GoldenCat/SilentAcquaintance
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Silent Acquaintance
The Boil.
The long night had ended.
Iselsis had come during it.
She was drained of all essence fighting all manners of nasty creatures very fast.
Whatever she had been told of the Boil before... it was hard for a Windian to conceive that. The air was dirty; foul. It was like she was always smoking the cheapest brand of cigarette she had ever tried. The buildings were grounded, dirty, ugly. The streets narrow. No space to fly, nothing high, just a labyrinthine, ugly, dirty little worm holes for the trash that walked on the streets. It was horrid.
And being torched did not make it any prettier.
And to make things better for her, the place she had crashed unto the other night was now torched and broken.
Things were not going too well.
Iselsis: Bloody scarf. I'd kill for a cig right now... goddamn city. Damn dirt. How anything but rats live here, I'll never know.
She walked the dirty, broken streets of the Boil, black briefcase in hand, eyeing some of the ragged looking survivors as she walked past. At least she had the fortune of still being clean, having nice clothes, the like. Still, this place stunk, literally. She didn't even particularly know where the heck she was going.
Damn does field work suck.
- A girl comes running Iselsis' way. She screams. She trips.
The water of the gutter splash on her face.
She is trying to get up, not too far from Iselsis, a group of ragged punks close on her trail... saying dirty things, laughing, enjoying the chase as she tries to get up...
Iselsis: Oh this is just what the heck I needed. Fucking Boil, it's all it's cracked up to be isn't it? Should've let the deaders have it.
Yes, she was cranky. Still, she couldn't let those people pick on that girl, damn punks. And so she shoves off from the ground, spreading dirt and grime behind her in her wake. She stops and imposes herself between the punks and the girl. Standing calmly, briefcase still in her left hand.
A glance over her shoulder at the girl, "Hey, you okay? Don't worry, I'm here to help."
- "Help me! Help me, please!" The girl calls, getting up, "They... they want to..."
The punks come closer. Sneering. Holding broken pipes and wood and all sorts of makeshift weapons on their hands.
"Hey, weirdo, scram! Our territory here, a'rite?"
"Or are ya one o' those dead fuckers? Dressin' black is a bad move here, dude."
Iselsis: She sighs softly... Idiots
She pulls the scarf from her face, and tips her hat up, giving them all a level look. Meanwhile reaching into her coat with her right hand, drawing one of her plasma tongue repeaters.
"You punks are about to make a very bad... very fatal mistake. I suggest you go home now, unless you're prepared to dance with the devil."
She quirks one corner of her mouth up into a devilish grin, that green spark in her eyes returning as she shows her face to the punks. "And trust me, you really don't want to dance with the devil. Especially since I could blow your brains out from..." she seems to muse for a moment and thumbs at a half crumbled building half obscured by fog in the distance behind her, "there, without you ever knowing what hit you. My aim only improves with close range."
- They looked at her.
Eyes went wide.
The gun pointing at them.
"m..."
"mmm...."
"mmm-mm-mmmONSTER!"
And then, they ran. As fast as they could.
The girl got to her feet, tentatively... looking up at Iselsis in fear and awe. "What are you...?"
Iselsis: She sneers as they run. "Cowards! You better run! And if you so much as ever think of hurting another girl ever again I'll come when you sleep from the shadows and rip your throats out and offer them to the bloody yozis!"
Those punks were probably not going to think of hurting a girl for a very long time. Then she turns around, her demeanor back to normal, and eyes the girl.
"Someone who could've used someone like myself long ago when I was still normal and needed to be saved."
She fishes a cig out of her pocket, blows on it to light it and takes a few puffs. Then realizes she's being rude and holds it out to the girl, if she wanted a smoke.
"You going to be okay from here?"
- The girl takes the cigarette, shaking...
"T... thank you..."
"I... not really. I don't even know what to do, now..." She says, inhaling the smoke and letting it out in... rather strange forms. "You... were like me?"
Iselsis: Her eyes focus on... something, beyond the girl, something in the distance...
"Once. A long time ago.", she shrugs a little, "None of that matters now. If you want ... if you're not too scared, heh, you can tag along til I find a good place to crash in this..."
She tries to find a suitably derogative word to describe the Boil, and fails. She just shakes her head, as if she were silently condemning the place in her mind. "Anyway, up to you."
She fishes out another cig and lights that one as well, taking another puff while she waits for an answer.
- "I... I have a place." She says, inhaling some more...
