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Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:11 am
I came across one of my old posts in my World of Darkness community, showing yet another incarnation of Kaneharo, when he had become a mage. I will have to admit, it's a very interesting story. This incarnation's more like the real me, if I were searching for a twin brother, and happened to live in San Francisco. Seeing as how in the community, you actually have to perform a RP, of sorts with one of the mods to go from human to mage, or one of the other non-human types in WoD, the blue represents the mod's words. Also, despite there being hits that automatically connected in fights, there is no godmoding in this fight. The battles are oriented by dice, which the hits were omitted for storytelling purposes.
Kaneharo was yet again leaving another cafe, satisfied with his intake of caffeine. He walks out the door, and gets a slight chill. "It seems a bit cold..." He rolls down his sleeves, and looks up at the sky. "I should have grabbed a jacket." He starts to make his way to Fallon Place.
It's here that Russian Hill grows steep and cars are left behind for more banal avenues. It's here that the fog begins to thin along with the air, and the whispers of conspicuous consumption are exchanged for suggestive whispers of wealth and prosperity.
The city spreads out behind you, and you are going to the hilltop.
That's when you notice it. The die.
Small, black, numbers engraved in some sort of violet or indigo.
On the ground in front of you. Rolling, in fact - rolling into your foot.
"Ok, that's a little bit weird..." Kaneharo says. He kneels down to pick up the die. He looks around to see who may have possibly thrown this at him. Judging by the color, it could have been mere coincidence, or someone he knew was around. "Who threw this?"
The number is thirteen.
You hear mad laughter in the back of your head. Or was that a car horn? That was probably a car horn.
There's a rattling sound, and you see another one a little further up the street.
People pass you, oblivious.
"That number..." The laughter startles Kaneharo, "Ok, stop joking around with me. Is there a camera nearby or something?" He looks around again, and everyone seems to be minding their own buisness. "Who are you? Show yourself!"
Some of the people look over at you oddly, but most keep going, even chuckle.
This is San Francisco. They probably assume you're filming for youtube.
The second die sits there, enigmatic. Beckoning.
"Another one? Really?" Kaneharo began to get somewhat annoyed. He picks up the second die. "Let me guess, there's eleven more where this came from. Stop playing with me!" He begins to walk a bit faster.
The number is thirteen.
Again.
There's another die, over on the side of the street, your eyes drawn to it.
Kaneharo's face went from a look of annoyance to something almost like curiousity, with a slight tinge of uncertainty and fear. He picks up the third die. "Ok, I'll play your game, just show me how much farther i need to go." He begins walking again.
You're talking to yourself. Is that really a good sign?
The dice continue. Thirteens. Thirteens on the sidewalk, the street windows.
Leading down the alley.
Kaneharo begins picking up dice, everywhere he can see them, stuffing them into his pocket as his hands get full. Surely, anyone who sees him must think he must be going quite mad. "So, you have yet to answer. I'm waiting for your reply." He felt another chill go through him. "I hope you have a jacket waiting for me."
The alley is long, snaking, winding. Green, plants winding around the edges from rich people's gardens.
The fog is thinning.
You see a man walking a ways ahead of you - black, dressed in black, moving idly.
"So, you finally show yourself." Kaneharo smirks, although not sure why. "Explain why you're doing this to me, of all people. Was it a random choice? or are you hiding something?" He began to walk faster towards this person.
The man looks back and smirks at you.
He reminds you of someone, of something, despite his glasses.
He looks like the mirror in the morning.
He keeps walking, and turns around a corner through the fog that drifts about his feet and yours.
There's the rattle of another die.
Kaneharo slowed down, but still followed. "Who is he?" he muttered. "Is he... Me?" Turning around the corner, he sees another die, and reaches for it.
You trod forward easily, the mist kissing the green ground, die rattling on stone.
There's shops here, small and empty and nice. A die sits next to one. It's a tea and coffee place, typical of your San Francisco experience (however limited) - but there's something decidely not normal about it.
