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 Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 1:39 pm
Welcome to Chegrin and Braeden's journal. Please do not post without their permission.  Lanturns:Active: level 3 - cryptic Dormant: level 3 - black scarf level 2 - forehead jewel (Sorry! It's hard to see! -_-) level 3 - demon 67 Your new lanturns (please save to your own server if you would like to display them):  
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 7:38 pm
Information: If Braeden was tempermental before, at least he was openly so. With the newest lanturn consumed, Braeden seems more preoccupied with keeping everything about himself a secret, or dropping hints and clues. It seems to suit his overall halloween spookiness, but trying to discover the root of Braeden's discontent has nearly driven Dian up the wall. Braeden, which means 'Born in the Dark Valley' is a tempermental, could it be called malicious? Little Lanturn that serves as a nightlight in Dian's home. Won in a halloween themed raffle, Braeden is accompanied by a little jack o lantern basket, that hangs against it. Braeden, Dian has had the misfortune of discovering, becomes a blowtorch around other souls, the light intensifying to a degree where actual flames burst from the top. He has since stopped carrying it around by the wire holder, but instead holds it from the bottom. Braeden might have a sort of bipolar issue, where he's surly and malicious one moment, and perfectly complacent the next. Too soon to tell though, he doesn't say much.
Since his emergence, Braeden has been a handful. He's got sept-polarism, and his personality varies from day to day. I'd say he had multiple personality disorder, but each personality is not a seperate being, he just changes.
A little older, a little wiser, Braeden has calmed down quite a lot. While still just as mischevious as before, he's not as brainlessly spaztic. It seems the young blue lanturn Riyana has calmed him some. He finds seemingly endless amusement putting on plays by himself, and dressing in all manner of clothes, each matching his new personalities. I find though if I leave him alone for too long, he starts to scream, and cannot give me a definitive answer why, nor does it seem to be a call for attention. He seems bewildered that I run to him whenever he sets up such a cry.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Recent Developments: Dian had gone back to Phospheropolis and purchased a new lantern for Braeden, as he had seen the young soul seeming a bit troubled. He did not know however exactly what was to come of it, and Braeden has since shot up in height, though it is dubious as to whether or not his mood has improved. Nothing much to date, Braeden and Dian have met Toshi, Hakari and Sinn, as well as another little being named Gokiloud.
Braeden has emerged, and met Devan, his little girl Riyana, as well as Kuu and her lanturn T'li. I don't think it can be called infatuation, but Braeden has developed an interest in the blue girl.
Braeden has also met Dusk, though he doesn't seem to like him all that much.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Family: See Journal for Complete List State of Being: Conflicted Likes: Fire, Animal parts, wings, his scarf, thin glasses, gold piercings, the texture of wood, rivers at night, stone flooring. Dislikes: Negative emotions, whoever Riyana's caretaker is, seriousness, people who mess with who he's being protective over, screaming, silence. Stages: Lanturn  Child 
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 8:10 pm
Entry one, November 13th 2005
Dear Journal,
It seems I have yet another journal to keep track of, as more and more beings keep coming under my care. First two hououza or phoenix children, then two semi normal human boys, then a faerie, then a vampire, a demon, and finally...A soul.
Yes a soul. From what I gathered from one of the shopkeepers, this little lanturn I found while lost in an allyway houses a lost soul. I was dubious at first, as the one named Hakari and her son Sinn explained it to me, it made more sense. After all, I stopped disbelieving after my first child came to me, a boy with wings and a tail the color of a canary. Appearances can be decieving.
On my way to work now, to and from, I make sure to stop by the ally, nicnamed Phospheropolis, aptly so. I'm hesitant to carry my lanturn there, as He...er..it has already burned at least six of my fingers, three on both hands by now. My digits are covered in little white bandages now.
I cannot determine why it does this. Whenever I see or come into contact with another spirit, another soul, it lights up like a blowtorch, red flames searing from the top, more like a torch than a lanturn. It's almost frightening. I'd thought for sure, you know the thin paper skin would immediately combust, but no...No, it hasn't yet. I leave it on the kitchen floor, not to be neglectful, but if it decides to blow up in the middle of the night, I don't want my house to burn down.
Staring at it now, it seems peaceful, at ease that my focus is centered on it, my thoughts revolving around the mystery behind the enigmatic lanturn I happened across. It kind of looks like a pumpkin, orange, and rippled with indentations. It came with one, or a basket that appears to be a jack o lanturn, the plastic type that little kids carry around when they trick or treat. The candle concealed inside flickers contentedly. I was always able to watch the licking flames of a fire, the fact it shifts and moves, reaching up and gasping back down in shock have always held a living facination for me. I'd pretend the flames were alive, and I had to feed my little dangerous beast to keep it alive, but keep it tame and happy. Now I have a living flame, an actual life inside a thin paper shell.
