farsickooc | Test Drive Meme #1

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*test drive meme

Test Drive Meme #1

Welcome to Fernweh's Test Drive Meme! Do you have an interest in joining the game? Need to make sure the setting works for you and your character first? Or have you made the decision to join the game and need fresh samples for your application? Whatever the reason, feel free to use the scenarios however you wish.

You know what to do! If you don’t, just follow the instructions.

How To Play:

→ Comment with the character you would like to test drive (duplicates are allowed)
→ Choose a scenario or start your own
→ Tag around
→ Have fun!

SCENARIOS

01. Arrival

You have been sitting and staring at the sign above you for some time now, lost in a blur of swirling questions that seems to start with how you ended up there; in a place (and time, maybe) that you know you weren't an hour earlier. Or maybe you're an old hand at this by now and you've figured out that this is simply another stop that the multiverse bus has made. So why not get off and look around a little?

At any rate, the sign points you towards the direction of a place called "Gazin", which looks like a decent-sized town from where you stand. There has to be someone who can explain.

02. Around Town

So, you've settled in. Well, mostly. At least you know where things are without taking too many wrong turns and ending up in the less desirable areas of town. But now you can go about your day. Visit the market, check out the local shops or have a drink with a new friend at one of several inns.

03. Exploring

You've heard people talk about some pretty interesting places and now you're itching to get out and find them. Be careful though, there are creatures and monsters out there that will be pretty interested in meeting you and may wish to have you for its next meal. Better take someone along. And maybe some weapons, too. Make sure one is made of silver.

04. Monsters

So, you managed to find that location you were looking for. Good for you! Only.. it seems you've also found one of the native creatures to the area and you now face to face with it. Um. Good luck! We'll see you when you get back!

Hopefully.

05. Celebration

It won't take long for you to figure out that people of Gazin are, all in all, pretty happy people. It shows, too, when a seemingly quiet evening suddenly bursts into a random, impromptu party to celebrate whatever good fortune has touched a person. Name Days, good harvests, betrothals, weddings, or just life in general.

Sing, dance, drink and be happy, too!

06. Wild Card!

Want something else? Feel free to choose your own adventure or mix and match to create something completely different!

NAVIGATION

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The seller amiably hands over a decent-sized sack when they hear a clatter, which has them both glance over (and a few others). Xue Yang's expression flicks from the charming smile, to slight calculation, and back to the grin she's used to.

"Sect Sister!" Laying on the delight as he draws that persona over him. He even bows slightly to the seller before sauntering over to her, slinging the sack over a shoulder. Well. She hasn't attacked, so maybe he can turn this to an advantage.

"Did you want an apple, Sister?" He reaches into the bag to pluck one out and holds it out in offer. She'll see the calculation in his eyes, in his sharp smile, but he hasn't actually had time to do anything to the fruit. Should be safe enough, right?

Sect Sister. Wen Qing's only small mercy is that she isn't a smiley person even on the best day, so her blank face is perfectly acceptable to pass as inconspicuous. Well, that is her second small mercy, the first being that she has a lot of experience with blank faces under adverse circumstances thanks to their Sect Leader.

"Xue Yang." She bows to him as formally as she may have if they had met in the halls of the palace in Nightless City, where composure has always been the best line of defense. Under her blank face, she takes note of his sharp smile and feels her unease sharpen in turn as she turns her eyes to the apple so innocently offered to her.

"Thank you," she says, taking the apple though she makes no move to bite into it. Once, she would not have worried. But now that she has been branded a traitor, thrown into her own sect's dungeon, he may think her fair game for his amusements. "I'm glad to hear you have settled in well."

She needs to warn Jiang Cheng. A Jiang will definitely be fair game.

His eyes flicker a little at her suspicion. Xue Yang understands it, of course. But it still has him frown, almost a pout. Then he rolls his eyes with a short little laugh, and ignores the formal bow. Even when under the Wen's roof, he only ever bowed to Wen Ruohan.

Even when he's being nice, people judge him. So why bother?

But they're playing the game of being polite, and so, taking an apple for himself and biting into it with a challenging little look her way, he nods. "It's good to see you looking well." Well. He doesn't actually care.

But Xiao Xingchen is around here somewhere. How long can he maintain this ruse, with people who know him and can see...?

