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 Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:15 am
A roleplay between Roots of the Cosmos [Elst and Aoi] and Count Kaosu [Kaosu].
Location: A cemetary in the outer edge of Vargash.
Time: Just past midnight, likely around 1:00 A.M.
Weather: Torrential rain, massive thunderstorm, loud thunder, bright lightning, all that fun stuff.
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:28 am
The thunder crashed, the torrential rain rushed forth from the heavens, drenching the flames of many a soul in inescapable extinguish, yeah, the usual. What seemed like the makings of many a melodrama erupted from the darkened skies as the world cleansed itself through strenuous storm.
What mattered, though, is that you’d have to be insane to go out in this weather. The streets were empty, devoid of life. People were safe and warm in their homes, and stray animals…likely a much less chipper end, for the gutters were now urban waterfalls; anything small enough to get caught in these rapids would have their cold, lonely grave in the sewers.
Wait, what is that… a thin figure, limping through the streets. Slumped over, eyes downcast; a grey hooded sweatshirt shrouding his face, his body. Plastered to his legs was a pair of blackish-brown work slacks, soaked to the bone, even the heavy boots on his feet proved no match against the torrent. Wretched creature, can barely walk.
And so we see Aoi, returning from another night’s fruitless search. Searching for the one who drove a demon to shatter it’s own soul. The one who broke Trystan.
He’d met the man first under…peculiar circumstances; Trystan had attempted to kill whom Aoi considered to be his father. Yet things turned out with a curious lack of malice that night… They met a second time, and Aoi, for the first time, saw the oddity of a demon broken down past his outer reserve. Long into that night, Aoi learned many things about that particular descendant of the Chevaliers… All vague; Trystan’s mind was in utter agony at that point, muddled his thoughts. But Aoi had learned enough. This man had destroyed Trystan by severing the one hope he had to find redemption within himself. Aoi had…developed an obsession.
He reasoned, if he searched, if he could just find that man, reunite him with Trystan…Perhaps he could be useful, perhaps he could finally help that wreck of a man as he felt he’d utterly failed to do before. Yet, every night, he found, he grew weary as desire for sleep drew near, and sleep ended the search for that night. He wanted that ‘weakness’ to be gone from him. And so he began to ignore his body’s desperate pleas for rest. He began to sneak out each night, not returning till early in the morning, refusing sleep.
The warm words of Miss Longway…when she had discovered he was so weary, so weak…She tried to help him, and he succumbed to it, for the moment. She made him forgive himself for another of his failures. But not this one, oh no. This was far too important. So up he stayed, and it began to show. The lines upon his face, the deep purple bags beneath his eyes, even the deathly pallor his skin had taken on. All of it, he hid each day, his magic used to smooth out these wrinkles, make him appear healthy. It even hid his tears.
Digressing, however…back to the present. The miserable figure drudged through the street, dragging himself back home in a myriad of cloaks, the strongest simply being the downpour. One could not see anything even across the street; the world was hidden away, isolating the lone Essentic.
The clue he’d followed this night… A key, etched with the number twenty-three, had emerged in the thoughts he’d gleaned from Trystan. A gift from the man who had left him, apparently, and Aoi had finally caught on. The secret behind this, perhaps he could only find it if…if he could just find the lock that matched it. This entire past week, it had fixated him…Fascinating him; he’d been searching. The 23rd lot on 23rd street, warehouse 23, so many places…all for naught. In his mind, all this meant was that he’d become a miserable failure all the more.
But then…an idea passed him by. A conspiracy he’d heard…read about even. The enigma of the number 23...It couldn’t be coincidence. But…how could it help him… The lone figure walked on, disappointed with himself once more.
He passed a cemetery, the many gravestones illuminated by each flash of the sky, and as the lightning struck the clouds, an epiphany struck the feeble Essentic. The 23 Enigma… The entire theory summed up. That everything, everyone, everywhere, was somehow tied to 23. Graveyards…they represented something which tied absolutely everyone together, something all living things shared. Death. This had to be it. On weak legs, he ran, stumbling, as fast as he could, to the cemetery entrance, counting the graves. Counting to the 23rd row.
Falling to his knees as he reached it, Aoi struggled to his feet, arcs of pain lacing up his limbs as he resisted their urge to fall again. He trudged, slowly, to the 23rd grave down. A mausoleum. This had to be it, it just had to be… He quickened his pace, hope fueling him movement, but came to an abrupt stop.
