hiccup "mr. faith-in-villains" haddock iii (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragon_rider) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
aionlogs2022-08-11 02:04 am
dragon_rider) wrote in aionlogs2022-08-11 02:04 am
a single flame can spark an inferno [greentruth open log]
WHO: Any Pleroma!
WHAT: Multipurpose Log for Pleroma! Preparation and training happening alongside the Firaseri festival
WHERE: Greentruth
WHEN: Firaseri, after the newbie introduction throughout the Firebrand festival
WARNINGS: none at the moment
WHAT: Multipurpose Log for Pleroma! Preparation and training happening alongside the Firaseri festival
WHERE: Greentruth
WHEN: Firaseri, after the newbie introduction throughout the Firebrand festival
WARNINGS: none at the moment
🐉 WELCOME TO GREENTRUTH 🦕  While the first of the Aions to arrive in this generation had to traverse the misty, dangerous forests of Lohkimareen with little more than the clothes on their backs, the Aions after have seen a kinder arrival. After they've attuned to the Pleroma they are granted access to the largest settlement in the forest, Greentruth - a village where man has made its own peace with the wilderness and live freely despite the Regent's reign. Bolstered ever by the presence of their oldest Aion and guiding Visionary, Tehri, Greentruth acts as the main source of resistance agaisnt the Regent and is the safe have to all Pleroma Aions. As the new Aions find their way in Greentruth for the first time they may find an air they wouldn't suspect given the heavy conversation their seniors have brought to the table. The villagers of Greentruth are having a celebration of the Firebrand . And as wild as they prepare for the hunt, painted up and jovially amongst their fires... Perhaps for some it's not nearly as wild as the dinosaurs and flora that act between wanting to eat them or steal scraps from their trashcan. Rest assured - While the people of Greentruth take this time to celebrate and their celebrations may be infectious, there are still preparations being made for the upcoming days. I. CAMPFIRE STORIES The many communities of Lohkimareen are uproarous the night of the First Kill. While the various communities are often seen coming and going between each other, much of them gather at the central fire the celebration. A largescale feast is held in its owner that all are invited to - And if you're worried about what kind of meat it is it might be best not to ask (after all, eating dinosaurs while in Greentruth is very, very common). The night is long and the participants are energetic. They take the time regaling each other in stories, both fanciful and historic of ancient times. Fire is a keyword that is most frequent in all of them. Perhaps it's time to listen and learn of Greentruth's history? Or perhaps you - yes, you - think you can regale them better with something more. II. THE HUNT The First Kill's feast comes to a close and the villagers of Greentruth do not simply cease. They continue to go out and into the forest, decorated in paint from the firebrand, bringing back their kills - the meat, bones, and leather from each intended to last them through the months to come. For those hunters within the Pleroma Aions, perhaps it's time to get out some pent up aggression - No one will fault you for taking out a kill if it's the intended process, right? Or, perhaps, wanting to test your mettle and train in your own way you join a group of fellow Pleroma into the wilderness to find your own hunt - It's a test of survival and skill. Just... Don't eat the plans or get eaten by a plant while you're out there. III. PREPARATIONS The Firebrand festival is a time for mobilization and while some members of the Pleroma may be drawn to the hunt and the campfire, some may yet have concerns of the dawn yet approaching them. While some may make their own preparations in Godsblood, Hiccup Haddock keeps his promise of preparations in Greentruth as do any others who offer their support in preparing for the days ahead. If you're in need of armor or weapons, simply seek one of them out. Or go to the armory itself and see if Greentruth can outfit you with something for the moment - but know they usually request you bring it back as they're scarce on supplies themselves. Or perhaps you want to find ways to help yourself! In the lower area of Greentruth, in a gathering spot, any Pleroma Aion is welcome to come and help - Be it to discuss exit strategies, inquire on armor, help to make survival packs or anything in between. If you're lost in need of want to do, Hiccup will gladly put someone to task or you can ask someone to assist in what they're doing. IV. TRAINING You would think that growing up on an island where waking up to your house being on fire every day from dragons would teach Hiccup not to put the obstacle course on the ground floor of anywhere - but, again, dragons destroying everything? He's not so worried about dinosaurs either. As promised, near the roughly built and still in progress obstacle course he's been making for Rand, Hiccup can be found to help with weapons training (or any other teacher who wishes!). Characters will find swords, axes, bows and arrows, shields, and lances to be practiced with. While they're clearly ones that aren't in the best quality that Greentruth can part with for the moment they're still sharp - so be careful (no one taught him with a blunt sword and he's not about to change that). Characters will also find many targets from wood-shaped people, circle targets with increasing difficulty, and so on. The real prize of their training area is the practically set up obstacle course - Using both the land and created obstacles, the plan of the course is simple: get through the course with limited injury while "killing" kenomas and not civilians. Essentially, two different kind of targets pop up from time-to-time throughout the course. Some of them are kenoma-shaped darkness blobs and the others are gloomy-looking civilians! To "pass" you got to get through without harming a single civilian - while also getting through all the booby traps with very little injury. Some of them act as a rope trap tying you up, others like a bear trap... And then others swing logs at you or shoot an arrow at you from various directions. Occasionally, if you're acting like it's too easy, someone (Hiccup) may be encouraging some tiny dragons to flit in and out of the range of your vision to confuse you. Be careful! While you're free to test your mettle against the obstacle course as much as you want - please don't break it - you may also find a teacher to help you! Hiccup himself will be around in the mornings and afternoons for a couple of hours, but there may be just as many people around to teach you whatever you may wish to know. |
no subject
Mostly leather is acceptable. It will be more flexible.
