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gamerszone2019-blog · 5 years ago

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No Man’s Sky Beyond Review - And Beyond The Infinite

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No Man’s Sky Beyond Review - And Beyond The Infinite

Three years after release, the universe of No Man’s Sky continues to evolve. With each expansion, I spend weeks as a blissful wanderer, seeing an already vast universe become more populous, more beautiful, more capable of sustaining a home for anyone who dared to voyage within it. Beyond, however, is no mere evolution and refinement. It feels like No Man’s Sky approaching its final form, having shed a great deal of what was previously limiting and restrictive. But there’s one new factor specifically that makes the update live up to its name: No Man’s Sky is now a VR title. And it is utterly breathtaking.

It is breathtaking right away, waking up for the first time completely immersed in an alien world literally no one else has ever seen. Everything has a new fascination: the way the flora moves and shifts under harsh weather, the way the ground is pockmarked and windswept, the vast, unknowable vistas stretching across toxic interstellar perdition. It’s all beautiful before you even make the first flight into space.

An incredible amount of additional work has gone into making inhabiting that Exo-Suit even more of an experience. On PS4, you can play in 2D or VR with the DualShock, something that also gives you a Smooth turning option, but two PlayStation Moves are the real way to go. With the Move, your Multi-Tool is strapped to your back, ready to be whipped out more like in Blood & Truth than an ever-present floating gun like in most VR titles. The Analysis visor has you pressing the wand to the side of your head, like you’re Cyclops preparing to fire an Optic Blast. Getting in and out of your ship involves physically pulling the handles, and escaping from a hairy situation with sentinels or the local wildlife with that lightning quick motion adds an even greater layer of tension. Best of all, the menus are mapped to a little hologram in your hands that activates when you point at it. It’s a simple and intuitive implementation of such an elaborate and persistent mechanic.

Still, even with the new perspective and tools at your disposal, it should be said upfront that at its core, No Man’s Sky: Beyond is still, well, No Man’s Sky. Whether you’re in VR or not, many of the early mundanities of the game remain. You have to repair your broken ship, gather a specific resource, create fuel, drop a refiner, and so on. Beyond, however, brings varying kindnesses that welcome you to a new universe instead of prodding you into space with a stick. The UI holds your hand, telling you exactly why you’re collecting these things, what it is you’re trying to do, and exactly how to find what you need. Once you’ve found everything, having an expanded inventory and an absurd amount of space to hold items–each block can hold thousands now–means mining constantly in your travels is worthwhile. There’s always something you can use later, and you have the space to contain it. The game is much more patient and generous with the breadcrumbs that teach you how to play, guiding you into the stratosphere not only painlessly but purposefully.

That extends into the rest of the game once the tutorials stop and the training wheels are all the way off. All of the larger narrative pieces from the previous updates feel organically woven into Beyond. Dialogue and instructions from one mission from the Atlas Path may be rewritten or tweaked to reference Artemis or some new action you can take in Beyond. Direct links have been made where the next logical step in your current mission involves learning more alien language instead of just trying to get your next cell to warp to the next galaxy. The missions and their objectives have a synergy now, where lines of dialogue and specific mission objectives weave narrative strands together. It’s a bit of minor housekeeping No Man’s Sky has needed for a while now. The overarching subtle tale of both exploration and acceptance in the great unknown remains, but it also has quite a bit more meaning now that it’s not your sole purpose in the universe.

When your only task was just to keep hopping from galaxy to galaxy towards the center, there was plenty to see and take in, but you couldn’t really live in the universe because you were so busy trying to survive. The Atlas Path asked some big, existential questions, sure. Artemis helped with that a great deal, giving you an Other to truly work towards understanding and fathoming at least one small mystery of the universe with. But there’s a huge difference between looking at a vast wilderness from a hypothetical distance and trying to figure out the very real challenge of laying down roots there. The latter is a much more fundamental part of Beyond’s gameplay loop. It’s the difference between Next telling you that yes, now you can build bases and here’s how, versus those bases being more of a necessity to sustainably start traversing the universe. The way menus and options are streamlined for you in Beyond make it easier to create, leave, and return to a place of solace and safety, and to depend on a planet, your base, and the resources within. It’s a much stronger experience, and the undercurrent of humanism running throughout the Atlas Path lands much harder as a result. Beyond’s biggest improvements are all in favor of fostering that relationship between players and the universe around them, and that includes its people, playable and non-playable.

No Man’s Sky has long had one of the more positive and welcoming online communities in the gaming landscape, and there was always the worry that removing the barriers between players would invite the worst elements of online play into what’s typically a place of zen. This is far from the case.

