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 Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 8:47 pm
This was her first time patrolling since she'd returned to Destiny City. It was a little uncomfortable to be powered up considering that she'd almost been killed once already and she was only a Squire. Possibly, she should have brought Newgrange or Neckar along with her for the first night but it was a matter of pride to do it alone. Besides, she wanted to prove to herself that she could. If she was really going to embrace this being a knight thing, she needed to get comfortable going it alone. Self reliance was not something she had a problem with in any other facet of her life, so why should this be the first.
Oh, well, that pesky almost dying thing did put a damper on things.
She headed up toward downtown, on the outskirts of the business district. She kept to the rooftops mostly, leaping gracefully from one to the next with the power boost she'd managed with her upgrade. She hadn't had a chance to explore it might before she left Destiny City on her long vacation. Hiatus? She wasn't sure the word for it.
A familiar power signature caught her attention, leading her off her path toward the center of the district, following someone she hadn't seen in a long time but would be a welcome sight. Their first meeting was a bit of a misunderstanding, but she hoped their next would be more pleasant. And, as always, she wanted to be friends with everyone.
"Scholomance!"
It was a name she wasn't likely to ever forget, considering her previous blunder. Dropping down, she hit the ground lightly, crouching to absorb some of the impact, before standing upright to consider him. The changes were immediately obvious and she lost her smile as her eyes darkened.
"Who hurt you?" She demanded softly but firmly. Was anyone safe from these monsters? "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you. I wish I had been."
She hugged him for the trouble, genuinely upset for her friend.
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Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2017 1:28 pm
Scholomance disliked the look of the business district in the eve. Apart from the dregs of rush hour traffic, the sun struck the windows in such a manner that nearly all angles of the district threatened to blind him. The smart cut of neon lights flared to life surrpetitiously, for their glow looked far too dim compared to the setting sun. The day's accumulation of littering, spills, and other detritus caked onto the sidewalks, flowed into the gutters. Sometimes he even spotted soft whorls of youma dust passing through a street, not long after he felt the presence of a White Moon senshi. Ultimately, the district felt cluttered with two halves of presentation vying for dominance, and the whole of the area's careful, rustic aesthetic fell away for these last hours.
Scholomance lingered in one of the older parks, where fencing and construction shut it down to make way for another set of buildings. This time, he imagined the stark frame as a strip mall. The last one, which carved out the old soccer fields, grew into another banking building. Over time, he supposed, the old park would condense into a courtyard and ultimately meet its death as the new construction demanded alleyways for delivery. But for now, the unkempt overgrowth remained, and school-age kids sometimes dashed through the thickets when no youma or agents pursued. For a knight like himself, he found there a short break from the bustling cacophony surrounding him.
In truth, he stopped not for a break in scenery, but because of the squire presence that dogged him. He held his careful suspicions against stopping out in the open, so the park's obscurity offered enough of a blanket that he could protect the other person from Negaverse notice. Or so he hoped - Benitoite made clear that the Negaverse was not so easily evaded. Still, he could do nothing more for the stranger in pursuit.
At once Scholomance turned, and trained hazel eyes on a familiar-unfamiliar figure. He knew her, from a time long past, but she looked rather different. Was she a page before? He couldn't remember. Her name stood to mind, however, as one of Robin Hood myth. "Sherwood," he sounded out in greeting. He wasn't certain how much pleasant tone he could carry, especially given their circumstances. Already she made missteps unknown to her, simply by approaching him.
And already she noted his injuries. "The Negaverse," he answered simply. "It isn't safe to talk about." She hugged him, and his anxieties rose. Who was on watch duty? What if they saw? "It's best we don't talk like this. I'm always being tailed - if they see you with me, they'll want to know who you are. And since they're already looking for me to hand over identities… Even talking to me is growing more precarious by the day. I'd love to catch up, but we should find someplace safer." He gave her arm a tight squeeze, even as he surveyed their surroundings.
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Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2017 6:59 pm
In another time, another future, Benitoite was the one that corrupted Sherwood away from her beloved friends and family in the White Moon. He took the arm of her Newgrange the same way Scholomance's was conspicuously missing. She dreamed of the haunted look in his eyes as he told her that she was the Sherwood he'd been looking for, one lost to him in the form of a Negaverse General. His sad words echoed in her ears at unwelcome times, a warning of a life that had not yet, and may never, come to pass. Now they were distant dreams she couldn't quite grasp, lingering on the edge of her consciousness on occasional restless nights when nightmares plagued her. Of those she had many, and usually they all bore his or Painite's face.
"Not safe...?"
Why on Earth was he trying to protect her? A strong visceral feeling reacted in the pit of her stomach and demanded that she be the one to help him, not the other way around. Even though she didn't know him well, KD tended to care about everyone she knew in the same way that she cared for loved ones: which is to say completely and unreservedly. She felt awful she hadn't been there to protect him from what seemed like deep trouble. Her mind flicked to Papa Camelot but somehow she decided against it. If he was already in this much trouble the Royal Knight would be a homing beacon to every Nega in the city.
