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 Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:39 am
Autsu checked the list one more time before knocking. But this was the place. He'd taken the bus most the way this time, as it was far from his own house. But he'd rode his faithful skateboard the last couple miles, and now he stood with it held it one hand, the list in the other, readying himself for another interview.
He did not like this work. He did not like the going from place to place, the asking for people. He did not like trying to explain himself when he didn't know exactly what it was he was trying to explain. He just knew they needed to band together. Knew that they needed to be protected, even if there was no visible enemy. Knew that he needed a cause.
This one was a girl, it said. Only the alien name was given, with a very brief description. So he'd recognize her, but he wouldn't know who he was asking for. Oh well, he'd figure this out.
Part of him wanted to go home, build some ramps, and play on his skateboard. Man and child at war, but the child was so much younger than the man. It rarely won.
He straightened his shoulders, his posture perfect, if out of place on a lanky young teen with torn jeans.
A firm knock, and he waited.
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Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:41 pm
Kappa was off at work. He had to set up for his set at the club that night, and though he hated to leave Sev at home by herself, she was finally old enough not to cause too many problems. As long as the hallucinations didn't get out of hand, Kappa figured she'd be okay.
So, the little girl had been entertaining herself for the past hour or so, coloring WAY outside the lines of her coloring book. Not only was the giraffe in the picture bright green with lavender spots, but she'd drawn in a blood-sucking fly, who, to Sev, seemed to grow fatter as the minutes went by. Just as it was about to pop, she heard a strange sound. It was as if a marble had fallen into a tin can.
Not realizing it was the door, she got up and searched the house for anything that could be making a noise. The only thing she found was Leary, sound asleep on her bed. He certainly wouldn't be dropping marbles into a bucket, now would he?
Now, it seemed her hair knew what was going on though. It was up in pigtails, as Sev got annoyed with it constantly waving her face; but now, the pigtails all seemed to be pointing in one direction--toward the door.
She took a clue from the feeling of her hair, and headed toward the door, her pupils growing larger by the second. Things seemed to be getting weirder by the minute...hopefully the hallucinations wouldn't become too overwhelming. She had to deal with whoever was at the door first.
Creeping to the door, she slowly opened it a crack, keeping the chain locked. Kappa had taught her some common sense, after all. "Whoareyou!?" she blurted out quickly, suddenly feeling very paranoid, her eyes darting to the boy standing outside, and then back to the inside of the apartment. She had yet to hear the marble drop again.
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Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:41 am
Autsu could only see the barest sliver of the girl, peeking through the doorway, which made it difficult to figure out whether she was, indeed, the girl he was looking forward. From what he could she, she matched the description, but he had no way to be sure.
And she was acting strangely. But then, he reminded himself, they like him, were all being punished for something. One could expect strangeness, at least from some criminals. He had made a point of not looking at crimes though. He had no way of knowing whether or not her sin had been lesser or greater than his own.
Had he sinned?
Best not to think about it. Staring back at the sliver of girl he could see through the crack in the door, he readied himself for what might prove failure. This one didn't seem likely to let him in.
"I am Autsu, once Di'Esuth." This part of the patern, at least, was familiar. "Are you the one once called Ogalax?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:36 pm
"Autsu?" she repeated curiously, staring at him with one shining dilated eye. His face was melting, yet she remained calm, seeing he had blue hair had made her feel more comfortable somehow. And she wanted to let him know it. Sticking her skinny arm through the crack, she waved at him, pointed at his hair, and then giggled. "You've got blue too!"
Retracting the lone arm, she undid the chain on the door, and opened it a bit wider, so she could see this boy more easily. "Di'Esuth." She said it as if she knew him, yet Sev had never seen this person before.
Cocking her head to the side as she heard her former name, she looked at him questioningly. "Ogalax? Who's that?" The name was familiar, but Sev didn't immediately recognize it. Kappa had yet to tell her anything about her past. He'd simply not thought about it. He figured she had enough to worry about, with the hallucinations and all. Why bring up her past now? She was still young. There was plenty of time.
But now, this feathery youngster had come to reveal the past to this strange kid.
As Sev concentrated on the boy's face, she hoped the melting would stop. She had begun to realize that things didn't really look like she thought they did. At points, the hallucinations would stop, and she could see the world as it really was. At first, this was strange to her, but she'd gotten used to it, and was now curious about the 'real' world.
