Today the Ascendancy announced the reveal of a new global construction plan. The CCD will build an interconnect, submersible tube structure that will connect the continents to each other. Through the thousands of miles will course vactrains, which use vacuum pressures to allow magnetized trains to travel at incredibly fast speeds due to the lack of air resistance. 

Imagine a 45 minute train commute that carries workers from London to New York. These trains have the capability to travel up to 5,000 miles per hour. Initial plans will begin with a travel speed closer to 1,200 miles per hour. The ride is expected to be as smooth a ride as traveling through space. These pipes are planned to traverse Australia, Asia, Africa, South America. Immediate plans to connect to North America have not yet been solidified.

Seven approached the beautiful, glowing mansion that was the home for the Bottom of the Cup Café. As he crossed the street, the smell of glorious foods waited on the air like the swampy bayou he imagined was the inspiration. He smiled to himself and strolled confidently into a soup of music, smoke, and noise that spilled into the garden and covered porches.

He was dressed for the venue, having read reviews that set his expectations about the interior of the café and its patrons. He yearned greatly to meet the proprietress, and only the best would do to present oneself to a Queen.

He wore deep blue slacks cut slim to the leg. An azure shirt was tucked in at the waist and worn with the top three buttons splayed apart. At the neck glittered a necklace. The pendant was a long, silver tusk. Most gloriously, he wore a tailed jacket printed with large blue and purple hydrangea blossoms. His eyes were colorfully bright against the blues, as if the color ran from his irises into the flower petals.

He smiled as he entered, pausing naturally at the front station.

“Good evening, I have a reservation.”

“Under what name?” asked a young man.

“Seven,” Seven said.

“Like the number?” he responded quizzically.

Seven nodded. “That’s right. Like the number.”

Hi all, what board is best to post in the Bottom of the Cup Cafe?  Rowan, do you prefer one location over another? E.g. Greater Moscow vs Place of Enlightenment? 

Going to start a thread there shortly. Anyone is welcome! 

Location: Bottom of the Cup Cafe 
Timing: 8:30 pm reservations for dinner
Who: Seven and possibly Xander (as an alias) and who knows!

Hey guys! 

It's been a while, but I was roped back into FA, seems things are pretty awesome still. 

If anyone has something they'd like to do or ideas that my characters can get into with current happenings, hit me up! 

Characters: Michael Vellas, Tony Soloyov and Damien Oakland. 

Also hello to people I have not met! I was around for a long time near the start of the RP. 

Looking forward to getting back into things!

MV

He slept most of the flight back to Moscow. He learned early to sleep when the chance came. Because a soldier never knew when another chance for rest may return. Same thing with eating. Stick to the clock. Keep the day regular. Because someday it would all go to hell. Survive. Then get shit back to normal.

Well. Jay survived.
Did that mean shit would go back to normal?

The extraction crew that carried them out of Mexico had indeed been a ZARS squadron. Their point of return was a base in a location Jay was certain to never learn. There wasn’t much to see anyway. They were ushered out of the helicopter, given fresh clothes and offered a chance to clean up. The poking and prodding that came next took the guise of a full physical, but there were scans in the hands of the military docs that he didn’t recognize. There was quite a lot of attention paid to the hair-thin lines that crisscrossed his upper body, but they were reported as scar tissue and that was that. Jensen gave Jay the work over back at Amengual’s, so he otherwise checked all the boxes. He hoped Natalie’s physical would be as unremarkable, but he didn’t ask when they were reunited.

He was relatively quiet. Nobody debriefed him. No reports were filed. He kept looking over his shoulder, expecting some officer to sweep in with questions. In fact, it seemed Scion Marveet was more interesting than a Rod of Dominion. Jay didn’t mind.

They were delivered to a military operated airport near Moscow. The men (excluding Scion) wore polo shirts and khakis pants. Jay kept his shirt taut and tucked as if he was about to be inspected at drill. He smoothed his hair to the side. He needed a cut, badly.

