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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 22, 2012 1:05:13 GMT -8
Cig On Ma' Hip With a strange amount of indifference, the boy's left hand snatched up into the air, grabbing the lighter again, with a conflicting drive, the smile on his face turning crooked as he saw the means to gather his fix. Quickly spitting out the burned-away nub, the boy's other hand went rather hastily to his side, popping out another cigarette, putting it to his lips and lighting it rather in haste, quickly taking another deep breath, smoke following after him. With a smile in thanks, the boy would toss the lighter right on back to Vespyr... approximately seventeen seconds later. He found her commentary to be hilarious. Though his brow did raise slightly at her mention of alternatives. The nicotine quickly kicking in again as he ceased to skip and began walking normally after Vespyr... again. His head was cast downward, watching the debris on the ground... but walking rather confidently with his boots on.
They walked on in this... garage area, before walking up a small stairwell. The whole place had this strange, haunting, but welcoming feel to it. To the boy, at least. And probably to Vespyr. But at the top of the stairs, he looked at where they were---completely caged in. Isolated. And for a moment, as they stopped again, the boy thought for a fleeting second that Vespyr had led him into the middle of nowhere. Perhaps even for some playtime.
'Trust her, she said.'
His confidence immediately snapped back, just in time for her to witness her pushing down the fence, opening it like a... door. Smiling, the boy busied his mind with the previous thought he kept on task...
"Rich people's smoke, ah?"
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"your hide will make a fine poncho." |
PLAYED BY OOC NAME
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Post by Vespyr on Jan 22, 2012 1:30:36 GMT -8
Vespyr ducked through the opening in the fence, and allowed the boy to follow before closing and locking it behind them like she had the gate.
“Not particularly. Anyone can get their hands on a nice hookah.”
Exhibit A would be Vespyr herself, who did in fact own a rather finely crafted hookah, which she had not paid a cent for.
“Anyone can get their hands on anything if they really feel like it.”
...Actually, Vespyr had never paid a cent for anything in her entire life, even despite the fact that she had a great deal more money than she could ever have found use for. She merely got a kick out of removing it from circulation; just another insignificant way to flip her bony middle finger at the ‘system’. Ho-hum.
Vespyr flipped through her keys again, found the one corresponding with the front door, and stuck it in the lock. The door opened to absolute darkness, into which the girl stepped undaunted, even eagerly. She would wait for Tuvlan to follow before closing the door behind and locking it again. Without a word and seemingly without the use of her eyes, Vespyr crossed to the center of the large room and poked a long pvc pipe at a sheet of metal through a small hole in the ceiling. Until a small ray of light came to life with the suddenness of a gunshot, the only sensable thing in the room was the faint sound of movement in the darkness. The distant sunlight filtered down onto the form of Vespyr; she was standing precariously on ragged chunks of cement, all of which formed a circle around what appeared to be a fire pit in the center of a large and mostly empty room. Vespyr dropped the pipe to the floor and then stepped down from her small perch.
“Come.” She said as she turned away, walking directly away from Tuvlan, into thickening shadows.
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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 22, 2012 1:46:56 GMT -8
The Equalizing Darkness The boy listened carefully to her words, for it sounded much in the like of one of her first lessons to him. And for Exhibit B, for what it was worth... the boy had never "earned" a single piece of clothing on his body, having stolen all of it for himself. In the boy's ears, it was as though the girl were quoting some sort of bible he had coincidentally been inclined to follow without knowing. Keeping in pace, watching his steps, the boy would wait, hopping on the tips of his toes with an assured eye as he waited for what was becoming the umpteenth time that the girl went through her miraculous chain of keys... but the boy's eye widened as she opened what appeared to be the last door...
...Into darkness.
It would be hard to tell for anyone with normal eyesight, but the boy let off a shiver of trepidation. Excitement did not do him justice. Resisting accidentally crushing his cigarette in his mouth, the boy followed after the girl into her fortress... "nonchalantly."
