Messages

1

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: May 31, 2021, 10:11:10 PM »

Lawrence

"Hmm, tremble in the eternal pits of fear? No, no, that one's already taken. Kneel before me? Nah, too cliché. Maybe something book related, a pun perhaps? My my, what to do..."

While Lawrence rarely acted up, he could sometimes say the strangest things. But even then, he was suddenly turned away from the three damsels, thinking with great focus while muttering what little he managed to scramble through his uninspired husk. Whatever he was thinking about had to be quite important, considering how intently he was taking his notes.

"Kh, I felt like throwing a cool one liner." His frail body trembled in disappointed, looking down in shame. Until he dramatically snapped his fingers, and a serpent large as a tree slithered out of the man's coat, like a misty fog that smelled of greenery and nature and life. With eyes like jewels, and scales that glimmered in the gentle candle light, it exhaled a pleasant aroma, and soon the table was adorned by fresh shrubbery, quickly growing berries and delectable fruits while trees sprouted freely.

Lawrence shook his head, smiling despite the timid act he put up earlier - if it was an act at all.

"Growing things is easy. Anyone with a mind to it could do it. But if you don't know how to tend to your creations, they'll just wither and fall. It's... difficult sometimes. Painful, when you try so hard - just to have forces beyond your control take it all away..." He grabbed an apple his dearest serpentine friend created, and toyed with it freely before taking a healthy bite.

"Its why I try to understand our headmaster. Pests and weeds can be problematic." He gave lady Fu Hua a glance and shook his head bitterly. "But in my humbly worthless opinion, I'd rather accept it. Whether its animosity, love, friendship - they're all welcome compared to silence. When you're stuck alone in the dark pits of regret, even the venom spats between enemies become cherished memories. The agony of being trapped in a dark place, unable to escape your own toughts... to be frank, I'm still not sure if I made it out myself... haha."

His black eyes looked... hollowed. Even now.

"You're all real, right?"

The snake and the bird just happened to be there, but unlike the usually chipper times... they were oddly silent.

Kore

"For my sins, yes," Kore says, and she can't stop her lips from quirking up in an ironic smile.

"And believe me, I understand completely. When the world is empty but for you and your thoughts..."

Was it that she went mad and returned to sanity? Or maybe she could not go insane in the first place.

Or, just maybe, she was insane from the beginning.

She had destroyed everything after all, even though her family was meant to preserve everything.
   
Hours watering a patch of sparse dirt, more dust than earth, hoping to see a sprout, any day now, any day. She had cried when she had seen the first hint of green push out.

Pouring through books on horticulture, farming - she had picked them up half on a whim, half to have something to talk about, with a certain sense of smug amusement, and blessed herself later as the garden had grown around her, a little patch of life in a dead land.

And talking aloud - not to herself, not to the plants, but just to hear a sound-

"I understand completely." She says again, quiet and intent, staring past Lawrence.

2

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: May 12, 2021, 11:11:46 PM »

Kore

Kore freezes, unsure if she wants to lean into the touch of Fu Hua's finger, or pull away. The idea of the danger Fu Hua might pose doesn't even cross her mind - she just thinks; "Do I deserve this?" And is not sure on the answer.

It is only the realisation that she has been asked a question, and a vague curiosity about this man, Yamada, that makes her (metaphorically) shake her head, clearing it of the pointless thoughts. If Fu Hua offers it, she ought to accept it, so she reaches up and twines a hand around Fu Hua's finger.

"I did say I could come here later." She mutters without heat. "And that we could leave if you got bored. Besides, I like making things grow myself. Whenever I cheat it... ends badly."

Plants not growing right, having to tear them out before the roots ate of their natural born neighbours. Polluting and hungry not because of malice, but because of their nature. Kore glances at the blackened table, and wonders how many years it took to build it, for the wood to grow. And how little it took for Fu Hua to change it. 

But she has other things to focus on - not least getting Fu Hua out of this place before she actually kills someone instead of just threatening it. She finishes her tea, and stands up, taking the hand Fu Hua has at her head and holding it, letting their fingers entangle. She tries to ignore how nice it feels, this simple, simple thing of holding another's hand.

