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 Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2023 7:08 am
Quote: The Leaves (7) - With the changing seasons, there are piles of leaves all around Destiny City. It’s a difficult job to try and keep up with them all, and sometimes the allure of these leaf piles is impossible to ignore. Maybe they just need a good kick? Or, who doesn’t want to relive the childish joys of their youth? And no one’s around to see, right? So why not jump into a pile of leaves? Oh–because, when you do, you jump through one pile and come out of another somewhere else across the city. The leaves all seem ordinary, but there’s a few odd seconds between when you jump into the leaves and when you jump out; it feels like falling, tumbling, somersaulting through the air. It’s not scary, just odd. You see walls of leaves–brown and orange and yellow and red–and they crunch magnificently. Overall, it doesn’t seem menacing, just a bit of trickster fun. If you try to step into, or jump in a pile of leaves again, you might wind up somewhere else entirely–or right back where you started.
She had facts, which always helped. Sinistra had told her to stop, because the big piles of leaves looked like 'so much fun'. Wezen asked for further information, and Sinistra said kids would play in them, by pushing each other or jumping in, despite how much work it had taken someone to gather them into piles.
In an attempt to be playfully human, Wezen had shoved, rather hard, Sinistra into the leaves. And that was it. She had not yet reappeared, and though Wezen had infinite patience she did find herself wondering if something had gone wrong.
"Should I enter the leaves, as well?" she called to the pile. There was no reply. Pranks did not seem to be in SInistra's wheelhouse: she was so kind and worried all the time, the idea of playing a prank and accidentally upsetting someone just did not align with everything Wezen knew about her. Of course, Wezen also understood that Sinistra knew her well, and likely concluded it was impossible to upset her, but somehow that did not seem like enough justification.
Wezen stared hard at the leaves, hoping for an answer.
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Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2023 8:16 pm
The leaves gave Wezen no answer, but they did give her Vilenius.
He arrived in a mess of hair and leaves, and tumbled out of the stack she’d been staring into with a growl and a snarl. He was up on his feet in an instant and bared his teeth at the pile of leaves, and then he turned to her with the same.
“What is this witchcraft?”
He pointed to the leaves with a long, angry finger, and when he realized the state of his hair he began to aggressively comb his fingers through the sudden tangles. It was not out of vanity so much as frustration. The leaves crunched when he touched them, and there was already so much noise in this city.
He was not kind to the leaves, or his hair, and he glowered at Wezen expectantly. He’d arrived in a sour mood, but then–how could he not? He’d been trudging through Destiny City and toppled into a hole in a pile of leaves only to wind up here. Vilenius was not wholly familiar with most of Destiny City and he could usually track his way back to the house he was staying at. That was quite a bit more difficult when he had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten here, and he was already dreading the uncomfortable process of figuring out how to get somewhere familiar.
And he had leaves in his hair.
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Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2023 11:12 am
Wezen stepped back, watching the new arrival curiously. She might have been surprised, but it certainly did not show on her face. Her expression was as bland and calm as ever, even if she was actually unsure how this being had suddenly appeared while Sinistra was still missing.
Had they somehow been switched? What was going on in those leaves?
She looked at the stranger, but was not put off by his sour expression. In fact, it did not seem to register with her at all, and she responded in the exact same way that she would have even if he had been the most polite person to ever speak with her.
"I do not know what witchcraft is, but I am quite aware that those are called leaves. My friend was just explaining them to me, and I am happy to pass that information along. She did not, however, indicate their capacity for holding beings inside them. Did you see her in there, by chance?"
It did not look like it was a big enough pile to have two whole creatures inside it, not of the size this new one was coupled with Sinistra. While she was not as tall as the six foot Wezen, she was still a perfectly reasonably sized human.
She reached up, then remembered some of what she had learned about manners.
"I am going to take a leaf from your hair," she informed him, which was what she thought passed as asking for permission, before plucking the leaf as indicated and turning it over in her hands carefully. She frowned, not noticing anything strange about it, then reached up to put it back where she had found it.
In his hair.
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Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2023 2:35 pm
Vilenius was temporarily stalled as confusion washed over him. His lip twitched twice as he tried to process what she was saying–what she was doing–but she had made her intentions clear. He made no effort to push her hand away, and though he looked like he was ready to snap at her, he didn’t.
Until she put it back. His face soured again and he swatted at the leaf until it crumbled and fell from his hair.
“Why did you do that? I don’t want that. I don’t want any of them.” He shook his head back and forth and a few more leaves fell out.
“I saw no one. I was alone before, and now I am here. I am very sure they are not supposed to do that. No one warned me to watch out for them. They are leaves. Fallen debris. They are supposed to lay on the ground and rot. They took your friend?”
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2024 3:55 pm
Wezen watched the leaf fall, not perturbed. In fact, her face remained perfectly expressionless, though a mild feeling of curiosity existed around her. She noted the way the leaf crumbled into nothing after being disturbed too much, and attributed that to the fact that it was dead, as Sinistra told her happened when they fell. On her own planet, what passed for trees, of course, had no leaves.
Nothing there had ever been alive.
"Sinistra told me to put things back where I find them, should I pick them up," Wezen said placidly. She nodded, though, at her question, simply taking note of his irritation and wondering if the leaves had more mystical properties that were attributing to it. Were they poisonous in any way?
