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 Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:25 pm
-This is where the status quo ends. :: Part VIII-
Now we're left to wonder where it all went w r o n g . . .
White hot pain, accompanied by the feeling of something slicing through her skin shot across her calf in the second just before Aido hit the bottom of the tunnel.
On impact she felt something scaled and gritty beneath her convulse and the jaws or whatever was around her calf tightened (though whether it was out of instinct or the a renewed desire to pull her down because her weight indicated that she was, indeed, good prey was not something she had time to ponder on).
Muffling a scream with lips and teeth she surged to her feet and was brought down again in less time that it took her to stand. An unknown number of legs and things that she couldn't see or place by touch latched onto her wherever they could.
A feast was what she offered and the creatures had no intention of letting her go.
She fought back, with feet and teeth and stubby, bleeding nails, keeping them just far away enough so that they couldn't wrap around her completely and suffocate her.
Blearily, somewhere between throwing herself back into a wall and kicking her leg as hard as she could into something that felt solid enough, she realized that whatever had had her by the leg was gone and none of the other creatures were truly trying to sink their teeth into her. She had already had scratches and grazes from things that'd felt enough like teeth, yes, but it was obvious that teeth weren't the main weapon of these creatures.
That didn't bode well. But immediate survival was more pressing, so Aido forced the sense of foreboding away and let adrenaline spurred instinct take over.
Rael arrived in a flash of barely visible ivory teeth and burning eyes. The panicked hysteria from before was back and this time it was free from any sort of moral boundaries which had kept it in check before.
Though she didn't know it, Aido had only been alone in the pit fighting for a chance at escape for less than a minute but it took little more than that for Rael's fury to dismember every one of their attackers.
The darkness of the pit made it impossible for Aido to see the carnage that was displayed; but she could feel the warmth of fresh blood and what she guessed were once the innards of their attackers on her cheeks and splayed across what remained of her clothing.
"Rae-" something wet and warm slipped over her lips with the movement and she twitched, quickly spitting as it dribbled into her mouth. "Rael?" she questioned, pushing herself up from the half-crouch she'd fallen into when Rael had begun to bodily drag her attackers off her.
Somewhere on the other side of the pitch there was a loud crunk of an answer and slowly bright, glossy golden eyes turned to look at her without a flicker of recognition.
Rael dropped the larger chunk of flesh and bone from his mouth and turned fully. Bits of himself, tainted with blood, dribbled off in red and black streaks, eagerly joining the other shadows of the pit.
Small sections of the dripping and drizzling shadows traveled back to Aido and the Tale had to shut her eyes and swallow hard against a small surge of bile as her stomach flip-flopped.
She'd never, ever felt something like this from her companion before. The majority of it felt so indescribably horrid that the only words that came close were vile and polluted. Something like a once pristine lake that'd had nuclear waste deposited in it.
For the first time Aido seriously began to consciously suspect that it wasn't her that there was something horribly wrong with.
Her eyes flicked open and Rael was not three steps away from her. Saliva dripped from his mouth, wherein some part of the creatures that had attacked them still remained. Blood, shadow and saliva all mixed together to form a small waterfall of a solution which flowed over the sides of his mouth to slosh onto the pit's floor, splattering with a chorus of tiny plips before the liquid was soaked up by the sand and the shadows scuttled off to their place, be that in Aido's shadow or in the now writhing shadows around their feet.
The Shadow Mancer stood deathly still, barely twitching as Rael stepped forward, his slosh of juice dripping on her toes and pants and his too warm breath pressing across the planes of her face. Bi-colored eyes had locked onto her Companion's form, where she was beginning to realize the feeling of wrong (for there really was no other word for it) was eminating from. The Tale was fighting a silent battle on two fronts against both the wall that blocked her senses attuned to shadows and the twitching need to pay attention attention to her surroundings- to make sure nothing new was coming to attack or kill them.
Gold eyes half-focused on bi-colored ones and Aido's eyes widened as something on the crown of Rael's brow glinted in the deep shadows of the pit.
Without even allowing herself a moment to double check, lest the briefly surfacing something dive back into Rael's form and hide where she couldn't see it, Aido lashed out, pressing her hand against Rael's brow and pushing.
Rael screamed, a true and verbal scream, and that in itself was wrong and struck Aido like a physical blow, prompting her voice to join his without hesitation, but still she pressed and followed as Rael scuttled backwards.
Her hand twitched with sharp waves of pain in face of the pressure she was forcing against it but she tried to ignore it.
Then, with no warning other than the same sharp 'crack' as when she'd broken away from the Illis, Aido's hand slipped through into the shifting shadows and into Rael's body. She lunged, snatched up the tiny shining fragment and lurched her hand back out.
If the feeling of her Companion had been hard to bare before then thrusting her hand into the heart of it was torturous to the point where Aido suddenly, desperately, wanted to curl up and cry until the feeling of grit and bad and polluted fell or was soothed away from her.
But there was something in her hand now, so she focused on that and only that. This strage thing that she was certain was at the root of so many thing.
The thing itself was small and white, tear shaped and looked almost beautiful. Unlike the mass Aido had purged from Reid this thing glittered and shone with a pale blue, pulsing heartbeat light of its own.
A surge of protectiveness (of all things- the still independently functioning part of her mind noted) welled up in her and she longed to press the tiny object to her chest and shelter it with her body.
Rael roared and Aido barely heard it, eyes still focused on the object in her hands.
Rael bit her arm and Aido felt that.
Eyes snapping back into focus so quickly it made her head hurt, Aido yelped and jumped backwards, dropping the tiny thing. Immediately Rael was atop it and, for a moment, Aido thought he was taking it for himself.
But her Companion was doing something else entirely; He was ripping the tiny thing to shreds.
Aido screamed and lunged at him, only to be restrained by the shadows of the pit itself.
The pulsating object grew dimmer as Rael ripped it apart and the scraps that his claws gleaned away from it were quickly overtaken by the nearby shadows of the pit.
The blinding protectiveness faded along with the glow, as did the adrenaline that had accompanied it, and Aido allowed herself to slide to the floor.
Rael finished shredding the last of it and stood still, panting wetly over the writhing shadows that continued to crawl for several moments, until gradually all activity faded and the pit was still. He looked up, eyes still clouded with an edge of instability as he hadn't quite regained himself yet, when Aido groaned, holding her head with her now free hands.
"Was... was that it?" the Tale asked, her words shaking as she shivered despite the heat. Her normal level of awareness was returning, slowly at first, and then the last of it hit her with the fersity of a sledgehammer.
Aido smiled serenely for a moment, caught up in the moment between-feeling of familiarity, acceptance and calm that the Shadows offered her. Her halo glowed gently, illuminating herself, Rael and the carnage. But the moment passed quickly, and she immediately choked on the pain and awareness and the room spun; shadows and light mixed, colors and sounds tried to trade places but merely resulted a the roar of static slicing through her brain as her senses smashed into one another, scrambling to make sense of the world around her.
Without truly feeling it she doubled over to vomit on the floor.
Rael took a few steps forward, sitting down beside her and watching in concern.
Groaning again she held her stomach and reteched out the last of the bile, coughing and spitting. Tears ran down her cheeks, mingling with sweat and blood and bile and she vaguely wondered if her body's other orifices would join in purge.
They didn't and gradually things settled. Tiny sparks still swam in the edge of her vision but things were beginning to clear with speed.
"I think that may have been the worst five minutes of my life," she murmured, voice scratchy and rough from the abuse she'd so recently put her throat through. But she tried her best to smile at Rael and make their situation a little lighter than it was.
Rael chuckled, in that normal, nonvocal way of his and Aido couldn't help feeling a little better.
But the lift only helped her fragile psyche and physically she felt ready to collapse.
But she didn't want to stay in this pit that was covered in carnage and so obvious those creatures home. Rael didn't either and, after sharing a look, her Companion stood and trot so that he was in front of her, bent so that she could use him to stand.
Gently easing herself up she reached out to use Rael as a support-
And her hand passed through him.
Aido gasped, cold sweeping over her. Her breath hitched and stopped solidly, somewhere in the middle of her throat. She choked against it and gripped the packed sand of the floor.
Rael's eyes lost what clarity they'd regained.
Darkness clouded at the edges of Aido's vision, blocking out the illumination from her suddenly glowing halo.
Gasping soundlessly she clawed at her throat, trying desperately to swallow and breath again.
A crack broke the silent air and Aido's halo went dark just as the breath rushed back into her lungs.
Looking up weakly she just barely caught sight of Rael leaping up the sides of the pit, causing small clusters of previously packed sand rain down on her. He didn't pause as he reached the top, merely darted up, over the side and out of sight.