She takes note of the disrespect his refusal to bow represents and then shrugs it off, Wen Ruohan's favorite attack dog poses far greater dangers than bad manners.

Determined to keep her own manners impeccable and give no reason to find fault, she nods agreeably. "Thank you. I have been lacking in friendly company from home, I look forward to working with my sect brother henceforth."

She eyes the apple again and takes a small bite, still feeling dubious about it on principle even as she chews and tastes nothing wrong with it. "My foremost concern is to return. Do you have any leads yet?"

The smile she gets for finally taking a bite of his gifted apple is real enough, as he's mollified. Xue Yang resists the urge to roll his eyes again at her vaunted manners, and words that he's fairly sure aren't true. Lies here and there, everywhere. At least he keeps his word.

But she knows this.

He takes another bite out of his apple. Considering. Calculating. Always calculating. And he goes oddly serious, despite his lips still curved in that sharp smile of his, just enough she should recognize just how serious he is, for how rare it is. "You can count on me, Sect Sister, if I can count on you."

The serious tone passes quickly, as such moods tend never to last long with Xue Yang. "I'll start!" Cheerful. Flippant. "It seems we wish to be elsewhere, and this is where we end up." As if that's the best thing in the world, ever!

And for Xue Yang? It kind of is.

"I know," she responds curtly, her own tone far from happy. Her brows are furrowing in distress she can't quite hide any longer and she looks away, though her chin remains thrust forward in dignified pride.

She had so badly wanted to be somewhere other than that awful cell... and then she was but her brother remained behind. If she knows one thing, it is that there is nothing she will ever regret as much as making that wish.

She grits her teeth and inhales deeply, gathering her determination as she meets his eyes, hers holding a challenge of their own. "You can count on me, as long as you will help me find a way back." If he ever gets in the way of that, all bets are off.

Ah. His eyes flicker as he understands, abruptly. Her brother isn't here. That is something he understands.

Xue Yang doesn't look away, allowing her to see that he does understand. Once he's sure she's seen it, he does something he never has. Not to her. He nods, short and sharp. Then bows, formal enough that this deal of theirs is acknowledged as a promise.

But when he straightens, it's with a little laugh and he cocks his head, inviting her to walk with him. "I have a story to tell you, shijie."

When he bows, she stands there stunned and wide-eyed. She understands the meaning of the gesture she just... It is hard to process and even harder to trust in the flicker of irrational hope it gives her. It would be so nice not to have to carry all the weight by herself.

She finds herself in a far more charitable mood when he invites her to walk with him, and only gives him a mildly suspicious look when he mentions his story. "What kind of story?" she prompts, walking at his side. "A story about home from my future, I take it?"

Xue Yang picks the bag of apples back up from where he'd let them drop for the bow. Swings it back over a shoulder with a shrug at her stunned reaction. Point made.

He leads her off, away from the crowd, ignoring the milder suspicious look she levels his way. Her mention of the story being about her future reminds him of rumors, and what he's been told but has dismissed as irrelevant. So she knows, at least something.

"I could tell you that story, if you want. It just wouldn't be one of my best." An offer, but he doesn't expect she'll take him up on it. "The one I want to tell you is different." And it's only because he's giving an honest effort, now, that he doesn't simply launch into his story. He waits.

She hums her acknowledgment of the offer but no, it's not a story she wants to hear from him. If she is going to hear about her own future, she would want to hear it from a more reliable source, or at least one less skilled at twisting words.

Remembering her own apple, she takes another bite from it. "Tell me the story you offered. I would like to hear it."

And maybe there won't be a story at all, she muses, for she has noticed that he is leading her away from onlookers - witnesses? But to back off would be to admit fear.

It would be easy to take her out away from everyone, but instead, he loops them around, keeping to the edges of the celebrations. But where they won't be casually overheard on their unhurried walk.

And just as expected she declines his offer. He absently tosses his apple up into the air (better than playing with his knife with someone potentially twitchy, and he's trying) a few times before starting.

"The start of it you might even know," he says with a grin. Then his voice turns almost sing-song, playful. "Once there was a boy who attached himself to a powerful clan for revenge. He made himself useful, doing as ordered, with the understanding he could eventually repay another clan's act of cruelty." Speaking, of course, of the Wen clan itself, against the Chang clan.

