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WHO: Jon & You!
WHERE: Ren Fair
WHAT: REN FAIR!
WHEN: Ren Fair Event
WARNINGS: I dunno.

Research

Walking past those unmoving figures comes with an eerie sensation, one that isn't too unfamiliar to Jon, which results in him spending quite some time studying the projections or plain watching them. Where of course watching means he will outright stare at them, daring them to move or flicker.

They don't flicker.

Which is an interesting observation to make, given the effect his powers tend to have on electric devices. He isn't sure what he is looking at...

Of course he also gives the different food items a try. For science. And as he is looking at one of the still figures spread around the market and taking a bite of what at least looks like a flatbread covered with sour cream and some herbs, Jon can't help himself but make a small noise that is bordering disappointment at the person next to him. "And here I almost have forgotten about their weird endorsement of peanut butter."

Experiment

Well, making those candles hasn't been that bad, even if they turned out rather bland and uninspiring. They are functional and will do what a candle is supposed to do: Burn.

He has skipped the stands with the fabric and sewing materials, instead having moved on to the blacksmithing area and finds himself looking at the pile of colorful metal pieces before picking one up and contemplating this raw piece of- The Archivist has no idea what he is even looking at and that gives him pause.

Getting past that discovery of Not Knowing takes a moment and Jon turns his attention over to the fire before slowly and very carefully starting to work. No, he has no experience at all or any idea what he is even trying to make and the soft muttering is more directed at himself. "I had plenty of opportunity to have Tony show me how to do this, but have I ever asked him? Nooo, of course not..."

Evaluation Valentine's Special!

The bonfire is a nice place to relax and Jon can't help but wonder if the Agrii have added it in response to the little beach party their He-Rows had set up last summer. Not that he would mind. He does, however, frown a little at the piles of pink, purple and red glitter now setting the scene rather than the pink snow that had been present the previous day.

Scooping up a handful of it, Jon inspects the pieces as he lets them fall slowly back down to the ground. Sure they don't melt. Which will make cleaning up this mess even worse. It isn't like he hasn't still been finding glitter from last year in the library.

"At least the mothcats will have their fun with this..." He observes with a mild chuckle, letting the rest of the stuff drop and pulling a fortune cookie from his pocket. These have become a little ritual over the past few days: Every evening at the bonfire, Jon will open one - And then make fun of its prediction.

Wildcard

[[ Poke me if you want to do something else~ ]]

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Felwinter steps towards the anvil with the space allowed for him, taking up the tongs to fire up the metal so it is a workable temperature once again. "Not before coming here. I saw Stark working at something here some time ago and asked him to show me what to do."

He eventually removes the metal from the fire, bringing it onto the anvil again as he hefts the striker. His helmeted head tips towards Jon. "It will be loud," he warns, giving him a few seconds to prepare himself before he begins hammering. Even with the first strikes, the impact upon the metal is quite clear.

"Hm." Jon nods. "Tony knows his way around a forge and how to work with it, that's true." Though Tony isn't exactly someone Jon could ask for help. At least not in this specific case. "He makes it look easy." Though even without his very recent struggle Jon didn't ever consider this specific type of work to be easy.

The Exo's warning is met with Jon taking a step back while still observing. The loud clang of metal hitting metal has him flinch a little at first despite knowing it would come. The noise is hardly suitable for a conversation, which means Jon will stick to watching the progress as it is very clearly being made.

"He does," Felwinter agrees. "But he has obviously been doing such work for some time."

The metal starts to flatten with the repeated strikes, the lack of obvious anticipation before bringing down the hammer for each hit a testament to the strength the Exo has. He brings the hammer no higher than his chest before it comes down again, and he works quick while the metal is hot before putting it back to the heat. It's tedious work and noisy, true enough, but Felwinter means to make the metal workable enough for Jon without taking too much time.

"How is this?" he asks after removing the much thinner metal piece from the heat. He offers Jon the hammer again.

Jon can't help but smile a little at the Exo's observations regarding Tony. "He's very skilled, though a little overeager at times. If you have met him, then I suppose he has offered to take you apart already."

As Felwinter works on the metal, Jon observes the obvious progress being made until it's time for him to take up the hammer once more. Which he does, nodding a thanks towards the Exo before heating the metal back up. "What did you make?"

