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 Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:14 pm
If Guinevere recalled correctly, Luna had said that Michael had fallen in the forest.
To anyone else this would be nothing more than a trivial fact concerning the (admittedly legally questionable) process involved in adopting a Herald. Heralds fell anywhere, whether that place was convenient and easily accessible or not. However, when a Herald fell, a slab of stone was always forced to the surface of the earth nearby, Guinevere knew. She had one of her own somewhere, though heavens knew how long it had been since she had visited it. The stone slabs allowed a Herald to access that strange alternate dimension, the Sanctum, but what Guinevere wanted to know was whether one needed to use their own stone slab to reach it.
The problem was finding another stone slab at all. She sat down on the ground, discouraged. Wherever Michael's was, she might not even find it today. Guinevere was not a nature girl, and for all she knew, she could be lost right now. She rustled in her bag for some trail mix to much on despondently. So much for research. Apparently just charging into the woods to look for a nondescript piece of rock was not the best way to conduct her studies.
There was a rustle behind her, causing her to spill her trail mix in surprise as she whipped around. "Oh." Just a deer." She flashed it a hesitant smile as it approached her, eyeing her trail mix. "Y-You want some?" she asked, thoroughly unnerved by being this close to a wild animal.
There was another rustle as the first deer leaned over to eat the trail mix, followed by another, and another, and another.
"O-oh my..." Guinevere's day was getting worse by the minute.
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:28 pm
The pack of deer that insisted on following Tian around every time he came out for a walk suddenly veered deeper into the under brush, all of them snuffling for something, white tails flicked high. Frowning, he wondered what it was they were so curious about. The only time they go excited was when they were licking at that weird stone slab about a mile east. Tian was still wondering was the thing was.
Curious himself now, the herald followed the herd, careful not to snag the edge of his kimono on the brambles. Loudly, he pushed his way through the bushes, his antlers catching on the limbs of low hanging branches.
Tian shook his head violently, dislodged himself, and then all but fell on his face. He looked up, suddenly nose to nose with a strange girl.
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:42 pm
By this point, Guinevere had closed her eyes and pulled her knees closer to her chest, wishing that the deer would go away. She could feel them press their wet noses against her and she whimpered. Though she knew a lot about Heralds, she didn't know much of anything about wild animals, so she frantically tried to remember whether she had ever heard of any fatal incidents involving deer.
She bet they happened. Things with antlers that big were probably ruthless killers. For now though, they were distracted by her trail mix, though she was sure that could only keep this many deer occupied for so long, especially since she had only brought two ziploc bags of it on her trip. It looked like she was going to join her mother in the afterlife sooner than she had anticipated, and even worse, she wasn't even going to die in a particularly nice way.
While her mind was on this morbid train of thought, her ears heard an even bigger ruckus coming from the brush, then a crash. Eyes slamming open wide, she looked around for what had sounded like the biggest, most terrifying deer of all, but instead found herself nose to nose with a man.
After the initial shock, her eyes traveled past his face and to his antlers. Staring at them for a moment, she finally squeaked, "I-I guess you want some trail mix, too?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:56 pm
"Oh." Tian blinked rapidly before pulling back, righting his shirt. "Pardon me." He didn't smile, but there was warmth evident in his voice. The Herald looked over the girl, noting her strange wings as his own fluttered back to place at his back. His pink eyes then landed on the mob of deer devouring the trail mix.
"Hey, stop that you lot." Jin Tian commanded, lightly tapping the rump of the nearest deer, sending it tripping a few feet away. The Herald then made all the others leave the girl alone. "I'm sorry." He apologized. "They're still young and overly curious." He added, glaring at a very young fawn who was still tempting fate by bumping cutely against Guin.
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:04 pm
"It's okay, they didn't bother me at all," Guinevere lied shakily. Clearly, whoever this man was, he was also Lord of the Deer, and thus her saviour for the time being.
She looked at the fawn and laughed nervously. "What little scamps," she joked somewhat unconvincingly, and pushed herself to her feet, brushing herself off. With an embarrassed cough, she picked up her bag. "Thank you so much for getting them off me though, I'm not really used to seeing so many deer like that. I'm Guinevere Orifiel, and I'm a researcher. And you are...?" Guinevere got a good glimpse of him for the first time while she asked the question, and was startled.
"Are..." Wings, he had wings. Was he? "A Herald?" she asked breathlessly. If he was, he was an older one, but she thought she knew all of the older Heralds! Faced with a possible gap in her data, she reached out to shake his hand and silently vowed not to let it go until she found out everything she could from him.
Guinevere was not the best at being a grateful damsel in distress, but she was pretty good at being a nerd.
