Welcome to Gaia! ::

Titanite was out beating up trees again. They were hardier than so many people, and if she broke one, it was of less concern and guilt than breaking a human, and she had not encountered anyone willing to spar with her tonight, nor anyone willing to entertain her in other ways. Like smoking a joint. Or making out.

It was unfortunate, but tonight she was her own date.

At least, that was what she thought until she felt the warm p***k of another Negaverse agent drawing near. Oh. Well then~ she had little choice but to investigate just what one of her fellows was doing out this way- she had thought she would mostly be alone.

Unfortunately, her fellow agent seemed to be a wee bit on edge. As Titanite approached, she thought she could see a glint in the dark of a summoned weapon, the other figure holding a hand to her chest. "Are you injured?" she asked, her accented voice concerned; her first thought was that the agent was on edge and in trouble. "Are you being followed? Do you need a teleport?"

The pause was more than Titanite could have hoped for; whatever the other agent was holding so protectively was put away, along with the fiercely protective expression, and the blue-haired Captain sauntered closer.

I'm fine. Just going through some things.

Combined with the pallor, the sticky wild-eyed sheen, one addict thought she recognized another. "You do not look like you had a bad hit," she told the other woman, brow furrowing. "Withdrawl?" what was she on, if it was that? Would she tell Titanite? "What do you need?"

She stepped closer, more cautious now. Her stash was hard come by, but this woman looked more than just poorly. "Is it coke?" she asked bluntly, "Heroin? Something else?"

Shahar had looked like that. More than once. Almost every time she tried to detox. Wild eyed, wild haired, and ready to fight her way through hordes to get her next fix. It was what this woman looked like, and it made Shahar quiver with recognition, her mouth going dry with the memory of that pain.

Titan blinked, upper body rearing back as the other Captain shook her white head fiercely, eyes wild, the brief flash of confusion fading into denial. She was not on anything- and that was, possibly, the whole problem. She was not on anything, and her body wasn't liking it. The fact that it was something legal she was on was even more tragic.

At least until the captain revealed what she had hidden, and some part of Shahar's mind stuttered to a halt as she blinked at the shimmering starseed. Somewhere, a person had died for that. The Egyptian's own face went pale under her skin, though she tried to hide it, and she tilted her head to consider what action it was best to take. It was too late, probably, for whoever the other woman had taken it from.

It wasn't unusual for people to take starseeds. She had known that people in the Negaverse used them for quick fixes of energy, when allowed. She also knew that there was, currently, a finite source of starseeds in Destiny City, with more being plucked every day. It was amazing there was even a single civilian left in this town at all, much less enough to make midnight snacks from. At least to get like this.

She could be wrong, but this withdrawal didn't look like casual addiction. "Just for energy," she repeated, and couldn't stop her brow from furrowing. "Did you try coffee, Captain?" there was no judgement- it was a genuine question. If it was for energy, maybe she could talk the woman down from this one. She doubted it, but she could try. "What do you need energy for?"

Put the Starseed down was nowhere in the vernacular, and she didn't step closer. Instead, she took it all in, and tried to consider. Titanite had never tried a starseed; s**t, she had not even pulled one from a person in years, either, until recently.

Titanite shifted on her feet, carefully, recognizing the look on the other captain's face as the same kind of look that Titanite gave a fix, or a bottle. Just seeing it on another face made her mouth run dry with wanting, made that itch under her skin catch flame. She distracted herself with adrenaline, with punching people, with being social and smiling, but underneath it all, she was that, just with a very different drug of choice. she was in no position to throw stones, even if she disagreed with the Captain's taste.

Coffee can't even compare. It was said adoringly, and Titanite swallowed. She had a point- sometimes their jobs were so very difficult, especially as she refused to pull starseeds herself- she had pulled the one, not long ago, and it still disrupted her sleep. One for their ruler- and one for her. It was fair, perhaps. Yet was it wasteful? In lives, perhaps; in another way, it was no more wasteful than Shahar's own habits. She had to work twice as hard to pay her addictions as well as her rent.

