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The ringing from his senshiphone was odd- he'd messaged back and forth with others plenty. He'd called others before to varying success. But thus far in his career the only time anyone had called Thraen had been Eridanus. When he pulled the phone out, it was decidedly not Oddy. He paused on the ledge of a bell tower window, double-checking the name.

And what could you want, to call on me? But while he muddled, he didn't hesitate to thumb it accepted. If she was in need of help, seconds could make the difference. Not that she had wanted help prior, which made the whole idea half preposterous and half believable.

"Ida?"

It wasn't as urgent as fear painted it, but it was a subject equally unexpected. That Bischofite make rounds to his lovers and speak to them all is not a surprise, but after last time, I can't imagine her wanting to talk to be about anything regarding Bischofite, Alois, the meaning of life or 42. And what is the use of apologies. What happened happened. We move on. With your resolve, Ida, your teenage dreams and sugarplum, fair weather consistency, it would happen every time in the future without change. And I?....
Do you have the fortitude, Thraen. You complain so well to yourself. One and done? Is that to be your policy of change in others? It didn't jump when you said to? You know others do not have your fire, so why do you hold them to the exact same standard. They are different people, they need different steps- but they can do it. Or they can manage other miracles. Every boat on this vast ocean that holds a separate coloured splinter, a different light, and that is what makes it marvelous. Each a different understanding. Appreciate them, though they be other. Love them through the scorn.

I am stone, a pillar, a support and a strength to all. I am Will and Haven. Give not into contrary emotion. Not now, so late in the testing.

"No apologies are necessary. "
"I can come there. It will take me about ..."

Regular runners are what..a seven minute mile. At least twice that as regular senshi. Thrice as an eternal? I don't know....something around that. Its a few miles between here and there. "Ten, fifteen minutes. If that's alright."

He started running already. Even if she said it wasn't, they could meet in the middle somewhere and he'd have already been in motion and not standing around flat footed.

Was there singing?
The relative sound and light pollution of a major city at all hours made it difficult to determine it for certain. In any case, he felt her signature as he neared and the sound was well gone. She stood.

He landed half-ungracefully nearby, at a conversational but bowing distance. He stayed a moment with his hands on his knees, recollecting from the sprint, before straightening when he knew he could manage to talk connectedly. "Well met, Eternal Ida. "

So. What did he say to you that bears want of advice from me, of all people.

Internally, it was a little distressing to find her closer than he'd spaced them at. A lot closer. And making concerned eyes at him. And asking him if he was okay. Thraen quirked and blinked, uncertain for more than a hot minute just what to do. "There's....."

"Nothing wrong. Just lack of sleep- its been a long time, more than a month. I've lost count. Consistent insomnia takes a toll on endurance and balance among other things."

Like focus. Alertness, memory and cognitive impairment.
He looked at the offering, taking it carefully to lie against lips softly and sniff. It was hard to smell other flowers in uniform. He could just make it out, the faint notes of rose that decorative hybrids for bouquets still held over his own miasma. I wonder if both meanings be equally true? In the Victorian, the yellow rose symbolized jealousy, even if today it represents friendship. I wonder if you knew, when you started to date Alois, that he had another lover? Were you jealous? Intrigued? Didn’t care? What choices were laid within that, whether to ignore, subsume, collect, join in? How old are you, even? Certainly younger seeming than either of us, not that I expect Alois would have cared one way or another for the technicalities of under 18 and the law. Plainly you didn’t either.


The nosegay stayed there, motionless against scarred, motionless lips and thoughtful, sidelong stare. After another breath he added it to the ever-present bouquet on his hip to be a new note of yellow among the blooms and greenery. “Unusual for a man to be brought bouquet. But thank you. “

“Your conversation with Alois? Did he seek you out, or was it happenstance? What happened?”

She was flushed, without question. Flustered, and trying to cover and back from vulnerability in open expression. Overcompensation. What interested you, that brought you near a moment, girl? A florist. Orah. That is an unusual name, cannot be so many by it in even a city large as Destiny City. Less one that is a florist.

