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 Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:34 pm
The Beginning of the End
Galena powered down a few blocks away from her small home in her quiet, middle class residential neighborhood. Elle’s heaven was a split level little bungalow with large sun windows and a wood porch lined with flowerpots kept trimmed and decorated and always well cared for. The neighborhood demographic was older, as was the case when Elle moved in with the previous owner.
However, her old aunt who rescued her from the dredge of her old life had since passed away. But Elle maintained the homey and delicate aesthetic left behind with diligence.
It had been a rough test of dedication these last few days. She felt gross, tired, achy, incompetent, and unworthy. None of these were good feelings, but it was the sense of worthlessness that really got to her. She didn’t want to join the Negaverse. She was just a stupid pawn in a stupid game. And unless all of the knights were in on some large scale conspiracy together, she had been taken from other things, greater things, and a different power that didn’t lock such a stifling collar at her neck.
But all of the different powers and factions and whatnot had taken her from something else. Elle had a life, she had goals and ambitions and a plan. She didn’t care about either side’s cause, she cared that she hadn’t had time to cook for herself or make any auditions in months. The war was an unwanted parasite, and she felt herself drained dry each day from the things they asked of her, from the imposition into her life. Her life wasn’t hers anymore, and the feeling of helplessness was extremely unpleasant to someone who was used to digging in their nails and taking control of any unwieldy situation.
And it would only get worse.
She started walking up the well-manicured little path to the front porch and froze. Someone was lurking. Lingering in the shadows of her unlit porch. At first Elle was afraid it was a burglar, and then maybe a fellow officer come to intrude on her life. But as she stood there staring, the figure looked back at her, and stood up with a yelp.
“Hey, sis!”
Elle almost fell over as her teenage sister bounded down the steps.
She had hoped to leave Shay behind with her mother and the lifestyle that came with her family. The teenager had only been a tween when Elle left home after locating her father’s family and starting a new life of… of well, not being what Elle perceived as lower class trash destined to go nowhere. Having practically raised Shay while their burnt out mom was off doing god knows what, it had been hard to leave her behind. Or that’s what Elle told herself. All she knew was that seeing Shay or even thinking about her sent pangs of very unpleasant feelings down to the pit of her stomach and she didn’t know how to cope with her half sister’s existence, and so when she had realized Shay was trying to get in touch with her, she had been ducking her calls.
And now she was here.
“I… hey…” She murmured, appearing suddenly detached as she robotically walked past the oncoming girl and up the steps. “Did you have a safe trip? I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Well I tried t’call,” She responded, “But I probably had a wrong number. But I don’t got no where else to be, so!”
She followed after Elle as she unlocked the door and flopped backwards on the sofa without invitation.
“I’m… sorry. Where’s Kerry?”
“Locked up again. This time for good maybe. Her new boyfriend had her running some scam it didn’t go too well. I visited her a few times and I been staying with auntie Sarah but you know, eventually they’re just gonna stick me in some group home like last time,” She put her feet up on the glass coffee table with enough force to shake the small glass bowl and books decoratively arranged on it, making Elle grimace as if she were in physical pain.
“I’m gonna be seventeen next April. I can get ah-mancipated then. So I figured, you know, you probably gotta lot going on since you left. You’re doing pretty nice! So like maybe you had a guest room or some…thing… don’t make that face, Elle, we’re family, right?”
“R-… Right.”
Elle watched as the grungy teen helped herself to the snackbowl and felt nausea bubble up. A combination of panic from wondering what she was going to do with a mouth to feed, embarrassment from what her friends would think of this unwelcome last from the past, and guilt, because you weren’t supposed to feel that way about your family.
But she did, and it was difficult.