Aido looked at her hands and spat the first word that jumped into her head. It was a swear, one in a tongue that wasn't her's and, if asked, she wouldn't have been able to recall or immediately repeat it.
Tears welled up once again in the corners of her eyes and she surged up, ignoring the screaming protests of her body and darted to the wall where Rael's footprints made a patchwork of handholds. She didn't bother wiping away the tears or trying to stop them from coming. At the moment she didn't have the energy to spare.
She'd done something wrong- cut some bond or accidentally placed something differently when she'd extracted the thing from Rael. She hadn't known she could mess it up, acting on instinct and completely inexperienced as she was, but that was no excuse. She should've thought... known... SOMETHING. By instinct or by old knowledge, she should have known.
Aido staggered to the top, out into the full sunlight of mid-afternoon. The heat hit her with the same ferocity as a brick hurtled from a window and she quickly reached back into the pit, keeping one eye on the small black shape in the distance she was sure was Rael.
She felt a small rush of relief when she found herself able to bundle up the eager shadows and craft them into an umbrella as she took off at a run after her Companion. She propped up shadow craft mid step and increased her pace to a sprint.
Fueled by adrenaline and nothing else the Shadow Mancer knew that if she didn't catch him now she would lose him. That thought spurred her across the burning sand, leaving a mess of bloodied footprints and tiny strands of blue-violent cloth in her wake.
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:46 pm
-This is where the status quo ends. :: Part IX-
When you try your best but you don’t s u c c e e d . . .
Her umbrella had been worn away some immeasurably time ago by the constant beating from the sun's rays and her own waning energy. Adrenaline had only gotten her so far and she'd long since slowed from a sprint to a run and then to the drugding walk of her present.
Her ankle, still bleeding but now swollen on top of everything, had faded from sharp pain to a dull, nearly numb sort of pain. It was gradually getting harder and harder to lift up that leg. But she did because somewhere out there Rael was still racing across the sand, and she had to get to him.
Taking quiet, deep breaths she tried her best to concentrate on the matter of dragging one exposed foot forwards at a time as she slowly made towards... well, she didn't know where. She didn't know where she was let alone where she was going. All she could hope for was that predators, like the ones from the pit, would stay away and that every step would get her closer to Rael.
She could barely feel her Companion now and no matter how long she seemed to walk his presence never got any stronger.
In frustration she tore off her shirt, grimacing as she sent sweat flying everywhere with the motion and the sun began to beat down on her previously covered skin.
"Ughhh..." the Tale croaked, running her tongue over her sweat tinged lips and loosening her scarf around her neck. She glanced up at the sun and then back to the sand. The sun seemed to have barely moved towards the horizon. Not for the first time Aido couldn't help but wonder what she'd done in a past life to piss off whatever deity she'd obviously angered to deserve this sort of recurring fate.
She blinked and looked at her no longer moving feet, finally noticing that she'd stopped her march across the sand without consciously meaning to.
A few traitorous thoughts prompted the idea of staying where she was, digging a hole and waiting until night fell. Those thoughts were quickly beaten down by the larger part of her, which was still clinging to her loyalty to her Companion above silly, inconsequencial things like 'personal limits'.
With a determined set to her stance she threw her shirt over her shoulder, raised a foot and continued onwards.
Aido wasn't sure when she ran into the patch of stupidly solid nothing, but when she did she did what any sensible person would do, she tried to go around it. Had she had her senses about her she might've stopped to ask why a patch of nothing was solid, but her sense was gone, shucked away with everything else except her concentration, which had been locked on the monotonous task of raising her feet and walking.
But now even her ability to do that simple task seemed to have been taken away from her, as she found herself continually running into solid, but invisible, things.
Aido laughed out loud when she ran into the solid nothing for the fifth time and crumpled to the ground as her finally knees buckled.
"No...! Get up...!" she growled at herself. Her arms twitched in an attempt to straighten, her fingers brushing against the sand in the process, but that merely made her skin burn. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes as gravity won out against her feeble resistance and she collapsed on her side.
"Please... please get up..." she choked on the words and let out a low sob of frustration.
She craned her neck as far to the side as it would go as the darkness began to eat away at the edges of her vision. For a moment she thought she saw something solidify out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't have the energy to turn her head to look.
A shadow fell across her and she whimpered in relief at the blessed feeling of shadows coating her burned flesh just before the darkness swallowed her whole.[ lyrics: Coldplay ]
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:57 pm
-This is where the status quo ends. :: Part X-
Running in c i r c l e s . . . .
A scream of fury cuts its way across the sand and Kibeth swings her head around, though she never slows her pace.
This escape ranks up there with some of her worse off the cuff plans. Even if one could discount the timing (roughly noon if the sun is any guide) and the placement (the middle of a desert whose name refuses to come to mind) it stinks of desperation and an addled mind.
But then again, such a formula has worked before....
A wind whips up and she blinks against both sand and hair which are flung into her face, blocking her view of the slope behind her. The wind is warping the sound of the person behind her screaming, turning it into something nearly melodic. The woman laughed at the sheer ridiculous of the entire situation, but the wind stole that away too.
As quickly as it rose the wind dies with a meager whumph of sound and Kibeth trips over her own clawing limbs when she finds that, rather than climbing the huge dune she's reached the relatively smooth summit. The trip sends her head over heels into a small roll that she finds herself unable to stop before the slope begins to decline and she finds herself screeching before the sound is cut off by a mouth full of sand.
The sand bites and burns as she claws at it in an attempt to stop. It's all useless anyway, as she's at the bottom in a matter of moments.
Dizzy and off balance she staggers to her feet, not brave enough to dare the glance backwards which would reveal if her pursuer is still on the hunt or not.
She nearly falls over due to her vision's misguiding tilt and swirl, but somehow she finds her balance and begins the desperate drudging run away.
She doesn't know how far away she is when another scream reaches her ears, but this one sounds so desperate and pleading, though she can't quite make out the words, save for something that sounds like her name, that she pivots, swinging her weight around so that she can glance back mid-dive (in-case this really is a hunter after her and not the ally she desperately needs).
Dark chestnut hair catches the wind and flies out like a banner and Kibeth can't help but grin at the sight.
There she is, the ally she desperately needs.
"Vic!!!" the old nickname springs off her lips with a life of its own, and without much thought she's turned around completely and is running towards the other girl who's on her way to meet her.
Arms out and welcoming Kibeth almost doesn't react when her old friend greets her with a bruising punch across her left cheek. Survival instinct takes only a moment to kick in and she jumps back and away from the other woman, staring in horror with one hand on her throbbing cheek.
Victoria's fists are clenched so tightly Kibeth can see the thin bones pressing up against the other Mancer's skin and without any sort of warning she springs after Kibeth, not content to simply end this with merely one punch.
-
The dream was already fading as the Shadow Mancer blearily blinked her eyes open.
For a moment Aido wasn't sure where she was, or even who she was, stuck between selves, memories and the sensations of the present. The blankets pressing against her felt normal to all her selves, though the deep set ache which was slowly worming its way in to intrude on her conscious mind was more familiar to Aido and Kibeth than their Other.
Blinking she fought with her aching body and forced herself into a sitting position, dark and light locks falling over her eyes and solidifying her identity.
"Aido," she murmured, confirming her identity to herself with her voice, scratchy as it was, and the sight of the familiar planes of her own body which were now exposed, as the blanket which had fallen to rest around her still flat lower body.
Pressing a hand against her stomach she squinted and slowly raised her lead feeling arms to press wearily against her eyes, which were hurting. After rubbing at them for a few minutes she blinked her eyes open and everthing snapped into a fuzzy sort of focus.
Experimentally she opened one eye at a time. The pain was starting to pool into the place behind her left eye and, leaning against the pillows that were pressing against her back, she pressed against her golden irised eye gently with the palm of her hand until the pain began to subside. While she had only her right eye open the world slid into it's normal state of clarity and, as the pain subsided, she opened her left eye once more.
For a moment the world continued to fuzz. Aido's head ached as did her eye, but then things faded to normal. Along with her sight clearing Aido felt what was left of the 'wall' between herself and her awareness of the shadows fade away, thankfully not with the violent force as last time.
Last time....
The events of the past snapped to the forefront of her mind and, without a thought to the state of her body and mind, Aido leapt from the strange bed.
The Tale's legs gave out as soon as they touched the floor and she crumpled in a naked heap on the carpeted ground.
'Rael...RaelRaelRael...!' her mind chanted franticly, mashing together with quiet thoughts of 'where am I?' and 'where is my scarf?!'
Panting, Aido pressed her face into the fuzz of the carpet, trying to dig up reserves of strength that just weren't there anymore, when a voice cut through the silence of the room.
"I see you woke up in a hurry...."
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:19 pm
-This is where the status quo ends. :: Part XI-
Would someone please fix the lighting in this p l a c e . . . ?
