savetheearth | {002} LOG: Sightseeing in Neuschwanstein, Slumming in Vegas [OPEN]

Entry tags:

{002} LOG: Sightseeing in Neuschwanstein, Slumming in Vegas [OPEN]

Who: Misa Amane and you OR Doppel!Misa and you! Specify in subject which you want.
What: Misa goes to the castle to investigate a sudden personality switch/doppelganger phenomena. Doppel!Misa, meanwhile, skulks about the castle grounds trying to avoid conversation and find something interesting to do. Doppel!Misa can also be found in Vegas.
Where: Neuschwanstein, Las Vegas
When: February 10th for Misa, February 10-15 for Doppel!Misa.
Warnings: None yet.

Option 1: Normie

Misa had never imagined that she might wind up in Germany of all places, barely a week after her long anticipated journey to the United States. But thanks to her introduction to teleportation technology (what) here she was, possibly having left her stomach back in the States. But despite the lingering queasiness and spinning in her head from having just undergone the impossible, Misa approached the castle at a brisk pace. There was too much excitement to do anything else. Echoes, Others, a teleporter, and now doppelgangers? Every day Misa half convinced herself that she was on the receiving end of the most elaborate prank in human history. But she wasn't, because this was all real, and she was going to be the one to solve these mysteries and bring them to the public! Starting with why a man who looked an awful lot like Lazarus had shown up on the network in Germany (and wearing a Hawaiian T-Shirt), when Misa knew him to be elsewhere (and of a different aesthetic). If the answers to this new phenomena were anywhere, they would be at this castle.

Option 2: Doppel

This place was exceedingly boring. Too many people talking and nothing to do; Misa's personal hell. Doing her best to avoid the various loud groups surrounding her, Misa hugged the wall and kept her head down, throwing off every don't talk to me vibe she knew. She was not drunk enough to deal with being in this place. One of those things needed to change.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Julien had friends in the area who'd told him someone who looked exactly like what he did now had been seen around the castle, being... well, birdlike. Preening, pecking things up, not speaking. He flew over the castle's grounds without finding anything conclusive and reluctantly landed.

Bracing himself, he walked around semi-upright, a pigeon the size of a small horse, until he found someone to talk to. "Excuse me."

To say Misa saw him coming was an understatement. She ground to a halt the moment the impossibly huge bird came into view, staring dumbfounded at him as he landed. She knew by now that there were some peculiar looking individuals here, between the bug-man and the vampire, but this was a bit much for her to accept as reality. Pinching herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming would be cliche, but Misa was tempted all the same.

Standing her ground as he approached, a short noise of surprise caught in her throat when he addressed her directly. Of course the giant pigeon talked. Naturally.

"... Yes?"

It was less crushing if he found reactions like this amusing, so he tried to. "I'm not going to bite, you know. I wanted to know if you've seen anyone around who looked much like me."

His throat inflated a little as he talked, and his beak moved - not like a puppet, more like a real bird singing.

Misa had never thought that birds had expressions before, but somehow the giant pigeon seemed bothered by her reaction. Maybe she was reading too much into it; what exactly did she know about bird tones or facial expressions anyway?

"I didn't think you were going to bite!" Misa assured him, forcing a laugh. "But I've definitely never seen anyone who looked like you before."

It was a bit hard to tell - he held his feathers closer to his body, so he seemed thinner and smoother, and his wings drooped. Julien didn't have facial expressions anymore.

"Huh, all right. You're not a local." He's spent enough time in and around Neuschwanstein to be fairly confident of that by her accent. "Tourist?"

"Sort of," she replied, "I just moved to Locke City for work. But I'm here today as a tourist, and... investigating something."

"Oh? We're a ways from there. Rich, or Numbered?" He had a pretty good guess.

"Numbered, I guess!" she answered, though it still felt weird calling herself that. "Definitely not rich. I never thought I'd wind up all the way here, but the transporter made it pretty easy."

She was aware that everything about this conversation must sound insane to bystanders, but surely the giant talking bird component would be the greater distraction. "Do you live here?"

