|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 8:43 pm
It was Alkaid's turn to narrow her eyes slightly because her furrowed brows and slight frown didn't express her confusion well enough for this situation anymore. Alkaid had no idea that Vivianite hadn't had a cat on hand, but the way she responded to the question made her a little suspicious..
"Cats are always there for awakened senshi because they're the ones.. that awaken us." She paused before she said the last part, mostly because she suddenly felt as if she was answering some unspoken question. "Until a Guardian Cat awakens us, we're just civilians. We'd be civilians forever without them, at least that's how I understand it. We can't awaken ourselves and I've never heard of it happening any other way."
She was naturally curious, she wanted to ask if there had been a cat there when Vivianite was awakened and what her sphere was. Did she know? Why was her name Vivianite? Suddenly a hundred questions were popping into her head and the only thing Alkaid could do was frown, frown from confusion and frustration and still that uneasy fear because this was a corrupted senshi that was radiating pure darkness like a homing beacon. Inwardly she was kicking herself - why did she get caught up in these situations?
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 8:57 pm
Vivianite shook her head, as if to deny what Alkaid was saying. So Charonite hadn't know what he'd find when Tanzanite stuck her hand in Vera's chest. That might have been obvious to anyone except her; at the time, having a hand in her chest with fingers wrapped around her starseed had commanded pretty much all of her attention.
"Not forever," she whispered, mostly to herself, hand reaching up to absently rub at the hole in her chest. It was a reflex, something she did even when powered down. Most people found it hard to look at, even those in the Negaverse. It was a visual reminder of their own corruption, and the one on her forehead was only slightly less unsettling.
She probably hadn't meant to say that, but it was said, and whatever questions Alkiad had regarding this corrupted senshi would probably double. Vivianite looked sadly at Alkaid and smiled again, this one full of pain and loss. "Not forever." Whatever other way there was to awaken senshi - it was nothig good.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 9:14 pm
Alkaid had been doing a good job of avoiding looking at those holes - those terrifying, awful reminders that someone she should have felt close to had been stolen from her, from her figurative family. As Vivianite's hand rose to rub at the exposed hole, Alkaid couldn't stop herself from following the action with her eyes from sheer reflex. As soon as she did, she wished she hadn't, because it was like a secret between them was suddenly hanging openly in the air.
She grimaced, she couldn't help it. She grimaced, a frown of her lips and a narrowing of the eyes - it almost looked as if she had been struck - and then looked away abruptly. She felt like it was something personal that she shouldn't have seen - not that it could get much more personal than being able to see into someone's chest. The words hung quietly in the air as she looked away, down at her new shoes, but drew her attention as Vivianite repeated them with more purpose.
She glanced back up with those same narrowed, confused eyes. Lurking in them was a mix of fear, pity and horror - all of these things prominent and inescapable, but she still couldn't abandon this girl yet. Instead, she curled her hands into fists, merely an attempt to psyche herself up, and raised her chin a little. "You weren't awakened by a guardian cat, were you?" It was a bold question and she didn't even want to know on behalf of the senshi - she wanted to know for herself, to satisfy this morbid curiosity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 9:29 pm
The motion stopped suddenly when Alkiad grimaced, and Vivianite formed her hand into a fist, holding it in place against her chest. It wasn't something she was normally self-conscious about; it was there, it was always there. Underneath the skin of Vera Valentine, there was a hole in her chest because Vivianite wasn't what she was supposed to be. She was meant to be someone else, have another name, but it was lost to her and it was looking like no one would ever be able to get it back. A flare of irrational anger, and Vivianite marked down one more thing Uranophane had taken from her.
