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 Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:37 pm
It was well past midnight. The concrete sidewalk clutched tightly to its heat, like a breath held beyond the point of possibility, but slowly and methodically, the night sky leeched that warmth away. Teased it out like a lover coaxes the bitter parts of the day out the mouth and away from the mind.
That warmth was a beacon to the careless. College and high school students alike used those warm, inviting nights free of school obligations to meet up in groups, or party, or go on dates, or look for kindred spirits. They clung to the safe that was their cell phones, a palm-sized assurance that their parents or the police were but a quick call away, should something happen. Should they need them. But, mostly, the Destiny City youth were more interested in texting each other. In laughing at the prospect of danger and posting preposterous clips to social media with that cagey hope that they'll be the next one to go viral. They just needed the right angle, the right song, and they would number among the world's wealthiest grifters.
Those little forays often ended with the mischief-maker tucking back into their houses unnoticed by what lurked beyond their walls. Maybe a tired parent would notice, or a concerned sibling, or a roommate, but those brief arguments were the worst of it. Satisfied that they'd gotten their thrills for the night, most of them would drift off to sleep with a few extra stories to tell their daylight friends.
Then there was Tara Freeman, who laid on her stomach in an alleyway. Her hair had come undone from its single straining hair tie and spilled from her head like a pool of blood. Her hands lay at her sides with a couple of nails broken. She wore a pair of black leggings under a jean skirt that had ridden up and twisted somewhat from her fall. Her tank top was driven upward, too, but only slightly above her navel. A near-perpetual buzzing sounded near her tennis shoes.
The boy who sat on her hips spared only a moment of his attention for the buzzing. Looking down, he watched the screen glow bright with "Mom heart " as its display. This was, by his count, the fifth missed call.
But what he held in his hand was much more deserving of his attention: a perfect prism with a brilliant glow, a captivating aqua blue, that turned ever so lazily as it hovered above his palm. And it so tantalized him to know that this was her epitome — her entire life and the hundred thousand lives lived before this one — condensed into a single delicate gem.juliette06 do with this what you will
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:52 pm
Blarney was supposed to be home by now, as his own buzzing phone alarm was reminding him, insistently. He was fairly confident that he could feel his sister getting more and more worried, more and more pissed off, the longer he stayed out, but - the problem was that he loved summer. Genuinely, it was his favorite time of the year, and that hadn't changed since powering up. Sure, now he was removed from the revelry in the streets - not that he'd ever had friends to party with before, honestly, but now he'd never be like the kids he watched over from his rooftop perch. Most of them probably didn't have to worry about getting energy-vampired or how to repair their secret magical castle in its pocket dimension; they just had to worry about getting home without getting in trouble, or if they had an assignment due the next day for their summer classes. But he didn't envy them. Well, okay, he sort of did, but only the vaguest way. He'd never been normal before, and now he never would be. That was fine. Someone had to keep these oblivious kids safe, the same way Aruna had kept him in particular safe and the way the entire magical population had kept the entire world safe. Someone had to do it. But someone also did have to go to bed at some point - an exhausted Blarney was not a useful Blarney to anyone, so he was a little lazily making his way back home, keeping half an ear out for screams of panic or-- He felt it, then. The disharmonious twang in his gut that said bad guys near. Well, one guy, probably, but--one bad guy was more than enough for a Page with no offensive magic whatsoever. He had to make sure that whatever this one bad guy was up to, they weren't hurting any innocents in the process. Blarney followed the feeling, slowing to a stop as he approached the edge of the building. The feeling was twanging, loudly, telling him to run, but-- Well, he'd gotten pretty good at ignoring his better intincts by this point. When he peeked over the edge of the building, it was all he could do to keep from gasping aloud. Was that--that could only be a starseed, real, actually real, someone's soul, in the hand of... A skinny blond dude. For a second, just from the top, Blarney thought it was Eles, in the exact opposite position as the last time he'd found him in an alley, but then he moved a bit and got a better look - no, definitely not Eles. Definitely a bad guy. Blarney took a deep breath, counted to three, and then slipped over the side of the building, landing lightly on his feet a few paces away from the girl and the Negaverse creep that loomed over her. "What would I have to say to get you to put that thing back and let this kid go home?" Blarney asked, hoping he was projecting more confidence than he felt. "C'mon, man. She's not a part of this."
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:30 pm
"She was hitting on me," Cadmium complained without shifting his gaze from the starseed. The speaker's voice sounded familiar; he wanted to guess who it was before cheating and looking at him in full. "And trying to be nice about letting her down wasn't working."
