tushanshu_logs | He kinda looks like a boat made of hate.

Entry tags:

He kinda looks like a boat made of hate.

Characters: Gene, Jackie, Alex, Miles, Aly, and YOOOOUU!!
Date: July
Location: Keeliai et al
Situation: Everything. All the things. All of them.
Warnings/Rating: Will be added as necessary.

A. [Gene] | throughout Keeliai | throughout July | open
Gene has decided to take it upon himself to be Public Relations for the KPD in the aftermath of the cultist attack. Why? Because he has no regard for his own sanity. He can be seen talking to kedan; some of them at least respect that he's in the Guild of Justice and Arbitration.

Someone please come save him from his own bad decisions.

B. [Jackie] | the Golden Koi | throughout July | open
Jackie's trying to run the Koi as best he can these days. He's still sad - his heart hurts because Brigid is gone - but he knows he has to press on. People leave here, and sometimes they come back, but he's not going to count on it.

C. [Alex] | Water Sector | throughout July | 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.

They'd always called him bright and diplomatic, and honestly, the Foreigners could use a shot in the arm of diplomacy right now.

Of course, he's not without his own agenda. The cultist attack had been terrible, but it had also taught him some things about their tactics and their motivations (even if the culprits had had nothing of use to say). He's making careful note of everything everyone says, every little twitch and turn of phrase, looking for something incriminating.

D. [Miles] | throughout Keeliai | throughout July | open
Hell. Goddamn. Fire.

Going home had maybe been the worst choice Miles could have made, and he'd made more than his fair share of shitty choices. Because now? Now he was truly a human-shaped abomination of science. And even more of a murderer than he had been, to boot. So he's trying to look chipper - overly so. In fact, it's downright unusual, considering how single-minded he'd been about the cultists before. Now it's obvious that he has something else entirely on his mind.

E. [Aly] | throughout Keeliai | throughout July | open
Aly, meanwhile, has been taking to Keeliai like a fish to water (pardon). She's in a place where things stay put so she's going to keep learning the city. It's been a few months, but that doesn't mean she's going to stop scouring the area...and maybe climbing things she shouldn't.

F. [Gene] | House Spicy Iron Dragon | July 10 | closed to Tony
Once again, Gene's on the roof.

He was glad he'd made it easily-accessible; it was a quiet spot for him to think, and it also let him be alone. Him being on the roof was a sort of signal for that, that he needed to clear his mind. But sometimes it also meant that he needed to talk and wasn't sure how. As usual, he'd be the last one to know which one of those it was.

G. [Aly] | Fire Sector | July 7 | closed to Valdis
Aly's on a building. She likes to be tall.

Also, it kind of makes her feel like Batman, especially in the middle of the night when things are lit only by the fire fountains. She doesn't crouch, cowled like the man-bat, but sits on the corner of a roof, her foot dangling, watching people walk by.

H. [Gene] | Healers' Guild | July 3 | closed to Raine
This ka thing wouldn't get off of his mind, so Gene figured he'd consult someone else about it. He knew for sure that Raine had one, so when he has the time, he goes to the Guild, requests to speak to her, and waits, suddenly nervous. Pepper might soften what she says to him out of affection, but Raine will tell him things bluntly.

Hit me up at

Chatvert if you want another starter!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aly isn't the only one who's getting to know Keeliai. Devin is largely moving systematically to build his mental maps of the place, but occasionally he'll deviate. Still, most of the time he's in either Metal or Wood Sector throughout the month.

He doesn't spot Aly immediately from where he's leaning against the corner of a building, taking notes in a small journal and studying the people walking by.

Metal Sector's where Aly likes to spend a lot of her time; the energy tastes different there, she can't really explain it. It reminds her of home, the place she was born, not the one she was pulled from.

When she sees Gerard ahead of her, she almost wants to flick a fireball at him. But he'd get pissy, so she walks up to him instead.

"Hey."

Devin doesn't look up when Aly approaches, his gaze tracing over the architecture of the building opposite. He was adding more detail to his knowledge of the city now, including taking down a few sketches of particular locations.

"What do you want?" he asked after a moment to scribble down a note.

"A conversation where you don't condescend to me for once," she said and leaned against the wall next to him. "But I'll settle for a friendly one." She peeked at his notes. "Got a talent for the sketching."

"Best to set your expectations rather low," Devin warned her. "I believe I told you my opinion on being 'friends.'"

A beat, and then he tapped the pen against the journal page. "It's practice, not talent. I've lived long enough to pick up a thing or two that doesn't directly involve violence."

"Honeychild, you should know that friendship is magic," she said, examining her fingernails.

Then she looked at the page. "Huh. Well, I guess when you're immortal you have a lot of time to kill. Pun not really intended, I guess."

"If you'd like me to stop being condescending some day, stop calling me by pet names," he scoffed.

Devin folded the notebook closed, tucking the pen into the spine. "Unfortunately, yes. Although I still have little time for hobbies. This is all just part of a process," he said, gesturing to the building with the notebook.

