|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:13 am
It was early, but Arorangi liked early; the earlier, the better, in fact, because he always felt as though he was more productive when he was up at a reasonable time and did more when he had slept well, not necessarily a lot. For the better part of the morning he'd jogged along the beach, dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants and a loose, brightly colored teeshirt. A borrowed runic MP3 player was tucked into the waistband, headphones in his ears, and Arorangi was humming to himself as he ran, his dreads tied up in a loose knot at the back of his head.
Finished with the beach, he looped around back the way he'd come and wound up on the training fields. Across the first, and then the second, and by the time he reached the main campus of Deus Ex Machina, Arorangi was starving. He slowed his pace to a light jog, and then to a brisk walk, and loped with an easy grace for someone his size towards the dormitory building.
Maybe he'd have time to grab a quick shower before breakfast, or maybe he would just go straight to breakfast and then shower. Arorangi moved towards the stairs of the building and sat down on the bottom one, looping his towel around the back of his neck and taking a swig of water from the bottle he held in one hand. The earphones were still in his ears, meaning he couldn't hear if anyone was coming or not, Arorangi absently bobbing his head up and down to the music.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:42 pm
Well, this was embarrassing. Despite having eaten at the cafeteria a few times, Claude was having trouble finding it now. After looping around all the different buildings a few times, which all looked the exact same in her opinion, which made it difficult to find things, the tall trainee had returned to the dorms since she was at least familiar with them. She sighed. She didn't want to ask, but she wanted to eat too...so maybe she just needed to suck it up. Her head perked up as the sound of someone entering the dorm echoed down the hall. Ah. Maybe this was her chance. She strode down the hall in long easy strides until she came to the stairs where someone, a very well built and tall looking someone, was sitting. As she drew closer, the thumping of music coming from the ear buds could be faintly heard. He probably wouldn't hear her if she asked. Instead, Claude moved right into his line of vision, and leaned a bit. She gave him a two finger salute to get his attention, along with a slight nod of her head.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:55 pm
He didn't hear the footsteps, or anything else, for that matter, Arorangi still humming pleasantly to himself. It was only when a shadow fell across his line of vision that he noticed someone standing in front of him, and looked up. He lifted his head and smiled brightly at the unfamiliar face, reaching up to pull the earbuds from his ears.
"Kia Ora," he said cheerfully, and got to his feet, stretching out his legs and extending a tattooed hand towards her in greeting. "I am sorry, am I blocking your way? I was just taking a break after running; I do not think we have met before, I am Arorangi Te Ariki!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 8:39 am
Claude stood straight as well and glanced down at the hand, briefly admiring the tattoos as she contemplated whether she should shake it or not. The answer was...no. Instead, he got a dip of her head in greeting, and then a slight shake. "No, you weren't, and the name is Claude." A pause, and she stared at him for a long moment. "I'm looking for the cafeteria." She didn't know where it was, was the unspoken part.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 8:55 am
Arorangi only hesitated a fraction of a second before lowering his hand, looking as cheerful as ever and not at all like he'd just been snubbed in his attempt at a handshake. Instead, he swept his dreads off of his shoulder and smiled in a very friendly sort of way. "It is very nice to meet you, Claude! That is a very lovely name you have."
The stare received only a questioning look in return, Arorangi tilting his head slightly, but then she spoke again and a light dawned in his head. "Oh!" he said brightly. "I was on my way to the cafeteria as well, to get some breakfast before I go back to my room! If you want, I could show you, and we could eat together. Eating is always more fun with more people, after all," he added with a wink. "But I will not impose if you have somewhere else to be, either!"