"Are you sure?" she asked gently, still smiling that terribly sad and somewhat broken smile. Without giving Alkaid an opportunity to back out, she continued on. "Charonite found me. Charonite and Tanzanite." Obviously reluctant to explain any further, her hand had spasmed at the memory of what came next and was now tightly clutching the sailor collar of her fuku. Hopefully Alkaid could draw her own conclusions regarding how Vivianite had been awakened.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 9:48 pm
Alkaid tried not to react to it, she did. Where the hole in Vivianite's chest had made her uncomfortable, the vague explanation she offered seemed to set her off - mostly because of who it involved. Her eyes widened instantly and her lips parted to draw in a sharp breath. Where she had been only slightly tense before, her whole body was now completely rigid. In her mind she was playing over some horrific, terrible and (hopefully) unrealistic scene.
"Tanzanite was responsible for.." she trailed off as she felt a lump in her throat rising, unable to quite finish that sentence both because it was too terrible to admit to herself and because something about the way Vivianite was clutching her collar made her think it hadn't all been sunshine and rainbows. Alkaid felt herself gritting her teeth to bite back all of the fear and hatred she had for the negaverse in that moment. Not for this corrupt senshi, she thought sadly to herself, but for the ones like Tanzanite.
"You don't know your name, or your sphere," she said quietly, whispering it out into the space between them, almost as if she were stating something she already knew. Why else would she ask about these things? If there was no guardian cat to awaken her, there was no one to tell her. Alkaid had lived a hard life since she had been awakened, but to live a life like they did without really knowing why seemed like a nightmare. She was having trouble picking out which emotion was more prominent at the moment - anger, fear, pity. She just watched Vivi with a sad look in her eyes, staring in the silence that followed her revelation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 2:32 pm
Looking slightly sympathetic, Vivianite nodded. Clearly Alkaid had run into the terrifying Negaverse Captain at least once, and had just as clearly come off second best. "She was." A second confirmation, as if it was needed. She looked away for a moment, fist slowly unclenching as she gathered herself back up.
"Be careful of your friends, Alkaid," she warned with a flickering glance back at the other senshi. She surely had friends in her civilian identity, and what if one of them...What if one of them thought that she would make an excellent addition to the Negaverse? It could happen - it had happened. It had happened to this senshi, and who knew how many Negaverse agents had been recruited by their so-called friends? She'd never asked how Uranophane had been corrupted, thinking it a rather personal question to ask.
"I don't," she confirmed with another bob of her head. "And I think it's too late to find out." Vivianite looked away again, unable to bear the pity in Alkaid's eyes. "Thank you for the information," she said after another long pause. "I think I should be going," was added on with a strained smile before stepping backwards to disappear into the darker areas within the trees. She was still trackable for handful of moments - that dark energy was unmistakable - but either she depowered or somehow masked the signature, because it disappeared before Alkaid could follow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 11:53 am
Alkaid stood staring for some time after Vivianite disappeared, even after that dark beacon disappeared, before she turned and began to head in the opposite direction. There were so many things on her mind, so many terrible thoughts, and the clear warning that the corrupt senshi had left her with still weighed heavily on her.
Alkaid broke free of the cover of trees and turned her eyes up to gaze at the stars. She knew who she could trust among her senshi friends, but if senshi had civilian identities then negaverse agents probably did too, right? She frowned as she looked down at the park around her, rubbing her gloved palms against the skirt of her fuku. She didn't want to accuse her friends, but what if Serah or Zink were negaverse agents? What about Ariana or Amara? Even Rohan?
She shook her head and cleared these thoughts away, turning and heading for the exit of the park again. There was one difference between herself and Vivianite - she was already a Senshi. She wouldn't live in fear of her friends, they didn't deserve that. What was the saying? Innocent until proven guilty? Besides, she couldn't imagine any of her friends working for the negaverse. As sad as Vivianite's story was, she must have been blind to whatever friend had led her to this fate because Alkaid knew none of hers could possibly be such monsters.
As she kept repeating that to herself, she turned out of the park and headed home. She still had to decide if she was going to talk to Saiph about this, or shoulder the burden of knowing the horror alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
