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 Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:56 pm
"Hello there," Amazonite said idly, and she expected that she might give a bit of a fright to the pretty Squire she'd come up on. Finding a Knight was always fascinating for her, since she knew that she'd been one once--even if she had no memory of that, now--but this one interested her particularly, because the Squire seemed to be tucked back, observing the lion-boar youma that was prowling at the other end of the wide city block they stood on. Amazonite had spotted the odd little scene from a distance, and what was she to do, truly, except for wander up and see what was what?
"Sorry if I frightened you, I just don't think I've ever seen one of your sort that didn't attack youma on sight."
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Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2021 4:29 pm
Pendour flinched, but only a little. She'd known there was someone around, just not exactly where. The auras had a tendency to get all jumbled when there were too many of them in one spot. She turned to look at the woman behind her, still a little wide-eyed. A captain, maybe. It was hard to tell, but she didn't feel overwhelmingly powerful. It still wasn't ideal. Between her and the youma, Pendour felt like something in a microscope slide, pressed too-tight between pieces of glass. She was carefully positioned to hide her scars, and she gave a small half smile, trying not to look threatening. "Um, hi," she said softly. She peeked around the corner, then, not wanting to let the youma out of her sight for too long, either. It had headed in her direction a few times over the past several minutes, causing her to scramble to new hiding spots, but now it was sniffing at something else. "I know a lot of people do fight them. I just-" she faltered, not knowing where to start. "Well, this one isn't hurting anyone right now."
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Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:59 pm
Amazonite hummed, leaning around and watching the youma as it investigated whatever it was so interested in. "I could make it come over, you know. Have it sit down and play nice so you can see it up close without having to fight it. you know, since you seem curious." She shrugged her shoulders, and then wrinkled her nose briefly.
Probably, at least, but Amazonite was pretty sure this was a feral, not smart enough to argue or complain.
"Anyway." She extended a hand. "I'm Captain Amazonite! Youma behavior is fascinating, isn't it, especially when they're not actively hunting. Strange creatures, honestly."
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:58 pm
Pendour hesitated, eyes still darting between the two of them, but eventually she took the offered hand, her touch butterfly-light. "My name's Pendour," she said with the tiniest of nods. "It's nice to, um, meet you." The question made her visibly tense. She wasn't sure that she wanted to be quite that cornered. "You can tell them to do things?" she asked, leaning in closer to Amazonite, who hadn't attacked her yet. It made sense. She knew they were tools of the Negaverse, to some extent, although she didn't know exactly how it all worked. "Can you tell them not to go after people? Then my friends might not kill them so much." Even she knew it couldn't be that simple, but it was worth asking.
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Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 12:22 am
"Nice to meet you too!" Amazonite chirped brightly, and she turned back to the youma, letting go of the Squire's hand. She seemed oblivious to Pendour's discomfort, though whether that was by choice or because she did not actually notice, Amazonite wasn't exactly going to reveal.
"Well, I mean, I could try? But there are a whole lot of youma, for one," Amazonite pointred out, "and for two, plenty of people above me who would overrule that, and who would probably be a tiny bit cheesed off that I did it in the first place, and I don't want to deal with a pissed off General-Sovereign?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Besides, it's not like youma die. They get dusted, they reform back in the Rift."
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Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 1:29 pm
"Okay," said Pendour softly. "That's okay. I don't want you to get in trouble." There were times when would have maybe tried pushing the issue just a little more, but this was not one of them. There were other things that she could ask about. "I didn't know that they came back," she said. "That's, um, good?" Although the thought of youma coming back just to be dusted again and again wasn't exactly the most comforting thing, either. "I don't think I know much about youma at all," she said. "Why do your General-Sovereigns send them out like this, anyway? They're not quite smart enough to be soldiers, are they?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 2:23 pm
Amazonite shrugged, brushing off the idea of her getting in trouble idly. She had no intention of doing anything that would interfere with the Negaverse's long term plans, and interfering with youma doing the one job they were designed for was definitely not on her to-do list.
"It's useful, at least," she said, and she glanced back over at the beat. "Most youma aren't very smart, it's true, but they are good at gathering energy to be brought back to the Negaverse, which we all need in order to keep powering up and fighting," Amazonite said. She considered, briefly, if she was saying too much, but eh, it wasn't as if there was anything one Squire could do with the knowledge. "There are ones that are smart enoguh, though--we call them 'humanoid,' though they can look like just about anything. They're as intelligent as people, and they can plan, and scheme, and generally be a much bigger nuisance for you Order folks. There's not many of them, though, and we don't send them out willy nilly."
