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 Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 10:54 am
Destroying youma was, give or take, a reasonably restful way to spend a patrol - they were more prone to massive property damage than an agent, sure, but they were usually bigger targets than an agent and less likely to scream out in a human voice when Anakeion got around to smashing all of their limbs into a fine paste. (The whole not-screaming-in-a-human-voice thing was a big bonus, honestly? Agents tended to scream a lot; but, hey, she gave them fair warning that if they didn't stop what they were doing right then and there she was going to commit a lot of brutal blunt force damage.
People didn't take her seriously until she started breaking their ribs. Maybe it was the skirt. She'd have to ask about that next time she got to work on an officer who hadn't believed she would legitimately kill them.)
This one had been some sort of - not an octopus, that wasn't the right term, but Anakeion wasn't a ******** marine biologist - some sort of lizard with branching tentacles for legs and tails; there were irritated sucker marks on her left leg from where it'd grabbed and tugged, and even with the quick application of magic-empowered shortstaff to the head it had still continued with death throes longer than she would have liked. Now it was just dust, and the straps on her left shoe had ripped in a few spots; that earned her time to relax on the bench nearby with her staff on her lap, head hanging backwards, bracers shucked off to her side.
The aura was nearby-ish (she'd never been good at judging distances) and coming closer; if it was a Knight about to yell at her for 'dereliction of duty' she'd sit through it and pretend to pay attention, but if it was a Knight who was friendly enough - well. Anakeion would never turn down a little friendly conversation.Strickenized thankfully, unlike the title's source, neither of them are amoral hedonists. they're vaguely moral hedonists at least
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:42 am
Scholomance wasn't sure where, exactly, he was when he started to overhear the crunching, but he was certain that he flinched at it.
Quite certain, really, for how it called to mind his own unspeakable experiences with the Negaverse. but, judging by the impossible wailing coming from the rhythmic crunches, it wasn't a Negaverse agent getting to work on yet another one of his comrades. Rather, it was one of his comrades getting to work on a Negaverse agent's drone. One of those sordid little youma that skitter about the city looking at civilians like they were tasties.
The youma deserved it, he knew. Yet, as he forced himself closer to the scene, his gag reflex grew. It grew and grew and threatened to turn over his lunch should he peer over the parapet just long enough to catch a glimpse. He imagined bone fragments. Spilled red blood. A knight's — squire's — face painted with viscera. With ash. He could nearly smell it on the air now, acrid and sharp and cloying for how the particles stuck in his nose.
He reminded himself, briefly, that every catch of scent was an ingestion of particles. He smelled into his own body the particulate of someone's brain matter that way.
Shuddering, he finally pushed himself to look. A youma, demonstrably inhuman, spouting a sticky black like hell's water fountain while a squire struck it with… A pillar? "Huh," he voiced to himself, even as his body wanted to push out his lunch and invert his stomach.
"I think it's dead," he called down. The ash clinched it — roiling and swirling in the steady stillness, it unraveled the youma's physical form. The creature itself stopped moving with it, and in a few moments, there wouldn't be a creature to hit. Then there wouldn't be ash to hit.
Then there would simply be a squire and a knight, with nothing better to do than try to strike up alliances or dalliances (his personal favorite) or awkwardly piss away their interaction.daekie it's just so damn hard to be moral some days
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:27 pm
whatevers we keep getting in the Early Christmas Season are better, actually? They might give people magical super rabies but they're not, like, grabby."
She finally turned to Scholomance, frowning in the way that spoke of 'I did something stupid and now at least two of my muscles are mad at me'. "Whatever, though. Anakeion of Castor. And you?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:30 pm
"Oh, I don't know about that; the tentacles could be put to use, really. Maybe it's not a terribly bright idea, but… What's wrong with a little enjoyment in our duties?" In ways that weren't so visceral yet not entirely appropriate either. But if the monsters themselves never cared when senshi or knights hunted them — why would they care about how they're used? He never once met a youma that showed enough sentience to have a preference. They all just foamed like dogs when Order stepped onto the scene.
And while he couldn't personally recall super rabies, he took her word for it — the city had a habit of creating and exacerbating all kinds of newfangled suffering. He wondered what might come for Valentine's day, and whether he should bother leaving the house.
