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 Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 4:29 pm
"We have spoken about my disapproval with your choice of work," he mused. "But that's neither here nor there." He reached over and collected the half of the Mend staff he'd carried in with him and rolled up a pants leg. He massaged it a bit, easing the pain, and took the Mend staff to it in an attempt to heal. It shone, but dimly. "Your body must not have the potential for much magical capacity. Fantastic." He ran it over both legs liberally, fuming at the diminished potential, and paused when he couldn't roll the pants up any further. The staff wasn't going to heal through clothing, not as weak as her magic skill was. He shrugged and moved up the legs, prying rips in the fabric apart so he could access the wounds and, pausing for just a moment, he pried apart the fold of skin at her crotch region to fully heal the earlier cut on the inside of her thigh she'd maintained earlier.
He stopped, letting the crystal cool off as he looked up at Annis. "A bigger threat to what? I highly doubt any creature in this dimension cares about your decency currently but you." He went back to her wounds, tending to the more serious ones she'd gathered upon her chest and abdomen, and hissed at the fact that her shirt was in the way. She wasn't helping his mood any, either. He set the staff down upon the ground, pried her shirt off, and threw it at Annis. "Hold this while I finish fixing your injuries." And with that, he gathered the staff again and started tending to the cuts and bruises she'd accumulated around her breasts.
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 4:31 pm
 →→→→→→The hands I'd kept clean→→→→→→Now look dirty→→→→→→Before I can doubt my memories→→→→→→My memories are doubting me...Annis glared at him darkly, ready to start screaming, but no words came as he first tore open a rip in her pants to heal at the cut on her upper thigh again, then coolly responded to her. "W-Well, I--" she started, but the sudden appearance of her own shirt in her face made her fumble, but she managed to hold onto the torn fabric, not to mention keep Loch's jacket from hitting the ground. She stared at Loch for a moment, her face burning to a bright red, and ended up simply dropping her shirt onto the floor.
Annis looked away, face bright red now. She tilted Loch's head enough so that his hair would fall down and hide her face, especially as she felt his eyes water more. "...I'm sorry, okay?" she muttered. She sank to the ground, adjusting Loch's wings enough so that she could lean her back against the wall without causing them pain. She drew Loch's legs near his chest, cautiously keeping them a certain distance away from his chest before realizing it was flat there. She adjusted to pull them tight against his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs, keeping her gaze angled to the side, away from him. "I'm sorry. I... I-I was rude. I was out of line and I shouldn't have... ********, I don't even know, okay? But I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. s**t, I shouldn't have even brought that book to you. It's my own damn fault we're stuck in here, and who knows how many trials are left."
Annis rubbed one hand against the side of Loch's face, pretending to rub at a spot on his temple while she brushed his fingers against his eye to dry it. "I'm sorry. This is all my stupid fault and..." Annis trailed off, keeping her eyes away from him as he just about fondled her in the process of checking her cuts and bruises. She sighed, realizing she was repeating herself, and rested Loch's chin on one knee. She didn't say anything else, just stared away from him--her?--and waited for him to respond.  We're mirrors, both of us←←←←←←
Reflecting each other's karma←←←←←←
Our dirty hands will touch←←←←←←
And we'll know its shape...←←←←←← [[And now the PM-posting is done. razz ]]
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 4:48 pm
Loch calmly sat in silence, manipulating skin to access all of her cuts, and listened to her apology. He mused, starting to flush a little red himself as his anger subsided and he realized just what he was handling. But he finished the job, and he stood up, testing the ankle. It seemed better, so he strolled over, picked up the shirt she had dropped in shock, quickly slipped back into it, and gathered up her bustier and her socks and boots before settling down by her side. The socks and boots found themselves back where they belonged, but the bustier remained in his lap as he leaned back, extended his own raven wings, and put an arm around Annis to pull her closer. "I apologize for getting out of hand, myself. Anger, it isn't becoming, but... it is a part of life." He looked down once again at the bustier. "Do you mind if I leave that off, though? I respect your decision to wear it, but it's terribly uncomfortable. Your breasts are rather sizable; how on earth do you manage?" He chuckled a bit, pulling Annis's head (rather odd, handling himself) over onto her own shoulder, and he brushed some of that long blonde hair out of her face as he kissed the top of her head to console her.
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 5:55 pm
→→→→→→The hands I'd kept clean→→→→→→Now look dirty→→→→→→Before I can doubt my memories→→→→→→My memories are doubting me...Annis didn't say anything to Loch as he settled next to her, now wearing the torn shirt she had been wearing earlier. She listened in silence as cloth rustled, then the clicking of her boot buckles going into place, but when she felt an arm going around her, she relaxed.
