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 Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:52 am
Somehow, Vanya seemed to make sense out of Takis' ramblings, as she sat silently throughout his rant. He had some good points, as well as saying quite a few things that she'd never considered, or at least believed before. Finally, when he finished, she nodded, responding with, "You are a weird one, you know?"
Then...she actually seemed to smile. There was a hint of it at least. "But...who said that weird, or different, had to be necessarily a bad thing?" The sentence was spoken softly, almost as if in thinking out loud, and Vanya's eyes dropped down from Takis'.
She wrapped her arms around her knees, hooves shuffling in the leaves as she made herself comfortable. "Still, you're right; even if it doesn't make sense for people to behave as such. People are afraid of anything different, anything they don't understand. So, they make it something 'bad' and push it away. Reject it. Then, if it's gone away, they don't have to deal with it anymore, or with their own feelings about it, their fears."
Insightful commentary fading to a close, she dropped her chin to her knees, still staring at the dirt and from seemingly out of nowhere, muttered, "...I swear, I didn't do anything weird on purpose."
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 9:55 am
Takis giggles when Vanya called him weird. "That's probably true," he agrees.
He watches her, and she seemed to draw away from him, mentally at least. She kept her eyes to the ground and her chin resting on her knees. "Hey," he says, scooching so he's sitting next to her. "Nobody said that being different is bad," he says, chancing putting his arm around her comfortingly. He's not sure what to do with a sad girl, but he'd do his best to cheer her up.
"Whatever you may or may not have done at this Tree place is irrelevant, since you aren't there anymore, right?" He smiles reassuringly. "And you at least have one friend, so that's a start."
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:24 am
Vanya wasn't sure how to respond to any of this. It was all so completely...foreign. She didn't pull away from Takis' arm, but she didn't lean into it either. She just didn't respond at all. Plus, she was dealing with something he'd said instead.
"...Friend?" she muttered, as if testing the strange word. She had a friend? Where? Since when? "You...you say you're my friend?" She was following this conversation correctly, yes? "But...you don't even know much about me at all." Maybe that's the only reason he was still hanging around her. He didn't know enough to be afraid or wary of her. Afterall, she was strange enough as a child, according to those at the Tree, but once she got older and things started happening around her...well...
...even she was afraid sometimes.
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:31 am
Takis nods. "So what if we've only just met...friendship has to start somewhere, y'know? Imagine if nobody had friends until they knew each other well. Nobody would ever make it!" He laughs. "Part of being friends is being friends no matter what. So you have to, like, make a decision to accept your friends and like them even if they do some stuff you don't agree with, or whatever." He shrugs and smiles at her.
"Besides, you haven't given me any reasons not to like you," he teases.
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:32 pm
Honestly, Vanya had no idea how the whole 'friend' thing actually worked in practice, but she wasn't about to say that. She probably looked strange enough already, and Takis had to be getting tired of explaining things to her, especially things that even a tot should know under normal circumstances. So instead, she simply nodded as if she understood, her brain turning all the while.
"No matter what, hmm?" she mused aloud, frowning thoughtfully. Was that really how it worked? That once you were friends, you were always friends? That they'd accept you no matter what?
It sounded a bit idealist and silly...but then again, maybe Vanya was just jaded at this point. What did she really know about having friends afterall?
Picking up a leaf from the forest floor, she fiddled with it for a bit. She wasn't just ready to leap into this 'friendship' thing with both hooves. What if it was a trick? What if Takis was wrong and there were some things you couldn't just accept about someone? There had to be a limit somewhere, right? Best to get everything out in the open now, before she let herself get sucked into anything. It'd just hurt more later when it all fell apart that way. And if this didn't give him a reason not to like her, nothing would.
"Takis?" she mumbled hesitantly. "You said no matter what, right? Well...would you like to learn something about me now?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:57 pm
"Something like what?" asks Takis. He tips his head at her curiously. "Sure," he says, shrugging. What's the worst that could happen? She'd obviously had a...less than awesome childhood, so maybe this would help her heal, whatever she was going to tell him.
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:23 pm
Vanya let herself hesitate only a second at his answer...any longer and she'd probably lose her nerve. She nodded and answered, "Just a second," as she squirmed out from under his arm and moved about the forest floor for a minute. She cleared most of the area around them, at least except for the earth itself, then glanced around before purposefully placing a couple fallen leaves and a stick in the center of the cleared area.
She bit her lip, looking around for a moment before deciding that she was set. Vanya crouched in the center of the clearing, then the thought occuring to her, looked up at Takis with wide eyes. "Err...you might want to move back a bit. Just to be safe."
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 8:57 pm
"Uhh...okay...how far back do you want me to move?" he asks, standing up and retreating. "You aren't going to hurt yourself, are you?"
What on earth was she doing?
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:02 pm
I sure hope not... Vanya thought to herself, glancing around at her preparations before she looked back over her shoulder at Takis. "Um...that's probably far enough. I think."
She was probably in more danger than Takis, considering she was going to be closest to the 'action', but she couldn't help that. And she'd never had anything TOO serious happen...to any living thing at least. Hopefully that wouldn't change.
