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 Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 6:29 pm
The sanctuary Alfheim. A naturally defended valley, bordered by wiry trees and thick underbrush that had long overgrown and crept out into the fields, bright with lush green and stark white flowers and ivory structures in various stages of decay under the harsh light of the sun. And for the time since it's keepers died off, there was the sudden presence of three figures. And it's new keeper.
Zia's yellow eyes were wide when her bare feet hit grass. Actually, Alfheim Page's were too. But where he had been a raging ball of energy and confusion and she had been entirely blank back in his familiar little disaster area, their demeanor flipped like a light switch.
"What's happening?" He asked weakly, blankly staring at the ground in front of him.
And Zia's own blankness, that was a thing of the past.
"HOLY s**t," She yelled and her knees half buckled before picking her back up like a fangirl who'd just ended up on the red carpet. "Holy s**t, holy s**t," She ran a few feet one way and then back to Alfheim, who'd collapsed to his knees, so she could grab the sides of his face. "Do you have any idea where we are?!" She asked in an excited screech, right in his face.
"...No."
"Oh my god," Zia couldn't stop for his weak brain to catch up, or that's how she saw it anyway and turned grabbing Chris by the shoulders, "Holy s**t ******** what Chris we are in Alfheim," She was still talking in an excited, babbling half squealing yell. And running, because she dropped Chris in a split second to dart off. "Oh my god!" heard off in the distance.
"What's happening?" Alfheim asked no one in particular. No one had answered his questions before, he was not expecting answers.
"Oh..." Zia ended up sprinting back into the nearby vicinity, stopping to lean on her knees and breath. "I... moment... too serious... couldn't..." After a few short breaths, she stood upright again, grinning like she was biting back hysterical laughter. "I forgot.. It's... just... I can't.. nice tights, Legolas."
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 6:56 am
Alfheim... It was beautiful. It wasn't as broken and barren as Ganymede, which must have once been a bright and beautiful place as well... but like the Moon, it had been left in ruin. Valhalla was a little better up-kept, but it was a fortress with a rather complicated labyrinthe beneath and seemed to only respond to his touch, and maybe a few others. But he wouldn't dare venture outside on Jupiter more than he had to.
Chris didn't bother telling Zia to calm down. She was beyond such suggestions at that point. Instead, he crossed his arms to sulk moodily to himself. He had been so sure... He had been so hopeful... No, he didn't want Zia in more danger than she already was, but if she'd been a knight... If she'd found a way to reject the parasite that was Zirconia... maybe she would be able to live her life a little more, well... normally...
"Don't make fun of him," he chastised her with a snap, although his voice was quieter than it normally was when he was angry. Right now, he was more upset than anything. "He can't exactly choose what he wears." Chris had already powered down, but the fact that Noah had made jokes about what he was wearing earlier... -- wait, why was he defending this guy??
"You're a knight," he explained almost begrudgingly as he did his best to ignore how Zia was prancing around like a mad woman. "Well... a Page... but everyone starts out as a Page if they're a knight."
Chris paused to glance up and show Noa-- Alfheim... a weak, sheepish smile. "It's been a while..." Lame... lame Chris... The dude just turned into a knight! He didn't want to catch up with his sister's best friend... or however their relationship worked.
"Sorry... I didn't want you pulled into this," he admitted, once again avoiding looking at Zia. He'd wanted it to he her...
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:48 pm
Zia's insult fell on deaf ears anyhow. The revelation he was a... Whatever, had Noah hoping and praying someone had slipped him something and be would wake up on the floor of a bar from a bad trip.
He went from his knees to flopping face first into the grass, unintelligibly mumbling something about home going home or sobering up.
"Eh," Zia waved off the chastising, a little too used to ignoring it. "I'll have to use that joke again when he's less catatonic. Jeez, Chris, will you look at all this amaz-- hey." She totally noticed he avoiding looking at her. The resulting feeling felt like a twist of guilt. She totally felt guilty. Zia had accepted her fate with a bitter brand of resolve, but she didn't want to, if only for Chris. She wanted desperately to bend and break the universe to please him. But she couldn't. It wasn't happening.
