![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
GRAVEYARD
Graveyard
Reflexively, you curl tighter. Just another minute. Just another minute of sleep is all you need, but the sun waits for no one. Wait. The sun? After many days and nights with only moonlight to guide you, your eyes snap open and your pupils contract at the light.
It's been a while, hasn't it?
Bask in this euphoria for however long it lasts, until your memory snaps back against your mind like a rubber band. Weren't you dead? No matter how you met your end, you certainly remember dying in vivid detail. The pain that corresponds to the last moment's of your life chooses then to make itself known, trying to wriggle free from your skin almost literally. That mark on your skin wasn't there before either.
Take a moment to breathe and get your bearings, and really take everything into focus. The warm rays of sun that dance upon your skin are colorful and fragmented like a kaleidoscope, the effect of being filtered through stained glass. Of all the places to wake up, it seems you're inside a church that's no stranger to you, St. Mary's Basilica. While the odds are good you've woken up with company somewhere near by, the glint of gold from the altar will likely catch your attention regardless—embedded deep in the altar stands a golden staff, two sculpted wings draped down its sides.
While some things are the same, and some things are different, there are still more questions than answers. But the inscription engraved into the roof of the ceiling of the Church, now visible in proper lighting seems rather apt: Welcome to Krakow (again).
no subject
We just need to get to that eventually, shh time shenanigansand he hmms thoughtfully, putting a hand to his chin. ]Well, I'm definitely not a normal. Most of us were from different worlds, as far as I could tell. Parallel earths or just different dimensions. I didn't read everyone's profiles in depth.
Wait. So how are you here? And hmm, you know what these marks are too.
no subject
Certainly, whenever they are powerful enough on their own to make it here I'll send them your way. [ This is not the time to get into a pissing contest but here we are. That'll have to wait at least for a moment, because she visibly startles at Hyoubu's words. ]
Different worlds, parallel earths... you truly are insane, but you apparently know enough to sprinkle some truth into your babble. Both those who are gifted and those who are unfortunate wind up here, at least under normal circumstances. But nothing is regular about this night.
[ She sighs and shakes her head. ]
I am a sword of the Order, not a common lackey, but this is pointless continuing like this. Where are are now is an in between world between the day and the night, twilight I suppose. Up until now, such a dimension never existed. But up until now, there has never been a night so vast to span several weeks.
I have no idea what "profiles" you speak of either.
no subject
The point is: who cares! Itβs happening, itβs not as weird as you think. [ he particularly doesnβt care that sheβs a βsword of the orderβ whatever that means. heβs not into the business of stabbing people. ]
Anyway, youβre here with us, so welcome to the unfortunate club. How do we fix things?
no subject
So, the times of day were splitting this city somehow and they transcended it through death. But this was a new thing. Because of that little miss coward, or was it more? And how about those shadows with those eyes...
Though if this girl didn't know about them, would she really know the answers either? ]
no subject
About 10 minutes later she appears again much the same way. ]
Well? And for the record, the night in Alaska has nothing to do with this one, unless it's overflowing with salmon and manifestations. [ Harrumph. ]
1/2
Manifestations? Are those the shadows with the blue eyes? [ He taps his foot. They were scared of those two. If those were manifestations and they were also manifestations--He grimaces briefly at what happened yesterday at the opera house.
They needed more answers than this trickle of bits and pieces. ]
2/2
She probably stumbled in here and is trying her best to impress us with absolutely nothing of value. Maybe if the others of her "order", if they're actually real, are here they'll have real information.
no subject
Second of all, you seem surprised by us. Even though you just told us this is a place where unfortunate people like us go - to meet you! I honestly think you are the most confused out of the three of us. ESPECIALLY, if youβre choosing to be here.
[ he takes a deep breath. ]
Now, that is not to say... that you should go away. You seem to know some questionable things and we know some questionable things. I really think we can sit down and work this all out. Put your weapon away. There are better ways to win arguments.
no subject
First of all: I do not need my sword or shield to incinerate you. Were it not for my probation, I would have done so already. [ The bit muttered at the end is Japanese, but Hyoubu can make it out all the same. ]
Second: I know more than you, especially with your insistence of parallel worlds. But even if what you say is true, wherever you're from and I don't even want to entertain such a ridiculous notion, this is my world. The shadows you speak of are the proof of that: manifestations come in many forms, but they are all blue eyed.
Third: As I've already said, this space should not exist—my objective was to gain access to the night, given the large scale anomaly which is currently taking place there. We had thought it was due to a surge of manifestations, and while that may still be the case I did not expect to find anyone sentient here, though whether you fit that qualification or not is a matter of opinion.
Fourth: Whoever you two are, you are one step away from becoming a manifestation yourself. I'm not quite sure how you've retained your consciousness despite the fact that you exist as no human should: without a normal body and with only a fraction of your soul left.
no subject
[ he says it in the most cheerful tone of voice. ]
So you want to embrace your emo side and go where it's always night. What's stopping you? That bossy lady and her maybe-lover? I honestly don't remember his name. It was something dumb, maybe Ronald.
[ he turns to hyoubu. ]
If you've already seen these manifestations and we're also manifestations, then... we aren't the first group of people they've done this to. Is that right?
no subject
So it seems. Apparently miss little coward has been very busy.
