concierge | Test Drive 1

Entry tags:

test drive

Test Drive 1

Welcome to All Inclusive's test drive! Anyone is welcome!

Guidelines

Please make sure you are familiar with how we play and what characters are allowed before participating.

Writing should be in para/prose just like in the main game. That means no brackets, no asterisks, etc. No network posts, please.

No anonymous comments.

We very strongly suggest NOT writing your character's first time at the Nexus, but rather a random scenario once they've gotten more used to the idea of the place. The shock and surprise of new arrivals and subsequent info dump by whomever meets them tends to be one note.

Entries to the test drive may be of any length. However, if your intro (top-level) comment is of normal post length and you are proud of the quality, you may use it as an example on your application.

Feel free to tag around the meme with any character you already play or are considering, even if they don't have their own intro comment.

If your character is accepted into the game and you have permission from the other involved players, you may consider test drive threads as game canon. You may also linkdrop them to the main community if you choose.

Please use the header below for your intro/top-level comment.

Header

Name: The character's name
Canon: The character's canon
Location: Choose: Somewhere in the hotel or grounds or through a door

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Name: Queen Anne
Canon: The Musketeers
Location: The Nexus Library

[Warning for potential spoilers if you're not caught up.]

For all of its undeniable tangibility, and despite days now of slipping discreetly into this strange, new world, the Nexus still felt entirely surreal. There was even yet so much to discover, so much to be surprised by, that Anne had begun to think she might never feel any other way about the haven she had found tucked inexplicably behind one of her boudoir doors.

The curious looks she sometimes drew drifting about the halls were, she discovered, not due to her rank; rather they were owed to the effluence and elaboration of her gowns, so ill-suited and impractical for a place so sleek and bright. Stranger still were the instances in which she drew no gaze at all, as if she might be anyone passed upon the street rather than the Queen of France. There was little deference to be found apart from those whom the hotel employed, and this was both unsettling and thrilling in equal measure.

Much like the discovery of the hotel's library, in which she was presently engaged.

She had claimed one of the chaises and filled it with the voluminous fabric of her skirts and a number of books. One, half-hidden by golden damask, was open to the impossibly clear images of a Versailles whose elaborate halls were far removed from the hunting lodge she remembered. A large tome was perched open in her lap, and she bit thoughtfully against her bottom lip as she slid a fingertip across a line of print: le Roi-Soleil. The Sun King.

It is a strange thing to find the Queen here in this place. She is still royalty and despite Athos' own background, he has not even the pedigree to touch upon her Grace with a brush of his fingers. He is no longer in that life, however, and is happy to be merely Athos. Still, he feels that his duty extends even in this odd realm and so he stands guard at the library quietly, his attention is barely on her, acting more as furniture than anything else.

He does not wish to interfere in the book she reads, but his own curiosity burns on a low level, ever-present as he remains watchful and cautious.

Used as she was to there forever being someone on her periphery, it was some time before Anne noted that she was anything but alone. Brow creased with concern and confusion over what she had read, she had at last lifted her head and then drew a quick breath, the only indicator that she'd been at all startled to find such a familiar face lingering nearby.

Deeper confusion filled her features as she reached calmly amongst the folds of her skirt and felt the key still heavy in a hidden pocket. She had locked the door behind her, she had been certain of it.

"Have you followed me?" she asked, less accusatory than worried. It was his duty to see to her safety, after all.

He had been taught long ago how to work the lock of a door by those in the streets while he drank thoroughly and heavily. Locks are not a problem, especially not when he had seen a regent wandering through the hotel. "It is rare to see the Queen of France wandering the halls of a hotel in the midst of nowhere," he remarks, keeping his respectful attention deferred to the side. "Even here, my duty does not stop."

And besides that, Athos does not entirely trust Aramis any longer around the Queen. He is too eager to get them all hung for treason, he worries.

That, Anne had to admit, was certainly true. Her reception had been so thoroughly nondescript before this moment, she had begun to wonder whether her stature mattered at all. The relief she felt at being so acknowledged was, at least, tempered by a measure of guilt over her ridiculous privilege.

"You are to be commended on your loyalty, Athos," she began, carefully closing the book in her lap and setting it aside. "But I meant whether you had followed me here from France itself. You seem remarkably composed for a man finding himself in such a strange, new landscape."

Had he been here all the time, trailing after her on each journey? It seemed unlikely, but what other explanation could there possibly be?

"I have been coming here from France longer than I would like," he confesses, keeping his language tidy and perfunctory. "It seems as though each week, I find myself here for a lengthened amount of time, often unable to return to France." Perhaps some might see it as a vacation or an escape from life, but Athos has clung to the duty of the Musketeers to maintain his composure through the last five years and it is what he has.

"All in all, I imagine that five to six months of experience has passed in these halls."

"Unable to return?" Anne echoed, the concern sudden and clear in her eyes. "How long are you typically detained?"

Upon her arrival she had been informed, naturally, of the many and varied tricks of the hotel, each more incredible than the last. The information had been thoroughly overwhelming, however, and she could see now that she had not fully absorbed all that she had been told, for she could not account for her belief that being trapped here entailed a few hours at most.

"The doors fail to release me back there," he says, though he does not say 'home' because he has not felt as though he's had a home for many years. The manor is long ago dead in his memory and the garrison is adequate, but hardly welcoming and inviting. "I find it is often a span of one to two weeks. Consistently."

"It is not a terrible place," he concedes. "You should not fear it, my Lady."

"It is not this place I fear, but separation from my son," Anne swiftly corrected, her voice firm. "Even should time fail to pass in France, it would not stop me missing him."

