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| Bullseye; for sara & glede! | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 27 2016, 12:00 PM (124 Views) | |
| Phaedrus | Aug 27 2016, 12:00 PM Post #1 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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Some conveniently vague time post-Lachechism, 10 AR The Faire was an explosion of sounds and smells, bright paper trails and tents that had sprung up from the mud like garish flowers. Evidently, evidently it was a yearly occurrence that came to the town of Rochdale, an overly friendly, talkative woman had explained to him, gathering up a basket. All the troubadours stopped here before they went along to Kinaldi; theirs was a crossroads, a place that saw traveler’s aplenty and weren’t afraid to entertain them, neither. She winked at him, and he realized belatedly what that meant, his brain crawling along like a slug in his skull. Once he might have grinned lasciviously at such a thing — now he smiled like she’d stepped on his foot, a weird, screwed up grimace paining his face. She lost her flirty manner immediately and walked away, a relief. How… awkward. The necromancer sauntered through the town’s square, feeling like he’d dropped into some odd, vivid dream. The traveling caravans left deep grooves in the mud, reflecting streaks of the sky. Banners unfurled. Tents flapped in the breeze, the flutter of canvas shocking his mind into visions of the desert. All around, a thousand sights and smells and sounds mingled: a spitting roast and crackling fire, a jester's whooping, horses nickering, vendors promising the best ciders for a penny. The laughter and talk of patrons blended to a mad babble, senseless as the muttering of spirits in the First Gate; flutes twittered above the din, dancing with pipe-music and those lewd Morrimian reels Bast loved so much. He walked like a man in a daze, hands fisted in his cloak, mouth dropped vaguely open. Everyone seemed to move in smears, their faces like jeering, whooping masks -- not frightful, just insensible. It was a reminder that miraculously, life went on in other places. The wheel did not stop magically for all the world. None of the people here shared his sadness. They did not know about Madrid. They did not know about the old statues charmed by ivy, the nodding crowns of roses in the Immortal Gardens, the way incense cloyed the streets by the temples. They did not know how when it stormed, the waters all poured down the hillside, and how some of the roads had grooves in them from the temporary rivers that coursed through them; they did not know the terror of walking uphill in the rain, the time he’d slipped and slammed his face into the cobblestones. They did not know how the baker laughed when he told him how he'd gotten a black eye, all crows-feet and flushed cheeks, his floury hands sliding over an extra pasty in sympathy. Oh no, they could not know; they could not know these things, locked up like a secret in his heart, a treasure-box of memories. How it seemed like the most real thing and yet the most dreamlike -- he wondered if those years had been a fugue state, a crazed dream between inns, a happy little fantasy between roads -- and now he'd woken up, gone back to the real world, back to his mud-caked boots and weatherbeaten cloaks and quiet desperation. Except his hair was far too long, his complexion much too different, his tunic far too wide, so it must have been real; some stability must have existed for him. Once, once? The necromancer pressed his mouth closed, staring vaguely ahead. The road had pared his face down to cold, sharp angles, his nose like a pike in its middle. Of late he'd taken to nervously fiddling with his hair -- braided and unbraided it endlessly as he walked, for wont of something to do with his shaking, spidery hands; in, out, in, out. Unwind. In, out, in, out. As natural as breathing, a ritual from another place. For now he'd left it hanging off his shoulder in a loose braid, fraught with cowlicks here and there. A child shrieked with laughter and ran past him, followed by her breathless friends. It was a strange music — a sound he realized he hadn't heard in a long time, eerily long. In a way he had forgotten its existence — his darkness blanketed him so completely it muffled all the world around him, attuned his senses only to his own misery. Children. Children exist, Phaedrus thought dumbly. They ran in circles, tagging each other, near slapping each other in their raucousness. One was shouting it wasn't fair, his petulant bellowing and little fists met with more laughter. Why did it all feel new to him? It was like he had to remember the world again. He smiled at their silliness. He used to always smile at their silliness, at their near-idiocy, when he saw them. And when he worked at that wretched inn he always managed to accidentally bake too many sweet rolls, to the delight of younger patrons. At some point he'd stopped, though -- the smiles had become halted and brittle in his mouth, until they decayed into pursed lips. And one day it'd wilted to a frown, a nasty furrow in his brow and a twist of the mouth -- until he could not bear the sight of children altogether, ignoring their existence or staring off into space whenever they giggled and cavorted in the gardens of Madrid. Once a lover had remarked on it -- laughed and agreed that she thought children were wretched, too, and she'd