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Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 6:53 pm
 Yes, he thought so too! And if Rory thought so they had to be right! She smiled at the man as they continued walking, excited that they would finally be free, but she soon realized that was not the case. What was going on here? There were butterflies, and a picnic all set up, and was that a walrus?! Okay, so the walrus was kind of cute but that was besides the point! Where did all this other stuff come from? Could the kidnapper have set it all up in case they tried to escape? What if the food and drinks were poisoned or drugged? That was probably it, Usagi knew it. Why did this have to happen to her? And she thought they were so close to getting out.
"W-what's going on, Rory?" she asked the man, stopping as he had instructed. This didn't make sense. Okay, so maybe the picnic could have been set up by the kidnapper, but she had never seen any walruses around the beach in Nirvani before and even if she had that still wouldn't explain the butterflies. Whatever reason it was, this had completely destroyed her excitement. She stayed still, slowly turning her head toward Rory. "What are we gonna do now?" the woman asked worriedly. All she wanted to do was get out of this place, but with the way things were going that didn't seem like it was going to happen anytime soon.
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Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:22 am
 At first, Rory didn't reply. He was busy thinking again, giving the gears in his brain a shove so they'd work better, faster. His face had scrunched up into a frown of deep thought, and he was so lost in coming up with a solution for this that he didn't even notice the butterfly that had fluttered over and landed right on his head. After a long moment, he finally uncrossed his arms and, wordlessly, slowing bent down to pull off his shoe. He kept his eyes firmly locked on the walrus -- not his eyes, Rory knew better than to look into a wild animal's eyes, so more like on his tusks -- while he slowly took off his sneaker and straightened up again. Positioning his shoe in his hand like a football player about to throw the ball, he counted to three under his breath. And on the count of three, he threw his shoe at the walrus with everything he had.
...The thing was, Rory was a decent-sized guy, a little on the tall side and neither skinny nor chubby, and he had grown up playing catch with Natalia, not to mention that Tomato Festival in which he made it to one of the later rounds. But more than that, he was a museum owner. He spent all of his time poring over books and examining old rocks and weird seashells he found on the beach. He may not have been scrawny or small, but he didn't have much arm strength to boast of. Or hand-eye coordination. So while the shoe gained some height, it wasn't going very fast. It landed against the wet ground with a pathetic thap, about four feet to the side of the walrus. The tusked mammal didn't even so much glance at it, and now Rory was missing one of his shoes! "...That was a very dumb idea," he declared, clearing his voice sheepishly.
The walrus gave a loud walrus-sound, which echoed off the walls, and Rory took a step back, keeping his arm outstretched to keep Usagi back. "I'm sorry Usagi! I wanted to get you out but I'm not sure if I can!" he finally admitted defeat. They could turn around and go back down the tunnel, but where would that take them? They'd be stuck in the dark again, for Goddess knows how long. But in terms of interesting deaths, they could do a lot worse than 'walrus attack'. "But I just want to say! I'm really glad you decided to be my friend, and if I had to be trapped in a sea cave with anyone, it'd definitely be you!" Well, no, his first choice would probably be Stephen Hawking, but for people he knew, then yeah, Usagi, totally!
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Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 7:43 pm
 Rory had stayed silent, that wasn't a good sign. She looked at her friend who seemed to be deep in thought, and had a butterfly on his head. If they were in a better situation it would have been a bit funny, and she'd probably have pointed it out, but the butterfly was a minor factor at the moment and not worth mentioning. Oh! Rory moved, what was he doing now? Had he come up with a plan? Usagi watched as the man threw his shoe in the direction of the walrus. She wasn't quite sure what it would really do other than make the walrus angrier, but she figured Rory would know best. He was the smartest person she knew after all, not that she knew a lot of people but still. Even if she did, she was sure Rory would be smarter than them!
