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[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5366801][img]https://i.imgur.com/Nbv19e3.jpg[/img]
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[sub][color=758186]S C Y L L A  " L E V I A T H A N "  F L E U R A N E [/color]   [color=cecece]—[/color]   [color=758186]FARHAVEN [Motel Balcony][/color]   [color=cecece]—[/color]   [color=758186]03:00AM[/color]   [color=cecece]— [color=904e80]FLASHBACK[/color]— [@Rockette][/color][/sub]
[hr][color=8d8e8f][right][sup][color=000000]"Tell me, Ms. Fleurane -- [i]my lady[/i] -- do you hear voices in your head?"[/color][/sup][/right]
	She's suspended betwixt the hour of the devil and the christening of a new day, the time sacred and cursed for others burdened and systematically elated by their desires, needs, and fixations of an addling mindset -- addictions, she thinks in reconsideration. Scylla Fleurane was a vision poised against the iron of a rusted railing, elbows upon a thin shaft and fingers splayed against rouged cheeks where idle sin caught her within and without. Medical and analysts would pen it as insomnia or a troubled mind, and oh perhaps she was afflicted with a myriad of unrestful musings and qualms. She wouldn't even know where to begin to confess her woes -- if she had any, of course -- and the idea of committing herself to anyone of IntelDiv to request and admit a psych profile...

	[color=cf9792]"Been there, done that."[/color] Scylla muttered offhandedly, lashes panned low as a group stumbling beneath her balcony serenaded the boulevard with bawdy love songs: forlorn lovers and bedded enemies, the kind that garnered a blush or two and a shuddered side step. Her rejoining grin was all the sweeter once the lyrics settled in and Scylla laughed, waved them on by, and ignored that wistful [i]giggle[/i] that bubbled from her lips like an afterthought. Maybe it's the carelessness and freedom they exclude in their debauchery, or the euphoric bubble they've created for themselves in song and drink, but Scylla strains her eyesight just that much harder to watch as they list off into the night with a keenness of a predator...

	It's the whimsical chime of her coms device that tugs her concentration and pulls her gaze back, towards where a blue-white light forces a beam through the gloom of her rented room of sixty Credits a night; completed with its glorious mini fridge and lurid purple duvet. The hour is late and she's not due to board a train for a few more hours, [i]so who...[/i] There are many choices, too many that would summon her like an animal: a dog. Scylla palms the rail at her back, stretching arms and spine, listening to the glorious pop that quakes through her bones. Com devices from Tenebre are slick models, black, cases infused partially with obsidia and fortified plastics recycled from ocean waste. For try as they might, even the immaculate cycling systems that had been introduced whilst during her infancy, the Lullin Sea was prone to pollution all the same. In some ways she blamed the reactors, but alas, that was neither here or there. Scylla allowed the screen to dim and the chiming to fade, only for her late-night caller to immediately ring her back. She studies the name then and answers on a bell-chime of laughter:

	[color=cf9792]"Mamae!"[/color] 

	[color=627575][i]Oh hello my little dove.[/i][/color]

	It's her mother, of whom she later inquires of where she's stationed, learning that she's to be dispatched to the coast of Junon Port. There's been disturbing reports, she says, whisper-soft and hushed, as if she's cradled in on herself. Weird things in the water, ships that float by unmarked. When Scylla whispers back, are you okay. She just laughs. 

	[color=627575]"We are never okay my sweet, but it's the game we play."[/color] Truer words never uttered, but Scylla studies the shadows of her room, the light from yonder creating faux specters that dance upon the walls, and says:

	[color=cf9792]"I'm being dispatched as well, East Command. There's this.. New group. All Aeons."[/color] Arachnid fingers flutter in the gloom, waving away the chill at her uttered words before she scrapes her nails against the scars littering her throat. She's never worked with other Aeons. Not really. Only a few weeks at a fort or two, getting to know those just like her and not; so many faces in a sea of power and muted spirits. Hers wail and roar, dominating forces demanding recognition of some kind, only she doesn't know what they're really asking for. But her [i]dreams.[/i]

	[color=627575]"You know how to play well with others. I taught you that."[/color] Scylla has no answer to give, only a soft hum of confirmation. They banter back and forth, catching up on the times, for when her mother crosses over the mountains, she'll be out of coms range for at least a week. Obsidia Ridge was a cellular dead-zone and no amount of towers could harness a signal that far inland, to the deep with the corporations that argued otherwise. When the first feathering colors of dawn peak over the horizon, Scylla returns to the balcony, hand cinched to the railing, nails curling inward to the flesh of her palm. She's tense, so her mother says, plucking on the fringes of her sleepless misfortune.