Alfheim went ahead and ruined the moment anyway, snapping up the instant he managed to piece a few things together. "Wait, you... you're that kid. The weird little guy from next door who was always following her around. Or vice versa. I dunno, I was stoned like... all the time back then, I can't remember." Noah wasn't fond of his label of the family loser. It didn't mean he did himself any favors. "Either way. The ********? So what, this just spontaneously happens?"
"Nooo, silly," Zia snorted "You're a reincarnated warrior of epic destiny. Obviously. "
"Oh, well, obviously," Sarcastic Noah was sarcastic.
"And I'm sooooo super proud of you," Zia added, treading a thin line between sarcasm and genuinely sickly sweet as she pinched both of his cheeks and was met with a look of utter hatred for it.
"Actually, it's an inheritance," A new voice rang in as an observing spector manifested in Noah's line of vision.
Somehow, after the knight thing and teleporting to gay gay land of gay flowers, from Noah's point of view, at this level of weird, why not. "Ghost lady says you're wrong so there," He argued flatly, though his speech was a bit garbled by Zia mashing his face when he tried to talk.
"Ghost what. What." Whoever Noah was talking about, she couldn't see them. "Aw, did you get hit after all?" She shifted gears to paranoid searching, seeing if his skull had suffered any damage.
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 1:15 pm
And even after trying to stick up for this guy, he still manages to make fun of him...
Chris felt his eye twitch in frustration when Noah recognized him. ‘The weird little guy from next door’ was all he had...?
Deciding to pretend he didn’t hear him, Chris looked away from the siblings, his arms still crossed as he stiffened defensively. Noah didn’t get it.
“It was supposed to be her,” Chris hissed bitterly under his breath, unable to force denial more than that, seeing as Alfheim was there... and obviously Noah... and more obviously not Zia. He had seen her though... in his memory... How could this have gone wrong??
Unless... it really never was supposed to be her.
His teeth grit together as Zia praised her brother, unable to look at the two, but unable to completely ignore what was being said. The mention of a ghost had Chris glancing over his shoulder, as if he would be able to see what was going on. But he saw nothing.
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 6:38 pm
All of the weirdness and total disconnect from reality had Alfheim able to believe there was a ghostly figure present with ease, even though Zia was currently inspecting his head. She powered down, exhausted and having her fill of being in what she called 'Zirconia's skin'. But even back down to jeans she was still being overbearing and pulling Alfheim's head every which way.
But even with the total comfort he had believing that woman wasn't a hallucination, at least not any more than the rest of this, Chris' muttering and hers lined up much too closely for his comfort.
"It was supposed to be her."
The corners of his mouth turned down sharply and he pushed Zia off of him. "What? The ********, what's wrong with me? Then why is it me?! If you want her so bad than take her!" If he was standing he might've stomped his foot like a child. It wasn't like he asked for this. And even if he did, what made his sister so much more capable?!
"Of course it was supposed to be her," He said with sickly saccharine sarcasm, turning his glare to Zia's confused face. "It's always princess Zia. Whether she's queen of boarding school or ******** up, why not, she's daddy's favorite porcelain doll even when she's broken."
Confused might've been an understatement. Zia had flopped off of him when he pushed her but his anger came out of nowhere from her perspective. But she hadn't heard Chris, and she couldn't perceive the fourth wheel in their party. What was going on? Noah had never been bitter. Ever. Well, the clearest way she remembered such an out pour of resentment from the mellow guy was way, way back to ancient times when he was seventeen and she was only four. And for some stupid reason, seeing such visible outrage directed at her made her feel like she was going to start crying like she was four years old again too.
"I-- I... uh..." She just stammered. It was all she could do.
"I do not understand," The ghost said with deliberate enunciation and a clear frown. "A man hasn't held the title of Alfheim in generations. Especially not when there is a clear candidate right there. What are you doing? What did you pull?"
Faced down with both guilt from Zia's expressions and accusations for some ghost no one else was apparently seeing but him, Alfheim heald his head and rested it on his knees, "GOD, just shut up!"
"I... I'm not talking," Zia managed to mumble weakly, only to be snapped at with, "Not you."
Her dropped jaw from the initial outburst closed into a frown and she moved away from him to flop and sit close to Chris, hugging her knees. The novelty had worn off already. She was ready to go home.
