Nemaisare

blackbird claw, raven wing [ closed for El Taco Taco && Nemaisare ]

He watched her as she stood, not surprised that she was awake now. Not even considering the possibility that anything could have slept through that. Matiir only knew that every hair on his body was erect and every muscle trembled. Had he not been chained to the tree, he would have been long gone instead of hiding in its branches. As it was the only option he had (fighting back having been utterly forgotten), he’d treed himself and was now, perhaps understandably, feeling cornered. But when Samaire did not run, roll over or add to the threat, he could only stare, unblinking, as she approached the danger.

If she’d come within reach and he’d known of her intentions, he might have tried to stop her. Chased her away from what, to him, could only mean bad consequences. But she didn’t, and he hadn’t, and so, he was left to tremble in his tree as she pushed back her own fear and investigated.

There was nothing to find that they both did not already know. Here wasn’t safe. Away was a good idea.

She took her time returning, though he could see her the whole time, and likely took only three breaths, he was impatient with the risk she took. He could feel, despite the hairs standing all down his arms and on his neck, that the sensation was lingering only. It had ceased building. It was finished its hunt, whatever it was, now the deer was dead. She was prodding a hungry beast on its kill, for all he could see nothing else there. And even as she came rushing back, Matiir found himself balancing precariously on the branch, grip tight, but muscles bunching to defend himself from an attack that never came.

And he only continued to stare as she began to pack up the camp. Having nothing of his own, the delay would prove no hindrance, but it did take him a short moment to process that the human had decided first to walk towards the danger before wanting to leave it. Had she not felt the danger there?

He finally began to move when it became clear she wasn’t playing tricks, leaning off the branch and down the trunk towards the ground. Without fear adding wings to his heels and adrenaline staving off the aches and pains he’d acquired that evening, he was far more hesitant about coming down than he’d been about going up. In the end, the trouble solved itself when he overbalanced and tumbled headlong to the ground with a yowled complaint that was quickly cut off by a sudden lack of air in his lungs.

He picked himself up roughly, dishevelled head shaking vigourously as though to say he was perfectly fine and had meant to do that and he’d appreciate it if the bee buzzing in his ear left it. For the moment, there was little fight left in him. He was hungry, tired, cold and hurting and all he wanted to do was leave as quickly as his stiff limbs would allow. If that meant not fighting with the human now, he would very nearly be happy to cooperate. And in the most human gesture he’d acted out since he’d been caught and chained, Matiir sank onto his butt, mud-caked knees brushing his chin, feet flat on the ground, and let his arms dangle over them for all the world like any other wild young man who’s tired himself out and feels like taking a break. He might well have been about to pick up a few sticks and begin doodling in the mud.

He didn’t though. He held out his hands towards Samaire and shook his wrists instead, knowing enough about humans to realise the gesture had meaning and might win him what he wanted. The loose jangling of the shackles and his scarlet eyes, watching for her reaction, were each a good reminder that it was all no more than imitation as he chirped at her, trying to offer no threat. He wanted free of the chain enough to let her close. The dead deer was a strong enough incentive to leave him willing to prove that he was not worth her worries. Of course, once freed, there was no guarantee he’d feel the same way, but there was no reason to let her think otherwise.

Rising Winds and Shifting Sands

Complicated stuff is the best! Unless it involves technology, then it's hard. :P Oh, inbetween stuff, grey is such a dreary colour. (but I like it muchly) And it makes for wonderfully conflicted emotions and thoughts in writing characters. I really, really like that you did that. So that there's tension any way you look at what Tamal did.

Like, someone who doesn't like jinn might say, well, what do you expect? And the other side would say but he was hurt and only fighting back. Or someone might think, Miria's father deserved it, but someone else would say but he was a stand up citizen, a family man, a wonderful father. Tamal killed innocents! He was pushed until he snapped, had to cover his tracks, she was in the way... And all of them just coalescing in poor Miria trying to figure it out or even just live with it and you did that, Alfbie. You did. It's bad that I think that's awesome... >.> But I do. Just don't, y'know do that in real life, yes? Okay, good. :P

The saddest thing about Curdle's reaction, I think, is that he'll probably wind up more put out by the whole you were in love, than the whole, he was abused and killed your family. As soon as he can manage to process it, anyway. He needs to get out of her head so he can get some distance from the experience before that happens, I think.