"Kind of shitty that it is, but... I guess you have to deal..." Annis mumbled. She finally looked up when she heard him question her, seeing the bustier sitting in his lap.
"Y-Yeah, you can leawhat did you say?" Annis flinched a little, expecting another comment, but instead she felt him leaning her--er, Loch's--head onto Annis' shoulder and kissed the top of her head.
Brushing aside the fact that the swapped bodies made this scene rather awkward, Annis felt her face burn bright red. She quickly hid it by leaping to her feet, taking Loch's jacket and, with a dramatic flourish, whipping it back on. (She took care to make sure it was settled neatly to her back around the white heron wings, of course.) "We-Well, what are we doing just sitting here? We could be getting out of this place!" Annis beamed down at Loch once she had felt her face cool, stretching her hand out for Loch to take to help him up to his feet. "Just leave that thing behind, it's too shredded for me to fix it at this point. Never been much of a seamstress, anyway." She stuck Loch's tongue out teasingly for a moment once he was upright, then looked down towards the darkness of the hallway.
"And as for your comment earlier, just so you know, I'm not a mage; I haven't exactly spent much time building up my magical aptitude." Annis grinned at him now, though, fists on Loch's hips in a decidedly feminine way. We're mirrors, both of us←←←←←←
Reflecting each other's karma←←←←←←
Our dirty hands will touch←←←←←←
And we'll know its shape...←←←←←←
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 7:39 pm
"Hm..." He'd settled against her for just a moment, calming down, when she rushed up, acting all exuberant. She couldn't hide the fact that her face (his face?) was blood red, even with all that hair.
Did I go too far? No...she couldn't...could she?"
He quickly made his way to stand up, rocking forward to raise onto his feet. Unused to the new weight upon his chest, he almost fell forward onto his face, but a few flaps of his wings stabilized him. He kind of hoped Annis hadn't seen that; she'd laugh so hard if she did. The tattered bustier fell to the ground, forgotten, and he rushed forward to meet Annis. "If it is any consolation, I have no idea how to use daggers either, even if you still had them," he commented wryly with a smirk as he passed by her, taking the lead.
They walked for a while in silence, Loch leading the two by several paces, making their way through the murky darkness until they came to a tall gate. Loch recognized it to have a similar design as the one they had encountered in their shrink trial, although admittedly less intimidating than the previous considering the difficulties of that trial. He looked the gate over, musing silently the methods they might have to take to get across it.
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 7:56 pm
→→→→→→The hands I'd kept clean→→→→→→Now look dirty→→→→→→Before I can doubt my memories→→→→→→My memories are doubting me...Annis, surely enough, didn't see him nearly fall over in her own body. She actually kind of liked the lack of weight in her chest for now; it was a nice change from, well, what she had dealt with since puberty. She used one hand to brush Loch's hair off of his face, and with the other, removed one of his tomes. She studied the front; she really didn't know what it said, but it was green, so she assumed Elwind. Good logic, right?
She stuck Loch's tongue out at him at the dagger comment. "Shut up, I used them earlier to save our asses, didn't I?" She was still smiling, though, watching herself walk forward as Loch took the lead. ...I need to do something about those thighs. Her thoughts paused for a moment. Is my butt really that big?
She tried to ignore it, though, as they arrived at the first gate. Annis caught up to Loch's position some steps ahead of her and pressed her palm against some of the intricate detail work on it. Kind of a shame, really, that some of the things in here were so pretty, yet it was housing such evil. "Hm. How to get this one open."
Annis looked up; all the intricate patterns were trailing towards a single large circle embedded into the door. A quiet green glow pulsed along the line of the circle, as if waiting for something. We're mirrors, both of us←←←←←←
Reflecting each other's karma←←←←←←
Our dirty hands will touch←←←←←←
And we'll know its shape...←←←←←←
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:19 pm
Loch shrugged, staring at the door for a long moment. "I read about this once. A set of magical conduits can be rigged up to a series of runic carvings and such to store magic for various purpose, whether it be lighting or heating or...or, er, I'm rambling. But it would appear as though the purpose of this system is to activate a set of gears and raise this gate. I...hm." He remembered the difficulty he'd had healing Annis's body and pondered for a moment, extending his (her) hand and looking at it. He murmured the memorized incantation for Fire, and was slightly put off when it barely created a spark. Yup, Annis's magical potential was not suited for this task.
