the sun in my disgrace [OPEN + MINGLE]

[rangerbecket]

WHO: Raleigh Becket
WHERE: 6I village, Inn
WHEN: 21 August - mid morning
OPEN TO: All + Mingle
WARNINGS: Put on your Eclipse Glasses TBD

---

Raleigh had been on his way back from his normal morning routine of checking his traps and fishing for a while when he noticed the sun wasn't quite the way it normally looked - he'd caught a glance at the reflection and saw that the sun, normally perfectly round, was looking a little like a lemon that had gotten beaten up at the grocery store. Huh. An eclipse. He hasn't seen one since he was in Ranger training and he hadn't gotten a good look at that one because he hadn't been directly in the path of it (and, obviously, he'd been preoccupied).

This one, though, looks like it's just starting so Raleigh has time to go to the Inn and tell the people there that there's an eclipse starting and they should get something to try and look at it. He's not exactly sure of the science behind it but he remembers being a kid and making something with a box and earlier he'd done pretty well with the water. Maybe they can take pots outside with water and just look at the reflections? Might work. Maybe, too, one of the scientists has a better idea of how to get a look at the thing.

For his part, it's just something that's different from the norm. Raleigh hopes it's not a sign that the sun's going to start moving backward or staying up all month like it had a few months back and that it's just a perfectly normal, natural event. After earthquakes and people getting sick with some kind of crazy illness, it was good to just have something...mundane to focus on.

Comments

OTA

[bit_fairytale]

It's not the first time that the sun's gone wibbly for Amy Pond, but the last time, the earth had been about to be incinerated, a raggedy Doctor from her past showed up, and a weird fishy alien with teeth was lurking around an extra bedroom in her house. Seeing as none of that has turned up, she suspects that this time around is more of the normal space-sciencey-stuff that she hadn't paid much attention to.

History and art, those are things that Amy adores. Biology and physics and space, those were things she relied on the Doctor for. It's not that she can't be good at that sort of thing, it's just that she never really bothered to care when she had a Time Lord to care for her.

Shielding her gaze, she squints up at the bright glare as the sun begins to slowly vanish, bit by bit. There's a touch of anxiety kicking around in her, because what if. What if something is about to happen, what if the atmosphere is being sealed off, what if...? Glancing around, she tries to find someone near, just to get a little reassurance, or maybe to hide behind if things go south. "Oi!" she shouts, when she sees someone. "What do you figure, is it just a normal eclipse?"

[the_scandal_of_italy]

Lucrezia was the absolute last person Amy would want to ask for reassurance. While there was a larger understanding about the way the planets moved, the interpretation of the stars, astrology and other abnormal occurrences were still viewed as a sign from God. She had never seen an eclipse before and the sudden darkness of the sun seemed as though God had blotted it out with his thumb.

"An eclipse?" She asked, completely dumbfounded. She clutched her arms about her waist, staring up at the sky in horror. "What do you think it means? Is it a warning from the gods of this world?"

[bit_fairytale]

"Well, the last time the sun went out, all of time and space was collapsing and the time before that, aliens were about to destroy the world," Amy says in the sort of bored way that a person shouldn't really use when discussing that sort of thing. That's why she's worried that whatever is happening up there in the sky isn't normal. Plus, the last time something was rumbling in the sky, she got struck by lightning and that's not something she intends to repeat, if she's totally honest.

"Maybe we should go inside, get protected, just in case," Amy says, reaching a hand out to tap Lucrezia gently on the palm, grabbing her hand and tugging her along like she's the Doctor now, leading a companion onwards.

[the_scandal_of_italy]

That filled her with apprehension and sharp fear, her eyes wide. A part of Lucrezia had wondered if this was a harbinger or a sign of the Observer's displeasure. Whether or not God had a presence here, it seemed more plausible that this was linked to the Observers more than anyone else.

She let herself be pulled along by Amy, trying to keep herself from shivering. "Where are we going?"

OTA

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh has managed to rustle up two pieces of paper out of a journal he'd gotten back over the winter during presents and has rigged up a little pinhole viewer so he can see the phases of the eclipse without looking directly at the sun. It's rough science and very crude but as he watches, he can see the sun get smaller and smaller as it's blocked out by the moon. When it's completely blocked, he takes a chance and looks up, sees a ring of bright light around a darker spot.