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Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 6:06 am
”Hey, leave her out of this!” Chris snapped, his subdued mood turning hostile when Zia was pulled into the accusations, obviously thinking that Noah was now angry because of his comment. He’d been the one to say it, so of course it had to be him this douche was mad at.
“I’d gladly take her if I could! But you’re the one who picked up the ********... what is it, a cup?” his glare traveled from Alfheim’s face to his hand. He had little experience with this older brother of Zia’s, seeing as he was a delinquent and Chris had had more important things to do than get to know him.
At the moment, he was glad he’d never had much interaction, because he certainly didn’t like him much, now.
“She’s got a lot more to deal with than you do!” he raged defensively. “Maybe if you weren’t such a ******** yourself, you would get a little more regognition! Her life is constantly in danger and you’re pitching a fit that you’re not special! Guess what? You’re not,” he said, flinging a hand to point at Zia. “She should have been the knight because she is already cursed by that damn cat from a parallel universe taking over her body, and maybe if she was a knight and able to push Zirconia out, she’d no longer be a target of the biggest magical b***h in existence!
“And she’s not broken,” he added, his anger peaking. “So you shut the ******** up.”
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Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 7:08 pm
Alfheim stared and stared and stared in unbridled contempt for is lack of understanding. Some ghost b***h no one else could see was ranting and raving at him, and Zia, though Zia was unresponsive for obvious reasons. And weird-kid-from-next-door-forever-ago was a magical space knight who was going off about parallel universes and magic cats.
And Zia was crushing him with all of the guilt because he'd gone and snapped at her and she was just hugging her legs and hiding her face from the nose down. She wouldn't even make eye contact at this point.
During the day, with normal situations with normal people, Noah had a long fuse and a mellow outlook, but because he couldn't deal with drama long enough to handle it. And he not only couldn't handle this s**t, he couldn't understand it or flee.
He went back to collapsing face first in the grass. "Go awaaaaaaaay."
"We can't go anywhere until you take us back," Zia mumbled, still not looking at him.
"NOT. YOU." This, however, sent that ghost on a rampage that he was mostly tuning out to a vague, harpy like screeching.
Zia had, at some point during Chris' rant, moved closer. She felt helpless again. Worse than helpless, she felt like a stupid kid again who had to retreat to the neighbors for refuge and as a result, retreated further into Chris' side. "Can you guys please just quit it?" She asked quietly. Even though that was a stupid thing to ask since it wasn't exactly a petty fight over the last piece of pizza.
She did reach over and pull the bottle Alfheim had left on the grass and gingerly played with the charms. "It's empty," She muttered. The novelty hadn't only worn off, it had sunk in how unfair it was. That he had a past and a future and power and she was stuck. Either a terminally doomed guardian cat or a piece of human that would blink out of existence when the others got to cycle through reincarnation century after century. And the weight of that made her want to cry. The envy of the foundations they had was crushing, and now her brother, or rather, Alfheim, who had to be born into her brother, just to rub it in her face because the universe was a b***h.
And she was apparently a masochist because she was still curious. "Who... who do you think you were? Back then?"
"Nobody! Nobody! He was nobody! I was Alfheim back then! I am still Alfheim until this pathetic, doughy soft cook's boy is worth something!" Not that anyone could hear the frustrated screams. The specter of the dead woman was barely perceived by one out of the three and he was doing his best to tune her out.
"Yeah well," Alfheim page's muffled voice sounded through the ground. "Apparently nobody."
"And you're a man!"
"Okay, I mean, come on," Alfheim flopped his head back up to glance at the two sulky twenty somethings over him and gestured one flailing hand at the empty air next to him. "Can no one seriously hear the knight b***h who's overly offended I don't have tits?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 7:01 pm
Chris stared at the man in utter bafflement. Was he just... going crazy? He opened his mouth to tell Alfheim to stop yelling at Zia when she stopped him. Unable to deny her request when she sounded so worn out, he slowly shut his mouth, lowering his eyes to the ground.
So, when Zia decided to ask about Alfheim’s past, Chris let out a huff and turned away from both of them, scowling darkly at the field of flowers. It was a shame he was in such a pissy mood. It was quite a beautiful place to behold.
But with Alfheim shouting about invisible people, it was just a little difficult to understand...
Unless... he was having some kind of vision...?
Chris glanced back over to the man with a renewed sense of curiosity... but he was still pissed that he’d been yelling at Zia, and still heartbroken that it had been him and not her.
