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 Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:25 pm
It had been one week since Penny had discovered she was also Cimmerian, Page of Pluto.
In that time, she had more or less gone about her life business as usual, aside from the odd text sent to or received from Kam. He was the only person she knew that was like her. That made them instantly friends, and with him picking up a job down at DCNN, they were going to be seeing a lot more of each other.
With a show to produce every night and material to review every day, Penny found it startlingly easy to avoid whatever duties she might have as a superhero living in Destiny City. It was only when she discovered that being in uniform could help her run faster (and therefore save time in her cramped day) that the petite producer decided to become Page Cimmerian once more. Just a quick dash home in record time!
It had been awesome for less than five minutes.
Cimmerian was not even halfway home when a fire-breathing youma dove out of the shadows and began to attack her. She half-heartedly fired off an arrow or two, but the things were blunt at the ends and she still had a hard time notching them on the bow to begin with. As far as she was concerned, that made the weapon utterly useless. Which meant that she was, in battle, utterly useless.
Breaking out at a sprint, Meri wove between buildings, rolled over cars, and leapt over park benches. No matter how fast she ran, it felt like the youma was never far away. And what it lacked in proximity to her, it made up for with its fire breath. A tongue of flame licked across the back of her skin, singing the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. "s**t!" she swore loudly, diving for cover behind a tree.
It was up in flame within seconds.
Cimmerian kept running, even as tree after tree was set on fire by the youma, a veritable arrow pointing out her exact location. And probably the spot where she was going to die too.
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:32 pm
It probably was not the most fantastic of ideas to start running among trees, or through a park for that matter, with something that could breathe fire chasing closely after you. As newly-awakened Page continued to dash across of grass swaths of it were set ablaze just behind her, some of the flames even reaching up to tickle the heels of her frantically pumping feet. The landscaper, needless to say, would be pretty pissed off the following morning.
Not that Cimmerian was really thinking about the landscaper's feelings.
Which was the sole thing she currently had in common with the only other person nearby.
The place had already been pretty deserted before, and the rampaging monster Cimmerian had led there ensured that any sensible human (or animal) remaining would have high-tailed it out of there by now. But apparently, Kurma was not the sensible type. At the very least he didn't seem to harbor any concerns for the fire being spit all over the place, or the monster that was spitting it. It might have well been a particularly noisy squirrel or discarded plastic bag catching his attention.
It was a truly dramatic, downright horrifying chase scene, and one headed straight in his direction. And yet all he had to offer to Cimmerian when she turned a corner to duck behind a closed snack kiosk was a lackadaisical grin, his head quirked quizzically to the side.
"Well, now, this sure is something you don't see every day."
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:49 pm
When Cimmerian came tearing around the corner, she didn't slow down, not even when she saw a strange man with a glowing orb and fantastic scarf standing in her way. The petite page put both hands in front of her and gripped the stranger on each arm, spinning him in a circle. He was her human shield. Hopefully, he was fire resistant too.
"A DRAGON IS CHASING ME," she said loudly. Her voice echoed through the empty park, bouncing off the burning trees. Mint green eyes were frantic, and her grip on the dark-haired man was iron-clad.
On the other side of the snack cart, the dog youma (who just happened to breath fire) let out a bellow of choking black smoke skyward. Cimmerian had her bow slung around her body, the quiver at her back still teeming with arrows. "Hey, you, buddy," she said, giving him a shake, "who about you and I not die here? Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
A tall plume of fire licked over the metallic roof of the snack cart. Out of reflex, Cimmerian shrunk down as small as she could and buried her head in the other powered being's stomach. There could be no shame when her life was on the line.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 12:48 pm
Cimmerian's gaze, fraught with panic, would lock with one that was anything but. The stranger's eyes were unusually pale in color and, albeit showing a touch of surprise at all the sudden manhandling, carried no signs of any sort of distress. He had a look about him that, strangely enough, had a 'fancy seeing you here!' air to it, as if this were a chance run-in with an old friend from high school.
"Not feeling up to playing the hero, huh?" he asked, craning his neck backward to try and maintain some sort of eye contact as the page smashed her face into his chest. "Well, that's fine, I'm sure someone else will take care of it, this place is pretty packed. Still weird, though, not gonna lie." There was a tangible shifting of his torso under Cimmerian's cheek as he offered the world a shrug -- the fire-breather responded by sending another shrieking stream of flames at the little snack stand. It crackled and warped under the heat, and small bits of it began to catch ablaze.