The new Anomaly, summonable to any galaxy at any time, is no longer a sparse, glorified save space, but a bustling 16-player hub of activity, full of greetings, proud ship captains, aliens who look upon you with curious eyes, and players more than happy to bring you to the worlds they call home. Just like the first spoken line of the game, so much of the Anomaly’s layout, from its menus to the way it presents the current state of the area, is about reminding you that you’re never fully alone out there. Beyond has made it so much easier to find allies to either assist in their mission or share what you have from your own inventory. Everything you pick up and mine may have a price, but the game quite often reminds you via the descriptions that those items can also be given to others. Clicking an item while on the Anomaly gives you a list of everyone in range that you might possibly hand it off to. Checking mission boards reminds you there are people who may be looking for the same thing you are, and when it’s the other way around, the request shows up in the lower left. During my time with the update, there were good Samaritans everywhere in the Anomaly, giving out extra rare items to whoever wandered into range.

That’s a rather huge and heartening factor, not just because you can now jump in and help strangers shoot things down and collect loot, but because it creates a strong sense of community in what was previously a fairly lonely adventure. The Anomaly feels like the petri dish for No Man’s Sky to develop an actual culture, a place of cooks, pilots, space frontiersmen, and traders looking for the next big score. It feels alive and connected in all the ways the game used to feel isolated and cold. And it does so without overshadowing the fundamental element of peaceful solo exploration if you so desire. That new emphasis on connection is never so obtrusive that it prevents you from performing one simple task or speaking to one specific NPC and leaving, but it also doesn’t feel arduous to connect with another human being the way it did before this update.

There’s still some legwork involved, though. While joining games and having others join yours is a quick and simple matter (and much less finicky than it was in Next) players can occasionally spawn on drastically different locations on the same planet. That said, searching for stranded partners wound up being a weirdly fun adventure all its own.

A much bigger caveat is that for a new player to party up with friends, they still have to get out into space on their own, which makes sense. There’s a lot of ways for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing to irrevocably screw up a galaxy by accident, or waste a resource, or piss off a planet’s Sentinels, or ruin your relationship with a species of animals. The tutorials do important work of not just showing you how to play the game, but respect the game. If you want to give a partner some of your resources, you can. But if an objective given by the game tells you to build something, giving them the exact item the game wants won’t clear that objective. That’s a limitation the game is all the better for keeping in place. Choosing to assist someone can’t be the same as beating the game with or for them. If you’re with someone, you’re there for the experience. That’s not all necessarily new for a multiplayer experience, but it does feel rare when the game is pushing you to connect with other people for what tend to be for more mercenary reasons.

For my part, I remained a solitary player, only choosing to put down sparing roots on the most beautiful worlds and never building more than I needed. I’m very much a city boy in real life. In No Man’s Sky, I’m a happy recluse with 40 acres and a species of chubby elephantine space mules I named Horace. I’ve been harvesting eggs and milk from the animals on the strawberry-pink and white world I’ve been calling home for the past year or so. Even as the universe got bigger, I would go to the Anomaly to trade, buy new ships, and hang out with aliens, but home remains solitary. So few of the self-sufficient agrarian aspects of my little home were even possible in previous updates. Beyond has made me feel more empowered to sustain that life, have a place to return to and maintain, and make improving it for the laid-back alien assistants who reside with me much easier to accomplish.

The larger technical problems with Beyond come down to problems with VR platforms in general. Despite the visual beauty, my time with the Oculus version was plagued with flaws and odd bugs and glitches. By comparison, the PSVR version caters to performance. Frame rate and gameplay are pristine there, but at the cost of clarity, especially when it comes to the various screen displays in-game. In addition, the PSVR’s old nemesis, the camera drift, rears its ugly head here, and the Recenter VR Camera option in the Pause menu does less to solve it than it should. As of this writing, however, there have been additional patches every few days, and more and more of these bugs vanish with each one.

These tiny frustrations utterly dissolve away in flight, however. No Man’s Sky’s most consistently powerful experience of seamless space travel nearly reduced me to tears as the upper atmosphere melted away into the silence and deep wonder of the galaxy. It’s the kind of thing I dreamt of as a kid. As part of an expanding experience and seemingly impossibly ever-larger universe, No Man’s Sky continues to deliver on the promise of being a space traveler–and VR assists in making it a more immersive experience.

The drastic improvements made to No Man’s Sky in its Beyond expansion are the new gold standard for how to gracefully cope with a game’s flaws post-release. The game laid the foundation with its release, but it took Beyond to elevate it into something magnificent. Successfully transitioning to VR is a creative victory on its own, but realizing just how full and vibrant and rewarding an experience this game has now become is almost poignant. Beyond represents the courage of convictions, a concept that has not only met the lofty expectations it set forth, but transcended them.

Source : Gamesport

#Game Reviews

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lokifiction · 8 years ago

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Unsinkable

A temporarily exiled god. A young woman with insatiable wanderlust. By chance they met, but when it became clear to them that their love was meant to be, they took matters into their own hands. Their story became an ocean-borne fairytale, until inescapable ghosts from the past and a certain iceberg threatened to ruin everything.

