[hider=From The Archives][quote]Ride, slide, hop, flip... twirl! Euna is the picture of fluidity and only vaguely aware of her surroundings as she dismounts her impromptu ride, flicks a pair of restraining cuffs out of her bag, and clicks them on her perp in a single, impossibly smooth motion. It takes her dress an extra couple of seconds to settle back into place, and her hair another second after that. "Oh," she squeaks as her eyes go wide, "Uh... yeah. Hey." She waves. This is awkward. And even in the dim lighting of a mostly-empty warehouse, she sparkles. This is even more awkward. Euna makes it halfway to frowning, pauses, and stops at simply pursing her lips, instead. And she stares at Sara. The disheveled Sara. The bruised and battered Sara. The "matted hair and even I can't pull off this look I've been crying so much" Sara. Everything here smells like rain and cheap beer mixed with sweat. And there's a million things she could say about any of this, but for a long and terrible moment she doesn't say any of them. She stares and she shimmers in her dress like a dew kissed flower in some idyllic painting. Underneath her feet, Mr. Lucie's head is circled by a bunch of stars and princess-themed cuckoo clocks. It's louder than it has any right to be. Euna coughs. "Well, I uh... a-are you... like, are you o-- hm. I don't know if you got, uh. Well. Anyway. I'm... do you, I mean, I need to get this thing process ASAP but after do you need, like, a lift home? Cause I could..." But that, I think, is as long as she'll be allowed to stammer.[/quote] [quote]POTENTIAL 2 “Euna, that is the sickest thing I have ever seen you do, and that is saying a lot.” Euna is very, very good at looking cool, but she falls apart when the time comes to sell the performance unless she’s quoting something. But Sara? Even a bedraggled gutter trash disaster Sara knows how to say a line with conviction. And now she’s advancing, diving through that opened conversational door, acting confident knowing she’s got an audience of two and a critic of one. “I screwed up. I get it. But you shouldn’t go.” Rip the band-aid off. “I mean, sure. Go get this cartoon pervert behind bars. But don’t [i]go.[/i] You think I can be a role model to Ferra? You think I can stop Victor from blowing himself up in his lab? You think I can keep fighting without you?” Whoop. There it is. Out in the open. “...I’m not going on my knee this time. Like, clearly, you don’t like that. That’s okay. But this is me, asking nicely. I’ll fill out a form if that’s what you want: Reasons Euna Kim Should Not Be Reassigned, with Apologies Subform 3A attached. Just don’t go. I’ll be better. And I’m sorry. And, yes, I would really like a ride home. Locker wouldn’t let me drive over here to find you.” Deep breath. Shoulders square. Look Euna in the eye and try not to melt because she looks like a fluffy frou-frou goddess and you’re a pathetic little orphan who wants someone to stay for once. “Just don’t [i]go.[/i] Please.”[/quote][/hider] "You saw it?" Euna's face is strained. Her lips are pressed thin, and those typically soft honey-brown eyes have an unusual glint in them that's got nothing to do with crappy warehouse lighting. Her dress glitters, her hair makes little chiming sounds with every little motion in her neck from the chains worked into the ponytail. That's how you can tell how much she's shaking. She licks her lip in a quick darting motion, but the inside of her mouth is as dry as they are. She doesn't speak. It's agony, waiting. It's agony, not having the words for this. It's agony, the feeling in her heart that says to fix this pulling her in half with the feeling telling her to get out, get out, get out now before it happens again. It's agony, this staring contest. Euna closes her eyes, and the spell breaks. She has to bend down to fish something out of her mission bag, because all of her usual pockets are sitting in there uselessly. There's an odd look on her face when her fingers touch the canvas, and again when she pulls out the last of her spare tablets. Tap tap, tappa tap. She hands it over to Sara without a word. [quote]AEGIS Official Form 776-D: Requisition of Civilian Resources For Benefit Of AEGIS Personnel (Non-Military Application) Beneficiary - Agent Errant Resources Requested - The services of one Sara Jiminez, alias @SARAHPHIM To Enter Into Effect As Of - 0700 Hours Reason - Help unpacking personal effects Signed, ___________________ [u]Euna Kim[/u][/quote] ****** [i]Athena Macrotechnology is proud to present the following segment with limited commercial interruption thanks to our partners at SynthFox Pictures. "The power of love was enough to overcome the machinations of the evil Lady Rapier, but the ancient curse still hangs heavy on the shoulders of Eternal Maiden Elvia. The Vampire-Dryad blood coursing through her veins now burns with the pain of acid whenever she tries to leave the confines of the Forest of the Ultra Darkness, cutting her off from her well won rewards and the life she hoped to live with Princess Diana. Now she faces her most difficult challenge yet, and she'll have to face it alone. Can Elvia triumph without the power of love to see her through the deepest darkness? Will she be able to discover source of the mysterious power binding her to the forest and defeat it for good, or is she doomed to live the rest of her immortal life sweeping the empty halls of the Wode Hall and snacking on overbrave squirrels? Will Princess Diana [b]really[/b] forget about her best friend?? Only the enchanted sword Lilyblossom knows for sure! From the studio that brought you [u]Duelist in the Mirror Castle[/u] and [u]Duelist in the Rose Garden[/u] comes the hotly anticipated finale of the Elvia Trilogy: [u]A Duel Must End At Dawn[/u]. Available for public screening on 14/2 and for streaming in all supported browsers on 28/2. Don't miss it!" And now, the return of...