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 Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 10:43 am
- and found herself upside down near the ceiling of an unfamiliar area. Belatedly, she scrabbled to get a grip on the ceiling with her arachnid legs. Her claws scraped uselessly against the smooth surface for a moment before gravity tugged her away from it. Her body registered the dangerous situation and attempted to twist around for an upright landing, but everything was different from what it was used to. She performed a full rotation, limbs flailing helplessly. The floor claimed her with a dull thud. The air left her lungs all at once, leaving her breathless and writhing.
After a minute or two of desperate gasping between waves of pain, Cerceris rolled over to brace herself against the floor with her human arms. As her breathing calmed and the physical urgency of the situation receded, she attempted to take stock of her situation. I must have finished advancing, whatever that means. A minute ago, I could have sworn I was in my bed. I have no idea where I am right now. She summoned her internal map and dropped it immediately, eyes wide. The map was a myriad of sickly colours shifting together, and the whole thing twisted and squirmed like a mass of worms. She shuddered. And I don't want to look at the map again. She had parts of the school's layout memorized, but that information was useless when she didn't know where she was in the first place.
She ran through a few possibilities in her head, but none of them made any sense. She was simply lost somewhere in the school. She had no idea where she was or how she'd gotten there. Her map wasn't working properly, and her body wasn't functioning the way it used to either. She had meant to right herself in the air so that her fall would be easier to break, but the half turn had become a full turn unintentionally. Come to think of it, she was lucky that all of her limbs were intact.
She moved each of her spider legs experimentally, reassuring herself that they were in decent shape. Two of them protested sharply when she put them in certain positions, but for the most part they were okay. Picking herself up, she noticed spines that had sprung up along her arms. She touched them gently, noting their flexibility and sensitivity. She curled her chitinous legs around in front of her on a hunch, and discovered the same sort of spines running along their length. So this was one of the changes. She clicked her mandibles thoughtfully and decided that the spines were -- she put that thought on hold as she reached up to touch the new extensions on either side of her mouth. All of these new body parts were fascinating.
An interesting sensation ran along the spines on her spider legs. It took a moment for her brain to correctly interpret them as the movement of air, which meant that there was someone else moving nearby. Startled by this new form of input, she whirled around to face whoever it was with her spider legs fanned out in an instinctive 'inflating' pose.
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Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 11:04 pm
Akira had been wandering around, for gods know how long. His grown senses reacted to everything, until the newness of them settled in and he wasn't as excited about them anymore. Except his wings. He was still excited about those.
If only they didn't hurt so much. Maybe he would try to fly later. He wondered, briefly, over who might have decided to add them. He really, only knew one staff member, so it wasn't exactly hard to figure out. But that would come later.
He was going to have fun bugging him to give flying lessons; Hiro too. His tail twitched, sending a shiver up his spine. Some things were yet to hit him. Like his teenaged boy hormones. No, they were waiting for their moment to embarrass him to no end.
His ears picked up on the sound of brief footsteps. Around the next corner, maybe a few meters away. Wow, his ears could... well... Hear more. Other things too, that for some reason weren't as scary as they were when he was nine. Which for all intensive purposes, was only two days ago.
He rounded the corner, and spotted a slightly familiar shape. He knew those stripes and that pretty red hair, but they were smaller the last time he saw them, so were those eyes. All six of them.
"Cerceris?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 4:42 am
It took a moment for Cerceris to recognize the boy in front of her. "Akira." The way she said his name was just short of an exclamation, and relief was obvious in her voice. He had been quite nice the last time they had met, and she wasn't sure what she would have done if it had been someone entirely new coming up behind her. She realized that her spider legs were still extended in a defensive position, and quickly folded them into their usual place behind her back, flushing slightly.
"You've been in the ACR too, I take it." Her eyebrows raised as she took in his new wings. "I wonder if it's common for people to grow new appendages when they advance," she pondered aloud. "The wings suit you," she added after a moment of thought. And they did, complementing his wolf parts and making his shoulders look wider.
