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 Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 9:06 pm
It had been an awkward morning.
Pandora's stomach churned and rumbled, reminding her of all the stress she'd stuffed into its cavity. There was the residing feeling of leaving Avery's place, belly full of her cooking and mind full of her body. The Senshi adjusted a green cuff, closed her eyes momentarily.
Had it been a mistake? Had they both been clinging to an intense chemistry and mistakenly not waited for their minds to follow up? There had been no story-book endings, no forever-after embraces, not even a mistaken confessions of love.
And yet, the memories tipped in fuzz fluttered through her brain like a fantasy. She could still feel the warmth against her chest and the shape easily caught in her arm. This helped the stress of not having seen Avery since.
Unfortunately, it could not help the unease that accompanied thoughts of fantasy--what if she had dreamed it all; was Avery still trapped somewhere, Chaos seeping her strength? The conflicting parts of her mind could not figure it out.
And there was a new stress, one Pandora had not felt in perhaps a thousand years. It accompanied a soft image, which reminded of freshly dry cotton. She knew Thyone. It was eerie, didn't seem real, and yet was so irrevocably clear that it could not be denied.
Pandora had seen her cry.
The Senshi of Jealousy thought to remove one of these stressed, and slipped quietly into a place still emblazoned into her brain. Pandora paced out the steps from where the lieutanants had disappeared to the point Linarite had whisked away with Avery Hollister.
There had been barely any space between them. Just enough. Fifty meters at most. And it was luck, or perhaps the Negaverse themselves, who had spared Avery's life, not her. Pandora had been completely and utterly useless and she did not like the feeling.
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Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 10:16 pm
She wouldn't find much relief.
Thyone had reviewed the footage, the edits, and had felt compelled to return to the scene to try and piece together small details - help her recall those physical memories in a way that would be useful in her interview.
Her fingers hooked into the fence, hazel eyes tracing the rusted chain link, traveling back to the relief that had turned to fear when she'd recognized the hard jaw of her rescuer.
"Pandora," she breathed, before the burn of order crawled over her skin. Turning her head, she looked over her shoulder, and froze, muscles tightening against her will.
Had she summoned her?
Thyone reminded herself that she wasn't helpless, that the last time they'd met, in uniform, she'd had the upper hand.
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Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 10:44 pm
The city hadn't heard their plea for quiet. Sirens whirred in the distance. The wind carried fruitfully on without care. It was not strong enough to carry Thyone's voice to her, but Pandora felt a chaotic desire swell in her chest as she slipped past the wall which had shielded Avery's disappearance from the cameras.
The redhead came to a sudden stop, feet resting evenly. The Senshi surveyed Thyone with an air of a buck debating whether to use its horns, flee, or investigate a curious, potentially deadly animal.
Something in Pandora's body stirred, confused that the face before her was not covered in tears. Bright, golden brows furrowed and she took in a long breath.
Pandora was waiting for her movie-line. The perfect phrase that was just enough curious and menacing to strike up conversation, perhaps heated discussion. Instead, somebody's yelling laugh broke the silence two blocks down. Pandora cleared her throat.
It was a long, grueling few steps to the chain link fence. Pandora looked through it instead of at Thyone.
"I'm not going to." Attack you tonight, was the remainder of the sentence she couldn't say.
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Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 11:07 pm
She doesn't know who you are. She doesn't.
Thyone repeated it like a mantra and refused to let herself run away, despite the way her heart was racing. Pandora felt too close, overwhelming, though she was outside of arm's reach.
The brunette felt wary, suspicion lingering on her face as she watched the redhead. It felt strange, not to see her instantly angry, aggressive... It was new, and that was terrifying in and of itself. One thing Thyone had always been able to rely on with Pandora was the predictability of her responses.
Right now, that was missing.
"What, then?"
What was Pandora looking for?
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Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 11:18 pm
Pandora glanced to the left, grimacing as she got a proper look of the revealing dress. Thyone's eyes were on her. Pandora swallowed.
What, then?
The redhead wished she knew. There were no words other than those that wished she could tell Thyone she was standing on the place Pandora had felt Avery slipping away from her. Where she had been looked at with eyes that contained a fear not unlike the bits and pieces Thyone showed now.
Pandora got the brief urge to tell her to move, as if that would solve both their problems. Instead, she sniffed, nasal passageway completely clear.
"I. . ." she tried.
Pandora had not come here to see Thyone, not in the remotest of sense. But the brunette was dragging Pandora's mind off the worst of the stress. How do we know each other?
"Did that youma ever make it?" her mind blurted out of its own accord, forcing something into the still between them. It surprised her, and Pandora felt suddenly and intensely uncomfortable. She flicked a piece of dried bird dung on the fence, and her jaw hardened.
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Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 3:22 pm
Pandora's discomfort was echoed in Thyone. She didn't like the way the redhead looked at her, like she was both an irritation and a fascination, and felt more like a display than even around the male lieutenants. She didn't think it could get worse, the way her skin felt like something was crawling over it, until Pandora spoke and hit her with a question like a sledgehammer.
Her jaw tightened, seconds of silence stretching into infinity until she could force out one simple word.
"No."
She didn't tell Pandora that she couldn't teleport the youma to safety. That she had tried to feed it energy as it grew less aggressive when the life started to fade from its seven eyes. That she had called for help, and that the Captain who'd come had grabbed her by the arm, intending to leave the creature behind. When she'd protested, he'd looked at the youma as if he hadn't even noticed it before.
You want me to put the thing out of its misery?
He hadn't waited for an answer before stomping its skull with his boot.
"No," she repeated, hazel eyes blazing as if daring Pandora to challenge her. Judge her.
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Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 3:23 pm
"Oh." It had not been the answer she'd expected. Strange, since she'd been convinced the youma was past healing and since she killed them on a regular basis. She was disappointed. Pandora found herself staring through the cold, metal links. Her fingers curled around their edges and she stared blankly at the world behind it.
Why was fighting so much easier? How could inflicting pain on another human being make so much more sense, feel so much less like being ripped up from the inside than a simple conversation? Maybe, because while there were flickers of Thyone in a past she was afraid to dig up further, her corporeal self still held so much resentment. At the moment, there was no reason to act on this resentment.
The redhead's eyes dropped down to the concrete pathway. They inched over to where Thyone's feet touched the ground. For a moment, Pandora was lost in contemplation, and then she let out the breath she'd been holding since Thyone last spoke.
The Senshi turned, facing Thyone as she did. She took two steps, and paused for a hair's breadth of a second. The fingers at her right side twitched, Pandora's hand elevating with an idea. Her eyes swooped over Thyone's tense shoulder. Then, she shook her head and moved off into the street. If she really needed to, Pandora could come back later, but the solitary thinking she needed couldn't be accomplished while Thyone was there.
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