"Everyone else is gone, but the place is still mine..." She looks at some place in the distance, worried, "Assuming no punks like these have taken it over. Things have been... tough, around here lately. They always were, but now...."
"You are free to come, though." She smiles, doing her best not to shake. She fails.
Iselsis: "If there's more punks looting your place, I'll send them packing, no worries. I deal with deaders for a job, I can handle a random assortment of street scum."
She pauses for a moment, pensive, then. "Besides, I could use a guide. This city is a damn maze."
"Lead the way then. Oh, what's your name?"
She made no effort to try and calm the girl down. People were not her specialty, and for all she knew the girl was shaking cause she was having a chat with a devilwoman.
- "It is. Even you being... like that, I guess you can get lost... it is a past-time, here. Watching outsiders get lost, and betting wether they will be robbed, raped, or killed for entering the wrong gang's turf first. Tends to be the latter. Boys always bet on rape, those sick pervs." She seems calmer by the minute. The cigarette was sure helping. "Anyway, your guess is as good as mine why they made it like a maze. Pehaps to look from up there, the winged royals of whiteshield. To see their little mice running in their dirty maze..."
"Acelia of Indigo Blooms. Don't mind the name, the reason is much more crass than you can imagine. It does sound classy, don't you think? What is yours?"
Iselsis: She tips her hat down again, in the possibility of passing strangers, all they'd see was her red skin, not the horns at least. She contentedly took some more puffs of her cig.
"You can call me Iselsis. Best if you didn't know my real name. As far as this place comes, it's vile. You should leave. I hear Windia's nice this time of year. Safer too."
She wasn't about to tell the girl she herself was from Windia. Who she really was and where she was from she would leave in the middle, for both their sakes.
"So do you know where all the bigshot warheroes hang out, Acelia?"
Acelia: "Seems like alot of 'shielders went to Windia. Dunno. Place always seemed full of stuck-up angels. And probably will look down on any more refugees now. I bet those guys think being robbed, raped and murdered in a camp outside of the winged walls is better than being robbed, raped and murdered here. I see no difference, Iselsis." She says, walking towards her house... "Nice to meetcha, by the way. Where you from? I'd guess the south what with the red skin, but that's a long way north..."
She brings a finger to her lips, looking at the Industrial... then Highlane. "Oh, the heroes? Like, the Dark Angel and the Captain and Father of Crows and the dancing angels? They... well, they are somewhere. Either with Rusty on the Industrial, or he moved them to Highlane..."
Iselsis: She simply nods. The ones in power never care how many people are hurt, or how. Good thing I don't have any real kind of power. I'd hate to be a bitch too.
"I drift", she answers vaguely in response of the girl's question. Nevermind that she really never drifted before. "You should gather up your things tonight. Then, tomorrow we can go see whoever's in charge here. Get you a safe place to stay. I'm sure it was bad before, but with the city in ruins you can't really stay out here alone.", she nods to her own words. "Unless of course you object?"
Acelia: "Nah. Nobody else to go, really. Noone else to go with." She says... as they move around narrow streets, and to the feet of a mount. It is all mud on the way down, makeshift wooden tablets making kind of a road up... as she steps on them, they make a noise akin to a fart, the mud rising up... Iselsis could swear she felt the scent of something... strange, burning. "I guess going with a demon or fair one, or whatever the fuck you are will at least be entertaining. Hey... my brother was a gambler. He'd be so proud!"
Iselsis: She steps lightly on the wooden tablets, taking care they don't sink. She was an air aspect dragonblooded, treading lightly was second nature to her.
As they wander on she states simply, "Don't worry, I'm not going to freak out and kill you, or snack on your soul or anything like that. I like to think I'm not quite that alien yet.", she pauses at the mention of her brother, "Yeah? Why would he be proud?"
Acelia: "Ah. You are one of those people they take, right? That they... change. Wishing to not be an alien thing..."
She looks in the distance, her hands trying to keep steady... and around the corner, a big pyre of bodies. The scent does not appear to faze her. "My brother... that is Alkim... he was a gambler. Once, he went to the other side of the mount." She pointed to far away, a great peak on the faded distance, "Where the things live. His weird girlfriend took him there to play. He won, there. He took the highest stakes, and came back the same, with a fucking diamond the size of his empty head. Then, he sold it, wasted half of the money on the girls of House of Heavenly Pleasures. They diamond turned to dirt the day after, and we had to sell half our stuff to stop the Pack from cutting his cock off."
She smiles as she looks up the distance, and remembers... "Ah, Alkim. The nicest fucking irresponsible guy you will ever know."