The mausoleum didn’t even have a lock. The Alter fell to his knees, sinking slightly in the thick mud, defeated. He was so close, he’d gotten so hopeful, for once…all to discover it was another mistake. In the gloom of the evening, he was impossible to even notice, veiled in twilight and the growing storm.
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Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:58 pm
Damn. It definitely was going to rain.
The black sky snarled thunderously: a predator cornering is prey. Kaosu hastened his pace accordingly, scolding himself for actually minding the weather. Why should he care if he were soaked? Handsome men could not be harmed by water or tears. But his clothes… it was a ridiculous sentiment; caring about clothes… they would be drenched. The designer duds would not dry for hours. He could not afford to so try his immune system. He could not afford to catch cold. He absolutely could not afford to slow down now. His precious, wild, unruly pace kept him just out of harm’s way.
Dave and Red resumed hunting him the very moment he stepped into the wastelands. Lowlife hit men and thugs tracked him at every turn. There was a reason gambling was seldom a lucrative profession: those who cheated or succeeded, like Kao, were either quietly removed or forced to trade their dice for guns and followers. The ex military man would submit himself to neither. As a result, danger hounded him constantly, driving him further and further up a proverbial tree. Soon the branches near its top would be too feeble to bear him and everything would come crashing down. That was inevitable, but he would be careful and cautious in order to postpone it. At the very least, he would not risk catching ill.
His fear of weakness was not strictly physical. He needed to keep his momentum. He was desperate to maintain his momentum. His insatiable drive to remain in motion distracted his troubled mind from his heart. The wound gouged by his latest, deepest sin had not yet healed and was still bleeding freely. He needed to find shelter, but this injury prevented him from setting foot in Vargash. To chance meeting Trystan again… he could not survive that. Desperate for an alernative, he gracelessly jumped a waist-high wooden fence. He entered a sprawling graveyard on the city's outskirts, flinching as lightning viciously cracked the horizon. There had to be some sort of chapel nearby, right? Or at least an open crypt? Surely in this sanctuary of the deceased he could locate a sanctuary from the rain.
His efforts were in vain. Kao was too late. Before he had poked around in the sheer darkness for five minutes, the clouds above him surrendered their burdensome load. A downpour started. Within seconds he was absolutely dripping. Oh well. So much for that plan. Defeated, he traipsed around the tombstones aimlessly, debating what to do next. His meanderings brought him to the foot of a towering mausoleum. It was not locked –should he take refuge inside? Nah. Why spend the night cold and among skeletons? He would not bend to the climate. He had already suffered an impromptu shower; the damage had already been done. On a whim, he climbed a statuette at the entrance then pulled himself onto the roof of the slippery stone building. He would wait out the fearsome storm in the middle of it. Why not? Maybe the torrents would wash away some of this stupid teenage angst.
The cemetery proved a rather comfortable resting place for him, really. It was quiet. It was abandoned. His enemies would never think to seek him out in such an odd, creepy location. Kaosu felt right at home amongst the dead. How ironic. Instead, he was haunted by the living. His spine crawled as his thoughts drifted back to that apartment… back to that warm touch… that sense of ease that taunted him and threatened him more than any bullet ever would. The memory of what he had deliberately given up chilled him, robbing him of all sleep or solace. He had no idea that returning to his solitary life would be so difficult.
Why could he no longer handle being alone? What had that kid broken in him? His voluntary exile ceased to feel voluntary. Restless, he rolled onto his stomach, peering over his surroundings from his perch. His pulse cart wheeled. Movement. In the distance. Who was intruding on him, HERE in this squall? Instinctively, he ducked behind the crest of his rock monument, hidden from view. With his one eye, he had serious trouble seeing in such a mini monsoon. He was vulnerable. He would not risk detection until he could confirm this stranger was not hostile.
Maybe it was fate that guided the plant boy to him… or maybe there was some truth to the number 23 enigma… Either way, one lost soul was drawn to another.
He could not completely identify Aoi’s form until the Essentic stood directly in front of him. Kaosu immediately recognized that the trespasser was not human. Still. Odd. The vagabond watched with mixed wariness and curiosity as the creature drew close then fell to his knees in the mud. Perhaps a loved one was buried inside this tomb? That did not explain the other's peculiar timing. No matter. The tramp was quite certain none of his fellow lowlifes employed artificial life forms. This alter had not come for him... probably. That left only one question. To approach or not to approach? Deciding he was in no mood to converse with anyone in his present sorry state, Kao collected himself. Wordlessly, he dropped down behind the mausoleum safely out of sight. He landed with a satisfying thud: audible even over the roar of the evening. He would leave this encounter to Lady Luck.
