Unseen Stains

by **Six** Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:53 pm

The wispy length of steel mirrored his quiet truths, whispering in tones just beneath his hearing. The questions within a man's mind ripped into the walls of his psyche, leaking into the regrets he kept veiled from himself still. It made him think, and wonder, and convince himself of conclusions that might have never occurred if only.. ..

The Chaser sat upon an oaken log, wielding a long, thin sword that he held against his lap. Sidus's fingertips glided across his odachi as he examined the soul catalyst, analyzing its imperfections. His chest was bare, as he preferred it to be when working. His legs were covered in a pure white hakama that had retained its purity even after countless stains had come and gone. He was a warrior, and his appearance reflected that.

"There.. ..there.."

There were no bumps, no nicks or scratches on the blade. He kept very good care of the weapon, as would any Cae. It was, after all, the item that tethered him to his own free will. Still, there were a few spotches he could swear were darker than the rest of the blade.. There was a time Sidus yearned to name the sword as a means to showcase its importance, but he quickly came to realize it already had one such title.

The weapon could only be Sidus himself, he thought at that time.

He inhaled slowly, examining the feeling of his chest expanding and lowering itself as he breathed out. Still felt normal, he decided. "I think I might have caught too many this time. Bet those two kids aren't coming back any time soon now." A massive basket woven from reeds lie under a shaded alcove, hidden by leaves. Inside, a week's worth of fish were kept safe for later consumption.

He paused, considering.

"I wonder if I scared them off" Sidus mused with a grin, reveling the thought. "Not many people like raw fish, I guess."

An hour passed by at a familiar pace, leaving Sidus with ample time to wash and polish his sword after cleaning the week's worth of fish he had gathered this morning. He loved watching the way the water evaporated from the sunlit metal, shaping a puff of mist that danced in the air, with real passion, as it reached back towards the heavens so far above.

by **Walpurgisnacht** Thu Apr 18, 2019 1:18 am

"Ah. Perhaps I was asking for too much..."

If the lone Chaser was the moon, then what approached him could only be called a piece of the night sky, cut out in human shape and cast into the world below; a foreign mass, clad in foreign robes that trailed across the grass like a serpent's tail. From behind him, a young lady mused to herself, taking soundless steps towards the man of dulled silver. Her rose-colored gaze had already danced around his figure once, taking in every shape and feature as if they were brush strokes on a piece of fine art; form, posture, hair, sword, each checked against an unseen mental image in less than a second.

It wasn't possible to say when she had arrived. She was like a thing of ink, haphazardly traced on white vacancy; thus, even in spite of her directness, there was an almost transient quality to her. Sidus had no reason to expect company, yet this one's tone was one of familiarity, framed only by a tinge of near-sisterly disapproval. She spoke leisurely amidst her steady approach, as if she knew the Chaser better than anyone else.

Of course, it was their first meeting.

"Hm. Is this you, then?" she asked blankly, "What I mean to ask is, is this what you are nowadays?"

Now, the foreigner was close enough to converse. It was careless, actually; this distant stranger hadn't so much as offered her name to the sword-bearing Cae, yet she stood behind him, hand on her hip, boldly questioning his entire life's path in a single sentence. The lady cloaked in shadow, never before seen, was not even cautious enough to stay out of skewering distance. Yet, if one turned to face her, they would be met only with a look of cold curiosity.

by **Six** Thu Apr 18, 2019 7:51 pm

Melodies and shadows thrummed with a bizarre pace, pulsating. Voices, Echos, and the fairy tales he yearned for felt close once again. The homeless soldier caressed the spine of his sword with a lover's touch and allowed the tip to descend to the soil like a lofty feather-- soft and with salient intentions. The lankiness of his physique kept his motions indicative; a body transitioning from a lonely splayed heart back again to the gilded shell of a champion.

"Hey there, Cherry" he remarked to his guest, picking an impression as he lifting his head with an easy smile. Along with his blade sheathed in the earth, Sidus kept his frame stationary as if to mitigate any perceived hazard within his company. "I hope you're not lost out here. Either that, or I picked a weak place to hide."

A lot of people in my personal bubbles lately. Is my hobble that obviously hidden?

