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 Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 8:19 am
He said nothing in return to the platitudes. Youma weren't afforded the luxury of time, as ex-Wolframite indicated, nor did they find much validity in cultural constructs. Faustite recalled his short forays into the Rift too well for there to be much consideration for culture. Too much of the man eroded away for youma to pay homage to that ghosted action.
But he could still answer questions. "I gave you my officer name," Faustite returned with a c**k of his head. Again he settled into a pace with lines of smoke still clinging to his form. "And I remember my name when I was a boy. It's been a long time since I answered to Elex Yorke." Pride and irritation were pressed to the outskirts of his voice.
That name again. Gevaudan's citation of Tanzanite's health deterioration afforded him pause, though Faustite reinstated his pace shortly afterward. That another human form struggled to sustain monstrous transformations shouldn't surprise him — nothing about the process was kind or gentle or elegant — but knowing that another was or had wasted away felt far more like a precursor to himself. The few other half-youma heard of hadn't accompanied any kind of physical assessment that painted their health for the worse, which left Faustite an oddity among them. Worse yet was the takeover, where the spoken-of officer lost her bodily salience to the youma within her. But how could that happen? And what came of her now? Was there any way to know?
Faustite knew of no youma about when he youmafied, yet increasingly he was surrounded with charges that youma merged with human hosts. Even so, he doubted that any inhabited his body. "I'm still an officer," he asserted sternly. "If there's a youma in me, it bends to my will. It will always bend to my will. I won't be defied. Non ducor, duco."
He drew breath with a billow of smoke. Would his salience inevitably deteriorate? Castor thought so. Gevaudan witnessed so. Malus confirmed as much from his account as a youma. Was the only option, then, to lose himself if he stayed with the Negaverse? And was that final result really repugnant?
He halted a moment, the hot air caking around him like a pall. Sweat beaded up at his back, neck, forehead with how ill he tolerated the late August heat. "You bring troubling insight, Knight. I don't like it.
"But I'm different from Tanzanite. I don't live in the Rift. I can play human for a few hours." His thoughts returned to days spent in the Rift, to dragging himself between delusions while he searched for succor. "Even if my humanity is gone." Lucidity was a question in its own right — one belonging to all officers and senshi under Metallia, not just the modified ones.
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Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 8:47 am
He nodded. "I hope for the best it sticks." Though his hooes were not high. Youma were locked in servitide and forced into obedience else they were destroyed. They were valuable weapons but set apart from officers.
"Elex." He repeated the name softly.
"Can I ask how it happened for you? I know of starseed consumption and promotions gone wrong.
And he conaidered the agent's time linit. "Is there something you still miss? Maybe domething I can aquire that would make your time more bearable. With only being out in the dark and unnoticed I'm sure stores are closed to you. Even something small. The small things can keep you sane." He turned his head a moment to get some air as a rush of smoke passed over him.
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Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 6:25 am
You hope for the best. How easily humans are effaced by your own witness. Maybe the folly of half-youma past was their adherence to being human — to being people. If I let that go, do I keep my lucidity? How much will it cost to stay in charge?
The sound of his name — his old name — caught his attention, and Faustite looked up, for once the hardness gone from his eyes, which returned in a second's fraction. He stalled, then picked up his pace to continue mapping the whole rooftop with his feet. Gevaudan asked invasive questions, but he'd been youmafied long enough to know they were often the first to leave mouths. Was it like encountering an amputee and asking how they lost that limb? It must be for all the ways it's asked about, for all the ways people look at him and see handicap.
"Starseed eating," he answered straightforwardly. "I hate one too many and my body changed." He cast his gaze back to Gevaudan, half expecting some sign of pity or sympathy. Already he asked after souvenirs, himself a dog yearning to boost a packmate's mood. But to call his youmafication a prison sentence, to treat it as invariably a time-elapsed-to-destruction matter, felt much too bleak. If Faustite's life lasted another year, he would prefer living it rather than cowering at the inevitable end. It must be unusual among officers to accept what would end them. Too many took Dylan Thomas's words to heart.
Faustite smiled wistfully before the gesture fell back into a neutral countenance. "Nothing you can find and drag back for me. I miss touch, relationships, connection. But those things are just as hard to find when human, aren't they?" His gaze found Gevaudan, the burn of accusation brilliant in his eyes.
"I'll note your offer. We have better uses for your time, Gevaudan — like the elimination of the Dark Mirror. And if you still want to give me a gift, bring me a live one for their starseed."
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Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2018 7:05 am
He did not cringe or frown but smiled gently at the answer. "I was close to that myself. I'm purified and yet I still miss the taste of them. I liked the sensation of starseed pulling and to know that once devoured the enemy would never return in a million years. That they were wiped away for good. It's pretty euphoric, the ceremony of it and the feeling. I miss the ability to have that kind of tactic and the boost."
But he sighrr in a way like a smoker thinking of a hit. "I had to talk another officer who was closer than I was. He spent all his time in the Rift and almost had a diet soley of starseeds. I wonder if he changed or not." But what would it matter if he wasn't on his side to help him.
"I used to wonder if I could be more powerful and a stronger asset to thr Negaverse if I went that way but was warned not to go that far. After I saw how Tanzanite went I became more worried." And he had restricted his starseed intake to only when necessary.
To his wants, they weren't as simple as a baked good or magazine. However, it wasn't difficult either if certain things were allowed.