[Metal plates between... is a good idea, actually. As long as they were kept light, and either small or jointed to keep the entire thing from becoming stiff in a way that would hinder her rising or running... His next question doesn't register as strange. It is the organ that needs the most protecting, after all.]
Here... and here.
[She had two hearts. One in her human-looking chest, auxiliary, and one in her equine chest, behind her left shoulder, the large of the pair. When it comes to her belly, however... Hayame purses her lips in thought and looks down slightly, considering. The armor she had seen war horses don had not have any plates covering the underbelly, but...]
I do not often expose it purposefully, but it is not... not in need of armor. If you can contrive a way to create some that does not chafe with my gait or clip my stride, I would consider it.
[... If he had said he made armor for horses, for other four-legged creatures, she would have taken offense. But luckily for Hiccup (and everyone else in a twenty foot radius)... as unbelievable as she finds the idea of someone creating armor for dragons in general... she can't disbelieve it, when people came from so many bizarre worlds to be here. And her image of dragons from legend is of powerful, intelligent spirits and gods, not animals or breasts she would be insulted to be compared to. So if he wasn't a liar... Fine.
To those more keen about equine behavior, it might be noticeable that she is... tense, when he moves to do the brief touching required for measurements. Uncomfortable, with the touch of his hands against her spine or dun coat. But she steels herself and allows it, her knees locking, a little twitch in the powerful muscles of her rump, her tail held stiff. She tries to think of... accent color. (Had anyone ever told her she might look good in something... when actually addressing her? The stablemaster's women had talked to him, amongst themselves, when she was dressed and prettied for Exhibition Day in fine robes and formal hairstyles, and she had heard such things then, but... about her. Not to her. If she is to act as if she were accustomed to being treated well-)]
... Dark purple may do well.
[... She doesn't know, if it would look good on her. She shouldn't care about such things, either, it is so disdainfully womanly to do either, but-]
... If you give me your papers, for a moment. I can attempt a drawing.
[What was she supposed to do, when given the option to have... something for her?]
no subject
[ He trails off, more thoughtful than otherwise. He's not really intending to imply she'll come back again, but as someone who's always looking on to improve on his work it's only a natural follow-up train of thought. He wants to see if he can make lightweight armor, or learn to in some way... Maybe they don't have his kind of dragons here, but they do have magic. Surely there's some way.
Hiccup chooses not to write down the fact she has two hearts but nods along in understanding. He's glad he understood as much and thought to ask - it would be more disastrous had he not. The first heart would be covered by the other person she's choosing, then, and should, fortunately, be assumed by most to be her only one - It's in part why he doesn't write the fact down. Given he carries the journal in his own clothing, it's not something he wants to chance someone getting sensitive information if he's ever captured. He taps his writing utensil at the thought: ] If we use plates that'll make movement easier... For both the shoulder and the stomach - but you're right, I'm not sure it'll be the most comfortable. But we do need straps to meet across it, so maybe something like...
[ He's rambling to himself, so he stops abruptly. There's no point in going further on the line of it. It's a matter of changing out the base that will connect the top and the straps on the bottom, he'll see if he can't make some kind of removable panel for the prototype. It's something to consider.
The good and the bad news are two things: Hiccup would agree and value dragons as amazing and powerful creatures! He also will. Secondly, horses aren't really used in Greentruth so his only experience with them is in Godsblood. He is, unsurprisingly, not familiar with equine creatures but he can at least tell she's somewhat tense. He knows he would be, in the same situation. He doesn't like squirming under someone's touch, but in this case it's a necessary evil. One he tries to be polite and quick about. Only stopping to write measurements down in the notebook and turning back. Something he's doing when she comments back - Something that seems more measured or unsure? He can't tell, but he doesn't miss a beat anyway:]
Yeah, do you think? We just started seeing it more in Berk. It'll definitely be a color that symbolizes strength one day, I think.