Aido glanced up at the words, finding a dark haired man looming in the doorway and peering at her as if naked pre-teens invaded his home (or whatever this was) all the time.
'Rapist...?' Kibeth questioned, the mental inquiry a suspicious hiss and Aido grimaced against it, sending back a wave of confusion.
'A... a what?' the word was familiar but the meaning was beyond her at that moment.
'A bad,' Kibeth replied, throwing conventional grammar out the window as, for all immediate intents and purposes, 'bad' seemed to be a perfectly decent noun to her.
The man took a step towards her and Aido tensed further, tensing tired and leaded muscles which screamed in protest. As he took yet another step towards her Aido abruptly darted to the side, using all four of her limbs to try and swing out and around the side of the man.
The plan failed halfway. Her legs, unable to take the strain, buckled and her balance falted, resulting in a collision between her side and the sharp edge of the door frame.
Once again reduced to a heap of flesh and muscle Aido simply lay where she'd landed.
It was quite possibly that that was the last straw, as the Shadow Mancer felt the last of her will to keep fighting, keep running leave her with a whiff of a sigh as she gripped her newly aching side.
The man looked at her and tapped her other side with his boot. When she didn't react he sighed, "oh wonderful, you're a skittish one. I'm not going to deal with you. Fye!" he called and exited the room by stepping around her.
Aido didn't move as the man's footsteps receded, nor did she do much more than twitch as another, different, pair of footsteps returned in their place.
But rather than stop by her these footsteps continued past her, to someplace she couldn't see, before looping back.
The warmth of the fleecy comforter being spread over her was a surprise, as were the rather gentle hands that managed to pick her up and cocoon her in the blanket at the same time.
Eyes fuzzing the young Shadow Mancer looked up as she was cradled against a chest and caught a small glimpse of white-blond hair, before her vision abruptly darkened completely.
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Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:50 pm
-This is where the status quo ends. :: Part XII-
Driven to d i s t r a c t i o n. . . .
Aido woke up with such abruptness that, for a moment, she felt as if it'd only been seconds since she'd last been awake.
The scenery is the same as before, but this time the Tale took the time to look around. The room was mild, painted with creams and shades of blue, and decorated with what looked like a collection of various things without any common thread. In the corner, by a currently curtained window, there was a potted plant; beneath it a large, decorative fan which was draped with some sort of clothing Aido didn't recognize, to the side of that there was a small shelf filled with books, glass balls and....
Aido blinked her eyes open again. What light there'd been left in the day was gone and the curtains were far more opaque.
She felt a little more aware this time, a little less fogged and bogged down by pain, though, when she experimentally tried wiggling various appendages, she found it far more hard than the first time she'd opened her eyes.
Than it'd ever been before, really, and that was counting the time her arm had been broken.
Not quite oriented in her own body it took wiggling her stiff back to realize she wasn't quite laying down. Rather she was mostly upright, leaning against a heap of large, soft pillows. She looked down and struggled to drag her hands out of the confines of the blankets which covered her.
Extracting her arms revealed long sleeves which hung off her limp wrists and, for a moment, she didn't know if her hands even existed any more. Her body felt separated and disjointed from her mind, and numb and nonexistent in its own right, save for a few warm spots of self awareness, though she wasn't certain exactly what she was aware of.
But there they were, her hands wiggled themselves out and then limply flopped back to the bed. She gazed at them with a certain amount of fondness and, after a belated minute of staring at them, concern. Both hands were bandaged, for her left merely the palm of her hand itself was encased in bandages but her right was covered from palm upwards, the white bandages disappearing beneath the cover of the long jacket like thing she was currently clothed in.
'There's something really wrong with me,' the thought briefly surfaced and then it was gone, leaving behind merely the feeling of uncertainty and a tinge of fear.
Aido slowly, gently, eased her head so that she was looking at the curtained windows and wondered what would happen next.
[lyrics :: Coldplay]
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:13 am
-This is where the status quo ends. :: Part XIII-
It takes a lot to be always on f o r m . . . .
A weight settled over her and Aido rose towads it, her head peaked over the top of the water but when she looked around to try and get her bearings all she could see was the opaque plane of the sky stretching out in all directions. It was a bright scene, filled with fluffy clouds and the vibrant blue of a sky lit by full daylight, disrupted only by the soft silver ripples that her surfacing had caused.
The Tale shivered in the water, pumping her legs hard and reaching her hands up towards the stars above.
The water slid off her wrists in never ending rivets and the tug of the water tightened.
Aido struggled and cried out for help.
No one answered and she slipped back beneath the water.
The water's fingers gripped her even as the last of her dipped beneath the surface, pulling her deeper and deeper into the dark depths of the water.
She looked behind her and scattered amongst the barely shimmering air bubbles floating past were creatures that refused to keep their species for more than five seconds at a time. Dogs were turning into penguins and birds into crocidiles and then back again and there were many other twisting shapes that she couldn't quite identify.
Every few shifts the creatures would all change at once, becoming a huge school of widely diverse fish and, as one, they would rush upwards towards the surface, whipping by her, only to fall short by a few meager feet as their bodies changed once again. They'd choke on the water and in that moment of hesitation they'd be grabbed back by the water.
Aido flailed harder, she was the only one with hands, the only one that could fight this-
And then a hand reached beneath suface, it's owner standing easily atop the surface, and gripped her own.
Bi-colored eyes blinked open and met the steady gaze of vibrant blue irised ones. Pale gold hair flopped over the man's face and, slowly, she realized that his forehead was against her's.
"Hallo there, little kit."
"Hallo there, sir," the words tipped off her tounge on reflex and she frowned slightly at the way her over-sized feeling tounge attempted to sabotage them.
The man smiled at her and offered her something in a glass and Aido remembered that he was a stranger.
"Who are you?"
"I'm called Fye-"
"Fai?"
"Uh-uh, F-eye," Fye took the word slowly, wrapping his lips around the sound and edging the glass closer to her.
"Fye...?" Aido repeated again, tilting her head and gaining a brief headache for the motion.
"Exactly, little kit!" Fye beamed at her, Aido wondered about the nickname's origins and continued to pointedly ignore the sweating glass. "And you? What is you name?"
"Aido."
"It's good to finally make your conscious aquaintence, Aido."
Feeling more secure with the man's name tucked away Aido risked a shy smile back, "it's nice to make your aquaintence as well, Fye."
Fye leant back and Aido realized that there was a tray on her lap. A tray with food on it. She shivered and felt a wriggle of nausea well up in her throat, finally she accepted the liquid (which felt and tasted like water, but who knew if it really was).
Fye's eyes were still on her, watching as the girl attempted to hide the discomfort the scent and sight of food was probably causing. The man smiled, cheerfully pat Aido's head gently and whisked away the food without a word, waving a hand when she started and tried to call back to him.
Aido settled against the pillow, curling the coat closer to her, and wondered if it was better to wake up to people (stranger(s) she reminded herself) or not.
Looking to the window (the same place her gaze always seemed to slide in this house) the Shadow Mancer's thoughts perked out of their fogged state and slowly began to start again, poking at prodding at her, reminding her that this place could not be deemed as 'safe' yet, that she was not home, that, regardless of having a name to match with a face, she was amongst strangers and, inevitably, her thoughts recalled exactly what had happened.
When Fye returned Aido was up on her feet, steading herself with the bed.
Fye whistled, "you really are as stubborn and skiddish a creatiure as Eli-pon said," and Aido looked up at him, eyes wide with a deer in the headlight look firmly planted on her face. She'd been too wrapped up in standing and balancing herself to hear or sense his arrival (and that bothered her, but not enough to warrent more than a flicker of attention.)
Fye tsked sharply and waved a finger at her, a smile unfurling on his face, "I'm sorry my little kit, but walks are currently not something you should even be think of trying just yet." He strode towards her, "are you in need of the bathing facilities? A day and a half of sleep are is certainly one way of filling up a bladder."
Aido paused as her bladder quivered, then caught herself, "a... a day?" her heart choked her throat and she began to shiver.
She'd finally done it. She'd lost Rael.
It was always to curious to watch the mannerisms of different people from different world, and Fye caught himself doing so often.
The kit in front of him crumpled slightly as she digested news he couldn't claim to understand the meaning of. Her shoulders hunched and her fingers tightened on the bedspread, before she abruptly smoothed it all away.
She stood, trying to look stronger than she was (the fascade was wrecked by an uncontrolable shiver in her arms and the tightness of her calves, barely visible from underneath the coat that was still drapped over her shoulders).
Aido couldn't (wouldn't) simply give up because of a day of lost time. She would count the small reprieve as a blessing and go after Rael again, this time with energy.