He followed after her, his eye slowly turning into a squint as his vision all but completely faded, save for the brief speck of light that emenated from the tip of his cigarette that inched closer and closer to him. Gritting his teeth, the boy parted with the cigarette, blowing out a large stream of smoke to his left side, before holding the little cigarette in his finger, in front of him... his other hand held out in front of him, palm down, trying not to stumble...
...To see Vespyr there, in the middle, in what rays of sunlight that suddenly struck across her petite hourglass.
With an order, she beckoned him further. And with careful steps... the boy strained his ear, trying to oblige...
'Excitement.'
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"your hide will make a fine poncho." |
PLAYED BY OOC NAME
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Post by Vespyr on Jan 22, 2012 2:16:30 GMT -8
For several moments, Vespyr would be swallowed up in shadow without even the sound of her footsteps as an assurance that she hadn’t, as she had appeared to, suddenly stopped existing altogether. But then a small flame would flicker into existence where she had faded out, and in its halo of dim warm light was her pale face once more, staring straight into Tuvlan. Once his eyes adjusted he would find that the entirety of the main room was now slightly visible, though the shadows in the furthest corners still clung desperately. Vespyr was standing in an open doorway behind long counter, where in the day that this building had been a fast-food restaurant, paper-bagged orders came rushing in and out of the kitchen behind the counter where the customers were served. But those days were many years gone, and no trace of what had once taken place here remained. It was so desolate a place that ghosts did not care to haunt it.
Or perhaps, they had fled in terror. If not from the horrific things that Vespyr had done here, then from some other sinister otherworldly presence, one that pervaded the room even now. Many details about this cavernous place were warranting of fear; but aside from the faint scent of decay, the charred human bones filling the fire pit, and what appeared to be bloodstains on the floor, amongst other things… nothing was as eerie or disconcerting as the charcoal drawings on the walls. Holding the highest rank of all of the macabre etchings was the demonic feline that seemed to peer at Tuvlan through its empty eye sockets.
“This place is more than it looks. And can actually be rather comfortable.”
Though the latter part of her statement would seem somewhat ludicrous under the circumstances, Vespyr spoke with nothing but an honest tone of voice.
“There is always food. Running water. Electricity, though I choose not to use it often.”
…And the added bonus of being a haven of utter darkness and silence and secrecy, though that was just Vespyr’s opinion.
“There are only two rules: My room is off limits. And do not, under any circumstances, smash the cats.”
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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 22, 2012 14:48:38 GMT -8
Drawing The Lines Only the light of his cigarette and the stray rays of sunlight seemed to betray anything of the environment. And the boy's breath, heartbeat, filled with trepidation, found himself at a loss as his senses were dulled, overestimating his ears---He could not hear Vespyr, try as he might. The boy found himself somewhere in the middle of fear and exhilaration. He breathed, slowing his heart, craving for the smoke wafting in his face to be that much closer to his lips. What was to happen here?---
---As though she knew, the girl appeared before him again, her pale face illuminated in the warm incandescent of candlelight, however faint. She was looking at him, as though to beckon him closer. And like that, it was as though she slowly began to grant him sight, because she permitted it. With the crutch of the extra light, the room slowly, if reluctantly, began to come into view for his still adjusting eye. Vespyr stood in the doorway to what the boy was quickly recognizing to be a more ancient form of a fast food restaurant, recognizing paralleling design patterns to ones he had been kicked out of many times in the past.
Still steadying himself, the boy stood his ground, as though afraid of falling over with his numbed senses. But this place was not as forsaken and riddled with ghouls as one may have thought, save for one. Instead, in the emptiness, the boy found it strangely... peaceful. Warmth was not present here, warmth did not hug him. The darkness did, and now, as with this pale-faced Vespyr as its emissary, it seemed to welcome him. Welcoming the boy... to the shadows.
Looking around slowly, and returning the cigarette to his mouth, the boy kept his hands at his sides, smelling the various aromas that filled this room. Some were familiar as of his vagabond days, but a few were more... foreign. Death. Decay. Yet the boy did not cringe, inhaling more of this atmosphere, if anything.---
---And finding himself staring at this... what appeared to be a "cat," painted on the wall.
