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 Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 3:44 pm
Camelot was sitting on the top of the roof of the library, a little hesitant to start patrol. That creeping feel of dread was back, and it was making him not want to get out there, just as it had done the night before. He realized now, at least, that it was just there when he powered up. Since he always had his shield with him, he always felt it.
If he banished the item away, maybe it would help, but he rarely did that. Even for his own good, he just felt more like himself with the shield there. Which was ironic in this case.
Because he was decidedly not feeling like himself.
Sighing, he told himself to just get on with it and go and protect those that needed protecting. That was his duty, to keep peace in the city and make sure to try and end any future skirmishes with any Nega he met. Spread the word and all that. Usually he was all for it, but tonight he just did not want to get off the roof. So he sat there, legs hanging down over the edge, watching the street beneath him.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:12 pm
When Alfheim had powered up that night, he didn't exactly bolt away off into the darkness to attempt his regular patrol regimen, or more like continue to attempt a formation of a regimen.
Instead he stumbled in response to the realization that something was just very off. Which was especially unsettling since the basic concept of knighthood was only just starting to not feel off. It was easy to chalk it up to inexperience, but it was unsettling enough he couldn't just ignore it without explanation.
Unfortunately his list of candidates who might actually be helpful was short. He didn't know that many knights. He basically had just met Camelot and Valhalla and Valhalla was so, so not on his list of people to go begging for help from. His sister boasted a fairly extensive knight index but he didn't want to go crawling back under her thumb either, especially with her annoying 'I know everything, except for when I don't' way of handing out information.
So Camelot was his only real choice.
Remembering where to find him without actually calling Zia took a bit of bumbling around, but eventually, he did manage to make his way to the front of the library, and was suddenly acutely aware of a knight's signature.
Except he didn't really see him. Alfheim rarely thought to look up to rooftops. He liked his feet very firmly planted on the ground thank you very much. So after a puzzled glancearound he called out in a doubtful voice, "Uh... Camelot?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:30 pm
Camelot spotted the knight down below, tilting his head in wonder. He heard his name being called and realized that Alfheim did not realize the knight of earth was above him. That made Camelot smile, and feel a little more relaxed, though not by much.
He put his shield down onto the roof. He didn't banish it, but he didn't need to bring it down with him. Not that putting it down did much to make him feel better, but he supposed he could try and trick his brain into thinking it did.
Pushing off from the roof, he fell down to the street below, landing just behind Alfheim as lightly as he could. He turned and ran a hand through his own hair, hoping he hadn't startled the younger knight with his drop, since he had known Alfheim was not looking up and thus did not know Camelot would just drop in on him.
Really, Camelot should have just called back to him first.
"Ah, I'm here. Sorry, I was up there," he pointed to the roof top, the top of his shield visible over the edge, where he had been sitting.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:23 pm
Alfheim jumped and whirled around when something landed behind him, heaving his shoulders in a deep inhale and exhale to cope with the surprise. Of course he knew Camelot had to be somewhere, but he was jumpy nonetheless.
Anxious feelings of dread did that to a person.
He looked up where he pointed, frowning a little and then shaking it off before he could ask something stupid like 'why?' because it seemed kind of obvious for practical and typical trope reasons. Apparently his initial instincts weren't cool enough for the superhero shtick.
Instead he had a much more productive 'why' question. "Why'd you leave your shield?" It seemed kind of silly until he processed that his unsettled feelings emanated from his bottle. Thinking about it made him unclip it from his belt and cringe before glancing back up at Camelot. "You too? Is this normal?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:57 pm
Camelot smiled thinly, looking nervous as well. The distance between himself and his shield did not ease his anxious feeling. It was something he had never felt before, though he knew more than enough about being nervous and pent up. He'd been anxious before, he felt it all the time during his day to day. Work stress, fear of all the unknown things that could go wrong. Worse now that he had a baby on the way and a ton more to fret about.
But this was all different.
"Ah... it's been giving me a little... trouble."
He knew he wasn't the only one but that was nothing to really ease his mind. If something was doing this, causing them all to feel a strain, a pull, then there had to be a reason. But it was not something they could follow, and he wasn't sure he even understood what he was feeling. Much less begin to think up why.
"Yeah," he nodded, when Alfheim confirmed he had the same issue. "It's strange, isn't it? It's no better if I have it up there or not. This weird feeling... I don't know what it means."
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:43 pm
"So... not normal," Alfheim stated with a strong exhale. "Good to know," He said with a wry smile in a very bad attempt to cover up the fact that the fact this felt so terrible and an experienced knight could not explain it had sent his thoughts trying to reason it into something rational ended up spiraling into 'oh god, oh god, we're all going to die'.
"It's never happened before? Not once?" He was almost begging for an answer to give him some peace of mind.
"How are you dealing with it?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 10:45 am
Camelot scratched at the back of his own neck, taking a slow, deep breath to try and ease his emotions at the moment. He wondered if the nagging feeling of something bad going to happen would go away of its own accord, or if something bad really was waiting on the wings.
He certainly hoped that was not the case.
It would be much better if the bad feeling just went away without cause, and he would be alright with not learning why it had ever happened so long as it did not lead to anything. That was a fair trade, he felt. But just waiting and not knowing when or if something was going to go terribly wrong was going to become intolerable, of that he was already certain.