The Tale abruptly bowed to Fye, "thank you for your hospitality Fye, but I need to go now. There's someone I have to find," if one was going by voice alone Fye might have believed that the girl was strong enough to do so.
But the fascade was already deteriorating and when Aido made to step forward Fye stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry, Aido."
Aido's eyes snapped to his, sharp and accusing, demanding to know why he was holding her up when, obviously, this mask of strength and capability would not last long.
"I can not in good conscious let you go back out there," Fye continued, staring the girl straight in the eye, an easy going smile on his lips.
"There is someone I need to find," her eyes were pleading with him, Fye merely stood straighter, smile never wavering.
"You'll get yourself killed."
"No, I won't," 'I can't, I have to do this, I have to fix what I did.'
"Ya, you will, idiot kit," and rather suddenly Aido was over someone's shoulder, a broad shoulder, not the shoulder of Fye.
"Ah! Eli-puu! Excellent timing!" delighted by the black haired man's appearence Fye's smile stretched into a true grin.
"I'd say so, were you about to let her go and get herself killed?"
Aido, stuck in shock, finally realized she should be struggling, and began to do so, "let me go!"
"Awww~ Eli-puu, getting attached already?" Fye poked Elias' side, smile sly and amused.
"No, to both you idiots. I simply don't want that b***h breathing down our necks because you let her run into the desert."
"Eli, you have so little faith in me," Fye whined and flit away from the dark haired man and Aido's flailing legs, leading the way to the bathrooms.
Elias grunted a simple agreement and followed. Atop his shoulder Aido's struggles became a little less viscious with every passing second until she finally ceased, panting from exertion.
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Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:06 am
-The blue hour. :: Part XIV-
This is the moment that you k n o w . . . .
Aido sat on the hard tile of the bathroom's floor, fingers from one hand buried in her pale shadow while the others were buried in her hair. Behind her the toilet, freshly used and flushed, was like a bizarre sort of guard, though Aido was fairly certain that there was a real guard of sorts outside the small room's door.
The room was simple, tiled with a medicine cabinet, a toilet, a sink and the checker pattern tiled floor she was currently sitting on.
With a huff of a sigh she extracted her fingers and shook them, sending bits of her, currently loosely held together, shadow flying. Some bits hit the wall and immediately made their way back, others simply disappeared, melding into the other shadows of the room and making their way elsewhere.
'To Rael,' she looked to her shadow, 'where I should be.'
Aido's gaze slid back to her shadow and the shadow of the toilet that overlapped it. Suddenly her arm shot out, plunging into the area where the intersected.
The effect on the girl was instantaneous. Eyes flashing to electric blue her arm seized up and the shadows around her submerged forearm darkened as the world spun and she tipped sideways.
Fye looked up from his book at the slight crash, turning his head he called into the shut door, "ara, little cricket? Are you alright?"
"Ye-" Kibeth cleared Aido's throat before trying again, extracting their arm slowly, "y-yes, Fye, I'm fine. I was just a little dizzy..." she followed the nervous words with an equally nervous laugh from their place on the floor.
"Ol~right then," Fye replied and went back to his book.
'Well that was stupid. Stupider than usual even!' Kibeth snapped and Aido's vision swam as she wiggled a finger, then a toe, testing to make sure everything moved right after the spassem.
'Was it?' she asked wearily, and only because it was required of her, as Kibeth's upcoming rant was sure to be worse is she ignored her. Mentally Aido braced herself and attempted to push herself up.
'You don't know where he is! You're ill! Even you know what shadowwalking when injured and delirious and sick leads to!' Kibeth's shrieks rang about in Aido skull and the Tale gave up on her meager attempt to get back up and possible crawl to the toilet to throw up. Instead she simply swallowed and didn't answer. Kibeth didn't need one anyway, they both knew that.
Still, Kibeth continued to grumble 'stupid' under her nonexistent breath.
It didn't take long before her stomach had settled again and Aido was able to ease herself into a decent sitting position against the wall. Taking a deep breath she tried to scavenge up enough thoughts to try and work through what to do next.
It didn't get very far. With Kibeth's grumblings and the current state of her brain thinking was like trying to wade through pudding. Aido glared at her hands and felt the muted desire to hit something, if only to prove that she still could, because, honestly, this circle of patheticness was... well, pathetic. And circular and, oh, here she was back at the beginning. Again.
Outside the door Fye whistled and stood up, rapping at the door with his knuckles, "kit-kun," ooh~, he paused, smiling and tapping a finger to his lips, that one had a nice ring to it.
Aido blinked, looked up and wondered if that had been a call to her.
Another rap on the door. "Can I come in?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:47 pm
-The blue hour. :: Part XV-
Do you know about the strength of c o n v i c t i o n ?
The book was large, backed with some sort of wonderfully flexible material which draped over their knees without any sign of impending damage to the book itself.
"Wer-sill?"
"Wercyl."
Aido's nose wrinkled in distaste at the picture in front of her, the 'Wercyl' was depicted feeding on some poor soul, whose eyes were wide and hand looked to be spasseming as his (or perhaps her, one really couldn't tell with the blood spurting all over hisher face and the lack of an identifiable torso) shoulder was torn apart.
She made a tiny noise of distress and Fye turned the page. The Tale shuddered, silently communicating 'that was vile' to the blue eyed man. He nodded, rather solemn for a moment, before chuckling and shrugging, "but accurate all the same. Was I right?"
Aido nodded, "yes... that's what attacked us. That, uh, man in the picture looked..." she paused, "conscious...?"
"Yes, apparently..." Fye reread a few sentances and then quickly paraphrased, "they just paralyze their prey and then consume it immediately. Or in stages."
In Aido's mind the Wercyl abruptly overthrew the Illis to take first place in the category of 'things I never, ever want to run into again.'
Except she might run into them, because she had to find Rael.
Fye moved the book off their knees and onto the tiled floor. Propping up one long leg he eyed the girl beside him as he went through a small kaleiodoscope of emotions which, it seemed, were a rather common occurrence. Her brow would furrow [curiosity? or perhaps even a bit of worry?], her lips would purse and occasionally fold, allowing her to gnaw on the chapped skin [possible pondering some here], at which point her shoulders would straighten, then fall quickly and her eyes would darken, even her curious metal swirly thing would duck closer to her as she seemed to remember something, something inescapable, and she'd curl a bit, as if steeling herself for the next stage of her journey.
Except, Fye noted, she wasn't in any sort of condition to continue on in a journey, which was why she was here.
He smiled as she glanced over and propped his chin on a palm. "So."
Aido blinked and looked up, a few strands of hair falling in her eyes.
"Why?"
"Why... what?"
"Why are you pushing yourself so hard?"
Aido scowled. It wasn't directed at Fye. "I'm not. If I was I wouldn't be here."
"If you weren't you'd be passed out with no feeling in your leg," Fye replied jovially, gesturing to the slight swell of her pyjama leg, where the fabric folded and rose over the large, swollen area.
Aido glanced at it, "it's not that bad," she murmured. On that thought, why was she still there even having this conversation anyway? Frowning she tried to pull herself to her feet. Fye only had to poke her ankle to kill her balance and she slid back down and glowered at him.
"Yes, that, why?"
"Why do you need to know?" the girl bit out. "Why in heavens name do you want me to stay and use your water and food and the bed and be a useless lump?" she was staring at him, an edge of desperating hitching her voice. Looking for salvation in what was likely to be the wrong place. Hael, 'because we're going to make you work then throw you out into the desert as soon as you can walk' would've been an excellent answer in her book.
Fye gave her a curious, level look. "Hrm... kindness for the sake of kindness? Or don't you believe in that?"
Aido looked away, "of course I believe in it..." she murmured, leaving silent the thought of 'but most people hate a burden and reserve that sort of kindness for very rare occasions, so I really would hate it if you wasted that on me' because it sounded like something Rael would bite her for if he ever found out that she'd said it.
Fye laughed and lent against the wall. Heaven, no wonder the kit was here, "aaa~ well, you're in luck. This is a Halfway House, it's our job to take in those who're stuck."
Aido frowned, "but many, many people are stuck..." the Tale actually paused, listening to see if there might, perhaps, be the pitter of footsteps somewhere to indictate the presence of more people. The House had looked moderately small when she'd been dragged through it, but the only people she'd seen were Fye and the Eli man. "Shouldn't there be more people here if that's the case?"
"Yes, one would think so. Yet we're one of what may be many, so who knows," he shrugged languidly, "anyway, we can only take in those who come to us, and people only come to us because they need us."
The Tale was silent for a moment, turning that over in her head. It made sense, and, in an odd sort of way, made her relax a little. The idea that this was a job was a lot easier to handle. One wasn't a burden if they were just part of the process.
Her vision flickered and her head bobbed forward. That information was almost enough to placate her to sleep....
