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 Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 2:35 am
Serandite refused to stay stagnant-- instead, she walked slowly ahead on the path before her. She had decided her choice of path with a shoe flip-- yes, coin flips weren't an option. She wasn't exactly conveniently carrying coins, although she was sure if she had her bunny bag on her, it would have a few stray quarters. Unfortunately, it wasn't here. So she had settled it with one of the few things she did have.
(Japan flipped shoes for their weather. She saw no problem with flipping a shoe for directions.)
The shoe landed right. That's where she headed. Uneasy emotions fluttered in her stomach, each step of a twig made her cautiously tense up. She hadn't seen any other human around-- not even a henshined one. She wasn't sure where she was but Serandite knew that this wasn't Destiny City anymore.
It was almost as if she was the only person in this forest. If there were animals nearby, they weren't coming out. Some wildlife would have been comforting but only an eerie silence answered Serandite's soft calls.
"Anyone there..?"
A hazy black form moved behind her-- Serandite swirled around to catch a glimpse but as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared. As Serandite turned forward, a pair of red eyes glowed from her shadow, a creepy smile forming on the blackened face. Something was reponding to Serandite's unspoken fear-- warping-- about to reach out when something stopped it. The presence of another? The shadow's wispy form sank back into the ground, Serandite was oblivious to the danger she had just escaped.
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 2:42 am
"Don't look too long. They will grab you if you stand still too long." Though not emotionless, the voice was fairly matter-of-fact and something darker than shadows showed on the path not more than twenty feet from where the senshi? stood. "One tried to grab me, I ran." Pale skin and vivid pink hair, almost as vivid as the girl's were the only relief from the unending black of her garb.
Closing the distance between them, steps slowed, and paused for a moment. "Are you okay?" There was hesitation in this statement, as if she had been loathe to utter it. In truth, Black Lady didn't much care if the girl was snatched into the darkness where the creatures came from or not. She looked like a senshi, and unfortunately there was no magical sense to tell her otherwise, so she would be treated like a senshi - with disdain. However at the same time, this girl in the elaborate fuku was the first face the princess had seen since waking up in this strange and rotted forest, and that counted for something. So she had asked, and asked again.
"Are you alright? Scared? Hurt?" Her tone did not seem caring or forgiving, but her ruby eyes did look like they were at least concerned and willing to be in her company.
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 3:00 am
Grab her if she stood too long..? Serandite's eyes turned to meet another pink-haired individual-- an individual who seemed more too gorgeous to be standing in front of her like so. She looked down on the ground, eyes widening as the mysterious blackness that warped itself into different shapes on the ground. A pink heel stepped unsteadily back, nodding in confirmation to the advice. Even if the advice was given in a rather rude manner, Serandite could overlook that in light of the fact that there was an actual person in front of her.
She seemed at a loss of words for a moment, scanning her surroundings for other dangers. There didn't appear to be any immediate ones-- but who knows?
"I'm as okay as I could be. Scared? Well, I'd be surprised if there's a person who isn't scared of being dropped into witch's forest of death traps. I'm honestly expecting killer dwarfs or a rotten gingerbread house to pop up." Serandite was babbling and words poured out hastily-- she struggled to retain her composure, taking a deep breath. Without her weapon or negaverse enhancements, she was nothing. That was the worst part-- no strong physique to throw off enemies or clever strategies in her brain to escape from them.
She seemed to regain her senses, stepping back warily from the female in front of her. Long black dress. Pink hair. Wasn't there something vaguely relating to that description? Hm.
"Are you friend or foe? I dont need anymore added to my list if you're planning on taking me out here." Serandite said in a guarded tone, wondering if she could even take the girl on in her powerless state. She would have liked to assume that she was an ally but it was hasty and naive to think so, even if she seemed worried for her condition. (Just her luck, the lady might be a senshi. Minus the fancy fuku and polite manners. Damn it all.)
