Welcome to Gaia! ::

Harper had just slipped her phone back into her pocket before Mial wrapped his arms around her lifting her from the ground. Despite every worry that had settled in her bones she gave the stallion a wide grin returning his hug. “I was trying to find you, or at least on my way to find you before the lights all cut off.” She buried her head into his neck, not that she wanted to admit it even to him but everything so far had bothered her and it was comforting to know that he was at least there.

Eventually the clan heir stepped giving instructions and only confirming what she like many other horseman had feared and that was the crystal was breaking. Harper squeezed Mial’s hand, taking the grey bracelet they had offered to use to gather more fear.

[ Lobby - Parts 1 and 2 ]

The tall woman stared down at the belt around her waist - her trophy belt - and frowned. She should remember these fights, these battles and victories, but she remembered nothing. She remembered so little upon waking. She remembered her name - Asuna - her clan - War - and her place within it - an Executioner touched by Judgement. Yet how she had gotten here, the current events, and how she'd reached her status was a blank. She listened quietly as the Dorothy creature spoke, going over various reasons as to why so many lost their memories.

No one remembered yesterday. Asuna wondered what was so important about yesterday that whole clans would forget it's existence.

"Yes... thank you Dorothy. I will go now..." she said in an even, quiet voice, turning halfway through Dorothy's speech to wander off. Someone she recognized as a Famine sage smiled at her, and asked her for her name. She provided it, the name feeling odd on her tongue for a moment, and the sage let her go. Asuna remembered her name and her clan, that was enough. They seemed wary of the horsewoman, perhaps due to the red tattoo sitting on her chest in the open. Judgement...

She wandered around the area, taking everything in. She... lived here. She always had. The Dusk was her home, as it was home to all the other horseman. She belonged here. She had.. friends, family, people she admired and looked up to. Those who feared her. She was... happy here, if happy was something that could be qualified.

She came to the red crystal and looked up at it. Rumors had it that "it" - the day no one could remember - had to do with this crystal. Though... hadn't it... been green? It was possible, but she didn't know what the difference was between red and green. It was their source of Fear, but everyone knew that. It's color mattered not to this fact.

Though...

Asuna frowned, staring at it. It was... dull... cracking... going out---

The power went out and Asuna found herself in the dark. This did not bode well. She waited patiently, the feathers of her wings fluffing in supressed panic. Had the crystal ever gone out before? She couldn't think of a time it did, but that didn't mean it hadn't at some point. Her feather further fluffed as the lights flickered back on, a dull red glow emitting from the lamps. A wave of relief went through her and she let out a sigh, feathers settling.

Her phone blipped and she blearily stared at the screen.

Oh.

Oh no.

Asuna snapped to attention, nodding to the heir to her clan that found her and handed her a necklace with a gray crystal. She needed to collect fear. She needed to fix the red crystal. This was her duty and she would complete it.

With that, Asuna turned on her heel and left the lobby, finding her way to the War section and the rest of the clan.

[ EXIT ]

[ Lobby - Part 2 ]

The bracelet felt heavy around her wrist as Harper nodded just as grimly up at Mial before following him to leave. Still something sat uneasily in the pit of her stomach, she washed it down to just nerves but that wasn't entirely it. It wouldn't stop her giving aid, like Mial she would do whatever it was to reassure their clans remained and that the crystal remained intact.

[ Exit ]

[ Famine pools ]

Ever had found the pools at long last to go for his swim: sunglasses set on the edge of the tub and otherwise stripped down so that his somewhat-dirty, slightly-worse-for-wear human clothes wouldn't be left soaking wet. He let his head slide under the surface, pale hair floating around him in a halo, and thought about the way this place felt around him. Introspection was a strange beast that led his thoughts skidding from one place to the next -- to Zyk and the jars on the wall in their shared rooms to how dust in Santa Fe had tasted familiar, to craving a cold rain in a way he couldn't begin to explain. None of these things felt quite real. But the people did, the ones he knew well and those he passed in hallways and recognized, distantly. They defined who he was.

There was something more. Something he couldn't put his finger on, that curled at his tongue. He thought he could smell acrid smoke in the air, or taste it, and he wasn't sure what that meant. There were spots in his memories, fuzzy and grey.

A crystal. People had been talking about it; red to green, except Ever couldn't even really remember what those words meant. Colors were a memory that fuzzed around the edges and came to him more as feelings and associations than something he could bring up in his mind's eye.

He pulled himself up out of the water slowly, dripping, dragging sticky wet hair out of his face as the water poured down slim arms and over the ladder of his spine. He left a hand over his eyes but thought about the crystal and tried to remember it in more detail, his face turned toward the window. He had a sense of it, a feel for it, something that tingled around the edge of his senses even as he reached for his glasses to perch on the end of his nose again.

The unease grew in the air, something heavy and thrumming, and Ever's loose introspection turned to something more concerned, instead. In the water, he went still, trying to figure out what that sound in the air meant, what was pushing at his skin, not cold or hot but just --

The power went out.

It meant silence, for a breath. The dark didn't bother Ever, but the tense moment of silence grated on his skin, made it drag on for what felt like an eternity instead of, realistically, three or four seconds. Then the thrum of conversation, all the sounds that made up home came back in force, people talking or shouting or running around in panic, trying to figure out what had happened and what this would mean for the future. Against it, Ever just stood silent as the water moved around him, shivering as it caught sounds, as his fingers twitched against its surface.

Eventually, the lights would come back on. He wouldn't see it, but he did feel the way some of the panic went out of the air. Without realizing he'd been holding it, Ever finally released a breath and drew in a fresh lungful of air, soothing and careful. All at once, he hauled himself out of the water to shake himself dry and began to dress, slowly pulling on layer after layer of human clothing. From one pocket, his phone buzzed -- ignored.

