maia drazhar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goblinemperor) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2018-07-06 08:57 pm
goblinemperor) wrote in riverviewlogs2018-07-06 08:57 pm
{ open } anyplace is better
who: maia + anyone!
what: maia getting settled in & catch-all
when: july
where: the skytram, a grocery store, the hospice care center, & various places
warnings: v. brief ritual suicide mention, will otherwise add as needed
[ Maia thinks that he has a bit of an unfair advantage, compared to many of the others who were pulled through the portal into this utterly unknown, baffling, big, scary world: he's been through this before. Not here on this moon, no. But he'd had his life turned completely upside-down in the middle of the night, and had been thrust into a situation he was entirely unprepared for and had no choice but to accept. He'd had the eyes of the world on him, then, and the hopes and safety of a kingdom of people weighing on his shoulders. If he'd crashed and burned, he wouldn't have been the only one to suffer: the consequences would have spread like ripples, hurting countless people he'd never met or even heard of.
So, by comparison, being brought to this place, where his mistakes are entirely his own, where the little mistakes he makes along the way are not being observed, scrutinized, tallied, and taken as evidence about his own ineptitude (or worse, taken as evidence for the overall inferiority of people with goblin blood). Of course, there are still people relying on him. He cannot stay in this place forever, but must merely bide his time here until the portal aligns so he may be returned home. If he is not, if he never returns, the kingdom will be plunged into chaos. Idra will be made into a child emperor, ruled over by regents and in grave peril. His nohecharei will commit revethvoran - dear Cala, and Beshelar, dead because they could not protect him. Csevet would survive - he is adept at that - but Maia does not think it arrogance to assume he would mourn. So would his tiny cousins, Ino and Mireän; they had already lost their father, their mother, their grandfather and other uncles.
He has to survive, to get back to them, to steer the Elflands towards a kinder, brighter, better future. But in the meantime... in the meantime, he has been granted a little peace. A little privacy. A little respite, away from the Court, away from the burdens of being emperor. Some god had answered a prayer he did not even realize had grown so strong in his heart and had given him this interval of time away from everything he had known. And he intends to make the most of it. ]
1. SkyTram
[ Maia had spent some of the money given to him upon his arrival to purchase a pass that allows him unlimited access to the SkyTram. During the orientation, when they had assigned him his job, one of the Guards had taken pity on him and she had explained that the tram was the best way for him to get from the communal housing to where he worked.
He does not start his training at work until next week, but Maia wants to make sure he knows that route, that he will be capable of navigating the way on his own when that day comes. So, feeling dizzy with nervousness and excitement, he boards the train at the stop closes to the Community Housing and sits in an empty seat. His eyes are as round as coins, and he has to re-balance himself when the train leaves the station. It moves a lot faster than he'd expected. Maia grips the metal bar in front of the seat he is in, looking rather like a startled cat: his ears low, whole body tense as he assesses the situation. This is fine. This is okay. He can do this. ]
2. Groceries
[ Thanks to the kindness of a few strangers, Maia finds his way to an establishment where he can buy food to prepare for himself. He walks in, looking around, observing what others are doing. The majority of people seem to be carrying small baskets, like the ones he sees stacked by the door. Easy enough to figure that out. He picks one up, tucks it under his arm, and braves the aisles.
Copying others is only going to get him so far, though. Maia has never cooked a meal, never fed himself, in his entire life. Even at Edonomee, there had been a cook. Preparing food for himself had never been an option offered to Maia. And, daunted as he is by the shelves and shelves and shelves of unfamiliar foods, he starts to smile a little. He finds, upon inspection, that many of the foods come in packages which have tiny, printed writing on them, bearing instructions. He might know nothing of cooking, but he could follow instructions.
That doesn't mean he has heard of any of these dishes. Feeling a surge of bravery, he lifts a box, or bag, or container, and asks someone perusing a nearby shelf: ]
Pardon me, but may we inquire... have you ever eaten this?
3. Moonstone Hospice (for Beverly)
[ Maia shows up for his first day full of determination. He has never had a job before (unless being the emperor of all the Elflands counts), and he knows that Beshelar and Csevet and the rest of them would see it as entirely beneath him, but he has his heart set on doing it properly. When the people at his orientation had asked him questions about his life and his abilities, Maia had been sure they would place him in some leadership role, some smaller-scale version of being a ruler. But instead, they had offered him this: a position where he could spend time helping to care for people who were ill, and suffering. People who had been ill for a very long time, some of whom might be dying.
