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 Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 2:09 pm
It was almost tender, the way she slotted each food into its compartment: the rice in its large vessel with a little bit of plum on top; the roasted veggies colourfully arranged in the long section to the side of the rice, adding a spicy note to the food; the sliced, braised meat in a compartment that slotted over the rice; the little dumplings made to look like foxfires; lastly, she put the macarons in a separate container and aligned each one so that its stripe of icing smiled up at her: they ranged in shades of pink to purple to one black macaron with a pink stripe of buttercream icing in its centre.
Amarus bundled up the whole contraption, a picnic, and wrapped her scarf around her: a black and purple-pink striped scarf with a lotus on it that she'd had made a long time ago at a horsemen craft booth.
She was in the school, using the teaching kitchen like she'd used once with Junko, and was sneaking out through the corridors now to get outside onto the campus. She wanted to see the stars, and make up stories for them, and enjoy the cold-- sort of. She had blankets with her, because when she was in her tangible form sometimes the cold still got to her, and she hated being intangible.
As she was walking down one of the empty corridors, she thought she saw someone in a classroom. Couldn't be, it was way too late..."But what if there really was someone there? Could they be up to something?" She felt excited, suddenly, by the prospect. Bells ringing, she doubled back to see: yes, there WAS someone sitting there!
She slipped into the classroom, her aura markings flaring on her skin, and leaned in front of the stranger. "It's empty in here. Get up, come out," she said, pressing one finger to her lips as though in thought. Her expression softened slightly, and she smiled. "Come with me," she offered, extending one hand to the stranger. After a moment, she drew away, and headed out to the campus. She walked a little slower, even paused and turned around, to see if he was following.
She hoped that he would. She kind of wanted a new friend, not that she'd admit that. Besides, he seemed like someone who got lost in his own world way too often.
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Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 2:17 pm
Llyr was not, in fact, sleeping.
This was a very unfair misconception. Yes, he had his head down on the desk, yes, he was covered in what might have been a blanket except it wasn't really, but that in no means meant he was sleeping.
He was dreaming; there was a difference.
Llyr had been thinking about the dreams again, tapping an idle finger against the wood of the desk, his gaze slightly unfocused with his head turned towards the window. He supposed they could have been all in his head, but they felt so real and -
- oh, someone was talking to him. He wondered how long she had been there.
It was a long moment before Llyr actually got up, and another long moment before he managed to rearrange his robes properly, absently plucking a stray thread from the white cloth with long, nimble fingers. He followed obediently after the stranger somewhat like a lost puppy and said not a word towards her, his head turning this way and that to take in the view around him.
After several moments had passed, he realized there was someone still there.
"Oh, hello," said Llyr, as though he had only just noticed her in spite of the fact that he had been following her for the past few minutes.
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Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 3:06 pm
Even if he'd been sleeping, she'd hardly have judged him; Amarus had probably spent about 75% of her first year asleep somewhere. Narcolepsy was a battle she seemed to be good at losing, but lately less so-- that probably had a lot to do with the fact she was often draining substantial volumes of her own essence.
Once, it had been because she wanted to help someone. She couldn't remember who, or why, any more-- not even the seal could relinquish those memories. The tenderness someone had once evoked in her, one so strong she had desperately wanted to help someone other than herself, had evaporated.
Now she was all that was left. Amarus watched as the faintly disoriented-looking student wandered after her, as though in a dream. It all seemed so appropriate. He looked like a spectre, himself. She wasn't bothered by his silence. So long as he was still following, she was still strangely happy.
When he finally spoke, Amarus smiled, and turned her head to glance back at him. "Hello, stranger. Would you keep me company for a while? You have no idea who I am, right? You have never heard of me before, you have not heard of my reputation...?" she asked, already fairly certain of the answer. That was why she was so happy. She didn't have to be cold. She felt like she was dreaming, again.
Maybe it was because he was such a sort of dreamy boil himself, off in neverland, but Amarus' aura flickered more brightly than it usually did, and its transparent, practically undetectable smoke burned thicker. "Our destination is that hill, up there," she said, pointing.