The boy listened to her words. The accomodations that this place was stocked with... but could not, for a moment, find himself capable of tearing his gaze away from the cat on the wall. It enveloped the boy, like the darkness...
And with a strange resurgance of enthusiasm, the boy suddenly blinked, looking in the way of Vespyr, hearing her orders.
"Kukukukukukukuku..."
It was obvious now.
No smashing of cats?
The feline on the wall?
He was being welcomed... to hallowed ground. But to what?...
"Which one is your room? And how many cats should I be aware of?"
...Strange reverence in his voice, befitting the strangely comforting atmosphere that surrounded them, the smoke seeming to cloud over the boy's body...
...Just like the orders and law that were being established on the boy.
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"your hide will make a fine poncho." |
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Post by Vespyr on Jan 22, 2012 22:57:31 GMT -8
Momentary Lapse In Normality
Vespyr raised a long finger and pointed a door to the boy’s immediate left. There was nothing exceptional about the door aside from it being solid black—almost; a smallish square at about eye level had been left unshaded and resembled an opaque window, with a pair of faintly drawn lines of glare running diagonally across the imaginary glass. Had the room been regularly lit, the appearance of the door would have been just as regular. But in the meager flickering candlelight, darkness seemed to play with the char-blackened rectangle in such a way that it ceased to be a door altogether, losing its solidity and taking on the illusion of a black void. There was no door resting in the face of the wall, but rather, a gaping entrance to empty space in which floated something that looked like a nearly blank sheet of paper. Under this appearance, Vespyr had but to write something along the lines of ‘ERROR 404: ROOM NOT FOUND’ in the small window-space, or blacken it completely, to give the entire image a startlingly realistic unreality. At a glance, the mind would be tricked into believing that an infinite nothingness existed beyond the open doorway, and despite brain’s immediate counterargument attacking the impossibility of such a thing, there would an inexplicable fear of falling.
“Anywhere between one and thirty.”
What?
“Sometimes more, if it’s tuna toast night.”
There had been several occasions on which Vespyr had been unable to count the heads or tails of her feline guests as they swarmed about on quick feet and made a furry swamp of the floor, but even under such hectic circumstances she only ever encouraged them by making more food.
“This one’s a regular. He’s almost always here.”
She was referring to Fleesh, who could be seen sauntering across the room toward the boy. His slow but assured gait spoke of a subtle dignity, lean muscle rippling beneath a fiery orange pelt with each confident step he took. He was large for a cat, but long and lithe, neither overweight nor grossly muscular. His one eye was trained on Tuvlan with utmost suspicion; a sort of protectiveness, perhaps a jealousy complex glinted in the deep amber hue as he put himself between the boy and his mistress.
Vespyr merely regarded him with unspoken fondness, seeming to take no notice of his 'attitude'.
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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 23, 2012 5:26:14 GMT -8
Paying Respects ~Cat Kind~ By typical physical standards, the boy was tall, imposing, but never stood out from the crowd. He differentiated himself without meaning to, his wild tendencies only seeking to encourage the constant negative input on his life. Different. Outsider. Irregular. The rank of abnormal. Yet, in this dim, glowing light, the boy found himself faded away, reduced, diminished both as a person. The darkness, he thought, as he had previously stared into the lidless eyes, had done away with his differences, put all on the same ground. But his green hue was quick to notice how... this was not the case for Vespyr.
She did not... "set herself apart." She was. In the darkness, she lived, she breathed, she incubated, she thought, but she was no more diminished than the darkness. It was as though she were interchangeable. Staring at her, if the boy was not careful, was akin to staring into the void of darkness, to feel as though he were floating in the darkness. As the boy attempted to perceive Vespyr's room, his face would "visibly" strain, scrunching up to perceive at least the direction from his bearings. Vespyr evidentally enough lived in a level of void that was struck with a severity of a completely other level.
The boy was almost dumbfounded. Except he still had a lengths of the cigarette to progress through. Still, his hands were kept at his sides as he attempted to retain "balance." He was stumbling over himself.
