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 Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 4:40 pm
There wasn't a whole lot for him to be doing in uniform just now -- with a hint of a limp, with an unwieldy boot, with a bruise heavy across his cheek and eye, Ilmenite [general or no] didn't exactly cut an impressive figure. And he also wasn't equipped for battle, for duking it out, instead opting for the teleport-blip to keep him ahead of any trouble while also exploring out new territories.
He'd had close calls with several low-level senshi who'd been even more careful about avoiding him than he had them, which was gratifying at least. It had been enough to leave him frowning, a bit, unsure if their numbers had gone down or the opposing team's had gone up, or if it had just been chance --
Well. Ilmenite settled on a bench in the park, shamelessly well lit by streetlights, to catch his breath. Foot propped up on the wood beside him, and hat stripped off so he could work fingers through his hair.
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Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2013 11:12 am
Remarque had been vaguely lazy of late, when it came down to Negaverse meetings. He had a list of things to ask Benitoite, but hadn't put in the extra effort to actually call the General. Given that he had such luck in randomly wandering into the male in the late hours of the night, he assumed such was the case when such a strong chaos aura flickered onto his radar. Completely utilizing the advantage the mirrors around the park provided, it took only a few seconds for him to cross the distance between the two.
Stepping out of the mirror, he instinctively brushed himself off; he had made it a scant few steps out when his eyes landed on someone totally unexpected—someone he'd never seen in his life. Which was unfortunate, as he'd so been eager to catch up with Benitoite. The stranger was only a minor nuisance; Remarque wasn't going to let it ruin his evening. He sauntered over just as casually as he might have if it had been Benitoite he'd caught lounging. "You look a little rough there, General. Some senshi giving you a hard time or something?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2013 8:03 pm
Chaos approaching: at least Ilmenite's senses hadn't dulled in that regard. Chaos that came out of nowhere, as well -- his head lifted and dark eyes fixed on a senshi he had definitely met before. He got a flick one-over, and then a second one, somewhat amused. Senshi. Maybe he was a senshi magnet...
"...you folks always make me feel so underdressed." Which, admittedly, perhaps he was: coat open and hat off, hair unruly, belts clinking against the bench beneath him. Even among the Negaverse, he tended to look a bit scruffy. He blamed the plaid. Slowly, he shifted, sliding his foot down to make a bit room for the stranger.
"Maybe I could paste a few bows on. Glue some feathers here and there. Shiny bits of ribbon. What think you?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 2:35 pm
Remarque eyed the extra room but instead took the liberty to stand; he waved his hand somewhat indifferently as if to dispel the offer. "I imagine it would be quite becoming."
Small talk was always fun, though Remarque didn't like to hold a conversation when he hadn't the faintest idea who he was talking to. Extending a hand, he introduced, "Remarque. I don't think we've met, General…?"
There was a curiosity in his voice beyond simply searching for a name; Remarque had patrolled frequently enough that he considered himself practically a local; he had run into many faces, but never before this general. A lieutenant or captain he might have shrugged off, but a general he didn't know? Where had he been hiding?
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Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 4:40 pm
"Ilmenite." In contrast, he'd been gone for longe enough that every face these days seemed to be new, or near-to -- and, well. Everyone seemed so young to him, now, and fresh, even if this one seemed to be high ranking. Thinking about it, he puffed out a breath and swept off his hat to smooth down his hair and tried not to focus on the fact that he should really be getting a job --
"I've been abroad." He didn't need to explain himself, of course, but he did anyway; offering a flash of a smile as he shoved the hat back on. "And back to a shockingly calm world. You know not one senshi or knight has tried to jump me yet? And me with the current handicap..."
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Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2013 2:52 pm
"Ah, abroad?" Remarque prompted, repeating the General's name in his head a few times to ensure he didn't forget it any time soon. "Sounds interesting. I like to imagine that in recent months, things have been going…according to plan, as it were."
There had been only victories for Chaos; the ambush a few months back, while not something Remarque had enjoyed, had proven that Chaos could hold its own and could overpower Order when needbe. The senshi were mostly easily controlled; Remarque had met very few that preferred fighting over conversation. The knights were not as easy to persuade into discussion, though being an eternal gave him all the advantage he needed when it came to dealing with them. "Anything interesting happening elsewhere in the world?"
He didn't care about the common, everyday affairs; he wanted to know the dirt. This war had ravaged Destiny City, but beyond that he had no idea how far it stretched—or if there was anything even worth knowing about it from the far corners of the world.
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Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 12:44 pm
"Interesting like here, you mean?" It was light, except -- behind his eyes, a shadow passed, his expression thoughtful as he took Remarque in. Absently, Ilmenite tipped his injured foot back and forth and debated his answer. No way he was going to talk about what was going on abroad, and this was mostly because he hadn't worked terribly much over there. He'd been scrabbling too much to keep his life together, had been crippled by the injury, had the added complications of family. But also, there was something than rankled about coming back here.
"I'm curious. When you say 'according to plan', do you mean 'absolutely nothing has changed'?" His tone made it a joke, which was good, because otherwise it touched at the edges of treason. "It's strange to come back after a long absence to find things almost the same..."
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Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 1:44 pm
"I do, in fact," Remarque replied rather easily as he leaned back; he didn't know how much this general had experienced before leaving, but Remarque knew that, in the grand scheme of things, nothing much had changed. There had been no major victories or losses in the past year, no amazing new developments, no nothing. A few minor tweaks in leadership, a few new tactics.
"How long have you been doing this?" he asked, glancing over. The way Ilmenite spoke made him assume the man had been a part of this for a while now—which certainly wouldn’t have surprised him. The Generals of the Negaverse always seemed to have the best stories; they'd been around, seen things that the Dark Mirror Court was only just beginning to experience. Remarque figured Ilmenite was as good as any General to bother for information. "…And what were things like, back then?"
