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 Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:02 am
Blood dripped down Hyperborea's face from where the youma had clawed at her head. This particular youma had come to really infuriate Hyperborea. First she had found it attacking a civilian, which had angered her greatly but then it just didn't want to go quietly. Most youma she could dust without much problems but this one had put up a fight.
The large white bear with steel claws and hellish red eyes had fought her through the alleyways of the apartment. Eventually she had managed to to pin the youma against a wall. She had activated her aspect and was taking a twisted sort of delight in hearing the creature howl in pain.
Normally she would have just dusted the youma and been done with it, but this one reminded her the youma that had killed her parents. When she looked at this youma all she saw was the murderer of her mother and father and she wanted it to suffer before she ended it.
It was then she felt a knight aura approaching her, and a cosmos one at that. "Can I help you? " She said in an annoyed voice not looking away from the youma. If it was Sarras or Hver, she didn't want to talk to them right now. And if it was a new cosmos knight she didn't feel like playing polite as blood dripped down over one of her eyes.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:24 am
She felt the youma first, and the squire second. Chaos. Anger. White fur. Steel. Wispy cirrus clouds. Starlight. Frost. All bleeding together. Teide bit down hard on her tongue. As much as she disliked fighting youma, it would be unforgivable not to come to another cosmos knight's aid. She was turning over a new leaf, trying to leave her vindictiveness and her anger behind her - and if she'd felt Hyperborea, then surely Hyperborea had felt her. On arrival, though, Hyperborea didn't seem to need her help. Teide bit back a cry of alarm. Yes, the other girl was covered in blood - but her concern went more to the youma, to the almost-human cry of terror that escaped it as it burst into dust. "N-no," she stammered, taking a step backwards. The little squire sounded cruel, and while Teide had wished some kind of hard knock on her, she'd never-- Cruelty was how darkness found you, she thought. How Chaos found its way into your heart. "Do you know what they are?" she asked. Maybe - maybe, if Hyperborea knew, then she would have some empathy. (Never mind that if there was something in her experience that Hyperborea distinctly lacked, it was empathy.) "When you kill them," said Teide, "They don't die."
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:43 am
Once the youma had turned to dust Hyperborea turned around to see that the knight in question was Teide. This only increased her annoyance, she was finished trying to be friends with the other cosmos knight now she would have rather had as little to do with the purified knight as possible.
Hyperborea wiped the blood from her eye and deactivated her aspect. "Human?" She answer the others question. "I know of the negaverse's cruelty yes. They are monsters now, killers. The only thing to do with them is kill them....before they kill an innocent." She said a knowing look in her eye. She understood all to well the danger a youma posed to regular people.
She was about to turn and walk away, already tired of this conversation when Teide said something that stopped Hyperborea in her tracks. "What do you mean they don't die?" She growled taking a step towards the other knight.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:52 am
So she knew half the truth - and she didn't care. Teide felt chilled, to say the least. They had been turned into monsters - but it wasn't by their own choice. Teide knew what it was like to have Chaos in your ear, to have enough of your own free will left to resist, that many in the Negaverse knew, on some level, that what they did was wantonly cruel and they still did it. Chaos tinted things that way, made you think you were right. But a youma- A youma didn't have a choice. A youma had to answer to the nearest officer, to beg for energy and starseeds or else starve. "No, they don't die," she repeated. "They reform in the rift, a little bit sadder and a little bit meaner and missing a little bit more of themselves, so that the next time some captain needs a slave, they're ready. They can never die. They can never be released to the cauldron. They can never be reborn and they can never be what they were meant to be." "Every time you dust one, you just make them worse." Maybe - maybe then Hyperborea would think twice about being so ruthless. If you had to dust youma, thought Teide, you could at least be apologetic about it.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 12:11 pm
Teide's words hit Hyperborea hard. They just reform in the rift, then every thing she did was pointless. Every youma she dusted would just come back, worse than before. She looked directly into Teide's eyes, hoping she was lying. Hoping that this was just some sort of sick joke, but no she was clearly telling the truth.
Hyperborea choked down a sob. She hadn't even been able to avenge her parents, their killer simply reform and even if she found and killed it again the cycle would just continue. How could the universe be so unfair, not only did the negaverse had teleportation and the power to forcibly corrupt people but their pet monsters were immortal too.
She turned away from Teide "So it was all pointless. All the work I've done to keep people safe. None of it matters." She let out a forced laugh. "J'en ai ral le cul. Merci, va te faire enculer." She switching to french in her anger.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:11 pm
No, no, no, no! Hyperborea had taken the news and run in completely the other direction with it than Teide had wanted her to. (Well, she was angry, and the small, vindictive, childish part of Teide was happy about that, but she refused to acknowledge that part.) "Us being knights isn't pointless. Saving people isn't pointless-" she said plaintively. But then the French came out, and Teide didn't need to know exactly what she'd been told to understand that it was an insult. Using French at all was an insult - they'd been over this so, so many times. She felt hot behind her eyes. "Maybe the universe was wrong to make you a knight so young. You're just a brat," she said. Teide had- Astrophyllite had been young, but she'd- she'd been better, she assured herself. She'd had empathy. She'd shown respect.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:32 pm
Hyperborea was about to leave when Teide said something that made her ears hot. She'd hit a sore spot, to say Hyperborea wasn't a fit knight. "Yeah and you're just a b***h! I guess neither of us are ideal knights." She spat back.
"So tell me Teide, since you seem so interested in youma. Have you seen the aftermath of youma attack, I have. I've seen flesh ripped apart by inhuman claws and teeth. Faces twisted in horror and pain. The only thing left to wonder is if their starseeds survived, if the universe had granted them a bit of peace or if that monster had devoured their souls in addition to their lives."
"Did you ever make a youma or unleash one on an innocent household? Tell me just how many people did you kill as Astrophyllite?" It was a low blow. One Hyperborea regretted as soon as she said it. The older cosmos knight had purified and it wasn't fair to bring up her past as an agent. But Hyperborea was angry. So Angry that she didn't even realize she had tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Why don't you just leave me alone. You hate me right? So why don't you just leave me alone." She said as she turned around to leave.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:47 pm
Teide clenched her teeth. Did - did Hyperborea think she didn't know what she'd done? Didn't think she'd paid for it, and would continue to pay for it, every day of her life? No. No one was that ignorant, not even naive, naive Hyperborea. Oh, she knew. She was just, as Teide had correctly observed, being a brat - and now she was leaving, like she always did, taking the last word and running away with it. It would be so easy, she thought. So easy to run up behind her, to choke her, to snap her neck the way Avalon had taught her... She felt herself on that dizzy edge, so close and yet- No. she thought, steeling herself. That's what she wants you to do. She wants you to prove that you're not as good as her, not as pure. But you're not like that anymore, and she might want you to be - she might want to be - but you're not. She set her jaw. She thought, Go jump in a lake. But she didn't say anything.
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 2:00 pm
She said nothing. Just like I thought. Hyperborea took off running into the shadow. Ready to get away from here and to the safe solitude of her dorm. She felt hurt. First she had to deal with the youma and now she had Teide questioning her worth as a knight. She just wanted to go to sleep and try to forget this night had happened.
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