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 Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2020 4:06 pm
Quote: Prompt 5: Though Destiny City is a busy metropolis, dense forests encircle the city. It's uncommon for wildlife to wander into the city--especially larger creatures--but something is making its mark on Destiny City. Large footprints, humanlike but far too large to belong to any ordinary human, are appearing around Destiny City. They always lead to the woods, and back again--and the strange part is that no one seems to be able to see what has caused them. Cameras distort, and anyone who thinks they've come into contact with the creature can only make out a thick, white fur and something easily nine feet tall. Oddly enough, any surface near the tracks are covered in a sheet of ice, as though whatever passed close to them was so cold it left a frosty trail. Recently, Pendour had turned her attention from the gardening experiments on her wonder to actually trying to fix the structures that were already there. She'd found some sort of pipeworks deep in the belly of things, on the lowest floor, and she'd spent the last few trips up there mapping the layout and taking notes of the damage. Her ancestor, Irving, was hard to read, but she thought he was maybe happy with her progress. He'd been lighter on the harsh remarks, lately, and he'd even taught her how to use another of her magical abilities. She could breathe underwater now. At least, she could breathe underwater in theory. When she'd focused on Irving's instructions, she'd felt something activate, and when she'd caught a glimpse of herself in the polished metal of a pipe, she'd noticed small phantom gills at the sides of her neck, but there wasn't much she could do to test the breathing part of the magic right then. The plumbing at her wonder was still very broken, leaving all of the aqueducts and the cove dry as dry. She found that the magic did not work when she was powered down, which kept her from trying it out in her sink or bathtub. Pendour was not always quite careful with her identity, but she knew better than to power up in her own home. A public, indoor pool would have been a little safer, but she knew that she would draw stares. That meant her best option was waiting for a reasonably warm day. Well, a warm day for December. At least the bitterest part of winter had yet to arrive. She made her way out to the reservoir. For a while, she walked along the shore, watching the way the sky reflected on the water, and glancing at some odd footprints that were pressed into the soil. There weren't so many people out here wondering about her outfit or what she was doing. That was nice. Eventually, she made her way right over to the water's edge, and gritting her teeth, she ducked her head under the surface with a small splash.
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2020 2:38 am
Gremlin needed consistent baths. Even in the cold of winter, when ice layered over the grass, creating a prickly little walkway, he still needed to bathe. It had never been ideal. A quick roll in the frosted dew was usually all he could tolerate before he was scuttling for shelter, quivering and licking at frost bitten paws to try and warm them back up. His kind wasn’t meant to be outside in winter. It was borderline cruelty.
But whatever. It didn’t have to be all bad this winter. If Gremlin was so inclined, he could cleanse himself in the baths for the recruits in Negaspace. They weren’t big (but neither was he, so that didn’t bother him), but they also weren’t private, a much greater offense. The last thing he wanted to deal with was boys’ club agents snarking at his wrinkly body as he scrabbled around on a slick tile floor. He wanted as little to do with the agents as possible, and Gremlin certainly didn’t need to give them another reason to jeer at him...
From necessity was born invention, and the Mauvian was now equipped with certain tools to make his life easier.
No one needed it but him, but Gremlin was hardly bothered by that. He’d created a little metal orb, scarcely larger than his own paw, that would spin and spin and generate enough heat to comfortably warm a five by five patch of water. Any patch of water. He didn’t need to be in Negaspace if he didn’t want to. He could be out, in the same areas he’d always been in. He could be out in the places he was used to. Just more comfortably, this time.
Gremlin had picked his way carefully down the shore toward the reservoir. At this time of year, he expected there would be very few humans out and about. Their fragile bodies were just as susceptible as his to the cold, with the difference between them being that they were stupid and couldn’t create anything to make the swim more comfortable. Not like Gremlin, who suddenly felt quite proud of himself for this breakthrough. A foreign feeling, for sure. There were other, nonhuman tracks along the way, bordered in layers of ice, but Gremlin hardly gave them more than a squint before moving on.
Once at the water’s edge, he dipped a hesitant claw into the surf, only to deduce that yes, it was quite cold, and he was so brilliant for finding a way to make this situation work for him.
He rolled his little orb into the water, only going in as deep as a few inches. During the summer he could go swimming and diving, but this time of year, he was here more for necessity than pleasure. He didn’t need to go in deeper than he could successfully roll in. His little orb whirled to live, spinning with the frenzied sound of screaming metal. He could feel the heat off of it immediately, and warm drops of water spun off to splash at him. Feeling content at his success, Gremlin folder himself down into the water, tucking his paws against his chest and closing his eyes.
