|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 12:03 am
A Corrupted Eternal aura pinged on Kerberos's senses, and it made him perk up.
It shouldn't. Kerberos never knew what sorts of things he might find when he went looking for Chaos on his own power level, and yet, there was simply no way for him to resist. It was a pull, like a magnet, and anyway--there were people he knew on the other side. Not many. But enough that he had hopes that he might encounter someone he knew.
It had been a long, empty night, anyway; a night away from his bench, filled with pacing and rooftop jumps that he wished would burn off the excess energy under his skin. But nothing came, and this time--
This time, the person he found wasn't doing anything particularly nefarious, but he still broke into a smile to see her.
"Chrys," he said, in greeting. She was alive--a relief, when she had been missing for quite some time. He always feared, when he didn't see people for a while.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 12:26 pm
Since Chrysocolla had returned to Destiny City, she'd been less interested in picking fights, more interested in re-establishing her understanding of the city; if fights picked her, it wasn't her problem what kind of awful state she left her enemies in. They should've been smarter about who they wanted to fight, since she always wanted to break them more than they wanted to break her; maybe eventually that news would get around. She hoped it wouldn't, really; it was too fun to cause that kind of harm. Let them come.
When she felt the Eternal aura (already-bloomed and blinding-bright as acid) start heading her way, then, she shifted her weight, standing her ground, waiting for the newcomer to get closer before she really made a move. It was as good a time as ever to get in a fight, anyway, with the night still pretty young and all her energy ready for a teleport if needed - but all those thoughts went out the window as soon as she saw who it was.
Even from a distance, it was clear how her eyes went sparkling - literally sparkling, silvery-gold-peach in dazzling crystalline ripples - and she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet for a second, smiling guilelessly, genuinely. "Kerberos!" Before Chrysocolla opened her mouth, she was already running over to meet him, other distractions or priorities temporarily forgotten. "It's been forever! I was -- really worried something happened to you."
She was stumbling over her own words, crashing into a pause and then coming to a halt, but that wasn't so unfamiliar. Different thoughts ran at different times, especially when they'd been unprompted, unexpected.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2022 12:40 am
Chrysocolla's eyes were different--that was one of the first things Kerberos noticed, other than that Chrys was alive, and well, and happy to see him. He wanted to step forward and hug her, but that might be presumptuous, so he opened his arms, in case she wanted to come in for one herself.
"No, I've been lucky, nothing too bad has happened." That was a lie. There was a poison growing on his planet. But he didn't need to tell her about that. "Found this neat trick," he gestured at his feet, where asphodel flowers bloomed. "Looks like you got one too." Because the same type of magic that let him grow flowers where he walked definitely seemed like the sort of thing that let eyes change color, like hers had.
"It's good to see you," he said. "I'm glad you're alive and safe too. I'd been worried myself."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2022 6:56 pm
She didn't need to be invited to it twice. Chrysocolla almost flung herself at Kerberos with all the enthusiasm of a puppy, hugging him tightly, like she was scared she'd let go and he'd disappear. Physical contact was -- nice. It wasn't really something she did all that often, anymore, hadn't been for years, but -- it was nice. That was all. She didn't touch people that often, anymore, and she didn't usually think about it.
"If you say so," she said, and left that at that. If she didn't question, she didn't have to tell; for someone who wanted to do good as much as he did, Chrysocolla thought there was probably no way he'd stayed out of serious trouble in all those years she hadn't known anything, those years she'd been away. But if she didn't ask and he didn't say anything, denial or confirmation, she didn't know anything she'd need to tell.
Saying anything much about her eyes would've maybe been too much information for where she'd been, what she'd been doing, so she just made a noise of assent - the flowers were nice, underfoot, and at least they didn't give away anything he was feeling to anyone who happened to look and think about it for a minute.
