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 Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 3:49 pm
Quote: The Calling (7) : A beautiful melody drift on the air from somewhere far away. The vocals are in a language you don’t quite recognize, but feel somehow familiar to you. Something about the song calls to you, but no matter where you go, the song seems to sound the same distance away. The longer it goes on, the more emotional the song becomes--and the more emotional you become. Something about the song is possessive and consuming, like it’s all you can think of. Something resonates in you as the song crescendos, and the feeling is at its strongest--be they good, bad, anything, but suddenly the song fades, and there’s only an emptiness inside of you. The feeling of loss is strong, and can leave someone feeling emotionally numb. Someone out there was calling to you, and you couldn’t find them.
The language was unfamiliar, but certain aspects of the tune felt unmistakably Kerberan--the beat, the melody, the way his feet longed to trace the steps. It felt, to him, like a lament--even without being able to know the words, the melody told him all he needed to know. It sank deep into his bones, carrying a pain that Kerberos was all to familiar with.
He followed the trail almost thoughtlessly, leaving a trail of blooming asphodel in his wake--a new little trick ever since his last visit to his planet--and it wasn't until he stopped, finally, that he realized exactly where he was.
North End Park.
Next to a familiar bench, one where, once upon a time, Kerberos could have met an old friend. How long had it been since Hvergelmir was here? Two years? More?
The song continued to play, and Kerberos still couldn't identify any source--but here seemed as good a place to pause as any, especially since it was heavy with the exact kind of memories the song seemed to want to carry along with it.cibarium apologies for making a lot of this about kerberos's angst, he decided about halfway through the tag that he was going to be Really Sad and all To Absent Friends-y
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Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 4:49 pm
Music.
There was music in the wind.
It was beautiful and sad. As it caught Asphodel's attention, it felt like he wasn't percieving it with his ears. It was pulling directly at his heart instead, and his feet carried him in the direction it was calling from without him even thinking about it. This wasn't just some curiosity. Following the song was a need.
The pavement of the streets gave way to soft grass, and like magic, the tune shifted at the same time. The sense of longing it invoked deepened. Asphodel's blood burned with the need to express it, to respond to it -- but how??
He wandered the park, desperately. The song kept pushing him forward, and the pain kept growing. He remembered ripping star seeds from strangers and enjoying it. He remembered a senshi he'd brought to be corrupted by force, and the tension between them. He remembered the pulse of Chaos in his veins, and how the sense of power it brought him had turned into a sense of despair as more and more confusion and violence entered his life. His mind and heart were crowded with guilt and grief. And the song kept on going, kept on pushing, kept on filling him up more and more.
When he sensed someone else in the park, the swirling noise turned into a clear line of action. There was no doubt or question to it: there was a song, it drove him to move, and there was someone else there who was hearing it too.
So he approached, step weaving after step in rhythm, and stretched out his hand.
Dance with me.
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Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 9:56 pm
Kerberos's breath caught. He didn't know the Saturn Knight standing in front of him; he'd always felt a sort of kinship with the knights of the planet of death, even though his own world was a moon of Pluto, and he'd met a few over the years, but this wasn't one he knew.
And yet, he recognized the extended hand, and the invitation.
Clearly, they both heard the same song. And there was only one thing to do.
Kerberos wasn't exactly classically trained, but he had learned a lot, over the years, and so he took the Knight's hand and moved into a dance that felt as much instinctual as something he actually knew. It felt like breathing, or like walking; this was something he was supposed to do. The way he was supposed to respond.
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Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:22 pm
The surge of emotion and understanding at the first touch was as exhilirating as the song was painful. In a smooth instant, the two dancers had swept each other away. They stepped and spun and swung and moved through the grass and trees with all the momentum of a summer storm. They didn't need words. Their movements said everything that needed to be said.
Grief and longing. Guilt and confusion. All of the Knight's feelings spilled out as he danced with this senshi he had found. He was scared. He was in pain. The song burned through his being, even deeper. The park fell away, and it was just him and his partner and the motion flowing through them. There was something blooming inside him, something agonizingly beautiful, something he just knew the senshi was seeing in his eyes, and he pulled him onward, alongside a crescendo that built towards a final explosion of feeling in the song--
--and then it stopped.
And he stumbled. And the world rose back up under his feet.
His arm was around the waist of a stranger who now knew him in ways no one else in the world did.
What did he just do??
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Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:42 pm
Dancing with a stranger, Kerberos supposed, especially to magical, otherworldly music, should have felt awkward, or uncomfortable, but it didn't. Not here, not in this moment. Not as they moved, Kerberos's footsteps leaving a trail of flowers that marked their path.