This very day she had been debating the safety of carrying the Dauphin with her to the Nexus, but this new information threw the argument into a more difficult light. Should they be unable to return, how might she care for him without a wet nurse? What if he fell ill again, and not even Constance was by her side? Yet, would it not do them both immeasurable good to experience the knowledge and freedom such a place could provide?

"He has not been able to travel here with you?" Athos wonders curiously. He is sure that he has seen mothers with their babes in residence at the hotel, though he has no manner of knowing whether they live here or arrive and no true inclination to find out. That would require the art of polite conversation, something Athos avoids unless the direst circumstances requires otherwise.

At times like these, he begins to wonder about what his life might look like, had his Anne bore him a child. What would have happened when Papa hung the babe's mother? Better for them all that parental affection had been lacking and children had not been produced during their marriage.

Is it wrong - how can it be wrong? - to see her in this place and hope? After all, Aramis is nothing if not an optimist and a romantic and if there is to be a good side to being pulled here, can this not be it?

Aramis approaches slowly, making sure not to sneak up on her, close enough to look over his shoulder at the page. "... your Majesty," he murmurs, having gotten past Athos but not easily.

His presence seemed so altogether unlikely that for a sliver of a moment Anne didn't quite believe he was real. With her mind engaged as it was, would it not be natural to imagine Aramis there, sliding up so easily to peer over her shoulder? Had she not imagined such a thing a hundred times even without the reflection such a book would cause?

Heart in her throat but features carefully restrained, she turned, eyes bright with disbelief and pleasure.

"Monsieur Aramis," she said, allowing herself a smile. "I did not think to find you here."

"I don't know as any of use were thought to be found here," he tells her with a small smile and warm eyes. She is so very beautiful and she is here. "May I join you?" he asks, gesturing to the chair next to her.

He asks, even though he wishes only to take her into his arms. Some things, however, must be established first. Answers to such questions as is the King here as well?

"Please," Anne replied with a nod to the chair. It seemed entirely foolish now that she had so covered her chaise with books, but perhaps it was better for them both to maintain a little distance.

"I must admit, there is much about this place I don't yet fully understand," she continued, and glanced again down to the book in her lap, her features going briefly pinched before she looked up again. "But I am pleased to see you, however it came about. You look well."

"You look well," he tells her, his chair angled to face hers, hat dangling from a knee. "I am not sure that I will be much help in understanding this place."

They are being so formal; it's disconcerting. He scoots closer, to the edge of his chair. "What is it that you last remember, your Highness?"

He made it so difficult to maintain any appearance of royal indifference—Not only here, but often at home as well, his demeanor ill-suited for subterfuge. Her natural reaction was a quickly flicked glance about the room, assessing who might be near. Even here, she could not fully believe that the walls did not have eyes.

"From France? My bedroom," she replied without quite thinking, and then looked quickly down to her book again with a small smile.

"I've been here before," she clarified, rallying, and looked up to him again. "I suppose it's safe to assume that you arrived through a different door. I think I would have remembered you being in my boudoir."

It is safe to assume that, yes. Aramis smiles. But he asks, "You have been here before? In this hotel? When?" And he must ask, "and the Dauphin?"

"Yesterday, and the day before," Anne answered. "Only a few hours at a time. Today is admittedly the first I haven't been completely overwhelmed by it all." It took some time, too, to realize that time had effectively stopped back in France, making her disappearance less of a concern.

"The Dauphin is at home," she slowly began again, carefully watching Aramis. "I had been debating whether to bring him through next time. There is a cradle in my room here, you see. As if they knew."

The thought of being able to see his son in peace, without fear? It's enough to put Aramis back on his proverbial heels and he looks away for a moment.

He has no right to ask for that; he made a promise and will honor that. And yet, "It seems a shame," he says as lightly as he can manage, looking at Anne again, "to have a cradle and not use it."

Try as Aramis might to appear casual, the look in his eyes was a shot to her heart. She had often thought of how their situation must prey upon him, but had only witnessed the extent of his struggle in glimpses. There had been so little she might do to alleviate his pain before now.

Still, even as her heart was insistently tugging her toward his plight, her mind couldn't help but wonder at the consequences such an action might cause. She glanced again to the book in her lap with its troubling discrepancies, but then smoothly closed it and set it aside.

"I wonder," she said, gently extracting the fabric of her skirts from the scattered volumes around her, "whether you might escort me upstairs?"

"Of course," he says, brow furrowing. "... are you all right, your Highness?"

His queen, she had called herself, a trifling term: she was everyone's queen. But she is his queen. He rises, hand extended to help her up.

"I am quite well," Anne promised him as she accepted his hand and rose to her feet. "I have a gift for my most loyal and honorable protector," she added, and afforded him a gently pointed look. "But I must fetch it from France first."

Ah, his heart. The feel of her hand in his is enough to make him realize just how lonely he's been.

He tucks her arm into his so they can walk together. "It does seem difficult to get used to this place," he notes.

Too familiar, Anne, her mind launched up, a part of her staunchly unwilling to assume that there was no one of consequence to witness them here. Even so, her fingers squeezed reassuringly against Aramis' arm, and she did not draw away. They were perhaps balancing upon the edge of propriety, but surely there could be nothing obviously untoward about walking together, even so close as this.

"Indeed," she quietly agreed. "Have you been here long?"

"Not long, no," he tells her and yes, he does consider propriety in how they walk, not holding her too close. But would he not seem rude to walk apart from her?

This is what he tells himself. "A week, perhaps, at most." The days here, with so little to do, tend to blend together. That was his thought, anyway, before he saw her. "Have you been here long, your Highness?"

See? They are merely walking, merely making conversation. Nothing to see here.

Guidelines

Header

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject