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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 2:26 am
Quote: Prompt 13 (Sweet Treats) : There’s no shortage of holiday themed popup shops and specials at your local places, and after a long day there’s nothing better than a nice treat for yourself. Maybe you decided to try something new, maybe it was a gift, maybe you got one of the coupons in the mail to try the place out–however you wound up with this drink, you’re in for a good time. No matter what your preferences are, the drink is delicious. Hot, cold, sweet, bitter–there’s a version of it for everyone. But, the flavor isn’t what makes the drink so special–it’s how good it makes you feel. There’s no alcohol in it, but drinking it can leave someone feeling tipsy, warm, and in a general good mood. Inhibitions aren’t lowered and there’s no negative repercussions for having the drink; it might make children more hyper, but the drink just has the ability to put someone in a pleasant mood. Abzu loved holiday pop-up shops. There was something so unique and bright about them despite being very stereotypical each year. There were always several that offered sweet treats that for some reason had grown to be associated with the winter always. Always were some others that had some warm alcoholic liqueurs that could only be obtained when it was hard to say if the goosebumps were from the air or from the way the drink had delighted them. Still more that sold things that were savory instead of sweet, or craft goods with the craft drafts, or-- In any case, it was the sweets and the liqueurs that had pulled him out of the house today. At least, pulled him out longer than he had to be. It was way too cold to be acceptable-- In one brown bag were two tins of cookies. In the other was an apple cider liqueur that he had tried at the chalet and had immediately wanted to share with everyone else. It was so good it had brought a bit of a jaunty skip to his step. Unusually good, even. Luke would probably like some of the sweets. Maybe Pendour would like them too--
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 5:23 am
Pendour had meant it when she'd told Encke that she was going to have to take more responsibility for things. Well, she'd meant that she was going to take more responsibility for Faustite, specifically, to keep him from leaving any more half-burned bodies in his wake. She still couldn't get that smell out of her nose. She'd tried everything from aromatherapy to hypnosis. Only draining herself with Caedus's crystal had given her any kind of peace, but that wasn't really a long term option right now. Nobody else deserved to have that sight, that smell, burned into their heads the way that she did. Nobody else deserved to be a victim of it. And she couldn't stop it, couldn't stop anything, anything at all, if she was asleep. She'd been letting herself crash for a few hours in daylight, when things were less dangerous, but those were restless naps and full of awful dreams since she didn't trust herself with the crystal. She had to be out all night, every night. She had to be. She couldn't bear it if she missed something, and someone got hurt, or what if Encke snapped, seeing something else awful, and ended up killing a person and not just a robot that had been digging around in his chest? What if- It was worth it, too. It was working, she told herself. She hadn't seen Faustite again, not yet, and she hadn't heard any rumors of him doing anything awful, either, but she was doing other things. She'd kept a youma from clawing someone open, and gotten it all calmed down and sleeping under a blanket in an alleyway. She'd kept youma away from populated areas lots of times. She was saving people. The price was that she looked even more thin and empty-eyed than usual when she stumbled across Abzu. "Oh," she whispered. She hadn't known it was him. She'd just felt the aura and wanted to ask if the person had seen any youma around, any burning Generals. Her voice was thin. Her smile was thin, too. "Um, hi," she said.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:13 am
When he heard Pendour, he came to one conclusion. He could always head back to the chalet. It was ridiculously chilly outside, but he'd cope with it, he guessed. (Or maybe he'd just tell Luke where it was and tell him to bring back something.) She needed the sweets and the warming drinks a bit more than his accountant. And friend, but that was muddying the waters at the moment. He had another friend in front of him that looked like she had gone through hell and back. Or maybe just the worst ******** exam to ever ask to exist. Had he shown her his new fit yet? It was pretty recent... She looked like she needed about twenty naps, some dinner, and maybe sixty more afterward. "You doing alright?" The answer to that was clearly no, but since he couldn't read minds, it gave him a place to start with his questioning. "I got something to drink if you want to talk about it." It was a very good drink. He was very happy to share it. Abzu wasn't sure what exactly it contained, but he had felt a bit brighter afterward. She looked like she might have needed that too, maybe before the twenty naps.
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 4:03 pm
It was a delayed reaction. Well, it was more delayed than usual. It always took a few seconds for whatever people said to Pendour to rearrange themselves into words and sentences inside her head, but this was a long and drawn-out moment of her just staring blankly, lips slightly parted. Her tired eyes flicked across his outfit, and finally, finally, she said, "Oh. You're a Squire." She smiled at that, and then she laughed about it, once, and then twice, like there was something funny about it even though there wasn't. She danced around the question of if she was okay. At some point she managed to focus on his drink for long enough to shake her head at the offer. She wanted it. She wanted it so badly. She was thinking about the other drinks they'd shared, about soft chats in his house, at his hot tub, or out in the city, or on Neptune, those moments that she could never have again. She would end up in his arms, eyes fluttering shut against his chest, and then it would be morning and someone would be dead. "I can't talk for too long. I just need to know. Um." Her eyes fluttered shut anyway. She forced them back open. "Have you seen any Generals?"
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2022 7:18 am
If Abzu hadn't already been convinced she didn't need a million naps, the way she looked at him, mouth slightly agape, confirmed that. His brows lifted toward his nasal bridge in concern-- Well. Maybe it was his outfit that she was gawking at? Definitely not, because he didn't see her look right away-- "Aye-aye," he winked at her. "Honestly, think getting some assistance with alla' this to thank for that." That was a compliment to Pendour's ability as a mentor, and for literally saving his life, but he wasn't sure how well it would land with how she looked at the moment. Especially because she wasn't answering his question. Instead, she wanted to know if he had seen any generals. He didn't think so? Nothing had set off his senses like a gaudy Dolce & Gabbana perfume. "Not that I've seen. Are you looking for someone?" Abzu wasn't going to let her leave that easily.
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2022 4:21 pm
"Well, if I helped you at all, I'm glad," she said, although she wasn't sure if that was how it worked, not really. Her own upgrades had happened when she'd found new depths within herself. There had only been so much that Irving or Encke or Camelot or any of her other mentors had been able to do to unlock that power. She was glad to see Abzu growing stronger, though. If anyone deserved it, he did. She trusted him with that power in a way that she didn't always trust others, even others untouched by Chaos. She trusted him in general, so when he asked his question, she answered him. "Faustite," she told him. "The fiery one. Um, or any of the others, really. Anyone who's being, um." There was a too-long pause. Even getting out a simple sentence was a struggle. "Dangerous." She blinked the times, slowly. "He's been out killing people. I saw-" she winced as to visuals came up in her mind again, the girl with no face left, the smell. She didn't finish that thought. She couldn't. She could only bite the insides of her cheeks hard, hoping it would make the thought go away. "It's awful. Worse than I've seen in a long time. My best friend sees it too, he's about to break his morals to kill him. I can't let that happen. I can't." There were a lot of reasons why she didn't want to let that happen, but one of the biggest was that she didn't want to see Encke all hard-faced like Sess, never quite meeting her eyes. "So, I have to find him first. I have to stop him, stop all the dangerous ones, before someone else finds them." She might not have been making sense. She was blinking her eyes open again.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2022 12:23 am
"You did," because she had. A nice little diddy on his saxophone had done nothing but gotten him in more trouble, but she had pulled him right out of it. And through her, Abzu found out a lot about being a knight that likely would have taken him an eon to stumble to on his own. Being a knight didn't come with a manual, and while there were pieces he had gotten to on his own, he knew how long that uptake took without some kind of surrounding backup. There had been some pieces of the puzzle that others helped to fill in. She said Faustite, and he did recognize that name. When Realta had helped him gain access to the wider world of senshi communications, he had started looking through what that had given him. The Order Database was one of the first pieces. The descriptions of Faustite had been intriguing as much as they were a warning. He hadn't the misfortune of running into any generals, really, although perhaps now that he was a squire that tune would change. He had run into people closer to his current stage as a page, after all. Pendour's responses were as passionate as they were mired with the mud of exhaustion. Abzu took a closer step, both worried about what she was saying and worried she might imminently collapse. "I get it. The things these people are doing are endangering lives. More than just their own, as others try to find ways to stop them." There wasn't really a good answer to the problem of murderous generals on fire. Honestly, especially if they were escalating. They were becoming more of an issue, not the same or lessening. If she was acting like this, she had seen something awful, too. She had seen enough in this shitty war that he knew that had to be true. "But Pen," he looked up to her, watched the way she wavered, watched the way she blinked, "you'll be able to protect people better and help make sure your best friend can keep his morals better if you don't fall asleep in the middle of your attempts. Sleep deprivation can make your function as impaired if not moreso than drunkenness." His brows knit in concern once more. "It's a lot harder to help anyone without helping yourself, too." He knew that for a fact. His charity work often revolved around the more obvious aspects of that: food, water, and shelter. Mental wellness was important for the strength to help others, too.