The something is a woman. Tall, shapely - sleek curves that belie the modesty of her pale sundress and sing accompaniment to the cascade of her bright yellow hair, eyes gleaming, lips smiling as she pours water into the plants along the edge of the patio.
"Hello," she says, voice soft and warm and compelling like a candle. "Need a drink?"
She's smiling at you.
"Sure. I think i'll get tea for right now. I've had enough caffeine for today." He looks around. "Did you see a guy go by here? He looked quite similar to me." Despite the fact that he was talking to the woman, the die seemed to be the only thing he could focus on, as he walked towards it.
"Uncaffeinated tea. Got it."
You find yourself sitting in the chair as she sways easily into the back of the store, die in your hand.
There are numbers other than thirteen.
She settles down at the seat next to you, sliding over the tea.
"Alright, stranger - there you go. Make yourself at home. Want any kind of music?"
"Anything will do for now." he takes a sip of the tea. He had the slightest feeling that there wasn't something right about this. "How much did it cost?"
"It's a gift, honey, don't worry about it."
She smiles again, patting your hand. She looks at someone over your shoulder and nods. Music plays - soft jazz, good jazz, three'o'clock-in-the-morning jazz.
"Just trying to be neighborly. You look like you're having a time."
"Thanks." He takes yet another sip. "I've had a somewhat normal day, at least until i ran into that guy. Then it began to get a bit odd. This tea is good, by the way." He looks around, and relaxes a bit. "Something keeps telling me i should be here though."
Her hand dances along your back and her lovely lips twist into a frown.
"You're tense, hun, carrying a lot of tension back here. Bad karma."
Long, soothing fingers begin to knead at your shoulders, a hypnotic mix of force and feather-light subtlety. She stands behind your, hair brushing lightly against your neck.
"What was the guy like?"
"Well, he was silent." Kaneharo had begun to relax even more. "And when he looked back at me, i found that he looked quite similar to me, as if he actually were me.
She hums sweet emptiness to your ears. Fingers are coming up over the shoulders, massaging your chest, your brow.
She murmurs, and you find yourself sliding back into her embrace, head to her breast, falling asleep to her wordless song as she runs her fingers over you.
Kaneharo leaned foreward. "I hope you know that despite how comfortable this feels, I don't think i'm going to be able to fully relax until i talk to this guy." Kaneharo takes a sip of his tea. "Besides, even if i had already talked to him, the five cups of coffee i had probably would have kept me up anyhow." He stands up and turns to look at the woman.
She frowns again, but it's a beautific frown, a patient one.
"He'll be found. Stay here. Rest with me. Be ready for the path ahead."
A winning smile crests over her disappointment, inviting you to stay.
"I'll stay, but only till he arrives." He leaned against a wall. "I don't think i'll need another massage, though." Kaneharo knew he had to be careful. There was something about this woman, that he thought just didn't seem quite right.
"Alright."
She smiles and pours her own cup of tea, sipping softly, effortlessly graceful.
"Why do you need to find him?"
You feel tired again, soothed by the soft jazz.
Kaneharo slowly becoming more and more lethargic, slides down the wall, into a slumber.
As you fall deeper and deeper into the air's draught of sleep, the woman comes over and kneels next you you. A hand runs softly over your hair as she hums her wordless, warming song.
You feel your body folding into her arms even as you fold into darkness.
You wake up alone.
You're lying in an abandoned courtyard, moss and vines crawling up over the low fence. It's quiet. The air is thick with silence and fog.
You hear the sound of a die rolling across the broken stone.
You look up, and it's him. You. The other.
He smiles, humorlessly.
"What the..." Kaneharo sees him again. "Tell me, you had that woman do that to me, didn't you?" He gets up, and walks up to his doppleganger. "Why?" Something told him that this person knew.
"Her?"
Other-you looks bemused. Something angry lurks in his gaze, the way he sets your jaw.
"I didn't do anything. You did. You were stupid."
He glances about the courtyard, eyes merciless.
"You didn't just accept a gift. You accepted three. The only thing worse than accepting a gift in a faerie tale is accepting three. So what do you do?"
