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Post by MP on Dec 11, 2018 9:52:21 GMT -6
Sarkany was slow to answer. He was staring past the feline, out at an empty patch of ferns, watching the bird-thin figure as if unsure if it was there. He was almost positive it wasn’t. But She reacted sometimes. To his moods. To his thoughts. He compared Her to the surroundings, looking for a discrepancy. Right now She was keeping watch on the other side of the clearing, reacting to his alert state as She had always done. But She wasn’t there. Or, he wasn’t. It was hard to tell. They’d been doing something important. Standing watch - no, cooking. And then standing watch.
The seraph blinked, his eyes clearing. No more than a second’s delay, all told. Sometimes you had to guess. This time he chose the staring feline and her more recent question. He was sure it was more recent.
“Not much of a blood-eater, but I’ll have a taste,” he said, reaching for a cube of the stuff.
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Post by jarahamee on Dec 13, 2018 1:31:12 GMT -6
Ru reached down to pick it up, and placed it in his mouth. What a strange balance this was. He wondered if it would work. Too solid, not human enough...it wouldn't work, but this seemed like it might. It felt strangely good going down, and he could swear he felt himself grow stronger after taking it in. And his hunger slipped away, just a little bit.
He reached down and took another, placing it in his mouth immediately, resisting the urge to pack all the rest in too. There was something so... irresistible about it. It was delicious. Beyond delicious, it had a sating quality he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was sating, perfect, tasty beyond what he could have hoped to expect, and it pleased him.
"...This..this is good. I could live with this."
He noticed the other two seemed alert and a little distracted, and cleared his throat.
"...You know, sometimes I wonder about what I would do if I was an Master Vampire. I think I would make an enclave where vampires can live and feel safe from everyone if they want to be peaceful."
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Post by tsukikoko on Jan 18, 2019 17:54:08 GMT -6
The positive reaction to her food made Viktoria's ears and the corners of her mouth rise just a touch. She glanced aside for a half second, silently and subtly pleased, before returning her attention to the meat on a spit. She took more direct and long-term control over it now, rotating the meat slowly and constantly to get an even spread of heat across the carcass.
Ru cleared his throat and her ear twitched in his direction, but the feline's eyes flickered once, twice, in Sarkany's direction, even as she listened to the vampire. Her friend was distracted, in a way she had seen a few times in the course of her knowing him. It was often at these times, he would speak of people she did not know and were pretty sure no longer existed, as though they were in front of him. First, however, she responded to Ru, "Iz ah, good idea... potentially. Vould hyave to zink, ah vherrre iz zis, ah.. enclave iz located, da? Vant to be safe, but ah.. hyow you arre doing zis peacefully if ah, ozerrrs not agrrree vith you?" Another small lift of her shoulder. "Iz just perrhyaps somezing to, ah, keep in hyead, da?"
A casual sweep of the area, as though to do nothing more than look around at the landscape. Then, Viktoria's gaze settled on the meat, but her words addressed the seraph in their little group. "Sarrrkany. You arrre knowing, ah, vhen zis iz? Vhen is... now, da?"
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Post by MP on Jan 20, 2019 2:09:09 GMT -6
Sarkany's focus seemed all on the little cube of blood as he popped it into his mouth. His gaze was distant, considering the taste. It was like eating sauce without a base, but the texture was very pleasant. He ignored the watchful figure, and after a little while it faded into the backdrop of the forest. A presence. But only peripheral. It was - not a bad day yet - but a shaky one. He ought to retire soon.
"Well enough," he answered Viktoria calmly, and nodded toward the remaining cubes. "It's very good."
It was the accent, he thought, that helped. Distinctive - a blend of heavy Russian and bestial tones. It was hard to mistake, even through his Ages of memory. A good grounding point to remember for next time.
As if the tangent had never happened at all, he glanced at Ru, continuing the former conversation in a tone of genuine praise.
"It sounds like a fine idea." Grand. Idealistic. He thought the vampire and the pup would have gotten along.
