Snow Fairies (4) : On a cold winter night, when the moon is nearly full and bright in the sky, you hear laughter. At first, you can't place it, but then you feel little pokes and prods, tugs on your hair, your clothes. Sometimes you think you see something out of the corner of your eye--a small, icy body. Sometimes you hear wings flapping in the night. As long as you are out in the cold, you feel eyes on you and you find yourself the target of small mischief from what seems to be icy little fairies, though they move too fast for you to see or grab. They never speak, only laugh. When you go inside, or venture anywhere with too much light or heat, they seem to disappear and do not bother you again.
The idea had been to at least look like she was doing her job as an agent of the Negaverse in order to keep others off her back. That meant skimming just the smallest amount of energy from passersby as they walked by. She had taken to wearing a few extra layers on this cold night not only to keep the chill off of her skin, but to also hide the clothes that made up her fuku. The idea of allowing herself to remain in one place while others simply went on their way meant she didn't have to expend a lot of her own energy chasing down a single target. She had to keep reminding herself not to take more than just a snippet of energy. Hylonome, if she were being true to herself, could feel that her heart and her mind just were in too much turmoil to do anything besides gather the barest amount of energy.
The night was clear and she shuffled around in the large winter coat she was wearing before she moved her limbs around in order to shake out the feeling of pins and needles that were growing. Her gaze moved up to stare at the moon for a brief moment before it dropped back to the ground.
Her thoughts were chaotic as she sat there. Was it fair that she had stormed off after a battle and just left Prehnite behind? Probably not, But the amount of respect she had once given to her general had diminished. She might still be a corrupt senshi but she wasn't exactly enjoying knowing that she might have once been something other than a corrupt.
The sound of laughter from behind her caused Hylonome to turn around on the bench she occupied in order to scan the vista behind her. It was, deceptively empty, yet the laughter sounded once more.
Sweenys_Revenge
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2025 8:56 pm
tefla
Winter was bullshit. Like. Actual, certified bullshit. Like... okay... so Lourdes understood that the longer it was hot, the bigger the bugs had a chance to get. Winter kept them humble. She understood that. But did it also have to humble her in the process? Or, if winter was going to humble indiscriminently, couldn't her wonder or planet or whatever source of her magic there was find away to keep her even a little bit warm? Even in her heavy winter coat and fleeze leggins, the winter wind cut through her like a knife.
She shivered and flipped the freezing knight both birds.
"You're bullshit, you know that?"
The cold winter blackness jus laughed at her.
Literally.
Like it actually laughed at her.
"What the <******** pinched Lourdes' shoulder, making her turn in place only to find... nothing. Not a soul standing behind her to explain the laughter and the pinch. She stood still, watching the freezing darkness, searching the shadows for movement and found nothing. Not one thing to explain what had happened. A moment later, there was another peel of laughter, off to her left, and moving away.
And... look. Lourdes had lived in this stupid city her whole life. She knew it was ******** at best and falling apart at worst. She knew this. And she knew better. but... her last therapy appointment hadn't been the most fun and she'd burned through like... half a box of tissues talking about how she missed her stupid ******** mother and her disgusting ******** cats even though they'd never given her any real time of say before...
Lourdes was looking for a fight.
So, against all better judgment, Lourdes followed the sounds of laughter. Followed the mockery, allowing it to make her angrier and angrier until she found what may as well have been the cause of it all. She scented the stink of corruption on the air before she saw it. Let the stench of it fuel her piss-poor mood until she arrived, face twisted in fury as the laughter around her stopped. Stopped and saw something... painfully familiar. The senshi was working for her quota, that much was clear... but just barely. Only enough to not get caught. Enough so that she would fly under the radar but not feel guilty about what she was doing.
Shame, familiar and ugly, lurched in Lourdes' chest as she watched, angry melting from her face and her bones.
"I know what you're doing," she called instead of attacking. "I've seen it before."
The laughter had continued and although Hylonome had spent a considerable amount of time peering cautiously over her shoulder there had still been no sign of anyone that was capable of trying to mess with her. Accompanying the laughter there had been several times now where she had felt as if something or someone had been attempting to poke and prod at her impressive length of hair. Admittedly that didn't really bother her too much, but it was just a little bit unsettling. The attention that she needed in order to drain was continuously interrupted as a result.
