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 Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 2:29 pm
Since Guinevere had become a teenager, there had been a few changes in her life. Firstly, most men had stopped looking at her eyes in favour of the better, if not more proper, view further south. Secondly, she had been moving away from witchcraft, but that was more because mysterious and magical forces that she might have triggered had ended up emotionally scarring her best friend. And lastly, she was tired.
The last change sounded the smallest, but it was deceptive. She didn't know if it was normal or not, but a bone-aching tiredness seemed to have settled itself in her limbs and refused to budge, making everything a struggle for her. She knew that her powers hadn't surfaced yet, in fact, compared to most other Heralds they were alarmingly late, but she hoped that being tired wasn't a part of whatever they were, because it was a serious inconvenience. She couldn't even focus on things very well these days, and every time she woke up in the morning, she felt like she hadn't rested the night before at all.
It was alarming, and it drove her to drink, or drink coffee at least. She sat down at the bar of a small café in town, head drooping dangerously, and sipped from the mug in front of her to keep awake. "Mmmmm." she muttered appreciatively as she began to revive a bit. Right now, caffeine was the only thing keeping her going.
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Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:23 pm
Oh, one would be surprised at how much could change in those wonderful teenage years. As one could see by looking at how they used to be as a child compared to now.
A good example being the person sitting a few stools down from Guinevere, who had changed rather drastically from the bouncy, energetic child he had been to the rather rebellious and mood swing-susceptible teenager he was now.
Who was also generally tired, as one could tell by the fact that he was flopped over the bar, head cushioned on one of his arms as the other held onto the cup of coffee in front of him. Though his tiredness was more from overwork than anything else. For he had the job at the garage to do, and had recently picked up one as a host/waiter at a local restaurant.
And, yenno, the fact that he tended to stay out till all hours of the night/morning, but we don't talk about that.
So it was with a sigh that Lind dragged his head back up to somewhere it usually was, eyes squinting at the clock before taking a long drink from the cup. Well. Got some time to spare before his shift.
And it might've been that exhaustion that did it, or he just didn't quite put two and two together, but he didn't quite recognize the person he was sitting next to as the one he had (almost) tripped over when they were both considerably younger.
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Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:34 pm
Guinevere slapped herself as her eyes began to droop again, and looked down the counter to distract herself, getting up from her seat and walking around a bit. The diner was almost empty, except...
Squinting, she looked at a boy about her age sitting near where she had been. Something came back to her, and though she didn't know why, or what it meant, she sat down in the seat next to him anyway. He had wings, so at least it was likely that he was a Herald too. "Excuse me," she said, taking a brief sip of her coffee and giving him a quizzical look. "Are you a viking?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:44 pm
The girl was given a cursory look as she got up and walked around, though more for the fact that it was a movement in his peripheral vision than anything else. And she was given another glance when she sat next to him, though he was in the middle of a gulp of coffee when she did.
Never good to try and talk with a mouth full of hot liquids. It just didn't end well.
The question, though. That was an odd one. She was given a second glance, this one more thorough,. and it was when he noticed the wings that something in his mind clicked. Ah. Yes, that would explain a deal about that question. "I was," he said, draining the last of the coffee in the cup and setting it back down on the counter. "But the benefits sucked, so I quit." Oh, what a dubious choice of a dream job. Why he wanted to, he couldn't quite say, but hey. He was working for one now....kinda. Close enough.
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Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 10:27 pm
"Sucks." she said simply, offering him a napkin as he dribbled a bit. "It was the same way with witchcraft, you know. Make one potion and everyone's suing you because it accidentally turned their ears green." Sipping at her coffee again, she swiveled in her chair a bit. "Eventually I decided it would be easier to be unemployed and gracefully destitute."
She paused, concentrating, and finally said "...Lind, right? Aethelind?" Guinevere's memory for names, or rather, for anything was pretty sharp. "You're one of Kemuri's friends. Taller than I remembered, though." It had been a while. "What's new?"
Talking kept her awake as much as coffee, just so long as she had something to focus on, and she stared him down with the intensity of a viking warrior in a flailing bid for consciousness.
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:02 am
Oh, what a wonderful first impression. Dribbly coffee makes for a fabulous appearance. Of course, the fact that he looked like he just rolled out of bed, or hadn't seen one in awhile (most likely) didn't help much either, but hey. So it goes.
