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 Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 5:27 pm
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Nothing changed. Each door, glowing crystal, and decor had not been touched or altered. It had only been a few months, but it felt like a lifetime to Heliodor. For some reason he had expected to come back to find massive changes to signify his time away, but it was the complete opposite. Muscle memory didn’t fail him as the corrupt moved through the halls to his destination. It didn’t take long to find what he was searching for.
His heart hammered against his ribcage as he stood staring at the door. Short cut nails dug into the pleather portfolio he had carted with him as anxiety clutched within his chest. This is idiotic. I have no reason to be this way. Sure things had changed, but he was surely overreacting. The mission he’d been on had been a success. He did his job and did it well. Well enough, in fact, to be promoted. His efforts had been recognized and he proved, not only to his superiors in Chicago, but to himself as well, that he could get the job done if he put the effort into it.
Taking a deep breath, he lifted his hand. Knuckles rapped on the door in a rhythmic 3 knock succession. A muffled response of acceptance and he let himself in.
His first thought was that the office had not been changed at all. It was the one room Helio had expected to see some additions to considering the former Captains promotion to General. Perhaps a few more books? It was hard to determine. Nothing of incredible importance had been adjusted.
Though the office has remained much the same the occupant and owner were far from the young man that Heliodor had come to be known as Faustite. As such, he stood in shocked surprise hand still gripping the knob of the door and golden eyes tried to take in the extreme alterations to his General.
So much must have happened in his time away. More than he could imagine.
Eyes were no longer black pits of emptiness but now graced with pupils of intense red. His core.... It was difficult to tell with the desk, but the glow emanating in the darkness quite literally looked like a possible fire was being nurtured. Is that from him? Surely not. It wouldn’t make sense, not from what Helio could see. But still it was a curious thing of note. Then there were his ever soot black hands, not an ounce of pale flesh visible making the corrupt wonder how far the darkness now spread up those arms? Would he ever find out?
The thought was like a dip in cold water. A deep breath through was sucked hastily into his nostrils and as he caught himself in his obvious stare. Clearing his throat the corrupt broke his eye contact to glance behind him as he shut the door in his wake. “I’ve come to give you my report.” He said formally.
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:32 pm
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"It is a luxury to tell a story." Sitting back, Faustite surrendered the fountain pen to its slow, lazy wending down the desk surface. It cuddled its inkwell intimate, peering inside as curious children and underlings often do. Then the general's metal boot scraped across thousand-year-dead hardwood in a telling shift of posture. With a breath, smoke unwound about him in subtle helices. Blazing gaze found Heliodor at once.
Tracked across the grim drab of Faustite's office space, Heliodor looked the Negaverse's approximation of a colored world. He wore those sallow yellows and mottled reds the way the Rift wore its sky blood and its bullet-hole whitewashed moon. Drab blue dragged an ocean motif into Heliodor's otherwise mum outfit. None would look upon him and tell sphere at a glance. Tactically useful, practically not.
Faustite hated politeness as ey hated empty language. "Look at you, all survived and ranked. A better version of yourself. Stronger, faster, more versed in magic. Able to tell stories." More than the many lost in recovering Alkaid and Haumea's tower. More than nearly Eion during that bottle ambush. Yet there he stood, frantic and sheepish, twice bitten when Faustite's mouth hadn't yet closed upon him once. How blissfully shy. Did he think the lion would devour him before he made himself appetizing? That fire consumed thoughtless the fuel of his flesh?
"Sit." A black hand motioned to two long-unused chairs that were stained with the grime of ages. Old, lacquered wood they were, perhaps beautiful in their time before times. "Start with what isn't in the report."
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:32 pm
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“I am not a master weaver of tales, so don’t expect too much.” He commented as eyes flicked to the two proffered chairs. A look of unease at the two accomodations before he chose one. The wood, as expected, groaned under the duty it was presented with, but held up. Heliodor certainly wasn’t one to judge in such circumstances, but he had hoped his General could have at least upgraded the accomodations in his office. This would be an uncomfortable affair.
“I was as thorough as I could be with the report.” He knew now how important thoroughness in paperwork was. “The whole move, I have to admit, was exactly what I needed. I am not sure when things began to click for me, or if it was my Commanding Officer’s view on events, but I’ve learned a lot about myself and what I am truly capable of.” He shifted in the chair, spine rubbing against the hard wooden back. “I can’t sit here and say I changed into a completely different person these past few months away, but I like to say that positive changes have occurred and I hope you’ll eventually see them as well as we get...acquainted.” Those red eyes surrounded by black were oddly disconcerting, and intriguing, both. He shifted his own gaze to the pen that Faustite had been holding when Helio had arrived.