Pastiche the cat was nowhere to be seen, but that was typical. Pastiche wasn’t fond of guests immediately on their arrival. She was probably lurking somewhere, watching with contempt. Elle sighed, deciding this meant she was truly alone with a teenager and doomed to figure out how to deal with her. She left her to the living room and went to the kitchen to busy herself. She should probably figure out sleeping arrangements and ask how she was doing. Traditionally, losing a parent—even to the court system—was difficult. But they had both lost and gained Kerry Campbell with such frequency that she was always understood to be a transient and temporary part of their lives from a very young age.
Elle almost didn’t want to know the details.
Elle was always the boss. She was never very good at not being the boss. She had a very early diagnosis of Oppositional Defiance Disorder but that was later dismissed by a new foster parent as just an excuse for being an entitled little brat and that could be ‘fixed’.
It had always cost her, though.
Elle was six when Shay was born. Kerry used to fawn and rave about how she was going to marry Shay’s dad and they would be a family. Elle distinctly remembered feeling put out. She didn’t fit in with the new, nuclear family. She had a different dad, and she was old enough to realize attention was being given to the new baby that could’ve gone to her.
But Shay’s dad didn’t last long. They never did. If Kerry was eternally temporary in their lives than the men she brought to live with them—or they went to live with—were even more so.
It didn’t take long for loyalties to shift. The girls were lucky in that they were usually homed together. Elle was quiet and Shay was a baby, and babies were good sells to prospective fosters. But they were never permanently placed. It didn’t take long for Kerry to get them back and then their get up and go never the same two days lifestyle was back.
Shay was a constant Elle had never known, and when the tot recognized her as the boss, Elle had taken it seriously. They were family. The real family, regardless of their environment. When they were in Kerry’s custody, they rarely interacted with her. At least once Elle turned ten and was dubbed old enough to babysit. Making ramen for dinner every single night until she managed to learn how to cook and bake for real and making sure Shay was dressed and ready for preschool. Soon, she was making sure Shay was dressed and ready for first grade, and she remembered the anxiety when she couldn’t walk her to school anymore due to differing schedules.
The fact that Elle was not only used to, but required to take hold of her life and be the one in control was a large factor in her devastation now. She had a long standing need to be in charge, because she had been ingrained from childhood to feel like if she didn’t, if she wasn’t in control of things, then it was all going to go to s**t in a very awful way. And no one was in charge of their own affairs in the Negaverse.
As a child, she was used to defying powerlessness. Children are often subject to authority figures, but Elle preoccupied herself with rebellion and manipulation. She saw her keepers as villains with faces and weak wills and weaknesses.
The Negaverse’s authority felt faceless.
Sure, there were generals and those higher in rank she’d never dream of defying, but what kept them bound and obedient was something above her paygrade. Secrets. And a whole different ballgame than the manipulation factor she had been skirting through life on. She had failed more harshly since corrupting than she had in her entire life, and it was difficult, and it had changed her.
She didn’t know what to do with herself. The stress was unbearable. And now Shay was here. More stress. Someone to be responsible for. Someone to pay for. Someone to protect when she was learning all of her ideas about protecting herself were grossly overinflated in the magical game of Destiny City.
All she could do was nervously shake and fold napkins in the kitchen. She became vaguely aware that Shay was talking, but she wasn’t registering what she was saying, and she made no attempt to. She didn’t need to know what had happened since she left. She didn’t want to know.
The last time Kerry lost them, Elle was around Shay’s age, and they didn’t go to fosters. They went to a relative of her father’s who had mysteriously appeared for a few weeks to take care of them. Elle could tell she thought they were newer to this than they were as the proper and prim older woman explained to them that ‘mommy was sick’. She wasn’t even sure if ten year old Shay bought it or if she was nodding and pretending out of courtesy. Elle didn’t mind her, though. She needed care like Shay needed care and she simply took up responsibilities for both of them. She was running the house as normal, and in that, she thrived.
