heir to the hydra throne, had made his debut to the Nexus. No matter how many years separated Bane from that fateful day and the events that came after, he would never shake the fear of discovery. Bane had worked hard to separate himself from his past. Though he would never speak his fears to Thayer, he was hesitant to see Tris'Hath rejoin the Nexus for no other selfish reason than he did not want all his work undone.

He needed a way out of this conversation. He needed to get himself and Thayer out of harms way, and there was no doubt in his mind that Shy represented a very unique sort of threat. Yet even as his thoughts turned to retreating, he scanned the crowd and caught Thayer in the middle of a group of attendees, fully engaged in telling a story. He didn't dare lead Shy straight to his brother. Their departure had to be swift and unseen.

So instead of abandoning the conversation and making a scene as he dragged Thayer from his element, Bane resumed his blank expression and let his thoughts do the panicking for him.

We need to go. We need to go. We need to go, he thought over and over again, a repetitive klaxon that he hoped would catch Thayer's attention. The heir often had his telepathy muted to the point of non-existence, but it was not off. It could never be turned off.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bane said in a flat tone. He made no other move in relation to the slender man. Not an acknowledgement of the offered hand or offer of greeting of his own.

[naeodin]

This man of few words certainly knew how to maintain an air of intrigue. Shy's hand dropped to his side, absently smoothing away at the surface of his cloak as if it had been his intent along.

Hmm. Shy liked intrigue. And mystery. It very much made him want to poke and prod and see what the right combination of words and actions could be, to get a proper reaction.

"Has Tris' Hath returned to the Nexus?" he asked. It had been a long, long time since he had felt protected enough to enter Tris' Hath. The woman who ruled that domain had... made certain promises he did not want to see upheld.

Tris' Hath...maybe that should be his first step after this odd gathering.

[kinrrataiyath]

"It has." Bane shut his mouth quickly after the few words. He had been about to add 'but it's still shut off to you,' except he did not want to reveal his hand. He had set up a charade of ignorance and he needed to keep it going until he could make contact with Thayer... somehow.

What has gotten into you, Baneo groused. Why are you trying to deafen us?

Shy is here, Bane sent back to his bonds. Tell Stacurik to get Thayer. We need to leave.

The link with his dragons went silent for a moment, and across the room, Thayer's animated story telling faltered as a puzzled frown worked its way across his face. He brightened a moment later, excused himself from the group, and began walking toward Bane.

No! Tell him to stay away. Shy can't know he's here, Bane sent desperately to his bonds.

Too late, Baaki said. Stacurik says the mention of Shy peaked his interest. He wants to come say hi.

Bane closed his eyes and breathed in deep, then out again. The greatest threat to Thayer's well-being was his own damned self, and there was nothing Bane could do to mitigate it.

"Hello there," Thayer said with a bright smile as he came upon the pair. He stopped a few feet away from Shy and gave him a short, curt bow from the waist. "Thayer Dragon-Audil. And you would be the enigmatic Shy, are you not?"

[naeodin]

Tall dark and silent's reaction was not a new one for Shy. He seemed to (for reasons he did not quite comprehend) bring out this type of reaction with many potential donors. But when he closed his eyes and let out what seemed to be a very controlled, somewhat frustrated exhale, Shy wondered if he was in for a treat.

Oh, and how the treat was walking straight up to him!

"Thayer Dragon Audil" he repeated. The name, for want of a better word, made Shy *tingle*. Here was a golden boy, with the kind of self assured confidence and charisma that was even hard for him to genetically engineer. Pedigree, but also how one was raised. This one was Important- and oh, despite the numerous attempts he had made to get a sample of Mystic's DNA, look, look what happened when he was patient enough!

Shy swept down in a long, flourishing bow. "Your Highness" his lips curved into a smile. "I am absolutely delighted to finally meet you."

Nothing to worry about. He was just a small, oddly dressed, completely harmless little man.

[kinrrataiyath]

"No need for titles here. Thayer is fine," the heir replied. He took a moment to look Shy up and down while the man bowed. This was the great Shy? This was the terror that his mother refused to discuss? This was the man who had inspired the creation of so many unique entities at the Warren?

He barely seemed like a man at all. More of an ornately dressed doll. And he gave off not a whiff of magical energy. Curiouser and curiouser.

"I must admit a little bit of excitement myself," Thayer said. "Your name has quite the connotation back home."

[naeodin]

Shy's smile deepened, his eyes brightened, and he seemed, just for a moment, very pleased at the thought of being on first name basis with Mystic's son.

