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 Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:09 pm
Shae made sure to greet the returning Asteria with a light nod of acknowledgment, still smiling oh-so-peacefully as he gaze shifted to the increasingly broody stranger who, quite frankly, looked as if he were getting ready to snap at the lot of them.
Thankfully, however, his disgruntlement stayed just under the boiling point as he, too, forced a stiff nod at the bar mistress's comment (he wasn't stupid enough to burn his bridges in a place with such good work) before returning to the game.
... And what a game it was going to be.
His only response to Kanda's comment was the slightest clenching of his jaw, brow furrowing as the first hand was dealt.
Shae just tore off a bite of her sandwich, shrugged, and played her hand.
His win.
Ha! His win! The dark stranger couldn't help a smirk as they played a second hand and, once again, luck was on his side. Twenty-one exactly! A third hand, another win-- the fourth was a loss, but the fifth was his, and then...
A loss... No, nothing big! But then the next hand was a loss for him too... and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that and...
No, something wasn't right; the girl seemed to be getting progressively better with each hand, hitting for a third card, a fourth, even a FIFTH at one point and STILL not busting.
Most infuriating of all, though, was the fact that she didn't seem even vaguely worried when he struck the occasional win, or thrilled when she (inevitably) conquered again. She just kept a passive face and munched quietly on her food like it was barely worth feigning interest!
"Blackjack," she mumbled on the last hand, setting out the winning cards and giving him a look. "Thank you for obliging me, sir. May I request my winnings, now?"
"..."
"... Sir?"
No. No no no, he had NOT just endured a mauling that thorough-- especially not in front of that tea drinking WOMAN with the scowl!
"W-What kind of cheap sorcery in this?!" he hissed as he rose from his chair, throwing the ball of cash down on the table between them and looking furious. "This wasn't a test of intelligence, it was a gimmick! A damnable game of luck that you manipulated like some dreadful marionette--"
"And you had every chance and capacity to counter-manipulate me," she told him simply, lightly picking up the ball of dollars before leaning over to collect something off the floor-- the odd little black thing which had been fluttering about-- in her palm. "But thank you, again, for your patronage, sir."
"... Y... You... y-you despicable little... wretched... slattern deceptress!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:42 pm
Kanda hissed at the cup that was placed on his head, though not a fully-facial hiss, but a more through-the-teeth hiss, using a sleeve to wipe off the top of his head (as there had still been enough -something- in there to give him a nice little spot of tea on his head) before slamming the cup fiercely back onto the table.
In response the table rattled in protest, earning a leer from Asteria whom had gone back to her place of power. If he'd broken something she'd kill him and it was obvious to any.
Except Kanda who didn't give much of a rat's a**, even towards the stupid card game. At least not until the idiot at the table next to him started throwing a fit at being dealt the lesser of the hands of luck. Oh how they yelled brought the lesser of his scowls to his expression.
"I'd say it tested your intelligence quite well." he said in a neutral tone, before the thing that the rather luck-endowed female had picked up caught his attention. Perhaps it was the little bit of Cat in him that was attracted to it's sudden movements. The same way a cat was attracted to your foot under the blanket, though.
Asteria had found a knife that seemed to be 'conveniently' dirty and stood behind the counter polishing it in that creepy OCD way all people who worked in bars seemed to do (at least in movies), giving the congregation's corner a special dose of attention, on part of making sure both her help didn't suddenly vanish to be found in the river sometime later, and to keep an eye on the Tea-man who was probably going to end up breaking something.
So when stranger number 'Yeller' started going off about something, she sighed a bit, forcing herself to keep down a heachache and go to see what the matter was, again stepping out from behind the counter to head over to Shae and 'Yeller's place of inhabitance, picking up Kanda's tea cup with a 'If you're not doing anything with it....' and holding onto it with a finger through the handle while she continued to polish the knife she'd brought her.
"What's all the yelling about?" she asked sweetly, though something, perhaps the posture and the accompanying knife, said she was forcing the niceness of her tone.
Oh yes, if any yelling was aimed towards her she'd likely be stabbing something.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:02 pm
Shae was wise enough not to add a comment on top of Kanda's, sure... but the stranger still wasn't about to settle down anytime soon, and hearing such a snide remark had his already wounded pride SCREAMING for vengeance. Whipping around and pinning the antagonistic fellow male with an outright death glare, he let out a growl, flattening back his ears.