Your - his head shakes once, twice. Disapproving.
Kaneharo, annoyed, glares at him. "Ok, so I made a few mistakes. I've just got to make sure I don't fall for it again." His hand clenches slightly into a fist. "That is, if i ever decide to go ahead and accecpt a stranger's generosity again." He then smirks briefly. "But it did lead me to you, after all."
"You dumb ********/> Your mirror looks ready to spit at your mock-fist, anger gleaming.
"Everything has a price. Every last thing. And you're not even ever going to know what you lost! What we lost! Because you just had to trust her."
He just shakes his head again at your triumphant smirk, returning your glare watt for watt.
"Yeah. Good ******** job, Sherlock. That's why I'm here. Because you always try to be the ruthless dog who gets what he wants, but can't do it right. And so I have to take your place."
"Wait... What?" His glare turns to one of surprise and fear, completely ignoring the insult. "You're going to take my place? And you expect my friends and family to not realise?" Despite his fear, he began to walk foreward. "And what would happen to me, then? Are you going to kill me?"
"I am you."
A raw, toothy smile.
"I'm you with some years under your belt. I'm you, after the fire, after the traitor, after the sundering and the calamity and the new system of things."
The smile turns more vicious, more narrow.
"Your friends and family? They deserve better. They deserve someone who can punch his own weight. That's me."
"You really think so?" He began to laugh. "I would love to see you try to replace me." He loosened his fist, and put his hand on the doppleganger's shoulder. "You probably don't even know the reason I'm here, do you?" His laughter stopped. "And something tells me we won't be going back."
"You really don't get it, do you?"
He puts his on hand on, puts his - your? - hand on your (his?) shoulder, looking at you with an unspeakable frustration and resigned sadness.
"I forget how truly clueless I was, me, I really do. You don't know the reason you're here. I do."
"So, you truly think that." He stared into his doppleganger's eyes with a look of reasoning. "Well, I guess I'll have to see this to the end, won't I?" He firmed his grip on his shoulder, not enough to cause pain, but to assure that he had an actual grip. "So, the question is, What will you... I do now?"
He chuckles, gaze unbreaking.
His eyes are violet.
"Rationalize whatever you want. Soon? It won't matter. Because I'm going to go up that hill -"
Why did you not notice the hill beyond, rising out of the fog, the hedges of thorns fading away before the thrust of a rickety tower?
"- and I'm signing my name in the Book of the Lunargent Thorn, and you're going to be here, ended. Because I rewound, and I don't want you being me - us - for the next few years. There's too much that went wrong. Too much I can make right."
"Well, there are some things that shouldn't be fixed. And that is why I am going to sign it myself." He attempts to make his way past his doppleganger. "I want to see how this would go." Curiousity seemed to take over. "Besides, if I do become you, It wouldn't be that bad, would it?"
The other cold-cocks you across the mouth, sending you stumbling.
He has a certain manic glee to his violet gaze.
Stumbling, Kaneharo tries to regain his balance. "Who knew I'd be so strong?" He smirks back. "You aren't making this easy.
He moves forward to follow up with another forthright punch, and is attacked by dice.
They fall out of a gathering storm, the twenty-sided rain falling with an abrupt and fickle speed, pelting his shoulders and the area, missing you by inches. He falters, trips, and the blow sails wide.
"I know you think things won't be right if I go up there now, But I think that the more painful things we go through will make us stronger." Kaneharo said as his fist connected with his future self. "You... I just have to see it through... Do you want to be weaker? Cause that's what you'll be if you try to change things that happened to you in the past." He saw that his opponent, himself, was unhappy about his past, or should he say his future? He thought that encouraging him and giving him hope would allow him to see what has to be done.
You see him falter a little bit, and you flush with a new strength as your words hit home.
He overcomes, comes forward, and catches you on the shoulder.
Suddenly, he seems to slow, caught in half-time, moving at glacial speed away from you.
Time is a river.
You're the rock.
You knock him to the ground, pushing through the waters, and you're over him, knees spread, staring into the rapidly paling face of your future self.