She licked her lips, considering; moving past revulsion to curiosity when the other woman moved in, moved closer, holding out another starseed. The woman was shaking, and Shahar wasn't surprised to find that her own were, too, when she reached out an empty hand palm-up, to let the other woman drop the starseed into Shahar's hand. "I will take it," she said, and her throat was dry. Use it on yourself. It was terribly tempting. Just once. Give it a try. They were dead anyways, it was not like she could do anything to help them once she had it. And it was not as if anyone expected her to bring the starseed in- her singular starseed before had been a shocking exception.

"What is your name?" she asked the other woman roughly. "I-"

She would give her credit if Titanite turned it in. But the idea of just one taste.... trying something.... new....

Saraubite dropped the starseed into Titanite's hand and skittered backwards so quickly that were it not for the gently pulsing warmth in her palm, she might have imagined that the other woman had gotten so close at all. Carefully, Titanite curled long, calloused fingers around the starseed and peered at it through she small gaps in her fingers, wondering who it belonged to; which cold, lifeless bodyy in the dirt had been home to this simple little shard.

She lifted her eyes and watched the last bits of the transformation as the addict took her hit- watched that drugged semblance of clarity return to the other woman- the pallor fading, the shaking subsiding. It was almost like magic, Shahar thought with some itony; it was magic. The only magical drug in existence. It looked beautiful, but the withdrawl from it looked to be intense. The high.... how long would it last her? Was it worth the price she would have to pay, in the end? Was it worth the abandonment of what few morals she had?

It looked worth it. The change in the woman was extreme. But she had just eaten a life- a soul. A future.

"Pleasure to meet you, Saraubite. I am Titanite." she inclined her head firmly, not holding out her hand- the hand she might have shaken with was filled with a starseed, and that wasn't something she was ready to give back to the other woman. "I am glad that you are well." she looked the other woman over with a critical eye- not judgment, but as though she was looking to verify for herself that the change she saw was... real.

"No," Titanite said after a moment in response to Sarabauite's question. "I have never tried a starseed before." Shahar did not even carry one on her person in the event of an emergency, as was allowed. She deliberately allowed herself to be crippled in that way, because... A page. Something fluttered low in her belly, tickling and uncurling, warmth and curiosity. Seeing the reaction the other woman had to the starseed made her own mouth water with curiosity.

She couldn't return it to the body. Shahar swallowed, glancing down to the starseed in her hand, trying to close her fingers tighter to hide the light from her hungry eyes, and the gaze of the other woman. "I rarely choose to take a starseed. I harvest energy. It is... renewable. Unlike a starseed. I consider it my version of 'going green and clean' on my energy, as it were." she tried to keep the joke light.

Still- the urge won out to take another look, and Shahar lifted her hand higher, turning turquoise eyes on the little gem held carefully between thumb and forefinger. A soul. A life. A page- not a casual civilian. A page. One of the Negaverse's so-called enemies. Surely it wouldn't be frowned upon to try it just once. It was.... a tempting option, and she swallowed again, clearing her throat nervously.

"i am pleased you feel better, Captain."

Titanite closed her fist, the starseed vanishing into her glove. She wasn't- she couldn't- face this temptation right now. She was here, trying to focus. Trying to exercise. Trying to clear her mind. She did not yet have time for the temptation of this whispered drug. She knew she could have one. It might not be missed. But the idea, the concept, remained softly repugnant to her core. "I could not be the one to tell you that you do not look well, Sarabauite. You look the same as any who go too long without their 'energy source' of choice."

You look the same as any drug addict I have seen go too long without a fix.

You look the same as me.

It could be so easy.

"As I said, I have never had a starseed. I do tend to prefer not to pluck them, if only for the minor reasons. I look because you make it sound so.... beneficial, yet I have also heard warnings. It is caution, my fellow captain."