It felt like deja vu, standing there listening to him recant the meaning of contranym. It brought to mind things like pugilist, and bathos, and while she knew what they meant, they too felt incredibly foreign to her tongue. They weren't things she would say naturally, but maybe they were things that he would say.
She looked up at him, searching his face as she strained her mind for any flash or hint that she knew the person standing in front of her somehow. Was it just blind hope that maybe, just maybe, they weren't all drifting aimlessly, strangers in a monochromatic world?
He mentioned cigarettes and her eyes went wide before she blurted out. "Never take up smoking!" Before clapping a hand over her mouth and shaking her head.
The intermittent, random flickers and flashes were more then confusing, they were frustration. She got the impression of shaking hands, one with a star, and a feral, shock of a grin.
Wide eyes turned up to him, practically begging for some flicker of understanding or recognition. If they knew each other it meant they weren't alone, but it also meant that they were not where they should be, and there was giant gaping holes where the rest of their lives should be, and that was terrifying.
rejam
Character name: Coyote Prey End Character appearance: Dainty and relatively unformed. Her heart glows red. Link to Heart Log[o] Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equipped Simple Revenge
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 6:14 pm
[ enters from The Ruins ]
As Naiad entered this new area she had to admit that the person she had met had been right. This place had a kind of ethereal beauty and she quite enjoyed it. Oh yes the area was definitely run down, however the cliffs and soft glow of the place was enchanting in its own way. Smiling slightly she heads towards the cliffs nearby.
[ Exits to The Aether cliffs ]
OOC
Character name: Naiad Character appearance: A simple womanly grey form with a yellow heart. She also sports a Skull Pin, shining a steady white. Link to Heart LogX Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSimple Reflection 2d8-6
And he'd been getting flickers, too, but they were cold park benches and retching over the smell of piss in a pile of secondhand clothes, or the calm of walking two dogs down a shady street, or sneaking cigarettes behind the gym.
So where did he know girls. His flaky memory tossed up some suggestions: redheaded volleyball player two years his senior and three inches taller in the shade between the portables, chubby girl with nose ring reading Dostoyevsky in the library, dark-haired sloe-eyed strung-out beauty and the smell of dusty shag carpet, painted toenails.
No, wait. He remembered socks, but he'd been distracted. She just made him think of cigarettes, and for a fleeting instant of a scream that made the hairs on his neck rise.
And the colorless eyes that were turned to her didn't have the same recognition that hers did, save for that one brief, painful flicker. He'd done that to her. Didn't know how, or why. And maybe she'd remember that too, and remember it better, and leave him alone again.
It didn't seem fair to be punished for something he couldn't remember doing.
"I think," he said finally, carefully, "that if we're... supposed to be hanging out..." he trailed off, indicated the pendant, indicated her, generally. "I don't know. Maybe you know me more than I know you."
But they didn't know each other, of course.
Beejoux
OOC
Character name: Amity Character appearance: A thin and stretched-looking thing that trembles gently and has the taut, nervous energy of a caged animal pacing. His yellow heart seems hungry, and he wears a blue pendant around his neck. Link to Heart Logx Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSorrow and Rage
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 6:43 pm
[ enters from The Aether cliffs ]
Naiad entered the area again with a smile. She then looked around before heading back out to the next spot of interest to her.
[ Exits to Sacred Flight ]
OOC
Character name: Naiad Character appearance: A simple womanly grey form with a yellow heart. She also sports a Skull Pin, shining a steady white. Link to Heart LogX Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSimple Reflection 2d8-6
Once, the view from the world's edge had impressed him.
Now it was just sort of chilling and dangerous.
[enter]
OOC
Character name: Shaw Character appearance: A tall, broad shouldered figure with a glowing red heart. A bright blue pendant hangs around his neck, and he holds a glowing green staff in his hands or strapped to his back. Link to Heart Log:http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=23967951&page=1 Current HP 60/60 Current weapon equipped Crumbling Hope, 2d8-6
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 7:19 pm
Something in his face, some painful flicker, made her drop her gaze, and she half turned to push hands into her pockets to keep them still. One small foot lifting to rub at the back of her calf with the toe of her boot. It felt familiar, habitual, and she let out a quiet, uneasy sigh.