never want any, and he'd tittered and sneered his agreement; but all the while his heart flipped and sunk in a tailspin, and he thought oh no, that isn't it at all, they're not so wretched, that's not the reason... "HOI! You there!" Phaedrus startled out of his reverie, looking about in confusion. A thousand culprits muttered and giggled and washed around him, but he could not pick out the voice until a shrill whistle directed his eyes to a peddler. He had a stand set up, some kind of silly faire-game with painted targets. The man had straw-blonde hair, but the sun had cooked his face to a nut-brown, peeling here and there. He removed his dirty fingers from his mouth and grinned, blue eyes sparkling in the sun. "Hoi! Yeah, you! Pretty miss with the red hair, kissed by fire!" For a moment he wondered if Bast had decided to join him despite the rain puttering on and off, and a spasm of jealousy kicked his guts; the necromancer looked wildly around for a glimpse of her hair, standing on tip-toe to see if her short frame had been swallowed by tall patrons, but -- The vendor cackled. "Oi, don't be a modest one! I mean you, miss!" Oh, devils below. Again? The necromancer fixed him with an incredulous stare. Then he placed a hand on one hip, gesturing with the other as if to say no, no, you see-- But the peddler was undeterred. He gave a crooked grin, wedging an elbow on his knee. "How's about a game, eh?" He shot a stick-skinny arm into a wooden bucket, bringing out a grubby leather ball. The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the makeshift diorama behind him. Wooden cut-outs had been painted to look like a mockery of the Morrimian court, each of them overlaid with a garish red bullseye. On the left stood a grim, black-clad woman that loomed like a reaper, her face stretched and exaggerated to look like the progeny of a horse and trout; besides her, a toadish man with a great belly and witch's nose squatted in a broad hat; in the back lurked a skull-white, whooping demon dressed like a fop, with vampire teeth and hungry black eyes; to the right, a great dark man with a bulging cockpiece twice his size, and... Well, that must be the Emperor, Phaedrus mused. Crowning all of them was a golden-haired man with an exaggerated mustache, his scarlet cloak billowing behind him. He would have looked the picture of majesty if he didn't have the wings of a fairy and rode something other than a fat unicorn. "Normally 'tis two pennies, but for you?" The peddler winked. "'S free." Phaedrus planted both his hands on his hips, canting his head. He pursed his lips, considering. Well. This whole mistaking business had been happening annoyingly often since he'd kept his hair long. Perhaps it had its perks, though. "Knock 'em all down, win the crown!" The man cried, waving the ball in his hand and resuming his pitch. "Kill or be killed! Who shall become the new Emperor? Or Empress?" He gave another lascivious wink as Phaedrus approached. The necromancer kept a small smirk on his face, lashes lowering. Oh, why the hell not. He added a bit of a tart's sway to his step, squelching through a puddle to get to the peddler. The man grinned at him, handing him a small, battered bucket when he got close enough. Phaedrus kept up his coquettish smile, affecting an air of shyness until the exchange was made; the bucket swung as he took a step back, tittering. "My thanks, ser." He relished the look on the peddler's face, devoured it like candy. Phaedrus returned a wink, digging his pale hand into the... ammunition, as it were. The instruments of assassination? He tossed the ball in his hand, feeling its weight against his palm, and aimed for the Asenath woman first. Here's to your disgusting ancestors. It hit her square in the face, but the figure sprung back with a wooden rattle. Her ugly blank eyes mocked him, troutish lips ironed in disapproval. The necromancer curled his lip, scowling as he dug into the bucket again. "Aye, the Black Witch O' the Do'Suul's hard to put down," the peddler nodded, arms crossed over his chest. He leaned against the wooden frame of the stand, apparently recovered from his initial surprise. Deep voice on a woman, he thought, but she's still easy on the eyes. "Oh, they all are," Phaedrus muttered, squinting at the lineup. He leveled the Asenath witch's head with the ball. "Like roaches." He threw the ball again, but this time it missed its mark entirely, thumping against the back of the display and bouncing harmlessly in the grass. "Milady's delicate!" The man piped, clapping his hands together. "Maybe an easier target? Try the Hierophant of Morrim, the man who speaks tae Vespasian hisself!" The peddler fiddled with some mechanism and the toadish man jumped and spun around obscenely, like a dancing little ogre. "Or the undefeated warrior, Black Richard the Large!" The dark, brutish man suddenly sprang to life, thrusting his massive wooden codpiece at the Emperor. How crude. I wonder if it is true. Phaedrus stifled a nasty giggle, tossing his hand dismissively. "All worthy targets, I am sure," he scoffed, picking up another ball. The man's words had rankled him, left his lip curling. Delicate? I shall show you delicate, you hog-faced twit. Hissing in annoyance, the necromancer pitched his arm back, foot digging into the mud; he hurled the damn thing with all his might, and, and-- It shot clear of the stand entirely and into the crowd, sailing into someone's head. Several people yelped, backing away or ducking reflexively. The necromancer’s face fell, draining of what little color it had—his arm slapped limp by his side, the rest of him still frozen mid-pitch. For the love of Nailah's teats. The Asenath woman still stared at him, something disappointed in her wooden eyes. Cursing, Phaedrus stamped his foot, muddy water splashing up his pants. “Oh, bollocks." I hope their skull's still in tact. |