	[color=cf9792]"Yeah well, you would be too."[/color] 

	[color=627575]"I know,"[/color] her voice goes to static, and for the first time in the night, Scylla's brow lower, her lips contort into a frown, but before she loses her connection --

	[color=627575]"Just remember my dove, that you are --"[/color][hr]
[sub][color=758186]S C Y L L A  " L E V I A T H A N "  F L E U R A N E [/color]   [color=cecece]—[/color]   [color=758186]UDF: CETRA EAST COMMAND [Briefing Room][/color]   [color=cecece]—[/color]   [color=758186]Day 1 - 05:00AM[/color]   [color=cecece]—[/color] [@Rockette][/sub][hr]
[color=c2c2c2]	"...Tenebrean royalty."[/color]

	It's strange, she thinks, idly maneuvering the dull edge of a shiv beneath her nails; admiring their cleanliness because [i]hands[/i] made the soldier and the means. The term of royalty long lost its glamour from her youth where a woman with eyes of swarming moss-green wielded the title like a whip to her back. To this day, Scylla eternally feels her eyes slicing through flesh and soul, branding her the bastard and raking nails through her hair as she hummed demented lullabies. The UDF kindly reminded Scylla of her standing and importance, she was not only an Aeon, but a former Dragoon and Michael's first born despite the public denouncements. Needless to say, Tenebre made [i]donations[/i] to the cause in mass quantities of Credits or better yet, more Dragoons. Peculiar that the UDF had not yet established a force within the inner city. Her eyes of a resolute blue-black hue never leave Emilia and Jeffrey as they exchange blows. The verbal onslaught is nothing new to Scylla, after all she's witnessed men rise up against her and her mother during their mountainous excursions, but in the back of her mind she recalls pained whispers over glass tumblers and carafes of amber liquid being passed.

	The name of Benjamin Regardie -- good ole' fucking [i]Ben[/i] -- tastes stale in her mouth, and she wonders is this what betrayal feels like. It's almost bitter. She was stationed with the Aeon some time ago, weeks holed up at the Section H - Hellon Fort, and oh shit - she remembers being on patrol and he said [i]her[/i] name, lamenting over destiny and fate and the inevitability of those that must come to pass. Some weeks later, she would then meet Emilia...

	On the train - which now seems so long ago - Scylla had gleaned through procured dossiers containing cryptic information of what her mother had described was happening on Junon Port, the closest establishment to Tenebre that they formed trade with; rights to the mines in exchange for using their docks to deploy their smaller ships. To hear of a new phase of infection, it only confirmed lingering suspicions that the malady was spreading and evolving. Scylla's eyes wondered over to those of ResDiv in cool assessment. It's only by reputation and spun stories within the dark and hidden halls from her former deployments that she's aware of those aforementioned controversies. All the more and for the best, Scylla decides she'd rather rub shoulders with those in NavDiv even if they were a bit [i]eccentric[/i].

	She pockets the shiv in her uniformed boot and double checks her laces and reminds herself in a passing thought to request personalized gear. Even Dragoon armor was far more.. exotic. Surely S.W.A.R.G could be outfitted far more respectfully. But oh, isn't she cute, the other researcher with slightly modified wear... Scylla notes that she should put in a request with her instead. Alas, she submitted her lance to the sub-weapon division in WarDiv for routine maintenance upon her arrival and per the suggestion that she submit her firearms as well, she advised they modify her travel gear as well for aquatic proofing.

	And so, first thing.

	Scylla catches Jeffrey's eye, a muted exchange with a plethora of things to be left unsaid as she sees herself out from the briefing room with her path laid out clear. He doesn't have anything to say, nothing nice at least, she knows, for she was one of the last few to see Ben before... Well, before the infamous breakup. With a mock salute and fluttering lash of a wink, Scylla flips the mass of her white hair over her shoulder upon her departure. Though Emilia is engaged in talks with someone else, the fashionable delight no doubt, it doesn't stop Scylla from palming her shoulder -- she squeezes there -- in the friendliest gesture she can manage without embarrassing her any further as she follows the underground halls to gather her gear for deployment. 
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