test drive | 1

[unplug]

test drive

Welcome to the first test drive for Systemwide! We are excited to have you. All prospective players are welcome to tag in and test out their characters, be they unplugged or free born. We would like to offer a range of scenarios that can be expected during gameplay, which are also useable prompts for app samples, and of course, if something else about the setting strikes you, feel free to come up with your own!

Please put your character name and canon in your subject line, and indicate which prompt you are launching from.

simulation | maybe this is your first time. perhaps you've been here countless times. it's a room, as confined as a boxing ring, as expansive as a battle field, whatever you need it to be, whatever you're here to train for.

1.

Before you is a city of rooftops, empty of human life. This is a safe place, because while it may hurt you, at least it won't kill you. Perhaps you are practicing your influence over reality, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Are you successful, or are you failing to free your mind? Perhaps you're helping someone else overcome their fear of heights.

And of course, an operator can always load up some Agent-like training programs to make it interesting.

2.

Congratulations, you know kung-fu, or maybe some other system of combat, like crazy parkour archery, cartwheeling with guns, or sword fighting on horse back. Perhaps you're trying out something even more fantastic, a magical skill or a superpower.

Show me. Or a friend.

mission | whether on board a ship or with your mind sunk deep into a Matrix, you will have to join the battle eventually. sometimes things go terribly wrong. what are you gonna do about it?

3.

Something's gone wrong with this extraction.

There's a lot of information to process. Your target's been extracted, and that's the good news -- your ship, in reality, is heading to their location now -- but the bad news is your team has been scattered. You could be anywhere within this Matrix, deep in the jungle, or lost on a subway train, or staggering out of the crashing waves of a night time beach, and the operator needs a minute to figure out your exact location before they can direct you to a port out of here, or send another operative to collect you.

All you have to do is stay alive for that long. Easy, right?

4.

You were warned of this. You've been prepared in endless simulations, with a dozen cautionary tales, training sessions with the EMP. Still, it's nothing like you imagined, when the operator shouts: "Sentinel closing in at seven o' clock. It's gaining."

And then the shriek of metal.

reality | as much as many Matrixes are designed to be a comfort, you have to face the real world sometime. or maybe this is the world you have only ever known.

5.

Annual celebrations are rare to come by, but the anniversary of Neo's Truce is one that always draws in the crowd. The event takes place in a massive cavern in Zion known as the Temple, and there is music, and there is dancing [a little NSFW].

Everyone is there.

Where are you?

6.

The wind on your face, up here on the desolate surface, tastes bitter, different to what it feels like in a simulated reality. It's freezing cold and always dark, but sometimes, you need a reminder about what it is you're fighting for. Or maybe you're seeing the wasteland of Earth for the first time.

Either way, you shouldn't be out here for too long. The machines might find you.

wildcard | choose your own adventure.

7.

Perhaps you're riding with the Dothraki, or sitting under the Sorting Hat for the first time. Maybe the pleather bodysuit is pinching under your armpits as the traffic of the 90's roars by, or the Nova Empire's sprawling city glitters, towering above you. Maybe you're showing someone around the place you called home for your entire fictional life.

Or perhaps it's nothing as fantastical as that: the Council meeting droned on for two hours, and you're just happy to be home, even if it's a tiny enclosure with rust-edged furniture. Maybe someone's coming over for lunch, and there are real greens in the protein slurry today; maybe you're about to ask to join a crew.

There are infinite worlds to explore, but try to remember that only one of them is real.

Comments

k sweet! ty

[hacker]

[ Bluster swells in her chest, squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin. Her readied defense, the one waiting for him to decide he's worth anything to her, gets choked back into her throat when he settles on the smirk, but she has to tilt her head to hold it back, eyes narrow and burning.

It was a trick. And the worst part is that she can't imagine for the life of her why that's surprising. For all she'd let herself believe she had him figured out, there was always another angle with Ward. For all she expected the worst of him, he still managed to twist and manipulate his way straight on through.