---As though to interrupt the romanticized thought, Vespyr interrupted the conductor on the boy's train of thought with the rather startling numbers of inhabiting felines. The boy's gaze would slowly turn to hers, his cigarette pointed in her direction as his jaw slackened a little. But it quickly warmed up at the thought of it---Vespyr did not dwell "alone," but just rather... independently in the company of others. But rather than smile in appreciation, the boy's smile was more directed at the idea of feral companions.---
---Only to have Vespyr redirect his attention to the small creature that had (without the boy even noticing) quietly made his way between himself and Vespyr.
'The Regular.'
The boy instantly crouched down onto his haunches, his face sucked into a look of adoration. A 'd'aw' face. It kind of looked like...
"=D"
...But the cigarette still burned slowly a ways from his mouth, careful to breath the smoke to the side in the company of this fellow.
---The entirety of the boy's body had relaxed, a firm, comforting smile appearing on the boy's face as his attention had become mostly drawn to his new roommate. He did not offer his hand though---he did not look at this creature as a pet. He never did. By experience's name, when sitting for a long enough period of time, completely still like a dead thing, sometimes the crows would perch on him, even going so far as to clean through his hair. When he sat around long enough around a person... He tended to get ousted for "loitering."
There were many reasons that the boy was excited at the lack of "human" interaction.
"---Understood."
...His eye would slowly look up from the cat that regarded him rather suspiciously and identify again with Vespyr. Happy to follow these orders with gusto.
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"your hide will make a fine poncho." |
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Post by Vespyr on Jan 23, 2012 16:08:38 GMT -8
Theories
Fleesh lowered himself to his haunches and glared at the boy, his eye focused on the other’s… single eye.
’…’
On the most basic level of comprehension, the feline’s thoughts translated to something along the lines of: I miss an eye. White-hair man misses an eye. Red-hair man misses an eye. Without being dumbed down to the level of human understanding, his thoughts would have been incomprehensible. But ‘thoughts’ is merely a prosaic seven-letter word, and a rather dull attempt to describe an unfathomably complex composition of intelligently succinct, yet extremely verbose, often poetic ideas untouched by words, for words are limiting and mostly always overrated. Few human brains claim the capacity to detect, let alone interpret such advanced cogitations; evidence of this would be the widely accepted assumption that cats don’t think. Every feline being in the universe is aware of this preposterous presumption. So why have they never made the attempt to clear up the misconception?
Simply put, they can’t be bothered to lift a paw about it. It is a widely accepted fact in the feline world that the human race is a blunder of nature, and like a child learning the hard way how not to behave—with unabashed recklessness and stubborn egoism—they must be allowed to trip over their own mistakes every so often. That was how it was in the beginning; as the massive feline consciousness of the Earth watched Man grow and mature, it soon found that keeping his behavior in check was too tedious give an effort for. And so, Man saw the passivity that Cat treated him with, and mistook it for subordination, servitude, and at times he even went as far as to call it affection. Cat was annoyed by this assumption, of course, but being the more rational of the two beings, quickly learned to accept the situation for what it was.
There are, however, rare exceptions to this rule: certain members of the human race, throughout history, have found an uncanny affinity with felines, and likewise, the latter an almost obligatory admiration for the former. The instances of so pure a bond are so few and far between that when one is sniffed out, seemingly the entirety of the feline race develops an immediate fondness for what it sees as its ‘mental kin’. As prideful as they are for a single species of such unparalleled acuity, it is an exciting thing for one and all cats when the opportunity arises to connect on a cerebral level with a member of another species. The brains of felines are clairvoyant by nature, and the brains of humans are not. How it is possible that out of every few billion furless infants born, one or two are able to descry the ‘thoughts’ of felines from the formlessness of that abstract realm that happens to coincide, mostly unnoticed, right alongside the place where billions of other humans and non-psychic creatures walk and sleep, will always remain a mystery.
