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 Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:16 pm
"Mmmm..." Owle whined, but she trudged upstairs and went to tuck herself in and sleep.
((I suggest we skip to the next day. Everything is cleaned up, the injured have healed enough to come back. The only evidence that there was a fight in the Firebrand is the hole in the wall and a couple of tables missing chairs.))
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:17 pm
Flare stayed up, late into the night, taking care of the mess the warriors had left behind. Thankfully Owle had kept the entire bar from exploding.
Soon she yawned, stretched out on the couch, and fell asleep.
((I second that motion.))
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:22 pm
Kalis was much disappointed the couch was taken, since, as formentioned, it had been involved in his plans for the aftermath, but settled for an empty booth seat with only a single bullet hole in it for the night.
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:21 pm
As for Paul...well, he'd had enough fun for the day. Seeing Owle moving through various stages of sanity, mental age, and reasoning ability put him on edge, and he figured that the others were more capable of caring for her than he. So he trudged to the furthest corner of the tavern, leaned his guitar in its case on the wall beside him, and made himself comfortable. Leaning on the walls in the corner with his jacket wrapped about him like a blanket and one arm cradling the guitar like a giant stuffed animal, Paul's head lolls gently in sleep-induced movements as he mutters in his sleep.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 6:43 am
Owle woke up.
She found herself in her room, and the sunlight that was falling across her face felt uncomfortably bright. Sitting up, the woman rubbed her light brown eyes, stretching her wings to chase the sleep away.
She rose from her bed with a great big yawn, smoothed down her hair, and...
Felt cold jab through her heart as she remembered the dream she had had last night. With a startled yelp, she dashed pell mell out of her room, down the hallway, came stampeding down the steps, and...
...screeched to a halt in the common room, where everyone she'd feared was dead was sleeping peacefully, unharmed.
Smiling, Owle gave a sigh of relief. It had probably just been a dream, after all...she must have passed out last night, and someone had carried her up to her room and put her in bed. Yeah. That was what had happened. There was nothing to worry about now but the chill morning breeze that was running through the Firebrand today, and that could be solved by just closing a window.
Except it wasn't coming through a window.
Owle stopped and stared at the big, gaping hole in the wall. Just where Jack had blown himself up when her dream had ended. No...no...he couldn't be dead, he couldn't be dead. On account of her? If she hadn't provoked those thugs...if she'd just let them stay, let them do whatever and then pass out...would he still be alive now? And Athan, where was he? Alive? Dead? She remembered him fighting one of the two men, but then...
She must have blacked out from the shock of the explosion.
Owle wanted to shake Flare and Kalis awake and demand answers. Paul was a customer so she couldn't exactly do that to him. But the demoness and the vagrant were sleeping so peacefully...she couldn't bear to wake them. Instead, Owle retired to the kitchen and began making breakfast. Soon, the delicious smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes would come wafting out of the kitchen.
If Flare, Kalis and Paul had succeeded in chasing those two guys away, then they were heroes. They deserved a hero's breakfast.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:09 am
It started with a slight seam. Then it grew into a tear. Finally expanding into the gaping maws of some sort of intestinal abomination. And with it a pair of slender legs began moving forward. Black shoes walking atop the water, the figure made it's way towards the shoreline. Shadowed from behind, a larger figure loomed overhead, even as the duo continued their way. With deep set, sullen eyes, and that weary streak of lines reaching downward, the raven haired boy made its way towards the Firebrand, bearing an uncanny resemblance to someone quite familiar.
In the calm of morning-- They reach out for her!!
Enter: Eden!
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:30 am
Owle turned down the radio that had somehow made its way into the Firebrand's kitchen; it had suddenly begun playing the dramatic music worthy of heralding the arrival of a new supervillain. Quite upsetting when you're trying not to burn your pancakes.
Her supernatural senses took note of the approaching duo, and Owle flew into a panic.
Oh no! I only made enough batter for five people! How am I going to feed two extra customers?
...as Owle frantically tried to stretch the batter thin enough to feed more people, she had no idea what was in store for her.
But the duo had no idea the burnt pancakes would go to them.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:32 am
"Where are your clothes?"
"I...don't know..."
"What's your name?"
"I don't know..."
"Where are you from?"
"... I don't know!"