And then it ended, and all at once, everything Kerberos had gently held at bay came crashing down. The loss. The guilt. The friends missing and dead and never to be seen again.
He swallowed, but didn't move to disentangle from the Knight--the poor man looked exactly as distressed as Kerberos felt.
"Are you alright?" He asked, voice gentle. "That was...a lot, especially when we've never met before." He gave a sheepish smile. "Usually, I like to take handsome men out for dinner before doing emotionally fraught dances with them, but there's an exception to every rule, I guess."
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Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2021 7:48 pm
Asphodel Knight had had plenty of strange and intense moments since his return to Destiny City, but this one was definitely the highest ranking in both categories. It felt like all of his other experiences so far -- his reunion with Camelot, his encounter with a newly purified senshi, even the cookie cafe and the phone-glitchy storm -- were meant to lead up to this one.
And the deep longing and sadness he felt as it ended suggested there were yet more to come.
After a long silence, he finally broke off contact, and said, with thinning lips, "I'm fine." It was an obvious lie, made even more obvious by how he struggled to figure out what he was supposed to do with his hands now. The dance was over and he couldn't decide how to feel about it. Part of him wished it hadn't ended, and part of him wished it hadn't started. And the flirting, on top of everything else, was making his ears burn and his jaw clench.
But he couldn't pretend nothing had just happened. So he said, honestly,
"You're pretty good."
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Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2021 9:13 pm
There was something heavy in the air, and Kerberos knew it. It wasn't just the weight of loss that sat on his shoulders, filling the void left by the music--it was a feeling, perhaps born only of his own thoughts, perhaps actually something, that this meeting was, in some way, important.
It didn't escape his notice that the poor Knight looked discomfited by his flirting, though, which meant it was time to dial it back and just be straightforward.
"Thanks," he said, "so are you. I'm, uh, mostly self-taught, but I got the impression you aren't?" His curiosity was gentle, but...present. He wanted ot know more about this stranger.
"Ah, wait--where are my manners. I'm Eternal Sailor Kerberos." He extended a hand, politely. "A handshake seems a bit silly, after that, but. Well."
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Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2021 4:02 pm
Self-taught? Asphodel was impressed at that. The senshi he'd run into must have had some raw natural talent, to move the way he had so easily. "I dance competitively," he answered.
Then, stiffly taking the offered hand, he returned the introduction. "Asphodel Knight. Of Saturn."
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Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2021 4:29 pm
Kerberos shook the offered hand, but the introduction made him blink, and then lit up, bright and delighted.
"Oh!" He said, and he reached down to his hip with his fre hand, disentangling one of the glowing asphodel blooms from his wings. "I think I understand why we met, now. Or...why we felt so drawn together. Because you're Asphodel Knight," he extended the hand with the flower, "and I'm the Senshi of Asphodel."
It was some clever twist of fate, he supposed. How lucky, and how provident, to have met in this way.
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Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2021 2:14 pm
Even though a faint memory suggested his Knighthood was a part of his star seed, Asphodel Knight was not much of a believer in fate. He had chosen to join the Negaverse, chosen to leave, and chosen to come back to Destiny City. So when Kerberos revealed himself to be the senshi of Asphodel, he blinked in surprise. Around them was a trail of asphodel flowers that followed the path of their dance. He took the offered wing-blossom slowly and gently, suddenly very apprehensive about touching the senshi again. They were both dancers, and they were both named for the same flower. They had heard the same song. What else did they have in common? He wondered. "We were supposed to meet?" he asked.
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Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:36 am
Kerberos shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, it sort of feels that way, doesn't it? It could be a coincidence, but we did hear the same music. Or, the fact that we could dance together says to me that we must have."
At least, he thought so.
"I dunno. I've seen enough weird magic over the years that I'm willing to believe that this kind of things can happen. I know that people who were important to me in my last life still are in this one, and they were even before I purified, so I feel like there's something to be said for fate."
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Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 6:46 pm
Purified. That word made Asphodel perk up. "You were in the Negaverse?" he asked, cautiously. He was suddenly full of questions.
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Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2021 2:23 am
"I was," Kerberos said, simply. It was no longer a source of shame or guilt for him; he had been corrupted, once, and he wasn't anymore, and it was by his own will and through Hvergelmir's and Cosmos's aid that he had been freed.
"I spent a year and change in the Negaverse, and I was their dog, barking and biting on command. But I realized that I couldn't do that anymore, that I couldn't just...kill people on someone else's say-so." He exhaled. "So I got out. With a lot of help, but I did."
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