But what is life, anyway? Orginisms that parade about in day to day fashion, trying to obtain enough nutrients and materials to sustain and maintain the little being? If that were true, than robots could also be considered living, but they're not. When they haven't been switched on, they're inanimate objects. This lanturn, this soul, once was alive, but passed on, moving through the plains until it became sealed in this little capsule, gathering and storing power to one day re emerge as another living being.
I saw one of those little creatures. I should not say that, it was a child, although most children are just little beasts. All animals, humans included are beasts, but I digress. I saw two, rather, a little yellow boy with hair that defied gravity, and a little magenta girl that defied physics. They were the manifested souls, those who had spent enough time in stasis to finally regain physical form as wee children illuminating the air around them with a radience of light just as their lanturns had did prior. They're almost radioactive, though I have been assured that they're not. What about a soul makes it glow? What makes it phospherescent? So many questions swirl through my mind that it makes my head hurt.
And somehow...Somehow it is all brought back into focus with the timid flickering light of my lanturn, my soul, my charge. It seems calming, telling me to wait. All the answers would come in time, the light would never go out. In all of the years that we will be together, his light will never fade completely. The flame of his life will never be snuffed again.
There is a flash in my mind. Braeden. It is a name I have heard once before, and seems fitting I think. It means 'born in the dark valley.' Granted, the ally I obtained him from was lit up, I think he must have emerged from some dark forest enshrouded in fog. Perhaps that was where his spirit roamed. I know now what his name is, and it shall never be forgotten.
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:34 pm
Entry two, November 15th, 2005
Journal,
What is there to say, really? Not much is happening, and I don't quite feel the need to recount detail to detail about my daily life. Most of it is spent in some state of work- at the shop, in the forge, or in my studio, fashioning forms from marble, or clay. I have since found my boy, A'Hallei, who has been missing for some time. Miraculously, he's survived thus far living with another smallish lad, a tan kid named Makena. He threatened homicide if I didn't allow him to stay, so there he remains.
With the boys all grown up now, Hikaro has moved out of the house with Haku, though he is still yet a teen. Raissen is not yet old enough to own his own residence, though he sprouts taller every passing day. The house is quiet, it being only me there most of the time. Raissen is always out at work, or at a club. The smaller residents are largely silent, and Audric is often inhabiting the freezer.
That leaves me, my cat, and this lanturn. We're really a happy family. I've since moved Braeden's lanturn from the kitchen floor to suspended in the hallway. I'd keep it in my room, but it's too bright, it keeps me awake, so now it functions as a night light, flickering dimly, and chasing the shadows away. I spoke to Hakari, but she gave no indication as to when my lanturn might manifest the soul within it. I don't know if I should be anxious, or apprehensive. Every time I see it, my thoughts muse to the dormant soul within, the personality it might embody...
There is really little to do other than to wait, and see.
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Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 12:13 am
Dian brought home a glowy case one day, without reason or explanation. From his thoughts I deduced what it was, this soul carrier. He leaves it out a lot, because it hurts him often, usually when other souls are about. It is hungry, I can tell, though Dian seems to just believe it is mad for some reason or another.
Braeden.
I call to it quietly. It humms awake, light flickering to attention. I could feel the power dormant within this soul spirit since it arrived here, there was never a doubt to the presense within. Reaching up, I touch the thin paper coating, watching the frost from my essence dance along the exterior, a greeting if you will. The icy patterns spell his name; Braeden. Born in the dark valley, his flickering light was the only beacon in the encompasing shadow. The light of his soul, his spirit.
What are you thinking, little lamp? I cannot read your thoughts. I know you understand me, when I speak you reply with jumping lights, but I cannot understand you. If not to the human who owns you, speak to me. Do not forget I am here too, and I am like you. My name is Audric. I live, like you, I live.
Braeden.
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Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:39 pm
There are times when nothing seems to matter anymore, when everything just seems pointless, a waste of a finite and rapidly passing lifetime. Any struggle seems an unbearable strain- and thus useless to attempt. You're nothing more than a speck of sand in a wave of dunes, and your presence is unneeded, insigificant, pointless. Without five billion duplicates that share your opinion, what you decide to do doesn't matter. Time slows to a crawl, where each and every second draws on to an eternity, looping endlessly. Like a lava lamp, conciousness floats up and down, merging and fading away, eternally. How then, can you be sure you're still alive? That time still exists, and you're more than some mirror reflection of a better being, doomed to fade from existance as soon as they step away from their reflection?
