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JANUARY TEST DRIVE MEME
You awaken to godawful static overlaying a female voice that's too monotone to be anything but a recording. The static makes it difficult to understand the warning, but it's clearly a warning if your surroundings tell you anything...
You're buckled into a sturdy seat bolted to the wall behind you. Around you, there are dozens of others like you, some awake and others still unconscious, but it seems most of the seats lining the walls are occupied. The lights are dim, likely auxiliary lighting, leaving you mostly in the dark. You smell smoke and hear the sizzling crackle of electrical systems popping and shorting out. Some of the seats were jarred off the wall, leaving the occupants either wounded or dead. Count yourself lucky all you have is a headache and various aches accounted to whiplash.
You appear to be in a drop ship or an escape vessel of some form but the pilot is dead and the hull bears a massive gash where it buckled under the impact and sheered off. Through the door-sized opening, you can see vegetation. The air that wafts in is heavy with a humid heat, but it's obviously breathable.
Once you make your way outside, you'll see greenery: Trees, grass, and shrubs tangled with vines that grow wildly and suffocate the trees they climb. In the distance, behind the ship, you can make out a sandy desert that seems to stretch on endlessly. Forward through the trees, however, you may see a crumbling wall, but more importantly, you'll see signs of civilisation. Buildings and other structures seem contained within those decrepit walls. Maybe the natives can fill you in on what's going on, because the last thing you remember isn't being in an escape shuttle. As a matter of fact, you don't remember much about your arrival or where you are. But it's going to be a bit of a hike, better get moving. Though you might want to grab the backpack of supplies under your seat before you go.
With that, the power dies, leaving the drop ship in the dark, crackling and groaning as the hull cools from its catastrophic re-entry.
Roan | The 100 (spoilers for 3x04 below)
[ Prince (King now?) Roan of Azgeda woke to flashing lights and blaring alarms, foreign to all of it, having only glimpsed things like this when he skirted the edges of Skaikru camps, and that's where his mind goes - Arkadia and their ilk. Those still so angry with the Ice Nation for his mother's terrorism, and given the only one of them that knows him, and knows he isn't so thirsty for their death, is Clarke. And Clarke is not here.
Quickly as he can, the grounder launches from his belted seat, grabs his pack, and flees, regardless of others landed with him. It's some time later that he returns, moving through tree branches in silence, and he spents hours watching the camp, waiting for movement, for a scouting group to check their supplies, their prey, whatever he was meant to be. after none so, he salvages. wires to bind with, belting, a knife from a pack left behind, jagged shards of twisted metal. his swords are gone, but royalty in Azgeda is not pampered. If anything, he's been made to endure more of the harshness of the wilds, and spent plenty of his life in banishment learning how to make somethings out of nothings.
Some time later, Roan waits in the trees not far from the Skaikru city, watching the others mill around, observing. Learning. Listening, to the chatter in the earpiece he was left. He'll speak eventually, but not yet. Not now.
Instead, he hears the cracking of leaves and twigs beneath him, spotting one of those things - like Beserkers, but rotted. Disgusting. He'd killed several already, turned the corpses over and examined them, before leaving. The one below stalks in a gross hobble, after something else.
One of the city people.
He watches, for a long moment, doing nothing, until it gets close enough that a couple running steps and a lunge would see the stranger dead. Roan considers letting it happens. Thinks he ought to, rather than give himself up here. But he still finds himself jumping down, the tie from the tree slowing his fall and making it silent, so all that's heard is the wet thunk of the end of a spear being shoved through the back of the abomination's skull. Roan drags it to the ground with a jerk of the wooden end, boot pressed to the back of it's neck as he pulls his weapon free, bits of skull and brain matter sticking to it grossly. ]
You tell your people nothing of me, or you end up the same.
[ he hasn't glanced up at them yet, but the warning is given quickly and quietly, in case this one came out with a partner. ]
NETWORK PROMPT (AUDIO OBV);
Wanheda.
[ the voice comes gravely and deep over the comms, the kind of thing that sounds more growl than voice. there's a pause, and he breathes out, adding. ]
Clarke kom Skaikru. I speak to her and her alone.