"Looks like the moon's directly blocking it," he says, grinning a little. The air is a little cooler and the birds have gone quiet; everything is eerily still for a moment before life starts back up again. It's strange, the way things are so tied to the cycles of light and dark, winter and summer but when there's nothing else to set an internal clock by, it's necessary.

Raleigh hasn't had a watch or known the time in over a year now. It's crazy when he reflects on it now, the whole span of time, but in the day to day he doesn't think about it much. Today, it seems like everything's narrowed down to a couple minutes where the moon flies past the sun but sometimes it seems like the days stretch on and on, endless.

Time is a funny thing.

[turned_to_steel]

"It's strange, isn't it?" Sansa comments, still holding her hand like she is trying to shield her vision while she peeks up at the sun when it is completely covered by the moon. The stillness around them has her shifting just a touch closer to Raleigh as she tries not to think about how strange or wrong it feels but she breathes easier when life starts to stir again.

Carefully dropping her eyes from the sky, she drops her hand back to her side as she thinks about all the strangeness too and shakes her head. It really does seem a bit much at times but she is hoping for a lull but doubts she will get one.

[rangerbecket]

"It doesn't happen very often. I only ever saw one before," Raleigh says, giving Sansa a little smile before dropping his arm around Sansa's shoulders. "I saw one when I was in Ranger training a while back but it wasn't a total one, like this, it was only a partial. It's a special event."

He thinks it might have been a bigger event if kaiju hadn't been an imminent threat but the world seems to focus on crisis, not celebration.

[turned_to_steel]

At one time she would have hesitated at such a public show of affection but now there is no hesitation on her part as she shifts closer to lean against his side when his arm comes around her. Tilting her head against his shoulder, she looks towards the sky but not directly at the sun while watching everything turn back to normal slowly.

"It does feel like something, doesn't it? Especially with the new village appearing." Or maybe it was an old village, she didn't know.

OTA

[learntthehardway]

This wasn't the first time Diana had seen a total eclipse, in fact she'd seen several over the years that she'd been in the world of men. Though, this was the first time she'd seen one while in the nameless village. She wasn't sure if this was a common occurrence in the village but she didn't truly care.

It just made her think that maybe things weren't as different there as she'd first thought.

She smiled as headed out, her arms crossed. She headed over to the trees because even she wasn't dumb enough to actually look up at the sun. No, she planned on watching the shadows cast by the trees to track the progress of the eclipse. She sat down on the ground, not caring if she got dirty and her gaze was focused intently on the shadows. It wasn't until a more humanoid shadow formed, blocking the eclipse shadows, that she bothered to look up.

"Did you want to sit with me?"

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana hadn't ever seen an eclipse before and was dumb enough to look up at the sun. She was barefoot, wearing her usual island dress, with Itiiti padding along at her heels. She hadn't realized that she was in Diana's way until the woman spoke and her attention was pulled down to the shadows that danced along the ground.

"Oh, yeah." She had to nudge Itiiti over before she was able to take a seat next to Diana. He had the habit of sitting next to anyone sitting on the ground. "Why are you looking at the ground if the sun and moon are in the sky?"

Moana really didn't know a lot about eclipses, they were very rare and if it wasn't a full eclipse it was hard to know it was happening.

[learntthehardway]

Diana smiled easily at Moana as she sat on the ground next to her. She looked at the animal and then back to her young friend before looking back to the shadows on the ground. She liked Moana and was glad to have the company.

"Well, because looking up at the sun an damage your eyes." She pointed at the shadows of the eclipse that the trees were casting around them. "Sitting here, we can track the progress of the eclipse without hurting ourselves." She leaned a little closer to the shadows. "It's progressing nicely. It won't be long before the moon will fully block the sun out."

[chosenbytheocean]

Moan looked down at the shadows with a curious stare. She had been staring at the sun for a short part of the day and now she felt silly for doing that. It hadn't hurt her eyes, it'd only been for brief moments to see if there was anything she could see. In the end, she hadn't been able to see anything over the bright sun.

One hand pat Itiiti affectionately while the other rested in her lap. "What is the eclipse?" She turned back towards Diana. "I know that it's when the moon is in front of the sun but what does it mean?"

She didn't understand it.