"I would restrain that dull tongue of yours, you snide little stray!" he snapped haughtily, about to say more... but alas, the resident GirlBoy and Thing stepped in.
"P-Please sir, I'd advise that you settle down--"
"I will NOT!"
"If the bar mistress becomes displeased--"
"She has nothing to do with this; my concern rests with YOU, harlot, and that effeminate tea guzzling wench who can't seem to keep their damnable mouth shut--"
"DEL!" But once again it seemed he wasn't being payed attention to by the victim of his yelling-- as Shae suddenly and frantically grabbed for the small thing that had just shot out of her hand in a wild spasm, zigzagged through the air... and crashed STRAIGHT into Kanda's nose before it made a little clicking squeak-sound, shot sparks and flopped onto his table, where it proceeded to twitch or shudder in a strange epileptic fit.
It was... certainly an odd thing-- whatever it was-- which more or less resembled a black ping-pong ball with tiny leg 'stubs', a cracked red lens that seemed vaguely eye-like... and two awkwardly shivering, twitching, spasmodic wings made from what looked like metal scraps.
"I-I'm so sorry," the owner squeaked hurriedly, "please forgive me-- I didn't mean... ah, it's just... a little unpredictable, and..."
"Have you forgotten who your conversation was with, harlot?!" the dark stranger roared in a rage, "damned disrespectful nitwit!"
"... Sounds like they're gettin' into one helluva fight o'er there," one drunk hiccuped musingly to a friend.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:20 pm
Ignored.
And more yelling. Asteria -hated- yelling. It was the sound of her parents arguing. Hating each other. When people were yelling she wasn't in control. Asteria happened to -love- her position of control on an almost dominatrix rivaling level.
She took a deeeeep breath, slowly setting both objects she held in her hands (the teacup and the knife, she was still holding the rag) and slowly sliding them out of her reach.. and the crazy yelling man's reach as well. Though that made no sense, seeing as they -both- had their own swords and would have no purpose for her knife.
Once she was sure she was out of the 'I'LL STAB YOU' zone, she whipped her head up to LEER at Yossarian, reaching up and grabbing a lock of his hair and pulling on it.
Hard.
"LIKE HELL IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. YOU DISTURB THE PEACE IN MY ESTABLISHMENT AND YOU -WILL- ANSWER TO ME." she growled, getting up into his face enough to assert her point.
A feat in and of itself as she wasn't exactly a tall individual. Not short by any means, but it was obvious she wasn't a physical threat on first glance. Not physically strong either, so whether he took her seriously or not was all up to his decisions of misfortune or not.
Kanda had been about to give the dictionary a snide line when the -THING- smashed into his nose, both sending a slight sting of pain through his FACE as well as surprising him. He was -not- fond of surprises. In fact, his response to having something smash into his cranium was to automatically lash out with a shoving paw.
Which of course got the one person who was just trying to apologize for the incident. Perhaps it was all the yelling.
EPIC SCOWL.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:38 pm
"WHAT?!" Of course, the stranger's first response to being yelled at was to yell right back-- and he did so with gusto, reeling around to face Asteria with disgruntlement practically dripping from every pore. "Remove that digit from my personage, you over-arrogant nuisance lest I REMOVE IT FOR YOU!"
... This was not going to end well; Shae could just feel it in her gut. The cogs of Bad Karma were beginning to turn again... and somehow, some way, she was going to get stuck in the middle of it.
Sure enough.
"I-I'm sorry!" she stammered again, near-frantic as she reached over to pluck the thing ('Del' apparently) from where it had fallen on his table... only to find herself meeting a very harsh shove from its cranky occupant. With a literal SQUEAK of surprise, she toppled back a step, tripped over her own sore ankle... and went crashing straight into the back of a certain yelling stranger.
Who, in turn, went crashing into Asteria with a FOUNTAIN of colorful swearing that had to be in several languages.
So.
There they were-- one dazed and bruised female, another bound to end up squashed, and the leftover male doing the squashing... as he screeched and cursed the one who'd accidently done it.
But it got even better because, as it turned out, the force of the final impact had been just enough to jar a lone candle on the wall, spilling over and flickering oh-so-innocuously as it dripped beads of wax onto the floor. Surely, surely it was a harmless mess and nothing more...
No, this wasn't going to end well at all.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:59 pm
"OH TRY ME!" she hissed back, not threatened in the least by the taller being who would .. very much be able to kick her a** in any given situation (outside of mental fortitude for sure) as now it was a territorial battle for her.
