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 Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 5:31 am
Zippeite was patrolling, which was not too abnormal, but his reasoning and approach definitely was. He wasn't hunting, he was actively searching, and for once there was no intent to kill, maim, or humiliate.
He hadn't patrolled with such a lack of malicious intent since he had reached captain ranking.
He was looking for something now. Knights had never been a point of interest before Babylon started, basically, advertising all the pros of being one. The initial and most outstanding one, in Zippeite's mind, was space. Space was a childish fascination of his when he threw his lot in with the Negaverse years ago and he had more or less forgotten this thing he loved and craved and fantasized over.
When he was a high school freshman it had played a heavy part in soliciting his loyalties. No one really went to space back then, but the Negaverse fought aliens, and that appeared to be a quick and obvious option to get there. But apparently senshi and knights had figured out a way first. If he still believed the shlock he had been recruited with, logical minds would say that of course they figured it out first, they're the aliens here!
But he didn't buy the other 90% of what he had initially been told, so why buy that?
He had questions, damn it. He needed a knight.Shazari Sorry for the double quote, I butchered her name, as usual :'D
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:40 am
Hvergelmir was, on that particular evening, also patrolling. Although, as a rule, she tried to avoid things she knew she couldn't handle (multiple energy signatures in one place, things like that -- a knight-in-training she was, but a god she was not --), she still had trouble distinguishing a single energy signature that meant youma from one that meant Negaverser. They were different, definitely, but sense-memory had not yet taken hold to remind her which was which. Like Pepsi versus Coca-Cola for someone new to the both of them, it was easiest to tell them apart when they were side by side, not in a blind taste test. Thinking, in this case, that she was about to have to roll up her sleeves (metaphorically; she didn't actually have sleeves to roll), she hefted her distaff in one hand and bunched up her skirts in another, and rounded a corner -- -- only to come face-to-face with what was definitely not the Pepsi she had been expecting, and was instead a Negaverser. Hvergelmir's experiences with Negaversers heretofore had been rather worrying. Although she'd managed several unscathed escapes, and two of them had even let her go willingly, the general theme so far tended to involve fists and weapons and attempts on Hvergelmir's life. She stopped short, staring, wide-eyed. "Not a youma," she said, gaping, instinctively lowering her weapon slightly. If he was planning on attacking her, she was probably better off trying to run anyway, she reasoned. Carneli her name is really hard, i can't blame you <3
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Posted: Wed May 07, 2014 5:38 am
Zippeite had only registered the approaching page in time to take a few steps forward before she came into his sight and froze.
Seeing her garnered some initial tension. The enemy was unpredictable always, and he didn't know what to expect, so his grip tightened on his weighted staff and he started at her for a moment. At least until he could process what she'd just said.
"...No, not even close."
He needed another mental reminder that the opposite side didn't have rigid leaders and recruiting and training like the Negaverse, and he made short work adjusting his mindset, but it was still jarring whenever he was faced with that reality.
He assumed his experience was the default, always. It was hard to imagine any other way of participation in the war.
He didn't come out here to fight, he came ere because e had questions, so for once his tense stance didn't evolve into a confrontational attack, but he still held it there as if the wide eyed page in her long flowy skirt was somehow dangerous or a threat, a concept that became even more ridiculous as each second ticked by. And then it just got awkward as he looked to the far side, and back to her after his mouth had dropped to a small line of uncertainty.
"Uh..."
How does someone converse with a sworn enemy?
"Where you looking for one?"
