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 Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 9:21 pm
  This is a PRP between Van (Kurama no Koishi) and Kiran (Kazu-chan). Setting:Hours after their last confrontation, Van and Kiran find themselves in very different environments—the Legionnaire in a medic tent, and the Noble in an interrogation room. Can Van overlook her duties to help Kiran, as he did for her?
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:13 pm
When Van first opened her eyes after incurring her injury, she sat bolt upright. Too late she realized her mistake, and a sharp pain shot across the wound on her back. It had been healed shut and secured with glue and a bandage—the medic in her squad had been able to heal her on the spot—but magic wasn’t perfect, and the captain would be out of commission for a few days, at the very least until her blood supply replenished itself.
Looking around, she could see that someone had had the good sense to take her things with her, including her pack and coat. Whichever of her fighters it had been, she’d be sure to thank them personally later. Her dress, on the other hand, was unsalvageable, and a set of regulation captain’s gear lay on the table next to her. It was pitch black outside, and her body didn’t ache from stiffness, so it was safe to assume that she hadn’t been out for more than a few hours.
Her last few memories were hazy, but the last thing she remembered was a concerned face hovering above hers, shouting her name to keep her from going under. Kiran. Had he gotten away? There was no way he could have after the alarm had been sounded, which meant there was only one place he could be right now. The captain jumped off the cot at the realization, scrambling for her swords and shrugging into her clothes hurriedly.
When she emerged from the tent, she could hear shouts come up behind her from one of the nurses, admonishing her to lie back down and wait til morning. Van ignored them however, breaking into as fast of a jog (it was more of a hobble) as she could manage in the direction of the intelligence offices—her offices. Her intentions were still unclear, but the sooner she got there, the better.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:50 pm
Hours had passed since his scuffle with Van in the safe house storing secret Legion files. His concern over Van's well being had cost him the chance to escape, and now he sat in an interrogation room with a Legionnaire demanding answers of him. But his mind was still focused on Van, worrying about whether they had healed the wound quickly enough. As soon as the other Legionnaires burst into the safe house, they seized him and dragged him off. He barely got a chance to see what was done to help Van, but he knew they wouldn't just let one of their own bleed out. That was probably one of the few things that Legion and Noble shared: they cared for their own.
Again and again, he was asked why he was in the safe house. Kiran simply grinned and cracked a joke at each question. He wasn't about to give up any information to them. The side of his face stung fiercely, his eye swelling up. He could taste blood in his mouth from the bust lip that they gave him. If they thought they could get him to talk easily by using him as a punching bag, they were mistaken. Kiran didn't plan on telling anything, no matter what they did to him.
"What were you looking for in the safe house?" demanded one of the interrogators. He slammed his hands down hard on the arms of the chair that they tied Kiran to. He leaned in close, trying to look menacing as he glared Kiran down.
"Whew!" Kiran exclaimed and would have waved his hand before his nose if his arms weren't tied down. "Has anyone ever told you that your breath really stinks?" The insult earned a punch straight in the face. Kiran cringed, biting down on his tongue to stop a shout of pain. That time, he was pretty certain, his nose had broke.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 11:42 pm
“Where is he?” were the first words out of Van’s mouth when she barged into the intelligence offices, a practiced anger blazing in her violet eyes. She was pale, much paler than usual, but her spirit suggested that she was fine, well enough to be angry over the fact that Kiran had nearly killed her. It was clear by the stunned looks all around that the story had been passed around the office, likely when they’d brought the blindfolded Noble back to interrogate. Someone eventually lifted a finger to point in the direction of one of the underground rooms.
But Van had already gone. The basement floor took much longer to navigate than usual, the dark and the stifling air making it hard on the yet anemic Captain, but her will was stronger than her weakened body, and she pressed on. Only one room was being used, as evidenced by the fact that there were no guards around except for the two outside one closed door.
“Open the door,” she ordered as she approached, pleased when the two Lunarians obliged with little hesitation. She pushed past them into the room. “All of you, get out! This is my interrogation!” She was met with four pairs of very surprised eyes.