Category: Fanfic

Rating: M

Notes/Warnings: I think this chapter is free of anything that needs a warning, but I did figure out something of a solution for mobile users and my masterlist. I’ll now be including a link to it in each of my posts, so it will be a little more accessible if you’re just scrolling through. I hope that helps!

Also, side note: tumblr is being extra finicky lately and for some reason the links to the Unsinkable chapters on the masterlist aren’t working. If you want to access the first two parts, you’ll have to use the links below until I can get things fixed. I’m so sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused!

Masterlist

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

Part 3

April 10th, 1912

Morning

“Are you ready to go, Miss Potts?”

“Just one more moment, please.” Camryn spoke to the porter over her shoulder, eyes still fixed on the hotel room that had just been cleared of any evidence of her stay there, yet she didn’t see a thing. “You can take those bags down now, though.”

She was grateful when her request was carried out, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Glancing over towards the door to make sure no stray maid had come along to strip the bed, she took the coat she currently carried on her arm, one she had not lost contact with since returning from the ball the previous night, and held it in her hands, squinting her eyes shut and burying her nose in Loki’s scent. When she pulled away, tears rolled down her cheeks and she choked back a sob. Since her departure from London she harbored hope that they might encounter each other again, but boarding the Titanic dashed that hope to pieces.

“You’re being silly,” she reprimanded herself, voice thick and shuddering. “You’ve only just met him, and were only around him for a few hours. That’s not enough to warrant this melodramatic reaction.”

Her heart pleaded a different case.

“Did you say something, miss?”

Camryn started as she noticed the porter, returned from his errand, at her side once more. She hurriedly cleared her throat and dried her eyes, bending over her last remaining bag to tuck the coat inside.

“No, I didn’t,” she replied once she had control of herself. She passed him the case and managed to muster up a fraction of her signature charming smile. “Shall we be off, then?”

She followed the porter down the stairs and into her waiting cab, passing him his tip as she slid into her seat.

“I wish you the safest of journeys, miss,” he bade. “The Titanic… that’s an opportunity of a lifetime. You’re making history today.”

“I hope so,” she replied. “It seems that’s the only thing that can make my heavy heart just a bit lighter.”

Before the porter could request an explanation, the driver shut the door and drove off, eager to avoid the traffic that the sure-to-be monumental day would bring.

It appeared that Camryn’s scheme to be early and board the ship before the crowds came pouring in was foiled, for everyone else seemed to have the same idea she did. The ride to the docks took much longer than it should have, and when she finally arrived, they were already packed and swarming with passengers standing in line to board, along with news reporters and photographers at every corner, even non-travelers only present to catch a glimpse of the ship and those fortunate enough to have passage on it.

Her driver, obviously in a dismal mood due to the impediment to his route the attendees caused, stopped in an awkward spot and began to unload the vehicle without even asking Camryn if their location was a good place for her to be left off, and drove away the moment she shut the door behind her. She sent him off with a scowl, performing the geometric trial of figuring out how to get all her bags into her arms at once, and only when she achieved it did she realize that the third-class passengers were to board first, and she had at least an hour of waiting before her turn came.

So much for departing early to make leaving Loki behind easier, she thought, wishing she could better enjoy the experience being a part of such a fantastic day in history.

Heaving a sigh, she lugged herself and her baggage over to a rare spot separate from the chaos, crumbling down on one of her larger suitcases and resting her chin in her hand, suddenly regretting the decision to leave her lady’s maid behind in her current journey, lamenting that she could have both assistance and companionship if she hadn’t. Her stature in those musings was quite an interesting sight to onlookers, contrasting heavily to her normal elegance: the daughter of a highly-esteemed millionaire, dressed in a pristine white travel suit and an elaborate, matching hat, a rebellious color smeared across her lips, lounging dejectedly atop her bag like a common nomad.

One of the crew paroling the docks noticed the strange sight, as well, and approached to closer investigate. He noticed her dress and her countenance, but he wondered why someone who appeared to be so wealthy was traveling without a single servant. He worried over the fact that she appeared to be on the docks utterly unattended, especially when she seemed to be so young.

“Excuse me, miss,” he began as he approached, and Camryn’s unsettlingly garnet colored eyes snapped to him. “Are you a passenger of the ship?”

“I am,” she replied, taking her boarding pass from her handbag and showing it to him. “I stupidly didn’t realize that my boarding time is later, though, so I have to wait here.”

The crewmember scanned he pass, eyes widening as he recognized her name. This was clearly not a girl that should be left alone amidst an immense crowd of people below her station, many of which would gladly take the opportunity to get their hands on her.

“We can certainly make an exception for you, Miss Potts,” he declared. “I’ll go inform some of the crew that you’re coming so they can prepare for your boarding. You can just follow me.”