OTA

[majorlyugh]

"HOLY CRAP! SOLAR ECLIIIIIIPSE!" Major shouts, gleeful as a child who's been let loose in his favorite candy store (really, it's more like a kid being let loose in a Game Stop), as he runs out of the Inn in a hurry. Despite knowing better, he does sneak a couple of very, very quick glances up at the sky, but after realizing he can't see much of anything (and that he doesn't want to burn his retinas out, especially not in a place that doesn't even have an eye doctor on staff), he tries to figure out what they could use to view the event instead of all of them slowly going blind. He thinks to look for Ravi, because certainly The Good Doctor would have some kind of idea of what to do, but he also doesn't want to spend the duration of the event looking for his friend.

One hand at his waist, the other tapping his lip, he turns to the person nearest him, leaning over to ask:

"Given that I like being able to see stuff, and you probably do, too, we should find something to safely look at the eclipse. Can't you make like, a pinhole thing? With a box? .. God, do we have have cardboard here? Has that been invented yet?"

[babyhunter]

Clary looked up at his initial shout and then continued to stare at him. He had way too much energy or maybe he was just too happy about a solar eclipse. It made her think of Simon followed by what he had become. She didn't want to think about that here, he was fine, or that's what she continued to tell herself.

There were a few different thoughts that went through her head in an attempt to distract herself from Simon. The most prominent thought went along the lines of: oh no... not a fan boy.

When he turned towards her there was a slight grimace on her face, which quickly melted into a smile. "I honestly have no idea. Since there are houses and paper, I am going to say yes, it's been invented. Did you check the kitchen?" She had a feeling that she was going to get roped into whatever this guy was doing.

"I have paper." Which wasn't her way of saying that she wanted to share it since she was currently drawing on it.

[majorlyugh]

"I can't even look up when cardboard was invented," Major complains, sounding a bit exasperated. Back home, he used to like to unplug on occasion, go a day with his phone off (though in his pocket, in case of emergencies), staying off the computer and iPad and video game console. He found it rejuvenating. But this? Not even being able to have the option to unplug since there wasn't anything to plug in the first place? It's worse than he could've ever imagined. He swears he's got some signs of withdrawal from the lack of technology in the village, and having something like a solar eclipse is a welcomed distraction. .. Hence his overt excitement.

"I didn't, but I should! That's a good idea. I don't remember seeing any the last I was in there, but maybe." He considers her for a moment. "I mean, I don't wanna take it, if you're using it. Though I think you can just cut a hole in it and the light of the eclipse will show through. But - no, I don't wanna take it if you need it. I'll check the kitchen! BRB!" He trots back towards the Inn, heading inside without delay to look through the food stores. Most of the things there are in wooden structures - crates, bins, that sort of thing, or things that have been woven, like baskets. He does eventually find one small scrap of cardboard, about five inches by five inches. He uses one of the multi-tools from the communal storage to make as circular a hole in the center of it as he can, returning back to where the woman was with a triumphant smile.

"Look!" he holds up his creation like he's returning with the spoils of war at his back instead of a piece of cardboard with a hole in the center. "This should work!"

Moana - OTA

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana stood with the crowd of people who were looking up at the sky. She had heard someone shouting through the inn about a box so she had gotten the box that Itiiti had arrived in and tried to fashion it into something that could look at the sky.

She really had no idea what she was doing.

After her box was complete (most likely with help), she watched as the moon slowly began to blot out the sun. "Isn't it a bad omen or something?" She chewed over the thought before looking back down into the box that she had made. It made her feel uncomfortable watching it and as the world darkened she put down the box and looked directly up at the sky.

She wished she could shake this unsettling feeling.

OTA

[pretendtoneedme]

Clint's working on his current project - trying to fashion wheels for a cart he's cobbling together out of a door from one of the destroyed houses and some other leftover scraps of wood - on the foundation of what used to be the schoolhouse before the Obscurus went tornado on the thing. The wreckage had been cleaned up fairly quickly, and it's now an open area with few obstructions in the middle of the village, so it's fairly good as a makeshift work station. The lack of trees overhead also means he notices the way the light starts changing, gradually fading into a color almost like dusky charcoal. It's the middle of the day and when he'd begun work that morning it wasn't looking likely to storm, so Clint looks up to see if he needs to clear out before the rain falls - and realizes what it must be when he realizes there's no storm clouds in the sky.

