Path to Nowhere (14) : There are many parks in Destiny City, and if you’re willing to venture to the outskirts of the city you can find an incredibly vast forest system. It’s unlikely that anyone has explored every inch of the forest, but it’s still odd when a strange path into the forest suddenly appears in an area that you thought you knew pretty well. Where there was once just a wall of trees, now there is a faded wooden board with an old fashioned, thatched roof with a thick layer of moss. Pinned to the board, behind broken glass, is yellowed paper. The portrait of a woman wearing vintage clothes watches you with an eerie smile. A map used to be here; you can see where the corners are pinned, but someone has torn it out. A few dried flowers are pinned to the board. Someone has pinned a message that says ‘DO NOT ENTER’ and ‘DANGER’. The path is eerie but doesn’t appear dangerous otherwise. Dark shadows fill the space between the trees, and sometimes you can make out mushroom covered logs in the distance. Many flowers grow but they all appear half wilted or dying. The path winds on for what feels like forever once you are on it. If you’re lucky you can turn around and find your way out, but once you start walking, the path seems like it forever winds. You can walk until you collapse, or until you fall asleep. If you make it into the heart of the forest, you will find a giant tree with branches so heavy that they droop towards the ground, and a strange, bright-eyed owl that watches you from the branches. It’s too dark to see beyond that; regardless of the time of day it was when you entered, it always appears to be nighttime here. A slow breeze disrupts a sea of half-dead dandelions, and suddenly white wisps swirl around you and your vision fades. Whether you exhausted yourself trying to get out, or if you made it to the heart of the forest, you cannot escape the wave of sleep that falls upon you. When you wake up, you’ll be in your bed but you won’t remember how you got there. You can find the path again, if luck wills it, but all trips end up the same.
It was night enough that the wisest course of action would probably be for him to retire. Rakovanite didn't prefer to keep late nights, and he did so only sparingly. Tonight was because daylight hours were so cripplingly hot that all he wanted to do was sleep. Go to work, come home, take a nap, do chores for what basically amounted to his second job, go to bed. It was a massive departure from his usual routine, leaving an uncomfortable antisness itching in the back of his skull. But it needed to be done. There was nothing for it.
Since it was late, he typed out a quick message on his phone (laden with a gold charm from Basyl's hoarding tendencies) to his fiance, 'Home soon.' A quick assurance that he wasn't dead or hurt. Everything Was Fine.
And yet... He didn't make a habit of venturing out from the city proper. As far as Rakovanite was aware, there would not be much of interest to him away from the main city: less people to drain, less White Moon to stumble across, less to do, less to observe. And it was only because of the aura he felt (so far away? Why? To achieve what?) that he found himself slowly tailing it.
Leisurely, because he was guided more by curiosity than aggression. He could think of but few reasons why someone would find their way out here while powered, and none of them involved getting in the Negaverse's way (though he was sure some had more creativity than others in that regard...).
It brought him so close to the edge of the city that he forfeited buildings and civilization for tangled wilderness. There were hiking trails even here, but the more he followed, the fewer they became, until he was standing in front of a signage board: 'DO NOT ENTER.' His eyes narrowed, head canting slightly to the side as he stared at it. The message didn't look from this century, and the path that had once been here seemed to have fallen into deep disrepair. The wilds had reclaimed it. Rakovanite didn't know why this stretch of forest was so different than any other, but he could still feel that someone else found it worth investigating.
But did that make it worth it for himself, was the question.
Time would tell. He had nothing to lose, and curiosity had already brought him this far. Rakovanite slipped by the sign, and had barely made it too far in when he saw her.
"Cybele..."
The untamed Hunt Senshi in all of her resplendent glory. Perhaps he should have expected her to be the one out in the forest, but it had been a while since they'd met face-to-face. A year? Two? Three? Enough to have tempered some of his spite at her betrayal, reignite it at the knowledge of how special and blessed and powerful she was, and then temper it again. She hadn't even had Eternal wings the last time they'd spoken. He couldn't believe no one had killed her. They should have. He should have...
