a new journal is full of possibilities

[skyti]

 There are few things Atreus loves more then listening to the stories of others and writing them down.  Okay, okay he definitely loves his parents more.  That's a given though.  Also wolves are cool.  He sure does love wolves.  He's quite convinced he'll prove his father wrong one day and teach himself how to turn into one but that day's sadly a long way off probably.

Writing in a journal though! Back to that! He loves writing about his adventures and and every tale he comes across, and he's wanted to write down his findings of the Nexus too... but he thought it'd be appropriate to have a separate journal for here.  There were so many people from so many different worlds! He figures it'll be really easy to fill up a lot of pages really fast.

That's when he discovered the stationary store.  Which is probably one of his favorite places he's found here so far.  Dozens of different journals in different sizes in so many colors with so many pictures on the covers.  And the writing tools! Markers, pens, colored pencils! In any and every color he could possibly imagine! There were other even more ADVANCED materials like stickers an washi tape but he was honestly starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

So he ended up leaving with a truly epic looking journal with a wolf on the cover and a small package of pens in an assortment of colors.  He's investigate the other materials more thoroughly later.

As he walked he flipped open the journal.  The pages were empty and pristine.  There's a bit of a thrill whenever you look at blank pages like that.  What will eventually fill them? He knows the first thing at least.  He selects a pen and writes in runes 'Tales from the Nexus' and smiles to himself.  That feels right.  Not to just... get those tales!

"Excuse me!" he hails a friend or a friendly looking stranger, or just someone INTERESTING looking as they pass by, "Know any good stories?"

Comments

[skyti]

"I love animals!" he replies eagerly with an enthusiastic nod, "Especially wolves, but all animals are pretty cool."

Except ravens. Sneaky little spies for Odin... he's not going to get into that here now though and ruin what is clearly going to be an amazing tale.

[primelogic]

"Indeed..." Atreus may catch the faintest hints of a soft chuckle stifled by the older man. His excitement is nostalgic for the elderly Vulcan. It would be all too easy to let his mind drift back to fond memories now centuries old at this point.

"Then you know that animals come in numerous figures and sizes, already. That there is almost no limit to the possibilities one might see in an unexplored land." The downside to story time with Vulcans is that they are not the best at capturing the emotional mystique of a tale, although this one does better than most. He is half human himself and has lived among them for a very long time at this point.

"Imagine, if you will, a rocky landscape full of twisting labyrinths of stone. This place is rich in minerals but almost no plant life dwells within. Indeed, the only organic life that walks this place belong to trespassers who are not native to this place. They came in search of the rare elements and minerals that could be mined in this place and dug deep into its depths."

Spock watches his young audience carefully to see if he's following along.

"We arrived quite by chance. Our ship was hailed by calls of distress. By the time I stepped foot onto this strange land over a dozen of the workers had gone missing."

[skyti]

Atreus is quite captured at least. His words paint a vivid picture, and he's reminded of the great stone halls of Jotunheim. Rocky and mountainous, they too had little more then a few weedy growths here and there for plantlife.

"What happened to them?" he finds himself asking. He tries not to interrupt stories when he can help it, but he's a curious young man and sometimes you just must, "Were they eaten by something?"

But in a land without much life... was there anything even big enough to eat a man?

[primelogic]

Spock's downplaying a bit of the destruction that was relayed to them over the distress call but what he's saying is technically not a lie even if it implies a less severe problem. Atreus is a child. Spock sees no need to frighten him unnecessarily with more details than needed to get the point across for his tale.

"Not eaten, no. But some of their mining gear had been completely destroyed by a strong corrosive material. The head of the mining operation explained their job to us and gave us a brief overview of some of the materials they had uncovered in the process of their work. I studied all of them but nothing could be determined to be dangerous after an initial scan."

As he relaxes into the telling Spock settles against the back of the bench. His dark eyes are distant as he recalls those moments.

"The situation continued to deteriorate. While we were studying the samples brought out of the mines the colony's main source of power was tampered with. All attempts to fix it failed and we found ourselves facing a harsh reality. If we couldn't recover the missing piece the entire operation would be lost inside of half a day."

He looks down at his singular audience with a grave sigh.

"Indeed, it seemed as though neither we nor the miners were welcome in this place. But as lives had already been lost, we had no choice but to investigate. I joined a small team and delved deep into the mines. Have you ever been inside of a cave before?"