|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue May 01, 2018 12:26 pm
The skin overtaking him still felt foreign in as many ways as it felt familiar. Eion pushed his newly whitened, newly clipped nails into the pockets of his tight windbreaker as he walked against the new spring breeze. Turning out of the alley, he looked and felt almost too normal. With his lengthy, declarative tank hidden under the black and yellow plastic windbreaker, and striped leggings underneath, he indulged in similar mismatched oddities to the rest of Destiny City's youth. The only flag for his former social status was his choice of iconic ankle boots.
While the wind whipped and furled his hair into his face, remained Eion's only interaction with the rest of this foreign-familiar world. Across the street, a young couple walked their stroller and chatted about their dinner party inanities. Behind them by a quarter-block was a school-aged girl with an overlong sweater covering her headphone cord. And elsewhere behind Eion himself was the rhythmic stutter-growl of wheels on concrete, always grinding and always working.
While the library wasn't far, his thoughts were. Oft they drifted to the caverns thousands of miles beneath the surface, to the great old buildings long forgotten to earth's history, to the once-people who took for granted the same world in which he walked. He wondered, then, if that couple thought about youma. If they considered, at any point, that their child might grow up to don that same magical regalia of the people who haunted their nights. If they knew that their progeny might fly that same Negaverse banner and subjugate everything that they fought to put into power. Or did they only choose to see the day in front of their faces?
The growl edged closer, grew louder. Eion flickered back to reality, breathlessly attentive, music in his ears paused for the lightly smothered ambience around him, and he chanced a look back.
But he didn't expect a face from a life three-quarters dead and one-quarter risen from that dead. Connie he knew, but the word could not leave his lips.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 02, 2018 12:58 pm
Connie pushed hard against the ground, using this speed to zip past a group of people cluttering up the sidewalk, sighing as she did so. Though catching this and her feelings, she knew she needed to check herself. It was the first day off she had given to herself in a while and she should be relaxing. Yet she just felt crumbly. She'd much rather be headed to the skate park to clear her head, but knew she needed to catch up on her geneaolgy work at the library. Maybe she would do some night skating instead...maybe a youma would make the mistake of crossing her path. She huffed, and looked both ways before taking a sharp turn to cross the street, away from the more busy side. At least if she could get this work done today, she'd feel less useless than she had been feeling lately. Connie gave a firm nod to herself, believing this is what would be happening today. Listening to the sounds of her wheels against the pavement, she started to relax, keeping the outside world out of her thoughts. It wasn't until she saw something stepped out of a alley up ahead, she lended to move past them and in all hopes they didn't just step in front of her. The bright yellow of the windbreaker matched with the striped leggings sent her face into a slightly judging looks- though she guessed she had no room to talk with her blairing neon-pastel hoodie. Then he looked back and she flushed, knowing she probably still had that look on her face. Almost looking away but unable to stop herself from staring as she got closer. Maybe time even stopped. Connie couldn't be sure but also wouldn't be surprised. Was that Elex?? Her brow crinkled in what was probably the most glaring look she had ever given anyone, her mouth opening a bit as if to say anything but she didn't even know where to start. Connie stopped her board- hard, causing herself to leap forward a bit, trying hard to not fall and keep her balance. Quickly stopped on it to keep from running into her, only for it to pop up and slam into her shin. She let out a painful groan but gathered up her board to stomp towards the boy. "E-Elex?? Elex Yorke??" Maybe a bit pissed. Arm raised with her index figure ready for poking as she B-lined for the poor guy. Strickenized Ahh, no, you're fine. <3 I hope this replies ok! XD Connie judging. Are the strips horizontal or vertical? :B
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 04, 2018 11:43 pm
That Connie shot him a snotty look came as a mild surprise — he never stepped in her path, never spoke a word to her, never looked upon her with the same expression as the one she wore. But she faced him down so vehemently that she stopped her skating altogether and reclaimed her board to approach him.
