OOC: Date: Tessera 81381 Who: Lyaki Wearing: Nothing IC: Had her sleek fur not have hidden the skin of her face, an observer might have seen the fierce scarlet reddening Lya's face. I'm living NOWHERE! Friggin nowhere!! God why am I this stupid? I didn't think of the fact that I might need a PLACE TO STAY??!! She fumed at herself. The anger might have just made her brain pop- but then she was distracted by a bright flower. Joy seeped into her as she tried to ignore the fury she felt for herself. ...Could I? No one's around... She probed her mind towards the flower. She caught a dull contentment from the little blossom. Oh. My. God. Flowers have feelings?! Never before had she really used her empathy towards anything, not really. She knew she had it because she could feel strong emotions that other sentient beings sent out, but her previous life had always had her too scared of her power to really use it. The slender Anubi let her mind drift to the tiny blossom again. She could tell that it was a happy little flower... just enough water, no too hot or cold out, good soil. A content little flower blooming near the Janardan Academy, and it had FEELINGS?! Yup, so it did. Suddenly, Lya wished she could share this absolutely mind boggling discovery with someone. But she had no friends here, and her family back home... well, by now they had probably just realized that she actually wasn't coming back. And the question of whether they cared or not, haha, the answer was so obvious: no. Lyaki plucked a hair from her throat and stared at it. The violet hue sparkled back at her. These little purple hairs were what kept her from having a normal Anubi life with her family, her clan. She was ugly, inside and out. She knew that. Lya wondered if, someday, this new world could find her beautiful? Or tolerate her, at least. But she knew she would never get that, never deserve it either. Seeing that color made bile rise into her throat as the memories of her fear came back. Ears clamped back, sweat pouring, there were eyes back there in that alleyway and they hated her, would they kill her? A youngling had just died, the demon that floated inside her body and sould must have been the cause, they said. Such an unnatural color... what had her parents done to deserve such a daughter? If they got the chance they'd kill her, any one of them. She had to get out, had to run home, if not then would she be alive? Lyaki had been a victim of numerous hate crimes, she knew, and she was sure she deserved them. They weren't crimes, they were justice... she thought. And she got away, some tiny voice inside her told her that it was worth it to find a new world. But Lya struggled to forget all this, her gift was speaking to her. She realized how many living things around her had once been dumb, speechless. She had freedom, she could talk to anyone or anything and no one could stop her! She caught onto that little wave of happiness and let her mind ride it until she got away from her insecurities and memories. Next to try: a tree!
ooc. I'm assuming this is an AW thread. ic. The wind picked up, transporting fallen leaves in a sleepy circle across the campus. Atti watched them fly as if through a lens, blurring everything between between himself and the dancing, spiraling leaves away. Try as he might, he couldn't see them as anything other than leaves – his mind's ability to put a metaphorical spin on physics seemed to have drained away into the night, but it wasn't until Gabe tugged at his hand that he stopped trying in vain to add poetic flair to the few, primitive thoughts that lay in the wake of the receding hurricane. He returned his focus to Gabriel, and tugged back, choosing his best I Don't Communicate Through Tugs face for the occasion – mostly to tease. Meth – so prominent a feature in Attrius's head that he was now not only a person, but also a state of mind – faded to black. "Why don't you head back," he offered. "Thanks for coming to visit me, though. And have a good time at the art convention." Gabe rose, tipped his hat at his friend before ruffling the younger boy's hair. "Love you, Att." They embraced before Gabe broke the hug. Dressed in cigarette jeans and a Parallax tee Pyemme had given him, 'Rius smiled softly, watching as Gabriel left the courtyard to go back to Watani. "I'll call you!" he cried. Yet another friend to leave. Rubbing his bandaged arms, he eyed the violet thill a few yards away from him, smiling his usual, boyishly handsome lopsided grin. "Hey there," he said softly.
