Anarion

Return to Thellamie

"It is pretty convenient that every major power that would stand against the Khatun is off the board, huh?"

Yuki strokes her chin with one hand and curls her ears, while the other pulls up the reins of the little Lynxogrif she's riding (you can tell from the stubby tail). She trots along next to Mikela, pointedly ignoring the squishing noises from Hazel pressed against her. Out of politeness to him, of course. He's clearly fine.

"This does beg the question though, is SHE a major power or is she working for one? Miaou perhaps? Her shadows burned like fire, so that would be my guess. But it's kind of a two part problem, you know?"

Mikela probably does not know, not having once been empowered by Starlight herself, or having stabbed any champions of any particular deities. Not a ton of shared experience there really. But Yuki does, and she's starting to see the shape of it. "Think of it this way. If the Khatun is, herself, some kind of empowered deity, then we're kinda screwed. The only thing we've got going for that is Inara and maaaybe Hazel there setting some kind of ground rules that can level the playing for us. But I think if we're fighting a deity, we need something divine to even make it possible to engage and that's a bit out of our hands. But..."

Yuki looks at Mikela now, and at Hazel. "Well, here's the but. I don't think we are, not that directly. Why try to set up her daughter for all this starlight crown nonsense if she could just empower a champion? Or at least why not cheat, right? But if she's just a badass, well, that's cool she sounds super tough, but I figure we can get like a whole team for that. I've got at least two snakegirls who, if they don't try to kill each other first, can field a really powerful team together. Now you. I'm betting even Olesya herself isn't super happy with her mom right about now, and while I did knock out the Rot Star's avatar, I wouldn't put it past one of the trees to at least make an appearance. The enemy of my enemy and all that."

"...Also" Yuki shrugs, thinks about materializing her axe, but doesn't have a good way to do it while riding, "...well, also, I'm trying to learn something a friend taught me, which I've only seen the Khatun and one maid knight pull off. So, maybe there's a way to get up to her level a little bit, if I can."

Yuki shrugs, gives Hazel a pat. "And if not, well, there's always the ultimate win of actually taming this guy and earning the crown of light. I don't think the Khatun can force that one, and I assume whoever wins will have the power to match her."

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

"That's..."

Sammy's foot stopped tapping and her ears drooped a little when she heard that Maxima had completely lost touch with Gata. Her hero. The reason she'd signed up for Aristeia in the first place, the model she'd chosen for her own gene engineering. And what she gets is, what, that the game is the only thing keeping any of them in touch. That it's useless to...

"Okay, what gives?" She's looking up at Maxima, all the girth of the woman towering over Sammy as she sits and holds a hot pack to herself to keep her core stable. "Like, what the fuck are you here for? You never kept in touch with Gata at all, but here I am trying to pull some version of her routine and you, what, just fucking show up out of the goodness of your heart cuz we were on the same losing team? With like, a bullshit amount of prep for a fight that Gata would never take because it's unwinnable without a motherfucking wall to back you into. What the fuck's your deal?!"

After her voice comes back down, she adds "peanut butter bar was good though, thanks for, like, not being a jerk about it, whatever it is." Stupid, sentimental, but then she could count on one hand the number of people that would have been ready like this, or that would have just fed her no questions asked. It meant something, even if it was coming from a crazy cow.

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

Tap tap tap. Sammy's feet taps against the side of the waterway, against the hard cement. Her bare feet, the tips of her nails. Her shoes are off, her pants are off too, and the vest, lying next to her to dry. She's wearing her lime shirt and a pair of bright pink panties. Those two she just wrung out and put back on, heat pack underneath her shirt against her chest. Extremities get the coldest, gotta keep them moving, tap tap tap.

"So, what kind of DNA you got in there? Fucking water buffalo or something? I don't get how you're this much of a tank. Fucking hell, if this place had a roof instead of being open, I could've hit it hard enough to drop it on you. But I hit you and you just shrugged it off. Maybe rhino? Is it rhino? Don't fucking tell me it's rhino."

There's a casualness to her now. This was a good loss. It wasn't like the loss to Machia. She could get stronger here, push harder. Or get faster. Gata would have...hmm "So, what would Gata have done? You fought her a bunch, right? I wanna move like her. Could she walk on water, punch you and then run around you even here so you never got a hand on her? Or would she be the type that never closed on you, forced you back until you were sinking into the ocean?"

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

Sammy pauses her assault and lets out a respectful whistle. "You know, I didn't have any idea what the fuck you were talking about earlier, but you already knew how this was gonna go, huh? Before you even started talking to me, huh Maxi? You showed up with granola bars, bandages, and what, like a scoped route out for a mile around us? Guess you're a veteran for a reason. Respect."

Sammy wipes some dirt off her face, bounces a bit on her legs. Yeah, she can already feel the bite at her ankles, she'd only been wearing high top running shoes and they didn't have a tight seal, and the water was lapping around the edge of her pants legs at her knees, the jeans getting heavier to move in with the weight of the water. And the cold would stick in that kind of fabric, nevermind how heavy her vest would get once it was soaked in water too.