It had been easier when there was nothing in her head but faith and direction. Easier, but..
She wouldn't give up the fractured fragments of self, frustrating though they may be. It was all she had to go by.
Wary eyes flicked up again as she spoke, and she watched his hand as he gestured at her, at the glowing pendants. They were familiar, those thin, shaking hands. She didn't know how, but they were. "Maybe," she conceded.
One small hand left the safety of her pocket to touch the pendant before coming up to rub at the back of her neck. "I don't know why, but you feel familiar." Her nose scrunched up, head shaking vaguely before she dropped her eyes and mumbled. "I don't wanna keep wandering around alone."
Bad s**t kept happening. Things she couldn't really.. remember, but that didn't make them less real. Her hand dropped to press against her chest again, feeling the comforting beat of her core. Still there.
rejam
Character name: Coyote Prey End Character appearance: Dainty and relatively unformed. Her heart glows red. Link to Heart Log[o] Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equipped Simple Revenge
Naiad entered the area again with a grin before looking around. Seeing nothing more here for her to do at the moment she heads out.
[ Exits to The Spire ]
OOC
Character name: Naiad Character appearance: A simple womanly grey form with a yellow heart. She also sports a Skull Pin, shining a steady white. Link to Heart LogX Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSimple Reflection 2d8-6
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:42 pm
[Wyng enters from Sacred Flight ] Having soared to new heights, Wyng decided to return home. [Wyng exits to the Spire]
OOC
Character name: Wonenwyng (Wyng) Character appearance: A average sized grey form with a red heart(That occasionally shifts colors), long black hair, a black blank tag around it's neck, and wearing the remains of what seems to be a dress. Link to Heart LogHere Current HP 50/50 Current weapon equippedAgony's Twin
He remembered--he remembered, because he hadn't let Her have it--his mother taking his hands and singing to him, and feeling like the world was much smaller and safer for it. He had been very small and even though nothing bad was happening to him in that instant, being small was frightening on its own.
Dispassionately, without a flicker of expression, he watched Peyton and all her nervous gestures in all her tiny supposed vulnerability, and he didn't believe any of it because she'd just sunk an axe into a shambling computer monster, but he felt... not sympathy, not exactly.
He felt compulsion. Like so many other times in his recent history he felt himself doing something he did not actually want to do. He wanted to leave her again because having her around would be an unnecessary burden on both his travel and his thoughts. And he would, at some point, because he had other compulsions too that were powerful, and a need to satisfy the gnawing curiosity he'd been cursed with on day one that required a freedom of movement. But not right now.
He thought of his mother taking his hands, and he silently reached out and took one of hers, and kept walking.
Beejoux
OOC
Character name: Amity Character appearance: A thin and stretched-looking thing that trembles gently and has the taut, nervous energy of a caged animal pacing. His yellow heart seems hungry, and he wears a blue pendant around his neck. Link to Heart Logx Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSorrow and Rage
Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 11:44 pm
Coyote starred down at her small hand wrapped in thin fingers, and she waited for some flicker of recognition to hit, some flash of memory, but it was just a hand.
A warm, solid, comforting hand.
As he pulled her along she let out a slow breath, relieved that they were sticking together, at least for now. He'd already disappeared on her twice, he'd probably do it again, but he didn't seem to like the idea of her leaving him.
"Thanks." It was quiet, little more them a mumble, but she squeezed his fingers as they kept walking. Grateful for the company.
"Other than music, do you remember anything?" She was trying to hold onto whatever fractured memories or feelings she thought involved Amity, not at all keen to further examine the few snippets she'd gotten of a smiling woman with short blond hair and pale eyes. She didn't knew why, but the memories had made her chest feel tight.
