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 Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:17 pm
 ~Personality
loud, boistrous, gregarious, fun-loving, energetic
~ Stats
Str: 6
Dex: 5
Stam: 8
Wis: 4
Int: 5
Char: 8
Spd: 7
Mag: 8
Lck: 2
~ Abilities
Resist (stam)
Dazzling Smile (char)
+1 spell slot (Mag)
~ Spells (*-available slots)
(non-elemental)
(0) Flight
(1) Magic Detection
(Fire)
(0) Fire Blood
(1) Fiery Illumination
(2) Imbue Heat
(3) Third Degree Burn
(4) Ignite
(4) Fire Shield
(6) Second Degree Burn
(7) Pyromancy
(8 ) Combustion
~ Pointslast counted: May 13 '07 (not counting Checking on Captain RP)
Used: 816
Free: 626
Total:1351
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:18 pm
"Ah fleeting Spirit! wand'ring Fire, That long hast warm'd my tender Breast, Must thou no more this Frame inspire?"
- Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus (January 24, 76 - July 10, 13 cool , known as Hadrian in English, was a Roman emperor from 117 - 138. He is considered one of the so-called Five Good Emperors.Quote: On this, the nineteenth of the fifth month of the year two thousand and four:
I was certianly not mistaken in believing that Rik's flower was special!
Since Hadrian's birth he's torn through my entire house, and I believe he's touched just about everything I own.
He's sleeping in a makeshift bed among my house plants, until I can create a more perminent home for him. He's coming up to me now, as I write in my journal, showing me things he's pulled out of who knows where and asking if he can keep them. Now he wants a journal like mine. I've done some book binding, but I'm not at all sure I can apply the technique to a book for a 4" tall fairy. He may have to be satisfied with having his first journal be...er...immovable. Hadrian has travelled on his own a great deal, and returned to gaia taller and older, but is he any wiser? More mature? He was a very hyperactive, exuberant youth - likely to act without thinking and shout when he should whisper. Now that he's come home, well...we'll see... At first glance
Hadrian stands out, in almost every way possible (including color). He's loud, and can't resist joining into conversations even when he isn't really a part of them. He enjoys having a good time and he is known to drag others along in his enthusiasm. He's quite proud of his fire magic, and uses it frequently.
Most folk accept him as a foolish but likable feien, with a bit of an irresponsible attitude, but sometimes little things that ruin this image slip out. The less judgemental a feien is, the more likely they are to notice he's less a fool then he seems.
Stats explained
Str:About as strong as your average male 7 inch tall fellow. Its not something he ever worries about.
Dex: He's light on his feet, and good at dodging and dashing behind things, but he's not as good at working with small objects or doing delicate things.
Stamina: Having done alot of travelling, he knows his limits and is in good shape. He can travel a fair distance before needing rest. He has less experience, however, resisting magic or illness.
wis: Hadrian is a do-er not a thinker. He is often frustrated by his own lack of patience and short attention span, and he honestly considers himself unable to think as deeply as some feien do (which is, probably, not true). He doesn't tend to plan before jumping into things, and he finds that when he does plan he is often laboring under misconceptions.
int: Although Hadrian is honestly no less intelligent then most other folk, he considers himself to be not so bright. He often confuses his difficulty grasping complicated ideas with pure stupidity when its in reality more an issue of his lack of patience with long thought. He knows more then he is liable to give himself credit for. Because of his own belief that he is of substandard intelligence, other feien often believe so as well.
charisma: Its difficult to dislike Hadrian. He is a warm and cheerful fellow who honestly always means well. Even when he makes impressive mistakes, its easy to see that he really does care. He expresses great interest and enthusiasm in other peoples thoughts and ideas, and seems to be able to find something good and interesting in almost everyon.
speed: He is quite fast on his feet and in the air. He's certainly not 'faster then a speeding bullet', but he's faster then your average feien. It helps him avoid disaster from his exceptionally poor luck.
magic: Hadrian has a natural affinity for magic, especially that of his own element. Unforunately his lack of patience and attention span have made it a slow process for him to learn - especially being the only fire feien, with no one to teach him or give him hints to help him along. During his travels he gained a great deal of self discipline he did not have as a child, that has helped him learn what he knows about feien magic.
luck: He just seems to have the worst luck. If something is loose, it will fall when Hadrian walks under it. If Hadrian guesses the weather wrong, it will be the day it rains when its supposed to be sunny. If he buys you flowers, he's sure to somehow pick the sort you're allergic to. He may be the only person capable of accidentally stumbling across a hole between dimensions. He has a tendacy to always walk into the most awkward part of a conversation. Somehow, however, through fast reaction time and a good deal of charm, he seems to manage quite well. In fact, if you asked him, he wouldn't say he thought of himself as particularly unlucky.
Secrets and private thoughts
... she tilted her head a bit, watching her friend. "Hadrian? What is it like being you?"
"Warm." He said after a bit, a little absently. "Definitely warm. But other things too."
It was clear he was still thinking about it.
Deep down, Hadrian is really a good deal more serious then he lets on. He gets easily caught up in things and is very enthusiastic, but he's also quite concerned with the safty and happiness of people around him and even though he would tell you differently he does spend alot of time considering the way the world works. He is also a good deal more capable then he comes across, both in know how and in ability to take care of himself.
He wants very badly to learn things, and feels frustrated that it seems so difficult for him to do.
He is quite obsessed with his elemental magic, and wishes to properly master it. He has also been preoccupied since he was a child with the fact that he is the only fire feien to have appeared.
He is also preoccupied with the idea of other dimensions, after a somewhat traumatic experience traveling between them. Bryagh apparently rescued him in that instance, and when he tells stories about his travels, he never talks in depth about that experience.
He is actually quite lonely. He left to travel because his lady love had left him (so to speak) - and while he enjoyed seeing and learning new things, he has discovered that it has divorced him from other feien and he is quite desperate to make friends.
Perhaps it is because of his bond's inherent dislike of government, but Hadrian is CONSIDERABLY distrubed by the Fleet's 'control' of the feien. Although he doesn't have the full story, he is quite afraid to interact with them at all until he does. Arae's description of the Fleets control of feien procreation hasn't helped his opinion of them at all. He is quite prepared to think of them as oppressors and slave drivers unless something happens to prove otherwise.
Interests and Hobbies
Most of Hadrian's interest is centered firmly on three things: '
Travelling to new places - Although he's no longer spending ALL his time travelling, Hadrian has no intentions of just staying in one place now. He's always fascinated by new places, and by just traveling in general.
Fire Magic - Since he realised he could actually somehow control the element he is so connected to, Hadrian has been a bit obsessed with learning how to actually use the magic related to his element.
Building Things - Hadrian's 'mom' is a swordsmith and a general craftsperson, and she was never hesitant to share the process with her adopted feien. She encouraged any interests he had in the area very effectively, and he's always been interested in the idea of making things.
Where his ideas come from
His "Mom" (Bond) - Fyre considered Hadrian a sort of adopted son, and was therefore very active in his life and interested in teaching him things. Much of his personality is strongly influenced by her, and his idea of how things work is very much based in the way her household interacts (not the best model for a normal idea of things, honestly...). He is used to a very informal environment, where folk aren't afraid to raise their voices or speak their mind to anyone, and guests are welcomed with tea and cookies. He is also used to folk with a very strong dislike for being told what to do or pushed around and he has heard Fyre more then once verbally express distrust of established governing systems.
Adventure Novels - A great fan of all those exciting stories about heros and villians - from Peter Pan, to the Lord of the Rings and everywhere in between. Hadrian bases his ideal personality traits on those of the classic Hero. It contributed to his wish to travel.
The First Feien Shop - Hadrian's understanding of his own race is based almost entirely on his experience with the first feien shop, the ancients who were part of it, and his bond's occassional work with Emperial.
Irisa and Her Home - If Fyre runs a sort of nature based hippy kind of household, Irisa's home was its scientific hi-tech opposite. Most of Hadrian's idea of science and technology comes from Irisa and her bond's hi-tech home.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:46 pm
"There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke."
-Vincent Van Gogh -Hadrian's House- -Hadrian's Stuff-
Important personal items:
-Hammock crafted from some odd foreign looking fabric and string.
-Blanket of similar foreign fabric.
-A number of foreign postage stamps, hung like posters on the walls.
-A small coin with a hole in the center.
-A row of very small charms, made of wood or plastic, in the shape of various objects and animals
Household goods:
- pile of glass flat 'marbles' (for 'Imbue Heat' house heating)
- some plates and bowls made of small rough circles of tin shaped with a small hammer
- a cough syrup measuring cup, now a cup/bucket
- a pile of string, bits of clothe, wire, and other odds and ends
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:53 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:56 pm
Due to database errors and Gaia auto-archiving issues, 2 pages of Hadrian's original jounral have been lost. In order to preserve the remaining pages, they have been transfered here.
The original Journal is ]http://gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2110601Hadrian's Childhood JournalHadrian's very private diary Friday june 18
Mom has been really busy lately. She even forgot to water the flowers yesterday! Its not exactly lonely here, mom has lots of pets, but I think maybe I will ask mom if I can invite some friends over to play, since she is so busy.
I also think that since she is so busy I won't tell her that I broke the vase in the living room. She might not notice... Thursday July 29th
Mom has been putting everything into boxes all week. She says we're moving to a new house. I like new things, so I'm really looking forward to seeing this 'new house'. I hope its got alot of really big windows...and a big yard...and a garden! And neighbors that won't be mad if I set off fire crackers in the back yard...
Tuesday Sept 9
We're FINALLY moved. Mom packed my diary in the bottom of a really big box! I didn't find it for weeks. She bought me a set of little color pencils to write with to make up for it though! And now that our house is bigger and nicer, I'm going to get my OWN little house! Mom is building it for me a little at a time, and letting me come and pick out ALL the pieces.
I hope there are more people like me to play with in this new neighborhood, it was a little lonely while we were moving.
Sunday, Sept 27
We went shopping today and we got the first part of my house! I picked it out. There was a really pretty paper lantern that I REALLY wanted alot. But mom said no. She says its way to flame-a-bull for me to live in. So instead I picked one out with lots of colored bits of glass, and pretty patterns in the metal top. It looks like a castle tower on top! Its going to be my bedroom, and mom says once we set it up, we can go and get more pieces to add on to it! I'm SO EXCITED!
Monday October 19th,
I've been trying to convince mom to let me have torches around the porch she's building on my house. She keeps saying NO though! How unfair is that? She says that I can't have matches until I'm old enough to not catch the house on fire. And she won't tell me WHEN I'll be old enough! Its really very unfair.
But Halloween is coming soon...and I get to come up with a costume. So maybe its ok to not have torches, for right now.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:59 pm
~The following occured upon the 26th of October, 2004, in the Feien shop~
Irisa was reading some of the documentation at the shop and recording bits of interest to her notes. Hmm... "Magic Teacher wanted". It seemed like she wasn't the only feien having trouble learning spells. She wondered if anyone would apply.
She wondered if she could find any feien that used magic often in general, really. Irisa didn't consider her physically weak, but feien's existance was originally based around magic so it'd be terrible to let it go to waste.
Ah well. Nothing to do about that, now. With that, she continued jotting down some of the documentation on feien in the shop so she could bring it home.
A tired looking woman stuck her head into the shop, a young feien sitting on her shoulder peering forward, comically mirroring her own motion.
"This is it." the woman said.
"This is what?" the feien on her shoulder asked.
"This...is where you are spending the afternoon."
"But...is there even anyone HERE?" He protested.
"Sure...somewhere....HELLO?" She called out to the room in general.
Neruo, the orange, curly-hair Feien, floated in tiredly. It looked as though he stuck his face in a cannon, and he was still wiping to soot from his face and limbs. He blindly perched on a couch arm. coughing.
Hmm... well, Irisa couldn't very well do her studies if she had to keep on listening to someone shout "Hello!?" all day. And it'd be very rude not to answer the call in general. So she took off and went to see the new entrant.
"Oh, er... hi." she greeted to the rather... lava-looking feien and his female bond. "Um... there's no one in the shop but me doing some research right now. Ah... yea. I'm Irisa. Nice to meet you."
She nodded, but at that moment, noticed another feien that she recognized (but didn't know very well) enter the room. And he looked... hurt.
Irisa blinked. "Ah! Um... Neruo, is it? Are... you okay?"
Neruo smiled and shook himself to rid his body of the rest of the soot. Cleaning his feathers, he turned to Irisa.