But Kerry came home, determined to be the mom and do better, and things rarely go well with two moms. Elle’s defiance couldn’t be ignored or manipulated away any longer. The fights were vicious and loud and sometimes frighteningly physical. Kerry would go back to her vices, all the while sobbing and blaming Elle for driving her to them by being so horrid. Elle had felt put out by an incompetent woman who had no right to put herself in such a position as mother. Elle had raised Shay, Elle had done the work, Elle had kept things together. It wasn’t fair.
Things came to a breaking point, and Elle left for good. Her father’s old aunt still needed her, and she offered her safe refuge in her Destiny City home. Shay had to stay, and Elle did her best to harden to that fact. Shay would have to survive on her own, just like Elle had to survive on her own, and there was no helping it. It was better just to forget Shay had ever existed as she moved on to better things, and connections to a different family, and a different life.
Elle twisted the final napkin, afraid to let it go. She glanced at the clock on the oven and realized an hour had passed. Shay wasn’t talking in the background of her thoughts anymore, and when she quietly crept back into the living room, she saw the gangly teen sprawled out on the sofa dead asleep and snoring.
At least that was one problem solved.
Elle exhaled and paced around, spotting Pastiche’s white bundle of fur chasing after her in the hallway as she scooped her up and vigorously started petting the protesting and mewling kitten.
At least there was one creature in this world Elle still had authority over, she thought as the small feline dug claws into her flesh and got no reaction for the trouble.
(2007 words)
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Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 6:11 am
Emptiness
Sometimes when things were magical it was hard to tell if you were legitimately going crazy or if you had a calling to something greater.
Galena had decided it was much more pleasant to decide it was a calling. Something itching, scratching at the back of her mind, eager to come out. The dark things being real at least implied some benevolence, because at the very least the dark seemed to have abstained from devouring the world as they knew it. Instead, it extended an invitation, and she was inclined to accept it in the hopes of continuing that benevolence of balance. It had started with dreams, and that evolved into entities in her memory that seemed real enough to have actually happened. She remembered confidence, purpose, and that was probably the hardest thing to reconcile with the present day when she was so uncertain and felt so useless.
The Negaverse ran everything. They had everyone. Shay was no problem for her, no lingering reminder of what she’d done. Antiope was by her side, bearing the signifiers of a corrupt senshi. She remembered, so clearly, holding a glass of wine in one hand and stroking her cheek with the other. They were happy. They were dark, rotted to the core, but so was the rest of the world. They had carved out a place, just for them.
That ended. She couldn’t quite remember how, but she remembered losing her.
What kept recurring over and over in her head, though, was the army of youma she had commanded with nothing but a word and all of her power and authority as a seasoned general. The youma, clawing, snarling, struggling through victims. Masses.
Her early fascination that led her to watch them as a lieutenant had grown, rather forcibly. They were always in her thoughts, always present. They were a solution to a problem she couldn’t quite remember.
“What is it about you?” She found herself saying, having traveled down to the Rift during a night of sleeplessness again. She had found a feral creature with a dog’s sad face, sniffing around broken Rift crystals she would have loved to take as samples. “No starseed, no soul, but you still seek them.” Making physical contact was a slow process. Asserting her control and making doubly sure it was weak enough to bend to her. She slowly put one hand to its watching face, and then the other, and then for the briefest moment she held its face in her hands and stared, searching for a glimmer of humanity or intelligence and finding nothing but the most basic of survival skills. Void of everything but hunger and obedience.
“I keep thinking you’re such a sad, wretched thing, but there is no capacity for sadness anywhere in you, is there?”
In a twisted way, it was almost something to aspire to.
A dark absence of everything that held her back. Youma didn’t feel humiliation at being used. Youma didn’t feel shame in their survival tactics. A strange sort of perfection.
(506)
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Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:06 pm
Becoming Unburdened
Backdated to some nondescript time in February.