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| Sara | Aug 27 2016, 03:42 PM Post #2 |
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~Hail, Mysteria -- I shield my eyes...~
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There had been a nightmare she had had as a child, one she’d had probably several dozen times until she finally got to that awkward stage of turning into a teenager. She had been with her parents and brother (only in the dream the kids were, of course, much much younger than they were today) beneath a large blue tent, surrounded by other parents with their children. Only every person’s face was painted over, in strange horror-clownesque colors. Each family had a specific face that each member wore. She remembered her family’s faces being painted over in reds, whites and blues, and they looked permanently sour and almost in pain, not faltering in either direction. Sara’s face had been the only naked, natural one, and though she clung to her scary-looking mother’s hand and went along with them as they meandered aimlessly, eerily silent, with no purpose, she tugged at it and begged them to snap out of it, to listen. They didn’t hear her. After this each family would descend into a trapdoor in the middle of the room, one by one, and Sara wrenched herself away from her parents before they took her down with them. Then, she would be alone, and calling for her family she would wander into a tunnel at the back, and a great wind would come up and suck her down into unknown darkness… …she opened her eyes. The carnival was as garish as it had been before she had closed them. Things like this were fun in their ways, but they also reminded her of that dream: a chaotic circus of a world, in which everyone else was crazy and she was the only sane one. The sun beamed down on the back of her head. Not wanting to get a sunburn (she never tanned, only burnt like a stick of kindling), Sara had let her hair down for today, and though her locks were a veritable halo of glowing, waved gold in the summer sun – she was actually rather proud that people were staring at it – the underside of the bouncing sheaf was damp and stuck to the back of her neck. She had hidden from the showers, but it was still muggy, so she went about with her jacket around her waist, wearing instead the long yellow arm covers and her black sleeveless top. Her hair was long and thick enough to cover her shoulders as well, so as long as she didn’t face the sun directly… Bah, she was a wuss in the summer! It hadn’t necessarily been a bad day and she wasn’t necessarily in a bad mood, but she had come here with the intention of having fun and instead ended up feeling kind of lonely. This was the sort of thing she would go to with Flora, and they would hold hands and run around playing games, eating every flavor of ice cream, counting jelly beans and complaining about grumpy people. Actually, Sara continued to look around to see if maybe, just maybe Flora was around here, but it was nowhere near her home and she was, of course, nowhere to be seen. A melodramatic sigh. Her hand swiped the sweat off the back of her neck. She had stood outside several booths with the intention of playing the games, but without a friend it wasn’t fun. In fact it was more fun to just watch others play. A little girl ran breathless around and stood behind her, giggling, hiding from someone. Sara looked: a young boy had now stopped in front of her, peeking through her legs at the girl, who giggled and made faces. The boy stepped to one side, but the girl stepped opposite. They continued this game and Sara found herself grinning, and pretending to step aside. “Ooooooh no, whatcha gonna do?” “No no!” The girl laughed, and sidestepped to stay behind her, but the boy ran around and gave chase. Off they went, but they left Sara with a smile. She watched them go for a moment, and turned to-- WHAM!! Suddenly she was on the ground, little stars dancing before her eyes for a second. “Oww…” She sat up and rubbed her head and looked around. There was a leather ball lying nearby. Rubbing the spot it had hit between her eyes, she leaned over and picked it up and stood, and glanced around. There was a grubby little brown man and someone with blazing red hair. Her heart skipped in excitement, thinking it was Flora, but dropped quickly when she saw the poise and different face. Ah well, maybe I’ll have to go and pay her a visit soon. She weaved through stands and people to get to the two. “Hey man, more on those dummies and less on this one,” She joked, laughing a bit, dropping the ball into his hand. She looked around to the figures he had been aiming at and blinked. “These are rather creepier than they have to be. Hey, can I try after you?” |
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| Glede | Nov 21 2016, 04:08 PM Post #3 |
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And with his sword my breast he cleft, / My quaking heart thereout he reft, / And in the yawning of my breast / A coal of living fire he pressed.
