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 Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 11:34 pm
It was hard not to cry out a cathartic shout of victory when Zirconia finally, finally made it to her old post in the part. Her bench, her seat, her table that she had dramatically sprawled out on wailing to the night sky about how boring some nights without visitors were.
She dropped her glamour, and exhaled, before she started running her fingers along the familiar wooden planks of the park bench, making note of every new carving and vandalism that had occurred in her absence.
Nostalgia was a powerful thing, and she had been trying to make this venture for weeks and never made it. She either chickened out, or was deterred, or called home. Simply occupying this space was a victory in trying to reel in a sense of normalcy, at least in this moment.
It faded fast, and she looked around her and the quiet of the winter night that surrounded her. She had forgotten the long nights of waiting, hoping someone would show up to have a conversation. She had forgotten how often they didn't.
Gathering her skirts, she sat down, only to pull her bare feet up off the ground. Maybe tonight she would get lucky.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 6:25 pm
The latest view chosen offered nothing more than the last.
Initially, when the hunter surveyed his new land, he found nothing more than the same repeating patterns with flecks of stars across their surfaces. Some were arranged in letters or promotional announcements, while others sported simple floodlights to offer some mimicry of daylight to those who reveled in the area. Now, as he slowly started adjusting to the city, he identified key differences between these seemingly identical venues - some sported steepled roofs which were more indicative of residential housing, while others maintained flat roofs that he more commonly saw belonging to industrial or commercial facilities. Even the signs themselves that spat word salad at him started to offer their own quiet differences from the rest - diners denoted by fork and knife, with some coffee shops sporting a cup on saucer for their identification. Sometimes he even noted identical insignias in different areas of the city, though he hadn't yet puzzled that phenomenon out.
The eve's slow study of his new surroundings soon gave way to a new interest that sprouted in the direction of the lesser lighted area to the northeast, and a quick glance in that direction offered Umber nothing of interest. A few stragglers passed through the street a couple lights down from his vantage point, and some cars drove through puzzles more to his east, but there were no clear indications for the source of this strange and powerful disturbance.
Auras, he remembered. She called them auras.
Leaving always proved quicker than the ascent, though Umber inwardly enjoyed a game of crossing great distances while descending as slowly as possible. His gait carried him across slowly staggered rooftops, onto the billowing embrace of awnings and their skeletons, then to lamp posts that lit his pursuit too bright for nightly affairs, which turned to dumpsters, then the highest bar of chain link fences, before finally he crossed a pair of trash cans and eventually touched ground.
It is closer now. I cannot tell what it comes from. It feels like nothing I have encountered before. Caution warns of approaching, but taking chances offered me this second life. Umber kept his musings silent while he emerged from the alley mouth, crossed the streets waxed with rains from the night prior, and advanced upon the thick of trees and branches that housed their own great clearing inside.
There, he found a number of picnic benches alongside small stretches of fields marked white in certain areas, like insignia half-complete, and further contraptions of metal and plastic. In this quiet night, only one remained in the area, sporting lilac hair that spilled onto black swaths of fabric.He recognized that she was the source of the disturbance. Slowly he approached, wordlessly, and only when he caught sight of her eyes did he finally halt, leaving him several feet from her location.
"You're different from the rest," he remarked.
And different can be highly dangerous. Boldness must be tempered with wariness.
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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 7:38 pm
There it is, She thought, this time with words to put to the sensation of the ever feeding and always hungry source that was ever ingrained in the universe's veins. Every universe, in varying quantities, but always in the darkness.
She had already encountered the sense of sickness she identified Chaotic auras to be just shortly before, but the source was not quite so jarring to her this time. Either she had understood and remembered most corrupted agents in this universe to be very human and new or she had already gotten over the shock of the small captain she had encountered just earlier.
Perhaps he would be as civil. If she was friendly with every face that graced her index, Chaos or Order, than it was not out of the question. She remained perched on the table surface in her layered skirts and overlays and watched his figure as soon as she caught sight of it make its approach.
"And you are of a kind. The Negaverse, correct?"
She gave his stance a long once over and in the quiet, parted her slight smile to touch the end of her tongue on the slightly sharper than human cuspids.
