RP Time? You betcha!

[shipwreck_light]

"Lucien? What did I tell you about running off on your own?"

Somewhat unsurprisingly, his son didn't answer him with more than a grin. And a splash, once Claude had drawn closer.

Leave it to any child of his to throw off his nice new boots just to stick his feet in the first likely looking stream that came along.

It wasn't even as if they'd gone that far out of town, but away from the roads, from the other sorcer-sorts and Aethies, even the breeze felt calmer, though it had hardly caught to much all the while they'd been walking. Claude being glad they had any at all, as hot as it had been the past few days.

The storm the night before had left lacy scatters of twigs and leaves and knocked down spider webs. Clean and still damp, the leaves overhead and tangled in the grass, they looked pieces of stained glass. And the trees, when they nodded, they sounded clear as harp strings with nothing else to cut the sound.

Out of farmland use and the whiles of any humans at all, the stream had been left so clear, so delicious looking. Just begging for some little blond imp of a boy to come along and kick his heels in it.

Well, one already had. Claude didn't bother with another sigh. He pulled his shoes off and laid them in the stones at his side, stretching lazy as he reached his own toes towards the glittering surface.

And promptly jerked back with a yelp. "Child of mine? That's /cold/."

"I know," said Lucien. "I think it feels nice."

"Maybe if you're part bear. I've always halfway figured, you know."

They had some teasing hums between them and Claude crossed his legs, feet now on the warm pebbles along the bank where they damnwell belonged.

"I think I got that from your side of the family," his son suggested after a while. "Anyway, why do you think it's like that? I don't hear anybody around."

"That wasn't tagging along?"

"Well..." The boy knitted his fingers in his hair, tugging himself a wingtip curl along his temple. "I think I'd only notice Nene if she was /gone/."

"And as for our new friends?"

"They couldn't have gone far. They know we have candy." To which, he nodded. Ever so sure of himself.

Ah, children. Children had gotten him this far with their self-assured beings. And children had found him what was really a rather strange clearing on closer inspection. The stream wore deeper through some places in the grass than others, showing shifts of rock, glints of moss and tree roots sneaking by. It divided the clearing just about cleanly in half.

Besides, on the edge of the forest easing back into being, a great, old ash stood.

Covered in tiny flowers. Pink and violet and hints of white. All of them, growing in streaks as if the bark had long ago turned to soil, though the tree seemed healthy and strong otherwise.

Besides.

"Papa," said Lucian, voice hushed. "There aren't any birds here, are there?"

"No," Claude answered after a moment. "It's just you and I and /a bunch of stinkers who ran off from us/."

"Oh, so that doesn't include me?"

"Child of mine."

They had a few more hums, there in the quiet of the clearing.

There, before something very strange and very faint began to creep along Claude's Aether lines.

It felt like being tickled almost. Anyway, it made him smile. Lucien too.

And next, there his son darted off again, racing over the grass and into the middle of the clearing, where he stood staring into the sky and whistling. Expecting a giant Gust to come sailing down in the form of a giant bird? It might just be that.



Welcome!

Note that anything your characters do in the clearing may result in posts back of things happening around them, even if these aren't exactly invited. Something's lurking around here, and it wants a snack!

Feel free to bring your own fairies, ghosts, mages and seriously confused regular people.

Comments

[shipwreck_light]

First blush of talking cat talking to /him/?

Siebenkas bristled with his senses trying to sort the information out.

But, there was no way around it. That big, beautiful kitty-cat. Was talking. To him.

And he really had seen stranger things on these little jaunts. Just, not cat-related things.

Having cleared his own throat and not exactly bitten back his smile, he answered. "Well, I was just in the hall of my apartment in Asil 9, which itself appears on what I understand is a rather bland permutation of planet earth. And you?"

(OOC: You do realize I've managed to avoid naming the city in JoR for 500,000 words, but a CAT just got it out of Seb? Damn, man. I am so putting "Weakness: cats" on his personae entry.)

[sarcasticsra]

A wave of meaning flashed behind the word. Skilled, magic, a brief glimpse of the history surrounding it. He saw her most recent thoughts, noticed the barriers guarding her deeper ones, and did not press further. He'd already pried enough. "I'm not," he said, faltering. "Not how you mean. My abilities are...different in nature."