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Posted: Wed May 07, 2014 1:26 pm
Well, this was. Weird. Hvergelmir and the Negaverser stared at each other blankly for a while. Of all the officers she'd encountered so far, Hvergelmir hadn't known them to be much for hesitation or uncertainty. Those that had chosen to let her go free had even done that rather decisively -- one minute it was "I'm going to kill you," the next minute it was, "well, you're just lucky I'm not going to kill you, this time," but in between none of them had really done any hemming and hawwing. Hvergelmir had always felt downright silly next to their universal cool composure. This interaction would go down in her book as a tiny boost to her confidence: her opponents weren't all as full of sang-froid as they seemed. Good. She was completely worthless at sang-froid. "Um, kind of," she answered. "I thought I was. I'm sort of new to this whole -- " She wiggled her fingers in the air in the universal symbol for mystical mumbo-jumbo. " -- reading auras thing. I got you a little mixed up, I was expecting a tentacle monster or something." She hoped, even though past experience hadn't really supported it, that she could keep this Negaverser in his current stage of not attempting to kill her on sight. It was sort of a basic strategy on her part, just using blanket friendliness to try and prevent provoking any aggression, but friendliness was kind of her go-to in just about every social situation, so she didn't really have a fallback option anyway. So friendliness it was. "I'm really hoping you're not going to say you were out looking for a page to maim and kill," she countered. "Because, uh, if so, I'm, like, entirely not the droids you're looking for?"
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Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 11:38 am
The Star Wars reference managed to get raised eyebrows out of him, but for the most part, Zippeite had shifted from awkward and uncertain to lidded and unimpressed staring.
She didn't seem nearly as put together as the senshi and knights he'd come across. Except maybe Virtus, who he had made out to be an easy target.
She probably would've been categorized as one of those easy targets too, but not tonight when he was looking for something else. "I was actually looking for someone who knew what they were doing. I got questions."
He looked her up and down and the judgement was radiating out of his stance. How did she even walk, universe?
"I met one of you... he said you could go to space." Even saying that felt silly and awkward. Obviously he was being messed with.
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Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 6:33 pm
Losing the approval of someone -- even a Negaverse stranger who might just as soon have been at risk of killing her -- instantly made Hvergelmir deflate a little. Her face fell. Sure, she might've been just about the worst knight in existence, but that didn't mean she liked being told that. Especially by someone she'd just met. He could've at least given her the benefit of the doubt that she was new and she'd get the hang of it eventually. (She wasn't really that new, honestly, but she still felt new, so it was close enough.) "You mean like traveling to our wonders?" she asked. "Yeah, it's kind of -- it's one of the first things you can do, even a fail whale like me can do it. I mean, as far as I know it's the only place you can go just by clicking your heels -- which, believe you me, crazy -- but with this -- " She held up her wrist to show a green disc bound with copper wire, looped around one of the bangles of her bracelets. " -- I can go to the Surrounding, too."
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2014 1:27 pm
As Hvergelmir’s face fell, Zippeite’s eyebrows rose and he looked at her with a certain scrutiny familiar on any schoolyard, and the most primal assessment children started with. He was a bully, looking for and zoning in on a weakness.
“Wait, back up,” Already she was saying things he didn’t understand and he held up a hand as if that was going to put the breaks on her speaking. “The ******** is a wonder?”
Clicking her heels? Knight basics? And then she held up a bracelet, declaring it made travel to the Surrounding possible, just with that one small trinket. He remember the lengths the Negaverse had gone to to get a youma to the Surrounding and launch an attack, but the knights could get there with magic jewelry?
His scrutiny was gone, and it had been replaced by complete and total confusion.
“I--... just… what are you talking about? There is no way you are seriously space traveling with magical accessories.”
And if she was that would be so unfair.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 8:03 am
He had a point. It was all kind of weird. And she guessed she was getting ahead of herself a little bit -- maybe it would be better to take a step back. Hvergelmir gave a sort of self-deprecating laugh. "Actually," she said, "believe me, if there was anything knights could do that didn't involve a magical accessory, I'd be, like, a much happier camper. Everything's all 'and then you just focus on your thingamabob' or 'so long as you're holding onto your whatsitcalled,' it's never just like, bam, you just fire a laser beam." She shook her head wryly. "But. But. Think of it this way. You know in Star Trek -- " Another shake of her head, this one less wry. "Nevermind. Or like in a seance -- No, nevermind that too. Okay, so you know magnets? That's sort of how our travel works, sort of go with me on this for a second. Okay so like, we can't just teleport or anything. Except that you can go to and from your homeworld -- sorry, that's what I meant by 'wonder,' that's what they call them -- when you're powered up, because it's like you and your wonder are like magnets that can pull on each other -- it being the big magnet and me, like, my costume or my distaff or something, being the little magnet. And whoosh, off I go to my space island if I focus on it really hard. So like, the Surrounding isn't my wonder, so I wouldn't be able to go there -- except that I have this thing." She held up her wrist to show the jade disc again. "A little magnet for the Surrounding." She frowned. "Why? How do you guys space travel?" She imagined a big, evil rocket ship. With spikes and spinning blades on the sides to attack other rocket ships, like, if they were in a race or something.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 2:52 pm
Zippeite stared at her through the entire explanation and when he broke eye contact to stare at nothing in particular, he looked very clearly and obviously confused.