[ Then he turns to the girl and smiles. ]
You know... it's quite unladylike to mutter under your breath so much. [ Then in Japanese. ] Gone rogue have you, young lady?
no subject
What's stopping me is that you interrupted me. [ So uh, bye again? Storming out of the castle with as much swagger as she can manage, which despite the circumstances isn't insubstantial. She stops in the town square, having redrawn her blade as she exited. Pointing it at the sky she shouts an incantation, a burst of fire forming in mid-air. ]
Hitze Vogel! [ Whether they followed her immediately or not, the end result is... nothing at all. So she's just chilling in the square, growing more irritated by the second. Again she repeats the gesture and the incantation, and this time in the flames there's a brief flicker of the Krakow they know, the one swaddled in the dark. ]
This can't—what were you saying about a coward and a man? No one makes manifestations except other manifestations. But someone or something is preventing me from entering the night. And no, it isn't the manifestations, they're incapable of doing anything but hunger.
no subject
Oh and the little lady can't do her magic tricks, huh?
When he sees the flicker of "the night" in her flames, he muses and wonders if those people can see it too. And wonders how soon it'll be when someone else comes along from that side to this side... ]
Something the matter, young lady? Your teleportation seems very slow anyway though. But it's probably her and that guy doing it. The ones who took us from our own worlds. I guess they're not from your world either? I wondered.
Hunger, is it? For what exactly, could you tell us?
no subject
How am I supposed to know if you've yet to tell me their names? However, only a few individuals possess that kind of power in this world, and I would call neither of them a coward. [ So seems like the Lady and the Servant are homewreckers. ]
...souls. They lack one, so they eternally yearn for what they do not have.
no subject
Elliot, how would you describe them? [ Because he doesn't wanna call them by their chosen names let alone talk about their ridiculous taste in fashion (says the man wearing a school uniform all the time). ]
[ And he hmms thoughtful at the last part, wondering quietly. ] How did they lose theirs I wonder.
no subject
There's no point in being sentimental. The vast majority of them were never human to begin with, just masses of energy that took shape in an effort by the universe to right itself. And even those who were once human...they exist as less than a shell of their former selves. Purifying them in my flames is a mercy.
no subject
The bossy lady is, supposedly, the one in charge out of the two, but I would would say they're more like... [ he has to think a little. ] Pinky and the Brain. Only she's Pinky. But with a steampunk mask-thing on, for whatever dumb reason. Oviously, she's not braindead, but she's kind of silly, wouldn't you say? Easily flustered. She thinks she has all the power, and all you have to do is agree with her and she's satisfied.
[ or maybe that was just around Elliot, whoops. ]
The guy who's with her... Well, he did listen to her instructions because I got an amazing jacket out of it, but he seems more shrewd, more like the Brain. It's one of those situations where you go, "Hey, wait! Why isn't this guy the boss?" But he probably got demoted due to bad taste in fashion. Or maybe he's just using her.
They're both barmy.
no subject
There is no way either of those buffoons are any of the people I was thinking of. [ Like a lot of that went over her head, but she understood enough. ] What's "barmy?"
Nevermind. Then I accept your view for now, that this Coward and Barmy are responsible for this widescale disruption. But that still fails to tell me why they are here, or how they got here in the first place. Or how you are here, other than that you apparently died, yet somehow held onto your sense of self, barely.
[ It's a lot of questions, but at least they're in the same book now if not the same page. ]
Tell me what you know of your time in this city. I will discount this "alternate worlds" babble and leave it to whatever Operator has to write up the paperwork.
no subject
There's another thing. They claimed to have given us powers, but say theirs are still greater. And those of us who had powers to begin with are without. [ and he just grits through this headache during.]
no subject
They gave you your powers? [ She puts away her sword and shield and stares at Hyoubu for several seconds, a slight flare of energy filling the air. ]
Your vessel is a mess. I don't know what powers you had before, nor do I know what ones you have now but they're likely all interconnected. [ She mumbles something about extracurricular studies and continues onward. ]
The details don't matter right now, but the reason you gained new powers and lost the ones you once had are likely one in the same. Your soul, your vessel, can't handle having both from the look of you. [ Hm... ] You were in pain just now, weren't you?
no subject
Ugh, that. Mine was - is? Don't know, haven't tried - but it's so stupid. I thought it would help me carry all the books, all of them! And it did... until the effects wore off and the books were destroyed. Don't tell anyone.
[ sacrilegious!! ]
They also had very encouraging messages to get us to do what they wanted. Pictures of one of them with someone important to us, back in our world, like they were trying to audition for Britain's Next Horror Film.
no subject
Is that reality TV? I've never had the time to watch nor desire to watch such things. [ Shaking her head she brings a plated hand to her helmet. ] And what did they want you to do exactly?
no subject
[ and for her other question: he raises his eyebrows at that, then gestures to himself and hyoubu. she can make a good guess from that answer alone, he's sure. ]
no subject
Anyway. You wanted from the beginning, yes?
Let's go somewhere to sit first. [ Because guess who hasn't sat in several hours. ]
no subject
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)