He kinda looks like a boat made of hate.

[wrathfulkhan]

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!

Comments

[annihilist]

Devin laughed quietly and shook his head. "Nor mine. You think you've got me figured out just because we've spent a little time chatting and you can see some invisible threads that no one else can? Really, the arrogance of that is astounding."

[wolfishflame]

"And you think you can throw everyone off from looking at you closely just because you act like an enormous asshole all the time? Really, the arrogance of that is astounding. As if a few harsh words are all it takes to make anyone who might actually give a shit leave you alone." She scoffed.

[annihilist]

To be fair, it usually worked.

"I am a bastard. I never claimed to be otherwise," he returned with a shrug. "You want to find something that isn't there, but if you feel like wasting your time, go ahead. Apparently, you have nothing better to do than fool yourself."

[wolfishflame]

"Never said you weren't, but the whole 'I'm-so-tough-and-cool-I-don't-need-anyone' act really wears thin, you know? I told you, I know a guy like you, and the more you talk, the more the two of you really show yourselves to be like peas in a pod." She shook her head. "You're not as unique as you like to think you are, and pushing people away doesn't help anything except leave you with nobody at your back in a fight." She flashed a grin at him. "And we both know you're smarter than that."

[annihilist]

The vampire breathed out in an irritated huff.

"You really have no idea who or what I am, Aly. And you will never know," he told her. He owed her something, but it wasn't information. She deserved better than someone like him. Devin pushed off the wall and began walking down the street. "I am not a replacement for whomever you've lost; stop trying to make me into one to assuage either your grief or your guilt," he threw over his shoulder at her.

[wolfishflame]

That stung, but Aly snorted and followed him anyway. "You're really just being a jerk for the point of being a jerk, you know," she said. "So no, you're not a 'replacement', because at least when sensei's an asshole, he's being an asshole for a reason. And since nobody's ever a dick just to be a dick, you're probably being an asshole for a reason, too."

She blinked. "Is it related to your little hanger-on in there?"

[annihilist]

"Your line of logic leaves something to be desired," Devin replied. Of course she followed him. "Why does it even matter? It's of no consequence to you, and you had best have a better answer than 'because I want to know' or 'because you saw my dream'."

[wolfishflame]

"It is of consequence to me, because for some stupid-ass reason I care about you, idiot. Someone's got to look out for your moody ass. I don't know if it's some part of what I am or what, but I am not going to let you keep yourself in shadows. And I mean that literally and metaphorically."

Then she paused. What the hell. "And you've got another one going off into the distance, to back home, I'm guessing. It looks...sick. Bad. You're unique, because I've never seen that before. Jesus, it hurts to look at."

[annihilist]

"That's not your decision to make."

Her description of the other line brings only one person to mind, and despite any reticence he had about explaining his past, he'd honestly prefer to discuss that one than the aspect.

"Maybe you should stop looking, then, if the very threads of my existence bother you so much," Devin said dryly.

[wolfishflame]

"Yes it is. Deal with it. You can't control what other people think and say and do, no matter how much you want to. You're not the Faerie Queen; you don't have that kind of influence."

She quickened her pace. "And it doesn't bother me. I'm fascinated. That's some seriously messed-up stuff there."

[annihilist]

"I could, but fortunately for you and everyone else, that's not a skill I'm willing to use." Binding was abhorrent.

He sighed quietly. "Story of my life, although 'messed up' is an incredible understatement."

[wolfishflame]

"Cool. If you use it, be advised that I'll kill you slowly," Aly said, far too cheerfully. Bad history? Bad history.

"This place seems to attract people with messed-up stuff going on," she noted. "But I guess a one-of-a-kind vampire with whatever you've got going on is going to have some crazy shit happening."

[annihilist]

"That would be the fitting punishment," Devin agreed. He didn't usually have time to kill vampires slowly, but sometimes he wanted to.

"It comes and goes, but when it rains it most definitely pours." There were sometimes long periods of quiet before chaos erupted, at least. "Do you have an actual question for me to dismiss, or are you just going to make commentary?"

[wolfishflame]

"Well, damn, if you're just going to dismiss any questions I ask, I may as well just provide commentary," she said. "Because getting fobbed off is more annoying than you realize. Tell me, are you being a total standoffish jerk on purpose just to maintain your oh-so-cool-mysterious-loner image, or are you actually just like this? I think I answered my own question there. It's option A. You may have a messed-up line, but you have a good one, too.

"So what's up? Why do you keep pushing people away when it makes more sense to make allies in a strange place?"

[annihilist]

That wasn't the image he meant to portray; mostly he wanted people to think of him as an asshole not worth the effort, because he was a terrible person and he knew it. Loner, sure. Mysterious, maybe. Cool, not so much. But that was besides the point.

"Allies are nothing more than targets for other people to shoot at. It's more collateral damage than I need, and more effort than I have time for."

[wolfishflame]

"Oh my God!" Aly said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "You complete idiot! Allies aren't targets, they keep you from becoming crispy barbecue! Hell, if I'd been on my own for any fight, I'd have been fishbait by now! You are honestly just trying to push people away because you think they're going to get hurt, aren't you? Well I've got a newsflash for you, Walter Cronkite: People. Get. Hurt. Anyway. It's just what happens when there's a war! And, funny enough, lone-wolfing it does nothing but make you vulnerable. You can't watch your own six unless you have eyes in the back of your stupid head, and you can't defend all your sides at once. Not from an onrushing army."

