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 Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:52 am
who | Felicity Wickes with her caedos Claudia and Dragomir Meschke with his phasmas Chayele.
when | about midday on an uneventful day.
where | an otherwise non-descript bookshop in Shyregoed.
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:53 am
Dragomir had no idea why he was here. No, rephrase: Dragomir had no idea why he was in this dark bookshop with his pants wriggling from the tiny plague shoved in his cavernous pockets, who was grunting quietly and stabbing the point of her horns into his thigh to make a point of how irritated she happened to be. The wriggling, coincidentally, made it very hard to keep his pants around his waist - more so than usual, though he'd recently bought clothes that fit him more appropriately. He was resolutely keeping his fingers around the waist band on the side opposite Chayele, not wanting his hand impaled by her horns.
He took a moment to glance at books, noticing a few dusty tomes that were of interest to him; though he wasn't really of a station where he had an expectation to know how to read, his parents had forced it upon him, whose parents had forced it upon them, somehow. It was shocking, more than anything, that Dragomir knew how to read, and he knew it, but he also didn't care much. Books, along with countless other pointless things, kept his interest well. He needed to restart his small collection -- his house felt so clean.. So empty.
It wasn't until he stood back up that he noticed his pants weren't squirming against him anymore. Ignoring the idea that Chayele might be tricking him to get his hand within striking range, his hand shot into his pocket and came up empty - the damn thing had gone missing again.
He looked up and scanned the shop, trying to hear the faint rustle of her dress and beads and find her before someone else did, but he couldn't see heads or tails of her.
Chayele had scampered off about five minutes before Dragomir had the sense to notice she was gone; she'd already climbed up several shelves so that she stood at, what seemed to her, the very edge of a cliff. Disregarding this, however, she hopped along, making a game of stepping one foot perfectly in front of the other, looking at all the people (though there weren't really that many) who couldn't quite see her without bending down. But being invisible and unnoticed upset the small plague - she wanted to be seen! - so she jumped and scrabbled up another shelf or two, standing with her body pressed tightly against the spine of the books, hoping she wouldn't fall.
"Chayele?" Dragomir called quietly, almost frantically, looking for the shofar. Chayele ignored him. He bored her. Maybe someone here was more exciting!
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 4:26 pm
Never enough, never enough, never enough. The mantra torn from the word’s of The House’s beautiful letter swirled around Felicity’s head and trembled half whispered half unspoken upon her lips.
It was her job to continue the good work and get the word of The House, her dear god’s truth, out to the general population. They had praised her and it had made her heart soar! But there was still more to be done. She felt the burden of her task beating down heavily upon her back. It was a burden that demanded her constant attention now, but it was a task that she had accepted when she had been taken under Obscuvos’ wing. In all honesty since donning her mask for the first time her confidence had indeed come on in leaps and bounds. The first poor souls that she had recruited to the cause had been lured with a warbling tone and desperate plea... But now she could almost speak with an unwavering confidence! Yes, her stutter still tripped her up more than she would like but when the words of her glutton god filled her mouth she felt more at ease; comforted in the knowledge that his dark eyes were on her and he was happy with her. But simply speaking to people wasn’t enough...
That was why she was here in this dingy book shop. There was only one of her and her voice could only be heard by so many people but in here, between the pages of these musty tomes, there were thousands of voices. Mummified in neat black print or ornate calligraphy the voices of writers lived on forever. People came here to purchase a snippet of an author’s voice captured on a page... It was the perfect opportunity to give them a chance of hearing her Lord Obscuvos’ voice too. Thus, with the help of her rose companion Felicity had spent the whole of the previous night scrawling messages upon scraps of paper. They were not as beautifully arcane as the crow delivered message that The House had sent to her but they gave carefully worded invites into the perfect world of The House – religious quotes, dark promises that only Obscuvos could fulfil, all the tools that the frail woman knew to employ to bring new brothers and sisters into the flock.
Now, despite all the help she had given to her Grimm through her scribbled font, Claudia was left quite without a job as Felicity inserted the notes into various books. Obviously the hand-high caedos couldn’t manoeuvre the heavy books and consequently she had been left to roam the shelves quite without a purpose... However, as she strutted imperiously along the fiction section a curious sight caught her flaring white eyes.
Just up ahead another plague was pressing herself against the spines of the books, seemingly hiding. She was a pretty little thing – ornate looking with her fancy dress and rich fabrics – but she had such ugly protrusions on her head... Beastly horns! Claudia turned her nose up in disgust. Such a shame! Never the less, she was bored and curious as to what the other plague was doing, and thus she offered her salutations without any trace of her visual judgements in her tone.