The steady motion of your chest as unconquerable instincts continue to make you breath- to sustain life- whether or not you want to, you cannot just simply die, it defies the natural order of life, which defies the natural order of the universe, from order to chaos. You cannot simply will the pulse of your heart to end, for the breathing to cease, and for your atoms to simply disperse any more than you can will the earth to stop turning, and you can will the sun to not rise or set, or any other of the damned ways time makes itself known. You become tired from the strain of laying still, the thought of death is a weary thing to maintain, a depressing thing.
Morbid thoughts tend to frighten people and society- humans- so called civilized beings degenerate into the beasts we were born to be just as quickly as fear is struck into their hearts. All thought of reason, and notions such as civility, and nobility, of being upper creatures flee as instinct takes over, that age old will to stay alive. Everything is a damned paradox, an irony and a contradiction that continues to repeat itself just as the world keeps spinning, following the laws of physics: beings at rest tend to stay at rest, until another force disturbs them. We're all slaves to something- it is just a matter of what- of where, and whom. From slaves to desires, of thoughts, of goals, needs, or the laws of physics, you're all bound to the rotting corpses you're born into. From the moment you are created, your cells live and die, little lifespans within the larger organism. It becomes morbid in itself, how you live- which is yet another contradiction. I feel death all around me, stinking rotting stench of death in my very essense. Not my own death, no, that passed ages ago. But yours, I can feel your death approaching you with frightening speed. But, you probably will not regain life as I have, you will not be caught and bound to this paper prison, doomed to talk and walk again a mere wisp of your former self, and yet, we are better this way. Immortal once again.
And so, hanging the way I am now, watching the clouds shift by in the sky, and the bugs, and birds blisfully unaware of their own end spin fitfully in their instincts, the only thing that keeps my mind from thoughts of the futility of life is the thought of another. A man.
There is a man who inhabits my thoughts now, tall, dark, a shadow of a man who stands stark against waves of whiteness, of people pure of bodies and pure of thoughts. He's slightly sickened by them, and he is tired too, though he wanders endlessly, seeking a place to rest. Why nowhere suits him is beyond himself, but nowhere seems peaceful enough, nowhere of solitude. His fellows are everywhere, having invaded every nook and and hole of livable space, and their progeny have found places to inhabit even the most unlivable of spaces. Each person is allowed a small hexagon of personal space, any more and you're encroaching on someone else's space. Planes and openness are a thing of the past, and yet, when he looks around, all he sees is emptiness, and waves of white. Imbred- the population's minds have been wiped by the few elitests who control the masses like a shephard controlls sheep. Sheep are stupid beasts, they'd stand downhill in a storm until they drowned if no one were there to lead them away. The man once considered himself one of the herding dogs, but those days were long gone- even the dog gets frustrated with the inane quality of sheep. And so he wanders, wanting only to forsake the people who resemble snowflakes, to be alone.
The elitists recognize him- but then again, who wouldn't? He is tall and dark, like a panther, stalking along the alaskan tundrah. The only reason the snowflakes don't notice is because they are sheep, and cannot tell a door from a wall without someone to tell them otherwise. But the elitists know, they've known for some time. As every god fearing society knows, anti conformists are nothing but trouble and evil, and though the wanderer has not caused any harm yet, his mere presence is a spot a smear on their pristine handiwork. There is no rest or respite other than the cold encompassing grip of earth. They must kill him, there is no way he can live, he will not conform or convert. He will get his end at last.
The wanderer is unsure of where he is going, the only way he knows he is moving at all are the black footsteps he leaves behind him, like he was walking in soot before traveling down the windexed world of the snowflakes. Blazing a path not defined by roads or escalators, the wanderer seeks, pained for his place of tranquility.
He has found it. In the middle of a wide expanse of land, out beyond the coasts where the snow congregates, there is a space undesireable by the lot of them. The sun is hot, the fires strong, the bane to snowflakes. The air smells of hewed stone, and of baked souls. Laying out upon the bare marble of the floor, the wanderer strokes calloused hands along, feeling the passion under the floor, like the passion in his own heart, still, but present. Like an underrushing of blood, he has found his home. The smooth rock comforts him, but only while he sleeps. Waking he is confronted with nothing more than a floor, and soon moves on. Inside, into the inner sanctum, there is a statue behind an alter, surrounded by pillars. It is beautiful, and the wanderer thought he might die from joy, if he could remember what such an emotion felt like. Years and years of enduring pain taught him only longing and now, contentment.
