HereComesTheSnow

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@FlitterFaux

...

She was crying.

I couldn't see the tears behind the mask, nor could I tell from any inelegant blubbering that Skye had failed to hold back, but she was definitely crying.

The hitch in her shoulders. The warble in her tone. I may miss a lot of things—

But even I don't miss when I've made someone cry.

"Skye."

I turned my head back to her, looking over my shoulder to stare at the mask that had begun looking more and more like a shield. I regarded it coolly for a moment, trying to think of what to say—

And the words that came were undoubtedly incorrect. The correct, polite thing to do would have been placation, a gentle and patient thing that reassured her. But it also tiptoed around the issue. It would be a simple, pithy statement that ignored the roaring undercurrent to what she'd been telling me. If I were a better linguist or wordsmith, I maybe could have dropped in some subtle hints that would have addressed it—

But I'm not. In fact, subtleties are bluntly lost on me.

So instead of being polite and socially correct, which wasn't an option.

Instead of placating her.

Instead of holding back.

I went the opposite direction. I let her have it. I went whole-hog and decided I would force my way through that shield instead of pry it off.

Not an open hand. A closed fist.

Brandishing the plain truth— No, this was wielding it.

The undisguised truth. Whether it was my true feelings or the universal truth of the matter, I couldn't say that it mattered at all to me in this moment. For all I was concerned, the two were one and the same—

So I told her as much, straight to her face.

"You've been saying a lot of stupid things ever since we've met."

My words were, once again, harsh. But this time there was a meaning to them beyond a tired and played out comedy routine.

"In fact, you've been saying them so much that it's been bugging the hell out of me. You can apologize all you want, but I'm not gonna let them slide any longer."

Harsh, but all true. They said the truth hurts— and it's easy to see why. Hurled at a girl who's practically in tears before you, it's a heartless, monstrous thing.

Even if it needs saying, it's certainly hurting me to play this role.

I'm not Gratia Mindaro. I'll never have her sangfroid composure. I don't now, and I certainly didn't then. She bowled straight through to those truths without worry for whatever she walked over to get there— I couldn't do that every single time like her.

But it didn't mean that I was entirely incapable of addressing the heart of an issue.

Especially not one that I couldn't stand any longer.

"Every other word out of your mouth is you taking shots at yourself. That's really stupid. Is your end goal to make me hate you, or something? You keep trying to convince me you're terrible, for some reason."

Harsh. Incorrect.

True, and what I thought was right.

What I wanted to do, regardless of any of these.

"And this goes way beyond not sleeping well, too, so you can't excuse it with that, either. Not a chance in hell you can. I'm dumb, not blind. Nobody's this depressive or self-defeating over a couple of hours tossing and turning, I can guarantee that it takes something way more. Something infinitely worse than a few bad nights and being a stranger in a strange place."

I know that for sure.

Far more surely than anyone else you could have come across.

Sorry, Skye. You got the worst matchup possible right out of the gate.

"So, I'd really rather it if you just told me..."

'You can never be sure of how long you have.'

My eyes tightened.

'Every moment is precious.'

Yeah.

'All it takes is one moment...'

And then it's gone forever.

"What happened?"

You failed someone, didn't you?

At least, you think you did.

Whether or not it's your fault— That's not the question, is it?

Even if it's not, you'll never shake the idea that it was.

That you could have done more and saved what you didn't.

"Please, just tell me what's actually eating you alive, alright?" Even I could feel that there wasn't any humor or happiness in the smile I was showing her— But there didn't need to be. Just as what she was doing was plain as day to me, I bet that I could make it plain as day to her—

"I'd really rather worry about that. Not about some dumb stroll or the millionth promise to my sisters I break. I'm a lousy older brother, that'll never change—"

—But I've only once broken a promise to myself.

I get it.

I really get it.

So save us all some trouble, and save yourself from the demon inside your head. Save yourself from eternally wallowing in misery and never letting yourself see the sun. Save yourself from being imprisoned by chains of your own making.

I know it's heavy.

I know that crushing feeling— Viscerally so.

Let me bear some of that weight for you. I can take it, you know? I've done this for four years. I'm more used to it than anyone has any right to be.

Than you should ever have to be.

Tanner likes to tell me that people get saved only by themselves, and that others can only help or lend their strength—

So I can't be the one to save you, but I'm here to help.