"He was eventually allowed to do as he wished to the cruel clan, and they died. But he was already well known, and a few self-righteous cultivators came to stop him. They captured him and took him to another major clan for judgement, where his life was spared. But he was held, for a little while until he was set free." Xiao Xingchen. Song Zichen. Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji. Jiang Wanyin. Nie Huaisang.

Jin Guangyao.

"But after he got free, he eventually got into trouble again." Because of course he did. "And people came after him. Attacked him, then left him for dead." None of this seems to bother him, judging by his tone. He pauses, glancing at her as he takes a bite of his half-forgotten apple. He conveniently skips the part where he destroyed Baixue Temple.

"There's more, if you're not bored?"

No names. It's one thing she takes note of immediately. Maybe it is personal whimsy for his fairytale-like retelling but it also leaves her at a disadvantage, giving her just enough to make educated guesses about the story he is telling - if at all - and not enough to take anything for fact. Not enough to seek out others and confirm anything.

Xue Yang has always been smart, in his own way. Stupid people didn't survive in the Nightless City, not unless they were Wen Ruohan's own blood anyway.

"I want to hear more of this story." And since he may take offense to such a curt response to his storytelling skills, she adds, "it is a riveting story, isn't it?" Another bite.

No. No names. Not yet. Xue Yang's eyes flicker a little, listening, thinking. Then smirks with a little humph of breath. A hint of a chuckle.

"Along came a blind man, and a blind girl, and the blind man picked the half-dead man, carried him to a nearby village, and tended his wounds. The blind man didn't ask how the other man was wounded, or even his name." There's a strange tension to him now, mostly displayed in how he toys with his half-eaten apple. "The man eventually healed, but stayed with the two blind people. Doing all sorts of things he'd never bothered to do before. They didn't expect him to stay, but years went by and the blind man never asked who his new friend was. Jokes were told over that year, and the blind man's smiles and laughter became the most important thing in the new friend's life."

His grin sharpens, despite the important nature of this story. "The blind man was the first person to ever be kind to the other man. But it wasn't meant to last, as the blind man's old friend," Song Zichen, "eventually came looking for him. There was a fight, the man cut out the blind man's friend's tongue...and the blind man came to safe him, unknowingly killing his own old friend."

The apple goes up into the air again, but when it comes down, the fingers around it are tight and tense. Flexing. He's come this far in what he's told her. He has to finish. He has to tell it all. She has to understand just how far he will go...just for one man's smile.

"A day passes, and the blind man finally learns who he's been living with for years. But the man has a new weapon, and the weapon is the blind man's friend's corpse. The fierce corpse is identified, and the blind man is informed just who he'd killed." This part... actually hurts. His hand starts to shake, but he ignores it. "The blind man...uses his own sword to slit his throat."

He looks back at her now, grin gone. Playful tone, gone. His voice is quieter now, deadly serious.

"Xiao Xingchen is here, Wen Qing. He does not yet know that last day or two. I will do whatever it takes to keep him happy."

She listens, attentively and with growing unease as the story nears its climax. And then there it is, the snake biting just as snakes always will in the end. She frowns a little to herself, wondering if he regrets it - and also wondering what the point of his story is going to be. There must be a punch line to it, as agitated as he has been getting.

When he gets to it, it still manages to take her by surprise, though she would have believed herself braced for everything.

She simply looks at him, her eyes wide and blessedly blank as she tries to process this.

This mostly being that she is so very close to becoming a dead woman for what she knows about Xue Yang.

"I understand," she says finally. She does understand. She may not understand what game he is playing, or what feelings he has for his... lover? Toy? Amusement? It's none of her business what it is. The only business she has is knowing that it isn't her business. "I understand," she says again, her voice firmer. She meets his eyes. "I don't intend to die here."

Except this snake hadn't meant to bite Xiao Xingchen. Not in the end. Not...to that end.

There's a strange almost unhappy frown that appears when she tells him she doesn't plan to die here. Then he snorts, brushing it away with an annoyed shake of his head. "He'll find out who I am." A careless note in his voice.