In the real world, she'd never turn her back to him. Didn't trust him enough, never would. In the real world, she'd never leave him on a rooftop alone, because it'd almost certainly come back and bite her in the ass. But within the confines of the training program, he can't get far. It's not connected to any real matrix, not giving him any chance to be a real risk—hell, in reality, he's laid up in a chair beside her. Same as anyone else.

Keeping that in mind offers her a sense of perspective, but it's still something she struggles with. Some people are better at letting go of the matrix than others. Skye refuses to accept that it never meant anything, and that keeps the real world from feeling truly real for her some days. This feels like the status quo, especially when she's in it with him—a token of sorts from her old life, even if it's a bad token that she wants to smash on the ground and stomp on and set on fire. ]

Scared?

[ She takes some small satisfaction in her assumption, lips pursing as her expression sours. As she turns from him, her hair flips. It's beginning to feel stranger to have it than not. Maybe that means she's adapting. Reaching one hand up, she brushes bangs out of her eyes.

Deep breath.

She can feel his eyes on her, and she curls her hands into fists accordingly. Like she'd advised him, she takes it at a run, sprinting the ten feet to the edge of the roof, stepping up onto the ledge, and leaping off. Against all rhyme, reason, or natural laws, the momentum carries her through the air (it's not real air, that's how), a full one, two hundred feet onto the next rooftop.

And when she reaches it, she rolls with the landing, springing back to her feet. Rather than look back, she adjusts the velcro on her gloves, shaking her shoulders out. In no way is this some elaborate metaphor for running away from her problems and their collective past. ]

[kaitan]

Kaitan had swung immediately down from Tunada's back when the identity of the person they had been searching for became plain. The gesture was automatic and she followed it up by taking a few steps towards Fara, her eyes wide, her mouth open.

It was impossible, and yet somehow there wasn't a moment where Kaitan doubted that this was Fara. Maybe lack of physical presence had left her with a feeling of unreality for the Fara inside the bubble... but maybe not; it hardly mattered. In her gut Kaitan knew, although her head appealed sanity and, a little too late to make an impact, suggested that this could be an imposter.

The rest of her shut that part down. Her expression hardened back into something competent, rather than the breathless, yearning shock it had been a moment before.

"What can I do?" Her tone was firm, all business. The rest could follow later: if Fara was in trouble, that needed to be dealt with now. Tunada rumbled from behind her back, circling around to keep an eye on the exit, though he was not exempt himself from the shock.

[ochroma]

[ That was something. He paces for a few seconds before making his choice. Not closer and further from the edge, but parallel to it, trapped in the in between without retreating or moving forward. It wasn't that she could do it so he could do it to- it wasn't. It was a matter of orders. Orders from the people that controlled whether the both of them lived or died, and so naturally Grant would jump, but-

Fuck. She had gone a long way. A literal leap of faith. Possibly the worst virtue they could have tested him on. But there's nothing else to be done. He inhale, runs, leaps-

And is falling, pavement quickly approaching, approaching- maybe she had it in for him after all- and he hits the pavement, and-

And damn if he wasn't still alive. In a significant amount of pain, but alive.]

[hacker]

[ And suddenly, the fact that she hadn't bothered to turn around gains context.

She'd fallen a half dozen times, almost didn't have it in her to get back up from some of them, and she could only just now get across. Reaching up, she pushes her hair back into a ponytail, tying it up. Though she makes her way down to his side where he lays in the street, brightly colored cars whizzing past with blaring horns, Skye takes her time in doing it. Of course, not being in a hurry in a training program is a relative thing: there are shortcuts, and Skye's hacker predisposition makes her inclined to use them.

In a moment, she's beside him again, squatting and resting her elbows on her knees to look down at him. ]

Bet you wish you spent less time on strength training with nazis and more time on yoga, huh?