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Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:58 am
This wasn't going as planned at all. With past visits, accepted or refused, the formula had remained relatively simple. This girl was shaking things up, and Autsu wasn't entirely sure how to deal with that. He was grateful enough when the girl opened the door, revealing that she was indeed the alien described in Archue's notes. At least...
But then she spoke, and he was mixed up all over again. As he'd never forgotten the life that had lead up to the situation he was now in, it didn't occur to him that she might have. Instead, he could only think that she wasn't, after all, the criminal he was searching for.
Except...
How many more girls could look like that? It seemed unlikely.
Maybe she was playing dumb? Maybe she wanted to hide her crimes.
Autsu folded and unfolded his wings nervously.
"May I enter? We can sit down, and talk."
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Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:01 am
Sev wasn't sure what to do. Kappa had warned her about adults--strangers. He'd told her not to let any strangers into the house while he was gone. But this boy, well, he wasn't an adult...at least she didn't think so. He was bigger than her, sure, but he still looked young. "Are you an adult? I'm not supposed to let strang--"
Suddenly, the face that had been melting previously was now dripping onto the floor, making a puddle at the boy's feet. And as soon as a drop of what used to be face hit the puddle, it would bounce back into the air in slow-motion, moving almost poetically. The vision stopped Sev mid-sentence, and she stared at the puddle and the hovering droplets of Autsu's dark face, enthralled. Anyone of normal mind might think this disgusting, but somehow, Sev saw the beauty in it.
As the seconds passed, and she kept staring, the boy still stood there, probably still wondering if he could come in.
While Sev watched the dripping puddle, her dreadlocks seemed to know what was going on, and though they were tied into pigtails, they were extraordinarily flexible and seemed to have a mind of their own...
One particularly long dread reached out to the door and curled around the edge, pushing it open and out of Sev's hand as she was dumbfounded. Sure, he could come in, they seemed to say.
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:39 pm
This girl was... certainly strange. Her eyes didn't even to be focusing on him, at least not for more than a few seconds. And he wasn't used to being ignored. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, waiting her to do something, open the door, or shut it. Anything.
And finally, as the door was pushed open, if not by the girl's hand, then at least by another part of her, he decided that was sign enough that he could enter. Stepping across the threshold he did his best to look disarming, though his expression was, as ever, serious.
"I want to talk to you about your past. You were brought here by the ICRS, right?"
It was hard to talk to her when she wasn't looking at him, but he was determained to try.
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 9:41 am
The previously dripping puddle was now on the move again, and as Autsu let himself inside thanks to the rowdy dreadlock, the droplets began to move upward again, this time pixelating like a computer screen would at low resolution. The pieces flew upward, reforming the boy's face, giving him a normal look once again.
Sev sighed. Hopefully that wouldn't happen again for a while. Though she enjoyed the special effects -- the hallucinations -- she could never ignore them. And talking to someone while their face was melting was always a challenge. Her guests just never knew what they looked like in her eyes.
She shook her head back and forth, as if to cast off what had just happened to the pre-teen's face, and tried to concentrate on the boy again. He was telling her she had a past. Something about ICRS. The series of letters rang a bell in her mind, and she frowned, finally looking up at him.
"ICRS? Seems familiar somehow. They brought me here?" she asked, head cocked to one side as if she was trying to intensely concentrate or remember something. "I guess that'd make sense," she giggled. "I'm not like my dad. At all."
She paused and moved out of the entryway and into the living room. "Wanna...uh, sit down?" She wasn't sure what Kappa would say if he walked in right now. Would he be angry with her? She'd never seen her dad angry before, and she couldn't imagine it.
So, she invited Autsu to stay. Heck, why not! He seemed interesting enough...It was too bad he wasn't brighter or shinier though. She just hoped he could keep her attention long enough...before his face started melting again.
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 4:57 pm
Unsettling, that was how he'd describe this whole encounter. The girl was strangely childish, which made sense, given her age, but Autsu had little experiance with children. He hadn't been one, in anything but form, for a very long time, and the same was true of those he interacted most closely with. If she was of the ICRS, then perhaps there was something wrong with her? That would explain a lot, actually.
At the invitation to take a seat, Autsu took a place on the floor in the living room, his wings making most chairs and things uncomfortable. Besides, he was more comfortable on the floor in a lot of ways, it made the whole event seem somehow more casual.
