I have hover jets, therefore I hover jet around my problems.

[wrathfulkhan]

Characters: Gene, Jackie, Alex, Miles, Aly, and YOOOOUU!!
Date: All of May
Location: Keeliai et al
Situation: The lusty month of May~
Warnings/Rating: Will be added as necessary.

A. [Gene] | throughout Keeliai | throughout April | open
Well, here's something odd. As usual, Gene's looking pensive, but he's actually striking up chats with people. Maybe it's because of his role in the new Justice and Arbitration Guild, and maybe it's because he's trying to take over half the work from Bakura at the Dojo after he attacked that kedan. There are some dark circles under his eyes, but he appears to be in decent spirits.

B. [Jackie] | the Golden Koi | throughout May | open
Time to move! Yes, Jackie's moving out of the Hotel and into his own little place. There's an apartment above the Koi which is much more convenient...and it keeps him from having to walk home in the dark, which still bothers him. He knows that he's shown up after his death - what's to say Mr. Tong won't, too?

So he's moving his meager possessions and getting some basic furniture along with tending bar less frequently than he usually does. Come say hi!

C. [Alex] | Water Sector | throughout May | open
Alex may be part of the Foreigners Guild now, but that doesn't mean he's not involved with the city. On the contrary. He's more than willing to talk to the kedan, joke with them, and haggle. He spends a lot of time in the Water Sector; it reminds him of what he considers home, in a way. He'd spent a lot of time in the Far East, after all, and while Keeliai as a whole reminded him of it, the Water Sector did most of all.

He seems happy. This is weird.

D. [Miles] | throughout Keeliai | throughout May | open
Miles, in the meantime, is all business. Since his scary death machine had been activated because of the Dust contamination, he has a bone to pick with the cultists. Several bones, in fact. All 206 bones in the human body, or however many the kedan who're in the cult have at the time when he gets a hold of them.

Basically, while he doesn't really want to go full Walrider on them, he won't shed any tears if he does.

He's hunting around for clues, anything he can find, asking anyone who might know anything. Good job putting a target on your back, dummy. Stupid hamartia.

E. [Aly] | Metal Sector | throughout May | open
At least the Metal Sector is somewhat familiar. It reminds her of cities back home, almost, or Linali. She can almost pretend that she's Otherside instead of stuck here. Almost.

She's fidgeting with the ring on her hand, walking around and window-shopping. She's obviously quite new.

F. [Aly] | Earth Sector/Wood Sector | early May | open
Of course, there's more than one way to get the lay of the land, and that's from the air. Sort of. She can't transform into anything that flies, and she can't fly on her own, but she's taught herself how to parkour, sort of, and on a good day she can do a wuxia wire-leap that looks impossible. She just has to believe in herself hard enough.

If anyone's around at night, she can be seen walking and running around on the roofs of the Earth Sector, or climbing trees in the Wood Sector.

G. [Aly] | the Dreaming | May 6 | open
Though she's been here about a month, she doesn't like it here. She misses home. Home, not home. She misses the forest, she misses her dark and enormous trees, the way the crimson leaves carpet the ground and muffle every step, she misses the land spirit...

The land spirit.

It didn't work last time she tried, but she twirls her wrist and pulls.

She's yanked away, and...there she is. The forest. The wolf's forest. Her forest. Home.

"Sensei?" she calls out. There's no answer. "Sensei?"

That doesn't make sense. He's always here. He doesn't leave. He never leaves. It's his realm, it's his place. Why isn't he here?

She walks up to the big flat rock on one side of the clearing, what she thinks of as the plinth, where he usually is, and feels it for warmth. There's nothing. He's not here. He's gone. Something happened, and he's gone.

The stone feels different, too - unusual, dead. Like the land spirit's abandoned it, too. She casts about, but her line is gone. There's no connection. There's no land spirit. The simurgh is gone. They're all gone. They're gone, and she's alone.

She lies down on the rock - the dead rock, the cold rock, the lonely rock - and starts to cry.

---

Hit me up at Chatvert if you want another starter!

Comments

D

[commandandcontrol]

"Miles, was it?" Sonja asked. "Nice to meet you, I'm Sonja."

He'd found her at the hotel, where she was covering reception. Someone or other had pointed him in her direction.

"How much have you already uncovered about Dust. I know a little, but not much more than some other people have already uncovered."

[upshore]

Miles spent a lot of time at the Hotel recovering - it was the only place he felt even marginally safe, especially after the Dust incident. The Healers Guild was right out. Too much like a hospital, too much like Mount Massive.

"Not much," he said, sounding a little grumpy. "People don't really like talking about it." Understatement, Miles.

[commandandcontrol]

"Well, I know that it's a pretty common drug that's relatively easy to make, but then the cultists do something special to it to turn it into Red Mist, something we don't really know how it works. It destabilizes it and makes it much worse for a few days before it becomes inactive again."

She smiled, kind of just observing his demeanor. "Any particular reason you're asking?"

B.

[unetrustworthy]

Midii didn't often venture to the Koi because...well...no offense to Jackie, but she had very little reason to. Even at sixteen, she had very little interest in alcohol or drinking, even if she were considered old enough.