And eeheeeheeeheehehehehehe I like making stuff up, in case you hadn't noticeed. So, I am perfectly happy with your opinion and pleased to agree. Separate religions do make differences. I wonder if any jinn have converted to a human religion, or been made to(at least pretend). How many religions might there be in a desert where there's good trade routes? You should figure that out, Alfbie. Yiss, yiss you should. heeee :D

Rising Winds and Shifting Sands

Wheee! And I'm having fun adding stuff randomly to the info sections. :P If you ever see anything that makes you go, huh? lemme know, yissyiss?

Also, I have it saying Jinn Religion, but I realised it might well not be exclusive to jinn... You think I should have it be an actual religion only the jinn follow, or just an old one that jinn, being older and longer lived and wanting to hold onto something of their traditions, are more likely to follow than humans, but human followers aren't uncommon? That was a long and poorly worded question, bah. :P

Rising Winds and Shifting Sands

Oh, I am so glad it read that way to you and that you enjoyed it. I had so much fun writing that post. I mean, the subject matter wasn't fun, but damn if it wasn't great inspiration.

I did want that feeling of being overwhelmed, so much so that he just kinda shut down. I just wasn't sure I managed to convey it well enough. Yay!

I am totally loving this story. Miria having to deal with the complication of love and betrayal in the same figure and the family betrayal of was it justified, did I not see it? Should I have seen it? How could I love him? And all that sort of twisty(omg Alfbie, you're wicked)thought patterns that take over in such a situation. And then Curdle gets to realise potential that, realized sooner, would have saved him a whole lot of trouble.

I like that they've both got complex back stories, but that Miria is probably the more problematic as far as resolutions go. Just cuz, we've got the resolution for Curdle planned(sort of), but Miria won't have the help of magic to figure things out. Although that magic might eventually become a problem but bah, I don't even know where I'm going with this anymore. I'm just happy babbling. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Rising Winds and Shifting Sands

I wasn't sure if I wanted to go with exclamations over Miria and Tamal now, or leave that to simmer for a bit, I think I like letting it be an elephant in the room that they get to deal with, but I'm worried I might still have made Curdle's reaction, or sudden lack thereof, a little awkward...

If you think it could do with some clarification or longer time to process it, feel free to say so. I'd welcome your opinion. I did kinda hope that the dream factor would allow a bit of leeway for there being so much emotion and then it just, kinda... dies out, but I'm not sure if it works all that well.

Rising Winds and Shifting Sands

When Curdle stumbled into opening his eyes, he was not confused to find that he had become she, or that there were warm arms wrapped around her waist and music in the background. A tangle of bright life and loving memories. A skein of story wrapped the wrong way ‘round. Dreams never cared to concern themselves with what should be, and these were not his besides, but still, he immersed himself in this moment of family and felt love and was loved in turn and that part of him that was trapped enjoyed it, and that part of him that was still beyond her reach yearned for the same.

S/he wanted this life, grasping at the edges to fold up the image as though it was a quilt they could cover themselves with every evening. Her and Tamal, Mother and Father, music, weaving, laughter, love. Even had he remembered that, awake, he knew none of these people, Curdle would have wished it real. Maybe it was, it felt so sure, for all that same distant part of himself marveled at the heady notion of jinni and human together, in love. In the kitchen, he rejoiced in the familial wealth that abounded here, and did not notice the moment when she turned back and he remained, rooted in the gift she had accidentally given him.

He didn’t notice when the laughter stopped or when the violin fell silent. He didn’t see the atmosphere’s shift from open and inviting to cold and angry, frightening. But he did hear her wail, the distress sending him staggering as the kitchen walls fell away and the floor gave out beneath him, forcing him back to a scene charged with hate. Oh… how the walls wept red. He forgot his fear of the unknown mind beyond this room and watched as the woman who sold tapestries in the market faced her fear and her love and her hate and could not defeat it. The revelation was too much.

But layered now over the whole of it was a level of resignation and regret that delved deep in sad recognition of the strange jinni’s broken justification. The moment was lost. He stepped forward, a body materialising of its own volition, wanting to reach past the woman’s frozen form to pull Tamal out of reach of the blood and whatever hurts he had been given to lead him to this madness. But also, out of reach of the woman whose innocence, ignorance if you will, had been sorely abused. Neither should have had to suffer this story, and true or not, he couldn’t have said, but it felt real and that was all that mattered.

