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 Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:04 am
Asclepius reappeared right where she had left, but not in the same condition. She was slumped on her knees and shaking slightly. The phone tumbled to the floor and she brought her hands to her face before letting out a shriek. Then the girl let her arms fall, the energy seeming to leave her body, though her breathing was still quick and fearful.
Then she looked around for Chaonis, as though she had just remembered that he was supposed to be there, too. One hand reached for the nearest bookshelf or wall or something to steady herself, and she shifted her legs slightly but remained seated.
There was something she wanted to, or perhaps felt like she should, ask him, but the Senshi of Medicine could not think of what it was for the life of her.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 9:45 am
Chaonis wasn't much a fan of the library. He would have gone into space on his own little trip if it weren't for the library, in fact. He had brought them there for some quiet, and showed her how to get herself to her planet, but once Asclepius had started her fun, Chaonis heard noises upstairs and had to go to investigate.
The last thing he wanted was unexpected visitors when they got home from a lovely trip into space.
It turned out to be nothing more than a couple of birds who had flown in from an open window during the day. All escapes were closed now, and it Chaonis a while to wrangle the birds and get them out. By the time he returned, now a seasoned animal rescuer, he had enough time to casually lean on a wall and get out his phone before Asclepius was back and... screaming.
"JESUS," he yelled in return, surprised by her shrieking. His trip into space had been fun. Dangerous, yes, but that was just how he liked it. He hadn't managed to find time to go to his own planet yet.
"What the hell?! This is a library! Keep your voice down!" He yelled back at her, though he moved to kneel next to her. Concern, maybe, though his expression reflected annoyance. There was something softer in his eyes, at least. "Are you alright? What happened?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:55 pm
"What ... happened?" she managed after a moment, finally starting to calm down. Asclepius swallowed and pointed straight up. "Are all of our worlds that ... dead?"
She was not about to let on to Chaonis that all the bones and skeletons had frightened her. Now that she was not actively freaking out anymore, it all seemed kind of silly, being so scared. Easier to think that way under the night-time lighting in the library, which still managed to be lighter than the inner hallways or that central chamber she had crossed.
The darkness further down the aisle of books where she knelt still gave the girl some goosebumps, though.
Still feeling too tired to stand up, she turned where she sat to face Chaonis, and rested her hands on her lap, trying consciously not to look haunted anymore. "Just sort of ... strange up there. Familiar but not." Asclepius shrugged and forced a weak laugh.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:11 pm
Chaonis watched her, tilting his head to the side. He shook it slightly, with a slightly condescending look on his face. Of course, when he first took a trip to space, with Rosalind, it had been a pretty intense rush. He had felt wobbly and strange, and maybe a bit nauseous, but he never told anyone.
There was also the fact that he had not yet gone back to space, to visit his own planet.
"Well, yeah, I'd think so. I mean. They've been up there for... ever, right?" He looked puzzled, clearly not having thought about all the death that happened, and the scope of that. There hadn't been dead bodies to see, though, in the palace he had visited.
Moving to her when she stood, just in case she wobbled, he watched her literally put on a brave face. Yeah, right, like he was going to miss how pale and shaken she looked, things she couldn't hide by a facial expression and posture change. But he didn't comment. If she didn't want to look scared, he wasn't going to make her.
That was kind of weird, and he didn't want her looking like a sissy any more than she wanted to look like one. So they were even.
"It is different. Anyway, you okay? Not gonna vomit, because Tony'll know we've been here if you ralph on the books." He wasn't good at straight forward concern, so he hid it in sarcasm and mockery. It was still good though, right?
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:50 pm
"What are we doing here, though, if there are problems like that up in space?" Had the people on her world died in their beds crying for help? Who was supposed to have been taking care of them all? Sure there was a battle here now, as was obvious from the first time she had met Chaonis, if nothing else, but still, Asclepius felt almost irresponsible, leaving her world so soon.
She looked up at him and frowned, shaking her head. "Not going to puke, don't worry." Not anymore, maybe. "Just took a lot out of me, that traveling." Probably further in one trip than she would ever have traveled otherwise in her whole life, Asclepius realized.