But even those seemingly telepathic individuals are not fully in tune with the vast incomprehensibility of the feline consciousness. Vespyr, being one of such individuals, could understand the emotions and intents of her four-legged peers almost to the point of being able to pin them down with human words. But only almost, for as previously stated, trying to describe a wordless thing with words was as difficult as describing color to a blind person. She could not hear their thoughts, but rather, felt them in the form of fleeting images, indescribable colors that spoke, scents that lead to memories not her own, and a plethora of other supernatural sensations. But as with any other human and most other sentient beings, if she were somehow subjected to the full spectrum of feline ‘thought’, she would rather quickly find her firm grip on her mind being wrenched away, and subsequently lose it to insanity.
But Vespyr could gather this much from the way Fleesh sat before the boy with his ears angled slightly forward: he was curiously annoyed by the conundrum of why she seemed to affiliate herself with so many one-eyed individuals.
Even she didn’t know.
After a thorough glaring at the boy and his eye patch, Fleesh rose to his paws and sauntered away with his long tail bobbing behind him like a warning. The russet-furred gentleman then leapt onto the counter with much grace, seating himself tall with his tail wrapped about his paws. The three of them—Vespyr behind the counter, Tuvlan in front of it, and Fleesh in the middle—were three points that formed a straight line, rather than a triangle. Of course, Fleesh had intended it that way.
“Good.” Vespyr said, in reference to something by now forgotten. Her eyes were trained on the back of the cat’s well-formed skull, and she remembered, not quite randomly, a conversation she had had with someone a few months, maybe years, ago.
“I need to get him an eye patch…” she muttered, nearly inaudibly, all to herself.
“Anyways. I don't have a room for you quite yet, if you do choose to stay. There is a storage closet, but that is full of sharp things and poisonous chemicals and I don't think that's a great idea.”
…Especially not until she could trust the boy.
“There's the kitchen.”
How unappetizing.
“I have an extra mattress, you can drag it anywhere you want I suppose. If you choose to stay.”
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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 24, 2012 5:14:37 GMT -8
A Moment of Reverence That same cat continued to stare at the boy. The boy's smile never waned, but he did not force physical contact on the creature---he allowed him to regard him, undeterred. After all, he was the newcomer here---by simple matter of seniority, the "regular" technically held more rights than the boy did at this moment. The boy had no qualms with this hierarchy, as the cat, perhaps mildly satisfied, sashayed away, his tail flicking about beautifully. It was an air of confidence, an air of understanding, akin to that of Vespyr.
The boy's smile widened, as he closed his eye for a moment, almost nodding. He watched the way the cat had tactfully positioned himself so that he stood between himself and the girl. Regarding the boy still for any suspicious behavior. Trying to be agreeable while still listening to Vespyr, the boy looked around, as though again trying to acquaint himself with the room.
...Only to find his wandering eye staring directly at the "big, scary drawing of the skeleton cat on the wall." But that wasn't accurate at all. Something perhaps to do with the smoke flowing out of the boy's nostrils, the aroma that pervaded his being... the presence of a powerful feline and the very mannerism in which Vespyr was who she was... was all swallowed up as the boy found himself staring at that "drawing" on the wall. Mesmerized. The emotional warmth... the physical detachment that coexisted in the boy seemed to drain away underneath its gaze, the boy's eye growing heavy. He did not fear the skeleton of the fearsome demon. Being swallowed up by it was not a bad thought either... for it cradled him where he sat...
And then, too, the boy looked at rather noble, fierce looking feline that stood between them, compatriot of Vespyr, regular of this "house."
...The feelings without feelings and the thoughts without thinking seemed to overwhelm the boy without him being aware of it and his head slowly slunk, angled downward...
Looking at the ground.
...