He was too late though, of course he was, years too late in all likelihood, he had no place in the timeline of these dreams. Still, as the jinni charged, a sword leapt to his hand from a scabbard that had not existed before the sword was unsheathed. He would protect the woman, drive her demon away. All he managed, however, was to impede her escape, and he blinked through tears as she fell and Tamal vanished. Everything vanished but the white-washed walls and the lasting effects of traumatic emotions.

Slowly sheathing the sword, Curdle wiped at his wet cheeks, and struggled to recover from what he had witnessed. With a prouder stance, his chin shaved close and his skin less worn by wind and sun, it might well have been only his light eyes and grey horns(still working on their curl now) that gave him away. Gradually, however, as she stumbled over her recognition and he grew into himself here, where he did not belong, the jinni’s beard and horns grew out and the lines deepened around his eyes until he stood with the slight hunch of a man worn down by time. “I, messi.” His voice cracked in the quiet of her suspicions and he didn’t know how to answer her ragged questions. She’d dreamed him, was dreaming? He’d fallen in. And how did one fall into a dream? Especially when it was not their own.

“I made a mistake, I think.” In many things, he had been mistaken. In giving up. In leaving behind the urn. In involving her. In being caught in her dreams. In witnessing secrets… “I am sorry.”

He wiped at his eyes, fingers trembling as the dream gave them a weight that didn’t belong, regret clear in his voice and expression, but there was nothing else he could do. Nothing more that he could say, or ask. Nothing, except what he perhaps should have done in the first place. “Very sorry, messi. Please, I am needing your help.”

VIGILANCE: Memento Mori

@DJAtomika And back at ya.

@t2waveDid you want us to get Ruth involved in this doll owner's hunt somehow? We might be able to. Or at least get in a collaborative post or something, give you something to do. Or we could turn the hunt into something more Hype related, and eventually get Sam and Lucas to the Headquarters? Maybe, I dunno... But since you're still around, seems only fair to include you. ;) And it's not at all outside the realm of possibility that Lucas visits headquarters on a semi regular basis, soooo.... :)

VIGILANCE: Memento Mori

Now came the important part.

The dog was sweet. Friendly, but not too friendly. Just the sort he supposed you’d want if you brought it in to work with you. Every day? Maybe, hard to tell, not what he wanted to know. Casey though. Yeah, she was cute. He hadn’t come in to talk about the dog though. Oh, now that he’d seen her and they’d said hello and all, he wouldn’t have minded spending the rest of the morning talking about dogs. About Casey in particular if the man – was he Sam? seemed to answer to it – had enough to say to take up all that time. Given how he was holding her, he might well have, at that.

But the longer they spent on the dog, the more time it gave that mother and her girl to disappear into the city. Back from wherever they’d come from minus one. So, the first chance he had at clearing his head and he held out the doll and tried to explain the situation. He wasn’t sure he’d managed it too well, and frowned at the floor as he pushed himself up to standing again, trying to go over what he’d just said, but Casey’s owner didn’t seem to have any trouble with it. Maybe it was the obvious conclusion to seeing a grown man wandering around with a doll; that he was looking for its owner.

Then came the follow-up question as he took the doll back. Probably the next obvious conclusion, and he must have said something a little sideways, but Lucas’ frown only deepened when Sam asked if she meant something to him. A lot?

“Not a lot of-No.” He cut his attempt at explanation short and shrugged one shoulder, a lopsided sort of confused dismissal that made what he was doing that much more important and that much more without a reason. Biting at his thumbnail, Lucas tried an apologetic grimace around his hand as he searched through old conversations and leftover feelings for what he needed. It could drive his dad crazy, when he couldn’t find the words to explain why he wanted to do something. And this was only a stranger who had more important things to do with his time, but he’d said he’d help and that deserved something. Only, what was there to say? The mother and girl who’d lost the doll were strangers, too. He just…

“It’s sad.” He brushed the doll’s hair back with careful fingers, unable to count how many times such a motion had been done before, and pinned her to his chest in a two armed hug to go back to happier memories. The old toy made for an incongruous sight against the backdrop of gun store, two grown men and not a child anywhere near, for the moment, however, it had the strongest hold on his mind, and he smiled absently. “It’s all care and crying comfort stuffing inside. Stuffed full up to the gills and that’s all lost the keys to keep… It’s all lost memories.”