How was he supposed to answer that? He half-remembered all kinds of things, briefly. He had moments of dim familiarity, just like she had. But the only thing he really remembered--besides the memories since he'd woken up, and these he still clung to desperately because he had made them mindfully--was his mother singing to him, a song about cats that wasn't really about a cat.
"No," he said finally, feeling defeated. It didn't feel like the right answer to give. "They keep taking them away."
He hesitated, and then he said, carefully not looking at her: "I met a guy who said maybe they're pulling the memories out of us to make things, just like we pull things out of the... the creatures we kill, and use those to make things." This clearly troubled him; maybe that's why he'd seemed so unhappy to put a few rounds into the mindless Processor. "And I don't know what that says about the things we're killing. I know it's us or them," he added, before she could point it out. "I'm not... trying to be a bleeding heart here. I'm not going to stop. I'm just worried about what happens if they take everything."
Part of him wanted to find out, just in case it would be a return to the void. But he felt somehow certain that it wouldn't be. Nothing else had been. Always the dim, tiring sensation of waking up yet again. Of living after you'd died.
Beejoux
OOC
Character name: Amity Character appearance: A thin and stretched-looking thing that trembles gently and has the taut, nervous energy of a caged animal pacing. His yellow heart seems hungry, and he wears a blue pendant around his neck. Link to Heart Logx Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSorrow and Rage
Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 6:32 am
"They keep taking them away."
"Yeah." She sounded lost, unsure of herself. As familiar as fighting felt, it did little to help her understand anything else that was going on. She was following along, doing what was requested, for whatever tiny fragments of herself she was regaining, and for lack of anything better to do. For lack of any better plan.
She looked at him sidelong as he offered up the theory and her fingers tightened around his, eyes widening as the implications sank in. The memories were gone, but how she'd felt after, the tears drying on her cheeks and the blood stained and soaked clothing. All of it suggested that what the goddess had taken had been awful. At the time she had been grateful to have them taken away, grateful for the blessed oblivion she'd found in those glowing white arms.
And yet she remembered her core being ripped from her chest. That one she remembered, not the details, but the sensation, and the fear. Just thinking about it made her cringe, and she dropped her gaze, watching the ground as they continued walking.
"That's a very unsettling thought." She sounded uneasy, more so then before.
Full lips pressed together in a thoughtful line, then parted to suck in a low breath as if she were steeling herself for something. "Did.. " She faulted, not entirely sure how to ask what she wanted to ask. "I mean.. The goddess with the scythe. You did what she wanted, right?" She didn't wait for an answer, already fairly certain he had by sheer force of personality alone. "Did your core get ripped out?" Her voice sounded small, scared even.
rejam
Character name: Coyote Prey End Character appearance: Dainty and relatively unformed. Her heart glows red. Link to Heart Log[o] Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equipped Simple Revenge
"Yes," he said finally, simply. His voice was thin and hard, and that was all he said.
Beejoux
OOC
Character name: Amity Character appearance: A thin and stretched-looking thing that trembles gently and has the taut, nervous energy of a caged animal pacing. His yellow heart seems hungry, and he wears a blue pendant around his neck. Link to Heart Logx Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSorrow and Rage
Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 7:50 am
She looked pained as she reached up with her free hand yet again to rest fingers against her core. It was reassuring to feel her chest whole and solid. To not feel the rough edges of some gaping hole.
"Why didn't they take that with everything else?" The memory of how it had happened was gone, but she remembered the shock of pain, the feel of torn flesh around an empty cavity.
"I don't know," he said, a hint of snappishness creeping back into his voice. He let go of her hand, shoving his own into his pockets. "I don't know anything. I don't understand anything."
The frustration hurt. He didn't want to know anything, but he craved it, and the conflict was becoming increasingly difficult to resolve.
Beejoux
OOC
Character name: Amity Character appearance: A thin and stretched-looking thing that trembles gently and has the taut, nervous energy of a caged animal pacing. His yellow heart seems hungry, and he wears a blue pendant around his neck. Link to Heart Logx Current HP 40/40 Current weapon equippedSorrow and Rage
