Welcome to Gaia! ::

Fortunately for Sarras, there was at least one person nearby who was good for something other than just snapchatting witty commentary onto photos of him getting thrown into large, uncushioned pieces of city scenery. While the theater district may not have been Sarras's usual remit, Hvergelmir, a fellow page of the Cosmos, found it was quite a comfortable place for her to do her youma patrols. She liked the theater (this was something of an understatement), and the people there didn't give her too much trouble about how she was dressed -- most were willing to assume she was either attending some sort of evening formal affair, or else she was a theatrical performer in costume. Either excuse worked out in her favor.

And most nights, her patrols ended up being fairly quiet: not too many youma ended up getting this deep into the city, it seemed. Still, she told herself, someone had to keep the theater district safe, even if it was a comparatively easy job. Why shouldn't it be her?

This time, though, someone had beaten her to the punch. Hvergelmir was getting better at differentiating between the various auras she could sense, and she had a better feel for youma now, how to sense them and where to find them once you did. The minute this one blipped on her internal radar, she started getting herself ready to go fight it.

The difference was, where she had taken the time to pick up her skirts and tie them into a big, bulky knot to keep them out of her way (temporarily; the knot never held for long with that much fabric), and to stuff the handle of her distaff through the center of the knot for safekeeping (it was functionally useless as a weapon) -- someone else had just waded straight into the fray. Someone like her, another knight, low-level.

But this was her patrol, and fighting youma was about the only aspect of her ostensible job that she was starting to become at all comfortable with. So, figuring that whomever they were, they could use the backup, she wove her way through the crowded streets and followed the sounds of people freaking out till she found the source of the two auras.

Hvergelmir just barely recognized the guy. He was, she remembered, one of the dozens of knights that had been at the meeting at Olympus -- though what part he'd played in that conversation, she didn't precisely remember. She'd been mostly busy clinging to another knight's cloak and trying to process all the strange information being thrown her way. It had been a lot to take in.

Right now, though, there was considerably less to take in. He was looking battered already, and he was prepared to square off with a youma with nothing but his bare hands.

She'd done that before. It hadn't been her favorite, to say the least. And she knew some things now that she hadn't known then -- her self-defense instructor had certainly taught her how to throw a punch, for one -- but that didn't mean it was really the best method for dealing with the bigger, heavier youma.

When you're fighting for your life, the rules are you want to win the fight, her instructor had said. Use whatever you can. She looked around, taking a quick inventory of what was close to hand that she could use.

There was a sandwich board nearby, outside a restaurant -- plastic, sturdy, not bad. On her left, someone had been in the process of unlocking their bicycle and apparently abandoned it -- she could throw it, if she had to, but that was only good once. On her right, near the entrance to one of the theaters, there was... oh. That could work.

The theater had set up velvet rope walkways to help them with crowd control, funneling people through from the sidewalk to their door. Hvergelmir ran over, frantically unlatching the last link of rope and letting it fall to the ground. What was left was a very heavy brass stanchion, designed with all its weight at the base to keep it from being knocked over by wind or jostling bodies. She picked it up with both hands, testing its heft, grateful for the strength her page form afforded her.

Oh, yes. This would definitely work better than her fists.

The youma was charging the other page now, picking up speed. He seemed braced to defend, not trying to run away -- just as he'd said when he'd tried to goad the thing. Hvergelmir, who considered herself naturally pretty cowardly, couldn't really say she understood the impulse, but she admired it. Lots of people were braver than she was. She liked them all.

But she still had a stanchion, and he didn't. And that meant he could use her help.

She ran into the fray just before the youma could catch up with him, swinging her stanchion hard into the youma's midsection like she was batting for the fences. The blow landed with a powerful, sticky-sounding crunch. That was good, for a start -- it usually meant she'd hit something worth hitting again.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" she called back to the other page. "You could've been killed!"

Her stanchion was now partly stuck in the armadillo youma's abdomen. Hvergelmir planted a foot squarely against its midsection for leverage and began pulling to try and dislodge it, wishing her dainty little shoes afforded her somewhat better traction. The youma, meanwhile, reared back to try and take a swing at her, maybe hoping to send her flying like it had the other page.

