Battle Fantasia MUSH - User contributions [en]

2018-06-22 - LOTUS RECURSION: Dream within a Dream 1

2018-06-29T04:27:31Z

Limitless: Limitless moved page 2018-06-22 - Dream within a Dream 1 to 2018-06-22 - LOTUS RECURSION: Dream within a Dream 1

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
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! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Dream within a Dream 1'''
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|'''Summary''': 
''The dreamers caught in the Book of Darkness find even their own dreams aren't always their own.''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Vita]], [[Steven Universe]], [[Fate Testarossa]], [[Kasagami Araki]], [[Fuu Hououji]], [[Mikoto Minagi]], [[Signum]]
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|'''Where:''' 
Belkan-affiliated kingdom ☞︎❒︎♏︎♏︎♒︎□︎●︎♎︎ on planet ✋︎❒︎❒︎♏︎●︎♏︎❖︎♋︎■︎♍︎♏︎
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|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
6-22-2018 - <Data corrupt>
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|}

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Dimensional Space +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+
Where the vast wonders of outer space extend in all directions within
Earth's primary temporospatial dimension, many other 'magical worlds' occupy
another dimensional space entirely. There are as many theories as to their
origin, 'true' location relative to the Earth, geography and greater meaning
as there are visitors to these realms. None are conclusive.

Unlike Earth, Magical Worlds often utilize magic publically and prolifically
to improve their societies, though many remain feudalistic, and others
outright barbaric. When magic itself ceases to be secret, the necessity for
a magical girls identity to be hidden diminishes as well, and recognition
inhibition is weak or absent in many such worlds.

Methods of travel between and within dimensional spaces are manifold. The
simplest are permanent portals, often attached to sites such as standing
stones, which can create bridges through space or time. Dimensional
transport spells can be invoked by more powerful magi, and at the extreme of
fancy footwork are entire mobile fortresses, from starships to floating
towers, that whisk whole families or armies between, and beyond, the stars.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.
It's almost unfair. The realization that this is all some strange magical dream-simulacrum doesn't rid the body of its need for rest, doesn't remove the weight of exhaustion from your eyes. Everyone still needs to sleep, even out amid the slowly-unifying dreams.

And one night, when you close your eyes...

Screaming. No - shouting, roaring, the clang and clang of steel on steel.

You snap to your senses in a new place. The surroundings are chaos, a press of shouting bodies, but with a few moments of luck and possibly a little bit of flinging power around, you are able to get your bearings.

And you're in the middle of a war.

You are inside the courtyard keep of a castle of the old European style, with stairways to either side. All around you are people in violet, armed with sword and shield and dressed in armor emblazoned with triangular magic sigils that sit dull and lifeless. They are in turn holding off a group in green - and a little further down, people in brighter armor, gleaming with magic.

They are all screaming in what sounds to the ear like German, and to the heart like Japanese.

"KNIGHTS!" one of the violet army yells to you. "We need your strength! For Her Majesty! For Ascona!"

(OOC: This is a dream sequence occurring to your characters while they sleep within the Book of Darkness' dream world. You have found yourselves projected into the roles of Belkan Knights who mysteriously have all your usual magical girl combat skills. This will be OOC combat because I worked overtime today and didn't have time to make a youma *COUGH*)

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
It isn

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

She only intended to rest her eyes for a moment...

And then her eyes flare open. Fate Testarossa's armor is decidedly violet. The only thing stylized about it is the helm - which is more a half mask covering up to her nose, a yellow gem at the apex, her blonde hair flowing freely out of it. It has no eye slits - but she can still see. "Dame Sofie Benz Sohne - you have my sword! For her Majesty!"

It had been done so reflexively that she didn't know what she was saying. Her real name comes to her immediately of course - as does who she is... she has the sense that she's older than that right now.

Yet right now on the battlefield - does it matter? Her gauntlet clenches around her hand and a half sword as her head turns to survey the battlements overhead.

"Where... am I?" She asks quietly to herself.

Checking her shield's coat of arms... a wolf...

She then straightens up and stares straight forward at the army the others are holding off in the ranks ahead in the bloody magical, then sidles to the side, one half-step two to another soldier in her current line of ranks. "Ah... excuse me." They'll be upon them any moment and yet - right now she asks quietly, "Who are we fighting?"

It might feel like such a ridiculous thing to ask when they're seconds from ''actually'' fighting - and after she made such a declaration.

Hopefully she hasn't accidentally caused the only rout in ancient history where an entire division was routed by face-faulting.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
It was everything he had hoped for. How could it not... be... real...

It hurt so bad to look at her now. To hear her voice. To see her do the little things she does that make herself laugh. It was a life she deserved. One she fought for And yet? Is gone. Given up. taken from her. Or was she?

A charade in the cruelest sense. Steven is even unsure what is real now. Was this real? Or fake? Even the possibility has shaken him to his core. His pillow is wet from tears muffled away, hidden like some dark secret away from those he loves, in case this was indeed reality. Left to dry and disappear, unremarked on like so many things he wishes he could say.

But would they actually listen even if he said them? Would they feel if they could? A lost child bereft of a mother in a possible world that may already be undone?

A boy falls asleep, only able to have his mind wander between two possible aspects of his life. If he could choose, would he even want to leave...

---

Sounds. Loud ones. Fighting, screams, anger, pain. Steven's senses coalesce amid yet another location. A battlefield of import, within fortress walls. People trade attacks and shouts. "Where..." Steven says slowly, having to quickly move to avoid being engaged by a sudden insurgence of green armored folk.

The boy then realizes that he wears the same armor as those around him behind attacked. An urgency sets in, these were sided fights of some kind. A person calls out a rallying cry. And he feels something inside him want to attack those armored in green.

Yet one thing remains that is the same, an anchor between all these strange changes. An emergence of pink flourishes into a roseate shield. A symbol, that despite everything, always is there when he needs it in some form.

Knowing almost nothing of the situation, Steven still readies himself to fight. Questions can come later as to what exactly is going on. The important part is obvious though-- purple guys are good, everyone else is bad.

Hopefully.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Her Royal Highness Kasagami Araki feels the lips of her Mother touch her brow, a tear slipping down her good eye. Sleep overtakes the conflict within her, and then, darkness.

~Now~

Yelling, and Kasagami's eyes shoot open. She's upright, eyes briefly dozed off. She's clad in violet armor stylized with protective pauldrons. The young woman flexes her arms and legs, letting the feeling of the armor weigh on her body. Up the faceplate of the helmet goes, and she gazes around the courtyard.

Questions like 'Who are you?', 'Where am I?', 'Who are those green jerks?', and other such minor matters are put off as she realizes that they're near a battlefield. And a castle no less. Reaching over her shoulder, hands grip the solid, long handle of a blade. Pulling it out, she inspects the long, heavy zweihander. Both hands find it's solid weight. Somehow, it almost feels familiar.

A grin. "LONG LIVE THE QUEEN! MAY THE ENEMIES OF ASCONA TREMBLE BEFORE OUR MIGHT!" Howls Kasagami fervently. At the very least, an enemy to fight in a dream is a pleasure, uncomplicated and easy. This is one she can enjoy.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
Sleep has its uses, as Fuu learned - the hard way - when she was a couple of years younger. Far from merely being time lost out of the day, it's time that the brain and body need in which to refresh and renew themselves. And having had her eyes opened to the fact that she was, in fact, trapped in a dream of putatively-hostile making ... well, the irony of needing sleep inside of a dream is not lost on her. And if it weren't for that fact - that this *is* meant to hold her captive - she might even be willing to play along with it. So many of her friends are there, the troubles and travails of magical girlhood are safely confined to a shared fantasy ...

But that's just it. The world of the dream, sweet and soothing as it may be, is keeping her captive - her, and countless others. And somewhere outside, in the waking world ... the world is *ending*. Along with her non-magical friends, and her family, and gods know who else.

At least, Fuu thinks as she burrows into her bed, she knows where Ferio is ...

...............

"FOR ASCONA!!!" Jetta echoes with gusto, glaring bitterly down at the green-clad army. How dare they wear her color, she thinks, bow taking shape in her hands; she reaches over her shoulder for a set of arrows, and nocks them to the string, raising her bow and drawing back her shafts. Easy enough to aim over her allies and into the enemies' ranks. It means she can't flex her magical power along with her archery, but ... best to save her trump cards for when battle is truly joined.

With a soft *twang*, her arrows go flying, arcing over the non-magical warriors' engagements and hurtling down amongst the enemies whose armor is actually shining with magic.

And behind Jetta's eyes, Fuu Hououji wonders at the details of the dream. To join the battle seems *natural*, and yet - the larger dream-prison seemed just as natural, in the way of dreams. Even as Jetta's hand reaches for more arrows, Fuu's mind tries to catch whatever details she can ... the recognizable powers (and personalities!) of known allies among them.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
And sometimes it hurts, being torn from slumber, sometimes it's painful to let go of lies, and oh, how sympathetic are the liars now? And how strange to walk amongst the lies and know them, and know them, and oh, to see them reflected there.

And how strange to see the world as if through a mirror darkly, with all its attendant foibles, that the world is the world even as facts warp and events change. And sometimes it is so real it hurts, the need for those human things like rest -

Rest.

...

The Belkan Knight Golf stands in gleaming violet armor, greatsword clasped in gauntlet-clad hands. It's like being jolted awake - it begins with the shout. A piercing battle-cry, the way it's followed so closely by steel matching steel.

A single beat, like the pulse of ancient magic or perhaps a heart realising its precarious situation -

Yellow eyes widen as the pieces slip into place and Golf realises the steel was that of an ally, matching sword to sword as they covered her momentary lapse in concentration. "What's the matter, Knight?!" A glance - a man beside her, snapping in irritation, a woman at her other flank. She brings her greatsword up, roof-stance clasped above her head, the obsidian blade behind her where it won't cut into her brethren.

A sword glances out, strikes against breastplate; it slides to the side, unable to catch raised arms or find the gaps in the armor. The greatsword comes down, and the woman in green is defeated.

This wave is defeated. But there is a call, to the knights, and this knight would surely respond -

- except -

'I can't be Kasagami's knight...'

- Mikoto Minagi has never been noble enough to be called a knight, and the realisation shakes her all at once. It feels different, this time. She's never been close to this person, whoever they are, and yet here she is...

And the Belkan Knight Golf knows that she has sworn to fight for Queen Ascora's sake until her end of days. So eager is she for victory that she leaps forward with lesser infantry, inspiring them on the front lines. Does she mean to lead them - or does she simply mean to destroy the enemies before her?

Perhaps it's not so strange, then, that Mikoto is here, behind this woman's eyes.

Because Golf sees the threat incoming just as Mikoto would.

"Hold the line," she grumbles, to the infantry, and breaks away with practiced steps to join the other Knights with shining armor. Her voice is lower, here, painted with years of experience, and it sounds so strange to Mikoto's ears.

Strange, too, to know just what Golf would say to the collection of knights: "For Ascona." Two words, fervent and quiet, because the Belkan Knight Golf does not waste her breath on speeches either.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Fortunately her question is answered by the green-clad Knights busting into the quad, flanking out in each direction. "KWA HA HA!" one of them declares, boldly standing forward. A man in violet runs at him with sword drawn and is summarily punched aside.

There is a horrible crunch at the impact and the violet man goes flying. The green man watches him fall and grunts. "You brought peasants to hide behind. How common of you, Knights of Ascona. I am BOLT!"

The man next to him holds forward, with an axe whose head is nearly the size of his entire muscular torso. "And I am VOLT!"

They both explode with electric power!!

"And we'll teach you DOGS OF ASCONA A LESSON, won't we!" they jeer in unison, leering menacingly at Fate--no, at Sofie.

Jetta's arrow slams into a Belkan triangular magic circle, leaf-green in hue. "My name is Ser Leaf," the caster declares, bold. "Your upstart empress may have bought your miserable loyalties, but true honor will show us to victory!" And so saying he fires, bolts of light racing away in whipping, whirling chaos to try and cut through the line to slam into Jetta. They'd of course have to get past the shield of Rose Quartz to do so...which they surely won't.

In the background, voices rise up: "THEY COME! ASCONA'S DEMONS ARE HERE!"

Something explodes far back, beyond the walls, but men get sent flying over the battlements, crashing into the ground. The tallest of the green knights stands forward, her long hair whipping in the winds of chaos. "So your queen finally gets serious. Know me as Avalon," she declares, and produces an Armed Device - a hefty broadsword, visibly different from the weapons of the others as it hisses with power. "Witness my partner, Gram."

Ice crawls along the ground toward the dreaming Belkans - and then lashes up in a wave of icicles.

"And tremble as you die!"

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuSSXOQ-1bI
The icicles rise upwards and yet they seem to be blunted by a mysterious force. There is a great sense of heat, of pressure, from behind the lines of Ascona.

There is a shrieking fiery arrow, sudden and swift. It erupts with a shape reminescent of a bird - the heat washes downwards, melting the ice the rest of the way.

Then it descends. At first the streak of magenta is almost impossible to fully rationalize, to comprehend, but everything seems to become slower, almost more leisurely. The world grows crisper, gently aliased, everything seeming to accordion into perspective as the blur of magenta forms the shape, perhaps familiar to some, of Signum.

And Laevatein.

Laevatein is surrounded by a graceful plasma. In this eternal crystal vision the flame seems like an undulating thing, cauterizing and beautiful. The initial strike comes downwards with both hands aimed at the midsection of the knight Avalon, Signum landing in front of Avalon, a bit to the left. Avalon offers little resistance.

Signum brings the blade back around.

Again.

Again.

Again!

AGAIN!

Something glitters like a jewel and Signum reaches inwards as if she were gently disentangling a fruit from a slightly sickly tree. The Linker Core glows as she raises it. Laevatein is swung around --

BURST! With a sound of roaring thunder and a furnace-hot blast, Avalon is not present any more other than some residual greaves and boots.

Signum looks over her shoulder towards the others. She is expressionless but that is not new. "Forwards," she shouts, voice flat but extremely loud.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

And then it becomes moot because the green clad knight is there. The ranks beside her goes flying. Raising her shield though - a Belkan triangle forms in front of it. Skidding her back a half-step as it strikes it.

And the words come to her far too easy. "Such names - even if they strike fear into the peasantry - did you think it would be the same with me?"

Her bastard sword elongates in a glowing blade of energy overshadowing it - as violet bolts of lightning begin to strike it. "I don't think you even know the meaning of the storm."

She's about to engage. When suddenly the demon comes. And suddenly Sofie's attention isn't on her opponents.

Eyes wide beneath her mask - she watches as Signum demolishes Avalon - "Signum..." It's so strange to see her flat - emotionless. She's so... so...

"You heard her! Bastardschwert! STURM UND DRANG!"

Dashing inwards, her feet showering sparks, she makes a series of quick feints - striking again and again at Bolt. It feels far too elegant the way she's wielding it - like it's weightless, before she flips it upright and overhead. It sends violet lightning showering over the area in an umbrella pattern.

Catching it as it arcs back into her hand, she pivots into a brutal chop - that detonates into a massive explosion onto Bolt's partner.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
The fight rages on. around them all, though the encounter in the courtyard is just beginning, Steven takes a moment to regain his composure, and thoughts, memories come to him. a person named... Dondai? Something like that. It sounded familiar as if it had been spoken a million times already and yet not at all.

A pair of violent green armored soldiers step forward. "Who...?" the boy asks. His speech is slowled, he is beginning to realize. He isn't talking as fast as he wants to. Is this person just one of few words? "Enemies..." he utters, near rasps, seeing a purple knight get tossed to the side like an aluminum can. However, more immediate threats happen.

A curse uttered and a wave if deathly rime forms, and Steven can do naught but brace for impact.

THe ice however is halted with a powerful combation of fiery attacks. Shortly thereafter, the one who said such foul things against the knights is for all intensive purposes vanquished. A woman stands tall and proud, holding her prize. Something swells within Steven, though he has no idea what it might be.

The boy looks for the next option. Those two electrified knights look like quite the threat, and a knight is lashing out against them. There is something about their armor, their fervor that pushes Steven to strike against them.

In a rush across the courtyard, he holds out his shield, coming in fast for a vicious shield bash at the nearest of the pair. "You... will fall!" is uttered, though Steven wonders if it was him that actually said it. The line had to be held.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
"Indeed," says the Belkan Knight Golf, and somehow her low voice still carries, "hell is empty, and all Ascona's demons are here." They are formal words, deadly words. They promise retribution. They promise destruction. Because she knows what is coming; she can hear the sounds of battle behind them. And it is all she says, though she looks to the infantry punched aside with sympathy.

She brings her obsidian blade around in a fool's guard - the ''Alber,'' echoes the memories of Golf in her mind, who has lived and breathed Belkan tradition her whole life - point lowered between her legs, foot swept back. These Western stances, so useful to apply to a claymore, seem now to be the most natural things in the world to fall back on.

As if she had lived her whole life with the dedication of a knight, instead of...

Of course, there's no need to counter the icicles which rage forward. There's no need, because there is fire, here, and its owner is familiar to the woman wielding and to the girl behind her eyes. That knight - because she is a knight, this time, not a pretender wearing a veil as Mikoto does -

- it's always strange to see the dead.

(Here an ache, pushed aside.)

She has not heard her voice enough to know its matte quality as anything other than normal; and her command is eminently reasonable, with enemies ahead. She nods, to Signum, and her foot sweeps forward, sword coming to the side as legs bend behind plated greaves. It's more difficult to move, in such encompassing armor, but Golf has had a lifetime of experience.

She lowers; she leaps. And that obsidian claymore comes overhead, diving not for the front line but sailing overhead to bring the assault to the mage standing behind. Ser Leaf may be more comfortable at a distance - but the Belkan Knight Golf is known for clearing distances.

And that blade comes down, in an overhead slash.

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Kasagami...err, Heinkel, stops her vigorous cheering to face those that fall upon the horde of violet foot soldiers with a swiftness! Heinkel stares through the Belkan Knight's eyes, the many powerful enemy knights appearing. Their power, their entrances all call to the knight's warrior spirit, adrenaline and desire for battle forcing a grin under the helmet and the thumping of a heart primed and ready to leap forth!

But it's when the ice wielding Avalon appears that her demeanor brightens, and hands squeeze around the handle of her large weapon. She rolls her shoulders, one of the flanges on the weapon grinding against her own armor as she does so.

She can feel and hear the presence of those around her. Mikoto in particular gets her attention, followed by Fuu and lastly Fate. Her confident smile dips some at noting the Chevalier, but she puts it aside. There's plenty of enemies here, and it ''is'' a dream, right?

Especially as Avalon streaks ice towards them. Kasagami wheels back her weapon, Heinkel's long legs stretching to form a solid stance as dark red roses gather all around this odd Belkan Knight. And then...

An explosion, and Kasagami recognizes one of the Wolkenritter. The cleaving of Avalon has the knight pausing, all of that fire about her sword causing Heinkel's heart to skip a bit. Kasagami pauses. Inside her helmet, her face flinches. Teeth grit, and even as her mind tries to slip from this dream to a nightmare, she jabs herself with a flange harder. It doesn't help much.

Suppressing every fear and desire, she takes her gaze from Signum to Volt. It's a dream. Time to play Heinkel.

The Duelist, and quite possibly the one whose body she inhabits, lives for bravado and volume. It helps, banishing some of her trauma. "Sir Volt! Have at thee, you son of a curr! For the glory of Her Highness, I'll display your inelegant weapon over my nightstand after I cleave it from your hand, knave!"

She points that zweihander at the knight, and then she rushes forward with a laugh that's half nervousness, and half refuge in a fight. Don't worry, swing, mind on the battle. Nothing else matters. Her Mother's words, so fresh from her own Dream, flit about in her head.

The Belkan Knight Heinkel leaps high into the sky, flipping once, twice, thrice before leavering the rose-petal coated slab of metal over her shoulder with both hands and lets gravity do the rest. She falls like a comet.

"House Schweitzer technique! Crashing Rose Eruption!"

Even as electrical sparks slam and scorch both her armor, hair, and blade, a crimson tide of roses erupt from her sword, light and the scent of a spring Ohtori evening accompanying their magical sharpness.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Volt and Bolt, already preparing to fire, shriek in horor. "KNIGHT COMMANDER!" "NO!!" Leaf stumbles back, hands rising up in a perhaps familiar invocation of some mystic device, the winds whirling around him. "Demon! I'll not be taken so easily!"

While Sofie and the shielder Steven and the warrior Heinkel all descend on Volt and Bolt, Leaf finds himself with another problem. His hand flashes up, a barrier of magic repelling Jetta's blast of might. But Golf descends in a massive overhead swing, and his second shield can't hold them both. His Device chimes - it's hard to hear but everyone who does recognizes is at a rapid-evasion spell, anad Leaf zips away to the other side of the courtyard, whirling his hands around each other in sacred geometries. "Then I shall see you handle HRK"

A hand protrudes from his chest - not thrust through him, but rather extending from some mystic portal placed upon him. He shudders, horribly. "Ah. I missed," a chiming voice declares. Then the hand comes back out and THRUSTS through again - this time, holding a glimmering, flickering Linker Core. Leaf rasps, his eyes wide in horror. "Demons," he rasps. "That accursed...b---book!" he spits, gripping for the hands that hold his very soul...as it grows dimmer, and dimmer...

On the level above, a woman in uniform violet armor - rather like the dull sets worn by the regular soldiers, MUCH less vibrant and polished than the sets worn by the Belkan Elites the dreamers inhabit - has thrust a corresponding hand through a portal in front of her. "Your life and dreams mean nothing," she says, coldly. Shamal, though unlike she's ever been seen before; with something terribly chilling in her eyes and voice. "All your life amounts to is a way to keep that magic fresh for our mistress to take. Vanish."

Leaf's Linker Core winks out, and the man sucks in one last, horrid, ragged breath, and then collapses forward, off of Shamal's hand. Dead.

Volt and Bolt stagger back under the assaults upon them, but mostly hold their own. But even they are beginning to stagger under the combined attack, especially as they try desperately to make sure Signum doesn't sneak up on them. Not like they could do much if they did, given how she rather handily took care of Dame Avalon.

A new interruption comes, in the form of a knight clanking out of the main hall and in to the courtyard. "DAME AVALON! SER VOLT! Lady Vespa is away! You must--disen..."

