Jakhi

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

It didn’t take much searching for Mellie to realize there was more going on than the newspapers were reporting.

Bloggers were speculating about everything from fluoride in the water making people and animals go crazy (Mellie rolled her eyes at that), to climate change, environmental pressure from logging and clear cutting, and even one group that claimed it was some sort of Magic.

Mellie gave up on Google with a sigh. No one seemed to be able to write anything even remotely logical or considered on the strange occurrences of the past few days. The oddest thing was that none of the people who seemed to have befriended an animal was writing anything about it. Normally anyone who had something even mildly news worthy was all over the internet with it, but there was no sign of a first person account. Or even a second hand one, not really; not from anyone who knew a person who had charmed an animal companion.

She looked at the clock and began gathering her things, lunch break was over and she had to be back in class. Not that the children could talk about anything other than the influx of animals in their small town. That morning they couldn’t even focus enough to talk about which movie they would rather watch in class the following day, let alone anything halfway educational.

~~~

After school Mellie went by Judy’s house on her way home but sure enough no one answered even though she rang the bell for a good 5 minutes. With a shrug Mellie went to put the shovel, still leaned up against the house from the night before, into the shed.

As she leaned the implement up against the wall just inside the door a key hanging on a hook caught here eye. She was almost positive it hadn’t been there the night before, but it was possible she’d missed it in the dark. Pocketing the key, Mellie quickly walked the rest of the way home, grabbing the mail from her letterbox by the front door on the way in.

A folded piece of blue paper caught her eye as soon as she began looking through the few letters she had gotten. Unfolding it she saw it was a note from Judy and she read it through quickly, then again from the beginning more slowly.

Mellie;

I’m sorry about last night. The last thing I want is to drag you into my latest mess, but here I go doing it anyways.

I left you a house key in the shed. I probably won’t be back, and I’ve taken everything I want. If you like you can go through the pantry and help yourself, there’s some good meat in the freezer. Shame for it to go to waste but I could only fit so much in my car.

You’ve been a good friend to me, the only friend I’ve had in years really. So I wanted you to know I’ve gone somewhere safe. Somewhere people like me won’t cause problems for anyone else.

If you really need to reach me you can talk to Landen Avingdale. He knows where I’ve gone and can pass a message to me if he needs to.

Thanks, for everything.

Judy

Thinking that the day couldn’t get any more surreal Mellie folded the note back up and slid it into her back pocket where it rested against Judy’s house key. She spent a few minutes wondering how she would track down Landen Avingdale if she needed to contact Judy, then gave it up as a lost cause.

Well, odd day or not, she still needed to eat. She set to fixing herself a small dinner, marked a thick stack of homework she had put off too long, then headed to bed.

It wasn’t early when she slipped under the covers and flicked off her bed-side lamp, but she found herself strangely restless. She didn’t usually have trouble sleeping, but every time she reached that odd plateau between waking and sleeping she had the oddest sensation, like something was pulling at her. Calling from far away, as if a part of her had somehow found itself miles and miles away but was slowly moving towards her.

It was the oddest sensation and Mellie tossed and turned for what felt like hours before exhaustion finally swept her past the tugging deep within her into oblivion.

~~~

The next day passed in the sort of disjointed blur days have when you’re too tired to care or pay attention to anything too closely. The kids couldn’t focus anyways, so she put a movie on in the morning then let them do art and creative writing all afternoon. All of them drew birds, or big cats, or bears, and wrote about mice, moose (or meese in some cases, causing Mellie to make a mental note about a class on plurals in the near future), or macaws.

She simply couldn’t bring herself to care. Aside from her exhaustion the strange tugging sensation had been steadily growing until it was nearly painful for Mellie to so much as breathe.

She took her first deep breath in hours when she let the kids go for the afternoon, then instantly regretted it as the emptiness seemed to swell in her chest along with her lungs. She grimanced in discomfort and sat very still for a moment. If this didn’t stop she would have to walk to the doctor’s office before going home, not an idea she relished at the moment.

The sensations seemed to ease a bit, reducing and constricting just enough for her to get her things together, put on her coat and make it half-way home.

When it hit, though, the brutal force of the emptiness within her made her drop her bag and fall to the ground. She braced there, on her hands and knees in the middle of the path between her home and work, gasping as she tried to breathe around the sudden violently empty and aching hole in her centre.

It hadn’t been this bad before, she tried to sit back on her heels but found she couldn’t she was frozen there staring at the leaf litter and grit inches in front of her face.
She didn’t know how long she was frozen there before she heard it, but suddenly she realized she’d been hearing a soft insistent ‘Whoot-hoo’-ing noise from the brush just to her left. Turning her head slightly she tried to make her eyes focus on the source of the sound, but they simply wouldn’t cooperate. She blinked blearily and tried to suck in air.