“I hate it when he’s here,” A six year old Shay had bemoaned into the cheap, peeling linoleum of the kitchen floor just near where it stopped and old, shag carpet began. It was 2004. Ten year old Elle stepped over the lump of a body and onto a step stool to busy herself on the counter. She had been equally soured on their mother’s latest boyfriend, who instituted rules about what times of the day the girls were allowed in various parts of the small, income housing apartment. However, he had forgotten to give them clearance to come out in a long time, long enough that Elle had made the executive decision to venture into the kitchen. The reason their confinement had been forgotten was immediately apparent when they noticed the empty bottles trailing down the hall to the other bedroom. Elle found a clock and realized it was just after two in the morning, and neither of them had eaten all day, but with their keepers briefly incapacitated it didn’t take long for the two girls to retain run of the house. Elle was assembling peanut butter sandwiches and looking down at the lump of child who remained face down on the floor, arms pressed to her side.
“He is the only reason there is a here,” She countered.
“I don’t like here either, it smells gross, and Mrs. Fisher’s cat bit me.”
“Mildew. Get your face off the floor,” Elle said, holding a plate in one hand and ushering her waif of a sister up with the other. Shay’s forehead peeled off the surface, leaving red marks where she had deliberately pressed into the kitchen floor. “Just because Mrs. Fisher feeds him doesn’t make him her cat, don’t pet him anymore.”
“I wasn’t,” The little girl squeaked, grabbing a triangle of grilled peanut butter off the plate and awkwardly trying to climb into a chair at the table. “It’s just s-sometimes when I goed to auntie’s house he’s waiting in the alleyway just before the crosswalk and he… he just… he uh…” Shay stuffed her mouth like a squirrel, needing more time to think up her lie.
“You’re going to catch something, and then your leg will rot off and you’ll die,” Elle said flatly as she carefully put everything back the way it was.
“That’s okay. He’s a mean kitty but someone needs to feed him or he’ll go hungry. I hate being hungry. Do you think he’s going to stay forever?”
“The cat?”
“No. You know. Him.”
“They’re never forever.”
Elle had never known her father. He was some non-relevant figure. One of Kerry’s boyfriends or fiancés or prince charmings and in the end, Elle honestly didn’t think much of men in general. They were rarely part of her life in any significant fashion. They were there to be used or use and they were never permanent fixtures. It was easier to remember them as faceless entities than really people, but even though his name was forgotten, her mom’s current boyfriend at the time had his face permanently etched in her mind. His rules and schedules and very meticulous ways he controlled not just their mother, but them as well. Even when he forgot about them, she remembered the nights of weighing the consequences of defying him, at least until she found a pattern and methodology for personal defiance and survival. He would always tower in her mind as her most difficult adversary, though. She didn’t know if it was really an especially bad time or if it was her age, but she remembered fear and uncertainty she never wanted to feel again.
It took a little bit longer to figure out the plan to getting there, tough.
She didn’t remember much of what was going on around that time, but looking back through an adult lens, she understood more than she had, and even though she didn’t feel the need to turn over every stone in that unfortunate situation, it made sense that shortly after they found themselves staying with a different family. More relatives that weren’t really relatives in any discernible way. It was one of the nicer homes they’d stayed in. The girls had to share a room, but at this point it was expected and even preferred. Shay liked to crawl into Elle’s bed whenever there was no nightlight. The mom was nice, and neither of them smelled like smoke. The entire house, actually, was downright pleasant. Shay was the chatterbox, the social butterfly. Elle tended to stay off to the side and say little. She maintained her routine, but in this new situation, waking up at two in the morning to rustle around the kitchen or stashing food in your bedroom was frowned on. She was blamed for ants and unfair distribution of cupcakes and continually spent most of her time in the time-out corner with her nose pressed against the door.
“That’s not your job,” She remembered the mother scolding her. “I’ll worry about when dinner’s ready. Go play.”
Elle didn’t take well to the adjustment.
Everything, everything had its place.
The memory of such rigid difficulty in dealing with changes
It wasn’t her job, and she rebelled and fought until one day, they were moving again. One day it was her job again.