“The mission itself was a curious one, and I am glad I was a part of it. Not only was I able to assist the Negaverse, I am hoping the information gathered will help new recruits down the line.” A sideways smile slipped across his face as his eyes met Faustite. “Hopefully there will be less like I was and more willing to put their all into their new jobs.”
Pausing he glanced down at the portfolio in his lap where copious amount of information was held, all of it, except one, pertained directly to the report itself. Fingers loosened on the item as he opened it up and fished out information on his side business.
“Speaking of jobs. I wrote about the business I eventually ended up building out there. It was….an experience. A fun, experience, actually.” Another smile.
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:32 pm
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Ever attracted to the literal. Faustite's gaze was unmoving. So, too, was eir expression -- interested yet neutral, head cocked at a slight angle while eir posture shifted in one direction. Short nods cued Heliodor to carry on with his story. At his admittance about the report, a knowing smirk made a fleeting appearance on the general's face. Faustite's head righted at the word jobs -- telling as it was of Heliodor's perspective -- and ey swiveled slowly left to right to left again in eir seat.
A black nail lit on the side of Faustite's jaw. Out came the report, fat as a kept hog, fat as Chrysocolla, and it landed with a heady thump on the general's dusty desk. Short clouds caught up with eir smoke.
"That right there." Gaze still fixed on the super senshi, Faustite's nail left eir face just long enough to point to eir subordinate. "That's what I mean. Those snippets of personal experience too passé to include in a report. The Negaverse doesn't care about the flecks that shape us, but I do.
"I'm sure the report has every infinitesimal detail in it to mollify our bored superiors. But metrics aren't winning our war. Statistics fail to clinch victory." Faustite accepted the folio slowly, eir hands crawling across its manila encasing as if revolted by it. Toward em it was drawn until it sat near the edge closest to eir flickering blaze, where flame lapped and flicked and played toward catching that very edge. If Heliodor learned anything, he had backups. A disposable computer with the report's entirety on it. A flash drive. A second flash drive. Information was sacred for how it unzipped so many people; they spared no expense in securing it.
Faustite drew a slow, smoky breath. "Ever my flagship, Heliodor. Tell me about your experience, what you learned, how you think it pertains to new recruits. The floor is yours; speak how you will."
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:33 pm
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:33 pm
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The first contention: 'The close quarters meant we got to know each other very quickly.'
How well you knew her inside, I wonder. You don't act the type, but desperation breeds open-mindedness in ways the Negaverse needs.
The second contention: 'We just worked better together, as a team. I learned a lot from her.'
Curious that you didn't stay. The assignment complete, you had the opportunity to transfer. You know this yet you chose to return.
More complaints came, small and finicky. Personal assistant work suited him ill, yet he still remained a ward and steward of Metallia. Her beck was the only one to command his very body to move forward or to drop dead, as with Faustite, as with Schörl, as with the rest of them. Perhaps that fact was too abstract for Heliodor, as it was for Faustite before glimpsing through second eyes that furor painted over wall and crystal lattice. Faustite emself knew so little before poaching from the old guard's labyrinth.
Faustite watched, fingers poised and settled in an arc of wrought-iron points, of rare quietude. Silence wrapped in like a quilt about them when Heliodor finished his last self-reflections. Those final words hung, a thought under a scrutiny quieter than the derelict city surrounding them. Finally Faustite spoke in tongues not eirs. "I wanted death, or thought I did: days spent twitching a razor at my wrists, cuddling a little mortuary of pills in my palm. Yet when it came I swam from it as any prey. There was still something left to want." Another pause, then Faustite sat back, spine stiff with man's ingenuity. Heliodor's skin was warmed by internal combustion, by the cast of unfamiliar orange to cancel the cold, ambient light trapping the castle in an eternal twilight. While still so much himself in all his arrogant mannerisms, with that weft still curled about his finger like a sin, he acted so much less the victim. A bashful schoolboy, perhaps, but not the wallowing disgrace that once lost nerve to walk into the Hall of Shadows and end himself.
"You found something." Spoken absent accusation, the statement doubled as question. What had Heliodor found out there that cemented his decision to live? Not to survive, but live -- how vibrance wrote itself into the peaks of his shoulders, the sideways shift in his spine that offset his weight to one elbow, each groove in his face one of pride or confidence or brave self-interest. Such posture breathed life. Breathed triumph. But in what, or whom, had he found it? Was this superior, this -- he poached the document remedially for a name -- Cheryl the source of that boon? Learned self-love? Experienced enough to breed confidence? A host of experiences beyond Schörl's taint?