It was the approach of an Order aura that caused the biggest reaction in the brunette as she was still checking over her shoulders for the source of whatever it had been laughing at her. Her body stiffened even as the owner of the aura strolled into sight, an expression of rage the first thing noticed by Hylonome and she scrambled to her feet before watching as the squire closed the distance between them was that the visual cues of anger seemed to melt away into something that was akin to ... sympathy?
Even the words that the unknown squire deigned to speak to her had Hylonome shrinking back just a little before she caused the orb of energy to disappear out of sight.
Her back stiffened a little before she allowed her gaze to flit down to stare at her feet for a moment before she risked looking up again, "how would you begin to comprehend what I'm doing," was queried of the squire, "most people just see the enemy that I seem to represent."
Sweenys_Revenge
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2025 9:24 pm
Somewhere in the back of her head, Lourdes could hear her therapist asking her to be more trusting. He reminded her that trusting in others was as much an exercise in trusting herself. And she... Lourdes was trying. She was. The problem was that the negaverse was cunning and it was wicked and it was insidious. There was every possibility that this girl was planted by someone to mimic her actions as Hopeite to try and draw her out. Take her back. Kicking and screaming if necessary, she knew.
But...
She had to try. Because if this wasn't a trap... then it was worse. It was someone who was basically good stuck somewhere horrible. And Lourdes needed to be gentle with this. She needed to lead, as her therapist would say, with love. Or something close to it.
"It's familiar," Lourdes said evasively. "I've spent enough time out to know what it looks like when someone is..." she gestured in front of her vaguely, "going through the motions. Trying not to get caught doing so."
She approached after that. Carefully. Cautiously. Like she was approaching a feral kitten and she was trying to coax it inside. Or to the vet.
"Can I sit," she asked gently. "Promise I'll be good." She even made a big show of dismissing her weapon. "We can talk a little bit. About nothing... or not nothing..."
So, this squire wasn't looking for a fight. Or at least she wasn't looking for one yet. Even as she spoke did Hylonome seem to want to disappear into her overly large coat before she sighed. This wasn't the confrontation she was expecting and she just hoped it didn't turn into one. That would be far too much to deal with on top of other things that were needing to be dealt with. Instead of sitting back down though she attempted to listen once more for the laughter that had been taunting her before this individual appeared on the scene.
"I don't know if I would call it "going through the motions" unless that means not having the heart to do what should be done. Help yourself on sitting down, I don't mind."
Easing herself back onto the bench Hylonome gave a careful look over to the woman now sharing the bench with her before she huffed silently. It wasn't a sound of anger, or frustration, merely resignation. As the squire dismissed the staff she'd been carrying Hylonome allowed herself to relax a little. Was this another individual that was like Ida? She remained silent for a few minutes before leaning over, "I don't know if I'd make a good person to talk with. I'm still trying to understand things. It's confusing you know, thinking you are something ... only to realize that might not be the actual truth."
Sweenys_Revenge
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2025 9:47 pm
Lourdes moved towards the bench, telegraphing her motions as much as possible as she did so. Once she was seated and the girl began talking -- she hadn't even had to prod, Lourdes realized. She just sat down, held her silence, and listened. She kept her face as open and neutral as possible while the senshi spoke, once again struck by how familiar it sounded. Not just the words, but the way in which she was speaking. How easily she let her worries escape her lips. How long had she been hold on to her words? Was this what Camelot saw when they had first met?
"I think..." Lourdes ventured when there was a break in the girl's speaking, "that perhaps causing harm to others shouldn't come naturally to anyone... and if it does... we usually look a little sideways at them. Don't we? I think empathy is the human default."
Lourdes settled back into her own coat, pulling it tight around her as she did so to fight off the cold.
"Its alright if you don't feel like you'll be a very good conversation partner. I rarely am. In the opposite directing of course, I rarely ever shut up. Spent a lot of time with my mouth closed and now... I just cant seem tog et my lips to meet for very long, you know? Passing ships int he night they are. Sometimes I worry that I drive my friend Asphodel up every single wall he can find but... he hasn't dumped me yet so I must be an okay friend at least, you know?"
