|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 11:22 pm
((Backdated to immediately following the New Beginnings Thread))
In the last few hours, Captain Zircon had seen the most political upheaval in the Negaverse since Charonite had been imprisoned by Metallia herself. From the ashes, a queen was crowned, and she had three new General-Sovereigns at her beck and call, to usher in a new and glorious era of the Negaverse. She'd proven that, with some accommodations, she could still be worthy on a battlefield of her peers, though that hadn't been enough to merit her own acknowledgement by their queen. She supposed it was only fair--the Negaverse had never rewarded a mere 'average' performance, and she would get no sympathy for choosing to live with her impediment as it was, not when there were other...viable...options.
For all that it should have been a night of celebration...she needed a drink. And thankfully, by the grace of her general she already had a drinking partner.
She could have just teleported them both to the Village Pub, but she herself had wanted time to shower, to recollect herself, and so she'd given him directions in Negaspace and then ported herself home, nearly collapsing from the effort. It was becoming a bit of a hobby of hers to end the night face-down on her living room floor, and she couldn't rightly say what that even meant about her. Powering down was less shedding skin and more a tired exhale, and for five minutes she just lay on the ground, groaning.
Maverick, for his efforts, tried to make it better. The shaggy Siberian sat on her back and began grooming.
---
An hour later, a very tired Suri Ellis made her way through the doors of the Village Pub, waving past the hostess and hobbling straight for the bar. With no one she felt the need to impress, she walked on her crutches, her knuckles pale as she gripped them for support. Getting up on her bar stool was a bit more of an adventure than she was used to, but thankfully it was a slow night and she found a place near a wall where she could stow her crutches for safekeeping.
Suri made small talk with the bartender while she ordered her whiskey and ginger, amber eyes always keeping track of the door. Hers was an easy enough description to match between officer and civilian--there were only so many platinum blondes in Destiny City sporting prosthetic footwear, and she was wearing a cat cardigan, which by all accounts was pretty hard to miss. This other captain, though...well, he might not have even been a redhead, powered down. She'd certainly seen stranger things.
She supposed she couldn't complain. There were worse ways to host a 'debriefing'.nuxaz I hope this is okay ;A; If there's anything you'd like me to change, I'd be happy to do so!
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 22, 2016 1:57 pm
Like Suri, James had returned to his meager apartment after getting Levi home. He was in better shape than the others had been though his back was littered with bruises that had just started to form from the rocks that had fallen on him. He was fortunate, he knew, and that's why he spent more time in the shower than necessary.
James had been promoted, been made a captain, in front of everyone in attendance.
There was a part of him that hoped the scalding water would take it away, removed the chaos that had zinged his literal soul and changed him. What did that say about him? He was given a promotion he didn't know he wanted and -
In the end, James tried not to think about it. Instead, he got out of the shower, got dressed and towel dried his hair. Then, he went to the agreed location to meet Suri. His reddish-brown hair was still damp and curling as he walked into the pub, bright green eyes scanning the area until he saw the woman in question.
Taking a deep breath he strode towards her and slid into the stool beside her.
"It's been a long day," he said to her, then he ordered a manhattan. Taking a long sip he turned his attention to his companion. "Tell me was the graveyard any worse than a cave full of glowing rocks?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 10:01 am
Suri turned, assessing his features. Auburn curls, green eyes...if she imagined, she could see the cowl around his head, the dark jacket, but no matter how she tried to look at him he didn't seem quite right to be the other captain.
Glamours were a hell of a thing, she supposed.
"Just as long as any other," she said with a noncommittal shrug, scratching at the burn scar on her wrist. "There were youma, wolves and then a giant...beetle, I think. It was a fight. We are soldiers. We succeeded." Success, however, had not earned her the promotion, no more than a fish might be rewarded for swimming. She had to do better, but...how? The wheels in her head turned in a maddening waltz, and for all that she spun her gears she could find no solution, no path, no solid ground on which to stand.
"But I suppose glowing rocks was enough to grant you her attention, which is all that matters," Suri glowered, bitter as she took a sip from her drink. She waited for the bartender to pass by them, and then looked to her drinking partner with a critical glance. "You tell me, what was bad enough about glowing rocks to earn a promotion?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 3:17 pm
James preferred to not think about magic and glamour and all those complicated things whenever he wasn't powered. He didn't bother to look at the woman to his left and scrutinize her appearance or attempt to see where Suri became Zircon.
He was battered and exhausted. Frankly, the man wanted to drink and not think about military business. Of course, Suri appeared to have different plans.
"If you don't succeed, then you die," James stated plainly, choosing to stare at the still surface of his whiskey mix than the woman with him. He was content to let silence settle between them, but she was speaking and the bitterness was plain in her voice.