“C-Captain, shouldn’t you be—”
Van whirled on the fighter, practically snarling, “Do I look like a cripple to you, Private?!”
The offending Lunarian made a sound that resembled a meep, and shook his head quickly. “No, ma’am!”
“LEAVE! If I so much as see any of you on this level by the time I’m through with this s**t—” she jabbed a finger at the Noble tied to the chair, “It’ll be more than just blood you’ll lose!” She glowered visibly as they shuffled out of the room. Captain Van was much different from everyday Van, but it certainly had its uses. She just never thought she’d see the day she’d be rushing to save a Noble.
Kicking the door closed behind her, she turned on Kiran, the expression on her face changing instantly when she laid eyes on the fighter. “Hey... are you okay?”
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:52 pm
If the pain in his chest from the kick Van gave him hadn't made breathing a pain, the broken nose did. Each inhale felt like tiny splinters of glass scraping across the inside of his nose, and he had to change to breathing through his mouth to lessen some of the agony.
"You might want to start answering some of these questions instead of treating this like a joke," the man said, standing up straight again. He cracked his knuckles with one hand over the other fist. "Or the real pain will start."
Kiran almost laughed at the man's comment. The man looked about as intimidating as a two year old when he said that. "Oh good," he said, leaning his head back with a great big grin. "I was wondering when the fun was going to start."
Before the man could even wind up for another punch, the door opened, and shouts followed it. Kiran tilted his head to get a look around the man that stood before him. He was relieved to see Van back on her feet, but he hoped he masked that emotion well by pretending to look frightened by her sudden appearance. The lower ranked officers, however, were paying more attention to Van, so he doubted anyone caught that brief moment of relief. Van was actually quite amazing to watch as she commanded the men under her. Kiran distantly wondered if he'd ever give off that commanding aura when he had to lead a squadron, but he was still quite a long ways off from making Captain.
"Hey!" Kiran complained, not appreciating being called "s**t." She was very convincing, even to him, in acting like she was going him a worse interrogation than the men. He really was scared for a moment that she was going to turn around and make him pay for making her almost bleed out.
"Me?" he exclaimed, completely flabbergasted by her question once they were alone. "I should be asking you that! In fact, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't have left the hospital in your condition." He cringed back. "I really didn't mean for that to happen. If I had known you were going to be injured like that, I wouldn't have kicked you." Because despite everything that they had been through, all the fights, Kiran never planned to cause fatal injuries to her.
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Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2012 2:43 am
“Kiran,” she began, shaking her head once as she leaned over so that they were nearly eye level, “You know I’m tougher than that.” Her tone was slightly admonishing, but still more friendly than the one she’d used on her men. The truth was she really had nearly died back in the safehouse—it was only the miracle of magic and prompt treatment that permitted her to stand in front of him now—but the minute she acted vulnerable, even if everyone else knew it was a farce, was the minute they stopped taking her seriously. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
The unease in her stomach only increased the longer she examined his bruised and swollen face. The thick blood that streamed freely from his nose reeked faintly of iron, and it was all she could do not to pull her hand over her face. It shouldn’t have been disgusting to her. A product of war, she’d done much worse to numerous other Nobles: wrenching out teeth, cutting off limbs, branding their skin... it was different because this one had a name.
Most other Nobles would have left her to bleed out. She would have done the same in his shoes, and she probably had at some point before, too. Legionnaires protected themselves, and Nobles protected their own—this left little room for overlap, but Kiran had blurred those lines for her. It was stupid of him, she decided then, or otherwise very very smart of him. Van owed him for calling for help at his own expense, and as much as she hated the debt, she’d hate herself more if she simply ignored it.
He talked to her like she was his friend. Sometimes she saw him as a friend, too. Still, the higher up she went in the ranks, the more impossible it seemed to be able to maintain any friendly relations with the Nobles, as her life was devoted to fighting them. Kiran had a certain humanity she wasn’t always sure she had, and that, if nothing else, was something she admired in the man.