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 3:08 am
The immediate questioning of who she was brought a light smile to Black Lady's mouth and she took a step back to give the girl room. It was right of her to distrust the first person that simply walked up and asked if she was alright, but thankfully she was in no danger from the Death Phantom's fair damsel at this point in time. Her voice was much friendlier, and with a warm inflection as she spoke this time, eyes shifting from the girl to the darkness around them. You couldn't be too careful, when standing here.
"If I was not a friend, I would have let it grab you. I did not. I have not yet hurt you. I would say friend...for now. There are things that change in strange magic places, this maybe is one of them?" A careless shrug that wasn't quite as easy as she was trying to make it, the princess nervously fingered the pearls at her waistline. "Maybe we can walk and talk? I do not have power here, I cannot fight in this gown." She plucked at the beautiful material with a disgusted pinch. "This place is rotten, I do not like it." Really, she wasn't entirely supposed to like it, and it could have been a storybook picture forest and she would hate it simply because Wiseman was not here and that was where Chibiusa direly needed to be.
"I am Black Lady Serenity. You may call me Black Lady, it is much better than Serenity." Introductions were always good, she had almost slipped and given her personal nickname. No, she'd already made that mistake with the b*****d prince, Hector. That was not one she would be making again, nosiree.
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:41 am
There was a sudden shaking in the trees overhead, as of a squirrel, leaping between light, twanging branches -- but when they looked up, there was nothing there to be seen. No scurrying squirrel, no clambering chipmunk. Neither bluejay nor cardinal nor tiny goldfinch -- nothing. Just trees.
Yet something had fallen onto the path, nearby. Something had been shaken free, and, tumbling to the ground, had made a pile.
It looked like apples -- some of them deep red, red as blood, red as roses. And then, others ripe, golden green, the first green of spring. And the rest white. As white as snow.
At a distance, it did very much look like apples. Who knew when either of them might find food again?
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 10:32 am
Oh. She was friendly. Serandite had no clue what she had done to warrant a change in behavior but whatever she did do, she hoped to keep it that way.
"For now is a good answer." Serandite said cheerfully, feeling some of her nervousness and uneasiness fade away in her chuckles. She nodded at the lady's question, her gaze returning to her own shirt skirts. The dress she envied wasn't so convenient after all-- at least, not in these circumstances.
"Black lady.. Sort of long name. How about we shorten it to Milady instead?" Serandite asked cheerfully, although her asking wasn't really a question. It was a nickname that would be assigned to Black Lady whether she wanted it or not--
--Black lady..? .. Black.. lady.
Wide eyes registered the name, a screw snapping into place as to why the name sounded so familiar. "You're the one we made the truce with!" She exclaimed with wide eyes, apparently not having heard news of the more recent events. (Someone was outdated. But she had been busy in her search for guardian cats, ok.) But before she could go on further, a "plink plink" sound caught Serandite's attention from the distance.
Ka-plunk. Ka-plunk. Ka-plunk.
Serandite looked forward warily, hand scratching the back of her head, as if it was a humorous illusion. She looked at Black lady and then back to the apples. Back to Black lady. Back to applies. "In Snow white, the apples were poisoned. Although, this definitely isn't snow white." She skipped forward to the applies, tentatively poking the harmless applies with a stick. Serandite had never seen white apples. They were a gorgeous untainted shade of white-- but also considered a deadly colorless shade of white.
"We're going to get hungry and resort to eating these apples eventually. What do you say to one bite each, milady? Or are you not reckless enough to join me?" Serandite pointed out, questioning eyes gazed upon Black lady's pink ones. Her stomach growled-- and it was true, they didn't know what food might appear next. If any.
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 11:29 am
Up close, the red apples shone redder, red as flame. The gold apples shone more golden, gold as El Dorado. And the white apples -- up close -- were as white as --
As --
Serandite poked at the apples with her stick, and one of the white ones was obliged to roll over. White as headstone marble, white as the palest of corpseflesh, white...
White as bone.