He moved around her to the door that led back outside, and pushed it open, bright slashes of sunlight filling the dimly lit hall. "It's easy to find," said Arorangi cheerfully. "If you would like to follow me!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 9:13 am
Claude just continued to stare at Arorangi, thinking. She wondered if constantly cheerful people like him got tired always being like that. Tired or worn out. It just seemed painful to always be that cheerful...so maybe they were masochists. Made sense. At first it looked like she might not respond, but she did have some manners. "Thanks." The more she stared at him, she also realized he'd make good pirate material. Hmmmmm. It was probably pretty sad if anyone saw them. Arorangi being so enthusiastic, talkative and animated, and Claude just staring at him silently, a bit flatly, and with her arms crossed. "...Alright." She consented to eating with him, and as he moved she easily fell in stride with him. After a moment, she uncrossed her arms to point at the tattoos on his hand. "Where did you get those done?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 1:14 pm
She wasn't very talkative, it seemed; not that Arorangi minded, since he usually talked enough to fill the space between multiple people. Contrary to what she was thinking, he did not particularly find it hard or painful to always be cheerful. Occasionally tiring, perhaps, but he was so used to it by now that it was difficult to even think otherwise.
"It is no problem!" said Arorangi cheerfully, and waited until she was out of the building before he closed the door shut behind them, pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweats and loping along beside Claude. The earphones of his runic mp3 player were looped around his neck.
"These?" Arorangi asked, and smiled, stretching out his arm so that the full sleeve of intricate designs could be seen, stretching all the way from the top of his shoulder down to his fingertips. "In a small place in New Zealand, where I am from! There is a place in Auckland that I started going to when I was a boy, when I turned thirteen. My dad wanted me to be able to show off my nature proudly!"
He beamed, lowering his arm. "What about you?" he asked. "Where are you from?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 12:32 pm
Claude did take a moment to admire the work done on his arm. She was really interested in stuff like that (plus the arm it was on wasn't at all bad to look at, either). Plus stuff like this just reminded her of her one true love: Piracy. "Ah, New Zealand." She murmured. "Beautiful place." While Claude wasn't big into small talk, she went along with it for now, because she really didn't have a good reason not to. "City of Sin..." She started. "Las Vegas, Nevada." A pause. "How long have you been around for?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 9:25 pm
"It is most beautiful," Arorangi agreed, clearly pleased. He lowered his arm again and stuck his hands back into his pockets, gamboling along beside Claude in a most amiable fashion, in spite of her less-than-warm greeting. "A beautiful place with beautiful water and beautiful people. You should visit one day!" he said brightly. "When you have a few days of leave, it is a great place to be near the ocean."
Las Vegas was still somewhat of a mystery to Arorangi, who had never been there, and he gave Claude a curious look. "I hear it is very dry there," he said, tapping a finger against the inside of his shorts. "I lived in Nebraska when I moved to the States, so I never knew where anything else was or what it was like."
He smiled at her. "A few days," he said cheerfully. "About two weeks now, if I am to count. Are you just awakened?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 5:20 pm
Beautiful people indeed...she was walking right next to one. The thought did pull a small smirk to her lips, and she lightly nodded her head. "Yes. I've visited once." Because her father had come from money and threw it around, and Claude never cared to be around him for too long and all but jumped to travel. "...Leave, huh?" Claude mused about that for a moment. "I haven't seen any airplanes around though...how do you leave here?" She snickered about his observation about Nevada. "Well...Las Vegas isn't dry." Her tone was. "It's drowning in liquor, among other things." She was making a joke, but her expression was pretty flat. "Yes, though, the state is more like a desert than anything else." Nebraska, huh? "...Why did you leave New Zealand?" Seriously. Who'd leave a beautiful place like that to come to the States. "...Ah." She nodded her head a bit. "Yes." But for the most part, this guy was pretty new as well, and something in that fact was...kind of nice to Claude. Though she seemed at ease on the outside, she was scrambling to find some sort of sense about this place in the inside.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 2:17 pm
Hearing that she had seen New Zealand made him smile, Arorangi already chalking up his opinion of Claude. He tilted his head to look at her, dreads falling all over the place, and he lifted a tattooed hand to brush them somewhat impatiently from his face.
