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 Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 1:31 pm
Her father and brother noticed a marked difference in Christa's behavior as of late. Her stoic demeanor and strong sense of self had been replaced by dejected depression and apprehension. Zach thought it may be something going on with school, her father thought perhaps it was a boy? With the murders and the documentaries describing terrorists being pumped through the airwaves by the voracious media, the Calloway family had much on their minds. If only she would bring home a boy. Something relatively normal. Christa sighed, shifting the books she'd cradled in her arms. With her DCU classes being done for the day, the gray-haired girl didn't have much else to do with herself. Much of her time lately had been so wholeheartedly devoted to senshi business that all other hobbies had fallen by the wayside. Without much else to occupy her time, Christa had wandered through the library and picked up a few books, all depressing subjects. Poe was one of them, the others were recommended by a hipster student who volunteered at the library part-time. The glasses and bad bowtie... Christa would have said something to him about it but she hadn't had the gumption. She decided to seat herself at one of the far tables of a cafe located near the library, an umbrella overhead to keep the heat and sun from her. Popping open the Poe book, Christa sighed, sipping away at her water bottle absently. She didn't even see Paris walking by.
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Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 8:37 pm
For most students, summertime meant a break from schoolwork and classes.
Not for Paris. She'd spent the entire school year developing a nice, structured routine; the last thing she needed was for it to be disrupted by the long absences of summer vacation.
She got up at the same time every morning, let the dog out, showered, made coffee for Chris and tea for herself and breakfast for both of them, then got dressed, did her hair, put on whatever makeup she felt she needed for the day, grabbed her books and headed out the door. Mornings were for class, her efforts to get her gen. ed. credits out of the way so that she could get to focusing more on her dance classes all the sooner; afternoons were for dance in one of the studios on campus.
Sometimes she went out for a quick patrol after she was done for the day, and sometimes she went straight home. If she skipped, she didn't always feel guilty. She wasn't a saint, or a hero. Sometimes she needed some time away from the chaos of war (pun only partially intended), otherwise she doubted she'd be able to keep her sanity intact.
On this particular day, she was on her way home after practice. She hadn't even changed out of her leotard (pink today) or tights (black) yet, though she'd switched out her pointe shoes for a pair of teal Keds. She had her hair tossed up into a messy bun, her dance bag slung over one shoulder, and a pair of sunglasses over her eyes, and she was paying more attention to her phone than she was the other students around her.
Yet somehow she still noticed Christa out of the corner of her eye.
Paris took two steps passed her before stopping in place and turning to do a double-take. She peered a little closer to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Nope, she wasn't. That was definitely Christa.
Without thinking about it all that much, Paris made her way over to Christa's table and plopped herself down in the seat opposite her teammate.
“You read really depressing stuff, you know,” she said by way of greeting, taking a peak at the cover of Christa's book with something of a puzzled frown.Lucifer Force Quick tag before bed~! <3
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:46 am
Sunshine Alouette <3 Also, since Christa doesn't know about Paris' change, all the pronouns will be "him/he" until she is corrected. I hope that's okay? If any time was good for a heart attack, it was now. Christa was all too absorbed in her book to even realize Paris had plopped himself down across from her until it was too late. The middle aged man just leaving the library with an armful of books was lucky not to have Poe launched into his jaw at 88 miles per hour. The gray haired girl looked like she'd seen a ghost - a look of utter fright cast across her face for a few seconds before it could be replaced by another look she didn't wear well - embarrassment. "Oh," came the lame reply. "Good afternoon, Paris. You're looking lovely as always." Compliments, especially to Paris or his alter-ego Ganymede, were few and far between coming from her, and they had to be earned. Ganymede's display of bravery and initiative during the fight with Bischofite made Kallichore very proud. Christa closed the book with a sigh, pleased that her heart couldn't be seen pounding through her chest at that moment. It would have given Paris something else to tease her about. Absently, she tucked an unruly lock of wavy gray hair behind her ear. Tapping on the cover of the book, Christa frowned. "Poe isn't depressing depending on which story you read..." She then sighed again. "No, you're right. Poe is pretty depressing. I'm not sure why I picked it up in the first place." Or why I'm even here, really. Is it so assuage guilt? Probably.Leaning back in the chair, Christa, folded her hands in her lap. "Paris, what do you do when you feel you've made a grave mistake and it's going to cost you for the rest of forever?" She was asking for advice, something she rarely, if ever, did. Especially requesting advice from Paris!
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:31 am
Paris pushed her sunglasses up onto her head so that she could look across at Christa without her vision being unobstructed by the large, dark lenses and thick, colorful frames. It seemed Christa'd picked a nice shaded spot anyway; the umbrella above them certainly helped.
