justhugalready | Test Drive Meme!

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*test drive meme

Test Drive Meme!

Welcome to the Rekindle Test Drive!
Trying to see if a character will fit or work in the setting? Need some interaction samples? Well this meme is for you!

Make a post, tag around, and most importantly, have fun! Here's the setting page for those who want to learn a little more about the city itself.

~~Then don't forget to go reserve your character in a week when they open.~~

Here's some prompts to help you get started, if you need it:

Option 1

[While the days grow longer and warmer and the older, oriental-style of the city would normally make one think that the interiors would not be much in the way of relief from the hot sun, it may surprise the guest to see that the apartments the natives have allocated for them are surprisingly comfortable. In fact, the only modern convenience they may be missing is a television set! At least, outside the media floor on the first floor of Building One - the first of four inter-connected buildings.

In fact, each apartment building seems to have at least one different amenity on the first floor. In Building Two they seemed to even spare a library in another that seems to have the basics and some information packets that are otherwise found in the Welcome Center in District 2. There are even a few restaurants and common dining areas in the Building Three that are open until late at night, and meeting areas and a ballroom on the first floor in Building Four, perfect for setting up small parties or big events.

With the locals gone save those who work in the restaurants and the one librarian, leaving you to your own devices, what will you do? What mysteries could be left to discover in this place?]

Option 2

[With summer coming, the water level in the river is starting to go down, exposing some of the beach. The Riverside Shack is open late, and its restaurant is pulling out all the stops and offering seafood specials (even though a river is a far cry from an ocean). The rental store, meanwhile, is finally bringing out more of its swimming supplies, inner tubes and pool noodles, and a calmer stretch of the river has been roped off with buoys for swimming. They even have lifeguards chairs set up. Clearly this sort of thing used to be an annual event.

It's not quite an ocean beach (quite different actually), but there's still plenty of chance to have fun in the water. Or teach someone to swim, perhaps.]

Option 3

[If you're more inclined to explore or learn, the City's Learning Center might be more to your tastes. There certainly seems to be a lot going on here - there's laboratories and libraries and workshops, and plenty of communal areas where you can meet and talk with people. The natives seem pretty absorbed with their studies and work, though they're polite in brushing you off, at least.

Perhaps you'll have more luck seeing what other Guests such as yourself have discovered?]

Option 4

[Whoops. Looks like you haven't taken the cautionary words of the other NPCs to heart, or maybe you just wanted to take your chances. Either way, the withdrawal symptoms have started and you need to find someone to hug quickly before you get even more sick.]

Option 5

[If there's something else you wanted to play with, that you didn't see here, then have fun with that. You've just arrived in a strange city, after all. There's got to be plenty to explore out and about, not to mention people to meet.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"And yet none of them endured in a tower under the control of the administrators. They don't need to learn, they have power that exceeds even the Valar!"

For a moment, he's more surprised at himself than anything for his sudden outburst. Were he more in control of himself, less worried about whether or not this was real, he wouldn't have lost control of himself like that. He can't.

He really can't handle this either and laughs softly, almost brokenly.

Thranduil isn't hesitant - that's not the right term, as he rarely hesitates. A better word might be cautious. Legolas's outburst was unexpected, and long years had taught Thranduil to treat the unknown with a certain wariness; they were not always dangerous, but the surprise could make everything worse if they were. And now he was watching, almost examining him, trying to figure out what had happened.

That laugh. That hideous, broken laugh - so different from Legolas's bright voice, which long had echoed through the shadowed halls of Mirkwood. It worries him.

"All things come to an end."

And now Legolas' hand moves to his collar, gently fingering the metal before looking back to Thranduil. His laugh slows and then stops, shakes his head and then just sits down before his stomach grows more unsettled.

"That's it though, isn't it? All things did come to an end. That's why I'm alive, they rescued me. The collar keeps my soul intact, keeps me from dying, it's the only way for us to survive on another world."

Or so Ruana had told them. And Dax had assured them that their worlds really were gone, that they were trying to restore them. He looks to his father, eyes automatically going to his bare neck.

"So this can't be real. You have no collar."

Thranduil, by and large, is unflappable. He has dealt with many dangers for a very long time, and made merry in their spite. Despite this - and possibly for the first time Legolas will easily be able to recall, or be able to remember at all - and certainly for the first time in a very long time, Thranduil looks alarmed, almost scared.

"What do you mean it keeps your soul intact?" His voice is sharper than it normally is when there's nothing actively trying to kill him or those in his charge, as are his eyes.

He really doesn't like the unknown.

This, combined with all the other things - this place, the differences in Legolas's appearance, the thrice-cursed collar, is making him doubt himself. He reaches out to touch it.

Nobody touches his collar. He saw what had happened when Jason took Roxas' collar off. The boy had died, anyone and everyone in the tower could see it when it had happened. It hadn't been locked. In response to Thranduil's tone, so unfamiliar when turned towards him, and his reach towards the collar, Legolas leans back and away from the touch.

"It keeps my soul in my body. I will die without it."

How easy it is to believe after a year there. After witnessing various terrors. What he wouldn't give to see home again, home as it should be.

He was frozen, eyes sharp and cold as broken glass in an ice bucket. Slowly, he let his hand fall. How could this be his son?

He turned without another word.