[ He likes it, but then it was better to paint his house red and dark purple than pure black. It looked nicer that way (and was likely not as hot). It's still a new pigment for them, brought about by the dragons more than not. But then paint was still something expensive, especially for clothes back on Berk.
He turns his attention forward, to the woman, then when she makes her request. He's not sure what but he thinks there's some hesitation there he's better to not ask about. So he doesn't, flipping the page over once more and offering it to her without hesitation: ]
Here you go. Put as much you as you want on it. Anything that means something to you or will be useful - I can work with it. I was always taught that a warrior will die in their armor and so they should dress for Valhalla.
[ Which doesn't really apply here, truly, without knowing if there is a Valhalla. But he has to believe there is, for his own sake and the sake of his people. It's why the clothing and armor he's weaved for himself still bears the crest of Berk on it now. He has to have faith they're out there in some way. Valhalla it had to be. ]
no subject
A color that symbolizes strength.
Perhaps it is pathetic, that she should be so pleased to hear something like that. It came from a veritable strange, not someone she respected or knew well, but even still... There is a part of her that feels a surge of pride that the color was selected for strength, something she has chased her entire life, rather than something like her beauty or elegance. For him to then speak of warriors dying in their armor...
Is this someone else amongst the Pleroma who finally made sense? It has been so long with but one who she felt almost understood the way of life she had always considered the only way, who respected the traditions and practice she valued, but- No, to hope was only to know disappointment, she should just-
Take the paper, carefully in both her hands. Grip the writing utensil... wrong, as only someone mostly unfamiliar with writing could, but it worked decently enough as she begins to sketch the vague shape of a jinba. It could not be said by... perhaps anyone, that Hayame was a good artist. But she at least manages through her sketch to convey the sense of the armor she was used to seeing on war horses. It seemed to be multiple panels bound together with cords that covered from "waist" to rump, complete with the handles she'd mentioned, a girth and rear leg straps to hold it in place...
Her hand pauses.]
... Are you skilled at embossing?
[Anything that means something to her...]
no subject
Which are just as important and keeps those seem gears running as he hands over the notebook - He leans forward at first to try to glance over her shoulder at them, but his leg creaks and he shifts back to a more neutral stance. When she pauses he's almost certain he's going to fairly snap at her for it, but she doesn't. The question is only a slight surprise, not strange in the means, and he nods with a wave of his hand: ]
Skilled enough. I've been making my own supplies since I was a kid.
[ Not at all a lie - though mostly in the beginning the stuff was made because he couldn't tell anyone about riding a dragon or the like. So he shrugs, ] We Berkians are skilled at most household things, kind of have to be with the whole village burning down all the time thing...
[ Not that Hayame really cares about that, but it's still a point Hiccup chooses to make: ] Give me your best shot, I like a good challenge.
[ He says as if the village burning down wasn't usually a challenge. Which. Maybe it wasn't. ]
no subject
... I do not know if it is a challenge.
[She's never interacted directly with leather workers, she does not know what sort of embossing would be the more difficult to do, but... Anything that means something to her. She had very little. She had been a possession, not a possessor, but... even though it was given to her by humans, nothing she had chosen...]
Then, this... if it could be embossed somewhere upon the leather...
[She "writes" something... no, even though it is text, the way she puts it on the paper is more like drawing, something she knew and was replicating by shape rather than actual knowledge of which strokes formed the characters. Either way, it ends up with "Hayame" (速魚) in the corner of the page.]
This is my name.
[Maybe that's all she had left. It was still something.]
no subject
...Not that she wasn't still any of that. Or was (he won't think in was especially about Astrid and Toothless). But there is something there he can appreciate about the nameless woman he can't quite place.
So when she shows him something - A name that's as much strokes as it is picturesque. Not something they'd use on Berk. They were a symbol of people on the Barbaric Archipelago, finding dragons that symbolized their village's strength. But he thinks he can understand some in this matter even if he doesn't fully understand it. He nods, quietly before decisively, helpfully deciding to ask:]
... So, what is your name? Does it have a meaning?
[ Because even if he does know it's far better introduction wise to let the other say what it is. ]
no subject
Part of the reason that she has become such a local legend, of sorts, amongst the rebels of Greentruth, is precisely because they didn't know her name. She has been stingy with sharing it to those she does not respect, and stingier still with respecting. A part of her didn't want to be known, to know anyone else, because to do so would be to accept that this is truly her fate...
But he is doing her a service, and even asks... He understands names should have meaning.]
... It is read "Hayame".
[Finally, she answers, as if she knew what she were talking about. Her groom had explained the meaning to her at her naming when she had turned three, and she still remembered.]
It means "quick fish".