Instead, he'd pad his way out into the panic to find someone who could explain what was going on.

[ EXIT ]

[ Conservatory ]

It was becoming something of an annoyance, being drawing awake by an undeniable sense of wrongness that was quite difficult to put his finger on. He had laid in the dimness of the bedroom for a long while, eyes trained on the the ceiling has he'd tried to work out what the feeling was, or where it might have come from. No answers provided themselves to his inquiring mind, and after a time he'd left the welcome comfort of the blankets to drag on the pair of dark jeans he'd acquired earlier. His phone, the card key to the room, and his money were all slipped into his pockets. Some, though not all, of his jewelry replaced. On his way tot he door, he'd grab the pale button up, dragging it on as he reached the hall, though not bothering to button it at all.

There were a few horsemen milling about in the hall, but Zyk passed them by, heading for the elevator instead and punching in the button for the conservatory. Not only would the majority of the clan be gathered there, but he was fairly certain he would find Ever there as well. It seemed the most logical destination.

As he stepped out he was very nearly knocked over by stallion as they hurried to the window, and Zyk might have hissed at the other horseman, but he caught a glimpse of the crystal over the heads of the others already crowded there.

Cracks ran like dark veins along the bottom of it, which was worrying enough, but where they touched, the jagged ends reaching like skeletal fingers, they had leeched away the crimson color, leaving dull grey in their wake. It stole away the temporary irritation he'd been feeling, and the gnawing dread that had woken him roared back louder now, filling his ears like a metallic buzzing.

When his phone buzzed, he was slow to draw it out of his pocket. Slow to tear his eyes from the window to look down at the string of messages.

They did nothing to quiet the worry.

Lips pressing in a thin line, he finally moved, heading deeper into the sanctuary of their clan to seek out someone that might know what was going on.

[ Exit ]

[ Re-enter Rehab Center ]

Having explored a bit outside, familiarizing himself with the surroundings, he returned to the tower. His memory was still fuzzy and it still irked him, but some part of him deep down had accepted this. It wasn't COMPLETELY right but it felt... fine. For now. It felt good to know there was a place he could return to, a place where he fit in. Where he belonged.

Still, it seemed strange that everyone suddenly had collective amnesia. Was that... was that NORMAL? Hell if he even knew what that word meant. For now, all he had was the information given by that famine, and even that seemed... superficial.

He turned his gaze to the crystal outside, recalling that it was... green? What did it even matter what colour it was...
Red or green, stop and go. Even if it WAS green, red seemed to suit it more.
The colour of fear. Of blood. War. Destruction.
A harsh, strong, bold colour that emanated attention. He couldn't imagine it any other colour.

...
..
wait, why the hell was he even rationalizing COLOURS, this was stu-

Ake turned his gaze back at the crystal, squinting.
wait a minute...

Perhaps he was just seeing things, but did it seem... LESS red?
Not that he was really a master of hues (Death didn't permit much leeway in colour choices), but even then, the telltale cracks forming from the base of the crystal, seemingly draining the previous brilliant red hue to a dull grey was pretty obvious.

That and the power suddenly going out.

While others in the near vicinity seemed to be panicking, Ake merely stood still.
Darkness was something he was used to, and besides, surely the power would soon be-

The lights came on, but the air still felt stagnate.
Beep!

After going over the texts, Ake pocketed the phone again, a small frown on his face.
How troublesome.
He picked the necklace, let out a sigh, and left.

[ Exit ]

Nnif - Part 2

The slightly more disgruntled than usual sage had left to figure things out on his own when it became clear that Owl was not going to suddenly become a fountain of knowledge that could answer all of Nnif's questions. Of course, he figured out nothing in that time, except that his partner was fine, if somehow even more perturbed by the situation that Nnif, as was their spawn.

Now he found himself in the presence of the other sage again, but this time under new and much darker circumstances. The sudden power outage that was followed afterwards by red light barely bright enough to see by was alarming, to say the least, though Nnif did his best to appear completely underwhelmed by the event.

When Owl returned with the crystals, Nnif held out a treat for the other stallion, a cricket lolly, before wordlessly pulling on the others sleeve.

Apparently they had some work to do.

[Exit]

[ lobby - part 2 ]

When she arrived back at the common building, the only thing on the young clanswoman's mind was that birds were evil and the jobs in the human world were a little hard (and some a little boring). But they had been good in the sense of training exercises and at least allowed her to be out and about, not stuck inside the building all day. Just sometimes stuck inside other buildings for way too long with annoying tasks to do.

The lights had decided to flicker as she passed through the door, staring at her phone to see if there were any messages or funny little videos posted anywhere upon the internets. Everything went dark around her, even the small screen in her hands, cut off from any form of power, "heeeeeeeeey." All there was was the glow of the looming red crystal outside that seemed just a little bit off if she squinted just right.

Around her there was panic in a wide variety; from hushed voices, raised worries and startled conversations. Elaia was as cool as a cucumber and a bit perturbed by the situation. Her lips thinned in a line and she hummed thoughtfully, her eyes darted to the ceiling to see if there was any hint of the power returning. This could become an interesting and bad situation perhaps if this continued (which could also potentially lead to a fun solution maybe?)

With a little bit of wait, the lights returned kind of and the phone in her hands buzzed and jingled, alerting her to the growing problem. She frowned. Something was wrong with the crystal, that was bad indeed, and power needed to be restored, that was a given. But she would have to do more jobs. And potentially have to deal with more birds. Lame.

Collecting her dull grey crystal bracelt (because it jingled a little more), Elaia sighed heavily and began to send a message to Terr. Because to save the world, they needed to do some stuff!

[ exit ]