ooc: after much thought, I realized that AW means All Welcome? Heheh I'm new to the entire world of RPG. ic: Lya snapped her mind out of the fascinating 'conversation' with a tall, ancient tree that was a few yards away from the bench she was perched on. Someone said something... her mind had been too focused to tell what though... Perhaps a greeting? She looked up to see a creature walking towards her, and she bristled inwardly. Interaction with people wasn't something she tended to enjoy much, having spent her entire life with Anubi who would rather die than talk to that hideous thing with the purple splotches. Lyaki looked this new person over. She noticed his bandages, and all the piercings. I should get a piercing.. she thought. She then took notice of some tattoos, of which she also wanted. She had no tattoos of her own, her parents didn't think it necessary for a curse to get a tattoo. But underneath the friendly smile she saw, she felt the pit of pain that was buried in his heart. She sensed a type of agony she had never percieved in another being, and it confused her. But then again, how many people had she really been around? She had no way of telling if this kind of pain was unusual or not. Still, she had a pit of pain in her own heart, deep and intertwined with her soul. Oddly enough, she could understand some of this strangers feelings better than her own. Focusing on her emotions made pieces of her slowly cave in, so she concentrated on this new experience of seeing a friendly face. "Hey," she replied.
ooc. It's fine. :D Atti needs more friends. ic. Amethyst's eyes on his face felt like a tickle. He felt the intensity of it grow, and in the same instance as the invitation to speak was extended to him, Atti ran a hand through his hair. Attrius looked down his nose at the Anubi, ice-blue eyes looking at the sleek, gangling form. Like a fawn. A purple-splotched fawn stuck on an invisible string between perfectly fine and really not, defining itself by the vacuum it was trying to create out of its three square feet of reality. A smile twitched the corners of Att's lips, and he relaxed the muscles holding his head upright between his shoulders. It tilted to the left. What was the point in painting the world grey when it had lost its color when he was seven? Melodrama, my age-old friend, you certainly pick your days. All this in six steps and one less second. "Normally, I'd skip straight past replying and grant myself a wide range of permissions regarding why you were staring at a tree. Normally. But," he raised one hand from is side and tapped the side of his nose twice. "I've been making some lifestyle changes. My name is Attrius Infernus," he added, tensing for the moment when she recognized the now-famous cult hero. "And who are you?"
ooc: Well, Lyaki isn't the most friendly of creatures. Keep working at it and some sort of friendship might come through her coldness :) Lyaki felt the 'dragons gaze like he was the one with empathy, reading her mind. A much too chilling thought, so she shook it off. No one would see who she was, or what, or how she didn't belong there and should be sent somewhere else because she was not an equal to these people. Subconsciously, she decided on arrogance to hide her unredeemable flaws, like a chameleon on a leaf. It turns green too just so no one can see that it's a chameleon, and indeed not a leaf. She didn't recognize his name, and didn't understand why he seemed to expect her to. She wasn't from around anywhere near this place, and her life was spent in the dark anyway, away from the world. "I'm Lyaki. Just arrived here this morning," she replied, forcing a just barely believable amount of nonchalantness into her words. She had, in fact, just arrived here a few hours ago through numerous rides earned by hitchhiking, and was still shaken over leaving her lifelong home, not to mention having nowhere to live. She was still entertaining the thought of living on this very bench.
It was natural for the Attrius to move as if dancing, weaving mesmerizing gestures and smooth, utterly cat-like stealth into every step. He took three steps foward before folding his legs beneath him on the bench, turning to the anubi. "I hope you don't mind if I sit here," he said. She reminded him of himself nearly two years ago: stumbling onto the Janardan campus to come face-to-face - you guessed it - Pyemme Ryubi-Djaam, love-of-his-life and soon to be, he hoped, his fiancee. A few feet away, someone sparked a cigarette. The flame exploded jubilantly into existence, bright and abrasive like an ocean flare. 'Rius had been weaning himself off of nujeq and smokes, getting the last of the drugs out his blood and spine, and he'd been doing well. A smile curved the boy's lips. "Where are you from?" he asked. He breathed a sigh, and turned his unnaturally ice-blue eyes from his own fingers to Lyaki's face. Looking into his eyes would have felt like looking into a pitch-black room – still, frighteningly-colored, and unreadable.
