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 Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 6:40 am
Faustite let the first question slide, expecting that the knight would put together some awareness of youma deadliness. He visited the Rift, knew the Rift for years longer than Faustite did. Gevaudan was aware enough that their abilities expanded in many directions, allowing self-defense mechanisms both fantastical and deadly. That Faustite could billow smoke into the atmosphere should not surprise him so.
But it did — it surprised him enough that he kept searching for his youma companion, kept sifting through deadly soot and dust and smoke, as if Faustite himself was in danger. But Faustite hadn't shifted position — he still sat upon the root with his legs folded into careless v's and his hands drummed restlessly on opposite wrists. Something reached metal, which he felt in the faint shiftings by a stoma in his body, yet he did not look to the offending appendage. He waited, seconds passed, yet Gevaudan's motherly concern hadn't faded. In some ways, the knight understood youma less than the current crop of agents. The thought nearly brought a smile.
"I'm fine," he answered with an edge. "I expected a better question. Whether or not I'm lonely is none of your business." He looked to his right, the direction from which he felt the hand, and stared at the wall of black before him. Somewhere beyond, Gevaudan stood in his white coat and his white aura and his black concerns.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 7:24 am
In the smoke the hand stayed for just a moment more as if debating and another part reaching for a physical anchor in the smoke. He's fine. He even sounds fine. It's okay. His hand left.
Gev continued to cough as he jumped out of the smoke and unceremoniously landed in the tree as he gasped and took in clear moutfuls of air. Tears streamed down his flushed face, pinkened by coughing and the cool breeze as he worked to rid his lungs of the ash. It took some time md aftetwards his chest felt painful though the exertion of coughing hard over and over.
Wiping his face with his sleeves, he rested against the tree on the branch he now sat upon. Faustite was in no danger and seemed only annoyed he even asked. "Sorry." He managed, voice rough and raw from the smoke. "I thought something set you off or - I don't know. You were hurt. I didn't know that's how you react when you get angry about a question."
He wiped st his eyes again before looking at the smoke cloud that was Faustite below. "You could have just said you didn't want to answer that. It would be easier on my lungs for next time." Because he was sure he'd ask something at some point that would upset him if personal questions were a touchy subject. The fact he had such a reaction and refused to answer only made Gev think that something really was wrong.
"Can I at least know a little more about you while I dump the history of my life on you?" He asked. "Or am I going to get gassed again?" He pressed thr palm of his hand agaisnt and ear and rubbed it. The ringing had died down.
"What would be a better question."
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:32 am
"Get better at subtlety." The youma captain rose from the smoke, which clung to him in thickened tendrils that petered out the father he walked. There, they hung in the air for a time, as if making a gesture, as if asking a question, before the lot of it faded into atmosphere. Strange, he thought, that magic leaves no trace.
When he turned, he looked up to the knight that now sat in the tree, a lone star stuck like a parachute and just as comical. With rose cheeks and tears streaming freely, he looked as one does who was left in a childhood rhyme. He wondered, then, how lonely Gevaudan was in his current life. How much really sustained him? How much did he know he needed? Such gaps in memory were ever more insidious than he expected, though Faustite waged that if faced with the same tribulations, he would come out a measure over the obstacle. Such thoughts were belied only by the straightening of his shoulders, which cut dark against dark with the background of a crawling forest.
"I'll train you like I do my subordinate — broad strokes until you're attentive enough for finesse." The first lesson was the hardest, and Gevaudan endured with his life. No starseeding came, though the thought ever weighed on the tips of his fingers when too near an unsuspecting chest or a wayward eye. How easy it would be to pluck a fruit to which Metallia urged him.
His hands folded together and Faustite stilled a moment in thought. His gaze fell from the tree to the newly-opened potholes where weather pooled new reflections. Like mirrors, the muddied water looked up toward the sky and echoed it back out of its maw. "I was fifteen when I was youmafied. I came from a well-to-do family with no real ambition of my own, no direction, no responsibilities but to follow my mother's whims. I liked world travel for how I could vapidly digest other people's lives at their most superficial. And I had a particular expectation for how the world should work. I was wrong.
"Now I'm youma." He approached the tree, hands folded before himself in a light clasp, and came to a stop only feet before Gevaudan's branch. "If you want answers, Knight, don't ask questions — that's for people. Do as youma do — take with teeth and claws the answers you seek." He waited, the challenge hanging in the air like hooks on a line.
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 9:30 am
"I don't do subtlety." He grumbled. He usually was outright with his thoughts and questions or to the point with his wants. It was the conditioning over the years as a agent. While others might be tactical and sly, Wolframite had been blunt and to the point.
"You're not exactly giving me small hints either. A blast of smoke doesn't scream subtle to me." He pointed back. Faustite had been anything but that and Gev thought he would appreciate the knight's direct way of talking.
"You're going to train me?" He said with a smile, amused at the idea of someone who would have been lower in rank treating him like a fresh-faced rookie. "So gracious, Sir"
The smile dropped to somber attentiveness as Faustite gave a quick recap of his life. There was a major gap of missing information from civilian to youma and his lips pressed thin at the leap from point A to point B.
Before he could ask, as if predicting he would, Faustite issued what he could only take as a challenge. Take. Don't ask permission.
Gev got up and slipped off the branch to land before Faustite. "Is that a challenge? You do know I was a general and not some soft-palmed newbie either. Even now I'm at that same level. Are you going to be able to be civil and answer me fully when I win?" He stared into his eyes, hardened at the fact he would push him. That he would want a fight.
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 8:03 am
"I gave you small hints — you missed all of them. Clearly you need neon signs and flash bangs for basic conversation. Training wheels until you learn how to interface effectively." He stared squarely at Gevaudan.
"If you're done pissing around, Knight, summon your weapon." Faustite raised a hand, curled it into the air, and from nothing came a squid encapsulating a thousand minuscule fires. At shoulder level it undulated with an eerie, weightless grace, as if still in the ocean from whence it might've looked normal. Bubbles shot from its maw as it sensed their new opposition. Strength beyond their rank mattered little in the wake of stakes — under the dull, grey skies they would fight until fat with information.moonkitsune we should consider this a wrap and transition to a new rp for the battle itself or for its aftermath
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