A blistered hand slammed straight into the release desk, and the man stood there as though it were nothing. Still, tears fell down his cheeks from steel blue orbs. Not knowing his past before the events at the Tavern where he blew himself, nothing came to mind. It never would.
The man had been granted another chance, but it was an entirely new life. They had given the man a shower at the hospital, and done the appropriate medical procedures to take care of any wounds, but the burns seeming to healing on themselves quickly and without much prompting.
"Where are we supposed to take you, and who is going to pay for all this?"
The burnt man looked up from the counter at the nurse, a hopeless look in his eyes. Some blue medical pants, and that was his entire wardrobe as far as he knew. The meta-human had no answers, and the despair about him was obvious. The nurse couldn't help but feel some compassion for him, covered in burns, and with no memory of a past. Some fugue state perhaps caused by the trauma of whatever he had been through.
The nurse went to whistling, and simply 'got distracted' from dealing with the man.
So, he took the hint and walked out of the double doors of the hospital. Glassy blue orbs hit the lights of the street, and all there was... was light before his squinting eyes.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:45 am
(( I.. don't even know why I lol'ed... but I half expected something like this to happen.
I'm taking the rest of the day off before my head breaks.
Feel free to act as if nothing happened. ))
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:45 am
((Hopefully he can find his way back to the Firebrand.))
Flare was startled awake when dramatic music came blaring forth from the kitchen, briefly though it may have been. On the couch, she yawned and stretched, then rolled over to thud onto the floor. Catching herself she stood, shaking out her wings; she'd curled them about her like a blanket as she slept.
The smell of cooking food came from the kitchen...or was that burning food?
...Owle had let herself get distracted from the pancakes again. Should that girl even be cooking?
We're lucky she hasn't burnt the whole place down.
Into the kitchen Flare would go...having no supernatural senses of her own, she was completely oblivious to the approach of the two who were walking on water.
No, Flare was solely concerned with the sanity of her sister. And keeping Owle from burning down the tavern that had miraculously survived an explosion.
Opening the bar door, she stepped behind, and beyond, noticing that Owle seemed to be moving far more steadily than she had the night before. That's a good sign.
"Owle...
...good morning."
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:51 am
.:End Scene at Firebrand.
Continued at Barton.:.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:24 am
((Sorry, Vahn. Couldn't help myself.))
Owle turned around, neglecting those poor pancakes for the second time. "Flare!"
The whole of her body was shaking to just drop the spatula to the floor and throw her arms around Flare for comfort. But Owle was too strong for that. Instead, she gently placed the spatula down on the counter.
Then she threw her arms around the demoness, burying her face in Flare's shoulder.
"He's dead, isn't he?" Her chest constricted and her throat closed up, but the tears refused to come to her eyes. "He's dead cause of me...and Athan, is he...?"
She could tell Flare was worried about her for some reason, but right now her need was greater.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:01 am
Flare stiffened in the girl's grip; the demoness's usual reaction to a hug of any sort. Then she relaxed, putting her arms gently around the girl.
"No. He's not dead. They took him to the hospital, Owle, he survived the blast."
Her mental patterns seemed more normal, her thoughts weren't going every which way as they had been last night. And this...the grief, the guilt, were far more normal reactions from Owle than Didn't he go boom boom splat dead?
"Athan's alive, too. But they needed to take a bullet out of him. No one died, Owle."
Flare began to rub soothing circles up and down the girl's back, hoping to calm her down with the smooth lie. At least no one that mattered.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:24 am
A shudder of relief went through her, as muscles stiff from pain and worry relaxed. "He survived? He was so close to it...
"He really survived?'
Owle pulled back, looking at Flare's face. She knew the demoness was hiding something, she just wasn't sure what. But, no, Jack was still alive. Owle could feel him moving out there, he was really alive. Flare wasn't lying about that.
"Thank goodness..."
Tears finally welled up in her eyes, tears of relief as she finally let go of her sister, a smile on her face and the smell of burnt pancakes wafting up behind her.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 11:11 am
"Owle..."
Suddenly, Flare sniffed the air, growled, and shoved past the girl, grabbing the spatula and flipping the pancakes off the stove. "Pay attention when you're doing things," she admonished, then her voice gentled. "What happened to you last night? You were acting...strange. Like you were possessed."
"Or just insane."
Flare shrugged. Same difference.
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