Welcome to Gaia! ::

He would be caught off-guard, to be sure. Nobody had ever stopped... feeling. His eyes would blank out, his mind truly lost for once, as if he actually couldn't see Owle, even though she spoke, even though she was naught but two, maybe three feet infront of him... It was blinding, to lose those colors so quickly... It was as if the sky had turned stark-white, and the ground beneath his feet a bottomless black, one blinding, one shading, and everything inbetween fading... fading...

Then a puff of happiness! The world is righted, briefly, before he enters cantalope vision... Aghh... He would draw his hood upward, pulling it tight about his face, before following just the noises... That's what he gets for trusting his eyes too much, eh?

It wasn't that Owle had stopped feeling, though that's how it would appear to Luke. She had simply masked her emotions, hiding them in a very private place where empaths and telepaths wouldn't find them without a fight.

Or, unless she got careless with an emotion that was too strong, which was liable to happen more than once before the night was over.

"Are you alright?" she asked over her shoulder as she walked, noting Luke's discomfort. She couldn't know what had made him so uncomfortable, but he was making faces like maybe he had a headache, or a stomach upset, or...something.

She hadn't cloaked anyone else in the area, so Luke would still be able to read Rand and Kalis, at the very least.

Speaking of being alright...I should probably check on Sun...but what if I distract him...?

"My...colors?" Owle asked, twisting around further to get a better look at him. She stopped for a moment, looking down at her shirt and jeans, which still seemed to have all their color in them. Just to be sure, she tugged a strand of hair in front of her eyes. Still bright blue.

In just the few seconds, he had caught up to her as Rand passed by her, still following Kalis. A concerned expression on her face, Owle picked up the pace again, this time walking beside Luke.

"I don't understand," Owle said reflexively. I wonder...

The only thing that had changed with her, the only thing she had done...well, when she looked at a person's mind, when she sensed their aura, she saw it as colors, and feelings. Perhaps he had a similar aura sense, and her clamping up had somehow...done something? Nah, that was way too weird.

Well...

I guess it's worth a shot.

Owle loosed the tight grip she was keeping on her superficial thoughts and emotions, letting mere traces of them leak beyond the shields. Though she wasn't one hundred percent sure, she thought that a telepath would be able to sense the thoughts, though not pick up the words, just the feeling behind them. Even that, if Owle had done it right, should be muted.

To Luke's vision, the colors would start again to flow from Owle, though dimmer and weaker than they had been before.

"Is that better? Could you tell me more, about the colors?"

"They say you can't see wind.... But I do. I see people's winds, as they breath, as they live. They move about, they swirl, they paint... Hate, Love, Jealousy... All of it has a color. All of it paints a picture. Children do it best. They don't see it as we do, they don't bottle themselves, they don't think about feeling. They just... feel."

Luke would loosen the cords of the hood, turning his head to smile at her slightly. "I'm not a case of protige." He murmurs. "I merely see what I see. I've thought about it, and I know what it is I see. I don't.... use it. It merely is. I'm not a telepath... Just a good guesser." Again, he would skim the surface of the scum of the window that was her mind, with his guesses. He doesn't invade, you must understand. Everything exists around him.

In his silence, Luke would reach into the hood of his sweater, against his back. As with Kalis, it was obvious he was drawing a weapon from such a place. In silence, noises highlighted themselves, the pop of clasps, the whisper of leather on cloth.. He'd pull the entire outfit from his hood, smoothly. He would offer this to Owle's inspection. Two wooden weapons, colored a beautiful honey with age, hand-whittled with love. Bokken, to be sure, But one was significantly smaller.

"I can teach him, if you'll let me. They're not the real deal, but they're a start. They've endured alot under my hand.... He won't even get a splinter, I can promise you. I can teach him not only to use these, but to use his own latent abilities..." To this, Luke would through the leather contraption of holsters over a shoulder, the weapons clacking softly. After doing so, he'd extend his hand towards her, grimacing, locking his jaw... Gritting his teeth...

With this, he'd flex his hands, eyes narrowing as he focused on his hands... If she watched his face, he became impressively more feral, face scrunching, fangs becoming very much more noticible... Skin that saw sun seemed fitting, as human nails darkened a hue of black, extending forward to talons, fighting utensils. He'd extend his neck forward, stretching as he suddenly felt heated beneath the hoodie... He'd grip the inside of the hood, tearing downward... Clasps popped and clicked, as he shouldered off the hoodie, revealing his torso, bound by a black tee.

Now, this is where one got the details. To be honest, Luke was not ripped, but, truly, he was buff. Fit, and obviously a wanderers physique. His right arm was ensconced in colors, painting pictures of technology, polished silver, poking wires, etching... Tattoos. His left, however, was a contrast, bearing a tribal sleeve, to the techno one on his right. Thick lines cut abstract, all along his arm, sleek, smooth....

Every muscle in his frame corded out, called to arms for nothing more than a display of what he could teach. Right now he hungered, to be honest, something fierce for something so wrong... An energy a child, let alone a human male should never attempt to tap unless they could control it.

"Mother made me what I am, you must understand. She gave me everything for a reason, I feel. I have a larger, greater purpose, other than what I do with my two hands. I walk, until she calls me. Until then, I'm free to use what she gives me, for whatever purpose I deem fit.... And with your permission, I'd like to teach him."

