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 Posted: Sat May 18, 2024 1:51 pm
This wasn't exactly a ghost that Alexis had expected to ever lay eyes on again. But with Grieve firmly ensconced on Earth, Helene reentangled with his Knight boy, others still -- it seemed like more and more of the Nameless had unknowingly shared absolute failure at the whole 'dying' thing, and -- they'd liked Madriu. They remembered that much. Unfortunately he'd had unreasonable amounts of height on them, and that hadn't changed; but what could you do, really. (Platforms and heels could only be so high before they weren't practical; that was a sacrifice Alexis had long since made, and practical always won out over any other consideration. They still put enough height into their shoes that sometimes it got them to nose-height on the ones who weren't that tall, even so. They'd been tall for their people! Apparently the galaxy ran, all in all, on the taller side!)
All truth being told, Alexis weren't sure if they preferred these ancient spectres to the alternative: those reincarnations, with the same colors and faces but almost always none of the recognition behind the eyes. All in all it didn't seem to matter; reincarnation or not, people fell into their own patterns so easily, walking paths their souls had already traced out a millennia ago in a different face.
And also they -- they had liked Madriu, Lex, once. They remembered that much. It echoed forward into a hollow mask, but it was enough to go off of. Some part of him had been kin-and-kind; they remembered the shape of the feeling, even so. It'd been enough for them to flag him down, to ask for some banal catch-up or something-or-other in civilian faces, outside of bloody stupid uniforms and magic and faces that never matched up. They knew the lay of the land, generally, when they actually put in the time, and it really was comparatively easy to beeline for the closest coffeeshop and get a two-person table at a bit of a remove.
"Out of all of us," Alexis said, pleasantly, in the same tone they might've used for pleasantly chilly weather today, isn't it, "I'm really not quite surprised you didn't die. It wouldn't have suited you." This was not the worst way they had ever opened a conversation after a long pause, but it laid somewhere among those lower echelons.
They took a long sip of their drink -- something unreasonably caffeinated that'd made the barista raise an eyebrow to hear, let alone make -- and looked expectantly at Lex, and if he said anything about them sounding different they were going to break the straw in their other hand right in half. Surely he'd heard them talk in Senshi form, back then. Hadn't he? Had it been enough to distinguish between their usual civilian common-tongue gutter-rat intonations and the sort of thing they were doing now?
It would be a reasonable question, even. They knew how they'd answer it if he asked. And it would even mostly be true! No quality was so rare as honesty.
"So how have you been?"
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Posted: Fri May 31, 2024 3:20 am
It was strange, to keep running into remembered faces after so long. And perhaps it was ridiculous, but every time Madriu found someone else who was still alive after a thousand years, he hoped just a little more that maybe, somewhere, Anthy, too, still lived.
Not that it felt entirely right to wish that his beloved had survived for a thousand years alone and isolated on a dead world, like he had, but maybe there were other ways. Grive was still here, and she'd told him--Helene. Roka. Urania. More than that.
So it hadn't entirely been a shock to see Roka again, but it had been sort of a delight. They'd gotten on, once, kin-and-kind, one of the people Lex had privately considered a sort of pack. So accepting their invitation just made sense, all things considered.
Lex was powered down and glamored, and he'd managed to be smart about spending his "finder's fees," so he'd had plenty to pick up a drink--basic, black, a shot of the thing they called "espresso"--and a "cinnamon scone" because it looked and smelled good and also he was hungry.
Constantly. All the time. A thousand years of it and it sort of made its way into your bones.
"Yeah, I have to admit," he said, "finding out that you and Grieve were both still alive? Just sort of tracked. Too stubborn to die, all of us." He smiled, wryly.
Roka was different. But the centuries would do that to you.
"Honestly? I'm just glad that I'm on a planet that's alive again. No idea how the isolation alone didn't drive me nuts. Maybe it did and I'm just very functional about it." Lex broke off a piece of his scone and ate it, taking a moment to consider. Ah, well. If he was insane, it was much too late to fix it. "What about you? How long have you been here?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 11:39 pm
"Ah, well; you know me -- I'm exceptionally hard to kill." And certainly people had tried! Beasts, too, and all variety of menagerie; every single line of work they'd ever picked back then had involved a lot of killing. Some of that varied menagerie had even succeeded, but that was a whole lot of technicalities all tied up in things Alexis didn't need to talk about with him. It's been a thousand years, you look well, I think I may be deeply delusional simply wasn't anything they needed to bring up in detail. They had tact! Sometimes. Occasionally. Usually in situations where it mightn't have been necessary, but they did have it, and they... merely chose not to exercise it, in most contexts.