The girl took a deep breath to calm her nerves, then slowly started to get to her feet. Her strength was starting to return, at least, and in spite of feeling a little wobbly, Asclepius did not feel like she was in any danger of falling. Still, once she was on her feet, the Senshi of Medicine remained where she was, not trying out walking again just yet.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:05 pm
"Because... this is Earth, and it's still alive," Chaonis said, with a shrug of his shoulders. He was the least philosophical senshi this side of the universe, and he had no opinions to offer her, not reassurances or thoughtful counters to give her something substantial to think about.
Mostly because he didn't care.
The bottom line was, everything up there was dead and gone, and everything that mattered was right here with them. Or whenever they got sucked some place else, like into Elysion, or whatever. It didn't matter: if the place was alive, had people to save, and bad guys to fight, that was the place that mattered most.
All the dead guys were pretty much beyond their help at this point.
"Yeah, it's a head rush. You'll get over it. Do you need some water?" He didn't have any with him, and she'd have to find a water fountain if she did, but he thought he'd offer anyway. To be polite, of course. He let her stay where she was, at least, watching her carefully. What had she seen up there to make her so wobbly? Freaked out? He would have to use tact to get her to talk about it, if she was truly so upset about whatever it was she had seen.
"What was up there that freaked you out?" He asked, completely without tact.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:58 pm
At Chaonis' deeply thoughtful response, Asclepius decided that that question had been essentially rhetorical anyway. Maybe it was an answer to consider, but coming from him, she was not really willing to give it thought. Not at the moment.
When he asked her about water, she nodded a little, and likely correctly surmised that he was not offering to run and get her a cup full: "Yeah, where's the fountain?" They were usually near the restrooms, and the Senshi of Medicine thought that perhaps a splash of cold water in her face could help settle her down, too. She was not quite familiar with this library, though, but now it seemed likely that she would be coming back here at least eventually.
Asclepius lifted her hand from where she had been resting it on the bookshelf, taking a moment to be sure she felt steady, then turned to Chaonis in anticipation of getting directions to the fountain.
... and then she put a hand to her forehead and sighed at his next question. Part of her really did not want to tell him. But part of her thought maybe it would help if she did. Somehow.
"People," the girl told him, looking away. "But they were dead. All of them." It was a decent compromise to tell him half of it, right? Or maybe it was reassuring in a twisted way to insist that everything up there was dead and that whatever movement she thought she had seen was just her imagination.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:15 pm
Chaonis kept his dark eyes on her, just in case she did, in fact, decide to throw up. He wanted every moment's worth of warning he could get before that, so he could get himself out of the splash zone. The last thing he wanted was vomit on his work clothes.
"Over by the bathrooms. Come on," he said, at least willing to take her there. Though, for all she knew, he just needed to pee and was taking the opportunity to look gallant. That, however in character it might be, was not the case. She did look like she might need some water, so he was just doing his civic duty.
Kinda.
He stayed close to her, or at least close enough to catch her if she conveniently tumbled in his direction. He would have to rush if she fell the other way.
"You saw dead people on your planet? Like... Dawn of the Dead dead, or Sixth Sense dead?" He frowned, wondering why Rosalind's planet hadn't had any ghosts on it. Maybe because they had all left before her, to get away from that room full of busts. It hadn't had any zombies, either. By comparison, it suddenly felt like a boring trip. "What was your planet like? I mean, it's not just a planet for storing dead people, right?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:22 pm
Asclepius moved slowly and carefully but without incident to the water fountain. Then she put one hand to her chest to keep her collar from slipping into the water (and to be sure to keep Chaonis' eyes off of her cleavage) as she leaned down to take a drink. It was always difficult to drink quietly from public fountains, but she managed not to slurp too much.
She stopped drinking but did not raise her head to respond, "They were dead like actual dead people. They had just been left there." A few more swallows of water, and then the girl raised her head, and wiped her chin on the back of one hand. "I showed up inside a hospital on my world," Asclepius told him. "They bodies weren't stored there, it looked like they had been forgotten. "
Crossing her arms, she half-turned away from him and murmured, "Hopefully you can figure out why I am concerned."
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 5:33 pm
Chaonis watched her as she moved to the fountain, frowning as she covered her chest with her hand. What was that, a boob shield? Of course, by noticing her doing it, it was safe to say he had, in fact, been planning on looking at her chest. But there was also the argument that the strange movement had simply drawn his attention.
