A: October 1st [This is not what she expected. At all.
People coming back from the dead is not medically unheard of in her time, but that requires certain things. Medical care, the appropriate situation, actually being an organic being and not a collection of thoughts and light. So for Cortana to suddenly wake up in bed, silken pajamas clinging to her skin--her skin! that's new!--well. Maybe she can be excused for coming awake with a strangled gasp and a knot of tangled sheets. A racing heart and adrenaline rushing through her veins is new--so new--and all the feelings that come with it are a mess of unknowns and first experiences and she can't quite adjust to mobile limbs in the first few seconds of awareness so.
Yeah, she just fell right out of bed with one hell of a thud. Roomy, she'll apologize for that thud if it woke you, once she's done staring at her hands. They're not blue anymore. She's not blue anymore.
She's alive.
Or, if you've managed to sleep through that you may be instead awoken by a piece of clothing hitting you in the face. She'll apologize for that too. Later. Because at that instant her side of the room pretty much looks like it just went through a windstorm, clothing tossed haphazardly onto her unmade bed, bits and baubles set aside in a wild search for understanding. It doesn't come easily, or quickly. At the first signs of life from the other person in the room she turns, electric blue eyes wide.]
Is this--are you--[Words, Cortana! She pauses, swallows, tries again:] This is real, isn't it?
[A bit later, once she's had time to calm down and adjust to this new frame, it's possible to find her sitting on the front lawn, her knees drawn up to her chest and bare feet digging into the perfectly manicured grass. The skies are clear and blue and bright, but her eyes are closed. She seems to just be...soaking up the sun? Strange woman, this one.]
B: Mid-October [This has all been one hell of an adjustment, but when two weeks of attempting to question the locals amounts to little more than tittering laughter and a whole lot of nothing useful, Cortana switches tactics. Blend in, earn their trust, and maybe--just maybe--someone who knows something will let something slip.
Or maybe they don't. But more often than not Cortana can still be found walking the neighborhood, and if she spots anyone--local or otherwise--putting up decorations she heads over.]
Need a hand with that?
[Or, if you instead walk by the house she's at, she can also be found on her front porch, up to her elbows in pumpkin guts as she carves a lantern for the festivities. The pattern is perhaps a bit much for such an...interesting canvas, but she's trying! Or, you know, would be, if the article in the newspaper she'd laid down hadn't caught her eye. She's frowning as she reads it.]
Twenty bodies can't just disappear like that. What happened...
C: Always respect the dead. CW: Violence, potential for injury. [The festivities are well underway, but after nearly a month of this place and its...eclectic variations on food, Cortana doesn't much want to test her luck with candies. Instead she's inside the house, writing away on a notepad as she sits on the couch, when the static breaks the calm. She's left staring at the screen as it returns to normal, blinking. That sounded like a bad comms relay, but how could it--this technology's too old for that so how--
Yet more unanswered questions.]
Well, that was weird.
[And then, without warning, there's a crash from next door. Pausing only long enough to look at whoever's nearest to her, she hits the front door at a run only to come to a screeching halt on the porch, nearly hitting the sputtering jack-o-lantern she left by the steps. The candle has nearly burned down to nothing, but her attention is on the gaggle of children standing at the end of the driveway, watching. Waiting.
Another crash from down the street pulls her attention up. More kids breaking through front windows, pounding down front doors, and people in need of help. The children outnumber them a few dozen to one, it seems. Children, just like the ones waiting at the end of the drive. One of them tilts their head at her, watching her right back. If anyone comes up beside or behind her, she bars their way with an arm thrown out and a low, dark whisper.]
Go back inside and find a weapon. We're about to get attacked.
Cortana | Halo 4 | OTA
[This is not what she expected. At all.
People coming back from the dead is not medically unheard of in her time, but that requires certain things. Medical care, the appropriate situation, actually being an organic being and not a collection of thoughts and light. So for Cortana to suddenly wake up in bed, silken pajamas clinging to her skin--her skin! that's new!--well. Maybe she can be excused for coming awake with a strangled gasp and a knot of tangled sheets. A racing heart and adrenaline rushing through her veins is new--so new--and all the feelings that come with it are a mess of unknowns and first experiences and she can't quite adjust to mobile limbs in the first few seconds of awareness so.
Yeah, she just fell right out of bed with one hell of a thud. Roomy, she'll apologize for that thud if it woke you, once she's done staring at her hands. They're not blue anymore. She's not blue anymore.
She's alive.
Or, if you've managed to sleep through that you may be instead awoken by a piece of clothing hitting you in the face. She'll apologize for that too. Later. Because at that instant her side of the room pretty much looks like it just went through a windstorm, clothing tossed haphazardly onto her unmade bed, bits and baubles set aside in a wild search for understanding. It doesn't come easily, or quickly. At the first signs of life from the other person in the room she turns, electric blue eyes wide.]
Is this--are you--[Words, Cortana! She pauses, swallows, tries again:] This is real, isn't it?
[A bit later, once she's had time to calm down and adjust to this new frame, it's possible to find her sitting on the front lawn, her knees drawn up to her chest and bare feet digging into the perfectly manicured grass. The skies are clear and blue and bright, but her eyes are closed. She seems to just be...soaking up the sun? Strange woman, this one.]
B: Mid-October
[This has all been one hell of an adjustment, but when two weeks of attempting to question the locals amounts to little more than tittering laughter and a whole lot of nothing useful, Cortana switches tactics. Blend in, earn their trust, and maybe--just maybe--someone who knows something will let something slip.
Or maybe they don't. But more often than not Cortana can still be found walking the neighborhood, and if she spots anyone--local or otherwise--putting up decorations she heads over.]
Need a hand with that?
[Or, if you instead walk by the house she's at, she can also be found on her front porch, up to her elbows in pumpkin guts as she carves a lantern for the festivities. The pattern is perhaps a bit much for such an...interesting canvas, but she's trying! Or, you know, would be, if the article in the newspaper she'd laid down hadn't caught her eye. She's frowning as she reads it.]
Twenty bodies can't just disappear like that. What happened...
C: Always respect the dead. CW: Violence, potential for injury.
[The festivities are well underway, but after nearly a month of this place and its...eclectic variations on food, Cortana doesn't much want to test her luck with candies. Instead she's inside the house, writing away on a notepad as she sits on the couch, when the static breaks the calm. She's left staring at the screen as it returns to normal, blinking. That sounded like a bad comms relay, but how could it--this technology's too old for that so how--
Yet more unanswered questions.]
Well, that was weird.
[And then, without warning, there's a crash from next door. Pausing only long enough to look at whoever's nearest to her, she hits the front door at a run only to come to a screeching halt on the porch, nearly hitting the sputtering jack-o-lantern she left by the steps. The candle has nearly burned down to nothing, but her attention is on the gaggle of children standing at the end of the driveway, watching. Waiting.
Another crash from down the street pulls her attention up. More kids breaking through front windows, pounding down front doors, and people in need of help. The children outnumber them a few dozen to one, it seems. Children, just like the ones waiting at the end of the drive. One of them tilts their head at her, watching her right back. If anyone comes up beside or behind her, she bars their way with an arm thrown out and a low, dark whisper.]
Go back inside and find a weapon. We're about to get attacked.