It was by chance, mainly, that she saw him. Their paths crossed as she was on her way to one of her studies, early because she'd had only one delivery to make that day in the morning and had the time. Aside from the usual joy that came with coming across a familiar face, Midii's curious was heightened when she noticed the amount of items he was carrying. It didn't take long to make a guess as to why:

"Moving?"

[jinzhong]

Oh! This was a nice surprise. He hadn't seen her in quite some time.

"Oh, hey, Midii!" he said with a grin. "Yeah, I'm moving, how did you guess?" That made him laugh, and he shifted some of the items in his arms.

[unetrustworthy]

"The extra baggage was a pretty big clue." She responded in such a tone that made it difficult to tell whether or not she was joking. "What made you finally decide to leave the Hotel too?"

She had few ill feelings toward her former residence, but even fewer regrets over having moved out and into her own small apartment in Fire some time back.

A

[looksfine]

Aya, too, seemed a little...different, as of late.

The change was subtle, and only notable to those who'd known the robot for a while. She seemed happy as ever, with a pleasant smile on her face and her eyes shining with a perpetual curiosity of the ongoings around her. The recent shift in local structure to a Guild system was not difficult for her to adjust to, and her subsequent affiliation with the Board of Sciences seemed a natural transition from her ongoing position at Stark Industries. Yet even that wouldn't have been enough to explain the strange, bluish-tint to her usually vibrant, green construct complexion.

It came and went, sometimes in flickers, sometimes lasting for several seconds at a time. Enough that it might otherwise have been blamed on a trick of the light, were it not for the fact that it happened twice in the few seconds it took for Aya to spot Gene on the streets of Keelai, give a nod of her head in greeting, and walk over to him.

"Hello, Gene. You appear well."

She processed the chance in coloration around his eyes, but did not yet possess enough information to accurately comment on it.

[wrathfulkhan]

It wasn't usual for Gene and Aya to cross paths, but whenever he did, it was always interesting. He smiled when she walked up. "Aya. Hello." He wouldn't argue the point - people not catching on that he was basically holding himself together with caffeine and stubbornness right now was a good thing. He'd been able to run a criminal empire and keep his grades up at high school, so why was his ability to do things slipping? Maybe because he'd never tried to run a business before, and maybe because he was neck-deep in a lot of emotional turmoil that mostly wasn't even his own. He was not well-equipped to deal with other people's emotions. He was barely well-equipped enough to deal with his own.

"Thank you. You do, too - is there any reason for the blue flashes? Some new fashion you're trying out?"

[looksfine]

When he mentioned the flashes, her expression turned to one of confusion. As if she did not immediately recognize what he meant.

"...blue?" She glanced down at herself, inspecting her arms and torso, and for the moment, only saw green. "I am...still flickering?"

G

[choiced]

It's been a while since Zelos properly slept, but he still remembers how dreaming in Keeliai feels oddly real. And when Raine demands that he get a good night's rest right where she can see him, Zelos experiences that feeling again, nodding off in Raine's living room. One moment he's trying to remember how sleeping works, and the next he's walking through a forest of thick tree trunks.

He knows he's dreaming. It has that feeling of odd surrealism to it. But it feels real, too. It feels like actions still have consequences. Which wouldn't be a problem, since nothing's happening, except that all of a sudden something does abruptly happen -- Zelos can hear someone crying.

He stops, like he's just registered a threat. Crying?

"Hello?" he calls out, for a lack of any better choice. "Who's there? Uh... everything okay?"

[wolfishflame]

Noise.

There shouldn't be noise here. There shouldn't be anyone here. There's a very specific guest list for the forest in general, and for this part of the woods, the guest list is limited to two people, one of whom is definitely absent.

She leaps to her feet, drawing her mace. "Show yourself!" she yells, trying to hide the hitch in her voice.

C.

[protivvyter]

The thing about haggling is you had to be prepared to walk away. Something Bucky had learned in Europe. He smirks to himself when the kedan calls him back and settles down to really haggle.

He takes the one glove, and the shirt, without losing too much money to scalping the foreigner. He turns. "Alex, good to see you." He says, tucking his glove into his pocket.

[saintoflangley]

Ah, there's a familiar face, and a familiar lack-of-arm.

Alex grins. "See, now you're getting the hang of it."

B.

[bostonhowler]

Brigid's strength really comes in handy when moving furniture. She shoves Jackie's new couch into position. It's a simple thing for her to do it. But she tries not to make it look too easy. Preserving male pride and all that.

"What's left to move in?" She asks.

[jinzhong]

Hey, he's not too proud. He knows his lady is Strong, and if she wants to show that off, more power to her. Literally.

"Um, a couple books and some random stuff, I guess." Yeah, he's read a book, try not to faint.

A

[lasergrenades]

The dojo's become like a second home to Pepper, and though attendance has dropped in the wake of Bakura's Dust-fueled assault, she's still going three or four days a week. It's steadying for her, even though Bakura is behind bars and Valdis-- well, she's not sure what is going on there, except that it hurts to think about.