Her vision suddenly sharpened as a small form hopped cautiously onto the path in front of her, tentatively. His feathers – she was somehow certain it was a male – were fluffed up, as she had seen anxious or stressed birds do at pet stores and the zoo. He tilted his head this way and that, making a variety of noises from a deep and low ‘churr’ sound, to a fairly high pitched and inquisitive sounding ‘chiirrrrrrp’.

Mellie found the ache in her chest had lifted a bit, enough that she could finally sit back on her heels, and she did so; rubbing at the tender flesh at the base of her palms which had dirt and grit embedded in it from being pressed so firmly to the concrete of the trail.

The little owl’s eyes widened and his pupils expanded and contracted as she moved and readjusted herself until she was slightly less uncomfortable. She watched him just as closely as he shivered his wings out then tucked them back again, a clear sign of uncertainty.

She couldn’t have said how long they sat like that – five or six feet apart and sizing each other up. Suddenly the little owl darted forwards and nibbled her finger, as if in affection. Mellie had less than a half a second to feel surprised and suddenly alarmed before the whole world seemed to shrink down to just the two of them and then violently explode around her in a clash of raucous colors and shifting sensations.

It was gone just as quickly as it had come, and she was once more sitting there in the forest staring at the – equally surprised and stunned – expression of the small male burrowing owl...but everything had changed.

Without knowing quite what had happened, or how it had happened, she knew with a deep certainty that everything had just changed irrevocably. Her life would never be what it had been, but somehow she knew it would be deeper and richer now.

Looking at the pert little gape-grin of the feathered male – who was now blinking and happily nibbling the seam of her jeans – she knew everything about him. His habits and favourite foods (grasshopper, ew), how he had felt about his mate, how many chicks he had successfully raised, and every second of his journey here to find her...HER, specifically. He had flown for days just for her. Specifically for her.

An overwhelming sense of inadequacy and wild joy rushed through her, the guilt and other mess of negative emotions were suddenly swept aside by a decidedly feathery mind, to be replaced with that deep churring noise she had heard before and a solid bird tongue flitting against her hand.

She knew, without words or other complicated human things, that this little owl was hers, and she was very much his.