"I'm quite alright, and thank you. I just...had a little mishap with a fire-based potion I made. The resulting explosion was...much bigger than I had anticipated. No harm done, though. It was quite entertaining."
He sat down, swinging his legs over the side of the couch arm. "How are you, by the way?"
"Ah, sorry to interupt...I" The red haired woman blinked as Nerou floated past, "Oh dear...he looks a bit singed."
The feien on her shoulder launched himself into the air, energetically, and plunked himself down near Irisa, "Hadrian," He said smiling broadly, "Nice to meet you."
Fyre nodded to Irisa, "I'm Fyre, I just wanted to make sure he wouldn't be alone, if I left him here for a bit."
"Oh, I've just been... deciding to focus my research a bit more." Irisa smiled. "From what I've seen, I've figured that feien and non-feien magic doesn't... mix very well."
The young feien raised an eyebrow.
"You... make fire potions? You mean like a molotov cocktail?" She asked, before remarking, "Well... I guess that sort of thing can be pretty dangerous. Unless... your element is heat, I presume?
From what little science she's studied so far, Irisa didn't know how one could just... make a jug full of fire or whatever. Although whatever it sounded like, it seemed it was best experimented with by a feien who could withstand heat for obvious reasons.
Ah, but where were her manners? She turned back to the lava-looking feien and his bond.
"Oh! Ah... no, it's no problem, really. I'm glad to meet you, Fyre and Hadrian." She nodded with a smile, before adding to confirm Fyre's remark, "And... well, I guess the shop has some other occupants, now."
Neruo dusted a bit from his curls. "Yes, I am Heat elemental, so the blast didn't really hurt me. It had a knock-back effect, and made lots of soot, but other than that... I suppose it could be a like a Molotov Cocktail, though I've only read about them. I can try and make another, less potent one for you, if you like."
Th eorange one turned to greet the other Feien, when he noticed his color. "Why, you are orange as well! And I thought I was the only one!" He floated up to the other orange Feien, excited. "It's an honor to meet you! I'm Neruo."
Hadrian was distracted almost instantly by the words "fire potion". If his bonded wasn't going to let him play with matches at home...maybe here he'd get a little more experience with such things.
Fyre rolled her eyes and waved, "I'll be back to pick you up in a little while...enjoy yourself." And she ducked back out of the shop, leaving the feien to his own devices...after all it wasn't her house he might be burning down this time.
"Heat or fire." Hadrian corrected Irisa cheerfully. "Both elements have feien related to them."
Hadrian tilted his head to the side, wavy red hair falling across his face, "Maybe you're the only OTHER one?"
"Oh, right. I completely forgot." Irisa smiled as she flipped through her notes. "I do recall seeing a fire feien in the roster, although... I don't recall seeing any fire spells listed in the spell book."
She looked at Hadrian with a slight bit of awe.
"Then you're the only fire feien? You must have had some really unique experiences with your own magical ability. Er... hopefully none of which had to do with things such as say, burning down your house, I imagine."
Not that Irisa knew any specific fire spells since she never saw them in the spell book, but "fire" wasn't exactly the most mysterious element in the world, she imagined. With that, she looked at Neruo and smiled.
"Oh, no thanks, by the way. That would be unnecessary. Actually, I think I'd kind of be worried about carrying around anything explosive in general."
In truth, Irisa and fire didn't mix, what with her being a cold feien. But of course saying it like that could have been rather insulting to her present company.
"We must be two of a kind, then." Neruo said, smiling. He floated back down to Irisa.
"I don't think it would be best for you to be carrying anything volatile, either. How rude of me to suggest that. My apologies." He pulled at one of his curls, his wings fluttering.
"A roster? There's a roster? I was never aware of this...Perhaps because I get distracted with other Feien around. It lists all the Feien and their elements?"
"Yeah, there's a roster." Hadrian supplied, proud that he wasn't completely lost in the conversation. "My mom...er...bonded...fostered a bloom for the shop once...creepy black thing...anyway, she got a copy of the 'roster' when she did." He talked fairly rapidly, excited to be meeting other feien.
"Oh yes." Irisa nodded. "It's on the bulletin board. Nero and I were looking through it a while back. There is a whole slew of wonderful information there, such as genetics, a job opening for a magic teacher, and where you could locate Julius or Yanvir."
Not that Irisa still had any idea who this Yanvir was, besides an elder (as far as she could tell). Still, speaking of which, she should probably go to see one of them someday. Although she still felt rather intimidated to do so right now, what with being so young.
Irisa perked up curiously when she heard Hadrian's remarks.
"A... creepy black thing? I wonder if that could be Ankou..." Well, Ankou was the only creepy black feien Irisa ever met, not that Irisa knew what 'foster' could mean in this contest. Hrm...
Irisa gave a nervous laugh.
"Ahaha, what am I saying? I'm sure there could be many creepy black feien that I simply haven't met yet." she nodded. "Although... I still never heard of a death feien until I saw Ankou."
Neruo blinked, yawning and stretching. "I'll have to check out this roster in more detail tomorrow. But being blown around my lab has made me quite tired. It's been wonderful speaking with both of you, and I hope to see you again soon."
He bowed to both of them and slowly floated out, ready to cleaning himself properly in some soap and warm water.
Hadrian waved to Nerou, his face falling into a very slight unconcious pout when he realised he wasn't going to get to spend more time playing with fire with his new found 'elemental twin'.
He blinked and turned back to Irisa. "Ah...death...feien? Dunno. She's a sort of a bonanist, and honestly she's a bit odd. I wouldn't really put it past her. She decorated her kids room with bat wallpaper." He snorted.
"Anyway...I only get to experiment in the yard now. I set the sofa on fire once...one mistake and I'm not allowed to play with fire indoors anymore."
Irisa joined in waving a farewell to Neruo, before the conversation continued. She listened to Hadrian for a bit, but it seemed if there really was more to Ankou, he didn't know what it was, either.
...she hoped that 'death' for his element was just a joke. A prank of sorts played by a bond who enjoys bat wallpaper just because that's her preference.
"Hmm... not being allowed to play with fires indoors must be rather aggravating, I imagine." Irisa remarked. "My bond won't let me carry dirt around the house either. But... I'm an earth feien. I subsist at least partially on dirt! ...well, I'm cold too which is fortunate, since he at least allows ice in the house."
Irisa shook her head.
"I suppose it can't be helped, especially with something like fire." Irisa remarked, before asking curiously, "Have you been able to discover any fire spells yet with your experimentation? You could possibly be the first and have your name creditted in the spell book!"
And hey, if Hadrian told Irisa how he was able to learn a new fire spell, maybe that could help Irisa in figuring out the process to learning new spells in general, because she sure didn't seem to be getting anywhere with figuring out her earth or cold spells, and that was with already knowing what they were from the spell book!
Hadrian plopped down near Irisa cross legged, and seemed to be considering.
"Well...I'll be allowed to use it indoors when I'm better at controlling it. Its a bit volatile I suppose." He brushed his hair back out of his eyes, "I haven't gotten too very far honestly. There are things I can just...do...yah know? Like...I figured out how to move flames around a bit, make little shapes out of candles. But I dunno about spells exactly...they seem more complicated. Mom suggested I do some research...but..." He looked down, a little embarased, "I don't have the patience to read something so LONG..."
Irisa sat down, herself, on bent knee.
"Ah, it's okay. I've been doing a lot of research, myself, lately." she remarked. "And... I'm quite sure there aren't any fire spells listed in all of the documents I've seen. Nor... how to go about learning new spells, really."
She smiled.
"Actually... I'm not sure if most people know the specific process, either, given the notice for a magic teacher job opening on the bulletin right now." the young feien stated. "I... think that for most feien, the spells just... come to them over time. ...if I had to guess, of course."
Well, that was how the spells she was born with came to her. Although whether spells after that came that way, Irisa really had no idea. But then, that's why it was just a guess.
"Maybe someday, how to cast specific fire spells will just come to you." Irisa beamed. "At any rate, moving flames around and making shapes with them sounds rather wonderous on its own."
Hey, she was sure it was a good start, really, being able to control your element like that.
"I guess...I just figure if I keep messing with it, I'll figure more and more out. Maybe...you could tell me...if you find anything about fire while you're researching?"
He brightened, when she smiled, and leaned forward slightly, looking excited. "I could show you...if you want! We just need a candle or a match or something!"
"Oh, definately." Irisa nodded. "If I find something out, I'll let you know."
After all, research without purpose was... pointless. Irisa would have to make sure to inform all feien about her findings as she found them, so that they could be put to good use.
But now... finding candles? Ironically, Irisa could really use a 'fire potion' right now.
"Ah..." the young feien looked around. "Maybe there are some candles or matches in the cupboards or the shelves? I'm... rather new and haven't been able to fully explore the shop yet."
Hadrian twisted where he sat to peer around, "How about you look over there.." He pointed, "And I'll look over THERE." He pointed at the other wall of the cluttered shop.
"And if one of us finds one, well call for the other one?"
Irisa glanced at where Hadrian was pointing to, and then nodded.
"Yes, of course." she smiled. "I'm on it!"
With that, she flew over to the general section of where Hadrian was pointing. ...hmm, human-sized shelves were so large. Fortunately, they weren't too hard to open. Irisa was glad she was born with an above-average intelligence according to her bond, but being born with at least decent strength had its uses, too.
Not that she's been able to observe the mental and physical capacity of other feien, though. It... really didn't serve much purpose for restoring magic to the world as far as Irisa could tell anyways (but then again, she supposed that you never know).
Hrm... paper, ink, glue... would matches be anywhere here?
Hadrian fluttered over to the section he had assigned to himself...and was immidiately distracted by various shiny objects.
Hmmm rocks...and this case was locked...you wouldn't put matches in a locked case, would you? Well he wouldn't anyway...but what was that gem looking thing? He pressed his face up close to the cabinet glass to peer in...then remembered his quest.
Right...matches. He landed on an un-encased shelf and began to prowel around.
Cocktail rapiers... bowls and feather quills... wow, if Irisa knew that the items were right here in this shelf, she wouldn't have wasted so much time waiting for her item order to come in!
...no, perhaps the shop would consider that stealing. Most of them seemed locked, anyways. Although her bond did grumble about how the prices on the items Irisa ordered were highway robbery, himself. Irisa didn't see what the problem was, though. She didn't think they were THAT expensive.
A little more and... ah, a box of matches! Finally! And somewhere actually accessible. ...on the floor. Maybe they were left over from a bond that accidentally dropped them while smoking. ...was smoking allowed in the shop? Ah well.
"Found them!" Irisa called to Hadrian, before flying back to where they used to be. "I... hope these are safe. I wouldn't want to be responsible for setting the shop on fire."
Hadrian stood up from where he had been rummaging in a corner of the shelf, and darted back to where Irisa was waiting.
"Of COURSE they're safe. They're just matches." He said, confidently...he was enjoying showing off, just a little bit.
He pulled the box open and slide a match stick out, wielding it like a spear, and struck it again the strip on the side of the box in a vaguely theatrical (if slightly clumsily executed) gesture - planting the non-burning end against the table with a little thud.
He looked impressive standing there, for just a second...until he grinned an enthusiatic and slightly lopsided grin and spoiled the effect.
"See...perfectly safe."
GAH! Heat! Irisa instinctively turned on her stoneskin spell out of reflex, although it didn't reduce enough the uncomfortableness she was feeling by being so near the opposite of one of her elements.
She forced a smile.
"Ah. Perfectly safe... yes." she nodded nervously, gradually forcing herself to at least get accustomed enough to it to not look so awkward. "You... handle it... really well."
She glanced around, still rather uncomfortable from the flame. But... one couldn't do proper experimentation and research if one wasn't willing to deal with the uncomfortableness or even risks that could come with it.
The fire feien blinked, and back peddled...
"I'm sorry! Are you ok...I didn't mean..." He whipped the match behind his back, putting himself between Irisa and it as if it might help.
"Huh?" Irisa watched in surprise as Hadrian actually went over to... shield her from the flame.
"Oh! No, it's... entirely my fault, really!" Irisa quickly stammered. "I... didn't realize how much my cold element would be affected by... this."
She looked at the fire, and then back at Hadrian who practically seemed to be absorbing the heat away (or was that just her...?)
"...thanks." she smiled appreciatively. "I... think I can get accustomed to it now that the initial shock is gone."
Like how it could take a bit to get used to a swimming pool of cold water! Or... er, well, hot water in Irisa's case.
Hadrian nodded and tentatively slipped out from in front of the match again, wedging it into a crevace in the table and stepping back slightly.