"Time can always change," he says, breath catching in his chest. "You can always change time. You're about to find that out...or we are..."
A cough hacks out of his mouth, and he closes his eyes for a moment before opening them wide, staring at you.
"Just don't lose that spark, alright? You'll get the pain, you'll learn the secrets, the dark things - just don't - don't lose the curiosity, right? Don't lose what brought you here."
He wheezes, lying his head back again before a few more words trail from his lips.
"Seek...seek the Hieromagus..."
"I will. I guess this is goodbye then, Or is it hello?" Kaneharo says as he began to walk in the direction of the hill. "I'll be you later." He waves to himself.
You leave your future body behind and walk up the hill.
Storms of dice howl through the air, twenty-sided fate crashing into the pitted earth. You see storms gathering in the distance, dancing with the brutally drunken steps of godly tarantulas over the encrusted walls of a city under siege by fantasy and nature.
Something flies by your face that looks like a small dragon.
Kaneharo was surprised by the dragon, but after having a fight with himself, he thought anything may have been possible. "I knew i should have had a jacket."
The door opens before you.
The tower is tall and slender, overgrown with vines that gleam like entire worlds hide inside their folds. They seem to twist together in some grand pattern, some tapestry you know you could grasp in your mind if you stopped to understand it, but some unspoken conspiracy of adrenaline and purpose pushes you forward.
He looked around in silent awe as he moved through the tower. He felt tempted to touch it, but he knew he should continue on.
The rooms around the stairs are spectacular. You see a tiny miniature city through one, a forest through another.
You are always driven on, driven up. You know, somewhere in your soaring searing soul, that there is something yet before you.
The stairs are string and time, fate and folly, and you are moving upwards.
Kaneharo continued up, as he began to wonder who built this wonderful place, and with what, for that matter. He kept looking ahead up the stairs, and knew there was something ahead beckoning to him.
And then there's the book.
It seems so simple to say it that way. A book. But it's so much more than that - a tome that whispers totality, a codex that murmurs immortality. The Book. The vines burst through the walls here, ripping open the side of the tower to a sun frozen on an impossible unsetting horizon. Their world-thorns crawl towards the Book, kneeling, supplicating before it, kowtowing to time and fate and majesty.
You know what to do.
Kaneharo had seen the Book, and opened it. He had the sudden urge to sign his name in the first open space he had seen. He searched through his pockets for his pen, dice dropping out of his pockets, and pulled out a violet pen, almost the same color as the dice he had been collecting all this time, and began to sign his name.
It doesn't write.
The pen scratches uselessly away, the tool of the fallen world fallen before something greater.
A thorn gleams.
"Well, I should have figured that much." He throws away the stub of a pen, and takes the thorn. He once again, begins to sign his name, strangely, of all things, expecting it to write.
It doesn't catch, thankfully doesn't scratch.
You feel blood throbbing in your thumb.
Kaneharo pricks his thumb, and finally begins to write his name, holding in his slight laughter at his own thick short-mindedness.
Your name seems to almost burn through the paper, something great and terrible wrenching it through time and meaning into eternity. A shivering, shuddering immensity passes over you, and you know irrevocably that something glorious has happened.
The tower begins to fall away, and you're flying - cast adrift on merciless winds in a spool of fate, the system of things bearing you down to the earth - and you're awake.
You're sitting in an alley, and your neck hurts, and something's different.
You finally feel awake.
Kaneharo gets up, and tries to get the kinks out of his neck. "Well, there's something that doesn't happen every day." He begins to walk out of the alley, almost stumbling.
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Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:17 pm
It was interesting ... There was just so much force of you to go down a specific path. It bugged me. It is better than when I found my first roleplay ever. Also I don't know why, but all the space between the lines really bugged me too.
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Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:42 pm
That was also somewhat easily explained. I kind of chose what type of mage I was going to be, as I had to fill out a character sheet. That, and something that's supposed to be in a character's mind is kind of hard for two people to ad-lib. The spacing was due to me having to copy the original directly from a log page.
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