Lourdes paused for a breath and glanced at the senshi next to her.
"But yeah... that's confusing as s**t. When something you're supposed to trust in suddenly rips that carpet out from under you. Or maybe there never even was a carpet, and they just figured you'd never look down to check, you know? Then it's like... you know Wile E Coyote? Is that too old for you? Well, you know how when he chases the Road Runner out into thin air, and he keeps going just like normal until he looks down? Sometimes it's like that. Like you look down and realize 'oh s**t, there's nothing there!' and then... you're falling."
Road Runner? Wile E Coyote? Amora sighed. Did she get the reference. Something tickled at the back of her mind before it vanished before she gave a small nod of understanding in response to the analogy. If she had known of the characters was that just something else that had been ripped away memory wise? She wouldn't be able to confirm or deny if the characters were too old for her or not it seemed but the idea behind the telling of the antics seemed accurate enough. The lie that had once been fed to her about her memory loss being the result of an accident was on the tip of her tongue, ready to be spoken into existence before she stopped herself.
"I feel, well, uncertain I guess about what lies ahead. I once was told that I didn't belong to chaos by a complete stranger to me when I used my magic on them. Since then I've been trying to figure out what that means."
Her gaze caught movement out of the corner of her eye before she simply shrugged it off. There was another poke to the back of her head and Hylonome did her best to ignore it simply because there could be the chance that this individual wouldn't cope well with sudden movements on her behalf. Perhaps whatever was messing with her would cease their actions if she paid no attention to it, "long story short, I don't know where I'm meant to belong. I was told by my general that I lost my memory because of an accident or explosion during a battle I was caught up in. But if it were the truth I would have lost all memory, and by now it should have returned. But that's not the case. I still can't recall who I was before I woke up with another corrupt senshi watching over me."
Sweenys_Revenge
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2025 10:24 pm
Lourdes nodded again at the senshi's confession. She knew that feeling too. God, it was like looking into a mirror. Or watching a play back of her life. How did Camelot keep from whisking her away when she was like this?
I once was told that I didn't belong to chaos
It was said off handed... and maybe it was terribly important to the young senshi next to her but... it hit Lourdes like a bucket of ice water. Made her sit straight up, stiff-backed and wide-eyed. Awakened something frightened and furious inside of her that whipped it's head around and spat and writhed.
"No one belongs to the chaos," Lourdes hissed suddenly, almost too harshly. The sound of it made her jump, visibly surprised at her own trigger. It had been so long... she'd spent more time now, by her calculations, as Lourdes than as Hopeite but... still, there was that old fear. That old hurt that her therapist said she may never shake. Another broken part that she'd have to make peace with one day. Another day. Today, Lourdes visibly recentered herself and cleared her throat. "Pardon me," she muttered, touching her throat with a gloved hand. "What I meant to say is that the chaos is no one's natural state."
She shook out her shoulders like she was shaking off the shadowy vestiges of her own past and went on.
"It's why Corrupted Senshi, like yourself, have White Moon forms. Why officers purify into Knights. It why they have planets and wonders but not spaces that are wholly their own in the Negaverse. They aren't naturally chaos, even if they awaken into it. Chaos just took them for itself. That's what choas does. It takes. It steals. I've seen it steal a lot in my time. Lost a lot of really good friends to it. Saved a good amount of others from it."
The sudden movement of the squire did startle Hylonome enough that she jumped up from the bench in shock. She held a hand up to her heart before the words that were still being spoken registered. Okay, so the squire wasn't upset with her. That was good. Hylonome allowed herself a moment to attempt to calm things down before she looked down at the bench like it was possibly going to burn her if she sat back on it. Taking one more deep breath the corrupt reluctantly relaxed enough to return to sitting down.
"I still don't know if being told that was what started me thinking that something wasn't quite right with this version of events that I had been told really happened. If I could explain it better I would. Needless to say I began to doubt things. And it's only been getting worse, these doubts."