Had Sarras voiced any of his observations about her aloud, he might've found Hvergelmir disavowing credit for any of them. The beautiful dress was certainly none of her doing -- it came with the job -- and the super-strength was much the same. While she'd lately started up lessons with a self-defense instructor, she had, at best, been meaning to start going to the gym or jogging. All the athleticism she'd been using to fight monsters came from some sort of magical repository, plus a few months of experience with youma patrols -- someone like Sarras was way more built for this kind of work than she was.

And cleverness, well. It was hard for her to think of herself as clever. Necessity, as they said, was the mother of invention; and few things had needed solving as badly as Hvergelmir's problem with her long dress. It had nearly cost her her life several times -- she had little choice but to do something about it.

If there were perks to being a knight, Hvergelmir probably would've thought they better suited someone like Sarras. Bravery, after all, didn't come from being a knight, nor did determination or quick-thinking. Those things were innate, and she didn't think she possessed any of them. To herself she ascribed mainly desperation and cosmic guilt -- a belief that the universe had thrust responsibility on her mainly because it had taken a good look at her life and seen that she hadn't had anything better to do.

Other people were clearly heroes. Laney was just... fumbling.

And fumble she did: Sarras made a headlong charge at the youma, split pieces of wood bent over his shoulder; this succeeded in dislodging the youma from the stanchion, but the sudden lack of resistance also left Hvergelmir toppling backwards to land on her backside.

Sarras and the youma had gone flying in the other direction. She scrambled to try and regain her feet (people in the background cheering her on, heedless of the danger), instantly concerned that the youma had clawed his head off for his trouble, or that maybe a piece of wood had gone through her fellow page's shoulder instead of his intended target . . . but all her kicking at the youma, trying to get her weapon free, plus the rough landing on the ground had all but knocked her knotted skirts loose again, making it difficult to run.

Hvergelmir hiked her skirt up in one hand, cloth bunched around her distaff, and lifted the stanchion on the other. It was heavy, and she wouldn't be able to swing it so forcefully with just the one hand -- but if they could just keep getting access to its stomach, maybe they still stood a chance. If it managed to recover and show its armory hide, though . . . well, they'd have to get creative.

It didn't really occur to Hvergelmir that Sarras might try to sneak a look at her underwear, either -- distracted or not. She herself had never even bothered to peek, having remained content with the basic concept that she was wearing underwear and it was doing its job -- that more or less was all she needed to know. Whether or not all Cosmos knights were issued star-spangled skivvies was a mystery of the universe still unanswered.

She focused instead on trying to juggle three things with two hands: her rapidly-unknotting skirt, her distaff, and the now-slippery stanchion she was using as a makeshift weapon. It was a difficult task.

"Damn it," she hissed as the stanchion slipped between her fingers and clunked to the ground again. "This isn't going to work, I can't -- "

What she really needed to do was to tie up her skirt again -- but there wasn't time for that. Her fellow page was still struggling with the armadillo youma, and he was clearly holding out in expectation of her backup strike, whatever it was going to be.

So it was going to be, uh, something. She had to do something right now, whatever it was.

With that as her only driving inspiration for a battle plan, she did literally the only thing she could think of: she bunched up her skirts, her distaff, and her stanchion all haphazardly in both arms to give herself more weight, then took off at a dead run towards the youma, taking a sharp leap over Sarras's head at the last moment to throw herself straight into the armadillo's chest to knock it the rest of the way backwards as he'd suggested.

It worked, and the thing went down on its back, rolling helplessly for the moment like an upended ladybug. Hvergelmir landed a few feet away, skinning her arm lightly on the asphalt. Getting to her feet was a little slower and less pleasant this time -- the stanchion she'd been clutching to her stomach had caught her badly on the landing, leaving her to press a hand protectively against what felt like bruised ribs.

She looked considerably less heroic by this point: her hairstyle had fallen down in scraggly ringlets around her face; her dress was gathering dirt and snagging on rocks as she slowly kick-stepped her way forward to avoid tripping on it; her other hand was curled around the handles of both her distaff and the stanchion, the heavy base of the stanchion dragging along behind her. Hvergelmir had probably had worse days, youma-fighting -- but this one was still worthy of the old Wall of Shame for how badly she was going to come out of it.

"Let's just . . . " she said to Sarras, with a long pause in the middle to catch her breath. " . . . hit it till it's dead?"

