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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:14 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:29 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 1:15 am
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{ ATE: Heartfelt Memento: Part2} ~ Louis: Balcony Heart Scape~
Cue: Hold the Moment Tightly - aka pF- AdLib II
"Late? Wrong?" Louis replied, though, he stopped as she vented her frustration. He reached out and touched the hand closest to him. His warm, gentle caress wrapped around her fingers that intertwined with her hair... that merciless, unforgiving grip that wouldn't let go and berated her for her mistakes. The harshest, heartless source of vindictive criticism that was hurting her. Always, always, always blaming her. Always shinning the spotlight on every single insignificant imperfection, every mistake, every shortcoming. Never looking at the good.
Gently, carefully, but swiftly before she could pull away he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug, cradling her head against his chest. He said nothing, instead, only encouraged with his hand on hers to let go and stop hurting herself. She was undoubtedly her own worst enemy, and if he could, setting her on the path to defeating that self-loathing would be the last thing he'd do.
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 1:28 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 2:18 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:58 pm
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 2:31 pm
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{ ATE : Defining Justice : End } { Kyle : Beach Heartscape } { Cue : Brave Shine - Sapphire } Kyle turned to watch the other man step into oblivion, golden dust vanishing in his wake, and inhaled sharply. The laughter faded out. The starry sky seemed to grow dim. The waves began to churn more powerfully.
He didn't even get to say everything. Was there even enough time? What could he have said? What could he have done?
Powerless.
The man had never had a chance. From Earth's hellish fall to his constant corruption by an esper he never picked, Louis' life was out of his hands. Only some husk of a man, turned by darkness, stolen by darkness, had been left behind. Louis had basically died a week ago, and they were only just now getting a chance to bury him.
Out of his control.
His hands had curled into fists, sparks of radiant golden power running along his arms and fingers. Something rumbled—perhaps it was the distant storm returning, or a tremor in the ground, or the magic roiling through his form.
Louis might not have even been alone. If one person could lose hope and fail their calling, couldn't others? Maybe the other scions are destroying them piece by piece even now, or maybe it doesn't even matter what spirit they'd get because they fell into shadow either way. How many other people were stripped of their lives because of a momentary loss of hope in a moment of apocalypse? How others weren't good enough for some arbitrary arrogant a*****e?
How many were lost without a chance to save them?
Helpless.
His body suddenly tensed as his eyes opened wide, wild and furious, and he screamed—screamed with a bellowing outrage as lightning tore at the sea and sky. Without care or composure, he began lashing out, ripping one arm up and the other over, spinning and tearing at the air like a rabid animal. With every motion of his hands, he sundered the heartscape around him: he ripped open a faultline that tore through into the sea, he called forth a churning tidal wave to surge forward and wipe out a portion of the beach, he caused entire, towering condominiums to collapse under his quaking rage. He saw lengths of beach and wanted nothing more than ruins, yanking one arm back and causing great, jagged eruptions of stone; he brought down storms of lightning on the most insignificant but infuriating of spots, setting fire to sandgrass and creating twisting monuments of glass, which he crushed beneath violent waves of an angered sea.
He couldn't think straight, couldn't speak, could only scream and rage at the unfairness of the world, thrashing everything he could see with his unyielding indignation. He brought cataclysms of his own, and instead of marveling at the displays of power, they only drove him further into unkempt despair, until he turned to devastate even more—
—only to find himself embraced in the warm arms of his blue-skinned companion. He locked up instantly, fighting against every urge to just continue and react and react, holding himself absolutely still until she ran a hand through his hair.
And finally, he broke down into loud, wailing sobs.
This continued for what seemed like minutes, his arms limp at his sides as he cried, Ultima gently consoling him the way his mother would. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, his words coming out as little more than a congested croak.
"It's not fair."
"No, it's not."
"It isn't fair."
"Not in the slightest."
They silently stood there for a few more moments, Kyle catching his breath—and occasionally breaking down for another single, deep sob—before he simply collapsed onto his knees in the sand. Ultima gracefully sat down beside him, and with one arm, took his head to her shoulder.
"I'm never strong enough."
"You're not to blame."
"No, I know, but... how do we even..."
"Stand up to gods?" There was a hint a morose amusement to her voice as she presented the ironic question she knew he had.
"And win?"
"Ah, that part I cannot say," she said, sighing and continuing to run a hand through his hair. "But you did a pretty decent job on this one."
"Only with the help of the other," he replied, bitterness seeping out like excess venom.
"Do not be so quick to spread the blame to the light," she replied. "If you've shown me anything, it's that the light would have done everything in its power to save as many as it could. Something must have happened."
He didn't answer at first, almost as if ignoring her. But he sighed after a moment, looking down at his hands, still raw with magic. "I need to be stronger."
"You will be. But don't let it be at the cost of what else you've learned today."
"No, I know. Friends, teams, stuff..."
"Yes, stuff," she repeated with some amusement before squeezing him tight. "You need to stop blaming yourself."
"Yeah, I know, it's not my fault, blah blah—"
She interrupted him by slowly standing and helping him to his feet. "Look."
Kyle took a moment, slowly absorbing the destruction he'd wrought—the self-inflicted wounds on his heart that weren't healing. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply, trying to let the guilt go, trying to let the self-blame go. He suddenly felt Ultima's warm hands take his, holding them in front of him and between the two of them. He never opened his eyes, but he still felt her presence, her guidance and support.