A small voice inside her couldn’t help but think “What have you gotten yourself into now, Amelie?”

~~~

*NOTE: Well, that's your signal everyone :) Get those bonding posts up! Let get this thing moving.

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Congrats Vistruction! We'll be sad to see you go, but I'm glad it's a positive step for you :)

As of right now I'm just going to move forward as is. If any of you know someone who might be interested you can have them PM me, but unless I get some very specific interest I think we'll just continue as 7 players for now.

Which means *drumroll* on with the show!

*goes to post*

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

It looked good to me too Wulfenheart :)

As far as predator/prey animals: after the animals bond their intelligence, understanding, and views will change. So a predator wouldn't really eat a prey bonded animal...they might tease, or react suddenly in surprise, ect, but nothing purposeful. However they are still predators and unbonded (aka normal) animals are fair game. To help this out a bonded animal would sense another bonded animal near, and they'd know what the other was on sight. They may also have some secret means of communication in the future...maybe. ;)

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Bunnita, Polly might be in for a bit of a shock with Mai. lol, She might be an old lady, but shes an old lady whos pretty tough and is used to making 'hard cases' smarten up ;) And NO Polly can't shoot her! Jeez (j/k, lol)

Nem, that sounds good to me, it makes sense that whoever meets Jack might also meet up with Danny.

Churro, sounds good to me :)

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Sorry Bunnita! But yes, that works :)

Mai's looking forward to meeting Polly ;)

Also, keep in mind that there's no reason two of you can't meet the same source, doesn't have to be at the same time/place, but they're there to be sources. Feel free to pick whichever you like.

We need:
-Intros from our newbies (Vistruction, Wulfenheart)
-NPC pics from: Churro, Vistruction, Wulfenheart, Myself and Nem...way for the GMs to be on the ball hey...whoops.

Ok, I'll pick Landen for Mellie to meet.

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Bunnitas pretty much right. Theres no particular reason I chose Lethbridge. Its near the mountains, smallish, and that's pretty much it, lol.

For the purposes of the game the city won't matter much because we'll be leaving it right away.

Bunnita, you saw that Mai isnt in Lethbridge, right? I wanted some variety ;)

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Ok, a bit more info and then my NPCs.

We're going to go with Lethbridge being the general area everyone needs to get to. This first part of the game is sort of a treasure-hunt, mixed with some 'get out of dodge'.

Basically, each of you will need to pick an NPC and then work that character into your next post (excepting Vistruction and Wulfenheart, 'cause you guys get intros first :) ). In our NPC info we'll have a general location, and you need to have your character somehow bump into the NPC. They will give you info (leaning towars GPS coordinates, ATM) which will give you a map to the end location. If you guys would like you can plan to meet up with the other characters somewhere along the route, but not all at once and not too conveniently. (Feel free to do a joint post if you like, I'm a fan of those)

More info will be given to you soon-ish, and hopefully we can get going a little quicker. I'd like to aim for 2 posts per person each week, if that's ok with everyone??? As far as the bonding and magic goes, follow my lead :)

NPCs:

Daniel (Danny) Bannan

34
Park Ranger
Info: Danny has worked for Parks Canada since he was old enough to sign up at 18. He started off at a toll booth, and gradually worked up to being a ranger by the time he was 25. He loves his job, the access to the outdoors year round, and wouldn't trade it for the world. He was never a particularly social person, but not having to be around a ton of people all the time has actually helped him relax. now he knows he can back off to his cozy cabin in the woods whenever he starts feeling crowded, so he's more comfortable when he is in town or leading a group through the wilderness.
His older brother, Brian, was always his social opposite. Both men are tall, fair and red-headed, but personality-wise they're as different as possible. Brian was outgoing and always the center of everything, since Danny had no interest in that they got along great.

Now, Danny sympathizes with his nephew - Jake - who's as shy and reserved as Danny is. Brian won't let his son hide from the world, but now that Jake is old enough to start having a say in some things he's started coming to visit uncle Danny in the park every summer. Danny gets to spend a month or two with his kindred spirit nephew, Jake gets the calmness the woods gives him, and Brian gets a break from being a single dad with a about kid as different from himself as can be. Success all 'round.
Will be traveling into Lethbridge to get his Nephew.

Jack Bannan

13 (breaking one of my own rules...heh)
Element: Earth (but since he's young it's extremely weak - essentially useless. Just enough power to call the squirrel to him)
Animal: Squirrel (m)
Age: 1 year

Jack is a fairly quiet and thoughtful kid, during the school year he stays in the city with his dad and tend to keep to himself and generally be a bit of a bookworm. During the summer he gets to live with his uncle in the national park, exploring and following his uncle around. He looks forward to this trip all year and can barely be torn away to start school in the fall. He's tried to convince his dad to let him homeschool from the park, but his dad is insistent his son lives with him the majority of the year.
Jack lives in Lethbridge with his dad.

Mai Liu Chan

83
Element: Water, Earth
Animal: Stoat (m)
Age:5 years

Info: Mai immigrated to Canada when she was fairly young. She met her husband and they raised their 5 kids in Canada, running a cheap 'chinese' restaurant (one of two restaurants in town). The kind that serves things 'red sauce' and frozen-then-fried spring rolls. Her husband died last year of a heart attack, and her children have all moved to one big city or another - only coming to visit on alternating holidays. She hasn't seen the youngest since his wedding, 15 years ago.
She keeps the restaurant going seemingly by sheer force of will, smiling and nodding to her regulars and ignoring their consistent and uninventive racial jokes. She's used to it, small towns don't change much even in 50+ years.
She's about ready to jump ship, but has become fairly attached to the young servers and cooks who rotate through her store. She feels like she's a mother figure to most of them, the ones with parents who are too self-involved to teach their kids a good work ethic or any sort of sense of responsibility. The kids in town all know they can come to her for a shoulder to lean on, a free meal now and then, and a healthy dose of common sense advice. All with a fortune cookie to send them on their way with a smile. Those she makes by hand, every one.
Lives in Pincher Creek (West of Lethbridge, at the foot of the mountains), runs a Chinese restaurant.

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Alright, we'll be moving along right away.

Hopefully Vistruction and Wulfenheart can get their posts up the next two days. In the mean time we'll start some planning for the first phase if travel :)

Nem and I will be putting up a few NPCs for you guys to choose from. They'll be contacts to give you instructions IG. You'll be meeting up with the NPC in your second posts, and everyone will get a bit of play before we move on. Yay! :)

I'll get my NPCs up tonight so you guys can start picking.

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Now that I've got meds for him I'm hoping he'll start feeling better soon. Thanks Goldmarble :)

The Reawakening - Advanced, modern day, elemental magic RP

Well, im not going yo be on much today. Im spending the afternoon at the vet with a sick kitty :(

However, we have another new player! Welcome Wulfenheart everyone :) (and yes, I know you're always nice ;) )