For the moment, there weren't senshi. There weren't knights. There weren't supernatural militaries headed by mysterious superpowers.
But when she finally spoke, when she approached with her accusatory finger brandished, the lot of it filtered back at once. She named the dead, the words digging their pit into his stomach. He felt the walls of his guts clench and squirm to fill that hole. They never did, he knew. They never would. Here he faced a casualty of that casualty — a girl who would never find closure for the friend she missed many months ago. Elex Yorke was gone, but she didn't know. He couldn't tell her. Guilt tasted flavorless on his tongue.
"No," Eion answered in technical truth. You don't know me, but you do. My glamour has a sense of humor. "But I wonder what he did to deserve that look."
Slim fingers buried into pockets, pulling taut the plastic into its shiny lines. The yellow band about his bicep, bright and bold with its distant leanings, cut its parallel with the horizontal stripes on his leggings. He wondered if his poker face passed muster — if all the many months spent under Stroud's constant berating imparted that perfect impassive expression. He wondered if Connie Salvatore, in all her boundless curiosity, was ready to make those judgments.
"Eion Risk," he offered. Mistakes, conversely, tasted fresh.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 3:50 pm
Connie's eyebrow crinkled as she looked the boy over again after his words, something in the back of her mind might have even told her to punch him, though she didn't. Even the sound of his jacket moving and how if was so different from her own cotton hoodie, was jarring to her. She sighed, trying to collect herself as she flushed embrassingly, finaly admitting to herself that he might not have been Elex after all. Though something did seem off..she just couldn't put her finger on it... Staring at her own finger still lingering in the air, just a few centimeters away from poking the boy in front of her. Connie straighten up, shoving her own hand into her hoodie's pocket and shifted her firmly planted feet. Connie shook her head and faced the boy again. "Sorry Eion, I did think...He-" She stopped to collect herself. I won't give up. I can't. Maybe...Pushing the thoughts away and trying to relax, Connie removed her hand from her pocket, putting it out for the boy to take if he choose. "Connie...Connie Salvatore." Strickenized Oh man, those are interesting. x_x haha I might cheat if I ever draw them. XD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 11:00 pm
He watched her falter in her certainty. The accusation was no more than a domino — bathed in cheap plastic conviction, spotted smartly with Connie's teenaged exuberance, it waited for nothing more than a breath to send it tumbling to the ground. An easy casualty. A necessary one.
And in exchange for that bright-eyed and wonder-filled girl he met on the eve of the party, he received this crestfallen ghost. This vesper rebel arrested in youth's ever-burning tumult. Connie Salvatore, she said.
I know, he thought.
Eion pulled all his scraps of politeness into the semblance of a smile. He even took her hand, gave it a firm shake, and released it in short order. He had counted the seconds to his father's decree — a good handshake is no more than three seconds long — and spared no thought to the audacity of it all. He didn't want to reflect on it, couldn't bring himself to face it. The strange pointlessness of their meeting thus lingered like a pall overhead, ever fixed and never fading away.
Strange how we always try to be the adults we aren't. Eion abandoned thought of his moral and social responsibility to Connie. The truth could destroy her life as she knew it. The handful of hours they spent together never justified such an attack on her person. And the Negaverse would find no grateful characteristics in one poached so young. They had to be strangers.
But they didn't have to be boring about it. "Sounds like he disappeared on you," Eion pointed out with a knowing c**k of his head. He broke into a stride with every expectation that Connie would follow. She had to — she knew he was right. "Pity that.