He stumbles to a stop, his eyes wide. A quake runs through his entire body. "No," he whispers, in emotional agony. "Monsters," he croaks, and falls to his knees. "MONSTERS! HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO US!? WHAT DEMON KING GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO ATTACK FELLOW BELKANS SO!?"

Then there is a sick, horrid crunch as the man's chest is smashed in by a polo hammer, and the he goes flying into Volt, who is set off his balance by the impact.

Kasagami very nearly cleaves his head right off, before another surprise presence appears - a man in the same violet armor as Shamal, with fluffy dog ears poking out of his white hair. He catches both Heinkel and Sofie's weapons with his gauntleted hands. "You have them on the ropes," he declares. "Kindly wait for Shamal to drain them." His eyes cut to the other newcomer.

That being a girl with fire-engine red hair, cascading messily down her back. A literal child, she stands over the blubbering, shattered man she has just dealt a fatal blow to.

Her eyes have a silent, cold fury in them as she stares at him. "Why are you here, if you're so weak?" she spits, and then turns on her heels. "Shamal! Hurry up! I broke one." ... She turns back and glares at the blubbering man again. "Another one," she amends. She looks across the Knights of Ascona, then scoffs. "So this is what's become of Belkan Knights," she says, and the tone is so dead it's impossible to tell what she means, before she starts skulking back into the halls of the main building.

There's a gutteral scream from Vita and a corpse goes flying through the window fifteen seconds later.

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
Signum breathes in and breathes out as war rages.

"It's true," Signum answers Vita. "A hundred years has made a great difference..." A large portion of Avalon lands on the ground with a sudden brutal thump and it's like someone struck a cymbal and played this horrid scenario out.

There's a moment of nothing much. It's kind of restful. Have you ever put on those headphones at the doctor that play increasingly soft peeps to try and get you to see just how deaf you've gone listening to the sound on your DS through earbuds at max volume? It's a bit like that. Almost restful.

There's a faint sound, almost the memory of a whimper - a canine whimper -

And everything comes back into place as QUEEN ASCONA has just finished administering one hell of a wound-up kick at the ribs of the Guardian Beast Zafira, who had, it seemed, resumed a canid form for the occasion. "Useless!" she shouts.

Queen Ascona is a tall woman and she is in armor that is at least somewhat practical; she is bearing a grimoire in one hand; her face is contorted with fury that has worn grooves into her eyes even though thick kohl tries to conceal it, like mortar in a rotting wall. Her teeth are slightly irregular, and her mouth is painted like a slash. Did you expect red hair? It's actually a boring honey-toasted dark blonde.

"And the rest of you three were AT MOST barely adequate! By the purple hells of Palain, do you think that we are doing this for fun? Did you have an enjoyable ROMP? Did everyone enjoy their OUTING to the house where only MURDER lives?" the Queen declaims, clutching the air with her free hand.

Signum is standing with her head bowed.

Ascona's attention turns to the others.

"You!" she says, pointing to Fate. "Barely adequate. You!" This to the others. "And you, and you, and you AND you - come forwards. Come serve your queen! You're not getting your slap -" A pause as she tells Steven, "not you, step all the way forwards."

Having made this imperious statement of royal command, this objectively awful person takes a deep breath and closes her eyes to center herself. Maybe it isn't so bad.

"So, sweetling dears and stargazy pies," she says, eyes opening again with as much human compassion in them as the aforementioned pie featuring a dead fish: "I'm going to give you a question to answer."

Oh no. Questions.

"Sophie. Sugar brisket," she says, to Fate. "How did the tall one do?"

"Golf, honey hamhocks, come here - tell me - how did Greenie do? That one," Ascona indicates Shamal, "not THAT one."

"And you -" Ascona looks at Heinkel and then says, "I don't remember your name, but assess the performance of Little Hammer."

Ascona then waits. If Steven gets close he gets an indifferent, loud, but not particularly painful smack in the head. He may have the obscure impression that this is the preferable option.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

The battle is fierce - and over swiftly. It's so strange to see the Wolkenritter join. It's like they're the same people... but things are...

"... different."

It's fast becoming apparent how Hayate changed the course of their lives. Of history. And that fact makes her sad. What if she never sees them again? What if this is the end? What if they win and defeat the Book - and the next cycle everything about them is different... erased...

And they're like that again.

Breathing hard as she watches the aftermath of the violence - she winces as it's not quite the aftermath.

Because the Master of the Book of Darkness is here.

Or... what?

Fate gives her a good long look, as she ''kicks'' Zafira. And Fate nearly lurches forward - only barely restraining herself.

It takes a supreme act of willpower not to do anything. To just stand still and watch as he harangues him - calls him useless.

She seems so normal - and it becomes apparent so quickly. This is a petty tyrant that inherited the book.

That's all she is. And yet it's... it's all it takes. Bristling as she's called barely adequate.

Closing her eyes bneeath her mask, she takes a shuddering breath.

Taking a few steps forward at her command. She then drops to a knee - sword point down in the ground. "Your majesty. Our enemies may call them your demons but..." She steals a glance at Signum from the side. Hesitating and then...

"Signum..." She says rather than 'tall one, "...fought more fiercely than most Knights I have ever known. Her efforts are worthy of my respect."

She does not deign to say Queen Ascona's respect - because she does not think her Queen is worthy of ''her'' respect. But all the same she understands the wisdom in holding her tongue in that direction.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
Steven, or rather Dondai, makes his maneuver to force the two fighters into tighter spaces by denying space, letting the others attack fircely. The longer this fight goes on, the angrier he gets at the sight of these two. It is an unknown hatred that wells within. One with purpose, yet with unknowable origin.

The edges of his sight show unusual methods of defeating enemies, as in the swirling melee, he swears he sees a hand plunge through a chest, retrieving that which makes a knight powerful. In a moment of thought, the purple knight holds a hand to his stomach. An almost instinctual reaction seeing items pried from their bodies.

A vicious strike sends an opponent flying across that chaos and into one of the foes they currently faced. Before their foes can be finished however, another knight appears, hopefully on their side. He stays their attacks. "You... sure?" is asked. The small girl is looked at with curiosity. How does she have such power? Though she seems to hold those lesser than herself in low regard.

But none of these matter compared to the air of the woman that comes next.

There is a tightening of the chest, a deep, respectful fear that settles over Steven on her approach as she lays into a canine of some sort. Her voice a command of disdain, toward those that fight. He purses his lips, once again out of instinct somehow.

"Yes..." comes an immediate tone, a respectful response, not one of Steven's control, almost, obeying command without question.

And he gets struck for his reward. There is a touch of a flinch as the hit comes in, but unlike what Steven would have done, which is full pull-away, something keeps him rooted there to accept it, and accept it gladly. "Ahm... apologies..." and Steven is found bowing to Queen Ascona in apology.

Why is he acting so funny?! Why doesn't he just say that wasn't nice and that these people fought really hard?! It is like something within drives him to do something else.

Considering the power they all hold, perhaps a discimplary hit to the head might be the best option, and past encounters have almost bred the correct reactions into him.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
There's a look of something very much like anger in Jetta's eyes as Leaf falls prey to Shamal. It's not directed against the Wolkenritter's support mage, exactly - but it's the pride of a warrior who was going to take her own opponent down, thank you very much, and did *not* need the assistance.

Even if there was some semblance of a 'greater prize' being battled for.

She doesn't have time to get properly mad, though, because her liege has arrived. Jetta knows where her loyalties must lie - as they always have; this country was good, once, even under Queen Ascona's rule. She settles her bow across her back, and draws near as bidden, settling down on one knee before Ascona with her head bowed *just enough* to be properly deferential to the Queen.

She is, however, kind of relieved that she isn't being quizzed about the Wolkenritter's performance.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
The Belkan Knight Golf turns, armor clanking, as Ser Leaf zips away - only to be grasped by the firm hand of Shamal.

And again.

And as Golf watches that Linker Core grow dimmer and dimmer, there is a part of her, entirely foreign, which feels viscerally ill. Mikoto has felt that pain before. It is a terrible thing for any person to experience. A terrible thing which that little girl made her experience - and hatred joins the sympathetic pain as Vita enters the battlefield.

The Knight watches quietly as their enemies are felled, and does not flinch, because this is what her Queen requires.

Perhaps it's not so strange at all...

...

... Golf lowers her head as the Queen berates them, thoroughly chastised. She steps forward as she is bidden, and she knows they have failed her, and this is the price. And Mikoto knows fear, because this anger is something she has been trained so well to avoid. The anger of one they serve - but it's different, this time. It's different, because this anger feels so much more common. So much less justified.

She is silent as Zafira is kicked. She is silent as Dondai is slapped. She cannot possibly raise a hand against the Queen she has sworn to serve. She is silent as she bows, gauntlets grasping the hilt of her blade.

She only speaks when she is bidden. This is the proper way of the world.

Queen Ascona bids her to come, and she does. Yellow eyes shift to regard Shamal, for a moment, before they return to the woman with the book - never quite looking her in the eyes.

(There is something about this which makes Mikoto scream, in the back of Golf's mind, because it's wrong, it's wrong, she should not be this cruel. That the wrong answer will surely see Shamal to ruin. And yet it's hardly enough to counter the fact that this imperious woman holds their hearts in her hand as surely as any Linker Core. It's hardly enough to break upon the chains of two lifetimes of compliance.)

"She missed, my Queen, if only once. Regardless, she defeated her enemy." The Belkan Knight hesitates, eyes shifting down to the ground as her heart hammers in her chest as she dares to speak scant words in her defence: "... her obedience is without question."

<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Heinkel's blade falls into the hand of the fuzzy eared man, and Kasagami halts. She struggles, briefly, the glare given the wolf man furious before it all ends. The Queen calls, and suddenly Kasagami is all ears.

Particularly after that kick. Heinkel shakes off her blade and sheathes it. There's a moment where she eyes the Queen, sizes her up, and a million thoughts spring through her mind as the woman launches into a mini tirade.

Boring hair, horrific makeup, and Queen Ascona fits the looks and then demeanor of a tyrant without the nobility Kasagami sees in lines of royalty. Her hand trembles for a moment in rage. Was she on the path to becoming like that? Shallow and arrogant and ugly? It makes her soul quail just a bit. Still, she's all too cognizant of stature, and Heinkel's worries let the young Duelist form a plan. And so so as much as it enrages her to do so, she kneels before the Queen and offers her assessment.

"As you wish, Your Highness! Her combat skills were impeccable, as always! Fearlessly crashing into her enemy, swinging her weapon heedless for her own life or limb, nor that of the scum opposing your might! A brutal, efficient warrior's tact that I find myself in awe of..." She trails off, a single beat, before she lets out a sigh of 'admiration' for the hammer wielding one that's all high drama. Medieval plays and myths sway through her mind as she continues.

"However." The switch is sudden.

"She works without elegance, or fury. The woes of her youth, perhaps." A shrug, as if it's simply a minor flaw. There's only a tiny hint of venom.

"A firm hand guides the follies of youth, or so this meager knight has been told, your Highness!" Her head down, blade before her, and the slightest of smiles as she tries to play the eager knight and potential advisor. Kasagami can only pray that Heinkel knew how to play courtly shifty knight in this scenario, given the Queen's power. As she well knows, an angry and arrogant tyrant can make mistakes.

And when Kings make mistakes, they can be thrown from their thrones by Princes.

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
Ascona smiles. "Yes," she says - "My demons. From my grand grimoire..."

Fate's words float in the air.

Ascona remembers Fate's there. "Yes - thank you, indeed, dismissed."

After giving Dondai his smack, Ascona seems to forget he exists. It's a visible sort of thing.

Her attention rests on Jetta... and then over towards Golf and Golf renders a report. Frowning, Ascona says, "She missed? Waste of energy." Her voice raises slightly. "If this was some kind of FEINT tactic I could, JUST, understand it, but you know why we're here, aren't you aware? Did you forget?"

Ascona looks at Vita, eyes flashing. "PAGES! Pee Ay Gee Ee Ess! This miserable little castle and THAT one, they had garbage! Trash! You didn't botch the transfer, did you?" Her tone is accusatory to them, but then Heinkel starts talking with energy and vim. Ascona is successfully distracted.

Her eyes narrow after Heinkel finishes... but tension passes. "You flatterer," she says. "Don't think I don't know what kind of game you play~."

And then she turns on her heel. "This place stinks like a slaughter house," she states. "Clean it up; put these fools in the ground. I'm going to go lay down."

And with that, the queen saunters off. Her boot heels click heavily on the drying blood of the flagstones.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Her next footfall isn't in the castle, or, it's not in ''that'' castle, but another. The edges seem to flicker - of your vision and the whole scene both, the shift in moments grabbing and pulling you forward across time.

Ascona's voice. "My knights! I've found that wretch Vespa this time! You will retri e v --"

A sense - not even a full presence in the space, but a ''certainty'' that you were approching the dungeons.

And then you wake up, the world of the dream gone with a jolt of wakefulness. Perhaps another will come, another night. It leaves behind an aching feeling, a question that burns dangerously bright.

What ''was'' that?

[[Category:Logs]]

2018-06-22 - Dream within a Dream 1

2018-06-29T04:27:31Z

Limitless: Limitless moved page 2018-06-22 - Dream within a Dream 1 to 2018-06-22 - LOTUS RECURSION: Dream within a Dream 1

#REDIRECT [[2018-06-22 - LOTUS RECURSION: Dream within a Dream 1]]

2018-06-24 - LOTUS RECURSION: Dream within a Dream 2

2018-06-28T06:18:15Z

Limitless: Created page with "{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2" |- ! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Dream within a Dream 2..."

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Dream within a Dream 2'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Another dream comes from a long time ago.''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Vita]], [[Steven Universe]], [[Fuu Hououji]], [[Mikoto Minagi]], [[Niramo Umokeshi]], [[Signum]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
A place that doesn't exist.

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2018-06-24 - <time is but a window>
|-
|}

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Dimensional Space +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+
Where the vast wonders of outer space extend in all directions within
Earth's primary temporospatial dimension, many other 'magical worlds' occupy
another dimensional space entirely. There are as many theories as to their
origin, 'true' location relative to the Earth, geography and greater meaning
as there are visitors to these realms. None are conclusive.

Unlike Earth, Magical Worlds often utilize magic publically and prolifically
to improve their societies, though many remain feudalistic, and others
outright barbaric. When magic itself ceases to be secret, the necessity for
a magical girls identity to be hidden diminishes as well, and recognition
inhibition is weak or absent in many such worlds.

Methods of travel between and within dimensional spaces are manifold. The
simplest are permanent portals, often attached to sites such as standing
stones, which can create bridges through space or time. Dimensional
transport spells can be invoked by more powerful magi, and at the extreme of
fancy footwork are entire mobile fortresses, from starships to floating
towers, that whisk whole families or armies between, and beyond, the stars.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.
The dream returns. Is it the next time you slept, or days later? Is everyone even having them at the same rate...Perhaps it doesn't matter when or where. What matters is that your eyes close in the world of the Book of Darkness...

And you come to your senses in the halls of a fortress. The space is far from palatial - this is a castle of the old school, built to defend against attacks rather than show off one's wealth. The castle of a ruler, but not one of tremendous stature. Yet it has been transformed - the halls decorated with riches pillaged from ransacked castles of greater status. It is cramped, now, and garish, to. The master of this place must surely already have her eyes on a more luxurious place, suited to the grandeur that came into her hand.

That woman is before you. Important business comes to the Master of the Book, after all; she roams wherever she pleases. Queen Ascona might have been a beauty once, but spite and stress have worn grooves that three successive beauticians have yet to defeat. Her grimoire is open in her hands, scowling at the paltry three hundred and forty seventh page that is filled within it. Her nose curls as she considers it, and then her eyes slash up to you - proud and capable Belkan Knights, all. "It seems I've managed to run out of errand boys before I've run out of errands," she says, with a point like this were somehow your own faults. She certainly makes it your problem: "Find my Guardian Knights in their den and tell them Vespa is found. They are to set out at once for the North. They'll find her soon enough. She's marching with an army." Ascona scoffs. "As if she could get near."

She turns on her tall heels, waving you off with a dismissive flick of her fingers. "Ride out after them, too. I know you aren't quite so fast as they, but you'll do for mop-up."

...She stops. Half turns. Her eyes burn as she glares back. "But remember...nobody dies until they are harvested for my Book."

She storms off, and you find yourselves with instructions below your station. and no time to kill. Fortunately, your feet know where the Guardian Knights can be found.

Which is how you find yourselves before the entrance to Ascona's dungeon. The guards grimace at you but open the double-door to let you pass.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
It was all fake. All a ruse to confine the warriors inside the book. It killed him to face Rose like that. But Fate helped him see the truth beyond. That a world, an imperfect world, lay outside the book. One that needed their help.

If he actually had the choice in this manner, would he have done this? Would he take a chance to see a figment of who he wished would have always been there? More than she already is though. She is always with him.

Steven thinks he would. How much it hurt in the moment was indescribable. But coming away from it was... Enlightening? It is difficult to say. But even if Rose was nothing more than a dream. It felt good to say those words to someone, despite not actually being who they represent, and them reacting to them in such a caring manner.

And so, Steven set out to help others, trapped in a false reality.

Unfortunately, even in a dream, sleep must come, and the boy found himself sleeping in the nearby park, under the stars...

---

Vision grows clearer as the scent of clean ozone fills the nose. A place, a stronghold of sorts, line with some of the most decadent trappings and treasures imaginable. A woman, somehow familiar, lay before Steven. Or was it Steven? It was a familiar sound, a familiar memory that peaks within his mind, of the name Dondai.

Eyes land on that book, which in this dream and even beyond elicit some sort of respect and fear. "Yes..." comes out a slow voice. Not ''this'' again. "Orders... received..." he states, and looks amongst the others dubbed 'worthwhile' to undertake this task.

He then turns and heads toward... well, to be honest, he has no idea where he is going. But some part of him does, so he just goes with the funky flow. The dream edition. Sounds like a good remix album cover.

Eventually Dondai mees at the dungeon entrance, ready to proceed. The Queen's elite guard must be found, as it is imperitive they answer her request. She demands it, and it must be so. A nod is given to the guards as the knight makes his way inside the dungeon proper.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
On the one hand, their liege has said that the Guardian Knights are to set out "at once," which normally would mean the message needs to be delivered with all due haste and then some.

On the other hand, while Jetta maintains her usual polite demeanor (so familiar to those who know Fuu), she seems to be laboring with a certain lack of enthusiasm for her current duty. In point of fact, she's looking at the entrance to the dungeon with as little enthusiasm as though she were reporting to a cell which was going to be locked behind her for however long the Queen deemed suitable, rather than simply notifying some of Ascona's more treasured servants of their newest duty.

But that doesn't quite stop her from continuing onwards, inwards, whichever-wards the path needs must follow. Because really, what good would an act of open rebellion do here and now? Most likely she'd find herself immobilized, the gleaming spark of her Linker Core dislodged by one hand or another, suffering out her last moments as her magic, her mana, her very essence were transmuted into whatever eldritch ink prints the pages of the Book of Darkness.

"That's all anyone is to her now," Jetta murmurs under her breath. "Not an enemy, worthy or otherwise. Just ... pages. And we're only servants instead of pages for as long as having bodies to call our own aids her aims."

And by this point, it's already hard for Fuu to discern which dream she 'prefers' to be stuck in. The gilded cage constructed to keep her from interfering with the Book of Darkness - or the dreary grimness of serving Ascona. At least being Jetta offers some vestige of insight into the Book's past history ...

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
Dreams on dreams on dreams.

A dream where Mikoto could protest -

- a dream where the Belkan Knight Golf cannot.

Again.

Queen Ascona is before her; her head is bowed. There is so much fear, in the cramped halls of this castle. It is not a place for love, or affection, or hope.

"Yes, my Queen." And it's automatic and it's so easy, how there was never another response to be had. It's so easy to acquiesce.

Nobody dies until they're harvested.

Golf feels a little sick as she realises just how broadly that must apply. A pit in her stomach as she realises the woman she's sworn fealty to views everyone as so much meat for the grinder. Yellow eyes squeeze tight, for a moment - a sharp breath inward. Steadying.

Her devotion does not come with qualifiers.

If this is what she has become, there is nothing she can do.

Nothing -

- and Mikoto Minagi thinks of her own lessons, and behind the knight's eyes she feels so helpless.

The dungeons, then.

Their den is hardly that. Their station is the lowest in the castle - and Golf wonders, sometimes, how deliberate it is, keeping them in a place so dark and damp.

In plate armor, it is not difficult to hear her. But she does not kick or stomp, as she enters there, though her footfalls are necessarily heavy.

She just clears her throat.

<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
The homely bedroom of Niramo Umokeshi is dark and still, given the time of night, but the occupant was not actively trying to sleep. Where once was confidence, it was replaced with self-doubt and questions as more odd thoughts come to her ever since she woken up from that strange nightmare. Was Sourisi' uniform always so frilly? How were her parents not worried about income if they didn't work? Surely Yamane has friends in school, being such a happy and bright girl, right?

Questions like these has Niramo toss and turn in her bed, before her mind tires itself out, and slowly she sinks into darkness.

-----

Laika of House Melmidoc keeps her gaze humble before her Queen at her command, years of service and practice stopping the shudder her body tries to make before it starts. A knight must learn quickly in their Lady's service that they are at fault for whatever is decided to be their fault, least they become one of the pages her Queen scowled at earlier. "At once, your Majesty. Vespa shall be brought here to be harvested for the Book, as well as those fools that tried to support her."

As Queen Ascona turns away, Niramo wonders at the words that came swiftly to her lips, as well as the knowledge of this strange dream...it was a dream, right? A part of her knew that she has never seen or heard of a Queen Ascona or a Lady Vespa, but another part knew her to be a sword enemy of her Queen.

A quick look around makes note of the violet plate mail she wore, as well as the half-helmet that is just barely visible on the edges of her eyesight. Strangely enough, unlike some that serve their Queen, Laika does not wield neither sword nor a shield. The violet maces that are holstered on her hips make not a sound has she walks towards her destination--wait, she had been walking somewhere and didn't realize it? This was not the time to be lost in her thoughts, in a strange dream and in a strange castle!