"I hope you don't mind if I sit here," "Go ahead," Lyaki replied, conveniently 'forgetting' the question regarding where she was from. She wasn't really looking forward to thinking about that, memories were too harsh. Other creatures in general left her a little timid, but this person was so different from any other she had been around. Just beneath the surface of his friendliness, Lya could sense a temporarily-dormant sort of... rage, perhaps? He perplexed her and set her on edge. As she shuffled to the side so that he could have more room to sit down beside her, Lyaki could feel the short, onyx hued fur along her spine stand straight up, though for no more than a millisecond. This "Attrius Infernus" person frightened her, just a little bit. Of course, his hostility didn't appear to be directed at her. Lya hadn't spent much time honing her empathy, but she could tell that for the moment at least, there was no ill will towards her. Nonetheless, she could feel the instability of his mind and heart. At the same time, a surge of pure relief and happiness coursed through her veins. Pathetically enough, she was this happy over the fact that he treated her like another sentient being. Such a new experience entirely.
It didnÂ’t matter what happened. The monster in him would always come back. Out of the blue, beyond and cause he could trace, it would surface. HeÂ’d suddenly realize things were not how he perceived them to be at all. For some reason, he was no longer the person he believed himself to be. HeÂ’d detected slow and subtle shifts in himself and everything around him. Lyaki was shifting like water eddying down stones. Worse, he realized itÂ’d always been shifting, a vast shimmer, only dark as an unlit closet. Pyemme was the lion-tamer for his soul. She'd calmed the raging fire he'd once been, full of hate and rage, spawned from Satan and the Whore of Babylon. His father had been a demon, his mother had been an icy pillar from the north, and he was the Antichrist. The creature that Attrius had once been was nothing like the one he was now; the boy was calm, the storm in him was dormant, and he wanted nothing more than flowers and sunshine for the moment. He mentally noted that the girl had ignored his question; he said nothing. He might have done the same, in the past. "You remind me of myself when I first came here," he said quietly, one of his trademark half-smiles curling up one side of his muzzle.
Lyaki was still swallowing anxietry over the fact that she was having to talk to someone when she heard him say that: "You remind me of myself when I first came here," Her interest was piqued. "How so?" she inquired. Despite the short, cool reply, she had spent a lot of mental energy trying to find the right words. His lopsided smile charmed her, but she didn't really want to be charmed by anyone for a long, long time, if not never again. Being "charmed" by someone always ended badly. Add that to the fact that she could tell that he was very in love, and it was impossible that it was with her, completely impossible. They had just met minutes ago. So, she swallowed that little "charmed" emotion.
'Rius's blank blue gaze settled on the anubi's. "Well..." he began, swinging one foot idly above the ground. "No one knew me. I came in the middle of Mia, and I'd never been to a school before," he continued, fixing Lyaki in a dead, passionless stare. He knew it wasnÂ’t her fault for asking, but appearances had to be kept up for the sake of a lot more people than himself. His pride was broken at even mentioning his past to one he barely knew. But enough pride left intact to keep him silent, still hell-bent on rejecting anything that could potentially break him out of an increasingly more vicious circle. Toppling the structure now would be asking for the end, and he would much rather deal with the tumors than break lose and bleed to death at the side of the road. The pills and the love healed his nightmares and the wounds inside his heart, and he was bleeding sunshine and rainbows all over this girl. Attrius, despite himself, had only four friends: Pyemme, Gabriel, Dylan, and Requiem. He needed more.