To lend the strength of experience with this kind of weight. It's not a bother at all, if I can help you as I was helped not even a year ago.

Nobody needs to be where I was, and nobody needs to be where you are.

You're a person in need, Skye. Let me help you a little.

I'm a Huntsman.

"So you can tell me. It'll be the smartest thing you've said all day."

That's what we do.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@FlitterFaux

Lucas Schwarz

I don't look like a Hunter? What's a hunter look like to you, white? Is it because I'm Shiroyaman? Jap man can't be something besides a wageslave? Because my name means black?

......

Lauren, I don't think I can ever pull that card out of my hat and take it seriously, sorry. It doesn't work at all, no matter how much you teach me.

Still, though, it wasn't surprising to hear that I didn't look the part entirely much, with my decidedly pedestrian hoodie and khakis and aforementioned lack of weaponry. It was a bit disheartening, sure; but on the other side of the coin, I knew that it'd be foolhardy of me to expect to have even come close in these three weeks— ten months if you counted my preparatory torture of an extended cram session last semester and a half— of my neophyte Huntsman career...

No, even scratching the very surface of my Mother's ability was still entirely beyond me.

It would be a long time before I simply radiated power from my very being, like Mom.

"Well, it's funny you should mention that— Do you remember the loud girl in that cafe dressed in yellow?" I asked rhetorically, rubbing the strangely-empty feeling out of my wrists. "She's my little sister, and just this morning I actually passed of my weapons to her."

Handed down a hand-me-down. How appropriate, right?

"I'm working on something new right now, but it's a bit slapdash... Not to mention stuck in the conceptual stage. But, that'd be your reason why."

Believe me, I'm no good at all. In fact, I'm barely hanging in there with all my might. It's just a happy coincidence that I'm unarmed right now...

Well, that and the fact that Jericho Piper isn't actually the norm in terms of how Huntsmen are in our days off and on the town. From what I'd gathered from him regarding how things are in Mantle, his first run-in with the Valic idea of "gun control" was going to be... a bit of a culture shock.

Then again, so was Vale being somewhat grounded in Slice of Life as opposed to Cyberpunk Urban Fantasy...

"I said relax. Now— Six stories high, and a lot of windows. Flat landscape." I repeated the list back to myself, knocking each one off the list that failed to meet the required categories. Luckily, I hadn't needed to use Google-sensei just yet. I normally would be hopeless on this sort of thing, but I had made a point to get on the express line towards familiarizing myself with the hospitals of the City of Vale ever since Lauren expressed a desire to rope me into her usual hijinks.

I was pretty sure I knew which one she meant, then. Especially with it being in relatively open airspace, with few other discernible landmarks, the hospital in question had to be...

Well over 5 miles away. If not 10.

"That's a heck of a walk we're about to be going on... You're really lost, aren't you?"

It was a blunt way of putting it, and more than likely to send poor Skye into another salvo of entirely unnecessary self-denigration, but my straight man act was far too refined and reflexive for me to stop at this point.

If I'd known that this was going to be what I was getting into, I'd have brought my bike...

Of course, it would also be pretty awkward to ask a complete stranger to ride double.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

Story of my life.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Silvan Haven @Write @Crimmy @Plank Sinatra @Ayazi @LokiLeo789

Schwarz Sisters and All That Shiz

"Ah, thank you, Beryl-san!" came Dawn's impeccably polite and gracious reply, as she primly accepted the already sweating cup (more like a mug, though, honestly) of iced green tea, bringing it to her lips and taking a long drink. "Oh, wow, this is a nice blend! Hey Jer, do you know what all's in it?" she called over to the humble kichen lad, before muttering a small list to herself along the lines of "some orange peel, some echinacea root, ooh, a hint of apple, that's platinum good, I wonder how that got in there", before being snapped abruptly out of it by a hand, clad in fingerless biking or climbing gloves, snapping its fingers in front of her.

"Hoi?" she looked up.

Smirking in amusement, the psychedelic exorcism enthusiast of the assembled gang wordlessly pointed straight forward, over to her other side. Following his direction, she turned—

And immediately giggled, gingerly accepting the pouch of chocolate chip cookies from her big sister's mouth, careful not to damage their gooey sweetness in any way during the final bit of transit. In an amazing feat of facial dexterity, any attentive person would have noted that the older girl's smile managed to somehow widen at her sister's reaction, despite the delicacy of the passengers it carried.