A curt nod towards the guards is all Laika can offer to those that had the most boring and dreadful of guard duties. Words could be twisted and distorted, made to fit another's designs...or to bring down the scion of a noble house. And all Niramo can wonder...why is the elite guard in the dungeon?

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
The den. It suggests something homey, doesn't it? Something pleasant. Something where you can lair. Something wherein you can nest. A private place, perhaps not luxurious but definitely comfortable and personal.

This is not the case for the Wolkenritter.

The room - it's a large cell, one that was probably originally used for transient prisoners, so it is fairly accessible and there is only one access point. It is not actively guarded, though the door has not been taken down, either. There are lights, and there is furniture, after a fashion, but that is about where it ends.

The furniture is the cheapest kind and has as its primary praiseworthy factors being "intact" and "not too rotted or stained." There are two chairs, two cots, and a small heap of filthy blankets that is currently occupied by the curled-up form of Zafira, the guardian beast.

Signum, the General of the Raging Fire, sits with her back towards the doorway, which may seem strange to those of a certain attitude. Shamal is seated on one of the cots, mending something of dirty linen. Something else, linen-wrapped, is laying on the cot - Vita, recovering, it seems. Bandaged.

If Signum, at least, hears people coming, she doesn't react. Her shoulders - clad in plain metal armor, not the embroidered battlewear that may have been more familiar to others - slump. Perhaps she is giving away a baleful anticipation.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.
Vita, the Crimson Iron Rider, is a girl. A small child; her body appears to be five or six years old, though she often carries herself, much as the other Wolkenritter do, with a certain ageless confidence. Her armor is off and she is dressed in common linens, bandages on her arms and legs and wrapped tight around her chest. She grimaces, rolling her head at the sound of approaching foot-steps.

Her eyes are a beautiful, crystal blue. They are devoid of nearly all spark.

"Time again, huh," she rasps, and her arm hits the frame of her cot, finding the strength to force herself up. "Sounds right." She grimaces as her weight lands on a particular rib, but forces herself the rest of the way up anyway with gritted teeth.

"Vita," Shamal says, looking first up at the arrivals, briefly scanning them before she turns her attention over. "Please. Even you need more rest than that. Your magic won't have recovered yet."

"'s my own fault. Wasted too much on that springs guy," Vita mutters, though she also doesn't rise to her feet. She breathes heavily, with the quiet dread of a person who doesn't entirely want to find out what happens when they stand. "Besides..."

Her eyes carve a path to the Belkan Knights - the servants of Ascona - the magical girls of Tokyo - who have come to them. "...Master's got a mission, hasn't she?"

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
Some of the group assembled are familiar somehow, as if comrades in past fights. Some part of him recognizes them in small ways. Perhaps knowing them outside of war, even. It is difficult to tell.

It is strange to see the Queen's most elite knights being in such strange quarters. Not at all lavish or well-appointed. Quite the opposite. They seem worse off than memories of chambers past for himself. Whether or not they are actually Dondai's is irrelevant. But why? Such loyal and powerful denizens deserve their own rewards, do they not? For serving a monarchy, rewards are just and well deserved for righteous actions on behalf of the crown.

It shakes him inside to see them like this. If this is what lay in store for rising through the ranks, then was effort worth it?

Even a poor little girl, with mighty strength yes, but left to decay in this rotting hole as if discarded once a mission finishes. Something in Steven's chest tugs at him. "Yes..." comes that slow voice. He has had enough of that!

Dondai can be seen purshing his lips, and then speaks in a lighter tone, and much faster than his super-slow drawl. "Why are you down here like this? I was always told stories of how lavish you live, and that one day if I worked hard enough, I might..." Dondai trails off.

"Surely this isn't where you stay?" A curious tone takes charge of his voice. There is no malice to his voice, only Worry.

And possibly a little regret.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
"Less of a 'mission,' more of a hunt," Jetta says - not even trying to hide her distaste. "One of her enemies approaches. You are to go and hunt her down, as you've done to Her Majesty's other ..."

She trails off, hands slowly balling into fists. "When I came into my magic, when I was trained to fight with bow and with blade, I was taught of honor. Of loyalty and duty, yes, but also of respect towards my enemies. The ends you've meted out to your ... prey ... forgive my discourtesy in asking so plainly, but what are you - and what is that Book?"

Dondai's question draws a slight wince from Jetta, but also a nod - she was wondering that too. And if this is how the Guardian Knights are lodged for their *successes* ...

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
It's not right, Mikoto screams.

It's not right, it's not -

The dungeons are a prison, and their destitute decorations only drive it home. The rest of this castle is crammed with jewels and pilfered baubles; here the blankets are not even clean. The Belkan Knight Golf grunts, glancing aside, because it's not right for the soldiers who fulfill their Queen's every need to live in a place like this.

"Yes," she replies, so simply, to Vita's first rasp. "Your service is required."

But there's something beneath the pity. It sparks as anger, first - even a vicious feeling of satisfaction that Vita has suffered injuries like she's given. It's the sort of feeling from someone who can see the way her weight shifts on that rib - from someone who remembers the way she tried to exploit hers -

- but this is someone else's dream, and Golf's seen the lengths Vita goes to and the gratitude she receives for it.

The lengths she is forced to go to.

Mikoto hisses through grit teeth, tongue pressed against them in a sharp noise. It feels like Lera trying to get her to sympathise, again.

Is it worse when she's being faced with a ghost?

Her voice is a woman's; the tone is all wrong. "Vita's always done this." Accusatory and guarded, a shade uncomfortable, and entirely, entirely ambiguous. It is a question; it doesn't sound like one at all.

Her eyes are still yellow - that much is true, as they shift from Zafira to Shamal to Signum and finally to Vita again. The hair is impossible to tell, behind her helm. "... always been this." Because Vita is still a child. Signum and Shamal are still women. Zafira's still... Zafira. There's no change at all.

(The Belkan Knight Golf is taciturn, but not to this degree. Perhaps she just doesn't want to waste too many words on the Queen's servants.)

Thin lips press together; she makes a gutteral sound towards the back of her throat which reverberates into her chest as her eyes fall on Signum again.

Because she remembers something, from the last time she's dreamed of this.

"... flat."

<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Heavy footsteps rattle armor as Laika descends into the dungeon, a frown growing on her face as she and the others head deeper into the bowels of the castle. Despite the service the Elite Guard has done for Queen Ascona, these were not lavish chambers and hallways like as above, overflowing with the wealth stolen from those that dare resist the Queen. The dungeons were not refurbished with comfort or reward in mind, and the pit that grew in her stomach as Laika takes in the furniture barely fit for the slums feels as if it could consume her whole.

Laika knew that these were the strongest warriors ever to have fought for her Queen, the finest jewel in their armies.

Then why treat those that fight the hardest and win a great deal of your victories as if they were not worthy to be on your shoe? It's all Niramo can do to just wish her dream self, this Laika, to realize just how ''wrong'' this was.

Perhaps Laika already did know, and knew there was no way to escape even if she wanted to.

The Guard Beast of the Shield, the General of the Raging Fire and the Knight of the Lake made no motions to rise, but it was the familiar, heart-wrenching and unfamiliar form of the Knight of the Iron Hammer that raises first, and has an uneasy twist of heartache in Niramo's chest as Laika looks at her? Wasn't she one of those people that were absorbed by that strange...book? Wasn't all of those in this cell from her nightmare?

No words seem to come to Laika's lips as Dondai and Jetta speak up, and she looks aside at just how true Jetta's words were. Her maces were tools of war, to be used to harm and capture those that would try to challenge her Queen. She accepted that she was a tool to Queen Ascona's eyes and lived in the barracks, the armory of her Majesty's troops. But this was not an armory fit for serfs, let alone the greatest warriors of them all.

This was the refuse pile, to be cast aside into and to reluctantly search through for items of value.

Looking upwards, Laika focuses entirely on Vita's dull eyes, how she seems so devoid of life. "If you are being punished for failures, I have not seen any in all my time. Surely this can not be the 'reward' for your duties? Even the newly made squires live better than this."

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
Signum looks over her shoulder at Dondai for a moment. Her eyes are a little glassy but she focuses on him. "This is our designated billet," she tells him. "We do not require or benefit from what you describe. I hope that you found the stories motivational."

More people are talking. Signum looks at Fuu. "We are the Wolkenritter," she tells Fuu. "The Book of Darkness is what it is. I do not fully understand your question; I am not a technical mage."

Mikoto speaks. Signum's eyes turn to the floor for a moment and she doesn't reply. She does shift in her seat, hands resting upon her knees. To Niramo, she says, "Rewards are pointless. We serve the master of the Book of Darkness. This location is secure and physically adequate. It is better that limited resources benefit you, who benefit from such things. Your concern is laudable, but unnecessary."

Her eyes turn over the others. With a hint of an uneasy pause, Signum states, "We are in a recovery mode. Please excuse our failures of readiness. If you will explain the nature of the mission, we will doubtless be prepared by the time you are finished."

She sounds like a phone recording, if a phone recording was a little halting.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Her eyes scan to 'Golf'. There is no trace of particular recognition. "This is my life," she says, quietly. No trace of ambition.

Her eyes turn up, toward Jetta, who seemed the most interested in telling them what's going on. "Vespa finally turned back up?" she asks, quiet. Guessing, maybe. "...probably the last person who'll give us a real fight, then." Her eyes hang down, but they slowly shift over toward Signum, and at the General's order, she sucks in a breath, and forces herself to stand, her legs not entirely steady for a moment. Shamal has already stood and offers a steadying hand.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
"Vespa," Jetta confirms. "Marching from the north with her army. Her Majesty has ordered that none of them should be slain ... until they are -" She can't even make an effort to hide her distaste as she finishes the sentence, "added to the Book. You are to meet her forces first; we are ordered to ride out behind you, and ... ensure that none escape."

Tools, thinks Jetta. Are any of them more than tools any more?

And Fuu thinks, deep inside the Belkan knight of wind, that the dream in which she is a schoolgirl is better than this. But if there's one thing she *can* do ...

"Vita of the Iron Hammer. I don't know if my healing magic will assist you much, but ... to see you march to battle while still wounded, when I might see it otherwise, would be its own stain on my honor and my dignity as a mage and a knight. You call yourselves tools, but any tool or weapon must still be properly cared for - and how much more so for a person, who moves and breathes and speaks? Linger but a moment, allow me to cast a spell, and if it aids you, soothes your pain, I should count it as worth the effort. If it has no effect ... I lose nothing of great value by the attempt." Jetta's gaze rests on the other three Wolkenritter in turn. "And such I offer for the rest of you as well. The choice is yours; I shall not force it."

Fuu has some trouble believing she's making the offer; the Wind Knight of Cephiro has only known the Wolkenritter as foes. But they're on the same side in this dream; she can at least make the offer ... even if, as she admits, nothing might come of it.

<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Vita's admittance that they are constructs has Laika's frown deepen. If they were indeed constructs, then surely it would be more efficient to have them not feel pain, to not need rest or bandages to help settle ribs? The Knight of the Iron Hammer is correct about just how they were pretty much tools, designed for killing.

The idealistic part of her that is Niramo wants to scream that a person is still a person, and not a weapon for the sole purpose to wage war. She could think, act and breath for herself, a true weapon couldn't...right?

Signum's words has the mace knight scowling, not at who is speaking it, but just how true those words are if the Elite Guard was indeed constructs. The fact they're not able to eat explains why they never partake at a feast. "Perhaps so, but morale is just as important as a secure room, for healing and recuperation. Though there is little I can do, I would feel better on the battlefield if the Elite Guard was well-rested."

Coming to herself at Vita's words, she nods towards Signum, bowing her head slightly. "Forgive us for our questions, but Vita does have the right of it. Lady Vespa is approaching here as we speak, with an army. You and the rest of the Wolkenritter are to ride forth and meet her in battle, but none are to be killed outright. Lady Vespa and all of those that chose to oppose her Majesty Queen Ascona are to be...collected...for the Book of Darkness. We will be riding afterwards to assist with the clean-up and capture of the...harvest."

In the privacy of this chamber, Laika lets a hint of distaste color her words, but nothing more than a taste. The full mention of the Book has Niramo's thoughts focus on the half-remembered nightmare, of the grimoire that absorbed the void that tried to devour the stars. Was there more to the nightmare than she realizes, even if it didn't come through the Veil of Prophecy?

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
Silence says things.

There are so many people who don't realise how much a lapse in conversation says. Who don't recognise the message in the way the body moves instead of the tongue. There are so many people who think it's dismissive, or meaningless.

And maybe sometimes it is.

And maybe sometimes it really, really isn't.

Mikoto answers silence with silence and it's not a dismissal at all, as eyes track those movements and chin shifts in something akin to a nod.

She doesn't need an answer because the answer is plain as day in the way she responds to their questions and concerns -

- their bleeding hearts.

''That'' makes Mikoto sneer, which is a strange expression to see on the Knight's impassive face, curled lip to display upper teeth. It's an automatic reaction - of ''course'' she isn't concerned with the fate of her enemies. It's insulting to suggest it.

Of course she isn't...

The thought trails off as Vita keeps talking, and Mikoto finds she has to look away.

Tools.

Tools which are good at killing.

A gauntleted hand reaches to chestplate to try and find a pendant which cannot be there. It falls to her side; grips there. Golf, distantly, must wonder why she would make such a strange motion.

Vita answers her and Mikoto snorts derisively. Clipped and irate: "No. It ''was.''"

She does not explain what must be utmost treachery, in the context of the dream. It's her host's turn to scream, now.

But perhaps just as strong as the bonds of friendship, in the midst of the dream - are bonds of adversativeness. Strong enough to bring anger to the fore, strong enough to disregard the rules of illusion.

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
That response is not near what he expected nor wanted. She sounds brainwashed or controlled. Likewise his companions' answers come the same. No emotion or remorse for their situation whatsoever. The child at least has something to her voice. An emotion of some kind. But the two do answer what they are at least.

"Far be it from my place to say," Dondai says towards Vita. "But even a tool deserves fair treatment." One of his companion arrivals says it better, Jetta. "I mean, how fast do you recuperate? It could start to become a liability. Vespa is important, but do we have other methods to reach her that don't risk you in your current condition?"

GOlf nearby seems bothered more than the rest. Perhaps they understand their plight more than others present.

Steven can feel himself becoming more... himself now. Like the person he is supposed to be in whatever this is is beginning to bleed out and overtake this role, rather than be along for the ride like last time.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

She doesn't really emote to the word collection. The pregnant pauses every time they talk of it. "You should consider taking the scenic route," Vita says, suddenly, bluntly. "There'll be a lot of killing to do."

She doesn't shy from it, her eyes down and dead. She knows this is her fate. Something she cannot avoid. Her eyes scan to steven and she grunts. "The Master commands," she mutters. "We obey. That's life."

But Mikoto - Golf - barks something else, and Vita glowers at her. "How ya figure?" she quips.

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
"You need not waste your energies," Signum says, rising from her chair with a little - not much - difficulty. "But I praise your virtue once again, madame."

She breathes in and lets it out.

She regards Dondai(?) and tells him, not unkindly, "It is not an optimal situation in terms of our performance. But a tool can be sacrificed without fear to win a great goal. When Queen Ascora completes the preparation of the Book of Darkness, it will be trivial for her to restore us - even from what you might believe to be death."

She attempts a small smile. "It will be well," she says. "You will receive, I am certain, great reward for your service." Then she takes a deep breath, lets it out - and her attention looks towards Golf for a moment. Then she returns her attention to Laika.

"It is not pleasant work. You will do well. I am confident in your ability," she tells her. It is, absolutely, rote.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
Vita hurt her. Vita is her enemy.

It's not Golf, glaring at her from behind that helm. It's Mikoto Minagi.

And Mikoto is not being kind.

"Vita's dead," she states, bluntly. Those golden eyes slide to Signum, to the others, and she is not quite as unkind as she adds - "Everyone." Not 'everyone here', but 'every one of the Wolkenritter' - though perhaps everyone here is dead as well.

And the shock at that thought is like a distant memory, as Golf is horrified by the idea of her own death.

Mikoto frowns, a frustrated click of her tongue against her teeth. "... Vita deserved it, but not like that." The animosity in her voice is clear. The undercurrent of discomfort isn't something she can hide, either. It feels like helping her. It feels like helping a ghost. Both of these things are unpleasant, but with the context she has here - "Vita said a name, when we..."

Mikoto shakes her head, taps gauntlets against the links of her faulds. An irritated puff of breath through grit teeth. "... doesn't matter. Vita's dead anyway." It's pointless to help a dead girl out of a lie. It's verboten to assist an enemy. She doesn't even know why she's still talking. Maybe it's easier to try and disregard this particular lie - maybe it's a bit too uncomfortable, for Mikoto Minagi.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
Jetta inclines her head, reaching for the hilt of her sword - not to draw it, but just to help channel her magic. It's her left hand that rests on the hilt; her right hand reaches out to the Wolkenritter as she utters, "Winds of Healing."

And the gentle breeze gusts about the dungeon cell before enfolding Vita, attempting to help repair her ribs, mend her other injuries, and soothe her pain.Her physical pain, at least; the emotional scars she might be harboring, and those of the other Wolkenritter, are well beyond her ability to do anything about ... for both Jetta and for Fuu.

"Warfare is far from pleasant, even under the best circumstances," she admits, lowering her hands again. "But what she's had us do - all of us, including the four of you - since she claimed the Book ... is worse. And I no longer doubt that Her Majesty would doom any one of us to that same fate, if she felt our usefulness to be at an end."

She looks over at Golf/Mikoto for a moment, then bows her head. How many of her friends has Fuu, the Wind Knight, seen ensnared and drained, the same way Jetta has seen her enemies obliterated by the power of the Book and its servants? Even the Wolkenritter themselves, in those heart-stopping, infinitely terrifying moments before the Book trapped them all ...

Vita suggested taking the scenic route. Jetta and Fuu would love to take a *very* scenic route, if not for the chance that Ascona would have her hunted down and added to the Book out of spite. Trying to hinder the Book's completion, she would be used to add still more pages ... there doesn't seem to be a way to avoid it. Not even for honor's sake.

<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Laika gives an uneasy glance around before letting out a nod. Her fellow knights were also disgruntled over the mistreatment of the Elite Guard, so perhaps she could speak freely here. "There should be more to life than just serving a single Master, be it the Book of Darkness or her Majesty. You speak about being tools, but you are not and neither are we, even if our Masters believe otherwise."

Tapping a hand to her chestplate, she taps twice over her heart. "You say we have bleeding hearts, but I wager that you have bleeding hearts as well, capable of feeling emotion even as you try to suppress it. Why else would you suggest us to take the scenic route when you and yours are exhausted? Even if we are slower, it would be better if we meet the enemy together, as a group and comrads."

Reaching up and removing her half-helm, Laika looks once again upon the Wolkenritter to once again look upon them again. Tired, weary and clearly ready to just rest, the Elite Guard does not look like to be the group ready to engage the enemy, nor do they look like those that were being attacked in her nightmare. These were people, the same as any other, and they have lives as well.

Laika--no, Niramo smiles upon the four and gives a nod. Perhaps her life is so confusing right now, but surely she could make a difference, even if this is a dream. "You said that you are unable to eat, but let me at least make the effort to try to make all of you a meal you can enjoy, be it now or when you are 'restored'. It is often me who handles the kitchen when it's time to cook for the others, and even with the food that the knights are given, i'm certain I can make you a meal that will have your taste buds cry out in joy!"

Signum's words shrinks that smile on Laika's lips, and she gives the room another glance over to make sure that none of the guards were standing in the shadows, listening in. "...if you don't mind me saying so, I believe we should look for another way for you to be restored, together." With a bit of Laika's lingering self still on her mind, she shakes her head. "The Queen considers us all to be fruit, to be wrung of all our juices in stopping her foes or to be 'harvested' by that ''blasted'' book of hers."

It's strange just how open Laika is against the Queen now, but it is here that she can finally vent her fustrations. "She doesn't care about neither you or I and our safety, especially if this is how you live. No offense, but I highly doubt that she will actually try to restore you once she fills the Book of Darkness. Now, if other methods were to be used...well, I want to help to fix this. We are all people, not tools to be discarded or cast aside."

Looking over at Golf, her memory goes back to when the 'Wolkenritter' were absorbed by the Book of Darkness in that nightmare sky, and the heartache she felt by just how ''final'' it seemed in her dream.

Surely a nightmare wasn't going to stab her heart that hard, right?

"Golf is right...I had a...vision, nightmare or dream, that in another land and time, all of you died. All of you were only considered a 'harvest' for the Book of Darkness in the end, no matter how hard you fought for it. It may be strange and traitorious it is for me to say, but please, do not serve the Book of Darkness and her Majesty. Perhaps we can use this mission to escape, and just ride away." Laika and Niramo both turn her head and scowls towards the door of the dungeon. "Even if it means that we might face being absorbed into the Book, I would much rather be my own woman than a mere weapon."

<Pose Tracker> Steven Universe [Juuban Public School (6)] has posed.
Dondai-- no, ''Steven'' has about had it with these four. "That doesn't give her the right to treat you this now!" he says, un a rather loud voice suddenly. "S-Sorry, just, I don't know! You might be some kind of construct or whatever, but you deserve better than this! I'm just a kid and I have a room bigger than this!" Wait, was he a kid? YEAH, HE WAS.

He's done with this dream stuff. after everything with Rose, he has checked out of the schtick. "Don't the tools get to have a say in how they are used?! Some grunts have bigger rooms than here!"

And Golf says something that piques his attention. He did remember seeing soem folks that appeared similar perish. "I... I recall something similar."

"It is difficult to describe, but I forgot what it said. But that book undid, for lack of a bitter term, a group of four that you four look like. I think. Was that what happened?" Steven says towards Golf. He wonders if that person is someone like himself, in this dream but impersonating someone.

Dondai holds his head. "I honestly don't know where I am right now." Even Laika recalls something similar. "I feel like I am somewhere I am not supposed to be. I didn't want to say, but since everyone is bringing up odd changes and visions of far-off lands..." He didn't want to be labeled insane or a heretic or something. In the chance this was all real.

Steven hasn't had a great day.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.
They speak up - to try and calm their hearts, to try and calm the Wolkenritters'. Healing works fine, it looks like, and then Vita just...looks, at Niramo and then at Steven. Then she chuckles, a couple rough laughs, and starts walking out. The other Wolkenritter glance among themselves, gathering their things together.