Kurma seemed pretty unconcerned that their shield was about to collapse. The monster was on the verge of breaking through, and he was turning his gaze around his surroundings as if enjoying the scenery (which, admittedly, was quite lovely when there was less terror thrown into the mix).
"I'd tell you to hang on, but looks like you got that covered already," he grinned. Then he hitched an arm around Cimmerian's waist, and then -- and then her feet were no longer touching the ground.
And the monster began to shrink into the distance. They were floating away. Their feet were dangling a few yards over the park's manmade pond, a gentle breeze teasing at their hair.
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:29 pm
Page Cimmerian thought the idea of being a hero was spectacular. It was the execution of those deeds that gave her pause. She was the kind of girl who kickboxed every day, but had never been in a proper fight. She preferred to make verbal attacks against her enemies. The man who she clung to seemed utterly unphased by all of the terrifying things going on around them. It both bothered and amazed her.
“Can’t play the hero if I’m dead,” she said, ducking back behind the much taller man.
Squeezing her eyes tight, Cimmerian tried to will the creature away with the fury of her thoughts. She felt an arm around her waist, eyes widening in surprise – and that was when she realized that were flying through the air. “s**t,” she said loudly. He was holding her tight, but Cimmerian was a woman of checks and double checks.
Both arms clasped tightly around his midsection. For good measure, she wrapped her legs around him too, all but gluing herself to his cream-toned outfit. “What kind of Knight are you?” she said, pressing her cheek against him. Part of her wanted to close her eyes; another part couldn’t stop staring. It was beautiful to see the city like this, even if this aerial tour was being provided by a total stranger of unknown origin.
Right now, the calm man with the glowing orb was exactly what she needed.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:55 pm
"Hey, don't worry about it, check it out," grinned Kurma, and with his free hand (he was letting his ball dangle at his side) he pointed outward towards the youma and the snack stand, now little flame-covered blobs the size of one's fingers. "This is what I meant about the place being packed. See?"
If Cimmerian had the courage to peel her face away from her improptu ride and take a look at where she was pointed, she would be rewarded with a small treat of a spectacle. A teal-haired blob in the familiar garb of a sailor senshi had leapt into the fray, all drama and enthusiasm. He gave an excited cry, audible even from this distance, that must have been him invoking his attack, and then proceeded to make short work of the youma in a sparkling display of magic. The fire-based monster didn't stand a chance: its new opponent was punching it with a small wave of ocean water.
"Yeah, gotta love those senshi, huh?"
They drifted over the lake for a while, watching the snack stand smolder. Kurma wasn't in much of a hurry to get anywhere -- or, rather, he'd had no destinations in mind in the first place. When Cimmerian piped up with her question, though, he responded by baffledly blinking at her. There was a somewhat quizzical look on his face that suggested he didn't know whether she was being serious.
Then he offered a good-natured chuckle, and hitched his legs up like he was sitting in an invisible beanbag chair. It made it a bit easier for the Page to settle herself without worrying so much about falling, at least. "Calling me a Knight... that's a good one. How'd that idea get into your head?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 3:31 pm
The feeling of floating was not a natural one for Cimmerian. She gripped Kurma hard, even as he told her to take a gander at the surroundings. A deep breath swelled in her lungs, and she turned her head slowly, one wide green eye glancing down at the ground -- oh, the ground -- below as an unfamiliar senshi swept in to finish off the monster she had just escaped. <********," she stammered, a tiny shake rattling her frame. Meri usually put up a better front than this, but she was flying through the air with no parachute other than this total stranger. The woman was finding it difficult to dig up any of her normal confident bravado.
Her fingers dug deeper into Kurma's back, her cheek flattening against his chest. It emphasized her shortness, but she had much more important things on her mind right then. Things like... not falling. Her eyes widened on the changing scenery, flickering back and forth with equal parts terror and fascination. It was a view of the city she had only experienced once before when she tagged along in the news helicopter. Free-flying was something entirely different.
Despite Meri's nerves, Kurma seemed to remain unaffected. It made her prickle at him curiously -- and with a touch of jealousy. "Why wouldn't you be a Knight?" she said, eyes still locked on the disappearing ground. "One week ago, my concept of crazy s**t in DC was limited to the senshi and the military guys. And then there I am, minding my own business in a bar, and suddenly I'm holding a bow calling myself the Page of Pluto next to a guy who feels convinced he is a Page of Mars. We are making things up as we go, okay, and -- please watch out for that ******** church steeple, oh ******** ********, I am going to diiiiiie."