[ There had to be some incentive for her to be in here with him: watching him crash into the pavement might be a petty thing to consider a perk, but that didn't stop her. "Free your mind." That's how they'd sold it to her. Her instructional methods are far less zen and supportive, at least where Ward's concerned. ]

[righteously]

[ That first fuck has his brow wrinkling, has one eyebrow tugging upward as he eyes her incredulously. That's a whole lot of fuck to be coming out of a girl her age. Buuuut then again he was stabbing faces and dropping f-bombs since around that time anyway, so what the hell does he know. Kid's been through an existential crisis already, he figures she can talk how she wants.

Instead, he gestures vaguely around them at all the commotion, the talking people, the moving lines. ]

...What, you want me to ring the doorbell?

[ He responds flatly, before shoveling his fork into goop. ]

I didn't exactly stealth my way over here.

[punned]

[ The guy gets a guarded, pissed off side-eye at that doorbell remark, but then Ellie makes herself draw in a deep breath. Sets her forearms on the cold metal dining table, fork clutched tightly in her hand, shoulders slightly hunched and tense as she stares down at her food. Okay. Fuck. She's okay. Nothing to worry about. She's just a little jumpy, is all. Hard not to be when, back in her world, anything that approaches you from behind like that is more than likely going to kill you.

Being in this weird fucking place doesn't help. Trying to wrap her head around everything really doesn't fucking help. Existential crisis is putting it lightly. ]

So? Shouldn't sneak up on people like that.

[ Because as far as Ellie is concerned, he totally sneaked up on her.

Ugh. Whatever. Her racing heart is starting to calm now, anyway.

She takes proper hold of her fork again, stabs it into the goop. ]

What the hell is a yeast infection, anyway?

[ She sure as hell knows what an infection is, but yeast? What the fuck is that? What the hell kind of infection would look like what she's eating?

Have fun explaining to her what a yeast infection is, dude. ]

[righteously]

[ He recognizes this. He recognizes the way she's acting, the way her hand grips that fork like she wants to plunge it into someone's neck, the way her shoulders go tight now that she's not alone. The way she seems jumpy and agitated. It's more than just existentialism, it's more than just new surrounding, unfamiliar people. It's not just discomfort. It's probably ptsd, but he's no damn doctor.

It's something he can sense because remembers feeling it.

He can see every kid hunter in her posture, every Krissy Chambers he ever met. He can see himself.

She's from a fucked up situation. His lips part a little as his eyes flick over her, that understanding rushing through him for a second before his face blanks out again. The only thing worse than agitating her further would be letting on he can see through her, he knows that from experience, so he covers it up quick. ]

Moldy bread.

[ He deadpans, a blatant level of sarcasm coating it that he doesn't bother hiding. In other words, if you don't know he's not gonna be the one to tell you, kid. He's sure she can pick up on that, because kids her age are fucking smart about that kinda thing. ]

What the hell are you doing running around alone anyway, pipsqueak? What are you, like, twelve?

[ He's antagonizing her not because he particularly means anything he's saying, but he figures riling her up a little about something other than whatever's eating at her nerves might take her mind somewhere else. Give her a little distraction to help her get a grip.

Crowded public places ain't exactly the best way to get reintroduced to reality if everything you knew before it was violence. ]

[bloodhorse]

[IDK LIBS

BUT HE IS DESPERATELY HANDSOME, ALMOST DISTRACTING FROM IRKALLANS TBH. THIS IS ABOUT TO BE A SERIOUS PROBLEM. I don't even know what to tag. Uhhhhhhhhhh. Horse leans across the table, chin on hand and says oh, mr. seoraj, youre such an unfathomable and intriguing scotsman-- ok no. NOT REALLY.]

'Bullshit.' I'm not the Council.

[He grates this out on the dieselly register of a dying engine. And the bartender says nothing, so footfalls grow louder behind Seoraj, and the whites of every other patron's eyes rotate gently as the strangers come on in. To their credit, they're moving with audible hesitation.]