"Does it?" Well, what a delightful piece of news! It must have some very grand and artful meaning. Because Shy himself could not imagine any other possibility.

And look how welcoming the prince was! Shy straightened, taking another small step forward as he did so, to get a little closer to this golden boy who made Shy so very happy. "Why don't we discuss a few of my more signature projects, and get to know each other a little better?"

He gestured to himself. "I am alone, quite defenceless, I am afraid" a small rueful look at the silent shadow. "I would very much enjoy the company. It has been a long time since someone has recognized my name."

Oh. So poor. So innocent. Take pity on this tiny man all by his lonesome.

[kinrrataiyath]

Bane did not move so much as simply appear between Thayer and Shy, his hands still clasped behind his back and the scowl on his face threatening all manner of unpleasant interactions if Shy got any closer to Thayer.

"You will not get any closer to the heir," Bane intoned, his normally flat voice taking on a deep resonance.

"Bane, that was rude," Thayer scolded. He matched Bane's scowl, though perhaps with not the same level of vehemence, and stepped around his brother to offer his arm to Shy. "We are all guests here. I'm certain Shy is no more interested in seeing any disruptions come to this gathering than we are. We can afford to be polite."

Bane said nothing as Thayer maneuvered around him. Internally, even Baneo'Mybl shrank from the sudden flare of rage that burned through the stoic man.

[naeodin]

Shy could not help the small smirk that flashed across his face. The tall dark soldier moved much faster than he had expected- in fact, he was impressed, and wondered if there was a little bit of magic involved.

Maybe this tall soldier would actually be a good specimen. He had bonded with two dragons at the hatching, and that would also be a good trait to pass along to some of his projects.

Shy smiled up sweetly at Thayer, taking the offered arm with a slight nod and slipping his arm quite readily through to link it with the golden prince in front of him. “I would not dream of causing any disruption here.” He said, his eyes widening. “No, not when I am still not sure what we are doing here, and who has brought us to this very extravagant court.”

He sighed, a little sad, and patted Thayer’s arm. “I have been lost, Thayer.” He said, quite sad, quite lost. “I have spent years looking for my home” that he had been kicked out of “And had been no closer to finding my way back” because they didn’t want him back “But now I hear the Nexus has returned.”

[kinrrataiyath]

Thayer began walking with Shy on his arm as if he were escorting a pretty lady through a courtyard. This place was quite a pretty sight to behold, and it would be a shame if Shy couldn't take it all in. Meanwhile, Thayer took in some fresh information.

"Your home is gone? The way you speak of finding your way back makes me think you mean the Vella Crean itself, not just your personal residence. But how does a whole world disappear?"

Behind them, Bane stalked ever on the edge of Thayer's shadow. If he had been attentive before, now he was laser focused.

Geez, Bane, they're having a discussion. He's not humping Thayer's leg. You need to calm down, Baneo griped. Despite his words, the red still seemed hesitant to prod his rider too much. Bane had very tight control of his emotions for a reason, and for a second that hold had slipped.

You heard Mystic when she spoke of him before. She despises this man. He did something that made her declare a death sentence on his head if he ever touched Tris'Hathian soil again. No one else has ever earned that, save the hydras and their ilk. So long as he's breathing, he's a threat, Bane said.

[naeodin]

Shy’s hand on Thayer’s arm tightened for a fraction as he sighed. He paused for a moment, leaning slightly closer to Thayer so that a little more of his arm brushed against the golden prince’s.

“Vella Crean disappeared.” He said, his expression crestfallen, his words heavy. There was a lot of truth mixed into the pain, but also, it had been so long that he had a sympathetic ear of a golden prince.

“There were too many things happening, at the end- dark things. Naeodin decided it would be safer for her courts for the Nexus, and the Vella Crean vanished. I have been looking for home every since.” He reached up to brush something off of Thayer’s shoulder, settling down quite comfortably nestled against his side.

“It has been a very long search, and while I have a few projects out there” he gestured vaguely. “I have not had much luck so far.” He paused.

“And the Tris’ Hath? It was not… as accessible as before. Or so I have heard.” He said carefully.

[kinrrataiyath]

"There were some restrictions put in place. It was simply easier to stay put. How does an entire world vanish?" Thayer brushed past Shy's question as easily as Shy brushed invisible dirt off his shoulder. The young heir allowed for the simpering and the cuddling, all in the interest of achieving his own goals. Shy wasn't the only one delighted by the prospects laid before him that day.