"But like she says, not everyone might agree. All claims are backed with power, hmm? Strength. Knowledge. Influence." A small shrug. "Money never hurt. Is this sanctuary something you could fight for? I think you'd have to, sooner or later."
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Post by jarahamee on Feb 3, 2019 14:57:17 GMT -6
Ru would have blushed if he could. Fight? Really? But what else had he expected in this life? Everything else that had to do with vampires was strength-based. Why had be thought that this would have been any different? Nothing would stop them from coming to him, and he had never been able to stop elder vampires before this. They had wiped the floor with him as easily as if he had been a human. Worse actually, since some humans had super powers.
He rubbed his neck with the back of his hand.
"I don't really have money or strength... But I would be willing to fight for it if I had to."
He looked at his arms. They were thin, and though he knew he had deceptively increased strength when he needed to, it was nothing like an elder vampire. They were so powerful, they might as well have been gods, and everyone else was nothing but pawns to them. No wonder they did not care of they happened to be sloppy now and again. He looked at Sarkany and Viktoria thoughtfully.
"I know...we have the capacity to become powerful. One of my older 'brothers' was not old, but learned a lot of fighting techniques and fed much more than he needed to. It made him very strong, not like an elder vampire, but... He tore our enemies like tissue paper before my eyes...and he could fly at great speed..."
His voice was soft, respectful even. This had been someone he had admired in at least some way or another.
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Post by tsukikoko on May 13, 2019 15:52:31 GMT -6
Though Viktoria was not looking directly at Ru, she caught the note of respect in his voice as he spoke of this brother. "Ah, but, as Sarrrkany iz.. ah, alrrready say, perrrhyaps iz not just physical strrength. Knowledge, influence... perrhyaps iz betterrr to hyave?" A glance at the vampire, a thoughtful look. "But.. best to hyave as vell. Frrrom experrience." The feline's musculature was one of her most defining features and more than once, her physical prowess had saved her team when words had failed them. The ability to survive multiple, severe wounds certainly went a lot of the way.
A few moments of silence passed, before Viktoria abruptly stilled. She didn't lift her head, or move from her position beside the fire, but there was a focused quiet to her now. One ear flickered first to the side, then backwards, tracking a sound. A rustle in the undergrowth? Just the wind through the trees?
No.
Giggling.
Soft, child-like, with a muffled quality that implied tiny hands over a small mouth. Viktoria thought back to the child by the river, was it the same one? Sarkany had earlier stated he had placed a haze on the route to this clearing, so she wondered how the person would have found their way here. If they were a person at all, mind.
"Sarrkany." She stated simply, one ear still cocked back in the direction of the tiny, indistinct sound. Her voice was low, simply a cue for him to take notice. She didn't want to turn around, give away that she knew they were there and her friend might be able to surreptitiously check for someone in the undergrowth.
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Post by MP on Jun 25, 2019 10:51:28 GMT -6
Sarkany tipped his head a little, catching the gentle noise.
“Don’t look at me,” he murmured, with a hint of a smile. “I’ve got the weakest senses of all of us.”
In spite of his words, he was scanning the forest within his view, as far as his hawk-like vision and his peripherals would allow. Like the feline, he didn’t look around. But his other senses - the Walker part of him - reached out, feeling the network of wards and warnings he’d placed around the area.
The forest was much too large to close off completely. Rather than attempt it, Sarkany had placed his defenses at key points. Blurring commands overlaid the man-made entrances, the side paths, the deer trails - all to make the obvious entrances unnoticeable and, if noticed, uninteresting. Alarm commands had been left on the covert ways in. That wasn’t so difficult. He’d examined the clearing through predator’s eyes. How would he approach to steal toward the prey unnoticed? This thicket? That series of trees? What route would he take if the wind turned? He left a token at such prime points - a loose stone, or a careful arrangement of branches. If these were disturbed, he would feel it. For the moment, his main concern was to check whether their little visitor had any unwelcome friends.
