< atton revisited > The information page for Atton has been fully revised and updated with the new map!
< updated calendar > The Fortuna calendar has been updated in the "Other" lore section! This includes a document which displays the calendar for you to see, making it much easier to understand.
< moving map > The first functional map has been released in the News section! This map is also interactive, allowing you to drag and drop between points in order to determine distances. This is the first iteration, and there's more and better to come!
< first annual awards > The results for the First Annual Fortuna Year-End Awards have been posted! Go and take a look at who the finalists were, and who took home the big prizes!
< new default skin > Our new skin has passed the beta test, and is now the new Default for the forums! If you have any issues with this skin, send a PM or Discord to Mellie.
< human lore update > Humans have been updated with TWENTY-FIVE subraces/subcultures which add numerous options, and a little extra lore and flavour.
< magic lore update > Magical Lore has been enhanced with the addition of a post on Magical Education. From Beginner to Expert, this is how you learn the spells.
< a change to member groups > Member groups are now based on storyline! You can change your displayed storyline by editing the settings in your profile.
Welcome to the world of Fortuna, a land of fantastic proportions. This is an original fantasy roleplay that takes place in a world developed over nearly a decade of work and collaboration. We aim to encourage all participants to have a hand in the stories of the characters here, and the world around them. Your choices are key - so make them with pride. You decide who wins the wars, you decide who becomes King, the world is ours, and together we will bring it to life!
Post by Cherry Milerand on Jan 20, 2018 0:45:43 GMT -7
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Oh, no no, stop, bad times!
Cherry managed to figure out something was wrong almost immediately. She couldn't claim she was looking directly at Leigh as she spoke, so she couldn't quite say when the change in her expression took place. What she did know was that one second they were laughing and joking and Leigh was quite thoroughly shook by what Cherry had said about her life up till now, and the next second Leigh was looking like someone had pissed in her cereal.
And then she was getting up, and gathering her clothes, and Cherry recognized that hurried body language. She was trying to get out. Something Cherry had just said had made her want to leave. Oh no, oh no no no, that couldn't happen! Not yet, at least! Briefly she flash-backed to earlier in the morning, when Leigh's personality had done a similar flip; playful and inviting as they danced in the tavern, to stormy and brooding after Cherry sang to her.
Leigh must have gotten the wrong idea about something again. Right?
"No, wait, wait," she said, shaking her hands for a moment before hastily standing up. She tried to maneuver around her work table to walk to Leigh, to still her for a moment, but unfortunately in her haste she wasn't exactly being graceful. Her foot snagged on some loose fabric and she ended up slipping on the fluffy carpet and taking a forward tumble, a muffled "Eep!" escaping her as she fell.
As her face met the carpet (not particularly hard but hard enough to make her nose a bit sore) thoughts ran through her mind about what she had just said, and why it must have upset Leigh. Had it been the whole thing about the past? Well, probably, now that she thought of it. In fact it seemed kind of obvious. She'd thought maybe Leigh needed to hear it, and the pirate girl clearly had some kind of baggage, so obviously that meant that Cherry's choice of words had made her feel some type of way. Not quite the result that she'd hoped for.
She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could after that, rubbing at her nose which was now a bit red-flushed, and managed to step up to Leigh just as the woman was picking up the last of her things.
"I'm sorry?" she managed to say, hands clasped in front of her chest and her eyes a little wide. "I'm not sure what I just did but obviously I did something. Talk to me about it? I can't fix it if I don't know what's wrong."
Hesitantly, she reached out one of her hands, knowing already how reactive Leigh was capable of being, and settled it lightly on the taller woman's shoulder. "Please don't go?"
Post by Leigh Haskell on Jan 21, 2018 18:41:02 GMT -7
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[attr="class","wavesundtext"] Five minutes ago if Cherry had hurried over to Leigh like that, Leigh's arms wouldn't have been able to get around her fast enough. The little lamini wouldn't have had a chance to stumble, or to fall, Leigh just wouldn't have let it happen. But this wasn't five minutes ago. This was now, and Leigh was focused on dressing herself and making her escape, not on Cherry and her clumsiness. All the little 'eep' she gave as she crumbled earned was a a raised brow from Leigh as she pulled her hair out of the shirt she'd just yanked onto herself.
