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 Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2025 11:13 am
I should have stayed in bed, Saiph thought as she raced through the dark streets. Only she couldn’t sleep because she kept thinking about that weird mark from the lightning that had vanished the next morning. And that, in turn, led her to thinking about how her magic had gone off the damn rails. Though, thankfully, that also seemed to have faded. Discreet tests had proven that her magic was back to normal, though it had taken a few days.
At least she didn’t have to worry about destroying trees or breaking people.
She was so wrapped up in her own head that she didn’t notice the aura of Chaos nearby until she was nearly on top of it. Clinging to the shadows, she scanned the area carefully, wishing that Destiny City was a little better about putting up streetlights. Maybe she could put in an online complaint once she was back home. Dear City Officials, please consider increasing the number of streetlights so that people can see the weirdos and monsters that like to roam once it gets dark.
Yes, that would go over real well.
Still, she couldn’t spend the night pressed up against a grungy wall. She was going to have to move sometime. Might as well be now. Taking a long breath, the chibi senshi edged away from the wall and crept towards the street. The aura she’d felt was still there. Maybe… maybe it would go away on it’s own? She really didn’t want to fight anyone right now.
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Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2025 12:00 am
Nagyagite felt on edge. There had been those strange storms, and now they had altered orders, and information in the database about something coming. A threat from outside Earth.
At least he didn't have to spend time draining energy. And it wasn't like he had anything else to do, aside from occasionally hooking up with Simon whenever one of them felt like it. So he could wander, and perhaps see if he could find some information, because he really, really didn't like all the unknowns hanging in the air.
And tonight, it seemed, he was lucky.
Sure, the little Senshi was sneaking, but she wasn't doing it very well, and he couldn't help but grin, watching...whatever this was.
"You know, if you're scared of the dark, you don't have to be out."
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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 8:52 am
Well… s**t. Saiph sighed. So much for going unseen and un-noticed. Still, the voice didn’t sound all that hostile. Mostly amused. Well, maybe this would be one of the nicer Negaversers. She knew that some existed, though they were rare.
“It’s not the dark that worries me,” she snapped back. “It’s you. I don’t know what you’re up to and I just wanted to avoid a fight. But,” she added, stomach churning, “I will if I have to.”
She hated feeling afraid like this, but after everything the past few days, she was tired. And worried. And more than a little scared. No one had been able to explain to her why she’d seen that awful storm above her world or why the lightning had been able to do what it had. Lightning, she thought severely, shouldn’t leave tattoo like marks on people.
Or interfere with their magic.
“I just want to avoid a fight,” she repeated, her voice thin and small and worn out.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2025 1:09 pm
"I am up to exactly nothing," Nagyagite said, and he spread his arms in a sort of surrender. Not that lacking weapons made him any less dangerous, but she didn't need to know that. "Unfortunately, I only get three hours of being human a day, because I'm one of the Negaverse's glorious ******** up monsters." Should he swear in front of a kid? Whatever, he wasn't her dad, what did he care, and she was totally old enough to have learned that word at school or whatever. Surely the kids swore in American high schools. "So if I want to take myself for walkies somewhere that's not the ******** Rift, I have to go looking like this."
He wasn't looking for sympathy, rally. She probably wouldn't care. But that didn't make it any less true.
"Anyway, ever since those weird storms, I've been on light duty for any nasty nefarious Negaverse nonsense, which is pretty nice. So how about we don't fight. That sounds like something we'd both rather have happen."
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Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2025 8:07 am
For the moment, Saiph was content to accept that this strange officer wasn’t up to anything and seemed to just be out and about existing. She could even ignore the swearing. She’d probably heard worse at school and said worse in the privacy of her own room. No, what bothered her about his little speech was that he called himself a monster. In the dim light, she couldn’t really see a lot of detail, but from what she could make out, he just had some weird armor protecting his torso. His aura didn’t strike her as odd either. All Negaverse auras felt gross to her.
Armor didn’t make someone a monster.
“Why are you talking about yourself like that?” she asked sharply. “You shouldn’t call yourself names. That just gives assholes silent permission to do the same.”
She didn’t understand half of what he was talking about at all. She didn’t know what a Rift was or why he was talking like he was an animal. Or why he was only allowed to be human for three hours? It made zero sense to her.