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Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 10:48 pm
He liked the color of her hair; it was bright and vibrant, a stark contrast to his own muted color palate. Where Llyrendil's skin was pale and his hair dark, this ghoul was all sharp angles and intensities, from her beautiful hair to her strong personality. It was, as he considered her, quite fascinating.
He wondered if she'd let him touch her hair.
"Company?" Llyr repeated, as though he'd never heard of the word before. He glided absently towards her and moved around in a circle, his eyes moving up and down. "I know not who you are. Nor myself, really," he added, as though this needed explaining. "Identities are such strange things, after all..."
He resisted the urge (oddly enough) to just lean against her and see if her vibrancy would rub off on his colorless self. "What hill?" Llyr asked. "I have not heard of a hill, hills are quite lovely places aren't they, so tall and grand and filled with life..."
He trailed off, clearly lost in thought as he padded obediently after her.Face your demons remember that time I thought I had tagged you and I totally hadn't and was a total failure
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Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:09 am
It would have been a little odd to her, if Llyr had voiced his interest in touching her hair, but not because of the activity itself: she usually seemed to deter nearly everyone from occupying her personal space. Something about just who she was made it so that few ever considered even touching her at all, much less her hair. She wouldn't have been unhappy, though.
"Good, I am grateful to be new to you," she said, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a smile. "And I am glad you do not know who you are, either," she added. She spent so much time not knowing who, exactly, she was-- in fact, she often wondered if she was good, or bad? The hero, or the antagonist?
"Where are you from, that hills are full of life?" she asked, pausing to stare at him blankly with her silver eyes. "In any case, this hill is in our stories. It is a little overgrown, now, though," she said.
It was near. It curled up against the sky, covered in old pumpkin vines. "There. Can you climb?" she asked, looking at his robe. She said it before she thought about it: "Perhaps a better question: how well-secured is that robe of yours? I can't imagine a snagged pumpkin vine would allow it much quarter."kurotomato I... thought it had just become boring for you! xD; I'm glad to know it's just because you thought you had orz <3 Miss you, love you.
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Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 9:12 pm
He didn't understand the whole new thing, other than the fact that he was here and she was here and neither was aware of who the other was; which, for Llyr, was good enough for him. He pushed his long, draping hair off his shoulder, where it cascaded down his back in midnight blue strands.
"All nature is full of life," said Llyr sagely, as though this made sense which it definitely didn't. Idly he twisted a flower between his long fingers, turning his head this way and that as they padded up the grass. "Climb?" he repeated, and eyed it, then at himself before turning towards the ghoul, his expression blank and bemused.
"I will climb," he said vaguely, and turned to do just this. "Climb to new heights, climb to where we belong, climb, climb, climb..."
He was going off on a tangent again.
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Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 11:30 am
Amarus glanced back at Llyr, amused, when he said that all nature was full of life. "Nature is death, too," she replied, her gaze slipping to the flower in his hand before she turned back to the hill again. "Nearly there," she said, refusing to give in to the little voice inside her that said she would have a better time if she was at ease. I am always naturally at ease, I do not need to medicate myself with my own drugs, she argued silently, mentally, shaking her head.
The sound of her own bells gave her clarity of thought. She folded her hands into one of the beloved kuji-kiri and stopped at the top of the hill. It was beautiful, even she could not deny that. She spread out the blanket, set down the box of food. "I have two questions, new acquaintance. First: when you sleep, do you dream?"
Amarus tilted her head, surveying him with those steady, sharp silver eyes. "Secondly, are you hungry?" she sat crosslegged an inch off the ground, as if levitating.
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Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 9:14 pm
"Death," Llyr repeated vaguely, and spent the next several moments in silence, appearing to contemplate this very philosophical statement.
Or maybe he was just looking for flowers. Either way, he somehow managed to find some, and wound up at the top of the hill with his arms full of bright white, pink, and gold blossoms, Llyr sinking down to sit beside Amarus with a pleased look on his pale face. He set the flowers on his lap and tilted his head towards her.
