let fury have the hour,

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Agoge's third TDM! And the death of an important guy. And some very upset royalty.
WHEN? Late 1792, Paris.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

IT'LL BE FINE;

Paris, 1792: revolutionary france.

read the France setting infopages

arrival for new recruits

(Note: If you were one of the people who used the previous TDM and want to use that as canon while still participating in this one, feel free! The following will still happen, though the guide will apologize for a malfunction in your BCE causing you to zap through the intervening month instead of joining your comrades like you should have. You'll be assured the glitch is fixed now, and it probably is. Probably.)

You wake up in a Parisian hotel room with a kind woman standing near the door, waiting for you to awaken. You have none of your clothing, just black military-issued underwear, and none of your previous possessions beyond the one you chose (if you remember choosing) to bring with you.

The woman by the door speaks French, and if you didn't understand the language before, you do now. If you have questions as to what's going on, she'll answer: you are a member of COST, a paramilitary organization of time travelers fighting against the Regency, a tyrannous kingdom of the future who are trying to stamp out freedom and individuality in the name of peace.

She will provide you with the clothing necessary to fit in at this time, and show you how to use your BCE implant to look up information on this time period and its social and political mores. She won't let you leave until you're properly dressed to fit in, but once you are, she'll wish you luck.

KILL THE KING

It doesn't matter if you're new, or if you've been here a while. You'll hear about the execution going on today. It's as though the barely restrained urban chaos of Paris has ground to a halt. Everything is about the king. Is it really going to happen? Are they really going to do it? Can they do it? Is it even possible?

Anyone out of the loop will be filled in, but with no small amount of ridicule: Today is the day of the king's execution. His trial has wrapped up, and the National Convention voted to execute him for treason and tyranny.

The crowd at the execution is enormous, a riotous mob of passion barely restrained. Everyone is jockeying for a better view, with children and adults climbing up on nearby statues, lampposts, the sides of houses, rooves, some even hang from windows. Everyone watches the scaffold.

The prison cart arrives with no fanfare save the yells of the crowd. Within it sits a small, fat little man, looking like he's doing his best to remain composed. He's brought to the scaffold, and his crimes are read out: colluding with foreign powers, and the crime of royalty, which is anathema to the republic of France.

When asked for his final words, Louis Capet, known to some as King Louis XVI, speaks in a quiet voice. "I forgive my enemies."

When the blade comes down, the crowd errupts into cheers. Many rush forward to touch the blood of a king, dipping bits of cloth in it in an attempt to save it.

I PREDICT A RIOT

It's as though all the built up tension in Paris exploded when the king was killed.

Who knows what started it. Rumors spread like wildfire, and it doesn't matter, does it? In the end, most of Paris is swarmed with chaos, especially in the areas nearest to where the king was executed. There's no doubt that the riot and the king's death are directly related; no peasant currently throwing stones and breaking windows will deny it.

Fights are happening with great frequency. It only takes a word, a half sentence, for someone to decide you're some kind of counter-revolutionary. There is a current of anxiety in Paris that hasn't gone away; after reaching a fever pitch, it has expressed itself with violence and chaos.

let's visit the tuileries

The Tuileries was the royal palace in Paris, the last residence of the king before his death. Of course the people of France end up clamoring at its gates, screaming profanities and attempting to scale them.

The majority of the guard let them do this, making only the most token of efforts to keep the peasantry back. But one guard, a man by the name of Antoine Colin, seems to become spooked and shoots repeatedly into the crowd before someone knocks him out.

By then, though, it's too late. The crowd was rambunctious, but not murderous. Now it's bloodthirsty, and the gates are stormed. It isn't long before the common people of France are trampling through the corridors of power. Inside, they'll mostly find servants running and hiding, and lots of valuables to steal.

Most are content with that, but not all. Some clamor for the deaths of the queen and the royal children-- per the laws of inheritance, Marie Capet's remaining son is now King of France. Should he not die as well?

The queen is hidden in a safe room, a hollow wall inside her apartments. Do you try to find her? Try to save her? Try to kill her yourself?

...And what about those kids hiding in there with her?

BRING IN THE TROOPS

The riot in the Tuileries lasts several hours, well past nightfall. It's beginning to peter off, people loosing their energy or vigor, when the sound of gunfire echoes from the front courtyard.