Her face buried in his chest against. She murmured into the fabric, "Please don't drop me, strange flying man. Please don't drop me." And then she went back to squeezing the s**t out of him.
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 8:57 pm
Truth be told, Kurma could hardly remember the last time he'd been manhandled this much. It was sort of interesting. Out of all of the sensations one could experience when under an atmosphere and over solid ground -- gravity, the breeze, the overwhelmingly endless sounds and aromas -- physical contact had always been the rarest. People tended to keep their distance from strangers. He had always been a stranger.
Some people in his position may have made some sort of complaint, or at least a wisecrack, at Cimmerian's clinging. With Kurma, however, there were none. Surprise, yes. Amusement, definitely. But it all stopped short of any commentary. All he did was wear a curious, almost childish smirk in response to her behavior.
"It always starts with a story of minding your own business around these parts, seems like," he observed. They managed to dodge the steeple, but not without the woman's hair scraping briefly and distressingly against it. "Guess it's a mass case of your business suddenly minding you. Hell, that's how I got my wake-up call this go-around." He still had an arm wrapped around her waist, though his grip wasn't nearly as strong (or frantic) as hers was. At least he wasn't showing any interest in dropping her... it was still a long way to the ground, after all.
"As for your question..."
Kurma was a bit of a slow speaker sometimes, especially when responding to others. It was as if he was always in some sort of placid trance that he was brought out of every time someone asked him something. As it were, he trailed off for a second or two, and they floated along a bit further before he finished his thoughts.
"If being a Knight is like being a senshi, then that means you are a fighter... a defender, and I am neither of those things. Therefore, I can't be a Knight."
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 12:53 pm
Even if Kurma had chosen to comment on Cimmerian's clinging, she would not have budged. As far she knew, he was the only thing keeping her from a deadly fall. It wasn't that Penny was particularly afraid of heights. As a child she was an avid climber of trees of varying heights. But floating mile after mile above the ground was another beast all together. She wouldn't get scraped knees from falling here; she'd get a split skull. So long as they were floating off of the ground, Meri planned to keep Kurma as a physically close as possible.
When her hair brushed the steeple, Meri swore into the chest of the floating man. She would have ripped him a new one... if they were on the ground. As it was, she just continued to cling, praying each moment he would set her back down. "So you're not a defender -- are you also not a dropper? I'd like you not to be a dropper." Meri had a thousand questions for this stranger full of riddles and floating powers. It was simply too hard to focus with the city slowly shrinking away.
"I would really love to talk more about this, really -- but can we maybe grab some ground under our feet? I'm not made to float," she said, glancing up from his chest to try and meet his gaze.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:11 pm
Perry had never been averse to heights either. They probably would have gotten along growing up. Though it definitely would have been without the expectation that someday they'd be floating along high up enough in the city that only its more impressive apartment and office buildings still met them window-to-eye, and all without the assistance of a helicopter or plane.
At her request, Kurma took a cursory look at the mostly empty air around them. "Oh," he responded, the single note of sudden awareness dropping to the street below. "Guess I wasn't paying much attention to where we were headed."
He picked a random high-rise rooftop a few meters away from them (not technically the "ground," but he figured it was good enough) and drifted them over to it so that Cimmerian could hop down to the ground without much trouble. For a moment or two his own feet tapped on the concrete below them, as if he were testing it -- and finding it solid, he was right back to floating again.
"There we go, safe and sound," he grinned. "Now, I think it's my turn to ask you something, right?"
Kurma waited for a second or two, and then continued.
"If you're a Page of Pluto... why aren't you there?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:22 am
Not... paying attention... to where... they were headed? Cimmerian felt her stomach drop. Her life was in the hands of a man who wasn't even really noticing where they were going. Oh god. Her fingers clenched involuntarily. Lucky for her, Kurma did not appear to be a murderer. When she asked it, he moved them over to something close enough to the ground for her tastes, even if it was still impossibly high.
Booted feet tapped on the flat concrete of the roof, and Meri released Kurma with a relieved cry. She hopped down and immediately dropped to her stomach, lying flat on the ground. "Oh, dear god," she said, voice muffled by the pavement. "I never thought I would be so happy to be face down a shitty concrete roof." She laughed, all nervouness dissipating out of her. In a span of seconds, she went from whimpering and terrified to more or less at ease.
Until he mentioned Pluto.