"I always find personal conversations much more illuminating then just reading." Says the woman who has not had any personal conversations for several millennia. She eyes Fu Hua carefully as she continues; "If you would both be alright with it, I would appreciate you accompanying me to the professor in question, so I don't get lost, Professor Lawrence? And thank you for your kindness..."

Kore pauses and tries to recall if anyone has referenced the Headmasters name. "Miss Headmaster? Mrs Headmaster? I assure you, I will be out of your hair soon enough." She presses her thumb into Fu Hua's palm, running it down in what she thinks is a soothing manner. 

3

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: April 28, 2021, 09:19:03 PM »

Kore

Kore reaches out to pat Lawrence on the shoulder, feeling terribly awkward. What did you do with people who nearly choked, again? She - well, it wasn’t so much that she forgot as that she had never know in the first place.

There wasn’t a lot of call for a Demon King who wanted to overthrow the order of the world to know how to help someone.

"It’s exactly becaause of how short lived and transient they can be that I’m interested in them, Professor? Lawrence."  Once he’s stopped coughing in a way that makes Kore worried that slight frame will shatter, she draws back, plucking a chocolate biscuit and nibbling at it. It’s so sweet! How strange.

"And I would very much appreciate that, ah, Headmaster?" Kore takes another sip of the tea. "I grow plants, and I was curious about the... effects and such. And variation. Do you mind staying with me a little longer, Fu Hua?" She turns to look at the spirit, smiling sheepishly.

Fu Hua did not seem the type to take a particular interest in soil composition, the growth of plants and the like, especially given the rotted appearance of their meeting place. But she had accompanied Kore this far, and her presence was comfroting in it’s own way.

4

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: April 10, 2021, 09:44:14 PM »

Kore

Kore savours the bitter astringency of her tea, and stares between Lawrence, the Headmaster, and Fu Hua in turn.

They have the distinct feeling that their faces and forms are being memorised, each blink carefully categorised, as if Kore worries that they will disappear at a moment's notice.

It takes her a moment to respond to the Headmaster's question, clasping her cup with both hands and clearing her throat.

"Ah... Fu Hua brought me straight here. She mentioned the place I arrived at was the Northern Forest, and answered my simpler questions about this place. Its quite fascinating! A multidimensional meeting point, of such vast size, I wonder if-" If Order had known about it.

She cuts herself off, all excitement lost, staring at her reflection in the tea.

"Some of my questions were of rather an esoteric or obscure nature. About-" Kore gestures with her tea cup. "Soil, nutrients, politics - it's a complicated issue, and I don't mind that Fu Hua was uninterested in answering."

She presses a sense of reassurance at Fu Hua and wonders at the fact that Fu Hua had been flirting with her earlier, instead of it being some strange cultural norm Kore was unfamiliar with.

Which was actually rather disconcerting. There were any of a variety of reasons she could name for why she would not and could not reciprocate the spirit's interest. But - surely that could wait? Yes. It could.

She might enjoy the spirit's attentions, but she would need to think of how to let her down gently.

But first, there were questions to ask and answers to receive.

5

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: March 29, 2021, 11:31:49 PM »

Kore

The tension leaves Kore’s body, and she slumps like a puppet with it’s strings cut.

She had no idea what she would have done if it had devolved into a fight. Fu Hua would have likely won, and - Kore couldn’t have stopped her. Even without the energy that now suffused her body, it was just... she didn’t think she could have stopped Fu Hua without using the second form.

She nodded gratefully at the dramatic man who had just appeared (magician - and a familiar? Fascinating-), and at the headmaster. The arm around Fu Hua’s shoulder remains there. It is by no means a harsh grip, or even firm, but it’s there. Thank you, she thinks at the spirit, inputting as much of her gratitude into that thought as she could.

People, she thinks, a rising surge of giddiness making her want to jump for joy. Her eyes flick between the three of them, etching their faces, the way they breathe, the way they hold themselves, into her mind.
 