So, she had heard of where she'd come from, after all. Or was she only thinking she had? Nevermind, she was the one, and he was at least going to try and talk to her, even if it seemed obvious that she'd be useless to him as a soldier. Soldiers had to be focused, and adult, at least mentally.
"ICRS. Interplanetary Criminal Rehabiliation Service. That's what it means. Criminals get sent to Gaia as punishment, and are given new forms, forced to relive life. Archie finds them homes, since they can't take care of themselves."
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:05 am
Sev plopped down on the floor in front of Autsu, to make sure she could get a good look at him. Though she feared the hallucinations would return, she thought it best to look him in the eye when as they talked. Ogalax had been a fairly straightforward kind of guy, and it seemed a bit of that was coming out in Sev.
One might wonder if the alien would ever remember all of her past life. She had more than a few...issues that still needed to be worked out. But the hallucinogenic haze was starting to pass, and sometimes, the girl could see clearly. Maybe, during one of these times, she'd start to remember.
"The floor's a good place to sit. I like it down here too," she said to Autsu, admiring his wings for the first time. "You have very nice wings! Can you fly pretty high?" Sev always seemed amazed by winged creatures--she wanted to fly too.
When he started talking more about the ICRS, Sev actually focused on what he was saying, instead of letting it drift in one ear and out the other as she did so many other things. Why did this scenario seem so familiar? Obviously, she was the alien. The strange part was the criminal thing. She was a criminal? She'd never remembered doing anything wrong...
Suddenly, there was a flash of hallucination, and Sev knew the feeling right away. Looking down at her hands, she noticed they were no longer slim and pale blue, but chubby, multi-colored and jelly-like.
She gasped, not sure what to think. Deep down inside, she knew what it was--a vision of her past. Her old body. She was...made of jelly? She poked at her own hand, suddenly unaware of Autsu sitting there. As she turned her hand over to examine it further, she glanced down at her legs to find that they too were much, much larger...and made of the same multicolored jelly as her dreadlocks and her new hands.
Looking up at Autsu again with huge dilated eyes, something clicked in her brain, and suddenly, the normally light-hearted girl took on a new, deeper tone. "Yes, I was what they call, a "criminal", though I prefer to think of myself as a researcher--someone doing good things for all. Obviously, I'm no longer myself."
It was the first time Sev had spoke of her past, though it seemed someone else was saying these things from inside her body.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:20 pm
Well, at least she was becoming more present. Focused, she did not seem so strange. At the same time, she still seemed young and girl like. It occured to him that Ein wasn't all that much different. She too, lacked the maturity and anger of most of the aliens. Maybe, like Ein, this one had come here as a child. Even then, it seemed, she should remember.
"No, I can't fly. I weigh too much. I can glide a bit." But he was talking to himself. The girl was once again gone to her own world, staring at her hands as if they, and not he, were the ones here to impart information. He let his words fall off, waiting for her attention to once again return to him. She seemed at least capible of focus, so perhaps her mind would return again.
He rolled his skateboard absently back and forth while she waited, incapible of keeping completely still for very long. His wings closed neatly until now, opened a bit, and then snapped back to tightly folded as the girl spoke again. But she sounded different now. Here was the sort of intellect and thought he expected from his kind.
"We all have our individual opinions on our guilt or innocence. Does it matter? We're all here now. I, and my comrades, are trying to find a way to make the best of it."
He decided not to comment on the sudden shift in persona, the girl was obviously more than a bit mad, and if she had touched on her old self, then he would converse with it while he could.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 7:22 am
"I suppose you are right," Ogalax said, his personality taking over for Sev as the poor girl watched in the background, not sure quite what was going on. All she could see was her old body -- the ... a body she did not connect with or understand. "And of course, it does not matter now. Though I am curious, before we continue -- what, pray tell, was your crime?" With that question, the normally innocent and girlish face became serious -- a look that no one had ever seen on Sev.
Ogalax paused to allow Autsu to answer, but he couldn't help asking yet another question -- or a few. "Trying to make the best of it? Is a new chance at life not a better thing? Personally, I like my new self. Though I may not be so mentally stable sometimes, with the hallucinations and all, I rather like my new personality. Do you not like yourself now Di'Esuth? Does your new situation not suit you?" The expression that the girl's face had taken on was one of amusement, tinged by sarcasm. "So, how do you plan to 'make the best of it'?" Ogalax asked, one hand moving to tame a stray dreadlock that had begun to wander out of it's pigtail.