General Lafayette has arrived to save the queen, and brought with him a retinue of personal soldiers. All on horseback, brandishing firearms and sabers, they stream through the expansive halls of the Tuileries and attack anyone who looks out of place. They're here to clean up this mess with no concern for more filthy peasants getting in the way.

Aftermath

The night is a long one. Several fires break out in various parts of Paris, shops are looted, and several die in the Tuileries. The queen has disappeared, along with Lafayette. Some say she and Lafayette died, and they'll show you the bodies for a couple sou. Others claim they saw them riding off into safety just before sunrise. There are already talks of hunting them down, trying to find the traitors.

Only one thing is known for sure: It may be advisable to stay inside for the foreseeable future.

read the France setting infopages

NAV NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

Comments

[rappels]

[ Aloy raises an eyebrow at first, because she's not sure if she'd believe that just looking at Angel, but that's her own bias painting an entire imagined world by meeting one person from it. She thinks everyone from her world is similar enough to herself, so it must be true of other places. She's still learning, to say the least.

When Angel reaches out to take her hand, that's acceptance enough for Aloy, and she crouches so they're closer to eye level. She's quite serious about helping bandage up the cut and teach Angel to do the same, so her attention is briefly away from the other young woman while Angel looks at her hands. She's digging in pouches to get more of her carefully handmade tools, herbs, and the other primitive, but effective enough ways she's learned to treat wounds.

Because she's distracted, the comment catches her completely off guard, but her surprise is a very different one this time. She looks at Angel with wide, surprised eyes. It's not a response she would have expected in the first place, but it's also not really a description, well... anyone uses towards her. She's much more used to half-insults like "wild" or full ones like "savage". ]

I— Well. [ She actually gets a little flustered, and awkwardly just settles on: ] ...Thanks.

[ SHE'S TRYING... Which is why the awkwardness of that stands out to her, and she feels the need to continue the conversation past it even though conversation isn't her strong point. ]

I guess I should have introduced myself before offering to bandage you up. [ She shrugs, snorting out a small, soft huff of a laugh ] I'm Aloy.

[circumspector]

[ She keeps smiling at her, but lets her hand goes. Giving them over instead to be inspected for the bandaging. ]

I'm Angel. Just Angel.

[ How freeing that is. To just be herself and nothing else. Her smile for that - discussing it, thinking about it - is bright and open. There is something dizzyingly happy in her for all of this. For the pain and the chance to ask for help. ]

Thank you for helping.

[rappels]

[ Aloy nods at the name, since it sounds just as beliveably foreign to her as any of the other names of people from— Well, people that aren't from where she is. She notices the beaming happiness, but she doesn't quite understand where it's coming from. She can make guesses just based on the fact that this is someone that may have never been injured, but none of them come anywhere close to the truth. And really, Aloy isn't all that interested in finding out. She can accept it without comment.

As she holds Angel's hand, she grabs a small, smooth pick, and at this point she brings Angel's hand closer to her face as she starts to use it to flick any larger pieces of dirt or pebbles out of it. She's not very gentle since that's not quite what comes naturally to her, but she's efficient enough that it doesn't last long at all. Clearly, this is something she's done many times before. ]

Don't worry about it. I have to do this all the time for myself.

[ Hence why she's not that gentle. Her choice of words implies that she may not have done this for someone else before. ]

You just get anything you can see out of it, wash it, then cover it up. If it gets infected— [ She pauses, then realizes that it might actually be different than what she's used to. ] I don't know. It might not be that bad. I bet they have more than I do.

[ Not that she's clear, but "they" being COST ]

[circumspector]

[ She takes a breath as Aloy reaches for her hand. A moment to steel herself before she begins picking out the dirt and rubble. Her eyes scrunch up and her face turns away - it hurts. She couldn't remember for so long, how normal things hurt. Not to the overwhelming sensation of Eridium searing her veins from the inside out.

This was so much more visceral and to it she doesn't have much defense. But she does her best to not let anything more than a squeak come out of her as she sinks her teeth into her lip. ]

I think our... our bosses said we don't have to worry about that. Infection and that sort of thing.