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Post by jarahamee on Jul 14, 2019 22:40:56 GMT -6
"Hey, who's there?"
Ru figured that if there was laughing, the kid, if it even was a kid, had found them already. He could probably think of excuses for most of this. Actually, all of this. They were filming a movie and none of this was real. There were props made of red jello and fruit punch. Either way, it was better to know now, rather than later on after all. Vik was an actor in a prosthetic suit... a really really good one. And if needed, she could switch back into her human disguise. It would be perfect.
The vampire stood bolt upright. His thoughts of a grander future were dispelled by his sudden realization that someone was out here watching them. He extended his senses out, looking for humans. He was good at picking them out...Them and ghosts really. He just had to focus. The vampire extended his hands, as if reading someone's fortune, reaching out, reaching out. He hoped to at least see an aura.
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Post by tsukikoko on Jul 20, 2019 6:19:49 GMT -6
At Ru's question, the giggling grew louder, yet still the owner did not show themselves. The sound was sweet and high-pitched, yet invoked qualities in the mind's eye that perhaps it should not be capable of; the rustling of wind through the leaves, or a stream trickling through rocks as it filters down the mountainside.
Since their awareness of the sound had been made known by the vampire in their group, Viktoria rose to her feet, ears swivelling and nostrils flaring. She caught scents, yes, but not what she would expect of a child. It was the damp, sickly scent of decaying leaf-litter, the subtle smell of warming tree bark in the sunshine. Not unusual, given their location. What was unusual was the strength and singular direction of these ever changing, yet related, odours. The feline's brow creased ever so slightly, her head tracking the scents as they seemed to move through the nearby undergrowth. Well, if they wouldn't show themselves, she would drag them out. The feline approached. Steady paces with musculature primed and ready to move or retaliate, claws slowly unsheathing from her fingertips.
It was only when she was only a pace or two from the foliage, that the owner of the giggle finally revealed themselves. The same child's face that she had seen from the river, swinging down from a tree in front of her face with a wide, excited grin. Viktoria's instinctive reaction was to lash out with her claws and her body twitched in a fashion that indicated she had been about to do just that.
But this wasn't the same child from Zramek. In fact, now they were so close, Viktoria wasn't sure they were even a child at all. Their skin had a vaguely bark-like texture, while their hair looked as though it were made more from grass than anything else. Her head tilted, curious, while her nostrils drew in a lungful of scent. Again, that strange mix of forest smells. One ear twitched.
The child creature dropped onto her head.
Viktoria was difficult a difficult person to spook or disquiet at the best of times, but even she would have reeled back a step at such an event. Her hands would have come up, she should have flung the unknown entity from where it now perched on her head and shoulders. Yet as soon as the creature touched her, every base, instinctive section of her brain told her 'this is not a threat'. As though it were little more than a leaf falling onto her. She simply turned towards her companions, raised an eyebrow ridge and looked more than a little confused as the child began to stroke one of her ears. It spoke, a tinkling, echoing sound not dissimilar to wind chimes. "Heehee, funny kitty."
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Post by MP on Jul 22, 2019 1:12:03 GMT -6
Sarkany drifted forward in Viktoria's wake, using the feline's bulk and stature to mask his own approach. His head tipped gently at the odd scents, the texture of its skin. His casual movements belied a predatory tension - a readiness to move with lightning and lethal intent. Like the feline, he was all too conscious of the last child encounter, and he was ready to support his packmate at the first sign of trouble.
Only, he could see from the set of her shoulders, from the personality in the set of her ears and in the weight of her step, that the creature's contact was not immediately hostile. More than that, he could feel the creature from here. There was a rightness to it - a symmetry with the weave around it that felt at home. It was as much a natural feature as the sky or sea, wild and ageless.
His shoulders relaxed a fraction. He even cracked a smile at the wind chime voice, and at the feline's bewildered look.