"I think I'll sleep here for now..."[/color] he would say, almost mystified, the length of the cigarette burning slowly away with every breath. He would lean backwards, where he sat... until his aviator jacket touched the cool floor underneath him, his arms stretching out as he did so, flexing his muscles and weary bones. Unaware of the wear and tearing tolls of such adventuring for one rather long, eventful afternoon. He looked upward, to the ceiling, absolutely comfortable where he was, hardened by about two decades worth of such a lifestyle. He listened... carefully. He was fine without a room, but sleeping in the kitchen later on would be fine. But the moment of dragging a mattress out with his newfound fatigue seemed to weigh to heavily on the boy. He rested where he was. But... ... "This is a secret place? How do I get in and out undetected?"Flecks of ash burned and cooled on his face as he asked this rather casually, turning the gaze of his eye over to Vespyr. It would be no good to cause trouble to his host, after all, when he was upon waking hours again. Especially not after her compatriots had suffered him so long to even welcome him.~[/i]
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"your hide will make a fine poncho." |
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Post by Vespyr on Jan 24, 2012 6:51:14 GMT -8
“Very secret.” she assured him, a sly grin on her lips. “Come, I will show you.”
With the candle in hand, Vespyr stepped away from the door of the kitchen and began to move down the pitch-black corridor that ran down the center of the latter half of the building. They would pass the door of her room and enter another door on the same side of the hall, at the very end. Small white tiles in the floor reflected the dim candlelight in an absent sort of way as they passed through what appeared to be a bathroom. On the far wall was yet another door which Vespyr had begun to work her set of keys on. It opened to reveal…
A storage room. Full of weapons. Weapons of more types than one could be bothered to count. There were an abundance of machetes and swords lying in neat heaps upon the shelves alongside axes of varying sizes, an array of butcher knives pinned to the wall by their handles as well as various types of saws, buckets-full of miscellaneous knives and blades and a couple pairs of rather large garden shears, some chainsaws, a weed-whacker, a flamethrower (it werfs flammen), to name a few. Inhabiting some of the top shelves were generally unlabeled bottles and cans, probably containing some sort of lethal substance in which she melted the bodies of her victims down to an oozing pulp, an entertaining method to watch and an easy clean-up afterward.
But Vespyr was not pointing at the weapons. She was pointing at the floor. There was a rectangular grate, large enough for a person of slender-ish stature to fit through, on top of which sat a pile of cinderblocks.
“That leads back to the garage.”
Once the cinderblocks were cleared away and the grate lifted off, all one had to do was jump and they would find themselves in the very back corner of the parking structure, across the way from the stairs.
“It's a little more difficult going up than going down, so in order to get back in I'll have to either get you a ladder or make you a spare key.”
Vespyr glanced at the boy with a strange mischief.
“But the latter will only happen once I know I can trust you~”
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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 24, 2012 10:22:13 GMT -8
A Man of Process Eying her warily, noting the sudden smile she was giving him, the boy jumped to his feet, banished the fatigue from his legs with a mental roar, and quickly began to follow after her, slowing to a normal pace when he was just a foot or so behind her. Though he was wordless in his movements, his head had become active again, looking around with great interest, making note of the doors and mentally preparing the directions they took. Unsurprisingly, following after Vespyr with a candle in hand made the place a little less surreal. Passing the forbidden room and traversed into the hallway that bordered the kitchen... and went through the bathroom.
For a moment, the boy was very afraid if the bathroom was the primary entrance and exit aside from the front... that he might one day accidentally sneak in on someone (namely Vespyr) in the middle of her business. The days of accidentally waltzing into someone's stall and the fight he had gotten into shortly after that had burned more than a few scars onto his torso---the thought of angering her in such a way was not exciting in the least.
But the moment was a moment, and the moment was fleeting, as they pressed to the bathroom's apparent "back door." Standing behind her for a moment, the boy leaned over to his left leg, his hip counter-leaning to the right, pocketing his hands as he did, looking around comfortably. The bathroom, after all, was rather well taken care of. His appreciation for this place immediately shot up---His hunt for a good bathroom, ever since the time of his "awakening" had been a desperate one and not all men's bathrooms were exactly well maintained.
---The boy was surprised to see the room they went into. So many pointy, sharp things awaited them there, that the boy almost had to wonder for a moment... but didn't press on that thought, figuring it was none of his concern. And that if it was... that the boy would be informed of it at a later time.