The man jogged off ahead, but as Camryn attempted the arduous task of collecting her bags, he disappeared in a wave of people. She didn’t worry too excessively that she lost sight of him, seeing as her place of boarding was listed clearly on her pass, and she needed only find it. She bumbled along miserably, though, hindered by the luggage meant to last her a nine-month trip, until a timid tap on the shoulder roused her. She turned to discover a man, weathered beyond his years, attended by a skinny little boy, both having stepped out of their own boarding line. They had scrubbed themselves pink for the occasion of traveling on the Titanic and had put on their best clothes, yet even those were still riddled with patches and loose threads that displayed their low status. The man regarded Camryn nervously, expecting her to spit on him as most people as rich as her did to people as poor as him, but she merely smiled broadly and said a warm hello.

“Excuse me, miss.” The man took off his cap and clutched it in calloused hands. “I’m Jacob Greene, if it please you. This here is my son, Joshua.” Jacob gestured to the boy beside him, and Joshua conjured up a smile that proudly bore missing teeth, brilliant blue eyes closing with the width of the expression, lashes longer than a girl’s brushing his freckled cheeks. Camryn was instantly charmed by the boy, and giggled heartily.

“How wonderful to meet you, Jacob and Joshua. I’m Camryn Potts.”

“Well, Miss Potts, we noticed you trying to carry all of those bags by yourself,” Jacob began. “It’s not right for a lady to carry such a burden. You see, we’ve hardly got any possessions at all-” he broke off to shrug, bringing attention to the rucksack he carried on his shoulder- “and, if it please you, miss, we’d like to help you.”

“I’d be delighted to have the help, so long as it doesn’t trouble you.” She gladly dropped her bags to the ground, now utterly separated from the man escorting her to where she would board. “My only request is that you don’t make Joshua all tired out by having him carry the heavy things. He needs his strength for being a hero, like in the stories.”

The boy beamed at that, rolling up his shirtsleeve and displaying his lithe muscles, prematurely defined in a way that suggested he was not a stranger to manual labor.

“Normally, I’d say that it would be good for the boy, but now I’m obliged to agree with you.” Jacob gathered up the largest of her bags, and Camryn passed Joshua her handbag, taking the last remaining medium-sized cases for herself. The boy bore his charge proudly as they began to walk, as if he were carrying the crown at a coronation.

“Why? Is there something wrong with him?” Camryn asked, careful to keep her queries out of Joshua’s earshot.

“Joshie got very sick in the recent months, and he’s just now recovering,” Jacob explained. “That’s actually why we’re coming to America. My wife and I had been discussing going there for a while, better opportunities, you know, but we never could find the right time. When Joshie fell ill, it sent us into a panic, because his sister had never had his sickness, but my wife had, and she was weakened from it to a point where a relapse would kill her. She had family in New York that could house her in the meantime, so she packed up little Janie and left. I stayed behind and took care of Joshua, and once he got better I started working extra to earn money for tickets so we could join the rest of our family. I worry that I’m coming without securing a job there, but I’m sure it will all work out somehow. Back to elaborating on your original question, though, he’s better now, but sometimes he doesn’t feel quite right or will come down with a nasty fit of coughing, so I try to keep him from anything too strenuous.”

“I see.” Camryn tutted, casting another look back at Joshua. “Well, Mr. Greene, my father owns a successful, sprawling business, with headquarters in New York. They’ve not nearly enough people to fill all their positions, so they’re always hiring for one thing or another. I can guarantee you a job there. It may not be the career you want, but it’s an income, and a good one, at that, to have whilst you look for your dream position. I will be sure to find you later and give you some more comprehensive contact information, and once we get on the ship, I’ll send a wire ahead to my father and warn him that he’ll have to answer to me if he doesn’t offer you a job.”

Jacob flushed redder than Camryn thought possible. “You’re too kind, miss. Really, I can’t thank you enough. I was so worried that I wouldn’t find work when we got there…”

“Well, now you have.” Camryn looked back at him and grinned, but could not keep the contact for long, for she was stepping up onto the ramp to where she would board. The captain was stationed on the deck to receive her, accompanied by another uniformed crewmember. They greeted Camryn warmly, hardly even glancing over her boarding pass and chatting animatedly about the ship and the wonderful voyage she was to have, but their faces turned stony at the presence of Jacob and Joshua.

“What are the likes of you are doing at the first class entrance?” the crewmember spat. “Get away from here, and go back with your own kind.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Camryn interjected, hands trembling with anger. “They were very generously helping me with my bags, and are much better men than you have just proved yourself to be.”

“Well, they can’t go any further.”

“Then how am I to manage myself, with all of these things?”

“That’s what I’m for, miss,” a porter that had appeared from inside the ship during the hostile exchanges raised his hand, blushing for the sake of his colleague. “I’m to take you to your stateroom from here.”

“Really, Miss Potts, it’s alright,” Jacob insisted. Not wishing for him to linger in discomfort much longer, Camryn demanded a few moments before she went with the porter.

“If you’re going to have us open the entrance early for you, at least have the courtesy to pass through in a timely fashion,” the crewmember hissed.