At least until he suddenly plummetted forwards and onto her, making her thank -GOD- she'd moved the knife away from her, though not so much the table that was placed behind her that her head slammed onto with a -very- painful sounding crunch, it flinging up to make way for the domino-ing group of Koshka which, unfortunately, Asteria found herself on the bottom off.
"Goddammit.. my head.." she whined once she gained some momentum to her brain, though she was sure she needed to go get it checked (or very much bandaged up), before she opened her eyes, which had clenched shut on contact with the wooden surface which rolled from side to side helplessly, though it seemed to be laughing at them.
Of course she got a face full of man-chest, which she automatically placed her hands against and tried to shove away.
"UGH. GET YOUR MUSCLES AWAY FROM MY NOSE!" she yelled, then seemed to swoon a bit, the hit to the head obviously being too much for her to yell about now.
Now Kanda -hadn't- meant for that to happen, the entire situation earning a slight 'Oh s**t' face from the merc who rose up to ...
Well, we'd never find out what he meant to do as suddenly, from across the room, SOMEONE yelled "OI. YOU DON'T PUSH LADIES." Only.. more drunken and less understandable as Kanda got hit, again in the face, with a bottle of booze it shattering on contact as he suddenly flumped up against -his- table, grabbing for places that didn't have still-partially-filled peices of the damned bottle on it to clutch his face.
Hard not to when you just got pwned.
"GODDAMMIT."
However, he put too much weight onto the table and it suddenly flipped up onto his side sending more alcohol onto the floor, which slowly seeped towards the ominously dripping candle.....
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:19 pm
This was not going to end well. This was absolutely not going to end well at all.
The frantic thought was playing over and over in her head like some kind of sick karmic mantra... or maybe that was only due to the fact that her head was now throbbing like bloated heart from the shock of getting hurled onto the floor (... which, she noted dully, was just as horribly dirty as Asteria had boasted earlier and would take a few hours of scrubbing to clean).
But wait, no, why was her mind straggling off to those kind of useless thoughts now?! She was in the middle of a giant mess! And that giant mess was about to get even worse!
... Eh, she'd blame it on the blunt force trauma.
"... S-Silence, just be quiet, woman!" Not exactly being in a better position to fuss than his squished 'partner' of sorts was, the stranger could only hiss down at her while he tried to pull himself up, forcibly untangling whatever limbs had been pretzeled together until he was on hands and knees. "My god... the incompetence of this place--"
And then he stopped dead in his verbal tracks, suddenly spotting what Shae had been transfixed on for a good three seconds prior. Even the brutal booze-mauling of Tea Boy hadn't distracted her from staring at it... and now he understood why.
"I-I would advise that we vacate," the girl muttered in a glazed, thin, shocky voice... and not a moment later, it happened.
The puddle of alcohol SPRANG to life in a splutter of flames.
"... Oh, for the love of, dammit, woman, GET UP!" More disgruntled than he had ever been, the stranger, with remarkable and sudden swiftness, grabbed Aster by the arm and forcefully yanked her to her feet. He'd be damned if he burned down with the rotten building... and didn't particularly want the guilt of her death on his conscience, even if she was an irritating strumpet.
The drunks who had realized their surroundings were already screaming and stampeding for the door... and Shae, looking thoroughly panicked for the first time, lashed out frantically to catch her twitching ping-pong ball by the wing and shove it back in her pocket as the smoke thickened into a black haze.
... Oh, the joy. The irony. The burning.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:39 pm
"L-loud.." she whined, face cringing, as Yossarian spoke, every word feeling like a bolt of lightening through her head, burning, hissing, stinging. Painful. Had he sounded so horrible to her before? She couldn't remember. Things were spinning, her head hurt...
She reached back and touched the back of her head, feeling something slick underneath her fingers, causing her to pull her hand back in front of her face and squish the substance between her fingers. This was.. was...
"I think I'm bleeding.." she mumbled sounding almost sleepy.
The sprawl of flames also burnt into her retinas, causing her to hiss, her brain throwing another tantrum. It wanted a break, oh so badly, from seeing the world, hearing the world and...
"OW!"
She felt a particular POP to her shoulder as she was forced to her feet, almost tumbling forward a few feet, before she grabbed for the first thing she could, which ended up being Yossarian's arm in a sort of half-functioning daze.