[bloodhorse]

[There are always children on ships, because the world is unkind and necessity ruthless, but not for the first time, Horse thinks to himself, irrelevantly, why are there children on ships. Because they're gifted and tougher than they look, Horse. Because we need them to work.

A squiddie claw bounces off one of her flailing kicks.

The next takes her shoe.

The metal is cold on her foot. She feels the robotic pincer snag the cuff and pop it off her heel, and the tentacle shoves forward further in an effort to close the growing distance between them. The mechanized joint starts to grind shut on the round bone of her ankle, a desperate scrabble. Horse swerves around the corner, but perhaps not fast enough.]

[bloodhorse]

Take it up with the Captain, [Horse says.

But it's not unsympathetic; due acknowledgment that the roles they have aren't always their choosing. Also that with having a headjack and the option of freedom comes a bizarre allocation of responsibilities. It isn't exactly fair, but it does keep them alive. It keeps Zion alive. And freedom of job selection is a small price to pay, by the estimation of both.]

Better yet-- [his voice goes a little wry, probably because he can hear the shriek and clatter of exploded machine parts on the walls of the tunnel.] Take it out on them.

[The ship rocks, heaves around the next turn. It's a tight fit, and the next Sentinel that starts around the corner wraps a few long tentacles around the corrugated metal and ancient concrete first. Feelers.]

[starbucker]

[ Oh, it's just one of her programs, most of them run out of here. She hardly knows who she is, but somehow this place helps. Most of the time. Then sometimes it just gives it a kind of unreality that lets her distance herself from it. Create people who never existed. Pause them, delete them, change the world outside from nuclear apocalypse to back again. She talks to Leoben about it sometimes, like she's talking to a real person, and not a simulation--she has to talk to someone, and she finds him easier to deal with than others.

But right now: ]

He's an agent. [ She's convinced herself of this. He has to be, there's no other explanation. ] And he almost ruined my life.

Looks human, right? Bleeds like one too.

[punned]

[ Toying her fork through the plate of goop, Ellie frowns, makes a subtle but confused, "huh?" face. Mouldy bread? This looks nothing like--

Oh. Wait. Oookay. The guy is just being a dick. She shifts on her seat, throws him a glance that's equal parts wary and a flat 'real funny, asshole'. Which… leaves her wondering what the fuck a yeast infection actually is. But okay, fine, seems he's not interested in telling her, for whatever reason.

Probably best they don't talk about infections, anyway. And fungus. Both are too fucking close to home for her; and trying to come to terms with the fact that her immunity to the infection that destroyed the world as she knew it means nothing, the fact that all the people she cared about who died because of her died in vain, is an even harder, bitterer pill to swallow. ]

Uhh. [ Why the hell is she running around alone? And 'What're you, like, twelve?' - fuck, why does that remind her of Joel? A small squeeze of uneasy panic twists in her chest, which she instantly squashes down on. ] 'Cause I got no choice? It's not like asked to be here, jeez.

[ Definitely sounding defensive here. Defensive and cagey. ]

And I'm fourteen, by the way? Not that that's any of your business, or got anything to do with anything.

[starbucker]

Hey, if you need me to wear a target so that you can get a headstart--

[ She was cheerful, though, the thrill of getting out of another scrape alive finally catching up with her. So okay, maybe she'd been a bit rough on him, but the adrenaline could be too much, and not having the trigger in her own hands was something she was still getting used to. ]

You're still going to come and play cards with us, right?

[mrsnippy]

On the one hand, Snippy felt like giving Captain a hearty fuck you for dragging him away from his dancing, but on the other, the fact that the woman was actually charmed by Captain's eccentricities made his heart sing. He gave her a thumbs up and a sharp grin.