He is weeping, crystalline tears streaking down his dirty face, leaving dark smears down his cheeks. Dark grey eyes reminiscent of smoke hidden beneath sooty lashes are heavy with joy and pain. He sought so long to find this place, he weeps, because his journey is over. Shifting feet over each other, he falls onto an ancient relic, leaning his entire weight onto it. It lifts him easily, holds him, cradling his weary form like a mother holding her child, though she is stone and he flesh. He clings to it with dingy hands as though he would never let it go. It is his only salvation, his purpose and now his life. Drained, he falls to the floor, still clinging to the symbol of all that he lived for. Nails darkened with crust embedded immovably within them leave no scratches along the flawless surface. She survived before him, and will survive for aeons after he is gone. Choked sobs wrack the wanderer's frame, and he silently shudders, but tears are no salvation, no repetance. Crimes commited and blood spilled are not washed away by tears.
There is another shadow. Another tall dark figure, with hell in his eyes but ice in his heart. He too has only one purpose in life, though his was much more defined, predetermined at birth by genetics and a quota to be filled. He is an eraser, removing smudges from the pristine project. He needs no relics, nor tears, nor warm marble floors, only eradication.
The wanderer looks up at him, tortured. His eyes plead for the eraser to leave. He is old, at the end of his life already, but he wants to taste the sweet nectar of the fruit of his sucess for as long as possible before his soul flees. The eraser is immovable, fire in his eyes piercing the slate grey orbs of the wanderer. He knows about the quest and triumph, and he smiles in a serene, yet frighteningly sinister way. As he levels the blinding white light to banish the smudge, he begins to speak.
"Wander not, and fear no more..." He speaks in a pure peach voice, soft and fuzzy, and sugar coated over a rough heavily grooved and unforgiving pit. The weapon has charged, and paradise stares right back at the wanderer, peace at last.
"For I am your redemption."
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 10:02 pm
Dian was frusterated, but could not pinpoint why. Well, he could, to a degree. Boredom, sheer unbroken boredom. If it weren't for the alarms and bloodshed, he'd think he was alone in this damned school. He'd seen not a single student in his room since he started working, but still somehow managed to be paid. How were classes run? He'd spent countless hours meandering about, seeking someone, but somehow managed to uncover no one at all.
No one at effing all.
Whump!
A solid piece of clay slammed into a board he'd set up against a wall. Dian gathered another sizable piece and flung it at the offending wooden board. Whump! Whump! Red and grey pieces blurred together in a splattered mess, the thumping of the impact resounding through the room, like a heartbeat. The ceramics teacher hurled mess after mess at the board until every last ounce of clay had formed a wet layer against the board. Dian huffed, rolling with a strange energy. He positively tingled with it, he was livid.
Running to the board, he pulled the entire sheet of clay down, working it from the floor into a mad sculpture, nimble fingers pulling features from shapeless masses, working haphazardly. Inspiration borne from destruction, creation! Renewal!
Much later, he stepped back to look for the first time upon his work in it's entirety.
Humanesque features bound prone. Figura serpentinata at it's finest. Medusa like creatures and Nymphs, with rolling tentacles and fangs, wicked, wicked women. Dian's heart alighted, red and grey mixtures, eyes and fingers and hips, hair and feet. He was spattered with clay, looking uncharistically disheveled, and wanting oddly to smoke a cigarette. He needed this, creation was much akin to sex, a great release of pent up energy.
Brushing orange hair away from his face, Dian grinned a fanged grin. Oddly aroused, and slightly perturbed at his own temporary insanity, he wheeled the massive creation to the gas kiln to be fired. They'd need to order more clay. Well...He did have some more stashed around, somewhere.