“Perhaps I would, if you had the courtesy to not treat hardworking human beings like the dirt on your shoes.” She flashed him a glare that could freeze magma in its track, her countenance softening as she turned to her helpers.

“Could you pass me that bag you’re holding, Joshua?” she requested, and the boy did so proudly. She reached inside and extracted a handful of bills, giving Jacob the most generous tip of her life.

“Miss, this is too much,” he insisted, trying to pass it back. Camryn refused to take it, closing his fingers into his palm and holding his fist in her gloved hand.

“It’s compensation for that piece of scum behind me,” she explained, then bent down to Joshua’s eye level, reaching into the bag once again.

“You see, Joshua,” she explained, “I never travel without a hefty supply of sweets. I find that these in particular are a rather good pick-me-up, so I’ll let you have this bag. If you’re ever feeling poorly, just have a piece of the candy and you’ll feel better instantly. It’s the most delicious medicine in existence.”

“Thank you, miss,” Joshua gasped, taking the large bag in his small hands, but his eyes soon flashed with boyish mischief. “You know, I feel alright, but I really would like one now.”

Camryn smirked, inching closer to his face. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Joshua’s eyebrows shot upwards, and he eagerly tore into the bag and popped a candy into his mouth, glancing around as if someone was about to scold him. With that image lightening her heart, Camryn sent the Greenes away, and consented to the porter to lead her to her stateroom, but paused before the crewmember.

“You’d best stay away from the edge of this ship when I’m around,” she murmured menacingly in his ear. “You’re such a small man; it would take no more than a simple nudge for me to shove you overboard.”

With a cold laugh at his terrified expression, she followed the porter onto the ship.

Meanwhile, Loki was across town, drawing the conclusion that slow cabs would be the death of his relationship with Miss Potts. He knew his boarding time was not until later in the day, and therefore delayed his departure, but that soon proved to be a terrible decision, for the traffic was so thick that he wondered if it would be faster to get out of his cab and walk to the docks instead.

When he finally arrived, he bit back annoyed shouts at the hordes of people he was immediately immersed in, with seemingly no escape. Focused intently on achieving his purpose despite the obstacle, he didn’t even pause to admire the sprawling ship before him, which he later reflected upon as being fit for Asgard, for he had one task only: to find Camryn.

After a few moments of frantically scanning the area, he eventually caught sight of her boarding the ship, a porter trailing behind her, her brilliant white outfit shining out like a beacon amidst the drab colors of everyone else in the area, her form almost seeming to glow. Loki deflated in relief, for she was already aboard the ship, and as he was soon to get on, as well, there were very few things that could separate them now.

Now determined more than ever, Loki began to make use of his small suitcase, all he needed to carry the possessions he couldn’t easily acquire with magic, as a wedge to part the crowd. In his urgency, he pushed himself to the front of the boarding line, his silver tongue proving quite useful in excusing the offence.

Once over the ramp and on the deck, he didn’t stay long to chat with the captain, merely commenting that the ocean liner was one fit for the gods. The man was completely naïve to the truth in that statement, but he could barely utter his thanks before Loki was shoving his boarding pass under a porter’s nose and requesting to be directed to the stateroom listed. That particular porter was quite used to what he perceived as spoiled patrons, and relieved Loki of his case with a pleasant expression, for the spoiled were typically rich, and the rich tipped well if not provoked to do otherwise.

As Loki was guided through a ship dripping with splendor, only the handsome grand staircase caused him to pause. When his guide noticed his interest, he stepped aside to let Loki take in the area, as he had already done with many other travelers earlier in the day. However, though Loki would later note that the simple yet luxurious area was so regal that it was the only place on Midgard he had found truly reminiscent of his royal upbringing, Loki wasn’t admiring the staircase for its beauty. He was instead picturing Camryn in its elegant yet sturdy embrace, gazing down on him from the landing, moonlight filtering in from the crystalline dome above and giving her skin an ethereal glow. With a knowing smile playing at her ruby lips, the vision descended to him, her gloved hand sliding almost erotically down the bannister, even the cherub figurine seeming to stare at her in awe. When she at last halted in front of him, she held her hand out expectantly and cocked an eyebrow.

“Mr. Odinson,” she declared. “Are you going to ask me to dance or not?”

Loki chuckled to himself, turning away from the vision and motioning for the porter to continue.

When they arrived at Loki’s stateroom, it opened up on an ornately furnished parlor, but the porter promptly descended into the bedroom to relieve himself of the suitcase. Loki did not follow him to observe his sleeping quarters as many would have done, but instead stepped immediately back into the corridors with the mission to locate Camryn. He did not have to look for long, for the door directly across from his was ajar, revealing the servants inside bustling back and forth, unpacking a lady’s things, and her sweet voice carried over to him from within. His heart skipped a beat, and he entered the room with nary a concern for manners or pleasantries.