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2020 5:53 pm
The water was colder than the air. That wasn't a surprise. The surprise was just how much colder it was, that within seconds, it felt like someone was poking a thousand needles right into the soft skin of Pendour's face. She shot back up straight, gasping and rubbing at her face with no idea of whether or not she'd managed to breathe. In those moments, that hadn't mattered at all. Okay. Well, at least she knew what the water was like, now. She would try again in a moment. That was still the best option she could think of, other than waiting for spring. She sat procrastinating for a longish while, staring intently at the water, when something shifted. It was a subtle thing, and not one of the auras that she was always half watching for. It was a sound. It was a small metallic whine. That was the second off thing that had happened here, on top of the strange icy tracks. Pendour jumped to her feet, her back going stiff and straight. Maybe it was not the time to dunk herself into frigid water after all. Instead, she slowly made her way towards the source of the noise, which was a process of trial and error, but eventually she peeked around a tuft of bushes and saw a strange little creature curled up in the shallows. "What?" she whispered, stepping forwards. Not a youma. It took a moment, but she realized that she had seen something like this in pictures. A Sphynx cat. "Oh, you're one of those poor overbred things," she murmured, mostly to herself. "Aren't you cold?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2020 6:20 am
Gremlin almost always sat in a stiff bun. He wasn't much of a 'lounging' cat, and preferred resting positions that allowed him more maneuverability, if need be. It would take less than a second for him to be up and bolting. The shallow water here would hardly even slow him down. When he heard steps behind him, his already pinned ears tilted just marginally more that way.
And of course it wouldn't be something like another cat or a deer or whatever else walked around the beach. It was a person. Gremlin could hear it in the way it walked. He could smell it on the breeze. His nose crinkled. His lip curled.
It spoke.
'Poor overbred thing...'
Maybe it wasn't the immediate disgust and revulsion he was most accustomed to, but pity for his 'condition' (his existence, his state of life!) was hardly foreign. Neither were welcome. Gremlin's ears flattened completely to his head, and he swiveled his focus around to actually see the human- a girl- and give her a warning, raspy hiss as she approached. Now that he was looking at her, he recognized the aura she gave off. A knight. A Neptune knight, judging by the symbols on her uniform.
This wasn't some basic civilian who would look at him and see a cat. This girl should know what he was. She should realize that her pity was misplaced and that she had insulted him by implying he was lesser. His tail lashed, spraying up tiny droplets of water as he glared at her. He extended a paw and unsheathed long, unkempt claws that curved delicately around the shape of his orb, which ceased its spinning under his touch.
"Beat it, filthy human," he commanded in a low growl, exposing yellowed teeth as he spoke. "Shouldn't you be spending your time fighting monsters? There's no use for you here."
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Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 8:15 am
Pendour saw the star when he turned, but she just stared blankly for a long moment, not wanting to put the pieces together. Then he spoke, and there was no denying it. A Mauvian. It made more sense, really, than some escaped housecat coming this far to curl up in water that she knew was freezing. It just also meant that she'd given a terrible insult to a member of a species that she had a very shaky track record with. "Sorry," she said, her voice just loud enough to carry. She felt her cheeks going hot as hot. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You have every right to be upset." Her hand went to her hair, where she desperately curled a lock around and around her thumb. If she'd known he was corrupted, she would have run, probably, but that was another thing about Mauvians. There were no auras to tell give hints as to if they'd see her as an enemy or not. If this one was meant to be a friend, she didn't want to leave him with a bitter taste in his mouth. Her good eye shifted to look at his little whirring device, now silent. Her gaze stayed on his claws. "I was checking- or, um," she trailed off. She swallowed, then continued "And, well, I thought you might be something dangerous?" As soon as she'd said it, she realized it probably wasn't going to help deescalate the situation, but the words were out there now. She stayed still, frowning a little and twisting her hair.
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Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 12:56 pm
Gremlin's large eyes narrowed to slits, and his tail swayed through the water with a slow, mesmeric rhythm as he stared thoughtfully (and perhaps a bit judgingly) at the girl standing over him. Humans were so disrespectful. It was fine to insult a cat; it wasn't like they understood. They couldn't complain. But the second she'd seen his star and heard his voice, oh man, she knew she'd ******** up.