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"O, Vashti! Vashti!" A whistle cut through the air, stirring the lazy pollen. A dog barked. "Vashti, come here! Quickly, girl! I don't like the looks of that man!" The little terrier seemed torn. It was drawn, inexorably, to the filed fingertips of the spiky black gauntlet that was administering the best of scratches behind its ears; all the same, Lady Elsa's voice -- more familiar than the grim grate of this metal-smelling stranger -- tugged at its silly dog heart all the way from the fairground crowd. A few familiar claps of her hands and it knew whence it was bound. The great black knight rose, crossing his arms with a heavy rustle, and watched the small dog bounce off toward the lady in the crowd. He peered across at them through thick, molded brass: through the dancing peasants and the children that chased one another with their hoops and wooden sticks, he watched the woman steal her dog away close to her heart and, with one look back at the imposing stranger, disappear into the crowd. In the next few moments, he couldn't have told her apart from a hundred other women; they dotted the Faire, their dresses wine-colored and sky-colored and brown like the dunes, conical hats and wimples and flowery bonnets bobbing above the sea of bodies. Most of them, he knew already, would be very frightened to see him, and would most certainly not give him a dance. A sigh whistled through his framework. Rochdale was, nevertheless, a pleasant place. Glede had been there once before. Last summer, carving a ponderous path back up through Morrim and to his desert home, he had stopped over for a few days at the request of a family in need of an exorcist. His duty had allowed him little time to enjoy the scenery, and indeed what leisure he had taken was tainted by pressing visions of Grandam Grissell's head spinning like an owl's to the sound of his client's shrieking. Even had he arrived in time for the fair, no doubt the makeshift mallet games would have put him too much in mind of poor Grissell's fate. This stay was more pleasant, if lonelier. The flowers were blooming in full, though he could not smell them, and the light made beautiful glitters in the rustling leaves of the trees. Still with every lively body he passed, he expected to see the face of Ylsa, or Sara, or Silas, or Bast, or -- the faces went on, cycling namelessly through his head, blending into one blurry identity that bore only the name friend. With a pocket full of gold, he had thought to try some of the games, but every man at every stall paled at his approach. Something told him he would win at whatever he tried. Such thinking had not put the massive paladin in the best of moods. In fact, with one hand on the pommel at his waist, his attention was at its peak: he began to feel certain that some Dead thing prowled this fair, threatening the children of Rochdale, and he would find it, if he had to smite every shady potions-peddler he saw in the process. He was about to accost one of these men -- a beanpole of a creature who was just now accosting a young lady and opening his long black cloak to reveal something evidently shocking -- when he heard it: WHAM! Someone had just been struck with something. The sound had erupted from somewhere nearby, he knew, for others around him had become aware of it; just over the tops of their heads he could see a few men laughing and pointing. He set his steps in that direction, gently excusing himself around a dozen startled nobles and commoners and street-folk, until he saw whom he thought most likely to be the victim: a woman under a glowing mane of blond hair who was heading over to a nearby stall with a ball in one hand. Though she was clearly not in any distress, something in her build and gait made him feel melancholy with remembrance, then itchingly curious. Hey man, more on those dummies and less on this one. "Sara!" he cried despite himself, the terrible sound of his voice causing a few bystanders to yelp with momentary fright (and otherwise turn to stare). With a scattering of muttered