Either way, he huffed about the end result, shaking his head.
Her words, though, kept him from mocking her right away about her distrust of him. He looked surprised, in a way, despite having already expected some kind of dead people. In his mind, though, they had been monsters, or ghosts. Something 'evil' and perfectly suited to the crazy lives they lived, where fighting youma was a common and almost lackadaisical event.
But seeing dead bodies... that was never easy. He hadn't expected there would be any. Were there any on his asteroid? Was that one of the reasons he hadn't gone yet? He frowned. No, it couldn't have been, he hadn't thought about it before now.
"Yeah, that sucks," he said distantly, still unable to offer her depth or thought on the subject. He did scratch at the back of his neck and look slightly ruffled by the subject, at least. "But there's nothing you can do about that, you know? They've been dead forever, so... that's that."
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:33 pm
Asclepius let her arms slip, to hang at her sides for a moment as she sighed and nodded slowly. He was right; she needed a way to avoid saying so.
"I guess I'll need to bury them all or something next time I go," she said. "I mean, apparently the Asclepius of the past couldn't keep them all from dying in the first place, so I guess I owe them all that much. Whoever they are."
The girl was quiet for a moment, then raised her head and looked at Chaonis. "Well, I should get home and rest, I suppose." Tilting her chin up a little, she added, "Thank you for showing me how to dial. Be sure to let me know how your planetary adventures go." The panic having subsided, she did her best to look like she was no longer bothered at all. Obviously this all would take some thinking through, but that was definitely something Asclepius would need to do alone.
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:02 am
Chaonis shrugged his shoulders.
"If you want to spend your time doing that, I guess," he said vaguely. He wouldn't waste the time. Obviously they hadn't decomposed in the time since they died, or at least not enough to stop being scary, but he doubted they were worth the effort of digging holes for. Anyway, who was to say that they were not bad guys who deserved it?
Maybe it didn't matter to a Senshi of Medicine.
He looked at her when she glanced at him, nodding his head and then shrugging dismissively. He hadn't gone back yet, and he still wasn't sure when he would. If he would. What was the point? Seeing a past of a world that didn't matter to him. Maybe he was scared of what he would learn.
Maybe he didn't want to know.
"Alright. Go home before you pass out and I have to carry you. Next time you go to space, you might think about bringing a chaperon."
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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:33 pm
Would it really matter if they were buried or not? She had no idea how may of the beds were occupied by the skeletons and dried bodies. But still, it seemed indignant to leave them as they were. Also kind of gross, especially if Asclepius was going to be making subsequent visits to the silent hospital asteroid that bore her name.
The thought of friend or foe, though, really had not crossed the girl's mind. They were dead; what did it matter?
"Oh, I'll be fine," she said, turning to go. "I'll be sure not to pass out so I won't inconvenience you." Asclepius rolled her eyes at Chaonis' comment about the chaperon, but she had already turned away form him. Still, she looked back once over her shoulder as she made her way to the door. "Right, I'll keep that in mind."
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:32 pm
Chaonis watched her, nodding his head.
Sometimes he might take a moment to notice that his behavior kept people he wanted to be his friends away from him. Then he would shrug it off, tell himself that if they were worth it they'd see past his rudeness and like him anyway, and then say something inappropriate or jerkish.
"See ya later," he said, moving toward the door. He had to let her out first, so he could lock up without anyone really knowing they had been there at all. And that anyone would be the librarian that opened almost every day, of course.
Not that he would realize it had been his own keys that let two possible thieves and vandals into his library while it was unattended.
"When you're feeling better you should swing by my place," he offered, with an unusually sincere look on his face, "we'll hang out, you know. Just relax. This senshi stuff gets to be too much, and I need to chill sometimes. Seeing dead people probably makes you feel the same way, right?"
That all might be true, but mostly he wanted to introduce her to a video game called Dead Space.
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:02 pm
"Sure," Asclepius replied slowly, glancing back over her shoulder at him again when he made the offer to 'hang out'. She was not sure she wanted her senshi life getting into her real, non-crazy life, if that was what he meant.
Still, though, after the girl had already left the library, and Chaonis behind with it, she realized that his offer had been unusually kind. Perhaps he had some heart of gold in him somewhere after all.
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