wethecrack | Test Drive Meme

TEST DRIVE MEME

I. Dragon Catch

You step out of your house, letter in hand to find what Zephyr laid out neatly in written word for you. Dragons, saddles and a brief explanation Zephyr was interested in a cool new book about people befriending dragons! The little godling had set up a corral, some stables and encouraged everyone to try befriending a dragon to ride. Snippets of the book are included for aid. All in all it seems like a lot of fun!

Well, until you look over the Meadous village proper.

Dragons of varying shapes, colors and sizes are meandering about the meadous, clearly having escaped the corral they had been kept in. One dragon has perched itself atop your neighbor’s home taking a nice nap in the sunshine. A gaggle of cat sized dragons have taken up digging up another neighbors garden. A few dragons hang from the beer tree, more than a bit… blasted.

One or two people you recognize are attempting to catch up to the dragons with mixed results. One person is at least hanging off of a saddle looking rather perturbed.

Do you help or merely let the dragon based chaos ensue by going back inside where you’re less likely to get involved?

II. Be Careful What You Wish For

Well, that... that wasn't quite to plan. You stare down at the crayon drawing from Zephyr showing you exactly what you wished for. Except you hadn't meant it literally. Or you hadn't meant it quite like that, even if your wording had been vague. Now you're stuck with something you didn't want. Or perhaps you made a big mistake and now you're a different species. Or have extra appendages you can't get rid of. Not without making the walk of shame back to the Wishing Pond to wish away the changes. Why this? Why? If only you had been more clear or if only Zephyr understood subtly a bit more clearly.

Hopefully, no one will catch you as you steal forth to undo your mistake. Now that would be quite embarrassing if they saw you like this!

III. Pumpkin Maze Frights

Fall has settled over the landscape nicely, with that comes a rather customary pumpkin patch maze. A tradition long standing that comes as the seasons shift with the Meadous.

Even long time residents seem surprised at the new heights the maze has taken on, not to mention a new sign warning its extra scary this year! The sign also advises there will be a cool prize to anyone brave enough to venture forth!

A few residents are gathered at the opening, talking amongst themselves over the newly scary-ified pumpkin maze. The maze walls are composed of pumpkins of varying shapes, sizes, colors and carvings. One or two snatch a pumpkin to turn into a pie.

Everything is fairly whimsical all in all until one steps into the maze itself to follow the dirt pathway within.

The dirt path under foot is easy to follow, but offers some minor startles at the occasional loose leaf crunching underfoot.The mixed in carved pumpkins that make up the maze walls provide some shallow lighting along with floating string lights in a light bulb shape hang over head. It is oddly darker in the maze than it ever has been before. It’s almost a little scary. The unnatural quiet of the maze doesn’t help matters any. Walking deeper into the maze only leads to less lights here and there.

Zephyr has maybe gone a bit over zealous with this scary thing.

A wind whips up, making the candle light within the pumpkins flicker and lanterns bobble overhead. A few candles flicker out completely for a long moment before sputtering back to life.

Is that a shadow on a maze wall ahead of you? Will you call out or duck behind a TDM convenient hay bale stacks?

IV. Bulletin Board

Each month, Zephyr clears away most of the notes from their Bulletin Board and adjusts the decorations, leaving it fresh and open for anyone who might wish to post something new. The Meadous is a fairly rural place with minimal technology. Those used to a network may find the Bulletin Board is the closest they can come to something like that again. Who wants to actually talk to the neighbors when you can post a passive aggressive note about someone making a racket at 2 AM, instead? There's also some measure of anonymity afforded. Just be sure to only post up your notes when no one else is around and can catch you at it.

V. Choose Your Own Adventure

Whether it's just waking up in the Meadous or exploring some other part of the Setting, you're striking out with your own prompts to get some action started.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Renart will climb off of the other woman, even offering her a hand to help her up. It's the least she can do.

She's also mildly bemused at the chatter but hey, she can roll with it. "I'm not sure who Wondergirl is so I can't help you there, but if you're going the sexy route I'm far more partial to foxes rather than dinosaurs."

She smiles and flicks her tail back and forth. "I'm biased, though. This isn't a costume."

Harley takes her hand with a smile, then stands in front of Renart with a look of curiosity on her face. "Really? No foolin'?

Save for Killer Croc and a few others, most of the animal-themed folks she knows keep to costumes.

Her finger is slowly going towards one of the woman's fox ears, where it will get a soft boop if not stopped.

Renart doesn't move, but her expression turns a little less impressed and her ear twitches in response to the boop. Having her animal appendages touched by strangers isn't the most pleasant experience, mostly because strangers have a tendency to yank.