Then back to a sharper tone. "What he cannot know is who he killed." He doesn't reach for dagger or sword, hands staying occupied with the sack of apples and the half eaten one that keeps getting squeezed in agitation.

He looks away, breaking the heavy stare between them. "...Help me, and you will have nothing to fear from me."

She doesn't respond right away, for even though she has no choice here, it is still a costly promise. When the truth eventually comes out, it might fall back on her. And she really hates lying. She hates it, hates going back to the half-truths and careful lies and machinations she had thought left behind in the Nightless City. More importantly, there is a fine but important distinction between helping Xue Yang cover up the truth and simply not sharing it with him.

But she had meant it. She doesn't intend to die here.

She looks down at his hand, fingers squeezing his half-eaten apple, taking note of his agitation. Maybe this deal will even be for real.

"I will have nothing to fear from you," she agrees, her voice appropriately solemn with the promise they are making, "and neither will mine." After all, if her brother follows her here, she won't see him endangered again. Then, as an afterthought, she adds, "Sect Brother."

Xue Yang gives her the time to think. He knows he asks...a lot. Being aware then sitting on impatience to give people the time to think of how to react is a new, frustrating thing for him. But he is trying.

And his patience is rewarded, earning her a surprised little smile, and a nod. Her brother. Of course. He feels...strangely. Almost lighter? With this step.

His smile is almost childish. But his words are far from it. "Neither of you do, Sect Sister." Either he will help her return to Wen Ning, or he will somehow find a way to bring Wen Ning here to her.

The tension seeps out of her body, her rigid posture relaxing to something far more natural. There's not quite an answering smile on her face but a new friendly softness to her eyes as she now regards Xue Yang with the eyes of looking at her ally - however tentative this alliance may be, but she doesn't expect permanence out of her life anymore.

"Then let us return to the feast," she says and turns, but she is waiting now for him to join her, slightly turned towards him in expectation. "I believe I saw a stand with some kind of fried dough pastries. It smelled good."

The change in her expression, how she clearly invites him to join her in returning back to the feast...a pointed mention of delicious-smelling pastries. Perhaps it's another good step toward...what. Penance? Revenge on himself?

His chuckle is wry, barely audible but he tosses the battered remains of the apple away before stepping back to her side to walk at her pace. So what if he makes a strange image, walking with a sack over a shoulder beside a woman dressed far better. "So far they haven't tried to inflate the prices here too much," he informs her, mouth curling back into something similar to his usual expression.

But the majority of the bite is gone.

She actually relaxes enough to chuckle a little at that, albeit a very weak one that is stifled by how uncertain she still feels around Xue Yang. Still, it feels so terribly good to no longer be without allies here - almost like she's finding solid ground under her feet again. How strange it should be this man of all Wen disciples making her feel so.

"Oh, I'm sure they will catch on soon enough that we don't know what reasonable prices around here are, and then they will proceed to rob us blind."

She approached a stall that smelled very good of spices and wine, selling pears cooked in honeyed wine with ginger and cinnamon.

"Do you want some? My treat."

Making Wen Qing chuckle is a win in and of itself, and Xue Yang knows it. It makes him grin with delight, then laugh at her return.

"My usual method at dealing with that would have you scold me, wouldn't it?" And Xingchen, if that naive perfect man knew about it.

He can't help, though, staring at the really delicious-smelling treats and her generous offer has him blink at her with a flash of confusion before he nods. Only Xingchen has ever really bought or given him anything.

"...Thank you." Somewhat awkwardly said, but he means it.

She gives a small nod in acknowledgment of his thanks. She doesn't want to make a big deal out of it but she is well aware neither of them is the kind of person to whom thanking someone comes easily or often.

Maybe they can really make this unlikely partnership work.

"Eat," she just tells him, "you don't even know yet if it's good." It smells good, though, so she starts digging into her own serving and watches her companion thoughtfully.

Believe it or not, this has actually turned into an enjoyable evening. This place just keeps getting stranger and stranger.

His shoulders shake with more laughter, this time a bit more suppressed, but he obediently sets to eating every last bite of the treat. Which...really should say all it needs to.

Yes. A very good start, he decides.

She's better company than he remembers, too.

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Test Drive Meme #1

Because that's what he does~

Re: Because that's what he does~

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