"I didn't mean to startle you..." He thought for a second and then, as if he had an idea of how to make up for it, he turned to peer at the flame - his forehead furrowing slightly in concentration.
After a moment, the flame twisted momentarily into the form of a simple daisy like flower before flickering back into a simple little flame again.
The uncomfortableness of the heat was forgotten as Irisa watched in awe of the spell being cast. It was so rare that feien used their magic in the shop for her to observe. One could read as much as one wanted from the spell book but it just wasn't the same as seeing the thing for real!
...although one couldn't read about fire magic in the spell book. That made this occassion all the more special.
"That... was really nice." Irisa smiled as she gazed at the flame, before looking at Hadrian again. "Thank you so much for showing me that. You have a really wonderful gift."
Well, one might normally not see a spell as a 'gift' since all feien were supposed to have access to their spells as per their magical affinity, but the fire element alone was rare and the spells unknown and... perhaps no matter how many feien there could be, magic in and of itself was a gift, anyways.
Hadrian actually blushed very slightly...although it was hard to tell with his dark skin if it was really a blush or not. "Ah...thanks. Its not that impressive really." He looked down trying to be humble...but he was smiling broadly at the praise.
"Maybe you could show me one of your spells sometime?"
He looked back up in time to notice the match starting to get low....
"Oh!" He took a deep breath and huffed at the tip, putting the flame out iwth a monumental effort of breath, then swaying slightly at the lack of oxgyen. "Oops."
"Ah... my spells... don't make for a very good show at the moment. But I'll try." Irisa remarked. Stone skin, cold blood, the generic flight spell that every feien probably knew... useful sometimes, perhaps, but not very flashy at all.
Just then, she noticed Hadrian swaying a bit. She quickly ran over to him, a bit concerned.
"Are you... alright?" she gasped slightly. "Hmm... blowing out the flame in one breath is impressive, although... I hope you didn't overextend yourself."
She wondered how much stamina it took to make a daisy like Hadrian just did.
Still, she was thankful for meeting him. Inwardly, she wished him luck with discovering his own spells.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:05 pm
Note: at this point, a page of the journal is lost. Hadrian and Irisa grow closer, and Hadrian writes in his diary about developing something of a crush on her (although he doesn't know that's what it is, at the time). Irisa's letter To Hadrian,
About the magic research we talked about the other day. My bond has reserved for me one of the lab rooms in the basement in case I ever needed it (He is very interested in my research on magic, himself, for his own reasons). I would love for you to come over at your behest and we can get started on trying to discover how magic works. There should be more than adequate enough tools and materials to work with, I believe, as well as the proper safety equipment, much of which is our size. ...I believe that's because long ago, my bond intended for another being our size, Oxygen, to be his lab assistant, but that didn't pull through for a variety of reasons.
Well, if you could come over soon, it would be most appreciated. Sadly, I must be off on one of my own trips soon, so I'm not sure how long I'll be able to wait. But I would like to get this done, first. I look forward to it, after all.
~Irisa
But he was also feeling awefully pleased..."I look forward to it, after all." Which meant that she looked forward to seeing him. He wasn't entirely sure WHY this made him feel so cheerful, but it did...Hadrian's response to Irisa Irisa,
I can come as soon as you like. I can't imagine what kind of safety equipment might help with experimenting with magic, though. I guess maybe I just don't know very much about labs.
I hope you get this before you leave on your trip.
Hadrian The last remaining bit of this: Learning Magic By Trial and Error was RPed in the guild here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=87035Hadrian is asked to accompany Irisa on quest that is very important to her. The following posts document that adventure. The gaps are unavoidable - as Hadrian was not present for all the adventures that Irisa was party to while traveling to and within Rome.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:08 pm
~The following occured on the 26th of November at an un-named airport somewhere outside of Gaia~And So Begins the Trip Overseas Two portals in one 48 hour period...Talon wondered if it was some sort of weird record, considering he'd never -seen- a portal let alone -used- one in his life before visiting Julius yesterday. Without Karma having to say so, he'd shifted his perch from her shoulder to the inner pocket of her jacket and out of sight once they'd emerged from the other side of the portal. The humans there weren't used to seeing fairies, he'd been warned.
"Talon....watch those horns, please...." Karma grunted, wincing uncomfortably as her eldest feien's newest adornments dug painfully into her ribcage. Sighing, he shifted further within the pocket. He'd THOUGHT that this had been a good idea, but he supposed nothing really could have truly prepared him for the drastic changes he'd undergone. Yeande had seemed to like the new look, and that was a comfort, but what if others didn't?
What if he was frightening now?
Karma paused, scanning the lobby. Obviously she couldn't look for a little black and white feien to indicate where she was supposed to leave Talon, but thankfully Irisa had left a final message with hurried details on the answering machine earlier that morning saying who she would be with. Well....not WHO precisely, but whom Karma ought to look for.
Her eyes settling on a burly blonde-haired man after a moment, and seeing no one else in the near vicinity who fit the description Irisa left, Karma hesitantly approached him, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.
"....Levinsky?" she asked, waiting to be acknowledged.
"Eh? Wha?" The large man turned to look at the smaller woman behind him. "Do I know you?"
That was odd. Not many people called him by his real name. Especially in this world. If this were either an agent of his organization or of the rival organization, they would have referred to him either as "hey, you" or his codenumber at best.
Fortunately for him, the young feien in his own shirt pocket more than recognized the lady in front of them.
"Oh, hello, Miss Karma." Irisa smiled as she stuck her head out of the pocket. "It's good to see you. I'm so glad you could make it. So is my father with you as well? Oh, right, this is Levinsky, a co-worker of my bond's. He will be accompanying us and handling all the 'human' aspects of the trip."
"Oh, yea, hey there. Nice to meetcha." the man smiled as he grabbed Karma's hand to give a handshake greeting.
Karma smiled in return, giving the larger man's hand a sturdy shake. "Nice to meet you too." she nodded, turning then to Irisa. "Yes your father's right here, actually..." she said, pulling open the front of her coat and turning her head to the inside pocket expectantly where Talon had ducked fully inside. "Talon?" she asked, giving the jacket a jostle. Nothing. Rolling her eyes in exasperation, she sighed. "Talon, stop it." she said, trying not to sound annoyed. "You're fine, all right? Nobody's going to think you're a monster."
As the newly-enhanced feien went about the motions of grudgingly emerging from the depths of the pocket, Karma looked apologetically at both Levinsky and Irisa. "Sorry." she whispered. "He...ahh....he merged himself with a gemstone yesterday and he's still getting over the changes."
Talon, looking miffed that she'd stolen his thunder about getting to explain the process to Irisa, should she be receptive to his new look, pulled himself out of Karma's pocket a moment later, only slightly-rumpled. In build and general body, he was still the same....wirey, muscled, his white markings in the same place with long black hair, but that was where the familiarities ended. His body was now mottled with earthy greens and blue-grays, slate-colored horns emerged from his forehead, and his eyes, once a deep green, were now a piercing yellow.
He shook his wings out a bit and looked to Irisa hesitantly, half-expecting some sort of Phantom Of The Opera-esque shriek from her as the human she was with shielded her eyes.
Irisa wondered why her father would think anyone would think he was a monster until Karma mentioned the gemstone merging. The young feien was a bit surprised. She had read about gemstones as much as she could and knew all about the merging process and what it entailed, but never knew that her father was considering it. And as a feien who's only seen one ancient so far in her life (one who was in a large robe and heavily clothed in general), she was caught rather off guard by the site in front of her.
"Hey, I thought you said your pops was just some plain white color for his markings." Levinsky remarked with interest as he gazed upon the other feien that had just come into view.
"Please don't be rude, Mr. Levinsky. I did not say it like that." Irisa calmly corrected him for the sake of politeness, before turning to look at her dad again. "Ah... hello, father. I wasn't aware that you were planning on merging with a gemstone. I must say, you certainly look a lot more exquisite now."
Not that he looked plain before, contrary to what a certain large gentleman had just stated.
"I'm... surprised." Irisa remarked with curiousity. "Was... er, is it pleasant?"
She was filled with intrigue, now. She had read about gemstone mergings, but didn't know much about the experience. Who was the feien her father had merged with? How did it affect her father? What was it like, to be two people in one, if that was what it really was? She had so many questions, but probing her own father for the answers seemed rather rude...
Talon, however, seemed relieved at her calm reaction and closed his eyes momentarily to show so. Opening them again, he answered her.
"Actually, no. It wasn't pleasant at all." he told her levelly as he climbed the rest of the way out of the pocket and hovered in front of Karma's jacket, still out of sight of passersby. "I've never had a more painful experience in my life."
"But you still went and did it." Karma said, shaking her head a bit.
"I still did it." he repeated, refusing to have the experience belittled by his bond's usual teasing. "I probably would have done it eventually on my own anyway, but with us going to a strange place and not knowing what we're going to be facing, this seemed as good a time as any."
"Ooh! Show them your fingers!" Karma helpfully put in, making him flinch and glare up at her before sighing, extending his hands to show the four-digited hand versus the six-digited one.
"That's, in all honesty, the only change that I still can't get used to." he admitted.
"Wow, that... certainly does look like it'd take some getting used to." Irisa remarked as she gazed down at her father's hands, a slight bit amazed. "I imagine that various handiworks must feel significantly more cumbersome now."
Well, at least her father still had opposable thumbs, as opposed to a certain snake mendel Irisa once met. She still wondered though if the loss of two fingers made for less utility in general, though.
"But it seems like a wise choice, then, if you were planning on merging, anyways." Irisa nodded. Never know when a little extra power could come in handy, she supposed. Although... she still had her reservations about this. When one merges with a gemstone, they absorb nearly everything about the feien they merged with, including the personality (though Irisa wasn't aware if they absorbed the memories too or not).
But... her father didn't seem very different on the outset in terms of personality. The feien he merged with must have been VERY exotic to have traits like those, however, such as those horns...
"So... I imagine that the gemstone brought a lot of power with it?" Irisa hesitantly asked, deciding to focus on the known good side of things.
"So... I imagine that the gemstone brought a lot of power with it?" Irisa hesitantly asked, deciding to focus on the known good side of things.
Hadrian nearly tumbled into Irisa in his excitment...and rush. He wasn't a very punctual person...and worse he Bond was even less punctual. So he was trying very hard not to be late!
Talon had been about to answer, but the sudden streak of red, orange, and dark skin cut him short as the stranger rapidly approached and skidded to a stop shortly in front of Irisa, making his hand immediately go to his side to hover in the vicinity of his rapier.
Caught in the middle of conversation, Irisa was surprised by Hadrian's amazing speed.. The young feien quickly took flight out of Levinsky's pocket, but it fortunately proved unnecesary.
"Oh, Hadrian! It's nice running into you." she smiled. Yes, nice, but it was fortunate that the running wasn't literal. That would have been embarassing. "Oh yes, father, this is Hadrian. Hadrian, this is my father, Talonfaust. I'm really glad you could make it." the young feien smiled.
Hadrian blushed very slightly, although it was hard to see behind his dark complexion, "Ah...oh. Pleased to meet you." He smiled and held out a hand to Irisa's father, whom he was quite prepared to like.
After all, he was Irisa's father. And Irisa was quite nice.
Talon's hand relaxed and then dropped away from the rapier as Irisa identified the other juvenile. He recalled having read in her note to him that she would be bringing someone else along. He still wasn't especially fond of strangers, but he trusted Irisa to make good judgement from what he'd seen of her. The handshake put him off for a moment, however. After a moment of debate, he extended a hand, the four-digited one, to shake Hadrian's. No sense in being -extremely- strange just yet...
"Hello, Hadrian." he said quietly, sternly, and simply. There was no more to it than that and his grip was quite firm, suggesting that he was still getting reins on the strength the enhancement had gifted him with.
Well, it was all prompt and cordial enough. Irisa clasped her hands together and smiled.
"Okay. Our flight should be leaving soon. We should probably start making preparations to board." she nodded, before looking up at Talonfaust's bond. "Thank you for bringing my father here, Miss Karma. I suppose we maybe should take it from... hmm, well, I'm not exactly sure what method of transportation everyone prefers. We could try either the portable pet cage or a suitcase, I suppose..."
Gee, Irisa really preferred Gaia to this world. She wasn't sure how much feien should remain in plain sight here as it was, already...
Hadrian's smile faultered a little, as he tried to pretend that Talonfaust wasn't grasping his hand just a little to hard. He flexed his fingers in secret behind his back when Talon let go.