[And, added quickly, as if sure she will be misunderstood or mocked, if the meaning was taken literally,]
That I might be as fast and skilled as a fish is when moving through the water.
no subject
He's thus pleased when she does grace him with it, grateful even. Turns it in his mind. Haddock is also a kind of fish, so in that sense it's really not that weird of a name for him - He has no place to judge in names, afterall. Which he thinks, minutely, that she might think he will when she tacks on. So he feels obligated to say: ]
It's a good name. Way better than Hiccup, for sure. But my people aren't exactly known for their good naming conventions.
[ Given their tribe is also called the Hairy Hooligans, why ever would it be. At least it's half an introduction in its own right - a willingness to let Hayame find his own name stupid or silly. Because it's still, rightfully, he pretty stupid name even to him. He thinks about it and moves to grab the pencil. Sketches a simplified version of a river and a fish jumping over it: ]
You can say no, but if you ever want something more, you know symbol-wise - What about something like this?
no subject
She looks down at the sketch on the paper that he shows to her, her lips thinning into a displeased line.]
I do not have a crest. ... And I would not choose a fish if I did.
[She'd thought her understanding made that clear... It was a metaphor, nothing else! (And only nobility and great warriors bore kamon.) She doesn't want to actually be associated with things people ate, just... how quick they were in water. Her brother's name would make a far more poetic image, "the spread of the evening", so many others... "the wind in the pines", "little plum", "sacred fields", "small skylark"...
Which brings her to... the far more important question.]
... Why is your name "Hiccup"?
[That was. Uniquely unfortunate.]
no subject
[ It doesn't sound like she cares so much, but he's... Very much a symbolic person as it were. Everything always had more meanings to him, and in a way he wants her to find something for herself. Truly hers? He wonders about the name, if it's simply because it's something that she's made her own - Or maybe he projects some there, in that way.
But he's distracted from her question - A fair one from the people here. Heck, maybe even on the archipelago where there are so many far more normal names. Or maybe not. He laughs, sheepish and more to himself as he grips the journal and pulls it back - using it as a means to turn away. ]
Well, you know... By our traditions parents name their children in a way that's supposed to scare off the gnomes and trolls. [ A breath: ] And then sometimes they choose to name you because you're the runt of the litter. So you know, two very extreme measures and all. Opposite sides of the coin, but I'm still pretty sure Hiccup is better than Snotlout.
[ He realizes it makes it sound like a bad name and maybe once it was - It's still a name that people make fun of if they don't know it and well... It still has its own meaning: ] But you know, it's not all bad.
We've always been known for what a Viking is - stubborn, strong, angry, larger than mountains. [ Metaphorically and clearly he's well... Not. ] I struggled a long time to be the perfect Viking for my father but then I learned - hiccups don't have to be a bad thing. We're strong in our own ways. There are things we can do others can't because we look at things in ways no one had before.
And just because the world sees us one way doesn't mean we have to see ourselves that way. Why, I'd say, because people would look down on us that pushed us even more to show them they were wrong.
[ He shifts at some point, from speaking of all hiccups in the present to in the past. Choosing and knowing that the boy who hated his name had learned better of it. Even if it doesn't really change anything at all.
But Hayame probably doesn't really care about all, he rambled, so he's quick to add with a flourish of his hands: ] Anyway, that's what it means to be a hiccup.
no subject
... She also might not be an intrinsically creative person, but. Her lips thin, she struggles for a response that isn't simply another rejection of the idea, but. Thankfully he answers her question.
And thankfully he wasn't named Snotlout? What misfortune...
Though it is not her culture, Hayame doesn't... not understand what he says. So he was named not with a name to frighten monsters and beasts that might steal children from their beds, but for being stunted or small at birth. Another misfortune, for a child to be marked so for life. She thinks of Hiruko, the legendary "leech child" of the tales they tell of the beginning of the world...
She also understands at some point that this man is no longer talking about just his name, but his philosophy. He is doing her a service, and so she listens as respectfully as she was capable, her tail swishing slightly behind her dun rump and a thumb rubbing into her wrist, wondering how scholars wrote like that. (By not writing like she had, that was how.) But even when he has finished, concluded his speech...
Hayame is not exactly comfortable with emotion, with knowing others in a way that opened them up to knowing her. She could say something meaningful, perhaps sympathetic, but what she goes with is--]
I would be shocked to see the men of your village, if you are a runt.
[Perhaps the silence and pause before she spoke would at least indicate she had understood well enough, even if she did not pursue it further, instead holding up a hand to the level of where her breasts might be if she did not bind them so hatefully tight.]
The two-legged men of my world are rarely so tall.
[5'5" was considered tall amongst humans, though she'd met one or two who hulked larger. This man had nearly two heads on the average man.]