"I know, burn down a few houses, pillage a few villages, just one giant bitchfest after that," he said mournfully with a sigh. "Though I wish I could say that I was part of the blissfully unemployed." There was, indeed, much bliss to be had in doing nothing. "'M a bit too employed at the moment." Which, granted, was his choice, but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't complain about it.
"Yep, I grow in my spare time," Though it had been quite awhile since he had seen said older Herald. Quite awhile. "And you'reeee...Ggg.....Gweeee...Guinevere?" It helped that she was a Herald, a very finite list of names that he had to chose from there. "Aaah, not much. Haven't really seen anyone in..a long time" Which was strange, seeing as they all seemed to be in eachother's lives as much as one could be when they were younger. Ah well. So it goes.
"Though I was run into by a guy who said he found some mysterious person on a rock in the middle of the night," he added, taking a significantly smaller sip from his magically refilled mug. Aaah, gotta love the wonderful and magical person behind the counter with the coffee pot.
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:51 am
To Guinevere's credit, the only reference she made to Aethelind's appearance was a hint of an amused smile. Her own guardian was clumsy enough to make things like spilled beverages pretty common in her household "Just how employed are you?" she asked curiously. Naturally, much as teens with jobs wished they didn't have them, Guinevere wished she had one if merely because she didn't.
"Guinevere, right." she felt her eyelids drooping, and took another sip of coffee which ended up being a gulp instead. "Same here. But then again, I don't get out much." Her adventures with Nikolai had been her last, then after a long period of being grounded by her guardian, she had ended up preferring to stay home and read than anything else. The only thing driving her outside was the need for coffee, which was not allowed at her mother's house.
She fell silent as he mentioned his last statement and asked "And is he missing something important to him now? I hope he gave them a place to stay." she stated coldly. Guinevere herself had had a pair of scissors thrust into her and then had been left on a rock in a rainstorm until Aaron had come along and adopted her. Considering she and Lind were Heralds, and in this town fallen messengers were unusually common, there was really only one thing he could be talking about.
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:13 am
"Two jobs," he responded with a sigh. "I would suggest never going into the food industry ever." This thought was punctuated by another gulp of coffee. "Or at least the serving end of it." Because that's when you have to deal with the jerks. And you couldn't really say anything to them about it.
Except, you know, spit in their food. Which wasn't quite as satisfying as you couldn't tell them after they ate it.
"Well, he mentioned something about a couch, so I'm guessing he did," he said with a shrug. "Didn't really get to talk to him much, really." Which was infinitely better than a rock. Or, the rock, he should say. Though there seemed to be many scattered all willy nilly about the town, so that might not be quite right either.
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:36 am
"I'll make a note of it," Guinevere assured him assiduously. Her own mother was unemployed, still receiving money from her parents overseas. Work was a strange concept in all aspects of Guinevere's home life, but she admired it in others. "Two jobs sounds rough. When do you sleep?" It was a subject that recently she couldn't even answer for herself.
"A couch, okay." she said, but she looked less than pleased. As a girl who had been brought up to have impeccable manners, or at least impeccable manners when it happened to suit her, a couch didn't hold a candle to a proper bed, but she supposed it would do. Better than a rock in the middle of nowhere. "We haven't seen a new one in a while, have we?" she murmured, sipping at her coffee again. Usually the ragtag band of Heralds found out whenever there was a falling, sometimes some of them were even there. News got around though, but whether it was just her having been holed up for so long or not, Guinevere hadn't heard talk of anyone with a fallen angel on their hands for quite some time now.
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:47 am
Oh, it was nothing new to Lind. Becauuse before he got a job, he had been set about to doing all of the housework, such as mowing the back yard for the first time in what seemed a century and babysitting. Which was another story all together. "Never!" He said, voice containing vast amounts of obviously fake energy, coupled with two thumbs up. Oh yeah. It's amazing.
Oh yes, a couch was most decidedly more comfortable than a rock. He had gone back to said rock a few times, and in retrospect, it wasn't terribly comfortable. Though it was smooth on top, so at least it wasn't poking you anywhere. "Not that I've heard of." Which could be seen as a good or bad thing. Ever since the events of the storm (which was a thought he quickly pushed to the back of his mind, not something he wanted to be thinking about), things in the group had been...off. Less communication, and, for Lind at least, quite a bit of unpleasant memories that had stirred up then. Most of which was subconscious and showed up as dreams, which could explain the lack of sleep.