She tries hard not to cry.
Iselsis: "Something like that. It wasn't the fair ones in my case though. That doesn't matter though..."
She grows silent as they pass the pyre and stops to face it for a moment, silently mouthing a prayer for the departed, making a small gesture at the end. She wasn't particularly religious, she just didn't want them to come back as ghosts, being an exorcist and all. When she's done she glances back at Acelia and starts walking again. She doesn't ask what happened to her brother, it's all around her, she doesn't need to.
"We all lose. You just have to keep going. Have to put it out of your mind and deal with what's in front of you. If you don't, you'll waste away into nothing.", she pauses for a moment, "I'll say a prayer for him, if you like."
Acelia: "I would like, yes."
"He loved to make those crazy-ass gambles like those, you know? I bet he would love the thought of his responsible, uptight sister walking with a... whatever you are, red thing and stuffs, that she met on the street. Bastard would never let me hear the end of it." She says, looking down on the pyre... "If you have any authority to pray..."
Iselsis: "The dead and me have come to somewhat of an understanding during my carreer.", she says, a certain air of levity to the remark despite her serious tone.
"But like I said, it's not much of a gamble. I'm really relatively benign, most of the time. A sort of civil servant, if you will. Of course, the deaders wouldn't agree. But hey, who gives a damn what they think, huh?"
Acelia: "Sometime you might die, you know. What will you do then? Wait for an exorcist to come?"
"That is what you are, right?" She smiles, getting higher on the mountain... and up to a run-down house. Not a shack, a house that one in the Boil would call big... just dirty. "Shack, sweet shack. Make yourself at home!" She falls on a cushion right at the side of the door. It squeaks. "There is some old cheese on the kitchen. The salted meat too. Just don't ask me what sort of meat is it."
Iselsis: She wanders into the house after the girl. "Roomy. At least, for this city.", she observes. She tips her hat back up and heads into the kitchen, coming back with the cheese, and the meat. She was a bit peckish after not eating much for a full day.
"You're a smart girl to figure that one out. When I die I'm not sure if an exorcist is what I'll need. If I need one, there'll be one. Eventually.", she passes the girl the cheese, keeps the jerky for herself. She leans against a nearby wall and sits down, resting back against it.
"Judging by the sight of this place, and your perceptiveness, I'd say you weren't the most average person in the Boil."
- Acelia takes the cheese, munching on it idly. White hair, not silver, but white. Together like it was not even hair, just snow. Her left eye ice blue, her right one faint violet. "I... well, what I am is complicated... is the only way to say it, I guess..."
As she munches and thinks of words, Iselsis hears the sounds.
Above them, on the mountain.
Steps.
Coming closer...
Armored.
Armed. With chains.
The weight... dead, dead thing.
Iselsis: Fuck!
In a second she's up, the clips on the back of her coat making a slight popping sound as her wings come back into being, pouring to life through the slits at the back of her coat, in another second she's at Acelia's side, grabbing her by the arm and practically dragging her outside, making sure the girl stays behind her. Looking to see what was coming to stir her peaceful reverie.
"Something's coming, stay behind me Acelia! If it comes for you, run!”
- Outside... she sees a figure in black armor, coming down the hill... black cloak fastened around her, a violet cross pulsing within the hood. Her body can vaguely be seen, but it is clearly feminine. One can see from the voice, as well. Heavy metal boots and gauntlets, almost comically large.
"Oh, so you heard me. You are good, sister."
She stops at the start of the house's roof, taking an exagerated blade out of her back... "You gave my boss quite a hard time, girlie. I don't like that."
"The Acolyte is very, very angry with you, you litle bitch."
Iselsis: She reaches for her plasma repeaters and spreads one arm out in front of Acelia, in a protective kind of way. Her demeanor darkens as the nemessary, probably a nemessary, came closer. Growing gaunt, empty, the bringer of divine retribution.
"Your boss should've had the good sense to stay dead. I hope the token of the fires of malfeas, the flames of yu-shan, and the bite of the air dragon and the yozis keeps her warm at night."
She grins, tipping her head up higher so her face is clearly seen in the moonlight. "She should also know better than to send her minions for me. The last four failed. You should be asking yourself, do you really want your miserable existance to end today? My advice... go back to your mistress and tell her to come face me personally. I can't take her seriously if she doesn't even do that."
"Go on now, shoo. Before I change my mind.”
- "You are not worthy of being disposed by Her. All you did was get one lucky shot while she was distracted..."