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 10:09 pm
Chegrin Dian walked alone. Well, that wasn't exactly true, he had this...spirit with him. Yes, he'd accepted this thing he carried housed a soul and all that rot, although for the most part he was alone. After all, the lanturn never spoke, or anything like that, the best it did was burn his fingers, and who wanted to speak to someone who hurt you? There was a river that ran through this part of town, separated from the streets by concrete walling, and crossed only by bridges and boats. In the distance, the lights cast by phospheropolis were hazy rainbow sparkles on the cloud cover. Ducks paddled below him as he stood on one of the many wooden bridges that spanned the river. It was arched, the wooden railings still warm from that day. The smooth banisters held the orange haired man still as he gazed up into the night sky, searching for the newly waning moon. In his hands, the lanturn he'd aquired flickered merrily, enjoying the time outside. Streetlights and stars cast luminescent glitters along the river as it wound like a great black snake out into the bay, which fed into the ocean. Lichens and algae that clung to the sides of the river and posts supporting the bridge stretched out like long green fingers inches below the murky water, where they faded out of sight. Occationally, the silver flash of a fish passing below was mistaken for a glimmer of light from the sky. Dian remarked how much the glow from his lanturn reflected off of the sluggish river. His luxurious raccoon tail shifted slightly as the breeze toyed with it. Laying largely still, it could pass for faux, but Dian's inhuman appendage was decidedly real. It was best not to ask questions. He sighed again, though the only one he knew to listen was the orange orb in his hands. Xenostatica Xenos was making her way through the random paths that city lent to her has she adventured for new inspirations and unbelievable sights. Hikari was hanging on her wrist the glow and warth lent Xenos an easy way to see no matter what time of day or night it was. She loved how everything always seemed to lead her to unforseen events just as it was when she received her lanturn. The small spirit that Xenos had no clue about would just allow her to know how it felt in a matter of morse type code with the dimming and brightening of it's light. She carried her camera in her other hand, it was exciting to take random pictures of everything. If the street merchant was right there would be some every pretty wooden bridges in the area around the river, this could mean that there were interesting people to meet and take pictures of. Her lanturn glowed bright in excitment, she believed. Chegrin Dian had not noticed the woman approaching, so enraptured was he with the bay, and the moon, and the ducks. His lanturn however, sensed the approaching soul and lit up, steadily growing in intensity. In the radiant light, Dian stood out magnificently, silhouetted against the bridge by the light from his lanturn. Dian frowned slightly as the light dimmed the stars around him. He glanced down at it in agitation. "What's the matter now?" He asked it, not expecting an answer. The thing really only lit up like that when another soul was nearby, but phospheropolis was nowhere near what could be considered nearby, and so for a moment, he'd thought his lanturn had gone mad. Xenostatica Xenos grinned with the click of her camera as she noticed the glow and the reaction of her own lanturn. Hikari would react with a bright glow. It was as if it was trying to communicate. "Oh little one, did you sense another one near by?" She chuckled as she notice the person on the bridge. She was so excited with the cast of the shadows and took a picture. "Umm...excuse me, I am hoping that you don't mind that my lanturn and I take pictures," Xenos grinned friendly as she walked up to the gentleman. "It's just that it's so beautiful and your lanturn and you at to the look of the uniqueness." Chegrin Dian heard a female voice and whirled on her, startled into eeping quietly. His lanturn swung on the thin wire that held it, glowing still brightly. Silent for a moment Dian took in this lady, all thought of manners dissappearing when he spied in her hands...A red lanturn just like his! Dian reacted moments too slow to avoid an upburst of fire on his hands as the Lanturn's violent reaction toasted his fingers yet again. As he cried out in pain, the glow lowered to a hot smolder, as though it were laughing at him. "Damn you." He muttered under his breath, shaking one of his scorched hands, saddened the bridge was too high to dunk his fingers in the water. This time of the year it was icy cold. "Sorry for not introducing myself." He said then, giving her a sheepish smile. "I don't mind the pictures..Uh, my name is Dian Chegrin, and you are?" Xenostatica Xenos was surprised by the change in expressions it was as if he had switched from pain to a kind manner. She smiled softly. "I would have thought I was the rude one," She bowed slightly, "Dian Chegrin, I'm Xenostatica." She stuck her hand out as the lanturn swung on her wrist of her left hand. "This is Hikari, the lanturn, forgive her and her bright glow, she reacts in such a manner when others are around," she point to the lanturn in Dian's hand. She smiled kindly, "I hope us appearing wasn't too upsetting to yourr lanturn." Her camera clicked as it took a picture, "oops!" She laughed realizing that the camera on her right wrist bumped against her arm as it swung and took a pitcure. Hakari-chan Toshi skipped merrily along the street, humming to herself and waving to the people that she passed, who in turn smiled and waved at the familiar lanturn spirit. Everyone in Phospheropolis knew toshi, for her keeper was Hakari, who with her friend and their sons, held the monopoly on the Lanturn market. They were also known to sell the best, most brightest ones, ones that put the other sellers to shame, and out of business.
As she skipped along she began to chant a poem to herself, one that she had just read in a book.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought...