"I'm sorry I made you worry," she mumbled, quieter. "I was really busy out of state? So I didn't have any chances to come back or talk to anyone or anything."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2022 3:31 am
Kerbeors squeezed, tightly, when she came in for a hug, and a little laugh escaped him. It was breathless and happy, and it felt so good to just....let himself be unabashedly happy. Sure, Chrysocolla was still under the Negaverse's thrall, but that was just a matter of time and patience. He had to believe that.
She accepted his lie, and he accepted the way that she simply said she was "out of state"--just as she hadn't pressed him for details, he wouldn't press her. That was the easiest way for things to work for them, he thought; she couldn't tell him too much, and he couldn't tell her too much.
"Yeah,t hat makes sense," he said. "Sometimes life takes you places," he thought of the burns on his arm, which was certainly a place things had taken him. "How have you been? Everything alright?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2022 7:39 pm
Life takes you places. Maybe so. Maybe he'd helped that girl purify, the one she'd gone after; it seemed like the kind of thing Kerberos would have done, would do again. But it wasn't like Chrysocolla was going to ask.
Sometimes life took you right into a grave. Not that she'd know firsthand, anyway. Mostly she just did it to other people.
"I've been... okay? Everything's weird now." She huffed. "A lot of the people I knew moved or died or other stuff, so I don't know who's active anymore? And I haven't gotten to do anything really interesting since I came back, either. So I'm mostly doing stuff on my own." And I miss having a girlfriend. That one stayed an unspoken thought, mostly because that was a whole weird knot of emotions she wasn't really sure what to think about; she'd assumed the murder would make that surgical-clean in her head, but not so much.Noir Songbird chrys, internally: ALSO, FAUSTITE IS STILL ALIVE WHICH I DON'T LIKE, but she's a big fan of separating work and personal lives and this is technically personal --
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2022 4:03 am
There was something comforting about knowing that things could be out of whack for the Negaverse, too. He had certainly felt tossed around by how many of the people he knew had disappeared over the years; it seemed it happened to everyone.
Maybe that meant that some of the ones he would rather not see were gone, too.
"About when did you get back?" If she hadn't done anything interesting, perhaps she hadn't been there for the big battle. That would certainly have qualified as interesting. "Oh--have you met the aliens yet?"
Lyndin and his people were supposed to be allied with the Negaverse. This was a nice, polite, subtle way to maybe ask after them, if she knew.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 27, 2022 8:22 pm
"Sometime in November," Chrysocolla said ambiguously, and then, "I haven't met them, but I've heard about them?" She knew enough to know she should probably flag an alien or two down one of these days, try to talk, but other people's viewpoints got so frustrating sometimes. Why did she care what people from some dead-or-dying world wanted here? Laurelite said cooperate, for the time being, but that was where Chrysocolla's curiosity ended. She'd never been that interested in other people's specifics, anyway; she worked best when those weren't too relevant.
The Velencians weren't going to do anything for her, and she didn't really want to get involved in whatever their problems were. She probably would, anyway, but if it wasn't voluntary she could claim some recompense.
"Did you meet any of them? They sound kind of weird." She said it matter-of-fact, offhandedly; they did, but maybe all aliens were weird?Noir Songbird it's a normal thing to do in the negaverse, to keep a mental list of your coworkers who you would most like to purify so you could legally kill them without getting in trouble for it, right. (not really. maybe? maybe not.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 30, 2022 2:33 am
Kerberos thought, briefly. How much did he want to tell her about what he did or didn't know? Certainly the fact that he was seeing Lyndin semi-regularly wasn't on the table.
"I've met them," he said. "They came to us as allies, at first, and then, you know,t hat turned out to not be the whole truth, so it's a little messy." Considering what he was saying, he sounded a lot less perturbed about it than one might expect, but his hand did come to rub at the burn scars on his arm. "Still, they seem...I mean, it must be hard, right? Getting driven away from your home and having to scrape and steal to get by?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:08 pm
"It must be hard," Chrysocolla echoed politely, making it into a confirmation, and very steadfastly did not say she really did not care how hard it was for a bunch of weird aliens. Kerberos wouldn't like that, and she very much wanted him to keep liking her, so biting her tongue wasn't any harder than it was the rest of the time.