At the introduction, Scholomance descended from the parapet to meet ground. Bone heels never complained when they struck a harder surface, which led him to wonder what, exactly, they were made from — and how it possibly died. But when he straightened, he tugged his mask down enough to shoot her a pleasant grin. "Scholomance of Edgelord — I mean Saturn. Same difference, really." Like its rings perpetuated a right to teenage Hot Topic gothdom. Scholomance never asked; he only wanted to change uniforms for it.
As he took in sight of her, all her lines and arrayed skirts, he considered foremost the weapon behind her neck. And he considered all the ways she could quite put it to use. "Nice pillar. But it's a little unfair to swing that out and about, don't you think? Could make a man jealous.
"Or want to try it out."
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Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:43 pm
"If the tentacles were sentient," Anakeion corrected, almost teasingly perfunctory, "and if they were at least 50% more attached to a person I trusted, and not a crazy magic monster whose greatest desire in life was to eat all my limbs, I'd be down!" She shrugged, wrinkling her nose. "Also, I guess ******** a tentacle monster in public is probably indecent exposure. That's not how anyone wants to go."
She grinned more fully, though, when Scholomance stepped down to her level. "Yeah, guess you've got a bone to pick with the cosmic tailor and its' thing for Hot Topic, huh? I can't complain, the armor might be a lil' bit impractical but it does good for what it is, and I match Castor. Which is the least important aspect of it, but, you know, like. Squad goals." The Squire shifted her weight back and forth on her feet, forward and backward, bouncing in place. She kept her weapon in place the entire time, arms balancing it so precisely that the strain kept equal - he was trustworthy, probably, but it was easier to keep the shortstaff at hand. To keep the weight of it a very real, very present thing. It was more comforting that way.
"It does a hell of a better job breaking things than it does at any other impromptu use, sadly. No golf, no nothin'."
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Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 10:59 am
She entertained the tentacle comment increasingly well, showing off impulse wit that tailored well to the situations provided to it. The hint of absurdity really clinched it, however, and Scholomance loosed a laugh in response. No, no one was interested in the indecent exposure charges that followed ******** a tentacle monster in public. But worse than that, no one wanted the mucous membrane infections or the blood poisoning or any toxic magical fallout that came from it either. But those were all secondary concerns to the police charge. Having a criminal record is so passé now.
But what really provoked a response was the bone pun. "Oh," he groaned plaintively, "your puns are awful. Absolutely terrible. I'll accept a handy if you want to make it up to me." Casual reference to sex number two.
He hoped he wouldn't have to climb past three in order to segue the conversation to getting to know each other better in all the ways that mattered, but he prepared to budget that wit.
I don't know. I bet I could Size Queen that pillar if I really put my mind to it. And about half a tub of lube. With one eye squeezed shut, Scholomance screwed up his face in exaggerated thought. "I'd love to keep talking around my point, but I have this terrible habit of being direct about the things I'm after. Pesky little character flaw of mine." Scholomance shrugged as languidly as he could.
"So, if you're not busy, and you're quite done crushing youma into dust for the day, what do you say you and I find a cheap hotel and spend a few hours getting to know each other?" Casual reference to sex number three.
Mission accomplished? Stay tuned, Scholomance.
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Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:11 pm
"Not in a trashy alleyway," Anakeion scoffed, "look at what we're wearing, we gotta pretend to have some class, dude. This is basically as close as magic gets to period dress." She flicked her breastplate, listening to the clean ping! of the metal. "Well, like, the ancient Greeks probably didn't get tit windows and platform heels-type stuff, but go off, I guess?" Despite (or because of) it, though, she was grinning.
"Nah, I totally get being direct about things. Makes it a lot easier. Kind of refreshing, actually! As long as everything's on your card, how could I ever possibly resist such a kind offer?" She scrubbed the back of her hand across her forehead, clearing away sweat and ash alike. "Lucky you didn't catch me yesterday, got my ******** arm wrenched and that hurt like a b***h, wasn't in the mood for anything except staring at the ceiling and waiting for death for, like, six hours."