Walking a few steps inside, the boy would loom over the grate that Vespyr had decided to pick up, explaining as she did. But this, apparently, while not yet a valid entrance, was a workable exit. Glancing at the girl's rather mischievous smile, the boy would return it for a moment, his eye rather taken with the constant new environment he was being exposed to. Taking a hand from his pocket, he put his two forefingers to his cigarette and took a looooong drag.
The flame burned away to about halfway before he stopped, turning his head about alternatively in a very lazy way in a silly stream of smoke... but a curiously sharp eye considering everything she was telling him, noting the weapons, the bathroom, the forbidden room... and his potential space in the kitchen.
"...S'fine. I uproot trees and have my 'Smash' stick," he replied rather airily. He would jump, if he had to, not bothering with a ladder or a key. The process was never a problem for him since most of live had to deal with being flexible. His gaze ended as he just stared down at the hole where the grate was... mentally going through the process Vespyr had more or less described. It was hard to see, but his mind, fueled with nicotine, mentally prepared him with confidence.
Such a fun way to be secret.~
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"your hide will make a fine poncho." |
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Post by Vespyr on Jan 24, 2012 14:46:00 GMT -8
Dark eyelids slipped down as she nodded, quite impartially. She closed the door.
“I’ll leave this unlocked, then.”
Slinking past Tuvlan in the narrow space of the door frame, Vespyr returned to the long shadows of the hallway. Her upper half was a disembodied black silhouette, somehow distinguished from the enveloping darkness by the dim radiance of the candle she held before her; black on black. The only things visibly illuminated from behind were the long, cuspate tips of hair framing her jaw, which glowed as though they were white-hot points of iron.
“Because I try to keep this place on the down low, I prefer not to use the electric lights.”
The slender silhouette of an arm would rise from her side a moment before the room was flooded with sudden unnatural light. In that moment, the blackness disappeared like a terrible magic trick. Everything had become blinding white and remained just as indistinguishable as before, but after allowing a few seconds for the eyes to adjust, one would find the entirety of the cavernous place had descended into bright grayness. Like the annoying flash from a camera, this sudden presence of obtrusive light starkly illuminated and flattened everything its wake.
Vespyr had forgotten how bright the lights were and she immediately regretted flicking the switch. Her eyes were tightly closed; she appeared to be in pain. A second later, she flicked the switch again and the world plummeted once more into darkness.
“But that’s really only an issue at night. …Still, fucking bright though, are they not? Candles are so much easier on the eyes.”
Her eyes had not yet recovered from the shock and found even the candle’s dim glow to be disagreeable. So she set it on the kitchen counter and turned her back to it, and upon doing so, was prodded by a spontaneous urge to give the boy her lighter. She slipped her hand into her pocket, located the small barrel of smooth plastic, and tossed it to him.
“You keep that one. I have plenty.”
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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 24, 2012 23:12:55 GMT -8
Blindness & Gratitude Taking a tree up as a ladder was completely within the boy's means... but the fact that he wouldn't have to break down the door was appreciated. Stepping to the side to make Vespyr's slipping past him less squeeze-based, he would follow after her again, back into the main hallway. But the boy felt the urge to look away, as he did, looking after her. The glowing image of the light that slipped around the edges of her otherwise dark, pale demeanor painted her silhouette in such a strange way. The word 'goddess' came to mind... but of what? Of course, the confused look on the boy was only for an instant as he happily followed after her. She cast away the fear of the darkness with every step. Only this afternoon had he just met her and already he felt as though she was leading him on to something greater...
...But, she mentioned electricity. For a moment, the boy considered the thought rather happily, turning in his angle to see if the regular was still sitting there on the counter---
---With a flick, the lights were on and the magic of the world she had painted for him seemed to come crashing down all around them in blinding, seering pain. The boy would moan inaudibly in his throat for a moment, as a hand went to cover his eye. He almost even let slip the cigarette from his mouth... though there wasn't much left of it.
And just like that, the lights were off again. The tall boy hunched over where he stood, still recovering. He would crane his head up and down in silent agreement. The light had no warmth, after all, unlike a candle and was false and harmful. Neither warmth nor darkness.