The Aanida tilted her head, brow furrowed. "Do you know where we are? My map... isn't working properly right now." She blinked away a momentary vision of the sickly, writhing hallways. "And I've never been in this part of the school before." She wondered briefly whether Clerise had woken up yet. If she had, she probably would have gone to the mess hall or the kitchens, because she had mentioned being hungry before she'd fallen asleep. Come to think of it, the Aanida's stomach was a bit on the empty side of things. But she couldn't get anything to eat until she knew where she was and how to get to the food places.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 5:28 am
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 5:58 am
Cerceris smiled back at the boy, though it faltered for a moment when he said his wings hurt. My new spines are sensitive, but they don't hurt. Then again, they're a lot smaller than those wings. She clicked her mandibles unconsciously when he mentioned them. Cute...? I thought humans didn't think that arachnid things were cute. She smiled at the compliment anyway, the gray stripes on her face hiding a faint blush.
Her smile turned rueful when he mentioned waking up where you didn't fall asleep. "That's why I don't know where I am. I just woke up here a moment ago." She noted that the way Akira's hair fell to conceal one of his eyes was particularly aesthetically pleasing.
The Aanida almost asked what she was supposed to stop before she realized that the other boy was talking to his new wings, which had evidently moved of their own volition. She relaxed when he found his map in working order - it wouldn't be very good if everyone suddenly found their maps replaced with the squirming thing she had in its place, though she still had to figure out the problem there.
The library! That was wonderful. This must be one of the hallways on the side she hadn't gotten around to exploring yet. The library contained tea, which was also wonderful. But it most likely did not contain Clerise, who was wonderful but not made of tea.
"I like the library," Cerceris said with a smile. "It's where I get tea, and there are other food machines too. Ramen is delicious, a little bit like tea with noodles, and pizza is weird but sometimes tasty, and I don't like the way some of the other machines smell so I haven't tried them." She blinked her lower eyes in a moment of contemplation. "I am hungry, after that advancement thing. Are you hungry too? I would like to try something new, I think... do you want to go to the mess hall with me?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:25 am
Akira gave a small chuckle, mostly at the situation. The aanida appeared to be lost, with a faultering map, the pair had recently grown, which made them in a strange sense, new to eachother. However Cerceris was still as polite and nice as she was the last time he saw her.
She was just bigger, around his height, which he deducted would make them roughly the same age. Wait, he didn't know how old he was now. He blinked. The thought left as Cerceris brought up food.
Food! His stomach growled violently at him as his mind wrapped itself around the notion of eating. He blushed, and half crossed his arms.
"Now that you mention it, I'm starving. I guess it's cause we grew, and now our bodies are all, I dunno. Bigger, and older and stuff. I could eat a half dozen plates of fries..." He grinned. Stepping closer still, now next to the aanida.
"Ever had fries? They're really tasty, and all the ketchup just makes them even yummier!" He gave another grin, and his head snapped to the side. The corner of his eye catching the faintest trace of someone walking passed.
"...Stupid bond..." He mumbled, looking forward again.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:40 am
"Fries...?" The Aanida tilted her head. Fries and ketchup were both unfamiliar to her. It sounded like Akira liked them a lot, though, so she was willing to give them a try. Any food sounded good right now, even the weird hawaiian pizza with bits of fruit and piglike animal.
She jumped slightly as Akira looked suddenly to one side, her arachnid legs jumping as well. She winced as one of them twinged painfully, and moved it quickly back to its previous position. "What's a bond? Does it make you see things?" She looked in the direction Akira had briefly faced, but she had seen nothing before and saw the same now. There had been a slight sensation in the spines along her arms, but that was easily explained by the wolf boy stepping closer. She was slightly unnerved by the idea of invisible somethings roaming around, and took a small step closer to Akira. He could see them, at least. If they were even real and not side effects of his advancement. But with her sudden appearance here in the hallway and the way her map twisted in her head, she was happy enough to stand near the boy for a scrap of comfort.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:58 am
Akira sighed, "Just something that came with my arrival I guess," He shrugged, "Aerin said I'm bonded to a deity. Anubis, the god of death." He noticed the aanida seemed unnerved by his action, possibly the situation itself, so he offered her a hand, if anything, so she knew he wasn't going to disappear on her.
"Before I grew I saw a bunch of stuff. When I had a fight with one of the kids, I saw something there, too. Aerin said it's just cause of the bond, I see the spirits or something. Kind of like being their guide to the other realms, I guess."
He still didn't quite understand it, but if Cerceris did, then he was happy. At least someone would make sense of it. He briefly recalled the dream with Lineslieth, the way he asked him if death was really that bad.
He still didn't have an answer for it.
"He also said I'm going insane. So, a warning... If I start flipping out or something, it'll pass." He chuckled.
He decided to change the subject, "Fries are bits of potatostuffs, they're long, and fried, and they taste nice with ketchup."