Cimmerian whipped her face around, staring up at the much taller man from the ground. She sat up crosslegged, resting both elbows on her splayed knees. "Why aren't I on Pluto?" she echoed, arching an eyebrow. "Because we live... on Earth." Her words were slow, labored, like Kurma might have some sort of learning disability.
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 3:31 pm
"Don't that seem a bit weird to you, though?" Kurma asked, smirking down at the Page on the concrete. "Living on Earth while working for Pluto, I mean. Just think about that for a second."
He had copied Cimmerian's crosslegged position by this point, complete with his hands resting on his knees. There were, however, a couple of distinct difference with how he was sitting: for one, he wasn't really sitting on anything. He was just floating in midair in a sitting position. Also, he had stopped caring much about his orientation in the air, so now he was sitting mostly upside-down.
"You'd be surprised at how many people live on this planet when they're pretty much not supposed to have shown up here," he continued. "That's the case for senshi, anyway. Can't say for sure what this means for you." At that, he offered a small shrug, and swiped at his sash in an attempt to stop it from dangling in front of his face. "But I can give you a lift to Pluto if you want to check things out for yourself. I remember how to get to that place."
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Posted: Mon May 09, 2011 7:31 am
Cimmerian glanced over at Kurma, blinking like a child who had just been asked about nuclear physics. "W-what?" she said, adjusting the bow strapped over her shoulder. "I work for Pluto." The words echoed in her chest. Like before, the night when she awakened, Meri could feel something true there, even if she didn't really know what that truth was, or how it was intrinsic to her soul.
The fact that he was floating seemed to have little effect on Cimmerian now. She knew the man could fly. A little floating was not much comparatively. Her eyebrow raised up involuntarily when he began to spin upside-down, but she was too interested in this business about Pluto to really focus too much on any one of the many weird things Kurma was doing.
"A lift to Pluto," she said sarcastically. "Well, sure! And why don't we bring a snack too? Maybe have ourselves a little intergalactic dinner date. You know what -- yeah. Of course, I would love to go to Pluto. Let's saddle up, cowboy. Maybe if I run really fast we can make it there before sunrise." Cimmerian hopped to her feet to complete her sarcastic showing. She crossed to the floating man and attempted to drape her arms over him with a flourish. "Just don't call me spidermonkey," she said in the same mock seriousness. "Not unless you really mean it."
Cimmerian did not actually think for one second that Kurma was capable of taking her to Pluto.
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 6:01 pm
"Intergalactic dinner date."
Now it was Kurma's turn to raise an eyebrow. If Cimmerian hadn't been able to determine that he was being serious, he was having just about as much success telling that she was being sarcastic. And so, he replied, in all sincerity: "That would be tricky. Last I checked, there aren't any restaurants on Pluto. And if the state of things are the same everywhere, then all the ones nearby are gonna be out of business." He crossed his arms and gave a quizzical little frown.
Cimmerian had managed to wrap her arms around his shoulders; an interesting feat considering he was showing no interest in floating upright anytime soon. So it looked sort of like she was trying to stop him from floating away, the side of her face threatening to smash into his ribs.
Kurma uncrossed his arms slightly, so he could wrap a finger around his chin. "There's plenty of places to eat on Earth, though, I guess," he mused. "But that comes later. Pluto now. Just clear your mind and try not to get too attached to where you are now, that makes it easier."
His companion barely even had time to blink. A brilliant light had engulfed them just a second after he was finished talking, erasing the cityscape around them.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 7:34 am
When Cimmerian comically draped herself over the floating space guide, she had intended it to be just that: a joke. She thought he got it too with the comment about an intergalactic date. The petite woman had just begun to remove herself from his shoulders when a sudden lurching sway gripped her stomach. Bright light flashed all around her. Her arms instinctively tightened around Kurma. One hand clenched the scarf at his throat as if she might use it to pull herself out from this madness.
Her face had apparently made a home in him. She buried it now between his shoulderblades. “Kurma,” she said flatly. “What the ******** was that.” There was no question to it, just a blunt manifestation of the shock and surprise that rattled her. “I have had a lot of surprises tonight, Kurma.” Did saying his name help calm her down? Maybe. In any case, she showed no sign of lifting her chin up. “Kurma, why do I feel weightless again? I don’t think I’m ready to be rocketmanned off the ground again. Kurma. Kurma, I feel odd.” Her babbling was a constant stream muffled by the fabric of his shirt. Meri had no idea what had happened, but her feet were most certainly not on solid ground anymore.
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