"Let me guess. You met him at a party. Decided you liked him. Maybe met him again. Then he stood you up, nowhere to be found. All calls returned. All texts unanswered. All Facebook posts unseen. Am I right?" He asked as he shot her an interested glance.anime_girl10 yeah i can't decide if they're some weird Rorschach negative or if they're a ribcage x-ray idk
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 10:04 am
Connie watched the smile, but couldn't make herself give one in return. She even felt a bit shocked as she watched as him return the handshake, wondering why he didn't want to just be done with her at this point. Though she held on to the feeling of his touch for as long as she could before his words broke her thoughts like someone breaking through an iced over lake. Sudden and intruding, she could feel her nose crunch up as she boy tried to analyze what had happened to her. She turned, keeping her eyes locked onto him as he started off past her. Every nerve in her body telling her to follow him. Why though? He had no right of this feeling or control over her.. She felt angry, she found her hand firmly on her hip as she glared into the back of his head. Am I right? Echoed into her head and her glare soften as she boy turned back for a glance...and then she laughed. He sounded just like him in this moment. "Ok. ok. Maybe?" She smiled. "He was there for me though, when I needed it.. I couldn't tell him everything, and we didn't know each other long, but he helped." Connie gave a nod and then started walking, not even giving Eion a glance as she walked past him now. "Maybe someday we'll make that connection again."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 9:13 am
"Maybe you will." But it won't be the Elex you're used to, would it. But she'd already charged ahead, brazen and unfeeling, or perhaps feeling too much, feeling the wind, feeling the air, feeling the strange loss all too keenly for how succinctly he put it. He knew he was right about their relationship. He knew, and she would find it uncanny. Perhaps enough to suspect him.
Eion followed for as long as she led in his intended direction. The walk to the library was short — already, now, he saw it on the horizon, colored blue in air perspective — and Eion was uncertain how long she would stick around. She still held her skateboard like a defiant teen, enjoying the life that he never finished.
But how much had changed? People his age changed as much as the winds. Was she still interested in genealogy? Was she looking into the first mysteries he showed her upon their initial meeting? Had she discovered the quiet powers that fought over this city? Did she join that war? And if she did, if she had that chance, then which side was the first to take her? She suffered no displacement like Heliodor, unless her recent move to Destiny City was a manufactured one with quietly adopted parents. But those parents looked like her and she like them; Eion imagined she'd never once crossed the lines of that fight, if she ever joined at all.
He suspected she didn't, for all the snatches of skin exposed showed the normal bruises of life, exploration, and fun. She wore romance well.
"I'm going to the library," he volunteered. "You can come if you want. Maybe you'll find your friend." You already did. You never will. These answers aren't oppositional.
"But if you come with me, I want to know more about you than your name and your skateboarding."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 8:49 am
Connie smiled softly as they continued. Maybe. She knew she would seem crazy to anyone else, maybe even Eion, but for the time she wasn't sure if she felt he was his own person. Maybe was such a fearful word, but it also brought sparks of excitement as she listened to his following foot steps behind her. She became lost in her thoughts are the words between them stopped. Would she be ready to say goodbye to Elex? Would letting Eion in be ok, if their was no connection between them after all? And of course after entering such a world, would she only feel more loss in the future.. Surely she could work to save her fellow Senshi but what of the others..did they deserve to be saved? She knew they deserved the chance at least.. Connie almost didn't stop when Eion mentioned the library, the thought entering her mind like a soft feather, knowing she was headed there too. Until he offered for her to join him. She laughed, thinking at his offer, turning on her heels to face him. Did Elex really know much more than that anyway? "That sounds interesting. I think I'd like to know more about you too, besides your name and that flashy outfit." She grinned teasingly. She didn't know much more now did she.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 8:15 pm
If there was much to know. Eion followed her with his eyes until she stopped and heel-turned, boisterous with youth. She seemed in good spirits — expectant to learn of this new person with which she was faced. He hadn't yet decided how much of Elex should inform Eion.
The library itself was a short walk away. Long enough, however, that Eion could think further on what to ask. He knew something of Connie Salvatore, of course — her status, her family, her newness in Destiny City, her affinity for genealogy — but that seldom painted a person. She was curious, full of wonder, obviously not immune to sass. She liked to skateboard. She attended parties at her parents' behest. And she liked the beach for what little time they spent there. She found no qualms with verbally shutting down their parents' conservation efforts back when he was Elex. But the sum total of his awareness stopped there; henceforth, Connie was a mystery.