Rakovanite did not approach more than enough to recognize her, studying the woman before him with a canted head and chilly expression. "What a treat to meet you again." The words were flat and soft, lacking any particular bite to them.
xstari_maga
Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2024 2:16 pm
If Cybele took to the woods, it wasn't usually because she was seeking out Chaos. It wasn't that she never found any there. There was the occasional rouge youma, and the singular captain that she'd found here years ago, but those encounters were few and far between. If she was looking for a fight, she'd go out to the parks, or better yet, to the alleyways in the nightlife part of town.
She'd come out here expecting a stroll to the chirping of summer bugs and the rustling of wind in the leaves.
It was something of a shock when all that was interrupted by the unmistakable feeling of a General coming after her. She didn't know who to expect as she stopped, and then turned on her heel to meet it. Her mind still defaulted to Faustite, although no one had seen him in a while now.
As she approached, though, she immediately knew who she was looking at.
"Rakovanite," she breathed, staring at the figure that was paused in front of a sign.
This was the man who she'd curled up with against the cold. This was the man who had been Sylvite's friend, the one who had called her an acquisition, Sylvite's property. She wondered if Sylvite's purification had changed his thoughts on things.
Either way, she doubted he liked Princesses.
Still, she saw no reason to be impolite right away. "It's a lovely evening, isn't it?" She paused, and smiled in that polite way. "What brings you out?"
Indigo_Plateau
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2024 7:43 am
He stayed exactly where he was, several feet away, still as stone, watching. Rakovanite didn't see Cybele and immediately think he had to be on guard for murderous tendencies. He doubted her impulse would be to jump him right there; she wasn't a sociopath. But she was quiet, soft, polite... That was outside of any expectations he might have as well- Maybe it shouldn't have been. Why would someone like her have anything to fear from him. She smiled. Faux or genuine. He couldn't tell the difference.
His focus pulled off of her, dragging slowly across the darkness of the wild forest path, searching for whatever caused this sense of strangeness, of 'off.' But it was impossible to see anything in the night. Cybele stood out only because she was a beacon of whites and pale greens. Rakovanite looked back to her. "Curiosity," he admitted. "I thought it strange anyone would be so far into the forests." Didn't their ilk have whole planets they could flee to in order to escape Destiny City? She must find more joy in her own world than skulking around where anyone could stumble upon her? Surely.
Is that how he would have felt? Rakovanite had lived in this city for his entire life. Would he have preferred to wander a strange world over the one he had always known?
Probably not.
...Obviously not.
Irrelevant. "Perhaps it is not so strange that it is you. You do have a tendency to be where you are unwanted." Unless Cybele had put that sign up herself, though judging by the state of it, Rakovanite severely doubted it.
He moved forward then, toward her if only because that was where the path led. "Do you want to see what makes this path so dangerous?"
stari_maga
Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:29 pm
Unwanted. It was not unexpected, perhaps, that his language would be angled just so to edge under her skin. She didn't react, though, beyond a slight tilt of her head to the side. "Would you rather I was in the middle of the city causing trouble?" she asked.
She supposed he wanted her dead, now that she was done wearing black and being the Negaverse's perfect puppet, strung up with thorns. She wasn't quite sure if the feeling was mutual. She didn't dislike him, but she also doubted that she would be able to break his loyalty to the Negaverse, and so she didn't know what other options she had.
"I suppose I could cause trouble for you out here," she added, slightest hint of threat to her voice, not taking her eyes off of him. She knew she was a Princess, which made her a prize, but she also knew that if he tried to pick a fight, she'd be at the advantage.
She did not, for the moment, pick a fight. She stepped past the warning signs, deeper into the shadows. "But you're right. This has me curious."
It reminded her of when they'd met, in a forest only slightly more unsettling than this one.
Indigo_Plateau
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:42 pm
"And miss this opportunity to see you in person?" Rakovanite hummed noncommittally, quiet, almost distant. It would probably have been easier if she was in the city- then he wouldn't have felt her aura. He wouldn't have come out here. He would've gone home. He would've slept. It wouldn't have mattered what ruckus she made because it would've been someone else dealing with it. But because they were both here, it wasn't someone else. It was him.
He dismissed her barely-threat with a flippant wave of his hand and blatant disinterest. She would do nothing to him, and they both knew it: he wasn't doing anything to merit any strenuous action on her part besides being in the same vicinity.