"Who cares why I got her attention," he snapped, fingers pressing against the glass in a grip that would shatter it if he was Aluminite and not James. "I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it." The admission was a hiss with green eyes narrowing when he looked at her. "There was no fighting, no real obstacles like you seemed to go through. We got in, we got out with the place caving around us. I don't know why I got her attention, except maybe so I could have more strength to do better next time." He shook his head, forced his grip to loosen and spread his now sweating palms on his jeans.
"Hell, it's been at least four years of following orders, doing what I'm told and fulfilling quotas without complaint. Maybe she decided it was just time."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:47 am
Suri didn't catch the grip on his glass, the tension building in his posture, but she did blink in soft surprise at the sudden vitriol in his voice. It was only then that she looked him over and saw the pieces that suggested his own dissent, even though it would not define the source. What Agent of Chaos wouldn't wish to be raised by Metallia herself, given the opportunity? Wasn't that the goal of every officer, to climb ranks and sit comfortably on the seat of General-Sovereign? For years, it had been Suri's only solace against the unrelenting tide of White-Moon soldiers, the chance that perhaps one day she would be leading the pawns instead of just being one herself.
Nevertheless, something desperate in his voice struck a chord in the woman, who released her grip on her drink slowly as she watched him with a furrowed brow. She ached in her heart to mistrust him, to see him as a competitor that had beaten her out for notice in Metallia's halls and was now playing dumb to keep her from tasting the same success. But it didn't line up with why he chose to meet here, to drink with her above and beyond Labyrinthite's orders to check in, to unwind and make himself vulnerable when his guard should have been equally up. Maybe he sought to sabotage her from a closer vantage point? But Zircon was no threat to a newly minted Aluminite, as his bid for General would not be up for at least six months while hers was long overdue.
Most tellingly, none of the theories spinning around in her head matched what she simply observed--that he was stressed, that he was tired, that he was a pawn as much as she was and reaching out to see if maybe she understood as well.
Suri didn't understand. But it was a challenge that intrigued her, so she was trying.
"...It was almost five years, when Zinke--when they chose to promote me," she responded awkwardly after a long period of silence, reaching gingerly for her drink as she watched for the bartender. What she shared was no secret, had Aluminite gone through her records, but it was dangerous to be so open about her years of service in the company of civilian ears. "It was weird--we'd been lieutenants together, but there he was, a General-King, with some secret to power I'd apparently missed." Her voice had gone bitter again, but this time it was directed inwardly, staring down as the ice-cubes in her drink slowly began to melt.
"I always assumed it was every officers goal, to get promoted," she admitted, swirling the ice in her glass. It had been a critical moment in Zircon's own career, a step away from the ever-present threat of being youmafied should she not prove her own worth. And yet, even though she had her station, the fear still loomed in the back of her mind, a soft nagging that kept her moving further every day. Perhaps James had been inducted to a softer version of the Negaverse, that he'd never known such dread. But she supposed becoming a captain was not altogether a pleasant experience, if she continued to try and find his point of view. It had always been a fair exchange for her--suffering for power, but she supposed that not everyone saw it so cleanly. It occurred to her then that some officers hadn't even asked for their lifestyle, had been drafted under conditions outside their control. She wasn't sure she could sympathize, but perhaps she could pity.
"What would you have wanted, then?" she asked slowly, her eyes confused but searching to understand. "To just...stay bottom of the totem pole forever?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 9:32 am
James avoided looking at Suri until the weight of her gaze sat heavy on his shoulders. He sighed, brought his glass to his mouth and tipped it all back in one go. It burned on the way down as he expected and he used the burn wince to hide his real one when he faced her. "Different people are suited to different things."
He thought about his students and how he needed to adjust teaching methods depending on who was struggling. Different officers rose at different ranks.
"Some are meant to lead and others are not." His voice was quiet, non accusatory. "It doesn't mean any of us are any less but - " he stopped, swallowed hard and wiped his hands on his jeans. "I never wanted any of this." None of this was what I expected, what I was told or promised, he thought.
"I died once and something brought me back but lately - I don't think it's what I was led to believe." How did he explain the current of confusion that often perplexed him now. "I would rather be at the bottom than being given control over sending someone to their death." Or the risk of it. "I'd rather not be involved at all." But he couldn't shirk his duties, he knew what happened to those that went inactive.
He had people to protect and so he stayed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 9:07 am
Suri listened intently, not sure whether the pull on her gut was from camaraderie or fear. It was treason to question motives, to be ungrateful for the gifts Metallia gave, and she would surely be rewarded handsomely for airing his grievances to Schörl. And yet...was she so different, to try and avoid a youma prosthesis, to have tried to hear out the Knights and reach a middle ground? If he was a traitor, then so was she, and she'd begged Labyrinthite to not be branded as such.