"I pushed her," she said, looking down at her hand. "I thought it was playful. She mentioned that humans play in the leaves, when they fall like this. But she disappeared and you jumped out instead. I am beginning to think this is... not something that is normal." Even in as strange a place as this one. And really, earth was utterly baffling. For as much as she learned about it, she felt more and more confused and her understanding only seemed to weaken the more she learned.
After all, she applied the lessons Sinistra taught her and, just like putting the leaf back, she often found contradictions and different lessons from others. Even those not from here, like herself. She stared at the pile for a long moment, but Sinistra did not look like she was going to come bouncing out of the still leaves any time soon.
"I wonder if she's dead?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2024 12:25 am
Vilenius stared at her for a moment, and while he understood the words, they did not make sense.
“...Maybe,” he finally agreed. He returned his gaze to the pile of leaves and gave an experimental prod with the tip of his boot.
The leaves shifted, but no one fell out.
“...You must have pushed her too hard. Maybe to the center of the Earth.” Earth didn’t work like that. At least, he didn’t think it did; he wasn’t an expert.
He kicked the leaves now, sending a wave of them billowing up into the air. No one jumped out. He stood in the leaves, ankle deep, and looked down at them.
“She’s definitely not here. And now, I want to be put back where I was found.” He jumped and the leaves crunched beneath him, but he didn’t move. He jumped several more times before he gave up and glowered at them.
“Maybe she is playing a trick on you. I fell through and I am in one piece, she probably is too. Just waiting to jump out and scare you. It’s what I would do.”
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Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2024 1:05 pm
Wezen frowned, thinking it was strange to have openings to the core of a planet unattended, considering the care humans took to make sure they were safe in other regards. When it came to crossing the street, she felt like there were too many guidelines. Why would they not cover such a dangerous hole?
He stood in the leaves and did not vanish, nor did he fall through a hole. So her confusion returned to its initial state of unanswered questions, rather than answers she did not understand. She watched him blandly, though her interest was at its peak. The interest she felt just did not reach her face.
"Where did you come from?" she asked suddenly, glancing around. If he had been pulled from somewhere and wanted to go back there, maybe she was where he had been. Did these leaves have the ability to simply trade people's places? That would make them strange and mostly inconvenient, but at the very least not dangerous.
She did take a mental note that he would use the leaves to jump out and scare someone. It seemed like a reasonable application of the pile, though she was almost certain Sinistra would never do something like that. She was constantly apologizing for anything she thought was even remotely upsetting to someone, and even Wezen felt like scaring someone on purpose was beyond her. Though, it did sound fun. As far as she understood the concept. Maybe she would try it some time, to learn more.
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2024 12:31 am
“Vilenius.”
Oh, wait. No, that wasn’t what she was asking.
“I was by a bean-shaped lake in a park with taller trees. There were strings of lights dangling from them and the whole place was lit up. You could see a billboard with a woman biting a donut.”
He squinted at the horizon, as if searching for the billboard, but he didn’t recognize where he was. “I don’t know how to get there from here. But I’m going to start walking. It’ll take forever to get these leaves off of me.”
He gripped his hair and shook it out. A few more leaves crumbled in his grip but he was just making more of a mess to deal with later. Honestly, he didn’t care about it, but he supposed the others in the house would get annoyed if he was always tracking nature in with him. “What does Sinistra look like? If I see her I’ll tell her you’re waiting for her here.”
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Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2024 4:56 pm
Wezen committed the description to her memory, though it would require some wandering around. If it came to it, maybe Sinistra would just go home and the two would meet up again there. If she was, in fact, not dead, though Wezen was not certain.
There was no telling what this strange Earth phenomenon could really do. And her current companion did not seem to know all that much more about it than she did. All her answers would be with Sinistra. If she weren't dead.
A strange tingling in the back of her mind made her mouth feel strangely heavy, as if the corners wanted to bend downwards. She kept that from happening, and the weight shifted into her chest. Vaguely, she remembered Sinistra explaining an emotion to her that seemed to match these symptoms. It was 'sad'.
She ignored it.
At his words, she perked up a bit. It was a better idea, in retrospect, for her to stay put, where Sinistra would know to come look for her. After all, she came to this park all the time, where Wezen was still unfamiliar.
"Like a human broom," Wezen said, missing the double meaning in her description. She meant it literally: Sinistra's skirt had the same kind of straw-like bristles that a broom had. She knew this because Sinistra showed her as much. "She has soft green hair and a helpless looking face. And a big, black, pointy hat."
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Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2024 9:08 pm
Wezen gave a precise description. Vilenius felt like he knew exactly what Sinistra looked like.
He nodded firmly.
“She will be easy to find. If I locate her, I will send her over here.”
He skimmed the area once more, certain that he could direct someone to this location should he come across them.
“I’ll see you around, then. Good luck.”
Vilenius did not wait for any formal words of parting; he’d stated his intention and thought that was enough warning. He started off in the direction that felt most right. He’d walk until he found something familiar or find a tree to sleep in until someone came to find him.
His priority was himself, but he hoped Wezen found her friend before someone added her to their broom closet.
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Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2024 12:17 am
Wezen clasped her hands in front of her and lowered her upper body, bowing at Vilenius' back as he retreated. She then sat down on the floor, arranging her skirts and sighing as she crossed her legs under her and prepared to wait. Thankfully, Sinistra was already on her way back, but it would take her a little while to get there. Wezen was infinitely patient and barely registered the passage of time, so there was no issue for her.
Really, all things combined, it had been a pleasant evening. If she understood the assessment correctly.
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