"Good! Good, you keep having fun! Have fun all night, just make sure Captain remembers to get a drink of water soon!" Could his night really be going this well? Could he have finally found someone to share the burden of being the lunatic's pet? Rather than try and break up the happy couple he backed and turned to wend him way back to his partner.

Who, rather than wait for him, had started dancing way too close to someone else.

"Oh, come on! I said I was coming back!" His former partner didn't hear him over the din, being far too preoccupied stripping off another layer. Charles whirled around and stormed back over to Captain's empty circle, flapping his arms as he yelled. "You've ruined my night! You ruin everything!"

[servomotor]

[There's a long, Thoughtful pause following the gradual progress of Skye crossing the floor and screwing up her courage and recounting the highlights of her rather colorful career as a hacker. Tony watches the whole thing from where he's standing at the end of the obsidian-black pulpit, the shrunken code barely glittering reflections around his feet.]

No, [he says.] I haven't heard of. that.

[There's a deliberate touch of caustic humor to that statement. Sometimes Tony Stark isn't very nice, even when he doesn't mean to be particularly mean.] But I have heard of HYDRA, and they definitely set the bar-- somewhere. [:)] All right, let's skip preschool and see if you can read. [A gesture of his hand, and the code maximizes again. It's like watching (a self-appointed) God gesture, unfurl the full-depth luminosity of the universe like shaking out a tarp.

Hundreds of lines of code propagate into view, hundreds of feet deep and high at full magnification. Tony gestures at the nearest glassy column of slow-rotating text.] It isn't written in kanji.

[It isn't. It is of course, a programming language of Earth as she knows it. More advanced than anything HYDRA wrote, but it wasn't impossible for Coulson to override once or twice upon an elevator; it won't be impossible for her to decipher it now. Innumerable layers of security, protocols of conduct, voice activation, a vocabulary more complex than the vast majority of humans to have ever lived; the ability to think, albeit in a carefully, rigidly limited way.

She can see why he didn't want just anyone to know what he was playing at.]

[mrsnippy]

Only if you can convince a bigger fool than me to join in too. I'd like to have some chance of walking away with my clothes still on my back.

[That was as good enough as a yes from him, since for all he liked to grumble, he hated sitting about on his lonesome when there was a chance for some easy camaraderie. He'd come, get way too pumped by winning a hand, then drown his sorrows at losing yet again with the horrific moonshine they kept for such occasions]

[pistolproof]

[ Jack doesn't do anything to help her. He doesn't reach out to help her steady her balance, doesn't even stop fighting as she stumbles on her feet. The only thing he does to is shoot out to her right, whacking her nice and hard on the right side of her body.

If this was a real fight, not a simulation, if they were fighting for their lives, chances are Jack Sparrow just won on one slice. If he'd stabbed her in the gut instead of whacking her side, that'd be a pretty fucking lethal hit. But it is a simulation, and it's just training and he's taking a pretty decent amount of care to ensure he doesn't murder his fighting opponent.

Even if she is terrible at fighting with a sword.

He gives her a smirk as he re-positions himself. First to three points wins, and it's Jack:1 Ellie: 0. ] First time using a sword, eh, luv?

[punned]

Ow, motherfucker--!

[ The whack to her side is what does it: she goes sprawling onto the ground with a hard grunt, sword clattering from her hands with a loud, clanking metallic noise. Ellie's a tough kid, but that? That kinda fucking hurt.

She heaves herself up onto her hands and knees, lets out a winded breath, plants one foot on the ground and braces her hand on her knee to start pushing herself onto her feet. She snaps her head up, gives the guy a kinda wary glare at that smirk on his face.

She climbs to her feet and sets her shoulders with an indignantly stubborn look on her face. ]

Jeez, how about, I dunno, showing me how to do this before you start charging at me with your whole... pirate swashbuckling... [ Hands waving a little furiously in the air like she's trying to find the right word. ] ...thing.