Well whatever it was the shoe was intended to do, she'd find out soon enough. Or so she thought, but all the shoe did was land near the walrus, which didn't seem to pay it much attention. Usagi looked at her friend expectedly, wondering what the next part of the plan was, but an explanation never came. Instead a loud walrus noise went through the cave, and Rory had said he didn't know if he could get them out, and that wasn't what Usagi was expecting at all! He had to know! She smiled back at her friend and his last statement, timidly reaching back to hold his hand again. If she was going to die by a walrus attack she wanted to know she wasn't alone. Hey, at least she knew what walruses sounded like now, if that counted for anything. No, she didn't want to die here, not even if it was with her friend! Was there really any way out of this though? Well maybe..."Maybe we should go back," she suggested, a bit unsure. "I mean, we could come back this way later and maybe the walrus would be gone..." it was worth a shot she supposed, but she wanted Rory's opinion first.
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Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 8:48 pm
 ..The Water Fairy's home.. Xochiquetzal had only gone here once or twice during her time on the island, disliking how much work it took to cross over to the cave, but.. This was an emergency. The sky was still empty with only one lonely cloud spirit left. She didn't know what horrors would happen if the clouds continued to elude the sky, but, as the next Goddess, it was her duty to prevent whatever those disruptions would be. So, she paused at the far end of the beach and glanced over at the spirit who followed her, “...Across the rocks.. Her child of water resides here.”
She turned and headed onto the first rock that lead up to the cave, hopping across carefully to the next and continuing this pattern until the opening to the cave was within reach. She hesitated there, disliking the idea of getting her robes wet, but this was an emergency, so.. Ah. Wait, she had a servant with her, didn't she? “Spirit? I require.. your assistance at this point.. I can not get wet.” Yes, if she could just get her to carry her across.. The spirit wasn't all that much taller than Xochiquetzal, but she could probably lift her arms high enough to keep her from getting wet.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:01 pm
Angela followed after Xochi, wondering where the hell they were going. Because, uh, this looked suspiciously like the crazy lady getting her somewhere remote and private where she would jump on Angela and start to chew her face off and that made Angela really uncomfortable--particularly since there were gun laws that prohibited her carrying a concealed weapon like she was used to and all she had was a container of pepper spray her father had forced on her. And that damn spork. Why the hell was there always a spork in her bag? Shaking off that question to be dealt with later, Angela followed Xochi, one hand wrapped around the pepper spray just in case the woman attacked her. But for now, they had just stopped at the entrance of a cave and the woman was...asking for her assistance? Angela raised an eyebrow. "Well I do hope you're not expecting me to carry you, because that won't be happening. I don't particularly want to get these boots wet either." Wait. That sounded a little harsh, didn't it? Must handle crazy person with care. "Ah...because, you know...cloud spirits aren't really all that strong and if I attempt to pick you up, I rather think my ability to maintain corporeal form is likely to hit critical levels and I may vanish. Or my arms will fall off. And then we'd be in even a worse situation than we're already in." "Um, and you realize I can't fly or anything like that. Actually you know I'm not really---" Eurgh. No. She'd save the revelation that she wasn't actually a spirit for when they were back in a populated area.
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 9:05 pm
 ….Oh, how disappointing. Xochiquetzal frowned at the spirit, but she was being honest and she had to forgive the lesser being for that. It wasn't as if every creature was blessed with the Goddess' abilities. She would just have to try to walk on water again and hope the child of water wasn't disrupting the connection she had with the Goddess again, as she so often did. “I understand. You are forgiven.” She inclined her head towards her before turning and taking a step off the rock so she could perform the feats she knew she was capable of – walking across water without getting so much as a tiny splash! And, let it be known, there was no tiny splash, as she had predicted, but a large one as she plummeted into the water below. She was confused for a moment, but, after breathing in a mouthful of water and feeling the harsh sting of far too much salt in her eyes, she didn't linger too long on that before scrambling for the shore of the cave.
