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 Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 2:35 pm
Quote: The Fairies (8 ) : The City has been lit up for the Star Festival with banners and twinkling decorations strewn off the windowsills of shop fronts and windows. The gardeners at one particular park have put their heart and soul into creating a fairy's paradise: Fairy lights have been carefully dangled from trees to make strings of stars, little beaded jewels have been hidden among the hedges, and even the old cobwebs have been sprayed with just a touch of glitter. The park is open to everyone and the citizens of Destiny City have been invited to respectfully explore the hidden wonders that have been placed throughout. The park is magical enough on its own but there have also been reports of a strange, ethereal and shimmering stranger in the park. The glimmer of a beautiful costumed figure fluttering through the park has been passed around as rumor, and no matter what anyone claims to see, no one can take a picture of it. As if simply seeing some magical figure isn't mysterious enough, there are also reports of mischief and small pranks being played at the same time this figure seems to appear. There was definitely something going on in this park. Robinhood could feel it. The recently-awakened Senshi of Oubliettes prowled deep within the woods, the trees decorated with fairy lights and strings of beads and glitter and all manner of charming and delightful-looking fairy swag. The caretakers of this park had really gone all out on making the place look like a fairy wonderland. Robinhood had to admire the dedication it took, cause this wasn't a small park and it was pretty much left to its own devices to grow and sprawl. It was a magical place…. Perhaps too magical. She'd heard stories and rumors of an ethereal figure seen here, drifting through the trees and decorations. No one could manage to take a picture of it, but she felt certain there was some truth to it. After all, this was Destiny City, home of the weird. And a mass hallucination like that was more than just shitheads having fun and making things up. Besides, she had a weird tingling sensation in the base of her skull that she couldn't figure out. The only thing she could think was causing it was the ethereal fairy person. Thing. Whatever it was. Robinhood crept deeper and deeper into the woods; even here, this deep in the park, there were strings of fairy lights hanging from the tree branches like strings of stars. She had to admit, it was super pretty. She almost allowed herself to be distracted by it – until she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Subtle, but it was there. Immediately she ducked behind a larger tree and put her hood up to hide her white-blond hair as much as possible. Then she peeked around the tree trunk. There was someone there!
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 2:55 pm
The figure roaming amongst the fabricated fairyland both did and did not meet the criteria for a fairy creature. On the one hand, she had the look, decidedly, of some sort of personage lifted from a legend of yore and plunked unceremoniously down in Destiny City - as, in fact, Robinhood herself did. And she had a queenly air about her, not just from the opulence of her costume and the gold and pearls strung through her hair, but from a way of carrying herself, as if she might without any intended condescension at all look instinctively down her nose at anyone she met - a feat indeed, considering how short she stood. But ethereal? There was nothing gossamer about her. She seemed, to the contrary, decidedly Earthy - both in the sense that the stranger probably did not yet know, and in the usual sense of the word. If a fairy was flower nectar this was a woman of red wine if not actual ale and cider, with an appearance more bent towards Dionysian abundance and wild hunting than flitting around dabbing a wand at little flowers. If this was a creature from another world, it must be more of a milk-and-honey sort of world than a cobwebs-and-glitter one. She turned, suddenly, towards Robinhood, and although she did not see her in the darkness, she seemed to be aware of her, somehow, and looking for her as she ran her eyes over the trees. "Don't be shy," she said, a little drily.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 3:12 pm
The tingling at the back of Robinhood's head was going nuts. How had she seen her? She was gorgeous, but not exactly what she'd been envisioning as a fairy floating through the woods. Still. Slipping out from behind the tree, Robinhood grinned at the woman, stepping into the dim illumination of a string of fairy lights so she could be seen. This may have given the other woman the advantage, but somehow she didn't feel threatened by her. Meaning she likely wasn't a Chaos person. Was she a White Moon person? "Not so much shy as cautious," Robinhood smirked with a tilt of her head. She put her hood down, feeling safe enough here, at least for the moment. "I was looking for something – someone, actually. And here you are. Not necessarily who I was looking for, but whatever. Fortune favors the bold, I guess, or something." She gave the woman a deep bow. "Sailor Robinhood, at your service," she introduced herself, wishing the other would step into some light so she could see her better.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 3:30 pm
This not-quite-poetic lead up to the introduction made her laugh, but that, too, wasn't anything ethereal. It was almost more of a snort. "Wise place to be," she said, apparently referring to her service, judging from the almost smug way in which she said it. And she looked her over - able to look down her nose in truth, this time, being confronted with someone even shorter than herself - then wrinkled her nose in a thoughtful sort of way. "Joyeuse Garde," she said, without any further clarification. She was still, even now, rebelling against the title she'd been given without asking for it. "Wise of you to power up for these little excursions," she said. "There's always something stupid going on in Destiny City, and lately it seems like more than usual." And then, belatedly, as if only just now fully registering the name she'd been given: "Robin Hood, huh? Who'd you bribe to get a real name?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 3:45 pm
Robinhood snorted herself at the mention of the stupid s**t going on in Destiny City. "Yeah it kinda seems that way, doesn't it? Stupid s**t all over the place. Though I gotta say I haven't seen a lot of it yet. I'm, um, kinda new." She wasn't sure she should have confessed her greenhorn status to this woman – Joyeuse Garde? – she just met, but she felt like she could trust her. At least a little. "I have no ******** idea how I ended up with a real name," she laughed, relaxing a bit. "It just came to me. I guess that's how it happens, right? Like you wake up to this magical s**t and it's all just already determined for you, you know? Or a cat tells you. That's what happened to me." Tilting her head, Robinhood gave Joyeuse Garde her most winning lopsided smile. "Joyeuse Garde… that's an interesting name. How did you get saddled with that?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 4:48 pm
[quote="tatterpixie"
She smiled a thin, somewhat exhausted smile.