Let her start something. It would just be more ammunition for how her ilk perceived themselves better and needed no reason to attack people who didn't worship their stupid star goddess and didn't care which random space rock decided they were Worthy and Blessed. Rakovanite would love to recount the tale. But in the absence of her picking a fight with him, Rakovanite did not see himself to the point of being so despondent with life that he thought it smart to initiate something against her alone. Out in the woods. Where literally no one would find them. It would be one thing if he could just take her starseed- like he should've when he'd first seen her after her purification.
That seemed unlikely now.
His brow furrowed as she started for the path ahead- and he could leave. It wasn't like he couldn't look at her without trying to kill her, but it didn't feel right to do nothing after all the grief she caused. "It says 'Danger,'" he stated blandly, like she might not be able to read and needed his help figuring out that this way was probably not meant for them. He stood firmly by the sign, head canted and staring at her like she was a strange urchin, doing something unfathomable.
stari_maga
Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2024 2:02 pm
"It's true," Cybele mused, in that same staged polite tone from before. "It's always a pleasure, and you do tend to run into me when I'm off the beaten path a bit."
It made her wonder about him, and his work within the Negaverse. He struck her as practical, so there must have been a reason that he was out here in the woods in the middle of the night. Had he been looking, specifically, for her? It wasn't outside of the realm of possibility.
Alternatively, was there something out here that they were keeping an eye on? She glanced back once more to the danger sign.
There were no auras around, but she had learned a while ago that there was more to this world and the magic there than what could be detected by their abilities alone. Things went deeper than the war, sometimes.
"It's my job to investigate danger," she told him, continuing to trot down the path. She did have to admit that something felt strange about the air here, and she stayed as wary of that as she did of the General behind her. "To stop it, if I can."
Her smile was sweet as she glanced sideways at him. "But if you're worried, you're welcome to turn back."
Indigo_Plateau
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Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2024 3:06 pm
He didn't suppress an eye roll, then. Her 'job,' her job to investigate danger and 'stop it,' assigned to her by the great powers in the heavens. There were an infinite number of atrocities on this world and probably countless others, but here she was out in the forests where most reasonable people knew better than to tread. Whatever 'danger' was here did not seem likely to have many victims, but Senshi only knew how to focus on trivial things to make themselves feel important. The most egotistical people in the ******** galaxy.
"And what a fine job you do," Rakovanite drawled softly, standing resolutely by the sign as Cybele trotted off.
Even as she paused to glance back at him with words dressed in faux honey, Rakovanite felt a particular stubbornness needle underneath his skin; he could not be goaded so easily by something so basic as drawing his courage into question. 'Well, if you're so worried...' He wasn't worried. He did want to go home and relax. The only reason he'd been drawn out here in the first place was curiosity, and now he knew it was just Cybele futzing around with literally no purpose, and his curiosity should be sated.
...He shouldn't just let her leave completely unhindered.
And there, theoretically, could be something worth investigating down the path.
Rakovanite set off behind her with a quiet, exasperated huff. He kept his pace entirely unhurried, perfectly content to let her trot ahead and find whatever 'danger' was lurking in wait. To her credit, the eerie places such things could lurk had grown exponentially since they started on the path. It hadn't been quite dusk when he'd found her, but darkness swallowed most of the outskirts of his vision here, weaving between the trees in such a way that didn't mesh completely with his sense of reality.
When he glanced back, it was to see that the signboard had been equally enveloped by blackness, leaving only trees and the path tapering away into the dark. "Hm..."
"What kind of 'evil' are you expecting to find?"
stari_maga
Posted: Sun May 18, 2025 1:15 pm
He was coming with her after all, it seemed. That was all right.
It meant that even if it turned out to be nothing in this eerie forest, at least she would have kept the General from bothering anyone else for the evening. She supposed there was a chance that this was some kind of bait for a trap that she was walking into.
She'd just have to deal with that if it happened. In the meantime, she supposed there was no reason not to keep up the conversation.
"Monsters," she said matter of factly when he asked what she was looking for. The word had a loose definition. She was keeping an eye out for anything that might count. "Portals to other worlds. Tripping hazards."
She nudged a larger fallen branch out of the way with the toe of her silver shoe.
She had not, however, been expecting to suddenly feel so tired. It came on her fast enough that she knew it didn't feel natural. She stumbled a bit even as she glanced around, looking for the source.