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:20 am
Cerceris took Akira's hand, grateful for the reassurance. His warmth was nice. She was beginning to suspect that she simply had a lower body temperature than humans, though this boy was not as warm as Clerise.
The Aanida listened quitely as Akira explained his bond. He could see lost souls because he was somehow bonded to a god of death, and was to lead them on their way to whatever happened after you were done living. And here he was, doing it already - she was lost, and he could show her the way.
"You probably have to be at least a little bit crazy if you're going to be interacting with dead people a lot. I don't think it's your fault." She made yet another mental note to look stuff up in the library later, this one concerning Anubis. The name sounded interesting.
"Fried potatostuff," she parroted. She didn't quite grasp the concept of deep frying, but Akira seemed enthusiastic enough about it. She had a vague idea that potatoes were rootish things that grew in the ground. Ginger was also a rootish thing that grew in the ground, and the ginger oolong tea was delicious, so potatostuff couldn't be too bad. "Sounds tasty, I think." She could feel her stomach trying to digest something that wasn't there. It was a weird feeling. "The sooner we start walking, the sooner we can have fries?" She smiled hopefully.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:38 am
"Yep!" He replied, letting out an enthusiastic giggle, and skipping forward a step, lightly tugging on her hand. His map rotated along with his direction, which he could see, but not see, and it showed the most direct route to the messhall.
And so, he started walking, keeping a nice grasp of Cerceris's hand, which did feel slightly less warm than his own. He figured it was because she was of arachnid lineage. His legs weren't sore, nor were his arms. Though his stomach was yelling at him, loudly.
"I don't really understand why I was picked. I'm not really different from any other being here. But I can't really argue with it, it'd be pointless since it's already set in stone. I didn't think of that before I grew."
He sighed, "I guess I didn't accept it. But, I'm bigger now, my brain isn't the same as it was, and I know stuff I didn't know before. I accept it now, and I guess it isn't so bad... I just have to watch out for those hallucinations... They're... yeah."
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 8:01 am
Cerceris walked happily enough alongside Akira, getting used to her new longer legs. Her centre of balance was slightly higher than it had been before, but she adjusted relatively quickly. The wolf boy's grip on her hand was helpful as well as generally pleasant.
"You're different from every other being here," Cerceris countered when he continued talking about his bond. "Unless you're hiding a twin somewhere," she added as an afterthought. "Besides, wouldn't being attached to a god have some perks? You've been chosen to help people where nobody else can. I'd feel honoured, in your place. Though the hallucinations don't sound very good... do they happen often?" One of the Aanida's spider legs brushed gently against Akira's wing in an unconscious sympathetic gesture. She had never experienced hallucinations, to the best of her knowledge, but she knew that they could be unpleasant.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 8:14 am
"Well, I do feel something, don't get me wrong. I feel special, but I just don't get why Anubis would think I could help... I always figured they didn't need help, especially from someone like me," He would have continued his thoughts, but he didn't really want to bring his mother into the conversation. They seemed to be relaxed, content, and he didn't want to bring the mood down to upset and sympathetic.
His wing twitched, moving, and Akira half winced, mostly because the sensation of feeling something that wasn't quite on his body was new to him. It didn't seem to hurt that much now that it finished shaking and spazming, and him accidentally squashing them really did help their pain threshold.
"I guess it's all part of a person's destiny," he mused, then thought on the sights from the bathroom. The flash from the fight. He couldn't recall anything while at home, but he recalled a few things at the shelter.
"They've been happening more since I got here, and slightly worse," he admitted, "They aren't fun in the least. They make me dizzy, and sick, and usually my head hurts afterwards."
"First was just flashes in the corner of my eye, like whatever I saw just before. But the last one... There was blood everywhere, and fire, and arms were reaching out from the ground. Screams and hisses and people agonizing and begging for help," and my mother, he neglected to say.
His free hand ran through his hair again, absently trying to get the hair out of the way.
"But anyway, I'm here blabbering on, and you're being all quiet and stuff... Tell me about yourself, Cerceris," He added, his same smile playing across his face.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:06 am
"Everyone needs help sometimes," Cerceris said quietly. She frowned slightly at the mention of destiny, unsure of her feelings toward it. It was sort of comforting to think that everything was foreordained, but her mind rebelled against the idea that the killer RA had infected her friend because it was Meant To Be. She didn't want it to be that way.
