revivalproject | Hazy Shade of Winter

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Hazy Shade of Winter

WHO: Lord Felwinter and others
WHERE: Around Temba
WHAT: The warlord keeps busy.
WHEN: Mid to late January
WARNINGS: TBA
NOTES: Will match pose format

The Forge (for Tony)
It was not without some resignation that the warlord made his way towards the edge of the city where the man Tony Stark had laid claim to the local forge. But with such a specific need, one could not be picky, and the man did decent work so far as he could tell. The snowmen out front were however another story.

The trio of shapes seemed haphazardly packed together from the pink snow, heads listing to the side, barely balanced but somehow still remaining in their places. Twigs, rocks and leaves made up the barest of details. Felwinter regarded these strange snow beings that stood sentry not far from the mostly hidden path winding off towards Tony's domain, his Ghost giving a shrug as she floated beside him.

They continued onwards, listening for the telltale sounds that would verify whether Tony was present and at work or not, although Felspring would be able to detect any presences soon enough.

Security Station (Open)
Given how rare it appeared anyone else ventured to the station and its adjacent tower, the snow coating the road out front was hardly traversed, and depending on the most recent snowfall, bore perhaps only one set of fresh tracks.

It wasn't as though the warlord made it well-known where he had chosen to shelter, but he did not expect to receive any guests either- not that it was an easy feat considering the elevator to the topmost floor where he dwelled was non-functional. Despite Wanda's suggestions, he had only gone so far as to fix up one of the offices just below as a more privately enclosed space to rest, although he still hadn't bothered with a bed. He felt better with a wall at his back.

One might catch him coming or going from the station, usually early or later in the day.

Diner (Open)
This wasn't a place Felwinter tended to frequent. It however seemed an ideal place as any to stockpile firewood should anyone need it, and since he was unfamiliar with the methods of how people cooked here, he might also think that they were restricted to cookfires as those back home. There was a neat stack of wood set up just outside the door, and some stacked within against a wall where it wouldn't be in anyone's way.

If one didn't come across the warlord as he carried a fresh load on his back as he returned from the woods, then they might find him piling the logs outside or within.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I am used to dealing directly with people," Felwinter said, even as he took a step away to try and reassert some of his own space from the man. "It was not very often. I suppose when you live on a mountain peak, people get the message. If you do not want to talk to people then perhaps you should find somewhere less accessible."

All he'd wanted was to be left alone, and they'd finally found that. But there were people at the foot of his mountain, people he'd learned he could relate to, and whom he could possibly help. That had Complicated things.

"Next time, if you prefer, I shall call, then," he continued, looking down at the glitter on the floor again, perhaps still waiting for some explanation about that.

Nothing Felwinter had said so far sounded so much like a blatant lie that Tony let him take his space back quite willingly, to give Tony the necessary room to turn an incredulous pout on him. Oh, he meant the means of communication--it was the 'directly' that he was used to, not the 'people', and the mountain peak context really could not have phased Tony any less. "Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm all the way out here," he muttered, see, they had so much in common, not sure if Felwinter was disparaging him for settling for the outskirts of town instead of a whole mountain between him and the rest of the community. Felwinter hadn't found a whole mountain himself, that didn't seem fair. Even if Tony hadn't even decided where the forge was placed, just took the resources that were available. "Did you want to move in or something? You'd fit right in, honestly, but I gotta warn you, I keep odd hours, and there's only one bathroom, and this takes a lot of body work," he tried with a flourish from his chin to his toes, trying to figure out what Felwinter was doing among the community now. Plenty of space for him to retreat to.

That was fair. The forge was a distance out from where others were. But it was still easily accessible by Felwinter's standards.

"No, the lack of a door is a great downside," he said. An attempt at a joke? While still being perfectly truthful. "And I have a place already." Much more practical when it came to wanting to deter uninvited guests, considering that the elevator up to the observation tower was broken.

Turning, he regarded the minefield of glitter before deciding he wasn't going to attempt dancing through it like Tony had, once again blinking from one side to the other. Felspring drifted after him, if only to join him in closer study of the dismantled door on the floor.

...was it a joke? So caught up in trying to discern if he was laughing with or at Felwinter, Tony forgot to laugh at all, then was flinching with a hand jumping up to his chest and eyes closed like he might faint at the sudden jump again. He was not getting used to it. After Felspring came Tony, carefully navigating through his mess, instructing as he did like his pointing from a distance could possibly make any sense, "That goes there, and that goes there, so you can put that there." There were tools scattered around the prone door, and some heavy, steel pieces that did look like they would fit into the puzzle of it to cover the wiring inside, and Tony's final gesture was with both arms toward the wind whistling through the doorway and the heavy cradle framing it that the door would complete. How he got this first part of the project erected, and what his plan was to lift the weight of the fully assembled door, was unclear.