Tearing her eyes away, she lifted her hands to the armrests of the chair, unfastening the belts to free Kiran’s arms. “I’ll be fine,” she said, to assure both herself and the man sitting in front of her, “You shouldn’t be here.” She repeated her words from earlier in the night.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 8:51 am
"Of course," Kiran said, and he did know how tough Van was. But in that moment when he saw her not moving on the ground with blood pouring out, he felt panicked and afraid for her. He had seen a number of fatal wounds during his time on the battlefield, and many times those injuries had led to death. Sometimes they were too grave for a healer to heal, and other times they simply couldn't get the medical attention they needed in time. How could he run away with Van in a condition like that? He couldn't, not when they were friends, or at least civil toward each other, outside the war, sometimes.
He laughed, but it hurt. His chest still ached from the kick and possible bruising. He hadn't had much of a chance to check on that while being interrogated by the other Legionnaires. Once free, he rubbed at his wrists, which felt like the straps had cut in deep into his skin. He probably looked like a horrible mess with his face used as a punching bag.
"This probably was one mission I should have passed on," he agreed with his gaze cast down at his wrists, surveying the damage to them. They had red marks from the tightness of the straps, but he didn't see much in the way of bleeding. Even if it had been someone else on the mission, there was no way to say that things couldn't have taken a similar turn in the fight. "But you know how it is," Kiran lifted his head with half a smile, "you're given a mission and you do it."
He leaned back in the chair. "What happens now?" He met Van's gaze, not sure if he would like the answer to his question. "I doubt I can just simply waltz out of here now." The Legionnaires had plenty of reasons to attack him in a mob if he tried. Simply being a Noble was a good enough reason for some.
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Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 1:29 am
Van was silent for a while, momentarily torn between what she could do and what she was supposed to do. Before, she never was the type who wanted to answer to anyone, but the sense of duty that had been pounded into her by long years of Legionnaire training was unmistakable now, goading her to dispose of the man sitting in front of her, or at least tie him back up. It was something she never imagined she had to fight, but the inner battle was there, raging inside her head.
“How can you laugh?” she asked when he did, a frown set on her pretty features. She wasn’t upset at him, but at the situation. It was another thing that was different between them; the captain thought the present circumstances were quite humorless and didn’t understand why the choice of life and death was so funny. Maybe she just needed to lighten up. “It’s your neck or mine, you know.”
Motioning for him to stand up as she opened her mouth to speak again, Van continued in a lowered tone, “There’s a way out, but you’re going to have to play dead.” She was so serious about the statement that the absurdity of it all went unnoticed. Social impropriety was the last thing she was worried about; she had to get rid of Kiran without raising questions, and frankly the only way to do that short of killing him was just… pretending to kill him.
Scrubbing the back of her head in a bit of an embarrassed motion, she had the grace to feel ashamed that wheeling off Nobles’ bodies under stained tarps was nothing particularly uncommon these days. “And, uh, it would be best if you don’t let them see you again.” That went without saying, of course, but if he ran into any of the men who’d been interrogating him earlier she was positive she wouldn’t have an easy time explaining that one.
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Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 12:05 pm
The smile quickly vanished from his face at Van's question. His eyes lowered as a memory tickled at the back of his mind. "Maybe, there really is something wrong with me," he murmured, more to himself than to Van, though he hardly tried to keep her from hearing him. It seemed like ages had passed since that fight with Huang, but he could still recall the assassin and what he said quite vividly. Was he really the the crazed killer that Huang described that night?
"I'm very much aware of that," he said, knowing just what the stakes were. It would reflect poorly on Van in the eyes of her fraction if he managed to escape, and as strange as it may seem to any other Lunarian, he didn't want to damage her reputation. He knew it was a silly notion to cling to a friendship with someone on the opposing side, knew in a situation like this that that friendship could be the death for both of them. It would be easier for them both to simply hate each other for being on opposing sides, but since their days in the Academy, he had learned to give Legionnaires the chance instead of hating them outright. How could he think to turn his back on Van now after all they had been through, good and bad?