She frowned when he rubbed at the burn scars, though; those had gone unnoticed in her first once-over, too busy taking in that he was generally all in one piece. "Did they hurt you? Those look like they were... pretty painful, when they happened." He wasn't supposed to get hurt. Of course, he did, but as long as Chrysocolla didn't see any obvious evidence she could ignore it all. And those were healed enough -- it was a safe question, asked at a safe distance from whatever had actually happened.Noir Songbird very normal, because chrys is extremely normal in all things and clearly it's everyone else who's weird--
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:37 am
Chrysocolla's question made Kerberos smile guiltily. "Oh, yeah, hurt like a b***h," he acknowledged. "But it was my own fault. Tried to pass some Transcended energy while there was a pretty nasty, volatile magical reaction going on--I'm lucky this is all I got for it, but I also know I helped, so."
He shrugged his shoulders, in a way that he was pretty sure effectively communicated "I would totally do it again," even if he didn't want to say it out loud.
"Anyway, don't get in the middle of weird magic, probably life advice that I sohuld have picked up on by now."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:46 pm
Chrysocolla frowned at Kerberos, very pointedly, because he shouldn't be doing that. She wasn't going to personally stop him - that would open up a whole complicated mess of issues if anyone saw her, anyway, never mind things like logistics and luck - but she didn't like it. "You're more important. I wish you'd stop getting hurt."
She paused for a second, trying to find the words, reorienting the shape of them in her brain. "Or if you won't stop doing that, stop getting in the middle of weird magic, too."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2023 2:11 am
Kerberos smiled, fond and tired, and nodded. "Yeah, I'll try to quit that. I don't actually enjoy getting injured, all evidence to the contrary aside." He would rather be whole and hale and hearty and able to continue his work.
"And you need to stay safe too, okay?" Because he needed her to survive, because he needed to keep hoping that he might be able to convince her to come home.
No matter how hopeless that was, as a cause in general.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2023 9:18 pm
"You could prove it by not getting hurt," Chrysocolla said, but there wasn't any heat or sharpness to it. Of course there wasn't. She tried not to have too much of that, around Kerberos; it wasn't how he'd met her, and it probably wasn't how he wanted to remember her. And if he ever had some strange, insane idea to let the Negaverse know she still did this stupid, traitorous thing of meeting with him --
It just made everything easier, if she didn't bring up too much. It wasn't like Chrysocolla thought Kerberos would ever turn her in; he'd be risking himself by doing it, but - she had to keep considerations in mind, didn't she? She'd been reminded of that enough, when she'd been littler and less refined. The less of a threat he remembered she was to his friends, the safer they both were.
If there was a silvery-green flash of something in her eyes, he didn't know what it meant. So that was fine. Having her eyes give away everything only mattered if anyone knew what any of those colors meant.
"I am safe! I'm very safe." It came out childish, but that was okay. "It's a lot harder to hurt me than it is to hurt you, probably."Noir Songbird one of these days they're going to make eye contact at an order vs chaos orp melee and just actively pretend they didn't. probably while chrys is trying to murder ida
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2023 7:15 pm
Kerberos exhaled. "I'll do my best, Chrysocolla. I promise," he said, entirely seriously. There was no need to make her worry about him more. And, besides, he wasn't fool enough to believe that an Eternal Senshi of the Negaverse was anything but dangerous, and if he gave her reason to be concerned...
Ugh, better to not think about it.
"Mm, maybe," Kerberos shrugged. "But I'm actually pretty capable, I think you'll find." He smiled, wryly. "Anyway, just...don't do anything too reckless. I'd miss you."
To say the least. Chrysocolla was important to him. Had been for years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