"I uh...don't think being in a suitcase sounds like much fun...I mean it doesn't have any windows. It'll be awefully dark." Hadrain wasn't a fan of the dark.
As Hadrian and Irisa debated over travel methods, Karma looked to Talon before leaving. "Are you sure you're going to be all right?" she asked him. Narrowing his eyes and his expression tightening a bit with aggravation, he nodded once. "Are you really sure? Do you need anyth--"
"I'm -fine-." he said in a voice that wasn't quite a growl. He hadn't undergone all of that pain just to continue to be treated like a child. Rolling her eyes, Karma nodded as well.
"All right, I guess I'm out of here then...." she said, offering a brief wave to Levinsky, Irisa, and Hadrian in parting before turning to go with a swish of her tail.
"So I suppose that's all settled, then." Irisa cheerfully nodded. "Very well. We can use my bond's carrying case. It's... typically used for dogs and cats and such, but... the one barred window should provide adequate lighting and there's ample room."
Although... Irisa wasn't sure whether anyone would be insulted by having to resort to a mode of transport which usually was reserved for dogs. ...worlds without magic were just awful.
Hadrian frowned very slightly, on him it looked a little like a pout. "That doesn't sound particularly comfortable either..." As he remembered, those things had hard plastic sides, and no furniture or anything soft to speak of. And now that he had met Talonfaust, he wasn't at all sure how well them all sitting in a small uncomfortable room would go over.
"Could we make it more comfortable somehow?" He fidgeted, "Like..with chairs or something?"
"Er, well, I did have Levinsky pack away some of my bond's doll house furniture in case we needed it." Irisa remarked. "After all, I'm quite sure things won't be tailored to our size from here on. I wasn't expecting us to have to unpack it so soon, but it shouldn't be too hard."
With that, the young feien flew up to look at her escort human face-to-face.
"You... think you could carry it so that none of the furniture tips over, right?"
"Hey, I've handled things a lot more fragile than this." Levinsky responded, before thinking back fondly. "Like, this one time, I had to dash out with a bomb which was set to go off at the slightest shake or in 10 seconds! Whichever came first!"
"And you made it out successfully?" Irisa blinked in surprise, quite impressed.
"Hell no!" the man laughed. "Ended up chucking it away as far as I could and then diving for cover using an enemy henchman as a human shield. ...er, what were we talking about again?"
Irisa sighed, before looking back at Hadrian and her father. "Er... yes, well, I guess we can get the furniture but I can't really make any promises on the ride being very smooth."
As he was accustomed to spending hours huddled on the windowsill back home, furniture wasn't much of a concern to Talon. However, something else was.
"Don't pets and luggage go -under- the plane...?" he asked suspiciously. The crate he could deal with, however, the idea of being in the dark for hours being jostled around among other people's luggage didn't appeal to him much. What if they should need to escape for some reason? There would be no way to...not that options for escape were much better in the main cabin, but still...
Hadrian blinked, looking suddenly very concerned. "Mr. Talonfaust...sir...are you sure they go UNDER the plane?" He fluttered nervously,
"Doesn't it get awefully...cold...under in the cargo hold?"
Irisa herself loved the cold, actually. But obviously she was different from the other two feien in that regard.
"Okay, I guess we could just take what's been working so far." she remarked, before turning to Levinsky. "You'll have to use your extra large coat. The one with the big pockets."
"Eh? But it's too hot to wear that thing." Levinsky blinked, before sighing. "Oh whatever. Let's just get this over with, then."
With that, he opened one of the suitcases to take out a rather enormous raincoat as Irisa turned to Hadrian and her father and smiled. "Okay! We can all either share a pocket or take separate ones. Would these accomodations be all right, I hope?"
Compared to travelling in the pet carrier, this seemed like a better option to Talon, despite the fact he didn't yet know Levinsky and seemed a bit wary of the big human.
"Fine with me." he nodded, looking sidelong at Hadrian as he held the only outstanding opinion.
Hadrian was a trusting sort, and so not overly concerned about Levinsky. He did not, however, think a very long flight alone in the mans pocket sounded very appealing. "That sounds fine." He shuffled, "Uhm...Irisa...would you like to...well. Ride with me so we have someone to talk to?"
"Oh, sure, Hadrian." Irisa smiled. It would be rather nice to not have to spend an entire flight just... sitting there.
The young feien pondered for a bit.
"Well, hopefully we shouldn't have to stay in the pockets for the entire duration of the flight." she remarked. "I think Levinsky brought the tickets to both of the seats in the same isle, if only because he's rather... horizontally challenged."
Levinsky glared at the small feien upon hearing that remark. "Hey, are you calling me fat?"
Irisa decided not to answer him.
Talon's ear twitched and his eyes narrowed a bit at Hadrian's suggestion he and Irisa share a pocket, his inner guard dog baring its teeth, but he forced himself to quell it. Somehow his thought process had become less spastic in the hours following his merging and he was able to think things through more clearly.
He's a friend of hers. How would you feel if someone threw a fit every time you wanted to be near Yeande? Having made his own point, he thought it best to say nothing at all for the moment.
Hadrian looked pleased at Irisa's response, and he was smiling widely, excitement back firmly in place after the minor panic about the cold under the plane. He was entirely oblivious to Talonfaust's concern. "Maybe we can look out the window, sometime. I always wanted to see what it looked like up so high."
"This is my first plane ride. I'm sure there's a lot for all of us to see. It's really quite exciting." Irisa smiled back as Levinsky fumbled around with his big yellow raincoat.
His coat finally on after some hassle with a stuck zipper, Levinsky nodded. "Alright! In you all go! Let's try to get to the plane as fast as possible before I melt under this thing."
Talon watched Irisa and Hadrian's conversation take place and was somewhat grateful at Levinsky's invitation to take a pocket. Likely it was just due to lack of sleep and the fact his defenses seemed on a hair trigger, previous events considered, but he couldn't help feeling a bit like an outsider.
The two juveniles at least had their age and friendship in common, he was just -- bah, he'd figure it out later. He'd been invited along for protection and that was the purpose he'd serve.
Selecting one of Levinsky's lower pockets, he hovered forward and tucked himself inside and out of sight, wriggling a bit so that his wings settled around him comfortably and weren't bent at odd angles.
Hadrian followed Talon's lead, and looked for a particularly large pocket to settle into. He settled himself in and tucked his feet under himself to make sure there was plenty of room or Irisa.
Irisa zipped into the pocket besides Hadrian. Hrm... well, there was enough room to be comfortable, even if just barely. Not that she minded, though. Levinsky, meanwhile, was getting all sorts of odd glares for wearing a raincoat indoors.
He went past several gates as Irisa listened to their flight number being called. The young feien turned to Hadrian.
"Ah, I believe our first stop is England. I've read about a lovely musical they're showing there called 'Les Miserables' that I'm interested in seeing. Maybe we could stop by while we wait for our next flight to arrive."
Hadrian nestled into the corner of the pocket, "That's be neat! What's it about?" He'd never heard of it, himself... but it didn't sound very cheerful now that he thought about the title. Of course he didn't speak french so maybe he was wrong.
Talon, meanwhile, had made the unfortunate discovery of the fact that, at some point, Levinsky must have kept a roll of butterrum livesavers in this coat. The evidence was the fact that one of the candies, forgotten, had become crushed and scattered about its bottom and little shards of it were now adhereing themselves to his skin and hair as he cursed and impatiently picked them off of himself, pitching them out the top of the pocket. With everything that had improved, apparantly his luck hadn't been part of it. Oh yes, things were off to a great start...
"It's a story about... er, poor people, I think." Irisa replied to Hadrian as Levinsky had apparently begun boarding the plane, judging by the background wind noise. "I haven't read too much on the storyline myself because I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but I hear it's really good."
With that, she peered out of the coat pocket slightly to see how they were doing. And noticed a distinct trail of colored crumbs following them. What was her father doing in there? How... odd.
Hadrian, not to be left out, followed Irisa's lead and peeked out as well, staring around wide eyed and almost saying something quite loud, getting as far as "W-" before clapping his hands over his mouth.
"Wow..." He said, this time in a loudish whisper, which was possibly the quietest he was capable of being.
Talonfaust, deciding he'd finally had enough of being prodded and pierced by the pieces of broken candy, gathered up as much of the shattered lifesaver as he could, poking briefly out of the top of the pocket to rid himself of it once and for all.
Unfortunately, his timing was rather bad and a scattering of candy dust and pieces fell to the floor directly in front of the woman taking tickets. Wincing at his own error, he quickly ducked out of sight again to leave Levinsky to deal with the situation if she'd noticed.
Unamused, the woman stared at the candy on the ground, and then at Levinsky. It took Levinsky a second to register that he should look at the floor to see what she was staring at.
"Er, I seem to have a hole in my pocket..." Levinsky remarked
"Sir, why ARE you wearing that, anyways?" the woman asked. She decided to find out the answer to that question first before getting to the whole thing about the man bringing candy onto the plane like that.
"I'm retaining water!" Levinsky replied as he quickly shuffled past the lady. Fortunately by him, the people behind him in line were getting impatient which gave more than ample pressure on the lady to just let him pass.
He dashed as fast as possible as he could to his two seats and then flomped down right in the center of them.
"Oof!" Irisa yelled from the impact. She stuck her head out and then motioned to Hadrian. "Ah, well, I believe we can come out now. So long as we stay on the window side of the seat, it should be all right.
Levinsky's bulk more than blocks the line of sight for anyone looking at him from the side, after all."
Levinsky simply growled at that comment.
Hadrian had spent most of the jog to the seats curled up covering his mouth to contain hysterical giggling at Talon's little slip. Now he climbed out after Irisa, mirth generally contained, but a grin still gracing his expression.
He settled himself in the seat next to Irisa, turning his charming little smile to the large man who had snuck them onto the plane. "Thanks, Mr. "
Talon had originally intended not to emerge from the pocket at all. he felt if he concentrated on it, really, he might be able to sleep through most of the flight, strange surroundings and all. However, at Levinsky's graceless flopping into the seat, he suddenly found himself bent at a very uncomfortable angle, the only thing preventing his brow from being pressed against the armrest being the small antler in the center of his forehead. Struggling, he managed to escape out the top of the pocket with some degree of grace and joined the two juveniles, looking over his shoulder at Levinsky's raincoat as though it was a poisonous snake that might bite.
"Hello, father." Irisa cheerfully greeted. Wow, it was difficult to hear herself in the airplane now that it was starting. All the better. It meant that she didn't have to lower her voice as much. "Shall we take a look out the window?"
She never saw a plane take off before. The whole idea of needing a runway just to fly was an interesting curiousity when she could take off at any time that she wanted to.
Talon's ears perked very slightly at the invitation and he hovered forward, careful to keep low and out of sight of those on the other side of Levinsky.
"I suppose so." he nodded, and then "Are you all right?" as he wondered if Hadrian and Irisa had undergone similar manhandling.
Hadrian nodded, brightly, "I'm ok..." He fluttered up to the window next to Talon, peering out. "This thing is so huge! How does it fly?"
"The ride was rather bumpy, but I believe I'm also alright." Irisa nodded to her father, before looking out the window watching trees go by as the airplane began to ascend. "Hmm... I haven't studied airplanes very much. It needs fuel and a running start of sorts to fly, but... I'm not aware of the specifics."
The ground dropped out from beneath the plane at a dizzying speed that momentarily made Talon's head boggle. The idea that this thing could even get into the air was near-laughable, but the fact it was able to go so high so quickly was just -- he found that he had to turn away from the window for a moment as roads and buildings became nondescript patchwork below and scanned what he could see of the rows of seats around them.
It wasn't the height that bothered him, it was just -- the idea of dropping from that height in something so big and heavy and the fact that getting out might not be an option.
Looking to Hadrian and Irisa, still seeming raptly interested in the outside world, he moved back to where Levinsky was sitting, seating himself on the corner of the seat and attempting to get comfortable.
And to think...they had twenty-three hours of this to look forward to.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:09 pm
~The following occured on the 28th of November, in Great Britain somewhere in Devonshire~The group's first stop Levinsky was just driving along humming some admittingly rather odd country tune as three feien chatted amongst themselves in the back seat. While waiting for their scheduled flight, they figured they might as well have seen the sights, and they had just come back from a rather stunning performance of Les Miserables (if Irisa did say so, herself). And now, they were headed to yet another one of these so-called 'tourist' locations, but the aftermath of the musical was still on Irisa's mind.