Skilled. Magic. There were texts, of course, about a universe encompassing multiple dimensions, but he'd never before encountered such stark evidence supporting it. Some things were not to be known, not by him. That was in the rules.

Nothing followed the rules any more, not even him.

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny had only gone to the great room to take a bottle of red wine from the wine cabinet. That was all. He had not gone far from the kitchen, where he was cooking dinner and where some of the wine was supposed to be added to the newly-browned chunks of stew beef. That was it.

It sure as fuck wasn't a whole fucking forest apart from his kitchen, but apparently one had appeared while he'd been crouched down checking labels.

By his foot, Ripley yipped at him. When he looked down, it was to see her stepping so fucking daintily that he had to try not to laugh. Fucking spoiled dog.

"C'mon, girl," he said to her as he started walking. He wouldn't figure out where he was by just standing in one spot.

[one_eyed_nemo]

Nemo would fully admit, if asked, to being smug when he said, "Not rikis or demis. What kind of cats?" He certainly couldn't tell size based on smell, but if they lived with a human and weren't rikis or demis, he would guess housecats. One of his ancestral species, about twice the size of a demi and about an eighth to a tenth his size, and where he got his coloring from. "Housecats?"

[sarcasticsra]

Her brother looked far younger than he should. Somehow, after the talking cat, this didn't much compare. Still, it was intriguing.

"Hello, Johnny," Maria said, smiling. It was closer to her real one, but still not quite; only Little David and her victims ever saw her real one. "You're looking well, considering I think you should be roughly fifteen years older than you are right now."

[one_eyed_nemo]

"Was on Jenna. Clever-class ship." At the man's blank look, Nemo tried again. "On our way to Iota Aurigae system."

OH MY GOD I JUST LAUGHED SO HARD. Ask Sara! At any rate, SCORE ONE FOR NEMO.

[sarcasticsra]

"Housecats," Maria agreed. "We don't have any other kind where I'm from. I would have liked to meet a sapient cat before now." Even non-sapient cats were often preferable to people.

[shipwreck_light]

Ripley though might have had the right idea about the forest. Oh, it was fluffy and nice and flowery enough for photographs of it to cause hay fever, but not apparently the safest place in all of any worlds to be.

Case in point, something black and roughly bat-shaped zinged around a nearby sycamore and very deliberately stuffed itself into Johnny's shirt pocket.

A bat. In the middle of the day. Making a jet verses aircraft carrier landing. On Johnny.

And if that wasn't fucking weird enough, the bat happened to disclaim: "If some sorcer-lookin dude starts askin if you seen any Shades round here. Tell him noooooooo. OK? We cool? Oh man, this's the best pocket EVAR."

[martina_corlioni]

That joined neatly with what Martina had felt when she'd pushed against his shields. So he didn't have magic, or at least not the brand of magic she knew so well. Which raised the question of what kind of magic he could do.

"You seem to understand my abilities," she said, drawing herself up as tall as she could. Which was perhaps heightened by her mental presence. "What is the nature of yours?"

[sarcasticsra]

"I had help," he admitted, somewhat apologetically, indicating his hand. "It's not often," or ever, "that I encounter humans with your abilities. I had to ascertain what they were."

Her mental presence was admittedly impressive. He smiled, gently, and mirrored her actions. His wings stayed hidden, but the effect was recognizably angelic anyway.

Re: Shade Pip

[shipwreck_light]

"Actually," Pip began, "We kinda got this rule where if we see bigger Shades or other kindsa Aethies, we're spossedta look certain ways. Like, you wouldn't go visit the queen lookin likea dragon. That'd be kinda rude. Mebbe the queen greets you /as/ a dragon if she's inna bad mood, but not the other way round."

There was something distinctly giggly about the end of that sentiment.

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny's dog hid behind his legs. He could never tell if she'd be friendly or timid; it didn't seem to matter what the person was like.

He didn't recognize the woman, though she did look something like Lea and Mina. More like Adri though, really, and Cecilia. All that aside, he still didn't know her, or he thought he didn't.

"Do I know ya?" he asked.

[johnny_corlioni]

A talking fucking bat. At least Ripley had started barking enough that he couldn't think through the shrillness and how loud she managed to get.

But if he let her keep it up, she'd give him a bitch of a headache, so he sharply said, "Ripley, enough."

She subsided, mostly. Kept growling and letting out soft, almost-to-herself barks, but mostly stayed quiet.