Allowing herself to take a moment to really address the current situation Hylonome took in the appearance of the other before going back over everything that this stranger had said. A little blip of a realization began to form before she cautiously cleared her throat, "I get the feeling that you know what I'm talking about. The deeper meaning...I don't think I was always like this, but it's seemingly all I remember."
Sweenys_Revenge
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2025 1:42 pm
Lourdes felt her lips form a tight thin line as the senshi next to her confessed, however veiled that confession was. It was a risk, Lourdes knew that, but did the senshi? Did she know just how much she was putting on the line by admitting that to Lourdes? Carefully, Lourdes cast out her senses, ensuring that they were alone before she nodded, slowly and almost imperceptibly. She did know. She knew all too well. And she also knew just how much was at stake very suddenly.
"I do understand..." Lourdes began very carefully, glancing furtively at the senshi but never truly turning to look, afraid that such direct attention might frighten her off. "On a rather... personal level... I understand."
Lourdes' new years resolution as to be more honest with herself and with others. And while this seemed a bit more drastic that what her therapist had talking about with her, it seemed as good a place as any to start. Because of this woman as taking a risk, then Lourdes owed it to her to leap right along side her.
"I wasn't... always like this," she confessed, smoothing her hands down her skirt to emphasize her meaning. She glanced back again, judging her reaction before she went on. "And it took a lot of patience from some very good people and a lot of love from them and from myself to get me here but... I'm... well I'm rather happy here, you know? I find that the White Moon has far more fashionable uniforms that the Negaverse."
She laughed because what more could she do? Everything was so important and so heavy... laughter was all that there was, however wane and fragile the sound was.
For a moment she was stunned into silence. This member of order that she was talking with had once been an agent? Her gaze was then one of appraisal before she merely shook her head before dropping her gaze to the ground. She would not ask any questions. Deep inside though there were questions that she wanted to voice. Would she ever find the courage to ask them? For whatever reason there seemed to be a small niggling voice in the back of her mind that whispered of the unwillingness of the Negaverse to lose their grip on her so wasn't it best not to ask questions?
Listening as the squire explained about how she had seemingly found her new place in life, away from what she had been, gave rise to something that could have been described as a small candle of hope. Maybe, if she could find those same sort of people that hadn't given up on the Squire, that she could be saved too.
"How long-" and here Hylonome bite down on the rest of the question that bubbled on the tip of her tongue. Already she was breaking her rule of not asking questions, but she had to know. Clearing her throat she tried once more to voice what was begging to be asked, "how long were you associated with ... us?"
Even as she asked, did Hylonome place a hand to the cracked hole in her chest ... hoping, as if by some miracle, that anyone could leave.
Sweenys_Revenge
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2025 5:29 pm
Now that... that was a question. Truth be told, Lourdes didn't do so well counting the years. As far as she was concerned, she herself was as good as a two-year-old. Knew about as much too. God... how long had she been an officer? Long enough, she supposed. Long enough to collect all those hearts. All those... starseeds. She cast her mind back, farther back than she dared. She couldn't remember her time as Abbot, but she knew the years that she was Hopeite. Back and back and back... Father back than she thought she should. The date when Painite had awakened her. When she had stuck her arm in Abbot's chest and condemned her to die. When she made Hopeite. When she'd promised her power and flattered her... god it had seemed too good to be true then.
"God," she sighed, leaning back against the bench. "Was it really ten whole years I spent like that?" She looked back again and her math was sound. "Yeah. Jesus Christ, that was ten years." It hadn't felt like that long, but then again... then again it had felt like an entire lifetime. A whole lifetime spent scraping and clawing and struggling. Spent screaming into the void with no answer.
Wasted time...
Lourdes hadn't smoked since she was purified -- hadn't wanted to ruin perfectly good, new lungs, she'd said in place of the truth. But suddenly her fingers itched for a cigarette. She wanted to feel the burn in her lungs and taste nicotine and tobacco on her tongue. Hell, even just so that she could watch the cherry burn and flick the ashes off every now and again as something to occupy her gaze and her hands. Anything to distract from the sinking feeling in her stomach and the heat behind her eyes.
"But," she cut off her own sorrow. "I know people who were in for longer. And people who were in for less time. The nice thing about redemption is that it doesn't have an expiration date."