"Good God. You're a baby," she said, although the half-purring way in which she said anything somewhat condescending took the bitterness out of it that her tiredness might have otherwise put there. She had been, on the whole, much happier running into Camelot in all his royal glory than she had in being thrust into the unwanted role of educator or - god forbid - mentor, but it was the latter that kept landing on her. "No cat in my case. Just the predetermination. I don't even speak French," she added, with a lightness to indicate just how trivial she was choosing to find all this, for the time being. "So I tend to opt for just Joy."
She hesitated, her eyes wandering to somewhere past the stranger, sightlessly, as she considered some unspoken question, one hand idly stroking the fur collar around her shoulders. The bright red of her glossy nails, catching the fairy lights, was a strange, modern contrast to the costume.
"And how does it treat you? Can you look after yourself?" she said, with a sudden clarity both in her voice and in the dark eyes that she turned on her for another round of scrutinizing examination, as if hunting around her for some sign of self-sufficiency. It must be said that Joy, herself, didn't seem to have much beyond the fundamental confidence of her carriage - she looked like someone much better suited to lounging around and being fed grapes than kicking any kind of a** - although she did at least have one thing that a senshi did not - a weapon, in the form of a bullwhip coiled up and suspended from her belt.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 5:14 pm
It was beginning to dawn on Robinhood that Joyeuse Garde – Joy – wasn't another Senshi. She made note of the bullwhip on the woman's hip, a proper weapon, something that she was lacking. Sure, she had the magical bow and arrow, but that wasn't a weapon, that was magic. Were there other fighters for good out there, other magical people in funny costumes running around beating up the Negaverse? She'd have to find Cuan Oilean again to get some additional clarification. She didn't let her confidence waver, though, despite how terribly new and uneducated she felt. "Yeah, I can take care of myself," she replied with a nod and a sincere smile, getting the sense that Joy hadn't meant to snark or anything – it seemed a genuine concern. "Like okay, my very first thing I did as a Senshi was open up a hole under some really ******** starfish down by the reservoir. The cat didn't even tell me how to do it, I just did it. So I'm thinking I got some kind of good instinct for keeping myself out of trouble. I mean, I haven't been in a fight with no Negaverse people yet, but I know that's only a matter of time," she shrugged. "I think I'll be fine. I'm punk rock as ********, even in this Robin Hood drag I'm wearing." Cuan had said that she'd know in her heart if someone was on their side. The tingle at the back of her head was still there, but she was beginning to notice a strong, positive, clean feeling sitting right where her starseed would be. It was telling her that Joy was safe to be around, regardless of what she might be.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 1:41 pm
Joy's expression became indulgent as Robinhood began her confident boasts. While it was certainly true that whatever magical radar had been installed in Robinhood's head was indicating her as an ally, maybe not every ally was an unmixed blessing of kindness and gentleness. The expression had a decidedly feline edge to it, as if she was looking at a mouse that she had decided was too cute to bother with right this moment. "I'm sure you're punk rock as hell," she said, almost consolingly. "Us short people always have sharper teeth than you'd think." This with a sudden smile as if to show her own, which were the sort of white and even that only good money and a long time enduring the dentist's chair could get you. "But you'd be surprised how ******** punk rock some of the other side can get when they want to. But you don't strike me as an idiot, which is the primary way you get yourself into trouble, so I'll spare you a lecture." A pause. "Well, being an idiot or trying to be a hero," she amended, somewhat grimly. "Are you?" she asked suddenly, again with that return of sudden sharpness. "A hero, I mean. Name like that, might feel the pressure, I imagine."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 2:01 pm
Robinhood returned Joy's sharp smile with a feral grin of her own. Oh, she liked this woman, and not just because she was regal and hot as hell at the same time. "Nope, you'll find no hero Robin Hood here. I've done my due diligence, researched as far back as I could go. I'm no hero of the masses, at least no more than any punk is. This Robin Hood is purely out for her own best interests. And if someone gets rescued, or if someone gets hurt, well, that's just collateral." She fixed Joy with a direct look, grey-green eyes locking with the other's sharp dark gaze. "I'm no idiot. I know when to stay and fight, and when to run, and when to hit a hole and wait it out. There's a lot of baggage with this name – this legacy I guess. But I'm here to dissuade people of the notion that I'm a goody two shoes. Yeah, I'll help, but only if it helps me or mine to help. I've learned this all the hard way, and I'm not gonna let some cool outfit or magical powers change my basic nature." With a smirk, she tilted her head and studied Joy. Somehow she felt that her new friend was cut from a similar cloth. "Besides, I'm a short chick. And my bite is very nasty."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 2:54 pm