"Dreams are stories inside of one's head," he said sagely, and offered her a flower before he began carefully sorting the rest into two separate piles. Her second question made him pause, looking bemused.
"Food?" he asked, not entirely certain what she was asking for."
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Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 6:41 am
Amarus admired all the blossoms he'd gathered. "We should make you a crown of flowers, reedy dreamer," she suggested, reaching out as though she was going to touch the petals. Death, in every one of them. She wasn't sure what others saw, when they looked at cut plants, but that was what she saw. Death in each second of each minute.
Cut away from what nourished them.
She was, thankfully, distracted by Llyr again. "I have enough stories in life, I hardly miss them in dreams then, I guess. Are they better stories than the ones we make ourselves?" she asked Llyr. She suppressed a yawn, and leaned forward over the food box, revealing its treasures.
"Yes, food. Heaps of it. Well, heaps for two, anyway," she said. She hid the desserts away for now, exposing the rest of the dishes, setting a pair of chopsticks down on the blanket near his blossoms. She helped herself to a piece of sliced meat, thoughtfully.
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Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:52 pm
Llyr smiled. "I wear a crown of flowers already," he said happily, and gestured to the blossoms currently plaited at the top of his dark locks. "Flowers are such a beautiful things, are they not? So soft and pretty and delicate and..."
He went on for several moments like this until he trailed off, giving Amarus an expectant sort of look. Reaching out, he plucked a little piece of meat for himself and gave it a curious look, almost as though he were wondering where it had come from and what it was.
"Will you tell me a story, then?" he asked her placidly.
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Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 6:26 pm
How had she missed his flower crown already? She tilted her head, bells ringing again, and watched him as he went on about the lovely flowers. "They are soft, but they can be persistent," she said. They could even be deadly, if you went to the wrong place.
She didn't really tell him what the food he was eating was; it didn't occur to her. She, of course, knew what everything was and was too lazy.
"I can, sure. I can tell stories," she said, making that up.
But she did tell him a story. She told him a story about herself. And she didn't know why.
"Once, a very, very long time ago, there was a very dark place. It was made of nothingness: not dark, not light; not sound, not silence; not cold, not heat. It was just nothing. Inside this dark place, a ghoul woke up. That ghoul had something wrong with her, like a broken clock, or a foxfire without a bark, or a spookie with no sweetness to it," she began. It was, in effect, the story of how she had come to be.
"She stepped out of a painting, and she found herself in the Fear plane, very near this hill. Because she was broken, though, when she met others who were supposed to be like her, they didn't get along. They kept telling her NO and she kept saying but why not? and doing it anyway. The ghoul was alone, but she didn't know it, because she couldn't feel anything outside of reflex. Fighting, that was a reflex. It was the wrong one. That ghoul wandered, and pieces of her got lost, like missed steps in the dark."
Amarus took a bite of a macaron, a pink one, and paused thoughtfully. "Because she did not know how to welcome others into her life, pieces of her kept getting lost, until all that was left was a desire for revenge, for power. Do you know why she wanted to be so strong? With strength, she could build a way out of the prison she had made for herself. She did not need others, she did not need to understand. There is no end to this story, because even today, that ghoul is still trying to build."
It was missing a few details. It wasn't a very good story, either. It was disconcerting, but when Amarus tried to remember her life, there were pieces left out. Pieces she couldn't know she'd forgotten, except that there were chunks of time missing. And the dark things she'd done, or thought. The things she had seen.
"What about you? Do you know any stories?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 2:24 pm
He liked the sound of her voice; it was pleasant, somewhat like the sound of the bells that trilled as she shifted this way and that, mixed with the gentle swaying of the wind that tousled their hair. Llyrendil's hands moved silently and efficiently with the blossoms in his lap, twisting one stem of a flower with the other, his head tilted to one side so that he could better hear Amarus. When she was finished, he gave her a beatific smile.
"That was lovely," he said, and swayed a little from side to side, his dark hair cascading over his shoulders. "I do think it was a little sad, though. But endings are such hard things, are they not? Endings are too hard to write, I like open things like you did, open stories where the listener can choose their own ending."