Legolas remained sitting, eyes moving to the ground. He couldn't, wouldn't, object or ask him to stay. He was so confused, didn't understand the point of this kind of trick. He wanted to say something, anything really but words failed him.

And the king was frozen, ice spinning from his heart away into his blood. He felt more cold than numb. Somehow, this couldn't be real.

Legolas's bright eyes and merry laugh. The creature behind him, more akin to a feral cat than an elven prince.

It couldn't be real.

And so he left.

For some reason, that hurt more than any of his deaths had. He had tried to convince himself that this wasn't real but it still felt real. It still sounded real.

"Díheno nin, adar."

He'd tried so hard to be strong for everyone else, for Zelda and Haldir, Frodo and Sam and Taiki. It had been so much easier in the tower when he had no time to dwell on anything except what he had to do right then and there. There was nothing but time here.

The words stopped him as though they'd been woven into a rope and cast around his heart. The ice chipped, but didn't shatter. He didn't know if he wanted it to. But that voice.

"Nae, henig, icheman o gi?"

He stopped. He actually stopped. Whether it was a blessing or not, Legolas couldn't tell but he actually felt some relief fill him. Just enough that he felt that maybe he could admit at least this much.

"I've been tortured, killed, have watched the graves of my friends appear and multiply and I have had my free-will striped away. They cut into my head, ada... turned me into little more than an orc."

Thranduil felt himself freeze in a different way, horrified at his description. The cold was spreading, if for a different reason. It was odd to hear his own voice when he talked, he could barely feel his lips forming the words.

"You are yourself. How can what you say be, when you are before me?"

He feels sick, because as much as he doesn't want to acknowledge them, the words are there. Legolas wouldn't lie.

"They... repair us. We don't stay dead because they can put our souls into new bodies. Bodies exactly like what we've always known."

He was right but the tower was different. The administrators played god there. It had been so much easier to deal with this there. It was the norm there and others had endured more than he had, understood what could and would happen.

Here he was alone.

"How can I have walked the Paths of the Dead unbothered and yet find fear in my own memories..?"

Thranduil felt sick. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet. "A day may seem longer than a year, if the day is one of hardship and the year is spent merry in the company of friends and kinsmen.

"Take comfort in that you are no longer there."

He could not, would not, berate him for admitting to fear - was he not the same? It was still all too easy to conjure up the black fields of Mordor.

Legolas had experienced many a day that felt longer than a year though most had begun to bleed together, some details remained clear as crystal and others faded. The worst of them were the clearest, much as he wished to forget.

"I am but one though. Gandalf, Haldir and others from Middle Earth remain."

People that he often suffered more for if only so they wouldn't. So that other people would be safer and maybe have a chance at seeing their homes in one piece again.

Thranduil finally looked at him again, gaze level but still somehow distant. He had to keep himself distant, because to do otherwise would surely result in a show of weakness. Thranduil had held himself strong so very, very long.

Neither Gandalf, Haldir, nor any of the others were his subjects or his kin, and he could bear more easily their predicament than his son's, though he would not wish it on any of them. It was a hideous thought.

"If you escaped, shall not they as well?"

A lesson that Legolas would do well to learn from his father. Perhaps it would help him to endure, free from the tower as he now seemed. Maybe even go back to being a little bit like he'd once been.

"Perhaps but I've seen no others bearing a collar. I am alone in being here." After a year, it was actually strange to see people without collars and to not see worker or retrieval units wandering the halls. To not have to report to collar maintenance ever other week. That alone was a bit unnerving, he'd never gone without it and didn't know what might happen without it.

His breathing sped up, hard for others to notice but probably not for Thranduil.

His gaze did sharpen as he looked at him, noticing the change. He didn't comment on it, but unless Legolas had truly lost his edge, he would probably notice himself. His voice, when he spoke, was very, very soft.

"Are you so sure it is necessary?"

It took him a moment but he did calm himself, used Thranduil's voice as an anchor to calm himself. It wouldn't help him every time but it worked now. Especially since his father spoke softly.

"I believe it is. I watched a young boy die when his collar was removed."

"Might things not have changed, here, where as you said only you are collared?"

One did not collar a free being - slaves bore collars, and animals. Thranduil did not care for the sight of it.

He actually hadn't considered that, so stuck in thinking that this couldn't be real as he had been. There would be some comfort in having his collar removed. No, that was a lie, there would be a lot of comfort in it.

"Perhaps. I hadn't thought of it, I've grown so used to depending on it."

"Then perhaps it should be attempted," he said, voice still soft. He made no movement to back up the words, but he was watching Legolas fairly closely.

His hand moved to his collar, ran his fingers over the cool metal and thought. Whether this was some trick or not, it was worth trying, he knew that. He could be free of at least one reminder of the tower. Even if he did die, he'd be free.

Slowly, he nodded.

"I don't know that I can remove it on my own."

Still the Elvenking did not move, merely stood still and watched. There was, in his eyes, something soft and like pain, but it was clouded behind layers of reserve.

"Do you wish me to help?"

Something in his voice, still so soft, sounded almost vulnerable. He wanted it gone, that would be enough. If it worked. If he wasn't wrong. Dear Valar, dear Ilúvatar, do not let him be wrong.

"Please."

It was a single word, easy to say and usually polite but now it seemed almost begging. He'd tried clawing it off himself when he'd first been in the tower, before he'd seen Roxas die. It hadn't worked then but maybe now...

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