Backdated to mid October.
Word Count: 1219
For Aquamarine, acquiring more starseeds meant more encounters with senshi and knights.
If he was lucky, he would come upon one of them alone. Some nights, he hunted them for sport, chased them down until they were too weary to go on before slipping a hand into their chests, taunting them as he ripped their starseeds free. It was easy enough to dispatch a new Senshi or recently awakened Page; their magic was minimal or nonexistent, and they were quickly overwhelmed by the presence of a lethal weapon and the added benefit of teleportation.
But the more he engaged in such practices, the more opportunities there were for matters to become less straightforward. Sometimes his prey had company, or the chase was interrupted by someone equal to him in power — the Eternals and Knights who presented more of a challenge.
Which meant he spent a few weeks nursing a variety of injuries he usually managed to avoid, all for a mission assigned to them by the Queen.
With her trust and approval at stake, Aquamarine could not afford to fail.
A night in the middle of October found him in a dark corner of one of the city’s parks with the bodies of more victims strewn over the ground. Two Pages this time, each of them harvested of their starseeds. The Knight that came to save them fared worse. He was formidable enough to require a dagger to the neck; his starseed hadn’t yet left his chest, but his blood painted the grass, and his eyes stared just as vacant toward the sky.
Aquamarine sat in a sweaty heap upon the ground, leaning against a tree as he caught his breath. A thin stream of blood trickled down his face from a blow to the head. His jaw ached, struck by a strong fist; the bruise it left would be ugly, but at least his teeth were still intact. He trembled with the last remnants of magic, little jolts of electricity that left his extremities ********>,” he swore, hand to his left shoulder, which popped out of joint at some point during the altercation, only to pop back in on its own.
This mission better be worth all the trouble. It’d been a while since Aquamarine sported such varied injuries so frequently. If either of his brothers were around to notice, they’d jump to all sorts of wild conclusions.
The thought tore a bitter laugh from Aquamarine’s throat.
Leaves rustled nearby. The tree opposite him creaked, and a shadowy figure came into view — a youma, too late to enjoy the feast that might have been available to her otherwise. Her aura had been along the edges of Aquamarine’s mental radar during the entirety of the fight, but she only now made herself known.
She was becoming predictable. He need not lift his gaze to know which youma it was, but he did anyway, barely able to distinguish the black feathers and dark, tattered clothing from the shadows. The deathly pallor of her face stood out most.
“Are you following me?” he asked.
Of all the countless youma that found their way out of the Rift at any given time, how was it she kept finding him?
“No,” she said, head cocked to the side as she looked down at him, her face as blank as always, eyes dark and devoid of all emotion.
“Then how the ******** do you keep finding me?”
Her feathered head moved; it rose a bit and paused upright for a few seconds, before tipping to the other side.
“I like you,” she explained, voice high and soft, cooing what words she didn’t sigh.
Aquamarine didn’t think she had the intellect to like or dislike anyone, what with the nonsense she often spoke. He frowned, then huffed a breath and used the tree at his back to support his weight as he climbed to his feet.
The youma didn’t move, merely sat upon the thick branch she’d chosen as her perch.
When Aquamarine had his bearings, he glared up at her and asked, “Why?”
Her blank stare swept from his head to his toes, then slowly swept back up, studying him. By her equally impassive expression, Aquamarine could not determine what she wanted to find. He simply stood there, bleeding, a hand still pressed to his aching shoulder, his frown deepening by the second.
“Answer me,” he commanded.
Her arms that were wings (or her wings that were arms) fluttered as she shifted along the branch.
“You’re a mean boy,” she said.
Was that supposed to be an answer or a general statement? Aquamarine couldn’t tell which, and he wasn’t in any mood to decipher her meaningless drivel. He never was.
“Where’s my—”
“Stop,” Aquamarine interrupted her before she could finish the oft repeated phrase. “I don’t care. Go away.”
A long sigh drifted into the air. She moved like she meant to follow the order, but she did so slowly, not yet tearing her gaze away.
Aquamarine watched and waited, annoyed by the curiosity he could feel swirling deep within him. He didn’t truly care who she was or what she was looking for, but she kept bothering him in her quest to find it, and while he wouldn’t go so far as to say “that has to mean something,” there had to be a reason, didn’t there? It wasn’t a coincidence, even if it turned out the answer was that he was simply the first person she came across when she began her search, like some weird youma imprinting.
Not a bond, he told himself.
He certainly didn’t need one of those.
“Wait,” he told her, just before she turned. She paused and cocked her head again, patient but expecting, so he asked, “This thing you’re looking for. Is it a youma or a human?”
She said nothing, merely blinked once, then stared.
Teeth clenched together in frustration, Aquamarine tried again. “What does your love look like?”
This time, something about her face brightened, though nothing specific changed. Perhaps her mouth twitched like she might smile, or her eyes acquired some miniscule shred of emotion. She stared for a few seconds more, then tipped her head back and directed her gaze into the sky. One winged arm lifted, drawing Aquamarine’s eyes above them.
Aquamarine followed, but saw nothing to answer his question.
“What are you pointing to? The clouds? The stars?”
“Yes,” she said, voice almost breathless. “My love is so beautiful.”
She spoke madness, Aquamarine decided. He was foolish to think otherwise, to indulge her. Though her appearance was vaguely humanoid, she must be one of the mindless sort, repeating words and phrases she’d heard around Destiny City not because she knew what they meant, but because it was all she could understand about humanity. Perhaps something within her missed life, lost beneath the monster she’d become.
When Aquamarine said nothing, the youma looked down at him again.
“Where’s my love?” she ******** off,” he told her.
The brightness that so recently came upon her face faded. She seemed to wilt, and though she didn’t frown, her eyes grew dull and empty again.
Still, she went as commanded.
With another rustle of feathers through leaves, Aquamarine was alone.
Quote:
Technically took place during the meta mission, but the meta's over now so just posting it as a normal solo.