"You don't need to drag anything for that. If you'll allow it. I may not be good at it either but - if I can give you it and you'll take it. I'd be happy to have a officer as a comrade again."
"I can have more than one use, Elex." He moved closer, hoping to stop his pacing, removed his glove, and offered his hand.
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 9:47 am
He accepted the hand in his too-hot own, black nails and skin at odds with the smooth blank of his companion's. But he tempered that expectation just as he accepted it, his words soft-spoken against summer air's tortuous gust. "Friendship isn't minted in a day. Let's focus on being useful to each other first." Gevaudan could supply a host of needful history and information on the workings of the Negaverse, long carried by mouth yet lost as tongues sank into silence or fled for another mouth. While Gevaudan stood garbed in Order's whites, he displayed enough lingering sympathy for the Negaverse ranks that he would supply that information forthrightly and without prompt. It was more than Faustite could ask for.
And yet what was being asked of him in exchange? Friendship? Officers and knights were ever divided in their treatment of partially youmafied officers, but they ever fell into two camps: the officer was human or it wasn't human. Gevaudan demonstrated his preference for the former in soliciting Faustite's dead name, in addressing him civilly, in treating his humanoid lucidity as a treasure that would inevitably be lost. To him, Faustite wasn't a beast — he wasn't the smoke-belching apocalypse of industry seen by the electric senshi or the silvery, antlered one.
It was strange, he realized, to call anything friend. Negaverse hierarchy didn't allow for the egalitarianisms behind friendship in an official capacity. Parallel ranks may joint lead or joint participate, but seldom did friendship bloom out of that competitive soil. To face one across lines was worrisome. At what point would Schörl catch wind of it? She would already know if Barbary was much indication. But what would she do? Would she see its use? Or would she command him to bring his toys into her parlor?
Nerves coalesced and prickled in the youma captain's feet, urging yet more directionless walking to tamp them back down into submission. He resisted for a moment longer. It's dangerous to play at friendship. Who will be charged and hanged for high treason first, I wonder?
Not knowing must be the fun that attracts Schörl. "We'll need a meeting spot. Somewhere we can count on seeing each other on a weekly basis. Is there somewhere that speaks to you as Wolframite? Tell me and we'll make arrangements."
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 10:01 am
Faustite was warm. Even more than without his gloves and in the slow cool of approaching fall that lingered that night. It madr his palm sweat but didn't feel unpleasant. As he ran cold, his uniform was a blessing in winter and as a civilian he often sank into the comfort of hoodies for warmth and the feeling of security. He was glad Faustite took it and saw no issue with it.
"That's true. It's easy to say the word friend but doesn't have much meaning without time. I look forward to solidifying it and making it true."
Returning his hand, he put the glove back on, the heat of Faustite still lingering in his palm.
He thought for a moment as he looked out at the city scaoe before turning. "There is an old negaverse grave site. We used to bury bodies there when we only took starseeds. Back before we started collecting energy orbs. It got full so we stopped using it and moved to another. No one should go there now and it's remote. The cops haven't found it to this day. I can show you where it is. We can meet there. Do you have any communication devoce with a map? If not I can give you an idea where its at."
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 6:54 pm
That he would want to meet in a graveyard spoke something of the man behind Gevaudan. It spoke to the soldier Wolframite, to the storied deeds committed, to flecks of regret caked to his long years of seeing active duty. Perhaps he started when he was Faustite's age, perhaps earlier, but of all the places he'd seen and traversed and conquered, Gevaudan chose an unmarked graveyard. Briefly Faustite wondered who might have been buried there to hold Gevaudan's remorse, but the question was better left asked when they were in that location. Otherwise, Gevaudan would explain on his own time.
"The dead won't tell our stories." His assent came in the flourish of a hand, paralleling Gevaudan's earlier gesture. Did the knight ever try to teleport only to find that ability locked to him? Did he miss it for all the ways it eased travel, or did acting as a knight give him new appreciation for the journey that so many Negaverse agents cut from their lives? Perhaps he should give a dose of nostalgia. "Can you recall cross-streets?"
Operating alongside a knight bestowed a giddy, childish mischief in the youma captain. He felt, however briefly, like he was getting away with a crime committed against a lukewarm parent — like he might somehow slip their acquaintance past Schörl, or as if his justifications for befriending Gevaudan excused him from consequence. He knew it wouldn't be so, but that childish jolt of adrenaline haunted like a stubborn ghost. It was infectious, too, for how he wanted to smile.
Bt he was youma now. Smiling was for people.
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:01 pm
"Yeah, I know the way. Here." He moved closer and then started to explain a few streets, pointing out across the city and giving Faustite a overview of which place in Destiny City he needed to be and where to point himself to started walking. "...you'll pass a hiking sigh and instead of going left or right, you will go through the middle. The left side has been closed due to falling trees from a few storms back and no one uses it now. You'll hit a clearing there with a large boulder in the center. That's the place." He finished off before turning to him.
"Uh....how about this same day next week?" He asked, feeling somewhat strange asking for his time again, but happy he would have a time to look forward to as his life didn't allow him many things to mark on his calendar.
"I'll see you there. And, we can talk again. Once you've been there then you can teleport there whenever you want. I'll check it too if you ever want to leave a note or letter." Just in case he felt like wanting to talk about something when they weren't meeting. Unfortunately his knight ring didn't work with Negaverse officers.
"Tell that time?" He smiled. "Have a good night."
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