"Right, it's very convenient like that." Before he had changed so severely Julien had taken advantage of the location and taken public transport to sightsee out past the boundary. Everything interesting in Europe was so close together.

Julien had been the most visible of the Numbered for quite a while, especially considering his modelling career last summer. Tough to say if he's even more distinctive now. "Nah, I'm really just passing through. I lived at the Hotel Lilie for a few months, though! Nice of the Bonbrights to arrange that."

"Oh wow, that must have been nice," Misa said, logging away the name to research later. "So you've been with the Numbered for a while? I'm still pretty new to all this."

"It is. They've booked us places in that hotel and one in Vegas, you should check 'em out. Really nice."

"Well, if I'm not the one who's been here longest I'm awful close. I got my number almost two years ago." Strange to think of himself with that kind of seniority, but... well. "Julien Sakazaki, by the way. You may remember me as looking different." Last summer he'd modeled and sometimes been called the Locke City Harpy.

"Wow, that is a long time! Sorry, I don't recognize the name, but I'm probably one of the newest people here," she admitted shyly. Granted she had done research prior to coming, but his name hadn't come up, and by now Misa was well aware of how distrustful the other numbered could be of reporters.

"Can I ask how different you looked...?"

"That so? Huh!" Wow, it's been a while. He's gotten used to being, well, famous. Most Numbered with dramatic changes have theirs less dramatic or can shapeshift into humans; there's Torin, but not really others. Julien's friendly nature and ability to project harmlessness are good for PR. Well, in the past several months he's mostly spoken to people here in Neuschwanstein. "Congratulations, and my condolences."

"Haha, I was much less eye-catching, which has its ups and downs," he says, not wanting to get into well I looked human. She'll google him if she gets curious.

"That's hard to imagine," Misa laughed, "were you smaller?"

Dry-voiced, he notes, "Well. Once, yes. And then I was taller and thinner. It's all been a bit of a ride."

She tilts her head, curious. Is he implying that he was once human?

"Did you... used to not be a bird?"

"I'm human. That hasn't changed," he tells her, his voice firm. "And yeah, I realize how ridiculous that sounds. Humor me if nothing else."

Misa's eyes go wide at that revelation. "You- your body got turned into this from a human body?"

Julien sighs. He hates this kind of conversation. "Yeah, it's true. Pulses can do that. It took almost two years."

"Oh my god..."

'I'm so sorry' lingers on the tip of Misa's tongue, but she bites back the comment, uncertain how he would take it. Her gawking and obvious horror at the notion probably say it all. Attempting to save face, she plasters on a decidedly fake looking smile.

"Well, you can fly now! That must be amazing," she says with false cheer.

The sepia-tinted transparent inner lenses of Julien's eyes close, veiling their shine and making his very blue irises sort of greenish. He ignores her burst of forced optimism. "Pulses can fuck you up. You have to understand that. They're a very, very mixed bag."

The sudden vulgarity catches her off guard, but after taking a moment to adjust Misa can hardly blame him. She had assumed that the humanoid animals she interacted with began as animals, not humans, because that option was simply less horrifying to contemplate.

"I didn't know... I mean, I know they aren't always pleasant, but I had no idea they could change a person to this extent," she says slowly, not wanting to antagonize him further. "Is it permanent? I thought most pulses went away outside of certain zones."

"Permanentish. Outside the zones they're just partially in effect. At this point if I go out I look pretty unpleasant." Kind of gobliny, he's thought before.

"Other than that it looks like it sticks unless I go off-network and forget stuff. Which happens a lot, but it's not something to count on."

Misa winces at that visual, keen not to find out what a half bird, half man hybrid looks like. "What do you mean go off-network and forget? I haven't heard about that."

"Sometimes people lose all their pulses and their Number, and most memory of Network things. Off-network, you see. It seems to be random." It's funny, sort of, thinking of all the old theories they'd had about it back when this started. "Some people who go off can come back on. Again, it seems random."

1

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