Ravens and lilies swept through the man's faculty as he met the woman's countenance. Where he had expected ridicule, he was met with a weak stoicism held aloft by a powerful honesty. Though, Sidus had long acknowledged his poor character judgment in the past. Perhaps this lady was as insufferable she she seemed.

But alas, he allowed, never judge by first impressions. New friends.. new reasons to leave. Maybe not, though. Every word he spoke was connected by a tempo with short, conjoined rests between each phrase. Professional and proficient, he thought.

"I hope that doesn't bother you. There's nothing to call me back right now. And so--" he lifted himself to full height, though stayed seated. The sword met the soil as he let go of it, then placed both palms on his knees. An ageless practice persuaded him, pushing him to relax his grin into a modest simper. The action spoke for him, presuming the intentions of a content man.

"..Incidentally, I really like your dress" he admitted. It was true; it reminded him of home.

by **Walpurgisnacht** Thu Apr 18, 2019 8:52 pm

The young woman frowned; somewhere in her head, a cog stopped turning, and for a moment, she seemed incapable of deciphering his response. Her face was that of someone challenged with foreign dialect, her expression exuding the difference between their respective worlds. She may as well have been trying to understand a frog, with how she reacted.

"Well," she began, opting to take things one step at a time, "I'm not Cherry. I'm Lunalacia."

That name was hollow. The woman introducing herself spoke with neither pride nor life, tossing her name to the wind as if she were expecting it to be forgotten. The same could be said for everything about her. Her words came jovially, but were monotone in their delivery, as if her chipperness were manufactured. It didn't really feel like someone was actually speaking.

"And I'm not lost. As a matter of fact, I'm exactly where I've been meaning to be. As for you..."

Her final words remained unspoken; addressing the man with hidden intention, she began to pace to his side, watching his shifting form intently. Her movement was somewhere between predatorial and scientific, and for a moment, she almost looked like a drifting cloud.

"Well, simply put, this isn't right," she affirmed, though she didn't direct that at Sidus. "First of all, I smell fish. It's unbecoming of someone like you to bother yourself with fishing..."

More accurately, what she meant was "someone like us". Even though she couldn't grasp at his customs, Lunalacia placed herself in a position to ascertain the correct course of action for this man. Of course, as of now, she wasn't any closer towards making her intentions clear. She'd approached the Chaser as if she'd expected him to understand what she wanted immediately, as if there was no reason to clarify that she had come to "collect" him.

"Oh - my dress? Hm." The foreigner gave a gentle hum, indicating some exercise of the mind. Some small formulation took place, and then-

"I'll tell you what. If you come with me, you'll have a chance to look at it more." she spoke plainly, failing to read the Cae's sentiment.

by **Six** Thu Apr 18, 2019 9:33 pm

It was the snap of affirmation he heard in her voice that set his nerves to cool. To the soldier, it was amicable. With a mustered modesty, Sidus bobbed his head in a shoddy gesture of acknowledgment. "Well, you have a very good sense of smell. My catch hasn't even begun to give off a scent yet" the praise was genuine, though his tone was flatter than before-- kindness replaced with delicacy.

He stared at her; into her. The brand of his eternal servitude beckoned to her attention. He weighed her softly, the paleness of his irises attentive and focused. At her tone, the familiar pressure of words that were once so demanding drummed into him and aligned with his heartbeat, tightening his chest. "Go with you, though?" the air of control snaked into his veins.

The dejection of his choice of food had not sat well with him. Fishing was not a game, nor was it a chore. It was, in many ways, a battle. One's sword and shield replaced rod and reel, the stakes were as high as they were on any war field. Life or death. For you, and for the denizens of nature itself. One of you will live, and the other will die. One will feast and sate their soul, the other lives on having stolen victory from the beast's maw. Only the battle mattered... There was no greater honor in that.

Sidus had never heard anybody act condescendingly toward fishing before but it was definitely a new callous he would have to grow, the man noted.

"I think that I don't mind taking a walk with you, but I really need to set up my stuff so that the neighbors don't borrow anything while I'm gone, you know?" The Caelator patted his knees and concurrently puffed out a breath as he rose to full height. He towered over the stranger by a considerable margin, yet the leanness of his form kept him angled away from her. He appeared as if he had carried something heavy on his chest all his life and was now compensating for its absence. His gaze flickered to the side, back to the woman, and again to his flank. He took a careful step away from her, then moving towards the back of the forest pocket some three meters behind them.

