kingdoms_of_auradon | (no subject)

Open/locked?: Open!
Who: Vexen/Even/Whatever nickname you give him
What: A new arrival!
Warnings: Copious amounts of sass and sarcasm? Nothing serious to start with, will tag individual threads if the Traumatic Backstory comes up.
It's a lovely, frost-trimmed morning in Auradon, blades of glass glittering in the sunlight, and...a dismayed looking scientist staring at a castle that very definitely isn't the one he lives in? There's no shock or confusion on his face as he takes in his decidedly unfamiliar surroundings, but just a tired sense of annoyance-tinged dread.

"Oh, Darkness take me, not again..."

Darkness take him home, he means. Whatever this is, he doesn't have time for it! An aura of inky purple-black rises from the ground to envelop him...and deposit him a mere ten feet away. That's obviously not where he meant for it to take him, as he scowls and tries again, this time stepping out of a darkened portal on a nearby wall. Increasingly frustrated, he digs a crown-themed smartphone from a pocket and checks the screen, before shooting it a glare that would be able to peel paint even if his eyes weren't an uncannily vibrant, acidic-looking green.

"What..." It comes out a tired sounding mutter, as he pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "Is the point of a phone that functions across worlds if the signal cannot reach those worlds I must actually call for assistance from?"

Alright, worlds so utterly cut off from the rest that even the Darkness can't reach out from it are most certainly outside the scope of what the designers had in mind, but the fact remains, his phone is useless. So he supposes...all that's left is to try to learn what he can about where he is. And that means recon.

While he's not making active effort to go unseen, he doubts he'll have any reason to need to operate in secrecy, he still isn't quite in the habit of simply approaching people and asking them to explain things to him. He still has some pride left, after all, and it demands that he at least make some notes of his own, first. So, if someone didn't catch him complaining to himself, they might instead spot the scientist simply observing, with an expression of curiosity mixed with concern. It doesn't, after all, take him look to note that the area is oddly deserted, even for what must be the fringes of winter.

He's going to try not to think about what that reminds him of. If the corridors can't reach this place, after all, then neither can they.

Threaded | Flat

The area isn't completely deserted after all -- it takes a bit, perhaps, but eventually he'd spot a lady coming down the path around the side of the building, holding something in her hands, looking lost in thought.

She's an older teenager here, or thereabouts, black hair twisted up above her subtly pointed ears, twirling up and back on both sides from the front, rather than being braided like that, to be held with some ribbon and a dark blue rose and then hang down around her shoulders and back in faint waves. She's distinctly not dressed as warmly as one might expect for this weather, but merely in a long, flowy sort of black dress with panes of purple fading into it from the lower hems, the garment clinging a bit up top. The fabric couldn't possibly hold much heat at all; it looked rather a lot more like an evening gown meant for a prom someplace, and even with a few layers visible at the bottom of the skirts and what may have been a cape of some sort hanging loosely down her back, the way it swished around and behind her as she walked said that it was entirely for fashion, not so much function. But she was relaxed, her breath invisible before her as she went, her large dark purple eyes down on a pair of little bottles of something there in her hands.

Really, the bottles might've been of more interest than her seeming disregard for the temperatures around her. Though the liquid seemed to be clear -- what of it he could see, at least -- it had a distinct glow to it, as if someone had mixed the contents of some yellow and white glowsticks into it and given it a good shake again, diluting them without entirely destroying their effect. She seemed lost in thought as she walked down the path, not looking up... until she took another turn into a shadier spot in what had to be a garden area. The lighting change seemed to pull her free from whatever spell of concentration and distraction had claimed her, and she blinked, looking up and around.

And she seemed a little baffled by this, sighing to herself. She didn't comment, just looked around, body language betraying her disappointment at having evidently missed whatever turn she was supposed to have taken, and she gestured, tucking the bottles... away? They'd seemed to simply disappear while hidden from view by the drape of her sleeves; a skirt like hers allowed for no pockets which could have feasibly concealed those bottles just now, and yet....

And then in looking around, she finally spotted him. She turned toward him, took another step, tried putting on a faint smile. "Hello... I don't believe we've met...?"

Thankfully it wouldn't be too long before Vexen would see a familiar face. Or rather, a familiar head of red hair. Lea was dressed in sweater that matched the color of his hair almost perfectly over black pants and sneakers. He was making his way across the lawn, stretching a bit as he walked, and leaving a narrow trail of frost-free grass in his wake. Thanks to the angle, he was unlikely to notice Vexen immediately unless he called out, but Vexen might be able to catch what Lea was saying to himself if he approached a bit closer.

"Man," Lea said. "I'm gonna have to see if I can get Aqua to move practices inside somewhere. It's getting to be too cold to do it outside, especially in the mornings."

During his initial portal try-outs, Vexen may have been too preoccupied with this to notice he was being watched. To be more specific, he was being watched by a pair of bats. Intrigued by what they'd seen, they flittered away before they could be caught in order to report back to their mistress.

As they knew, she was curious. It was at least something to break the tedium! So she ordered her bats to keep an eye on him so she could find him, and eventually spotted him doing some quiet observing off in the distance.

... Alas, she couldn't resist a good trolling.

So she waited another moment or two for him to be comfortable in his silence... before ripping a particularly loud note on her guitar, and flashed a grin to see his reaction.