[ He'd arrived here in a shuttle, strapped up in all it's metal while it's circuitry fried around him, and only one thing made sense with that - the sky people. the sky people who are hardly friendly with either Trikru or Azgeda. If Arkadia is the only resource for him to use right now, the only way he'll get to any answers is if Clarke vouches for him.
Here's hoping his recently willingness to help has won him some points. ]
Don't bother trying to find me without her. You won't.
[ Having to live among Trikru during his banishment has taught him some things about navigating trees. Don't expect to see him. ]
audio »
Ai laik Heda; yu na tel ai op, Roan kom Azgeda. Clarke is not here.
[ I am the Commander; you will talk to me, Roan of Ice Nation.
Does she sound bitter? A little... Okay, a lot. #LadyOfManyWords. But she's been searching for just about anyone, and this is who she finds? ]
italics is trigedasleng bc i'm too lazy to go look up translations
[ he hadn't been expecting that. not hearing her over Skaikru tech. maybe it means the alliance holds, and the coalition moves together. then why the hell was he dropped in a skaikru shuttle?
the rest is spoken in Trigedasleng, because he's paranoid. ]
Does Azgeda hold it's chair in the coalition, or did you make me King only to hold me prisoner again?
What of Wanheda?
same
You are not my prisoner. I did not arrange any of this. If it is an attack, it is an attack on both of us. Do you stay true to the Coalition?
[ Aka bro u gonna betray me or??? ]
Wanheda is missing. This looks like Sky People technology but the few I've met have been just as confused as us.
no subject
I stand with the clans.
[ azgeda may have a shit fit about it, but azgeda will ultimately follow it's king. ]
Left for her people, maybe. Wanheda does as Wanheda pleases. [ maybe spoken with some humor. that girl knows how to get what she wants. ] The ones in the city. Do they ally with us?
no subject
Many of them wish to. But they are weak, more trouble than they are worth.
The "leader" [ Note her tone. ] is more interested in what I may offer them for their survival.
There are others. The Plagued - I thought they were Reapers but they're not. And another group, that do not live in the forest or the city but attempt to invade it. They attacked me, so I sent them a message.
[ It involved tearing the throat out of one of their neck's with her teeth whilst her knife was still buried deep in another's jugular. The third was left to retreat back into the desert, where she'd stopped tracking them. Oh, Bandits. At least she got more weapons out of it.
She'd even been kind enough to string their corpses up in trees near the edge of the forest. ]
no subject
[ so they can burn their houses and poison their wells, it would imply. Not that that's how they do war. it's just something equally stupid to allow someone you just met to know. right, not worth putting interest in. ]
The Plagued, I saw them. Killed several. I thought Berserkers too, but they're too weak and half rotted. But they'll likely take out those in the city if we just wait.
[ don't worry about the problem, let nature take its course. there seems more important things to worry about. ]
What of the others you found? Where'd they come in from? Do you know where the closest of the allied clans is from here?
no subject
We may find use for the ones in the city.
[ But she agrees, they'll probably die quickly. ]
The desert. They acted like Reapers, no mind left to appeal to. As for clans, I don't know yet.
[ She hasn't a clue where she is, but she doesn't feel like admitting that yet. ]
no subject
Even Skaikru fended for themselves better than that.
[ even their freaking children. it's clarke that's wanheda, after all. ]
Do you plan to go after them? Into the desert?
[ on the one hand, you wouldn't want them running in, causing problems, then escaping back out again. on the other, crossing a desert without a real idea of where it ends is never a good idea. ]
audio
she frowns slightly because while the other person seems to know her, she is drawing a blank and can't seem to place the voice or even know who is speaking with her. she decides to be cautious but still keep neutral, feeling a bit unsure what the intentions are of the person she is speaking with] This is Clarke— who am I speaking with?
no subject
Roan. Are those your people in the city? [ he's not sure if he's hoping for a yes or a no out of that... ] I woke up in one of your ship. Did more of you come dropping from the sky?
no subject
no subject
Heda hasn't spoken to you?
no subject