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Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:32 pm


Carda sighed and relaxed. Okay, at least his head would stay in its proper place atop his shoulders for the time being.

Granted, his nerves were just a tiny bit... SHOT, for lack of a better word. Two suspensions and a near-death experience all within five minutes could do that to a person.

"Okay, um... This?" Carda stammered, holding up the necklace. "Well, uh, you gave it to me. I mean, not you you, but a-another you, someone I grew up with, and you and I, I mean, she and I were good friends and all, and you-- I mean, she gave me this when I left my homeworld for training, and... I'm not making any sense am I?" he finished lamely.

Smooth delivery. I bet she's REAL interested in anything else you've got to say.

Shut up, I'm trying to save my skin here.


Carda broke himself from his mental argument and continued. "As for why I've been popping all around your house, well it's because I've got this mental condition where my brain doesn't accept weird stuff too well and it has to reset itself when I see something I'm not used to and when that happens my ability to manipulate space gets out of whack and does weird things and the last time this happened I hurt you. I mean the other you."

Hmmm. Seraphim was starting to rub off on Carda. Even when he was nervous he didn't usually run his sentences together that fast.
PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:43 pm


Sosiqui abruptly sheathed her wand into the 'scabbard' at her waist and sat down on the bed, rubbing her temples. "I should have figured this'd happen one of these days," she muttered. "Riven, you can put that away," she added.

The spirit Fa'e nodded. With a wave of his hand, the spear disappeared, leaving only a brief afterimage and a few floating specks of light that quickly faded away. "Do you know him?" he asked, curiously.

"... I don't, but he seems to know a different part of me," she said, with a sigh.

A pause, then a strange look spread across her face. "Wait. You manipulate space?" Her hand clenched around the handle of her wand again, and she looked at Carda very carefully. "That would explain how you got from wherever you met... who you met... to here, wouldn't it... and if you left for training..."

She met his gaze, her eyes narrowing again. "You're one of them, aren't you? One of those worldwalkers who don't need to use the Path of the Burning? A Strider?"

((She'll explain why she knows this. ^^; ))

Sosiqui
Vice Captain

Enduring Muse


Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:47 pm


"Huh? Yeah, I am. Strider in training. Although I haven't had much training lately..." Carda added darkly.

Carda regarded this Sosi curiously. She seemed a bit... tense at the thought of what he was. Threatened, maybe?

Maybe she knew more about what was going on than he did, after all.
PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:50 pm


Sosiqui shook her head, but kept her hand on her wand. "You might as well know this up front. I am a Kairomancer of the Nexus... or used to be. I never saw any sense in hating people I don't know for ancient reasons that have never touched me, personally, but if you DO enjoy that sort of thing... I'll be perfectly happy to make your life difficult." A bluff, unless she wanted to disobey Aeina... but Riven was there, and he could swing his spear and summon his creatures, and if they could call Five the little black mage could do some very nice damage with Flare...

"I won't do anything unless you move first. Your choice," she said.

Sosiqui
Vice Captain

Enduring Muse


Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:57 pm


Carda blinked. Then the proverbial lightbulb reached down and slapped him across the back of the head.

Of course. She was afraid that he was like most of the other Striders: hateful of anyone who bore the title of kairomancer.

Carda was curious about something, though. Was she bluffing or not?

One way to find out.

Carda closed his eyes, collapsed on the floor for the third time that day, and waited.

((No vanishing this time... Heh heh.))
PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:02 pm


"Oh, for the love of-" Sosiqui slid off the bed and knelt next to the stranger. "Honestly. I think you need some therapy, or something... hey. C'mon, get up. If you're a damn Strider you have very little excuse for being freaked out by weirdness, you'd see it often enough..."

She rolled her eyes. "Riven, get me a glass of water." The spirit Fa'e gave her an odd look, but floated out of the room and returned a moment later with a full cup.

Sosiqui took it and dumped it on Carda's head.

Sosiqui
Vice Captain

Enduring Muse


Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:05 pm


Well THAT hadn't gone as planned.

Carda spluttered and sat bolt upright. "What the heck was THAT for? Honestly, you're just as bad as... your other self!"

Carda sat there dripping for a moment, then said, half-grinning, "Okay, any chance I can get a towel now?"
PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:14 pm


"To wake you up? Honestly." Sosiqui rolled her eyes again. "I don't know if Striders have some bizzare method of waking up the unconcious, but around here I prefer to use the power of water. Or slaps to the head if that doesn't work," she added.

She sighed, and stood up, looking between Carda and Seraphim. "I suppose if you're not going to attack me or my son, we can speak further. But not in here. Come on out to the living room." She led them out, with a quick stop at the bathroom where she extracted a hand towel and pitched it at him before leading everyone to the living room.

"Before you freak out and disappear, by the way, there's also a small black mage living here," Sosiqui added, pointing at the half-open door to the den. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't spazz and reappear under my bed or something if he happens to come out."

With that, she sat down on the couch, gesturing for Carda and Seraphim to sit on the opposite couch. "Obviously you know my name is Sosiqui. What's yours, and what's your story?"

Sosiqui
Vice Captain

Enduring Muse


Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:37 pm


"My name is Carda. My sister Michelle and I discovered about halfway through high school that we were able to manipulate space. Well, for me, it was more of an accident.