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2018 4:00 pm
"I'll be damned, I never thought our cosmic dress sense dictated where I should and shouldn't get frisky." Scholomance leveled a lidded stare at her. "Pretty sure the ancient Greeks were right down to ******** wherever they pleased. Or the Romans were, at least. Lupercalia and all that. They were pretty much the same for a while, you know?" They borrowed plenty from the Greeks regardless. And if a place like Rome minted its coins with a contraceptive plant, then Scholomance felt secure in his suspicion that they ******** wherever they pleased — and whenever they pleased.
So all this talk of 'pretend to have class' was starting to sound like an excuse. Maybe his creepiness was losing its charm.
But this one didn't have it all there conversationally, either. Going off as she did about getting her arm wrenched and waiting for death was a touch of mood-killer. Was that her signal for him to go away? Probably not, what with the admission that honesty was refreshing. Unless she lied. But mixed signals usually meant charge ahead with reckless abandon.
"Usually I'm charming enough that you don't think about rejecting my offer. Guess I'm a touch rusty by now." Comes with old age, he reminded himself grimly. "Quite sorry to hear about your arm, but since you seem to be in high spirits, why don't you show me where we'd be a bit classier?" And maybe along the way I won't have to bite my tongue so much about arms. Wrenched arm… Try having it cut off.
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 7:16 pm
There was a clear half-shift of priorities Anakeion went through as Scholomance spoke, a second of calculations behind her eyes as her stance shifted a little. She'd misread the situation a little bit, which happened more than she would have liked, but that one avenue wasn't closed off - even if she'd gotten a little stuck on rambling, on some spontaneous tangent that wasn't even that funny to anyone besides her, here.
He hadn't left, so it could have been worse, but if she'd been someone else she would have flushed red with embarrassment. (Anakeion didn't. She had a certain theme to keep up with.)
"Don't mind me, 'kay, got caught up in some other thought. To be totally fair - we absolutely don't need t'pretend to have class, mostly 'cause we don't got any in the first place, and I mostly just don't want to do anything in dead youma? So since you're the one who offered, location's up to you."
As segways go, she'd seen and given smoother. It wasn't particularly flattering.
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Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:19 pm
"Quite fine, really. The chatty-chatty's secondary." Secondary, but not altogether unwelcome; Scholomance was happy to hear the other knight's unique take on the world and her experiences, and even how she chose to interpret the hot pile of colloquialisms that found their way into his articulation. Besides, some misunderstandings trod into far more interesting areas. What fun was it if everyone know precisely what everyone else was saying? Then there'd be no thousand-year wars going on, and no art to speak of. No art was a damned shame, classy or classless as it could be.
That they didn't have class was certain — Scholomance deliberately avoided putting forth a classiness that befit his uniform — and he rather preferred the lack of airs that Anakeion exhibited. Wet blankets and stiff shirts continually bored him. Besides, Anakeion had a spicy spunk to her that Scholomance could get into — literally and figuratively.
"If it's up to me…" Scholomance sucked his teeth momentarily. He strode a few steps forward, heel-toe fashion, to adopt a more conversational distance. "There's this quite nice laundromat not too far from here. One of those 24-hour ones with the fancy stainless steel washers. You know, the type that have the little card readers installed? It's got all the perks you can dream of. Aircon in the summer, heating in the winter, and these superb metal folding tables that look like they could easily hold 600 pounds. Plenty of room to stretch out. Could be a good time." Easy clean-up, at least. And we don't have to clean it.
"So what do you say?" He offered an arm, bent, as if an invitation to slip elbow in elbow.
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 7:49 pm
No thousand-year wars might have been preferable, but Anakeion had grown to be of the opinion that life wasn't as rich without the frequent threat of death or horrible maiming. She was cognizant enough to recognize a coping mechanism when she saw one, but also of the opinion that what did it matter right up until she actually got maimed? Adrenaline rush was a hell of a thing, after all.
Anakeion interlocked an arm with Scholomance's, grinning; she contemplated saying something at the immediate, but nothing ultimately came to mind, and that was fine. This likely wouldn't be anything long-term, but that was fine, too - at the least, it was another socializing markdown to add to the list of contacts.
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