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2022 4:23 pm
Pendour hadn't exactly been bubbling with energy, but as Abzu spoke, she deflated a little more. In fact, she deflated so much that she stepped forwards and melted against his shoulder. Was that admitting defeat? Was that admitting that she was too tired to go on? Maybe, but she'd never been much of a liar, and he was reading her like a book, anyway. "I know," she whispered to him. "It's something I, um. Try to live by. You can't pour from an empty cup, and I've been sleeping a little in the mornings, but, um-" It was all there in her body language, really, the way she leaned against him like she was dead weight, the way that she wasn't twirling her hair, or playing with her ring, or rubbing her fingers together. "But I keep hoping that there's more to the depths of my cup, because it's bad, Abzu." She looked over at him, and there was always something distant to her gaze, the false eye that never quite focused proof that she had seen things, but now her face was especially hollow. "Trails of bodies bad. Dead Squired bad. You have to stay away from him Abzu, at least until you're stronger." This was said with the steel that crept into her voice every now and then. "I can stop him. I can help. I have. I've saved people. I just-" Her voice faltered. "I have to be there. If I stop, someone else will die."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 3:29 pm
She melted right onto him, and Abzu compensated for it, shifting so she had the space to take as much room as she needed. He wrapped an arm around her waist, in part because their height differential made doing much more at this angle difficult, but also in part to help her keep her balance. He appreciated that she was at least sleeping a little bit, in part because too long with no sleep led to hallucinations and general dysfunction and also eventual death. (That was why Abzu never risked it! Better to get plenty of sleep! Why risk being dysfunctional in the first place when he could just get comfortable and doze--) What she was describing sounded absolutely bad. He knew some of these agents were absolutely terrible in the name of their terrible organization, but he hadn't yet been confronted with that level of it. To his credit, Abzu didn't waver. To some degree, it didn't even surprise him. "Look, I've been doing my best to stay far away from general auras. They're probably the most entrenched so the least likely to just want to listen to saxophone music." He chuckled faintly, a ghost of a sound moreso about comfort than any kind of levity. "If I see a man of fire I'll run, alright? "But if you don't get proper rest, the next one dead might just be you." Abzu hugged her just a bit closer to his side. "You'll lose focus and be unable to defend yourself or others at just the wrong time. You can help others better if you're in a state that enables it." He smiled faintly. "Know you can save people. You've saved me. But you also did that with considerably more rest." Abzu tilted the drink toward her. "You've seen something traumatizing. Drink this, let yourself rest, and go back out rested enough that you're not a risk instead of a help. May even be able to help more people that way."
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 6:39 pm
From where she stood against him, Pendour reached out and wrapped the fingers of one hand around the offered cut. It was warm, and she wasn't worried about falling into the temptation of that. Hydration was good. Warmth was good, on a cold night like this one. Caffeine was good. It would let her keep going, let her be there. "I won't die," she murmured. "It's worth it for him to keep me alive. Um." She paused, staring blankly at the cup with her good eye while the thoughts sloshed slowly through her head. "I think?" It probably wasn't the most convincing thing to say, but she didn't have the focus to tell him about the way she'd been giving him energy, sometimes, didn't have the thoughts to ask him if that counted as a bribe or not, or to think up other approaches if they decided that it did. "I can't stop," she told him. "I'm sorry. I can't." Under all of it, that hint of steel was there. Then she took a sip of the drink, and within a matter of moments, the warmth was spreading all the way through her fingers and toes, like a blanket. More than that, her heart felt warm, and her head. Just for that moment, the worries were gone. That was all it took. Her eyes had already been heavy as heavy. Now they closed. Her body was heavier against his, too. Sleep was quick to find her, and if Abzu's reflexes weren't quick, he would find his drink sloshing against the ground.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 10:18 pm
She thought? That was concerning. What had Faustite done to make her wonder if she may or may not have been useful? And if her position with him was that iffy, would she live through meeting up with him again? She was staring at the cup and he was pretty sure she was also just considering what she had said, but perhaps it was for the best they moved on from that. More serious conversations could wait for when her condition was less overall dire. No, she wasn't in any immediate danger of dying, he wouldn't let that happen anyway. But she was also clearly critically low on sleep. "Pen--" But then she was sipping the drink. She was sipping the drink, and then she was wobbling, and her eyes were closing, and Abzu scrambled to not only pick up what was left of the drink but also find a proper way to support all six feet of her with all five-foot-six of him. To be honest, he hadn't quite felt until that exact moment how much strength this new form provided him. If he was a civilian, he would have absolutely just dropped her-- Evidently, she could. Abzu sipped the remainder of the drink and put the empty cup back in the bag containing the full bottle. He'd get her home. Somehow. He took in a deep breath, steeled himself, and attempted to move her as best he could to somewhere safer, at least. The least he could do.
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