The sudden steeliness in Attrius' eyes took her aback. He had seemed so friendly before.. But the steeliness dissipated a bit after the last of his words subsided. The sudden tension that had flooded him while he told what appeared to her to be minute, small talk details was surprising. For a moment she wondered if she had somehow said something wrong? But his sudden tension/anger at having to speak those words decreased, and Lyaki's face relaxed a bit from dread, and switched back to only slightly noticeable nervousness. She had been sure that she was at fault for something, and it that thought scared her. Despite her trying, the whole callousness thing wasn't even showing through. She vaguely recognized the fact in her mind, that if she was going to hide behind coldness towards others, she was going to have to work much, much harder. Lyaki knew that she was probably just leaking timidity and nervousness. "Well, I suppose that I'm in the same boat as.. well, your former self," she said with a slight laugh. She realized that the afternoon was going to disappear sometime today, and she would still be here on the bench, was probably going to have to sleep here, God knew if the school had some sort of cafeteria to serve breakfast from. She felt so stupid. In her desperation to escape the oppression of her home, Lyaki forgot to secure the details that even an idiot would remember. For a millisecond, her face screwed up as she bit back tears. She was afraid, how was she going to be able to stay here? She could never go back to her family, ever, but with no place to stay, being in this part of the world was going to be either hard or impossible. She had to stay away from them, her family, her tribe. Sure, get a job. But in the meantime, she'd still be sleeping on the bench!
Attrius prided himself on being full of surprises. Well. No, to be honest, not really. It came to him naturally, and he hardly noticed it until it was pointed out – few people did, owing to the severe lack of input anyone tended to have when one of his more extreme – thus notable – mood swings to place. Nodding at Lyaki, her words never registered with him as in the least odd. The noticeably softer voice silenced the uncomfortable stabs that ran through his spine like foreboding signs of a heart attack, leaving him with a recreation of the pleasantly numb feeling brought on by a very slight painkiller overdose. He stopped breathing, freezing to confirm that – yes – whatever had scratched at the walls of his gut was now sound asleep. The unpleasant lightness in his chest had been replaced with a fist’s worth of weight. Nothing had changed. A long, shuddering sigh fell from parted lips, and he laid black against the bench. "Yeah," what must’ve been his own hollow voice repeated. You’re a standard schizophrenic. Or the Hulk, minus some green and the spastic muscular growth. One minute, pain had its claws in his skin, maneuvering him along like a helpless puppet to a tune he didn’t remember ever hearing. Hurt. Spite. Bittersweet hatred. Lyaki tore the memories from their hiding places like the devil finds sinners, because – - "you look like my mother." He felt like the guy in A Clockwork Orange, both eyes forcefully kept open to watch fire dance at the deepest pits of a life riddled with so many hellholes. Normally, his defense lay in being able to close his eyes and tune his ears in to something else. If he closed his eyes now, if he left, the open wound would bleed him dry. And to stay would be like asking a drug to save you from addiction. "D’you have a dorm yet?" he asked quietly, hoping he could help her somehow. Silence took hold, leaving him to stare at Lyaki with a mixture of pain and indifference fighting for dominance in his eyes. It dawned on him that he’d fallen into the very pit he’d built a fortress to avoid. He knew the pattern so well. He noted the sudden shift of emotion in her face, and his heart panged in response, face frowned in concern. "Are you okay? Attrius Infernus. The Antichrist.
Lyaki got a vague sense of Attrius' emotion swirling up and down and around... she got sick of feeling them. It combined with the hunger, (she hadn't eaten since yesterday morning) exhaustion (she hadn't slept since the night before last, hitchhiking keeps you awake) and pain (being rejected by everyone around you plus almost getting raped by someone you traveled with sucks) she felt. All combined together brought her to the verge of openly sobbing her heart out. But she didn't. Biting the tip of her tongue, Lyaki turned her mind back to what Attrius was saying. "You look like my mother." That surprised her. After all, she was an Anubi, he was a pendragon. After a moment, she heard him inquire as to if she had a dorm. At about that time her face flickered to "about-to-cry" mode, and she heard him ask if she was okay. Warmth trickled into her heart, despite her exhaustion and sadness. He cared if she was okay... "No, I don't have a dorm yet. I don't even know how to get one, plus I couldn't afford anything right now anyway, so it doesn't matter." she said bitterly. "I'm really sorry to get all tearful on you, it's just that.." she hesitated as to how honest she should be. "I haven't eaten since yesterday. Plus I didn't sleep last night. I had.. a really long trip." She had decided to leave out the part where she hitchhiked the whole way. That would be a little odd, not to mention bring up questions as to her sanity or why her family didn't take her or something. Thinking about her family right now would be much too painful in so many ways. Her mind flicked back to how she apparently looked like his mother. "Wait.. How do I look like your mother? I'm not even the same species as you." Maybe he meant in expression, or personality? Hmm. Interesting.