Back home, an eclipse would be awe-inspiring to him, something to get the beach chairs out and watch in full, the little kid inside of him once again shouting his dreams of being an astronaut, but here in the village he's wary. What with everything they've been through in the last few months, this may not even be an eclipse at all - what if the sun's just going out? And, unbidden, a line of a song that's been lurking in the back of his head for a month comes to the forefront again, and he can't help speak-singing it to himself, though loud enough for others to hear him if they're nearby.

"That's great it start's with an earthquake, birds and snakes and aeroplanes, Lenny Bruce is not afraid..."

[unmakeme]

Natasha sidles up next to him, sighs, and holds out a pair of makeshift eclipse glasses she's made. The carbon dust based filter over the glass is not perfectly even, but they will do the trick. She also has no way to properly grind down the pieces of glass taken from the computer terminals in the pod, so the lenses are not actually lens shaped, exactly. She did her best, but, well... yeah, not great. The body is cobbled together from medical tape, some twigs that have been shaved down smooth, and wire and insulation she stripped from the pod computer terminals along with the glass. The point is, they look awful, but she's absolutely confident they'll protect his eyes, or she wouldn't have handed them to him. "Do you have to do that?"

She looks apprehensive, because she's having thoughts along the same line as his, that this could be something truly terrible, that the good things that turn up here never seem to actually be good. The sun could be blotted out, it could not reappear. hey could die in darkness, withering not long after their crops do.

So, it is deeply annoying to her that, after a moment of silence, she ends up mumbling "Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn. World serves its own needs, don't mis-serve your own needs." Then she scrunches up her face. "Damnit, Clint." Totally stuck in her head now.

[pretendtoneedme]

Clint accepts what Nat's giving him without looking at it and without a second thought, still peering into the sky, because it's Nat and he knows how she operates almost better than her at times. She might give him a venomous snake, because she'd be confident in his ability to handle a venomous snake and not get bitten. It's a trust that was only shaken a little during the fighting in Germany, and snapped right back into place once the bullshit international politics were disposed of.

"It just popped out, I couldn't help it." He doesn't associate everything to lyrics the way some people do, but it does happen sometimes, just like with anyone. And considering the way life in the canyon had been going lately, he'd be very surprised to find out that he was the only one thinking of that song. A quick glance down shows him what Nat had passed to him, and he peers at the glasses for a few moments, giving them a brief inspection from several angles, before removing the hat from his head and placing them on his face. He has to hold very still to keep from knocking them around and they're definitely not as good as the ones that could be bought at home, but for what they have to work with here, he's sure this is the best that anyone could do. Not a hundred percent effective, but he can watch the spectacle and not lose any of his sight.

"I'm just hoping we don't have to take the song as a checklist... 'specially since we've got somewhere that'd be able to give us hurricanes now."

[wittyskepticism]

Hawke is walking through the streets when the sunlight starts disappearing. At first, she thinks it's just cloudy, but something about this darkness feels... wrong. It makes her hair feel like it's standing up on end, like the way everything had felt during the Blight.

It reminds her of Ostagar. For a few seconds, she can see the darkspawn army, hear the cries of the mabari hounds and the dying screams of fighters all around her. She remembers, vividly, the sight of her brother's broken and bruised body lying on the ground and an unexpected panic wells up inside her. A hand reaches automatically behind her for her bow, but her fingers close around air and fabric. Right. Her bow is gone. She's weaponless.

So she does the only thing she knows to do. She looks for the closest person, demanding, "Have you seen any-" Except she recognizes who this is. Not someone who has ever seen darkspawn. She huffs out a frustrated breath. "The Maker does have a strange sense of humor," she grumbles. "I suppose I'm going to have to give darkspawn lessons now."

[pretendtoneedme]

At the start of the question, Clint looks over to see the young woman he's seen around the village and spoken to a few times, though he hasn't become close to her. Still, she seemed to have her head on her shoulders pretty firmly and wasn't given to running around in a panic, so she was on his list of "tentative trust" and barring unusual circumstances wouldn't drop off it. But her reaction to the eclipse was... unusual. He'd figured out she wasn't from Earth (it's not hard to guess, though he hasn't parsed much else about her world), so he wasn't expecting to be familiar with some of the terms she hauled out, but the one she mentioned this time feels... not quite right. Whatever "darkspawn" are, they probably aren't going to run up and cuddle you like a friendly pet, after all.

