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 Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 9:55 pm
Tanzanite was brooding.
Tanzanite brooded a lot those days. In fact, one might even go so far as to say she was just a broody sort of girl. Sitting with her back to one of the dark stone walls of Negaverse subspace, she had spent the past few hours rolling a coin across the knuckles of her human hand, lost in whatever thoughts filled her mind. It was a trick she had picked up in her months overseas, the coin itself a token from perhaps the only person other than Beryl that Tanzanite could ever be considered loyal to. The other hand, gnarled and mutilated by the youma infection that had given her a new arm, drummed it's clawed fingers rhythmically upon the stone. The sound echoed through the empty space, filling it with a grating screech as the fingers began to peel back slivers of stone.
Some people found it an unsettling place, as cold and as empty as the Queen who ruled it. Nothing seemed solid there, in a place that existed to be whatever Beryl wished it to be. Even the walls, dark and smooth, seemed to shift in the corners of her vision. It was fitting, really, that the place was inhabited by some of the most duplicitous individuals in Destiny City. A younger, much less experienced Aree had found it unnerving the first time Charonite had pulled her there. Now, it served as a haven. There was no need for the pretense of a human form, nor the constant struggle to keep the youma arm bound in a fleshtoned disguise. Here, where there were no starseeds to tempt it or energy signatures to draw it's attention, the limb was content and manageable. In the outside world... well, not so much.
Her head fell back against the stone wall with a dull thud, and for what felt like the first time in weeks, Tanzanite let her eyes close and her mind rest. Perhaps there, she would be able to find a few precious hours of sleep.
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Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 10:49 pm
Tanzanite was not alone. Over the course of the trip she had taken overseas, the Dark Kingdom's headquarters had changed a little bit: most noticeable were the frozen forms of Charonite and Nealite, suspended in crystal right in the throne room, the rumors of why they were there just as strange and unnerving as the sight itself. Apparently it was example made of those who had practiced disloyalty. No evidence of them being anything less than loyal had ever been provided. It was the two of them who were responsible for Beryl being alive and growing stronger by the day, after all.
The second most noticeable change was that that place had become a lot more... alive, if that was an appropriate word for it. The halls and rooms were nearly all packed with youma waiting for a chance to go to the surface and be useful. Tanzanite was fortunate to have found one room in the place that was quiet and empty... unfortunately, it wasn't going to be quiet and empty for much longer.
She wasn't alone.
Another Negaverser had appeared in the room, this one with unfortunately noisy shoes -- and full of restlessness, it seemed, as she power-paced along one wall before stopping, her fists shaking at her side. And then, her face drawn into a pained grimace, an arm pulled back and then sprang forward, straight into the wall.
That hurt. She did it again. And after a second and a third time, it was clear she wasn't intent on stopping anytime soon.
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Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 11:21 pm
It was those crystal figures that had brought Tanzanite back time after time after time. It had been Charonite who had brought Aree into the Negaverse, given her a chance to be more than what she could have been in her previous life. It had been Ursula – not Nealite, not Beryl's vessel, but Ursula – who had seen her through some of the most difficult times of her short life. Ursula had kept her from the brink of insanity, and pulled her back whenever she ventured too close. Now, sitting alone – or so she had thought – she wondered if there would be any going back.
Her mind was torn from that dismal road of thought as a familiar face tore a pale hole in the darkness, followed by a loud, repetitive thud as her fist collided with the wall. Then again, and again. Tanzanite was not surprised, or did not show it if she was. She simply lifted a wine bottle to her lips, took a long drag, and held it out.
“Careful. If you break your hand badly enough, the Queen will give you a new one,” she laughed, but it was a mirthless and hollow sound. It declined into what could only be described as a low cackling, tapering off to a fit of giggles. The youma arm was still drumming and scraping, occupying itself.