The morning dawn light was just starting to peek its rays through the closed curtains of the window. He was on the bed, he realized, the warmth of Valeriya and Rowan's naked bodies heating him beneath the blankets despite the chill mountain air.

The night was a jumble of sensation, of touch and taste, of tenderness and convergence. Sexual release was nothing new to him, though up until Valeriya he had lived a celibate life for years.. Lissandre. A risk he had been too afraid to ever take again, despite his surgery.
Nor was intimacy unknown. Gregorio. Jova. And now most recently, with his beloved Vale. And what they normally shared was powerful enough, the spark filled uniting of two iron willed stubborn people who found complement in the other.

But the three of them...It wasn't simply an additional person, a purely physical sensation multiplied by some constant. 3. 4. 5. 10. The number would have made no difference, despite the carnal overload. No. There was the divine within them.

And together, they changed. Valeriya had morphed, her wildcat fire and talons altered into fierce pride, as much as in Rowan as her lover as in him. And Rowan, that earthy mother goddess, seemed to root them all, encompassing and accepting as they penetrated to her core. He, too, was not unaffected, finding his pleasure not simply in the act of dominance and control. Rather, making himself part of the whole. In the process, the divine that filled the two encompassed him so that together they were a triad of souls, bound as one.

Even with the end of the magic of the night, the feel of their warmth, the firmness of their bodies called at him to stay in bed and luxuriate in the silk smooth skin and questing lips. Despite his age and their exertions, he felt rejuvenated and ready to go again, curious to see with eyes of dawn what had been wrought under a night sky.

But fate had not brought them together simply for conjugal bliss, as much as he might desire it. There was a purpose. Their shared vision, the three of them in the Garden. There had been another face, one he knew.

Almost, he regretted the need to leave his bed, to reach out across the world to the man. He hadn't realized how he had enjoyed his idyll, despite how it began. The months without the mantle of Regus had proved to be liberating, even intoxicating.

The new life he'd found- feelings he had considered no longer within his ken, a heart that seemed deadend and lifeless to all but his work now pumping joyously and filled with yearning and hope. Yes, real hope, no matter how unlikely. Even surviving the death of Apollyon, he realized, with a start. Foolish. This life was precious, and yet now he would once again root himself within the world, end this momentary freedom that came with anonymity.

He sighed as he gently slid one leg- he couldn't tell whose it was- from off his, disentangled their hands that had intertwined at his chest, and carefully rose, tmaking sure to cover their briefly exposed bodies from the chill. There was some movement and, even though asleep, they sought each other out, their two forms under the blankets merging. He smiled at the sight, heedless of the cold on his naked body, marveling at the beauty before him. Valeriya's face was near Rowan's, positioned in such a way that a single closed eye from each was visible, both as alike as they were different. The Eye.

His smiled deepened as the omen worked its way from heart to groin. He dressed quietly and closed the door behind him and retrieved his wallet. A secure channel opened, he sent the message.

It was time to talk to Patricus.

(Some modding of vale and rowan sleeping. Hope that's ok.)

@"Valeriya"
@"Rowan Finnegan"
@"Patricus I"

The unanticipated convergence of fate’s roads left Sören pensive.

The hostel he chose for his second night in the area was only a short walk from the lake, tucked up away from the road in a spit of grass and trees. A set of rustic log buildings comprised a mixture of private rooms and dorms around communal kitchen areas, and it was serviceable enough -- in fact recommended from several local’s lips when he asked, though it was not the only reason he’d picked it. Sören ascended to the lofty heights of the rich and elite when it suited him, but he did not ever shun humble living. Often he actually preferred both the anonymity and vagrancy of more simple means, especially when on the road. He travelled light, nothing of value sequestered in his single bag of luggage, though wards would protect from prying hands on matter of habit and principle, should anyone think to take a rummage.