An attentive person would have also noticed that, while April had matched Akuma-kun's care when delivering Dawn's cookies, her own were recieved with far less circiumstance, merely dropping the package into her hands with only a small bleh to herald them.

Hahah, what a silly girl.

Of course, Tanner Oshino was a very attentive man, and also took this opportunity, after winking cheekily at his two adoptive nieces, to answer that call that had just come up on his scroll. He didn't take the time to look at the ID.

Only three people had this number, and only two of them used it, and only one would have any reason to call him right now.

"Yo, Taichou-san."

"Always with the nicknames, huh, Tanner? And here I'd just thought we'd moved past that." the voice at the end of the line replied, just as flippant and ripe with good humor in its low and smooth feminine tones as his own was. "How're the kids holding up?"

"They've already got half of your son's classmates wrapped around their little fingers, talking practically. And what can I say, something good happened—"

He turned his lone opened eye to the dark Atlesian devil at the counter, and then thought back to the young looking man outside the dorms he had been chatting with.

"Meaning of course, the old stomping grounds are really nostalgic. You'll never guess who I've been running into, Holly."

"Oh, really?" the most powerful woman to ever hail from Shiroyama sounded intrigued. "I'm on my way to the station right now, so if you can keep them around..."

"A-hah, that's quite the demand to place on a sleazy old fart like me..."

"These are--"

"So good!"

"...But I get the feeling I can manage it."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

have you tried having friends

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

[cries in wagecuck]

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

sisters and sterling after work maybe

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@FlitterFaux

Luke Schwarz

"Relax," I started, figuring it'd be best if I addressed her overwhelmingly apparent guilt first out of everything. "It's what we do as huntsmen. Helping people who need it— That's the whole reason I decided to attend this school."

The whole reason, I said, with a perfectly straight face.

It was a comforting lie. The reality, though, would have been a lot harder to worm into this conversation. In any case, however, while the motivations were false, the intentions weren't— Whatever reasoning I made up for it, I couldn't just sit here and let this person stay lost forever.

I decided to play it all off with a pithy joke. No need to start getting down and make this poor lady think she was really getting to me with this...

"Besides," I continued, feeling my lips part into a wry smirk. "Compared to throwing my life on the line every Friday, taking a tour through Vale isn't so bad."

Manticores never got in here, after all, and I wasn't liable to act as an extension cord.

...Wow.

What an exemplary sentence to call part of my life...

"They'll be fine without me in there, too— Probably. My sisters can be pretty loud and rowdy, but most everyone else is a patient sort. I'm sure they won't mind me popping out."

Knowing them, those two have probably already stolen whatever show I was setting up, anyways. And that was fine, really. Today was, despite my griping along the way, going well— I had started to mend a major bridge that was close to burning with April. As for Dawn, she was more of an enigma, but we hadn't gotten on eachother's nerves yet...

Huh. How ironic.

Leave the nest and suddenly things start looking up with the flock.

I just hoped they didn't end up planting any weird ideas about me in everyones' heads— I may have made a fairly good first impression, or at least I hoped as much, but those two and their gift of gab were nothing to sneeze at. Any mischief from them was probably a fool's errand for me to try and stop...

Please, April-sama, Dawn-sama, no old embarrassing or incriminating tales today! I'd die of shame if they heard about the "wishing for reincarnation as a tree" line! That phase and that phrase are dead and buried and gone!

It had been a day with a good outlook— but I doubted I'd ever stop firing on all cylinders.

Still, a teasing relationship was better than a punching one...

And if I had complaints about it, I needed to put them on hold and worry about the person right in front of me— Or, in this case, just behind me. Whatever damage two teenaged girl's could do to a guy's reputation was second banana to someone needing to get back to the hospital.

"Okay, so you never caught the name— Do you remember any landmarks close by?"

If she was good at reading the land like she mentioned earlier, surely there was something we could work off of—even in a crowded metroplex like this, full of bright colors and loud noises, there had to be at least one thing that stood out in the surroundings, right?

Even in a place so crowded.

There had to be. I'd pull up the online map with every hospital as a landmark just in case there wasn't, but surely there had to be.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

no

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Shit, I'll have to get on HSTR

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Could it be...