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 Posted: Wed May 30, 2018 6:47 pm
Faustite expected Kiuchi to take the starseed, yes. He expected Kiuchi to find a proper space on his island, place the starseed on the indescribable earth, and press his foot into it as he did with the other crystals. Then, he expected nothing more to come of it. Crushed shards would clump together, perhaps a few sticking to Kiuchi's sandal, and the pair would simply kick the wasted pieces off the island and into the ether.
But Faustite did not see what he expected. He saw Kiuchi pop the gem into his mouth, bite down, and go into near paroxysms at once. He felt Kiuchi clamber over him, forcing him into the heated pool while hasty limbs sought leverage on his lap and face. And after going under for a moment, Faustite dragged himself to the surface and spat the bitter springs water that found its way into his mouth. Spitting, he turned in time to see telltale undulations running down the Mirror Senshi's sides. Starseeds are our domain, then.
Despite the sloshing in his chest, Faustite climbed from the hot spring. He settled to his knees and rubbed Kiuchi's bare back at the valley between his shoulder blades. On and on Kiuchi emptied himself, the stream quickly tapering from thick to thin to viscous strands of saliva. The process looked painful, sounded painful, and provided great insight into how best to punish one of Kiuchi's allies in the court. But Faustite's sour vengeance was left to cool for now.
And while Faustite made no guess of the food the senshi ate before their visit, he picked out one of the larger starseed shards from the mess. Framed between long fingernails, Faustite reached back and swished the shard through the spring water. Then, upon finding it largely pristine, he popped the piece into his mouth. After a robust crunch, he felt residual streaks of life and brilliance sing through his body. It pleased him to still taste better memories.
"Unfortunate," Faustite commented on the starseed rather than the mess. He shifted enough to guide Kiuchi by the shoulders toward the spring. "Rinse your mouth out. You don't want that taste to linger." Fingers petted away his bangs and a handful of water was applied to Kiuchi's forehead to mend the malaise.
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2018 7:00 pm
Just as he was rocking backward, so he could get into a crouching posistion, he found the other guiding him back towards the spring. The others gentle words helpful to him, glad for the others presence and how he'd been soothed, he took some water into one shaking hand and brought it to his lips. Sucking it up he spat the water out onto the white ground. It wasn't that the water tasted bad, he didn't notice that really, he just needed to clean the taste away rather than ingest the water.
"I don't think...that it works for us." He managed to get out with some pause in his words as he turned his wet lash framed eyes onto the other. "Don't think it would grow anything either..." He had a feeling it was incompatible with them altogether. Perhaps though it didn't go both ways? Maybe a crystal from here, found in mirrorspace, would do something in the others home?
"I didn't expect that." Blinking he found himself reaching out to cling onto the Captain, his own fingers moving to undo the sleeveless top he wore. The wet fabric, which clung to him, feeling much too tight on his chest and he still felt shaky from the sudden bout of sickness. He didn't want something so confining, and conforming, across his chest and shoulders right now. With the buttons undone, by shaky fingers, he tossed the heavy fabric a distance and settled for clinging to the others with long, slender, digits.
"Didn't like that..." Not one bit. He didn't like being sick, but who did really? But he wasn't the sort to like it because it made him feel weak and useless and he didn't like feeling like every ounce of his strength, little as it was, had been taken from him. He felt smaller than he was and far more frail...almost like a waif really. While he didn't like his height, and always sort of wanted to be smaller, it wasn't in this way that he wanted to feel smaller.
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2018 7:23 pm
Faustite stared hard at Kiuchi. "I hadn't noticed."
Blisteringly obvious observations aside, Faustite moved to get up when arms found their way around his shoulders and waist. Sitting there, trapped in arms larger than his, he realized the pair should have been born in each other's bodies. Kiuchi acted like a shrinking violet in a far taller frame whereas Faustite found his presence stunted by his stature. But nothing yet existed to body swap them and the captain was certain Kiuchi didn't want the drawbacks of a youmafied body. Even now, he felt overheated and his breaths came staccato short against water pressure.
"You need air. I'll teleport us out." With his arm rested against Kiuchi's back, Faustite called to mind the familiar, jutting teeth of the city. He framed in his mind the way they jackknifed back and forth, ever uneven, ever resolute against a cloudy skyline. And the location of his choice — a bench-laden rooftop to a bank — sported a graveled roof with a potted arborvitae wall and a foot-high parapet. Sun dappled the rocks as it streaked through thick leaves, having found a breech in the grey overcast…
But still they remained in Mirrorscape. Faustite opened his eyes to the selfsame blankness, the ethereal glow, the smatter of false stars. He snorted and indulged in a wry smirk. Of course.
"We can't leave like that." His gaze found the spire's crown immediately. "I wonder if it's stopping me." Would it halt a general? A sovereign? Faustite set his teeth.