“Any guy who writes sad poems about dead women is pretty depressing to me,” she said.
To be honest, she didn't quite know why she'd stopped except that it wasn't every day she saw Christa out and about, and she was mildly curious. Every once in a while Paris could stomach the thought of Christa (and subsequently Kallichore) being her friend, and when she could get over herself and their differences long enough to admit it Paris knew it was probably true. They were far from enemies and a bit more than acquaintances; they didn't hang out often, or even encounter one another on a weekly basis, but she knew Christa would be there if and when she needed her, and Paris had every intention of returning the favor.
At the moment, it was difficult to determine Christa's mood, though her choice of reading material seemed rather dark, and Paris was a bit thrown off by her question.
“I talk to my therapist,” she said easily enough, shrugging as if to demonstrate that it was no big deal that she even had a therapist. “Or I talk to Chris, or snuggle with Chris, or I snuggle with my cat. I dance, I keep myself busy, I don't let myself think about it until I'm ready to deal with it.”
Of course, sometime she wasn't ever ready to deal with it.
“But then I can't think of a lot of mistakes I've made that'll cost me the rest of forever,” she said. “If I've made any mistakes it's been putting things off or running away from the hard problems, trying to find an easier way.”Lucifer Force No problem at all! <3 Just have to jog my mind back to thinking "Oh, wait, she's talking about Paris." 8D;;
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 4:58 pm
Sunshine Alouette /MAKES EVERYTHING A PAIN OMG gonk Christa listened to Paris' explanation with her usual stoic look on her face; stone-cold, the ice queen she was known to be. The front that protected her from icky things like feelings, things she didn't want to deal with whether she was on or off of the battlefield. But now, now she wasn't so sure how much longer she could keep it up. A sharp pang of jealousy tore through her when Paris started to list off all the lovely things he had to distract him from pain: Chris being the major one. Someone else to share his feelings with, someone else who, more importantly, understood the battle between good and evil being constantly waged behind the scenes of Destiny City. Christ was an active participant, the best listener someone could ask for. Not that Christa didn't have the occasional person to confide in, her cousin Melinda being the one that came to mind. Seeing Melinda was, unfortunately, a rarity these days. But then I can't think of a lot of mistakes I've made that'll cost me the rest of forever...And that was the clincher. The sound of someone desperate not to cry was the sound Christa made then, leaning over and folding her arms on the table to rest her head. One hand snaked into her messy hair and tugged every so often. "I have so much regret, Paris." came a muffled sob, Christa's shoulders shaking. "I could have killed him when I had the chance and if I had, those civilians... they wouldn't have... But I didn't, Paris. I didn't act and now he'll continue to get worse. I never should have let him go but I kept thinking, what would the Court say if they found out? They'd say he had a family, they'd say he could be saved and so I let him go..." Her desperate ramblings were kept soft so as not to alert the people around them, however that did not diminish the severity of the issue.
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Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 4:51 pm
Paris was not prepared for what might as well amount to a breakdown.
She could barely handle her own feelings. More often than not they were a convoluted mess, too strong to contain but much too complicated to wade through effectively, and she did what she could to keep them to herself or pretend as if she didn't feel those things, expel them on her own time in ways that were not quite healthy. Emotional conversations were not her forte, though she had them more and more often the more she allowed herself to open up to people, the more she allowed herself to care about them.
But handling other people's feelings was even more complicated, and she was never really sure she did an adequate job when confronted with them. They were awkward interactions; she never knew what to say or what to do. Half the time she didn't think she said or did the right thing, and with Christa... well... somehow it seemed even more complicated than anyone else.
“Even if you killed him, who's to say someone else wouldn't come along and do the same thing?” she said.
She didn't need specifics to know who and what Christa was talking about, even though the event itself was a month or so passed. Paris had her own feelings on the matter, and quite a bit of guilt and self-revulsion as a result of that night, but she's also had her cry, been sick, forced the feelings out, and now things were... not better, but she could manage. She could get back to her life and deal with the rest of it in nightmares and late night sessions with her good friend Xanax.
“I can't really speak for the rest of the Court, but a sicko like that probably wouldn't think twice about trying something like that on his family if it suited him, and after that I'm not going to sit here and pretend that people that far gone can always be saved,” Paris continued. “But you didn't hurt or kill any of those civilians that night, Christa. He did. That was his choice. If you'd killed him, yeah, sure, maybe those people'd be alive and well right now. Maybe they wouldn't be. You don't have any way of knowing that. You kill him and someone else is probably going to come along and take his place. And then what would you do? Kill them, too? And then after them, you gonna kill the next one? What's the point of that if it's just going to keep cycling back and forth and back and forth? None of this is going to end that way.”