After some meditation, he felt a shift in the air and ground beneath him, so he opened his eyes...
"I can't yet," he said, feeling more weight press down on him. The heartscape was still in rough shape, but it had healed somewhat, at least—and the sky was once more clear and still. "Not entirely. I'm trying, but..."
"It won't happen overnight," she said, looking down at him with her violet eyes and soft expression. "You'll have to work on it. But you must always remember, you're not alone."
"I know," he said, taking her into an embrace, and she returned the favor. After a moment of recomposure, he stepped back, raising a brow. "Where'd all this soft stuff come from?"
"I blame the other thing," she said, rolling her eyes in mock disdain as she referenced the spirit that she'd fused with. "I'm still me, though, so don't get used to all this compassion and caring stuff. I'll blast you any day of the week."
They shared a laugh. "I dunno. It kind of works for you."
She simply smiled in response, but with that, the conversation dropped to a lull, the inevitable creeping upon them.
"It's time to go."
"Ever onward," she said, watching him close his eyes and vanish into a flicker of light. She sighed, the uncharacteristic soft smile returning.
Ever onward, boy.
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phoenixianCrystallist Crew
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 6:13 pm
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 6:21 pm
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 7:21 pm
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{ATE: 'Til We Meet Again .:. 4} {Louis? .:. Station of Awakening}
Cue: Novelette from Umineko
Louis gave the girl a long pause to her question, his mind only drawing the image of a golden plaque that sank into the darkness like many of the memories of things recently transpired, "Who am I?"
There was a sigh from the boy as he shrugged, "Actually... I don't know yet. Guess some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. For now, Louis is fine. But... I can tell you other stuff. Grew up in a family of 3, just my mom, dad, and I in a small house smack dab on the edge of a swamp with the coast not even thirty minutes away. My mother was of the religious sort, while dad was... somewhere in between. I didn't much care for it all so my mom and I butted heads a lot."
Louis paused, realizing how awkward it was to talk in this big empty space like this standing around, so he motioned to sit as he spoke, "I didn't have many friends, the few I had were as close as family, I joked they were like adoptive siblings and my parents were happy to play along, often referring to my friends as their extra children."
"Had a few nicknames, the most prominent ones being 'Owl' and 'The Vampire Butler.' Owl because well, my friends always thought I was the smart one of the group... that and I was nocturnal half the time. The vampire thing came from my politeness at other's houses... and tendency to dress to a higher standard. The butler part came from cleaning the entirety of their houses on occasion- I had some free time. Figured it'd be a nice gesture."
By this point Louis was visibly blushing, talking about himself was... strange and always conflicted with him.
"What about you? What sort of nicknames did you get growing up- if any?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 7:49 pm
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{ATE: 'Til We Meet Again .:. 5} {Bobbi .:. Station of Awakening}
Bobbi joined him in his sitting, moving closer and folding herself into her typical cross-legged position, leaning forward with her elbows braced on her knees. She listened, and tried to form a mental image of his family as he spoke. But she chuckled at his question, and reached up to scratch at the back of her neck.
"How much time do ya have?" she asked rhetorically. "Of course my mom had a thousand different variations on my name. Bob was the most common, followed closely by Bobo or Bobblehead. I've lost track of how many people called me Ice b***h in school; being the shy quiet type who's not afraid to throw a punch will do that, apparently. My closest friends in high school called me Dragon Child because, well, I ******** love dragons. Of course, this nickname came about during our weeaboo phases, so we translated Dragon Child to Ryuko. My online handle was Mizu Kage Hikari, after my Kingdom Hearts OC. Because, again, weeaboo. Naturally people shortened it to Mizu, and that's just kind of stuck ever since." A chuckle, and a gesture to her chest, and Bobbi voiced what was probably her favorite nickname, if for no other reason than because she found it hilarious. "And, of course, the ever-popular Boobi. For obvious reasons."
She shrugged, not sure where she should go from there. She was never good at small talk. She lapsed into silence, chewing on her bottom lip, peeling away a layer of skin with her teeth in nervous habit. There was so much she wanted to say, but she had no idea how to bring it up, if she should bring it up. Her hands twined with themselves, fingers knotting around each other as she thought, trying to figure out where to take the conversation from there.
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phoenixianCrystallist Crew
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 8:03 pm
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{ATE: 'Til We Meet Again .:. 6} {Louis? .:. Station of Awakening} Cue: Novelette from Umineko
Louis chuckled at 'Bobblehead', that one's good.
"Let's see..." he mused after a few seconds of the lingering silence, "Ah, I've got a shitty sense of humor. I like puns and innuendo... any attempt to joke outside that falls flat on its face. . . that is to say that the aforementioned types don't as well."
"I love dogs- big dogs not small, the little ones are evil little monsters that LOVE biting my right ankle, seriously... long story but I've had like four small dogs bite my ankle. I digress. I also like rodents, ferrets, guinea pigs, chinchillas, and rabbits in particular but I do NOT like hamsters, they're cute, but mean little ********. Oh! And cats- though I'm allergic to cats. I sneeze up a storm if one gets too close to my face... my own doing usually. I love snuggling them. I also love horses. My mom had one, I learned to ride when I was ten, though my passion was swimming."
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 8:13 pm
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 8:37 pm
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