Blinking profusely as the shadows began to seat themselves comfortably in his gaze... the boy found himself halted as Vespyr turned towards him again. Another gift in hand.
Gratefully, the boy grinned, taking the lighter up in his right hand in thanks. He looked from the lighter back over to the girl.
Too much. Simply too much for him was his provider-apparent.
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"your hide will make a fine poncho." |
PLAYED BY OOC NAME
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Post by Vespyr on Jan 24, 2012 23:28:18 GMT -8
Vespyr tilted her head to one side in second thought, and then rose from the counter and was two steps later standing at the door of her room. Fiddled with the keys yet again, though she went at this particular lock with exceptional adroitness and within a moment had vanished into darkness, seemingly fallen into the void that was her doorway. But no, she emerged moments later, her slender form sliding quickly into view from the origin of a vertical line that was presumably the edge of the door, which was invisible until something that wasn’t black was placed behind it.
In Vespyr’s hand was a medium-size box; a carton of cigarettes, containing 20 individual packs. She handed this to Tuvlan and then proceeded to lock the door of her room.
“On the house.”
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Post by "Tuvlan" on Jan 25, 2012 4:27:46 GMT -8
Overwhelming Homecoming Vespyr's timing was wonderful. The cigarette was just on the verge of being on the nub. But, taking note with a casual swivel of his eye of where Vespyr was going (not that he was allowed in there anyways), figuring the tour had ended for a moment, the boy began to inhale the last length of the cigarette---
---"X_O"
The nub... crumbled into ash, fluttering to the ground, the boy sputtering the debris that had entered into his mouth from taking too long a drag, his legs quaking underneath him. Without blinking, he gaped at the girl with the return of her contents, shakily reaching for the container that he already had on his person. With trembling fingers, he nearly dropped the cigarette on three occasions, stumbling on himself, as his left hand shook violently, accidentally burning his right hand two times, before getting the thing properly lit.
From the realm of re-established darkness appeared the slim form of Vespyr from her domain. Quickly pocketing the small container and the gifted lighter, the boy's hands extended outwards, almost reluctantly, as Vespyr approached him... and handed the box towards him. Careful, long finger slid their way over it, in case Vespyr decided to change her mind in the last second. His eye glued to those violet hues, total bewilderment on his face.
Remaining solid as a rock, the boy's hunched over form held the box gingerly in his hands as she walked away to seal away her personal territory again...
...When she finalized it.
This box of soothing fire-smoke was his.
Slowly, the boy looked up from the gift, stroking the top of the box gingerly as he looked at her, as though on the verge of crying. His eye reddened. He, knowing not what to do with himself, retreated backwards, bowing as he did very cautiously.
The boy retreated into a corner of the kitchen, behind the counter, into the light of the candle. It flickered on his humbled form, as he turned away, crouching slowly as he did so, before getting on his knees. He would, with a very rare set of careful hands slowly push the carton until it was perfectly aligned with the corner of the walls, and slowly began to draw other contents out from his pockets.
One was a rather long piece of white lint that he placed on top of the carton, taking pains to coil it until it were as though the beddings of a small snake. Afterward, he would pull out a rather large, multi-colored marble. It was a bit chipped and clearly made of glass, but the ornate, "flowing" design that it held inside was beautiful to the boy. This, he placed on the small cushion of lint with caution, making sure the lint cupped around it just perfectly enough... so it wouldn't roll away so easily. Next to that, the boy pulled out and placed a metallic, shiny ring. The ring was virtually worthless with no precious gem adorned on it, but it almost seemed to glow in the dim candlelight. The remains of the pack that he had he placed perfectly squared on top of the carton... but the lighter he kept in his pocket, for safe keeping.
He checked and double-checked to make sure it was all aligned properly. The boy had already established the small space that he would eventually place a mattress towards. And the place where he would cherish this Vespyr's magnanimity. As the cigarette in his mouth continued to burn delightfully a bit of a ways from his lips, there could be seen a carefully crafted smile on the boy's face...
...The boy was at a total loss. A complete and total loss. He could not even begin to bother with words, such was the state he was in.
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