"But!" he began, mirthful in his resonance. I might have some friends coming back here. I don't want to miss 'em if they ever come back-" he fell to his knees with an audible thump in front of the veil of umbrella-like leaves that covered an alcove, pushing them aside. Inside, a large wicker basket filled with fresh fish.

The haul.

"So I think I'll stay here for a bit, ma'am. Wouldn't be good of me to be gone when they get back. Of course, you're welcome to wait here with me until they get back. Don't mind the mess though. Comes with the homestead."

by **Walpurgisnacht** Thu Apr 18, 2019 10:28 pm

"Waiting's fine. Though, I was under the impression you were alone here..."

Amidst her response, Lunalacia turned her cold gaze towards the sky, no longer paying attention to the Cae even as he rose to tower over her. For a single moment, she stood silently, undisturbed by the Chaser's movement, or perhaps willingly made unaware of it. She was like an ephemeral dream, fragile in her constitution and easily scattered by the forthcoming breeze, trying to find something that had for an instant slipped out of her reach.

Some unreadable expression crawled onto her visage. Though she'd previously held herself with a kind of upbeat apathy, she was now frozen in contemplation, silently longing for something untouchable in the distance.

Life returned to her stiffened form as Sidus fell to his knees on the ground, and suddenly, Lunalacia sprung back to conversation.

"Well, I suppose I didn't really make myself too clear at the start." she began, walking over to the man's side and crouching down, elbows supporting themselves on her knees. At first, she was only staring into him. Then, her cherry gaze pierced through him, and caught sight of some unseeable thing beyond.

"Sidus Reverie"

She said that. With a thousand voices, she said that name, like a chime with a thousand echoes. A different meaning carried in every reverberation of that name, which danced atop the gentle breeze. Recognition, for the hero of war. Disapproval, for the false commoner. Distance, from heart given form. This stranger, who had never once crossed paths with him, spoke his name with a thousand different understandings.

She said that, and then continued. "As I've told you, my name is Lunalacia. My one goal is to save the world, to fix all evils. For that, I want your help. You, who fought the Fourth King during the war. You're an important person, whether you realize it or not. So, I want you to come with me. I want you to help me save everyone."

Still, despite the gravity of her words, she smiled. Through all that, Lunalacia smiled, and added:

"You said there was nothing to call you back? If you're so devoid right now, you ought to accompany me. I'm sure your friends will understand - there are important things to take care of"

by **Six** Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:55 pm

The old youth jerked his head toward the girl, then scoffed. "Important-- person?" Sidus tasted the words in his mouth, their use not foreign in their meaning but in their direction. "I guess that's an easy way to see how differently we're thinking right now. Whether or not I'm important to you isn't.. ..important. There's more to it than that, you know?"

By this era, Sidus's emotional condition had been tempered in the fires of war and in the furnaces of social domineering; the thick callouses on his hands were trivial when compared to the scars that knit the man's heart to his flesh. The Cae's mind and body had never felt so contrast now as they had in previous years as if they still relived two different struggles. A foundation of power undermined by impassioned wires that threatened to unravel themselves so often. A premise of weakness desperately knit together by wounds of loss and betrayal that healed so rough, strong, and gnarled.

Now, he peered at the woman with a face of jovial incredulity, as if she had told him to turn in his homework.

"You don't seem like a bad person. To me, anyway." His hands then met the wicker basket, assertively shoving his lanky fingers into the woven holes to grip them. He lifted, then stood. "But, I'm not so empty that I'd give myself to you. I hope for our sake you're not telling me to do what I think you are, but I bet that's wrong. Still.."

A lurid glance at his sword that now lie on the lush foliage, currently closer to her than to him.

"Do you think we could talk about this more over dinner? I need to start the fire before my friends get back. I bet they're hungry by now-- hungry enough to eat fish too!"

by **Walpurgisnacht** Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:36 am

A cold-red gaze danced across the grass. Crimson eyes latched onto the gleam of stainless steel, their red light reflected along the surface of the Chaser's soul. For a moment, Lunalacia looked to be contemplating something.

