thehometree | Glimmer, glitter, shine...

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Glimmer, glitter, shine...

One by one, new adventurers now arrive in the Tree. As one gain wings and rises to the second floor, another light brings in the next person. Soon, a steady stream of people from all kinds of worlds, times and realities come to join the others. Whether confused, angry, excited or scared, your arrival is welcomed with nothing but joy as the fireflies and glow worms descend to greet their new friends.

The Tree offers no explanation and no reason, but the truth is undeniable.

As you will soon realize, it isn't easy to be tiny.

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That doesn't have the feel of an eating knife, and she has no idea what a gun is. He looks like he could be some kind of soldier, though his clothing isn't familiar. Whether that's good or bad, she's confident that she can handle herself here, and doesn't move.

"I've seen the mist. I haven't tried going out into it. And yourself?"

'Something's blocking the door,' he says, gesturing to the gold spiderweb. He could try shooting at it, but he had only one ammo clip and was loath to waste it on something like getting the door open. Besides, there was the rest of the place to look at. 'Don't s'pose we could just say please.'

"Maybe there's another way out up there." They can both see the beam of light. Kuvira glances at him and decides she's neglected the formalities long enough. "Captain Kuvira, Zaofu Security Force."

Unconsciously he straightens. Bucky's never been one to automatically defer to an officer - there were always those who walked off in their own foxholes instead of give proper orders and fed themselves before they fed the men. Rank meant little when one had to be capable.

'Captain,' he says, inclining his head slightly. 'Sergeant James Barnes. 107th Infantry Division.'

Kuvira gives a similar nod, not a shade deeper. She is all of eighteen, though her hard-earned composure and the armor disguise that, and in Zaofu she commands some men and women who are older than her, and have served there for longer. Suyin favors ambition and achievement.

"Sergeant. Tell me - are you afraid of heights?"

'Not one for flying, I can tell ya that,' he retorts, with a bit of bravado. He's not scared - as kids he and Steve bribed some of the workers on the Empire State Building to take 'em up on one of the beams. Good thing no one was around to chew them out later, it was just something for two boys with a dream. 'What do you have in mind?'

"That might end up an issue," she says dryly. "I know there are people up there. If the same thing happened to them as to us there's likely just one way they got there." There's so little she can bend here in the tree that the small amounts of metals and stone are detectable with her bending - not specifics, from here, but she knows there are some above them, and moving.

Kuvira turns and heads into the beam of light, and gauges the distance to the opening above, ignoring the alien sense of warmth. She flexes four partially-transparent wings, two long and elongated, two short and round, and reaches around, gesturing. The openings she bent into her armor for them widen slightly.

"I don't need to fly as such, I just need to attach a cable." It's too far, but if the wings can boost her up, she'll manage. "I can drop you a line, Sergeant James."

She doesn't call him 'Barnes'. In her experience only those with extravagantly wealthy families, or strong aspirations for such, have family names, and those people are rare indeed.

She intrigues him enough by knowing there's people around upstairs and the odd method of address that he doesn't bother correcting her, preferring to observe what she does as he falls into step on her left.

And then the slits in her armour widen and he's damn sure they did at the same time he gestured. Holy cow. They always knew there were things out there in the world they didn't understand - but so far it's been HYDRA weaponry and the existence of the supersoldier serum. Nothing like... manipulating metal with your fingers.

It'd be swell if it wasn't so weird.

'Understood,' he replies. 'I'm a fast climber.'

"No need. I can pull you up." He's bigger than she is, but she caught Tonraq, she'll be fine. Kuvira backs up a good ways out of the light and runs forwards into it. If only the floor wasn't wood, she could bend it beneath her. As it is her armor weighs her down when she leaps, and she can feel its heft as she moves the new wings in rapid droning figure-eights. She still reaches the apex of the leap farther up than she would have expected and continues climbing, though more slowly.

Maybe she doesn't need her cables but they will make things more stable and certain. Near the opening, Kuvira brings her arm forwards and calls to the metal coiled up at one hip. The cable strikes sparks from its spool as it shoots out and anchors past the hole in the floor.

She stills her wings, grasps it with the hand on that side, and swings from it, turning in the air, calling on the cable to stiffen and stop the swing. Looking down, she spools herself lower, then broadcasts her other cable down to near the floor, letting it hang passively instead of grasping.

It's not an order by any means, but there's some people you just don't argue with, and dames that can shape metal are definitely inching towards the top of that list. She's graceful, like a dancer, and the wonder turns open and genuine. Possible kidnapping and the wings aside, seeing something like this right in front of him is the stuff of the future. The War might've cast a few shadows but a dream through a dusty mirror remains a dream.

He climbs out after her and grabs the cable securely, giving it a quick tug to let her know it's safe to pull him up.

She grimaces as, one hand on each cable, she takes the weight. It's fine. Then, the tricky part isn't reeling both in simultaneously with the weight of two people, it's doing so smoothly. He can probably feel the tremor as they rise, and if he flaps his wings, it's not going to help.