"What..why.. what...? Why are we all running...?" she asked, tagging along after him to the best of her abilities, presuming whomever (hey, black ponytail.. mom?) she'd grabbed onto (no really, mom, when did you come back?), even as her brain yelled in agony of the voices around her.
Sure was hot in here.
Kanda, on the other hand, while being partially blinded had -no- problem handling the feeling of his EYES BURNING WITH ALCOHOL in order to see that a) Fire. Like.. 2 meters from you. MOVE and 2) Um.. MOVE.
However, unlike the hoarde taking the -DOOR-, Kanda figured the... apparently incapacitated owner could stand to lose a window, the swordsman leaping up onto one of the tables and yanking the GirlBoy up with him. "C'mon."
Wasn't exactly being friendly, but he was -all- for outmaneuvering the lambs as he crossed over the tables, pulling his shirt up over his nose before coming to the seat that sat in front of the window, standing on it only for a moment before he bashed the window out, using the sheath of Mugen to clear out some of the extra sharp points before putting one foot on the frame and stepping out into the safety of the street where people were already running about for water to solve the problem.
Not out of kindness, but probably because the surrounding buildings didn't want to be caught on fire by default.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:57 pm
... If This Is Not Going To End Well was the mantra playing in Shae's head, than God Dammit WHY AM I SAVING THIS DESPICABLE WOMAN was the phrase on repeat in the dark stranger's, seizing every fragment of self-control in his person to restrain a hiss and NOT just let the dazed fool of a bar mistress go down with her own proverbial ship.
Damn chivalry, it would be the death of him.
His thinking (though he'd forever deny admitting it) ended up on the same line as Kanda's, spying the drunken stampede clogging the door and hurriedly diverting to the windows instead. Unlike Kanda, however, he spared his scabbard and simply kicked the damn thing open with his boot, heaved a sigh (of insufferable ego pain), plucked the idiot off her feet like some awkward hauling of the bride... and leapt out to freedom in the adjacent alley.
From there it was only a few quick steps before they were sufficiently clear of the blaze (and suddenly in the company of a small crowd with hoses and buckets), and set her back on her feet with a plainly unhappy scowl.
"... Someone will... most likely be able to assess your injuries soon," he mumbled, the agony evident in his voice as he failed to even look at her, "... just... be silent for now. It's most likely something concussive."
For his sake, that was.
Thankfully, however, Shae was in a marginally better condition than her fellow female-- and with the flying black ping-pong ball safely rescued, she had no qualms against being hauled to her feet or trailing along in her apparent savior's shadow. Her stride might've been lame, sure... but adrenaline worked wonders to numb the achy joints in a bad spot, and she flew right through the window at his heels, trying and failing to withhold a cough from the smoke.
All in all, she'd only escaped with minimal damage-- a couple of minor burns here and there, maybe, a little singing, her left sleeve burnt off and...
Oh, dammit.
Of all the times to forget her coat... This was just great.
Too bad the building hadn't been as fortunate as its residents... because the thing was up like a pile of matches now, and it didn't look to be quieting any time soon.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:09 pm
Asteria sat lamely, staring at the place she'd grown up go up in flames, the expression on her face about as dead as it made her feel inside, she looked up at Yoss as he spoke, her expression keeping his look of dead on it even as she started to formulate words again.
"Thank you."
She'd put as much of feeling as she could in it before her dazed expression went back to stare at the burning building. Now where would mom come home to? What about dad? They'd both been gone for so long and she still held onto the childish delusion, even at 20, that her mother was still alive and that her father was -NOT- in prison for killing her.
The yelling.
The loud noises buzzing around her caused her to clench her hands firmly over her ears, willing it all to go away before the Koshka sunk her face into her knees and just started to sob.
Kanda, who in no way felt responsible for anything, still stood by, watching the scene as after what felt like something akin to an hour the fire slowly was put to a painful death, leaving behind one sad looking corpse.
Three of the stone walls still stood, the insides of them blackened, a very unhappy sight. It didn't really bother him, in particular, as it was just a building. Not a person. Even if it was a person, not someone he knew. He shot the owner of the building a look as she sobbed, curling a lip at her. What was her problem?
She was alive wasn't she? Wasn't that good enough for her?
It was even more confusing to him when one of the people pulled the slightly burnt sign off of the post above the door and took it over to her, setting it next to her. Why did she need such a thing?
"Tch."
Fire was gone, building was gone, nobody had died. All in all, Kanda didn't even care enough to hang around for the most part, turning to leave once he was sure the situation had been settled (He'd had to see it through to the end since he'd been there since the beginning, afterall).
