tushanshu_logs

Characters: Lapis and YOU (open!)
Date: Early August
Location: Varied
Situation: Varied. All take place after awakening again from her gem and facing down Irvine. Lapis attempts to adjust to life on the Turtle . . . and escape from it.
Warnings/Rating: Still probably spoilers. Also still may be some threat of Lapis fleeing or dowsing characters. ^^;

A. Turtle's Head - The stars weren't the same here.

At the Turtle's head, distant from the lights of the city, the heavens were laid out in full . . . a dizzying array of tiny lights sprinkled across the darkness.

Lapis knew the stars well. Knew she knew them -- that they were as familiar to her as her own hands. Even from Earth, she'd always been able to name any of them at a glance, and knew with barely a thought where her home was at any given instant.

Not so here. The star that lit Homeworld was nowhere to be found.

It was like a tether had been sliced away . . . without it, she reeled, uncertain and grasping, for a solidity that was no longer there. Without it, she was vulnerable to the inky expanse above her, bare.

She curled her arms around herself as though by doing so she could hold on . . . perched on the Turtle's head, tiny under the unknown sky.

B. Keelai - Water Sector - It had been days, and no sign of Jasper.

It seemed inconceivable that the other Gem would not be here. They had been fused -- one body, one mind, inseparable and pinned together beneath the full weight of the ocean of Earth.

Inconceivable that one could be pulled without the other. Impossible.

Lapis remained alert, combing what she could of the Turtle without inciting the attention of the locals. Surely the other Gem would have made herself visible . . . Jasper was that kind of personality, large and defiant, unafraid of consequences -- the sort who would have stood at the center of Keelai and announced herself, unconcerned about the teeming locals around her. Brazen in spite of the fact that they didn't know what this place was, what kind of dangers it could actually host.

Lapis was exhausted. Sleep wasn't something her body required . . . but rest certainly was. After so many hours of alertness, of vigilance, of forcing herself to push forward, she was at her limits.

As the sun rose higher in Keelai, she searched for a place to settle, wary of the kedan that had started to enter the streets.

C. Beach - Anyone watching might think she would never come up. Having waded as far out into the waves as she could manage, Lapis had dived, arching like a fish beneath the surface. One minute would pass. Two. Three. Longer than anyone should be able to hold their breath -- and yet still she did not emerge.

Follow her beneath the surface, look for her in the water, or wait until she comes back up.

D. Outside Keelai - She's just a dim speck in the sky, flying up, up, up, pushing, testing, ignoring the weight that settles through her stomach and heart and head, pressing, clenching . . . She pushes it as long and as hard as she can -- just a bit farther, and she'll push through. Just a bit farther and she'll be free . . .

And then the vertigo twists like a knife thrust through her insides, and she knows she never will. That's the moment before the blackness takes her, and she yields to unconsciousness.

She wakes up hurling through the air, wheeling out of control in wide, erratic circles. She gasps, pulls up hard on her wings. Wrests against the air, wings hauling hard against the wind.

The impact against the ground is hard. She slams into the earth, rolling what feels like a hundred times before coming to rest.

E. Have another idea? COME TO ME.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Zelgadis took to keeping an eye on the sky, and not just for the purposes of a map that showed the fact the Turtle was continuing to drift. As one of the few Foreigners on the Turtle with flight abilities -- not that he counted -- he knew any problems from that direction would be something he'd have to deal with. Like a blue winged woman falling out of the sky. He'd whipped up his own flight spell and attempted to come to the the rescue, only to see her hit the ground. He'd been too far away, damn it all. He hadn't known what the hell she was doing flying so high, or why no one had warned her.

Not that it mattered now. Bracing himself for an ugly sight, he landed approached her slowly. She didn't look like a bloody mess, which was surprising, but even Zelgadis himself wouldn't survive a fall from that high. "Damn it, I should have been quicker," he said to himself, assuming that the fall had killed her.

[OOC: I figured Lapis would react to someone walking up to her before Zel notices she's okay; let me know if you need an edit if he gets close enough to realize she's not dead/unconscious. Also Zel is covered in stone skin, including rocks on his face, though really not in a Gem-like way.]

The impact had ripped a trench through the earth . . . and Lapis lay at the end of it, silent and still. There was no blood, no shredding of skin or clothing . . . she lay on the earth much like a broken doll carelessly tossed in a heap. Her wings had vanished somewhere during the impact. They were nowhere to be seen.

By all rights, she should have been dead. But even as he moved towards her, she stirred. Shifted.

She was alive. Somehow, impossibly, alive.

((ooc: I'm Toph's player, so I used to play Amelia . . . so no worries about explaining Zel. ;) This could potentially be interesting. No edits needed -- I think I've made this work! Since she's just waking up, I doubt she's aware of him yet.))

[OOC: Awesome!]

That had to be the wind. Right? He assumed the woman wasn't human -- while the wings might have been a really unusual flight spell, blue skin wasn't generally a human trait -- but very little can survive a fall from that height. On his own world, without some kind of magic, it would have to be a mazoku, but Zel wasn't going to assume things played by his world's rules.

If she was alive, and conscious, he should offer to help. He has to think about it, because the sheer fact she doesn't appear to be hurt is a bit of a warning bell. He judged the lip of her impact site, seeing if more ground would collapse if he got too close. "Hey. You awake?"

Probably better not to startle her anyway. Her survival suggested she had some kind of power, and you didn't startle powerful... powerful whatever she was.

She stirred again at the sound of his voice. Inhaled. Twisted a little so that her face was upward towards the sky. She struggled to open her eyes and focus, dazed.

Then recognized that she was being spoken to. Eyes shooting open, she tried to scrabble to her feet.

It didn't quite work. She had power, yes, but the flight and the crash had taken something out of her. Her knees twitched, and she fell sharply back to the earth.

She stared up at him, wide-eyed, gaze flashing around the area for her next move.

Zelgadis held up his hands, in a gesture that he hoped looked like 'I am not making aggressive moves' and not 'I am casting a spell'. Maybe he shouldn't have worn his sword, but it was habit.

"I'm not interested in hurting you. I just saw you fall and wanted to know what happened."

He didn't move. Kept his distance. Raised his hands. In the end these actions were what held her in place. She was still tense, still braced . . . but the space between them, unviolated, allowed her to remain where she was.

Still she hesitated. For several moments, it might seem as though she wasn't going to answer at all -- or even that she hadn't understood.

"They told me I couldn't leave." Her voice was quiet, neutral. "I wanted to try it for myself."

His face . . . she couldn't think of other humans having that kind of face. Kedan? She wasn't sure.

Zelgadis nodded. There wasn't a solid barrier the way there used to be -- which was a shame, since it would solve this 'we will be underwater in a manner of months' thing -- but it seemed they were still bound to the Turtle. It scuttled his plans to leave. "Can you normally survive falls like that? Because even if you can, you could have hit something."

Could have . . . hit something?

This idea plainly wasn't one Lapis has considered, and it showed in her face as she stared back at him. She'd chosen the area because it had seemed more deserted . . . but that was a preference on her part rather than an open attempt to avoid striking anything.

Honestly, it wasn't something she'd had to think about much before.

"I wasn't expecting to fall. I was . . . hoping I wouldn't."

Open!

D

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