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 Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 5:45 pm
Admittedly, she purposely let a few extra days pass between her powered outings. Sure, her schedule hadn’t been too permitting, but she could have squeezed a few hours here and there but she chose not to. The last youma encounter had been further out of her scope than she cared to admit, so it took a little bit longer for her ego to recover from it.
Waipoua was wandering about, again sticking close to the familiar area around the hospital. It was her choice location, if only to try and keep colleagues and potential patients safe from whatever decided it wanted to target people who were already particularly vulnerable. And yes, she included healthcare personnel in that pile–the late hours didn’t do any of them any favors in a lot of ways. It had been mercifully quiet, and while her circle of patrol started fairly tight she had loosened it a bit as the night went on, wandering further and further out from the hospital until she was at a park that barely saw the top edge of the building if she tip-toed to try and see above the treeline.
She barely ever cursed her height, but there were some days…
The Page walked on, brows soon crinkled as she felt a surge of Chaos to her left. Adjusting her path, she soon came upon a most…curious sight. There was something just…smeared across the ground. A green, mucus-looking substance had taken up shop along the walkway, visible only because of the lamp posts that ran along the path.
And…
“Is it…”
She stepped toward it, and she could swear it inched away from her.
An involuntary shiver ran through her as she attributed it to being exactly one possibility: a youma, lying in wait for its next prey. Which landed on top of the green sludge only second later, a small bird that was pecking about for food. She watched the sludge latch on, holding the bird hostage by its feet as it slowly but surely drew its body up and off of the ground–just a mass of green slime and the dirt it brought with it.
“Oh, that’s not good,” she muttered, her morbid curiosity getting the better of her as she moved to try and get a better few.
The thing was then all at once just a giant mouth and many layers of too-sharp teeth, and the most disgusting of squelching sounds soon filled her ears as it closed upon the tiny bird.
Waipoua made a face as she watched the youma again meld into the ground, for the moment unsure what exactly her options were. It wasn’t like she had magic to blast it away, and given its current state she had no idea if trying to hit it would damage it in any way at all. So for the moment she just watched as the thing lay in wait, consuming whatever little creature was so unlucky as to step foot in its trap.
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2025 3:49 pm
One such little creature was heading towards the combined Chaos and Order auras that she’d sensed while out on patrol. Cuan Oilean had been curious enough to feel both so very close to each other. Besides, it was her job to investigate such things when she found them. Someone might need her help or advice! Leaping and running across the pavement, the kitten paused briefly, trying to figure out where the aura bearers she’d sensed were. The Chaos one felt so close, yet she couldn’t see or hear a thing. The other, well, her sharp eyes caught sight of what seemed to be a knight standing not too far away.
Brightening, Cuan made her way towards the knight, only barely registering the greenish sheen on the ground. She was two paws into the patch when she realized that she’d made an error in judgement. The ground under those paws shivered and swept up to envelop her as teeth became very visible. Shrieking in fright, the guardian kitten reacted instinctively, firing a laser beam from the star upon her forehead into the slimy whatever-it-was. The thing froze and keened, bubbling and writhing around her before going still. Stunned. And thankfully, no longer holding on to her paws. Adrenaline surging through her veins, Cuan ran as she’d never run before, hissing and yowling as she escaped, leaping for the knight and wanting nothing more than to be off of the ground.
She was too distraught to make a perfect jump and ended up latched onto the fabric of the woman’s skirts, needlehook claws grasping the material and refusing to budge. With eyes so dilated that they appeared as black holes in her face, Cuan turned to look up at the knight, still yowling. Though now, at least, words could be understood.
“It tried to eat me! Don’t just stand there, kill it!”
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2025 5:17 pm
To her horror, it wasn’t too much longer before a cat made its approach, and unsure as she was about the whole thing she was already starting to make her way over when the cat blasted the thing with…something. From somewhere.