"It's a good look for you," he said, though a certain keenness lingered in his eyes. Natural beings often lacked the agendas of the developed world. But that didn't always mean they were harmless.
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Post by jarahamee on Jul 24, 2019 0:53:18 GMT -6
"Oh! Not a human child. H... Hi, I assume you are some kind of uh... fae? Or maybe a Nymph?"
He looked at the creature, uncertain. He did not need to read its aura. He was sure that it would appear exactly as he imagined; some kind of supernatural being beyond his power. And yet its keen and gentle interest in Vik was charming, to say the least. It clearly seemed to see her gentle-seeming nature from within somehow.
Or at least, wasn't afraid of the consequences of her actions.
Ru shuffled closer, clasping his hands together behind his back as he moved in to greet her. He bowed at the newcomer as a sign of respect. He hope she took it as such.
"I'm Ru, what's your name?"
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Post by tsukikoko on Jul 24, 2019 3:47:48 GMT -6
Viktoria huffed a breath in Sarkany's direction, the sound both amused and exasperated, only for her vision to be filled with the child creature's curious and friendly face. It had caught sight of her nostrils and how she could close them at will, causing it to giggle with innocent laughter. "Funny kitty! Why your nose like this? "Iz, ah.." Viktoria began to explain, only for a sudden inhale from the creature to stop her. "Not just kitty!" It squealed, before swinging around on her neck and dropping onto one of the feline's arms as though it belonged there. Viktoria curled her hand and bicep a little, creating a more stable seat for it, of sorts. It seemed enraptured by her teeth, though not afraid of them. "Also... bitey... fish?" Clearly, whatever this creature was, it didn't know the word 'shark'. But then, if one channelled the forest, as this child seemed to, why would they necessarily know anything of the sea?
Ru's questions drew the child's attention then and it spun in Viktoria's arm, legs crossed, 'eyebrows' drawn together. It's head tilted to the side. "Corpse speaks? Not corpse? Not dead, not alive? I don't think I like you." The brutal honesty made even Viktoria's eyebrow ridges bounce upwards in surprise. "Rrrrru iz okay. Just.. differrrent, but okay." Large, turbulent eyes, filled with both the waiting storm and the calm of a spring morning, turned to watch Viktoria. The child parsed her words, blinking slowly and if the feline didn't know any better, she'd have sworn it was looking down into her soul. The creature smiled a moment later and kissed her on the end of her muzzle, causing yet another look of confusion pass over her scarred face. "Okay!"
Apparently satisfied, the child turned back to Ru, placed both hands on the edge of Viktoria's forearms to anchor itself while it rocked back and forth. "I am not nymph. Nymphs live in me though, sometimes. Name is-" The sound that emerged after that, if it was even a sound at all and not something inside the listener's heads, was impossible to describe as words. It was splintering wood, the rustling of leaves, moving soil, cascading water. It was everything and nothing all at once. Completely incomprehensible.
While waiting for their responses, the child continued to rock, gaze shifting now to Sarkany. One hand rose, a finger pointed excitedly in his direction. "This one knows of you! Shape changer! Have felt you sometimes. Weird. Here but not, old but not, makes the air go WHOOSH. Fly without wings. I like change. Everything changes. You always change. I could play change too?" The child was so excited it was practically vibrating in Viktoria's arms.
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Post by MP on Jul 27, 2019 0:25:26 GMT -6
Sarkany inclined his head at the acknowledgement, and though he wore the usual superficial smile, there was a subtle and uncharacteristic level of respect to the gesture. He had no quarrel with the woods and the wild places, and it always paid to be pleasant to the local gods and spirits. “We’d love to play with you, mahmowe, but I doubt it will be much of a contest for you.” He waved a hand at their little circle. “There are barely six shapes between us, and we can’t use them as freely as you.”
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Post by jarahamee on Jul 27, 2019 0:47:52 GMT -6
Ru closed his eyes briefly, and then opened them again. He would have flushed if he could, but now he was physically unable to.