“What is she saying?” he wondered, doing his best to keep his voice even. He really just wanted to go home and pretend this all had never happened. “Do you think you could have.... I don’t know... could be related to her?” he finished lamely, not entirely sure what he should and shouldn’t believe.
“Up until I went to Valhalla and found out about my past life... well... all the other knights I’d talked to who’d been to their wonders kept talking about an ancestor of some sort being able to talk to them... I didn’t know, uh... reincarnation was even possible. Not like it is for senshi, at least.”
And... he felt like he was just rambling pointlessly, and kicked at the grass beneath his feet.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:57 pm
Zia entirely mistook all of Chris's scowling and glancing away when she dug closer. Entirely. But Alfheim's little crazy moment was distracting enough.
"God, I don't know," Alfheim groaned and flopped back face first in the grass before sitting up properly, looking entirely unamused at this situation. "She hasn't shut up since she flounced over. Like, just, on and on. So she's saying a lot of things. Like how she's Alfheim, I'm nobody, why the hell am I a dude," He paused, though, mostly because, well, this woman apparently only he could see also paused, apparently seeing at least an in to communicate.
"She wants to kno-- god, b***h, slow the ******** down."
"...I don't think it's a past life memory," Zia said with a wide eyed stare, voicing and dismissing her one theory all at once. It couldn't be, because he was communicating with it. She turned her attention to Chris, looking legitimately dumbfounded in god knows how long. The universe didn't catch her off guard so much any more. When it did, it was a little surprising. "Ancestor? No, what, that's--- no you're all reincarnated from your war," She was totally arguing with him. It was all she could think to do when the very foundations of the logic she'd been operating on had been rocked to all hell.
"Ancestor, yes, that," Alfheim butt in, mostly because this screeching lady seemed pretty excited someone was grasping something. "She wants to know who you are," He said, pointing at Chris. Mostly because that was the easiest question. "And y-- She's not my daughter!" He had been offended, and just like that, the ghost had lost her translator so he could go back to fighting with her. "Do I look even remotely old enough t-- I don't have kids. Jesus, I don't even--- My sister. I don't know! I don't know! Why would I know that?!"
"This is weird," Zia seemed to just blank out, except for the cartoonish level of confusion plastered across her face as she watched her brother flail and argue with someone who couldn't even perceive. And she thought she had a pretty damn good handle on how the universe worked. "You're being weird. Stop being weird." She sounded like she was going to hyperventilate on that third weird. It wasn't okay when other people were freaking out.
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Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:21 pm
”No, we’re not,” Chris countered Zia’s arguing with a shake of his head. “Like I said... At one point, I thought all of us knights had inherited our title from ancestors in the past... but maybe we could be either... or both? But that’s kind of weird...” The thought of being the great-great-great-something grandson of himself was really kind of awkward.
He did stare at Alfheim when the question was directed to him, but the topic changed so quickly that he couldn’t get a word in before the man was arguing with the invisible woman once more.
Zia, on the other hand, he was more concerned about. His past frustrations had melted by this point, and he quickly moved to stand beside her, facing her, and offering her an arm to hang on if she really was going to freak out. Hopefully the years and alternate personalities didn’t make it weird for her, because it didn’t for him. If she’d ever needed a hug or an arm to cling to, he’d done his best to be there...
Now... he could only try to show that he was still there for her, as he stood half-defensively in front of her, as if her brother would somehow hurt her if he didn’t.
“Valhalla of Jupiter,” he called over Alfheim’s yapping about... weird stuff. Hopefully he could at least distract him temporarily to get him to stop freaking out his best friend.
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Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:21 pm
Alfheim was still on this rapid bickering rampage and Zia could only imagine they were talking over each other because there was no other way the other was getting a word in edgewise.
And she was internally screaming because nothing was making sense in her carefully constructed context. Eyes focused on the page, she grabbed Chris' arm and clung hard enough to cut off his circulation.
But everything sort of froze when the Valhalla of Jupiter thing sunk in.
Alfheim's argument ceased and he glanced around, looking confused. "Oh, she shut up and left." And left meant just outright vanished quicker than she appeared.
"So... so it's like a royal title than," Zia was trying to reason it out in her mind. "Well not royal just like... like a title. Like how Tyndareus was the moon king and his daughter was the moon queen after. I guess?"