Since she left home to reconnect with her father’s family, she hadn’t suffered any major routine changes until her corruption, and even then it was more like a new layer of stressors than a change up of the old ones.
But Shay was back, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to cope with that instability anymore. Elle hadn’t had to deal with changes in routine and hierarchy in years. It had been the longest streak of normality she had in the entirety of her twenty-two years. But recently, that had ended. First with Shay, and then being promoted to captain. Grilled peanut-butter sandwiches seemed to be a throwback to trying to cope when there was no other way, and it happened to be the menu choice on this particular late night as Elle waited for Shay. Normally she threw together elaborate and often tiresome meals, but tonight, there was only sweatpants and comfort food while she picked at her plate and waited for Shay to come in. If the teenager was going to live here, there were going to be some rules, she concluded. That should make the sixteen year old terror occupying her guest room more bearable.
A curfew. It was only right that she stayed up and waited for her to get in, to make sure she was alright. It was the responsible, sisterly thing to do. But already she felt ugly thoughts creep in, as they did when she thought about Shay. This was how it went, with the nostalgic reminders of how with no one reliable around them, they relied on each other. It was followed up by bitter thoughts about lost childhood, and at current, lost sleep. Lost money, as her presently comfortable finances would strain with a teenage mouth to feed and school. Lost everything. Shay had been a responsibility, and Elle had taken care of her, but at the same time, Shay was a lot of other things too. A burden. A reminder. A holdover from darker days.
She didn’t want her around, but she also didn’t want to admit she didn’t want her around. That made her a bad person, and she was never going to let go of her image as nurturing and domestic. Sometimes, that involved having the life sucked out of you by wayward family members, she guess.
The doors at the front opened and closed, and Elle propped her head up, eager for confirmation Shay was alive and in one piece so she could go indulge in the sweet release of sleep and think up a variety of torturous groundings.
But Shay tore in with a burst of energy, displacing a disturbed Pastiche and sending the small cat yowling and whining into the other room. “Elle! Elephant! Holy s**t, you are not gonna believe the night I just had!”
Elle went back to leaning on the counter with a long groan. “Eat and go to bed, Shay, you can tell me about it in the morning.”
“No, it’s really important! Like a secret important!”
Elle still seemed unamused. Shay persisted.
“You know, we always share secrets. We promised, right? Well I just got a pretty big one tonight, and I wanna show you. You always had the better secrets, but mine wins for sure.”
Elle was too busy cradling her head on the counter to notice that her sister produced a henshin pen in her hands, and continued to jabber on.
“I was just hanging out around the gas station, yanno? Thinking about nachos maybe. But then when I was wandering around, there was this cat. But like, a freaky talking cat.”
And, now Elle was listening. If she had been holding anything, she might have dropped it. “What?”
“Okay, before you go on thinking I was on something—I’m not, by the way, I know I seem like a total speed freak right now—It was a legit talking cat. From space. Don’t look at me like I’m so crazy,” She laughed, and then held out the henshin pen, wiggling it back and forth as if to brag. “It was legit, and it gave me this thing and, okay, Elephant, this is the test. The major decider. Did someone put something into my drink, oooooooor…” She leaned over and did a quick drum roll on the counter, and then called out her make-up. Elle found herself faced with a senshi. A White Moon senshi. In her house. Her sister.
Shay, or whoever Shay was in this form, was spinning around and showing off elaborate braids and giggling with joy. “I knew it,” She gushed. “It’s real. You’re speechless. I knew it. This secret is way better than any of yours. I am an honest to go magical ******** gi—hey!”
Shay’s enthusiasm was cut short by a very tired Elle grasping her shoulders. “Power down. Now.”
“Holy s**t, what?”
“Think of how you were before you did this and power down. This is dangerous. You’re broadcasting an aura in my house. Power down.”
“Elle, s**t,” Shay was almost in tears. With Elle in bare feet and Shay in boots, the lanky teen’s height advantage showed, having a few inches on her older sister. But she was still intimidated at being given orders and having her shoulder squeezed. “Elle, stop, that ******** hurts.”