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:29 pm
... And once again, Yossarian's train of thought was right along with Kanda as he drank in the woman's expression with a look akin to bewilderment. Really, how could a mere building be so sentimental? It was just four walls and a roof, really; it wasn't alive, nor was it some sacred keeper of special memory (in his thoughts anyway).
She'd said thank you, but then she had started sobbing... sobbing! Just how was he supposed to handle someone in that kind of situation, anyway? He couldn't exactly storm off and abandon her in good conscience, but comforting wasn't his forte at all!
It was a good thing that some kinder fate (or simply Bad Karma Personified) intervened as none other than Shae, abandoned by her brooding company, quietly slipped over, absent-mindedly tugging what little of her sleeve remained to cover a half-exposed bicep. Just what was she up to?
"... Ma'am, I..." Her breath hitched a little, fishing into her pocket and withdrawing the wad of winnings and setting it next to the charred sign, with a quiet sigh. "Thank you very much for the meal, and your kindness," she muttered softly, oddly... hollow. "I apologize... for hurting you."
It was a strange way of phrasing things-- even for the flowery tongued stranger-- but she didn't elaborate and, only betraying the tiniest of frowns, turned quietly to follow Kanda's example and take her leave.
She was broke again, and would probably end up spending the night with rats, but... it was the least she could do. No one deserved to suffer without support like that.
Which only left the most disgruntled and clueless of them all, awkwardly standing near Aster and not looking sure of... well, much of anything, really.
"Oi, woman... do you need me to escort you to a clinic?" he finally asked after a long pause, "... you look as though you need it. That's a significant amount of blood..."
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:45 pm
Asteria looked up at Shae as she spoke, focusing on the young girl's face with a sort of intensity as her concussion (not too serious, by all god's grace) slowly started to lift it's confusion and left her only with the throbbing on the back of her head.
Not painful, but a pressure.
Her eyes slowly followed her hands as Shae placed the money next to the sign which, from the looks of things, she'd just realized was there, slowly picking it up to ignore the 'offering', slowly tracing her fingers over the words in it, nostalgicly.
"Thank you..." she repeated, before she thunked her head against the wood. Her shoulders didn't shake like they had before, so one couldn't exactly be sure if she was crying now. She remained so until Yossarian spoke, his voice cutting into her brain which was still senstive, wincing a bit before she looked up at him.
A frown. "What are..?" she could hardly remember feeling the bleeding on the back of her head earlier, but her gaze went to the spots she'd left on his arm, before her hand reached back to feel the nice open slice in her skull, before again looking at her palm.
She was indeed bleeding. "..........." She said nothing, a grim expression on her face as she picked up the money that had been left to her and shoved it into the neck of her shirt, slowly rising to her feet then swooning a bit from the lack of proper oxygenation to her brain.
In a passing window, Kanda had stopped and glanced in a window, pausing to stare when he saw the imprint of -SOMETHING- was firmly in his face...
"......"
He took a moment trying to figure out what would have left that shape (he could remember a bottle to the face), when the image of the twitching.. THING on the table came back into his mind and the scowl returned as he did a 180 and started to head in the OPPOSITE direction.
The THING had something that had crashed into his face and he wasn't about to let that slide because of some fire.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:08 pm
"..." Dammit. Dammit. Dammit DAMMIT DAMMIT! Now he knew he'd have to make good on his word and drag the swaying mess of a woman somewhere to get her head fixed (physically-- there was no cure for the mental). Worse still, if she wasn't even capable of standing on her own without tipping over, there was no way in hell she'd be able to walk by herself, either...
Yes, reiterating the DAMMITS again sounded like a good idea.
"... You're bleeding," he stated again more slowly now, as if trying to explain something complicated to a slow witted toddler. Then, with a sigh of pain and resignation, he reached out and grabbed the sign from her with one hand, then... latched the other around her wrist. "Come on."
He'd drag her to a clinic to get her skull stitched up and be done with this mess forever... Indeed, it was an excellent plan! Perfect! Flawless! Simple!
Or so he lied to himself, glancing back at her to make sure she wasn't about to fall flat on her face as they started off and secretly prayed that he'd be able to wash his hands of this whole mess sooner, rather than later.
"Of everything that I could possibly burn..."