Adjusting her position in her seat, Paris tried to adopt a stance and an expression that would seem natural and relaxed to anyone who might happen to pass them by, ignoring her own doubts and reservations for the sake of the argument.
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Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 6:21 pm
"If I did kill him, at least I'd be able to sleep at night." she wheezed, raking a hand through her usually-messy hair. "Even if someone else came along, I'd kill them too. I'd keep tearing them down so long as I knew it was doing some kind of good... Damn, Paris." Brown eyes locked onto crystalline blue. "Are we even making a dent in this war? Are we making any sort of headway with our beliefs and our actions? Have we purified anyone? Have we saved anyone?" Sitting up, Christa rolled her shoulders back and shuddered. She kept a hand up to her face to hide it from passersby. "At least in the Blood Moon Court, I felt like I was making some kind of difference." Another sniff, trying to swallow the guilt of that admission. "No, it's not that I regret leaving, it's not that I regret becoming a part of the Jovians... trying to be a better person, through all of you, trying to live up to what you expect of everyone... I just..." The gray haired girl, not the senshi, sighed a sigh of defeat. "I just... I just don't know how much longer I can keep doing this, Paris." came the admission, full of guilt and anger and self-doubt. The steel-heavy feeling of letting everyone down, disappointing the Court and their expectations, pretending to be someone she wasn't. Was all this effort for naught? Was it nothing but a lie Christa kept trying to tell herself? To make herself believe? "I just don't know how much longer I can keep this up. If I stop, then do I get kicked out? What do I do? I feel like all my effort has gone to waste. I've spent all this time with your voices in my head telling me to not to do what I feel is right and I have nothing to show for it, Paris..."
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Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:29 am
“We've saved ourselves,” Paris said. “We've kept ourselves alive. That has to count for something.”
The minute the words left her mouth Paris recognized the selfishness in them, but she didn't feel too much guilt for it. There was a sort of nobleness in the sacrifice of oneself for the greater good, though she could never believe it was any sort of solution. Once you were dead, that was it; you didn't have any control over the situation anymore, and any effect you might have after the fact came through remembrance—but remembrance wasn't good enough, was it? It could be manipulated, abused, and used for wrong doing.
Paris had no intention to letting herself become a martyr. Yet, sometimes, it seemed as if that was one of only two choices—martyrdom or murder.
Neither seemed appealing to her.
“We've saved ourselves. We've saved our families,” Paris said, feeling as if she were grasping as straws trying to find a way to convince Christa that it wasn't entirely hopeless. “We've saved each other. Maybe no one on the other side's been purified, but then maybe we haven't tried hard enough to see that happen. We can't just give up on it because it's difficult, Christa. Nothing's worthwhile because it's easy.
“For the record, I don't think anyone's said anything about kicking anyone out,” she continued. “Look, Christa, just calm down and think about this for a little bit. The only life you're responsible for is your own, and any you might take in cold blood.”
She tried to put emphasis on that distinction. Paris didn't like death or enjoy the thought of killing, but when it came down to it she didn't think she could hold it against someone for taking a life if it saved their own or had the immediate effect of saving someone else's, particularly when she took the brutality of the war into account. It seemed inevitable sometimes, as much as she loathed to admit it.
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Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:47 am
Saving no one but yourself is nothing but selfishness...
But it has to count for something.
...it counts for nothing.Christa shook her head furiously, as if she couldn't believe what Paris was telling her. "No one has been purified?" came a rasp from a face buried in haggard hands. She was near shaking. "Corruptions are happening every night, Paris. Chaos is herding us like so many sheep into their clutches and is turning our brothers and sisters right before our eyes and piercing their souls with lies and darkness and there is nothing we can do about it, Paris. We have no way of stopping Chaos short of killing all of them. Chaos is having their pick of the litter without any repercussions..." It all seemed so damned hopeless. "I... I can't do it anymore, Paris. I can't. I just... I just can't." I'm no saint, not like you. I'm not an angel despite my wings. I will have blood on my hands if I continue. A deep sob escaped her then, chest heaving with guilt and self-loathing. Failure. Nothing but failure. "I can't sleep anymore, Paris. I keep seeing them and seeing him laughing at me for my inaction. I could have put a stop to it but I didn't. I... can't do this..." In an instant, Christa was up, leaving both Paris and the books she'd checked out from the library. Nothing else seemed important now than the painful desire to be alone in her thoughts. Christa, and by extension, Kallichore, was at an excruciating crossroad. The last thing she wanted in her life was the golden-haired angel trying to tell her she was a better person than she herself thought she was. The gray haired teen raced out of the library courtyard like a bat out of hell, disappearing into the waves of people visiting the campus before classes would start again. An angel had no place speaking to the devil.
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