Cerceris made a sympathetic sound. "There are downsides to being attached to a god too. But maybe it will get better as you grow? Or you might get more control over them, at least. Maybe Anubis will come to you in a dream and answer some of your questions. At least, I think gods talk to people in dreams. It would be a lot less overwhelming than having them just pop in and start talking to you. I haven't really dreamed since I got here... not that I remember, anyway. I don't dream much to begin with, though."
She paused, put on the spot by Akira's question. "About... myself. Um. I'm an Aanida? The only one I've seen here so far. Then again, I haven't really met anyone other than you and Clerise and Aerin and Tabitha. And RA." She frowned. "The residential assistance AI," she clarified. "There's another RA inside of it that I haven't met. It's not so nice. It hurt Clerise." Something bitter had crept into her voice and hardened there at the mention of the violently homicidal alien who was invading her friend's body and mind. Her mandibles clicked angrily, then she closed all of her eyes and took a grounding breath. "I'm not very special," she went on. "I don't have a bond with a god like you do, or a way of making people feel better like Aerin, or even a tribe to call my family. I'm just myself." Another pause. "I like tea. And pretty skirts. And Aerin, who has prettier skirts than me." She smiled. "And Clerise, who is my roommate. She was still asleep when I brought her the soup; I don't know if she's awake now, but it wouldn't surprise me. I like reading, and..." she pauses, trying to recall the name of a strategy game Clerise had taught her. "... checkers, I think. And I have a white rabbit with a pocket watch and I like him too. And I like you, you're nice. And I like Tabitha too, she's the English teacher and she likes tea and I think she has little horns but I can't tell through her curly hair. She wears sunglasses all the time because too much light hurts her eyes. Too much light sometimes hurts my eyes too, but it isn't so bad if I close these ones." She closes two of her eyes, the small ones closest to her nose. "Because those ones mostly pick up on light, and these ones," she blinked her other small eyes, "see movement more than anything else. And these ones," she pointed to her main eyes with her free hand, "are a lot like yours, but not the same colour. And these spines are neat, they notice changes in the air currents." She smiled, having successfully steered herself away from brooding about Clerise's condition. Brooding in public was not polite.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 4:38 pm
Akira nodded, and listened intently to what Cerceris had to say, on the subject of his bond. She made a lot of valid points that he never thought of, and she didn't seem certain on the topic of destiny.
He couldn't help but give the faintest of chuckles, when Cerceris felt put on the spot. It looked like not many people asked about her, and he didn't understand why. She was nice, and interesting, and she didn't attack him, though he decided that not all arachnid type creatures were keen on attacking people.
Cerceris definitely didn't look like the type. She seemed more interested in Clerise and tea to worry about randomly attacking people.
He gave a slight blush as she said that she liked him, and that he was nice, then he listened onwards as she explained her vision, and he watched her blink her different sets of eyes. His wings stretched out on their own, as if they had just woken up, and were ready to be used.
Akira however, was busy. He wanted to hear more about Cerceris, and he ignored the appendages, thinking they'd go away if he did so. He thought back to Cerceris not having a tribe, and grew curious.
"So, why don't you have a tribe? What happened to them?" He asked carefully, he didn't want to upset her with his curiosity.
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Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:04 pm
Cerceris looked down. "Nothing happened to them," she started. "It was... I am... not..." words like suitable and worthwhile and desirable flickered through her mind, none of them quite right. "...wanted." That was close enough. She studied the floor passing beneath her boots. "My tribe is healthy and well, probably moreso for my absence. They are not my tribe. I have none. Which is why I'm here. Most Aanida wouldn't dream of coming to a place like this all alone, because they have their tribe to care for and educate them. But if I was like them, I wouldn't be here talking to you!" She put a smile on, trying desperately to feel it. "Some good things always come of misfortunes."
Cerceris gave Akira's hand a slight squeeze. She really was glad to be here, and to have met him and Clerise and everyone else she'd encountered so far. It was just easier to be glad when she wasn't thinking of the life a normal Aanida would have led, that was all. She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, noticing for the first time that she was wearing some of the larger clothing she had packed. Interesting. That wasn't a suitable change of topic, though. She looked back up into Akira's visible eye, her smile turning genuine.
"You've talked about fried potatothings with ketchup, and you showed me soup too. What other weird foods do you eat?" The tone of her voice had become playful. She ran the clawed tip of one arachnid leg through Akira's hair, mimicking his persistent toying with it.
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