Felwinter set his helmet to the side, watching as Felspring scanned the parts while he considered Tony's vague explanations. He stroked his chin and then picked up one of the pieces that he figured was the first of the that's, carefully setting it into position. A look was cast towards Tony just to double-check that it was the correct place for it before he would set to work in securing it. Thrones and lofty titles aside, it didn't seem like he had any qualms about getting right into doing work.

"Is this a sort of automated security lock?" he asked, curious.

With a nod of confidence, Tony joined Felwinter by the door, squatting on his heels with his elbows balanced on his knees like he would help knit these final pieces together. Only, instead of reaching for any part of the mess he crouched in, he waved his hands and answered dismissively, "It should keep the draft out," then seemed to entirely be there just to watch Felwinter intently, studying how he moved while he was trying to focus on something unfamiliar. This much was probably obvious, but it was still very abrupt when he suddenly asked, "Why don't you have a horn?"

He was somehow unsurprised that Tony had opted to watch him rather than offer a hand. There were a few times where those optics, like burning embers, flicked over in the man's direction. Felwinter wasn't sure he liked being studied. Felspring certainly didn't like it, watching Tony watching the warlord while she drifted above.

Slotting in another piece, Felwinter paused and turned his head to look at Tony almost in confusion. The question came out of nowhere, after all. "Why should I?" he countered. With only one other Exo in town to compare to, it wasn't too hard to see where the assumption might have been taken from.

"Exos don't all look alike," he said after a moment, returning his focus to the door.

In all fairness, that was a step closer to the question that was truly troubling Tony, which he had to cobble together from the pieces between them while trying to give a gesture of apology for not being terribly sensitive to Exo-based prejudices. He did only have the one Exo friend, he was working on it. "Why does he have a horn?" he reconstructed, thumb pointing vaguely back toward the city. The design had yet to reveal any functionality to Tony, and while it echoed the aesthetic of the Ghosts he had met thus far, there was no way yet for Tony to know if that was just coincidental. So, maybe it was a good time to glance up at Felspring, then flick a finger up to add on, "Why do they?"

Again those optics fixated upon Tony, metal brow furrowing slightly in a way that was probably meant to be confusion.

Felspring seemed glad enough to be included in the conversation, offering a shrug of her shell. "Personal tastes? Why does it matter?" At least it seemed to reassure Felwinter that it wasn't a question that he should be expected to know the answer to.

"Not something I've ever thought to ask what few Exos we've ever come across in our travels," he said. "I imagine it is like asking why you wear a beard."

It was a little more like asking why hair grew out of his face, so Tony frowned thoughtfully, clearly unsatisfied with this answer, and only a little distracted by the suggestion that Felwinter maybe only had one Exo friend, too. To Felspring, he answered, "I guess it doesn't matter, but it's not there for no reason, and I don't want to find out that the reason is to blow up at a certain altitude right before we hit that height. I have a beard because I'm a mammal and it's supposed to--help me do mammal things, I just happen to style it this way because I look incredibly good and it makes you outrageously attracted to me. Don't worry, that's normal. You guys, you're a step further, someone consciously put that there on him, and not for you, and I have to assume there's a reason for that." Which probably had something to do with what they were for in the first place, so Tony narrowed his eyes and guessed, "He's the devastating headbutt model. You...do something else."

"I do not need a lecture on the differences between organic beings and mechanical ones, Tony Stark," Felwinter said dryly. "You have a beard because you for whatever reason decided that it suited you. Just as a human will wear their hair long or short, or dress in some way or another." He regarded the door again. "I cannot speak for other Exos. I do not know if their modifications are from one life or another."

"I'm surprised you didn't just ask the Hunter," Felspring said, drifting a little lower to look over Felwinter's shoulder at the door progress. "I have a question- why red and gold?"

It wasn't supposed to be a lecture, and nor was it supposed to be about differences but similarities, so Tony frowned his frustration at this rejection and stretched back up to his feet impatiently as Felwinter pressed the point that Tony had been trying to drive him out of. "He doesn't like to talk about it," he grumbled back at Felspring, though he was starting to think it would be a much less annoying conversation even with Cayde trying to push him off.