"She's right," Vita says, as she passes 'Golf'. "The Wolkenritter are dead. NachtWal tore their programs apart."

There's a horrible noise, a loud, annoying droning sound, starting low but getting louder and louder...

"That's the only reason this data got lost anywhere you could see it. It's not attached to anything anymore. They're gone. We're just...shadows."

Then the screaming starts in the palace. Vita sucks in a breath, red light washing across her as the Knight Armor she's worn here - dull, unremarkable violet - flashes into being around her. She whips Graf Eisen up onto her shoulder.

"Just like it's going to do to you, if you ever get out of here. So good news, I guess."

The ceiling explodes inward, and the sky is ''thick'' with...something. Vespa's final attack...? It moves like a swarm, metallic creatures, like bees with a ring round their heads. Lights flicker in those rings, sparks that seem to be eyes. They search - they examine - they seek - and the lights all flash like tiny flashbulbs, pointed inwards. Signum, seemingly on reflex, draws her blade; Zafira rises up, tenses, and leaps THROUGH two of the things, which burst into a shower of flinders of crystalline metal.

That was two of them; there are at least thirty of the horrid bee-monsters. The Wolkenritter are surrounded by crystalline prisms as a shower of shrieking coruscant light rains in, burning and agonizing. They're safe. The storm passes, and Shamal seems to be saying something. The thing wearing Vita's face looks over at the dreamers, as dead-eyed as ever.

"You won't have to worry about what happened here anymore."

There's a shape in the sky, wielding a blade, striped like the others, wielding a great weapon - the shape's a blur -

The world erupts. And then you wake up.

[[Category:Logs]]

2018-06-22 - LOTUS RECURSION: Dream within a Dream 1

2018-06-24T19:52:14Z

2018-05-30 - What They Have To Lose

2018-06-08T01:51:00Z

Limitless:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: What They Have To Lose'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Vita has rapidly recovered strength and magic both under the care of some of her fiercest enemies. But that same kindness touches her rawest nerve...''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Fate Testarossa]], [[Vita]], [[Signum]], [[Lera Camry]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
The Harlaown Household.

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2018-05-30 - 2015-04-21
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Sometimes it's the simplest things...

Like a framed photograph of a happy family that's at just the right angle from the couch that anyone can see it upon waking up.

A family at the beach on a vacation. It could be anywhere - Earth - Midchilda. Probably a hundred other worlds even. Blue sky. White sands.

The woman in the picture is the same one that was standing atop the building that night - only a good ten years younger. Aquamarine hair bound in a ponytail and a bindi tattoo on her forehead, a toddler propped up on her hip that looks like a young version of the man standing beside her.

The kid looks grumpy even back then. But the two adults certainly look happy.

Oh also there's a familiar orange puppy sleeping at the foot of the couch.

When did she get here!?

She's no Cataractian battledoge, but she's certainly cute the way she's nuzzling the cushions by Vita's feet as she sleeps.

On the bedside table is a note resting atop a folded set of clothes which say quite simply: 'Don't overdo it - but make yourself at home. Bathroom is right behind the couch.'
'P.S. The fridge is well-stocked.'
'P.P.S. We had to guess at your size so they're probably a little large.'

By the angle of the sun coming through the window it's... mid-afternoon? Probably.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Shortly thereafter, it was many hours later.

The redhead, one of her pigtails knocked free in a fight and the other by a rowdy turn in the night, wobbles upright, bleery-eyed. She mumbles, rubbing at her eye with a knuckle. The warmth at her feet surprises her - Zafira isn't so friendly as that with her - until she briefly looks around the room. Remembers.

There's no shock of panic, other than the dull, clawing feeling that she shouldn't ''be here'', she has to be ''out there''. But Shamal was insistent and Vita can already tell she's healing. Good.

She shifts to roll off, but finds her eyes captured by the note on the table. She picks that up, processes it. These people are so kind she'd once have thought it a sham. Now she knows these are merely shadows of true kindness. Note assessed, next the real object of her curiosity: That picture.

She picks it up. The woman from last night, she remembers, and dully recalls another night - a battle. Her. There was something...something personal about her and them, wasn't there? By now just about every magical girl and ally in Tokyo had a personal beef with the Cloud Knights.

Still, her lips crook as she looks at it. She thinks she remembers a young man about the right age relative to this picture. But has she seen the adult man yet...? Something about that...

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

There's no sign that he's living here certainly. Who could he be?

But such thoughts may be interrupted as all of a sudden the latch turns on the apartment door. Which comes open a moment later as a girl in the Infinity Elementary School uniform walks in - her blonde twintails more passingly familiar even than the woman in the picture. She's carrying a Midori-ya to-go box almost reverently, a schoolbag hiked up over her shoulder.

Her eyes light up upon seeing the other girl. "Oh - Vita - you're up! I almost wondered if you'd still be out of it when I got home - given how soundly you were sleeping this morning. We were trying hard to keep quiet so we wouldn't disturb you."

She hasn't yet seen what Vita is looking at - especially from this angle. Depending on what the other girl does she might not catch wind of it at all

Toeing off her shoes, she keeps walking into the house on her socks and puts the pink cardboard box down on the table. "I brought this for us to share. Cake always makes me feel better when I'm not feeling well. And besides - we never got to go to the Midoriya together with Chibi-Usa." She opens the lid - revealing that it's actually an assortment of several kinds of cake slices put arranged together to look like one singular composite cake, with several plastic forks within the box, "Hopefully you have a big appetite."

Propping up her bookbag against the couch, she seats herself down. "How are you doing? Lera told me you were..." There's some hesitation there - but then she lays it out, "...attacked?"

She sounds worried, but she doesn't expect anything untoward - especially not supernaturally. She just thinks that maybe Vita was being bullied and they went too far.

She knows all about people going too far...

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

The latch turns and Vita looks up. She sets the picture down shortly after. "Uh, yeah," she says, a little gruff, a little quiet. Talking to people her own age always puts her off, somehow. Less familiar experiences than the adults she knows. And they don't have the freebie card of Being Hayate.

She slips back to where she'd been sleeping. She keeps standing despite Fate approaching, hand going to her shoulder to roll it. "I only just got up," she admits.

And then: Delights. She doesn't realize the irony of going wide-eyed with excitement at candy so soon after thinking to herself how unlike a child she is. "We'll probably manage!" she says excitedly.

But before she can descend upon the cake kingdom like a terrible scourge, Fate prompts her. "...something like that," Vita mutters. An attack occurred, definitely. She sits back down where she started, grimacing a little. "I'll be fine soon, probably," she says. Lera healed her with a Storage Device, so it's not...''un''reasonable that she looks basically fine right now...

A little more data might tell a different story, but as it turns out, if anybody was taking it, it hasn't come up.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Arf meanwhile - unlike how you might expect a dog to react does not even move from her spot. Until Fate puts down the cake. Then her nose starts to twitch - sniffing in her sleep.

Fate starts to idly scritch her ears and her tail starts to wag slowly like she's getting her motor running as she nuzzles Fate's thigh.

Some Guard Dog she is!

<<Is that for me?>>

<<Sorry - but with Vita here you can't have any in front of her.>>

<<Come on - her knowledge of dogs is 'such doge' - 'so wow' - she won't know any better!>

<<I'll make it up to you later.>>

<<Meannnn Feito-!>>

Fate just is all smiles at Vita's excitement, but becomes more subdued when she talks about 'something like that.' She can understand why someone would not want to talk about their situation - "Things can sometimes just get so complicated that it feels like noone can understand. Sometimes it feels that way for me at least. So if you don't want to talk about it. You don't have to."

With a nod instead, she picks up her fork. "We can just keep things simple and enjoy eating cake together. Do you have a favorite? The Takamachis packaged me up all kinds so we could figure out which one you liked the best."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita cannot sense this conversation, but with her situational awareness kicking in she begins to suspect something of the kind is occurring. Talking about their unexpected guest...if she's lucky, they still don't know. Surely they'd have put her in some prison, or thrown her to the Tuners, or something of that kind, if they did.

These ruminations distract her from saying much more. "I just...don't think there's much else to say," Vita mutters, eyeing Arf briefly before her attention is recaptured by cake. "I got hurt, is all." From Lera's and Lindy's description, it was a bit worse than 'got hurt'. She looked like she'd been smashed up proper. And possibly set on fire. And knocked entirely unconscious and left in the street. She seems fine now, though. Trick of the light...?

But being knocked unconscious looks the same in any lighting...

"Uhm," Vita says, uneasy by sheer nerves. She should go. She has to go. Hayate needs her. But Shamal said to wait for someone to come get her, and she still feels unaccountably tired. She knows it's magic depletion. She was burning herself too hard, too long. She needs weeks of rest. She'll give herself a day. It's still too much.

She shakes herself out of that long train of thought, suddenly becoming aware of the too-long pause. "I'm not...picky," she says, though she sees a slice of strawberry in there and locks on it, mouth opening slightly in excitement.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

"..." Fate's eyes have zero targetted in on Vita when she's saying that she got hurt and that's all. Like she's homed right in on something ominous - given how beaten up Vita was. Still she at least knows it wasn't some domestic situation. After all she's ''seen'' Vita around Hayate and Signum. There's no way something awful is going on there. So instead she's thinking of some neighborhood delinquents or something. "Well it's just... if someone hurt you... I'd want to do something about it. That's all."

There's some momentary consideration in that respect of at least ''telling'' Hayate and Signum. But she also knows sometimes that can make things worse. This girl is keeping things close to the chest for a reason after all.

Fate sees the way she's honed in on that part of the box - and with a hand, idly turns it to angle it in her direction. "All yours." There's a smile there, "You look like you really had your eye on it."

And that's when Arf whines - and there's a sudden weight upon Vita's thigh. As the dog paws right there. Right there, having draped herself all the way over Fate's lap in the space of a few seconds and pointed in Vita's direction. Her eyes big and hopeful for some of the cake. "You're totally shameless Arf." Fate says a little reprovingly, but with a smile. "Now I can't even lean over to get some myself..."

<<All according to keikaku.>>

Fate continues rubbing her with a sigh - deciding to move on to safer subjects. "Do you like living with your cousin? She seemed really nice when I met her."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita almost falters again at the thought. She focuses on cake. She makes a high noise when Fate turns the box, and Vita has - almost faster than the eye can track - served herself. "Eeeheeheehee," she giggles excitedly, pulling the cake up to her--

intrusion doggo

Vita looks down at those terribly clever eyes, and recognizes the similarity to Zafira. Even if Zafira would never beg for cake. (He doesn't have to) (they just give it to him) "No way!" Vita declares, boldly, and makes a show of chomping fully a third of her slice down in a single bite. She makes eye contact with the dog. i am the master, creature. cake is mine.

She looks up at Fate, and...weirdly, her brows knit. Bringing up Hayate sours Vita's mood almost immediately. The plate doesn't so much return to the table as it drifts there, Vita's eyes turning melancholic. "It's the most fun I've ever had," she says, quietly. Part of her still burns, galls at hiding it. Hayate isn't her cousin. She's her master. Master! She wants to scream it from the mountaintops, declare it in the papers. The finest master anyone could ever have! She shouldn't have to hide it! Whatever weird hangups the people here have doesn't matter compared to how great Hayate Yagami is!

She buries the emotion as it flares in her like a star, though her fist clenches. "She...hasn't been home in a while," Vita says instead, quietly, and has trouble saying the words. "It's..."

These words don't come. Finally she mutters, "The doctors," the only related word she can force out, before quietly reaching for her plate to bury these feelings in sugar.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Fate herself giggles just a little herself - not just at Vita's cake enthusiasm, but in how she meets Arf head on and...

<<Denied.>>

Arf looks extremely put out - because she was thinking Vita would be gullible to her cuteness. Instead she's sinking into her shoulders - hunching in, and grumbling in her cakeless existence.

<<So mean.>>

It ''is'' strange though that Vita gets melancholy when she asks about Hayate - in fact she looks a little taken aback by it.

Vita had been so happy putting her head in Hayate's lap. Hayate had been so happy treating Vita like she was her own ''daughter'' or something rather than her cousin. She can't understand why bringing her up would-

Oh.

Fate's heart feels like it sinks all the way to the lowest pit of her stomach. "I'm so sorry! I had no idea." She thought she just couldn't walk - she had no idea that she was ill in other ways.

However she also remembers - every image she possesses of Hayate in her memories is the girl being cheerful in some way. "She's very brave... and tough. Way tougher than people would think I bet. So I'm sure she'll be home soon."

And suddenly it makes so much more sense why Vita wouldn't think being hurt is a big deal - why she'd not want to talk about it with her - or anything - "I'll ask Lindy-san and the others to... not to say anything to her. So she won't get worried- and can focus on her own recovery."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita quietly forks off another length of cake. "Hayate's the strongest," Vita breathes. It really is more like the love of a child for a parent, rather than cousins, the way she talks. "She's fighting super hard, harder than she should ever have to. She's in so much pain...I won't let it be for nothing." Something surges in her. "I won't!" she all but yells, and shoves the forkful of cake in her mouth.

...that...didn't sound quite right, did it? A child grapples with impending death in a variety of ways, but Vita sounds like there's something she, personally, can do. What could she...

Vita's plate hits the table again. "Yeah," Vita murmurs, and she doesn't say anything for a few seconds, visibly fighting a lump in her throat. "She...she doesn't need to know. Thanks."

She sits there, her appetite suddenly gone. Unconsciously, her hands rise up to press against something under her shirt - must be the charm on the end of the necklace she's wearing.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

It hurts to hear that Hayate's been fighting that hard - suffering. That girl who seems all cheerful and all smiles. To think she's hurting so deep down.

The way Vita says that so forcefully - well. It does take her back just a little. But only a little. Back then - when she was serving her mother - wouldn't she just be as passionate on the inside about what she was doing for her? Vita's a normal girl, so she must feel so powerless about Hayate's illness - and just wants to be able to do ''something''.

Arf whimpers once just as sympathetically, in a light whine. As she puts a paw up against Vita's thigh. Almost noone could interpret it as seeking cake this time. "You care for her so much." She says quietly, as if a little awed.

What do you say to something like that? It feels like anything would be false reassurance. 'She'll get better.' 'I'm sure it won't be for nothing.' 'I'm sorry.'

Instead she falls into silence for a while - after Vita thanks her for not telling her. And then she says quietly, "My mother was really sick for a long time. Probably... before I was even born. And... she didn't tell me. She just dealt with it - and dealt with it on her own. I admit... I'm actually kind of jealous of you... because you're able to be there for her in that way- to support Hayate like that."

Her mother couldn't be more different from Hayate Yagami. Her mother was perhaps the most terrible person she'd ever known.

But all the same - she loved her.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita looks down as Arf whimpers at her. She knows, of course; remembers Fate Testarossa and her familiar well enough. But she accepts that kindness just the same, hand quietly finding its way to the top of Arf's head and rubbing gratefully. "She's," Vita starts to say, responding to Fate's awe at her love, but she cuts herself off. It burns in her stomach, that she can't just say it. The cover words are ash in her mouth, to the point they feel too much like lies.

Fate comparing her to her MOTHER, noted incredibly evil person Precia Testarossa, earns her a surprisingly sharp look, Vita's eyes suddenly widening with flaring anger, her fingers tensing a little too harshly against Arf's head. How DARE she--

She stops herself, again. The anger comes so easily now. She's let it take her again. Hayate taught her better than that. She...she should do better. About that. She should.

"Yeah," Vita croaks. Fate can't possibly know the way she's flaying Vita with her words - not just comparing Hayate to Precia, but talking about Vita being THERE for her. Vita hasn't been able to BE THERE for her in weeks. Months? The sudden gravity of time crashing down on her - something she so rarely had to worry about until now - seems to drain much of the girl's remaining energy. She makes herself stand, dislodging Arf and stepping away. She doesn't really try to excuse it; just quietly steps away from it, shoulders shaking as she finds a window to stare at. Her fingers ball in her shirt. How can Shamal say she has to stay here? Her pain means nothing. Vita'd fight with a shattered skeleton if it cut one fraction of one second off of Hayate's suffering.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

She can't possibly know any of this. Arf may sense the stiffness of Vita's fingers but not what's behind it. She's not empathically linked to Vita as she is to her own master.

If Fate had known what she'd done though she'd be horrified - because she does not intend to compare the two in that way. Even unintentionally. Just simply the scenario of two people who are ill and dying and the people they love wanting to be there for them.

Because she doesn't though - she just gives Vita this sympathetic look as she steps away. Arf does not follow, simply laying across Fate's lap in a gesture as the two sit in a state of mutual helplessness.

It's like they just want to make this better for Vita but can't without brushing up against something that makes things worse. And while they can understand that from their own experiences, they don't know how to make it better.

<<Hey Feito... maybe we should just not talk about it anymore. It's obviously hard on her.>>

Fate doesn't answer - because she wants to know this. She wants to understand what Vita is going through. As she's about to answer...

The door works it's way open as they both encounter Amy Limietta carrying an overladen paper bag alongside Lindy Harlaown who is similarily carrying another large shopping bag. This would be entirely unnoteworthy except - "... It's a little ridiculous what we're made to work with. We can't even bag it properly for processing." "Hai - Hai. Well it's not like we're worried about forensics like hair fibers or skin cells or anything - you know. Anyhow - we're home!"

... for the fact that atop of one of Amy's shopping bags is a very familiar red hat adorned with bunnies with stitched over mouths and eyes. "Welcome home." Fate calls out. Before quirking an eyebrow at the sight of Amy and Lindy set down their shopping bags and Amy snatches the hat up from atop her bag. "Is that?" "Yep! Feito-chan do you mind putting these away? I'm going to take this to my..."

Catching sight of Vita. Amy starts to wink at Fate. "...'workstation' up in the 'study'."

Lindy meanwhile heads through the living room, only to stop, and double back to fix the position of a picture which is 'just' out of place. It's one of those nagging things to someone who is used to military order. However as she's fixing it. She just picks it up to stare almost nostalgically.

Arf hops off Fate's lap, as the pair make their way towards the kitchen... and Amy starts to cross their path on the way...

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

She sucks in a breath and her entire body quivers. She finds her hands pulling it out, so she can feel the metal of Graf Eisen's shrunken charm form in her hand. Despite residing under her shirt, it's cool. He can't speak to her too openly right now, but he can do such a small thing as that, at least.

The door shuts and Vita turns, the tiny charm of a polo hammer dangling from her neck. Defensively she knuckles at her eyes, trying to hide the tears that were budding there. "Uhm," she says, and her voice wavers. "H, hi," she stammers, and comes away from the window. The group starts to scatter their ways. She comes across Lindy first, edging up on tip-toes a little and desperate to both sate her curiosity and not at all talk about Hayate for a while. "Who is that?" she asks with a child's tact.

...and then her head whips to the side when she sees what Amy's carrying. "That's--!"

She stops short, words catching in her throat. uh. shit. "...a great...hat!" she says, trying not to just grab it and flee like an ''actual'' child.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

"Hey - hey! Good to see you up and about! I'll call Lera to let her know so she can stop worrying."

But when Vita approaches Lindy - Lindy blinks whatever sad nostalgia is away from her eyes - because she's an expert at recomposing myself, "All full of energy again I see." Lindy says with a calm smile - and indeed she is glad that she's recovered, "It's one of the last pictures taken of my husband - Clyde - while we were on a holiday together. He passed away just over eleven years ago."

It might seem strange that she talks so openly about it - but Lindy Harlaown has never believed in sugar-coating matters just because of age. She knows quite well that children can deal with the concept of death since her own son was made to deal with it when he was three years old.

Fate was in the process of unbagging the objects - her pace only slowing as Lindy talks about it. Whereas Amy stops in her step as Vita points out - that -

"You really like it?" Amy snorts a little, obviously finding it a little funny, "I mean... I guess if you're into the cute 'goth' kind of thing..."

Amy's lips purse and suddenly she looks annoyed - perhaps because she just thought of Chrono - he whose barrier jacket is adorned with so many spikes that his lawn probably cuts itself. "... the bunnies are a bit much for me." She grumbles and shrugs.

Arf - being a puppy by now has wandered out of the kitchen, padded up to Amy - and - stares at the hat - letting out a low growl. Amy leans over and starts waving it in mid-air.

"Not a fan of it either Arf? Well that's fine - maybe once we're done with it you can get a new chew toy."

Lindy clears her throat in her own way of showing disapproval - because obviously while it's informal she expects better than evidence disposal by giving it to the wolf familiar.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

But somewhere, Hayate is crying. Or worse: SHOULD be crying.

Still, she hears what Lindy has to say. She looks like she's maybe five; the concept of 'eleven years' should surely be an impossible sum to such a child, even if death is not. Which is true, in its way, for Vita. But she knows what happened to Clyde; Lindy told her that. She remembers it now. She barely has time to murmur, "Eleven years..." before Amy catches her undivided attention.

She should control it. She was just TELLING herself to CONTROL it.

That hat is a gift from Hayate, adorned with other gifts from Hayate, and personally blessed by Hayate.

It is the most precious, sacred object in the universe.

She can practically hear Amy enunciate every individual letter of the words ''c h e w t o y.''

Vita doesn't even notice herself moving. "I WON'T LET YOU," she screams, full and proper. She runs, three four five quick steps, LEAPS, and tackles the hat entirely out of Amy's hands, clutching it close. If she had her powers, she'd swing around, land on her feet.

She does not. She hits the ground hard, on her shoulder, and curls around the hat like it is the only thing keeping her alive.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

It's such a sharp turn of emotion within the room. In that moment that sort of wistful sadness - but now - now - Vita all but launching herself at Amy.

Now Vita maybe looks like a first grader and Amy is well into her teens. But Amy is caught entirely flat-footed as Vita yanks the hat out of her hand. "What are-" Absolutely startled she actually stumbles backwards - while Arf simply stares at the Vita shaped missile going past her - hitting the ground - and clutching it.

Lindy's expression goes from surprised to grave in about a half a second.

Whereas Fate rounds the corner out of the kitchen - just as wide eyed.

"I see." Amy - who is right now clutching her chest as she straightens herself back up blurts out. "Well - I DON'T! Vita-chan what were you think-ing... Oh..."