He lifted his gaze and stared at Van. 'I think I can manage that," he said and stifled a laugh. This really was no time to laugh, and nothing about the seriousness of the situation was funny. But the idea made sense after she said it. It was a good idea to sneak him out. If Van hadn't stepped in, Kiran wouldn't be surprised if those interrogators had kept beating on him for answers, possibly killing him in the process. His taunting response hardly helped him in that situation, provoking them to respond with harder punches.
Kiran pursed his lips, thinking on that. "Hm, maybe a change in looks is needed," he said thoughtfully, tugging on a lock of blue hair. He could avoid the men that interrogated him. It wasn't like any of them kept their faces hidden from him. But there was always that off chance that he could run into them expectantly on the battlefield or in the city.
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 4:07 am
Van almost felt bad when her words wiped the smile clean off of Kiran’s face, as if she’d been chastising a small child. It was a small feeling in the sea of worry that clouded her mind, though, so remorse quickly passed as the captain turned her attention to more pressing matters... such as getting them out of here. Goddess willing, they would probably meet again under other circumstances which allowed them to make jokes and laugh, but only if Van got Kiran out alive now.
“Stay here,” she ordered, not that she expected him to get up and leave when the building was full of potentially hostile Legionnaires. The captain disappeared out of the room for a few minutes, to return with an old wheelbarrow and a tarp. Neither were particularly clean, the result of being involved in the shadier dealings of the Legion, but the dead weren’t supposed to care about such things. Van stood at the end, holding either handle of the wheelbarrow as she nodded toward the Noble expectantly. “Get in.”
Seeing Kiran so serious was a bit disconcerting, since she was used to him grinning or laughing for one reason or another, even if they were fighting. He might have thought there was something wrong with him, but now that Van had a moment to dwell on it, seriousness didn’t really suit the man. Taking the smile out of his face was like taking the life out of him, but this was exactly what they were trying to accomplish at the moment.
The only thing that signified Van’s amusement at the irony was a brief twist of her lips. She didn’t dare smile outright, though, in case he thought she was crazy for smiling that he was “dead,” and in case she set off a reaction. Besides, she’d just called him out for not being serious enough; it wouldn’t do to turn around and become the face of humor and silliness. “Maybe,” she answered when he suggested a disguise, though she couldn’t think of what she’d change about him. “But I doubt they’ll remember you in a few weeks’ time, so just lay low until then. Ready?”
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:50 pm
Kiran saluted her as Van left the room. Stay here? It wasn't like he had much of a choice but to follow the order. If he left the room, he doubted he would last long, even with his stealth skills, before being discovered by some angry Legionnaires and ending up dead for real. He reached up and gingerly ran a finger down the bridge of his nose. With a hiss, he winced. His nose had definitely been broken by that interrogator. He didn't look forward to explaining that to his sister, who he usually sought out after getting hurt in a fight. It was late to think of such things, but he realized that it was probably wiser to seek out Iseul for healing and avoid the worried looks from his sister.
When Van returned with the wheelbarrow, Kiran eyed it with some distaste. Again, his options were limited in this situation. It was either get in the wheelbarrow and escape without farther injury or get carted out as an actual corpse instead of just pretending to be one. There really wasn't any other choices beyond those two. He climbed into the wheelbarrow and sprawled out in it, trying to look as much like a corpse as he could. In past missions, he had to blend in, sometimes pretending to be just another Legionnaire in the crowd while trying to eavesdrop for information, but this was the first time he had to act like a corpse.
"Well, I don't know. I'm pretty hard to forget," Kiran said with a quick twitch of his lips. He couldn't completely drop the joker act. It had become too much of whom he was. But he tried to be more serious, given the situation. A few weeks of lying low would be dull, but he could manage it if he tried. "Don't think I have much of a choice," he said, leaning his head back over the edge of the wheelbarrow. He stared up at Van and threw on a grin. "Ready when you are."