She folded her arms. "For all you accuse me of carrying guilt? I think you've got a fair bit of your own, bucko."

cw: body horror

[annihilist]

Oh, yes. He had guilt. More than made sense to him, in fact, but he considered it a fair trade for all the lives he had taken. The vampire looked faintly amused by her outburst, though his eyes were intensely cold.

"And yet, I've survived most of the past century entirely on my own. You're mortal, Aly. You can't understand, no matter how hard you might try. That line you're so fascinated by? The person on the other end of it would find and vivisect each and every person I might have occasion to associate with, much less care about. Slowly," he told her, his expression hardening. He stopped walking and stepped closer to Aly. "Because they would find it fun. They would peel your skin off your bones and keep you alive while they did it, and that's the least of their methods. And that's all before we get to the problem of my entire race wanting me dead if they knew about me, and all the violence they would inflict in an attempt to force me out. Think about that fate being repeated over the course of a millennia," he snarled. "Now, try telling me again how I'm an idiot and how doing my work on my own makes me vulnerable."

He stalked off without waiting for an answer.

cw: body horror

[wolfishflame]

Oh, hellll no he didn't. She was not going to let him have the last word here.

"I'm not fascinated by it!" She shouted, running to catch up as a few kedan turned their heads. "I hate it! And I'm not mortal! Not the way you think!" She ran in front of him, blocking his way, her hands on his hips. "You think I don't know what it's like to have people want to rip me apart and find out what makes me tick? You think they don't want to do that to everyone who fights at my side? That's not because they're my allies - that's because we dare to stand against them. We made them lose face, we disrespected them, and now they want to peel us like oranges and figure out why I won't die!"

She yanked her collar down angrily, revealing the thin, choker-like scar that encircled her neck. "They chopped my head clean off! Now that they know what I am and the land I keep, they want my heart on a platter, they want my sensei stuffed and mounted, and they want to pin my friends like butterflies on a card, and we don't give up because we're worried about the danger! It'd be so easy for everyone except me, sensei, and the Princeps to drop out, to throw everything down and say 'I'm done', but they risk life and limb and soul because they believe in something, they believe in us! They fight against the most sadistic fuckers in the planes because they want to save the planes, because if they give up, it's all over! All of it!"

[annihilist]

He could have side-stepped around her, but he halted and let her speak since it seemed as though he couldn't prevent her anyway. His expression didn't change as he listened.

From what he had seen before, Devin had assumed she led a life not so unlike his, and this just clarified in more detail what she'd been through. Fate or accident, whatever it was, had taken too much from her at too young an age. Really, no one ought to ever have to be under the thumb of evil, but life was never that simple. A normal person would find a way to comfort her, or to commiserate. Certainly, he felt sympathy and understanding. Maybe a little pride, too, for the fire in her and what she'd chosen to fight for.

None of that showed.

"You're the kind of person I'm fighting for, Aly. Because you're a far better person than I ever could be, and all I bring with me is death. And that's exactly why you need to leave me alone," Devin said quietly, sweeping past her.

[wolfishflame]

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" she grumbled, following him. "Is that really what this is all about? Some misplaced self-hatred and delusions of being the Grim Reaper? Is that why you act like an asshole to everyone all the time? I don't care about getting killed, because I'm stupid, this thing makes me stupid, and I wish to all the gods I've met that I gave a shit about my own life compared to others', but I really don't. I'm not gonna seek it out, but I'll take a bullet for my friends," she said. "Not because I hate myself, but because I love everyone else."

Then she paused. "Oh, Zeus on toast, you're like that too, aren't you? You hate yourself and you see the good in everyone else."

[annihilist]

He was so, so tempted to start laughing, to pretend the whole thing was a ruse to get Aly to expose her vulnerable spots, to bring down her shield. Devin wasn't generally concerned with his own well-being, but he had the feeling that if he went down that road, she would set him ablaze. Even if Foreigners were brought back to life here, that wasn't an experience he particularly wanted to go through.

There was a single laugh, but it was hollow. "It's far simpler than that, and far more complicated." Beat. "What 'thing'?"

Devin is correct. She would have shoryuken'd him.

[wolfishflame]

She rolled her eyes. "Be more cryptic, would you?"

Then, Ah, shit. She hadn't meant to let that slip. She laughed just as hollowly, just the once, and conjured up a fireball, no bigger than a quarter, dancing from fingertip to fingertip on her right hand. The fire was bloodred. "I suppose you think this is normal, do you? For someone who only read about magic in storybooks and didn't think it could be at all real until six months ago, for someone who's normally frightened to death of fire because I know how horrifying it can be?"

[annihilist]

"Well, since you've asked," he conceded coolly. He could take sarcasm as genuine if he felt like it.

Devin's eyes followed the tiny ball of fire with interest rather than fear. He has no great love of flames, but he was not much more afraid of it than anything else. He just didn't like it anywhere near his body.

"No, I didn't assume it to be 'normal'. I assumed it to be who you are," he remarked placidly. "It's beyond just a pyrokinetic ability, then," Devin surmised. "It's altered your personality."