She's not seeing Maxima though, not really. She's seeing Titanomachia. Moving around her like Machia alone was the only person not wearing training weights while Sammy was already submerged above her head. Moving around Maxima and Musashi like she had the medium all to herself and it was everybody else's fault for drowning themselves.

"But if you think this isn't what I want, you're cracked. This is the good shit! How am I ever gonna get better if I don't figure out how to move past getting dunked in freezing water and recovering from frostbite?"

Not that she's gonna do it to herself. No, Maxima isn't the only mountain goat here and she's NOT Machia either. So when Sammy kicks and pushes herself along the edge of the stormwater channel and up the side, feet pounding so hard that she's running above the water, it's the sort of movement that hasn't been seen since Gata's days. And sure, Maxima was there for it, and maybe she knows how to deal with every speedster and movement specialist there is. Except that she doesn't because she lost a bunch to Gata and she just lost to Machia. So let's see how she does against Sammy. You never know till you find out.

Whatever happens, Sammy's smile is real and sharp, and her fists are sharper.

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

"Babe, if you think I am even remotely fucking close to taking a hint, you're not paying attention to the dented lightpost. I'm gonna show you I'm on the same level as Machia."

There are three things you should give Sammy credit for here. First of all, Sammy moves the drinks and bandages out of the way. No use wasting good stuff, you know? Second of all, she does not make the assumption that Maxima is going to move the same way she would in the arena because she's not a complete moron and this isn't the Aristeia! stadium. Third of all, whatever bluster she's been putting out, her hit isn't one of those hits that'd kill you if it connects. She's serious about sparring and she moves as fast as she can move, but the force she's putting into the strike isn't murder force and if Maxima is half as good as the aura she puts out, she'll be able to tell. Cuz, like she said, she wants training. She's got a mountain to climb, whether it's made of rock or dust.

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

Sammy's eating a protein bar. She didn't say thank you, didn't say anything at all. But it was in her hands, and then it was in her mouth, and she's licking a bit of peanut butter off her lips that was left there from how fast it went in.

Funny, right, that there really wasn't anything to improve on here. The greatest genetically modified super foods the world could offer and the best dense snack was the same mashed up nuts that everybody had been eating for generations. Far enough back to before there was genetic enhancement, far enough back to when they had historical vids that were only in black and white and still people were eating peanut butter bars to sustain them on the road, the trail, the war front. Made you wonder what the point was of improving all these things.

She wiped her mouth with a bare arm. "What do you know? Maybe this is just how I build muscle." She's got a grin now though. A combo of the food and an idea that just occurred to her. "Unless, you'd like to go a round instead. I'm pretty sure that'd be good training. Assuming you're even half as tough out of the arena as you are in it, Maxi."

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

"If you're thinking I'm gonna just fucking sit here and contemplate the ephemerality of the wind or some shit, you can think again, bitch!"

Samira "Sammy" Collins lifted her empty left hand, currently bereft of any decoration except for one small silver bracelet, and punched a steel pole holding up a wind turbine next to her. It's not the hardest punch she's ever thrown. She's got enough sense left in her to know that if she hit a five foot thick piece of wind turbine generator steel with the hardest punch she has, she'd break three fingers. And girl, she doesn't feel like dealing with that shit tonight.

No, instead, she punches just hard enough to put a light dent in the metal and make her fingers hurt with pain shooting up her arm. Yeah, like that, like you gotta feel it. Enough to know it was a real punch.

She shudders as the pain passes through her, and punches it again. It makes a good ringing sound, nice and deep and solid. Her jean vest flares out, showing off her electric lime t-shirt that cuts off at the belly-button. She should be cold, but she's been working too hard to feel the wind that way. Instead, the wind is good. The wind is power, it's motion, it's life passing over her body as she punches. Wishing she could draw it into herself and save some for later like these turbines.

"Wow, seriously, I'm wishing I'm a fucking wind turbine? This is your fault, Machia! You hear me! It's your fucking fault!"

She stops, pulls her phone out of her jeans pocket with the aching hand. Looks at the messages. Puts it back away. Fuck'em. She'd get matched against who she got matched against. The rest didn't matter. She wasn't sure what did matter anymore. Feeling this pole mattered.

She'd be here till she got too cold and tired to feel anything at all. And then she'd collapse somewhere with a cheap bed and wake up the next morning to eat the cheapest shitty hotel pancakes on the face of the earth like they were god's gift to humanity. and then...then she was going to find Titanomachia. She was going to find her and make her change her mind. Yeah. That was the ticket. Her finger hovered over the phone again, looking at Machia's public page, reading every word of her announcement again and again. Why? Why why why?!

The sound of the pole echoed into the night. kthunk. kthunk. kthunk.

Return to Thellamie

Yuki stretches her arms up and offers an affected yawn.