"I haven’t had tea in a long time... It would be appreciated. And I would appreciate other perspectives on the history of this place - Fu Hua called it the Nexus? Ah, Kore is my name." Despite her excitement, she manages to keep her voice level and calm.

"And we can discuss - "the date" - later." She mutters to Fu Hua.
 

6

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: March 16, 2021, 11:03:04 PM »

Kore

"Wait, date-" Kore turns to look at Fu Hua, blinking in surprise. Her shortened skirt - courtesy of Fu Hua - flickers in the still air.

No, she decides, they can discuss the romantic (?) aspects of this later. She turns to the headmaster and places her hand on her chest (thunder booms in a clear sky).

"I apologise - I was the one who requested we come here. I have only recently arrived here - in this dimension, I mean - and I had... many, many questions. About everything."

She glances at the headmaster's bloody hands and then up at her golden eyes. It seemed an odd look for a headmaster. Not conducive to learning.  Although, she supposed she was one to talk. Appearances could be... deceiving.

There were more pressing concerns, though - namely how she could feel Fu Hua’s mounting frustration through the strange link she had formed with the spirit. Which was also a pressing concern, but one that could be... Well, murder wasn’t immediately on the horizon.   

Kore rested a hand on Fu Hua’s shoulder, rubbing the spirit gently as she tried to consider what might stop this situation boiling over into the kind of bloodbath that formed a ball of panic in her stomach.

"We could stay here and - read?" Kore paused to consider the idea of Fu Hua - who in the brief time Kore had known her, seemed to transition between moods at the speed of magnesium in water - having to stay and read. Or worse, stay and not reading. "Or we could take a few volumes and come back later, when it’s in better condition?" She offered, throwing a significant look at the headmaster. 

God, she hoped this wouldn’t end in a fight.     

7

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 26, 2021, 08:35:07 PM »

Kore

Kore stumbles forward, disorientated, leaning on Fu Hua for balance.

She had not expected the transfer of power to be so - intense. 

Or intimate. 

Her own experiments in such fields were an amplification and materialisation of negative emotions that were already present. Even her abilities to create those creatures in her second form was only an expansion of the original principles. This was something entirely different. 

Want, desire, possessiveness... She felt like she was drowning in them. She shuddered, resting her head on Fu Hua’s shoulder, blinking hazily. 

When Fu Hua speaks, Kore’s first answer is a confused, mumbled sound into Fu Hua’s shoulder, pressing her face into the fabric of Fu Hua’s clothes. They are soft, smooth. 

And also made of negative emotion. She was not surprised. 

Kore centres herself, and when she realises what she’s doing - she steps away, blushing. It was like she had no self-control at all, really. Embarrassing. 

She clears her throat and tried to pretend she had not just been cuddling Fu Hua, brushing her hair back into place. 

She considers arguing the point about being Fu Hua’s – even if she feels the spirit under her skin, intertwined with her down to the bones (and what an exultant feeling, to be so utterly close to someone after so long- she pushes that impulse down. This was a practical arrangement, just to make sure she didn’t have some kind of maniacal impulse and - end up like that.) 

Arguing with a spirit made of negative emotions over a turn of phrase - even an oddly gracious one - seemed liable to end poorly. 

The first words - intelligible words, rather than the embarrassing mumble of nonsense earlier - that come out are "Thank you."  She says them solemnly, and the look in her eyes is incredibly grateful, like a man in a desert being given a flask of water. 

She can go.
 
"I am... unfamiliar with this place - so I can’t say if there’s anywhere I would particularly be interested in. But, the city - it looked quite... modern is the wrong word, given my lack of knowledge of the historical context of this world, but similar to the cities of - my world." A wince, a grimace, a guilty look off to the side.   