<blockquote>"Hey..." Att said quietly, cupping her jaw in one hand and smiling at her. "It'll be okay." Taking in someone else was something he had come to class as an absolute necessity. But heÂ’d spent days laying out the steps to be taken once he crossed the threshold of Janardan's door, and this girl reminded him of himself. A bit like a pointless piece of game play before meeting a boss; annoying, completely unnecessary, but nevertheless a step and a step not to be avoided, should one desire the final outcome to bear fruit. So now, like it or not, Lyaki was making Att remember himself. And Lyaki, unintentionally or not, had managed, and now the tape had to be rewound. "I'll get you a dorm. I promise, Lyaki. But for now, you can stay in my dorm room with my girlfriend and I. We have extra room, and a big comfy couch for you to stay on, and we'll make you food. Her name is Pyemme - I'm sure she'll love you." Then she asked about his mother. "Ah... she was a Yki." He flashed a painfully false smile, a variant of the one displayed before but now so bitter it could neutralize stomach acid. "She had the same eyes as you."</blockquote>
OOC: sorry if this post is a little off. i have the flu right now and i'm sore all over, not to mention my brain's a teensy bit fevered. Oh crap. Just remembered that I originally created Lyaki as having silver with purple. Well just pretend i always said she was silvery... My other character had black fur so I got a little mixed up! BIC: Lyaki was somewhat mortified at having broken down in front of a stranger. But right now, she was too hungry, sleep, and exhausted to care about keeping her pride intact. The fatigue and gnawing pain in her stomach was finally getting to her, otherwise she would have vehemently refused. She'd been running on pure adrenaline, and now she'd run out. She felt vaguely like a parasite, feeding off of the kindness of a complete stranger. But she couldn't feel any danger, no malignancy was directed towards her. Warmth flooded her as Attrius' hand met her chin, but she was too tired to think anything of her emotions. She locked her tired, but still sparkling, eyes onto his icy blue ones. "You really don't have to... I feel bad for placing you in this position... But.. if you really want to have me..." her voice trailed off. She had the same eyes as his mother. And he didn't want to talk about it, apparently. The smile was much too openly false to slip past someone with empathetic powers, or at least the beginning of them. "I do?" she asked, though it was more of a rhetorical question. "Thank you." The thanks was for the fact that he actually opened up and told her that, even though it was obviously hard for him to do so. Also, it was thanks for letting her stay with him and intrude on his life. She only could sense the vagueness of the hatred for his past, but it was too strong to go unnoticed. This arden was a mystery.
<blockquote>ooc. Want to finish up this thread? ic. She was like he used to be. It was, therefore, a very different Attrius that looked at Lyaki. Both eyes were trained on the thill in front of him, fixed with unnatural, obsessive concentration – second nature for the majority of his family. There was plenty of time to pick up on reactions now, try and make the Anubi girl happy. Just for fun. "No... I'd be glad to." He eyed her with a smile painted on his face, his eyes bright and glowing. "Come on... I'll show you my place. And you can meet Pyemme." He extended her a hand to lift her up, rising from his seat.</blockquote>
ooc. Yup, I'd be glad to. ic. A buzz of Atti's now somewhat familiar alien emotions swarmed through her. She decided to not tangle them out now, but just take his hand and go where he was leading her. Exhaustion was a belated fog that decided to come in just at this moment. She took his paw, and thought vaguely how much she enjoyed that few moments of holding it. Lya was too sleepy to think of how she shouldn't enjoy it that much, he had a girlfriend... One that she could be sure that he was in love with. "I can't wait to meet her," she said, hoping that her tired jaws didn't slur the words. Her life had changed so much in a matter of days. Now, it was changing drastically by the moment.