Amy almost goes cross-eyed at the same moment that suddenly the connection is made by everyone in the room. If Vita were looking she could see that moment where Vita the child becomes Vita the Cloud Knight to everyone.

Even Fate - Fate remembers then what Signum told her that night. That their master is dying. And that their energy can save them. She's not quite there where she can believe Hayate is their master - unable to reconcile it with what she's heard about what a Master of the Book must be. However suddenly Vita's desperation - everything.

It makes sense.

It's a tense moment where everyone seems like to act very soon. Even Arf has begun the shimmering transformation to her human self. "Geez - you know how much trouble you've given all of us - and then you take advantage of our hospitality right under our noses!"

However - Fate - slowly steps over towards her one step after another. She seems grave even in her silence but eventually after clearing her throat, "You know I guess it makes sense now. When it feels like noone can understand you and it feels like it wouldn't matter even if they did..."

And she holds out a hand to her, "... and maybe it doesn't - but Signum told me your master is dying - and... if that's true - these people put everything on the line to save me from... where I was. We just want you to talk to us... and we can go from there."

And maybe it even sounds pretty convincing - except for the fact that Lindy Harlaown is holding a card in her hand that's metallic. Obviously it's her device. She hasn't activated it yet - but the implied threat of 'if this doesn't go properly' just lingers.

And after what happened to her husband - can she really let go of that personal stake?

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q4w2QHL8oA - you'll be surprised
A breeze enters the living room, stirring hair.

It isn't a breeze that you would expect. It comes mostly from above; it has the easy passage of wind moving across an open field, not the steady channel of an opened window.

Arf could smell the fresh air coming in, like a heavenly gift. The scent of sun-warmed concrete; the distant fragrance of the highway. A thousandfold dinners being prepared, whether with slapdash necessity, artistic skill, or simple love.

Red light slides in a moment later, the light of an afternoon that doesn't have much longer to live. The light is tired and spent from its passage through Earth's atmosphere after its leisurely eight minute voyage from the star that warms and energizes this world. The light spreads, fills in gaps, pervades, pours in.

Something is taking the side of the apartment apart. It looks like wire - no, a strand of barbed wire. That isn't correct either. The motion is precise, almost like the sight of something coming back to rest, easing back into a comfortable seat. Shards of concrete glisten with laser-perfect edges, a single curtained window rustling lightly in the breeze. Everything rests backwards in a leisurely double coil, like a mantra written.

The sun is obscured, partially eclipsed, by a figure in a pale magenta coat. Her hair is in a long ponytail with a high knot. It stirs in the breeze. It is the only thing that moves.

<<DISCLOSURE COMPLETE>> speaks the impossible wire - the weapon - the Armed Device Laevateinn.

Signum raises her head, opens her eyes, and gazes down.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

But it has betrayed her. Vita feels something snap, deep in her gut, behind her soul. Some line pushed too far. Or maybe it was just its time. She holds it, clutching that hat, eyes clenched shut. Shaking, shuddering with emotion and tears flowing freely. "I won't let you," she chokes. "I won't LET YOU!" she screams - a child's petulance, a fury, terror and anger, eyes flashing back open.

They meet her with silent eyes. The pieces assemble so easily. The injuries, the tension, the desperation, the sudden anger. She'd said she'd been hurt by one person with red hair and one person with black. There were some few Dark Fall groups that matched that description...or, it could be Lera Camry and Mikoto Minagi, whom the Knight of the Iron Hammer had clashed with mere hours before Lera found Vita by the road.

She looks up at Fate's outstretched hand. Her lip curls. They know these eyes; words are useless now. Her hand rises up to that dangling pendant, when the wind shifts. But they're inside...

The far wall ''deconstructs''. It is a delicate, fine thing, a masterful display. Vita barely notices beyond recognizing the silhouette. She draws in a long breath. Forces herself to rise. She glares around; at Lindy, spotting that card. At Fate, with her outstretched hand.

She sets the hat on her head, adjusting it to where she knows it's straight even without looking. "You've been kind," she says, with her low and raspy voice. "I didn't deserve it but you did it anyway. Thank you."

She begins to walk, brushing past Fate's hand.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera Camry didn't leave the Harlaown house, after she left Vita. She went off to check on a few things; to speak to Chrono and Yuuno.

Which is why she comes back. Still in her Infinity Institute uniform, the orange-haired girl comes around the corner. She appears a little behind Amy, and a question is already on her lips. As she is prone to, she blurts it out: "Uh, is everything okay in here? I heard a big--" The light from the shorn open wall falls onto her face, her eyes widening, and they search out until they meet one figure: Signum, in her pale coat, and the blade in her hand. Lera's lips work.

They finish the word, even if it seems utterly irrelevant and completely inadequate, now. "...noise."

She stares, her eyes darting towards Fate -- and then they dart back towards Vita. It takes a moment for everything to catch up with her. The first is that aspects of her seem familiar, and in a way that isn't vague and formless. The second, though, is the hat; her eyes drift, down, to it. She notices the hat clutched against her, and ''that'' is familiar.

She understands, then. "You're--" She said she fought two people, one with red hair and one with black. Lera realizes who the one with red hair was. "--you're a Wolkenritter, too. Fate..." She stares down at her.

Then, her head snaps, to look at Vita -- and at Signum. "Your--your cousin. The one who's so sick that you might lose her."

Lera's words feel thick and heavy in her throat. "She... she isn't your cousin. Is she?"

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Amy looks increasingly unnerved by Vita's shouts - that fury and terror. She isn't a combatant after all. Her composure is such for the war room. Lindy however looks rather intense, the way she holds that card aloft. At the ready.

And Fate - Fate knows those eyes well. Once upon a time she made the polar opposite to those eyes. The cold dispassion that stands apart from Vita's angry furious desperation.

The hand doesn't quite drop though. Instead the look in her eyes sharpens. Lera enters the room. And Lindy says quietly, "Your timing couldn't be better Lera." Arf is watching Vita closely seeing the way she's reaching for her charm "I'll say - Feito get away from her!" She looks like she's about to say something - like Fate is going to say something too to Vita - and then the side of the apartment starts to be taken apart - piece by piece - wired up in so many coils.

"Signum." Lindy says in her own sort of respect. A simple nod as she assesses the situation and understands implicitly what they're up against. "You've made your point clear - and placed us at an impasse. We won't bar her departure."

Amy sinks down to her knees. Looking somewhat faint by this development.

Fate is looking Signum's way as Vita starts to talk to her - and there's this tiny sound from her throat as she looks back her way. "Please... wait- it's not about - deserving... kindness..."

She remembers once upon a time when she tried to tell Nanoha she doesn't deserve her friendship after all she'd done. But she finds herself speechless for a few moments as Vita brushes past her hand - as Lera questions Vita on that. Suddenly she's a little tense - because she knows how Vita was about her cousin in the room. How she acted. How even brushing upon the subject had made her so upset. And yet how else can we do it. She gives Lera a wary look - before looking between Vita and Signum.

"Your master is dying - that's what you've both said. Our desire to help - nothing about that has changed."

Taking a deep breath she adds, "It's not - contingent... on anything." Her eyes return back to Vita solely, "I didn't think I deserved their kindness either."

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpDvtIt6Lsc
Signum's free hand flicks something towards Vita with every expectation of a successful capture. Two Cartridges. Enough to get going, perhaps.

Her eyes turn towards Lera. "Yes," she confirms. Then, a moment later, with a small motion of the head: "No."

After this Signum's attention turns to Lindy. "Thank you," she says. Her eyes turn then towards Fate.

"You have shown us little save kindness," Signum tells Fate. "Were you motivated by disorder or desperation, your fighting technique would have suffered, and so I will say that I know you speak with the true warmth of your heart. You are owed explanation."

Signum is quiet for a second. Drawing together her thoughts.

"My purpose," Signum says, "is to guard my Master. To execute her will. Hayate Yagami is the finest who I have ever served, and perhaps who I ever will. There is no question, no choice, no ambiguity. My indecision has rested solely in the nuances, in the fine shades in which I may serve her."

"You know that the Book is dangerous, in terms of its power," Signum then says to Lindy. "That danger will be removed decisively under its administration by Hayate Yagami. Her ill health is due to its incomplete state. You see why these facts are not things that I may controvert."

"All solutions which I see hold unacceptable risk," Signum says. "And though I would die for her at her command, I know that this is a question without meaning. For I am not like you, Fate Testarossa." Her head turns slightly to look at Lindy, at Lera. "I am not like any of you. You are capable of faith. I am not."

"I know that there will be a great price that I must pay," Signum says with an air of conclusion. "I shall pay it in full. You need fear no great shadow upon your realm, once Hayate Yagami, whole and healed, dwells there. I regret only that the price has been so high, for all of you."

Her attention returns to her comrade. "Make haste, Vita," Signum says, if without rancor. "We cannot afford another ambush."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Signum's response is measured, as Signum often is, though in a way, so thoroughly, bluntly explaining is nearly explosive. Vita, of course, is rarely 'nearly' explosive.

"She's not," she spits it. Fate was right, something about the topic of Hayate sets Vita entirely on edge. She raises her voice nearly directly to screaming, arms flung out with emotion. "She's not my cousin! She's my Master! The greatest Master we ever had! A wonderful, kind Master who never wanted for anything! She didn't hit us or make us sit in the dark, she didn't even make us hurt people who were cruel to her! We offered her everything! The world! And she only....she only wanted..."

The tears come again, her face twisting with sorrow as the same time as her shuddering shoulders wrack her whole body. "She only wanted..." she whimpers, the strength leaving her.

She sniffs and scrubs at her wet eyes, and her stance squares. "The Book has been incomplete too long, so it's killing her," she says. Direct. Flat. Echoing Signum's testimony. "So we'll finish it. Or we'll die trying." She turns reddened eyes on Lindy, glaring like the woman were the source of all her pain. "You've already told us plenty about what you think of that."

She turns on her heels, sucking in a too-long, quivering breath. Her shoulders shake. "Thank you," she breathes. "You did help me. You've done an incredible kindness for me."

"You reminded me what I have to lose if I fail."

She starts walking again. She roars, loudly: "GRAF EISEN!"

<<JA!!>>

The polo hammer Device leaps off her necklace, whirling around in that eye-watering way Devices have of growing and changing in a flashing moment. Her hand snatches the expanded handle from the air, and light races down her body. Gloves; vest and skirt; armor-shodden boots. Her hair explodes with light and reforms in its pigtails.

The hammerhead of the Iron Count describes a wide arc as the Knight of the Iron Hammer sets the massive polo mallet against her shoulder. She keeps walking. "Yeah. Best if that gun chick doesn't show up, huh?" Vita says, chuckling toward Signum.

She steps up to the edge of the vivisected wall, and half-turns toward the group.

"We swore we wouldn't kill anyone. We've honored that. Fought our hardest to keep people alive, even when it was hard. So lemme be real clear about this:"

Her eyes flash with a sudden, unequivocal murderous intent. "'''If you or any of your Chevalier or Tuner cronies come anywhere near Hayate Yagami, I will not hold back.'''"

She steps over the threshold, and begins to hover up toward Signum. She heaves a sigh, some of the tension of the moment leaving her. "Was feelin' all cozy in there, too," she asides. "I'm feeling better, I'll take sandworms today."

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera shares a worried look with Fate, for a moment. She doesn't know how Vita responded, before. She knows it can't possibly be good. But, what else can they say? She looks back at the two Wolkenritter, her amber eyes wide for a moment. She meets Vita's eyes, and then she nods, loosely. "She--it's the Book. But--but there has to be a way! A way besides filling the Book."

She swallows. "We'll help you. We've lost people, too, y'know? Fate and me both--and Miss Lindy, too. We know how much that hurts! We don't want it to turn out that way."

Then, she looks down at Signum's words. "That's not... but you do have faith. You have faith in--in Hayate, right?"

She never met her. She doesn't know who Hayate is. She can only go off what they have said; what the Wolkenritter have described, which points to a good person. "...If you believe in her, then you can believe in others, too!"

But, they're leaving. Lera looks between the two -- helpless, it feels, to stop the two of them from leaving. Her jaw clenches, but she steps forward. She stares, a moment, and then looks back at Fate, then at Lindy. She looks at them. "They won't--we won't! We'd never go after her. We..." Her shoulders slump. She doesn't have the heart to say it.

Saying that Mami Tomoe is dead makes it feel real, again. That feeling of darkness swirls up in her, at the very notion.

"...We wanna help her too!"

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Signum speaks - and everyone in the room tenses. Except perhaps for one. Lindy Harlaown returns calmly.

"And when she becomes the book's master - what then? Tell me Signum - do you remember a singular time that the Book's Power was used for a purpose other than destruction? You're assuming her nature can overcome an ancient power. Lera is correct. It's not that you are incapable of faith - it's the opposite. And in that you make a dangerous gamble. I for one know precisely well how dangerous the Book of Darkness can be when it's master awakens fully. A whole generation of Magical Girls - an entire Division of the TSAB. My husband's life - became part of a statistic at the hands of your prior master."

Lindy is calm - but her voice is steel. "I acknowledge that things are different this time. The two of you - the feelings you're showing for her are proof of that. It goes beyond mere loyalty. And yet all the same - if you are more than your programming - then I implore you to ask yourself. If you are ''wrong''. If the danger does not pass - then what happens to her?"

She allows that to linger, before turning to Vita. "Yes I've said plenty - but now I'll say one more thing. Perhaps you think there is no choice other than to finish it or die trying. Or deny that there can possibly be another one now that your mind is made up. I have not lived so long as either of you - but I can still understand... there is always a choice."

Fate on the other hand looks horrified - because it feels like - even though it isn't the same situation... it feels like how it was before for her - the desperation she felt reaching new heights as one reminder after another came of what she stood to lose.

Steadying herself - then looks up at the two hovering Cloud Knights. "You don't have to worry about her anymore..." There's a note of sadness there when it comes to the 'gun chick.' "...she's..."

Fate can't say the word 'dead'. "... gone." She doesn't deal well with death. Instead she looks Lera's way, inhales a breath - then looks forward at them. "They put everything on the line to save me - a girl who had so much to answer for. Maybe you can't believe that we'll do the same for Hayate. If you can't... I understand - because I couldn't believe it either."

And then her eyes look between the two... "We won't go after her - we won't hurt her. But we won't hold back either. And once we save her - you two will have to believe in Lera - just like I learned to believe in her."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.
Lindy speaks over Vita's silent retreat. She doesn't turn back, even as Lindy scores her back with truth - brutal honesty, the beliefs of someone rational.

Someone who is not clawing forward, inch by bloody inch, in a desperate, dirty effort to save the one good thing they've ever known.

'Then what happens to her?'

"Then she dies anyway," Vita says, quietly. Something horrible leaks from her voice when she adds: "And then, nothing else matters."

Graf Eisen's hollow tone chimes, and Vita hovers there, beside Signum, while Lindy says her part and Fate says hers. Her head slips down. "Is she?" Vita says. She thinks she knows what that means. "That's a shame. I would've liked to--"

She draws in a slow breath.

"We're not saying there's no choice," she says, and turns over her shoulder to glare at Lindy. "We're saying we've made ours, and you've made yours."

She turns back - and starts to drift away, gaining altitude and distance swiftly.

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
Signum looks at Lera. In her mind, she remembers a cold stone room. She remembers their Barrier Jackets, their only garb. She remembers...

"You would not," she tells Lera. "Others would. Seas may rise, and all lands may be changed. I cannot think only of today and tomorrow."

Her eyes turn to Lindy. "She is not like they were," Signum says, with assurance. "... I accept your sentiments." Vita says what needs saying.

The wall begins to seal itself back together. "We will, no doubt, meet again. My condolences," Signum says as the window is carefully placed back, perfectly in joint, "to the family of Miss Tomoe."

The gap is sealed. The air within is still fresh. A little flicker of magenta and the cracks themselves are gone, as if they were never there.

She turns to follow Vita. If she speaks, it is not heard by the residents of that home.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
There is a flicker of something in Lera's eyes, when Fate says those kind words about her. She opens her mouth, to say something more or try to downplay it -- but then she closes her mouth. It isn't something she wants to disagree with.

"She--" Lera closes her mouth, and then she shakes her head. "...We'll do everything we can to make sure she doesn't! And--and even if she does, there's..." She looks down. "...There's what Hayate would want and who she is. I don't know her, but..."

Her fingers curl, slightly, at her side. "...Those wouldn't just disappear, either."

She looks over her shoulder -- peering back at Lindy -- and then she looks back at the wall. She watches as it seals up, bit by bit. The Wolkenritter are gone, then; vanished behind it, the damage to the house gone. Lera lets out a soft sigh.

"We can't..." She keeps her voice quiet. "...We can't let word spread, about Hayate Yagami. Signum's right. If some people knew about her..."

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Lindy's look is grave as she looks at Vita and Signum - but she knows well the time for words have passed now. "So we have." She says in acceptance - understanding fully well that Hayate Yagami is different and praying somewhere deep down that it will change something.

The wall seals itself - and... Amy murmurs,"... I hope we didn't just forfeit our security deposit."

Fate closes her eyelids - and behind them, her eyes are wet - she can feel the droplets gathering. They've been doing so ever since Vita mentioned they liked her - and Signum offering her condolences - it's too human. And what they're going through is too cruel. "I've met her Lera... she... she's a very nice girl who cares a lot for them. ... and she doesn't deserve what she's going through... and..."

A little choked up after a moment she nods quickly, she nods her head in agreement. "If the Tuners find out - some of them will take it upon themselves to end this - by any means necessary."

She knows fully well - some of the Outer Senshi - many of the Shepherds are Tuners like them - and yet not them. While others maintain the status quo - they hope to make it better from the inside.

But it's asking a lot of Lindy Harlaown. And yet time and time again - she was willing to compromise her position - her reputation - everything - for what she thought was right. "I see no reason to report this to the Conductors until it's confirmed beyond any doubt." Lindy finally slowly "And I suppose it's time for me to call in a few favors - it's just about the only currency I have left."

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"They never refund those," Lera says, idly, to Amy.

She frowns, looking at the wall with an undeniable distance to her gaze. She stares at it for a moment, and then she looks down at Fate when she talks. Her head bows, slightly, and her eyelids half-close. "I..." She frowns, a little. "...I'm sorry, y'know? I'd like to meet her sometime." She hesitates. "...Maybe not now. I don't know if that'd be a good idea with the two of them."

She hesitates, before she puts a hand on Fate's shoulder. She squeezes once, gently, and then she shakes her head.

"We can't let that happen." She looks back at Lindy, then she smiles. Her smile is slightly sad; she has an idea of what she is risking, to do this. "...Yeah. Thanks, Miss Lindy. We'll... we'll do everything we can, to find a way to resolve this."

She looks down. "Maybe the other Chevaliers will help..." She would be late to their meeting, after all. "...As long as we're careful, y'know?"

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Amy let's out a small strangled noise as Lera relays that fact. Because she put down the payment for it - and it was substantial.

"When this is over I'll introduce you."

Fate promises quietly as Lera puts a hand upon her shoulder before she finally wipes at her eyes. Opening them - she gives a sharp nod. "I hate to say it - but right now..."

She eyes the wall where they departed - thinking of Mami's death. How each and every one of them must feel.

The war may not continue as it stands - but... they still needed something to get behind. "... This may be exactly what they need."

[[Category:Logs]]

2018-05-30 - What They Have To Lose

2018-06-06T06:49:30Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: What They Have To Lose'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Vita has rapidly recovered strength and magic both under the care of some of her fiercest enemies. But that same kindness touches her rawest nerve...''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Fate Testarossa]], [[Vita]], [[Signum]], [[Lera Camry]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
The Harlaown Household.

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2018-05-30 - 2015-04-21
|-
|}

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Sometimes it's the simplest things...

Like a framed photograph of a happy family that's at just the right angle from the couch that anyone can see it upon waking up.

A family at the beach on a vacation. It could be anywhere - Earth - Midchilda. Probably a hundred other worlds even. Blue sky. White sands.

The woman in the picture is the same one that was standing atop the building that night - only a good ten years younger. Aquamarine hair bound in a ponytail and a bindi tattoo on her forehead, a toddler propped up on her hip that looks like a young version of the man standing beside her.

The kid looks grumpy even back then. But the two adults certainly look happy.

Oh also there's a familiar orange puppy sleeping at the foot of the couch.

When did she get here!?

She's no Cataractian battledoge, but she's certainly cute the way she's nuzzling the cushions by Vita's feet as she sleeps.

On the bedside table is a note resting atop a folded set of clothes which say quite simply: 'Don't overdo it - but make yourself at home. Bathroom is right behind the couch.'
'P.S. The fridge is well-stocked.'
'P.P.S. We had to guess at your size so they're probably a little large.'

By the angle of the sun coming through the window it's... mid-afternoon? Probably.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Shortly thereafter, it was many hours later.

The redhead, one of her pigtails knocked free in a fight and the other by a rowdy turn in the night, wobbles upright, bleery-eyed. She mumbles, rubbing at her eye with a knuckle. The warmth at her feet surprises her - Zafira isn't so friendly as that with her - until she briefly looks around the room. Remembers.

There's no shock of panic, other than the dull, clawing feeling that she shouldn't ''be here'', she has to be ''out there''. But Shamal was insistent and Vita can already tell she's healing. Good.

She shifts to roll off, but finds her eyes captured by the note on the table. She picks that up, processes it. These people are so kind she'd once have thought it a sham. Now she knows these are merely shadows of true kindness. Note assessed, next the real object of her curiosity: That picture.

She picks it up. The woman from last night, she remembers, and dully recalls another night - a battle. Her. There was something...something personal about her and them, wasn't there? By now just about every magical girl and ally in Tokyo had a personal beef with the Cloud Knights.

Still, her lips crook as she looks at it. She thinks she remembers a young man about the right age relative to this picture. But has she seen the adult man yet...? Something about that...

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

There's no sign that he's living here certainly. Who could he be?

But such thoughts may be interrupted as all of a sudden the latch turns on the apartment door. Which comes open a moment later as a girl in the Infinity Elementary School uniform walks in - her blonde twintails more passingly familiar even than the woman in the picture. She's carrying a Midori-ya to-go box almost reverently, a schoolbag hiked up over her shoulder.