Then he looked down into his shirt pocket, pulling it open so he could see.

Yeah, there was a talking bat in his pocket.

"I'm gonna fuckin' kill David," he muttered. Not that he knew how David had drugged him, but it was the only reasonable explanation for all this shit.

[sarcasticsra]

"Yes, although not like this. I think, for you, I should be roughly eight. It's hard to tell," she said. "Maria. Your sister."

She noticed the dog hide behind Johnny, but wasn't surprised. Dogs occasionally had that reaction to her; animals were often so much more intuitive than people.

Re: Kostya

[shipwreck_light]

"Yknow," Nene began, swaying where she sat. "I always figured dark lords were /bigger/. And darker. Eviler. Soul eatin'. All that good stuff. Yer just likea sorcerer happens to have his own country. "

She trailed off into a few vaguely nasty sniggers. "Fact is, round here too there's people say- oh! Sorcer owes their loyalty to the guild, right? They shouldn't be in chargea regular people. You see that one in election debates likea lot. Sometimes works. Sometimes doesn't. Thing is, we got so many sorcers, it's kinda a votin' block by now."

To which she rubbed her chin. "'m guessin' yer like pretty elite even without the ruler thing? I mean- assassins! That's parta rulin' stuff, but still. 'm gettin' that impression."

[shipwreck_light]

(OOC: Winrar is Nemo. And you XD.)


Actually, that made a certain amount of sense. If you could build starships, why not talking cats?

"So, you've been out sailing the stars?" Siebenkas asked. "It must be a shock to find yourself in green all of a sudden, surrounded by people who've never been... And the gravity isn't bothering you?"

Siebenkas wasn't right then enjoying the mental image of a cat cavorting in zero G. Nosiree.

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny stared at her. That was... pretty much the sum of his reaction until he could start thinking again.

At which point he said, "Ya know my sister's name. Doesn' mean you're here." Also, she was nearly six, not eight, but he wasn't adding that part aloud.

[martina_corlioni]

Martina couldn't help the soft gasp at all or the way her eyebrows rose. "Oh," she said softly. "You're that Gabriel."

She'd have repeated herself in English, but if he actually was the archangel, he'd understand her.

[shipwreck_light]

"Aww, c'mon," protested the bat.

As talking bats were wont to do.

Apparently.

"Whatever else that fucker David did, he's the one gettin deprived of havin a real, live- anyways, I think 'm more'r'less alive -Shade hang out in his clothes. Kill im later over somethin' that'll make it worth your while, ammirite?"

It then stretched its wings in the particular manner which also made Johnny's shirt puff up rather comically, there before subsiding into an awfully human sort of repose, wings folded behind its head.

Now that it held still, now that Johnny got a good look at it.

This particular talking bat had rather a lot of tail for a bat. Little in the way of a body- its middle glowed softly green. And its face, that was almost more mouse-like, a suggestion of something cute and rodent-y.

[sarcasticsra]

Maria smiled. "You gave Nicoletta a knife for her seventeenth birthday. She named it Charlemagne. It's still one of her favorites in 2030."

[sarcasticsra]

The Italian didn't surprise him, given her name and what he'd gleaned from their handshake. He was momentarily surprised she'd been hearing him in English, but then he supposed that was probably what she'd expected to hear, given his appearance. "Yes, I am," he said softly, almost sadly.

[one_eyed_nemo]

"I a rikicat. Demicats tiny, smaller than housecats." Since they were apparently having a conversation, Nemo sat, tucking his paws just so and curling his tail around them. "I Nemo. You?"

[sarcasticsra]

"Maria," she said, smiling at him more sharply than she would have smiled at another person. "It's nice to meet you." She considered this new piece of information and asked, "Are demicats sapient as well?"

[one_eyed_nemo]

"Jenna has grav drive." If she hadn't, Nemo never would have stayed with her and Bryta, no matter his affection for them. He couldn't stand zero G. "Lighter than this, but plenty planets this heavy." He turned one ear toward where he heard a twig snap; once he decided it was nothing worth paying attention to, he continued, "I Nemo. You?"

[martina_corlioni]

It helped that she'd been speaking English and had last heard English before vanishing out of her home. "And you do not know how this is happening to you?" she asked. If he didn't know for himself, he certainly wouldn't be able to say why for her, which would make getting home that much harder.