"Well," he muttered, glancing over at her, "You shall have to do this one." He walked behind her, positioning himself between his own heron wings and put his arms around her, taking his own jacketed arms holding the tome into her hands. "I'll recite the incantation, and you focus on initiating the spell. If we focus together, I should be able to focus your energy into activating it."
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:30 pm
→→→→→→The hands I'd kept clean→→→→→→Now look dirty→→→→→→Before I can doubt my memories→→→→→→My memories are doubting me...Annis turned her eyes over to--well, her own face as Loch explained. She honestly did try to follow along this time. And it made sense--sort of. Annis looked back at the pulsing glow, watching it as if it would suddenly change. Why hadn't she thought of that? It was glowy, lots of magic was glowy, so hit the glowy thing with another glowy thing...
Annis sure is an intellectual, isn't she?
Annis studied the Elwind book and wondered how exactly to read it when she heard Loch address her. "Hm? Me? But you're the one that--" she started, but paused when she felt, well, her own body up against Loch's back, his hands guiding against her wrists. It was kind of weird, feeling herself against... herself, but she still felt her face growing pink out of the sheer awkwardness of the situation.
It was Loch in there, after all. That sort of didn't help things.
"A-All right," Annis murmured. She stared at the book intently, as if hopefully the words would suddenly make sense. "I don't... how do you initiate a spell? I don't understand..." She trailed off, looking back at the pulse.
She watched it for a few moments, then closed her eyes. The language was foreign, but... there was something deep in there. It was different than those fleeting moments when she had that nagging feeling that the transformation locked deep away in her was stirring; this was more... transient. It had a different shape, a different name. Annis' lips formed around unknown words as energy collected itself; all it needed was to be molded and directed now. Loch certainly seemed to know what he was doing, at least; Annis' eyes opened wide as she saw the blast of wind fly out from the pages of the tome and strike the dead-center of the glowing circle. It intensified to a bright, bright green, and then the gate split right down the middle, parting to either side.
The doorway to the next room stood not more than ten feet away from them.
"Wow...! We did it!" Annis breathed, grinning. She watched Loch go on ahead, pausing for a moment. She tucked the tome away, looking down as she did so, and something occurred to her.
...Hm.
Annis turned away for a few moments, pretending to adjust the waistband of his pants. When she turned forward again and ran for the door, her face was bright red, pretending to rub at a spot near his scalp to hide the bright color. We're mirrors, both of us←←←←←←
Reflecting each other's karma←←←←←←
Our dirty hands will touch←←←←←←
And we'll know its shape...←←←←←←
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:45 pm
There we go! If there was one thing Loch knew, it was his magical theory. He pat Annis on the back, smiling wildly. "I knew you could do it, Annis." He glanced back at the sides of the gate, still glowing a bright green, and marched on ahead to face the next task. The eerie metal door leading them to, presumably, one more halfway room lay just ahead, and then how many more tasks would await them? He approached the next door quickly, in much better spirits than he had been at the beginning of this trial, and turned around to meet Annis as she ran up to the door. Her face was extremely red. Oh, god, what did she do? But his mind quickly passed that thought as they both passed through the door and instantly they were within their own bodies again.
Loch patted himself down, checking for injuries. He was getting a bit stiff, but he seemed fine. He quickly rearranged the contents of his pockets (he was somewhat OCD about that), and then he turned to Annis. "I am still sorry about the scene I made with you back there. But you were amazing." (It was at this point where you might wonder if Loch had a thing for girls using magic, but that was kind of irrelevant at this point.) He looked back towards the door and paused a moment. Maybe he was just in a much better mood after their fight, or something, but he stood there for a moment, just watching her with a spirit of pure glee. He then quickly blushed and moved over to the door to hide his composure. "Only one way to go, ne?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 4:52 pm
→→→→→→The hands I'd kept clean→→→→→→Now look dirty→→→→→→Before I can doubt my memories→→→→→→My memories are doubting me...Annis let out a long sigh of relief when she found that she was in her own body once more. She twisted from side to side, then stretched her arms high above her head, smiling just a little. Flapping her wings to stretch out the bones and, strange as the thought was, re-accustom herself to her own body, Annis glanced down at her shirt. She felt her face pinken, but it was really less visible skin than she thought originally. She still found herself trying to adjust the rips and tears to hide some of the pale flesh, however.
She was still focused on this when she heard Loch's clothes rustling, and then him turning to the side. "I am still sorry about the scene I made with you back there. But you were amazing."