She rose up moments after dropping into the water on the slippery, rocky shore, coughing up water and fixing her ceremonial headband. Once her tears had flushed out enough salt from her eyes, she looked to the cloud spirit mundanely and carefully sat up. “I-It –” She paused, cleared her throat, and continued, “...It is not much farther. Come.” She started to crawl her slow way farther into the cave, water trailing behind her though it wasn't like it made much difference to the already wet rocks. It wouldn't be too long even at the cautious pace – Xochiquetzal had a knack for finding the luminous stream that lead up to the shrine. Not that they would reach it before spotting a particularly rude walrus and a queerly placed picnic lunch, anyway.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 10:15 pm
Angela gave Xochi a pained look, but the other woman was too busy apparently trying to drown herself to notice. "Oi! Wait!" Angela nearly panicked when Xochi's head went under the water but fortunately, she popped back up a few minutes later and dragged herself out of the water. Angela hopped precariously over the rocks, windmilling her arms for balance. "Are you alright?" She was glad Xochi seemed fine but honestly the woman was completely daft. She really needed a caretaker didn't she? Angela hoped that police officer informed her family she was wandering around alone. Making sure she didn't make the same mistake as Xochi, Angela first pulled off her boots and rolled both pant legs up to just below her knees before making a wide leap toward the shallower part of the water. She landed with a stumbling splash that soaked the bottom edges of her jeans but she figured that was a lot better than getting her entire body wet like Xochi, who...seemed to be crawling into the cave. Angela tucked her boots into her bag as well as she could, deciding it was better to keep them off for now. She followed after Xochi carefully, keeping her head down and dropping to a crawl once she was clear of the water. "Where exactly are we going again?" she asked, her whisper bouncing off the walls and echoing behind them.
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Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 2:59 pm
 Of course Xochiquetzal was alright - she was practically an immortal. Not that that meant that she was cold and extremely uncomfortable at the moment, but she ignored it well enough with a simple nod to the spirit as she continued into the cave. It was still too dark for the shrine to be anywhere near when a strange, groaning sound echoed to her left, as if someone was being strangled or a tugboat had managed to get trapped somehow within the cave or there was a walrus wearing sunglasses atop a red and white blanket practicing his vocal chords. The last one wasn't a guess, unfortunately, as the Goddess-to-be had stopped to see just that.
She rose her brows in slight surprise as she got to her feet, turning to glance down at Angela, "...We were to go to the.. shrine of Her children, however.. It seems we have a previous arrangement to take part in. ..Good day, sir Walrus." She greeted the bull, who didn't seem to really mind her presence whatsoever - in fact, he seemed to be looking a little.. intoxicated? The emptied wine bottle at it's tail was probably the culprit to that one. Had the Goddess turned one of those notorious infidels into this creature? How lovely.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 7:52 pm
"Whose children?" Angela asked, wondering how she always got herself into this sort of thing. "Is...is that a walrus?" she asked, freezing when she saw the large and very out of place animal nearby. Why was there a walrus? A drunk walrus? Angela had the sick feeling her world was spiralling out of control. It was like a much weirder (and wetter) rabbit hole incident. At this point, she probably wouldn't have been all that shocked if a white rabbit with a pocket watch actually did run by. "I don't...I don't think walruses can understand English," she told Xochi, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Is there a reason there's a walrus here?" She wondered vaguely if this woman had somehow slipped her something weird without her knowing.
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Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 8:17 pm
 It was sort of funny how quickly you could get to hanging out in a cave! Not that Rory would recommend it to anyone, but it was interesting to have it become so normal. There was no real sense of time passing in there, which probably should have worried him, but he was pretty good at ignoring the hours of the day anyway, so it was sort of nice to put it entirely out of his mind. But it meant that he had no long they had been in there.