When she'd first arrived in Thellamie, this probably would have baited her. Even given her own self-doubt about being the hero without the infusion of starlight, she wouldn't have tolerated being insulted like this, and certainly not in front of her friends. But then, she'd been through a few things since she first arrived. A relationship with Purnima, for one, and a couple rounds seeing her friends through the hearts of wolfgirls, and most recently a brush with the heart of the Khatun. And this...well, this was kind of cute. Oh and also, it was going to get them where they wanted to go and Hazel would enjoy the trip this way no matter how he might splutter about it out loud~

"Mm, I could use a good nap, so I consider that a promise. Oh and you'll have to carry me because we need to get moving to Aestival before anybody else decides to come looking here. So don't take too long with that collar, okay?"

She yawns again and starts walking, flicking her tail at Mikela as she walks past her and waves her arm broadly for everyone else, foxgirls and wolfgirls alike, to follow. Time is precious and these negotiations are done.

Return to Thellamie

"Does that boy even want to get rescued?" Yuki sighs as she looks down from the Ossuary. "I didn't know he was so head over heels for buff girls. I'll have to tell Suli."

She's listening to the banter behind her, but also has her tablet out, with Juni peering over her shoulder.

>Home-away-from-home
>[.snowkitten]
>Juni's safe, hanging at the Ossuary, trying to actually get to Aestival
>Best idea I've got is we join up with a splinter Khan over here
>Hazel seems into her
>@realsuloarju he really seems to like buff girls, be sure to squeeze him tight next time
>Open to ideas for how best to travel with a Khan without anybody getting turned into a captive on the way
>Do I need to like, sleep with a knife under my pillow? Heart knife? Can you even do that?

She slips her tablet back away with a grin for Juni who's getting all those buzzes right next to her, but it's worth telling the whole group chat.

"Okay, come on folks." She's pulling the foxgirls by the arms with a gentle nudge. "Oh and Keli, Seli. Thank you. For...the music. For being here. For helping me and Juni. You're good friends."

[Keli and Seli can each take a string on Yuki for Family is Community.]

When they come out of the Ossuary downstairs though, she's all swagger, tail waving about and stepping strong and confident. Yuki's got Juni at her side with an arm around her, Seli and Keli together at her other side. She steps up to the group and glances around before pushing the followers to the side and approaching the Khan who's so close to Hazel.

"Hello ladies" she says, eyes all for the Khan. "Sorry to bother you, just finished freeing my friend from that shadow cell you were guarding and cutting through the darkness of the Khatun's heart. Which she knows about now." She levels a pointed stare at the latest girl who hasn't offered Hazel all the personal space he'd ask for (though she well might be giving him the exact amount of space he wants). "Doubt she's gonna be happy with her guard duty. But, I am happy to announce to you that the Khanate has an opening for a suitor! And one supported, at least in temporary alliance, by the hero of Thellamie herself!"

Yuki grins and cocks her head just a little. "And, as a gift, I'll even offer you a new...hmm is it a sluzhanka if you don't catch her yourself? Well, nevermind that, I'm getting very versed in maids, so a new maid in your service." She gives Seli, who has been positioned closer to her, a nice whap on the backside so that she jumps forward before she even quite realizes it.

Then Yuki extends a hand to Khan Mikela, her smile all warmth and teeth together, her other hand now free of Juni and poised to draw a blade that she obviously won't need. "So, what do you say?"

Return to Thellamie

It's weird that shadows burn, right? Like, shadows are the absence of light, the places light doesn't touch, so shouldn't they be cold instead of hot? Or maybe they _are_ cold but it's the kind of cold that's like holding onto an icecube so long that it burns you? It's weird that hot and cold both do the burning thing, actually, and that you can even feel that from shadows at all.

This is not what Yuki expected to think about as she chased the jingle jingle of a tambourine through clawing shadows singing her skin and her hair raw. But then, there was only so much her mind could chant Juni, Juni and in the face of this cloying darkness, she could not bear to open her mouth to speak. So a little part of her mind just detached and thought about how highkey weird it was that shadows worked this way while she kept putting feet in front of each other until eventually...eventually those feet made the thunk thunk thunk of boots upon stone and not the lost whisper of sound sucked into darkness. Until she tumbled out and she could hear Juniper's prayer and hear the name Olesya.

And still she couldn't speak because her body was wrapped too tightly into the hug. Her face pressed into Juni's shoulder, her tail curled around Juni's legs, her arms holding Juni's back so tightly that she might just crush the fox before she remembered to let her breathe.

And, when she can speak at last, she manages. "Ah, Juni, you fell in love, didn't you? Fine, fine fine. Where's your girlfriend then~? We've got a golden faun to collect on the way out, and then we'll go get her." Her tail still curls protectively around Juniper's legs, but she begins to stand up properly, to brush herself off and try to get the char off her knight's cloak. Maybe shadows were hot then, if they made her clothes sizzle? Made no goddamn sense though.