"So, what did you two think?" Irisa smiled to her father and her friend. "I rather enjoyed it, myself. I was surprised at how she was able to hold the high note for so long, actually, while the chorus still managed to remain on key during the song regarding the situation of the lower class."
Although Irisa didn't care too much for her fairy godmother's "j-pop" fixation, the study of the inner workings of various things always fascinated her, and music was included.
"I think what surprised me the most was the way they managed the suicide." Talon put in, shifting his weight slightly. "I mean, the fact they managed to not only make it look like Javert jumped off of a bridge but then actually hit the water and was pulled by the current was amazing."
He'd been surprised, actually. When he'd been told they were going to see a play, he'd been prepared for two hours of utter disappointment and boredom. Humans, while he'd found them to be largely loud and annoying creatures, could pull together a decent amount of grace and unity when they wanted to, it seemed.
Hadrian lifted his eyebrows at Talon's comment regarding the staged suicide. "I...thought it was awefully depressing..." He said, feeling a little embarased that he was the only one not raving about the musical. He had enjoyed alot of the singing...but the plot wasn't the sort he really prefered.
"That's true." Irisa admitted. "It is rather sad how human society is such that some must suffer like that. I wonder how feien society would have compared, had we not been in... well, this current situation."
Currency was a rather odd concept, yet made a lot of sense at the same time. While Irisa was content herself to simply accomplish things, she could see why people would like to be rewarded for their services. However, it did make her wonder exactly what feien used as currency. Whatever the case, there wouldn't be much opportunity to find out under this current situation of the need for bonds, she supposed.
"I dunno." Hadrian admitted, looking like he was trying hard to think about it and not making much headway. "We'd probably sing alot less."
Irisa smiled, rather amused. "Yes, I really can't imagine too much singing, myself, although there are supposedly feien who's element is sound. Not that I've heard of any, myself."
She peered out the window, and noticed a certain rather large structure on top of the hill. Ah! This was it!
"Hey, we're almost at the castle. I wonder what it'll be like inside." Irisa pondered, a hint of excitement in her voice. "If I become an artificer, I wonder if I could ever craft something so grand. ...er, scaled to feien size, of course.
Talon, watching her peer out of the window, moved to join his daughter to see where, exactly, they were going next. The castle was large, yes, but somehow didn't seem as grand as they did in books...but then, this thing had survived -how- many years of weathering?
"Artificer...?" he questioned, looking to her questioningly as she spoke her last sentence. He'd been unaware of -why- exactly she was going to Rome, only that she was.
"Oh, that's right." Irisa turned around to look at her father. "I don't believe I've told you the reason for my quest. My apologies. I'm pursuing the feien school of artificing. Julius suggested it and said it would suit me very well. Artificers were the craftsmen of the feien, and believe that with it, I could craft all sorts of marvelous things for the feien. The only problem is, the school was lost to the tides of time."
She gazed out at the window again, to look towards the castle upon which they were coming ever closer to. Such a huge monument which itself withstood the test of time. Something which feien magic, alas, was failing to do. Maybe with this, she could stop the clock and create something truly eternal for the feien...
"Julius believes that the information regarding artificing is inscribed on a tablet located within Rome." Irisa explained as she turned around to look at both Hadrian and Talonfaust. "There are five items in the Vatican archives... that is, the current papal authority in Rome, which should hopefully give us some clues as to its location. The danger lies in getting them and in getting to the tablet itself, I believe, since I imagine it was lost for a reason..."
She trailed off a bit. Actually, she was unsure of what the dangers could exactly be or if they even existed. But in this foreign far-away land, one could never be too sure.
Hadrian was distracted by the castle approaching in the distance, and paid less attention then he should have to Irisa's explaination. He chimed in at the very end, "Archieves don't sound very dangerous. Maybe its just the last bit...finding the tablet...that might be." He settled back down to look at Irisa instead of out the window. "I mean...the archieves don't sound very...advernturous...do they?
If Irisa had tried to explain this to Talon even a few days ago, he would have been utterly befuddled by all of it. Artificers, tablets, Vatican archives....however, somehow, it seemed to make sense to him now. He wasn't sure if that was due to the other he'd taken into himself, or if it was due simply to the jetlag putting him in a more accepting state of mind.
"I doubt they'll be adventurous." he said to Hadrian levelly. "But I wouldn't doubt that they might be guarded. Which would make things, if not dangerous, difficult."
Irisa nodded cheerfully, but with also a hint of seriousness. She felt confident they would succeed, as fate always seemed to be on Irisa's side and she had come to trust both her father and Hadrian, but that still was no reason to let down one's guard.
"My bond's notes have identified at least 3 items that the Vaticans have mistaken for holy items and stored away which he has been able to find no scientific explanation for." the young feien remarked. "I suspect that this is because there is none, or at least a conventional one, being as these items are three of the magical artifice items. Still, they are guarded quite well by both guards and high tech security devices. Most of which aren't designed to deter feien, but the problem still exists."
Irisa wondered... what would they do, if they came across a security system that WAS designed to deter feien? Well, burn that bridge when they get there, she supposed.
The car stopped, before Levinsky opened the door. Were they there already? The man however waited until the feien were done with their current conversation as opposed to ushering them out right away.
One of Talon's hands grabbed hold of the unused seatbelt for balance as the car came to a stop to keep himself from toppling from the seat. When he'd righted himself, he hovered upward a bit to see where they were, finding that while they'd talked, the castle they'd been eyeing from a distance was now looming directly over the car from the public parking area. While he hadn't been impressed from a distance, it was much larger up close. He stared for a moment, and then turned away, his yellow eyes resuming a placid look as though it had had no effect on him whatsoever.
"How much further from here is Rome?" he inquired, wondering how long they had to prepare for the actual tasks of the quest before they would be faced with them.
And furthermore, does Rome have so many damned pigeons? He wondered as he watched a trio of the gray birds roosting on a nearby phone booth. Granted, there were lots of them back home, but there seemed to be tenfold as many in this place.
Hadrian stared, with huge eyes, up at the castle - completely oblivious for the moment to anything else. He'd never seen a REAL castle...it was absolutely incredible!
"We may be making another stop before Rome. France, Switzerland, or Germany... the flight specifics haven't been found out yet. Things are rather... slipshod in that regard." Irisa remarked as she looked at Levinsky.
"Hey, not my fault. You try scheduling a bunch of flights all the way to Rome within only a week." the big man remarked as he walked towards the castle, the other feien flying after him. "Jaes owes me one for this."
Irisa supposed that was true. She wondered exactly what kind of strings Levinsky had to pull to get such a flight on such short time. Ah well.
As he followed after Levinsky, lagging slightly behind the two juveniles, Talon turned now and again to ensure that no one was approaching from the sides or from behind. Not that a castle wouldn't be an expected environment to see strange anomalies such as fairies, but he somehow thought even -that- wouldn't go over well in this world.
As they passed through the front gates, Talonfaust regarded the painted sign advising them to wait for an available tour guide before proceeding and said nothing. Mostly due to the fact that said tour guide would likely want Levinsky to wait until they'd acquired more people in the group to lead around...it would make exploring for he, Irisa, and Hadrian that much harder.
He was likewise aware of the sound of running water distantly, trickling from one of the rain gutters, and had to forcibly focus himself to keep from rabbiting off to find it.
It was all Hadrian could do, to keep himself from squealing in delight and zipping forward off into the depths of the castle. He wasn't, by nature, either quiet OR patient. However, he did realise the need for some kind of restraint, out here in a world that didn't believe in fairies. And so he usually loud exclaimations were toned down to gasps and ...very loud...whispers.
"This is AWESOME!" He hissed, in what was supposed to be a quiet voice, to Irisa - while staring up at the looming walls.
"Eh, the ******** mosquitos grow really big around here." Levinsky remarked to a shocked parent who quickly covered her child's ears at the sound of the curse word. She glared at Levinsky and walked off. ...hey, you do what you have to.
"Oh yes, this is indeed very splendid." Irisa smiled as she admired a wall tapestry. "I really have to say, humans can really craft some fantastic looking creations when they put their mind to it."
She flew from window to window, before stopping to admire a candelabra.
"I wonder if I'll ever be able to craft things this magnificent." Irisa remarked as she gazed at a candelabra, before turning to Hadrian and her father. "Oh! And when we find the secrets of artificing, I definately must make something for all of us to commemerate the event. And... to thank both of you, too, actually."
Not quite as intrigued by the candelabra as his daughter and having paused to read one of the inscripted plaques adhered to the wall explaining where they were and what the room they were in had once been used for, Talon twitched one green-tipped ear at Irisa's statement and turned to look at her.
"No thanks needed. I was happy to come." he told her quietly, moving to hover up and land on one of the lower rafters to investigate the top of one of the tapestries a bit better.
No sooner had he touched down than he felt a sharp peck! at the back of one leg and turned abruptly and sourly to glare at a fat pigeon already roosting there and glaring at him with its stupid black eyes.
Angry, but not wanting to make a scene, he gritted his teeth at the bird and simply lit off of the rafter back down below with the rest of the group.
Ah, well, she decided she was going to make something for her father someday, anyways. Not... that... she had any idea what her father could want, though. An improved rapier? Armour? A punching bag? Irisa hoped that the artifice tablet would give her some ideas. Well, there was always asking, she supposed.
"If I may, I was wondering. If you could have any item you wanted, what would it be?" she asked curiously as she flew up and down to get a look at a suit of armour. She turned to look at her father and Hadrian. "Oh, I mean an inanimate tangible item of course."
Talon looked up from investigating the shallow bloody dig the pigeon had left in his calf. His body, strangely enough, seemed to be already working to fill it in and heal it over, even without the aid of Mend. Very odd...
"I....wouldn't know." he said, with a slight shrug. "Something that suits my finger placement better, I suppose." He didn't know -what- exactly.
His immediate impulse had been to acquire a spear, but he didn't much care for how clumsy of a weapon it was...or that at close range, it was rather useless.
"What would you want?" he asked then, turning the tables on his daughter out of curiousity.
Irisa blinked. That... was a good question. She already had her paper and her pen for recording everything that existed, and with artificing, she would have the ability to bring into existance new things, but exactly what she could have or make for herself...
"I'm... not really sure. I never really had much material want for tangible things." Irisa remarked. "I suppose something that would aid me in my work, but... that could be anything, from crafting gloves to magically powered items to goggles that actually... well, work."
Inwardly, she shuddered a bit at the rather flimsy goggles she and Hadrian had to use back at her bond's lab.
Hadrian made a face, "Those goggles were really uncomfortable." He wasn't sure how to answer Irisa's question...he couldn't really think of something he wanted.
His house needed a balcony...but his bond could help him make that. He supposed he want something sparkly and magical and amasing...but that didn't sound like a very - well educated - answer.
"I'm sure anything you make will be great!" He decided, "I just like anything you wanted to make." He smiled.
Irisa warmly smiled, herself, enjoying the complement. "Why, thank you, Hadrian. I guess we'll see what fate has in store once we manage to unviel the artifice tablets. Hmm... speaking of which, I wonder if our flight will be leaving soon. ...hmm, I suppose perhaps I should see if I could craft a feien-sized watch someday."
Surely the feien had to have found some way of telling time besides watching the sun or asking the nearest time feien nearby. Not knowing the exact minute of the day seemed rather... inconvenient to Irisa.
She looked at her father, too. Come to think of it, he was looking at his leg a bit earlier, although from a distance, Irisa couldn't see what. Perhaps she would craft some boots for him some day.
"Oh, hey, yea, about that." Levinsky remarked as he came walking up. "We really should probably get going soon, so you should probably explore while you can."
Talon, despite the fact he'd had a long mental talk with himself about Hadrian and Irisa was unable to keep himself from flinching a little at the boy. Even if the fire feien was unaware of it, Talon felt as though his feelings may or may not extend beyond friendship toward her one day. Part of him wanted to remark on this, but part of him equally knew he had no place to talk. Especially not given the mess he'd made of things back home before leaving. His ears perking a bit at Levinsky's statement, he used it to set his mind quickly onto another track.
"Right." he said, looking to the two juveniles. "We'd better keep moving in that case." Not that this room wasn't interesting, but the other people that had been admiring it had long-since moved on and filtered out. It must have looked a bit odd that they'd remained there.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:10 pm
Hadrian wakes to find Irisa missing, and is left alone while Talon searches for her. Being an impatient youngster, very much worried about his friend (and young love?), he leaves Talon a poorly spelled note, and goes on a quest to find Rome and hopefully Irisa!