The crowd, in the meantime, seemed to have gotten excited about the audience participation component. Rather than throwing something useful to them, however, like rope or bricks or anything they could've used as a weapon, the audience had mainly just taken to throwing trash directly at the youma and cheering them on uproariously: which meant that Sarras and Hvergelmir were basically having used plastic silverware and styrofoam cups thrown at them.

Definitely Wall of Shame material.

Hvergelmir was relieved to see that her fellow page recovered better than she did -- neither of them was really moving at top speed, now, but her pale lavender comrade only missed a beat or so in getting back to the fight. She was grateful -- by the time she made her way over there, increasingly being pelted by trash that their audience was all too happy to not have to bother to be environmentally conscious about, her newfound partner had succeeded in bashing most of the youma's goopy innards. Now they were more like outtards.

She joined in the beating, stopping to catch her breath for only a few moments. Then she heaved stanchion over her head with both hands and started bringing it down overhead, like she was chopping wood for a fireplace and not battering a large armadillo-shaped monster with a piece of crowd control equipment.

Eventually, their combined efforts of unsophisticated hitting were apparently enough to strike the youma from its earthly existence: to the crowd's great astonishment, and the flashes of a few cellphone cameras, the youma finally gave up the ghost entirely and dissolved away into so much dust.

Hvergelmir set the stanchion on the ground (despite a few notable dents, it still managed to stand up pretty admirably, for which she was grateful) and leaned on it to catch her breath, sweat trickling down the sides of her face. She looked over to see how her companion was faring. "Wow," she said eventually, "That was . . . That sucked." However, because one of the single most important things in Laney's life had always been the desperate desire to be liked by everyone at every possible moment, she did her best to summon up a smile and try to focus on the positives. They had won, after all. "You were amazing, though! I wish I could be that cool and collected all the time." Or ever, she amended in her head. Stoicism was not Laney's strong suit.

She picked a plastic knife out of her hair, then a matchbook. The crowd had stopped throwing things, at least, but now that the show appeared to be winding to a close, they were starting to try and yell over to Hvergelmir and Sarras to get their attention. Apparently the grand finale had led into what now appeared to be a confusing and anticlimactic denouement.

It was the strangest feeling, to be told by someone that she'd done well. As far as she could remember, all Hvergelmir's undertakings as a page had been colossal embarrassments and hideous failures thanks to her own gross ineptitude. Sure, she'd managed to kill a few youma here and there without ending up in the emergency room every time, and thanks to her self-defense instructor's patient teaching, she wasn't quite as inept as she had been a year ago, when she'd started -- but she still thought of herself as fundamentally terrible as a page.

Somewhere along the line -- without ever realizing it -- had she become . . . competent?

The pain in her ribs and the open wound on her companion's back didn't really seem to support that theory; still, it was sort of a nice thought, wasn't it? The notion that someday she could be good at this.

For now, all they had left to do was be good at was making an exit. After all, their audience didn't exactly seem to be about to throw roses at their feet, even though they'd enjoyed the show up until that point.

Hvergelmir held up her hands in front of the audience for attention. "Okay, um, thank you, everyone!" she said, trying to project her voice to be heard at the back of the crowd. "If you head around the front of the theater, you can all sign your release forms to be included in the movie. And, uh, after that, we're gonna go get cleaned up in our trailer, and then, um, we'll come around and do autographs. Okay so, um, thanks so much! Bye!"

She bowed awkwardly, gasping for breath when the movement sent a sudden wave of pain up through her ribs that she tried to hide. If this was supposed to be a movie, the audience needed to believe everything they'd been doing had been harmless stunts.

Straightening, she hurried after where Sarras was already leaving. Hopefully, no one would follow.

"That cut needs cleaning," she said worriedly. "Do you want some help with it?" Laney was handy enough with antiseptic -- thought if his wound proved deep enough to need stitches, he'd have to go to the ER; there was no way she was qualified to take a needle to anybody. Still bloody and half-covered in gunk, it was hard to assess the damage -- but either way, with the way his injury had been placed, it would be hard for him to see to it on his own.

It wasn't really in Hvergelmir's nature to be displeased with Sarras for having told off the crowd for their less-than-helpful antics. She was a habitually non-confrontational person, but that was less from any sort of naturally sunny disposition and more from a desire to avoid ever being perceived as any kind of a buzzkill or to otherwise get any negative reactions from anyone. As a result, she depended on people like Sarras to be confrontational, to be the bad cop when someone needed to be. Unflinching honesty was, in her book, an extremely admirable trait -- it just wasn't really a trait she herself possessed. She was the most flinching person she knew.