“Why the hellass is the Negaverse telling you when you can or can’t be human? You’re a person. You,” she easily could and would have gone on in this vein had he not brought up the storms. She could feel the blood drain from her face as she stared up with wide eyes. Surely she would have seen if the storms had come to Earth, right? But she hadn’t. Cuan hadn’t. And Ilmare hadn’t said anything about storms, but maybe she hadn’t known either…
But her mother had mentioned a lightning storm several nights back when Saiph had decided to stay home from patrolling and sleep. But it hadn’t sounded nearly so bad as what she’d seen up in space.
“The lightning didn’t hit you, did it?” she demanded, some of her fear of the officer lost in the greater fear of the storms. “Are you okay?”
She was halfway to closing the distance between them when she realized that charging at an officer, no matter how good her intentions, probably wouldn’t look great from his side. Halting abruptly, she tried to see through the dim lighting, hands fidgeting mindlessly.
“It didn’t hit you, did it?”
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Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2025 10:20 pm
"Oh, you are so cute," Nagyagite sighed. "I guess you've never seen a half-youma before." Like, really. It was nice of her to be so concerned, but the fact was--he was a monster.
He stuck out his tongue. Forked, thin, and serpentine. And then he flared his cobra hood--normally folded, but now on display so she could se he wasn't being dramatic or facetious. It was only for a moment, and then he retracted it again. But it was, he hoped, enough.
"So it's not so much that someone is saying I can't be human, as I literally can't." He shrugged, and glanced down at his own nails, as if it wasn't something much of interest to him.
It was, of course, but it wasn't like anyone could change it.
"But no, it didn't hit me, and I'm fine. Thanks for worrying." At least she mostly seemed like a sweet kid with her heart in the right place. "What about you? Sounds like you've dealt with them, then."
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Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 8:49 am
Expression very serious, indeed, Saiph listened and watched with slightly widened eyes as the officer revealed his literal not-humanness. While alarming, she was still kid enough to think the forked tongue and cobra hood were sort of neat looking. Which meant the armor on his torso was probably organic scale…
She absolutely took exception to being called cute, though.
“That’s very condescending, you know,” she said quietly. “I know I’m young, but cute? Really?”
Moving a little closer, she studied the officer carefully. Other than feeling really gross to her brain, she couldn’t see much difference between this guy and Madriu. And since she was verging on rude with her staring, she supposed that it was only fair to answer his questions about the storms. Even if she didn’t want to think about it. And even though she didn’t know what or even if Ilmare had reported.
“The lightning hit me,” she finally replied. “It left a bad burn and a weird snakey marking on me. Both were gone by the next morning. I do not like the storms, they creep me out.”
That was neutral enough, right? Her eyes cut up to look at his as she grimaced, “The storms are very bad out in space, but no one can or will tell me what’s going on and I hate it. You do know that there are senshi with alien features, right?” she asked, rapidly changing tacts. “They aren’t human, but they’re still people, not monsters. You’re still a person. You’re only a monster if you let them take that away from you.”
Was she being preachy? It felt like she was being preachy. But she couldn’t help it. She felt very strongly about what she’d said even if she maybe hadn’t worded it quite right. As far as she was concerned, this guy would only ever be a real monster if he gave up on being a person. And for all that he acted like he didn’t care, she suspected that it was a lie. She could be wrong, of course. But her gut didn’t think so.
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Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 12:10 pm
Nagyagite shrugged. "It's not really about the age, mostly the naivety. No offense," he tacked on, in the way of a man who absolutely did not care if he was giving offense or not.
He kept his arms spread so she could really get a good look--at the scale armor on his chest and neck, at the smatterings of scales on his elbows and face. Really take in what made him a weird freak of science and amgic or whatever the hell a half-youma was, in the end.
Stares weren't the worst thing, really.
"Seems to me like no one really knows what's going on," Nagya said. "Information on our side is light too. I'm guesisng it must be pretty bad if no one's talking about it openly."
Still. Her comment aobut the alien Senshi made him sigh, frustratedly.
"Yeah, but they're space aliens, right? If one was like me, they'd have been born like this. I wasn't. I was made. Pretty big difference. And from what I understand, even my starseed is weird and misshapen because of this. So I'm pretty sure that puts me in the 'monster' category. Facts of reality."
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Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2025 6:15 pm
If she were being honest with herself, she thought the officer looked kind of cool. However, this was not the time or place to try for body positivity. Whether he acted like it or not, she felt like he was hurting inside and trying very hard to act otherwise. Why else would he hold to this monster line?
"Bad or no one at all knows and I'm not sure which scares me more," she admitted. She went quiet for a moment, trying to piece through his argument that he must be monstrous because of XYZ. It didn't sound right to her and naive or not, she didn't think he was that hopeless of a case.