And most importantly, would it hold now that he returned to Destiny City? Or would Faustite find emself the proud new owner of a shriveling senshi that failed to thrive?
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:33 pm
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The smile couldn’t be stopped. A cat learning something new about its toy, Faustites curiosity certainly appeared piqued. Such a silent presence. Ever calculating. Observing. Listening. “Taking a page from General Schorl’s book, hm?” He questioned lightly, mirth toning his voice pleasantly but he dared not broach a response. Instead, he paused a moment, head tilting as he observed his General in more detail. There was a rigidness not unlike a rod in the way the half-youma sat. Was it necessity? Perhaps a learned or stressed posture? No. The situation didn’t lean towards stressful, at least for the General.
Eyes flickered down to the golden glow hidden beyond the desk. So much has happened while I was away. Eyes flitted back upwards to meet the red iris’s. What sort of horrors have plagued you?
“I have.” He remarked plainly, thought better of the response and rectified. “Well, you could say I’ve managed to discover myself and bury most of my past. I struggled with that before. I couldn’t...No, I didn’t want to just drop everything that I thought had defined me. I was being stubborn and fought you every ounce of the way. I can look back now and see my mistakes, but I also believe it wasn’t all purely my fault.” He left the words hang in the air while he moved, leaving the chair bereft of a body. A few steady steps led him to a bookshelf. Fingers ran across the tops of spines. “It doesn’t matter now. I came back here with a renewed sense of hope and self-being.”
Turning back towards Faustite, a hip shifted to allow him to lean against the wooden bookcase, careful of displacing any of its contents with body or fabric while arms crossed casually in front of him. “I want to prove myself to you, General Schorl and Metallia. I am not going to be a waste of resources, a starseed better off consumed than left to roam within its body.
I like to think when I left Chicago I left a small mark upon that city. It may be near miniscule now, but if nurtured like I advised, it should be a useful tool. With the knowledge I learned, I am intending on creating something a bit more to my liking that will, bare minimum, achieve the same function as my business northwest.” Not to mention I’ll need to deal with my past ghosts to prove my capabilities to you. But I am not sure if you’re open to seeing me as nothing more than a worthless, sniveling brat. It would be my own fault, but surely, at some point, you found me worth while.
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Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:34 pm
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"Your duty compels you." Proud and full of word again was he. Strutting, back to that sense of self-aggrandizement that so owed him to his old life. That he recovered enough to reach his old self was a proper step in the march to an effective officer yet. And to hear of a business -- Faustite had yet to view the hard data on sales figures, energy drained, starseeds gleaned, recruits converted, but the seeds were there germinating. Heliodor's mother owned and ran a business; perhaps some of that acumen lingered in her whelped. Cheryl must've known quite how to reach that old potential.
Perhaps that endorsement offered him too much ego, for Heliodor was brave to lay bare his blame game. Silent, Faustite curled eir hand upon the desk and refreshed its deepest welts. Wildfire would waste such sproutlings, ey reminded emself; what grew from Cheryl's ministrations would be allowed time to thrive.
All of this role felt strange in an instant. They were strangers, now, for as much as they knew each other. Familiarized by monikers. Fake identities. They chased through names and grew apart, spent distance like time and rejoined each other as antonymic to the old adage. Or, perhaps, a heart was required to grow fond after absence. Faustite felt the uncertainty humming like an old fridge in eir bones. Thick, frayed, disused, but paradoxically reliable. That uncertainty was its own queue.
But most concerning was the taste of the sun in eir mouth. That uncertainty churned, guttering eir blaze. Faustite reached for a drawer, still keen to Heliodor's wanderings by the bookshelf, and pulled a nearly-dead phone. Scanty seconds littered with touches across the screen bestowed an investment -- the first of many to make in rearing a better officer. Afterward came the regret. Regret, an awful word, like spitting into someone's mouth. Ey expected to hear another phone chitter in response.
Faustite settled back into eir seat, watching the senshi impassively. "I sent you a small sum. Use it to enjoy yourself as you take the week off. Consider it a congratulations for your new promotion."
Ey paused, head cocked lightly as eir gaze drifted down from gold eyes to the ever-familiar accoutrements of Faustite's desk. Lower lip tucked against eir teeth. Ey thought, drew a breath, then thought better of it. Sighed into a slight, smoky chuckle. "You're dismissed."
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