The great blade pointed directly to Iselsis, "I will not make this mistake, monster. I will not take my eyes off you."
Acelia: Acelia takes a few steps back, almost falling down the hill... "Oops..."
"Hmmm... can't you just settle it without killing one another?"
Iselsis: She simply glares over her shoulder at Acelia. "Go find some cover and don't come out til the deader's dead."
Then she levels her gaze back at the woman: "Who do you think you're dealing with, dead one? A simple dynast, a fledgling terrestrial? I'm a demon, a terrestrial, an exorcist, but most of all a Windian black ops! We don't run from your kind, we don't lose, we don't fail."
She regards the other woman dourly. "Expect no mercy this night. Unlike your mistress, I will make sure your corpse will stay such."
Iselsis: "Oh and one last thing: don't call me sister. I'm nothing to you but your undoing."
Nemessary: A shimmer goes down the blade. The violet cross within the mask shines brighter.
"We all fail. In the end, all is taken by the void. Come, and we will see who will be undone!"
Iselsis: "Oi, you deaders, always so fatalistic.", she shakes her head a little.
Acelia: She runs to the side of her house, to the middle of some scraps of metal, as if she was born there, "Watch out, please!"
Iselsis: "My, do you wear a lot of armor. I hope you can keep up, little nemessary.", and with that she lifts eight yards up into the air, firing her repeaters at the nemessary as she goes.
Nemessary: She held her hand to her chest... and took the piece of metal. "Barely a scratch..."
"Is that all you can do?"
Blade on hand, she lept into the air.... wings of violet pyre-flame appearing at her back, burning her cloak, as she comes towards Iselsis...
Iselsis: "Oooo, look, the nem learned a trick, how quaint.", her body seems to speed up right before the sword would impact, moving swiftly like a bolt of lightning, faster than she'd ever moved before. She wasn't going to let some lowly bitch best her, her sword would make a nice addition to her collection. Her grasp on her guns shift from her shooting grip to the blocking grip, crossing the reinforced barrels to block the sword blow.
The guns deflect the blow, but not quite enough, and the sword cuts her upper arm even as the winds start swirling around her. She grimaces and her attitude is silenced, this nemessary was obviously not like the ones before. With a big swoop of her wings she backs up, blasting the winds in the nemessary's face, she's pretty darn fast, flying a good twenty four yards up and away.
Meanwhile she changes her stance, aligning her guns which shimmer with essence into a rifle which she lines up for one perfect shot.
I hope this shit works as well when they expect it...
A click, and a slug speeds out towards the nem, "Look at what new trick I learned, bitch!", and splits into five demonic little sprites which dart apart, surround the nemessary, and then, trailing flame in their wake launch themselves at their intended target.
The Hitman's Homonym, a new trick she'd learned after Blue Wind.
As she does this all, the shadow, darkened winds nearly explode around her with the massive display of evidence. If an iconic dragonblood of prominent breeding was a sight to behold, then this demonic dragonblooded certainly had to be, the infernal whirlwind dancing around her.
Nemessary: Wreathed in flames, the creature falls, burning, screaming.. falling hard, buried in the mud, burning...
Iselsis: She swoops down after her, this fight was not done yet... not done at all. She activates her spirit sight and spirit walking charms.
Nemessary: The assassin - the true assassin, the ghost within the shell - is there, burning with the body, screaming... the body breaking, Ise can see the spirit leaving it as it burns, still in shock from the destruction of its host...
Iselsis: Her wounded arm hangs limply, the big blade had cut right through the armored artifact. It was slowly mending, slick iridescent black slowly clinging and covering the cut, but her arm bled, drops of blood dropping from her finger tips.
"I told you I'd have no mercy for you, spirit. Prepare to meet your precious void."
She lifts the plasma repeater at the spirit, her own form slightly blurred from the corporeal realm as she treads half into those of the spirits.
The familiar click of the cocked hammer.
The familiar explosion of sound, as the bullet was propelled out of the chamber.
The familiar smell of the shot powder.
"This night, your soul has been redeemed."
Acelia: Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap!
"Wow! That was, like, COOL!" She says, sat upon one of the heaps of garbage, jumping down and running up to Iselsis, "How did you do that?"
Iselsis: A wince as she tucks the guns back into their holsters. She reaches down and unclasps the belt that held the nemessary's sword, which she straps around her chest. She squats down, running the tips of the fingers on her good arm across the blade, feelings it's contours and the patterns of its essence, doing this until she could attune to the blade enough to carry it.