"Actions count more than one's circumstances of creation," she finally snapped back. "No, you weren't born like this, but unless you're going out and eating kittens and murdering babies, I still don't think that makes you a monster. There are plenty of people walking around this planet who look perfectly, prettily human and they're vile pieces of s**t, all without being Negaverse. You're coming into this mess with a serious handicap, but you're also acting like it's hopeless and nothing can ever change."
Planting her hands on her hips as she paced restlessly, Saiph felt something niggling at the back of her mind. Something that she knew or had seen that would help. But it refused to manifest as more than a wisp and vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
"Look, do you want to be more than their monster? Or do you just want to roll over and let the people who ******** you up call the shots and wear you down until you believe their lies? People can change and starseeds can be healed or broken. I think it's what you choose to do and be that matters in the end. But what do I know? According to you, I'm just a cute, naive kid."
Feeling tired, Saiph looked up at the sky and sighed, "So no one on your side had discovered anything either. What the hell good is being magical and s**t if no one knows what's going on?"
Noir Songbird gaia never quoted me, i'm so sorry!
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:23 pm
Nagyagite couldn't help but feel just a little bit impressed by this Senshi's determination to convince him that he was something more than the monster he'd been made into.
"You don't know what I do with my time when there's not a weird threat that makes me more chatty. Maybe I do," he said, deadpan.
In truth, though--so much of his time lately was spent with Simon, when he could squeeze it out. He was even starting to like Simon's family, and Tabitha's dog, and--all of it. It was a little like pretending there was some part of Jaidev Vaswani who still got to exist, even after everything that had been done to him.
Didn't change what he was, fundamentally. Honestly, it was partially comedic that he was even trying.
"Anyway, what I do with my life is my problem, not yours. Worry about whatever's going on with the storms, maybe."
He exhaled between his teeth.
"I'm hoping we can figure some s**t out. Given time and enough people researching. But right now, seems like people are still looking for answers. Probably best to stay out of trouble and try to find them, yeah?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 2:22 pm
”I’d expect to see more headlines about missing babies and pets if that were the case,” Saiph said drily. Rolling her eyes a little, the chibi senshi subsided. Fine. Snake Guy wanted to wallow in his woe, she’d let him. She’d tried. But he might think about it later and decide that she’d had a point.
Weirder things happened all the time.
Besides, he was still bigger than her and given the overall cobra theme, she didn’t particularly want to provoke him into anger. Even if she thought that he was being obtuse on purpose.
“If you say so,” she replied in a neutral voice. Still looking up at the stars, she really hoped that enlightenment would hit at some point and make things make sense. He had a point about trying to find the answers, but how did they do that with, well. Everything already going on?
“Well, I hope people start figuring it out soon,” she settled on saying.
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Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 2:53 pm
Nagyagite gave a noncommittal little grunt as his answer, shrugging his shoulders. Really, in this city, would it even blip the radar?
But that wasn't really an argument worth having, considering he wasn't actually out doing any of that.
"Probably best to keep yourself safe for now," he said. "No reason to do anything crazy risky." Honestly, that felt like his personal best approach. Fly under the radar. See what was happening. Only decide what to do when more information was available.
Smart, if you asked him.
"Watch out for yourself. Nobody else will."
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2025 11:11 am
”If no one took any risks,” Saiph said softly, “we’d all stagnate and die. I’m not really ready to do either.”
Not that she wanted to go out of her way to take risks or do dangerous things, but risk was such a loaded word. What seemed risky to some would be just another Tuesday to someone else. Still, she could at least understand his point. Don’t do something rash without reasonable information to back up the action. Which… yeah. That was fair.
“But I’m also not going to toss myself into the jaws of some crazy monster either. But you’re wrong,” she said, voice even as she gave the officer a pitying Look. “People will look out for me and I’ll look out for them too. Because it’s my job and it’s the right thing to do. Mostly though?”
Saiph paused and rocked on her heels for a moment before turning to head off. This guy couldn’t tell her anything and he wouldn’t let her try to help him, so she might as well continue on her way. That didn’t stop her from finishing her thought as she turned her head just enough to fire back over her shoulder, “People care a lot more than you give them credit for, dude. If you just let them in.”
For once, she wasn’t worried about turning her back on ‘the enemy’. She had bigger things than a sad snake man to be concerned with.
”Noir Songbird” and in my head is Morgan Freeman's voice going, “Saiph then launched herself into the monster’s jaws five seconds later.”
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