Young Writers Society

When you open your eyes, you’re in the snow by a partially frozen lake. Leafless trees are scattered across the landscape, and you can see a camp off in the distance. You don’t remember how you got here, and you don’t even remember where here is. You’re just very, very cold.

Luckily for you, you’re not alone. You’ve been brought here with other people. There’s also that camp on the other side of the lake—you could ask for much needed information and help there. And though you haven’t realized it yet, some things about you have changed. Your eyes now have diamond-shaped pupils, and you suddenly possess a random elemental ability of fire, water, ice, earth, plants, electricity, or wind.

Welcome, wayward traveler, to Teyvat.

1. Keep all out-of-character discussion over in the OOC thread! It keeps this thread nice and easy to navigate. As a bonus point, it makes rereading the roleplay a little bit smoother.

2. Please include a description of your character’s appearance in your first post and/or the OOC thread! I’ll throw together a formal list of them in the post before this one, but we need to know what your character looks like so we can describe them in our posts. You can put the description in a spoiler with the code down below:

Code: Select all

[spoiler]Enspoilered text goes here![/spoiler]

3. Speaking of characters, feel free to pick characters from whatever you want. They can be from another roleplay, a storybook, a novel or even a fanfiction of yours. The only reasons I’ll say no to a character is because they’re either a) too powerful for this roleplay or b) somehow conflict with the plot I have planned. But I’ll definitely let you know if that’s the case!

4. Please don’t write for anyone else’s characters. It's hard to predict what someone else might have their characters do, and it takes away some of the fun for the other writers.

5. Your character can guess what the plot is, but don’t make any plot-altering decisions without checking with me first! Some of my roleplays have more group scheming involved than others. I usually run roleplays like a DM runs a Dungeons & Dragon campaign. There’s some things that absolutely have to happen in a certain way to progress the plot, but the other writers have a lot of flexibility with other parts of the story.

(For example, you might not be able to add an NPC, but you can choose how your character interacts with them—save for if that interaction somehow conflicts with the plot!)

I’ll do my best to communicate how flexible a certain part of the story is, but always check with me if you’re not sure. :)

6. Don't post multiple times in a row. Make sure everyone has a chance to get a response in. There's going to be times where it makes more sense to post back-and-forth between two people, but please be courteous of your fellow roleplayers! If you want a faster-paced roleplay, Roleplay Hollow roleplays might be more of your cup of tea.

7. Posts should be on the longer side and be easy to read. Since this is a Roleplay Realm roleplay, longer posts are the norm. Occasionally, a sentence reply might work best, but the goal is to have longer posts. As for the easy to read bit: don’t worry! Just follow grammar rules and you should be all set.

8. Communicate with your fellow roleplayers. Ever have to take a break from the roleplay or realize it’s not really working out for whatever reason? That’s okay! Just let us know ahead of time so we can naturally write your character out of the story or give you the time you need to write your post. The key to a really fun and finished roleplay is communicating with the other writers.

It was so cold.

That was the first thing Kirux thought when he opened his eyes, even though he was wearing a cute and had been just the right temperature when going to see Winnie as she left school. His teeth chattered, and he rubbed his arms as he sat up. He was in a place he hadn't ever seen before—and he had seen a lot of other places!

"...Kirux?"

Kirux glanced over next to him to see Winnie sitting up, too. She had snow in her hair and her eyes looked weird, but Kirux was just happy she was here, too! He gave her a big grin.

"...Where are we?" Winnie asked. "Did we go through one of your portal things?"

Kirux quickly shook his head. He had just used one of those to get to her school, so he wouldn't be able to use them for awhile. It couldn't have been him.

When she started rubbing her arms too a second later, Kirux slid his arms out from his sleeves and drapped the jacket over both of their shoulders. He was still cold, but Winnie wouldn't be as cold now!

Lin knew something was wrong before he even opened his eyes. He knew the smell of England well. The breeze always carried the scent of hazel and aspen trees with an underlying whisper of woodsmoke and factory run-off. He memorized how all the England species smelled so no one could surprise him again.

But this place smelled wrong. Everything smelled slightly too electric, like the air during a lightning storm. Except it wasn't raining.

Lin opened his eyes and sat up. Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow. And there were trees, yes, but not his trees. And there was fire and smoke, but the wrong kind. He felt sick. His entire life, he learned to live following his nose. His eyesight wasn't bad; it was normal. He could see the snow and the trees and the lake. But, there were things sight couldn't tell you, and now Lin was left in the dark.

He stood up, cringing at how wet his coat was. "Hello? Is anyone there?" He took a shaky step, realizing how hard he was shivering. How long had he been laying there, soaking in the snow? "Anyone? Please?"

He stumbled forward, cursing the way his feet uselessly cut through the snow. He looked towards the sky. Once night fell, he'd have an easier time. Until then, he'd have to survive until he found someone.

231 Words

Ray shivered as he came to. Being a part of a time travelling team of superheroes meant he was pretty used to waking up in places you didn't know about, but this one had absolutely no warning, which was very, very rare, but then he was also on holiday which meant one Harry Hardy was not around to yell out a warning.

His millenia of training kicking in, he almost absently tapped the temperature settings on his suit, cranking them up as high as they would go. In theory they should keep him comfortable on the coldest temperatures known to Earth. Clearly this place didn't quiet because all it did was make it bearable. There was still a noticeable bite to the air in the way he hadn't felt since that one awful visit to the actual land of the dead. For the first time but probably not the last he wished he'd been wearing his actual supersuit, that might have been able to handle this temperature.