[actoftruelove]

[ Anna's not a princess any more, not here. She's just an 18 year old girl who isn't very good at socializing because she's only been around the same people her entire life. The maids and servants who lived in her castle have always told her that talking while chewing is rude and not princess-like but, well, she supposes there's no one here who she needs to impress.

She twists the bottom of her shirt while Ellie considers the question. Anna's more used to wearing bright clothes, pinks and blues and greens. The neutral gray colors of their clothes in reality is a bit... boring and depressing, but she supposes it's good for hiding? ]

Oh, [ she says, disappointment apparent in her tone when the answer to her question is a no. ] Well, uh. Thanks anyway.

[ But before she can walk away, Ellie is handing her a piece of bread, and Anna can't stop the sheepish smile that crosses her face when her stomach rumbles. ] Uh, thanks? [ It's a question in her tone, but that doesn't stop her from reaching out and accepting the offering. She breaks off a little piece from it and takes a bite. ]

[neverenstones]

"We need access to other daemons who are hooked into the system," Fara replied immediately. She raised a hand and two of the three of her accomplices poked their heads out, eyeballing Kaitan carefully. One seemed disrespectful, all trouble, maybe. The other seemed mostly uncertain -- wary, definitely. Both of them were dressed in a fashion that seemed as far off as anything south of Isiodoth, which was to say, across the Horn or beyond. (One of them was even wearing shades, unwilling to change his residual self-image to fit the times. Fara didn't like him much.)

"I've been working behind the scenes on something very important, but it's the sort of thing that is going to get us royally in trouble... sort of like last time, but worse," she admitted. She turned towards Tunada now, dipping her head again to show respect. "Sorry to put it all on you, but 'do or die' doesn't even begin to nail it."

In the meantime, she said to Kaitan, "we need access to other bolt-holes that potential asandus and caetran forces aren't aware of, or that they can't get to. We're wearing down our welcome in this one."

[righteously]

[ God help the person who has to explain to a fourteen year old girl what a yeast infection is, but no matter what it sure as hell ain't gonna be Dean. Not for all the chicken paste in the world, which is obviously the only viable form of currency Dean's interested in, unless someone manages to reinvent toaster pastries. Or toasters. Or pastries.

His head bobs absently and he shrugs, conceeding her point. Why are any of them running around here alone? Because there were clearly so many friggin' other options. It totally explains why he's having a communal slop dinner in a cafeteria with a tween. ]

Yeah, okay, fair enough.

[ He responds, distracted by the way goop is oozing through the prongs on his fork. He pulls a face. God, he misses beef. His liver for a burger, seriously, he'll trade internal organs for cows at this point. ]

I guess I'm just tryin' to figure out why you're hangin' around up here when there's, like, a whole subsection overrun with kids your age down on B level.

[ He mentions casually, dropping the information like she totally already knew it. Follows it by innocently shoveling another forkful into his mouth. God, shoot him now. ]

[systemwizard]

"ZEE MAGIC!" Captain's stocking feet sprawled wide and heavy on the ground as they came into full support of themselves again, though they propped one hand on Derfie's well-muscled shoulder to support themselves while their head slowed from its dizzying spin. They proceeded to pat themselves down, as if determining that all of them had come off of the spinning dance in one piece. When they discovered that most of them was in one piece, Snippy had already left.

"Ah, my little wandering biscuit has gone in search of butter patties," Captain mused, disappointed but not entirely surprised. They'd been hoping to put both Derfie and Snippy into a simultaneous headlock to show gratitude, and also perhaps to rest their weary feet! They made do by turning back towards Derfie and clapping her shoulders with surprising force. "You have been a true backup dancer, suitable to mein entourage! I shall dub thee zee twinkliest of toes," accompanied by stocking toe-waggling, of course, on their part. "Miss Twinkly, Delegate of Zion to the Outreach Branch of Captania!" She had just been knighted, albeit with sternly pointed fingers to either shoulder and to the crown of her juicily coiffed flaxy hairs.