Would she entice Aoi to make a move? Or would she allow Kao to slip away unmolested? Both options were unpleasant.
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Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:58 am
[OOC|| I’m sorry for the craptasticity of this post, I was having a lot of trouble writing it for some reason and now it‘s all short and full of fail. Dx]]
No designer clothing adorned this wayward soul; only an old hoodie and slacks, a pair of boots. Looked like a thrift store refuge. No, Aoi needn’t worry about ruining nice clothes this evening; all he needed to worry about was his cheap garb’s utter incapability of warding off the cold. He was chilled, soaked to the bone; whether it was possible or not for an Essentic to catch hypothermia, Aoi’d soon find out. In the illumination of the barrage of lightning from above, the figure could be seen to shiver feebly, the least cause of which was the cold.
As the [or so he thought] lone figure pressed his back against the mausoleum, he appeared frail. Weak. Young, yet not youthful in the slightest. His body, seemed only that of a mid-teen, yet his eyes, those heterochromic orbs…They portrayed one who’d seen horrors of the mind meant for only the oldest, most maturity-calloused minds. He needed sleep, restful reprieve, yet he refused every beckoning it made.
By this point, it was doubtful he could even stand. But apparently, someone else could; he heard a loud thump from the other side of the mausoleum; like something landing…or someone.
In an instant, despite his Source-starved body’s pleads to abstain, his telepathic networks sparked to life; his mind instantly spanned a small radius around his emaciated form. His range wasn’t nearly what it could be if he was rested, but it was enough to detect another being very close nearby. He froze, pressing himself against the wall with what little strength he had. Had it seen him? What if it was dangerous? Wh- Wait. An all-too-familiar mindset washes across Aoi’s mind as he examined this presence a little closer.
This mind in particular was very well-guarded, but the little bit Aoi could determine was enough to make his heart stop. This mind, it seemed so familiar, yet Aoi was certain he’d never met him. He must have obtained an impression of it from someone else…whose mind had connected with this before… Trystan’s?!
It was…It was him. His heart jumped back into motion, beating faster than it had ever before. He barely knew anything about this man, almost nothing at all, but he knew enough to recognize him easily. Maybe there was some truth to the number 23…maybe it was simple coincidence.
Aoi’s eyes flared with green mist before a telepathic arrow was shot towards the man. Aoi was tired, but a single word could be jettisoned forth; Kaosu…
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:55 pm
A chill pervaded Kaosu’s system as he landed in the wet crass. He could not help but shiver. The torrential downpour penetrated his clothes easily, robbing him of body heat. He was soaked from head to toe. However, the weather had nothing to do with why he was really cold. This strange evening was slowly getting to his head. What a fool he was, wandering alone without shelter in the rain. It was pathetic. It was stupid. He would not let it happen again. No, he would banish that kid from his mind. He would move on. He would make the pain stop. The more his body involuntarily shuddered, the stronger his resolve strengthened. He shut out his memories and his emotions. His heart crystallized, going numb.
Good luck, Aoi. Good luck trying to help this one.
The tramp was about to slip off to test his new determination when a single word suddenly echoed through his mind. Kaosu. His pulse hiccupped. Naturally, this meant that the Essentic nearby was a Magicker, but… how did that thing know his name? There was no logical explanation. He had never met this particular puppet –he was sure of it- so why would it recognize him? Especially since he had not allowed it to spot him? Had Trystan enlisted its help or something, or…?
Kao’s first instinct was to bolt. If his former lover really was involved, then he wanted nothing to do with the disgusting creature that had beckoned to him. He wanted to end this sorry, sulking lifestyle of his, and he would not risk that fresh motivation on a pointless encounter. Fortunately for Aoi, though, his curiosity got the better of him. What if the Essentic knew him for a different reason? What if it was tracking him for something important? He had better solve this enigma now, or it would hound him for days. Hesitantly, he headed around the mausoleum to meet the stranger.
He circumvented the crypt quickly. Pointedly, he slipped under a small roof at the entrance to escape the downpour. He then turned his attention to the miserable figure who appeared to be an alter. ”Essentic,” he purred, addressing it directly. He was careful not to betray any emotion other than wariness. ”Do I know you?” Of course not. His words were simply a less direct way of saying “What the hell do you want?”
ooc| OTL Slowest tag ever! The sad thing is that when my muse got working this took me less than twenty minutes.
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