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 Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:41 am
Fawkes gave a deep chuckle and shook his head; idiot she might be but she wasn’t slow. Though she had said it was stupid, she had accepted it first off. A lot of folk just looked bemused when faced with the same sort of information. “Not at all,” the red-eyed stallion said after a moment. “Spot on, actually.” The dappled Ichsa looked down at his forelegs contemplatively and a moment later fire licked up around them, as obedient to his whims as ever. He quenched the fire after a few heartbeats however; that had been enough for a demonstration, he didn’t wanted to waste his limited reserves.
“The first time I fought the silver Ichsa I lost, he left me to die in a burning two-legs building,” the hornless stallion said as he raised his head to regard Utena once more. “Instead of killing me, the flames sent me back to the place of my birth to begin again. Gods know why it happened, or maybe they don’t, but there it is. Since then I have had some little skill with fire, and have possessed the ability to return to the beginning of life whenever I choose. Useful, humm?”
He didn’t tell her about the other thing he had learned to do. The flames, he believed, had come out of anger, hate, a desire to dominate and that was fine for her to know of. The tears, those had come from love and he did not want to admit that he had ever experienced that cursed emotion. He had not used them on any but himself since that love had stabbed him in the back. b***h. He hoped her death had been a slow and painful one. Why was it that he was always denied revenge on those who betrayed him? Just one more way life laughed at him, the phoenix supposed.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:26 am
Spot on? Her eyes widened a bit. It seemed that Ohtori wasn't the only place that had its secrets.
"Well, I suppose it makes more sense than never aging," she said with a sigh, remembering what she'd learned of Anthy and Akio. When the flames licked around his hooves she was probably far less surprised than she could have been. Afterall, Anthy had been able to heat tea in Ohtori with ease, and though that had been in Casa, it had completely removed the impact of similar occurances.
"Don't you ever grow tired of living?" Utena aksed bluntly. That was by far more interesting to her than the fact he may burn the world to a crisp if he so desired.
Power, she'd come to realize, didn't matter to her at all, unless it threatened those she cherished. It came, it went, and people always lost it in their deaths.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:54 am
Hu. Well that was a little disappointing. Did she have experience with magic users? It was quite possible, he supposed. He knew of at least three Nequus with such powers alive in the world today, perhaps she knew one of them or perhaps she knew another that he did not know of. Still, it was slightly disappointing. ...This said, her question was... Well it wasn’t interesting per se but it was interesting that she’d asked it rather than anything else.
“Excessively,” the dappled stallion said with a snort, “but not yet tired enough to stop.” He had always hated those who were so weak as to take their own lives, or to fail to do all they could to remain living. He wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but he did so there you had it; until something managed to kill him before he could burn himself to ashes, he would remain.
“Perhaps it is my turn to ask another question now,” the orange stallion went on before the girl could jump in again. “Where do you have previous experience of magic from? Forgive me that assumption, but usually people show at least a dash of surprise at what I can do.” Ha. Perhaps a mistweaver now lived and she had fallen for it and now stared off into the mists hoping it would return to her. Didn’t seem quite like something a ‘prince’ would do, but the contrived explanation amused him nonetheless.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:30 pm
She was hoping for a little more in depth on the issue. She knew only of Anthy's eternal suffering, and perhaps this one could have given her an insight to what exactly it was like to live for so long. She didn't know, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
Her mouth was opened to speak when he cut her off. Of course. She quickly closed it. The question almost amused her, in that ironic sort of way.
She could have used the, 'It's a long story' excuse, but she didn't think that would matter much to him. Taking a deep breath she summed it up as quickly as possible, "I wouldn't really call it magic. Magic is more real than this." She flicked her gaze towards Casa Tiner. "You know, of course, of its nasty ways to trick the mind. I didn't." She paused. "No, that's not quite right, either. I didn't realize how real it actually was." If that didn't confuse him, then nothing would.