A thought distracts her from her reverie, of great skylines of metal and glass, replaced by flat, dry wasteland  - "Is this a nationalised park, reserve, forest? Do you have nations? I assume you do, but that doesn’t actually speak to their form, there are so many, it’s incredible- oh, money! Currency, it’s a unit of exchange, uh, a way to exchange and compensate forms of labour via fiat? I assumed you would possess it from the urbanisation but that’s merely a generalisation, it seems like it might be possible to build a city of that scale through barter - or perhaps a communal resource pool? Oh, in the latter cases, if you formed or had corporations, they must take a fascinating form- but I am wondering from the original point-" She clears her throat, looking sheepish. "Apologies, I was... excited. On the way there, could you tell me about this place? And, ah, actually." She looks down at herself. "My clothes, would they be viewed as particularly unusual or out of place? I wouldn’t want to seem too obviously alien." 

The Demon King who brought ruin to her world, and laid low its greatest heroes, looks at the thousand year spirit split off from her other half to wander the world and act according to her bottomless desire.

Her eyes brim with eager curiosity. 

8

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 21, 2021, 11:26:42 PM »

Kore

It is an - offer. (A part of Kore that sounds entirely too much like her parent calls it obscene.) 

She wants to - she wants to so much. Fu Hua is powerful - with that power bound to Kore, she is sure Fu Hua would defeat her. She wouldn’t have to fear (an ache in her side that almost makes her wince) herself. That she might decide to once again take the world in her hand, and break it.

Never have to wake up to an empty world.

Kore breathes, softly. She looks at Fu Hua again, eyes searching for - something. Justification, perhaps. A reason to trust...

An excuse.

 Fu Hua’s nature is clear, of course. Negative emotions, an evil spirit - cast away? Maybe, she wouldn’t know. Suspicious.

(She remembers those she had dealt - manipulated. She had manipulated them. The "taste" of rage and grief and despair made manifest. She compares the tastes.)

Fu Hua was mercurial, but- Even that was more than the monsters she had created. Perhaps the most stable form such negative emotions could take. And - charitable? That would be the most unexpected aspect.   

There was no reason for Fu Hua to offer such things to a just-met stranger. A reason to go - there. 

She closes her eyes and thinks.

Fu Hua’s hands are nice. Her finger on Kore’s lips is nice. Why should she be permitted to go there? Why shouldnt she, just to check, to see how things were? Visiting would be a pleasure she didn’t deserve.

And then what? Should she destroy her plants, pass them on? She enjoyed those as well, after all. But this and that were separate things - those were a relic, a reminder of her past and what she had destroyed. This would be something new. A chance to escape her sins. Throw them away like so much worthless rubbish.

Her stomach roiled. That she would not do. But - throwing away such a generous offer...

Fu Hua might have ulterior motives. But such a mercurial being might make such an offer merely out of a moment’s kindness.

She opens her eyes and looks into Fu Hua’s, red, like rubies. Pretty. 

Fu Hua is waiting. 

Calmly, patiently. For a choice.

Choice...

Kore does not say anything. The words choke in her throat.

She nods, an almost unnoticeable incline. She looks ashamed.

And presses her lips to Fu Hua’s finger.

9

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 17, 2021, 10:24:25 PM »

Fu Hua

"Haaah?" If Kore had spit in her face, it is not possible that Fu Hua could sound more offended. Before the other girl's skirt had stopped fluttering Fu Hua was already before her. Already, the martial artist can hear the rebuttals of a stupid girl before they're even said. Because it is her duty. Because it is her responsibility. Because it is right. It makes her stomach turn. A strained smile coats her face, as sweet as poison. "I don't get it. Are you just going to run back whatever shack you live in, pretending like what you want isn't right there?"

The air is heavy. As tense as the weight of a sword hanging from the ceiling, dangling from a single thread. Displeasure all but radiates from gleaming red eyes. "Friend," and the word is as barbed as a thorn bush, "let me give you advice. Whatever place you came from might as well be gone. What you do now has no impact on the dead. If you punish yourself for their sake, you're just gratifying yourself. Oh, look at how awful I am!"

She waves a hand through the air as if for dramatics, but the violent force of it sends spiderweb cracks through the earth below them. "We should go to the city. It will be the best chance you ever have. You will not regret it."