'Hard to kill' had always been a sick point of pride. Harder to exhibit it here, but still. And for a moment they thought about making some joke, some comment about how Grieve was still taller than anyone ought to ever be, but -- did they need humor here? No. No. Incongruous. "She's not much changed, herself."
(They were not, as it went, particularly subtle about watching him eat. Alexis hadn't touched their own sandwich, which was mostly a pointed exercise in restraint; certainly they were hungry, they always were -- and always had been, even before everything -- and it was likely he'd understand some of it. Maybe most of it. Maybe maybe maybe maybe. But they weren't about to admit it unless he brought it up. No reason to advertise weakness of any kind in any way, even to someone who'd been so similar; predators one and all often flocked to the scent of blood, no matter what or why.)
How long have you been here? Easy to answer. A good question. A simple question. No extraneous information; easy, easy. They made a considering little noise, tapping one finger against the side of their cup. "It's been some time. Twenty-one months? And if you have gone insane you're still functioning perfectly well, so that doesn't seem much of a problem."
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Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 6:39 pm
"True," Lex agreed. It almost seemed--natural. The thought of Alexis having died felt...out of place, when they had always been such a determined survivor. When their world had hardened them--in a different way than Arcalis had hardened Lex, but still.
If anyone would have been prepared to make it through a thousand years, it was Alexis.
He took a sip of his coffee, and the bitter heat felt warm and familiar. Reminded him of some of the drinks that had come from his home, things he hadn't tasted in a long, long time.
He probably could have gotten a fuller meal than a sugary treat, but--well, sometimes Lex wanted sugar, just as much as he craved meat. And baked sweets had been in short supply.
"Well, as long as I'm functioning," Lex deadpanned. Sometimes, he thought he had to have lost....something, considering that he was supposed to be one-of-two and now he was on-of-one, but that was....difficult. "How've you found this place? It feels...strange. To me, at least. So cut off from..." He gestured. "Everything." Not that there was much of "everything" left, anymore, it seemed.
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Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2024 7:26 pm
"As long as you're functioning, yes." Alexis snorted, a little inelegantly, and took another almost-too-long sip of their drink. Probably they should have done it less, in this glamour they weren't any more well-equipped to aspirate liquid than any regular human, but that would've been so terribly boring. If they choked a bit on coffee they probably had it coming. "They've managed well enough, given how much they've forgotten. The city..."
A brief sigh. "It's a city. They're all the same. The more you seem native, the easier it is, and they're quite accustomed to oddity here. Haven't been able to pick up our old profession exactly, but there's enough work available that I'm rarely in uniform."
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Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2024 4:48 pm
Lex let his eyes drift out onto the street, watching the people trail by. There was something unerringly strange about seeing only a single species--different colors and shapes and styles, yes, but all Earth humans, none of the variety that most worlds had a thousand years ago.
"There's so much that's just gone," he said, and there was an edge of melancholy to his voice. "But I'm glad you've figured out a way to make things work." He turned his attention back, huffing. "I've been...let's say informally charging people for helping them out with Negaverse problems. Protection, you know. Don't work for free. And I'm holed up in some old house no one seems to want. Plenty of ways to slide yourself in between the cracks, at least."
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Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2024 10:27 pm
Certainly things were gone. Civilizations, worlds, homes, people, but -- "Bloody good riddance." Most of it still seemed foreign and distant, most days. Someone else's opinions, painted in colors they didn't understand how they'd held anymore.
More of the faces were blurred in their memory than Alexis would've ever cared to admit. Most days it didn't bother them, given they didn't think too directly about it; time took and took and took, and a thousand years, nearly -- it was a wonder all their long-suffering ilk weren't irredeemably beyond repair.
None of it was ever going to make any sort of return, except for maybe a few scattered bodies. Dead as ashes, dead as gravedirt, dead as anything. (--A pity what'd become of the galaxy, really. It'd all been so much fun between the viscera and steel. But --)
"I don't know what you're charging, but it ought t'be at least double, whatever it is. And if you're looking for anything for your little haunt, I've... friends enough t'make arrangements." That felt right; that felt like it had the right weight to it. They wanted to aid him, didn't they? That sounded right.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2024 12:04 am
Lex barked a laugh, perhaps more literally wolfish than most. Perhaps it was good that it was all gone. Certainly the old empires were so much dust in the breeze, and that was nice. Or maybe there were new ones, out there in the black, ones that had never touched this planet.
Who knew. Perhaps they'd find out.
But most of what was left seemed to be dust and ash, and here they were, standing in the rubble and making a go of it in the world that was left over.
"You're probably right," he acknowledged, "but I'm doing pretty okay for the moment. Met a new-old friend who helped....set me up on his ex's dime, let's say." Talking around Murikabushi helping him do fraud. "Might take you up on getting better furniture, though. What's in that place is a mess. Abandoned for a couple years, I'd bet."
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