"I'll stop calling you nicknames when it stops rustling your jimmies," Aly shot back. "So what's the process? You doing an architecture study?"

"Well, then, I suppose we're at an impasse."

There wasn't much to be lost by telling her more, other than encouraging her to hang around. It seemed like she was going to do that regardless. "I'm making note of buildings that can potentially be used as shortcuts or the like. Streets and alleys are terribly limiting when you're on the run, as important as they are to learn."

"Hm." She nodded approvingly. "I've been doing something similar. Sorta. Spending nights up high and practicing."

Practicing what? Parkour, mostly, and also not falling off of things.

"Most people forget to think of cities in three dimensions." He glanced up at the roof line. "What does 'practicing' entail, other than trespassing?"

Said the vampire who practically does so for a living.

"Yeah, well, not me. Failing to think in three dimensions is something that gets you killed more often than not." She resists the urge to stick her tongue out at him. "Getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible, 's what 'practicing' entails. Again, one of those things that can keep you from getting killed. But I'm sure you knew that."

"Intimately." So, rooftop traversal of some sort or another. "It's a strategy I've used against others with some frequency. People tend to get sloppy when they think they're untouchable."

"Too right," she said, and nodded. "Though it works better if you can teleport, too...really throw people off that way."

She squinted at the building he'd been sketching before turning back to him, and squeaked. She'd turned her Sight on by squinting, entirely without meaning to, and he had some interesting lines going on. One extended into nothingness, and it was dark and tainted, like a tree branch rotting from within. It was jagged and cut the air around it and made her eyes water to see.

The other one, though, was far more intriguing. It looped back into him, like a little handle. She sneezed, and sneezed again. She'd never seen either of those before.

"You've got a thing," she said, wiping her streaming eyes.

"Teleportation is not among my many skills."

Devin raised an eyebrow at her, unsure why she'd made the noise and even more confused by the statement that followed.

"Care to elaborate on that unhelpful description?"

She waved a hand at him, in the general direction of his back. "Long story short, if I squint sometimes I can see, uh, links? People have important relationships connecting each other. And I can see them sometimes. And you? You've got a thing. Well, a couple, but the one I'm really interested in is the one that loops back around into you. It's silver and gold - only people with a deep soul connection have those. So either you love yourself a little too much, or..." She shrugged helplessly. "You've got a thing. Or another friend I don't know yet. Hello, friend."

It took effort to maintain keep his expression faintly bemused and not spooked. She'd have basically nothing to gain by making up the story (although he wouldn't put it past her), and the accuracy of the claims... he was not pleased.

Not again. Not another. Was there no escape here?

"I think you should get your sight checked, in that case," he said dismissively, appearing entirely unconcerned and holding her gaze. "I don't have a soul."

"Whatever, emo kid," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "Lines don't lie. You've got a soul, and you've got a friend in you, to paraphrase Randy Newman." She met his gaze just as intently. "And I've never seen that before. The silver and gold? Once. Two people destined to find each other, who are whole without each other but make each other something more when they're together. Lines. Don't. Lie."

He did have a soul, it just didn't currently reside in his body. Valdis had indicated she could see a connection to it, but that wasn't the same. In any case, Devin knew exactly what Aly was referring to. Before, having a hanger-on was vaguely amusing.

Now he genuinely wanted to be rid of her.

"I'm not like your special pair," he said as blandly as he could manage, and the corners of his mouth twitched up into another smirk. "Though I am a rare specimen among my kind. You should consider recalibrating your sight to a different reality. Lines may not lie, but the structure of the world might."

"No shit, Sherlock," Aly said with a snort. "Unless you love yourself a little too much, like I said. And it adjusts itself automatically across realities. This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy."

She grinned, then. "So you're rare, huh? Do tell."

He hated what he was, so it definitely wasn't the result of narcissism. This was going down a road he wanted to avoid. Perhaps Devin could send her off in the wrong direction.

"I was born, not turned, for one. And I don't enjoy harming humans. That particular deficiency led to the discovery another, which is that I don't heal like I should, were I normal. I scar," he elaborated, offering Aly a cold, sharp grin. "I'm the family disappointment."

"Neat," she said, "but none of that explains your little buddy. That something unique too, or do all vamps back where you come from have a copilot?"

Like a dog with a bone, this one. Har har.

"I don't have a 'copilot'," Devin replied blandly.

Copilot implied some shared measure of control. What he had was more akin to a passenger. He'll take the pedantic linguistic distinction.

"Little friendly symbiote, then," she said. "A spiritual tapeworm, but one that's like, really in there."

She stretched. "I know someone who's good at exorcisms, if you want a referral."

Devin snorted. Calling the aspect a spiritual tapeworm was about the only thing Aly's said that he's liked thus far.

"Please. Do you really think I wouldn't have tried that already if it were possible?"

The actions of a god couldn't be undone so lightly, if at all.

E

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