Obviously this boy wasn't Hybris. He doubted that voice belonged to the pretty redheaded Dorito who fought down the crazy man for him. He supposed, then, that the only person left was Blarney. And sure enough, as he glanced up from the aqua blue gem, he spotted that boy in his familiar Renaissance faire getup. The boy didn't seem to recognize him, either! This magic s**t was truly a devious delight.
"I told her I wasn't interested in girls and she told me that I hadn't met the right one until now." Rolling his eyes, Cadmium huffed. "And she couldn't even do me the courtesy of having an a** worth sitting on." To his point, he shifted uncomfortably on his mediocre perch.
"But if you're so concerned about this," and he raised his hand where her starseed lingered so perfectly intact, "then you can make it up to me in her stead. Deal?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2025 7:18 pm
"Ew," Blarney said, without thinking about it, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "Gross." Blarney eyed the starseed - it was beautiful as he lifted it, then eyed the boy and the girl, who was like, probably rapidly approaching the point at which brain death would occur, or at least cause permanent harm or something. "Well, I'm not gonna give you my--my that," he said, "obviously. But I will make it up to you in some other way that doesn't require harm to a...mostly innocent, maybe a little homophobic stranger? Liiike...I could buy you a snack. Or..." think, Blarney, for the love of God, think!! "...oooor..." what do I have to offer, genuinely??? think, dammit, think!!"...or, I dunno, a non-evil favor to be called in at a future date?" Blarney grinned winningly. "Like, c'mon, not her fault she's got eyes and can see that you're..." wait shoot no don't flirt with the bad guy don't flirt with any guy "...good-looking. Totally is her fault that she wasn't respecting boundaries though! And as soon as you put that thing back I will take her straight home and explain why we have to respect people's sexualities and that no means no and I promise she will not make that mistake ever again and if she does I will put her in my own personal time-out corner until learns her lesson." Surely Blarney Castle wouldn't mind harboring a possibly-homophobic brat for a couple days while she straightened out, right? "How's that sound? Fair?"
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Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2025 5:13 pm
Blarney's reticence to sign over his own starseed in exchange for hers didn't dampen the boy's smile. Nor did he make an effort of looking unimpressed by Blarney's counteroffer. The boy tried, so sincerely too, and he sounded so motivated to see to this rude girl's safety. Like that mattered above all else. Certainly above the injustices that Cadmium recently sustained.
Did he even know the word for starseed? What a travesty if he didn't. The name was a little clunky, but he'd found it poetic enough. They were each made with the carbon of stars, and these little gems formed the germinal seed at the center of every person. On the nose, but cogent enough.
Finally Cadmium stood, having had enough of a completely terrible human bench. "I want something fun," he insisted. "Something that will make my night."
Blarney had been so sweet before, so selfless — going out of his way to ensure that Eles wouldn't end up dead in a gutter as one of Destiny City's limitless missing persons. He even stopped by the hospital afterward to ensure that Eles woke up alright and got something of an orientation to all these magical happenstances. And he wasn't immediately being a jackass in the manner that Hybris described earlier, what with knights denouncing Dark Mirror Senshi or their Negaverse fiances for being morally reprehensible.
"I could give you her starseed. You do with it whatever you want. Put it back, for all I care. In exchange, I want you to fight me. I'll even let you lay out all the rules you want," he finished, feeling particularly benevolent.
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Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2025 8:19 pm
Blarney brightened slightly. Something fun? He could do fun. He was great at fun! He was about to open his mouth to suggest bowling, if only because the mental image of him, in full Renaissance Faire getup and this guy, with his military-grade gear and weirdly delicate lace half-mask, rolling up to the local bowling alley was very funny. He had just gotten as far as imagining them both in bowling shoes when-- I want you to fight me."O-oh," Blarney said. "Okay. Um. Sure. We can fight. Sure." Oh this was such a terrible idea. Oh this was such a terrible idea. "But you gotta give me her starseed first and let me like, call her a car or something to get her home. And we gotta fight somewhere that won't risk other people getting hurt," he added. He got to make the rules? Oh man. He didn't even know what rules he would need. He didn't know what this guy was capable of, so he had no idea what to forbid, what to work around...and anyway, there was no guarantee that this guy - whatever his name was - would actually follow any of the rules Blarney laid down. "Or actually...can you put it back for me? Please?" Blarney asked. "I am, like, way too klutzy to be trusted with someone's literal soul, y'know what I mean? It'd be just my luck to save her and then accidentally slip and shatter the whole thing. And if that happened we couldn't even fight if that happened 'cause I'd be too busy shipping myself off to Siberia, courtesy of the Guilt Express," he added with a weak laugh. Should he call someone else to referee? Probably, if only so someone would be around to avenge his death if this guy got jumpy and broke his neck or decided that he did in fact want to take a peek at - or a bite of - Blarney's starseed.