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:26 am
There was an unmistakable, but brief twist of the lips as Van listened to Kiran’s response. Hard to forget? Sometimes, as now, the captain wished it wasn’t so. She could only hope that he didn’t run him and his mouth into trouble later—or if he did, that she didn’t have to save him a second time. Later, the next time they ran into each other, perhaps, they’d probably laugh about this incident. Until then, the captain had to maintain her air of seriousness. She hadn’t gotten to where she was by making jokes and laughing at everything.
As Van peered down at him now, sprawled out in the wheelbarrow, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt at his current state. The blood streaming down his nose and his swelling face shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did, and the feeling mixed and mingled with the deeper, baser feeling of allegiance to the Legion. Van wasn’t going to solve this conflict in a day, of course, but she did wish she could take him to a healer or something before she dumped him outside to fend for himself. Unfortunately, she was going to be hard-pressed to find any sort of doctor who’d be willing to help Kiran in this precinct.
“Sorry I can’t take you to a healer right now,” she murmured, regret coloring her tone, “but I think anyone here would do more harm than good, y’know.” Exhaling sharply through her nose, as if she was a bit upset about it, she threw the tarp over Kiran’s prone body so she wouldn’t have to watch him grin in spite of the clear pain and injury. It just made her feel worse.
Kicking the door open with her foot, Van made a quick glance up and down the hallway before grabbing the handles of the wheelbarrow and backing out of the cell.
“Captain Au.”
“Ah, Captain Makdam.” Van didn’t stop as her colleague greeted her from down the hallway, but a bit of nervousness prickled in her gut when she recognized him. Fighters were easy to order around, but captains, less so. She could only hope that Kiran remained ‘dead’ as she spoke to him. “What brings you here?”
“Routine patrols and cataloguing. You?”
A pause. “Just... taking out the trash.” The other captain seemed to accept this once he understood her meaning, and they shared a knowing laugh, though Van’s was admittedly edged in anxiety even as she turned the corner and was out of sight.
It wasn’t too long before they were outside, and Van lifted the cover from the wheelbarrow. “Hey, get up,” she whispered at him urgently, looking around again for signs of the patrols, “You have to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:24 pm
The wheelbarrow was definitely not the most comfortable thing in the world to lie in, but he held his tongue on any complaints about that. What could he really say? He was anything but ungrateful for Van's help right now. And if saving his life meant riding in a dirty, uncomfortable wheelbarrow, what right did he have to make any complaints? He was definitely going to owe Van big for getting him out of here alive. It was a risk to her own life and career to try to sneak him out of the Legion camp. She could have simply left him to the interrogators to beat him, possibly to death, for information, and he would hardly have blamed if she had chosen that route instead.
He tilted his head back and stared up at her. A quick, breathy laugh left him before he could stop it. "Don't worry about me," Kiran told her with a quick quirk of his lips. "This isn't as bad as it could be." The pain of breathing through his nose aside, and the slight ache in his chest. The interrogators could have done a lot worse damage to him, so he considered himself lucky that Van stepped in when she did.
As soon as the tarp was over his body, Kiran went silent. He was dead, and dead men didn't talk. Even though it seemed like he ran his mouth off all the time without much thinking, he did know how to be quiet when the situation called for it. Many hours of sitting in shadows and lurking on rooftops had taught him to be still for long periods.
When he heard another Legionnaire speak to Van, Kiran had to restrain himself from tensing up or gasping or gulping or anything else that might give away that he wasn't actually dead like he pretended to be. Through the whole exchange, he felt nervousness bubbling up in him. What if this Captain Makdam wanted to take a closer look at the "trash" that Van was taking out? It seemed like a routine thing, disposing of Noble corpses when interrogation resulted in death. He doubted there would be any reason for the other Captain to actually check the "trash," but it didn't stop him from being nervous about it.
When the cover lifted, Kiran breathed in deeply, through his mouth, as he sat up. The clean air was a welcome after that experience. The tarp and wheelbarrow didn't have a very pleasant smell to them. He hurriedly scrambled out of the wheelbarrow, understanding the need to be quick. But he hesitated before leaving right away. "I really am sorry about everything," he confessed with his head down. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen." He didn't want to chance a Legion patrol come by and catching them. With half a wave to Van, Kiran took off.
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