“Have you lost your way, sir?” a maid unboxing a hat inquired when she noticed his presence. “John can help you to your room. He’s arranging this lady’s bags now, but he’ll be finished in just a moment.”

“Actually, my business is with the occupant of this room.”

Camryn, behind a dressing screen in the bedroom at the time, was just about to inquire as to who the visitor was, but the sound of Loki’s voice made her blood run cold in all the right ways. With a gasp at his declaration, she rushed out without even fastening her fresh dress in the back, enlisting all of her effort to enter the next room calmly.

“Mr. Odinson!” she exclaimed, stepping up to him with a bright grin. “What a pleasant surprise! I was quite worried I’d never see you again.”

“As was I, but I vowed to not let that fear turn into a reality.” Loki reached down and took her hand, pressing a kiss to it. A girlish smile playing at her lips, she broke eye contact to address the staff in the room, informing them that they were dismissed.

“I have something for you,” she declared once they were alone. Without elaborating further, she momentarily returned to the bedroom to retrieve the coat she kept of Loki’s. She was wont to give up the souvenir, as it had brought her so much comfort in their parting, but she concluded that since they were together again, she didn’t have need for it.

“I believe you might have missed this,” she commented when she emerged back into the parlor, extending the coat to Loki. His eyes widened in realization.

“I did,” he commented. “You seem to have kept it quite safe, though.”

“In a manner of speaking.” Camryn felt heat creep up her neck at what she was about to confide in him. “Truthfully, I liked that I had it. It smelt of you, and reminded me of that wonderful night we had. I’d often put it round my shoulders when I was alone and dream that you were there, longing for us to meet again.”

Though these words tugged on Loki’s heart, he was never one to miss a beat in such a situation.

“If it’s brought you that much comfort, then I insist upon you keeping it.”

“Well, then, it’s only fair that you have a favor of mine.” Camryn pulled out her handkerchief, embroidered with her initials in red, and passed it into his grasp. “I know it’s not a suitcoat, but I daresay my dresses would be far too short for you.”

“This will do wonderfully.”

As Loki gratefully tucked the favor into a safe pocket, Camryn took his hand and led him to the sofa.

“So,” she began. “The wanderer wandered onto the Titanic. I wish you would have told me sooner, because then my anxiety these past days would have been far less.”

“I would have told you if I knew, but it was quite a spontaneous decision,” Loki explained, glancing down at their still-intertwined hands.

“And what spawned this spontaneous decision?”

Loki raised his gaze to meet hers, staring into her eyes with an intensity that could only come from a god.

“You,” he replied simply.

Camryn started at that, but before she could trouble herself with conjuring up a reply, the strap of her lilac-colored dress tumbled down, revealing a large amount of her milky white chest, and would have borne even more if she didn’t slap a hand on the rogue fabric to stop it.

“I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I forgot to have one of the staff fasten it; your arrival caused me too much excitement.”

“I’ve been wondering since I first met you at the hotel,” Loki said with a tone of scolding, “why are you not travelling with at least a lady’s maid, as is customary for girls of your status?”

“Well, you see, my lady’s maid is married to my father’s valet. The pair accompanied us on the business tour, and as my father and I are both rather self-sufficient, they had much free time and the trip was like a second honeymoon to them. When I got called back home, I thought it would be cruel to drag her away from that time with her husband.”

“That’s all very noble, Miss Potts, but what do you intend to do in situations such as this, when you need someone to fasten you into your clothes?”

“I just hope for some kind passerby to come and help me,” she answered with a giggle, rising to her feet. “Would you be my kind passerby today, sir?”

“I will.” Loki rose to join her, taking the clasps of her dress in his fingers and leaning down so that his lips were level with her ear. “Though, if I had it my way, I would not be putting you into your clothes, but rather taking you out of them.”

Camryn’s breath hitched in her throat. She blinked a few times and clenched her fists to stop them from trembling before replying in a wavering whisper:

“I would make some sort of comment regarding the impropriety of that statement, Mr. Odinson, but that would make quite a hypocrite of me, for I believe I would prefer that as well.”

Loki swiftly spun her in his arms, savoring the way her eyes widened and lips parted in surprise and anticipation, and was just guiding his mouth towards hers when a maid bustled into the room and caused the two to spring apart.

“I have the extra blankets you requested, miss,” she announced cheerfully. “Oh, and I thought I’d let you know that the ship is about to depart. It’ll be quite a sight, and everyone’s anxious to see it, so I’d suggest going now if you want a good viewing place on the deck.”

Camryn flashed Loki a resigned smile, reaching over to the arm of the sofa and wrapping a warm fur around her shoulders. “Shall we go, then? Just let me fetch my hat.”

Next Chapter

#loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #loki laufeyson

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pepperminthotchocolate · 8 years ago

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Seeking Dewdrops: Chapter 3

Amenie threaded a thin piece of grass through the bottom of her nest. The process had started out slow, especially with the bandage on her left wing keeping her off-balance, but after two days of looping and weaving she finally had a suitable nest made of leaves, flowers and grasses.