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Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2025 4:11 pm
With a roll of his eyes, Cadmium made clear his disappointment with a loud huff. "Goalposting will cost you," he explained, but he graced the Page with a measure of acquiescence. As he tilted his hand to the side and dropped the starseed directly above the girl's chest, he rose.
Then the girl woke. After a brief few seconds spent waiting for her senses to return to her, she suddenly suffered the epiphany of what she was doing on the concrete. Scrambling to her feet, she squinted at the blonde boy as if she couldn't decide whether she hated him or was afraid of him, then shot off at a sprint down the alley and away from the pair of strangely dressed boys. After a few retreating footfalls, she screamed for help as she approached a main street.
Looking over his shoulder at the retreating figure, Cadmium waved perfunctorily. Then his attention was back on the boy in front of him.
"Seems capable of saving herself." With a resigned sigh, he pointed to the Page and then beckoned for him to come. Turning, the Captain leapt for the roof of their nearest building where a flat expanse of concrete awaited them. Maybe Blarney would surprise him yet, but his doubts grew larger with every word that boy spoke into being.
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Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2025 6:20 pm
Blarney had never seen someone come back to life before. He stared in wonder as it happened, only jolting back to himself as she herself returned to her senses and, sensibly, bolted back away down the alley. "You're welcome," Blarney said, in a little voice, too quiet for anyone but himself to hear. He stayed there for another moment, then shook his head to clear his head, took a breath, and looked back up at the building roof, where his next big mistake was waiting for him. Better get this over with, he thought with another sigh, and another forlorn look down the alley. Why couldn't it have been bowling? Blarney joined the boy and gave him a bright smile, all traces of the momentary sadness gone from his outward appearance. "It wasn't moving the goalposts," he said, absently twirling his stick over his fingers as he studied the boy. "It was clarifying." Blarney considered for a moment or two. If he asked questions, to try and shape his rule-setting, he had no way to know if the other boy was lying to him or not, but - why assume bad faith? Other than the fact that he'd just seen him with another human being's soul in the palm of his hand... "Okay, rules," Blarney began. "No killing or starseed-yoinking. This is supposed to be fun, not deadly," he added, to make it clear that it wasn't that he was afraid he'd get dead, but that this fight was going to be as lighthearted as he could possibly make it. "I don't know what magic you can do," he continued, "and I don't know if it's fair to ask beforehand, and I don't know if you'd be honest about it even if I did ask, so I'll just say - no magic that cheats. I'll leave it up to your sense of honor to determine if whatever magic you want to use would count as cheating." Blarney gave him a look, dead serious - there was hardly a trace of Mason in that look: it was all Blarney, thousands of years old and, suddenly, glowing with faint golden light as his Aspect of Earth kicked on for the very first time. "If one of us gets wounded badly enough to pass out, the victor has to call for aid - mortal or magical - and make sure it arrives before departing. Neither of us die tonight," he reiterated. Even his voice sounded different somehow - more adult. If this was to be a fight, it would be a fight. "We can tap out at any time, either by knocking three times," Blarney continued, stomping on the cement roof beneath them three times to demonstrate, "or by saying 'I surrender'. Are there any rules you want to add?" Blarney paused, and the golden light flickered away, and he was back to the same Blarney that had checked up on Eles in the hospital. "Also, do I get to know your name?" Blarney added with a grin. "I like to know who's tryin' to beat on me." Quote: ASPECT OF EARTH: As upholders of virtue, Earth Knights have a saintly presence and seem to be always followed by sunlight, even at night. They have increased sensitivity to movements around them, and can always tell when someone is trying to sneak up on them -- which means there is no advantage to fighting them any way but honorably.
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:43 pm
The boy only smiled in a manner exuberant and faintly mocking. He decided that Blarney made a good try of it. First were the easy ones — starseeding, murder, though Cadmium considered them one in the same — then he took a handicap in banning magic 'that cheats'. Was there magic that didn't cheat? It likely meant Blarney was going to cut corners in the name of self-righteousness. The Captain supposed he could allow that. And —
Oh. There it was. The moment when Blarney cheated before the match had even begun.