She smiled, but it was, again, a little tired. Odd. She'd asked her hoping to hear her say that she'd be a hero so she'd have the pleasure of giving her a lecture. Instead, she found herself feeling an empty sort of disgust at hearing her own often-espoused ideas repeated back to her. It was probably disappointment at not being able to lecture her. Probably. There was certainly no other way to explain why she might feel uncomfortable confronting what she'd considered to be the best possible reaction to being roped into Destiny City Bullshit. "Good girl," she said, and this, at least, she said like it was a phrase that was not infrequently in her mouth, and that she liked to keep there. "Keep it sharp for those who are asking for it," she added, letting the double entendre hang. "I'm not much of a hero myself," she said. "But all the same, I'm a Knight-" well, there was a kernel of information for her, although it may just as well have been a reference to her appearance, "- and we have our tendencies. If you need me, call me. I assume your cat taught you that? Good luck spelling it," she added comfortably, not volunteering the information herself. As far as she was concerned, if they couldn't figure out how to spell it, they probably weren't worth giving her metaphorical number to. It did not occur to her at all that Robin Hood might not be spelled that way either, but her own little hypocrisies - as we have already seen - often escaped her. "But you can look it up. It's where Lancelot took Guinevere."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 3:09 pm
Where Lancelot took Guinevere…. Robinhood realized she'd have to read up on some Arthurian lore too, not just her Prince of Thieves, such as he was. And a Knight? What the heck was that? Oh well, she shrugged with a smirk, that was what her Senshi phone was for, wasn't it? To find s**t out and make connections. "My cat taught me some things," she admitted, "but pretty much left me to learn for myself. That's okay, though, I'm a resourceful little s**t. And I totally plan on keeping it sharp." Her toothy grin was plenty sharp. She really liked Joy. Still, she made some mental notes for the next time she saw Cuan Oilean, things to ask if she couldn't find them through whatever the equivalent of Google was on her magical phone. Speaking of… she whipped the thing out, hit the camera icon, and snapped a quick picture of Joy. "For posterity," Robinhood grinned, cocking an eyebrow.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 3:26 pm
She had to pause a moment to collect herself from the concentrated rage which was - she knew and had to admit - not coming from Joy, but from Elaine, for whom such reckless use of a camera had certain implications. Still. She would never, she knew, quite conquer her paranoid mistrust for all these weird Order devices. Viatrix, charming though she was, had not reconciled her to them, so it didn't seem likely that anyone else would. "It's good to be proactive," she said at last, her voice tight and her smile tighter. "And I don't blame you for wanting a souvenir." This, with a gesture at herself as if to say: who wouldn't? "But do that again without asking and you might find yourself getting your a** kicked by someone with much sharper teeth than yours."
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 3:35 pm
"Sorry," Robinhood apologized with a lopsided smile and a shrug, and it was pretty clear she meant it. "Was just trying to add you to my contacts – this stupid ******** thing takes a picture to do it. That much I found out by accident." Flipping the phone over her shoulder, it disappeared into subspace. She shouldn't have done that, she really shouldn't have done that, taken Joy's picture without asking first. But sometimes she had a certain lack of impulse control…. Especially around hot girls. "Though, to be quite honest, I'd really kinda not mind an a**-kicking from you," she grinned.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 3:51 pm
She closed the distance between them to pat the stranger's cheek with an indulgent and sympathetic smile, almost in passing as she moved to leave. "Oh, honey. You can't afford that," she said. This was possibly not true, but it was a good line, and delivering it with that flippant tone made it seem like more of a joke than it was. And for all her general distaste for handing out silly one-liners - unless it was to save her a** from a potentially dangerous situation - it served the purpose, besides, of soothing her irrational irritation, and making it seem like she was as collected and unmoved as she wanted to be. Let her come across as theatrical, then, if it got the job done. "Stay sharp," she repeated, with more sincerity.
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