"Well, she did ask whose kids we were so," Alfheim hooked his fingers in his belt and rolled on his heels in a remarkably similar nervous tick Zia had when she had no idea what to do. He was going to leave out the tidbit that this lady looked a little too close to Zia for his comfort. He had heard enough s**t about how he was not a good fit for the page uniform he was wearing for one day. And he wasn't sure the fact it had to do with a bloodline they were sharing was going to help. He always had to share his toys with her, she didn't get his wonder too, damn it.
"Who's Serge?" He ended up asking out of the blue because without something to rage about he felt extremely awkward.
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Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:34 pm
Chris winced slightly, but did his best to hide the fact that Zia’s grip was a lot stronger than it probably should be. Or maybe he was just more of a wimp than he thought. Regardless, he let her cling as long and as hard as she wanted, if only to keep her from having some kind of mental breakdown.
Was it strange that it reminded him of how things were back when their only worries were about getting top marks in school? And how sometimes huge tests and projects set the both of them on edge? Of course... thoughts like that made him feel rather old, even if neither of them were...
“A title, I guess,” Chris shrugged the best he could while being clung to. “Kind of like... an inheritance...?” He didn’t qualify for that kind of thing, but he’d spoken to others who described it as such.
But when a familiar name was mentioned, Chris turned to face Alfheim, practically dragging Zia with him before grabbing onto her with his free hand to keep her upright.
“Serge was Valhalla’s civilian name, I guess,” he said, his eyes not looking towards the Page, but to the empty space where he could only assume the woman was standing. “It was the other name he went by, at least.” He frowned to himself, wondering if being asked that had something to do with the fact that they’d known each other... not him, but Serge...
“She was that woman I saw, then... when I took you to Valhalla,” he guessed wildly, all this talk about kids and passing down titles making him wonder if he should have ever said anything to Zia in the first place...
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Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 5:50 am
Zia didn't notice any wincing but she was on the same train of thought as him in regards to be reminded of a time when everything was so much simpler. But at the time seemed life altering and dramatic and back then she would've given anything to get out. Now she'd give anything to go back.
"Inheritance. So..." Zia just trailed off. Still processing.
She totally, fluidly allowed herself to be dragged, though.
Alfheim glanced to the empty space and kept looking around. It'd probably help if the b***h came back, now that her question was answered, but she hadn't reappeared since she vanished muttering and asking questions to herself. Alfheim just frowned. The more he processed, the more he felt like his moment of supposed to be glory was being stomped on pretty hard. It was unfair.
He just sort of crinkled his nose at the mention of her being a woman Chris saw. "Woman's kind of a strong word. She's just a kid." Well, Zia and Ala would probably both argue with that assessment, but dying and becoming a ghost doomed to wait at your wonder for a successor to show up before your twenty-first birthday would do that to you, but it was probably also contributing to the look-a-like factor, since they were both stuck in time at roughly the same age.
Zia released Chris's arm finally and just kind of stood there, one hand raised to drum her fingers on her lips as she thought until one corner of her mouth twitched in the vaguest hint of a smile.
Which made Alfheim frown because lately he'd been conditioned to have a knee jerk reaction to that sort of thing. "What?"
"Nothing, just thinking."
"About what?"
"I dunno yet," Zia spread her arms in a wide shrug with a lazily complacent smile that only further unsettled things between the two of them. "You can take us back now." And with that, she tossed his weapon back to him.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:36 am
Chris looked to his best friend in concern when she released his arm, staring at her as she just... stood there, apparently thinking about something. He wanted to ask her, but not in front of her brother, in case it was something she didn’t want him to know.
Even as Alfheim asked her what was going on, she wouldn’t say, which only made Chris more concerned that something had upset her more than what she was willing to show at the time.
But with her request to take them back, he nodded in agreement, holding out his hand to take hers, and then waiting for Alfheim to be ready for them to make the journey back.
The last thing he wanted was for any of them to be stuck in space.
Still... There was something haunting about this place... He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. More like a sense of deja vu than anything, but... why...? Unless this woman... girl... had really known him in the past...
Was it possible for him to have been there before, an entire lifetime ago?Carneli Done? Unless you wanna finish up! <3
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