Unfortunately, this time she'd also literally flinched -- and he'd heard her sharp intake of breath when she'd cut her theatrical bow for the crowd, at which point Sarras had turned and rushed up to meet her halfway.

That left them in a momentarily silly situation -- each of them trying very insistently to give their attention to the other person's injuries. Sarras brushed his off as irrelevant, though Hvergelmir had her doubts; shallow cut or not, having a wound on his back was going to be difficult for him to reach on his own, especially considering he had kind of a muscular figure. She guessed maybe he had a girlfriend or boyfriend who could help him with his medical care without asking questions. After all, not everyone spent their adulthood still living with their parents and spending their days making marshmallow peeps have toothpick duels in the microwave like she did. Most people were functioning, productive members of society.

His solicitous manners were far from lost on her: she'd never really been treated to what she supposed was 'southern hospitality,' but she had to say she didn't mind in the least. When Sarras wasn't expressing his irritation at youma, bystanders, and the whole universe, he was apparently just ridiculously nice. And the idea of being carried around in someone's arms did have a certain appeal, even if Hvergelmir had no intention of taking Sarras up on his offer. She was ( -- alas! -- ) more than capable of walking on her own.

Hvergelmir pressed her hand to her side, gingerly pushing down to try and suss out any major injuries. "No, it's fine, I'm really fine -- nothing feels broken or anything. Just bruised ribs, probably." They hurt like the dickens, but they'd heal cleanly enough, and she'd rather not go to a hospital if she could avoid it. Best not to rack up too many hospital visits. She smiled. "But thanks for the offer -- you're way too nice. If you ever need to be carried to a hospital I promise to do my best to not entirely drag you along the ground in my attempts to get you to a cab."

His introduction caught more of her attention in the next moment, and she stopped short. Hvergelmir's face lit up, her sore ribs momentarily forgotten. "We're the same!" she said happily, eyeing the damaged remnants of his uniform with new interest. "Hvergelmir, Page of the Cosmos. ...But you can shorten that to something if you want, nobody ever gets it anyway."

She shrugged. She'd long since gotten used to the idea that the unwieldy name she'd been given was just a natural fit with her unwieldy costume and her unwieldy weapon.

Hvergelmir wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be called Gel for the rest of her life -- but she was a big fan of being liked by people, and of the idea of people having nicknames for her, which sort of implied she had friends. So she smiled warmly and said, "Oh, yeah, Gel's great! You can totally call me that!"

She would've loved to offer a nickname for him in turn, but there wasn't really much of anywhere you could go with 'Sarras,' and Hvergelmir didn't really think 'Sars' as a nickname was going to do anything but conjure up images of a fever and a dry, unproductive cough. Plus, unlike her own name, which sounded like a trumpet player falling down a flight of stairs mid-solo, the name Sarras had a beautifully mellifluous quality to it that she didn't want to ruin.

And it was a palindrome (at least the way she imagined it spelled in her head). Everybody liked palindromes.

"There's an abandoned theater about two blocks off," she supplied, happy to be of use. At this rate, Hvergelmir was almost beginning to think she'd be successful into tricking Sarras into believing she was one of those competent knights who always seemed to know what they were doing. She was a little excited about the prospect.

Her abandoned theater was well protected by a chain link fence with a barbed wire top and a padlocked gate, but Hvergelmir had found a spot around the back of the building where she could pull the chain link up and sneak her way in. She used it sometimes when she was covered in youma goop and needed to get cleaned up a little before she attempted to walk home.

Sneaking in this time was far from pleasant, with their injuries -- first having to climb under the fence, then having to jump up to the second-story fire escape to get into the building itself -- but once they were in, the ambient noises from the street outside were muffled and everything was calm and quiet. Moonlight filtered in through a few windows, but it was mostly dark. Hvergelmir held out her hand to guide Sarras along.

"I think it must have been a youma attack," she said softly. "You can see the damage better in the daytime, but it's pretty messy -- part of the mezzanine's collapsed." She sighed. "Both of the owner's kids died. I read that the building's supposed to still be structurally sound, but the owner just won't fix it up or sell it. I guess the grief's still fresh."