The Exo makes something of an annoyed noise at that. "Indeed. Is this common of him, then?" But then he supposes he wouldn't be surprised.

"A knife, although I suppose it is no better than a letter opener," he says after a moment, stepping back for Jon to take his place at the anvil. He picks up one of the strangely shiny ingots off to the side. "Making ammunition has proven trickier."

"Unfortunately, yes. It is rather common." Jon nods and starts to work the heated metal again himself. The effect the blows have may not be as obvious as when the Exo has been working on it, but at the very least some effect can be made out.

He pauses after a while to shake the ringing out of his ears and incline his head in Felwinter's direction. "Ammunition, huh? Have you spoken with Cayde about that issue?" Guns that miss their bullets. Not the first time Jon hears of this.

"Hm." Felwinter nods to himself, saying nothing more on Stark for the moment.

He shakes his head then. "No, but perhaps I shall. I was gifted a rifle, from the Agrii I assume. But it of course had no ammunition, and a part was missing to actually allow it to fire."

"I see..." A nod from the Archivist. "They give you something familiar to you, yet prevent you from using it to harm anything. At the same time the security data point still comes with access to the weapons the Agrii provided us with..." Which by now has also been quite some time ago.

"You're also a Guardian, aren't you?" It may be an Exo thing to feel the need to be armed, though it may rather be a Guardian thing.

"Very conflicting messages," Felwinter says with an annoyed grunt. "If there is a need for a security data point then there must be needs for protecting ourselves or others from something. Why then limit the access of weapons? ...not that some of us need weapons to fight."

He shakes his head then. "This term has not yet been a title the Risen have taken. It seems something that will come up later than what I know. If this is so then it is a good change, because many of the Risen are known as warlords, and a majority of them have taken advantage of the power and immortality that comes with it. I would not call them Guardians."

Jon raises a brow. "The Risen..." Warlords rather than Guardians. Somehow Jon can't really be surprised. Though this also tells him that between Felwinter and Cayde must be a notable time difference. And that in the time between both Exos, the way Guardians, or Risen, have come to use the power given to them by their Ghosts... And the Light.

"So the Risen were less concerned with protecting what remains of humanity. That mindset came... Later. Or in your case, it still has to emerge." A pause. "Are you waging war against other of these... Well. Warlords, then?"

"There were no rules laid out when we were brought back. No real guidance. There was much confusion, waking up in a bleak, dangerous world. I cannot completely blame those who have chosen to do so for looking out for themselves. It is difficult to trust or know who to trust."

Felwinter looks at Jon again. "I think it is more a matter of finding like-minded others. I confess, I have only recently started to realize that there are others who have been in a similar position, have been living in a dangerous world, and without the ability to come back, living in fear not knowing what to expect of the world itself, and brutal warlords who will carelessly trample them underfoot." His fingers curl around the metal ingot in his hand with the faint creak of leather from his gloves. "Having the sky constantly fall down on you..."

Aarthi's words still weigh on him. Those were the words that changed him, he supposes.

"Now that's a very pessimistic view on life if I ever heard one." Jon returns with a frown. Of course Jon has never wanted to die himself, but he at least used to be aware of it being part of being alive and accepted it without constantly thinking about it.

He shakes his head. "The sky is only constantly falling down on you if you let it. And usually, people don't. The End, ultimately, is inevitable and no one wants to waste their life obsessing over how or when it ends."

"Just so. But it is not without reason. The people have no great means of protecting themselves, definitely not on par with what the warlords bring down upon them. Even death does not guarantee a victory. It is not difficult to see how they find any more optimistic a view out of reach."

Felwinter shakes his head again. "They did not choose to be constantly pillaged and under attack. But surely there must be better for them, instead of looking to a warlord who will offer them protection in exchange for tribute."

Jon looks down on his piece of metal, cooled down again by now and raises a single brow at it. "You're making it sound like the dark ages." And he looks back at Felwinter. "I know you're basically from Earth, but- Did your Earth have those? The ark ages? The middle ages?" And he turns around further to gesture around the market around them. "The area these festivals tend to be based on?"

Is he curious to hear about the history of a different Earth? Of course he is. Though so far he hasn't really considered that there may be large differences. Though, of course, he could be wrong.