She took his hand and tugged him to follow her, jogging quickly into the a dense copse of trees to hide them from anyone watching. She knew this park well, not too far from Arias' bakery, and knew of a place within it that she liked to hide. She found the hole in the bushes and crawled through to the hidden ring inside, just large enough to curl up on the moss and take a nap. Or for two people to sit side by side. She waited for him to follow and took a deep breath, knowing that they could lose any tail in just one way.
There was only one real thing left to do.
She powered down as she watched him, showing him who she really was: not Squire Sherwood but artistic and enthusiastic Caydence Brendan. Her aura was no long able to be detected by anyone watching them and, at least she hoped, her identity would be safe with Scholomance. Her green eyes turned up to his face in a silent plea to prove her right.
"Now there's nothing to see. Just a civilian."
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 9:40 am
Scholomance bit back a callous response. So much of his patience filtered away since Blaine's latest - and last - betrayal. So much of his good humor, his charisma, his charm each dwindled and died with the Negaverse's ncessant hunt. Now, with each passing moment spent in another's company, he faced prospects of losing friends down many different paths, and his own putrefying personality guaranteed that he would not escape the Negaverse and retain any allies. Hell, Scholomance already half-assumed that he would endure corruption by the end of their enslavement of him. And perhaps, he thought, Sherwood would fall to that same fate.
He found no time to word his explanations, however, as Sherwood seized his hand posthaste. Keeping stride with her proved easy given their difference in power, but he knew not where she led him. Had she sensed the Negaverse on the horizon? Scholomance doubted it; he grew ever keen to auric presentations and found none so beckoning in the overgrown park. So, what then? Did she spot someone she distrusted? Was she looking for a safer space?
The answer grew clear when they encountered thick underbrush and vast thickets. Sherwood wormed her way through one of the small holes in the wall of brush and emerged somewhere beyond Scholomance's line of sight. He frowned to himself, knowing that the unwieldy bone decorum on his uniform would prove cumbersome here. Squeezing through was a matter of asking himself if he'd like to sooner get stuck, break all the bone off his uniform, or jam up the bush. He tried nonetheless, and while his shoulder bones grasped at every offending twig, he managed enough strength to break through most of the obstacles. Toward the end he needed to remove his crown, for it lodged invariably in an elbow of hawthorn, and he emerged scraped but whole.
Before he could even pick the thorns from his coat, Sherwood already began to shed her uniform. He wanted to catch her midway, to warn her against exposing her identity to him and the fallout it promised, but she left him no choice in witnessing her transformation. Soon, he faced an artist that he recognized distantly, and he felt bitterly grateful that he could not recall her civilian name.
Sighing, Scholomance closed his eyes. "This might be worse." He spoke dully, as if the night's events drew all of his energy away. "The Negaverse has been watching me. They've been expecting tasks of me, and the latest was a list of identities of senshi and knights. This is only going to put me in a worse spot when they decide to torture me into giving up what I know."
Congratulations, sweetheart, a darker part of him responded. You just s**t all over the rest of your life by acting on impulse. Now we can both meet a horrible fate.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 5:03 pm
She looked across at him, sympathetic and worried, her brow furrowed in concentration. There wasn't much she could do about it but she felt she had to try. He was not only a friend but a fellow knight. She had to make things better. After Painite scared her away for so long she felt she'd left her fellow knights without someone else to strengthen their fold. She'd left him unprotected and vulnerable, which wasn't altogether true, or fair, but she didn't recognize that now.
"I know people that can help you, Scholomance. Mama Shalott can help you. I can ask her to; I know she'd want to."
She'd run into Shalott a few times, mostly knew her as Camelot's wife. She would have reached out to the Royal Knight but something inside told her not to. She couldn't place the feeling, except to say that Shalott was probably the way to go. After all, every time she'd spoken to the knight she got a strong maternal instinct vibe from her that made her feel safe and happy.
His words made her blood turn to ice.
"They've been...torturing you?"
For information, identities. Her identity was now precariously in the balance for all of her impulse and well meaning. She handed over the one thing to him that might make his time with the Negaverse easier. On a platter she handed him enough information to put herself and all of her loved ones at risk. Her eyes widened with a sharp gasp, shaking her head.
God, what had she done?
"You can come stay with me, or with someone. They'll keep you away from the Negaverse. You don't have to be alone anymore."
Why, oh God, why hadn't he asked for help before now?
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Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:33 am
"If Shalott is able to find off the Negaverse, then she's cordially invited." Scholomance knew nothing of the name, but his experiences with knights proved rather spotty at best. Scholomance estimated that Shalott was either a knight or an eternal or royalty of some kind, if Sherwood assumed that Shalott could provide assistance. Toiling over a name now offered little assistance; he couldn't put together an identity on scanty scraps of information.