"I did know. He and I talked over his state. He visited home, after messaging me. His cell phone still in his keeping, I guess. He has seen at last, at the least, the empty promise of Chaos- a deal with a devil rewards only a shares of more misery and emptiness. And this, the Negaverse, a devil that has no succor for tools that are no longer blind followers and efficient...to carry the analogy. "

Though we all know that angels and devils don't exist.

"The Negaverse is stagnation, and he is one that seeks change. I bid him seek the freedom to do so. Purification is that path, or death. " Did you help that desire, or hinder it? "And his seeming in his conversation with you?"

"Many fail at the final door. Many of the most convicted, even. I cannot offer much in the way of prediction on that account. Yes, he lies. To himself as often as anyone else. "

The condition of continual separation in her mind on what was Alois and what was Bischofite, was interesting for some leaps of arguement. More now than initially it had been, when he'd more assertively mentioned them as one in the same. "Some follow the strictures of Honne and tatemae, the private face and the public face, more than others. Its a nice way of saying that we all wear masks when we are with different people than alone. You can define that as 'different people' if you still really want to. I don't think he can 'transform' anymore to become human. He can put those masks on his face with tar, he can act, but it isn't the same. "

"Is Orah a separate person from Ida?" You've been a senshi long enough, as an eternal, to know it isn't so. Maybe at first the youngest or most immature of us feel the anonimity of glamour and the magic spells as some empowerment and confidence we didn't have before. "Clark Kent peeling off his glasses to suddenly be Superman. Only we're too close to Superman. Our starseeds were connected to whole worlds and magic all along, and putting on the glasses is the disguise. "

Alois has his madnesses, plainly. He is Bischofite, and all that entails. I suppose its been as much a lie to himself as you that he's pretended them different. Like we're all Dissociative Identity Disorders walking around talking to ourselves and each other. "The worst wound anyone can inflict is to lie. It draws doubt forevermore over everything done or said, unless true and honest forgiveness exists- which is exceedingly rare and almost inhuman to expect. Once burned, twice shy, after all. There are no guarantees once that innocence is broken. I do not believe that his will for this to fail. I don't believe it a trap either. "

"It is the most painful thing he could seek out now. If that not be guarantee enough, with his predilection for suffering as the greatest catalyst. " Thraen looked over at her. She sought the sky for something unknown- some avatar sense of hope or courage probably. Maybe for answers. How oft humans look to the stars for answers. You could look for your own inside, if you listen for it. Ida, the heart of Ida. "Its safer, externally, to treat them so differently. To treat him as not knowingly you as Orah. For you and any who know you. "

"He may yet come to Orah. You were muse or inspiration, something that kept his interest for repeat encounter- not a thing lightly done. And both as a scout, unknown, and as a lover." The tones were that of advice- be prepared for it, in the case that it happens.

Bluefire Dragonz

Ah, a point of reference. She knows Alex. Has apparently been to Alex's house. Florence Nightingale effect? No, she would have had to have had some attraction to begin with to even be there in the first place, so the attraction wasn't wholly developed after during care. Alois is usually about as endearing a putting a hand in a box of syringes. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen the other Artist, whether a lunch between classes or during office hours? It was all blurred.

If it had been a different, earlier time and place he would have rolled his eyes at the melodrama involved with going around person to person to say goodbyes of impending death. Alois had been so fixated with it, it might as well have been another drug. Well, there was a point of similarity with the girl- a definite flair for certain breed of martyrdom inherent in YA genre. The only thing that would make it better (worse?) would be if Alois had used the instance as an excuse to get her to bed. "In some degree, the certainty of Death was me. But that operation had other opportunities to go wrong and end him."

He didn't bother to clarify what he knew of the preoccupation of death- the certainty between Bischofite and Thraen. One of them would end the other, everything else was just more obstacles. Choking someone to death more than once wasn't coincidence, nor were those wings tattoos. Does she even associate me to standing right in front of him, crushing his throat, even as she screamed? Or am I stuck in some halfstate like Alois, where Thraen is somewhat Quenton. Only she's never met Quenton. But it IS hubris to assume Thraen the only wish for death in his mind.

An invitation specifically to Ida, and not Orah. It was another point of curiosity, of unknown reasoning. What was the draw of her? "I will be there. Not as Thraen. Whether it works or no, I expect he won't walk from it. He's light enough to carry. It will be good to see others there. This cannot happen often."