He looped another flower over another and then lifted up his creation, slanting his body towards Amarus so that he could reach up and place it upon her head. "There," said Llyr in satisfaction, patting one of the white blossoms he'd used in the making of her flower crown. "This is for you, because you are very pretty and your stories are pretty and so are these flowers, and the two of you go together."
He sat back, smiling dreamily at the sky. "I do so like pretty things."
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Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 3:54 pm
Amarus felt so sleepy, and very disoriented. The effect that her presence was supposed to have on others. She felt as though it was Llyr's fault she felt this way, but she couldn't figure out why-- after all, what could he possibly have done to make her so out of it? And still, maybe she was dreaming. Dreaming like those other times.
"Sad stories give us somewhere to start," she said, though she worried it was a little sad. She didn't particularly want to be sad, after all-- did anyone? Amarus tilted her head again, "What ending would you give it, do you think?" she asked, the corner of her mouth tilting up. Her eyes, mostly shut, opened wider as he slanted towards her to crown her with flowers.
"Now we are both king," she said. King of what, who knew. King of whatever they wanted, she suspected, if she had anything to say about it. She didn't really know what to say when he called her very pretty. Compliments were something she had, it was true, received more often of late, but they were by no means something she'd grown used to.
Amarus pulled the tray of macarons out, and held it out to Llyr. "Then perhaps you would like these," she said, "but if you take the blue ones, you may dream-- good dreams, most likely, but dreams nonetheless." There were two rows of them. "Of course, if you do not eat sweets, you do not need to try them. I just think they are so pretty... light as air, bright colours."
She set the tray of macarons aside, and started to slowly unbind her hair with her fingers. "Between us there is enough hair to be mistaken for blankets," she said, smiling down at it as she pulled her fingers through her long hair. She almost never undid it; it was, after all, down to her feet and a little past, even bound.
"What other things are pretty?" she asked, leaning back and looking up at the sky.
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Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:35 pm
"A happy ending," said Llyr with a nod. He was still playing with the flowers in his hands, turning them over and over and twisting their stems together to make more crowns out of the beautiful, velvet blossoms. "Or just no ending at all, sometimes no ending is the best ending."
The macroon was accepted, Llyr wondering over it before popping it slowly into his mouth and chewing experimentally. His eyes had wandered to Amarus' hair, which he found quite beautiful, a rich, vibrant color in stark contrast to the muted blues and greens and browns and grays of the rest of the world.
"You," he said happily, and inched closer, his fingers itching to reach out and touch the beautiful strands. Which he did, after a moment, marveling at the softness. "And your hair, of course, your hair is so very lovely."
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Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 9:05 pm
Amarus watched him in a daze, as he twisted the stems into more and more crowns of flowers. Something out of death, their woven stems. Beauty that would fade into nothingness.
"Now I wonder: which one did you take? The good one, or the bad one?" she mused, having hardly paid attention to which colour of Macaron he ate. After all, one was drugged, not that she would ever be able to tell which he'd taken. He seemed like he had an overdose of her narcotic before she'd even met him formally.
"Me, and my hair," she said, laughing. She turned to face him, tentatively reaching out a hand to hover her fingertips over his own long hair before letting them fall to it, trailing through the dark strands gently. She felt like she was trespassing. She looked at his face, her silver eyes curious, her expression a little more open than normal. She had changed so much.
And suddenly, she had a thought. "We should go swimming, you and I. Do you like to swim? Would you go swimming with me?" she added. "In the dark, in the cold. Or in the twilight, I suppose-- ah, it does not matter. Do you know," she began, pausing to reach out as though she was going to brush one of the blossoms he'd been turning into a crown, "my name means unfading?"
It was only half true. It did mean unfading, but in its entirety it meant unfading love. It couldn't hurt to leave that out. She had mentioned it in half because of those blossoms, whose colour she wished would never fade.
If it was a dream, she did not want to wake; her heart felt calm, without ripple or fear. She felt an echo of something lost.
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