She had looked away by the time Cherry had scrambled to her feet, and was grabbing her jacket off the floor as the words rang out: I'm sorry.
Leigh stopped mid-bend, and then slowly came back up, not bringing her face around to meet Cherry's eyes. She could imagine it well enough, and she couldn't trust herself to look, not with the apology she'd been given. It was strange how much power those two words could have: I'm sorry. She felt like they were underestimated by most people. Or hell, maybe Leigh just didn't hear them enough. Either way, while it didn't change much, it did make her stop. It made her fingers curl into the jacket. It made her press the stump of her right hand into the coolness of the leather. It made her close her eyes tightly and take a sharp breath and not just go off.
For a moment.
Then, she realized that it wasn't enough. Her right arm fell from the jacket, the stump hanging between them like the unspoken frustration. "Some things can't be forgotten as easy," Leigh's voice was dark, just above a whisper. That was the problem. Cherry was so ready to forget and move on, and Leigh couldn't, because Leigh was still suffering, and Cherry wasn't. No, Cherry had done nothing to hurt Leigh, not really. But Cherry was a reminder of the things that had hurt Leigh. Of things that still hurt her. Of things that were going to hurt her. "This was a stupid idea. I shouldn't have come here."
And then she stepped forward, causing Cherry's hand to drop off her shoulder, and went for the door.
Post by Cherry Milerand on Jan 21, 2018 18:57:00 GMT -7
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Shoot me before you go
Well this had gone south pretty fast, and honestly it left Cherry a little shell-shocked. Maybe she wasn't cut out for coping with someone's mood shifting as wildly and quickly as Leigh's clearly could. Maybe Leigh's world really was just too different from Cherry's, no matter how much Cherry tried to not let that be an obstacle to them getting along. Part of her wondered why she was so fixated on making that happen; Leigh had been rude this morning, taken out a bad mood on her, and had basically been forced to come hang out with Cherry. Cherry liked people as a general thing, but she also didn't like to outright force her company on people that clearly didn't want it.
But still... something about Leigh made her want to reach out. Maybe she subconsciously was seeking a wider perspective, and needed someone whose situation was wildly different from her own. Maybe she really just hated seeing even a pirate running around in ratty clothes (pah, please girl, don't fool yourself). Or maybe she could just tell that Leigh was hurting somewhere inside of her and Cherry wanted to be someone who could do something about that.
But maybe that time wasn't now.
She cast her eyes down, Leigh making for the door, and was all but prepared to accept that the pirate had decided she'd had enough. But then she had another thought: That she'd be damned if she'd wasted some perfectly good hard work today, for something that would only fit Leigh. And so she called out.
"Wait! Just... wait."
Her words appeared to halt Leigh once again, even if only for a moment, and the woman still wouldn't turn to look at Cherry. The lamini girl sighed and turned back to her work table, picking up the completed jacket, and then stepped over to Leigh again. She held the jacket out, folded in a square, to the woman's back.
"At least take this. It's the one thing that's done right now, and it'd be a waste if no one ever wore it. Please? I'd like it if you could at least say you got one nice thing out of your birthday..."
Leigh still wasn't looking, but Cherry glanced away with a slight downtrodden expression, figuring to herself that clearly she had failed to be that nice thing if she'd managed to chase Leigh away with a few words. "I'll finish the rest, too. It's still yours. You can come back any time to get it, no questions asked. Bu at least take the jacket."
Post by Leigh Haskell on Jan 21, 2018 19:30:27 GMT -7
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[attr="class","wavesundtext"] There were a lot of things Leigh could say now, with Cherry pressing the jacket against her back.
In the perfect vision of this moment, she turned around with a sigh. She looked down at Cherry with hooded, wetted eyes, and put her hand on Cherry's wrist. "It's not you, teapot," She would say, because that would be the right thing to say, "I've got problems I gotta work through. This was a stupid idea, 'cause I liked you right away. I liked you more than alotta other people. This was a stupid idea since I'm not ready to be nice to someone. I can't be. Maybe I will be someday. Won't expect you to wait... But if I get my shit together, maybe I can make it up t'you." In this version of events, she'd kiss Cherry's forehead, take the jacket, and leave. She'd walk out the back door, and just walk till she found the sea.
Leigh wasn't perfect.