"Would you deign to sit with me if I promise not to bite?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:43 pm
I'm playing with fire when numb and blind, he reminded himself sharply. There will be no warning when I do myself in. Not now. Not until I've obtained sight or touch.
Umber offered her no confirmation or denial - only another long stare while he took in what details he could glean. It may be similar to senshi. Inhuman, certainly, with ears like that. I know of no creature who emulates our bodies so seamlessly beyond that. He kept his appraisals to himself in favor of silently capitulating to her invitation - he would approach, yet he maintained a fair berth around the creature that solicited his company so readily.
Umber sat atop the bench in a fluid motion belying his long-term practice with agility. One booted foot rested on the seating area while the majority of his weight rested against the table surface. His other foot met nothing but air as it hung off the side, threatening to brush against the blades of grass below. "I want to know what you are. You match nothing that I know." Beyond, possibly, Dark Mirror. But their auras are markedly different. The blonde girl in the church explained that their starseeds are mirror coated. I know of no further differentiations than those.
No holes in her head or chest. No weapon to speak of - and even if she possessed one, her aura is not similar to the lieutenant or captains I've met. Her garb is black. She bears no insignias or markings at all - no stories to tell on her skin.
Dark Mirror, Negaverse, White Moon, Knight. I have met most and she matches none of these descriptions. There is, then, more than the Negaverse knows about or is willing to disseminate to new troops. I wonder which.
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:50 pm
This was no innocent fawn aware of what he was and the infection in his starseed, seeking to purify it. At least so much as Zirconia garnered after watching the hunter. There was some degree of pleasure in that; This would be the informative mission she sought out and there would be no pursuit of innocence to tug on her heart strings as a distraction.
"Old. Bored. Cold on account of the fact it is in the middle of February," She answered, purposely avoiding a straight answer.
"I could ask you the same, neophyte. My studies of the Negaverse in this world are memories far outweighed of old sights and perils of Chaos at its most destructive in deep space. It is hard to reconcile the end of the path with beginnings."
She shifted the way she sat to angle towards him, displaying an expression of far too much self-satisfaction with her new find. "I am Zirconia, sorceress of the cosmos, and I'll exchange your story for mine if you think that an acceptable trade."
She leaned back, trying to gauge his expression. He wasn't the easiest individual to get a read on. "I mean, I don't bite, much."
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Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 2:21 pm
I have no idea what any of that means. Nothing, as far as I know. Sorceress of the cosmos? Chaos at its most destructive in deep space? I can't even imagine what she's referring to, if anything at all.
Umber watched her for a long moment, some of his lack of understanding evident in his countenance, but he said nothing to prove or deny it. A quick once-over up close left him with no impression of what a sorceress was and how one differed from any senshi he knew, also capable of casting magics.
It seemed magic knew a much broader spectrum than he was led to believe.
"... Alright," he conceded at last, knowing full well that his story didn't hold much value if he omitted names or identities. At least, he assumed not, given how disinterested the rest of the powered populace seemed in how he came about being a Lieutenant. Though, there's no reason to be cautious if I won't recognize the signs that I am heading down the wrong path. might as well commit to most of it.
His attention shifted from her to the distant tree line, where a smattering of trees soon grew thick beyond the outskirts of the park. There, the moonlit terrain grew a great deal darker, with no feeble lamps to dispel the great dearth of light. "I grew up elsewhere," he started calmly. "Not far from here. There's a large stretch of forest that separates the edges of Destiny City and the town I lived in. I was out with my brother one night, in the woods." Following our own panicked decisions, driven by culture first and love secondarily. That, she need not know. "It was an unusually bright night."
Shale laced fingers together atop one knee, tempted to perch his chin upon the lattice, but resisted the urge in favor of vigilance. "Very rarely we would find youma in those woods, though we called them something else. We found one, and it split us up. It pursued my brother while something else - someone else - pursued me. Now here I am, in a city that may as well be a foreign country," he finished with a slow nod.
"And I still don't know what happened to my brother." I don't know if her assertion as the sorceress of the cosmos would allow me to find out. Whatever magics she wields, they may not include divination. Or clairvoyance. They might just be parlor tricks, though that I doubt, given her alarming signature. I'm surprised nothing else has joined us.
"Your turn, Sorceress. Zirconia."
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