People like his mother.
Despite all the years that have passed, his chest still aches, thinking of her. He'd grown up at her side, loving her with every ounce of himself, doing everything he could to cheer her, to comfort her. She had only been a few years older than he is, now, when she had died. But there were others like her. People in pain, people who were separated from their homelands and their families. People who wanted a kind hand to hold, a listening ear to tell stories to.
His job, he'd been told, came with a week's worth of afternoon training sessions, from doctor volunteers. He wasn't going to be providing medical care, but needed to know the basics about some things to do his job properly. Maia doesn't disagree - he knows just how ignorant he is about all the advanced technology that exists in this place, for the treatment of ill people. So he arrives early, hair in the neatest, tightest braided bun he could manage on his own, wearing the scrubs he'd been instructed to buy, nervous but ready to make a good impression and learn.
Maia comes up to the front desk, bows (he's still got a lot to learn), and asks: ]
Good afternoon. We were told we would be working here. There is- our training is meant to start today?
4. [ Either post a starter of your own or come plot with me on plurk for something else! ]
what: maia getting settled in & catch-all
when: july
where: the skytram, a grocery store, the hospice care center, & various places
warnings: v. brief ritual suicide mention, will otherwise add as needed
[ Maia thinks that he has a bit of an unfair advantage, compared to many of the others who were pulled through the portal into this utterly unknown, baffling, big, scary world: he's been through this before. Not here on this moon, no. But he'd had his life turned completely upside-down in the middle of the night, and had been thrust into a situation he was entirely unprepared for and had no choice but to accept. He'd had the eyes of the world on him, then, and the hopes and safety of a kingdom of people weighing on his shoulders. If he'd crashed and burned, he wouldn't have been the only one to suffer: the consequences would have spread like ripples, hurting countless people he'd never met or even heard of.
So, by comparison, being brought to this place, where his mistakes are entirely his own, where the little mistakes he makes along the way are not being observed, scrutinized, tallied, and taken as evidence about his own ineptitude (or worse, taken as evidence for the overall inferiority of people with goblin blood). Of course, there are still people relying on him. He cannot stay in this place forever, but must merely bide his time here until the portal aligns so he may be returned home. If he is not, if he never returns, the kingdom will be plunged into chaos. Idra will be made into a child emperor, ruled over by regents and in grave peril. His nohecharei will commit revethvoran - dear Cala, and Beshelar, dead because they could not protect him. Csevet would survive - he is adept at that - but Maia does not think it arrogance to assume he would mourn. So would his tiny cousins, Ino and Mireän; they had already lost their father, their mother, their grandfather and other uncles.
He has to survive, to get back to them, to steer the Elflands towards a kinder, brighter, better future. But in the meantime... in the meantime, he has been granted a little peace. A little privacy. A little respite, away from the Court, away from the burdens of being emperor. Some god had answered a prayer he did not even realize had grown so strong in his heart and had given him this interval of time away from everything he had known. And he intends to make the most of it. ]
1. SkyTram
[ Maia had spent some of the money given to him upon his arrival to purchase a pass that allows him unlimited access to the SkyTram. During the orientation, when they had assigned him his job, one of the Guards had taken pity on him and she had explained that the tram was the best way for him to get from the communal housing to where he worked.
He does not start his training at work until next week, but Maia wants to make sure he knows that route, that he will be capable of navigating the way on his own when that day comes. So, feeling dizzy with nervousness and excitement, he boards the train at the stop closes to the Community Housing and sits in an empty seat. His eyes are as round as coins, and he has to re-balance himself when the train leaves the station. It moves a lot faster than he'd expected. Maia grips the metal bar in front of the seat he is in, looking rather like a startled cat: his ears low, whole body tense as he assesses the situation. This is fine. This is okay. He can do this. ]
2. Groceries
[ Thanks to the kindness of a few strangers, Maia finds his way to an establishment where he can buy food to prepare for himself. He walks in, looking around, observing what others are doing. The majority of people seem to be carrying small baskets, like the ones he sees stacked by the door. Easy enough to figure that out. He picks one up, tucks it under his arm, and braves the aisles.