"I'm not gonna say something's impossible here, but do eclipses on your home bring out those things?"

ota

[wittyskepticism]

Hawke is walking through the streets when the sunlight starts disappearing. At first, she thinks it's just cloudy, but something about this darkness feels... wrong. It makes her hair feel like it's standing up on end, like the way everything had felt during the Blight.

It reminds her of Ostagar. For a few seconds, she can see the darkspawn army, hear the cries of the mabari hounds and the dying screams of fighters all around her. She remembers, vividly, the sight of her brother's broken and bruised body lying on the ground and an unexpected panic wells up inside her. A hand reaches automatically behind her for her bow, but her fingers close around air and fabric. Right. Her bow is gone. She's weaponless.

That doesn't mean she's entirely incapable of handling herself should this really be a darkspawn invasion, but it sure would be easier with a weapon. Or the Hero of Ferelden. Or both. Why not both? Oh, right, that's not how her life works. Her life is a trash heap and luck is never with her.

So she does the only thing she knows to do. She looks for the closest person, demanding, "Have you seen any darkspawn?" Except no one has ever seen darkspawn here but her and Fenris. If she has to start giving lessons on darkspawn, she might have a few choice words for the Maker.

[enterprisingheart]

Eclipses aren't anything that Picard would consider out of the ordinary. Admittedly, it's been quite some time since he's last happened to be on a planet's surface when one's happening, but when the sunlight starts disappearing, it takes only a brief glance at the sky to recognize what's happening.

And that's the only glance he means to take, since he can't imagine Beverly would be pleased with him, if he happen to ruin his eyesight looking at an eclipse. Especially when they don't have anything on hand that would be able to reverse the damage. Admittedly, part of that is also due to the fact that he's not exactly feeling a little tired at the moment - he is, in fact, making for the house he and Beverly share when he overhears Hawke's comment - but he's figuring it's not anything to be concerned about.

(He is, of course, wrong, but that's not something that he's aware of, at the moment.)

"I can't say I'm familiar with darkspawn."

He isn't going to rule out the possibility that it's a different term for something he's already familiar with, mind. But just on what she's offered, he can't say it's anything that means something to him.

[wittyskepticism]

"No, of course not. Only two of us are in the entire village and that's too few to help if this is a Blight," Hawke grumbles, her usual sarcastic wit gone in favor of flat-out sarcastic bitterness. This could very well be a Blight and if it is, they've got no Grey Wardens to help. They're screwed in so many ways. No one here can kill an Archdemon. No one's got enough of the Taint and even if they tried to replicate something of that unknown Joining ritual, there's no guarantee that anyone would survive it long enough to kill the Archdemon in the first place.

Hawke growls.

"They were once men, whose bodies were tainted. The sun only disappears like this in Thedas when hordes of them come crawling up from the Deep Roads, from the very depths of the earth. Led by the Blighted form of an old god, an Archdemon, they taint everything they touch. We call it a Blight for a reason. And if that does happen here..." She shrugs, her sarcastic tone returning. "Well, we'll just have to hope that the Observers send us a Grey Warden soon or everything's probably going to die."

She's such a ray of sunshine at the moment, but she's really, really sick of fleeing Blights and darkspawn. Maker, if Corypheus turns up, she's going to throw something.

OTA

[fightsinheels]

There's not a whole lot in this village to enjoy. There's no snazzy boutiques on the corner, no place to indulge in some much needed retail therapy. The weapons are primitive and shoddy, no angel blades for her to slay with. Not that she needs them, with the severe lack of demons to hunt down and dispatch. None of the finer things in life exist here, so she fills her days with training and helping where she can.

It's hard, adjusting to being a normal human. The marks are still on her skin, the runes standing out like inky tattoos, but they don't do anything for her anymore. It would be easy to hunt and contribute if she had her powers, but she's still trying to figure out how to kill wildlife with a machete.

But word of the eclipse has gotten around, and Isabelle's decided she's going to enjoy it. She snags a bowl of fresh peaches from the other village and grabs a blanket from her room, spreading it out on the grass to sit on. She can't look directly at the sun, but she's enjoying watching the shadows come through the leaves, the little crescents becoming smaller and smaller on the ground.

The people walking by are greeted with a gesture and a smile. "Come sit with me?"