“Power down and give me the pen,” Elle demanded forcefully, sacrificing her grip in order to hold out her hand.
Sailor Shay took a step back and looked to be near tears, instead.
“No,” She said finally, after a moment of tense silence. “I’ve been taking care of myself for the last six years. I make my own ******** choices, Elle. ******** you!”
Elle was shaking, and she wasn’t sure from what. The new danger that was presented or being defied like this, but she broke and ended up pointing towards the door. “Then get out of my house.”
Shay’s nostrils flared, and she glanced around as if thinking about other options. Elle knew right then that once she had calmed down, Shay would crawl back apologizing and asking to continue living here. This wasn’t going to end tonight, regardless of their choices. Stupid Shay had to go talk to a senshi cat and ruin what little bit of their lives Elle had just started convincing herself they could rebuild. What options could they possibly have now, with Elle being part of an organization that wanted senshi dead that watched her every move? Well, wait. The organization.
Even as Shay made a show of walking out the door and flipping her off the whole way, the wheels in Elle’s head were turning. Shay was still powered up as… whoever she was as a senshi. She was probably headed to one of her hangout spots, probably to brag some more.
As soon as Shay seemed to be safely gone, Elle powered up into Captain Galena and summoned her communication crystal. There was someone who knew how to deal with senshi more than she did. He had been the one who taught her how they work, after all.
“Labyrinthite, dear, are you still around these days? I need a favor.”
(2080)
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:12 am
Reserved for [r] Open Eyes
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:29 am
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Out with the Old
“Desdemona is not Shay,” Was the internal mantra Elle kept telling herself. The thing and ragged girl that had come to her after the events of her corruption had filled an empty space. A guest room with no guest. A teenage girl’s clothes, but not teenage girl. “But… she might be close enough to matter.”
Shay just vanished. And Elle had been silently glad for it.
She had reservations about Desdemona, but obedience and manners won her over. Desdemona was broken, where Shay had been wild and disobedient. Elle could manage broken much easier. She would rather lose sleep to comforting nightmares and making tea rather than waiting up all night for curfew breakers. She would rather indulge in the opportunity to mold someone into something greater, than have a lingering, physical manifestation reminding her of a past full of failures, mishaps, and humiliations.
Desdemona was a trade up.
And Elle found solace in having a home to clean and meals to cook for two again. This is the way it should be, she concluded. She was at her best when caring for another, and Desdemona was a good candidate.
Although she wished Shay would stop haunting her life completely. Maybe with someone so similar she could begin to project onto the improvement. And Shay’s clothes could go somewhere.
Galena would later file a positive report on the new conscript’s prospects as an obedient soldier. But it was outside her reports she found herself flailing.
A tangible record of undue and borderline traitorous thoughts was not a wise thing to keep, but as she built up these reports, playing the role of obedient officer and acting her full part, she feared some part of her would be lost soon, if she didn’t have somewhere to be honest, to record her thoughts.
Personal notes to stash away began.
Personal Notes: Desdemona/Amphitrite
An unexpected gift. Sometimes things come in unusual packaging. I was not please to find what was left of Shay’s body, broken, empty, save for a few memories and the dark hole cracked in her forehead where a senshi tiara once was.
It is no matter. They have given me someone new, and she will go on to either be useful or eliminated. Still, I cringe at the thought of seeing her face at gatherings. She doesn’t remember me, so there is no need to explain or discuss anything with her. It is simply time for use to part ways permanently.
Desdemona needs work, but she listens. She takes what she is given. She should be safe here. If nothing else, at least what Shay has left will not be wasted, and my diversions in her care are far more pleasant.
(451)
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:41 am
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:43 am
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 4:58 pm
[r] Evolution Solutions
Personal Notes: Quartz
If there was ever a poster child for sad eyes and dead faces. He humiliated me, but he understands things in ways others don't. His presence is a welcome catharsis and constant reminder of personal fortune. The ugly friend you bring to parties to ease your own insecurities.