apologies, he pushed further through the crowd and broke out into the clearing before a stall: he'd seen it earlier, he was sure, with its grubby caretaker and insulting caricatures of Morrimian politicians, but now... "Phaedrus?!" If this was some mad dream, then he was surely making a fool of himself. Yet -- as he drew near, it seemed to him that he was correct! He approached with a laugh of wonderment, fascinated to see Sara's face again (to see that silly cat behind her) -- suddenly conscious of his gait and his size and everything about him, stooping, stooping, wringing his hands, feeling like a great buffoon. And Phaedrus -- Phaedrus who might have been in Madrid during that, about whom he had been so worried -- looking so thin about the face, with his hair longer, almost so strange that he did not recognize him, but -- Phaedrus! The peddler seemed somewhat perturbed as he approached, but he could not bring himself to care. "I -- I apologize for -- interrupting this, I --" As he came to stand near the two of them, nearly trembling with trepidation, he cried, "By Nailah, it is so good to see you both here!" |
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| Phaedrus | Nov 22 2016, 03:52 AM Post #4 |
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
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WHAM!! Phaedrus winced and faced his unfortunate… target. To his horror she sprawled on the ground, surrounded by a crowd of curious and gasping people — they turned their eyes accusingly towards him as he minced forward, cheeks burning. Oh no. Oh no, oh no. He froze as she sat up, glad to see that blood didn’t cover her face—though, it seemed, it might’ve left a nasty bruise—and blinked, hands wrung awkwardly by his sides. “Er…” She came over, and for a moment he thought she’d return the favor and lob him in the head. But her gait was easy, and her burnished, sun-bright blonde hair bobbed around her smiling face as she approached. The ball plopped into his hand again. Hey man, more on those dummies and less on this one. How gracious. Relieved, Phaedrus gave a little laugh, turning the offending ball in his hand. “I’m the only dummy here, I believe.” To use her turn of phrase. “Here, of course. I shouldn’t have them, clearly.” The necromancer seemed rather eager to dump the burden, handing her the bucket. “I’ve never been good at faire games.” Phaedrus circled his arm in its socket, as if to indicate its sad softness. That was the problem with being a sorcerer—conjurations did everything for you. “A blind tortoise would have better aim.” He coughed. "Are you alright?” He had to ask, just in case. She looked fine, by all accounts. He didn't have much of a throwing arm, and perhaps that was fortunate, for once. He was made for kneading dough and hefting the occassional stack of books or cat. Anything much more than that was asking too much, really. The necromancer had started to consider, perhaps, he ought to do something about that, staring down at the ball in his hand and rolling it about. All said, his attentions fled elsewhere, and he didn’t notice Glede’s approach. He heard his voice first, abstractly—more like the sensation of his voice, low and grating like a whetstone, and he whipped around. Phaedrus?! He gasped and nearly jumped out of his skin, clutching the ball absurdly to his chest; not from fright, but from surprise. Had he gone mad?! The voice struck him dumb — but then, then! There! Clear as day! For a moment his mouth simply gibbered open, not really sure where he was, really, anymore--the Faire felt like a painted backdrop, the place strange and unfamiliar. Glede had popped up like a mummer on stage, springing from a trap door—at the sight of his friend, the necromancer’s shoulders eased, arms plopping back down to his sides. His fingers went limp and he dropped the ball; it sunk into the mud by his boots. "Am I dreaming?" His response came surprisingly tepid, weary, if only because he truly felt so: faint, tired from the road, not sure if he'd actually dropped off to bed in the innroom and imagined the whole thing. A