Her eyes light up upon seeing the other girl. "Oh - Vita - you're up! I almost wondered if you'd still be out of it when I got home - given how soundly you were sleeping this morning. We were trying hard to keep quiet so we wouldn't disturb you."

She hasn't yet seen what Vita is looking at - especially from this angle. Depending on what the other girl does she might not catch wind of it at all

Toeing off her shoes, she keeps walking into the house on her socks and puts the pink cardboard box down on the table. "I brought this for us to share. Cake always makes me feel better when I'm not feeling well. And besides - we never got to go to the Midoriya together with Chibi-Usa." She opens the lid - revealing that it's actually an assortment of several kinds of cake slices put arranged together to look like one singular composite cake, with several plastic forks within the box, "Hopefully you have a big appetite."

Propping up her bookbag against the couch, she seats herself down. "How are you doing? Lera told me you were..." There's some hesitation there - but then she lays it out, "...attacked?"

She sounds worried, but she doesn't expect anything untoward - especially not supernaturally. She just thinks that maybe Vita was being bullied and they went too far.

She knows all about people going too far...

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

The latch turns and Vita looks up. She sets the picture down shortly after. "Uh, yeah," she says, a little gruff, a little quiet. Talking to people her own age always puts her off, somehow. Less familiar experiences than the adults she knows. And they don't have the freebie card of Being Hayate.

She slips back to where she'd been sleeping. She keeps standing despite Fate approaching, hand going to her shoulder to roll it. "I only just got up," she admits.

And then: Delights. She doesn't realize the irony of going wide-eyed with excitement at candy so soon after thinking to herself how unlike a child she is. "We'll probably manage!" she says excitedly.

But before she can descend upon the cake kingdom like a terrible scourge, Fate prompts her. "...something like that," Vita mutters. An attack occurred, definitely. She sits back down where she started, grimacing a little. "I'll be fine soon, probably," she says. Lera healed her with a Storage Device, so it's not...''un''reasonable that she looks basically fine right now...

A little more data might tell a different story, but as it turns out, if anybody was taking it, it hasn't come up.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Arf meanwhile - unlike how you might expect a dog to react does not even move from her spot. Until Fate puts down the cake. Then her nose starts to twitch - sniffing in her sleep.

Fate starts to idly scritch her ears and her tail starts to wag slowly like she's getting her motor running as she nuzzles Fate's thigh.

Some Guard Dog she is!

<<Is that for me?>>

<<Sorry - but with Vita here you can't have any in front of her.>>

<<Come on - her knowledge of dogs is 'such doge' - 'so wow' - she won't know any better!>

<<I'll make it up to you later.>>

<<Meannnn Feito-!>>

Fate just is all smiles at Vita's excitement, but becomes more subdued when she talks about 'something like that.' She can understand why someone would not want to talk about their situation - "Things can sometimes just get so complicated that it feels like noone can understand. Sometimes it feels that way for me at least. So if you don't want to talk about it. You don't have to."

With a nod instead, she picks up her fork. "We can just keep things simple and enjoy eating cake together. Do you have a favorite? The Takamachis packaged me up all kinds so we could figure out which one you liked the best."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita cannot sense this conversation, but with her situational awareness kicking in she begins to suspect something of the kind is occurring. Talking about their unexpected guest...if she's lucky, they still don't know. Surely they'd have put her in some prison, or thrown her to the Tuners, or something of that kind, if they did.

These ruminations distract her from saying much more. "I just...don't think there's much else to say," Vita mutters, eyeing Arf briefly before her attention is recaptured by cake. "I got hurt, is all." From Lera's and Lindy's description, it was a bit worse than 'got hurt'. She looked like she'd been smashed up proper. And possibly set on fire. And knocked entirely unconscious and left in the street. She seems fine now, though. Trick of the light...?

But being knocked unconscious looks the same in any lighting...

"Uhm," Vita says, uneasy by sheer nerves. She should go. She has to go. Hayate needs her. But Shamal said to wait for someone to come get her, and she still feels unaccountably tired. She knows it's magic depletion. She was burning herself too hard, too long. She needs weeks of rest. She'll give herself a day. It's still too much.

She shakes herself out of that long train of thought, suddenly becoming aware of the too-long pause. "I'm not...picky," she says, though she sees a slice of strawberry in there and locks on it, mouth opening slightly in excitement.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

"..." Fate's eyes have zero targetted in on Vita when she's saying that she got hurt and that's all. Like she's homed right in on something ominous - given how beaten up Vita was. Still she at least knows it wasn't some domestic situation. After all she's ''seen'' Vita around Hayate and Signum. There's no way something awful is going on there. So instead she's thinking of some neighborhood delinquents or something. "Well it's just... if someone hurt you... I'd want to do something about it. That's all."

There's some momentary consideration in that respect of at least ''telling'' Hayate and Signum. But she also knows sometimes that can make things worse. This girl is keeping things close to the chest for a reason after all.

Fate sees the way she's honed in on that part of the box - and with a hand, idly turns it to angle it in her direction. "All yours." There's a smile there, "You look like you really had your eye on it."

And that's when Arf whines - and there's a sudden weight upon Vita's thigh. As the dog paws right there. Right there, having draped herself all the way over Fate's lap in the space of a few seconds and pointed in Vita's direction. Her eyes big and hopeful for some of the cake. "You're totally shameless Arf." Fate says a little reprovingly, but with a smile. "Now I can't even lean over to get some myself..."

<<All according to keikaku.>>

Fate continues rubbing her with a sigh - deciding to move on to safer subjects. "Do you like living with your cousin? She seemed really nice when I met her."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita almost falters again at the thought. She focuses on cake. She makes a high noise when Fate turns the box, and Vita has - almost faster than the eye can track - served herself. "Eeeheeheehee," she giggles excitedly, pulling the cake up to her--

intrusion doggo

Vita looks down at those terribly clever eyes, and recognizes the similarity to Zafira. Even if Zafira would never beg for cake. (He doesn't have to) (they just give it to him) "No way!" Vita declares, boldly, and makes a show of chomping fully a third of her slice down in a single bite. She makes eye contact with the dog. i am the master, creature. cake is mine.

She looks up at Fate, and...weirdly, her brows knit. Bringing up Hayate sours Vita's mood almost immediately. The plate doesn't so much return to the table as it drifts there, Vita's eyes turning melancholic. "It's the most fun I've ever had," she says, quietly. Part of her still burns, galls at hiding it. Hayate isn't her cousin. She's her master. Master! She wants to scream it from the mountaintops, declare it in the papers. The finest master anyone could ever have! She shouldn't have to hide it! Whatever weird hangups the people here have doesn't matter compared to how great Hayate Yagami is!

She buries the emotion as it flares in her like a star, though her fist clenches. "She...hasn't been home in a while," Vita says instead, quietly, and has trouble saying the words. "It's..."

These words don't come. Finally she mutters, "The doctors," the only related word she can force out, before quietly reaching for her plate to bury these feelings in sugar.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Fate herself giggles just a little herself - not just at Vita's cake enthusiasm, but in how she meets Arf head on and...

<<Denied.>>

Arf looks extremely put out - because she was thinking Vita would be gullible to her cuteness. Instead she's sinking into her shoulders - hunching in, and grumbling in her cakeless existence.

<<So mean.>>

It ''is'' strange though that Vita gets melancholy when she asks about Hayate - in fact she looks a little taken aback by it.

Vita had been so happy putting her head in Hayate's lap. Hayate had been so happy treating Vita like she was her own ''daughter'' or something rather than her cousin. She can't understand why bringing her up would-

Oh.

Fate's heart feels like it sinks all the way to the lowest pit of her stomach. "I'm so sorry! I had no idea." She thought she just couldn't walk - she had no idea that she was ill in other ways.

However she also remembers - every image she possesses of Hayate in her memories is the girl being cheerful in some way. "She's very brave... and tough. Way tougher than people would think I bet. So I'm sure she'll be home soon."

And suddenly it makes so much more sense why Vita wouldn't think being hurt is a big deal - why she'd not want to talk about it with her - or anything - "I'll ask Lindy-san and the others to... not to say anything to her. So she won't get worried- and can focus on her own recovery."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita quietly forks off another length of cake. "Hayate's the strongest," Vita breathes. It really is more like the love of a child for a parent, rather than cousins, the way she talks. "She's fighting super hard, harder than she should ever have to. She's in so much pain...I won't let it be for nothing." Something surges in her. "I won't!" she all but yells, and shoves the forkful of cake in her mouth.

...that...didn't sound quite right, did it? A child grapples with impending death in a variety of ways, but Vita sounds like there's something she, personally, can do. What could she...

Vita's plate hits the table again. "Yeah," Vita murmurs, and she doesn't say anything for a few seconds, visibly fighting a lump in her throat. "She...she doesn't need to know. Thanks."

She sits there, her appetite suddenly gone. Unconsciously, her hands rise up to press against something under her shirt - must be the charm on the end of the necklace she's wearing.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

It hurts to hear that Hayate's been fighting that hard - suffering. That girl who seems all cheerful and all smiles. To think she's hurting so deep down.

The way Vita says that so forcefully - well. It does take her back just a little. But only a little. Back then - when she was serving her mother - wouldn't she just be as passionate on the inside about what she was doing for her? Vita's a normal girl, so she must feel so powerless about Hayate's illness - and just wants to be able to do ''something''.

Arf whimpers once just as sympathetically, in a light whine. As she puts a paw up against Vita's thigh. Almost noone could interpret it as seeking cake this time. "You care for her so much." She says quietly, as if a little awed.

What do you say to something like that? It feels like anything would be false reassurance. 'She'll get better.' 'I'm sure it won't be for nothing.' 'I'm sorry.'

Instead she falls into silence for a while - after Vita thanks her for not telling her. And then she says quietly, "My mother was really sick for a long time. Probably... before I was even born. And... she didn't tell me. She just dealt with it - and dealt with it on her own. I admit... I'm actually kind of jealous of you... because you're able to be there for her in that way- to support Hayate like that."

Her mother couldn't be more different from Hayate Yagami. Her mother was perhaps the most terrible person she'd ever known.

But all the same - she loved her.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita looks down as Arf whimpers at her. She knows, of course; remembers Fate Testarossa and her familiar well enough. But she accepts that kindness just the same, hand quietly finding its way to the top of Arf's head and rubbing gratefully. "She's," Vita starts to say, responding to Fate's awe at her love, but she cuts herself off. It burns in her stomach, that she can't just say it. The cover words are ash in her mouth, to the point they feel too much like lies.

Fate comparing her to her MOTHER, noted incredibly evil person Precia Testarossa, earns her a surprisingly sharp look, Vita's eyes suddenly widening with flaring anger, her fingers tensing a little too harshly against Arf's head. How DARE she--

She stops herself, again. The anger comes so easily now. She's let it take her again. Hayate taught her better than that. She...she should do better. About that. She should.

"Yeah," Vita croaks. Fate can't possibly know the way she's flaying Vita with her words - not just comparing Hayate to Precia, but talking about Vita being THERE for her. Vita hasn't been able to BE THERE for her in weeks. Months? The sudden gravity of time crashing down on her - something she so rarely had to worry about until now - seems to drain much of the girl's remaining energy. She makes herself stand, dislodging Arf and stepping away. She doesn't really try to excuse it; just quietly steps away from it, shoulders shaking as she finds a window to stare at. Her fingers ball in her shirt. How can Shamal say she has to stay here? Her pain means nothing. Vita'd fight with a shattered skeleton if it cut one fraction of one second off of Hayate's suffering.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

She can't possibly know any of this. Arf may sense the stiffness of Vita's fingers but not what's behind it. She's not empathically linked to Vita as she is to her own master.

If Fate had known what she'd done though she'd be horrified - because she does not intend to compare the two in that way. Even unintentionally. Just simply the scenario of two people who are ill and dying and the people they love wanting to be there for them.

Because she doesn't though - she just gives Vita this sympathetic look as she steps away. Arf does not follow, simply laying across Fate's lap in a gesture as the two sit in a state of mutual helplessness.

It's like they just want to make this better for Vita but can't without brushing up against something that makes things worse. And while they can understand that from their own experiences, they don't know how to make it better.

<<Hey Feito... maybe we should just not talk about it anymore. It's obviously hard on her.>>

Fate doesn't answer - because she wants to know this. She wants to understand what Vita is going through. As she's about to answer...

The door works it's way open as they both encounter Amy Limietta carrying an overladen paper bag alongside Lindy Harlaown who is similarily carrying another large shopping bag. This would be entirely unnoteworthy except - "... It's a little ridiculous what we're made to work with. We can't even bag it properly for processing." "Hai - Hai. Well it's not like we're worried about forensics like hair fibers or skin cells or anything - you know. Anyhow - we're home!"

... for the fact that atop of one of Amy's shopping bags is a very familiar red hat adorned with bunnies with stitched over mouths and eyes. "Welcome home." Fate calls out. Before quirking an eyebrow at the sight of Amy and Lindy set down their shopping bags and Amy snatches the hat up from atop her bag. "Is that?" "Yep! Feito-chan do you mind putting these away? I'm going to take this to my..."

Catching sight of Vita. Amy starts to wink at Fate. "...'workstation' up in the 'study'."

Lindy meanwhile heads through the living room, only to stop, and double back to fix the position of a picture which is 'just' out of place. It's one of those nagging things to someone who is used to military order. However as she's fixing it. She just picks it up to stare almost nostalgically.

Arf hops off Fate's lap, as the pair make their way towards the kitchen... and Amy starts to cross their path on the way...

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

She sucks in a breath and her entire body quivers. She finds her hands pulling it out, so she can feel the metal of Graf Eisen's shrunken charm form in her hand. Despite residing under her shirt, it's cool. He can't speak to her too openly right now, but he can do such a small thing as that, at least.

The door shuts and Vita turns, the tiny charm of a polo hammer dangling from her neck. Defensively she knuckles at her eyes, trying to hide the tears that were budding there. "Uhm," she says, and her voice wavers. "H, hi," she stammers, and comes away from the window. The group starts to scatter their ways. She comes across Lindy first, edging up on tip-toes a little and desperate to both sate her curiosity and not at all talk about Hayate for a while. "Who is that?" she asks with a child's tact.

...and then her head whips to the side when she sees what Amy's carrying. "That's--!"

She stops short, words catching in her throat. uh. shit. "...a great...hat!" she says, trying not to just grab it and flee like an ''actual'' child.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

"Hey - hey! Good to see you up and about! I'll call Lera to let her know so she can stop worrying."

But when Vita approaches Lindy - Lindy blinks whatever sad nostalgia is away from her eyes - because she's an expert at recomposing myself, "All full of energy again I see." Lindy says with a calm smile - and indeed she is glad that she's recovered, "It's one of the last pictures taken of my husband - Clyde - while we were on a holiday together. He passed away just over eleven years ago."

It might seem strange that she talks so openly about it - but Lindy Harlaown has never believed in sugar-coating matters just because of age. She knows quite well that children can deal with the concept of death since her own son was made to deal with it when he was three years old.

Fate was in the process of unbagging the objects - her pace only slowing as Lindy talks about it. Whereas Amy stops in her step as Vita points out - that -

"You really like it?" Amy snorts a little, obviously finding it a little funny, "I mean... I guess if you're into the cute 'goth' kind of thing..."

Amy's lips purse and suddenly she looks annoyed - perhaps because she just thought of Chrono - he whose barrier jacket is adorned with so many spikes that his lawn probably cuts itself. "... the bunnies are a bit much for me." She grumbles and shrugs.

Arf - being a puppy by now has wandered out of the kitchen, padded up to Amy - and - stares at the hat - letting out a low growl. Amy leans over and starts waving it in mid-air.

"Not a fan of it either Arf? Well that's fine - maybe once we're done with it you can get a new chew toy."

Lindy clears her throat in her own way of showing disapproval - because obviously while it's informal she expects better than evidence disposal by giving it to the wolf familiar.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

But somewhere, Hayate is crying. Or worse: SHOULD be crying.

Still, she hears what Lindy has to say. She looks like she's maybe five; the concept of 'eleven years' should surely be an impossible sum to such a child, even if death is not. Which is true, in its way, for Vita. But she knows what happened to Clyde; Lindy told her that. She remembers it now. She barely has time to murmur, "Eleven years..." before Amy catches her undivided attention.

She should control it. She was just TELLING herself to CONTROL it.

That hat is a gift from Hayate, adorned with other gifts from Hayate, and personally blessed by Hayate.

It is the most precious, sacred object in the universe.

She can practically hear Amy enunciate every individual letter of the words ''c h e w t o y.''

Vita doesn't even notice herself moving. "I WON'T LET YOU," she screams, full and proper. She runs, three four five quick steps, LEAPS, and tackles the hat entirely out of Amy's hands, clutching it close. If she had her powers, she'd swing around, land on her feet.

She does not. She hits the ground hard, on her shoulder, and curls around the hat like it is the only thing keeping her alive.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

It's such a sharp turn of emotion within the room. In that moment that sort of wistful sadness - but now - now - Vita all but launching herself at Amy.

Now Vita maybe looks like a first grader and Amy is well into her teens. But Amy is caught entirely flat-footed as Vita yanks the hat out of her hand. "What are-" Absolutely startled she actually stumbles backwards - while Arf simply stares at the Vita shaped missile going past her - hitting the ground - and clutching it.

Lindy's expression goes from surprised to grave in about a half a second.

Whereas Fate rounds the corner out of the kitchen - just as wide eyed.

"I see." Amy - who is right now clutching her chest as she straightens herself back up blurts out. "Well - I DON'T! Vita-chan what were you think-ing... Oh..."

Amy almost goes cross-eyed at the same moment that suddenly the connection is made by everyone in the room. If Vita were looking she could see that moment where Vita the child becomes Vita the Cloud Knight to everyone.

Even Fate - Fate remembers then what Signum told her that night. That their master is dying. And that their energy can save them. She's not quite there where she can believe Hayate is their master - unable to reconcile it with what she's heard about what a Master of the Book must be. However suddenly Vita's desperation - everything.

It makes sense.

It's a tense moment where everyone seems like to act very soon. Even Arf has begun the shimmering transformation to her human self. "Geez - you know how much trouble you've given all of us - and then you take advantage of our hospitality right under our noses!"

However - Fate - slowly steps over towards her one step after another. She seems grave even in her silence but eventually after clearing her throat, "You know I guess it makes sense now. When it feels like noone can understand you and it feels like it wouldn't matter even if they did..."

And she holds out a hand to her, "... and maybe it doesn't - but Signum told me your master is dying - and... if that's true - these people put everything on the line to save me from... where I was. We just want you to talk to us... and we can go from there."

And maybe it even sounds pretty convincing - except for the fact that Lindy Harlaown is holding a card in her hand that's metallic. Obviously it's her device. She hasn't activated it yet - but the implied threat of 'if this doesn't go properly' just lingers.

And after what happened to her husband - can she really let go of that personal stake?

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q4w2QHL8oA - you'll be surprised
A breeze enters the living room, stirring hair.

It isn't a breeze that you would expect. It comes mostly from above; it has the easy passage of wind moving across an open field, not the steady channel of an opened window.

Arf could smell the fresh air coming in, like a heavenly gift. The scent of sun-warmed concrete; the distant fragrance of the highway. A thousandfold dinners being prepared, whether with slapdash necessity, artistic skill, or simple love.

Red light slides in a moment later, the light of an afternoon that doesn't have much longer to live. The light is tired and spent from its passage through Earth's atmosphere after its leisurely eight minute voyage from the star that warms and energizes this world. The light spreads, fills in gaps, pervades, pours in.

Something is taking the side of the apartment apart. It looks like wire - no, a strand of barbed wire. That isn't correct either. The motion is precise, almost like the sight of something coming back to rest, easing back into a comfortable seat. Shards of concrete glisten with laser-perfect edges, a single curtained window rustling lightly in the breeze. Everything rests backwards in a leisurely double coil, like a mantra written.

The sun is obscured, partially eclipsed, by a figure in a pale magenta coat. Her hair is in a long ponytail with a high knot. It stirs in the breeze. It is the only thing that moves.

<<DISCLOSURE COMPLETE>> speaks the impossible wire - the weapon - the Armed Device Laevateinn.

Signum raises her head, opens her eyes, and gazes down.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

But it has betrayed her. Vita feels something snap, deep in her gut, behind her soul. Some line pushed too far. Or maybe it was just its time. She holds it, clutching that hat, eyes clenched shut. Shaking, shuddering with emotion and tears flowing freely. "I won't let you," she chokes. "I won't LET YOU!" she screams - a child's petulance, a fury, terror and anger, eyes flashing back open.

They meet her with silent eyes. The pieces assemble so easily. The injuries, the tension, the desperation, the sudden anger. She'd said she'd been hurt by one person with red hair and one person with black. There were some few Dark Fall groups that matched that description...or, it could be Lera Camry and Mikoto Minagi, whom the Knight of the Iron Hammer had clashed with mere hours before Lera found Vita by the road.

She looks up at Fate's outstretched hand. Her lip curls. They know these eyes; words are useless now. Her hand rises up to that dangling pendant, when the wind shifts. But they're inside...

The far wall ''deconstructs''. It is a delicate, fine thing, a masterful display. Vita barely notices beyond recognizing the silhouette. She draws in a long breath. Forces herself to rise. She glares around; at Lindy, spotting that card. At Fate, with her outstretched hand.

She sets the hat on her head, adjusting it to where she knows it's straight even without looking. "You've been kind," she says, with her low and raspy voice. "I didn't deserve it but you did it anyway. Thank you."

She begins to walk, brushing past Fate's hand.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera Camry didn't leave the Harlaown house, after she left Vita. She went off to check on a few things; to speak to Chrono and Yuuno.

Which is why she comes back. Still in her Infinity Institute uniform, the orange-haired girl comes around the corner. She appears a little behind Amy, and a question is already on her lips. As she is prone to, she blurts it out: "Uh, is everything okay in here? I heard a big--" The light from the shorn open wall falls onto her face, her eyes widening, and they search out until they meet one figure: Signum, in her pale coat, and the blade in her hand. Lera's lips work.

They finish the word, even if it seems utterly irrelevant and completely inadequate, now. "...noise."