Though worse could be said for Eion. Moving forward, he assured himself of 'and you's that might crop up in their conversation. Every ask deserved an answer from both sides.
He kept his pace fair and asked his first question shortly before he reached the door. "What were you doing an hour ago and why were you doing it?" The question was simple, straightforward, and added context to what Connie was doing on her skateboard. Why her face pinched into a scowl of concentration. It laid the beginnings of a routine, as more and more often teens his age were burdened with modular lives.
He seized the door with his right hand, the oak handle sitting flush against still-young hand, and pulled it open for her. Etiquette takes longer than two weeks to die, he reminded himself wryly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 9:22 pm
Connie was busy thinking of her own questions, knowing she couldn't press too hard, though that lead to wondering what kinds of things he would ask her. Would he keep it light or go right for it? Of course by the time they made it up the stairs, she was lost to it before his question hit her right in the gut. It wasn't too bad, it wouldn't be as bad if what she had to say wouldn't make things more tense. It made her just want to drag him somewhere they could talk along. Possibly shake the answers out of him. She realized her face was in crinkles again, taking a moment to force them away as she stepped through the door. Only partly turning to face Eion as he would make his way in behind her. "I was...thinking of my friend, actually. It's been a year since he went missing. I wanted to go- to talk to his mom- if she's even still going to those types of things..." Connie kinda made a face. It wasn't like she really wanted to talk to the woman. It's not like she should even be so wrapped up in someone she only knew for a few days before he disappeared from her life. She smiled softly, looking at him now. Sorry Elex. "Sorry Eion. It's just..he was the first friend I made when I moved here. At least I see him as one. I don't know if he even really cared about me. .. You probably wouldn't be surprised to know that making friends is hard for me." Connie laughed, wondering what he would have done if she had actually poked him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 1:39 pm
Eion froze at the mention. She wanted to visit, to talk to his mother. To find his mother at another social soiree with a wine glass in one hand and a smile full of shark's teeth. To hear her stories of her prodigal son, now missing, now someone else's unwanted child with another name.
But there was no more Anna Yorke — no more Yorke family. The war chewed through his old liffe at a cost of hus humanity. She could only ever find the ghosts that haunted Facebook, Zillo, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr. All the Elex accounts left stagnant since April of last year. His mother's obituary posted in the Destiny City Tribune. His father's and brother's abandoned social networking profiles with their matching last login dates from only months ago. All that was left for Connie's closure was a digital trail of scathing absence. And all that was left to Eion Risk was a life untaken, a noose fastened as a posture collar.
His expression softened before flickering to the floor. We all just ravel out, don't we. We search with frayed threads for someone else to wind into, someone else to bend with us.
When he looked to Connie again, he gave her a cool loft of brows. "Mmm. I'm not surprised with how you scowl." Eion sidled past her and into the library proper, where real marble floors and high ceilings spoke of private funding. Collections layered by floor were painted neatly into the wall of the stairwell, where any visitor could access their reading material. To his misfortune, however, all of his books were filed into general collections. General collections listed a different set of alphabet letters on every floor.
"I haven't made many friends either. Too much to do. Not enough time." Not enough humanity. Not enough history. He entered into the stairwell, turned, then beckoned for her to follow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 6:58 pm
Connie glanced at Eion at his mention of her scowl before turning away to bring her attention to what was around them. Though she couldn't help but think the thought that she needed an iron for her forehead. Just relax Connie. Don't want to scare the poor guy off after all. She took in a deep breathe, taking in the area around them. She even made a mental note to get some kind of boots like her Senshi form had, knowing the Lapis Lazuli heels would make the best clicking sound against the smooth marble floors. Connie felt his comment in her time. Funny how people so young as themselves just never seemed to have the time. Or maybe it was just part of being powered in this city. Hm. She looked up to make a comment just to find he was gone. What the heck?? Finding Eion in time to see him beckoning her, or maybe he planned it. She became flushed and quickly went to follow him. "W-Where are we going??" Strickenized -screaming- that gif <3 XD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 8:49 pm
"Wherever we need to go," Eion answered noncommittally. He held the door just long enough for her to catch up, then stepped toward the stairs himself. Footfalls on their oft-used surfaces sent echoes of company up the walls. Somewhere above, the double-fast tap of feet answered them. Eion flatted his hand against the cherry railing as ring and middle fingers rested on the varnish.