Kore

Kore - pauses. She stares at Fu Hua and blinks.

An evil spirit. Physical attacks temporarily effective, purification rituals superior. Her mind is filled with dozens of long remembered facts about the bipedal human body ands it weakness - how even facsimile organs can be damaged and destroyed.

How dare she- Kore’s face twists into a snarl, and for just a moment, it looks like she will attack, like she would tear Fu Hua’s throat out with her teeth.

Pain. A sky without a sun. Centuries spent tending plants she could crush by the barest effort of will.

Kore recoils. It looks like she’ll vomit and she stumbles away. Rotting leaves disintegrate under her feet. She opens her mouth to apologise to someone, something - and shakes her head. Worthless words.

When she turns back to Fu Hua, she looks perfectly calm. No, not calm. Doll-like. Artificial.

"My home - the place I’m from has been gone for a very long time. I-" She pauses. The mask does not crack, but it feels like it should. "My petty selfishness destroyed everything. I destroyed everything."

She speaks of it like she’s discussing some historical event that is disquieting, but unrelated to her. Only the twitch of an eyebrow reveals any hint as to what she’s feeling.

Steam  hisses from the ground - there are no thermal vents anywhere near. It coalesces low to the ground, brushing their ankles.

"You are right, of course. I wouldn’t. Regret it. But..." She makes a gesture. "Don’t waste your time on me. Really."

10

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 13, 2021, 03:33:27 PM »

Kore

Her hand slips from the belt to hang limply at her side.

She does not even blush at Fu Hua's closeness, staring at the city with an open mouth. There is a look of pure longing on her face, as she stares, completely unguarded.

She wants to go there. She does. So much. It has been a very long time since she has wanted something so badly.

But Kore takes all the desperate need, the wants, and breathes it out.

She breathes out the desire to stand in crowded streets. To eat street food. To sit and watch people go by.

Somewhere amidst everything was a world of dust and sand and salt, water empty of living things and slowly drying. It was lit only by a shuddering star that pulsed in time with Kore’s heart. 

She steps forward.  The ground craters when she lands, rotten vegetation flying into the air away from the woman, who daintily brushes dust off of her skirt.

"Thank you." She says, and means it. "But enjoyment doesn't come into it." 

11

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 09, 2021, 06:13:37 PM »

Kore

 Kore lets out a meaningless, confused noise in response, mind still whirling at what just happened.

Tongue?

Lick?

What?

Was that normal here? She hoped not - she doesn’t think she can handle it. Her cheeks are already burning and she feels distinctly like prey to Fu Hua’s very hungry predator.

It’s the cool wood of her belt under her fingers that jogs her mind from the whirl of confusion, reminding her that the situation could rapidly become dangerous.

She settles herself as best she can, remembering half-forgotten meditation techniques she had learnt as a passing interest  on Earth. Given the Fu Hua pressed against her, and the original looking in her eyes, it’s a difficult task, but she manages to focus.

She’s still blushing, but at least she isn’t thinking of how nice Fu Hua feels against her.

Much.

She clears her throat (in the distance, a chorus of birds, hunter and hunted, sing a song of praise without words).

"Thank you for your hospitality, Ms. Fu Hua. I did, it was much sweeter than most of the food I’ve been able to grow." She considers the tingle on her tongue. "Perhaps too sweet, actually, I’m not sure I can eat anymore - it’s been too long since I had such flavours. I’m glad to see my own offerings were... So well received?" The bag of food she was holding feels substantially lighter. The Fu Hua clone(?) that ate it seems very satisfied, at least.

"I am not entirely unused to people, but it has been quite some time since I’ve had the opportunity for conversation. And your customs are unfamiliar to me." She glances at both of the Fu Hua’s that are touching her. "Might you tell me where I am, though? And where people - besides yourselves? Might be?"

She pauses, lets the questions settle in the air. She wants to leave it at that, but her other senses - the not-sight that her human body can only interpret as sight - do not let her forget. They remind her of what Fu Hua is - of  past mistakes. Her face settles into a grimace against her will. "And I must ask again - what are you? My past experiences with... beings that were composed of such malice..." She starts to say something,  anything. A lie, perhaps.