Waipoua froze in her tracks, mouth hanging the slightest bit open as she watched the youma fall back into a slimy heap, stunned, while the cat made its escape, racing toward and soon latching onto her clothes. She had barely snapped back to the present when it started talking, demanding she go and kill the thing.
The Page managed a little nod, still at a loss for words at what all was happening, but kill a youma? That was simple enough.
Grabbing the closest thing to a weapon she could find nearby–a branch not much larger than her own weapon, though it felt a whole lot sturdier by comparison–Waipoua made her way over to the still-stunned youma. It didn’t seem wise to draw things out, if only because she had no idea how long it would stay a pile versus a smear on the ground, so…she just started swinging.
To her surprise, rather than slime it felt more like she was hitting clay. The first hit was telling enough, so she bashed on until the thing disintegrated into a pile of dust. She was out of breath by the end, but at least it was gone.
“There,” she said as she tossed the branch to the side of a nearby bench. She went and took a seat before glancing down at the cat currently attached to her. “I mean, probably not as good as that beam or whatever you used, but it’s gone.”
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2025 7:37 pm
Stll trembling and, for the moment at any rate, absolutely refusing to remove herself from her new perch, Cuan watched as the youma was bludgeoned to dust. If she growled a little in satisfaction, she could be forgiven. It had tried to eat her, after all.
Even after the knight went and sat down, Cuan didn't move. Little distressed mews echoed up here and there. And when the knight spoke, the kitten glanced up. After a moment of considering, she crawled up the knight until she could curl into the woman's neck. The person she really wanted was her senshi, but as Saiph wasn't here and the knight was... Well. She was going to be comforted one way or another.
"It tried to eat me," she repeated, voice slightly muffled. Cuan wasn't used to having to rely on others to this degree. It was humbling and she kind of hated it. Still. Manners and the fact that she was not youma chow demanded that she say more. "Thank you. I didn't even know it was a youma until..."
Cuan started shaking again.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2025 6:44 pm
It was hard to refuse a cute cat curling up around her, so…she didn’t. Waipoua let it be, reaching up to see if it would let her pet it in a small gesture of comfort given the ordeal it had just been through. The prospect of getting eaten, she imagined, could not have been very pleasant.
“I’m just glad I was able to do anything about it at all,” she said, eyes falling to the portion of her staff that was currently within her field of view. It was irritatingly fragile, though it worked well enough for what it was–a walking stick. It just wasn’t one that was usable in a fighting scenario. Or at least, not one she was willing to risk breaking to see what other scenarios she could use it in.
“And sorry about that,” she went on, expression mostly unchanged except for the slightest furrow of her brows. If she looked more angry than apologetic, well…unfortunately that was just her face. “I was trying to run over to scoop you up but I wasn’t fast enough. If I knew you could understand me I would have screamed to warn you.”
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2025 10:39 am
Cuan tilted her head at all of this, allowing the knight’s petting to comfort and soothe her. She was certain that she had enough nightmare fuel to last for months and even now, she couldn’t stop staring at the patch of dust upon the concrete.
“Scream anyway,” she said in a little voice. “Even a feral cat will pause if it hears something nearby shrieking.”
She couldn’t be mad, the knight had saved her and who knew how many other animals or even children by her actions. A youma like that… ugh. A full body shiver ran through her as she felt a little steadier on an emotional level. Crawling up the knight, the kitten reached her shoulder and perched. Then, a moment later, she gave the woman’s ear an affectionate head bonk.
“I never knew youma could come in that shape,” she said in a thoughtful voice. “Tell me how you realized what it was. It couldn’t have just been the aura.”
Now that the worst of her shock had faded, Cuan was intent on gathering as much information as possible. Youma like this needed to be reported so no one else came close to being eaten.
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Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2025 8:04 pm
”Noted for next time,” she said, tone uncharacteristically apologetic, and only because it was true that she should have yelled regardless of a creature’s understanding. If she could stop a youma from harming anything or anyone at all, then that was what she should do. Waipoua lowered her hand as the kitten made herself more comfortable, now perching up on her shoulder.