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Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 7:45 pm
Ilmenite shrugged at that, but it wasn't a very good answer; wasn't very useful or fair. He would have liked to be glib, more sarcasm or jokes, and it showed on his face, even if it didn't come out his mouth. Different from he'd been at recruitment, certainly. And that made him sigh, slowly, straightening where he sat.
"I don't know. We used to fight, and work toward something. But maybe I'm just remembering back to the days when we had actual opponents and goals, as opposed to wandering restlessly in circles." And yes, that probably did go over the line. He shook his head, mouth shifting. "We fought, with the BMC. And we gathered, and we thought it was going somewhere, but now I realize that we have no idea where or why."
He raised his eyebrows, at that, and shrugged at Remarque. Something else behind his eyes, that he didn't quite voice.
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Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 8:37 pm
If Remarque had any belief that Ilmenite's words were toeing the line of decency, he gave no indication of such. There were few he knew that were even willing to talk of times past—few who had been around for so long. It was a curious conversation to be happening—and not one he would have expected from a General. Except, the General didn't seem to be blowing air out of his a**.
He supposed it felt a lot like that, now—wandering in circles. But that's what this whole thing was, right? A game of tug of war. Sometimes they gained ground, sometimes they lost it
Either way, things were settling into a comfortable niche. A nice little routine, with no surprises. Sans the few new recruits in the DMC and Ares' disappearance—and those ******** wraiths—Remarque's life had been much the same this month as it had been last month.
Which had its merits, but in war?
"Maybe someone ought to get on that. The Negaverse has such large numbers." He didn't know how many, only that they still greatly outnumbered the Dark Mirror Court. "I would think that would help keep things interesting. Can't you make goals of your own, pick your own fights? Or is everything chosen for you by your superiors?"
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Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 10:26 pm
An amusing question, that, and Ilmenite hummed in reply, thinking about it with a flash of a smile passing across his mouth.
"I don't have the mind for strategy. Zed's the one's with the brains, so I generally prefer to do as my General-King says." This came out slow, with just a hint of something suggestive behind it. Zink had said no public displays of affection, but he couldn't quite help himself. Tigers didn't change their stripes just because they joined highly-regimented military organizations.
Absently, he fished around for a pack of cigarettes and tapped one out into his palm, toying with it instead of lighting up immediately.
"I mostly just try to make friends."
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Posted: Mon May 13, 2013 10:05 pm
'Zed' was an unfamiliar name; he knew of the General Kings through the grape vine. He had met Zinkenite, and Howlite before him—though she had been only a Captain at the time. He nodded as though it was a name he wasn't curious to hear (though made a note to ask a more trusted agent when one presented himself). "Making friends? And this is something the rest of the Negaverse supports? And here I was thinking your major focus was on eliminating the threats to our world."
Not that he claimed to know much about anything the Negaverse did; Leto knew more about that than he could ever care to know. "What does making friends get you? You have a lot of senshi fawning over you, trying to side with you? Knights, maybe?"
…How did the Negaverse even win people over, anyway? How were youma not enough to chase everyone away?
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Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 4:46 pm
For just a moment, Ilmenite looked confused; fawning senshi? Adoring knights? Remarque would be able to see the moment realization clicked on his face. Not exactly subtle, in came with a sudden wide flash of a smile, finally digging out his lighter too. Smoking on the job. They could just deal with it. Somewhere behind Remarque, smoke gathered into a faintly humanoid shape, approaching slowly at the smell of it --
"I don't mean make friends with their side. I mean on ours. Like your lady Leto." Of course, this came with a twitch of amusement as well, Ilmenite blowing smoke at least away from the senshi. Thinking about Leto as a lady was an amusing thought, to him.
"People who defect to our side, and of course you mirror types. And the Lieutenants, I guess, though I'm a bit out of touch, I admit."
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Posted: Sat May 18, 2013 2:40 pm
Unwilling to admit that he might have misinterpreted the male's words, Remarque just smiled. "That certainly seems a good plan." In its own way. The Negaverse could have used some more approachable, friendly agents. Leto had mentioned nothing of Ilmenite, though he had never really pressed her for such information. Someone needed to be keeping the bond between the two factions, and while Remarque tried, his heart just wasn't in it, most of the time.
Individually, he had a number of agents he liked—respected, even. As a whole, he typically found himself far more pleased to belong to the Dark Mirror Court. "Well then, I wish you the best of luck in withholding and expanding your friendships. It's been good to meet you, though I don't have the luxury of smoke breaks. I'd best get back to seeing what energy my wraith can turn up, if you don’t mind."
That and the fact that the smoke was a bit more appealing than he cared to admit; he'd long since quit smoking, that the urges to pick it up again were hardly far and few between. Sitting right next to a smoker was never easy, and Remarque figured they had a good enough chat that it wouldn't ruin the evening if they parted now.
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 10:46 am
"You can do whatever you want, I think." Ilmenite, for his part, had plenty of time for smoke breaks, and plenty of smoke to cause them: the cigarette burning down between his fingers and, all at once, the youma that had been creeping along the edge of the roof. It passed over Remarque, surrounding him with smoke that for just one moment entirely stole his breath away -- and then was past him, leaning in to suck in the cloud curling up from Ilmenite's hand.
Smokey encouraged him to keep smoking, in the small ways. Almost thoughtlessly, Ilmenite flicked his youma the cigarette, and it was immediately devoured, still-burning in the pit of his stomach.
"I guess that's also a subtle hint that I should move my a** and get something done. Or perhaps just get home." He stood slowly, clumsily, saluting Remarque in a crooked way and opting for the easy way down. Walking was too hard, so he just disappeared from sight in a blink.
The youma lingered one more moment before following.
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