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:11 pm
Searching for Irisa - finding her father instead. It was times like these Talon was grateful that he didn't get winded easily and that, while the merging had robbed him of speed, it had more than made up for the loss in strength. He had been in-flight since dawn and determined to get at least as far as Rome's edge before he would rest again. The dark circles beneath his eyes, however, suggested that he ought to think of sleep before then, possibly...
He was tired, cranky, sore, and wanted nothing more than to just find Irisa again, quest be damned. Dodging sharply to the side to avoid the kitestring of a child below, he turned a clumsy half-spiral before he was briefly overcome with a bit of dizziness that nearly made him lose his barings altogether. This....simply wasn't working. He had no idea how far he'd come, if he was even remotely near Rome yet, and he needed to stop for a bit.
Drawing his wings inward, he banked downward, targeting a rooftop below to land on.
A bus pulled to a stop, and said something about Rome. The Feien sitting under the seat of the largish woman with the large handbag that matched her unattractive jacket did not speak Italian...and handicapped by this, decided he had better get out now while "Rome" was definitely involved, rather then risk missing it. He slipped off the bus while a disembarking passangers skirt blocked the drivers view of him, and caused the lady to speak very sterning...in Italian...to a child behind her for messing with her skirts. The feien slipped off the road and down an alley looking street, attempting to figure out where he was. It occured to him that it might be possible to SEE Rome if he were to get up high enough. After all he had seen pictures of Rome and might well recognise it when he saw it. So he fluttered upwards, following a drainpipe along until he got above the rooftops and could look out into the distance.
Talon had no sooner touched down and begun to look for an unintrusive place to curl up for a bit and rest himself before there was a flurry of movement to his immediate right, making him sidestep away from it and growl in agitation, immediately assuming it was another pigeon. Damned dingy, filthy, orange sacks of feathers, they--
....Orange?
The white-winged feien blinked blearily in disbelief, paused, and then rubbed at his eyes as though that would make a difference and looked again. No, he hadn't been mistaken...that was very much a feien that had just assumed roof-level. And this one was not only a feien, but a familiar one.
"Hadrian." he said the name aloud to himself and then immediately took wing again to approach him. He wasn't precisely -happy- to see the juvenile, but maybe he'd found Irisa. "Hadrian!" he repeated, in a louder tone of voice, this time calling to him to get his attention as he neared.
Hadrian spun round from pondering the very amusing thin tall trees to face whomever had called out his name. "Mr. Talonfaust!" He recognised the adult feien and called out ot him cheerfully, pleased to see a familiar face even if it was a grumpy, decidedly 'un-fun' face. He fluttered closer and peered at his friends father, "... you look....tired." Hadrian himself looked painfully full of energy, heck watching him flutter back and forth might even make you tired. "Is this Rome then? And did you find Irisa? Did you FLY here O_O!?" The juvenile jumbled all the questions he thought of together.
Talon stopped a short distance away and screwed his eyes shut, sorting one question from another. Thankfully, having a neverending well of energy and shotgun questions for a mate had gotten him used to having to process large amounts of verbal onslaught all at once as he reopened his amber eyes and focused them on Hadrian.
He envied the boy, really....here he was practically running on fumes and Hadrian looked ready to do goddamned laps around the city. Maybe THAT was what he was missing about being little. "I don't know if this is Rome or not." he began. "I've been flying most of the day trying to make up for lost time. And I suppose that answers my question as to whether you've found her or not...." he sighed, shaking his head as his wings gave a short spastic flap behind him to try and stave off an oncoming cramp.
He paused, and then remembering something, his look soured a bit "And how did you get here?" he demanded to know. "You didn't even tell me where you were going in that note of yours!"
Hadrian looked confused, "Yes I did! I said I was going to Rome! I just came the same way we got the Londan and Paris...only I ended up in Milan and took a bus...and I don't speak I-tal-eean...so I dunno if it was the right bus." He paused and deflated just a little, "So you haven't found her either?"
Pepe Val Pew: "Going to roam is vague, you...." he trailed off, biting back any further lecture he had intended to give Hadrian and settling for a deep-chested sigh instead. He just did -not- have the patience at the moment. "Nevermind." he said with a dismissive shake of his head.
"No, I haven't." he said, turning the subject to another track. "It's been my hope that she's gotten ahead of us and that we might find her where she said she was going, but with the way -my- luck runs...." he didn't finish his thought and looked away from Hadrian out over the horizon as though he could see something aside from rooftops before looking back to the dark-skinned feien.
"I suppose all we can do is keep looking, then." he assessed in a deadpan tone, deciding that his attempt to rest was moot. If this was Rome then the Vatican couldn't be terribly far ahead. He moved to start forward again, with or without the fire juvenile.
Hadrian paused, and then said, more quietly then his usual tone... "I think you should rest first." He didn't usually display so much tact, it was in fact impressive that he didn't say the rest of what he thought, which was that Talon looked like he might drop out of the air at any moment.
Talon was already in a bad mood and a child trying to tell him what he should and shouldn't do wasn't helping it much. "I'm fine." he said without turning, being his usual muleish self. Some things, despite age and merging, never changed.
"If you say so." the juvenile answer, shrugging as if he had already dismissed the thought from his mind. Thus saying, he sped off ahead of Talon, towards the city in the distance.
Talon's eye twitched as he put on speed to try and keep pace with the juvenile, finding it a futile effort. It was one thing if Hadrian wanted to follow HIM or not, but he would be damned before he'd be left in the dust.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:14 pm
Reunion... Irisa was tired. How many days had it been now? It was a good thing that her fairy godmother taught her about buses. They were quite invaluable to travelling fast. Which was necessary, because Irisa no where near had the speed and stamina to outrun those agents' van. And now, she was in a city. Which city, she wasn't sure, but she heard the tour guide mention something about the Vaticans.
Normally, Irisa would have been overjoyed (relatively speaking) to have arrived at such a destination, but finding the artifice items wouldn't help her if she just ended up getting caught again. Even those artifice gloves she had excavated weren't of any use to her right now. Still, this was as good a stop as any. Who knows, if she had to place a bet on where she could run into Levinsky, her father, or Hadrian, this would be it.
She landed on a cement railing amidst a staircase leading up towards the grand building, concealed by a flock of pigeons. ...goodness, she hoped they weren't predatory.
In the air, above the rooftops of the city, Hadrian snuck a little glance back towards Talon. He didn't say anything but he was getting actually worried about the adult Feien.
They had been looking around the city for awhile, trying to get their barings and looking for any sign of ...well Irisa should they be that lucky...or the Vatican...And Talon was starting to look really truly exhausted.
In between being really awefully confused trying to figure out how one would FIND a feien in such a huge place...and being very distracted by the excitment of so many new things...
The juvenile was trying to think of a good way to suggest they should stop and rest - without making it sound like HE needed to rest while at the same time not annoying the very stubborn Talon further. He wasn't having much luck.
Talon shook his head slightly, clearing away the hazy tunnel vision that was trying to take over his eyes. The merging had graced him with more than enough staying power... certainly more than any normal fairy ought to have...but even 'more than enough' had its limits. He was ragged, he needed to rest, but was hellbent he would do no such thing. He cast a brief glare in Hadrian's direction and the fact that the juvenile seemed to have no end to his energy or enthusiasm. It wasn't fair, god damn it, and he wasn't about to have it be told when they got home that he'd collapsed to rest somewhere instead of finding his daughter. As though proving this to himself, he gave his aching wings another firm flap, trying futilely to keep up with Hadrian's travelling pace.
These pigeouns were really starting to crowd the smaller feien. She was starting to get a bit worried when her pixamouse Ricardo popped his head out of Irisa's carrying case. The mouse looked up at one of the pigeouns and made a bunch of inaudible squeaks.
Hey baby, how's about you and I shack it up tonight in the coop and Ricardo will show you that size really doesn't matter! I'm sure your husband won't mind.
Whatever the heck Ricardo squeaked to that pigeon must have REALLY made it mad, because it shot Ricardo an angry glare and smacked at Irisa's carrying case with it's wing. Almost as if it were trying to slap the pixamouse.
Of course, it being a rather large wing put Irisa in the line of fire, too. The young feien reflexively leapt back as fast as she could, slamming right into another pigeoun behind her. Before she knew it, Irisa was lost in a flurry of frantic panicing feathers as the pigeouns began scrambling in all directions.
At length, muscles sore and head swimming, Talon finally reached the end of his rope. Either they stopped, or he was going to drop straight out of the air.
It was not his proudest moment by any means, but--and that's when he heard it. Feathers, wings, cooing voices. Dozens...maybe hundreds of them. Every nerve in his body stood on end and his eye twitched horribly.
He knew that sound. ******** PIGEONS...!! A moment later, he and Hadrian were enveloped in them, loathesome feathery bodies and wings battering them from all angles before he could even draw his rapier.
His hands went to his face to protect it from the relentless flurry of beaks and clawed feet, dropping his altitude half out of avoidance and half out of lack of energy to stand up to the storm of birds. Or maybe there WAS no end to them. Maybe he'd died of exhaustion and was now in his own personal hell, he thought sourly.
Hadrian, perhaps because he was smaller, had a little easier time dodging between pigeons...and he was spinning around half wided eye in excitment, half in panic.
That is, until a large wing smacked him on a downbeat, causing him to tumble downwards a bit. Regaining his bearings in a sort of aerobatic scramble to avoid more birds, he caught sight of Talon.
The adult had his hands over his face, being buffeted around by the oncoming birds. Of course, that wouldn't do. If Talon wasn't going to try and get clear of the flock, Hadrian would have to help him!
He gathered himself and made a mad dash for the other feien, colliding with him in a sort of tackle - arms around his waste, that sent them both dropping and tumbling through the air and down away from the flock.
Talon made a noise like a strangled question mark as something collided with him and prepared to wreck bloody hell on the offending bird, only to reach down and have his hand collide with hair, an ear, and half of a face.
That wasn't a bird.... and somehow that made him all the angrier as he immediately moved to jerk out of the juvenile's grip, heedless of the fact their altitude was dropping quickly as he did so.
"Let GO of me...!" he snarled, just a moment before their fall was broken by something firm, yet not, and a deafening squawk. Pigeons served a purpose after all, it seemed, as a rather fat one had just broken their fall rather nicely. Stunned for a moment out of giving the other feien absolute hell for his "rescue", Talon laid on his back blinking stupidly at the sky
The juvenile sat up...on top of Talon where he had landed. His expression was gradually forming into a sort of a pout and he reached up to rub the side of his head.
"What'd you HIT me for?" He asked, incredulously, "I was trying to help. You were just letting the birds knock you all over the place!"
Talon blinked once slowly, aware of two things....that there was weight on his chest and that said weight was now bitching at him. His yellow eyes narrowed as he sat up, tumbling the juvenile off of his chest. "I was -trying- to land." he growled. "And how the hell was I supposed to tell you apart from the hundreds of other flying rats?? If you hadn't 'helped', we wouldn't have crashed!" He shifted a bit, feeling the disconcerting shift of broken feathers and squished bird beneath them, inwardly wincing. "....Not that the casualties were any huge loss." he added reluctantly.
Irisa's head was still spinning for a while now after being swept up in the feathery tornado, and something apparently had startled the pigeons even more and made it swirl even faster. The feien soon couldn't tell up from down. At least, not until she crashed into the floor. One could make the logical assumption that the floor was where 'down' was. Except this floor felt awfully soft.
She stood up and brushed herself off, before realizing what she was standing on. Irisa quickly leapt off of her rather irate father.
"DAD!" the feien piped in surprise. It was perhaps one of the few moments where she used the single-syllable word for her male parent instead of the double. "And Hadrian! I'm so glad to see you! I was so worried! And extremely frightened, myself."
Hadrian's expression, which had been looking quite hurt, suddenly shifted, as Irisa stumbled into them. "IRISA!"
The fire feien practically pounced on her, hugging her enthusiastically, smiling broadly, and practically dancing around with her.
Irisa was taken rather off guard as she was caught in yet another whirlwind. This time, however, it was under much happier circumstances. She couldn't help but smile as Hadrian spun her around. But... there wasn't too much time for those sorts of formalities (or... imformalities, to be more precise). Irisa calmly backed away from Hadrian and smiled at him, before looking at him and her father.
"I... well, I was sort of hurt a little, I suppose." Irisa remarked, remembering the painful memory of the interrogations she had to go through. Speaking of which... she glanced down at the brace around her ankle that the enemy agents had put on her. The ones capable of shocking and tracking her and overall making her life just a living splorch of vexation!