“Hello? Mind yourself, that edge looks quite precarious. I think you would find it much easier to come along here where the spines of the books don’t protrude quite so much.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:34 am
Chayele had started humming to herself, her attention focused on staying on the shelf, when a voice her size made her startle; her head shot up and her attention fixed on the other plague in front of her. Except Hopkin and Lettie, she had never met another plague before - and those two had simply become accepted as beings, not quite as plagues -, especially one that looked different, as this one did. But, as Chayele thought of it, she was very pretty.
She made a pleased, soft noise before scampering closer, the beads of her dress making a soft noise as they hit against the spine of the books with each movement. When she stood in front of the other girl, her small palm returned the greeting with a whole hearted wave. Her head cocked to the side and she studied her, wanting to touch but remembering, barely, not to. She instead placed her fingers just below her mouth, curled slightly, the fabric covering her mouth so it looked as though her face was just a plane of cream.
It took her a long moment to realise that the girl was right; it was much easier to stand here, and she twisted her hips a little as she was wont to do when she was thinking. She nodded to a thought only she knew and wriggled her arm until a hand appeared out of the bottom of her sleeve and she pointed at Claudia with a c**k to her head and a quiet, "Mmm?"
Sometimes she disliked being able to talk and her mouth opened and closed, confusedly, behind the cover of her sleeve, trying to form words her head could think so clearly. She gave up eventually and looked around, wondering where Dragomir had gone to. He, at least, would tell the other her name, which she always considered important, since it seemed to be important for other people.
"Chayele!" Dragomir called quietly, somewhere near the girl, but unable to see the dark, earthen coloured fabrics in the dark store. Chayele still jumped.
She gave a small cry of surprise and moved closer to the books, not wanting Dragomir to hear her - and yet, when he called again, "Chayele!" she pointed at the direction of the cry, then at herself, trying to get her point across. She stared at the other plague, wondering if this method had worked. She did not want Dragomir to find her. At least they were in a public place, but she was still scared; she couldn't let herself risk it again. Not when she'd been bad already.
Dragomir, for his part, was simply worried - not angry. If the girl had come back of her own accord, he would've just put her back in her pocket with a lighter heart and a great sense of relief, but Chayele was too scared to consider it. So he continued his stumbling around the store, glancing up and down the shelves and down at the ground before each step, worried she was underfoot and he would crush her small self. His eyes caught on a woman doing something with the books and he stood there, somewhat near her, though he offered no reply, looking only - he wouldn't call her name while someone was nearby; then they would know he was looking for someone; then they might find her. His face contorted in undue worry and fear just thinking about it. Chayele was his after all, as much as he disliked her.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 7:42 am
Claudia was expecting the other girl to speak to her, introduce herself or at least thank her for the good advice. She had after all saved the other plague from the effort of balancing and leaning on those dusty horrible books – the white garbed flower was always aware of the terrible presence of dirt and how it could mar one’s appearance... And yet the little fool was saying nothing, instead she was just peering at Claudia and covering her mouth like a dumb little child, awed by Claudia’s resplendent beauty; or at least, that was what Claudia presumed was the reason behind her silence. Both pleased and irked by this response she get her lips pursed until the calls of a man battered her ears.
Chayele, Chayele, Chayele! Would the man please be quiet! Obviously he had lost someone called Chayele and was trying to find them but in the process he was disturbing the heavy quiet of this place. Claudia quite liked the almost sacred silence of the shop and consequently as the human persisted in his ugly noise making her mouth became a grimace. Turning to the dumb girl she began to remark; “what a repugnant sounding man. I hope his Chayele never comes back to him – I wouldn’t blame her.” However, mid way through her little exclamation she noticed the peculiar behaviour of her companion... Her dark mind quickly picked up on the correlation between the name calling and the girl’s pointing to herself and a smile slid across her face.
“A pleasure to meet you Chayele.” There was a cutting quality to her smooth tone that couldn’t quite be explained. “You want to get away from that man? Has he been bad to you?” Perhaps the fool wanted to hurt her... Some people did react as such; scared of the perfect qualities of Plagues, fearful of what they didn’t understand, sometimes even resentful of their spreading potential. Stupidity was rife within the race of humanity and even though this ugly horned girl was quite stupid and mute Claudia was more than happy to help her out as a sister in race if it meant causing trouble for a human.