With an incline of his head this way and that, Eion abandoned some of his sassy mysteriousness. "General Collections section P. I looked up the call numbers before I came. Most are books on Chinese infrastructure. Public works listings." Once surmounting one set of stairs, Eion followed the long sweep of the rail about the landing before ascending the next step. According to the whitewashed wall, General Collections P sat proudly on the third floor next to the 'under construction' warning. His mouth pursed into a thin line at the thought, though he voiced no more than a huff of air through his nose.
"I'm looking for someone," he admitted. "Just like you are. But I'm doing it for someone else. I want to see how well I can find ghosts." He wondered, then, if Xi-Wang's father was embedded into real estate advertisements for condo living in He-Fei. If, perhaps, he turned up in a business suit on a temp agency billboard. Maybe his smiling face plastered on the sides of buses, turned up on domain splash pages, sat unused in a Getty Images conglomeration of stock photos. And from there he'd develop a dozen new identities — the family man getting back to work after a personal tragedy, the real estate mogul who found his niche, the everyone's man who finally quit smoking — and he'd have a dozen new names for those dozen new identities. In a sense, Elex was one of those ghosts. Eion would be too.
Perhaps Connie was already a ghost. Money and social status were unforgiving for how easily their cult followings were poached. Was she a model? Was her head photoshopped onto a porn star's body? Was she framed as an anorexic on some local rag magazine?
Eion let his thoughts simmer as he climbed. "Here." Eion pilfered his windbreacker, found one of the notes, and brought out the crumpled post-it for Connie to peruse. "You can help."anime_girl10 he likes bossing people around
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 9:21 pm
Connie rolled her eyes a bit at Eion's simple answer, while making sure the door shut slowly behind them so not to make such a loud noise. She watched as he started on the stairs, the echoes bringing back thoughts of her namesake's empty castle. She shuttered before she hurried to follow before he got too far away. She listened carefully as he explained what, well...who, they were looking for. She assumed the person was Asian if Eion was looking for building related. Who was this person and why? Musing at the thought. "Ghost are always easy, if you knew what to look for." It was her turn to be matter-of-fact-ly about things. "What information do you have and what information are you looking for?" Connie took the post-it from him, taking a moment to wonder if he wrote it or the person he was helping. Looking at it, she number made her sigh. She shook her head and started for the shelf she was looking for. Little weasel sucking her into this, she had her own work to do after all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 9:33 pm
Eion shot her a look. "If ghosts are so easy, why haven't you found your friend?" His gaze lingered on her for a moment before he split from her, sweeping into the aisle next to hers. Wide bookshelves fitted with metal allowed generous spaces between the tops of the books and the shelves themselves. Easy transparency allowed him to maintain their conversation despite being on opposite sides of the same shelf.
"I know he married, then divorced. I know he has a child who carries his surname — Xi-Wang Zhao. I have his name, his birthdate. His wife's name. His marriage certificate.
"But to find him, I need to know more. I need to know what government agencies he would have to use as a Chinese citizen. I need to know their websites. The information they store about their citizens. If I can get into that, I know where he is." And I don't care about the legality of it all. Eion Risk is as much a person as Faustite. What is there for anyone to arrest for my cybercrimes?
Fingers long and thin brushed the shelves in his searching, passed over spines, thumbed along taped call numbers. He wasn't close yet, he knew. "Help me with my ghost and I might help you with yours."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