"I think that's what we all want, eventually," she conceded, turning back to her drink. Ginger beer was too sweet for the subject at hand, but she sipped it down anyways. "When the war is over and we've won, that is." She'd seen a future where the war was nearly over, and it didn't seem restful, at least not for her, but in that life she'd made different, more grievous mistakes. Maybe this time she'd already paid her dues and suffered enough. "But there's still a fight to be fought and it's either you making the call or you being sent down the river, and I know where I'd rather be."
To that, she finished her drink, flagging down the bartender for a second round for each of them. "I'm curious to know what you mean when you say you died and came back," she said, sinking in to her new whiskey, this time no ginger beer, just ice. "Were you...recruited after you were awakened?" It was a curious thought, that he might have known what it meant to be a part of the White Moon first. She'd often wondered what Bolton felt after she had been brought into the fold, but as a superior officer Zircon had never pressed her for personal matters.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 9:41 am
As Suri spoke one thing came to mind, a question he didn't voice because he didn't think it wise too. What if the war never ends? How many years had it been now, that Metallia had been waging her war against those of the White Moon? How long had this back and forth dance been going on in the confines of Destiny City, the seeming last stronghold of senshi and knight alike to combat what the Negaverse and it's allies sought to accomplish?
James didn't even know what they were fighting for any longer.
In truth, he wasn't sure he cared. What he cared about was protecting the people he loved or cared for and that meant following orders, keeping his head down, and not causing trouble. If he had to be a good soldier as Labyrinthite trained and expected to make sure that he didn't draw attention to himself and his, then he would.
If he could keep blood off his hands, then he was going to.
"As I said, different roles for different people." Being sent ahead as canon fodder wasn't appealing but he didn't want to be the one who sent soldiers marching to their deaths either. A rock and a hard place. "Before I enlisted, I went missing. A bunch of us did, you probably read about it, considering we all just reappeared one day. I died and then I came back. It's really just that."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:26 pm
"It's Destiny City, people go missing every day," Suri responded, swirling the ice in her glass, but she nodded anyway. She supposed it wasn't important what the details were--they fought a war against people who wielded space magic, death was only an inconvenience if you had enough power at your disposal. She'd heard vague things about the Cauldron and the cycles of rebirth, how it held the souls of anyone whose starseed had been carefully maintained in life. The Negaverse broke that cycle, they stole from the Cauldron and refused to feed the engine of life and death, and for that they'd been beset with senshi and knights to foil Metallia's plans. She wondered if the Knights were told a different story by their Code, something twisted to suit the narrative of the Negaverse as this purely evil force. But James wouldn't know, even if she'd wanted to ask someone--he'd said enlisted, which implied that he'd been with them from the start.
"But seriously, you don't want a command someday?" Suri asked, her tone less judgmental and more curious, if pitched a bit lower to ignore the bartender's notice. "Lieutenants at your will. A chance that your voice will matter. I mean, think about it." She paused to sip at her whiskey, then set it away from her so she could clasp her hands together on the bar. "Wouldn't you want what Labyrinthite has? Or Schörl?" She sighed, looking wistful as she looped her hands behind her head to rub at the back of her neck. It was foolish, so very foolish, to try and think of herself in terms of her betters, but she couldn't help but dream that some day she might command the same sort of respect and authority.
"They don't...feel fear, they don't have limits like the rest of us," she shrugged, bringing her arms back down again. In the back of her mind, Suri cautioned against sharing her feelings, her weaknesses, to another captain, but he'd already proven too unmotivated to be a suitable threat to her own career, and she was altogether too tired to think of social strategy. "Labyrinthite is this terror on the battlefield, you should have seen him tonight, and Schörl, she's..." Suri paused, at a momentary loss for words. "...She's perfect, everything a general should be."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 12:06 pm
"This was different." James replied, voice tired and his expression that of a man who was too worn to argue. He didn't push it, instead swirled his glass and raised it to his lips, chugging down the remains and signaling for a replacement.
He wasn't much of a drinker, but today had been one of those days.
"You're asking if I want to be in charge and make the choices of who gets to live and who gets to die, something that could be decided by rank alone." It was then that he looked at her, fresh glass in hand and both elbows on the counter as his face turned. Wetting his lips he shook his head. "You're having delusions of grandeur, Suri." To him, everything she spoke of were pipe dreams in the hands of those that wanted it and nightmares in the hands of those that wanted nothing to do with power and the costs that came with it.
"Why would I want what he has? To travel down a path and know that the people around me are witnesses to the way it warps and changes me? You might be his right-hand, but I have seen exactly what power and promotions have done to him." It had been slow at first and things about the Chase he originally knew lingered but overall?
It was not a path that he wished to take.