She stares, her eyes darting towards Fate -- and then they dart back towards Vita. It takes a moment for everything to catch up with her. The first is that aspects of her seem familiar, and in a way that isn't vague and formless. The second, though, is the hat; her eyes drift, down, to it. She notices the hat clutched against her, and ''that'' is familiar.

She understands, then. "You're--" She said she fought two people, one with red hair and one with black. Lera realizes who the one with red hair was. "--you're a Wolkenritter, too. Fate..." She stares down at her.

Then, her head snaps, to look at Vita -- and at Signum. "Your--your cousin. The one who's so sick that you might lose her."

Lera's words feel thick and heavy in her throat. "She... she isn't your cousin. Is she?"

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Amy looks increasingly unnerved by Vita's shouts - that fury and terror. She isn't a combatant after all. Her composure is such for the war room. Lindy however looks rather intense, the way she holds that card aloft. At the ready.

And Fate - Fate knows those eyes well. Once upon a time she made the polar opposite to those eyes. The cold dispassion that stands apart from Vita's angry furious desperation.

The hand doesn't quite drop though. Instead the look in her eyes sharpens. Lera enters the room. And Lindy says quietly, "Your timing couldn't be better Lera." Arf is watching Vita closely seeing the way she's reaching for her charm "I'll say - Feito get away from her!" She looks like she's about to say something - like Fate is going to say something too to Vita - and then the side of the apartment starts to be taken apart - piece by piece - wired up in so many coils.

"Signum." Lindy says in her own sort of respect. A simple nod as she assesses the situation and understands implicitly what they're up against. "You've made your point clear - and placed us at an impasse. We won't bar her departure."

Amy sinks down to her knees. Looking somewhat faint by this development.

Fate is looking Signum's way as Vita starts to talk to her - and there's this tiny sound from her throat as she looks back her way. "Please... wait- it's not about - deserving... kindness..."

She remembers once upon a time when she tried to tell Nanoha she doesn't deserve her friendship after all she'd done. But she finds herself speechless for a few moments as Vita brushes past her hand - as Lera questions Vita on that. Suddenly she's a little tense - because she knows how Vita was about her cousin in the room. How she acted. How even brushing upon the subject had made her so upset. And yet how else can we do it. She gives Lera a wary look - before looking between Vita and Signum.

"Your master is dying - that's what you've both said. Our desire to help - nothing about that has changed."

Taking a deep breath she adds, "It's not - contingent... on anything." Her eyes return back to Vita solely, "I didn't think I deserved their kindness either."

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpDvtIt6Lsc
Signum's free hand flicks something towards Vita with every expectation of a successful capture. Two Cartridges. Enough to get going, perhaps.

Her eyes turn towards Lera. "Yes," she confirms. Then, a moment later, with a small motion of the head: "No."

After this Signum's attention turns to Lindy. "Thank you," she says. Her eyes turn then towards Fate.

"You have shown us little save kindness," Signum tells Fate. "Were you motivated by disorder or desperation, your fighting technique would have suffered, and so I will say that I know you speak with the true warmth of your heart. You are owed explanation."

Signum is quiet for a second. Drawing together her thoughts.

"My purpose," Signum says, "is to guard my Master. To execute her will. Hayate Yagami is the finest who I have ever served, and perhaps who I ever will. There is no question, no choice, no ambiguity. My indecision has rested solely in the nuances, in the fine shades in which I may serve her."

"You know that the Book is dangerous, in terms of its power," Signum then says to Lindy. "That danger will be removed decisively under its administration by Hayate Yagami. Her ill health is due to its incomplete state. You see why these facts are not things that I may controvert."

"All solutions which I see hold unacceptable risk," Signum says. "And though I would die for her at her command, I know that this is a question without meaning. For I am not like you, Fate Testarossa." Her head turns slightly to look at Lindy, at Lera. "I am not like any of you. You are capable of faith. I am not."

"I know that there will be a great price that I must pay," Signum says with an air of conclusion. "I shall pay it in full. You need fear no great shadow upon your realm, once Hayate Yagami, whole and healed, dwells there. I regret only that the price has been so high, for all of you."

Her attention returns to her comrade. "Make haste, Vita," Signum says, if without rancor. "We cannot afford another ambush."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Signum's response is measured, as Signum often is, though in a way, so thoroughly, bluntly explaining is nearly explosive. Vita, of course, is rarely 'nearly' explosive.

"She's not," she spits it. Fate was right, something about the topic of Hayate sets Vita entirely on edge. She raises her voice nearly directly to screaming, arms flung out with emotion. "She's not my cousin! She's my Master! The greatest Master we ever had! A wonderful, kind Master who never wanted for anything! She didn't hit us or make us sit in the dark, she didn't even make us hurt people who were cruel to her! We offered her everything! The world! And she only....she only wanted..."

The tears come again, her face twisting with sorrow as the same time as her shuddering shoulders wrack her whole body. "She only wanted..." she whimpers, the strength leaving her.

She sniffs and scrubs at her wet eyes, and her stance squares. "The Book has been incomplete too long, so it's killing her," she says. Direct. Flat. Echoing Signum's testimony. "So we'll finish it. Or we'll die trying." She turns reddened eyes on Lindy, glaring like the woman were the source of all her pain. "You've already told us plenty about what you think of that."

She turns on her heels, sucking in a too-long, quivering breath. Her shoulders shake. "Thank you," she breathes. "You did help me. You've done an incredible kindness for me."

"You reminded me what I have to lose if I fail."

She starts walking again. She roars, loudly: "GRAF EISEN!"

<<JA!!>>

The polo hammer Device leaps off her necklace, whirling around in that eye-watering way Devices have of growing and changing in a flashing moment. Her hand snatches the expanded handle from the air, and light races down her body. Gloves; vest and skirt; armor-shodden boots. Her hair explodes with light and reforms in its pigtails.

The hammerhead of the Iron Count describes a wide arc as the Knight of the Iron Hammer sets the massive polo mallet against her shoulder. She keeps walking. "Yeah. Best if that gun chick doesn't show up, huh?" Vita says, chuckling toward Signum.

She steps up to the edge of the vivisected wall, and half-turns toward the group.

"We swore we wouldn't kill anyone. We've honored that. Fought our hardest to keep people alive, even when it was hard. So lemme be real clear about this:"

Her eyes flash with a sudden, unequivocal murderous intent. "'''If you or any of your Chevalier or Tuner cronies come anywhere near Hayate Yagami, I will not hold back.'''"

She steps over the threshold, and begins to hover up toward Signum. She heaves a sigh, some of the tension of the moment leaving her. "Was feelin' all cozy in there, too," she asides. "I'm feeling better, I'll take sandworms today."

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera shares a worried look with Fate, for a moment. She doesn't know how Vita responded, before. She knows it can't possibly be good. But, what else can they say? She looks back at the two Wolkenritter, her amber eyes wide for a moment. She meets Vita's eyes, and then she nods, loosely. "She--it's the Book. But--but there has to be a way! A way besides filling the Book."

She swallows. "We'll help you. We've lost people, too, y'know? Fate and me both--and Miss Lindy, too. We know how much that hurts! We don't want it to turn out that way."

Then, she looks down at Signum's words. "That's not... but you do have faith. You have faith in--in Hayate, right?"

She never met her. She doesn't know who Hayate is. She can only go off what they have said; what the Wolkenritter have described, which points to a good person. "...If you believe in her, then you can believe in others, too!"

But, they're leaving. Lera looks between the two -- helpless, it feels, to stop the two of them from leaving. Her jaw clenches, but she steps forward. She stares, a moment, and then looks back at Fate, then at Lindy. She looks at them. "They won't--we won't! We'd never go after her. We..." Her shoulders slump. She doesn't have the heart to say it.

Saying that Mami Tomoe is dead makes it feel real, again. That feeling of darkness swirls up in her, at the very notion.

"...We wanna help her too!"

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Signum speaks - and everyone in the room tenses. Except perhaps for one. Lindy Harlaown returns calmly.

"And when she becomes the book's master - what then? Tell me Signum - do you remember a singular time that the Book's Power was used for a purpose other than destruction? You're assuming her nature can overcome an ancient power. Lera is correct. It's not that you are incapable of faith - it's the opposite. And in that you make a dangerous gamble. I for one know precisely well how dangerous the Book of Darkness can be when it's master awakens fully. A whole generation of Magical Girls - an entire Division of the TSAB. My husband's life - became part of a statistic at the hands of your prior master."

Lindy is calm - but her voice is steel. "I acknowledge that things are different this time. The two of you - the feelings you're showing for her are proof of that. It goes beyond mere loyalty. And yet all the same - if you are more than your programming - then I implore you to ask yourself. If you are ''wrong''. If the danger does not pass - then what happens to her?"

She allows that to linger, before turning to Vita. "Yes I've said plenty - but now I'll say one more thing. Perhaps you think there is no choice other than to finish it or die trying. Or deny that there can possibly be another one now that your mind is made up. I have not lived so long as either of you - but I can still understand... there is always a choice."

Fate on the other hand looks horrified - because it feels like - even though it isn't the same situation... it feels like how it was before for her - the desperation she felt reaching new heights as one reminder after another came of what she stood to lose.

Steadying herself - then looks up at the two hovering Cloud Knights. "You don't have to worry about her anymore..." There's a note of sadness there when it comes to the 'gun chick.' "...she's..."

Fate can't say the word 'dead'. "... gone." She doesn't deal well with death. Instead she looks Lera's way, inhales a breath - then looks forward at them. "They put everything on the line to save me - a girl who had so much to answer for. Maybe you can't believe that we'll do the same for Hayate. If you can't... I understand - because I couldn't believe it either."

And then her eyes look between the two... "We won't go after her - we won't hurt her. But we won't hold back either. And once we save her - you two will have to believe in Lera - just like I learned to believe in her."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.
Lindy speaks over Vita's silent retreat. She doesn't turn back, even as Lindy scores her back with truth - brutal honesty, the beliefs of someone rational.

Someone who is not clawing forward, inch by bloody inch, in a desperate, dirty effort to save the one good thing they've ever known.

'Then what happens to her?'

"Then she dies anyway," Vita says, quietly. Something horrible leaks from her voice when she adds: "And then, nothing else matters."

Graf Eisen's hollow tone chimes, and Vita hovers there, beside Signum, while Lindy says her part and Fate says hers. Her head slips down. "Is she?" Vita says. She thinks she knows what that means. "That's a shame. I would've liked to--"

She draws in a slow breath.

"We're not saying there's no choice," she says, and turns over her shoulder to glare at Lindy. "We're saying we've made ours, and you've made yours."

She turns back - and starts to drift away, gaining altitude and distance swiftly.

<Pose Tracker> Signum [None] has posed.
Signum looks at Lera. In her mind, she remembers a cold stone room. She remembers their Barrier Jackets, their only garb. She remembers...

"You would not," she tells Lera. "Others would. Seas may rise, and all lands may be changed. I cannot think only of today and tomorrow."

Her eyes turn to Lindy. "She is not like they were," Signum says, with assurance. "... I accept your sentiments." Vita says what needs saying.

The wall begins to seal itself back together. "We will, no doubt, meet again. My condolences," Signum says as the window is carefully placed back, perfectly in joint, "to the family of Miss Tomoe."

The gap is sealed. The air within is still fresh. A little flicker of magenta and the cracks themselves are gone, as if they were never there.

She turns to follow Vita. If she speaks, it is not hurt by the residents of that home.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
There is a flicker of something in Lera's eyes, when Fate says those kind words about her. She opens her mouth, to say something more or try to downplay it -- but then she closes her mouth. It isn't something she wants to disagree with.

"She--" Lera closes her mouth, and then she shakes her head. "...We'll do everything we can to make sure she doesn't! And--and even if she does, there's..." She looks down. "...There's what Hayate would want and who she is. I don't know her, but..."

Her fingers curl, slightly, at her side. "...Those wouldn't just disappear, either."

She looks over her shoulder -- peering back at Lindy -- and then she looks back at the wall. She watches as it seals up, bit by bit. The Wolkenritter are gone, then; vanished behind it, the damage to the house gone. Lera lets out a soft sigh.

"We can't..." She keeps her voice quiet. "...We can't let word spread, about Hayate Yagami. Signum's right. If some people knew about her..."

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Lindy's look is grave as she looks at Vita and Signum - but she knows well the time for words have passed now. "So we have." She says in acceptance - understanding fully well that Hayate Yagami is different and praying somewhere deep down that it will change something.

The wall seals itself - and... Amy murmurs,"... I hope we didn't just forfeit our security deposit."

Fate closes her eyelids - and behind them, her eyes are wet - she can feel the droplets gathering. They've been doing so ever since Vita mentioned they liked her - and Signum offering her condolences - it's too human. And what they're going through is too cruel. "I've met her Lera... she... she's a very nice girl who cares a lot for them. ... and she doesn't deserve what she's going through... and..."

A little choked up after a moment she nods quickly, she nods her head in agreement. "If the Tuners find out - some of them will take it upon themselves to end this - by any means necessary."

She knows fully well - some of the Outer Senshi - many of the Shepherds are Tuners like them - and yet not them. While others maintain the status quo - they hope to make it better from the inside.

But it's asking a lot of Lindy Harlaown. And yet time and time again - she was willing to compromise her position - her reputation - everything - for what she thought was right. "I see no reason to report this to the Conductors until it's confirmed beyond any doubt." Lindy finally slowly "And I suppose it's time for me to call in a few favors - it's just about the only currency I have left."

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"They never refund those," Lera says, idly, to Amy.

She frowns, looking at the wall with an undeniable distance to her gaze. She stares at it for a moment, and then she looks down at Fate when she talks. Her head bows, slightly, and her eyelids half-close. "I..." She frowns, a little. "...I'm sorry, y'know? I'd like to meet her sometime." She hesitates. "...Maybe not now. I don't know if that'd be a good idea with the two of them."

She hesitates, before she puts a hand on Fate's shoulder. She squeezes once, gently, and then she shakes her head.

"We can't let that happen." She looks back at Lindy, then she smiles. Her smile is slightly sad; she has an idea of what she is risking, to do this. "...Yeah. Thanks, Miss Lindy. We'll... we'll do everything we can, to find a way to resolve this."

She looks down. "Maybe the other Chevaliers will help..." She would be late to their meeting, after all. "...As long as we're careful, y'know?"

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Amy let's out a small strangled noise as Lera relays that fact. Because she put down the payment for it - and it was substantial.

"When this is over I'll introduce you."

Fate promises quietly as Lera puts a hand upon her shoulder before she finally wipes at her eyes. Opening them - she gives a sharp nod. "I hate to say it - but right now..."

She eyes the wall where they departed - thinking of Mami's death. How each and every one of them must feel.

The war may not continue as it stands - but... they still needed something to get behind. "... This may be exactly what they need."

[[Category:Logs]]

2018-05-26 - Unfamiliar Ceiling

2018-06-06T06:26:18Z

Limitless:

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Unfamiliar Ceiling'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Having narrowly made off with Mikoto Minagi's magic at the cost of a thorough pummeling from her and late-arrival Lera Camry, Vita limps away to lick her wounds. But she's finally pushed herself too far this time...''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Vita]], [[Lera Camry]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
The Harlaown Household (mostly).

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2018-05-26 - 2015-04-20
|-
|}

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Tama Outer City +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
While the the 23 wards of the Yamanote and Shitamachi zones comprise the
core of Tokyo, an equally populous and geographically larger section of the
city lies inland, to the west. This is the Tama region, consisting of a
multitude of districts that, like the wards of inner Tokyo, are considered
cities in their own right, but which combine together to form the
megalopolis of Tokyo.

In inner Tokyo, the government has to build and protect little squares of
nature, but in Tama, nature is the default, and humans build squares of
civilization. Surprisingly close to the city, one can find clean rivers,
open fields, and, of course, great snow-capped mountains. The Shitamachi
zone may be down-to-earth, but its residents are still thoroughly cityfolk,
part of the "Floating World." In Tama, the urban culture intermingles with
the rural, giving a taste for what life is like in the rest of Japan,
outside of the big city. Buildings are low, sidewalks are wide, and cars are
much more viable means of transportation than anywhere else in the city.
High up in the foothills, one can even find a few tiny villages, whose
residents technically live in Tokyo, but whose lifestyle is more akin to the
most rural of provinces. The majority of Tama, though, is more of a suburban
area, with modestly developed downtown districts scattered throughout.

Life in Tama is less frantic than in Inner Tokyo, and natural beauty
abounds. The Tama river forms the southern border of the zone, and many of
the nearby mountains were considered sacred, and even today they are guarded
by Shinto shrines near their peaks. Inner Tokyo's dense, churning morass of
emotional energy holds a certain sort of power, but a more primal magic
sleeps under Tama, and because of this, it is home to the Infinity
Institute, which secretly trains a new generation of sorcerers away from the
bustle (and inevitable collateral damage) of the big city.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita refuses to go home. Not back to that house. Even as her eyelids get heavy and her muscles scream and tremble for rest, she refuses. She won't stifle that place with her presence.

Won't let her memories of that place of light and happiness be scarred by the darkness that now inhabits it.

So she limped across the skyline for a while before she less landed than crashed on a rooftop out toward the outskirts of Tama, where the town and the encroaching mountains blur together. She'd hoped to hit the forest. She missed. She felt the impact; the skidding along gravel.

Her small body skipped over the ledge and fell to the street below, down into the darkness.

It was splashed with color a moment later - a shining red signalling the disappearance of Vita, the Crimson Iron Rider, and the appearance of Vita, Who Does Not Deserve The Name Yagami.

A passerby may see her easily enough; a redheaded girl with her hair in two pigtails, though one of the pigtails has been blown out, scuffed and scorched. She wears a black tee shirt with some local brand's logo splashed across it, a short and frilly skirt, plain red shoes. She looks like she's been through no kind of battle regular girls ever see, and the sort magical girls see only rarely. Her cheek is scuffed, her elbows and knees scraped and bandaged. She is slumped against the wall.

She is entirely unconscious. Perhaps ironically, the overall appearance is rather like one of her own victims.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera, since the rescue of Mikoto, has had to deal with a couple of other things. This, suffice to say, wasn't out of a lack of concern for Vita. She merely assumed that Vita would return home; that Vita would go back to whatever lair that her and the other Wolkenritter called home. She walks down the street, a bag over her shoulder, and she pauses as she catches the redheaded girl.

Her eyes widen for a moment, as she realizes this girl has seen the wrong end of a fight. She doesn't recognize her. She only sees, in the moment, a little girl who ended up on the wrong side of a battle hidden from the world usually. "Oh, no..."

She gasps and she hurries over, a jog towards the girl who landed on the street. Lera crouches down before her, checking her over quickly. "Hey--hey! Wake up! It's--oh, no..."

She frowns. Then, she scoops her up, and turns.

SOME TIME LATER

The door to the Harlaown household opens -- and Chrono stands there, his expression neutral, at first. "Camry," he says. "No, we're not making spaghetti today. I know you want it, but--" He stops, however, and his flat expression becomes one of concern. "...Who's that?"

"She was hurt," Lera says. She looks down at the girl in her arms, still out like a light. "We need to heal her--and find out what did this, y'know?" she asks. "And... can you really not get me any spaghetti?"

His eyebrow twitches. "...come in."

It isn't long before Vita is laid down on a sofa. Lera sits a distance away, in a chair. She has a Storage Device in hand: a long, steel rod with a trio of green gems. Each glows, softly. The Storage Devices cast a simple restorative spell: one that speeds the body's healing, rather than do it all at once. Lera looks down at the Regen Stick, thoughtfully, and then up at Vita.

Hopefully, she wakes soon.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Regardless, Amy's not participating to squint ominously at it when Vita groans loudly after only a minute's work from the restorative spell. The girl stirs. Her eyes flutter. "Ugh," she mutters, shifting her elbows under her and flinching. "Aches..." She's still muttering, mostly to herself. "Been a while since--"

Reality crashes in on her and she jolts, eyes snapping wide. She tries to move in ways that would be impressive, except it's not a bed or good old ground under her but a sofa with soft, catchable cushions. She tries to shove her feet under her and fails and ends up throwing herself entirely off the sofa and onto her face on the floor.

She makes a sound somewhere between a whine and a groan.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"C-Careful!" Lera cries out in surprise, as Vita suddenly jolts up. The talking in her sleep didn't surprise her so much -- but the way she tries to stand, and the sofa gives. Lera's cry comes too late, and she isn't able to close the distance in time. Vita slams into the carpeted floor. Lera drops the rod she held; it hits the carpet with a soft thud, and rolls to a stop.

She kneels down next to Vita, looking down at her. Her eyes are wide, too. "It's okay," she says. "You're somewhere safe. You were hurt--um, I'm not sure by what--but I found you, and I got you to where we could tend your wounds, y'know? So..."

Her voice quiets, for a moment.

"Just take it slow," she says. "Want me to help you get back on the sofa?"

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

She shuts her eyes tight, forcing herself to take longer breathes. After a long few seconds they slide slowly open again, though there's still something scared in those eyes. Worried. "Yeah," she whispers. "I fell unconscious out there..."

She tries to force herself up, but her legs are still jelly, and she slumps back down immediately. She tries a second time, and has only slightly better luck, forcing one leg under her. It's impressively stubborn.

She doesn't look like she's going to ask for help, but without it this is going to take roughly forever.
Fate Testarossa walks over to World Tree Plaza.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
One day, Lera might find it ironic and humorous, in a way, that she rescued Vita after she was the one that put her in this state. She blinks, her eyes dropping down to the chain necklace with the charm. The significance never meets her eyes. It is, in a way, rather different to see Lera in this circumstance: not facing down an opponent, steely-eyed and determined, with a blade in hand. Her amber eyes are soft, and she has a smile that's almost gentle.

"It's nothing to panic over," she says, carefully. "It... happens. There's--I don't know how much you know. There's a lot of monsters out there, sometimes. They drain people's emotions and magic, sometimes, y'know? And... attack them, too."

She doesn't move to help, at first. Then she approaches -- that requires standing up -- and extends a hand down to Vita. "Here," she says. "Let me help. My name's Lera Camry. Second year high schooler at Infinity Institute."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Well, perhaps not that alike, then. Still, even exhausted, even still in a lot of pain, that face says she is ''dead set'' on getting up under her own power, with no assistance, and then presumably flying out the door and suplexing a tornado.