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Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 11:41 pm
It took a few more noisy seconds of Uranophane punching the wall before she even acknowledged Tanzanite's presence, and then her eyes registered the gray eyes and the youma arm with no change in her expression whatsoever. For that moment her face was completely blank: emotionless not in the way she always tried to compose herself to be, but in the way of someone who was exhausted with life.
Then, her murky gaze trailed down to the wine bottle in the other Captain's more human hand. After an encouraging nod and a tip of its mouth in her direction, Uranophane's fist slowly left the wall, and just as slowly wrapped around the bottle's neck.
After a moment of hesistation, she walked a couple paces away with it.
Then, with a snarl, she threw it as hard as she could and it shattered somewhere in the hallway.
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Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:21 pm
Tanzanite's eyes followed the bottle, and her brows shot up as it collided with the wall. It wasn't a surprised expression, but a mourning one, feeling the loss of her delicious alcoholic beverage. For a moment the youma arm filled her mind with the desire to chew off Uranophane's face. Hell, it would probably be an improvement. Slightly tipsy, she laughed aloud at her own mental joke, but ultimately she shrugged away the urge.
“You owe me,” she pointed down the hallway lazily, before letting her head drop back against the stone, “Did that wall kill your mother, Uranophane?” Tanzanite grinned, closing her eyes in hopes that the room might stop swimming, “S'okay. She did you a disservice with all of... all of...” Tanzanite paused, then gestured to Uranophane as a whole, “That.”
“So. Urannyphanny, why all of the hand breaking?”
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Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 1:12 pm
Uranophane's fists clenched by her sides, her fingers wriggling and working into her palms, making that distinctive squeaky noise of stretched vinyl. It took a moment to realize that she was trembling a bit, and struggling to catch her breath -- teleporting down here had taken a lot out of her, and keeping her adrenalin levels up afterward had been a bad idea.
She was exhausted, and her jaw had welded shut so tightly it was making her face hurt. The knuckles on her hands smarted like a b***h too, probably bruised a bit by this point.
But this sort of pain was preferable. At least she had control over it.
"None of your goddamned business," Uranophane finally said, after taking the insurmountable effort it required to pry her teeth apart and speak. "Are we even allowed to bring junk like that in here?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 8:16 pm
Tanzanite shrugged, rolling her head from side to side with a lazy smile. It was a rare state of peace for the young Captain, or as close to it as she ever got. “S'not junk,” she corrected, “Queenie's out. People to kill. World to conquer. Busy lady, that one,” Tanzanite looked off into the darkness and winced as the arm at her side dug it's claws into her own leg. While the appendage was very much a part of Tanzanite, it's loyalty to Beryl was unfaltering. It was at once a gift and a burden, a leash that kept the often loose-canon officer tightly bound to the wishes of their iniquitous monarch. It's bloodlust exceeded the Captain's own, but the slightest thought that painted Beryl in anything less than a deifying light was intolerable.
“Where's ********' Kunzite when you need 'er,” the Captain slurred, and the appendage seemed to wither at the name. Tanzanite's memories were the youma's memories, and few were more horrific than the event which had joined the two. “If she can't get this ******** thing off maybe she can pry that stick outta yer a**.”
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Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 7:38 pm
Great. There hadn't only turned out to be someone else in one of the only empty rooms left in the entire goddamned subspace, but the someone else was also tipsy. Marvelous. Fantastic. That's the thing Uranophane needed right now, a pointless conversation with someone in a state of mind that made them utterly worthless to talk to. She'd wanted to be alone. Usually the Negaverse was the one place in the world she could count on to get a moment of silence, and often she'd found it worth the enormous energy cost to teleport there to get just that.
Except now, at the one point in her life in which she wanted to forget the entire rest of the world even existed, she had to share the room with Tanzanite after half a bottle of wine and who knows what else she'd had to drink before she came in here.
"Some of us around here prefer to operate by some actual god damned standards," Uranophane said through gritted teeth, moving away so she could stare moodily at the shards of glass glinting at the both of them from a ways outside the doorway. "And I don't need the Queen's special little pet project trying to tell me what those are."
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