Except then she remembered Rael and her hands fumbled, found one another and squeezed, the spike of pain snapping her sense awake.
Fye watched the strange exchange with a blink then tilted his head. "Does whoever you're looking for want you dead?"
Aido's gaze snapped to him, "what?"
"Do they?"
She shook her head furiously a few times but had to stop quickly because it made her dizzy. "No! No! He'd never want that. What makes you thin-"
"Because, you see kit-kun, you're going to end up killing yourself if you keep running yourself into the ground like this."
Aido glowered at him, feeling heat rise in her cheeks, "I am not!"
"Yes, you are," Fye replied, unruffled by the girl's glare (it was rather like having a ragged looking toothless puppy who you'd just brough in from a storm glare at you, anyway). "So why? If you're friend wouldn't want that, why're you doing it?"
"Because it's my fault," Aido glanced away again and ground the words out tiredly, "because I did it, I screwed up, I separated us and it's probably my fault we're even in this world in the first place."
Fye regarded her and seemed about to speak when there was a scruff from the doorway. Elias was giving them both a look that clearly said 'you idiots.'
"You and the mage.... Does it make it easier to assume all the guilt and blame yourself? That way you only have to worry your prity heads about dealing with any of the forces which did cause them? Or worse," he chuckled dryly, "people? Heaven forbid you make other people own up to their actions or face them," he snarled, shook his head as if he wanted to be sure their idiocy hadn't rubbed off on him and then moved on.
Aido and Fye shared a moment of utter, stunned silence before Fye chuckled, cupped a hand around his mouth and called, "I love you too, Eli-wawa!" He grinned at Aido, who looked like she was trying to digest the advice (well, no criticism was probably a better word) along with Fye's response to it. She'd never really been yelled at for being considerate before....
Fye ruffled her hair, "so?"
Aido merely plopped her head into her hands and rubbed at her temples. She really didn't want to deal with any mind-blowing insight right now (if she was truthful with herself she might admit that she really didn't want to be dealing with anything right now).
"Sleep is an excellent cure for many things, headaches often included."
Aido mumbled something that might've been 'haftafindRael' or 'scarymenwithweirdinsightfulcritismarescary', Fye really couldn't tell.
"If your friend has made it a few days on their own, and if they're really your friend, they wouldn't want you to run after them and die in the various ways the desert has to offer to those who can't run quickly," Fye stated with a firm nod and a light smile.
The Tale didn't respond.
Fye waited, his smile wilted around the edges, and he eventually gently poked the girl.
Aido swayed and fell over onto him. She'd hit her mental limit sometime during Elias' verbal browbeating, then Fye made sense about Rael's situation and both things had merely reaffirmed her bizarre, abrupt belief that these men weren't about to hurt her, so she'd relaxed and her body, which had been lying in wait for that very moment, overthrew her state of consciousness and established a better state of deep unconsciousness.
Not that Fye really knew any of that. He was pleased that the girl had finally settled down to sleep. Really sleep, rather than that drowsy-wake-up-but-not-really-awake-more-half-conscious-than-anything thing she'd been treating them to.
With nothing else to do Fye began to play with the sleeping girl's curiously colored locks of hair, twisting and threading them and making tiny braids as he waited for Elias to come, find them and carry the young woman to bed.
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Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 3:34 pm
-The blue hour. :: Part XVI-
The people we've met in the last five years, and we'll remember them in ten m o r e . . . .
Aido slept. And slept. And slept.
Fye would've said that she slept like the dead except that, normally, the dead stayed still. Rather Aido slept like the partially undead, as the girl would wake up fairly regularily and hobble out of her room, using the crutches Elias had provided for her.
The first time she tried using the sticks she had more than a little trouble. She fell over, balanced herself badly, and, in fact, it seemed that she erred in every possible way before she finally got the hang of it.
In all honestly Fye was surprised that she didn't knock into things more than she did. The lights seemed to be off in Aido's head but someone was behind the wheel anyway. Who exactly, the magician didn't know for quite some time.
One day, when he'd been dropping off some food in the girl's room, she'd opened her eyes and for the first time the blinds were open and two electric blue irises stared at him. A lazy, tired smile was stretched out on her face and the first thing that popped out of her mouth was a polite inquiry as to whether or not Fye had a chess set kicking around and if he'd fancy a game, because she was horribly, horribly bored but couldn't sleep becuase she needed to move or else she was certain she'd get bed sores or something equally repugnant.
Intrigued, the magician had smiled back, nodded and retrieved the chess set.
He'd set it up on the bed and they'd began, Fye as white, the woman as black. The woman introduced herself as Kibeth ("huu... isn't that a bell's name?""Is it? I don't know, my family never really explained the hows and whys of it.") and proceeded to soundly beat him into the ground.
She did it slowly, and most of the time her eyes were only half open, like she wasn't quite awake (which she wasn't. Aido's body was just restless to not obtain bedsores and she was providing enough stimuli without waking up the young Tale's consciousness to shut it up and get it to sleep again, but Fye didn't know that). By the end Elias had strolled in and acted as the peanut gallery.
The Kibeth woman had made her last move, smiled, murmured a pleased "checkmate" and slipped away into unconsciousness.
Elias was still mocking Fye about it when he delivered the girls scarf, newly repaired to the best of his abilities, which weren't amazing and certainly didn't included making new tassels. Fye, rolling his eyes and delivering a quick challenge of "well, if you think it's so easy, let's have a game ourselves and see if I really have 'lost my game'" to which Elias had replied with a cocky smile and a grunt of an agreement, had tucked the scarf around the sleeping girl's shoulders and the two men had gone off to set up the chess board.
The door was shut and Aido was left by herself.
The Tale blinked her eyes open after a moment of lying there and groped about for her scarf. She held it up in front of her and woke up a little more as she realized that part of it had changed, and rather drastically as at.
Gone were the tassels on one end. They'd been replaced with multiple strings of the same navypurple as the scarf itself interspaced with white strings as well.
"It had to happen someday..." she noted sadly. Her scarf had been with her since before this Beginning. It'd been through everything she'd been though and, yes, it'd gotten dirty and even a tiny bit torn before, but it'd never really changed.
She shook her head and sat up a little, pressing her scarf against her face and breathing in its scent. The Tale smiled beneath the fabric at the familiar smells, all edged with the fragrance of soap and sand. Rael, Linny, Khia, Nala, Aemu, her brothers, the Secret Place, Chai, her friends and all the people she's met were still there. Then, beneath those scents there were older smells, dank and strikingly different to the ones that were familar to her, stirring memories that she really didn't regard as her's. Still, the scents themselves were all comforting and, for the first time in days, the Tale felt a little more awake and aware.
Aido yawned, stretched out her limbs and rubbed at her eyes, flicking away the bits of crust which had accumulated there. When she was done she sat and stared pensively at the dark window, fingering her scarf distractedly.
She felt loads better than she had when she'd gone to sleep. Perhaps not ready to run a marathon or whatnot, but better all the same.
More importantly, for the first time, she could feel Rael strongly. It was as if her Companion was right there beside her....
The Tale looked about, hoping to see Rael's familiar golden eyes peering at her.
He wasn't there, of course.
Aido didn't move for a little while, trying to pinpoint where she could feel her Companion from.
Amazingly, it worked, to an extent.
Aido got out of bed quickly and propped herself up on her crutches. For all her health her leg still didn't quite want to support her, and she really didn't want to risk falling down and waking Elias and Fye (providing they were even asleep in the first place).
She made her way out of her room and swung down the hall, moving slowly to create less noise. In all truth she had no idea what would happen if one of the men saw she was up and about, but she didn't want to risk it happening all the same.
The girl passed by the bathroom and moved towards another door. Leaning on her crutches she opened it and peered inside.
A small, slightly disbelieving smile tilted her lips and she made her way inside. Without paying any more attention to the oddity that was stationed in the room she shut the door behind her, propped her crutches up on the wall and, taking a deep breath, stepped into the shadows.
Normally she'd quickly move through the shadows, heading towards her destination. It was instinct that said she shouldn't wait or dally in this place, but this time what she was looking for was in here so she forced herself to pause and stand firmly in the dark, muted landscape, her halo glowing warmly to light her dimly lit surroundings. She waited until the cold wasn't quite so biting and she was sure that her legs would hold her well enough before she straightened her shoulders and headed in the direction she felt Rael was in, quietly hoping her instincts wouldn't lead her astray.
They didn't, for the most part at least, and when she was about to go astray the shadows eagerly stepped in, guiding and nudging her in the right direction.
They wanted the anomaly straightened out as much as she did.
She found Rael fairly quickly.