The question took him by surprise, making him raise his eyebrows and touch a hand to his chest like he had to make sure it was him that Felspring was asking. He supposed it made sense, if the conversation the couple were assuming they were having was about aesthetics, but a) they weren't talking about him and b) no one had ever really asked that. Something about his strangely tepid reputation here that Felwinter mentioned, much less armor of uncharitable assumptions between him and anyone wondering about his motivations, might have made it more necessary. "Makes me go faster," he dismissed at first, dropping his hand with a wave then onto his hip like that was the only and most obvious answer. After a beat he seemed to reconsider, fingers of his free hand slowly fanning and curling his discomfort and gaze darting as he admitted, "The gold was a girlfriend--fiancee, at the time. Said the grey was scary." He tilted his head, glancing back to Felwinter then--maybe he understood that feeling. "Scared kids. Said I should be a golden knight to match my--..." He huffed, fist clenched tight then, clearly done with sharing. "It's not so easy here--or, it wasn't, before they put that glitter fountain in the new ship. Really livens the place up. Don't know why some people don't like it."

Felwinter honestly had no answers to give Tony in the previous vein, and it was only becoming frustrating with the man seeming to think that there were. It wasn't a thing anyone asked before. Was it because Exos were just known, back home? Already accepted as people that they all were?

This turn of thought did make him pause again. How much did Stark figure out about him? Or was it a simple puzzle click once Kaz had spoken so indifferently of?

Felspring meanwhile leveled a look at Tony's first response to her question, waiting, and perhaps even surprised when he did actually turn out an actual answer. Even she flicked a look towards Felwinter as Tony did, the Exo lifting his head slightly before turning it towards Tony. Kids were not something he was very acquainted with. That wasn't the point he focused on as the man lapsed in his explanation, and for a good moment or two even after Tony deflected to talk of glitter fountains, both Fels regarded him in silence.

Finally Felwinter picked up where he'd left off with the remaining pieces of the door. "Is that what that is? Livening the place up?" he said with the slightest up-tip of his head in the direction of the glittering mess on the floor.

That was an incredibly awkward pause, making Tony's jaw clench as he tried very hard not to fill the silence with further embarrassing sharing because whatever was on the tip of his tongue could not be trusted. His shoulders dropped with some relief as Felwinter turned back to their project, and he looked around at the indicated mess with some surprise, like he still didn't think it was noticeable enough to remark on. There was more interesting stuff on the floor in the mess of the forge. He was happy to report, though, "Oh, definitely," sweeping over to pluck up one of the balls that so far had been there to trip on and help break a tailbone or two. It was colourful and highly polished, and clearly heavy as Tony gave it a toss and it slapped back down into his hand. "It's for the Hunter," he teased Felspring. "Said he would really get a kick out of me hustling him at pool, and I'm always open to helping people indulge in their pleasures." Okay, Cayde might not have said that exactly, but the Deep End could use one more reason to get fiery over a dirty bet. Tony might even be able to spend some time there now, maybe, as long as the sun was still up.

Staring Stark down had seemed like a cruel thing to do. It had been a different kind of anxiousness that had held the man then, that somehow appeared almost worse than the gun spook. Felwinter glanced up again as the man eagerly shifted gears again, he and his Ghost watching as he went over to pick up one of the balls. Oh, so they weren't explosives of some sort. Felspring rolled her core at Stark's teasing.

"Pool." Felwinter had to think about that one. Clearly Stark wasn't referring to a water sport- the balls looked much too dense for that. Not to mention that Exos probably didn't tread water very well.

All Tony seemed to need to recover properly from his anxiety was that passive-aggressive arc from Felspring, his smirk returning with an impish delight like she had just paid him a compliment. "Pool," he echoed helpfully with another toss of the ball. Maybe now that they had said it three times, all of its mysteries would be revealed. Eventually, he relented and provided, "You know, the game--god, listen, absolute crapshoot what survived into the future with you guys, half the time its like you're from a different planet." They were, technically, but the amount of history that they did share made that distinction irritating. "You've got the balls, here," he illustrated, twisting the one he held between his fingers, but also toeing another one from among the debris of his project to hold at the ready under the ball of his foot, "That you have to hit with the cue," he gestured back toward the stick he had been playing with, still leaning far too away not through the mess against the workbench, "Into a little hole." He rolled the ball on the ground back to kick toward Felwinter, sending it skipping over paper and pinging off of stray bolts in its path to come to a gentle stop between Felwinter's toes.