"But first, could you both do me an exceptionally large favor and get this thing off of me?" Irisa forced a smile, although she felt like screaming out the order at the top of her lungs, her dislike of the device quite large.
Talon's eyes narrowed suspiciously at the strange device. He didn't know what it was, he wasn't sure he really even cared, but he could kill two birds with one stone in this instance and it gave him an excuse to shoo Hadrian aside as he leaned in and examined the metal brace. It didn't seem to be especially complicated, at least. Saying nothing, he braced a hand on either side of it and pulled as hard as he could. The metal had a bit of give to it, but was digging into the meat of his fingers just as hard as he was pulling on it. He needed something harder to pry with. .....and then he remembered his forehead adornments. Well, it was worth a shot...the miniature antler had to be of SOME use. Lowering his head, careful not to pierce Irisa's skin with the points, he levered the tips beneath the brace and gave his head a sharp jerk upward.
Irisa gazed at the device at the floor. Freedom felt... nice. Nice to not have to worry about being chased anymore, or being shocked, or being forced to betray those close to her...
Cheerfully, Irisa gave her father a hug, and then gave Hadrian one too, just for good measure. She then looked at both of them.
"Ah... yes. Well, I suppose I'd better tell you everything." she nodded as she removed some gloves from her carrying case (that had hit the floor a while ago in the scuffle, but fortunately hadn't broken). "I had to take a sort of detour by reason of being kidnapped. I hope you don't mind. But... at least I managed to get this. We can talk about the details later, but I just want to get as far away from that thing as possible."
With that, she gazed at the device on the floor. She wasn't sure if the tracking device on it was still active or not, but she really didn't want to find out, especially the hard way. It was time to start looking to the future again.
Talon nodded in agreement, getting far away from the current situation sounding good to him. Saying nothing at all, he got to his feet and fetched up the tracking device, turning it over in his hand a moment and then, as the pigeons began to settle again, lunged at one of them without warning, affixing the thing around its foot as it flailed and squawked. Returning, looking satisfied with himself, he looked to Irisa.
"You'll never see it again." he assured her. "Let's go."
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:19 pm
After being left out of some excitment, Hadrian joins Irisa and Talon for the final stage of their quest.The climax, as it were. Levinsky sighed as he walked along the dark path of the crypts beneath Rome, holding the glowing feien statue to light the way. He had a flashlight, but Irisa insisted he use that, instead. Something about it both being a matter of principle, and how finding the right crypt may have required using it's light, instead. Whatever Levinsky just wanted to get this over with. He was still tired from having been travelling all over, and just when he finally found Irisa again (who fortunately had managed to escape without his help), he was dragged down here. Argh.
"Dammit, undead give me the heebie jeebies." The large rotund man grumbled as he walked past a skeleton on the ground. Eeeeew. It wasn't that Levinsky wasn't used to seeing death, given his line of work, but he tended to be rather superstitious about fooling around with the dead's places.
Irisa, however, simply ignored him as she chattered almost excitedly with her feien companions.
"This is it." she nodded to Hadrian and Talonfaust. "I'm not sure how the artifice items will help us find it, but I was told the crypt had the letters, R, X, F, and C. Whether or not they're actual letters is rather uncertain, though. C can also mean 100 in roman numerals, and X could mean 10, but I don't know if they were meant as numbers or not in this case."
Irisa gazed at the items in her carrying case. Could any of them be a clue? She wondered, before looking up again and smiling.
"Well, I'm sure we'll figure it out! I wanted to thank both of you for coming and helping me with this. It should all be over soon."
Talon, instead of riding in one of Levinsky's pockets, opted instead to ride on the burly human's shoulder where he could get a better vantage of what was going on. He hadn't especially liked the idea of venturing into a crypt as the scent of musky stone and the ghosts of decay was cloying, but it had to be done .....and they were nearly finished, at last, as Irisa had said.
"What else did Julius tell you?" he inquired, looking down at Irisa, taking his eyes off of the glowing feien statue in Levinsky's grasp a moment. "Or was that it? No locks or traps?"
In this particular instance he felt fully justified in trying to see the proverbial worm in the apple as this particular worm might prove dangerous if they weren't prepared for it.
"He... said he didn't know anything more than that." Irisa stated. "Even a feien like Julius can't have unlimited knowledge, I suppose. I imagine that is why feien magics were broken up into schools. It would be impossible to learn everything about all of them."
She gazed forward into the dark hall as they continued onward, before turning to Talonfaust and Hadrian again.
"So... I have no idea what could be waiting for us there, besides the tablet with the information about artificing that Julius needs. ...hopefully. We'll all have to be on our guard."
Hadrian flitted around their large "companion", unable to force himself to merely sit still. He eyes were quite wide, as he took in every corner of the place he could manage. THIS was creepy. He wasn't at all sure he liked crypts. They were awefully cold and damp...and skeletons were alot scarier in person then he would have thought.
"How would we tell...if there was a trap?" He asked, to anyone who could answer. Most of what Irisa had said about clues had gone over his head...
"Most traps have triggers and mechanisms" Talon answered almost immediately. Granted, he'd never seen one in person, but he imagined the ones portrayed in movies had to have SOME research behind them. "If you're watching for them, you might see irregularities in the walls or the floors...or trip wires. And most times you'd hear it before you'd see it if you set one off."
As he spoke, his large green-tipped ears keened to the air as though for emphasis, though in all honesty, now -his- alert was up too. Having enhanced senses was something he was still getting used to. He'd managed to temper it back, at least, but when he concentrated, there was a whole hell of a lot that he could hear, smell, see, and taste. As of now, however, all it was doing was making him feel queasy as his senses were barraged by the stink of bones and muck.
"Oh." Hadrian nodded solemnly, so maybe there would be a button or a switch or something like in the movies. He suddenly became very interested in the irregularities of the floor and walls...eyeing each divit with evident mistrust as they passed.
At that moment, Levinsky halted.
Um... where to, now?" he asked as he stopped at what appeared to be a crossing of multiple paths.
Irisa turned to look at the multiple crypt doors before them. That... was a rather good question. Well, she expected that getting to the feien school of artificing wasn't going to be as easy as following a straight line.
"Hang on... maybe one of the feien artificing items has a clue on where to go from here." Irisa remarked as she began rummaging through her carrying case. "Does anyone see any letters on any of the doors?"
"I see lots of little dots." Levinsky shrugged.
Hadrian fluttered over to squint at one of the doors in the dim light. He perched on the head of a little statue decorating the frame, to have a better view of the door. He was looking for writing, as Irisa had suggested..until he leaned just a little to far out towards the door, and the statue turned out not to be attached so well to anything. It started to tip with the little feien still perched on it, and he had to leap off it and flutter into the air to avoid falling with it. It toppled to the stone floor of the passage, with an echoing crack.
"...Oops?" Hadrian fluttered back over to the group, "Er...that was loud."
Irisa gazed at the shattered pieces of the statue on the floor.
"Yes. I must agree with that." she nodded, uncertain of what else to say. Well... she had to admit that Hadrian at least... found a 'detail', even if it was now broken and shattered. Levinsky, however, didn't seem as optimistic.
"Oh maaaaan, that's seven years bad luck! We're going to have an army of Roman zombies on our a**, now!" the big man shuddered.
...her bond's friend's superstitions aside, Irisa flew over to where the broken statue lay. Goodness, she hoped that an important clue wasn't shattered. Especially since it was the same size as the feien artifice statue they had found. ....hmm.
"Sir Levinsky, could you try fitting the feien statue into this slot?" the young feien asked inquisitively. Levinsky just sighed, before heading over, and trying to fit it in. It didn't work.
Irisa sighed, herself. "Try screwing it in."
"Oh, right." Levinsky shrugged.
Moments later, the statue was in, and it's glow had apparently seeped into the rest of the doors, causing several of the dots on them to light up. Irisa gazed at the statue with its ten fingers pointing outwords, and then looked around for the door with the ten dots.
"Well... it's the closest thing to an X that I can find." she remarked as she gazed at the slightly X pattern the dots marking that particular door made. She turned to Hadrian and bowed. "Thank you very much, Hadrian. I knew we could solve this if we worked together!"
Hadrian, who was absolutely positive he had nothing to do with it and it was really just Irisa being awefully smart, blushed anyway.
"Your welcome!"
Talon simply shook his head at the entire display and hoped that dumb luck wouldn't continue to be what they had to rely on to get to where they were going. But being that it -had- worked, he decided to say nothing on the subject as he lit off of Levinsky's shoulder to examine the center of the X on the wall that the dots of light made. It was hard to see if there was a fault in the stone or not since it was riddled with a maze of cracks from age. Reaching out, he pushed against it experimentally, finding that it had no give to it at all. Quirking a brow, he turned to look back at Irisa, Hadrian, and Levinsky with a restrained sigh. "Now what?" he questioned.
Irisa gazed at the X. Hmm... what now? While it was true that fate seemed to often be on Irisa's side (perhaps she could use that to craft good luck charms someday if she were able to expand on that just a little, come to think of it), she didn't expect coincidence to guide their way all the time. Well... coincidence didn't matter if you tried everything, she supposed. So she took the feien cleaning cloth apron out of her carrying case and proceeded to wipe away at the X. Stone practically seemed to dissolve, until what was once a lit-up X had become an entire glowing square which shined onto the floor, revealing several letters on the ground.
"I suppose the rest of the letters had to be used, eventually." the feien remarked, before adding, "The feien sure went through great lengths to make it hard to access things they wanted to keep safe, it seems."
Heading over to the letters, she noticed that they comprised a three by three square grid, which each square marked with letters indicating their position on the square. The most noticeable ones being RF for Right Forward and C for center. The square shape made it obvious enough which artifice item to use next. Thinking for a bit, Irisa wagered that the RF square was most likely the correct one, as C stood for a roman numeral while R and F did not (so logic being if she had to use ALL the letters, R and F should be eliminated now so C could be used for later. ....she hoped).
Thinking about it, Irisa wondered how good of a gambler she could be, combining luck with the knowledge of how to work the odds. Well... in this case, she hoped her gamble would pull through. With that, she put the rubix cube into the square slot, causing it to glow brightly, and several various colored dots appearing in the cube itself. ...more dots. She supposed it was time to use the remaining letter.
Fortunately, the cube only really had two settings when it came to that. A few dots, and... lots of dots. Because Irisa was NOT in the mood to count 100 different little dots so it was nice to just be able to assume that the latter would be the correct setting for the cube. Prepared to solve the puzzle, Irisa touched the cube before immediately letting go.
"Ow!" she shouted, before gazing at the cube with some shock. "It... it burns."
Hadrian reacted automatically to the word "burns". That meant it might be something he could deal with. Something he could do that wasn't, well, by accident. The fire feien settled down next to Irisa and peered at the cube, before reaching out to pick it up in her place...after all "burning" wasn't a problem for him.
As his hands settled on it however, he yelped and pulled back as well. "Cold..." He frowned at the cube then at Irisa...completely mystified. "I thought you said it was hot?"
"It... it was." Irisa stared at the cube, rather perplexed. The side that Hadrian had touched was glowing white now, but the side Irisa touched was still glowing a fiery orange.
"Maybe if I tried from this side..." she remarked as she touched the cube by the blue side. She struggled a bit before remarking, "It won't budge. It wasn't like this back when we retrieved it."
Talon had been watching the two juveniles struggle with the cube from a short distance away. Originally he'd opted to leave Irisa alone to solve the puzzles as this was her quest, after all, but it seemed a snag had been hit as he moved forward, reaching out to the cube. "Here, let me see" he said, preparing to yank hard on it to dislodge it. As he grasped the blue side of the cube, however, it moved easily with no resistance at all, making him blink. "Its not stuck..." he muttered, shifting his grip slightly and wincing as his fingertips were burned on the red side.
"What the hell -is- this...?" he wondered rhetorically, drawing his hand away entirely and shaking out his fingers to rid them of the searing heat.
Irisa had been watching intently. At first, she thought her father was moving the cube by sheer strength alone, but watching that had made it apparent that there was a more powerful magical lock at force, here.
"I think I have it, now." Irisa remarked. "The colors must correspond to various elements. White for cold, orange for fire, and blue for... ah, water, if I had to guess."
She peered at her father curiously. Water? Wasn't her father earth?
"Water... is that what you received from merging with that gemstone?" the feien asked with intrigue, before looking back at the cube. "...well, at any case, it works for us, I suppose. Here, let us set this cube so that it has one hundred dots on one end. ...or, well, what looks close enough to a hundred."