Copying others is only going to get him so far, though. Maia has never cooked a meal, never fed himself, in his entire life. Even at Edonomee, there had been a cook. Preparing food for himself had never been an option offered to Maia. And, daunted as he is by the shelves and shelves and shelves of unfamiliar foods, he starts to smile a little. He finds, upon inspection, that many of the foods come in packages which have tiny, printed writing on them, bearing instructions. He might know nothing of cooking, but he could follow instructions.
That doesn't mean he has heard of any of these dishes. Feeling a surge of bravery, he lifts a box, or bag, or container, and asks someone perusing a nearby shelf: ]
Pardon me, but may we inquire... have you ever eaten this?
3. Moonstone Hospice (for Beverly)
[ Maia shows up for his first day full of determination. He has never had a job before (unless being the emperor of all the Elflands counts), and he knows that Beshelar and Csevet and the rest of them would see it as entirely beneath him, but he has his heart set on doing it properly. When the people at his orientation had asked him questions about his life and his abilities, Maia had been sure they would place him in some leadership role, some smaller-scale version of being a ruler. But instead, they had offered him this: a position where he could spend time helping to care for people who were ill, and suffering. People who had been ill for a very long time, some of whom might be dying.
People like his mother.
Despite all the years that have passed, his chest still aches, thinking of her. He'd grown up at her side, loving her with every ounce of himself, doing everything he could to cheer her, to comfort her. She had only been a few years older than he is, now, when she had died. But there were others like her. People in pain, people who were separated from their homelands and their families. People who wanted a kind hand to hold, a listening ear to tell stories to.
His job, he'd been told, came with a week's worth of afternoon training sessions, from doctor volunteers. He wasn't going to be providing medical care, but needed to know the basics about some things to do his job properly. Maia doesn't disagree - he knows just how ignorant he is about all the advanced technology that exists in this place, for the treatment of ill people. So he arrives early, hair in the neatest, tightest braided bun he could manage on his own, wearing the scrubs he'd been instructed to buy, nervous but ready to make a good impression and learn.
Maia comes up to the front desk, bows (he's still got a lot to learn), and asks: ]
Good afternoon. We were told we would be working here. There is- our training is meant to start today?
4. [ Either post a starter of your own or come plot with me on plurk for something else! ]
no subject
If it's easier, you can just call me Alex. Everyone does anyway.
[Well, most people, save her boyfriend when he's winding her up, honestly. But that's a them sort of thing, versus how Alex is like with everyone else in Riverview. Thankfully, talking with Vikings and the like means that Alex actually has a fairly decent frame of reference for trying to describe her job to people who probably aren't familiar with a reporter from their homeworld, so the question doesn't fluster her as much as it otherwise might have.]
I'm a reporter! It's a little like a combination between a town crier and a storyteller, I think. Only the stories I tell are real and based around things that are happening here in Riverview. Basically, I do most of the news stories here that the News Service releases. Or a good chunk anyway.
no subject
[ It's a pleasant name - more similar in sound to the names he was used to back at the Untheileneise Court than any others he's heard since coming here.
It is good that Alex is used to explaining what a reporter is; while there were important messages that got spread through various means, and people dedicated to carrying those messages and informing people, journalism of the kind Alex is talking about isn't something Maia is familiar with. He listens, fascinated. How much good that must do, to have someone whose job is to collect and disseminate all the important news of the day. How much more efficient, than relying on gossip and hearsay from whoever saw fit to tell it, though amateur and biased... ]
That sounds like a very important job, and one that would only be given to someone whose integrity can be trusted. Is it what you did, before you came here?
[ Maybe a strange question to ask, but it made sense in the context of his life. His own job here is radically different, after all, than being an emperor. ]
no subject
Richard and Simon might actually kill her if it did.
So Alex just gives him a s smile and a little bit of a shrug.]
It's ,mostly what I did. Back home I didn't work for a large media company like this one is. It was smaller and more niche than this one here is. There worked on the stories that we chose to do rather than actually working on the main sort of news I guess. There were larger newspapers and things for that.