She is fortunately not given the chance to do most of this. She stares up at Lera's offered hand, then slowly up toward the girl herself. "...yeah," she mutters, to Lera's kind words. "Yeah. There are monsters out there, aren't there," she says, quieter. She takes the hand, accepting the leverage up, and then probably has to thump into Lera's side because her legs are useless right now. "...Vita," she says. The magic here protects her identity. She's never understood how it worked. She never asked. "I, uhm. I haven't been enrolled...I'm only here to help my m--" ... "Cousin," she says, though the lie tastes like poison.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Oh, you're not from Tokyo?" Lera asks. She tilts her head to the side, then she smiles. There is something a little guarded in that smile, but it doesn't come from suspicion. She helps Vita the rest of the way up -- and then gives a nudge with her hand to help her sit back down onto the same sofa she fell off. She shakes her head. "Me neither. I'm from, uh, America! But I've lived here for about a year now..."

She tilts her head to the side. "Your cousin lives out here?" she asks. "It's, uh, it's really nice of you to come out here and help her! You must like her a lot, y'know?"

She glances up at the ceiling, then. There is a little rustling in the next room -- a couple of voices, as Chrono and Amy talk -- but they barely carry over into the room. "I'm sorry that you got attacked," she adds. "That's... some rough luck."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Lera's words about her 'cousin' make Vita stare down, grimacing. "Yeah," she says, quietly. "She's really sick, so me and the others came to....help her." She hates the lie. It flares in her like a sun, the gall and disgust at lying about her master. Her stomach twists in anger at herself. Say it. Sing it. Shout it at the sky!

She can't. Not here. Blasting her way out won't help anyone. Might even hurt Hayate. But she hates that single lie so much. Her eyes slide shut to try and force the circle of these thoughts to break. "She's been great. I hope we can make her better." In context, perhaps it sounds like the innocent wish of a child regarding deathly illness.

Rough luck, though. Vita grunts. "I barely saw it," she murmurs. "Just hit me out of nowhere." Not entirely a lie. She doesn't look at Lera for this; she's not sure how well she can lie while looking the girl in the eyes.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Ah... I'm sorry," Lera says, a little quieter than before. Her brow furrows, and she frowns. She doesn't know what that is like; she never had a sick relative. Even when she lost her father, it was one of those random, terrible accidents rather than a slow illness. She looks up, and her head tilts. She nods. "I hope so, y'know?"

She doesn't really know what she can do, besides hope. She opens her mouth, and then she looks down at Vita, looking her over for a moment. "That's... how it happens, sometimes," she concludes. "Sometimes they sneak up on you. You, um... you don't feel weakened or anything, right? Some of them--some of them can drain your energy."

Or worse, she thinks.

There is a little more noise from deeper in the house. A third voice; it is indistinct, at present, though a few footsteps can be heard. It seems that they may have company in a moment.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

She's had to keep her thoughts this tamed before. She chaffs at using those memories, that old, deadened self. But it's for Hayate, she tells herself. "Yeah," she rasps, instead. "I hope so too."

The topic moves again. Vita chews on her lip with worry. "Just come out of nowhere...I guess that makes sense." Lera's talking about her, Vita realizes grimly. She tries not to let it show. "I...do," she says. It's truthful, in its way; she feels exhausted, depleted. She was running on desperation and magic, and with the magic finally falling out, her arms and legs and head feel leaden. She's not sure she could properly hide a telepathic call to Shamal yet, even. She wants to be sure before she tries.

On the other hand, that also implies that she's been drained by those devils in the Wolkenritter, which is not the greatest thought in the world. Maybe it's best for Lera to think that for now, though. "I feel really tired..." She tries to remember how she's heard it described, by some of her old victims. "Like I'm...sick...?" she says, testing the word.

Humans get sick, of course. Vita's got no experience with such things.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera frowns, looking down -- and she hesitates, a moment more. There isn't, really, a way to offer help or support. Nothing she says will make someone well again. She could ask Lindy what can be done, but she knows well enough that their resources are limited -- they don't have access to the full range of hospitals and medical technology of Midchilda.

She looks up, though, and blinks. "That's..." She hesitates, for a moment, when she gets a look at Vita. Was she drained by the Wolkenritter? Or, worse, attacked by a Protodaimon? She realizes she isn't sure. "You could be--um. It can be similar. Do you remember what attacked you? Maybe--oh!"

She hears the footsteps behind her, approaching the doorway, before someone approaches. Lera turns, and flashes a smile, first at the empty doorway... and then down at Vita. "Don't worry," she says. "Miss Harlaown is here. She'll know what to do!"

She turns back, and the tall, aqua-haired figure of Lindy Harlaown steps around the corner. Her teal eyes look at Lera, and then at Vita. She has a tray in hand, with a tea kettle, a trio of cups, and a bowl of sugar.

"Good afternoon!" she says. "I heard you had a tumble. I thought you might want a hot drink?"

Lera's head snaps back towards Vita. Her eyebrow twitches, but then she mouths: 'Do not let her sugar your tea for you under any circumstances.'

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

And then Vita looks up, and...oh. It's....this....adult...?

Some half-formed engram tells her she should know who this is, but the sparkling, happy lady does not bring anything specific to mind. "Ah....that, would be nice," Vita murmurs. Her eyes slide to Lera's mouthed words, and she tilts her head quizzically.

THen she slowly shakes her head - less contextually and more just trying to clear her head a bit. She closes her eyes for a moment, as if thinking. Then she reaches out, quietly testing...

<<Keine Störung wird festgestellt.>> rings in her thoughts.
<<No interference? Good.>> And then, mentally shifting the direction, she reaches out - further, much further. But she knows she can reach if she tries. <<Shamal. It's Vita. Can you hear me?>>

That conversation begins silently. But in the present, she finds herself looking between the tea and the sugar with the interest of a small child.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Red hair--and one with black..." Lera trails off, her brow furrowed. She tries to think of who it might be -- almost reaches the conclusion that it could be Eri Shimanouchi and Kyouko Sakura, but that doesn't sound like the modus operandi of the Shepherds. In the end, she has to shake her head once. She doesn't know it, really.

When Vita reaches out telepathically, Lera doesn't even notice.

She worries, instead, as Lindy sets the teaset down -- and she sees that look on Vita's face. For Lera, it is a mounting horror, and Lindy does a spoonful of sugar into Vita's tea. And another.

And another.

''And another''.

The tea that is slid over has enough sugar that lumps of it are visible on the bottom. It is discolored. Lindy gently pushes it to Vita, and then smiles at her. "Here you are! Please, drink up. I find this can help get you back on your feet in no time!"

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Other than Lera Camry and Mikoto Minagi, that is. That's definitely not who it was.

Vita receives a warm presence back, and a few quick words. She keeps it brief. On some level she worries that this has been detected. If nothing else, they can't be ''sure'' of anything. A few quick words. A brief warning. <<Stay safe. You've needed a rest for a while anyway. No arguments! Just...lie low for a while. Stay there until we come for you. OK?>>

Vita's eyes refocus just as a cup of tea slides in front of her. She looks up at Lera, then back at it. She tips her head a little.

She picks it up and takes a sip. Her eyes widen and she looks down it, then back at Lera, then up at Lindy.

Then upends the entire cup of tea-based simple syrup directly into her mouth.

[[Category:Logs]]

2018-05-26 - Unfamiliar Ceiling

2018-06-06T06:23:51Z

{|class="toccolours" cellspacing="2"
|-
! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''Title: Unfamiliar Ceiling'''
|-
|'''Summary''': 
''Having narrowly made off with Mikoto Minagi's magic at the cost of a thorough pummeling from her and late-arrival Lera Camry, Vita limps away to lick her wounds. But she's finally pushed herself too far this time...''
|-
|'''Who''': 
[[Vita]], [[Lera Camry]]
|-
|'''Where:''' 
The Harlaown Household (mostly).

|-
|'''OOC - IC Date:''' 
2018-05-26 - 2015-04-19
|-
|}

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* Tama Outer City +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
While the the 23 wards of the Yamanote and Shitamachi zones comprise the
core of Tokyo, an equally populous and geographically larger section of the
city lies inland, to the west. This is the Tama region, consisting of a
multitude of districts that, like the wards of inner Tokyo, are considered
cities in their own right, but which combine together to form the
megalopolis of Tokyo.

In inner Tokyo, the government has to build and protect little squares of
nature, but in Tama, nature is the default, and humans build squares of
civilization. Surprisingly close to the city, one can find clean rivers,
open fields, and, of course, great snow-capped mountains. The Shitamachi
zone may be down-to-earth, but its residents are still thoroughly cityfolk,
part of the "Floating World." In Tama, the urban culture intermingles with
the rural, giving a taste for what life is like in the rest of Japan,
outside of the big city. Buildings are low, sidewalks are wide, and cars are
much more viable means of transportation than anywhere else in the city.
High up in the foothills, one can even find a few tiny villages, whose
residents technically live in Tokyo, but whose lifestyle is more akin to the
most rural of provinces. The majority of Tama, though, is more of a suburban
area, with modestly developed downtown districts scattered throughout.

Life in Tama is less frantic than in Inner Tokyo, and natural beauty
abounds. The Tama river forms the southern border of the zone, and many of
the nearby mountains were considered sacred, and even today they are guarded
by Shinto shrines near their peaks. Inner Tokyo's dense, churning morass of
emotional energy holds a certain sort of power, but a more primal magic
sleeps under Tama, and because of this, it is home to the Infinity
Institute, which secretly trains a new generation of sorcerers away from the
bustle (and inevitable collateral damage) of the big city.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Vita refuses to go home. Not back to that house. Even as her eyelids get heavy and her muscles scream and tremble for rest, she refuses. She won't stifle that place with her presence.

Won't let her memories of that place of light and happiness be scarred by the darkness that now inhabits it.

So she limped across the skyline for a while before she less landed than crashed on a rooftop out toward the outskirts of Tama, where the town and the encroaching mountains blur together. She'd hoped to hit the forest. She missed. She felt the impact; the skidding along gravel.

Her small body skipped over the ledge and fell to the street below, down into the darkness.

It was splashed with color a moment later - a shining red signalling the disappearance of Vita, the Crimson Iron Rider, and the appearance of Vita, Who Does Not Deserve The Name Yagami.

A passerby may see her easily enough; a redheaded girl with her hair in two pigtails, though one of the pigtails has been blown out, scuffed and scorched. She wears a black tee shirt with some local brand's logo splashed across it, a short and frilly skirt, plain red shoes. She looks like she's been through no kind of battle regular girls ever see, and the sort magical girls see only rarely. Her cheek is scuffed, her elbows and knees scraped and bandaged. She is slumped against the wall.

She is entirely unconscious. Perhaps ironically, the overall appearance is rather like one of her own victims.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera, since the rescue of Mikoto, has had to deal with a couple of other things. This, suffice to say, wasn't out of a lack of concern for Vita. She merely assumed that Vita would return home; that Vita would go back to whatever lair that her and the other Wolkenritter called home. She walks down the street, a bag over her shoulder, and she pauses as she catches the redheaded girl.

Her eyes widen for a moment, as she realizes this girl has seen the wrong end of a fight. She doesn't recognize her. She only sees, in the moment, a little girl who ended up on the wrong side of a battle hidden from the world usually. "Oh, no..."

She gasps and she hurries over, a jog towards the girl who landed on the street. Lera crouches down before her, checking her over quickly. "Hey--hey! Wake up! It's--oh, no..."

She frowns. Then, she scoops her up, and turns.

SOME TIME LATER

The door to the Harlaown household opens -- and Chrono stands there, his expression neutral, at first. "Camry," he says. "No, we're not making spaghetti today. I know you want it, but--" He stops, however, and his flat expression becomes one of concern. "...Who's that?"

"She was hurt," Lera says. She looks down at the girl in her arms, still out like a light. "We need to heal her--and find out what did this, y'know?" she asks. "And... can you really not get me any spaghetti?"

His eyebrow twitches. "...come in."

It isn't long before Vita is laid down on a sofa. Lera sits a distance away, in a chair. She has a Storage Device in hand: a long, steel rod with a trio of green gems. Each glows, softly. The Storage Devices cast a simple restorative spell: one that speeds the body's healing, rather than do it all at once. Lera looks down at the Regen Stick, thoughtfully, and then up at Vita.

Hopefully, she wakes soon.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Regardless, Amy's not participating to squint ominously at it when Vita groans loudly after only a minute's work from the restorative spell. The girl stirs. Her eyes flutter. "Ugh," she mutters, shifting her elbows under her and flinching. "Aches..." She's still muttering, mostly to herself. "Been a while since--"

Reality crashes in on her and she jolts, eyes snapping wide. She tries to move in ways that would be impressive, except it's not a bed or good old ground under her but a sofa with soft, catchable cushions. She tries to shove her feet under her and fails and ends up throwing herself entirely off the sofa and onto her face on the floor.

She makes a sound somewhere between a whine and a groan.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"C-Careful!" Lera cries out in surprise, as Vita suddenly jolts up. The talking in her sleep didn't surprise her so much -- but the way she tries to stand, and the sofa gives. Lera's cry comes too late, and she isn't able to close the distance in time. Vita slams into the carpeted floor. Lera drops the rod she held; it hits the carpet with a soft thud, and rolls to a stop.

She kneels down next to Vita, looking down at her. Her eyes are wide, too. "It's okay," she says. "You're somewhere safe. You were hurt--um, I'm not sure by what--but I found you, and I got you to where we could tend your wounds, y'know? So..."

Her voice quiets, for a moment.

"Just take it slow," she says. "Want me to help you get back on the sofa?"

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

She shuts her eyes tight, forcing herself to take longer breathes. After a long few seconds they slide slowly open again, though there's still something scared in those eyes. Worried. "Yeah," she whispers. "I fell unconscious out there..."

She tries to force herself up, but her legs are still jelly, and she slumps back down immediately. She tries a second time, and has only slightly better luck, forcing one leg under her. It's impressively stubborn.

She doesn't look like she's going to ask for help, but without it this is going to take roughly forever.
Fate Testarossa walks over to World Tree Plaza.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
One day, Lera might find it ironic and humorous, in a way, that she rescued Vita after she was the one that put her in this state. She blinks, her eyes dropping down to the chain necklace with the charm. The significance never meets her eyes. It is, in a way, rather different to see Lera in this circumstance: not facing down an opponent, steely-eyed and determined, with a blade in hand. Her amber eyes are soft, and she has a smile that's almost gentle.

"It's nothing to panic over," she says, carefully. "It... happens. There's--I don't know how much you know. There's a lot of monsters out there, sometimes. They drain people's emotions and magic, sometimes, y'know? And... attack them, too."

She doesn't move to help, at first. Then she approaches -- that requires standing up -- and extends a hand down to Vita. "Here," she says. "Let me help. My name's Lera Camry. Second year high schooler at Infinity Institute."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Well, perhaps not that alike, then. Still, even exhausted, even still in a lot of pain, that face says she is ''dead set'' on getting up under her own power, with no assistance, and then presumably flying out the door and suplexing a tornado.

She is fortunately not given the chance to do most of this. She stares up at Lera's offered hand, then slowly up toward the girl herself. "...yeah," she mutters, to Lera's kind words. "Yeah. There are monsters out there, aren't there," she says, quieter. She takes the hand, accepting the leverage up, and then probably has to thump into Lera's side because her legs are useless right now. "...Vita," she says. The magic here protects her identity. She's never understood how it worked. She never asked. "I, uhm. I haven't been enrolled...I'm only here to help my m--" ... "Cousin," she says, though the lie tastes like poison.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Oh, you're not from Tokyo?" Lera asks. She tilts her head to the side, then she smiles. There is something a little guarded in that smile, but it doesn't come from suspicion. She helps Vita the rest of the way up -- and then gives a nudge with her hand to help her sit back down onto the same sofa she fell off. She shakes her head. "Me neither. I'm from, uh, America! But I've lived here for about a year now..."

She tilts her head to the side. "Your cousin lives out here?" she asks. "It's, uh, it's really nice of you to come out here and help her! You must like her a lot, y'know?"

She glances up at the ceiling, then. There is a little rustling in the next room -- a couple of voices, as Chrono and Amy talk -- but they barely carry over into the room. "I'm sorry that you got attacked," she adds. "That's... some rough luck."

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Lera's words about her 'cousin' make Vita stare down, grimacing. "Yeah," she says, quietly. "She's really sick, so me and the others came to....help her." She hates the lie. It flares in her like a sun, the gall and disgust at lying about her master. Her stomach twists in anger at herself. Say it. Sing it. Shout it at the sky!

She can't. Not here. Blasting her way out won't help anyone. Might even hurt Hayate. But she hates that single lie so much. Her eyes slide shut to try and force the circle of these thoughts to break. "She's been great. I hope we can make her better." In context, perhaps it sounds like the innocent wish of a child regarding deathly illness.

Rough luck, though. Vita grunts. "I barely saw it," she murmurs. "Just hit me out of nowhere." Not entirely a lie. She doesn't look at Lera for this; she's not sure how well she can lie while looking the girl in the eyes.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Ah... I'm sorry," Lera says, a little quieter than before. Her brow furrows, and she frowns. She doesn't know what that is like; she never had a sick relative. Even when she lost her father, it was one of those random, terrible accidents rather than a slow illness. She looks up, and her head tilts. She nods. "I hope so, y'know?"

She doesn't really know what she can do, besides hope. She opens her mouth, and then she looks down at Vita, looking her over for a moment. "That's... how it happens, sometimes," she concludes. "Sometimes they sneak up on you. You, um... you don't feel weakened or anything, right? Some of them--some of them can drain your energy."

Or worse, she thinks.

There is a little more noise from deeper in the house. A third voice; it is indistinct, at present, though a few footsteps can be heard. It seems that they may have company in a moment.

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

She's had to keep her thoughts this tamed before. She chaffs at using those memories, that old, deadened self. But it's for Hayate, she tells herself. "Yeah," she rasps, instead. "I hope so too."

The topic moves again. Vita chews on her lip with worry. "Just come out of nowhere...I guess that makes sense." Lera's talking about her, Vita realizes grimly. She tries not to let it show. "I...do," she says. It's truthful, in its way; she feels exhausted, depleted. She was running on desperation and magic, and with the magic finally falling out, her arms and legs and head feel leaden. She's not sure she could properly hide a telepathic call to Shamal yet, even. She wants to be sure before she tries.

On the other hand, that also implies that she's been drained by those devils in the Wolkenritter, which is not the greatest thought in the world. Maybe it's best for Lera to think that for now, though. "I feel really tired..." She tries to remember how she's heard it described, by some of her old victims. "Like I'm...sick...?" she says, testing the word.

Humans get sick, of course. Vita's got no experience with such things.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
Lera frowns, looking down -- and she hesitates, a moment more. There isn't, really, a way to offer help or support. Nothing she says will make someone well again. She could ask Lindy what can be done, but she knows well enough that their resources are limited -- they don't have access to the full range of hospitals and medical technology of Midchilda.

She looks up, though, and blinks. "That's..." She hesitates, for a moment, when she gets a look at Vita. Was she drained by the Wolkenritter? Or, worse, attacked by a Protodaimon? She realizes she isn't sure. "You could be--um. It can be similar. Do you remember what attacked you? Maybe--oh!"

She hears the footsteps behind her, approaching the doorway, before someone approaches. Lera turns, and flashes a smile, first at the empty doorway... and then down at Vita. "Don't worry," she says. "Miss Harlaown is here. She'll know what to do!"

She turns back, and the tall, aqua-haired figure of Lindy Harlaown steps around the corner. Her teal eyes look at Lera, and then at Vita. She has a tray in hand, with a tea kettle, a trio of cups, and a bowl of sugar.

"Good afternoon!" she says. "I heard you had a tumble. I thought you might want a hot drink?"

Lera's head snaps back towards Vita. Her eyebrow twitches, but then she mouths: 'Do not let her sugar your tea for you under any circumstances.'

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

And then Vita looks up, and...oh. It's....this....adult...?

Some half-formed engram tells her she should know who this is, but the sparkling, happy lady does not bring anything specific to mind. "Ah....that, would be nice," Vita murmurs. Her eyes slide to Lera's mouthed words, and she tilts her head quizzically.

THen she slowly shakes her head - less contextually and more just trying to clear her head a bit. She closes her eyes for a moment, as if thinking. Then she reaches out, quietly testing...

<<Keine Störung wird festgestellt.>> rings in her thoughts.
<<No interference? Good.>> And then, mentally shifting the direction, she reaches out - further, much further. But she knows she can reach if she tries. <<Shamal. It's Vita. Can you hear me?>>

That conversation begins silently. But in the present, she finds herself looking between the tea and the sugar with the interest of a small child.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.
"Red hair--and one with black..." Lera trails off, her brow furrowed. She tries to think of who it might be -- almost reaches the conclusion that it could be Eri Shimanouchi and Kyouko Sakura, but that doesn't sound like the modus operandi of the Shepherds. In the end, she has to shake her head once. She doesn't know it, really.

When Vita reaches out telepathically, Lera doesn't even notice.

She worries, instead, as Lindy sets the teaset down -- and she sees that look on Vita's face. For Lera, it is a mounting horror, and Lindy does a spoonful of sugar into Vita's tea. And another.

And another.

''And another''.

The tea that is slid over has enough sugar that lumps of it are visible on the bottom. It is discolored. Lindy gently pushes it to Vita, and then smiles at her. "Here you are! Please, drink up. I find this can help get you back on your feet in no time!"

<Pose Tracker> Vita [None] has posed.

Other than Lera Camry and Mikoto Minagi, that is. That's definitely not who it was.

Vita receives a warm presence back, and a few quick words. She keeps it brief. On some level she worries that this has been detected. If nothing else, they can't be ''sure'' of anything. A few quick words. A brief warning. <<Stay safe. You've needed a rest for a while anyway. No arguments! Just...lie low for a while. Stay there until we come for you. OK?>>

Vita's eyes refocus just as a cup of tea slides in front of her. She looks up at Lera, then back at it. She tips her head a little.

She picks it up and takes a sip. Her eyes widen and she looks down it, then back at Lera, then up at Lindy.

Then upends the entire cup of tea-based simple syrup directly into her mouth.

[[Category:Logs]]