He had half expected that confrontation with the walrus to be their end, but then Usagi had pointed out that they could retreat back into the passage. Now, that hadn't occurred to Rory, and he felt pretty stupid for jumping to conclusions. So, in embarrassed silence, he had pulled Usagi back into the darkness of the passage, out of the sight of the ornery walrus. He didn't wander too far in, because if there was a walrus then they were obviously going in the right direction, since walruses didn't live in the deep depths of caves since they needed to have easy water access. (Walruses didn't live in caves at all, but that wasn't important.) They could just hang out and wait until the walrus went off to hunt, then they could sneak out! No big deal! ...Until, then, though, there wasn't much to do but to sit and wait. They chatted a bit, sure, but mostly Rory was quiet. He was still embarrassed from that anticlimactic we're-about-to-die declaration. He was sure that at any moment, the walrus would leave. But it didn't. He could hear it eating the contents of the picnic basket, breaking open the wine. His stomach growled then. Mental note, never go to bed without dinner ever again, because you never know if you'll be spirited away into a cave, where you'd really appreciate the full stomach. Heck, he'd even go for the wine right now, and he wasn't much of a drinker in the first place.
Rory was starting to wonder if an intoxicated walrus were as much of an obstacle, when he heard something that made him sit straight up. "Usagi," he hissed, as if speaking too loudly would jinx it. "Do you hear that? Sounds like voices." He shakily got to his feet (he had been sitting for a while and his legs had sort of fallen asleep) and crept towards the bend of the passage leading to the cavern. "Should we go see? It may be help." It could also be the kidnapper, but to be honest, he wouldn't even mind that so much. Whatever a kidnapper had to bring would probably be better, or at least quicker, than starving to death in the dark, right?
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 2:43 pm
 And so, after Usagi's suggestion the two did retreat back into the cave. Like Rory, Usagi stayed quiet most of the time. There wasn't really a lot to talk about after all, and she was still worried the kidnapper would come back. Ugh, why couldn't the walrus just go away and let the two of them escape! Then they could be free and go back to living their lives normally, or rather, as normally as one could in Nirvani. Maybe they should go back to the walrus, they were going to die here anyway, right? How stupid she was to have even thought that they had a chance of getting away. Maybe she'd just take a nap, then she wouldn't have to think about it all. Sure, she'd probably wake up to the kidnapper finding them, but at least she wouldn't have passed her time worrying. Yes, a nap sounded good. She'd just bundle up her blanket into a pillow and fall right asleep.
She stayed quiet as she rolled the blanket, then curled up on the ground to rest her head on it. What was she supposed to do, just go "Hey Rory, I'm gonna take a nap, while we wait to die here in this cave, okay?" No, she was not going to do that. Instead, she attempted get comfortable on the floor of the cave, which she quickly learned was pretty much impossible. As she continued to do so, she heard Rory speak her name. "Voices?!" she asked, sitting up from her place on the ground. It was probably the kidnapper coming back to do whatever they had been planning. She bit her lip, as she grabbed her blanket and stoop up alongside Rory. She didn't really know why they were standing up, but she wasn't going to question it. "W-wait," she whisper-called after him, confused as to why he was heading towards their kidnapper, that is until he pointed out that it could be help. That idea hadn't occurred to Usagi, but she supposed that it could be a possibility. "Well okay," she decided, not completely sure with the decision, but hey, they may as well. That and it seemed like Rory was heading in that direction and there was no way she wanted to be left alone in the cave.
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:32 pm
 “This is not a walrus.” Xochiquetzal stated after staring into the beast's hypnotic shades for a brief period. Yes, she had felt a mental connection just then in which it was communicated to her that this was simply one of the damned, turned walrus through the Goddess' majestic will. Ah, she loved to come across symbols of her Goddess' power. She would have asked the sky spirit to partake in her awe when she heard the whispers of a man and.. then a woman's voice. Oh. She looked at the cloud with a smug look briefly because, though not all of the words were clear, some of them were blatantly English words. The same words that the spirit had tried to claim their 'friend' would not understand.