But she does not.

The pomegranate slips from her hand.

The silence hangs in the air, like the moment before a guillotine falls.

12

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 06, 2021, 04:18:21 PM »

Kore

Kore looks at both of the Fu Hua’s at her side, mind whirling. She had expected a scream of rage, or a silent, murderous advance. Those... subjects she had seen at the highest levels of negative emotion were not rational creatures - powerful, but in a way humans were never meant to be. And they did not look like - they did not hold hands.

Or compliment said hands. Was she blushing? She might be blushing.

She lets herself be pulled towards the garden - where what must be the original stands, surrounded by flowers and fruit, almost sickly in their sweetness. But there is rot underneath.

Rot that she now knows must emanate from Fu Hua - this strange, beautiful evil spirit. Or - perhaps not evil? Negative emotions, powers that shaped the world - she was not in a position to cast judgement on anyone. In this strange new world, she had no frame of reference for who was what. Fu Hua might be some hero who isolated herself away from society in fear of what her unctrolled powers might do to those around her.

But she keeps her parent’s branch in the crook of her arm, and one hand rests on her belt. (The other, out of politeness, remains holding Fu Hua’s hand.)

"I am still much taller than you." She says to the original. She frowns. That was probably the wrong way to start a conversation.
 
And call? What had Fu Hua meant - no, it must be some effect of her weight on the world. Making her presence clear to those around her - like the arched trees. Worrying.

But a concern for later. How to recover from her faux pas?

"I have - food of my own to offer?" She says, but one hand on her belt, the other in the hand of one of the Fu Hua’s all she can do is gesture at the bag she carries with her head. Gift exchanges seemed like they had a certain universal appeal. "And I’ll take some fruit?"

As she speaks, a branch is is suddenly dangling over her. From it hangs an almost too-ripe pomegranate, it’s juices seeping through the skin to drip onto the flowering earth. It look delicious.

Kore lets go of Fu Hua’s hand, reaches up and plucks the fruit from the branch. The juice is sticky on her hands.

It had been  a long time since she had eaten anything she had not grown herself.

It looks sweet.

And when she bites into it, it is.

13

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 05, 2021, 07:31:02 PM »

Kore

As she... strolls? No, rambles, she’s rambling along.

As Kore rambles through the forest, she pauses every so often. She stares at trees she only faintly remembers from her time on Earth. She starts when she hears the twitter of bird song - and stares up as... she doesn’t know what this one is called, if it was native to her Earth. But there are living things here. Living things.

Kore leans against a tree and sighs, tension coiling through her body, pulling taut like steel wire.

Living things. 

She breathes slowly and deeply, regular breaths.

Living things.

She swallows the slightly manic laughter that starts to crawl up her throat. She doesn’t know why she’s here, or where she is. But here, surrounded by life she has not had to raise by hand, she feels content in a way she has not in a long, long time. It is a verdant land, full of life (and death, she thinks to herself wryly, smelling the scent of decay and death in the distance) and she is in it.

As she straightens up and starts walking forward again, even the  root she nearly trips on can’t dampen her mood.

Kore walks forward with more focus now, her steps filled with purpose.

She only stops when she sees...Rotted trees.  Great redwoods, with decaying cores, gnawing at dead soil. There not a clear demarcation, but interspersed with still healthy, living trees - it’s odd, to her mind. Some odd illness, an element in the soil? She can see more dead trees beyond them, a forest of wooden corpses held up solely by inertia. The scent of rot is thick in the air, and after years of smelling only the sterile, lifeless air of her home, even this is somewhat welcome.

If disgusting.

But her curiosity has been piqued - a vice, admittedly, but harmless compared to everything else she’s done. The corruption, rot... It affects everything. And some of the flowers - oozing sickly sweet nectar, bloom as she passes.