[rappels]

[ The squeak surprises her, and it's only then she realizes that right... For someone that hasn't really been hurt before, she should probably be gentler than she is for herself. She relaxes her hands a bit, and gives her an apologetic look. ]

Sorry. Like I said, not really used to doing this for other people.

[ Especially ones that are— softer, she thinks. That's a good word for it. The revelation gets Aloy to murmur a huh, because even though she'd surely heard it, it probably hadn't really sunk in what that meant. It's one of the things that's weird to even imagine as a reality, but honestly, this one she'll take without complaint. She may be stubborn with her way of doing things, but not so much as to welcome infection or anything. ]

That makes things easier. Which I guess is the point. If they have a way to stop things like that, it works for me. It makes us a better group of... Whatever we are. [ She'd hesitate to use the word warriors, and not just because of Angel. There are a few people she'd consider such, but not as many as she'd expect. ]

[circumspector]

It's okay - really. Thank you so much.

[ It's easy to placate than almost anything she does. Heap the apologies and forgiveness on without pause or really caring to know if she does forgive ( of course she does, this, here and now, is a kindness she hasn't received for years ). ]

Soldiers. We are soldiers. That's what they told me when I signed up.

[ She's firm. She doesn't care what she looks like - that she can't handle a little cut without a sniffle of a sound, that her skin is too soft. It doesn't matter. She has it now and it's a fever sickness in her eyes as she looks at Aloy. ]

[rappels]

[ Satisfied with it being clean enough, Aloy puts the pick away, and she instead pull out a small bottle, which she uncorks with her teeth. Even from that, it has a strong smell of alcohol, since this is basically moonshine. ]

This might burn for a second.

[ And she pours some over the cut, an easy, simplistic way to disinfect it without even really knowing what disinfecting is. She doesn't use very much, since she doesn't have very much of it in the first place, but once she's satisfied with that, she has strips of cloth she starts to wrap around Angel's hand. ]

Yeah, I guess that's true. [ Aloy shrugs, since the word that had first come to mind and she had dismissed was "warriors," but soldiers is more palatable. ] It's hard to remember not everyone has to be like a Brave. [ Though she realizes that... Probably doesn't make any sense, so she adds: ] —Er. A warrior, basically. That's what my tribe calls the best warriors, since we don't really have soldiers.

[circumspector]

[ It does sting, but she latches onto the words instead, after a brief little unhappy inhale. Her eyes sharp with tears, though she does her best to blink it away and not pull too far from her.

There are soldiers - they're a whole corporation. Uhm. Dahl, since Atlas got whiped out - but then there are... they're called Vault Hunters. No one can kill them.

[ She sounds almost, in some way, personally proud of them. ]

[rappels]

[ The pride in Angel's voice gets Aloy's expression to quirk into a smile. ]

Friends of yours?

[ That one is first, since if so, Vault Hunters sound like people she'd like to meet. Since she's definitely more a warrior than anything else (and one that's been so isolated), she always likes to hear of and meet others. ]

[circumspector]

[ And as quickly as quickly, her face falls. Eyes down, shaking her head. ]

No. Not really.

[ Why would anyone want to be friends with someone who betrays them? ]

[rappels]

Oh— Uh... Sorry. [ Aloy is quick to apologize, though it is awkward and uncertain. ] I just assumed, with how you were talking about them.

[ She shrugs, trying to brush it off and move on, since she definitely didn't mean to stumble upon something that awkward... Luckily, she's finished wrapping up her hand at this point, so she ties the strip of fabric into a loose knot, then nods as she withdraws her hands. ]

There. Now it at least won't get dirty again.

[circumspector]

It doesn't matter.

[ She falls quiet with it, just letting her finish her work.

And when she's done, she's back to herself, smiling again, mild as could be. ] Thank you so much. I really couldn't have done that by myself.

[rappels]

[ Unsure of what to say, Aloy lets the silence continue, but as Angel gives her thanks, Aloy returns it with a smile. ]

Sure. I'm still surprised, but— [ She shrugs and breathes out a small laugh ] If you need anything, just try and find me. I'm not saying I know everything, but I can handle things like cuts.

[circumspector]

[ She settles her hand down into her lap. Working across the top of her wrist to take any sting out of the area in an absent-minded touch. ]

Likewise. I mean. I'm no good at cuts or - fighting, I guess. But there are other things I can do. You just let me know, and I'll help.