He was sitting on his haunches, his entire form crawling with shadows as it shifted distractedly between one form and the next. He didn't notice her at first and when his golden eyes did flit to her he snarled fiercely, hackles up and teeth bared.
Aido stopped, taken aback. While she hadn't been expecting a warm welcome she hadn't expected hostility. Through everything Rael had never been outright hostile with her....
Shoving back her fear the Tale moved forward slowly, her entire body tense to chase after her Companion if he fled again.
Of course, now that she was here, Aido realized that she really had no idea as to what to do. Her plan had only gone as far as 'find Rael' and then it'd peetered off into nothing.
Her halo flickered and, for once, Aido noticed, and a plan was born. It had no basis in anything, heaven, it could make things worse, but Aido was out of ideas and it was all she had.
Quickly her hand flicked up and, for the first time, grabbed at her halo and wrenched it off.
The cold hit her so hard it took her breath away. It sliced through her even as her halo glowed so fiercely she was sure her hand would be burned.
Yet Aido was nothing if not single minded when she needed to be.
Lunging Aido grabbed onto Rael even as her Companion moved to flee. Stuck the Shadow snarled and bucked while the shadows of his body crawled up her arm and dug into her skin while others tried to forcefully push and pull her off. Aido cried out but smiled through the pain, as it shocked some of her out of the numbed state she was settling into.
She latched onto what she was fairly certain was Rael's torso with her legs and, snapping a hand around his neck to pin it as best she could, worked to get her halo over his head and around his neck.
Rael bucked, Aido held. He shifted and withered and tried to beat her against the ground, but the Tale held on.
Absurdly, in the midst of clinging for everything she was worth, Aido vaguely remembered an old fairy tale her mother had read to her when she was little.
Kibeth, vocal for the first time since Aido had woken up, laughed quietly.
Aido laughed with her and finally yanked her halo down onto her Companion's neck.
Rael bucked forcefully and, slightly drunk on victory and not holding on as hard as she should have been, Aido flew off, landing a ways away in a heap.
The Shadow snarled and stalked over to her. He loomed over her sprawled form, breathing hotly against her face.
Aido looked up, meeting Rael's gold eyes, and smiled, reaching up with both hands to pat his face.
Rael bit her.
'Whops, wrong choice. Game over,' she thought ridiculously as, wide eyed, she watched as the blood dribbled down her arm.
"I'm sorry Rael," Aido said softly, eyes fluttering closed as the darkness in her vision closed in, leaving one hand to lie limply against his neck.
He spat out her wrist and snarled, nudging and pawing at the body, before turning, about ready to stalk away.
He felt something around his neck contract and he froze. Frantically his shadows tried to paw at the solid metal around his neck.
But it was no use, it was stuck fast and buried deep. The metal burned, white hot against the chill of his body.
Groaning the Shadow fell.
Rael woke up first. He shook himself from head to toe, shrinking as he did so. Warm, golden eyes surveyed his surroundings as his memory of the last few days returned.
His memories were tinged with hysteria and consisted of running. He'd run over the sand then into the shadows, where he'd fully lost himself.
Rael shook himself again and looked behind him. Concern (and relief at the ability to feel concern once more) rose up in the Shadow at the sight of Aido's prone form.
A glint from somewhere at his feet caught his attention and he looked down. The sight of the halo (darker than before, if his memory was anything to go by, which it probably wasn't) anywhere away from Aido's head was so strange that, without hesitation, he picked it up in his mouth and quickly loped back to Aido, ignoring the way the halo simutaneously warmed and numbed his tounge.
The halo tugged out of his mouth when he got close enough and settled against Aido's head without any fanfarem, save the deep inflation of Aido's lungs as she inhaled then sighed out the air contentedly as Rael curled up against her and drifted back to sleep. The shadows around them twitched and shifted, dancing in the currents of change.
Fye found the two in the same small room from which Aido had left. He'd been attracted to the sound of a pair of crutches slapping against the woodwork and had started at the sight of the two forms curled up against the giant tree root which arced up out of the floor.
At first he didn't recognize either of them. Once he did (after all, it was hard to forget a halo'd young girl with bi-colored hair) he wondered how long Aido had truly been gone as the lithe young woman who was curled up against the dark furred animal was obviously older than the girl he and Elias had been taking care of.
Aido had grown, with the quick swiftness of Gaia that Fye couldn't hope to be familiar with, though she didn't quite know it yet.
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Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 12:00 pm
-The blue hour. :: Part XVII-
What if I lost my direction? What if I lost my sense of t i m e ?
Aido sat on the edge of the tub, staring at the opposite wall of the second bathroom of the House with one hand splayed out under the spray of the shower head, waiting for the water to heat enough to be tolerable.
When she'd woken up she hadn't noticed much. There'd been no sudden tightness in her loose clothing to alert her of what had happened and the swift need to get Rael to cease his growling at Fye had been more pressing than the need to realize that when she stood things were farther away than usual.
Then Fye had smiled at her when she'd pulled off Rael and asked her how long she'd been gone. At that point she'd gotten confused and had asked when he'd seen her last. He'd replied "just last night" and she'd said "then I've been gone a night" and then Fye had pointed out that she looked like she'd been gone for years.
It'd been easy to look down and realize that things were different after that comment.
So, she'd done the first thing that'd come to mind. She'd asked if she could use the bathroom.
Thankfully Fye hadn't questioned her strange reaction and had simply led her to a bathroom, one which had a tub/shower combination along with the a toilet and sink.
Aido looked down and pulled her loosely fitting clothing back until it pressed tightly against her chest. It was with almost detached curiosity that she noted the way her clothing folded in new and weird ways over her breasts and how her waist sloped inwards a bit before expanding to fit over her hips.
Going to sleep an adolescent and waking up as a teenager seemed much stranger than changing from a child to an adolescent and Aido couldn't figure out why.
Really, the only difference was that this time when she'd grown her body had changed more.
Or so it seemed.
It felt like something else had changed but she didn't know what it was.
The problem with being born less than two years before was that Aido had never really thought about puberty, nor had she ever witnessed it in its entirety. She'd never even gotten the hormone talk [Chao had naively assumed that she would be around when her daughter aged once more] nor had she ever really thought about the fact that a teenager was, by definition, different from an adolescent in ways that are deeper than merely the differences in their bodies.
So she was left feeling adrift in her own skin as she faced the backlash of a condensed puberty.
The Tale looked up and over to Rael, who was curled up on the tiled floor. She almost asked him but then mentally shook her head. Rael was still trying to recollect himself, no need to add her insecurities to it.
So she turned to the sometimes informative voice inside her head.
'Kibeth...?'
'Mmhmm~?'
Aido fidgeted, noticed that the water was warm and stood, stripping out of her clothing quickly.
She hopped into the shower and pulled the curtain closed.
'Is this normal?'
'What? Growing several years in a night?'
'No... I know that's normal-' normal for a Tale at least, 'I mean this...' she gestured vaguely with her hands, 'feeling. I feel weird... awkward." She graspered for decent adjectives and found herself lacking. "I feel... long...?' Aido paused to look at her longer legs. "Not that I'm complaining about the long part," she murmured aloud.
'Half of being a teenager is feeling awkward in your own skin. Stop worrying, you're not deformed,' Kibeth chided, chuckling as Aido fidgeted, awkwardly kneading her hands and glancing down at herself every few seconds.
'Just don't think about it so much and it'll pass,' Kibeth crossed her [technically nonexistent] fingers behind her back. After all, she really couldn't promise anything.
Aido took a deep breath and nodded firmly, unaware of her Other's uncertainty. Pushing the confusing thoughts to the back of her mind she made a concentrated effort to scrub away the layer of dirt, sand and the bits of dried blood which had accumulated on her person.
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Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:15 pm
-The blue hour. :: Part XVIII-
While we're waiting for a sign, we're distracted by our e y e s . . . .
Aido sat in the nearly filled bathtub, eyes closed, resting her head back against the cool wall and contenting herself to stew in the warm water.
Rael was sitting on her head, having shrunk himself down to the size of a large rat. She hadn't questioned him when he'd crawled into her hair and they hadn't really spoken as of yet. The silence between them was still strained, a telling sign off everything that needed to be discussed between the duo, but neither was quite willing to break the ice.
With a fidgety sigh, that Aido would have found amusing had the circumstances been different, Rael leaned over Aido's forehead, causing the Tale's gaze flick upwards.
-Aido...- he paused.
"Rael?" Aido prompted after a moment.
Her Companion shook himself slightly, -I'm... sorry.-
Aido cracked a small smile, "don't be, it wasn't your fault," she glanced down, wringing her wet hands. "If it was anyone's it was mine."
Rael paused, then groaned, -I refuse to be drawn into a blame game. Can we just compromise and say it was both of our faults?-
Aido chuckled and before she could stop herself the chuckle turned into a full blown, lung aching bout of laughter.
