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 Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:31 pm
Ida caught something with her knee; she felt it connect solidly, even as pain ricocheted up her arms as teeth sank deeper. Unintentional side effect and a noise of pain tore itself from her throat, rough-edged and desperate.
And then the world exploded, a pressure bursting outwards almost from inside her head. She lost all thought for a moment as it threw her sideways, nearly ripping her arms from the teeth and definitely testing the strength of the joints in her shoulders. Ida hung from the monster's jaws, dazed, and vaguely the question swum to the surface: Had he hit her with his hammer?
She had half been expecting that... but no, if he had she'd probably be worse off than she was. A little more of her wavered back enough to note that she was still mostly intact, if battered and bleeding. Her jaw felt like it ground against itself when she moved it, but she couldn't grasp enough in her daze to format any kind of a response, or even try to free herself from the youma again.
Ida knew she had to move... he was going to hit her again, but it was hard to make herself do it when her head swam and pain washed over her in waves of searing red and deep dark purple behind her eyes.
It wasn't supposed to go like this. They weren't supposed to fight. He wasn't supposed to be so intractable. What she said should have moved him... she didn't understand what went wrong any more.
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Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:14 pm
Metal screamed over pavement for them all. Gaping maws sparked while momentum caught gripped hammer and hand up to first. Titanlåvenite stepped, reached, took the thin throat from beneath rain of ash, running blood and bear spit. The youma lowed, letting go the arms with some gnashing, pawed and lumbered back a few steps. Her neck was thin. Her hair, soft shaded and glossy, tickled at the barrier his glove. We cannot touch each other. He lifted her away from the creature, dangling-dancing on air. Her starseed would be one less senshi, one less eternal that refused Metallia’s banner. He set his hammer down, holding her. A senshi could be grasped from the back and taken just the same as from the front. Dreams of false futures held crass legends for them all. This was all the land of the Queen, Metallia. By laws of challenge, Ida’s life was rightfully forfeit. “Go and heal.” Skeiðbrimir vanished away to his command. Starseed claimed, crush her, break her against the vehicle or wall, capture her to one of the sovereigns- the leather of his glove creaked while his grip shifted, tightening and loosening. Tightening. It would be all rightfully done. “This is wrong.” Difference of how we act to our goal shouldn’t be death. Not if the goal is the same. A fight yes, but death…this is Ida. Seconds were ticking by, and he held her only. Looked at her and the blood making river deltas on her arm. I should not feel…..nothing. I feel nothing. “All the color is swallowed. “ His fingers opened, giving her control back to herself and gravity to fall as she may on foot or heap. Purple for chicory, white for lace, green and blue the Earth, iron-rich-red her soil. ‘Daisy. Rose. Lily, and Iris.’ They are all shadowed in black. They don’t feel. Not at all anymore. “You are right. This is wrong.”
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Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 1:35 pm
Fangs released her arms as a fist closed around her neck, and Ida hung in the grip like a doll, all loose joints and dangling limbs. Her arms burned from the wounds she had taken, hot with blood and ash-coated. Her senses still reeled from the blow and when she reached to grip his dark glove, her fingers barely had the strength of a kitten against him.
Not that she wanted to fight any more. He lifted her up till her feet dangled and she felt suddenly afraid, but... resigned? Maybe not accepting, but acknowledging what might be inevitable. He was going to kill her. Or hurt her near to it.
She still didn't believe that Titan, the true man inside whomever this was, was capable or desired to kill her. But he was so full of chaos now... so deep into it... It wasn't like it was him any more, now. This wasn't the person she remembered, who snapped at her and weighed a youma's injury more heavily than her life.
His hammer hit the ground hard, heavy as it was, and his voice was a deep, base rumble in his chest. Familiar, but different. She felt hot tears running down her cheeks, but they hardly registered past the pain and the sense of what was coming. An expression of remorse and regret... of sadness. Her fingers dug into his as he tightened his grip and she choked... before he spoke.