"I have not yet left the island," he admitted, but then added, "But I have heard that you use portals! Sort of like...transporters, in Star Trek." For lack of a better description. "I have been told that trainees get one to two days off a month, though I must double check this to make sure."
He only half got the joke about liquor, since Arorangi only drank every once in a while, and had been mostly sheltered from the States for the majority of his life, but he gave Claude a smile anyway; this one was a little gentler than before, less bright.
"My dad passed on when I was fifteen," he said simply. "I had no other family in New Zealand, so I moved to the states in order to live with my great aunt and her family. I did not want to leave, but there was no other way, really. I had always decided to go back when I was old enough."
Arorangi grinned abruptly. "But here I am now, and I am on this island, which is a good island, and I get to fight monsters, so that is pretty exciting!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 11:29 am
Claude stared at him. "Portals." She repeated. Okay then...admittedly the Star Trek reference did make her smirk lightly. It was a good analogy actually, and she didn't doubt it one bit, because of everything else she had seen here so far. Pods with people sleeping, mystical talking weapons... She gave a slight nod of her head to indicate she was listening was Aro spoke, and briefly thought about how she ended up conversing exactly. Claude usually didn't care to know more about those around her. Especially now that she was on an island where she'd be seeing the same people over and over and over again. It was nothing against anyone else, Claude just didn't care to get involved and invested...almost all the time. Almost. But the guy next to her was just so genuine...she didn't feel the urge to be a douche. Plus, he was showing her where the cafeteria was. Claude snorted softly. "Yeah, so much for that." Going back. Now he was here...and he thought it was a good island. Alright. "Is that why you came here? To fight monsters?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 9:40 pm
Arorangi wasn't really a Trekkie per say, but he'd watched his fair share of Star Trek episodes growing up, thanks to a very Sci-Fi inclined father. He had enjoyed the majority of them (Voyager in particular, since he liked the change to a strong female captain whose storylines were not about romance but about her strength as a commander), which meant that he could make obscure references to the show without having to think too much about it.
Claude was not talkative - an understatement, really, but since Arorangi was talkative enough for two people, he didn't really mind filling in the gaps of silence with various facts and miscellaneous information about himself.
"Yeah, going back did not work, as you can tell," he said to her ruefully, a smile on his face. "Maybe when I have leave I will be able to visit, but until then I will focus on my work here and learning more about the people and the monsters we are meant to be fighting."
His eyebrows raised, Arorangi's smile stretching into a grin. "Why not?" he asked with a laugh. "To be honest, I came here because I felt like I could do good here, and if that means I can fight monsters, then I will be a happy man!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 6:33 pm
Arorangi appeared to be a pretty simple and straight forward guy...and Claude kind of admired that. Playing games with people who had layers was fun sometimes, but there was just something...brave...about just being straightforward and simple. His reasoning also seemed to be bordering on 'noble', and she wondered if that was what someone considered something of a 'hero complex'. Hrm. She reached up, and patted him on the back. "Easy to please. Makes for a happy life." Well, she hoped he'd have a happy life on this island. The jury was still out for her. "So..." Claude started, deciding she didn't mind to keep picking this guy's brain for more information. "What did you get saddled with for a...weapon?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 8:08 pm
Arorangi beamed at Claude, clearly pleased with her assessment of his easy-to-please, happy life. "Yes, I am very happy," he said with a wide smile that flashed white against his dark skin. "I am perhaps a little simple when it comes to living, and sometimes I am a little too honest, but I think it is much easier this way than other ways. I am content," he added, with a little shrug as he looked at Claude. "I am glad of my life the way it is."
He led them down a small sidewalk next to a patch of grass that would eventually lead to the communal building where the cafeteria was, Arorangi making sure to slow his strides enough for Claude not to have to run to catch up with him - though he had to admit, she seemed the type to be perfectly capable of holding her own against him.
"A spear!" he answered her brightly. "His name is Ori, he was a kitsune, I believe, before he was made into a spear. But it is good, strong weapon, and I have experience in using spears when I go fishing, so it fits me very well. What do you have?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