Helping out at the dojo gives her something else to focus on, and at the end of the day she's sitting on one of the benches, checking over the weapons - perhaps even those that don't need checking, just to occupy her hands. It's always been a meditative sort of practice, and Bakura would be even more irritable if he came home and found out that the various staves and blades hadn't been properly taken care of.

[wrathfulkhan]

At least Gene's not totally on his own here, which is a bit of a relief. He's still leading classes, but he's also trying to take care of most of the other daily tasks of running the Dojo. On top of his job with the KPD as Deputy Chief and liaising with the Guild, it's starting to take a toll. Which is personally irritating. How was this any different from running the Tong and maintaining his schoolwork and looking for the Makluan rings all at the same time?

Oh, right, because he is now neck-deep in other people's emotional issues, including his own, and that's like adding quicksand and cement and the La Brea tar pits into the mix.

Time to start with source one: Pepper. And boy, what a source. He walks up one evening once everything's shut down for the night and picks up a practice blade to oil. "Juulan for your thoughts?"

D

[lasergrenades]

After the whole Walrider incident, Pepper has been worried. Well, she has a lot of worries right now, but Miles is on the list, mostly because he seemed terrified the entire time he wasn't a nanite killing machine.

She just keeps an eye out for him, hoping to bump into him somewhere like she's managed a few times before, but that doesn't produce results. Eventually, Pepper decides to seek him out. It's not too difficult - apparently he's left a trail of breadcrumbs in the form of sleuthing.

"I can't tell if you're just super focused on finding cultists, or if you're avoiding me. Or both," she says when she finally finds him. "I guess it could be both, those aren't really mutually exclusive, huh."

[upshore]

Oh, Christ on skates, Pepper, don't sneak up on him. His shoulders tense before he realizes who it is, and he turns around with a face like a kid caught with both hands in the cookie jar.

"Oh. Uh. Sorry," he says, as if that makes it any better. "Both, I guess, kinda. I'm...yeah, I don't really know how to apologize for all of...that," he says, and waves his hands to indicate a nanite death cloud. "I wish I could say 'that isn't me', but I guess it is, now."

He sighs, still looking guilty. "I'm really not good at coming up with apologies, am I?" he asks ruefully. "Especially not when I'm put on the spot."

B

[annihilist]

Bars are always a good place to get the feel of a city and its occupants, as well as pick up on useful information that someone might not want overheard and think won't be. It's something of a habit for Devin to scope those places out, and a bar owned by a Foreigner is worth noting.

It's not quite evening when he arrives and settles atop one of the stools, studying the bottles behind the counter with interest. New world, new alcohol.

[jinzhong]

Jackie doesn't recognize the guy who sits down at first - one of the new Foreigners, maybe - before it hits him.

Oh yeah. That vampire.

At least he'd seemed...friendly?...enough...? "Hey, man, what can I get you?" he asks, keeping cool. He's dealt with shapeshifting police chiefs and literal chaos death demons. He can totally handle a vampire.

Unless he asks for a Bloody Mary. Jackie doesn't have any blood aside from his own. Yikes.

G

[annihilist]

Most of the time when Devin has vivid dreams, they're nightmares - replaying what he's done over the course of his life, compounded and highly realistic. This-- this is realistic, but not familiar. Dreaming has certainly been stranger since coming to Keeliai.

He wanders for a little while through the leaves, here and there brushing his fingertips against the birch trees, confused. Peaceful dreams are an anomaly for him. Despite the way the leaves muffle the sound of his movements, Devin hears something-- no, someone. Quietly, the vampire follows the sound, in hopes of finding the person it's coming from.

Some distance away still, he can see a young woman sitting on a rock. Devin stops and leans against one of the trees, remaining silent. He's looking in her direction, but not directly at her; present, but not watching, just to see what happens.

G

[wolfishflame]

The land spirit is gone, or not talking to her, or something - her connection is gone, which makes no sense, because otherwise how could she have ended up here?

Eventually she gets off of the rock, tear tracks down her face, and goes to sit down on the leaves. She puts her hands on the ground.

"Why aren't you talking to me?" she asks, her voice hitching. "What did I do?!"

If the connection's been broken somehow...there's a way to fix it. That is, if it'll work like it did the first time. If what sensei told her had been all of it, she knew what to do.

She draws her belt knife and slices a line across her left palm.

D.

[celticromanstone]

Heather had had one hell of a shift at the Guild. She wants to pour herself a very nice glass of wine, and then crawl into a hot bath, and boil herself for a week.

She yawns and stumbles, tripping over her own feet. She's too tired for this. Thank the gods, she's not working her other job tonight. Sighing, she turns a corner and nearly runs into Miles. "Darling, as much as I would enjoy you on top of me, not in the middle of the street. Exhibitionism isn't one of my kinks."

[upshore]

Miles is just minding his own business, walking down the street, as you do, when he turns a corner and aaa sudden Heather. He tenses, and his skin prickles, but he squashes that quickly before he even realizes who it is.

"Not one of mine, either," he says, laughing and hoping that it doesn't sound a little forced. "You okay? You look like you need six gallons of coffee and/or a power nap. And no, the two aren't mutually exclusive." Take it from him.