"That is exactly what it is. A dark age that has followed the fall of a Golden one. Whatever technology and advancements that humanity had made has mostly been lost."

The reluctant warlord's gaze follows Jon's gesture. "I have vague memories of reading of such things. The Golden Age was well past that. I cannot say I know very much of it. My memory of my past life is fragmented and virtually non-existent the moment I was brought back by my Ghost."

"Hmm." Jon simply nods. "A repetition of history, then. I can't even say I am surprised to hear that fundamentally your Earth still shares the same backstory with the one I knew. There is a reason the Extinction came to be after all. And I would be lying if I were to claim humanity hasn't been working diligently towards its own extinction already."

Though the Earth Felwinter and Cayde seemed to share also had to deal with alien influences. He frowns a little, though. "Why don't you remember anything from before your Ghost found you?"

"That may be, but there are people who very much wish to do whatever is possible to survive." Felwinter sighs. "I wish to try to help in this effort."

He shakes his head. "That, I do not know. We are essentially reborn." In his case, he was given independence, no longer but an outlet for a warmind to study human behavior and culture. He was something different. Something new.

"That's what I have been saying." Jon confirms with a nod. "The wish to survive gave birth to the fear of going extinct - And of whatever will arise to take humanity's place." He has seen that creature. Hungry to devour the remains of mankind...

Jon regards Felwinter curiously. "So you don't remember. And neither does anyone else that has been... Brought back by a Ghost. Were you ever curious? About your past?"

Felwinter hesitates, looking away as he shakes his head again. "...no. Well, perhaps a little. Who wouldn't wonder? Waking up in long abandoned ruins, there are many questions that arise and no clear answers."

He looks towards the fire of the forge. Despite not remembering, his past still haunts him, even though he still isn't sure why Rasputin has been so intent in trying to kill him. "...I do not know that my past should have anything to do with my future."

"I can't claim I have ever fully understood how that even works - How beings like yourself find themselves with a Ghost when this isn't something everyone is given or has access to." The entire purpose and system doesn't exactly make sense to Jon. And no one with a Ghost seems to remember anything from before. Which he knows he personally would loathe.

Jon shrugs and heats up his piece of metal once more. "I can't speak for everyone, but I am pretty aware of cases in which a person's past gave ample insight into who and what they were. Which made it rather important for some of them to ensure their past remained unknown - Even to themselves."

"It will not explain why I was chosen," he says, although it's more of a murmur to himself.

"There are things enough to sort out without grasping at fragments of a scattered past. It is difficult to do so when we are working out of ruins." Felwinter looks out past the fairgrounds, thinking of home. This isn't too different in many ways. They are here to save a people from those who abuse the power they have. Those who hinder them just refuse to show themselves like cowards.

"Fair enough." True enough. And Jon won't argue about that matter. While he knows he'd probably be too curious to let that matter rest, he may not be considering all the circumstances and which other priorities may exist at that moment.

He hits a few more dents into his piece of metal before frowning at the result and turning his attention back to Felwinter, gesturing at the forge. "You wanted to make something here, I assume. Please, go ahead. I believe I have to revisit this project at a later time anyway."

Before his eyes had been opened to the plight of humans who had to suffer the warlords who took advantage of them, all Felwinter had wanted was peace. No frames or warsats being cast down at your head simply because you existed. Not having to watch your back as you trekked across open fields and ruins of cities.

Felwinter had fallen silent in his drifting thoughts, brought back to attention only when Jon speaks again. "I am in no hurry to do so. But I will not discourage stepping away from your project for a while. Perhaps a clearer idea of what you would like to do will come, then."

"And perhaps my arm will stop hurting if I give it some rest, indeed." The Archivist adds with a little smirk. Felwinter has observed very correctly right from the start that this isn't the sort of work Jon has engaged with before, and what little exercise he has had with the metal until now already makes his arm feel sore.

"But I wouldn't mind watching for a while, if that would be alright with you."

"This as well," Felwinter agrees, perhaps a touch amused at that. He picks through the shimmery ingots and tosses one into the forge to begin heating it. "I don't think I will mind." He gives Jon a nod, setting to work.

Perhaps he will make the Archivist a letter opener. Which is really just a less fancy stiletto.

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