Mauvians could snap back. And upset he was.
He curled his claws around his orb, and with a practiced flicking motion, tossed it up into a subspace opening that zipped out of sight as quickly as it appeared. Gremlin stood, and the shallow water lapped around his elbows. He turned to face her, kneading his claws into the rocky sand below. "This is as close as my kind can come to resembling your kind," he hissed quietly. "Naked, ashy skin, dirty little spots, wrinkles around all your joints. Hideous, isn't it?"
He circled slowly, giving enough of a berth to be out of her reach as he moved to inspect her from all angles. "And hideous things so often seem like they can be dangerous." Ugly little monsters with rabies or mange, something to be avoided, if possible.
Unless you were a magical girl looking for something to fight, he supposed.
"You brats are all the same. Disrespectful and ungrateful. You take a power your past was gifted and go around swinging it at everything different than you." Gremlin's tail lashed, snapping up beads of water as he bared his teeth. "You wanna fight something 'dangerous?' I'll give you something dangerous."
He lurched forward, swiping long, sharp claws at the exposed skin at the back of her leg. He'd go for tendons. Bringing the humans down to his level should give them a proper perspective on where they should be in this life.
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Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 5:32 pm
"What? No, I-" Pendour felt her breath starting to go fast and shallow. Her heart wanted to race, too. She forced a deep breath, brought her hands back down to her sides, swallowed again. "Look at me," she said, her voice finally steady and gentle the way it should have been all along. She turned so that her scars were obvious. They were pale and sunken things and stretched over her eye and across part of her face. Claw marks, ironically. People shied away from her nearly every day, even if they tried not to let her see it. "I would never judge someone for the way they look," she said, even though it was too late and she knew it. He was already circling her like prey. She'd lost the eye accidentally insulting someone, and here she was, doing it again. "I saw these tracks, and I heard your machine, that's all," she insisted. "I wanted to see, I don't want to fight. Really." That was when he lashed out. She moved enough so that he didn't immediately hit the tendon, but she squeaked as he left a trail of red gashes across her ankle. Talking was doing her no good at all tonight. She fumbled with her magic, pulling the ocarina from thin air as she immediately started heading towards the closest out she could see- the water.
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Posted: Fri May 14, 2021 11:38 am
What. What was he supposed to be looking at. What was she trying to show him? Her face? All humans looked equally disgusting to him, regardless of how much evidence of treachery was left on them from their own species. They were terrible creatures. It came as no surprise how willing they were to abuse one another. It only took the promise of power. They were all at each other's throats.
His claws met skin. Nowhere near the damage he'd wanted to do, but even a sting was better than nothing. The red droplets dissolved into the water nearly before he could even take note of them.
And that was the direction shed fled, deeper into the reservoir, toward depths Gremlin had no hope of reaching. He was an adept swimmer, but hardly a fish. He wouldn't be able to catch someone running while he swam. "Why are you running?" He spat at her retreating back, though he was nowhere near tempted to give chase. She barely had to go a foot deep into the water for it to be too high for him to touch.
"That is what your kind is best at, huh?" He taunted, tail swaying lazily as he bared his fangs. "Taking nasty pot-shots and then beating it before anyone gets their retribution. Good riddance! Least next time I see you, I'll not waste time stopping to talk."
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Posted: Fri May 14, 2021 3:30 pm
I wouldn't say you wasted time talking, today, thought Pendour as she waded deeper, although she knew better than to speak, or turn back just because of a few taunts. He'd gotten himself all worked up into a full rage, and just about anything would be fuel for that until he managed to burn himself out again. Pendour's presence would probably be the worst fuel of all, since her words had been the spark that had started it all. Maybe one day she'd talk to Mauvians in a way that didn't have them at her throat. The water came to her waist, now. It was so cold as to feel sharp, but when it came down to it, her pursuer was more or less a cat, and she did not hear the little splash of paws behind her. She would not have to stay under long. She dove, and she swam, her magical strength propelling her forwards quickly. There were regrets. Her skin burned from the temperature after only a few seconds, and when she pulled herself to shore on a nearby peninsula a few seconds after that, she was shaking so much that her teeth clicked together uncontrollably, and thinking that even a Mauvian's tantrum might be better than trying to swim in winter. Still, her initial question was answered. The magic had worked. For everything else, she had been able to breathe.
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