"See, I've got this thing that experts call a suspension of belief. My brain can't process stuff that's out of the ordinary the way most poeple can. It either subconsciously explains it away as something else, or if it can't do that, it basically shuts down and reboots itself, if you'll pardon the computer reference. Once it gets going again, I'm fine and whatever triggered the suspension won't affect me again.

"The problem is that since I've got these spatial manipulation powers, I can be dangerous with no control over them. And when I'm in the middle of a suspension, I can't control anything, least of all my powers. Hence the reason I wound up in your bathroom and in your closet.

"Well, the first time it happened, you-- I mean, the other you was there. I didn't have any control over my powers at the time because I hadn't been trained how to use them yet. My powers went wild. I hurt you-- her in the process. I swore that I would never let that happen again.

"That's when my teacher, Xironielle, showed up. She said she could teach Michelle and me how to control our abilities so stuff like that wouldn't happen again. We agreed, and she recruited us into the Delta Striders." Carda pointed to the four-pointed star on his headband, the signet of the Striders. "We left right after graduating high school, but before we left, your other self gave us each one of those necklaces to remember her by. I don't know if she even knew what they were.

"Anyway, a couple of months ago, Michelle came up missing. I set out to find her. While I was travelling from World to World, I inadvertently ran across you. I mean, YOU you. I didn't approach you right away because I wasn't entirely sure what was going on, and besides, I had other things on my mind at the time. But I figured I'd want to get in touch with you at some point. That's why I slipped one of my locus pens into your things.

"Well, I needed to do some research, and the stuff I needed to learn isn't exactly available at the local library. So Xironielle and I decided to sneak into the Strider Archives. The stuff that not even higher-level Striders normally look at. It seems that Xironielle's grandfather was a proponent for peace between Striders and Kairomancers, and he was labeled as a heretic for it. We got caught on our way back out.

"Xironielle took the fall and convinced me to testify against her so that I could keep looking for my sister. It still hurts to think of how I betrayed her."

Seraphim hadn't heard this story from Carda's perspective before, and sat there next to him, listening with rapt attention. Quite a feat for one as hyperactive as she.

"Anyway, I came to see you because I got tired of trying to get through all this alone. I figured that if the Sosiqui I knew was a part of you, then she must be pretty well representative of the original." Carda smiled genuinely. "I'm sorry for the headache and hassle I've put you through."
PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:49 pm


Sosiqui sat back and took the information all in, closing her eyes in thought for a moment. "I... see. So you know me, or a part of me, but I don't know you from Adam. I'm... sorry, I guess, that you didn't find the friend you were looking for," she said, not unkindly.

She ran one hand through her hair and bit her lip. "I suppose it's my turn to explain, then. Although as you know there are such things as different worlds having different versions of the same person, they never share the same soul... at first I was hoping you ran into simply another version, but the fact that you have a fragment of my wand... no." She shook her head.

"Let me explain..." And she did, though it took a while. She explained about the Nexus (although censoring some detail - Carda WAS a Strider, after all), then about how she'd come to Gaia in the first place, and the shattered pieces. "I don't know how the piece you met would have gotten into a world that wasn't Gaia, but I do know another fragment moved into a different world as well. Perhaps it was similar." She shrugged.

A pause, then.... "What happened to her? What was she to you, that you'd chase me so hard?"

Sosiqui
Vice Captain

Enduring Muse


Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:57 pm


Carda turned about five shades of red at that question.

"Well, we... I mean, she and I... GAH. How do I explain this...?"

Seraphim, on the other hand, had no problem finding the right words. "Well spit it out stupid don't just leave her in the dark!"

Carda returned the comment with a LOOK.

"Thanks for the pep talk," he muttered through clenched teeth.

Clearing his throat, he tried to start over, but had lost any semblance of seriousness thanks to the little angel's pep talk.

"I don't want to say that... we were an ITEM, per se, but... we were kinda, no, really close. Like, REALLY close."

((No, not THAT close. :-p ))
PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:02 pm


A blush shot across Sosiqui's cheeks instantly. "Ah. I see... well, I'm sorry you didn't find who you were looking for, again," she said, quickly.

The red faded from her cheeks. "One last question... what happened to m.. her? If you were so close, why are you here wandering around?"

Sosiqui
Vice Captain

Enduring Muse


Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:08 pm


Carda's eyes dropped to the floor.

"She... died. Mysterious circumstances, the doctors said, like her body just shut down for no real reason. A few weeks after I left. I didn't even find out until about a month ago."

Carda clenched a fist. "She was perfectly fine when I left. I just don't understand why she died so suddenly... She wasn't able to keep her promise, either, just like I broke my promise that I wouldn't have another suspension again..." He slammed his fist down on his knee and squinted his eyes shut to fight the tears that were coming. "It isn't fair..." he muttered.
PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:11 pm


Sosiqui looked down. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it," she mumbled. Theories whirled through her head, all of them clinical and at one remove, and all of them utterly inappropriate for any form of comforting. "That's why I don't make New Year's resolutions, either. I can never keep them properly..."

She leaned across the coffee table and sort of awkwardly patted at his arm, feeling kind of silly. She didn't know Carda at all - but he knew her, in a crazy roundabout kind of way, and that somehow gave her an obligation.

Sosiqui
Vice Captain

Enduring Muse


Chronostrider

PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:14 pm


Carda smiled half-heartedly. "Thanks," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come. It was kinda stupid of me to even think I could just pick up where I left off..."

Carda started to gather his things. "I should be going..."
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