With her next words, Scholomance prepared for an inquisition on the full story. Instead, she passed on the lot of it via her incredulousness alone, and the knight was glad for it. Already he divulged the incident a few too many times for his own liking. Retellings provoked specters of the incident, and while he could chase them out of his own mind, Scholomance found no control over others' reactions. The pitying glances, the mental writeoff of him as an invalid, as powerless over his own fate. As an object in need of protection. Each time he offered explanations, he watched his autonomy getting stripped away and replaced with sympathetic pleasantries and false promises of protection, of 'better luck next time' applied under a different wrapper.
And a part of him wanted to snap at her for her incredulousness. His bitterness announced acerbically that losing an arm, a finger, all of his teeth constituted an obvious act of torture. Resentment urged him to spit the lot of it into her face.
Scholomance drew a breath. "It's better for the moment if I stay where I am. I doubt they found my residence by now; otherwise they would've done something about me much sooner. Changing my routine only opens the door for more mistakes. But." He closed his eyes against his seething temper as it simmered and shook beneath his skin. "Invariably I will have to make a stand. Fighting them alone isn't something that's ever gone well in the past. If you want to help, be vigilant. Patrol around Thursday evenings. Someday, somehow, I'll make the call for you. Alright?" The plan sounded paltry - hastily stitched together in an air of frantic determination. Perhaps that was all he needed. Order subsisted off less, he knew.
"They won't bug us here if they think I'm making headway on their duties. Since your signature winked out, I think that works to our advantage. We should have some time as long as I stay powered." He hoped, at least; for as long as his auric energy lingered, there existed no need to come looking for him.
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Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 7:35 pm
In a lot of ways Sherwood still lived in an idealized world, despite her many brushes with darkness. She could not conceive of the horror that would torture a person for information like this. She could not imagine a world where this was so, and was more determined than ever not to be as useless in this fight as she had been. Sure, she could shoot an arrow but what good was a bow without them? She'd been hurt and nearly killed twice already with no skill to defend herself, or the knight sitting in front of her. Even if they did save him from the Negaverse, he would never be the same again.
"I'm sure she'll try," she responded, hoping she was right about Shalott. If knights stronger than she would could help, she hoped it would make a difference. "I want to help you, too, Scholomance. You know who I am now but I trust you."
She nodded along with his plans, willing to follow through even if it meant being hurt herself. He was allowed to be bitter about what he'd been through and her naivety over it, but she was a woman of her word that she would help him find a way to beat this. She touched his knee, unaware of the molten resentment that was bubbling away. If she did she would have known it was founded because she'd failed him. They all failed him. More and more she realized that that was what was wrong with them, all of them. The Negaverse was more structured and the members knew of one another. There was discipline in their ranks and a support system.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you. I wish.."
All of her wishing was fruitless. She hadn't been there when he was tortured and was less than useless when it came to the higher authorities of the Negaverse, anyway. Tears swam in her eyes as she looked at him, but it wasn't pity that made them fall. It was a bitter frustration for her own uselessness.
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 8:18 pm
I wouldn't trust me. He cringed at the thought; acting rashly often proved a gamble, and Sherwood placed all her betting money on a bad hand. Scholomance knew his own propensity to save his skin and dispense trust in scarce amounts, and now Sherwood would learn the worst lessons from the lot of it. Briefly he wondered how long he could - would - hold out against Schörl's next machinations until he gave up a fat list of names and faces. And what would be left for him? What would that gain but death or corruption?
Scholomance sat back against one of the greater tree trunks framing the thicket. He extended legs outward at a bent angle, indicatiev of his exhaustion from the whole affair. Briefly he rubbed at one eye. "Please. I don't want to keep thinking about it. I've had enough of going back through the scenarios and cycling through a thousand what-ifs that all ended in me having all of my teeth and two ******** arms again. It's just another way to rake myself over the coals for not picking a better choice of call, or not talking fast enough, or for other knights to hate themselves for not being in the right place at the right time. If you want to rectify this somehow, then help me kill Schörl and Cinnabar. Because they're not going to stop until one of us is dead."
He looked to her tears and sighed. He remembered that helpless brand of hurt, where the pain of isolation constricted about his throat and forced tears to pool to the brim of his eyes. He remembered shattered plans, and love lost to a decision that he could not change regardless of his attempts.
And he remembered the vicious, searing pain jolt through his body with each turn of the gigli saw.
"Consider this as making it up to me." A favor, an exchange. Reframing to business felt unconscionably easy. "Thanks, Sherwood. For agreeing to this. It might make all the difference, in the end." Or it might mean another name to add to the pile, his bitterness pointed out helpfully.
"When I leave here, wait a few minutes before you power up and make your exit. I have enough tails that they don't need to be sensing you, too. You might even want to walk home as a civilian - it might be safer for now. And please, if you can, let Shalott know what's going on. Let everyone know. There won't be an easy way out of this."
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