jeery, festive dream, full of strange figures and improbable appearances--next he'd see Janjak, Modeste, Galena, Nevneni, Ylsa, all of them trussed up and twinkling on a flute and skipping through his mind. One hand went up into his hair, about to comb through it before he remembered, oh right, it was tied into a braid -- so his fingers merely stuck there, his brows raised to a stupidly comical degree, his mouth still half-open. The necromancer took a few investigative steps forward, wondering if Glede would disappear. As he got closer, though, the giant man didn't -- he only grew more solid, more real, too detailed to be a dream. Specks of rust here, scratches there, a leaf stuck in one joint, and that odd smell of his, weathered metal and cloth, not particularly bad but not particularly pleasant, either -- still, he couldn't quite believe it, and raised a hand hesitantly. Was he real? He gave a few soft, experimental knocks on the man's breastplate--looked shocked when his knuckles hit actual metal, hadn't planned for the alternative. A crazed, surprised laugh left him--he drew his hand back. "You are," the necromancer cried, answering the question he hadn't actually asked aloud. "Oh, oh.” Wait. He realized, suddenly, that meant Glede could see him too. Devils, he looked terrible. Almost as terrible as the first time they met. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, or more accurately, like he'd slept on the road. Somewhere between Madrid and Morrim he’d lost a stone, and hardly looked like himself. At a loss, the necromancer just laughed -- a sort of shocked, rolling, uncontrollable cackle; he gestured helplessly at Glede, then helplessly at Sara, then helplessly back at Glede, still laughing. When the cackle died, he pressed his palms to his tired eyes. "Ohhhh." Phaedrus wiped his hands over his face, clasping his mouth and planting the other quite firmly on his hip. "I can't believe it," came the muffled response. "I cannot." His cattish eyes flickered up at the man's mask, surprised every time he caught fresh sight of him. Then -- a sudden spring of warmth filled him; the joy of seeing a familiar face broke through the pall those long, grueling months had sunk over him, kindled some life back into his features. He'd worried he'd never see Glede or Ylsa or Nevneni again, now that he'd been uprooted--now that everyone he knew had scattered to the winds, spare for Bast and his cats. He had taken Madrid for granted. He did not realize how much of him wove into the city, the tapestry of familiar faces. Elsing, in early market mornings, grunting and glaring as he slid over cuts of lamb -- the baker Aeton he so frequently visited on lazy afternoons -- the tanned old woman he bought his teas from, her eyes welcoming and slanted, Chavi was her name, and she'd been all over the world, but settled into a fine life -- his sour-faced neighbor and her exhausted daughter -- Morgana's perpetually harangued face in the libraries of the Mystic Occult, scolding him for napping in the reading room -- and ah, the apothecary he sometimes visited for his miserable sleeps -- the underbelly of Madrid, all too familiar with the rogued faces of consorts, oh, Isilda was one of them, he'd visited her a lot, to the point she'd teased him and asked if he fancied her, and the answer terrified him into a long spell of lonely nights instead-- the barkeeps, the... It went on and on. Now all that had vanished. Everyone was a stranger, and it crumpled his heart, turned everything so odd and alien. "It is good to see you, my friend," Phaedrus choked, voice cracking -- mortified, he played it off as a cough and cleared his throat, clasping the construct's great gauntlet in his own hands. "Ahem. Hello,” the necromancer amended, a catlike smile alighting on his face. He remembered the girl of a sudden, with her bright gold-spun hair, and looked over. "Hello to you too," he added. "Sara...?" He drew out her name slowly, looking from the girl to the construct with a puzzled face, wondering what on earth connected them. Edited by Phaedrus, Nov 22 2016, 03:55 AM.