-no, wait. The tricky part is when she's almost at the opening and he's not too far from her, and she has to get a very firm grip on the cables. "I'm going to try and arc you up," she says. "Ready?"

Hell no, he thinks, but replies, 'Ready!'

He folds his wings, trying to make his own body as aerodynamic as possible. This is incredible. He should tell - Steve, but that's not a possibility anymore, and he bites his lip.

"All right. I'm not counting to three." Kuvira makes very sure of her bending grip. She's not strong enough to do a stunt like this without metalbending.

She spools him back down a short ways and starts to swing him to build up momentum and make this a little bit easier, flicking and pressuring the dark, heavily textured metal to enhance the swing until she hits the right point. From there she stiffens part of her cable and puts more into the swing until it's an arc - right over her head, past the opening.

Once he's let go she can get to the much simpler work of getting herself up there, using her cables like very long arms.

Whoa. What a rush. It's like (sliding down a cable to a moving train) flying, weirdly, and he clambers onto a branch, securing himself and letting the cable drop so she can retract it. Once she's close enough he reaches out a hand - he figures she ain't the type to need help but it's habit to offer.

She looks up and takes his hand. Kuvira's not a delicate woman and the armor is heavy, even if she fires up her wings for the extra push forwards. He'd better be braced.

Once up she look around. Those look like... "Houses?"

His grip is firm and his feet planted steadily; add supersoldier strength to that mix and he lifts without effort. As soon as she's steady his hand drops to the grip of the gun, instantly wary.

'Sure look like 'em,' he replies, gesturing to one with an open door. 'This way?'

Yeah, he's very strong. She'll file that away.

Kuvira's bending doesn't pick up on much in any of these. There seems to be a little bit of stone, but if anyone's carrying stone or metal it's in small enough amounts she can't sense it from here.

"That's a weapon, isn't it?"

'Yes,' he answers, simply, moving stealthily into the apartment, peering. A metal one which is probably going to be useless against her, if she's fast enough to dodge a bullet, or - more likely - warp the gun.

It's very clearly not an electrical device. Parts are hollow... gas, perhaps?

There's not much here. Screens, crude furnishings, the stone she sensed from outside, the omnipresent glowing insects. Windows, made of clear crystal. Kuvira goes to one. "There's a balcony," she says. "Apparently it's possible to go outside without passing that webbing below."

They seem to be a good ways up, and there's not much to see. Mostly cold-affected giant grasses, and the fog.

He squints into the fog, but even with enhanced eyes and ears there's nothing.

'That's the real barrier,' he observes. 'If we can shrink to this size and get wings, who knows what'll happen if we try to make it through there.'

Stepping back, enjoying the scent of the forest - he always wanted to live in or near one, ever since the first few days in France. There was something about it that was simple: living off the land and the soothing presence of so much green. Not so great in the Ardennes when the shelling made even the tree bark deadly as metal stripped it from the trees and sent the splinters flying. The War is far away, and behind him. He'd do well to remember that.

Kuvira nods, though he's not looking at her. For her part... she wants to go home.

Zaofu won't get on as well without her, but it will get on. So much is happening around it, though, that she can't be absent for. The Earth Kingdom is crumbling and it doesn't look like there's anyone to stop it. The new Airbenders are only going to be able to do so much.

She wants to be home, able to at least track what's happening. Maybe Suyin will deign to help the country she has so little love for.

Wishing and wondering won't do her any good. She clasps her hands together behind her back. "I think these were set up for us in advance."

He glances at her out of the corner of his eye. She's been a commanding presence, a resolute and firm officer, and while he doesn't have the measure of her quite yet he's getting a clear idea. You could always tell a bad commander almost right off the bat, if you knew what to look for: selfishness, cowardice, no sense of responsibility towards one's men.

'I agree. Doesn't seem like there's anybody to ask about it, though.'

Kuvira doesn't have much of a reading on him. Very strong, unarmored but possessed of a mystery weapon, amiable enough while clearly not being slack, didn't get in a huff about her rank being higher, though she thinks he's the elder. She'll hold off on judgement but is cautiously favorable.

"Not yet. It's strange to go to this kind of effort without some explanation. Maybe the idea is to let us get settled first." She doesn't like that, but then, she doesn't like much about this period.

It doesn't sit right with him either. He's dead, they've got every use for one like that but the others downstairs, they're not. So that's out as a possible pattern. Have they just taken whoever won't be missed? Kuvira certainly isn't in that category.

'Can't hurt to search a few of the other rooms down the corridor,' he suggests, after a pensive pause. 'Who knows.'

"Very well. There's some stone in each of them, like that." With so little around that she can bend, when she's never lived away from earth and metal, what she can here stands out, larger amounts more than smaller ones. Using her chin she indicates the... what is it, anyway? "It's like... this isn't set up to hold a fire. It would fill this whole space with smoke and catch on the floor. There are easier ways to kill us all."

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redactions - 2015-03-24 00:35 (UTC) - Expand

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