None of it was really easy to grasp in the very limited context of his understanding of magic. While Hvergelmir might've been bouncing from phrasing to phrasing because she was genuinely scattered on how to explain it, it rose Zippeite's prickly defenses and he came to a different suspicion.
She was changing it around because she was lying, and a bad liar at that.
"We don't space travel," He said. "No one in the Chaos factions do. Babylon--... I mean, someone said you..."
He released a long exhale of frustration. It was hard to figure out what to say. He wanted it to be true, and he wanted the potential it offered, but he had come out tonight to confirm or disprove the notion that Babylon had been lying to him and with that thick lens of mistrust all he could think was there was a strong possibility this was a cruel, practical joke and they were all hanging out back at some secret knight base and laughing at him, or would be if he gave an indication he was buying this.
But he wanted to. He really, really did.
Instead, his brow knitted tighter and he looked back to meet Hvergelmir's eyes again.
"Prove it."
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 5:01 pm
Hvergelmir frowned. Negaversers were so difficult! They'd just been having a conversation, and he'd asked her a question, and she'd been trying to answer, and now suddenly he was getting all hostile again! Wasn't anybody in this town ever in a good mood? You're not, a voice in her head said. Why should they be? She ignored it. "Oh," she said, taken a little by surprise. "Okay, so uh . . . okay." She took a few steps back to give herself some space. She'd never actually traveled to the Surrounding before, but it didn't belong to her -- she couldn't take Negaversers there with her. Her passport was only good for her -- and it was too soon to be able to make the jump to her own wonder again. She'd tried, and it had just been a mushy failure, like a half-baked cookie -- she couldn't dredge up the energy to really feel it. "Okay, if this works I'll be right back -- so just, don't go anywhere, okay?" She held up her arm in front of her face, so the green disc was right in her line of vision, making it easier to focus on. Then she closed her eyes, holding it fixed in her mind -- gradually transposing memories of the rainbow road and of Aquarius Outpost over it. She gave Zippeite the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't planning on using her lowered guard to kill her while her eyes were closed -- and then gradually, she felt the pull of the Surrounding responding to her call, and her green disc let off a faint glow, and just like that, she disappeared. A few long minutes later, Hvergelmir returned, shimmering back into place. This time, she stood with her hands clutching the hem of her dress out before her in a way that made a sort of hammock-pocket that she was obviously carrying something in. "Okay, so like, I can't really prove it's from space if you've never been to the Surrounding and you don't know what it looks like there, but uh, I brought you a bunch of rainbowy space dust and a space rock. If you want it. I didn't really have a lot of options for what I could bring back, I can't really get into the Outposts on my own, and they wouldn't like me stealing their stuff even if I could." Hvergelmir reached down into the pocket and pulled out the space rock, holding it out on her palm for Zippeite to take. "You didn't tell me your name," she said with a friendly smile, hoping the space rock was worth at least that. "I'm Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos."
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 6:57 pm
She vanished. Zippeite's eyes went wide and he considered this a hilarious practical joke. Then he had brief considerations of teleportation before he realized that was impossible. But then where had she gone?
He took a cautious step forward, like the empty space she once occupied was now poisonous or flammable and would suck him into the void.
He took another step and waved his arm through the air with a 'whoosh'. Nothing. Back again. Nothing. Empty space. She really had vanished.