Silence once more rides out, As Luke untangles the leather straps and wooden weapons from his hoodie, which he folds up and forces into an overly large pocket. He fiddles with the weapon harness, quietly.

Luke smiled, softly.

"Ah, but not by choice. And if you teach your son to never speak to strangers, how will he gain his own friends?" A brow rose, a thought he had thought about much. If you never spoke to a stranger, you would be a hermit, eh? Never socializing.

"I was dropped here, by Mother Earth. Gaia, she is called. If it is not a.... stupid... question, may I ask what do you call your world?" Dark eyes studied her face, not downed by depression of rejection, understanding entirely.

"We, creatures of humanity..." He waves his fingers quietly at his face, his physique... "Not true humans... I believe that we were made so by Her. She made us in the image of her creatures, and there in lies the knowledge of opening your power, as a.. Creature." He frowns thoughtfully, looking forward at the tavern. "Give them to him, aye? The straps can be shortened. There's a full blade, and a dagger." Luke trained in the art of what he called Knight-Style. Dark Age Soldiers carried a Sword and a Dagger, and used them simultaniously. Luke had knowledge entire in both weapons.

"I figure since I'm not where I was, before the Void, that I should step up the ante, and those won't cut it for me anymore." His fingers held out the leather straps and the weapons as he paused close to the Tavern.

"I'm not something to fear, I assure you... Where I come from, This doesn't exist." He motions to everything, including themselves. "Shifters, Creatures of the Earth... They're myths where I started. The end was coming, and I was spared. And now here I am."

Luke caught the door with a doorman's grace. "It is common sense to teach a child never to speak to strangers. But there is folly in it as well." He follows her inward, leaning on the door jamb and looking to her.

"Yes, you are human. But you are so much more." His voice was soft, yet beneath it a tone that hadn't been there, a firmness. He'd lost that edge of a child suddenly. He is lost as to who she had meant when she mentioned a "He". She hadn't answered his question, so he wouldn't answer hers.

"You can't deny it. No more than I can deny that you're angry at me, for the truth in my words. Yes, you have no reason to trust me. But that's what destroyed my world. A lack of trust. Don't let it destroy yours."

"Your friend is awful loud for someone so meek," he said jokingly, though his face still forward, unchanged, eyes closed. With this first statement, Kalis may or may not have recognized his voice from before he rushed off from the stadium with Owle, when he was calling to her.



"That would be me." Rain finally opened his eyes and looked down the hall at Kalis, recognizing him instantly. "Oh! It's you!" he exclaimed suddenly, half-suprised. He unlocked his hands and stood quickly from his sitting stance, brushing himself off with his hands quickly before standing tall, at his somewhat impressive 6'3".

"That was an excellent match against whatshisface from Glacier. Vahn? Vin? Van? I was most impressed. Sir... Cole, was it? No, that was your teammate. ...Kalis?" he said, wincing as he took a shot at his name. He wasn't so hot with names.

Clearing his throat, he glanced at the door he was resting beside, resting his left palm against it. "Er, yes. My point. That rather angry woman who attacked that red-head from Glacier is in here. The one you placed in the stands after Ms. Isohos somehow incapacitated her? I thought she would be a danger in a medical facility if she awoke in a frenzy, plus there would be the danger of being mistreated by a doctor. Her pulse is slowed a bit but not dangerously low, so I figured letting her rest here would be best. Ms. Isohos would probably know the best medicine for this woman, wouldn't she?"

Kalis' head followed as Rain rose, going from looking down at him- to looking up. Almost as tall as Athan, Rain had quite nearly half a foot on Kalis- and if he was built with that althetic big shoulders, narrower waist, and hard muscles adding bulk to the body, he'd be more than a little reminiscient of 'home', as it once might have been. Certain people tended to have the advantage in that sort of combat, tall, strong, and built for crushing power a very useful one. Kalis had always been a shrimp among his peers- or close as he had too- though he'd managed to never fall too far behind. One found ways to offset such disadvantages.

In anycase, he recognized Rain from the whole fiasco after-math of the tourney, if not from during it. He hadn't really bothered to watch the other matches, though now he was beginning to think he might as well pick up tapes of them all and try and find time. Maybe watch them during if he ended up coming back in the next year, or even if not, he supposed. Still, it all left him without a terribly clear background on the man.

"The first one. And it wasn't, really." he hadn't really put up a good show the whole time, though he was seeing where that was from. For one, he was beginning to realize that it certainly was a competition. He'd taken it seriously, but it had just been a serious game. Other people had taken it as far more than a game, fought as if it was real. It seemed silly to do that for a prize or competition.... but a sort of side of him that saw it from a "soldier's" point of view could see where if they were going to fight like that he owed going in as if he meant to kill too. "Felt kind of silly, what with him playing at being some action movie star and me still trying to test out what I could do with my fists. Should have just drawn the weapon and given it a shot." he shrugged, dismissing any further on the subject.

"Kalis Acineres, that's the name I go by." he shrugged. "Ah. So it's you and her. That guy.... er... I'd gotten an impression I might have to play bouncer." he shrugged, cracking a small, sheepish grin. "But, yeah. That'll be good to take her mind off of issues just now too." Kalis might have offered a try himself, but his medical specialty was more tying things up until a real doctor could look at them, keeping them falling off or bleeding over much, and he didn't know a thing about treating super-humans. Or meta-humans. Or... phsyically not normal people.

((Sorry. Feels lacking, but I gotta go. I'll post further when I get a shot.))