[/i] [center]EUNA'S FITNESS CORNER[/center] It's the first (and possibly the last) official appearance of Princess Errant I of AEGIS. The room is hardly any different from its usual self; a hanging punching bag in the middle of the room has replaced the usual chair. Otherwise it's as bright and sterile as ever. And for a moment, that's all that's there. It's troubling, just half a breath long enough to make you wonder if she's no-showing again, if the studio was so irresponsible to schedule the time slot without securing the host's promise first. But then, a fluttering of silks! Errant walks into the fame and stands next to the punching bag in all of her Hyperborean Makeover splendor. Or, almost all of it. She's still wearing her full gown with its huge, trailing half sleeves, multilayered skirts, and all her assorted glass jewelry. Her hair's still more than twice as long as it was at the time of her last known appearance, and her silver dye still blends into the natural black where it was inexplicably (magically) grown out. But she's got it pulled into a much tighter, simpler ponytail than Princess Alina had shown her, and she's done away with the elaborate jewel-centric makeup for a very bare, basic studio look. I mean, she's here to work out, she can't [i]completely[/i] throw away concessions to practicality. But she'd be damned if she was gonna waste an opportunity like this. When she waves, it's regal. When she smiles, it's radiant. "Hey guys, what's up! Welcome back to the fitness corner, sorry it's been so long! Last time I promised you some cardio tips and then some... mission stuff made me have to cancel. I'm really sorry about that! But as you can see I'm back, we're back, and you've been waiting more than long enough so let's just get this show on the road!" Errant bounces up and down from foot to foot and grins broadly. She's so excited to be back, you guys! "So anyway I've been thinking about this pretty hard and I mean, honestly, you don't need me to tell you that if you wanna get your heart in good condition then you ought to be running. But that's not really [i]practical[/i] advice, right? We don't all live in buildings with good, long staircases, and for those of us who don't qualify for the personal rain shield, heading out can be... uh, dangerous. There's equipment to mitigate some of that, but space or cost can still kind of hold some people back from that. And I don't wanna be that person telling you to do stuff that's out of your reach, no matter what. So! What can we do to fix that?" Her grin is actually sparkling as much as her jewelry now. Errant gestures at the punching bag! "Kickboxing! Martial arts to the rescue! You might already know this, but ten minutes of mid-to-high intensity combat exercises can burn off more than one hundred calories, and it spikes your heart rate like nothing else. You don't even need the bag, just enough room to move around a little bit. Now, the most important part of this is that you can't just flail around like a dork, haha" snort "You need to have control. Full follow through on every hit, controlled combos. Anything less and you're not going to engage your body if you're using any sort of cybernetic limb. It'll just wind up taking the strain, which is kinda pointless. Your servos don't care how much you work them, so get your muscles involved! Ok here, let me give you some fun combinations to get you started! When you've mastered these, feel free to make your own! Remember: follow through, full combo!" With a tiny wave, Errant hops back into a basic boxing stance, which only looks a tiny bit out of place with her all princess-ed up the way she is. She moves around the bag like quicksilver, but her skirt is obscuring the finery of her footwork. Then she strikes, and calls every hit out loud to make it easier to follow. Jab, jab, cross! Jab, cross, hook! Hook, hook, uppercut! Jab jab cross, jab jab hook! Jab, cross, jab jab hook, uppercut cross, backspin, backfist, knee! Jab, cross, knee! Jab, cross, knee, knee! Knee, knee, jump, kick! And, lift! Roll hip, side-kick! High kick, mid kick, low kick, step forward, stomp! She pauses to look at the camera with a mischievous smirk. Big, red text scrolls across the bottom of the screen: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! And she starts showing off a little bit. She jumps from floor to ceiling, making her skirts flutter dramatically when she plunges back down with a diving kick that drops into a low rolling crouch transitioning perfectly into a full backflip snap kick. Her combos get faster and faster, showier and showier, and then with one final haymaker she hits the punching bag so hard that, rather than flying off its chain it just splits in half and dumps sand all over the floor. She's slow to pull her arm back. Then she stands up straight. Turns to face the camera. Folds her hands placidly in front of her waist, and sparkles. Slowly, the smile slides off of her face. "So, uh... you're probably wondering why the..." she waves her hand up and down her body, "all this. Right? Well, it's, uh... how do I wanna put this? I think a lot of people have a very specific impression of me. I'm a Corporate Champion, I'm an AEGIS officer, I'm always pounding this fitness angle pretty hard, so a lot of people think I'm some sort of tomboy. That's, uh, not really true. I like this sort of thing, too. I like it a lot, actually. And my point is... you don't... you're not just one thing, you know? You can be an athlete and a... a fashion designer at the same time, I guess, or... Man. I'm sorry, I wrote a whole speech that's supposed to go here but I'm not following it at all. What I'm really trying to say is, you're beautiful. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. No matter how far down life's pushed you, no matter how much of you is augmented or how much of it is what you were born with, you're beautiful. And you deserve to feel like a princess or a prince or... whatever's special to you. Live healthy. Get the most out of life. Your body is wonderful. You deserve to love it. And... that's, you know, how I feel. See you." The camera catches the wet shimmer in her eyes as she flashes her stupid dork "idol" v-hand sign. She quickly turns and walks away, looking every bit the princess that Alina and all of her new friends thought she was.