Lucas was used to getting weird looks now and again, at least once a day if he spent any amount of it talking with strangers. He was no longer worried about trying to fit in. Making himself understood if someone was trying to understand him was more important. He wasn’t sure if he’d explained enough or just confused the situation, but he’d tried. “Have to give that back.”

Rising Winds and Shifting Sands

He has a name!!!!! *flails*

Also, oooh, I like. Methinks we shall have fun with this. Yissyissyiss.

In Search Of A Partner - [Multiple Roles/Plots] [18+ Wanted] [*Advanced Writers*] [Always OPEN!]

*bounces in* SO FLUFFY! *coughs* *ahem* Sorry, but your avatar is cute. Now then! On to business!

• 18+
• In no particular order, really, we can discuss further, mix and mash maybe
  Husband x Wife
  Vampire x Human
  Vampire x Werewolf
  Prince x Commoner
  Princess x Commoner
  Blacksmithness
  Change
  I also have a few plots I might toss your way... >.>
• PM or forum
• Could I get a sample from you, too?

Curdle

from this thread :P
On the first pass, as he followed one of three trails leading away from the city gates, Curdle marvelled less at the speed of his travel – which seemed sometimes to be on wings of wind and sometimes more upon the whims of the wind – than he did at the array that swept across his vision.

The sand and sky were as they always had been. Nothing had displaced them. Yet, for all that it would have been an impossible task, the jinni might have believed it had someone told him then that a spirit or god had reached down while he was sleeping and turned every dune to glass. Not the clear, smooth panes that he had seen only three times in his whole life, no. There was form and shape and colour beneath him. Breath. And it spun together a thousand colours he could not name. He had caught glimpses of the same in the desert glass occasionally found by travellers, sparks trapped in time.

Fire annealed.

The desert had somehow turned to light.

Ahead of him, specks in that brightness, whorls of blues and greens and star-silver resolved themselves into mules and camels and oxen, humans and jinn, making their way across the sand. He could see the red-orange glow of hard light, magic, lingering beneath the sand stretched out behind them. It was the trail he’d followed from the gate, though the nearer he came, the brighter it grew. It formed a strange shell between the travellers and the glittering sand beneath their feet. And as he rushed past, wondering how he might even recognise that woman if he could not make out faces, that light shell flickered, foundering for a moment, and he saw one dark, jadestone silhouette that paused in the middle of a mincing bird step to turn towards him huge, round eyes the same bright light as the sand, looking right through him the way he could through them, and he fled upwards again on another rush of wind. There’d been no donkey in that group.

As he rose, vista spreading once more beneath him, looking for the other three groups to cut across to them rather than go back to the city, he realised he did not know for sure that she had even left. That she would eventually, he’d had no doubt, but that it would be today… How could he know? He’d not bothered to ask. She likely would not even have told him.

Well, two more caravans to search, and then he must go back if she was not in either. He did not know if getting too close to his body would pull him back to it or not, but if he had no other means of becoming himself, once more, it might be his best option. Or he could remain like this forever. It was not, in truth, an unenticing opportunity.

The next caravan, led by a male with a snake’s tongue, had some promise, but there were three in and around the cart pulled by one donkey, and a child in the other. The woman had not been a mother, so far as he’d been able to tell in their brief meeting. Motherly, she might have managed with anyone other than him, younger too, but not a mother.

He flew high to find the last caravan, dazzling himself with the faint spray of clouds turned crystal, and spun in a dizzying spiral back down to the heated brightness of shattered stone when he finally spotted them. He left billowing cloth in his wake, and a briefly motionless jinni, staring like the deer she resembled before a slight rattle of the chain reminded her that the day was not yet done. One donkey, stolidly silver, and a woman of shifting, faceted sapphire in the cart. He passed again, slower, and recognised the broken magic around the urn before he did her, shrouded as she was. He’d not seen enough of her to recognise her shadow. But the urn was there, and he was nearly certain it had not changed hands either, though she must have found it.

He thanked the North Wind that she’d done nothing to with it yet, and lifted again to track them as the sun, a strangely dim orb to his eyeless sight, dipped towards the horizon. When they camped for the night, he would try to join them, if he could.