It would make a fine addition to her collection indeed.
Then she glances at Acelia blankly. "Huh? Did what? If you mean killing the deader, aim, squeeze trigger, done."
Acelia: "Wow..." she says, almost going to Iselsis and touching the guns, but staying at a decent distance from her demonic winds. "So, just squeezing the trigger and I split the fire in three, burn a full-armored deader with magical flame, and destroy his soul? How much for the guns, then?" She grins, throwing some sarcasm over it.
Iselsis: She rolls her eyes at the obvious sarcasm, "That part is just a trick I picked up. It's complicated. If you're an exalt like me, you can reach into yourself and draw upon the essence of your own being. Once you manipulate that properly you can perform small ... well, miracles, I guess, is an easy way to say it. Once you master how to use those, you can start stacking the effect into a sort of static pattern which you learn, that way you can do it all at once."
A short pause, "Takes a lot out of you though. If that hadn't worked I'd have been in trouble... knowing the deaders, we both would've been in trouble."
"Become a government sponsored freak like me and add a decade of training and you can do the same thing. Interested?"
Acelia: She shrugs, smiling. "Hey, why the heck not? Not like there is anything else I can do around here!"
"So, where do I sign up to get one of those?" She looks at the Plasma Tongue Repeaters.
Iselsis: "Trust me, you don't want to live like me.", it was hard for her not to add 'kid' to that, even though Acelia was probably older than she was. She grabs the handle of the blade and with a lot of effort props it upright into the dirt, still tracing the contours of the weapon with her fingertips.
"Hard to say, they're priceless and probably ancient artifacts. Lookshy might have some. Or the Heptagram. You can get an inferior product down in Gem, or get the mountain folk to make you a different inferior one. Why?", she eyes the girl, one eyebrow raising slightly.
Acelia: "Well, if I had one thing I could use to kill people by pressing a trigger, you be damn sure I'd use it!"
"Wow, so many places... I'm born and bred on the Boil. Dun think I'll ever go to one of those!"
Iselsis: She uses her body to keep the sword upright as she fishes into her pocket, producing a cig and lighting it before popping it between her lips and leaving it there while she worked on attuning to the soulsteel.
"And why exactly do you need to kill people?"
Acelia: She comes closer now, the anima more subdued, and looks back at the Boil. At the ruined factories. The corpse of a dragon laying in there. The foul air. The screams one could just hear in there, somewhere. "To survive, sister. Did ya think that was the first I got chased?"
"Think I always got away clean?"
"Welcome to the Boil, Iselsis..."
Iselsis: "Least you're alive. That's something, isn't it?", she directs the winds of her anima to flick some ash off her lit cigarette tip. "Being like me won't do you any favors."
She sighs, inwardly, "I'm not gonna be able to leave you at wherever the bigshot heroes are, am I?"
Acelia: "Hey, maybe. Maybe I'll find something to do there. Maybe I'll follow ya around."
Iselsis finally feels the essence coursing through her... and the blade. It was hers', now.
"You can always try ta shoot me if you don't wanna." She grins. "Heard the prince is all pretty too. Really wanna see that!"
Iselsis: Her hands grab the handle of the grossly oversized, overweight blade. Her wings shimmer and dissipate into sparkles in the air, which then vanish as well. She swings the blade around and into place in the belt on her back.
"I'm here for the war. Following me around might get you killed.", again she shrugged, "But hey, who the hell am I to try and stop you?", she gestures around with her good arm, "If I were you I'd follow someone like me out of this shithole too."
She starts back for the door of the house after saying a quick prayer for the nemesary she'd just destroyed. "Come on. We have a victory feast of beef jerky and cheese waiting."
Acelia: "And being here is much better? You haven't even gone to the Ash yet, Ise. Those punks get nightmares with the things on the Ash. And I have go to there every morning to buy the don't-ask-what-it-is-made-of jerky!", She giggles, walking into the shack with Iselsis, a smouldering corpse laced with magical armor behind them, forgotten. "A feast for champions! Well, champion and... whatever I am!"
Iselsis: She wanders inside, where she left her glorious jerky meal, and sags back into place on the ground, resting her back against the wall, and biting a chunk off.
"Yeah, about that. What are you, then?"
Acelia: She picks the cheese, and brings it to her lips. She munches on it a bit, then looks up... thinks..
Then, she looks back at Iselsis, and shrugs.
"I'm weird."
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- - Back to A Dance of Angels