Toshi came to a sudden stop, and ending in the middle of her poem as she arrived at the foot of the bridge that crossed the river out of phospheropolis. She looked out and across it, paper lanturn glowing in bright colors of pink that matched her own glowing body. This was a far as she was allowed to go...and yet she saw to very interesting people out on the middle of the bridge who seemed to have lanturns... Chegrin Dian was polite to a fault, even if it did cause awkwardness at times. "Please, just call me Dian." He said, smiling. His smile was slightly pained as his fingers throbbed with the agony of having recently been wounded. "It's nice to meet you, Xenostatica." He said, smiling down at the lanturn slung over her wrist. "I don't mind the glow at all, I do love these lanturns." Dian offered, shooting a dirty look to his own, which flickered naughtily. "And any reaction was no fault of yours. Braeden..." He pointed to the orange menace, "Does this with everyone, unfortunately." "What was it focusing on?" He asked, looking at the camera, "Can you tell?" He hadn't yet noticed Toshi, he had his back to her, though Braeden was brightening up again. Xenostatica She looked at the camera point in the lend in the direction infront of her. She turned slightly to pick over his shoulder, "I guess it's point of there..." as she pointed she saw Toshi. "Oh," she was suprised at the sight of Toshi standing before the bridge. "Hello Little one." She smiled with a wave of her hand. "Dian, let us go meet the little one that is watching us," She laughed as her lanturn glowed bright pink with excitment. Hakari-chan As Xenostatica turned and saw her, the small spirit smiled at her. Toshi turned on heel and began to walk away again, beginning her poem once more:
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy...
the child turned to look at the pair again, already being a fair distance down the road and smiled again, as though beckoning them to follow her. Even from a distance, her high, light voice could be heard finishing her poem:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe...
She turned a corner, arms swinging at her side, lanturn bouncing against her back and wild magenta hair fluttering as she walked, then dissapeared from sight, though still a sense of beckoning loomed over the pair of humans and their lanturns. Chegrin Dian turned around and spotted Toshi. He recognized her from the night he had spoken with Hakari. As if on cue, like a flamethrower Braeden belched out a plume of fire, but this time Dian had moved his hands in time. He smirked at the lanturn as it sulked back down into the hot smolder, broodingly dim. "Haha, we learn, don't we?" He asked of his moody paper trinket. The raccoon man walked to the side of the bridge Toshi stood at, clasping his lanturn by the bottom. "It's good to see you again." He said, smiling at the pink haired spirit. Edit: As he approached, Toshi danced away from them, coyly bidding them follow with an airy poem and an airy step to her walk. Dian shrugged to Xenostatica and followed the neon nymph, having nothing better to do. Xenostatica Xenos was surprised by the little one walking away with the poem as if it was a whisper in the wind caressed her ears. Hikari was glowing brightly and seemed to swing on Xenos' wrist as if trying to get her to follow. "I must say this is weird, I'm going to go and follow!" Xenos said as she took to a joggin pace, passing Dian. "Dian, come maybe it will be an adventure of sorts!" Her laughter could be heard as a guide but it was her lanturn that lit the way. "Little one?!" Xenos cried as she jogged after her and the magenta lanturn, "Where could you have hidden?" Hakari-chan Toshi drifted along and around another corner, letting the pair catch only a glimpse of her. Her bright body lit the allyway, light extending past the corner where the pair could see it, just fading as they followed. As she vanished once again, her airy voice could be heard, bearing the words of another poem to lead the two along:
A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July--
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear--
Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes... Xenostatica It was as if there was something drawing her to follow. SHe looked down at Hikari who was brighter then ever as if to urge her on. Xenos was curious to what caused her to have the urge, it was as if the powms where the cause and the effect was that they could follow even only if the little one and her lanturn were a glint in the shadows. "I hope that you're right Hikari," Xenos said as she followed. "Your bright glow is something that I trust." Though this was true Xenos knew she was too curious not to follow. Chegrin Dian was not normally keen on following children that were not his, but well...Xenos was running after her, and he really did not want to be left alone again, so the raccoon man trotted after, his own lanturn bouncing with him, casing a deep orange glow on the surrounding buildings. He kept tabs on Xenos as she ran ahead, speaking tenatively to her lanturn as they chased the manifested spirit. Dian knew better than to whine, and he silently trotted along side her, careful not to let his jealous lanturn catch him on fire faster than a matchstick. Hakari-chan "Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;
Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?"
Toshi's poem ended as she came to a stop at her destination. She had arrived at a dead end, though it was intentional. The area was large and square with it's cobbled pavement, details were unable to distinguished in the dark, though that was only for a moment.
The manifested spirit girl stood there in the middle of the open areas, then spread her arms wide. As the two humans arrived into the dead end alley, she looked up at the night sky and smiled, arms still spread wide. A sudden, clear and bell like laughter rang out from her throat, echoing eerily around the area. With that sound though, the section of alley suddenly burst with colors of every hue. From teal to maroon to gold, the place was lit by the light of a thousand lanturns over head. Xenostatica Xenos blinked in utter surprise and shock, Hikari was bright as if matching the events that were happening. Xenos rubber her eyes with her right arm as if trying in disbelief to take in all that she was seeing. "Dian, do you see what I see?" she was flabberghasted. She felt her camera knock against her waist but ignored it in fear that she would miss something very important. Her breathing was slow and deep as she caught her breath silently.
