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 Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2020 9:06 am
Quote: Prompt 6: There's something on the roof. It has no energy signature, so it can't possibly be a youma or any powered vigilante, but something's on the roof. It sounds like it's clopping around. If you go outside and investigate, there is a deer on the roof. A fully sized deer, staring down at you. The moment you blink, or look away, it's gone; if you investigate further you will find that there are tracks left in the snow atop the roof--but none around the house. It looks like it just showed up there--and just disappeared. Pendour's knight letters came in a variety of styles. She kept a pen and a stack of sticky notes in her subspace pocket for the quick memos and the back-and-forth conversations, but she liked giving them a little more artistic flair when she could. The letter to Sessrumnir was not flashy. She wasn't sure how he'd feel about something overdazzled with tinsel and reindeer. Instead, she used thick, cream-colored paper and India Ink, and there was a sort of quiet care to the way that she wrote each and every word. She signed her name in calligraphy and stamped her signet in watercolor, and she smiled as the magic took it off to him. Quote: "Sessrumnir, How are you doing? It's getting to be the time of year when everything is all festive, and I've been given care packages to hand out to senshi and knights. I was wondering if you wanted one? Also, after everything you've done for me, I thought I might get you a present of my own. So, I've got something to deliver, if that's okay. I'll be at the picnic area in North Park tonight if you want to meet up. -Pendour" She was true to her word. By that evening, she was curled up at the corner table of a picnic shelter. Her shell crown had been swapped out for an elf hat, complete with a bell. She jingled, even with the just the slight movement of drawing. She was sketching on another piece of the nice paper, just to pass the time.
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Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2020 4:45 pm
With everything that happened over the course of the year, Sessrumnir hadn't planned on doing anything over the holidays. If he could get away with not going over to his parents' for dinner on Christmas he would. Unfortunately, his little brother lived with him and had taken it upon himself to babysit as Peter called it.
The letter from Pendour came as a surprise, but not unwelcome. She was one of those he worried about in this magical war. Like his middle brother, she seemed too kind-hearted to be able to survive. If her scars said anything about it, there was at least one time she came close to not surviving.
However, he showed up as requested, with his own wrapped box under his arm. It wasn't large, but it was wrapped in paper that mimicked silvery snow, and tied with aqua and green bows that were suspiciously close in color to her knight uniform.
"Got your message. You really didn't have to trouble yourself," he insisted when he found and made his way over to her, despite the fact that he held out his own present to her first. He eyed the elf hat, trying not to smile like he wanted. "Camelot give you that, or did you get one for yourself?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2020 7:05 pm
"I know I didn't have to," said Pendour, penciling in one last detail before she looked up to the other knight with a small smile. "I wanted to." It was something a friend had told her when he'd brought her a care package after the ambush, and it had stuck with her. She pushed her paper to the side and uncurled herself, a little. "You didn't have to come, but I'm glad you did. I wanted to see you under happier circumstances. So, hello." She raised a hand, smile growing even as his face remained impassive. Her eyes widened when he handed her the present. She took it and just stared for a drawn-out second. Then, she ran a finger over the ribbons, slow and delicate, as if just the wrappings were the most precious thing in the world. "I bought the hat, but I got the idea from him," she said, tilting the box to look at it under the shifting light. Then she blinked, twice. "Oh, which- here." She put the box down and ducked under the table to retrieve two gift bags. The first was smallish, with red and green stripes. She nudged it across the table. "This one is from, um." There was a pause. "Santa." She jingled the elf hat pointedly. The second bag was slightly larger, with gold and silver snowflakes. "And this one is from me," she said.
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Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2021 12:49 pm
Sessrumnir watched as she pushed the piece of paper she’d been drawing on to the side and then stared at the box he’d handed her. She had clearly gone out of her way to make the holidays brighter for others, so it was the least he could do.
“Thank you,” he said with a small smile taking the two gifts. “Oh, the socks are from Oberon. I…” he paused, feeling a little guilty about how on edge he’d been when they’d all met in the forest in that strange village. “Oberon… is my brother. I’ve been so used to trying to keep that secret that… it’s just a habit to deny,” he said with a sigh. He was trying to be better about letting people into his life. It was always difficult knowing that the people he cared about could easily be gone in the blink of an eye.
It had happened before. And he never wanted to experience that again.
Inside the box she would find the socks he’d mentioned; sea green and decorated with little mermaids wearing santa hats. From him was a soft striped scarf of green, aqua, navy, and white.
“I thought the colors suited you. But, uh… there’s a gift receipt if you don’t want it,” he added, nodding to the box.
For his gift, he supposed it was only polite to open his then too. Inside the gold and silver snowflake covered bag was a sweater, but he didn’t need to pull it out all the way to show her a fond smile. “Thank you.” He would just need to pull it out to see what the design was.