"There's a school somewhere in there. Ohtori, as you may have guessed. Naturally, the only way to go is to be invited. Now, putting together one half of a whole. A school, for the teaching of small naive beings, and place it in there, and tell me you think I'd be suprised by anything thereafter." She laughed, though it wasn't a cheerful expression. "No, even then you'd be far, far, off." She wanted to explain it to him, she really did, but she wasn't quite sure how.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:58 pm
She was right, she had managed to confused him. Fawkes was briefly annoyed by this, but more intrigued than anything else. He’d never heard of anything but death in those woods... A whole school? She had no reason to lie to him, nothing to gain from such a wild tale so far as he could discern. It was possible that she was mad of course, but she didn’t seem mad. Slightly crazy perhaps, but not mad enough to have just imagined something like that. Pawing distractedly at the ground, the dappled stallion inspected the rose-marked mare before him calculatingly.
“Sounds... Special,” the Ichsa said eventually, frowning off into the mists as if he might suddenly be able to see this place that he didn’t even have any idea of the look of just because he’d been told about it. “Looking for a way back, or glad you left?” the phoenix went on after a moment, recalling how she herself had stood and stared off into the rolling whiteness when he had first spotted her
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:11 pm
The word special. She knew what that meant. 'Call me crazy if you want,' she opened her mouth to say, but again he cut her off.
It was her turn to be surprised. He actually believed her. Well, well. Then again, he hadn't heard all of it yet. Just what confusion she could mush his way. What could she say? She wasn't born a story teller.
The answer was, naturally, some of each. "I left someone there, someone who doesn't belong. If I don't fight for that person, no one will." That's not the way the school operated because they were pinched between the hooves of Akio and the monstrousity of a world he lived in.
She had to go back and finish what she'd started. I'm sorry, Himemiya.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:24 pm
At that, Fawkes sighed. So that was why she called herself a prince. She was one of those who fought the fights they thought needed to be fought. She was as he had been for his first few lives. “I see,” he said eventually, his voice somewhere between neutral, tired and exasperated.
Should he tell her there was no point? That the people you fought for usually stabbed you in the back, that there was no end to the fight against ‘evil’?... No. No he wouldn’t have believed such words when he was young and foolish as she was now. She would find out in the end, that or she would die in one of her battles.
“Well, I suppose I wish you luck with that then,” the slender Ichsa said with a slight shake of his head. He could hardly wrap his mind around the idea that he had once been like that; it seemed to foolish to him now to behave as she was behaving. Still, she would learn.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:59 pm
She wondered if perhaps there was some concern coming from him. It almost seemed so, but his voice was not as revealing as she would hope. There was clearly much about him that she didn't know. Which, was rather obvious, since she'd only spoken to him for. . . not very long.
Luck? She wasn't sure how much good it would do. What was she planning on doing, anyway? If she found Ohtori again, which was a slim possibility, was she simply going to march into Akio's place of stay and stab him through? Could she even bring herself to do it? Or would she simply drag Anthy out with cold determination? Was that fair to the girl who so desperately clung to her brother no matter how cruel? Would Anthy even trust her after she'd fallen so heavily for a prince and left her in the dust?
She left those questions for another time.
"Perhaps its a lost cause, but I'm not willing to accept that yet." She wasn't sure she was ever willing to.
"Its funny," she mused bitterly. "How much more cruelty Nequus can give to themselves than any could ever thrust upon them." Feeling her muscles bunch up she stretched, breaking her gaze from the ocean.
"Well, my answer certainly isn't here." She turned away from it and walked away, stopping at Fawkes' side to make sure he didn't have any last requests or questions.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:19 pm
Fawkes just nodded; she was learning already. Perhaps one day she would even give up on that cause of her’s and come to see that there wasn’t really anything in life that was worth fighting for save your own pleasures.
Giving the mare one last nod, the dappled Ichsa turned away from her and, after a few trotting paces, launched himself into the air. As he rose into the sky, the phoenix found his eyes drawn to the vast forest which was now below him and off to one side.
Ohtori.
He would have to see if he could find anyone else who had heard of the place; it had been quite a while since he had had anything truly fresh to investigate. Adjusting his wings to better catch at the wind, Fawkes glided onward.
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