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| Sara | Nov 22 2016, 12:41 PM Post #5 |
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~Hail, Mysteria -- I shield my eyes...~
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In total honesty, Sara actually now wanted to give the leather balls back to their flame-haired tosser: I’ve never been good at faire games. It reminded her of all the times she had said similar things herself, not believing she was any good and therefore not being any good. It hadn’t been until recent years, where she’d been free from the jeering judgement of her peers and family, that she’d started to really get good at stuff. Of course there was no way of knowing if this guy had the same problem exactly, but she still wanted to give them back, maybe give him a tip on aiming, and watch him blow everyone else out of the water. Part of her also felt bad at just taking someone else’s turn. “Aw, hey, you were probably just freaked out by these weird cut-outs. They’re kind of nightmarish, don’t you think..?” Painted faces, painted personas. She shuddered inwardly. Most un-cool. “Oh yeah, I’m good, I have a thick skull. Helps that these are j—“ ”Sara!” All at once she whirled, looking around for the source of the voice. She didn’t have to look long, however, as the source made its own way towards them. It was nearly impossible to miss the towering suit of armor and its mask of bronze: it had been well and long enough since she had seen him, but for more than one reason she would never have forgotten him, even if he’d had the most normal of faces and countenances. Similarly to Phaedrus, she felt a sort of relief at seeing Glede, mostly a relief to her own underlying social anxiety – here was someone she knew and liked, who had saved her ass and hunted Bad Things with her, who understood her well enough that she could talk to him about just about anything. With a grin exploding from her features, it felt like the top half of her head was going to fall off, and she was about to jump on the paladin when it became clear that he also knew the tosser. Her gaze flitted back and forth between the two of them. They very plainly (well, plainly to her: she wasn’t a psychic but she was intuitive enough) shared a strong bond, but instead of feeling wistful and slightly envious like she normally would, her smile only became plastered to her face. C’mon, hug him, hug him, She cheered silently. And don’t cry, if you cry I’ll cry and then I’ll look like the biggest idiot. It was also peppered with other, less-mature thoughts like: Now kiss. He didn’t end up crying, which was good. He also hadn’t hugged or kissed Glede, which was fine with her, because as soon as he was done with his own greeting, Sara set down the bucket and ball and jumped up onto the paladin like a grasshopper. Her arms went around his neck, and she just sort of hung there like a weird decoration, feet dangling well above ground level. “Hey, buddy,” Came her greeting at last, and even though he wouldn’t be able to feel it and there would be no yield anyway, she gave him a squeeze. Carefully, she slid off of the armor and landed with a little squelch, stepping back to give him some space, but her smile was the same. “It’s been a grip! I’m glad you’re here.” The vendor by now was looking a bit irritated, but given his occupation and the weird cut-outs and the jarring, slightly-creepy carnie atmosphere, Sara didn’t mind finishing her personal business on his time before using his stall for its intended purpose. She turned to Phaedrus, and, given that he was such good friends with Glede, she gave him a hug too (only a bit less overbearing). “Hi, Phaedrus! Good to meet you! “But I’m gonna finish this thing before our man here kills us, I’ll get right back to you guys.” While the other two presumably caught up, or hugged, or kissed, she turned to the game at hand and paid the man. “Behind this line,” The vendor then instructed, smiling again but looking a bit more sour this time. “What about this line here?” “That’s for men. As a lady, you may go closer.” “Nah that’s okay,” She went to the further line with the tally of balls and picked up the first one, picking her position and her target. First, the creepy-looking lady. Sara aimed, wound up, and hurled the ball. It hit the lady square in the face, and she went down with a literal Bang. The vendor wasn’t saying anything, but Sara had tuned out the rest of the world anyway: she was doing the one thing she was good at, and she was determined not to win, but to hit all her targets. A second ball was hefted, and she took aim again. The hierophant this time (Raya, forgive me) went down with an equal bang, then, easily, Richard the Large. The demon came next, but the most kingly of the cut-outs wouldn’t go down no matter how hard or where she hit him. She was beginning to be suspicious, but she was also determined not to let her marksmanship skill be trumped by a carnie. “One left,” The vendor alerted her smugly. “Last chance to go to the first line.” Suddenly Sara stopped, turning her focus to the little man for a moment. He grinned, seeing the sudden darkness in her features and the glaring of her eyes. Sara Prins never uses the first line, She hissed inwardly, and turned back to the targets. It was too easy to make her mad sometimes. Her lip curled and she took position. She’d show him who the baby girl was. Her heart hammered in its offense, but stayed calm enough for her to wind up one more time, aim, and fire. There was the greatest Bang! of all when the Emperor’s head ripped off of its shoulders. The cut-out still did not stay down, but the head was now irreparably gone. Clearly, the game was not designed to be won by anybody. Sara turned to the vendor. “Thanks for the unwinnable game, but keep the pennies anyway. I’ll tell my friends all about you.” Miffed, and still a bit sore but still smiling, she turned back to Glede and Phaedrus. “So hey, this game sucks. Let’s walk somewhere!” |
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