He is also painfully gullible. He didn't give me anything when I thought I'd lured him into a comfortable enough state to confess sympathy for the enemy, so he is smart enough for that. Not nearly smart enough to avoid contributing to my energy count.
Thank you, Quartz. You are a benefit in every way, I look forward to future encounters.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 5:05 pm
[r] She Called it Option Two
Personal Notes: Shalott
A non-violent general-equivalent is a welcome sight on tired nights. The knight is kindly, matronly, and has optimistic views on the eventual outcome of the war. She doesn't seem to fear the confirmation that darkness will engulf, as foretold through everyone's visions. Even seeing the end, she denies its inevitability.
Her ideals are charming, but a fantasy. As much as one may long for a knight's freedom I see no good things to come of antagonizing the dogs of war, lest they loosen teeth on their current targets and turn them on me. I've seen traitors crushed in their jaws before, and my only thought to be had was gratefulness that wasn't me.
Still, she was right about one thing. I cannot continue these clandestine meetings with Antiope in the park. A choice has to be made. I will make it, as soon as I know of the solution.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 5:49 pm
Terms of Endearment
“The serpent and the apple is a little bit on the nose, yah?”
Elle snapped her head up from the hair sticks in her hand and quickly covered them back up in the velvet sheath they had come in when she saw the speaker. An inch or two taller than her. Freckled. Blonde hair.
She looked like a different person than the Shay she knew, but the glamour that protected Sailor Freia had been broken some time ago for her, and her lips formed a disgusted sneer in pure and instantaneous reaction at the recognition.
She turned on her heel and walked in the other direction down the sidewalk. The blonde pursued. “Hey, wait up!”
“I thought I made myself clear when I said I was nothing to you,” Elle said dryly as she moved things around in her purse to deposit her recent purchase, only to have it snatched from her fingers as the other girl darted past. “Hey!”
“You’re something, though! Cause… I remember you, and I don’t remember a lot of people,” She argued, standing in front of Elle and holding the hair sticks in their velvet bag close to her chest, hoping to gain her attention.
It worked, but only as long as it took for Elle to stand there, looking especially put upon with her hand out. “I custom ordered those for a friend, please return them.”
“The Negaverse is supposed to be a family…”
“If you won’t return them, I will take them by force.”
This at least prompted her to stop and look at them, sliding the velvet down a bit to look at the hair sticks again. One decorated with a twisted and knotted serpent and an emerald and the other with a ruby cut like an apple, nearly identical to what Galena’s lieutenant weapon had been. Raisa still thought it was too on the nose.
“Shay—“
“My name is Ray now. I got a new name when I joined the Negaverse. Who are these for?”
“A close friend.”
“But who?” Raisa let out a long, pained sigh and bounced on her heels. “He… he told me the Negaverse is a family, right? But I’ve been just… isolated and lonely. I want to feel connected to people! I feel connected to you! I just… come on, Elle, who are you? Who’s your friend? Are the in the Negaverse databank? Can I meet them?”
That outburst of optimism prompted Elle to glance over her shoulder to make sure there were no bystanders about, and then power up into Captain Galena. She quickly reached out and grabbed Raisa by the lower jaw and dragged her into the alleyway, slamming the thin girl against the brick wall.
Her first order of business was to wrench away the hairsticks, and the second was to place her free hand over Raisa’s mouth as her grip started to dig the flesh of her cheeks into her molars, making Raisa release a small whine.
“I don’t like seeing your face,” Galena whispered in her ear. “I don’t want to know who you’re learning to be, I don’t want to know your new name, I don’t want to know anything about you. Go find Layrinthite and be his family. Go find another officer and be their family. I am nothing special to you, and I don’t have any desire to be, Sailor Freia.”