Cadmium watched with interest, arms crossed over his chest, with more of an eye for how such golden light limned the boy like a curtain over his form. That light followed him, too, and as Cadmium studied it, he looked for how it reflected off the boy. Where did the shadows lie? Where was the light harder or softer? After a few seconds' quiet study, he realized that the light must have been coming from within.
Curious. Fascinating. Until it was over and Blarney was going on like he probably said something important. Cadmium sighed, more for losing sight of the transiently interesting magic.
"Bold of you to ask for mine when you never gave yours," he replied, still smiling.
"Two rules." He raised both hands. "Rule one: no weapons. Rule two: open fists. We'll say… Loser owns the winner a favor. Something simple. Favor's good for two weeks."
Cadmium lowered his hands to his sides, where they hung loose. "If you're ready?" He quirked a brow at the other boy.
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2025 5:59 pm
No weapons - that was a good rule. And no punching was probably also good; if he came home with a black eye or a broken nose, he'd catch hell from Madeline and Halia, not to mention having to explain it away with Khaz...Blarney sent his stick, weapon as it was, into his pocket space, raising an eyebrow in amusement as the other boy listed a prize for winning. Interesting. Very interesting, he couldn't help but think. His mind flickered to Albite, briefly - did the entire Negaverse run on favors and IOUs? Did they all have to be earned through violence? Blarney shook the thought away, rolled his shoulders and relaxed. After as much practicing as he'd been doing - with his punching bag, down at the Y in his self-defense class, with demon chickens, with anyone he could convince to spar with him - it was alarmingly easy to set aside the inherent tension of a fight. What he didn't set aside, what almost surprised him, was the excitement: now they weren't just playing for fun - they were playing for stakes. Between being a twin and being a cheerleader, Blarney did actually have a competitive streak somewhere in him, and he couldn't help the grin across his face. This was it - this wasn't just a play-fight with a new friend. It might not be to the death, but it was certainly to the something--to the pride, maybe, and Blarney didn't want to lose what little he had of that. Plus, it couldn't be a bad thing, having a bad guy owe you a favor. He waited a beat, giving the other boy a moment to charge at him, if that's what he wanted to do, and when he didn't, Blarney took the initiative. With a little bounce to start him, he took three long-legged running steps toward the boy, then bent at the waist, springboarded off his fingers like it was a football game instead of a rooftop fight against evil, and pushed himself up, fully over the boy's head, and twisted to land on his feet a few paces behind him - close enough to kick him squarely in the back. "I'm Blarney," Blarney said breathlessly, unable to stop the proud little smirk from coloring his voice even as he brought his arms up, automatically, into a defensive position. "Page of Earth. Nice to meet you, whoever you are."
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2025 8:48 am
So this boy liked theatrics, he found, as he watched Blarney spring overhead like this was some kind of olympic game. Showy, certainly. Cadmium could appreciate showmanship, even if he didn't yet have any of his own.
He could appreciate a good kick, too, he realized, as he had half-turned to follow his little sparring partner and caught a kick to the side. His organs rankled at that; he'd be feeling it later, he was sure. But between all the excitement and the impromptu exercise? He was cushioned from that pain, for now.
On instinct, Eles caught the boy's leg by the ankle, even as introductions reached his ears. Smiling, the Captain pulled that leg toward himself, hoping to throw that boy off his cutely well-maintained balance.
"Cadmium," he offered. "Of nothing in particular."
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2025 2:06 pm
See, if Blarney was cool, he would've had some snappy comment in return. He would've twisted nimbly out of his grasp, or perhaps used the mismatched momentum to knock Cadmium on his back. However. Blarney was not cool. He had never been, and would never be, cool. He had surprisingly good balance for someone who was 90% limbs, usually; he was a cheerleader, so he was good at things like staying upright and catching and holding onto people. The thing about cheerleading, though, is that it's coordinated. Everyone is, literally, on the same team. Everyone's doing the same dance, and nobody is trying to run into each other. A fight was not a cheer, Blarney was constantly forgetting and re-learning, and this was what was going through his head in the two seconds between when Cadmium caught his leg and when Blarney's flailing arms failed to restore his equilibrium and he went, spectacularly, sideways, sprawling onto the roof. "...I meant to do that," Blarney said, scrambling to his feet with a breathless grin. "I thought all you baddies had -ite endings to your name. Isn't--isn't cadmium like--a shade of yellow?" Blarney asked, dropping back into defensive position. Let Cadmium make the first move this time, then, and Blarney would make him go belly-up all over the place. Or something way cooler and more threatening. Whatever.
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