Rael was forced to jump from her head in order to avoid being thrown as she curled up, laughing into her arms.
He grew to a more normal size and stared at her with feigned annoyance, but his maw was quirked into a near smile.
She calmed after a few minutes, "I... I'm sorry. I just..." a giggle slipped past her lips as she shook her head at herself and wiped at her tearing eyes. It was so ridiculously good to have Rael back.
-It's alright,- Rael recognized a hysterical reaction when he saw it and he shook his head gently. He waited until she'd calmed fully before tilting his head, -Aido... how long have you been here?-
"The House?" he nodded and she frowned, "I don't know. A week...? Maybe more? I've been..." she flushed, shame and embarrassment tinting her cheeks pink, "asleep most of the time. I know I should have come for you sooner," she added hurriedly, bi-colored eyes staring imploringly at her Companion, who was returning her gaze with an emotionless mask of his own. "I tried, but-" she yelped, effectively cutting of the remainder of her sentence as Rael's maw darted out to n** her partially submerged ankle.
-You immediately tried to come and find me?- he snarled, voice cold in her mind. -After, if my memory serves correctly, you were attacked by those horrid creatures and had been in the desert for two days without food or water?! Did you try to Shadow Walk as well?-
Aido rubbed her sore ankle, "I just couldn't sit back and no nothing!" she snapped back.
-You should have! I thought I'd been hallucinating but you really did come running after me after that pit, didn't you?-
"Of cour-"
-You're such a blind idiot!-
"Well excuse me for worrying about you!"
-You have physical limits! You're a babe for heaven's sake!-
Aido straightened her back, puffing her chest out reflexively, "I think we can firmly say that I'm not a babe any longer, Rael," she stated, tone frigid, daring him to contradict her on that point.
-You're not even two. And just after the pit your body was even younger than it is now. Your limits were even smaller then!-
"Haven't we had the 'I'm not made of glass' discussion before?"
-But you are breakable,- Rael snapped, lashing his tail, -even if you refuse to see it. Someday it will kill you.-
The Shadow started, as if taken aback by his own words.
Aido paused, no longer in the safe territory of their usual arguments. She shut her eyes, working up the courage to ask the question that needed to be asked now, "...it did once... didn't it? Get me killed, I mean."
Rael sighed and sagged, -I don't... I don't remember... not really.-
Aido smiled, sadly, though the sadness was more for her Companion than herself, "which means you sort of remember, yes?"
Rael laughed, vocal and bitter, -yes... I suppose it does.-
An awkward silence settled around them once more. After a minute Aido shrugged. She'd known of her past death for a while now; she'd died (possibly twice?) but now she's alive. It was a little strange and it was certainly frightening to think about the possible details, but as a simple fact it wasn't that weird.
Taking a breath she attempted to resume their conversation from where they'd broken off. "I... I think we've been here for two weeks, in total, though I may be off..." a detail, one she hadn't even thought about before because she'd been so wrapped up in finding Rael (or unconscious), suddenly sprang to mind and she paled, "oh gods... what about home? What about Aemu and my brothers?" fresh guilt lashed her senses, "they must think I've died or gone missing again..." not that the latter wasn't the truth, but Aido would rather that her family thought otherwise.
Rael grimaced, -your Mother's going to kill me.-
Aido tilted an eyebrow, surprised and curious despite herself, "kill you? Why?"
-The one time we spoke she yelled at me to make sure you didn't get sweapt off into another world again.-
Aido chuckled, again, despite herself. "then yes, she probably will kill you. I'll try to talk her out of it, provided she doesn't kill me as well," and provided that her Aemu hasn't- Aido cut the thought off before it could go any further. She absolutely refused to even entertain the thought of her mother dying. The rest of her family was there and Aido had faith in them (not to mention her faith in the hospitals of Gaia.)
-I'm sure she's fine,- Rael was nuzzling her knee and Aido smiled, running her hand over the crown of his skull.
"Yes, I'm sure she is, but I still feel like we should get home as soon as possible," the teen's gaze shifted to the walls.
Rael sat again and slowly wagged his tail in contemplation, -I imagine it'll be easier this time, as this House already appears to be between worlds.-
Aido blinked, looking back to her Companion quickly, "is it?"
Rael bobbed his head in a nod, -you hadn't noticed?-
The teen shook her head, "I hadn't," she was still readjusting to her awareness of the Shadows. Anyway, Aido's skills were travel and communication with Rael, craft and awareness were things she had to work harder at and, as of late, she hadn't had the energy to spare.
Rael hummed, ears flicked, and Aido noticed that her skin had begun to tighten and get pruney from soaking in the water for so long.
Picking herself up she unplugged the drain and made her way across the room towards where Fye had indicated there would be a bathrobe for her use. The cold of the room, something she'd failed to notice before, pricked at her skin and she shivered, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind her.
For the first time she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the sink and paused to watch the rivets of water run down her strange new form.
The young woman staring back looked surprised, damp black and white hair was plastered against her skull neck. Her mouth was open slightly completing her expression of surprise. The scars from past fights were still there, bright from the heat of the water, and there are several fresh ones, testimony to the pit and Rael's insanity. Wide, bi-colored eyes challenged her's to a staring contest and Aido gave fist, looking away taking the last few steps towards the small clothing hamper at a brisk pace.
The bathrobe Fye had mentioned earlier was, indeed, there, buried under a towel. She wrapped herself in the robe, tied it closed, then buried her face in the fluff of the towel.
Something about it, the texture or the feeling of familiar comfort (warm towels and a wet body remind her equally of home and of the Stationary Shop), triggered a memory of another damp day.
Aido removed her head from the cloth to look over her shoulder, "Rael... was I hallucinating-" because, in all honestly, there's a very good chance of such a thing being the case at this point, "-or did I see a root from the Crossroads in the room we were in before?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:30 pm
-The blue hour. :: Part XIX-
So you take a picture, what do you see? In the future, where will I b e ?
Neither of them were certain, but the presence of what was undoubtedly the root of a Crossroads tree had allowed them to form a loose plan.
Aido was certain that a Crossroad tree (perhaps the same one as the one from Gaia, as the shadow of the root certainly felt the same) had to indicate a path between worlds.
Well, no, certain was far too concrete a word. She was fairly sure that that was what the root represented.
Rael was wary of that assumption and Kibeth hadn't been able to confirm or deny Aido's suspicions, as the woman had seemed to choke on her own words when she'd attempted to answer Aido's questions.
Yet, in both the worlds that the Halfway House was in (the desert one Aido had originally fallen into and a world which seemed to be in the middle of a lush, temperate flavored spring), Rael had found walls that would need to be passed or broken through in order to get home via the shadows.
Aido had persisted that they should at least try going through the Crossroads, because she remembered quite clearly what it had taken to break the wall to get back home from Reit and had no desire to try that route again if there was any other way.
Rael had agreed, on the terms that they would wait at least few days more so that they tried that path. Lacking other options Aido had agreed to his terms.
Aido spent some of that time with Fye, exploring a greenhouse that she hadn't known existed but was apparently attached to the Halfway House.
When the moist heat became too much the teen would retreat back into the depths of the Halfway House ended up fidgeting so much the first day that Elias had called her over to teach her to play chess and lecture her on strategy.
She wanted to go home. She felt obligated to make sure her family was okay and that they knew she was alright, yer most of the time she ended up forgetting about the task ahead. During the first real chess game she played with Elias, after he'd taught her the ways the pieces moved and a few basic strategies, he had asked her about her future.
"I don't know. I want to go home," she'd flicked a pawn forward.
Elias had moved his knight in return, "you're not one for thinking too far into the future," it came out like a gruff fact and he flicked his red gaze up to her afterwards, challenging her to contradict him.
She didn't. "You're right," she replied and took his rook, scanning the board once more.
But, of course, now that it'd been mentioned she was having a hard time not thinking about the future. Now that she's conscious and certain of her Companion's location she was finding the company of the two men pleasant, although Elias' gruff attitude and penchant for insults tended to take its toll and, occasionally, strike up her temper.
One sunset she was sitting with Fye, watching the sun drift over the sand dunes in the world outside and drinking tea from glazed cups.
"You can come back you know, kit-kun," Fye remarked quietly.
Aido started and looked up at the man. His gaze didn't flick to her, rather it stayed focused on the setting sun and the changing sky, but the easy smile on his face looked real and Aido couldn't help but smile herself.
"Thank you," she murmured, quiet and sincere. She sipped at her tea and watched as the sun dipped beneath the horizon and the landscape was washed in tones of blue.
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Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 12:43 pm
-Betwixt and between. :: Part XX-
I put on my overcoat and walked into winter, my teeth chattered r h y t h m s . . . .