She didn't really understand what he said, her head spinning. He held her, dangled her weight painfully from her neck, but that was all. She kept expecting him to... but the seconds stretched and turned and moved on. Slow as blood that dripped from the points of her elbows.
All the color is swallowd. Ida didn't understand that either. Was he talking about her? Him? Metallia?
Suddenly his grip released and her weight pulled her from his hand. Ida wasn't expecting it and when her feet hit the ground, her knees crumpled under the pressure. She sat down hard with her legs curled awkwardly to either side, a hand braced against the ground to keep her upright as she curled the other re-actively around her abused neck.
"Titan..." She croaked, her voice roughened before she cleared it and swallowed thickly. She was still crying. "I'm sorry..."
She wasn't sure which one of the many things she was sorry for, but she didn't know what else to say just then. The argument seemed past, at this point, whether he had won or she had, or no one at all. But she regretted having it, even if she still didn't agree with him.
This is wrong. A tiny, terrible little flutter of hope, tentative and shy and carefully guarded. You're still in there.
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Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:12 pm
Ratcheted inch-by-inch, Titan crouched. He watched Ida, not staring, but not avoiding looking at her: damage, uniform, motions and mien. Silence, but for raspy breathing and the small sounds of ground under boots, wrapped them and her words altogether. A strange impasse, like when he first met her and had to admit he couldn’t win a battle. Titan had surrendered his prize, then. Now, she could not force from him starseeds or energy tithe. He could not force her death. Neither black or purple. This night is grey. That is something, isn’t it? What is there to explain, or why? We could say everything, and it would end up as it was moments ago. So he waited, there, until her breathing seemed to even out as much as could be hoped for after hard use. Finally, words came back to her: “I want to be sorry, too.” Should be, at the situation and the outcome. The breathing and waiting wasn’t bringing any change despite the wrongness or realisations. It made him suspect and dour at even that much wording- ‘want.’ It seemed to go too far into feeling, into regret, even in attempting to convey that there wasn’t any to begin with- Can a person feel regret for not regretting?“It doesn’t come, “ The words came out on a long breath. He stood, turning towards the rest of the city. “ It doesn’t reach me, now. Keep your light, Ida. Keep it bright. “
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:05 pm
He was large, and he loomed... but then smaller, as he brought himself down to her level. Just that, from standing to crouching, no words spoken, and yet her heart heard volumes in his motion. He got closer, got smaller, and he waited, saying nothing.
Whatever had happened, the fight was over. Ida's chest ached with the pent up emotion, bubbling up and over and running down her cheeks. The view of him wavered with it and long moments passed as she gulped breaths that slowed and evened. She watched him as he watched her and she saw a large man with broad shoulders, thick hands, and a swath of blonde hair that still managed to shine gold in the low light. The face was familiar and unfamiliar, the strong line of the jaw and the jut of his nose, but the warmth she remembered wasn't there and she had to admit that it never really had been. It was things tied up with moments that hadn't happened, but even in his blacks and greys she saw the bones of someone she knew.
She couldn't give that up. She clung to it. Hver called her stubborn, and she was.
Ida blinked when he finally spoke again, a string of rumbling bass she almost felt. He wasn't sorry, but somehow, he knew he should be. He knew he had a reason to be sorry, and he knew that he didn't feel something he should. It was a small thing, in form, but just like his motion to crouch, it was so much more too.
She didn't rise when he did. It felt safer, less combative, to stay as she was. Her throat worked as she swallowed and she scrubbed the heels of her hands against her face, trying to avoid smearing blood from the wounds in her arms.
"I will. If... if you ever need it, its yours." She said softly, watching his hands rather than his face. "I'll come. I promise."
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Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2018 4:10 pm
Wordless, nodded, then vanished away. There was energy to put to the collection. There was a youma to check on in the Rift. There was quiet in the shadows, there, without tears or voices or anything messy. The rift was dry, the Throne was silent, and absence was a kind of comfort anymore. Is it a kind of cowardice, not to face everything, all the time? Is that asking too much of men? Of weapons? Of me?
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