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:05 am
The direct question about his past was enough to make Autsu's already serious expression go cold. But the litany of inquires that followed it were what compounded the issue, something in the tone of the words, or perhaps in Ogalax/Sev's expression.
He had never been a good palace guard. A good soldier, yes. An excellent personal guard for Narin. But when he'd served the palace, he had been constantly repremanded. It was the Ex', their superior gazes, the ironic tones in their voice. Treating him like a particularly useful but not overly intelligent animal, and he had hated it. Had not been able to keep his temper in check. At the moment, Ogalax/Sev reminded him as nothing quite so much as a pampered Ex' lady, staring down her nose at him.
His posture went from slightly relaxed to military perfect, and his fingers, which had been idly playing with the wheels of his skateboard, stilled.
"My crimes are my own. I don't discuss them." He replied, and the anger in his voice was just barely contained, forced back by the standards of appropriate behavior that his father of this life had given him. Were he still Esuth, he might have punched the child(man) across from him.
"Some of us are not so content. It doesn't matter if this life is good to us, we still feel the need to act, to do more than wait and obey like idle children. But I suppose insanity must keep you amused." He stood then, kicking his skateboard back up into his hand. "I, too, prefer your new personality. Thank you for your time."
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:26 am
It was funny to Ogalax that the boy standing in front of him had gotten so angry so quickly. He was merely asking questions...and from a scientific standpoint, that was the way to get answers. "Why, I did not mean to offend you. I am sorry for asking about your past. I was merely curious. And one does not get answers if they do not ask questions." His tone was now apologetic, and he watched the boy stand up and ready himself to leave. He could tell he had offended him, and was close to becoming entirely too angry for what the situation required. On top of that, Ogalax didn't want to damage his adorable new face. Seveile was too cute for a black eye. Though, with his own abilities to 'spring back' as it were, he thought she might not be so damaged if fists flew.
Sev stood up to let him go, but quickly stopped as Ogalax returned with more to say to Autsu. This time, he put his words more kindly, with no sarcasm or arrogance in his voice. "Seeing your discontent makes me wonder if I myself should miss my old life. I do miss my family, yes...but I feel that this experience has given me an opportunity to become a better person. Though Seveile may not be the most sane of creatures, she is innocent and sees the world differently than others. She can appreciate life again--something I could not do." He paused to consider his next questions. "What will you do? How will you act? Do you plan on going back home?" His tone was soft. He wanted to know the answers to these questions...and not get hit while asking them. He was merely curious about this boy and his plans.
And then, it was finally Sev's turn. "I am NOT insane!" she demanded, pupils suddenly small again as the girl returned to Gaia. "You don't know what it's like! How would you feel if the world just constantly melted around you!? Do you think that's fun for me? Now that I know it's not normal, people probably think I'm freak." Sev pushed Og aside and returned to her own body, noticing that now, her arms were again the light blue of which she was familiar. "I'm sorry. I'm just...afraid." The little girl's eyes started welling up with tears and she moved quickly to the door to open it for him. If he wanted to leave, she'd be more than happy to let him.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:09 pm
A mild change in tone was not enough to calm Autsu's anger. He had yet to discover an outlet in this life, had not really needed one badly until this moment. This new, present anger simply simmered, neither expressed by violence, as he may have once done, nor dismissed. So he paused, and listened, but his expression remained dark and somewhat threatening. The hand not holding his skateboard was curled into a fist.
"It's not about the old life." He managed to grind the words out between his gritted teeth. "It's about this life. We need a place in this world. Some of us feel we will not find it just drifting."
And then Sev was talking, the girl he had first met, and he could not help but feel sympathy for her, just as he could not help but feel anger toward Ogalax.
He hissed something, in his own language, before addressing the problem of the near crying girl that now stood before. He didn't dislike her, indeed felt the same mild warmth for her that he felt for Ein. But comforting insane blue children was not something he was educated in.
"I meant... I was not talking to you..." He shook his head quickly, hair falling back into his face and hiding his eyes. "I am sorry. I did not mean to upset you."
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