|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2025 1:03 pm
[immediately follows a feather in the storm]
For one, there was no more storm. And, somehow, the lightning strike hadn't damaged him nearly as much as he'd expected--but there was something strange on his arm, a serpent winding around it, and he sat back and eyed it warily.
Wherever he was, he also observe,d it was night, and it was quiet--but not the dead quiet he was used to. There were sounds in the distance, and something near him smelled, in the way things only smelled when they were rotting, which meant there were things alive here to rot.
Looking around--he might not recognize exactly where he was, but he could recognize a dingy back alley. A large, green, metal container with black bags in and around it seemed to be the source of the smell--trash disposal, perhaps?
Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet, feathered ears twitching as he looked for any signs of other sapient life. Trash disposal meant people to do the disposing. That might well mean he had finally escaped the long torment of unending solitude.
Oh, he hoped so. If that strange magic he'd felt had brought him somewhere with people--
Maybe he could finally do something other than wander and hide and hope.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2025 1:23 pm
Demeter felt the sudden presence of a new aura—someone powering up nearby?—and paused in her patrol, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. Maybe it was someone new she could talk into taking to their planet one day soon to help some of their planets reproduce! She'd wanted to do that for a while. Encouraging regrowth was important, after all. She cheerily made her way into the alleyway, and then stopped as she realized the senshi waiting there was definitively not human. "Oh, hello!" she said, waving at him. "Nice to meet you. Have you been on Earth long?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:18 pm
Elkurud blinked.
It had been. So, so very long. Since he had heard another voice.
For a moment, it was all just noise--like his language processing had degraded over all those years of not hearing anything. Maybe it had to some degree. He had to think about what she was asking, what any of the words he was hearing meant. Which meant the silence stretched out, longer than he'd have liked.
s**t. Hew pressed the heel of his hand to the middle of his forehead and shook his head, like that would clear the cobwebs from his brain.
"I just. Got here," he said, after he finally figured out what the hell conversation even was. "This is...Earth? It's very different."
He'd delivered things to most places in the connected universe, at one point or another. This was definitely not the world from his memories.
"Is the Knight Academy still here? Is that why..." He squinted. "Are you...visiting?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 6:09 pm
Oh, no, he was a fresh one? She swallowed and shuffled her feet a little, unsure how to proceed with someone so... right on the heels of their own trauma. Still in it, if he didn't seem to know how much time had truly passed. "I'm not visiting, I live here," she said gently as she reached into her subspace and grabbed a water bottle and pulled out one each of some strawberry, blueberry, and peach muffins she'd made. "Here. You probably need water and a snack, at least, before I..." Could she even take him home? Her parents would freak! Well, she'd just have to try. "I think I should take you somewhere safe before I explain what, ah... all you've missed on Earth. It's a lot to handle, and if you pass out, I can't carry you somewhere safe afterward." Her lips quirked up in a sad smile. "Any idea if you like strawberry, blueberry, or peaches? I made these myself."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 8:01 pm
"You...huh?" That...that wasn't right. Why would a Senshi be living on a different world? Unless the circumstances on hers were...very bad...oh.
Elkurud supposed that made sense. Maybe other worlds were like his.
"I can eat...mostly anything," he said. "Unless it's poison. I don't think you bake with poison, though." And if she wanted to kill him, then...well...probably she would just do it. He wouldn't be able to fight her, anyway.
"Food, please. Explanations later?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 8:30 pm
Demeter couldn't help a little chuckle at that and decided to pass him the peach muffin, putting the blueberry one away and taking a bite of the strawberry one for herself. "No poison, I promise," she assured him. "It would be bad for business. Come on, we can walk and eat at the same time. I'd like to take you to a cat friend of mine anyway—you're gonna need a couple of our new inventions before we get too far. Stuff that'll help keep you safe." She stuffed a bite of her muffin into her mouth and cracked the water bottle open before passing it to the new alien senshi. Then she took one for herself out of her subspace and sipped at it. "Water's clean, in case that was a worry. That's what the seal is for. I mean, you're smart, you probably could've figured that out yourself, but I figure if you're bringing up poison, I might as well be like, hey, the water isn't from a sewage treatment plant or something, it's been filtered and cleaned quite a bit. What's your name, by the way? I'm Demeter. Oh! Senshi name only. Reasons I'll explain later." She smiled awkwardly and took another bite of her muffin.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 10:10 pm
Elkurud took the muffin, and he took an experimental bite--sweet, fruity, pleasant!--before moving to follow his new friend.
He nodded, not really understanding why he'd need anything to keep him safe--had things changed so much, in however many centuries he'd been locked away? Perhaps. Perhaps it only made sense that they had.
"Mm. I see." He accepted the water, too, glad for it and glad that Demeter was talkative, so his silence didn't feel too out of place. He was watching, observing, taking in what he could.
"Elkurud," he introduced himself. "We can figure out the rest later."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 10:35 pm
Demeter, on the other hand, felt bad that she kept babbling despite telling Elkurud that she really oughtn't tell him all that much about the last thousand years, or that it had even been a thousand years roughly since everything went to heck in a handbasket for someone like him. At least she wasn't spilling any of those details, just... talking. And he didn't seem to mind. That helped.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