The most confusing thing is that nothing is actually breaking - with this many rotten trees, at least some should have broken, especially with such advanced stages -  they must have been like this for weeks at least, and been blown down or just crumbled, dry, rotten roots unable to hold their ground.

But if this is a new world, who knows what could be happening? Ores, water, illnesses she has never seen before - she lets herself indulge in a brief fantasy of helping people here heal, if people exist, of fighting strange illnesses - but discards it. If  the people hadn’t figured out how to fight this, there was no guarantee she -  a foreigner from another world, and one with no talent for medicine would. Her plants had never had to deal with illness. There was nothing left to cause it.

Trees fall, out of nowhere as she steps forward. She looks up with narrowed eyes as they collide so they lean over her together, forming an arch. In front of her, more and more trees do the same, and the effect is something like the crossed spears of soldiers, showing respect to a visiting dignitary to a royal court.

And at the end of the pseudo-corridor formed by the leaning trees, she sees a clearing of flowers and fruit, and in the middle - a short, lithe figure. Even from this distance, she can see training in their shape, in the way they hold themselves.

Even from here, she can sense what they are - more an evil spirit than a person, formed from corruption and negative emotions.

She thinks, for a moment, of a very long time ago, when she gave mortals parts of her power, to make themselves into monsters, forms twisting as they were armoured with their hatreds and sorrows.

They pale to this, whatever it is.  It is like a dragon to a carp.

Kore rests her hand on the belt that now wraps her waist - sleek and angular, petrified wood that is not wood cold under her fingers.

She has many questions to ask this being. They want to tear out of her mouth. But she masters herself and says:

"What are you, and what do you intend?"

14

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 04, 2021, 06:23:25 PM »

Kore

Lunch-ish???

Petty conjurers who make their living on a small talent for seeing the future wake up sweating, an inexplicable terror roiling in their  guts at the already half-forgotten image of great pillars, shattered, of a world of gravestones.

The learned curse as great scrying mirrors shatter, a terrible shining crown burning into their eyes as it shatters. In the pattern of the broken glass, they read that something terrible is approaching -a  demon slouching towards a holy city to despoil all the sacred places of the world...



Kore spreads jam on her toast as her kettle whistles, the fragrant smell of tea (it took her a century to get the correct flavour) filling the kitchen. Her side aches, as it always does. Out of her window, she can see her crops - fruit trees, wheat, fields of vegetables, bushes of strawberries - beyond them a border of trees. All is as it has been for - centuries? Millenia? But-

The sun is shining down, bright and cheerful. Like she had never seen it gutter and die.  And beyond her small grove of trees - impressively large, in her opinion, given what she had to work with - she can see taller trees towering in the distance. She did not plant those. Which means they should not be here.

She takes a bite of the toast, and chews. She pours a cup of tea and lets it cool as she considers.

She had felt something in the space below her skin.  A skein of space-time in disorder. 

Wherever this place was, it was not where she had lived. Had been living for a long time.

As she sips her tea (she almost spits it out, it hadn’t cooled as quickly as she expected) Kore wonders - do people live here?

In tall towers of glass and steel, in earthen mounds fortified with wood and stone, travelling on animals, or plying rivers? The form of their living doesn’t matter to her. What shape they are.

Only that they exist.  That people exist. Not a hollow shell reaching for her throat - but... People who live and laugh and love-

She hisses as still too hot tea scalds her hands. She had been shaking, tremors slowly rippling through her body.

The more important question is - should she check? Does she have the right to try and pretend to be one of them? After everything?

If they exist. If they exist, she tells herself, as she finishes the tea and toast, she can ask herself that question. Consider it.

She packs a small bag of... provisions isn’t the right word, since she doesn’t need to eat.

Maybe she can use them for barter, she thinks, as she picks up, with careful reverence, the branch of not-wood that was once part of her parent. She takes a few steps, using it as a walking stick. It’s not remotely necessary, but this way she can look more normal.

Humans used to use sticks to walk through forests, she vaguely recalls, smoothing out her skirt as she steps out of her house. 

She picks a direction where she see’s less tall trees, and starts to walk.