They heard Snippy's whinging dopplering off the crowd as his trajectory brought him around again, and, when the short man came close, Captain turned and made good on fulfilling their headlocking destiny. It wasn't hard to judge where Snippy would be (storming right their way for payback) and how hard he was going to fight back (with all the power of a wounded dickens), so hopefully a gently coconutting on the top of his head would show Captain's appreciation for the short orbit. "Snippy! Did you bring the water?!"

[punned]

...There is?

[ Cagey though she is, she sounds genuinely a little surprised. Not excited or hopeful by that little nugget of information necessarily, but definitely surprised. Goes to show how much she's been keeping to herself. ]

I dunno. [ A small, dismissive one-shouldered shrug as she scoops up some goop. ] I prefer being on my own, I guess.

[ She's not even going to go into why. She leans over her plate slightly, shoves the fork of goop into her mouth instead. Kind of chews it, swallows it. She casts another wary glance over at the dude. ]

Anyway. Why did you decide to sit next to a kid? This part is-- [ She waves her fork in gesture of the mess hall. ] Totally overrun with boring, old adults your age. You coulda gone and sat next to any of 'em. I mean, how old are you? Like, sixty?

[ Ellie knows this guy is hardly sixty. He doesn't look anywhere near as old as Joel - which, by the way, she doesn't actually know how old Joel is, just knows he's pretty fucking old compared to a lot of people in their world - but she's just being a bit of a brat. ]

[righteously]

[ Granted, most of those teenagers might be older than her by a couple years, and some of them might have even been werewolves back in their fake life, but either way it's gotta be better than being surrounded by a bunch of existential asshole adults having a midlife crisis or whatever. Just something she oughtta know for later on down the line when she's actually interested in talking to strangers.

He can't help but snort at that age guess. Wow, thanks a lot, kid. His ego's certainly not a fan of her. ]

Thirty four.

[ He responds, annoyance in his tone. He knows she's screwing with him, but hey. Gotta keep up the back and forth, right. He points his fork at her. ]

You tried sitting with some of these assclowns? All any of them ever wanna talk about is how way important they were back home or whatever. 'Wah, I was saving the world', who cares, it's all fake ass imaginary crap. Shut up and eat your chicken paste.

[ He rants, maybe a little more loudly than he should because a blonde woman across the room shoots him a hard look. He shrugs at her defiantly. She snorts at his maturity, rolls her eyes, and ignores him again.

He huffs. ]

[systemwizard]

"Sn-nn-ipp--ppy!" Through the shaking the Captain was getting, it was hard to reprimand their minion properly. This was not how things were supposed to go at all: Snippy should have been chased away by bees at this point, or perhaps left groveling on the ground for some other reason. Also, Captain's jaw sang whenever they tried to conspiratorially hiss, which meant that it was going to be throbbing in pain very shortly. "HALT THIS MADNESS AT ONCE YOU WIGGLY OAF!"

Well, that wasn't conspiratorial whispering anymore, but then, how long had Snippy really expected the Captain to respect his true wishes?

For now, everything under Captain's layers and layers of sweater-bits was being kept well in hand, as they were grasping at their torso as though it was their last life-saver, and a favourite flavour at that. It was more important even than remaining upright, which was something of a difficulty under the kind of treatment they were getting. Did Snippy understand how difficult it was to mince over docking bay floors in stocking feet, not to mention the multiple layers of Zion's assisted living district and every layer of the cake between there and here?! At some point Captain was going to have to instill better mindfulness of the soleful regions.

Yes, the straw was going to stay on their person, at least until that point. Soon enough they placed the full brunt of their dirty hand on Snippy's face, forcefully pushing him back. "Pull your face back together my friend, it is making the most thrilling attempt to escape in every direction and I mustn't be made to chase after each caterpillar and stray hair. Deep breaths!"