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 Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 8:47 pm
Aoi had just finished wiggling herself into court dress when she pretty much tripped into someone, which resulted in two very unfortunate things happening: firstly, she dropped the pastry that she'd been holding in her mouth, and secondly, she fell into a wall. "Ow," she said, and then: "Sorry." And she would've continued on, leaving that there, except for Althai's interruption.
Iiiiii see you, Tien! Hey! Aoi stopped, propped a hand up on the wall, and turned to look at the... whatever she'd run into. "Who's Tien," she muttered, because--she didn't see anyone weird meandering about. Nor anything strange. But she'd definitely run into someone just a moment ago...
Man, she didn't have time for this, she had to call Menachem and let him know there'd been a change of plans.
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Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 10:00 pm
Trickery still wasn't quite sure where exactly she had found herself, but it was certainly far better than open desert or jungle with no people at all. She had kept to the shadows of halls and shifted to blend in with them, which left her out of the sight of most but apparently not (literally) out of touch. Still, had the woman not called out her name the goddess would not have stopped at all - just kept moving until she found a more obvious target to trip up or spy on. Without that last tidbit she wouldn't have been very interesting at all!
Her form shifted again as she turned back to meet the woman's gaze. A more diminutive form to match her own, largely human in appearance with long dark hair, amber eyes and a fair guess at appropriate court dress for this place. "And if I am?" She gave the woman a quick glance up and down, her gaze resting briefly on the jewel encased in the necklace around her throat. It rang as somewhat familiar, though very much out of place here. And somehow the woman knew her name...
Was that a god jewel? It was the only reasonable thing those factors seemed to sum to. Unless of course she had forgotten something else?
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2014 5:13 pm
"Then that'd be weird," said Aoi, slowing to a stop and turning around to look at this maybe-Tien person. She didn't look like anyone from the place that Aska and Whisteria had come from. In fact, she looked... normal. The dress was a little haute couture for such a humdrum day at Court, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; a lot of country ladies dressed to the eights or nines when fives or sixes would do. Every day was a five or six day for Aoi, though. She had no idea how to dress for anything. "On account of the voice in my head knew who you were."
Hmm... maybe not the best start to a conversation. "Not that I have an alien intelligence growing in my brain," she corrected. Wait, no, that was even worse. "Definitely none of that. I'm completely mentally stable. Don't tell the Empress I said anything about voices or aliens." Aliens were real, but the whole story as she'd heard it from Aska was... unbelievable.
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:21 pm
Well, that answered Tien's first question nicely without her having to ask aloud. Given she was unmasked at present Aoi would get a clear view of her expression, raised eyebrow and all. This one didn't seem very keen on being a host, though very few she had ever known were. Few mortals, or immortals, had the capacity for true selflessness that being a completely willing host required. Most just ended up weary and full of sadness once they had lost their will to fight. Hopefully this woman would be a fighter, in the end it would make the god whose gem she bore that much stronger.
After a moment her expression fell back more toward normal for her, which appeared surprisingly trustworthy given who she was. "Would the Empress even believe you is probably the question you should be asking." Reactions from world to world varied as much as person to person. It was universe wide lottery, really. Did the denizens of this world even believe in any sort of gods?
"Does that voice in your head happen to have a name by chance?" Some provided names to their hosts, others did not. If the woman did know and was willing to share it might give Trickery some idea of who she was dealing with.
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:29 pm
The Empress would, point of fact, probably get really pissed off and demand the mages rip the gem out of her chest, too. Not exactly the ideal ending, since Aoi doubted Althai would yield to spells a second time, no matter how badly she wanted him to. Sorry, no, that trick isn't going to work twice, he said, deeply satisfied by his work, probably. She felt a wave of satisfaction, anyway, and it definitely wasn't her own.
"It's not a god," said Aoi, though she was starting to lend just a little bit of credence to an idea. "It's some kind of parasitic alien intelligence bent on taking over my body. And it calls itself Althai. Why? Who're you?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:38 pm
You can keep telling yourself that chickie. But it won't make it any less true. Was that a little bit of doubt in her expression or was the god within pestering her? Trickery's smile turned a little more wicked at the mention of Althai, like a cat who had eaten the canary. So it was a god she knew, though perhaps not as well as she once would have. "I'd wager Althai can answer that for you, if you two are on speaking terms."
Still, this wasn't the host she remembered Healing having before. Wasn't it....oh yes! "What happened to that lovely, dark humored man? You didn't kill him did you?" The question was more posed to Althai, but if his host knew the answer she was more than welcome to speak up.
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:45 pm
So, wait... this Tien had known Althai before-before? When he'd been with Aska? That was interesting, and it gave some corroboration of Althai and Aska's stories. Though... the two of them had never mentioned a Tien... "Aska? He's fine. He's in my rooms with his wife."
We never mentioned her because we didn't have a reason to think we'd see her again. There was a pensive pause. Or, well, see her again before I took over. "******** you," she said under her breath. "So. Who're you, then? If Althai knows you, but didn't think he'd see you again... Are you... like him? One of those... aliens?"
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