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 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...

Legolas had seemed wary, almost like some feral creature, before, and so even with his blessing Thranduil's movements were very smooth as he approached, and his hands hesitated for a moment as if for final confirmation before he finishes reaching up to touch it. The texture feels strange under his fingertips, and because he cannot see the clasp straight off, he feels for one. It's too small to have been slipped over his head, which means there must be a hinge and clasp somewhere. He'd break it if nothing else worked.

There was a slight tensing of his shoulders but Legolas otherwise didn't move. He wished that there were some advice that he could give on how to remove it but he hadn't be conscious any of the times that his collar was or wasn't removed. He'd seen his reflection enough that that he couldn't find anywhere on the front or sides that looked like it came apart.

"Perhaps the back, I've never been able to clearly see it."

He nodded and moved, hands still on the collar, and ah. There. The seam was very small, nearly impossible to either see or feel, and were he not an elf, Thranduil wondered how he would have managed. The problem was there didn't seem to be any form of clasp - Thranduil was beginning to wonder if it had not been molded around his son's neck. No matter. It could be removed, and if it had to be bent out of shape for that to happen, so be it. Thranduil began to attempt to pull it out of shape. He was strong, as were all elves, but it was harder when he needed to be sure not to strangle his son while he did so.

It was a good thing that Legolas had grown more of a tolerance to pain, especially after the conditioning he'd endured at Jason's hands. While his bodies had changed, his mind stayed the same and he could brace himself against it. Especially once he felt the metal moving, bending, and the tubes pulling at his neck.

His hand moved, grasping Thranduil's clothes. Not pushing him away but for the sake of holding something and having something else to focus on as the collar came undone. First green fluid flows out of his neck where the tubes had been and then blood which Legolas quickly grasped at his neck to slow the flow of.

He would like very much to find the people responsible for this and kill them. The tubes are stuck into Legolas's neck, and as they begin to pull free and the liquid runs down Legolas's skin and clothes and across Thranduil's hands, blood begins to run down his skin. But Legolas doesn't flinch, doesn't pull away, so Thranduil keeps pulling, until it's far enough split that he can pull it away from the younger elf's neck. He drops it, and it rings as it hits the ground, and then circles back around again. He's bleeding, but Thranduil is not much of a healer, and regrets it as he reaches out. His face is twisted, an expression rarely seen.

"Thank you..."

Legolas took a breath, several in fact, before he reached to his own sleeve and tore it off. He didn't feel like he was dying, like he needed to collapse, just like he was bleeding more than he should. As quickly and carefully as he could with suddenly shaking hands, he tried to cover the holes.

"We should find you a healer," Thranduil said. Not much emotion showed in his voice, he was controlling it carefully, but there was such a rush of emotions that he hardly knew what to feel anyway. He'd had his father's blood on his hands, he hated to have his son's. "It has never been my talent." There was an edge of a bitter self-reproach, and resignation, and he wasn't even sure what, as he reached up to help Legolas put pressure on the wounds. The removal of the collar, and the fact that it had not caused him to collapse, would avail them nothing if he bled too much. It was lucky that elves were so much hardier than men. Thranduil wasn't sure how much one of them would be able to survive - he had very little experience with the race as a whole, but they seemed much more fragile.

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