Annis looked up, her expression vaguely confused. She didn't exactly think she had done much work--hadn't Loch done everything? All she'd done was let Loch's body will up the magic. That wasn't exactly being amazing. She opened her mouth to retort. "I don't... think..." she trailed off, watching Loch back. He just looked so happy, and his eyes staring right at her was enough for Annis to cough into her fist and look away from him, her face bright red. She tried to hide it by plucking a stray feather from her wing, then running her hands over her messy brown hair to try to tame some of the flyaway strands.
"Yes. Only one way to go."
Annis followed him, stepping next to him as she studied the door. The larger message that usually was emblazoned across the stone, glowing red, looked smeared, the entire thing pulsing without rhythm. Annis shuddered a little, noticing that, at least, the tiny message below the ruined letters.
Don't let your troubles weigh you down.
Annis looked over to Loch, tilting her head up a little to actually see his face. She studied him for a few moments, willing the faint heat rising to her cheeks away before finding his hand in hers. She laced her fingers through his and squeezed his palm.
"Let's do this."
Annis discovered immediately, upon entering the room, that something was definitely wrong. The entire room, for one, seemed to be rumbling, with parts of lanterns starting to crumble away, a tiny lone ember blazing on the stone floor.
The second thing, something she realized right after entering, was that the little message was meant to be taken literally. The air itself seemed to press down heavily upon her shoulders, and she collapsed to her knees, wincing at the crash of her kneecaps into the stone. She looked up, her free hand pressed to the ground. The entire hallway was rumbling and seemed to wobble a little, but the door was clearly visible at the end of the long stretch of floor and torches.
Way off in the distance, one of the torches fell out of its holder and crashed into the ground, winking out of sight. Flinching, Annis immediately started to push ahead, her wings folding to her back. "G-Gotta hurry," she muttered. We're mirrors, both of us←←←←←←
Reflecting each other's karma←←←←←←
Our dirty hands will touch←←←←←←
And we'll know its shape...←←←←←←
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:33 pm
Loch gripped Annis's hand tightly. He glanced over at her with a smile, and ran his free hand through her hair once. His wings tensed anxiously, and he was getting weary, and he couldn't exactly be sure how much further they had to go, but he knew that they could make it out of here together. He continued watching her for a moment longer, then he looked straight at the door, focusing upon its smeared words. "Come on."
As they both entered the room, he could immediately sense the atmospheric differences. While Annis had collapsed to her knees, Loch had remained standing though the pressure was quite intense. He could feel individual feathers being pulled towards the ground, and he knew that they had to escape soon. The lanterns that stood upon the wall glowed dimly, affected by the change in gravitational pressure. He tried to take a breath, but even his lungs were affected by the shift in pressure. This had to be quick, and they both knew it.
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, quite surprised at just how much pressure was bearing down upon them. He took a single step and didn't get very far; it was like trying to walk with massive weights tied to his feet. So with a flip of his hand, he withdrew Espinne from his robe and cast a few long vines a distance off. They were thin, but sturdy, and they'd support for the two to grab upon. "Take the vines and pull against them if you need them."
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:43 pm
→→→→→→The hands I'd kept clean→→→→→→Now look dirty→→→→→→Before I can doubt my memories→→→→→→My memories are doubting me...Annis leaned against Loch's arm as he pulled her upright, trying to draw in a breath. She barely got half of the air she needed, and she gasped and managed to draw in more oxygen before exhaling, her wings shivering against her back. This was not good, not good at all... She glanced up; the ceiling was a swirl of dark colors, with sudden bright lights winking on and off erratically, as if all the power of the realm was starting to drain away and using one last-ditch attempt to cast its influence upon these two.
Annis watched as he managed to cast Espinne, and she nodded slowly, understanding what he meant. "Got it," she murmured. She took another step forward with Loch's help, slowly adjusting her lungs to the heavy pressure, when she felt the floor rumble and creak below her feet.
The floor was starting to give away below them.
"Run!" Annis shrieked, grabbing hold of Espinne's vine with one arm, keeping her other wrapped tightly around Loch's arm. She started to move down the hallway, struggling with the atmospheric pressure weighing down on her. She could hear the floor they'd departed from crack and collapse, and Annis instinctively started pulling her feet along faster. Gotta get out, gotta get out, can't fly in here, gotta get out...! We're mirrors, both of us←←←←←←
Reflecting each other's karma←←←←←←
Our dirty hands will touch←←←←←←
And we'll know its shape...←←←←←←
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:09 pm
Loch alternated with Annis, still clutching tightly upon her hand. For a few paces, she would be dragging him along, and for the next few he would pull her along until they switched again. They weren't getting anywhere quickly, but when the ground started crumbling to nothingness, falling into a darkened abyss, behind them it was a subtle cue to haul a**. And Loch found a**, indeed, being hauled as Annis picked her pace up to a mild run, leaving Loch helplessly being dragged behind as he continued casting Espinne down the path, providing handholds as they navigated.