The white apple rolled, and as it did, a pair of deep black holes turned with it -- eyesockets -- as though turning to look up at Serandite, to see who had jostled rudely for attention. Beneath it, an arch above a little hole, nasal passages, and then the top row where tiny teeth might be expected to be.
This was a very small skull. A human skull, by all appearances, but -- a very small human. A very young human.
No, on second thought, reexamining the pile, several very young humans.
There were no white apples in the pile. There was, after all, no such thing as a white apple.
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:02 pm
Truce? There had been no truce with the senshi, and that puzzled the young woman. What has Wiseman done while she was sleeping? He would never treat with the senshi, not knowing her feelings on it! Would he? No. She refused to believe that suddenly he was going to sign a cease-fire with the remnants of a proud station, and if the ginzuishou had been found she would know immediately. Wouldn't she? Black Lady opened her mouth to ask who exactly the girl was, when the apples fell.
She didn't mind the girl putting herself in danger by poking at the sudden treats, and it was almost as if she could feel her stomach trembling at the idea of putting food inside it. How long had it been since Chibiusa had drunk the laced slush? Far too long, at any rate. The comment about being reckless made the princess in her proud and maybe she felt just a bit challenged by this girl. "Reckless is stupid, I am not normally stupid." It was that which brought her over to the pile, just as the sockets rolled the front, and stopped her in her tracks, peering down with horror.
"That...that is not an apple!" A hand snagged at the senshi girl's trailing sleeve and pulled both her and her stick back from the disgusting pile. "Children's skulls? Infants? What is this place? Hungry or no, I'm not eating those!" But they looked so appetizing...if you could get around their companions to pluck them.
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 5:22 pm
Serandite's horror escalated, her body refusing to move as her own brown eyes landed on the small black sockets. It would have been eye contact if not for the fact, there were no eyes. A small row of teeth grinned at her repulsively, the pristine white seemed to enhance the skull's eerie smile. What if it had been a dull white? it would have looked more natural. But it wasn't.
"T-Thanks." Her shaky reply as she was pulled back quite a distance from the pile, brown eyes unable to drag themselves away from the skull. "You know, I dont think I'll be able to eat apples once we get out of here." Serandite's comment tried to sound witty but failed with her pale face and faltering smile.
"How about a group vote Milady? I think we should leave those apples and move on." Serandite wouldn't have been so surprised if worms started to pour out of the apple upon contact. In fact, she fully expected it. She wasn't bold enough to go and try, straightening up.
There were no such things as white apples. Serandite would do well to keep that little fact in mind.
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Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 8:37 pm
Serandite didn't mention whether the small skulls would be counted as part of this 'group vote' -- but at any rate, they didn't answer.
The apples looked juicy and delicious. And then, of course, there was always the path to return to, running north and southwest.
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Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 2:33 pm
Releasing the girl with a light pat on the shoulder, it was hard to tear her red eyes away from the leering and grotesque tiny heads. Fairytales weren't exactly her forte, she'd preferred other stories to the old-time Brothers Grimm, else the skulls might have registered as something other than children. "They look like children...no one should kill children." Morality? From the Dark Lady? The shining and juicy colors drew her gaze before they fell back to the 'white apples' and she shook her head at Serandite's suggestion.
"We should not eat them, but maybe we can use them? Throw at youma if we find them, distract, lure other things? You do not ever know." Already her hands were going to the massive pointed bow at her back, eager to shed it from her ensemble. The sash came loose easily and black fabric billowed out. "Can you poke them with the stick in here? Do not touch with your hand. Very much do not touch the white." With any luck, one would sit up and bite the poor girl's fingers, and not even a senshi deserved that sort of fright.
Certainly Black Lady had no interest in seeing such a bloody thing!
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Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 1:15 am
Serandite obediently followed the other's instructions, taking careful precautions to avoid even looking at the skulls. She scrambled to pick up nearly all of the apples, eying the delicious shiny fruits with an apprehension that couldn't be disregarded.