Or the fact that much of them were teenagers now, and they tended to do such things anyways without any supernatural prodding.
"Would be interesting to have some new faces around, at least."
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:26 pm
Guinevere looked at Lind carefully, and since she was the kind who would nag you whether she knew you or not, she gave his joke a disapproving frown. "If you can sleep, you should get some, you know." she said authoritatively, blinking back sleep, herself.
"Kind of strange, really." There was a time when angels falling in this town was almost as common as rain. "Hope it's not some creepy sign." Shuddering, she clutched the warm mug in her hands a little tighter. "I've been doing some research, you know. On us, and stuff, Nikolai's mom really got me into it. I haven't seen her in a while, though. Haven't seen much of anyone in a while."
"Yeah." she said finally, "I guess." Seeking to change the subject to something more cheerful, she added, "Where do you work?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:45 pm
"Well," he said with a snort, glancing over at her. "Yes, because you are clearly following that so well." Hell, she looked even more tired than he did. And he, yenno, kinda didn't at this point.
Oh yes, that wouldn't be a good thing to happen. Not good at all. After the storm and all, just kinda wanted to keep away from that sort of thing. "Oh?" Well, hopefully she was closer to finding out something than everyone else. "Did you find out anything interesting?" And hey, could help him (and others, he supposed) figure out what the hell was going on with themselves as well as the group as a whole.
"I work at a garage over," a hand waved in the vague direction towards the other side of town. "Not really big or anything, and a restaurant down the street that I need to get to..." he trailed off, looking over at the clock. "Eeeeeventually."
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:29 pm
Guinevere straightened herself up best as she could to give Lind her best Withering Stare, but the effect was spoiled when she had to push loose hair from her messy ponytail out of her eyes. "There are extenuating circumstances," she informed him haughtily, ruffling her feathers.
Sobering up, she added "Well, yes, interesting to me, anyway. And a lot of questions, too. The only things I know for sure are the things that we all sort of know but never bothered to write down and look at. You know, the stuff like when you fall, someone has to sacrifice something important to you, how to get into the Sanctum, who you can bring to the Sanctum, how your sacrifice affects you..."
"I just started." she admitted. "It's more of a hobby at this point."
Not even a hobby. Just an impulse, just a desire to find out more about herself and about heralds so the next time someone who couldn't handle caring for one found a fallen messenger lying on the ground, they wouldn't just sacrifice scissors, take them, then put them back in the rain. Niven had been lucky. What if Heralds had been falling and people just didn't know what to do with them? Lady Vincira hadn't, and Guinevere had been lucky that Aaron had found her when he did. "I just sort of feel like if we knew more about ourselves, we'd know how to handle things more."
"Don't let me make you late!" she said hastily, fretting over her coffee at the thought.
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 9:51 pm
Withering Stares do not have much effect on him, as he has been growing up with them from Subo and has gained an immunity to them by now. "Extenuating circumstances. Riiiight." Believing. Totally his believing face right there.
"Are you going to keep it all in a place where everyone can get to it?" he asked, actually kind of curious to see what information she could dig up on the subject. "Or are you going to put together a pamphlet that you could hand out door to door?" Much apologies, Guin, the sarcasm comes in spurts. "You could call it 'You and your Herald, A Guide to Small, Winged Children from the Sky.'"
The clock was given another squinty glace to make sure that he read it right the first time and wasn't already horribly late. "Nah, still got a bit of time before I have to go."
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Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:02 pm
She frowned at him, saying "And you're being so much more useful waiting tables at your restaurant? At least I'm doing something." Guinevere could be sarcastic too, and in the exhausted state she was in, she was far more prone to being snappy.
Hallelujah, she thought a tad sourly as Lind said he still had more time. Guinevere didn't get along well with other teenagers, and though Lind was better than most, she liked him a lot better when he was a viking. Leaning back and taking an unusually unladylike swig of her drink, she dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and shot him a glance.
"Do you serve takeout?" she asked. Kotatsu could hardly cook, and as long as she was in his company, she might as well pick up dinner.
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