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Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 9:05 pm
"C'mon, try it again." Dian commanded, staring intently at the orange being before him. Braeden looked tired, but not irritated. He was on the urge of a metaphysical breakthrough. The coon man brushed his thick orange hair back behind his slightly pointed ears and waited patiently. As often as the lamp had burnt him, he sure was having a hard time now.
"Hruf...Hruf..." Was his only reply as Braeden gritted his teeth, steeling himself. The heat that was his molten center churned, the temperature rising, bubbling up, growing. Braeden's liquid silver eyes slid shut, the light he so fiercely radiated glittering off of the white eyeshadow he insisted on wearing. Braeden let out a yell, harsh and ragged with the force of his exertion and lit up like a blowtorch, becoming a walking inferno. Dian drew back in shock as though Braeden was completely immolated, he was not indeed burning.
"Here." Dian said, tossing a bulb his way. Braeden caught the solid glass orb, smiling as it quickly became soft in his grip. The brittle material turned orange with the flame and Braeden began to quickly work, molding the orb with his slender fingers, turning it to allow the flames to lick at every surface, amazed even still at the fact that the glass did not char.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaannnd....Done!" Braeden chimed, setting down the piece on a steel table gingerly and extinguishing not a second afterward. The orange lanturn slumped to his knees, the legnth of his scarf still fluttering upward from the sheer heat radiating from his body. Braeden's light was dim, the energy expelled quite utterly. Still, he was content to slide to the floor and let the stone cool him. He was flushed, and probably would have been sweating if these souls did such a thing. Dian whistled in marvel.
"Impeccable form, great job. I think you've had enough for one night, though." The sculptor said, watching Braeden with fondness. Once he'd discovered how talented the spirit was with glass, all his annoying little habits became possible to ignore. The encouragement swelled Braeden's heart and he smiled, still unwilling to move. He'd cooled enough for Dian to pick him up, and he did, laying Braeden beside his lamp on the bed.
"Thank you."
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 8:46 pm
Silence
It's maddening.
Positively insufferable...
Incurable...
It's loathsome to me, because in such dead silence, everything else that shouldn't be heard can be heard, and things that should not make sounds do.
Things become louder.
Deafening.
Blood, I can hear my own pulse and blood, pushing past my ears in a primal drumming. Breath, the hissing of air through the passages, the creaking of ribs and tendons, the corded crunch of the contraction of the diaphram. Every single scratch of flesh against fabric.
It feels congesting, I become trapped within my own head, a box of pressure and tension and noise ready to explode! And all because of what? SILENCE.
There is no such thing then, is there? But it incurs the oddest phenomenon.
When I feel the silence, the dead weight pressing against me, with the blood and the breath and the rasps and crunches and scratches, I scream. My mouth opens and...
I can't hear anything.
But I know I'm screaming, I can feel my mouth open, vocal cords tightened, the breath leaving, the pain of exertion, of the ripping of tender tissues. And I see him run in, eyes wild.
The silence breaks. I can see it fall in visable shards around me, splintered into sharp little spiderweb sections, and I can hear it, hear me, my screaming. It's high and thin, unchildlike. He shakes me, and I stop, peering at him bewildered. He asks why I was screaming, and I think for a moment, but I know, I've known the whole time.
It was silence.
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Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:20 pm
(There was a small RP on page 360 on the shop with Braeden, and Another pages 396-380) FANART TIME!  Braeden finds endless facination with Bumby's ears.  Cryptic :Geisen was Zeroed off after this point with the purchase of another Lanturn:
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:44 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 12:21 pm
Braeden ran through the city streets with reckless abandon. He ran so often nowadays it became like second nature to him, and he could run for miles and miles without begining to feel exhausted. Rooftops were his racing tracks, streets smooth lunge ways, and the river was where it always stopped.
The orange spirit was going increasingly agitated with his own feelings, and needed to sort them out. He found when he was running, his thoughts would clear, allowing him to think without being clouded by frustration. Scientists also proved that excersize released endorphins, and by the time he was finished, Braeden was nearly giddy. There was something about the feeling of movement, about the pound of one's feet along the street, the urge to make one's legs move faster, to legnthen the stride, move further, spend longer time airborne between steps that was positively intoxicating.