She laughed lightly at the head bonk to her ear, and she reached up to try and hopefully pet the kitten a little bit more. Return the bit of affection, as it were.
“Unfortunately I spotted it…eating…a bird,” came her answer to the next question. “It acted like fly paper or something, kept the poor thing from flying away before it…” She shuddered at the memory. “Yeah. It didn’t feel right to just leave it, but I wasn’t sure what I could do so just hung around and waited. That was just a little bit before you got there.”
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Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2025 3:33 pm
"Like fly paper," the kitten repeated in a musing voice. "Yes, that tracks. I did feel a stickiness briefly before I fired my laser beam. Ambush predator, then and not fast. But only sticky if the prey can't or won't fight back? Hmm."
She accepted the pets readily enough. But her mind was circling and trying to draft a report. And it turned out that a good, thought out and concise report was very difficult to put together mentally when one's ears were being scritched.
"Did you notice anything else? Or just that it looked wrong and then saw the bird eaten?"
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2025 11:58 pm
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) for Cuan, the scritches weren't likely to stop until she made a motion against it. Waipoua was absently petting her now, as she sifted through what she saw moments before the bird came along.
"I could swear it moved away from me when I got closer," she said after a bit. "And from where I was standing, I think my vantage point helped me notice it–a green, mucus-like stain just smeared on the ground. I'm still working on this…sensing thing. With the auras. It's a lot to get used to," she waved with her free hand, as if to point out the whole of knighthood with the gesture.
"All of this."
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Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 9:43 am
It had moved away from the knight? Not a stupid creature then. Cuan listened, rapt as the knight described what she’d seen. As far as the kitten knew, youma were wildly unique. There were rarely multiple of the same exact sort. Which was rather a blessing all things considered.
“Well,” she finally said after a great deal of thinking. “It’s not very likely that either of us will run into the same youma again, but given how sneaky the awful thing was, I think that a database entry and warning are in order. I don’t particularly want to live through an IRL version of the 1988 Blob. Or the ‘58, but I digress.”
With a sigh, Cuan stood up and stretched. Tipping her head to the side, she watched the knight through bright blue-green eyes and offered a tiny smile.
“Oh, it’s a b***h to get used to,” she answered glibly. “I’m not sure anyone ever truly gets used to it. You just sort of... adapt, I suppose. Things will happen that will be weird or unpleasant or downright terrifying and you’ll reach a point where you can feel your feels, acknowledge it and then move to a solution.”
The kitten examined a paw for a moment before continuing.
“To be honest, I’m not sure that I would want to ever really get used to all this. That would imply that on some level I had stopped caring and was just moving along mechanically. That sort of apathy has no place in this sort of conflict.”
its_p a o we can probably wrap this one on your next post if you want ♥
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Posted: Sun May 11, 2025 7:02 pm
"Expectations managed," she said through a small smile of her own. Such expressions were rare for the woman, but she appreciated the honesty (and selectively disregarded the tone). "One more thing to learn and adapt to, huh?" So the universe finally caught up to her again. She neither sounded surprised, nor enthused, nor even disappointed. She seemed more…resigned?
It wasn't a new thing, after all, and in fact she suddenly had the thought that maybe that was what her unease had been about just before she awakened. She'd gotten too comfortable, maybe. Or complacent.
"I'm not sure what conflict you're referring to, but I'm guessingI'll learn about it as I go. As for 'getting used' things…" she nodded slightly. "Adapt does feel like a better word for it so I'll think in those terms moving forward."
She gave the kitten one more little scritch behind the ears before moving her hand so she could hop down and move on if she wanted to. Waipoua had a feeling she'd be heading home once Cuan was gone, but while she still had her she figured she ought to ask while she had the chance.
"Oh, but speaking of learning. If you don't mind, could you tell me more about that database you mentioned? Sounds like it'd be a good resource for someone like me."
eldritch startdust Let's wrap it here then~! Ty~! ♥
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