"I'm very serious when it comes to my tail and ears," she replies lightly. "In fact, I tend to bite people when they touch them." Just to make things completely clear.

In that case, she restrains herself from trying to pet the stranger. As tempted as she is.

"'Scuse me for gettin' a li'l handsy. It ain't every day where I'm from that I meet a real foxy lady. My name's Harley." She juts her hand out, this time to shake.

Well, she always enjoys a good fox pun, so she lightens up and grins back at Harley. "Renart. I take it you must be new. You smell new," she says, reaching out to shake her hand.

"Brand spankin'!" she replies, then pauses to not-so-discreetly take a whiff of her underarm. She hopes smelling new isn't a bad thing. She's a little sensitive about her odor, having recently come from a place where warm showers were a luxury. She's definitely spent some time in her new home getting the funk off, or trying to.

"You been here long?"

Renart can't stop herself from grinning at that reaction. "Around a year, maybe a bit more," she answers, deciding she should at least be civil to the pretty newbie. "Don't worry about the smell thing. Fox, you know? I identify people by smell."

"Oh! Yeah, right," she waves a hand in the air, casually. She totally knew that. "I just hope I don't offend."

It must be cool to be part fox, except when you run into something that attacks your heightened senses.

"So, do you like it here? It's a heckuva lot better than the last place I got stuck at but it's not quite home."

"You don't," Renart replies lightly. When your own natural body odor is best described as musky, humans don't bother you too much.

"It's better than the last world I was stuck in," she continues, shrugging. "Which was best described as post-apocalyptic sex wasteland." And because that description generally only draws more questions, she'll explain without needing to be prompted. "We were told all of reality had ended, and if we didn't have sex regularly we'd stop existing."

Wait, a what?

"I think I'd rather be forced to hokey-pokey around the clock than freeze my goodies off," Harley says, more than a little envious. "I'm just glad to see green again after bein' caught up in a post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland, myself."

How many post-apocalyptic worlds were there anyway? And why were they such literal death-traps?

"Frozen?"

That catches Renart's attention right away, even moreso than the post-apocalyptic part. She's made quite a few friends and acquaintances who happened to have been pulled from a frozen wasteland, and now she's curious.

"Were you in Norfinbury?"

"You heard of it?" Harley shoots Renart a surprised look. "I was for sure that place didn't get any press..."

"A bunch of people from Norfinbury have been here a little while," Renart says helpfully, raising a hand to start listing off names on her fingers. "Bucky," His name gets a tailwag, "Sherlock and John, Gabriel, Royce and Alfie, Stephen, Kid."

That isn't everyone, but it's most of them.

She recognizes most of the names. None belong to those who she'd consider friends, though the ones she knew were friendly enough.

"...Any clowns?" she has to ask, the tiniest bit of hope in her voice.

"Clowns?" Renart pauses, raising her eyebrows. That's a new one. "Not that I've seen. Friend of yours?"

"Boyfriend... Ex..." She eventually settles helplessly on: "It's complicated. He died back in N-bury. I was thinkin', maybe..."

"Oh." Her ears droop slightly. Ex-boyfriends are complicated things, she knows that very well.

"Do you want to go somewhere and talk about it?" A spooky Halloween maze might not be the best place to discuss this, and Renart glances around to see if the exit is nearby.

"Sure, yeah, I'd like that," she answers. It's their luck that the exit (or is that the entrance? was there a difference?) is just past the next corner. Harley huffs in relief. They're out. "Know a place where a gal can get a candy apple? All this fall weather's got me jonesin'."

Renart follows, half-wondering if the ease of finding the entrance-or-exit was in part due to Zephyr. Maybe, who knows. Either way she'll have to come back later to try for that whole grand prize thing again.

"Not candy apples, but there's a tree made out of chocolate that way," she gestures in one direction. "And my home has chocolate croissants and a shrub that grows macarons."

Because obviously a French foxlady is going to have magical plants growing French confectioneries.

"Chocolate tree...?" Harley looks on the verge of ugly-happy-crying, all big eyes and lip wobbles. Norfinbury didn't even have trees, let alone ones that magically grew chocolate. She remembers all too well choking down old protein bars from abandoned convenience stores in order to get her fix.

"That's so much better."

She quickens her pace in the direction Renart pointed out. She'd check out the fancy French treats after, right now she has to see this.

Well, it's good to see she has similar tastes when it comes to chocolate. Renart raises her eyebrows, but grins and nods. "Alright, it's this way."

It's only a short walk to the chocolate tree, and it truly is a chocolate tree. The bark, the leaves, all of it is made out of different varieties of chocolate. Renart gets up on her toes to snap off a leaf and start nibbling.

"The sap is chocolate liquer, too," she says helpfully.

Test Drive Meme - Autumn 2018

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