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Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 9:54 am
Eventually, Pendour stopped staring at the present and began to open it. She was meticulous about it, and as gentle as possible, careful to only tear at the taped edges and to save what paper she could. She pulled out the scarf, and she held it like a precious thing, too, running her thumbs over its softness before throwing it over her shoulders and squeezing her eyes shut so she could really focus on the way it felt. “It’s so warm,” she said, her voice soft and almost a sigh. “Thank you, Sess.” The socks fell out of the box next, and Pendour actually giggled. “I have no idea where Oberon found these, but I think they might be the most perfect things I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I love both of these.” Her gift was a sweater, as he’d seen. It was slim fit and deep green, a little darker than the color on his knight uniform. If he looked in the other bag, he’d find hot chocolate packs and some hand warmers. “I was wondering if you two were related,” said Pendour, leaning back a little once all the presents were out. “I didn’t want to assume anything, but that makes sense. You’re both so kind.” She was quiet for a moment, still fiddling with the scarf, before she asked, “Is it bad to say that you’re related? Does it compromise the glamours or something?” Looking back, she didn’t think she talked about her family often, but it did come up every once in a while.
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Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 2:09 pm
Sessrumnir smiled when he pulled out the green sweater, holding it up to check the size, which looked like it would be perfect. He carefully folded it back up before taking a peak at what Camelot had put together.
“The Negaverse has used loved ones against each other in the past, and I wouldn’t put it past them to do it again if they had a chance,” he admitted, although he wasn’t sure about her comment of them being kind. Oberon was definitely kind. Sessrumnir? He kept to himself when he could. And he wasn’t exactly kind to new knights and senshi who didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. If he could scare them into staying home and not risking their lives in a pointless war, wasn’t that better?
“We have another brother. Valhalla. He’s younger than me, older than Oberon, and a knight of Jupiter like myself. Some things happened to him a few years ago, so he’s been keeping himself safe and raising his family with his wife,” he explained, thinking it was only fair after holding back from telling Pendour anything before.
“He’d almost been corrupted, and his starseed was damaged in the process. He’s okay now, and his wife is a senshi, so you’ll probably meet them at some point if you haven’t already. You remind me of Valhalla. Too soft hearted for your own good.”
His tone was soft and not accusatory, just merely stating the facts. It was why he tried keeping to himself, so he wouldn’t get to know how good some of these people fighting this war were.
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Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:03 pm
Pendour was a careful listener. Her brows pressed together when Sessrumnir spoke of the Negaverse and his brother, and eventually she nodded. “I understand,” she said. “The Negaverse does like to twist anything they can get out of us, any little piece of information, into a weapon.” The training event turned kidnapping was proof enough of that. “If they’ve already gone after your family it makes sense that you’d do what you can to protect them.” Pendour wanted to protect her family, too. It was part of why she tried to be kind to everyone, regardless of the color of their uniform. She had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that one day, one of those uniforms was going to melt away and she was going to end up face to face with one of her siblings. But she didn’t mention that, not now, because she was distracted by something else he had said. “Too soft?” She blinked, and squinted for a long moment. “Oh. Did Oberon tell you I had a panic attack when everyone was fighting that monster?” He might have even seen it himself. She hadn’t exactly been paying attention to who had been watching her in that moment. “I’m sorry. There was just a lot, um, going on in that moment.” Her brows pressed together even more, and her voice went almost thin. But if there had been a moment in her life where she’d been to soft for her own good, that had been it. She would learned to live in that tiny, dying town before she would have killed something. “Or is it this?” She tapped her eye, fingernail clicking again the acrylic. “I wasn’t as careful then. I couldn’t tell who was broken beyond reason. I’m better with that, now.” She shifted slightly. “I’m sorry about your brother, but it sounds like he has lots of you to look after him.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 3:04 pm
Sessrumnir didn’t know Pendour very well, but he felt as though he knew her enough. She was the kind of person to put others before herself. And sometimes that was what made the difference between living and getting killed in this war.
Did that mean being kind to others was wrong? No, but it was dangerous.
“Oberon didn’t tell me,” he said, his voice soft now that he knew she’d had a panic attack during the fight with that monster. It had been a battle he didn’t want repeated. There had been worse that he’d experienced, but that didn’t mean he wanted to repeat any of them, and they were all different for each person involved.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Sessrumnir added, wondering if she was embarrassed by it. She shouldn’t have to be if she was.
The eye was more worrisome, but if she thought she was better with telling the difference between those who could be helped and those who couldn’t, then that was all he could ask.
“It’s okay. I just don’t want anyone else to go through that. Or experience it from either side,” he said with a small shrug. Maybe he was getting too personal right off the bat. He was not used to talking about himself with anyone, really.
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Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:43 pm
Pendour shook her head. “It’s not okay,” she said, voice soft as soft even as her shoulders tensed. “None of this is. People are experiencing so many things that nobody should have to experience. You’re right.” She exhaled slowly, trying to relax and failing. “Although the Negaverse almost has it worse. They’re beaten if they question anything, you know. Not to mention the Chaos crawling in their brains in the first place.” She lowered herself down to rest her elbows on the table and also pulled the new scarf a little tighter. There were some who thought it was too dangerous for her to talk to members of the Negaverse, and there had been a time when she’d agreed, but lately she’d learned a lot about how their machine of propaganda and abuse worked. “Not that it excuses what they do to people. It’s just complicated. It’s hard to know what to do to help.” She collapsed farther, piling the ends of the scarf underneath her so that she could rest her chin on it. She jerked back up when there was a rather loud clacking sound on the picnic shelter roof.
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