"I don't believe so," he said, with a shake of his head. He had been a knight for a long while, back when they were new and he was always explaining to people what he was, even before he really understood it himself. And he'd never gotten any such feeling from his weapon before, good or bad. It had always just felt like an extension of himself.
"Honestly, I'm just trying to ignore it for now, and see if I can gather information from others, see if its worse or better for anyone, or if anyone else is feeling something different to what I'm experiencing. So far... I haven't learned anything."
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:03 am
"Well..." Alfheim kind of wished he hadn't been so proactive in finding an answer and just stayed home and chalked up the mystery to his inexperience as a knight. "s**t," He finished lightly with a laugh and heaved his shoulders with a sigh.
He didn't know what do either, really. Everything in him said brace for impact which was a useful instinct for the survival of humankind for disaster but wholly annoying for the individual who had to suffer it for an extended length of time.
He didn't even realize he had been gritting his jaw until he adjusted it and realized the muscles in his face hurt.
"Maybe I should just go home and smoke," He suggested, and he wasn't talking about cigarettes either. He'd done a pretty good job of 'mosty' quitting but god, if there was ever a time for weed it kind of seemed like right now.
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 12:36 am
Camelot agreed with that sentiment. 's**t' summed it up pretty well, and he chuckled despite himself. He was feeling stressed and anxious, but he couldn't really do anything about it.
Going home, powering down, sounded like a great idea, really.
"I need to patrol a bit more, I think, but going home and relaxing sounds like a very good idea. Not that we have the same methods for relaxing." He hadn't smoked since he was a kid, in any sense. Not that getting drunk was much better, but it worked for him.
Unless his wife told him not to, and he would have to find another way to unwind.
"I think we'll just have to wait to see how things fall out. Not the most comforting advice but..." they were all stuck. They would just have to stay in contact, in case anything happened.
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:47 pm
That was definitely an unsatisfying answer, and Alfheim shifted uncomfortably on his feet. The tension was awful, the anxiousness unbearable. "Ha, well, I might have to just go for something a little more mundane anyway, I haven't checked on my stash in a while," And then a thought occurred to him and he frowned. "Unless my buddy or Zia had sticky fingers." It was totally possible. Zia was constantly absorbing any chemical way to calm down and silence the extra voice in her head, and his business partner was less than amiable when he wanted to be, and overly familiar with taking his things.
"I swear to god I'll kill 'em." Normally, Alfheim just reacted to his things being stolen, used, taken, consumed, with mild annoyance before carrying on with his life. And hell, if they asked permission first, not even that. He was a doormat for all intents and purposes, giving without thought and submitting without much of a fight.
But not now, with these weird feelings and problems. Tonight he was just unpleasantly hoping he got to punch somebody.
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Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:32 pm
Camelot pretended not to hear any of that.
"Well, we could always blow off some steam by sparring a bit? Get some energy out, see if we can't... I'm not sure." Relax the bad feelings away. it was a viable option sometimes, when he was feeling pent up and anxious. A good method to escape that feeling was to let out a bunch of energy.
"It might help, anyway, just to loosen us up a bit."
He rubbed the back of his own neck and looked a little sheepish. He did not usually ask for sparring, in his own right, because he was capable enough on the battlefield and, really, he had an aversion to accidentally hurting someone. He had recently managed to kill a Negaverse agent, largely by accident, and he couldn't bear it if he hurt one of his own.
But the weight of the bad feeling from his weapon was enough of a motivator to put his other concerns to the side.
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Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:15 am
Sparring was a word people had been tossing around a lot lately, though Alfheim had managed to successfully dodge all orders and requests and other indignities meant to motivate him to train that way.
He was not a fan of fighting, and not especially out of some pacifistic bent but because fighting was work. And while he was physically pretty built, even if a page, he was also not a fan of asking people to punch him.
"Uah--... maybe?" Except tonight wasn't really normal.
"Like, training, right?" Zia and Maia had tried to get him to train with Shang that way, but even then he dodged it with conversation topics that distracted them into a series of debates with each other about titles and lineage and genetics.
He looked down and formed a gloved fist, as if testing if he was actually capable of making one. He wasn't his sister, he didn't go around punching everyone he saw.
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Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:55 am
"Training, yes. It might help take the edge of, or at least give us something else to focus on. I'm not the best fighter around, but I've picked up a thing or two over my time as a knight. I think I could be of some help." He smiled, almost ironically, though he was being truthful in his words.
He did his best to be useful, to help those that needed help and to offer everything he knew to those that asked. It was not just how things worked and what he had learned of their enemies and allies, he could supply battle help as well.
At least, that was the plan.
He lifted up his shield, smiling and nodding his head. "Go for it. Uhm. Wait." He dropped his shield, thinking better of letting him punch a solid metal weapon. Anyway, it was the source of his anxiety. "Okay, now let me see what you can do. Don't worry about holding back."
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Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2013 6:18 pm
"Ah," Alfheim still looked fairly unsettled as he looked to Camelot and back to his fist. Foreign concept was very foreign.
"Are you sure?" He asked, totally oblivious to how silly it was for a page to ask a knight that.
"I... uh... okay."
It was incredibly meek, but Alfheim never claimed to be a roaring lion. Maybe he was more like a sloth. But either way, the following punch had about as much fight in it as his agreement and he took a swing that would mostly just be a light tap of the knuckles, assuming it hit anything at all with as obvious and easy to dodge it was.
He made pie, he didn't punch things!
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