Shae, all the while, had quietly taken her leave from the chaos, slipping along through the eerily quiet cobblestone streets and absent-mindedly tugging at the pathetic remains of her left sleeve. There were only bare edges of scarring exposed, sure... but even that left her feeling more uncomfortable than the renewed limp and bruised eye... or hell, even the tiny cuts from the broken glass that she'd only just noticed.
Worst of all, of course, was the fact that she had no money to get herself a new shirt with... and her coat was lost in the flames, too!
"... What are we going to do now, Del?" she muttered, fishing into her pocket to release the little black ball, who promptly fluttered up to perch on her shoulder and made an odd, off-pitch clicking sound as she stroked it.
It was going to be a hard night, she knew, but... she'd live through it, just like always.
"Maybe I can find someone nonviolent to play chess with," she muttered half-heartedly, allowing herself to finally show the depression she'd been holding in since no one was around to pay witness. "... That... that would be nice, don't you think?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:22 pm
"My head hurts.." she mumbled in reponse to his repeating of her condition, placing one hand against her forehead, "Like a hangover." A decent comparison in her mind, considering she'd never really had a hangover, but of those she'd known who -had-, it was always the noise.
For her it was the noise. Her logic was flawless.
She walked pretty well, as long as she remembered how to pick up her feet, as it only required she keep falling forward. That wasn't to say that was how she was going about it, but that was about how it felt to her as she followed along after him.
That's when his tail became quite a focus of her attention. "... My tail used to be pretty like yours is....." she said, almost randomly, before blinking a bit and glancing back behind herself, then around, then back to Yossarian.
"And why are you being so nice..? I yelled at you earlier."
He'd responded fast enough to see the owner of the THING duck down a street, giving the wreckage of the burnt building a glass as he ran past it, nearly taking himself out on a trashcan as he went to catch up with the ASSAULTER OF HIS FACE.
Moreso he ran to make sure she didn't escape his gaze (as he hated having to look for things) so once he was sure she wouldn't get lost on him, he resumed his more casual pace, leering at the back of Shae's head.
He was using his 'I SEE YOU' morse code on the back of her head. Everybody seemed to be at least semi fluent if you leered hard enough, so he figured that would work well enough for now. Lazy? Kind of. Observing? Kind of.
Singed?
Well he sure noticed when the mild pain of ash on his exposed arm bid it's greeting to him, earning a glance as her looked to it, continuing to tail his new 'target'.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:54 pm
"... Well that's no shocking revelation," the disgruntled dark stranger grumbled, still keeping pace all the while and only glancing back here and there to keep assuring himself that his luggage was, indeed, still keeping up. "You cracked your skull on a hard surface; that tends to cause discomfort."
It was hard to say whether he was being sarcastic or not with that deadpan tone, really. Still, he humored her with responses to whatever she asked... even if the questions were occasionally difficult. Like that last one, for example.
"I'm not being!-- ..." It started as more of a snap, but he caught himself, forced a deep sigh, and tried again. "... I'm not being nice, woman; I'm being proper. No man worth his salt would abandon a comrade in the midst of turmoil. Such is... my creed."
He silently thanked every god he could think of as he saw the swinging sign reading 'Caraway's Clinic' down the road, quickening his pace a little as they approached.
"Someone will fix you in there," he reminded her, "... let's hurry along and get this debacle over with, eh..." A brief pause. "What was your call name?"
Of course, even the most obvious of Morse Code messages was only effective if the recipient happened to be paying attention-- and Shae, it seemed, was off in her own world of worry, conversing with her silent flying ping-pong ball in a weak tone as she limped along with that pathetically lame gait.
"... Pretty pathetic, isn't it," she mumbled to it, still toying with the little patchwork-wings with one hand as she tried desperately to forget about her 'indecent' exposure. "... I could've... stayed somewhere comfortable for a good two weeks with all of that, you know. I should've learned by now to put myself first in a world like th--..."
"... You."
She froze dead in her tracks and blanched five shades whiter (which was an accomplishment with her pale skin anyway) at the sight of a grizzled, scar-faced koshka down the road whose eyes were now fixed on her in a look of shock and rage.
... Of all the people, ALL she could have run across in such an enormous city, HOW had she managed to cross paths yet again with Arthur, the surly friend of her burly chess opponent from earlier in the morning?
Dammit, Karma.
And of course she took off running in a heartbeat (limp be damned), and of course the fellow gave chase after her (with a lovely howl of profanities) when she split into the nearest alley between passing buildings.
Would this day ever end for her?
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