He had, rather rapidly, been insulted and rejected by this little forest creature. He was surprised, but he supposed he should be used to it by now. There was so much unpleasantness in the world that he had simply gotten used to, and this was part of it, he knew. The fae and forest creatures simply tended not to like him, and that was a fact of life. Pushing it too much caused one of their kind to lose their arm, and that was something he would simply have to accept.
"... Uh, I'll respect your wishes and um, get out of your way, if that's what you want, but I can do a few things. I can become a little bat or uh, even blend into the shadows. I wanted to try to become a wolf, but I'm not really good at it yet."
He seemed awkward explaining, but at least Viktoria seemed to know the little fae creature relatively well, and maybe they were some kind of friends. Or maybe Vik was just wonderful enough to inspire instantaneous fandom. He imagined it was so, from how she had been during this initial interaction.
Did Officer Telmore know her? He had the sense they might get along. He had never asked him personal questions, but the idea of him making friends... well, that would be nice for him. He was the gruff loner sort.
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Post by tsukikoko on Aug 27, 2019 15:40:57 GMT -6
At the gathered groups various comments, the woodland creature's bows drew together in thought. It hummed in consideration, even while preoccupied with moving Viktoria's lips around to get a better look at the fangs inside. Apparently, her shark features were completely fascinating to it. The feline neither said or did anything to stop it, taking the whole situation in her usual stoic fashion. But her eyes flickered in Sarkany's direction, wordlessly communicating her perplexion at being so fearlessly manhandled.
Out of seemingly nowhere, the child creature made a sudden squeal of delight, an idea having formed for how best to play this game of change. "Oh! I know, I know!" It cheered, bouncing in Viktoria's arms before spinning to face first Sarkany, then Ru. "Can help change! Be fun! Try new things!
With one ear tilted, Viktoria opened her mouth to ask what new things it meant, when the child leapt from her arms and settled itself in a nearby tree. She did even get a chance to speak, before the creature made two arching gestures with both hands and when Viktoria calculated the trajectory, realised it was gesturing between both herself and Sarkany. "Ah.. Vhat you arrre-?" The feline's words were cut short, as a thunderous sound filled the clearing; a landslide, the crackling of burning wood, accompanied by the scent of morning dew on fresh grass. She felt the strangest sensation; a trailing touch across her skin, the relaxation of knotted muscle and soothed aches from a great many old wounds. Before her eyes, a vision of a thousand flowers blooming in unison.
Sarkany experienced very similar, though for him it was the rush of wind and the tang of electrical storms that reached him.
The first Viktoria knew of the change was when she blinked and the world looked different. Trees were far too low, or was she too tall? Her muscles did not feel her own, she could feel the ground beneath every limb... How many limbs did she have? Something crashed in the undergrowth behind. Her head swung around, too long and unwieldy, to find a tail not overly dissimilar to Sarkany's and a body that was most certainly *not* her own but was most definitely connected to her brain. Another glance around, an effort to make sense of it all and Viktoria found her gaze settling on a creature who made a snarl rise forth in her chest - though it was not her own bellowing roar.
A Terrine stood before her.
She did not recognise it, though the markings seemed familiar, but the sight of it was wholly unwelcome. What was it doing here?!
Undeterred, the child now turned to Ru, smiling broadly. Kitty says you are ok, so you can play too." The rules of the 'game' still hadn't been explained, but apparently that mattered little to the child, who pointed a tiny finger in the vampire's direction.
The trees began to sway, soil shifted beneath Ru's feet, moved by the bodies of a thousand insects. The child's mouth opened. A snap of shattering wood emerged, followed by the trickling of water that flowed soothingly over Ru's body, even though no moisture or damp touched his physical body at all. The vampire's dimensions changed; painlessly, seamlessly, until he stood closer to the ground, with four paws instead of two feet and a coating of fur that matched his human hair colour.
He had mentioned wanting to try turning into a wolf, so a wolf he had become.
The slight problem was that he couldn't turn back even if he tried.
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