Newt did his best to leave well-enough alone, but he couldn’t help but to watch from afar. He had first discovered what she was doing while he was taking notes in his shed. He had just been jotting down a few ideas when he heard the odd, pattering sound of little footsteps running across his desk. He looked down to find Amenie with a bundle of herbs overflowing in her arms, standing on her tip-toes to gather a branch of yarrow flowers from one of the labeled jars.

He grinned – partially because he hadn’t even noticed the sneaky little creature stealing from his personal stock. He hadn’t seen or heard her away from her nest in the past few days, so it was a bit startling to see her so close as if she had Apparated just inches from his left elbow. She made eye contact with him and froze.

He quickly turned back to his work, pretending like he didn’t see her, but when his eyes flickered over to her once again she had disappeared. He slowly stood and found her crouched beside a circular frame being woven together by her swiftly-moving fingers.

So THAT was what she was building – a nest. A diminutive sanctuary constructed entirely out of foliage. He had seen this behavior in birds and the like, but he hardly expected it from such a humanoid creature. The realization prompted him to escape to his garden for an hour or so. He returned with a handful of different plants for her to choose from. Unfortunately she didn’t see this as an opportunity, more as something to be disregarded. She kept her eyes on her nest the entire time he waited for her to venture over the pile.

No matter. He went off to tend to his other creatures, understanding that she just might need space to continue the arduous task of building her home, just as he had duties to fulfill of his own. The Nundu had been particularly finicky that evening, leaving him with a fresh set of puncture scars on his shin. She was still dealing with a nasty toothache. He limped back into his shed hours later, sweaty and exhausted, to find something he didn’t expect.

Amenie had barely taken anything that was given to her. The leaves and flowers were left untouched in a pile on top of his desk. He had even gathered the different types of plants from his stock that she had taken interest in those first few moments of her exploration, from fragrant flowers to herbs that were rather more difficult to find.

No, rather than take what she was given, she chose to use what she had…well, taken. She had used the sturdier plants - alihotsy, wintergreen, snodgrass and yucca roots – as a frame, the leaves and stems woven together to form the base nest. Adorned all around the outside were flowers of every shape and size. Pennyroyal blossoms, lavender stalks, geraniums, borage, bits of yarrow here and there. At least one of every flower he had in his stock was represented. The presentation, it seemed, was just as important as the function. He could see the leaf she had hidden her eggs under, snugly tucked away in one of the folds of her nest.

All of the materials she used, to his surprise, were from his storage. The flowers and herbs he used to create remedies for bites, rashes, contusions, burns, poisons, what have you. They weren’t exactly hidden away, mind you, but some were rather difficult to procure. The one exception were the stalks of verbascum he’d taken from the garden. She’d lined the nest with the leaves and used the bright orange flowers to decorate the outside.

At first he thought he hadn’t gotten what she needed to build the nest. Most of what he’d retrieved was local, but of course there had to be some discrepancy between what worked as nest building material and what didn’t. He thought, that is, until he saw the wary glances she was giving him over her shoulder as she worked. Come to think of it, that was the look she gave him over the past few days, between her daily doses of milk and honey, dressing her wounded wing, him going about his own business in the shed…

Was it fear? Disdain after their less-than-pleasant first meeting? Perhaps a little of both?

While her behavior was perplexing, Newt didn’t mind. He could only imagine how overwhelming and terrifying it must be to be handled by something many times your size. The only creature he had that was relatively close to her size was Pickett, and he supposed he couldn’t use him as a reference. He was only a baby, and as he was prone to colds within just a few days from hatching, Newt was all he’d ever known as a source of comfort.

The language barrier had made things rather difficult. It seemed that her kind communicated by buzzing their wings together. Her voice itself seemed to be no more than a high-pitched drone, certainly not one he could understand. He assumed the same could be said for himself on her terms.

He couldn’t simply reassure her that things would be okay, but through small gestures and body language he tried to convey that he meant no harm. She no longer ran at sight or sound of him. They’d put up a sort of grueling routine for the first few days; she would jump up from whatever she was doing and flit behind the nearest potion bottle or book and he would have to either coax her out of hiding or leave her be. That had thankfully passed. However, the way she now completely froze whenever he drew near and flinched away from him even as he offered her a saucer of honey and milk made his heart tear a bit.

Newt sighed. Well, she hadn’t run off yet, that might be a step in the right direction.

He settled down into his seat, the troubling thoughts clearing from his mind. The fact that she was alive at all was nothing short of a miracle. He remembered that dreadful feeling after pulling her seemingly lifeless body from the pond. Something about seeing a tiny creature, so much like himself yet so vastly different at the same time, coming from an unconscious state near death…it was jarring to see her go through such a dramatic recovery. Yet here she was just a few days later, alive and performing what seemed to be a routine task for her kind with hardly any trouble at all.