"I can't say how far the time that spans between us," Felwinter said, looking perhaps mildly peeved. "But from what little I have learned from Ikora, I can say that there is no great city and no Vanguard in my time, not yet." People were too scattered, too preoccupied with trying to survive daily while mad warlords ran rampant, power-hungry and with little other direction. Pre-Golden Age games were the least of anyone's concerns.

And yet there were perhaps tiny bits of Stark's explanation that sounded familiar in some way. Felwinter looked to each of the items as they were pointed out, and then down as the one ball went rolling on its merry way to him. He picked it up, turning it in his hand. His initial directive had been to learn art and culture, but much of those memories were lost as with most Risen. Bits surfaced here and there, fragments if anything at all. "Upon a table," he said thoughtfully. "A geometrical game."

Tony hadn't thought very much about the time between an Earth he knew, and the one it would become for Cayde, skipping all of those boring details straight into the projected future. He raised his eyebrows at the revelation that Felwinter was a fragment of that machine, when there was no city, not even the last one. No wonder he didn't have any friends.

The glimmer of recognition made Tony brighten briefly, gesturing down to the bulk of the disaster at his feet that clearly was a nascent table, the screws and flat panels and glittering pulp of it, "That's the one. I knew you'd love it." Felwinter wasn't allowed to decide for himself just how much he loved pool because Tony was quickly continuing, "Where did you get your stuff?" It was evident that he didn't come from a primitive culture, but it didn't sound like a cohesive society with the power to manufacture a shotgun like the one spread out on the bench to Tony. Maybe because he was stuck in the middle of it, but it was sounding to Tony like Felwinter made a lateral move when he came to Temba.

Ah, it was all beginning to come together. Felwinter regarded the parts of a table thoughtfully, his optics narrowing just slightly at Tony's quip, but he let it go. Maybe he'd give it a try whenever the madman was finished with it all.

"Stuff?" He almost frowned, a helpless glance given Felspring's way to find her giving a shrug before she cast a look back at the workbench across the glitter field. "...that one, I am not familiar with in make. But there are plenty of old bunkers laden with weapons from the Golden Age." Most of them had been cracked open and scavenged, but he and Felspring had found some well-hidden and untouched.

That made it sound like Tony's guess was pretty close, and he raised his eyebrows then frowned with concern to muse, "That doesn't sound very safe." Though, maybe for an Exo it wasn't so bad, and he wouldn't be susceptible to some long-dormant chemical weapon. In general, it was probably an environment that any of the fleshy humans survived by pure luck. "You don't...aren't you effected by radiation? What if you triggered some massive electromagnetic cascade?"

"No, not safe," Felwinter agreed. "They've found the way into many warlords hands. They are already practically immortal, and with weapons they only further abuse their power and take advantage of the defenseless." There was enough of an edge in his tone to underline his disapproval of how things had turned out. Unfortunately when the Traveler had sent out its Ghosts, there hadn't been any set rules in how to use the power and second chances gifted to those who became the Risen.

"There was no radiation." Admittedly it wasn't something he'd given thought to when they'd done their searching. "And if there was, then there wouldn't be much left to threaten." It sounded cold but it was true. Settlements were sparse and the bunkers they'd found were likely built in remote areas from the start. "Most of these bunkers held firearms or computer systems."

Maybe Tony had misjudged the primitive thing, 'warlords' didn't exactly sound like an advanced social structure, and he might have been too generous about what kinds of bunkers there were to be found by them. More private, bespoke bunkers like the rash of them in the Cold War, not just institutional ones. "You're not, though," Tony had to clarify, free hand out flat to level their understanding. "Practically immortal, well armed, but not a warlord."

"I never claimed to be," the reluctant warlord said. The last piece of the door paneling was sealed. He looked down at the massive thing before looking over his shoulder to where to was to be installed.

"Others saw me as such. I have killed warlords, but not in search of power. The people of the village at the foot of the mountain I claimed from one such warlord deemed me their protector- his replacement."

"Oh, okay," Tony said lightly, tossing his ball again and tucking his other hand into his pocket like he really was just going to accept this explanation. "So, just, on every level, just not--" his hand jumped out again immediately, to twirl by his temple, "emotionally."

The Exo looked at him silently before he stepped around the edge of the door, stooping down to wedge his fingers beneath its edge. He levered it up carefully, bracing his shoulder against it once it stood almost parallel to him.

"Warlords are not normally interested in helping people. I want to find a way to make things better for those who cannot protect themselves. Felspring says that weapons are not the answer."

Hazy Shade of Winter

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