Blazing down a street, Braeden spied a straightaway, and tucked downward, kicking up his speed. He charged down the roadway, eyes on the street ahead of him. It extended into the abyss of the horison, exactly where Braeden wanted to go. The stars blurred out of vision, and landmarks turned into hazy smudges as there was nothing but Braeden, the street and the sky above. About a half mile from where he started, he spotted a car coming fast at him from dead on.
Granted, he was suprised it didn't happen more often, considering he did choose to run on the wrong side of the road. Maddened, Braeden's light flared brightly, until he seemed like his own pair of orange headlights. The moment before collision, Braeden's front leg kicked him up and the halloween spirit launched clear over the top of the car. Time seemed to slow as his body twisted. His laughter echoed through the air as the car swerved wildly and eventually fishtailed into a spinout.
He landed with a roll, and sped off the street into a congested alleyway. Unlike the one his bretheren inhabited, this one smelled of stale urine and dirt. A voice to his left coughed, ragged from years and years of smoking.
'Fool.' Braeden thought with contempt, 'As if life wasn't already short enough.'
Humans didn't value life enough. For beings that had such a short time to develop, they wasted a lot of it, and many ended it before full maturation. But, that was how a lot of the spirits at phosperopholis ended up, didn't they? Braeden didn't recall how he was killed, but had an odd feeling it was murder. Leaping to one side, Braeden hit the opposite wall and leaped off at an upward angle. Twisting to land feet first, he pushed off that wall and flew toward the other, but was losing momentum. He almost lost purchase on that far wall and would have fallen about thirty feet to the bottom. Scrabbling luminous hands against the dingy brick walling, he caught the side of the windowsill. Hefting himself up, he realized it was open.
Muffled groans and sighs emerged from within, and through the light cast by his very body, Braeden could see the bedsheets shifting rythmically, and two greasy masses of hair marked the inhabitants.
The room smelled of mold, cheap beer and vomit. Lousy motels were disgusting for more reasons for that. On a side table, six lines of cocaine were visible, and who knew that last pungeont scent that nearly knocked Braeden out of the window. The rythem of the bedsheets increased, the voices escalated, and the orange spirit decided he'd had enough. Entering through the window, the orange spirit ran to the door and flung it open, unprepared for the inrush of smoke from the narrow hallway. From most of the rooms, similar noises emerged. He sidestepped unknown stains that darkened the faded pink of the carpet and small brown insects that scuttled underfoot as he sought the staircase.
Braeden's light footsteps echoed as he ran up the stairs, bursting through the roof access door. The door tripped an alarm and the entire building went up in keening wails. Fleeing from the scene, a howl of laughter rang out among the cries of the alarms and the screams of the sirens as the fire department came in to invesitgate.
Free among the rooftops, Braeden continued to run, jumping clear over alleyways between the buildings. Of course, it was only a matter of time before he made his way to the river again.
The river.
Braeden could see it from far off, churning and gurgling like a black amoebic mass with the flickering and dancing lights Braeden knew. Before this was always where his romps had ended. There was something about the brackish water, and the way the lights flickered along the surface that entranced him.
And tonight was no different. Putting on the brakes was no easy task with how quickly he was moving. Sliding and skidding, Braeden tumbled off the top of the building, crashing to the ground many many feet away. In fact, he would have fallen clear into the swollen tributary, had it not been for a simple black steel fence. The railing was no higher than waist height on a person, but it was more to keep children from venturing in.
For the first time in several hours, Braeden sat completely still. Hands gripped to the spokes of the fence for dear life, those silver eyes watched the steady flow of the river, and those dancing lights.
It struck him where he had first encountered one of them.
Still entrapped in that paper light, the one known as Dian was carrying him down the alleyway where he was sold. The very first time Dian and he had met, actually. A small sprite had fallen out of the sky before them, bobbing and jumping in the air. A little dancing light. Dian, the fool didn't know what it was, and Braeden just wanted to eat that little skipping maggot, and tried to reach for it, but instead burned Dian's hands and scared it away.
Dian...
Braeden shut his eyes against the river and the lights, and pulled away from the simple iron fence. The grass lightly crunched against him, wet with moisture from the river, dampening his legs. Braeden grasped his scarf and wrapped it closer to him. Standing, he turned to the bridge that would allow him to cross the great black river and began his way home. Walking his way home.
He'd made it out so far in his mindless run it took him many more hours to get home, and upon reaching his house, fell over and passed out on the couch, too tired to even make it to his bed. Dian found him laying there and put him to bed.
The building who's alarm Braeden had tripped was shut down for conducting business as a hotel without a licence. No charges were pressed for the drug use, and no one believed the woman who was driving the car when she said a glowing child had caused her to spin out. Fortunately neither her or her car suffered any damage.
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Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:04 am
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:23 pm
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