[OPEN] The sun just touched the morning...

[wintershepherd]

Characters: Bakura / Elizabeth / Jack + YOU
Date: April
Location: Jade Dojo; Midnight Hotel; Welcome Center; others
Situation: Catch all
Warnings/Rating: N/A


A. BAKURA - Jade Dojo (Wood Sector)

With the weather steadily improving, especially with the rain tapering off to only being intermittent, Bakura's preference for being outside was showing itself more often. It wasn't unusual to find him sitting on the wooden-planked veranda that ran around the perimeter of the building. Sometimes he appeared to be asleep, leaning up against one of the vertical columns with his eyes closed in a patch of sunlight, and other times he was reading through a book (slowly, but determinedly) written in one of the more popular kedanese dialects.

(Almost never did he give off the impression that he was the Dojo's owner. The fact that more than one person stopped to warn him that the Dojo's aforementioned owner disliked loitering and that Bakura would likely get in trouble for it was an endless source of amusement for him.)

B. BAKURA + DIABOUND - Outside Keeliai

Although Diabound had arrived in his initial small form, Bakura knew the ka was capable of much more. While there wasn't any immediate need for Diabound to shift to a more battle-capable state at the moment, the thief also didn't want to wait until a situation arose where such a thing was needed to discover whether it was possible.

He'd moved well outside the city's walled border for this, keeping away from the bustle of the farming fields to an area that was rocky and therefore not under agricultural development, but still within sight of the wall. Diabound coiled in front of him, watching with evident amusement as Bakura pondered how to initiate some kind of transformation for the ka.

C. ELIZABETH - Any Sector

She normally woke early, both out of habit and because she liked to get an early start on her day's deliveries for the Hotel. But for some reason, she'd slept in hours later than normal, and at midday she was rushing around trying to get things organized.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, almost bowling someone over as she exited one of her regular delivery stores. "I'm sorry, that was my fault. Are you all right?"

D. ELIZABETH - House Spicy Iron Dragon (Sky); closed to PEPPER

The redhead had offered to demonstrate a type of magic that Elizabeth had never heard of (she'd technically only heard of any magic in stories, such fanciful things just weren't real at home) but the way she'd described this variant seemed absolutely fascinating. Things had gotten pushed back slightly due to things in the city which had taken precedence.

Having been given the address in the Sky Sector, Elizabeth arrives on the designated morning and knocks energetically at their front door. "Good morning, Pepper!"

E. JACK - Any Sector

This whole Guilds thing... well, he'd been here during Eshai's rule, and for Evandau's... while he'd missed the three Families taking over, he couldn't figure that dispersing the authority in the city across more of its population could be bad. But he did want to get people's opinions of it on a more personal level as opposed to just the public front people might feel obligated to show.

So he might bring it up in casual conversation, sometimes smoothly segued too (sometimes not): "Hey... any thoughts on this Guild thing yet?"

F. JACK - Rooftops - closed to DANNY;

He didn't actually need sleep -- and he tended to dispense with it when he was busy or simply absent-minded. Or, in the case of this evening, when he just had too much on his mind and needed something to occupy him while he puzzled it out.

He didn't usually have to worry about much in the way of air traffic, so he was not expecting to almost collide with someone midair. "Whoa! Sorry there..."

G. JACK - Keeliai - closed to ZATANNA;

The first few days back had felt... not awkward, but if the intervening 15 months had been less a measure of time and more a measure of separation. It was worse, Jack thought, that he hadn't come back with the same span of time. Even if he'd gone back to his world, and lost the memories of being in Keeliai (a thought which filled him with no less dread than it had prior), at least he would have been able to better process that gap.

Instead, he'd lost the time in what felt like the span between two non-existent heartbeats, and the difference was altogether more startling in its suddenness.

Zatanna kept assuring him it was all right. Once the initial shock had passed, of course.

Today, they were going to hit the city together, getting reacquainted with it as with themselves.

Z. WILDCARD

Hit me with anything that doesn't fit in the above starters!

Comments

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene's eyes flicked to the ground as though he'd been chastised, and for a moment he thought about arguing. But Bakura was right. He didn't kill those people. The only person he'd killed during that mess was the Overlord's son, in a fit of rage. It didn't mean the feeling of guilt left his shoulders, because he was still responsible for those deaths during the invasion, but...who do you blame for a murder? The murderer, or the man who sold him the weapon? Both are responsible to some degree, but only one is guilty.

"You're right, I suppose."

[denyamenti]

Were it not a topic like this one, Bakura would have quipped something in response to that. Instead, after a moment of contemplative silence, he offered with surprising benignancy, "I'm glad that you got to see her again, Gene. For however short a time it was."

HOW! DARE! YOU!

[wrathfulkhan]

That was completely unexpected. Gene was taken aback both by the sentiment and by the use of his first name. He didn't think he'd ever heard Bakura use it before.

"...thank you. I'm glad, too."

SORRY! NOT! SORRY!

[denyamenti]

"I guess this makes it my turn to buy you a drink, right?" he asked lightly. "Unless you wanted to share anything without such liberal prompting."

[wrathfulkhan]

That startled a laugh out of Gene. "Sure," he said. "If you like."

He glanced at Diabound. "I'm still not used to seeing him. It seems so incongruous."

Subject officially changed.

[denyamenti]

"You and I both," Bakura answered. "He surprised the Priests too, back then. Confused the hell out of them, in fact. They couldn't figure out how a thief had a 'good' ka."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene tilted his head, a little confused. "It's supposed to be that black-and-white, then? A ka is either 'good' or 'bad'?"

Oh, boy.

[denyamenti]

He laughed, though the sound was sharp and not entirely humourous. "No, but they would have liked to believe that it was. That was the lie they told everyone, so regular people wouldn't fear the kaa beasts they used to enforce their new justice."

And then, as if picking up on the underlying concern, he added, "We both know things are rarely so simple, hebnay. Don't get nervous now."

[wrathfulkhan]

He shook his head. "Of course. To instill order and make everyone follow their whims." He sounded disgusted.

"Nervous?" Of course, when someone repeats that, they're nervous. "Why would I be nervous?"

[denyamenti]

"That's a good question, but if you were vibrating any more overtly, you'd be making instrumental sounds," the thief answered slyly.

[wrathfulkhan]

Wow, Bakura. Rude.

Gene made a bit of a face. "All right. So why do you think I'm nervous, then?"