By all accounts, things were right with the world. He stirred the tea in his cup, trying to get it cool before he could get back to work. Just a few more pages and he would set off to bed.

The clanking of the spoon against the chipped, ceramic rim of the cup drew the attention of his little guest. Amenie poked her head up from her nest for a few seconds, staring up at Newt with curious, bright eyes.

He pretended he hadn’t noticed. The tiny, cautious sound of bare feet pattering against his desk resonated in the nearly silent room. Pat pat pat. Pause. Pat pat. Pause. Buzz. Pat pat pat. Suddenly, she was right beside him, leaning as far as she dared over his forearm at the mysterious new thing that he’d brought in.

“Hello there,” Newt murmured, lowering himself down so as not to seem so menacing. She scuttled back at his sudden voice, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, protective. Newt closed his mouth, deciding not to ruin the opportunity by saying too much.

Amenie’s wings buzzed together involuntarily, and she gazed up at him for a few more seconds. What was she thinking about? She wandered around his arm instead, giving a wide berth to the wizard before creeping up close to the cup. She gave it a few tentative sniffs before bowling her hands together and trying to bring a sample up to the surface. It was still quite hot though and she pulled her hands away from the drink. Her head tilted to one side and she rested her open palm on the surface of the cup, the minute extremity hiding the rosy pattern painted on the side from view.

This gave Newt an idea. He reached over her head and gripped the untouched saucer of honey and milk with the tips of his fingers. He poured half of the contents into the cup, which folded gently into the golden tea.

“A bit of lavender tea always helps to calm me down.” He explained, giving the tea a quick stir before setting the spoon’s head on the rim of the saucer. She stared at him unblinkingly. Perhaps she didn’t understand. He reached over and took a branch of lavender from the pile he had gathered earlier. A few seeds came off in his palm, and he held them near the rim of the cup. “These seeds are used to make it. Well, those and some other ingredients. See the bottom?”

Amenie gave his cupped hand a furrowed look. Her tiny hands wrapped around the branch, briefly brushing against Newt’s forefinger. A few dry buds came off in her own hand, but instead she crumbled them and let the pieces fall to the ground beneath her. She drew her hand to her nose and inhaled deeply, her little shoulders heaving up and down at the scent before turning back to the cup.

While she explored, Newt fashioned a cup of fairy-sized tea out of a rounded, quarter-dram vial. He slid it before her with the most precarious amount of pressure, and she stared at him once more. He took the teacup from her grip and drank a bit, gesturing for her to do the same. The vial was like a bucket in her hands. Her entire body perked up at the small sip, wings and all, and she took a larger gulp.

He thought this to be as good a time as any. Newt slowly drew over a quill and ink and began to sketch an outline of her form. It was a bit dark with the lantern overhead being the only source of light in the room, not counting the fairy’s natural glow, but he did his best to emulate the curvature of her wings, her slender limbs, her cherub-like face. It was no wonder these creatures were also dubbed the ��fair folk”. Beyond being food for toads, augureys and the like, they were truly beautiful things to be marveled over like a decorative toy. He was by no means an artist, but she was to be one of the most exquisite drawings to ever grace the pages of his journal.

It would seem that she knew it as well. He had hardly noticed that she had finished the cup and had creeped up next to the page. He knew these creatures to be quite vain as well, so he assumed she would be ecstatic to find her visage on the page. Instead her wings fluttered indignantly and she buzzed up at him. “What?” She pointed to the bandage covering the wing in the picture. He almost hadn’t included it, but he wanted to be as accurate as possible when it came to documenting the healing process. “Oh, come now, I can’t very well take it off just to draw you.” She stomped her foot in an almost comedic expression of anger, horrified that such a shabby thing could be associated with her being. “How’s this, I’ll draw you again once it’s off.”

She would have no part of it. Amenie stormed away from the wizard, snapping her wings open in response. Almost as an afterthought, she snatched the branch of lavender from the table top and dragged it behind her in the direction of her nest.

Newt just shook his head. At least he now knew what could motivate her to come out of her fear.

_____________________________________________________________

Hey everyone! It’s been a long time. After Christmas break I found that I didn’t have all that much time to continue this story, not to mention I got stuck writing a few parts. This chapter definitely had the most research put into it. Cue me looking up EVERYTHING, from different herbs and plants used in the Harry Potter universe to how birds build nests. It sounds a bit rushed at points, but I hope you like it!

Chapter 2: http://pepperminthotchocolate.tumblr.com/post/155209514173/seeking-dewdrops-chapter-2

#fantastic beasts and where to find them #newt scamander #fairies #Giant/tiny #giant #tiny

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gamerszone2019-blog · 5 years ago

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No Man’s Sky Beyond Review - One Giant Leap

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/no-mans-sky-beyond-review-one-giant-leap/

No Man’s Sky Beyond Review - One Giant Leap

Source : Gamesport

#Game Reviews

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