Talon looked doubtful, but reached out to the cube, placing his six-digited hand on its blue face, covering it entirely, looking to Irisa and Hadrian to do the same. The sooner they figured this out, the sooner they could get on with it and all of that...
Irisa nodded to her father and Hadrian, before following suit.
Hadrian stepped up eagerly to follow suit, putting a hand flat against the tingling warmth of the orange side of the cube. Then he nearly jumped back when a sharp click reverberated through the cube as it seemed to...well settle.
There was an eery pause, during which all the feien seemed to be waiting for something...then, deep in the walls...there was a rumbling. It was the sort of rumbling you could feel in your chest, as well as up through the floor.
At that moment, the hundred dots on the cube all shifted and moved until they formed a C, causing a C-shaped light beam to fire up from the cube towards the ceiling. The feien wondered how much longer this lock was going to go on.
Well, they were out of letters. And with only two artifice items left to use, it was most likely done, soon. Up top, she noticed the beam firing into what appeared to be a broken spectacle. As someone who was constantly trying to learn the mend ability, Irisa knew exactly what the next step was. She took the feien mending gloves out of her carrying case, before skillfully putting the broken glass back together. The tilted spectacle then began refracting the light beam back towards the door. With one artifice item left, it was just a simple process of elimination from there.
Flying back to the door, Irisa held the goggles into the path of the light, but... nothing happened. She wondered... did she actually have to wear them? Well, she wasn't going to let the threat of blindness stop her when she had come so far! ...still, the young feien decided to close her eyes as she put the goggles on and flew into the path of the light beam, just in case. Now facing directly into the light, she slowly opened her eyes. It was odd.
The feeling was actually kind of... nice. As if there was a comforting wave of emotion that was giving her congratulations on a job well done. A large chime was heard, and finally, the door was open.
Levinsky stared at the door in surprise.
"You know, for such a BIG door, they sure made it block a really small hole." he remarked as he gazed at the feien-shaped entry way that lay behind the door. "Well, I guess you guys are on your own from here. Good luck!"
"Thank you." Irisa nodded to Levinsky, before motioning over to her father and Hadrian. "Okay! Let's go!"
Talon had been watching all of this in a state of befuddled wonder. The way all of these items that had seemingly nothing to do with one another when they'd been collecting them had fit together flawlessly was boggling.
He moved forward to answer Irisa's beckon, pausing at the entrance to investigate it for collapse or any immediate traps. "I'll go first." he offered, drawing his rapier. "Just in case this isn't as easy as they'd like us to believe..."
Hadrian peered down the tunnel over Talon's shoulder, "After ALL THAT, you would think they'd just be sitting here." He said, sounding impressed...and a bit impatient.
"Yes, this has been quite an ordeal already..." Irisa concurred. Was this, as per one of Fiona's sayings, 'When the fun started'? As Irisa followed alongside Hadrian and behind her father through the feien-sized halls, she couldn't help but wish it really was 'just sitting there'. The halls though were rather pretty, at least. They were actually well-lit by various glowing gems on the walls and the columns. Lights which must have shined eternally...
Irisa glanced at the various gems in the walls, and then looked worriedly at the other two feien with her. It was hard to tell because large parts of the gems were inside the walls, but...
"Do you think... those gems could be feien gemstones?"
Talon, who had been trying not to think of that very thing, allowed his eyes to shift to the walls of the tunnels around them, mentally comparing the size of the gems set into the walls with the size of Josephus's stone. He supposed they very well could be...though that would be quite a lot of feien who had died simply to light the passageways. Or perhaps that hadn't been their original purpose at all.
He'd read something about the slaves that had been used to build the pyramids being bricked in after the construction and left to die. Perhaps it had been a similar case here, though it seemed rather harsh.
"They could be." he allowed at last, keeping his voice quiet. "Though I'd like to think that the people responsible for artificing had a little more class than that."
He swiped out ahead of himself with the rapier, hacking aside a thin curtain of spiderweb barring their way.
"Or they ARE the feien responsible for it." Hadrian said, debating whether he wanted to reach out and touch one or not. He really DID want too, but on the other hand it did seem like a bad idea somehow. "Its not really so bad...you know, if they WERE feien. I mean its better then not existing at all." He mused, staring at the shifting colors.
"Not existing in the first place... I wonder what that would be like." Irisa commented as the group flew along. "I suppose there always is a chance that these are the stones of those who fell trying to retrieve the artifice tablets. Who knows what fearsome trials they had to endure on the way, since we all know the tablets sadly were not just sitting there."
She paused, and then looked ahead at the set of tablets standing on a table in front of them, rather... surprised.
"Or... maybe they were." she blinked, before flying to catch up with her dad to get a closer look at the tablets. She flew around the table and then scanned the general area with her eyes. No, there was no where else to go in these halls. This was it. These tablets had to be it.
"Well... I suppose that was rather anti-climactic. But you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth." Irisa nodded as she scooped the tablets up.
And then there was more rumbling...
Talon's ears pricked. He not only hear rumbling, he heard faint mechanical clicks and the stealthy sound of stone shifting on stone. Looking briefly to their right he saw the true purpose of the gems as some had shifted aside to reveal small honeycombs of holes. Tiny strange holes that seemed just big enough for--his mind stopped on that as he flared his wings out suddenly.
"We need to go. NOW." he said urgently. A split second later, a barrage of tiny perfectly-crafted darts, launched from one of the clusters, riddling his back with pinpricks of searing pain as his face contorted in agony. ********...!! "GO!!" he demanded, keeping his wings flared, though suddenly finding it hard. In fact, everything seemed slower suddenly as the burning pain of the darts spread. He wasn't dying...he knew that much. They were too small to have mortally wounded him. It must have been a toxin.
Irisa stared in shock at her father, before shouting, "We can't leave you!"
It wasn't going to be so easy, after all. She turned to Hadrian, trying as hard as she could to keep herself composed. There wasn't any time to panic.
"Hadrian! Please help me carry my father out of here! We have to leave now!"
At that moment, she immediately jerked backwards a bit on pure physical reflex as a dart scrapped by her knee. She cringed a bit, but it only stung slightly due to mostly missing it's mark. Ignoring the pain completely, she grabbed her father by one arm.
"I don't need to be carried...!" he said, even his words sounding sluggish as he tried to shrug off Irisa's help. By the minute, he was losing more and more control as his muscles seemed to turn to water, spilling him to the ground in a heap.
"Irisa, get the tablets. I'll carry him." Hadrian said, which was easier said then done for a feien almost half Talon's size.
He darted out of the way or a spray of darts, with rapid if not entirely precise motions. "Do you think there's another way out? There won't be any space to avoid darts in the tunnel."
He sounded suddenly older. It was hard to put ones finger on, but there was a difference. The juvenile swooped to get a good hold onto Talon, letting his legs drag, so he could be careful to keep his head off the floor.
It was interesting how one acted under stressful times. Hadrian seemed... different. It wasn't just seeing his speed and strength utilized at their fullest, either, but... well, whatever the case, there was no time for that.
Irisa quickly looked around for a way out, before noticing that the rumbling was in the process of removing a significant part of the wall on the left side. She nodded to Hadrian and motioned towards there, before flying as fast as she could, trying to use the columns for cover from the rain of fire.
It was the strangest sensation he'd ever felt...he was fully aware, fully awake, and yet couldn't move a damned muscle in protest. The only functioning muscles in his body seemed to be his eyelids and his ears.
Ironic as it was, Talon was probably the most terrified of the three of them at the moment as Hadrian dragged him. They were at least -doing- something. They could dodge, run, whatever...he could do none of that as he helplessly watched projectiles whizz around them on every side. Another dart found its home in his calf, bringing another jolt of pain, but not even a twitch from his person.
Whoever had hidden these goddamned tablets had gone to great lengths to ensure they were not recovered, that was for sure.
Hadrian was pleased to discover that Talon was not as heavy as he might have been. His entire lack of muscle coordination and therefore complete inability to help the much smaller feien carry him wasn't helping, however.
They were make alright progress until there was a whistling sound, and Hadrian had to suddenly manhandle Talon out of the way of another barrage of darts. A few lodged themselves in Hadrians calf. "s**t!" Which was...now that anyone thought about it, the first time they had heard the little Feien curse.
He grabbed back onto Talon, fluttering off the ground now, as he pulled the older feien...dragging him a bit more.
From behind a nearby column, Irisa watched in horror as even Hadrian obviously couldn't go on for much longer. But... they were so close! Stuffing the tablets into her carrying case to free up her hands, Irisa readied her stone skin spell and flew back to assist Hadrian and her father. She grabbed ahold of her father's other arm, and tugged as hard as she could as several darts began to scrape against her as well. Gazing towards the exit which was just a little bit ahead of them, she reached out for it. ...before a huge gaping hand reached out of it and grabbed all three feien and then proceeding to yank them out of there.
Irisa choked. Levinsky's huge burly hairy hand reaching out of no where to grab her was a VERY unpleasant experience.
"Hey guys. Something wrong?" the man asked as he gazed at all the feien in his palm. "I heard a bunch of screaming and stuff so I figured... um, ouch, excuse me, but there are a lot of spiky things in my hand now for some damn reason."
"Be careful!" Hadrian half commanded half pleaded to the large man, "Mr. Talonfaust is hurt, don't be rough with him!"
The feien plucked a dart out of his leg as he said it, flicking it aside. and frowning at it.
Talon's eyes narrowed, and he could do little more than that as he laid in a limp jumble in Levinsky's hand. He wasn't hurt, save for the jumbles of darts sticking out of him here and there.
He was perfectly fine, in fact, he just....couldn't move. Well, THIS was a hell of a way to end a long-standing quest...
Irisa hugged her father, thankful that he was still there after they had almost lost him. He did so much for her, even taking those dart blows for her. And Hadrian, as well. She turned to him and smiled warmly, before hugging him, too.
"Thanks, Hadrian, for helping my father. It means a lot to me."
With that, she let go, before closing her eyes a bit. She needed some rest now, after such a long trip.
Levinsky stared at the three feien, dumb-founded, before shrugging. He supposed he was providing the transport home, then. With that, he put Irisa and Hadrian in one pocket, and Talon in the other (the latter being too big to fit in the same pocket as the juveniles. Eh, whatever, the big man supposed with a shrug).
Hadrian settled Irisa more comfortably against him, in the pocket. One of his legs was very oddly numb, but that didn't matter very much.
He was also blushing, but there was no one (awake anyway) too notice. He wrapped an arm around Irisa and closed his eyes.
Talon laid where Levinsky had dropped him, in a not-at-all comfortable position. His wing was bent at the wrong angle, one arm was flopped over his face, and to top it all off, he was spitting angry at having had to have watched the entire hugging fiasco right in front of him as though he hadn't even been there. God dammit. He clenched his eyes shut and began trying to focus himself on moving. Even a twitch would be nice. SOMETHING to assure him he wasn't broken entirely and could prevent things like that in the future. However, nothing seemed to want to respond, and the heavy numbness in his body from the darts was now trying to overpower him into sleep as well.
He struggled for a while, his stamina coming in handy for fighting it off, but in the end, he simply succombed, seeing no reason to keep it at bay, given the current situation.
Irisa was off in dreamland. Dreaming of a time when the feien were great, once again. But even that dream wasn't perfect. Even in this quest, in the end, they still needed a human's help. Even now, he was their transport.
But then, Irisa would have never been able to do it alone, anyways. Hadrian and her father's help were equally important to everything. Perhaps, instead of looking at that as help from a human, she should look at it as help from a friend. That would work.
Her eyes closed completely, Irisa smiled. She was glad to be with her friends. And now, this adventure was finally over.
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Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 5:54 pm
But Hadrian and Irisa never got their happy ending. Not long after they returned from Rome, Irisa disappeared. She sent Hadrian a note, sometime later, an apology of sorts for not saying goodbye.
The loud cheerful feien child hid and sulked in private, nursing the loss of his first love. But fire is not a static element, and Hadrian eventually threw himself into a rash solution. He left the comfort of his home, and went out into the world...
"This is a story about growing up.
Not growing taller or growing older. Growing up.
'All children, except one, grow up.'
Of course, the self same book says that 'every time a child says, `I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.' And I'm not entirely positive I believe that, I've heard a few children say they didn't believe in fairies and I haven't fallen down dead. Its possible I suppose that I'm still waiting my turn. But I don't think so."
(...to be conitnued. End of original record.)
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Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:14 pm
"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
- Robert Louis Stevenson
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