“I’m Claudia... I think perhaps if you want to avoid discovery we should find somewhere not quite as close to the buffoon.” With that she dug her claw-like fingers into the soft leather cover of a heavy looking book and began, a little inelegantly, scrambling upwards – her powerful leafy legs making short for of the accent to the shelf above, out of the human’s line of sight. Standing on the shelf she dusted herself down and peered over the edge... It was a dizzying way down and it floated into her mind that perhaps the other excitos might not be as nimble as her and perhaps a helping hand should be offered. But the thought did not last for long, kneeling and extending an arm downwards would almost certainly dirty her dress in the dusty residue covering the higher surface.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 5:33 pm
Chayele blinked when Claudia started talking about her grimm, but - and not just because of her inability to talk - looked down slightly, shuffling her feet back and forth. She didn't want to talk bad about Dragomir! He was a nice person and she loved him as much as she hated him, and she didn't like this plague talking about Dragomir like that. Dragomir was her grimm! Not - not this girl's! She shuffled a little more until she no longer was forced to think about it; the fact that Claudia had understood her name made her most pleased and she hummed a soft note of approval, though it fell short. Had Dragomir been mean to her? Had he? Or had it been Chayele's fault? Though she had previously been sure that it had been Dragomir, she now focused on her part in what had happened. It had been her! No wonder Dragomir hated her!
She shivered and considered going back to him and cuddling up to him, but memories of being shaken so violently filled her consciousness and she would not go back. Claudia, as she was named, started climbing. Chayele looked up and jumped; possessing fairly strong legs and being of a lightweight, she could jump surprisingly high, and her fingers glanced around the edge of shelf. She struggled and wriggled in the air, whining quietly as she did so. She fought with gravity until she lifted her head above the shelf to stare at Claudia's shoes, which were pretty. Everything about her was so pretty! Her horn locked around the shelf and she struggled all the more until she lifted her body up onto the shelf.
She beamed at Claudia, waving again, before realisation hit her. She scanned up and down the Plague's body, then instinctively went behind her horn to softly touch the flower sitting there. They looked remarkably similar! She dusted her skirt off and twisted her hips absently, humming a soft, almost melancholy tune to fit the aura of the room. Though Chayele really had no want to escape Dragomir, she was a victim of Claudia's beauty, wanting nothing more than to mindlessly follow her.
Claudia, at least, seemed to like her. That was more than Drago did. She looked down from the shelf, fixating on the blonde hair she could identify so well, who was frantically looking for her. For a moment, a long moment, she considered jumping down carefully and going back to him. But she couldn't! She looked back to the other plague and smiled a little, shyly. She nodded, as if signifying she was ready to follow Claudia to the ends of the Panymium.
Because she was.
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Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 12:18 pm
The mute child was absolutely mystifying to Claudia... Without words to accompany the unusually open body language Claudia was finding it difficult to understand what the other plague wanted. It was strange, since she had always thought herself good at reading other people. Rarely did a secret slip through the rose’s grasp; she could ferret out a hidden truth amongst someone’s body language in a jiffy and lance the fact from them with a few select words. Half of her congregation had opened up their darkest secrets to her because of this... Plague had always been harder to read than humans due to their higher intellect... But perhaps it was because this girl was so honest. Seemingly without a voice she must rely upon her body language to everything. Claudia needed to stop reading into what she was doing and take things on a more face value. It was difficult; especially since she was so used to being so layered up, so guarded against prying eyes.
Looking at the other girl with fresh eyes now that she had it in her mind to stop trying so hard to decipher her cryptically, Claudia glossed over the conflict with the man – it was obviously too confusing for her to work out without words of explanation – and focused in on something that was easy to understand. Chayele was pleased that they had a similarity in the form of her floral headwear.
Sashaying with confidence across the dusty shelf she swooped behind the other girl. She did not intend to be intimidating in the slightest and kept a beautiful smile on her lips, gentling running her hands over the soft material of the girl’s sleeves – reassuring her. “You are very pretty Chayele,” she said musing over the other girl’s features at close quarters, “very... memorable.” Hidden from the other plague’s line of sight a look of disdain flashed across the rose’s visage that she managed to keep, for the most part, from being betrayed in her tone. She ran a long finger along the offensive horns. They really were quite repulsive, so ill fitting in comparison to the rest of the relatively delicate and pretty excitos.
The beautiful budded flower tucked behind Chayele’s horn however was a major point of envy and rivalry with Claudia. She was the flower plague... Never before had she seen another plague wear flora in such a manner and it most certainly made the caedos’ worse side flare up, and really... that didn’t take much anyway. “Such a lovely bloom.” She’d learnt to control her venomous emotions well over the past few infuriating months in Blaithe’s company and to the younger plague it would indeed sound like a genuine complement. Yet in reality her fingers hovered menacingly over the wretched thing. She wanted to tear it out... Or at least soil it in some way. It was even a similar colour to her petals...
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