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:19 pm
Was the girl really that afraid? She was obviously lieing, though Tian didn't know how he could tell. Feeling badly, he shooed the rest of the deer away, telling them to go back home. Home being Basil's property. They didn't need to be bothering this winged girl further and Tian was pleased when they all trucked off through the brush.
"Excuse me?" Tian asked politely, not knowing what a Herald was exactly. He took the offered hand and shook it, though was slightly confused at the greeting. He'd never done such a thing before. "I'm not sure I know what that is." He continued. "A...Herald?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:29 pm
"Oh!" Guinevere's face flushed. It had never occurred to her that he wasn't one, she had never met anyone with wings in town who wasn't. But if he was this old and he didn't even know what Heralds were, then he probably couldn't be one, could he? "I-I'm sorry, I just saw your wings and assumed you were like me." Briefly, she wondered if that made her racist. As an intellectual young lady, Guinevere strove to be politically correct, and the thought made her insides churn (although if he had been a demon, she probably wouldn't have given it a second thought).
"Heralds are like..." she hesitated to say 'angels', so instead she said "They're like letters from the sky." It was a ridiculous metaphor, but it was the best she could come up with. "They carry a message, and after they deliver it, they sort of get thrown out. Their wings disintegrate and they fall to earth. However, if someone finds them and is willing to sacrifice something important to them, they get reborn as mortals with angelic wings that reflect the sacrifice given to them." She flexed her own wings to illustrate. "My sacrifice was scissors with a ribbon- not the most comfortable wings to have growing out of your back." She gave him a wry grin and added, "I study Heralds, in fact, I'm here to do more research, so I get a little excited when I meet someone with wings."
Clearing her throat sheepishly, she realized she was still holding his hand and dropped it quickly, repeating, "I'm awfully sorry!"
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:52 pm
"Letters...from the sky?" Tian repeated, brows furrowed. For some reason, that sounded really familiar, causing a foreign memory to dash across his mind in a blink of white light. Tian frowned, shaking his head in confusion, silver hair whipping about his face. "I don't...I don't know." He admitted quietly.
It was a blessing when the girl dropped his hand. He was beginning to feel a little awkward. "No need to apologize." He assured loftily. "It's only natural to be curious about something you're interested in. Is it...possible that I'm one of these things, a Herald?" Tian asked. "I'm not sure what I am."
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 10:05 pm
Guinevere's smile was replaced with a puzzled stare. "you don't know what you are?" she asked, sounding concerned. Guinevere had known what she was almost since day one; It was what other people were that got her wondering. "It could be that you're a Herald. The easiest way to find out is to take you to the Sanctum, only Heralds can go there." Realizing something, she said "You know these woods pretty well, right? You look like you do. I'm actually looking for something, a large stone slab that should be somewhere around here. Every time a Herald falls, one of those appear where they fell, and they take you to the Sanctum."
She paused, and conscientiously added, "Probably. I'm still figuring out whether someone else's slab can take you to the Sanctum if that person isn't there with you." The one time she had used someone else's stone to enter the Sanctum was a long time ago and the Herald in question had been with her. She winced, because the whole situation that involved brought up painful memories for her, and shook her head. Time to think about something else, now.
Distracting herself, she admitted, "Usually no one goes to the Sanctum, except maybe if they need to get away from reality for a while or if they're in trouble. I've explored it a few times, and it's not much- an empty world, you could say. But it's something unique to Heralds, so maybe if you could go there, you'd know?" What she needed was more data. If he could enter the Sanctum, it was likely he was a Herald, but she couldn't say for certain.
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 10:21 pm
Jin Tian's interested was definitely piqued. "Oh, yes, I know of that place. My deer like to converge there. Apparently it tastes very much like salt." Perhaps this girl could really help with his identity. Ever since Epsilon had found him nearly dead in the snow that one day, Tian had been asking who, or what, he was.
"I can show you the place. It's not far from here." Tian continued, pointing in the vague direction of the stone. "Come." And then he had turned, pushing back through the underbrush and holding some of it aside as he looked at the girl expectantly.
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 10:35 pm
Guinevere hesitated. The thought of more traipsing about in the woods was not pleasing to her, guide or not. Yes, she would be safe from deer, but she was fairly sure that Jin Tian could not save her from a grizzly bear or an eagle or, worst of all, spiders. After all, there was only so much that apparently potent deer man powers could do.
Not that she would let him try to save her from a bear, she thought quickly. After all, she was (or at least she was supposed to be) an independent woman. If she let men save her from wild animals all the time, she would probably get her card revoked or something.
Independent women, Guinevere reflected, could probably handle themselves in the woods. With that thought in mind, she reluctantly hitched up her skirt and followed him in. "Is it far?" she asked hopefully.
As an afterthought, she added, "And thank you!" All the Nature was apparently making her forget her manners.
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