It was not where the thieving artist was staying anyway. The island Thalia had meandered to upon first arrival was too small for the distance he preferred to keep between them for now. The whimsy of her travel made no sense to him, and the forced blindness of his self-imposed quest to follow irked his preference for control. So too did the stranger’s advice back in Moscow linger -- an unusual affliction, though he would not call it conscience. He had not confronted Nimeda in the dream; a pointless endeavour. Neither had he yet approached her waking counterpart. She would fear a spectre risen from her sketchbooks, and he did not intend to scare her unless he divined providence in it. For now he only brooded on the decision left to be made.

That, and the additional complication. Or intrigue, perhaps, since he did not believe in coincidence.

For it seemed Elias Donavan’s water monster was also here.

The banya was a small but welcome addition to the hostel’s limited services. The benches were currently empty, with only the sizzle of steam for company. Heat loosened muscles tight from travel, a pleasant indulgence to balance the intensity of his deliberation. A towel wrapped Sören’s waist. He leaned his forearms on his knees where he sat, ignoring the faint tremor of pain in his temple. Ephraim’s interference was never far from consideration, but he’d grown used to the faint gnaw. His eyes were closed, breathing deep to shuck spirit from flesh. Perhaps there would be answers in the dream.

The door slammed, and Danika startled awake.
“Huh? Who? Where am I?” She sat up on the wobbly cot in the corner of her lab. Her eyes squint in the bright lights that flicked on, and memory fuzzed recognition.

A technician rounded the bench, but after a greeting, went off to check the sensors on their cold fusion box. Danika hadn’t left the room all day (and night) and apparently was still there the next morning just in case something went wrong.

“What time is it?” She rubbed her eyes to the crunch of yesterday’s makeup under her knuckles.

“Seven o’clock, Dr. Zayed. Do you want me to bring you some coffee?” The technician leaned to check the array blinking alongside the box.

Danika stood. Her clothes were wrinkled, but nothing that a spritz of water and a few seconds under the hand-dryer in the bathroom couldn’t fix.

“How’s it look?” she said, peering alongside the technician. In his white lab coat and neatly cropped hair, it was he who was frequently mistaken as the senior researcher for weeks until everyone recognized the eccentric scientist for who she was.

He shrugged, nodding approvingly. “Actually, I can’t believe it’s held stable for more than five minutes let alone all night. You were right. I am sorry to have doubted,” he said.

“Of course I was right. Don’t beat yourself up. Some people can’t fathom this level of theory.” She cued up a holoscreen and began to make notes. The technician scratched his chin idly, seemingly just standing there. “Well?”

“Ma’am?”

“Coffee?”
“Oh, yes ma’am.”

Just before the door closed behind him, Danika yelled out after him. “300 milliliters with two and a half sugars and 28 milliliters of creamer exactly.” She was sure he heard, so she waited patiently for his return.

Home...

The back stairs to his small room above Kallisti was quiet, but everything was moving in the front. There was no way he could pull a shift and no way he was going to be functioning once he landed in bed. Healing was hard on the body.  And Morven had healed more than a minor injury.  The new arm felt strange and Nox pulled it off setting it on the desk in his room.  Nox wove a little water and filled his lotus bowl to a line he'd been monitoring.  He tried not to let it below that mark. Nox didn't want to kill the flower.

The healed arm felt cold without the wrapping of the prosthetic, but Nox was too tired.  He fired off a text before he sat down

@"Raffe" Wake me up when you are free. Have something to ask and show you.

Nox kicked his shoes and jeans off and crawled into bed leaving enough room for Raffe to join him if he wanted.  It'd become his habit, if Raffe let him sleep Nox would end up sneaking into Raffe's bed. The comfort of the other man let him sleep -- the nightmares warded by his body warmth -- at least that's what Nox told himself.  It had nothing at all to do with the fact he missed him -- nothing at all.

Nox closed his eyes and was instantly asleep...