A slight wind stirred over the long stalks of grass, rippling it in waves across the hilly landscape and brushing against Aido's open palm and torso before washing down over the other side of the hill, towards the tiny cropping of bright lights, which were clustered in a town like way.
The Tale wavered slightly, shivering in the cool air and reflexively tightening on the satchel as her hand swayed in the wind and bumped against the bag.
Two books and the fragile feel of a map pressed against her bare fingertips and covered palm through the material, not that they were likely to have dissapeared in the scant hours since she'd left the Halfway House after an eventful day.
It had started with Elias pulling her out of bed and dragging her out of the house into predawn forest of Celnae.
{"What are we... Elias! I... sir, I really, really do need to be packing!"
"Where'ver you're going you'll need food, won't you?"
"Well... yes...."
"Then you're going to help me get it."}
He'd meant what he said, Aido reflected as she and Rael started up the hill again.
Even in Reit Aido had been able to survive on the drief food storage and icy water of the nearby stream. She'd never had to go so far as to kill something before.
The smaller satchel (which was residing inside her larger, thicker one) was filled with a mixture of dried meats, a few fruits (some dried, others fresh), something that resembled a loaf of bread and a flask of water. Most of the items had been bargained for at a market Elias had taken her to, after they had trapped and killed three small animals which Elias had called Wrems.
{"Here."
"But... it's still alive, is it going to be sold as a pet?"
"No. It has an excellent pelt and the meat is often used in stew so that's what it's going to be sold as. I said you were going to help so help."
"You mean kill it?"
"Would you rather skin it when it was alive?"}
She'd been shown how to crack their necks so that they died instantly and then Elias had shown her once how to remove the skin and organs then extract the best meat from it. Then he'd helped her go through the motions with the next wrem and for the third he had instructed her to do it all herself.
She'd done her best, but it was, at most, an amature attempt done with shaky hands and a quivering stomach.
{"At least you didn't damage the pelt too much. Come on."
"...wait, please? I...."
"What?"
"It doesn't seem right to just leave it like this without doing anything."
"Do you want to bury the last of it then? If you do that you'll just be starving other animals who're eager for a meal."
"But can't we just... I want to say thank you, somehow. It's dead now and it seems ungreatful not to thank it...."}
Elias had given her a curious look, something almost like approval, but Aido might've just been imagining it in her nausea, as it was gone in a blink. He had shown her one way to pay tribute to the animal's sacrifice (incense, words, and the burial of one bone from each animal was involved) and then they'd left for the market.
Rael nudged the back of her leg, sucessfully jolting her wandering thoughts back to the present.
With a nod of understanding Aido took another step towards the summit of the hill and tried to keep her mind on the job at hand. The land within the Crossroads was larger than she'd even dreamed it could be. It seemed to go on for miles and even though it was dark and the weight of the day had settled over her, she didn't want to dally here if she could help it.
There was something about this place that made the hairs on the back of her neck p***k. Mostly she just felt horribly exposed, trotting along as they were, sticking out of the ocean of grass like two sore thumbs, obvious to anything which may have been looking for them. In all honesty, despite the drastically different scenery and temperature, she couldn't help feeling like she was back in the desert all over again.
Setting her chin, she quickened her pace, ignoring the twitchy need to look around at every shift of a shadow or movement that she saw from the corner of her eye in favor of speed.
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Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 8:02 pm
-Betwixt and between. :: Part XXI-
A nostalgic wind blows in this rusty old town, a fair wind that gently pushes me f o r w a r d . . . .
At some point, perhaps hours after they'd arrived, the sun peaked over the distant horizon and, with the return of light, Aido and Rael's pace began to lose its inital haste.
Aido paused in her trek to watch the sun peak over the mountains, stilling for for the first time in hours. They were still still waist deep in grass which was casting long, tangled shadows as dawn's light fell over them.
Rael paused beside her and they both looked back.
Aido squinted, trying to discern the tunnel that they'd entered the world from. There wasn't anything to see, as the grass simply wavered in the breeze and the clouds passed easily through the sky, hitting no discernible barrier and seeming to not encounter any sort of tunnel.
The young Shadow Mancer looked to her Companion, who was also giving the way they'd come a strange look.
"Rael?"
-Mm?-
"When we arrived here..." she paused, trying to figure out the best way to phrase her question, "did we exit from-?"
-The tunnel? Yes. We couldn't have come from anywhere else could we?-
Aido shook her head, "I know, it's just.... I didn't think much of it at the time, but we emerged in the middle of a field, where could the tunnel have been leading out from?"
-The air.-
She pursed her lips, "that doesn't make any sense," she murmured. The tunnel had been lined with earth and wood, there had even been the occasional puddle of water! How could it have simply popped out in mid-air?
Rael's gaze flit up to Aido, eyes narrow and slightly chiding, -if the Crossroads can take the appearance of a tree on the outside yet harbor a country,- he paused and his gold eyes took in the landscape stretching out around them, -or perhaps an entire world on the inside, why couldn't its roots lead to places we wouldn't expect?-
Aido grimaced, "I... you're probably right, that would make sense," she raked a hand through her hair as she looked around once again, as if she expected the scenery to change at any moment. "It's just... strange here. I wasn't expecting this."
-Neither was I.-
They fell into a contemplating sort of silence, both lost in their own speculation about the peculiar sort of place they'd fallen into.
After a few minutes though, Rael shook his head and sat down, -let's take a rest. I'm hungry.-
Aido's lips quirked into a tiny smile, though her gaze remained distant for a moment. With effort she reined her thoughts back in and sat down in the grass next to her Companion, pulling out her satchel and water flask. "A quick break then we should be off again," she tossed Rael a bit of dried meat. The Shadow nibbled at it, more out of pleasure and something to do than any real need, grunting out between bites.
-This place feels safer during the light of day, perhaps you should get some rest?-
"I'm not tired," Aido replied simply, pulling out a fruit that looked suspiciously like an apple. After giving it a curious look she bit into it only to have the fruit's juice gush down her chin. Quickly she angled her neck out over the grass and tried to prevent it from getting all over her clothing.
Rael, who'd been about to argue, decided against it and turned back to his meal with a shake of his head.
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Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:34 pm
-Betwixt and between. :: Part XXII-
Go. Go! Faster- wider! More. More! Get it down ya! Dance. Dance! Take me o v e r . . . .
They found a path made of trampled grass and a few haphazd stretched of pebble strewn ground heading due west around midday, barely after stopping to take a quick nap. Aido had already voted that they head West earlier in the day (for no real reason other than she'd remembered the saying "Head West!" and it seemed like good enough advice, so why not?), the path made their trek a little easier so they continued on their way by following it.
Dusk fell and even before the last rays of the sun died out the uneasiness that had plagued the duo began to creep up on them once again. It only grew as darkness set in and, when the sky had fully donned its nightly gown, Tale and Companion were walking so close together that they bumped sides every few steps.
They were so tense that they barely jumped when, with a burst of sound and motion in the shadows, something large and winged exploded from the hill top behind them. Mid-stride they changed their steps to a long stride and pushed off into a run.
Aido didn't look back as she swung herself onto's Rael's back. She didn't want to see what creatures sleapt in in the long grass during the day, the fear and unease that had been building in the pit of her stomach, twisting it into uneasy knots as her muscles had gotten more and more tense, preparing for the flight she knew was to come, had made seeing precisely what it was unnecessary.
Rael's feet hit the shaven, trampled grass of the path once more, his paws sinking into the ground breifly due to sudden added weight of the Shadow Mancer on his back, before he put on a burst of speed and the duo streaked across the land at a sprint.
They ran through the night by the light of the gibbous moon, leaving only tufts of grass and the odd tendril of shadow in their wake.
Their speed didn't decrease as dawn approached and neither one of them noticed the devide in the path as they approached it, racing downhill towards the huge expanse of field.
Dawn peaked over the eastern horizon as the moon rested just above the western, the light from each fell on Shadow Mancer and Companion and their Shadow divided.
They hit the crossroads and the shadows each raced off their seperate ways. One headed north while its opposite went south. The last shadow clung loyally to the duo heading West.
None of them looked back.
Though, for a moment Aido started, lifting her head off from where'd it'd been bent, along with the rest of her, flat against Rael's back as they passed off the cross section of the roads and onto the western path.
The wind slapped against her cheeks and lifted hair and scarf upwards, blocking her view as she made to glance backwards.
For a moment she felt Rael slow beneath her, bucking against the sudden addion to their wind resistance and her attention snapped away from the near-silence of her mind that she'd been about to question as she ducked back down, allowing him to regain the speed he'd lost.[lyrics from Glittering Clouds by Imogen Heap
there is a very large possibility that this entry makes more sense if one is listening to that song on repeat while reading it :3]
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