He whipped his arm through the air again and had to suddenly top it from hitting her when she was back. He yelled out, raw fear and confusion rather than anger as he stumbled backwards with the force of his abandoned arm swipe. "Sorry! I mean ah! I mean ********! What?"
He was clinging to his own arm he had almost hit her with and his golden eyes were bugging out as they darted this way and that. Hvergelmir's face, her dress, the evidence she brought. Zippeite could not remain the stone faced and petulant villain of the night in the face of this. Still holding his arm and still looking like he'd just seen a ghost, he yelled again.
In hindsight, later, he would admit this reaction was overblown and silly since he himself had the ability to command chaotic monsters and teleport from danger at will, but he had been so convinced it was a lie. And then she shimmered away just like that! And brought back dust!
"The ******** ******** was that?!" He would've yelled, but his voice cracked to hoarseness instead.
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 2:14 pm
Hvergelmir balked at his reaction. Had she grown horns and a devil tail mid-teleport or something? "Um -- space travel?" she answered with a hapless smile. She transferred the rock to her other hand and then held up her free hand to give her bracelet a little jangle again, setting the copper wire around the jade disc glinting in the low light. "Little magnet, see?" She held out the rock to him again, this time in both hands, as though he just hadn't seen it last time. "Come on, I stole a space rock for you -- at least tell me your name?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 2:38 pm
Zippeite was still holding his own arm at the wrist and even defensively half turned his torso away from her as she held out the rock. His expression had settled to wide eyes and the corners of his mouth stretched as far down across his face as they would go.
It wasn't a very dignified stance, but she did just shimmer to the Surrounding and back. And shortly after he was starting to accept it probably wasn't possible. With a bracelet.
He stared at the rock, and then to her face, and back to the rock again before he approached with slow caution and grabbed it. Once it was in his hands he jumped back a few steps and inspected it, turning it around over and over like some frantic raccoon with a new treat. Slowly, wide eyed shock seemed to evolve into wide eyed, childish awe.
"Captain Zippeite," He finally answered. And then he realized all of the wonder and nostalgia of his space traveling dreams of the days of yore was just embarrassingly plastered all over his face and he tried to get a grip. Straighten up. Wipe that smile off his face. "This doesn't prove anything," He said in his best acted 'I don't care' voice and tried very hard to pretend his heart wasn't doing backflips in his chest.
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 2:48 pm
Hvergelmir watched him grab the rock and pull away, then stared as his expression shifted from something that had been dour and guarded into something -- full of wonder. Something almost radiant, just for a few seconds. For just these few seconds, even if it didn't last past that, she had connected with a Negaverse officer for the first time. She couldn't help it. She felt proud of herself. It was a start. Zippeite, she scored the name into her memory, doing her best to memorize his face as well. She'd try to remember it, in case they saw each other again. The moment didn't last, of course. Seconds later, he was putting his walls back up, and she could tell she was losing ground again -- so when he said that her space rock didn't prove anything, she said the very first thing that came to mind, which was: "Meet me here in a few weeks. You can name the day. I'll take you up to space myself and show you more stars than you've seen in your life. If you really do want proof, that is."
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 4:18 pm
She was offering to take him with her.
While he still found the whole 'I can't now, but later' excuse fishy, he could feel his heart in his throat at the prospect, and he could not stay stone faced at that. He swallowed nervously, his brain trying to bring him back down out of the clouds. What if it was a trick? It could be an ambush set up. Would she laugh at his hope if he showed up? Years spent as the littlest, skinniest guy in reform school for troubled boys had his brain constantly defaulting to the possibility it was just a mean joke, and that belief was a precious and carefully guarded thing that could be mocked and used against him if it was given too readily.
But he wasn't that kid anymore, and this wasn't high school.
"June, when school's out," He managed. There was strain in his voice. Worry was viciously fighting with want; He wanted it to be real so badly.
"Don't forget," He added, doing his best to finish on a stern note, to regain some sort of intimidation factor that he wore tightly around himself for protection. He turned on his boot heel to leave, gait restrained and shoulders squared. But he took the rock with him.
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