Setting that aside for now as he put his hands in his pockets, he took a cursory glance around the place. It was some sort of frozen lake. It was clearly some equivalent to winter on whatever world this was. His eyes then identified a lake. He tapped the chip on his ear, allowing it to extend into full glasses as they head's up display flashed to life. Zooming in, it looked active although for some reason the glasses could not identify what actually this place was called. Earth tech wasn't the best, but it knew a lot of places. This had to be well off the grid.

Putting his display away he looked around for anyone else or something that could help him out on the walk to the lake, and most importantly, for any sign that he could be under attack. The one thing he thankfully didn't have to worry about was the gravity or the air here. His suit hadn't detected anything life threatening on that count.

337 words

So.

Winnie and her brother were in the middle of a snowy place right now, and neither one of them knew how they had gotten there—or even where there was. She was cold, and tired, and had really just wanted to hang out with Kirux after a long day of school.

When she squinted and moved Kirux's coat out of the way so she could actually see, Winnie could make out some kind of camp across the lake they were standing near. There were also people near them, too. The two people she could see right away were wearing clothes were terrible for weather like this. Winnie would bet anything that they were like Kirux and her.

"Kirux," she said, "there's other people here."

Kirux quickly looked around, eyes wide and alert. He darted forward like he was going to run over to them, but stopped when he presumably remembered Winnie had to keep up with him. Instead, he settled for giving the others on their side of the lake a big, friendly wave.

Ray turned rapidly to the side. Well this was interesting. He had not expected companions. This was going to complicate matters significantly based on what they brought to the table. For now they seemed safe enough if the friendly wave and the non threatening body language was any indicator. He chose to wave back.

"Hello! Do you happen to be from around here?" Even as he said it, his glasses confirmed it probably wasn't the case unless they were resistant to the cold in a way he was not.

Lin's ears perked. People! There were people.

Lin spotted them just far enough to be slightly blurry. "Hey, hello!"

He started running as best as he could through the snow. Then, all at once, the smell of people his nose. Soap, clothing, hair. It was a relief in this barren wasteland. They smelled slightly foreign and strange, as though they were from a different country or even a different Earth. But they were familiar enough to ease the ball of anxiety in his chest.

He finally got to them, legs sore and pants wholly soaked through. "Hey! Are you from here?" The people in question were two children and one man slightly further away. He looked around. The three of them were just as confused. His heart sank,

"You all just randomly appeared here, huh?"

135 Words

Kirux quickly shook his head at the first question, then switched to nodding instead as soon as he heard the second. They weren't from here, but they also just randomly appeared.

"You're right," Winnie said to both of them. She was peering out from underneath his jacket right now—she was too small and too cold to fully step out. "We don't know how we got here, either."

Now Kirux nodded again.

Ray nodded in response as he made his way towards the two, spotting a third one approaching not too far behind. Well, this was turning out to be a right old party here in this desolate place. It must be one of those fluctuations Vankous and Harry had muttered on about during their last fireside chat.

Analyzing the stranger quickly, Ray decided there shouldn't be any immediate threat in that direction either, which meant it was time to get a hold of a few allies. He had no idea how useful these three would be if things got bad, but surely some help was better than none.

"It seems we're in a similar predicament then. I suggest that maybe heading towards that camp over there would be a good plan to figure out how to best get ourselves out of said predicament?"

Michael blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the snow-covered landscape. He fluttered his wings to get a few clumps of snow off of the feathers, though he wasn't able to fly quite yet-- he was still in training, and besides, his wings wouldn't be fully grown for another few years. But speaking of training... this place was definitely not the academy that Michael was used to.

Spotting a clump of other oddly-dressed people, Michael walked over and caught someone saying something about heading towards a camp. "That sounds good," he said.

Michael took a moment to eye the strangers curiously. Two of them seemed both taller and older than him, while the other two looked like children. Michael figured their group looked like an odd sight. But nevertheless, he was intrigued about each of them now, and what better place to exchange stories than around a fire at a camp?

Lin flinched. Now he couldn't tell when people were approaching him. Back in England, at home, he could sense someone coming from fifty paces.

Here, he was useless. He was lost, and he was confused.

He eyed the newcomer, taking in what he finally understood as this person's scent. Their hair was a strange colour, and he had horns sprouting from his head. Lin was used to seeing wings, though none that were that small.

This being was a strange species, one he had never seen before. Or maybe he was the strange one here, intruding in someone else's land. He wrapped his scarf around his face, taking extra care to cover his mouth.

"We need to get somewhere warm before night falls. If there's fire, there might be aid too."

131 Words

"In my experience fire can mean several things, but it seems in this case there's a sizeable chance that it will be some form of aid. At the very least it would appear that most of us aren't going to survive the night without some form of extra heat," observed Ray, "in that case, let's make haste towards that camp. Since we do all seem to have an accord here?"

Kirux quickly nodded in agreement, even though he didn't entirely understand the words being used in the conversation. When he looked down at Winnie, she was staring at the boy with wings and horns on his head. He gently nudged. Staring wasn't nice, even though she probably was a little confused because she didn't go to other worlds all the time like he did.

She tore her gaze away.

"Okay," Winnie said. "We can go."

She paused.

"I'm Winnie," she finally added, "and this is Kirux. He's my brother."

"Little brother," Kirux signed and mouthed, because it was a very important distinction to make. Winnie was eleven and he was only one. She had been around for an entire decade longer than him.

"It's nice to meet you! I'm Michael." He smiled. "And it's okay to stare at my wings and antlers. People stare at me and my friends all the time where I'm from. Especially at my friend Miri. She's a dragon."

Suddenly Michael shivered, and he said, "Okay, enough talking! Let's get to the camp before we freeze to death!" He shook some snow off his antlers and started crunching across the white landscape, heading towards the fires on the other side of the lake.