Then, as the door was only a short distance away, he lost his foothold as a rather large chunk fell off behind him and his foot slipped into the abyss. He reached out, grasped Annis's hand more further along her arm as he lunged out for a vine, but missed it and found himself falling further into the darkness as the ground gave out under him. His handhold from Annis was slipping dangerously. He flapped his wings a couple of times to attempt to get lift, but to no avail. He was slipping quickly, and it would only be a few moments until he was lost forever. "Annis!" he called. "Keep going! You're almost there!"
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:38 pm
→→→→→→The hands I'd kept clean→→→→→→Now look dirty→→→→→→Before I can doubt my memories→→→→→→My memories are doubting me...Annis struggled along as best she could, using Espinne as a handhold. She had to admit, it really helped. It was one thing to have to drag herself along with her own strength (and admittedly, her strengths were in her agility and accuracy instead of brute force), but just being able to use something else to pull herself along helped more than she would have imagined.
Annis was still considering this as she felt Loch's grip slipping along her arm. She whirled around, her arm looping around the vines of Espinne, keeping it at the crook of her elbow to keep its hold as he fell through a weakened part of the floor, dangling helplessly towards the abyss below them.
"Annis! Keep going! You're almost there!"
Annis felt her eyes water, but she was gritting her teeth as she reached down and grasped tightly onto his wrist with her other hand. She struggled to brace herself as best she could against the weakening floor. "Like hell I'm going to leave you behind! Whatever you do, don't let go!"
Annis winced, the gnarled sections of Espinne digging into the skin of her elbow as she kept her hold on it as best she could, tightening her grip on Loch's hand and wrist. She pulled and pulled, doing her best to summon every last bit of strength she could.
She was scared shitless, that went without saying. The entire room was rumbling, and torches were falling all around them, and the sudden urge to burst into tears was overwhelming her. And yet, as she pulled, Loch started to come up out of the hole. Annis stepped back, ignoring the annoying sting as those vaguely sharp protrusions dragged a little across the inside of her elbow, but she just kept pulling, and soon, she had Loch's feet back on solid ground.
The tears actually came at that point, and Annis took her arm out from around her elbow and held on tightly to him for a second, hugging like she wasn't about to let go of him. "Don't ever do that again," she hissed at him, grabbing onto his wrist tightly again before pulling again on the vine towards the exit, her entire chest shaking as she struggled to get her breathing back to normal.
All around them, the room was collapsing into itself; even the sky seemed to be bleeding away, all the swirling colors sucking away in the wake of an encroaching, dead-looking grey color. We're mirrors, both of us←←←←←←
Reflecting each other's karma←←←←←←
Our dirty hands will touch←←←←←←
And we'll know its shape...←←←←←←
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:06 pm
"Like hell I'm going to leave you behind! Whatever you do, don't let go!"
At Annis's words, his grip tightened upon hers, his wings flapping frantically to gain any sort of lift whatsoever to assist her. It took a long moment to reverse the pull so that her efforts did more than the heavy gravity, but he clutched to her as she pulled harder and he kept flapping and... and soon he was back onto (un)stable ground. "Hold on!" He summoned another incantation, and the thickened vines burst forth from the wall, stretching towards them. He was hugging her extremely tightly at this point, barely paying attention to anything he was doing but surviving but damn he could feel her shaking. He lunged out for one of the new vines, grabbed a thick knob upon it, and reversed the incantation to drive it back into the wall from where it'd burst forth. The two were sent, slowly at first, but quicker as it withdrew, dragging across the floor until they'd made it to the wall. The world around them was falling apart, crumbling into what seemed like an eternal vortex, and Loch held Annis tightly as he forced the door open, dragged forward a few steps, and just as the last remnants of ground fell away... they were through. The world fell to ruin just as the door shut, and...
...And just like they had come through, a whirlwind brought them someplace else. Loch wasn't entirely aware he was laying upon grass until he felt fingers twitch around his own. He grasped the hand tighter and brought his other to his head to soothe the headache that had recently appeared once again. It took him a moment to gather the nerve to open his eyes again, and when he did he found himself staring up at a starry night sky. They were back. His free hand found itself dropping back down to the ground beneath them, nails digging through fresh earth and grass.
"Annis?" he murmured, pulsing his grip upon her hand a few times. "Annis, are you okay?"
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