Don't step on them. That sentence was the mantra that ran through Serandite's head, concerning the skulls that accompanied the fruits. That was hard when she side-stepped to get an apple and a pink heel kicked a skull off to the side.
In silence, she watched the skull roll off to the side in a shocked silence, as if the kicked skull might sprout hands to grab her ankle, Serandite backing away with a wary tension. "I-I've got the apples. Shall we go, milady?" Serandite stepped closer to Black lady, as if closing together with an ally might prevent another .. unfortunate accident. "What path do you think we should take?" Brown eyes shifted side to side, the only hint to what the paths led to was green trees that laid ahead. That didn't tell much.
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Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 6:58 pm
The first red apple felt warm in Serandite's hands, very warm. Hot, almost. She could have sworn it throbbed once.
But no, it did appear to be an apple, skin to core. They all did -- the red ones, which were warm, and the green ones, which were rather unremarkable altogether. The warm red apples and the cool green apples rolled into a pile as Serandite deposited them carefully into Black Lady's waiting scarf.
The scattered little skulls all seemed to stare at them, baleful and accusing, but offering no particular harm. The roads in either direction looked much the same as they had before.
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 12:33 am
The scarf was folded around them and re-tied around Black Lady's waist, the warmth of the red ones surprising her just a bit as they sat in her tied apron rigging. "How odd...did they feel warm to you too?" Well, this was a strange magical land, maybe these just looked like apples, but were called something differently! This sparked her curiosity and scholarly interest (thank you Ray Gordon), but the princess resisted even touching a single glowing skin.
The girl got a pat on the shoulder for congratulations and to soothe as she swept past the eyeless skulls and refused to again look at them. They were behind the pair now, and hopefully would never return to plague them. Maybe they would find the rest of the missing bodies, then she might come back to reunite them. Maybe.
Slim fingers ran over the midnight pearls at her bodice and Chibiusa's long pink hair whipped around her as she turned her head first one way, then the other. Nothing looked too very different about either direction, and she'd never really had to survive out in the open before. She was a princess after all, and a senshi to boot. There'd never been a time or place that she hadn't been able to henshin, or use some other power. It was maddening, really. In the end, she simply pointed at the northern path. "North. We're bound to find something if we go north. Oh and by the way...I didn't catch your name." It was accompanied with a tentative smile, and her hand dropped.
Hopefully the girl was amenable to suggestion!
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Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 1:34 am
"It is odd.. Almost like.. a heart?" Serandite regarded the red glowing fruits with suspicious eyes, noting that Black Lady's makeshift apron worked quite effectively. (It would also be incredibly easy to untie and drop if something should happen. That was the important part.)
Her hand landed on the spot where Black Lady petted her curiously-- It felt nice to be appreciated. Serandite had never realized she took such small things for granted-- but in light of her recent experiences of battles and the obligation to hold a team, Serandite had only felt disapproval lately. Anything she did for the negaverse was passed off as a duty, the more you did, the less likely you would be on the General King's bad side. There was no praises or congratulations-- no "good jobs" or "excellent work." She found herself lacking in almost all areas, in maturity, in fighting experience and everything that one could possibly list for a fighter. She hadn't realized how heavily the weight of other captain's disapprovals had been until now. But it felt nice to be appreciated once in awhile.
"Oh, right. I suppose in the midst of this chaos, I must have forgotten to introduce myself." She took the time to tie up her hair in the side-ponytail that she often favored as she spoke, the humidity of the woods was more than a little stifling. "I'm Captain Serandite and leader of team Hunny Bunny." Serandite shook her hand back and forth in a gesture of dismissal, shaking her head.
"No formalities Milady. Feel free to call me Sera for short though!" She flashed a bright smile towards Black Lady with an intention to alleviate the hesitancy and awkwardness that still laid between them. It was obvious that she hadn't been informed of the more recent incidents-- otherwise, that smile wouldn't have been so freely given. Ignorance was bliss.
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