She turned to the walrus and spread her arms up high, “..Yes.. the punishment given unto you, sir Walrus, by Her will has.. come to an end. As her servant, I.. have been lead to your prison.. And will release you from these binds..!” She shut her eyes and span once, twice, and then sat down because spinning made her dizzy. But her eyes remained shut and hummed the sound of magic as her mother had done on occasion in wait for the beast to turn into human form.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 5:22 pm
'No, that is definitely a walrus. It--" Angela trailed off and stared at the woman ahead of her as she did...some weird thing, then flopped down and sat there with her eyes closed. Angela was not sure what Xochi had just done. She did know it involved talking to walrus and basically proved she was completely insane. And...and Angela realized that she had been dragged through the crazy long enough. The woman had dragged her to the police station. She had now dragged Angela to a cave in the middle of no where, and was now talking to a walrus. Yeah. Angela was done. Completely done. She was washing her hands of the madness and going back to the station to tell the police where Xochi had buggered off too and if they wanted to hunt her down and drag her back home (assuming she didn't manage to drown herself or be mauled by a walrus, that was their prerogative. But Angela was finished. She was going to go home, take a hot shower, change into clothes that weren't soaked and have tea. "Well, alright. I'm sure the walrus is quite grateful for that, but I just...I'm going to go back to the cave opening for a bit." Fumbling in her purse for the pepper spray just in case the mad lady turned on her, Angela began to inch away back toward the sound of crashing surf when she... Wait. Voices? There were other people in here!? Oh God...was this some kind of bizarre cult? They were probably going to sacrifice her to the damn walrus or something! She quickly backed to the nearest wall and started to inch back the way she'd come much faster than before. Great. Just...great. How did she always end up caught in this sort of madness?
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Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 5:58 am
 If he hadn't been so apprehensive himself, Rory would have taken a moment to appreciate how great Usagi was being. Rolling with the punches! Taking chances! He was deeply impressed by her fortitude, though he was also a little embarrassed he had underestimated her so much. When they got out of there, he was going to think a little bit about some of his prejudices and assumptions, especially towards flower shop owners. But for now, the voices held first priority, and since Usagi wasn't telling him to stay, to hide in the depths of the cave with her forever, he took a deep breath and began to move towards the cavern again. "I'll go first, so stay behind me, okay?" he half-whispered as he summoned all the determination he had.
The first thing he noticed was that, yes, the walrus had indeed gotten into the picnic basket. He didn't even know if that picnic basket had even been left for them, and yet he felt vaguely insulted. Hey, he had wanted to eat that. He was just so hungry. He wrapped his arms firmly in front of his stomach and tried to will it to stop growling. He really didn't like this walrus, not at all. He didn't even care if it was the last of its genus AND family, he had lost all appreciation for its biological majesty.
The next thing he noticed was who the voices belonged to. There was a white haired girl, whom he didn't recognize, and at first he wondered if she was the kidnapper, but then he spotted that purple haired girl sitting on the ground, and it was like all of the anxiety, worry, panic had rushed out of him at once. "Xochiquetzal?" he cried in disbelief. He had half-expected to find a grizzly hook-handed man preparing to kill him, not one of his employees. "What are you doing here? ...What are you doing there?" She was his employee, but she was still one of the greatest enigmas of the universe in his opinion, so the relief he felt was bittersweet.
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Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 8:24 pm
 Usagi nodded, staying behind Rory as he instructed. It wasn't like she had wanted to go out first anyway. As they began to move, Usagi was able to make out the voices a little better. They sounded female from what she could tell, and they were talking about the walrus? It didn't really make much sense to her, but that was okay. As long as they weren't plotting out murder plans, she didn't really care what kind of nonsense the people were talking about. Of course, it'd be preferable if they were talking about coming to rescue her and Rory, but she'd have to take what she could get.
It didn't take long until the two were close enough to see who the voices were coming from. Like she had thought, it was indeed two women, one with white hair, the other with purple. She didn't know either of them, but from what she could tell neither of them looked dangerous, which was a relief. Before she could say anything, not that she was going to anyway, Rory cried out what some really weird word/name. Something-pretzel? What? She watched her friend, as she tried to figure out what was going on. "You know her?" Usagi asked, hopeful that he did. Maybe these people really were there to help the two of them.
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