Taking a deep breath with eyes closed, she knelt by the objects she'd gathered and held her hands out over them. She started murmuring softly to herself, in some odd language...or perhaps it was only nonsense syllables. The rune on the palm of her hand began glowing red, the light growing as she weakened the bond only slightly holding the chaotic power at bay. She was cautious, proceeding slowly and only ever weakening the spell that limited the chaos...it would break free well enough on its own.
She felt a surge of energy and it broke through, and she held her breath, praying that it at least would strike somewhat close to the objects she'd placed on the ground for experimentation. The stick, once lying lifeless, rose slowly as if standing...then began to wiggle and bounce about as if dancing. She actually started to smile, relieved that nothing too dangerous seemed to be happening.
Her smile wavered after one of the leaves rose to hover in the air, before suddenly bursting into flame. As the flaming bits of leaf and ash fell to the forest floor, she muttered a curse to herself and leapt to her feet, stomping the embers out with her hooves before they could spread.
Once she was sure it wasn't going to set the forest ablaze, she turned to glance at Takis and judge his reaction. Somewhat distracting, the stick was still dancing a jig around her hooves. "That...could have gone worse," she admitted.
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:34 pm
"Woooow..." says Takis, more impressed and fascinated than afraid. "What was that?"
He giggles and points at the stick, still doing a merry dance at Vanya's hooves. "You forgot one."
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:56 pm
Vanya sighed, looking down at the dancing twig. "Eh, it'll wear off after a while. Always does." And yet, one leaf had remained completely unaffected...least until Vanya stomped on it while putting the other one out. Ah well, least nothing too dangerous that time.
"I'm not really sure. I just call it 'chaos', since that's what it seems to be. I mean, I never know what's going to happen...could be anything. And I can't really even direct it, which can be dangerous if I'm not careful. Stuff just...happens." Her ear twitched a bit at an odd sound off to her side. Something stirring in the surrounding forest...but it was a rhythmic sound...like footfalls through the undergrowth, or...
Eyes growing wide, Vanya had just enough warning to shout, "Look out!" and drop to the forest floor as a rock when flying by where she'd just been standing. The stone had been bouncing about like a rubber ball before flinging itself at the faun, then bouncing off through the forest.
Sprawled in the brush, she leaned up on her hands with a frown, grumbling, "Dammit, it got loose afterall." She glanced over at Takis, still fortunately at a safe distance, but she asked anyway, "Err...are you okay?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 2:24 pm
Takis reflexively ducks as well, eyes wide. He looks to Vanya after the stone disappears. "Well, that was certainly exciting," he says cheerfully. "I'm fine," he assures her. "That's some powerful magic you have, though." He's actually pretty impressed.
He wonders if she'd like to see his magic, even though it wasn't as interesting. It was useful, though...
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Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2010 1:16 pm
"I guess so..." she muttered, thinking about it for the first time in that way. Powerful? Her? It didn't seem to make sense in her head. She just thought she was...weird before. She couldn't even control what her magic did, as Takis called it. Still, that didn't make the magic any less powerful, she supposed. She'd just have to be stronger to be able to control it.
"...sometimes anyway," she continued, rolling her eyes. "Not always so much fun. Turned my hair pink for a week once. That was horrible." Again, she almost smiled.
Looking around one final time, she seemed to decide that the danger was finally passed. The rock, wherever it had gone, would also lose its magic before long and return to a normal rock lying on the forest floor. It was like whatever she released possessed the objects for a short time, then disappated, spreading out into the area until it was undetectable again.
She shifted to a more comfortable position, one less sprawled on the forest floor, and looked back at the other faun. "What about you?" Logic stated that if she had a power, and most of the other fauns she'd known had had them too, then this boy would have one yes? Or were fauns born away from the Great Tree different? Afterall, it granted such power, right? "Can you do anything magic?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:25 pm
"Uh-huh," says Takis, nodding. "It's not as interesting as yours, but it might be more....useful? Not that chaos isn't useful, just unpredictable, y'know?" he clarifies quickly, blushing. He hopes she isn't insulted.
"No, my magic is fairly simple..." he says, looking around for a tree with a gash, or something. "Oh, here," he says, going over to a tree with a splotch of bark missing. Perhaps something had eaten it. "Watch."
Takis presses his hands to the spot. He closes his eyes and concentrates. He finds the soul of the tree and feels its pain. Sucks to have your skin eaten off. Slowly, the bark of the tree begins to grow back. When it's finished, he opens his eyes and looks at Vanya for a reaction. A bit of color had drained from his face and his eyes are hooded.
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Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:48 pm
She wasn't insulted. She nodded, accepting the statement as fact. Powerful as her magic might be, as Takis had said, she knew that power without control was not only dangerous, but as good as useless. You couldn't trust it to do what you wanted, so what good was it?
She watched with high interest at whatever it was Takis was about to do. It couldn't be as dangerous as her power, whatever it was, right? Not if his is more useful anyway. She watched his preparations and movements with curiosity, almost as if taking notes in her head for analysis later. How did other fauns' powers work? She knew how hers worked, but it'd taken a lot of research and practice to even get as far as she'd gotten.
Back in the moment, she was shocked to watch the tree's bark regrowing before her eyes...now as wide as apples. "That's...that's amazing," she murmured, wishing for a moment that she could do anything half as productive as that with her power. Then she blinked and eyed Takis oddly. "Are...you okay?" She frowned, noting a slight paling in the other faun's complexion, as well as a new sense of weariness that wasn't there before.
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