In a slightly better vision of things, Leigh turned around, and took the jacket. She didn't touch Cherry, but the connection between them could be felt through the leather as she held it. "I'm sorry," She'd whisper, and the two would meet eyes and maybe Cherry would understand how much Leigh wanted to mean that. Maybe Cherry would understand what it meant. "I'll see you 'round, Teapot." She'd just leave, and walk, and walk, until she found the sea.
Leigh wasn't good enough for that.
In the real version, Leigh didn't turn around right away. She wanted to, but she couldn't. She didn't know why, but maybe it was something like fear. She stayed there, let Cherry worry, let Cherry worry it was all her. She waited far too long, and when she turned around it was too late to be nice. She looked at the jacket, then up to Teapot, who's eyes were wide and Leigh had to scowl to not do something more vulnerable.
With their eyes met, she grabbed the jacket - hand and hook - and a slight tearing sound broke the silence as her hook locked through the fabric. She hadn't meant to rip it, not really, she just wanted to really show Cherry how different they were. Cherry was a noble, a fashion designer, she had two hands. Leigh was poor, a pirate, and she couldn't even cup Cherry's face without bringing bloodshed with it. Her eyes didn't drop down to see the damage, she didn't dare to.
"Thanks," Her hand tugged at the jacket, freeing it from Cherry's hands, and then she took a step back, "You were a good lay."
And then Leigh walked out, making a point to close the door behind her. When she heard the resounding click of another chance at a good thing ruined, she pulled the jacket on, found the back door, and walked out.
Post by Cherry Milerand on Jan 21, 2018 21:52:09 GMT -7
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And there it goes
She took the jacket.
She took it roughly, she wore a scowl as she did it, and she had nothing more to say than some off-the-cuff comment on Cherry's sexual prowess before she was walking out. She ripped the thing as she grabbed it. Cherry heard it. Leigh wouldn't look directly at her even when she'd turned to take it. And that's how she wanted to end things.
All because Cherry had said one single wrong thing, apparently.
She didn't say or do much when Leigh took it, when Leigh left, when Leigh closed the door. But once she was gone, Cherry let herself get livid. She marched over to the nearest fragile thing she could find (some glass trinket she'd thought was cute on her last trip into the market) and chucked it at the wall, letting it smash into a million pieces.
"Go then, you jerk!" she shouted, now that Leigh couldn't hear her do it. "I don't know why I bothered! Can't even get over yourself for two gods-forsaken seconds and talk about what's bothering you instead of acting like some aloof piece of--! Uuuurgghh!!"
She found something else, a cup she'd been drinking out of, and threw that too. It smashed, and then she marched over to the work table where Leigh's unfinished pants were sitting, grabbed a pair of shears, and started slicing them to ribbons. When she was done with that (having thrown the shears onto the floor afterward with another grunt of frustration), she finally took a few breaths. Leigh had been gone for only a few moments. She was probably still leaving, given the size of Cherry's place.
She wanted to throw something at her.
She marched over to her window, the one that overlooked the back garden, with another trinket in hand, and she saw that she was just in time to do just that. There was Leigh, down below, making for the back wall. She was probably going to have to scale it to get out, since there weren't any gates leading out of the back. She'd probably have a tough time leaving without notice given the city she was in. Served her right.
Cherry was prepared to open the window and chuck her anger at her, but then she saw something she probably wished she hadn't for the sake of her venting. Leigh was wearing the jacket, and for a moment, she paused on her way to the wall. She paused and looked at the spot that she had ripped with her hook. Stared at it for a good moment. There was very little change in her face, it looked almost like the same blank look the pirate always seemed to try and keep it in. But then she saw her nose scrunch up just slightly, as though she'd had a single, brief sniff. And Cherry saw her quickly raise a hand to her face and wipe at her eye. Leigh shook her head and kept walking after that.
Cherry stepped away from the window, the fire in her suddenly staunched a bit. And also she didn't want Leigh to notice she was looking at her. She dragged her feet back over to her work table and plopped down heavily into her seat, letting her arm drop and releasing the little trinket she held. It fell with a soft thud onto the carpet, still in one piece.
After several moments of breathing and wondering why she was such a sentimental idiot, Cherry straightened up, reached for some fabric, and began working. She had some pants to remake.
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