"It isn't just about what's important to me-" she began, speaking through a quiet half-murmur, but quickly opted to let that thread of thought drift with the wind. The foreigner chose her words as one would choose the course of attack - silent, motionless, breathing gently and steadily.

Then she sighed. And then she shrugged.

"Well, that wouldn't accomplish anything, anyways" she exhaled, casually bouncing words at herself. Standing back to her full height, the young lady stepped away from the buried sword. As she drifted, her eyes met the Chaser's, and exchanged some unreadable look. "I can see you've got something tethering you here. That's good. It helps to have something important to you, I suppose."

If nothing else, those words were entirely genuine. All previous tones of disapproval had been washed away by something nearing a subtle admiration. Lunalacia lowered herself again, resting her knees against the gentle soil, palms crossed over her lap. Her form eased itself, and for a moment, she looked like she might fall into a deep, eternal sleep. A gentle constitution, softer even than the whistle of the calming winds. It was an image of peace, built on the foundation of acceptance and surrender..

"I can't exactly say that they're necessary, but maybe we'll see eye to eye..."

by **Six** Fri May 10, 2019 6:33 pm

Ninety minuted passed.

A wispy tower of blackened ash and smoke surged into the sky, its permeance giving it leave through the canopy that sheltered the circular alcove. Shapely shadows came to life as the light of the fire cast them onto the leaves, branches, and open sky and Sidus Reverie peered into the source of the melodies that conducted the blackened dances. The night's chill had been warded off; a coldness repelled by the bubble of warmth inside the understory. Still, he huddled close to himself, only a few feet away from the over-sized bonfire that sat squarely in the earth.

The minutes came and went with no more mention than the passing breeze, allowing both inhabitants an ample moment's reprieve. Sidus had originally prepared this enlarged campfire for twice the amount of occupants that it now kept warm. Had he not eaten so much, there would have been enough left over meals for both an absent man and a missing woman who had not partaken in the feast.
-
Tenderly cooked river fish, filleted, lightly soaked in butter, teased in salt, served with deep red Falu berries and clean ice water.
-
Even now, Sidus wondered if his companions would show up. Late if nothing else, but here nonetheless. He kept two small meals' worth of food just in case.

That cherry-eyed woman was outside his immediate gaze. The length of the crackling, burning wood and its glowering luminescence keeping his peripherals all too well lit and the area too dark, as if it sucked in the light from around them to fuel its passionate dances.

"It's getting kind of late now" the man spoke up, angling his head to the side as if to peer at Lunalacia. He couldn't see her, though. "I hope you enjoyed dinner. I'm rather confident in my homeland cooking.."

"But, I didn't expect you to stay this late. What are you gonna do now that it's almost night?"

by **Walpurgisnacht** Sun May 12, 2019 7:23 am

Sitting along the light's edge, Lunalacia was like a distant celestial pulled into the orbit of a flaring star, shadows hanging over her back while the orange glow flickered on her pale face - a crimson moon that danced around the void, still distant from the warmth of the sun. The half-lit foreigner had hardly strung together a sentence in the ninety minutes that had passed; she'd sat, she'd eaten, and as the evening fled and the night sky gathered above, she'd humored a hundred silent thoughts. She'd also been waiting, but unlike the Caelator, she hadn't been hoping. Now, for the first time in what felt like centuries, she spoke:

"Oh. No idea."

The cherry robe sunk into darkness as the woman leaned out of the light, resting against the grassy surface and casting her skyward gaze towards the thin veil of stars. She was practically bisected by shadows now, barely visible to the silver youth by her side.

"Honestly? I don't have anywhere else to be right now."

Words that rang with nonchalance. It didn't bother her, being so aimless. From the beginning, she'd carried herself as a woman with a mission but no objective - now, those airs intensified. Her resolute declaration mere minutes ago was counterbalanced by the casual tone of her voice, the voice of one that thoughtlessly dedicated themselves to a task they had no interest in.

"...Well. On second thought, how partial are you to Concuclare?"

As she spoke, Lunalacia cast an unseen glance to her side, her rubied vision piercing through the barrier of shadow.

"I don't think your friends are coming."

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