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Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2021 6:22 pm
“Energy is important,” said Pendour, each word still lilting and uncertain. She paused, swallowed, and then added, “But they hurt people to get the energy sometimes, don’t they? I don’t think I like that.” They’d come at her before, snarling and with feral hunger shining in their eyes. She always ran when that happened. She didn’t want to think about what happened to people without magical speed to help them get away. “I think I know what you mean about the humanoid youma, though. I’ve heard them called half-youma. They’re, um.” There were a lot of words she could have used there, but she ended up tilting her face to show the claw marks over her eye. “Effective.”
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Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2021 3:14 pm
Amazonite shrugged her shoulders. "Sacrifices must be made, unfortunately," she said, "so I guess it's all about what you consider more important.
Then, she blinked, and tilted her head to the side. "Oh, no, half-youma are something quite different. They're what happens when an officer is brave or foolish enough to get themselves merged with a monster, and they're still mostly human, all things considered. They'll usually, by my observations, have the traditional human body layout--two arms, two legs, attached to a torso, just the one head, so on and so forth, but with monstrous attachments. A humanoid youma is a full beast--and might look like a pink person, but might also look like a monstrous wolf, or a dragon, or anything else. What distinguishes them from your average beast, like that one over there," she gestured at the youma they were observing, "is their intellect. Youma are absolutely fascinating, and they come in so many shapes and forms."
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Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:39 pm
To talk about sacrifices without any kind of qualifiers or even limits was, well, concerning. Pendour blinked, and tried to adjust herself slowly and steadily so that she was out of the range where her starseed could easily be pulled. "So your lions, and your dragons, and your ones that look like living piles of glue can be just as capable of thought as you?" she asked as she moved, voice soft. "I see how that would be more useful than, um-" She nodded back to the nearby youma, who had half-vanished into a dumpster. "I think it's eating trash."
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Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 1:10 am
Amazonite barely noticed Pendour moving away--she'd turned her attention to the youma, regarding it as she watched it wiggle its body into the dumpster.
"Oh, it's definitely eating trash," she agreed, and she sighed. "This is why feral youma are....really not the best. But there's so many more of them, so we use what we have." She turned her attention back. "Obviously, though, I'd prefer to work with the humanoid types."
She considered, briefly, telling this Squire how they were made--what the real difference was that lay at the heart of a youma. But, no. No need to spread that far and wide.
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:23 pm
Pendour watched and watched the youma for the next several seconds. Its hind legs scrabbled for traction on the outside of the dumpster. She could hear something like scratching coming from the inside, and then, distinctly, the sound of chewing. It all seemed so violent that she had to remind herself that it was a good thing. If it was happy with half eaten takeout boxes and moldy leftovers from the backs of fridges, then maybe it wouldn’t try eating any people. “Well, it seems busy, anyway,” she murmured, half to herself. “I think it’ll be okay, leaving it for now.” She twisted slightly so that she could see Amazonite again. “What about you?” She took another half step back. “Did you come to fight, I mean, or did you just want to tell me these things?”
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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:46 pm
Amazonite snorted, and nodded. She kept her eyes on the creature, though, just in case it finished its meal of garbage and got any thoughts in its dim little head about attacking her conversation partner. That just wouldn't do, not when she'd found a fellow researcher.
The suggestion that she might have come to fight, though, made her turn and blink in confusion.
"Of course I didn't come to fight. We've been having such a nice chat, why would I ruin that?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 4:28 pm
Well, it was true that their conversation hadn't gone bad yet, but Pendour was still as tense and motionless as a rabbit trying to avoid being spotted by a predator. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Sorry. You've been nice, really, I've just had people- um, agents," she swallowed, "Get upset enough to attack just from a chat, before. I get jumpy." She eyed the shaking dumpster, and the glimpse of youma tail she could still see. "And I'm still, um," her voice went even quieter, "Not sure I like your youma."
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Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 3:39 pm
Amazonite shrugged her shoulders. "Some of my fellows do get terribly tense, it's true," she acknowledged, and then she sighed, softly.
"Anyway, you don't have to like them." She reached over and gently patted the Squire's shoulder. "Just be open to learning. But I'm sure you have other things to do, so I can leave you to it, hm? Especially since you're so uncomfortable."
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