He stood with some effort as he held fast to his burden. A captain's strength made trivial work of hoisting another person's body weight. "It's on you to get us out." He looked to Kiuchi, face sallow and drawn from vomiting, with the boy looking far weaker in the otherworldly light. Shadows darkened the contours of his eyes too far; either Kiuchi wore makeup or those were markings. He mentioned scars before, Faustite was certain.
"Walk with me." Because Faustite expected him to walk.
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2018 7:32 pm
He knew teleporting wouldn't work, knew it would fail the other, but he didn't get time to say it. He remained curled on the other, clinging, as he laid his head on the smallness shoulder. When the other seemed to realize it he nodded his head, lifting it slowly as he did so. "Won't let anyone teleport...in or out...mirrorspace is the same." He spoke softly.
Vomiting as he had with such a confining shirt on, due to the water, had made breathing an issue for him and catching his breath now was something of an issue but he was working on it. Trying to time his breaths and even them out. "Never could...even before mirrorscape...couldn't teleport." He chipped in the extra bit of information. The dark mirror senshi's home was safe from being penetrated by the enemy, at least he hoped, but it could always kidnap the enemy and bring them here...into it's domain. It could, perhaps, one day bring the white moon and knights, even the negaverse, into it's realm and let them loose on unsuspecting dark mirrors...force some fight and trap them all.
It was never something he'd thought about till this moment and the thought didn't last long - thankfully as the other was telling him it was on him to get them out...and it was on him.
"Mmmm....need to get you somewhere else - water in your pipes...right?" He asked, thinking of the other, as he moved his legs one in front of the other. Towards the wall of mirrors so he could get them out of here. "Back in the city...where to when we get there?" Hoping they could at least remain together, he didn't want his night to end on these sorts of terms...it looked and felt wrong.
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2018 8:32 pm
"Useful," Faustite commented dryly. That Mirrorspace allowed no teleportation at any point was necessary information if Sinope decided to launch a counterattack. If he decided to chance more than was already done. But the filthpit hadn't turned up in the months after Faustite was rescued from the Rift and the captain spared no time to look for him. Instead, a meeting thorned and foreboding loomed in the coming days. At least they wouldn't risk it in Mirrorspace.
Kiuchi's need to make himself the victim grated Faustite, however, and he set his jaw against chastising the boy. Don't spoil your contacts. The irony welled in him like heavy water and he laughed, quiet and raspy, into the still air.
His companion's question broke his rumination, however, and the change was needful. "There's an old church near town square. I watched fireworks from it on New Year's." And christened that new year with someone I haven't seen since. How adroitly quaint. "I can't wear a human skin until tomorrow. Perks of losing my humanity." Bitterness had long tempered into simple impatience, and more for Kiuchi's sensibilities than his own. The other boy still knew and clung to society wholesale, still nursed from the need for normalcy, still played in the crib of expectation. But in every month passed, Faustite lost a little more taste for the bourgeoisie.
"You'll get some air. I'll clear out the water." A beat, then he added, "you can aim for someone if you puke again." It would shock someone from the doldrums of their day.
But the church had an element of fleeting, derelict romance to it that Eion invariably liked. The way weather rotted it gently, the way the condemned sign knocked solidly against its door, the way the gates swung open and shut during a heady thunderstorm — each facet was made all the sweeter for its impending doom. For the way it drifted so delicately in the river of time. Soon it would haunt the internet, purposed and repurposed, with new names and intentions and ads and billboards and splash pages until its old, true, identity was wholly subsumed. Just like Xi-Wang. Just like Eion. Just like Elex.
"You first," he offered when they reached the mirror.
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2018 9:11 pm
With the other giving him a location he nodded his head once and held onto the other now as well. He knew of at least one mirror near to there, thankfully. "I can get us close. I can only go to a mirror...so teleporting like you do - we can't." It was, likely, obvious but he wanted the other to know that he couldn't get them right to that location. He could do his best and that was it. He could only manage mirror to mirror, sometimes he did wish he could teleport like the Negaverse and it's agents could. It would be useful in some situations he'd found himself in.
"Ohhh..so it's limited. That's why our meeting time was limited...you had to fit it in. I'm sorry if it took time away from other things." He did hope he hadn't taken the other away from anything important, with time limited as it seemed to be. Reaching up to pet the others hair he pressed his lips gently to his cheek. "Air for me...less water for you, sounds perfect." It sounded more than perfect right now. Laughing, as best he could, at the idea of puking on someone he shook his head. "I don't think I can aim while trying to hold it in." He was not capable of that, he was sure of that.
"We can go there once I get us to the city." To where he could get them. He'd do his best but he was limited, far more than the one he held and held onto. Bringing them through the mirrored wall the trip from one mirror to the next and into the city was quick. Made short work of by the dark mirror senshi who upon arriving in the city shivered, from the fact he was half dressed and wet. But it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The cool air in his lungs felt good - really good in fact.
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