She released her, but Raisa wasn’t about to do much more than lean against the wall, looking wide eyed and betrayed. She had an implicit trust for anyone in the faction, but especially Elle, who haunted her very sparse memory with some unknown connection she refused to name. “I… I just…”
The rejection hurt. But it was especially gut wrenching when she felt so new to the world, and she had hardly any connections with humans like she craved. Raisa couldn’t bite back the welling tears, but she did her best to avoid sobbing.
Galena took a step back and checked over the hair sticks she had custom ordered and spent a pretty penny on, doing her best not to give any attention to Raisa’s current state.
“I don’t understand what I did to you,” Raisa eventually choked out, failing at her efforts not to cry. "Why are you so mad at me?"
Galena glanced to her, and then back down to the accessories in her hand. After a moment of thought, she answered, “It certainly can’t be helped. But never fear, Freia, or Raisa, or whoever you prefer to be these days. I am sure you’ll locate a new family.”
And she teleported away. Elle had left the house today to pick up her order and excitedly think about how best to present a gift to Antiope, and now she was just in a foul mood at the reminder of strings and baggage and mistakes.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 6:04 pm
[r] Down in the Depths
Personal Notes: Cinnabar
Unexpected, but not unwelcome. Cinnabar has always been... special. In that way. And too easy.
In more relevant notes besides possibly ill advised trysts in the Rift, however, Cinnabar sheds light on interesting youma habits. They avoid her, and she feeds on them. An apex predator or an outsider because of her retention of human qualities? More interesting is Baal.
A name denotes an identity. A voice denotes a consciousness. She hears him and he waits. Either cohabitation or parasitism, it is a unique insight to the more internal qualities. I wonder how much the feral ranking youma feel, beyond hunger. I wonder if Baal feels, or if he is simply logical and intelligently sentient in his predation. If he was without Cinnabar, how elegantly efficient would that creature be? No wonder she was almost devoured when she attempted to bind him.
I'll be spending tonight in the Rift, but sans the companionship. Cinnabar is a lovely distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 6:18 pm
[r] The Things that Lurk
Personal Notes: Merlinite
This changes everything.
I've always known youma were creatures that were inundated in Chaos. Beings formed from energy and magic, built on a scaffold of flesh. Their creation always seemed to be an accident or a mutation or an evolution. A flood of power from Metallia herself or an ancient power from time we can't access anymore. I was naive, but I still never conceived we had the power to create them ourselves.
Or that one would use that power on a comrade.
Merlinite has always been the keeper of things outside my reach. Confidence, power, promotion. Still, he posits confidence I could leave, that I could become a knight where he couldn't. I could never surpass him, how could he expect me to advance where he couldn't? Survive an endeavor that left him so broken? I will miss our fights, strange as that sounds. No one made me grind my teeth like he did when he smiled.
His huddled figure of leather wing and scales among tatters will be stuck in my mind for a while. Sill, choices are inevitable now. I think...
I think Merlinite has presented a solution to my problem, though.
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 6:41 pm
[r] Dies Irae
Personal Notes: Leucite
First impressions in my kitchen left me pegging him as inept, awkward, and sorely lacking in manners. An improvement, when he escorted me to the Rift. Easily frightened. Hilariously loyal to a rotten cause.
Fears the senshi as intergalactic tyrants. Has he seen what I seen?
The second expedition to the Rift was more infuriating. A gentleman, for sure. Captaincy suits him well. He seems to be sore about my teasing, or maybe he just doesn't trust me.
He bonded a youma where I couldn't. A decent looking canine. I can repair the trust issue; He accepted a proposition, he'll accept more if it is asked in gentle tones with a light touch.
Still, frustration mounts. My failures in binding a youma of my own in spite of ongoing study just feel... crippling.
Maybe my standards are too high. Or maybe my caution betrays me. Are puncture wounds so much to pay for the accomplishment?
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Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 7:04 pm
Reserved for [r] Backstage (Elle/Lazarus)
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