The mention of the other general had him snorting into his glass. His own interactions with the general were minimal, so much so that they were virtually non-existent but he knew of her. Knew in the same way that people knew of their general, in an unpleasant way that spoke of lies and terror.. "For someone who has been around for so long, I'm surprised by your naivety."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2017 11:47 pm
"I'm having ambitions about a career I've put a lot of time and effort into," Suri corrected with an incline of her glass, drinking deep to the idea of a cape on her shoulders. The Negaverse was an organization built on the bones of sunk-cost fallacies, but her situation was different because she had a plan of action, a way to save herself from the terrible fate of a mediocre existence before she turned thirty and it was too late to become someone who mattered. The Negaverse needed more than soldiers, it needed press and researchers and those who could bring about a unified infrastructure when the fighting was done.
(If they were just soldiers, then the Negaverse had no need of a broken one, but she chased that thought down with the bottom of her glass.)
Her shoulders began to rise at the mention of Chase, but her mouth twisted into a smug little curl at the fluttering of 'right-hand'. "We've all had sacrifices to make, but it's inspiring to see how strong he's become. All of us should be proud to serve under his example." A small part of her was intrigued by the idea of Chase before Labyrinthite, but it was rude of her to ask a third party. Insubordinate, even. She herself would least of all want to be judged by her peers for her own career as a lieutenant.
"Well, for someone who just got promoted, I'm surprised by your lack of gratefulness," she quipped back smartly, wagging her finger at the bartender for another round. She leaned her cheek against the curl of her knuckles and looked at James, really looked, sinking into the comfortable warmth of her hard-won buzz.
"I suppose you just lack the temperament for command," she nodded in final judgement, sliding her old glass away for a new drink cradled between outstretched fingers. She didn't take a sip immediately--it was all about pacing, after all, and she had to remind herself that she was working to keep up with a man who carried more weight and had probably eaten something substantial before their mission. Still, even this managed to be a competition, a battle of wits. Threat or not, there was still a challenge to be heeded, and Suri would be the victor or she would claim she'd never been playing. The rules were malleable that way, when they weren't stated out loud.
"Tell me about Chase then, since you know so much," she sneered, curiosity winning out over her weakening caution. It was hard to imagine him outside of the danger, the trace of mania, the thrill of the hunt--had there been anything else, before Chaos had made him Labyrinthite? "Why should he care if we watch him change? He's better. It's what we should all strive for."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:46 am
Suri could justify her thoughts any which way and James would still be giving her the same, leveled stare that implied disbelief and even disappointment. "You can make something sound pretty but it doesn't change what it is." He knew because that was what his job, when he had time to dedicate to it, was. He wrote articles that laid out the facts with pretty words designed to detract and distract or even confused.
He shook his head when she revered Chase and turned to busy himself with his drink, appreciating the way the whiskey burn settled his nerves. "Strength at the cost of your humanity isn't worth it, if you ask me. You don't notice it because you're too busy wearing rose-colored glasses, but that man we 'serve' is hardly worth looking up to." He shook his head, downing the last of his drink and signaling for a refill.
"Power isn't worth the cost of my soul." James thought it was a crude way of saying it but also the most basic, most understandable.
Suri wouldn't understand, he already knew, because she didn't want to. She didn't want to see anything how it was but how she wanted it to be.
"I told you, I never asked for any of this." He had kept his head down, did what he had to to meet quota and tried to stay under the radar. In the end that didn't matter because they still pumped more poison disguised as power into him and called it a gift. Suri told him to be grateful and he wanted to laugh in her face.
"Would it matter in the end? Would you change your opinion of him because of what I told you?" He asked instead of answering, shifting again to face her, a newly poured glass held by the loose fingers of one hand. "He was, is, young. Younger than us and it doesn't bother you that he has no aspirations to do anything outside of being used as a sword? Does it not bother you that he doesn't have a life outside of work? That he doesn't seem to care about anything unless he's angry?" His questions were spat more forcefully than he intended.
"Or are you too busy idolizing what he's become because you're afraid of admitting that you think that being human makes you feel weak?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:46 pm
Suri knew as a matter of technicality that she was older than Chase, but it was not the same as ever thinking of him as young. In her time with the Negaverse, she had served officers who were actual teenagers, so by the time they were well into her twenties she stopped trying so hard to blur the line. What mattered was that Labyrinthite had been a captain when she was a lieutenant, and now he was a general when she was a captain. He was her superior officer, and as far as she was concerned, his ambitions were more perfectly aligned with Metallia's than hers, which meant she still had work to do. She didn't see why James would seem so bothered by it, except that it furthered her opinion that he just didn't want to prioritize the Negaverse in any kind of meaningful way.
And then he dropped his little quip about feeling human and Suri paused, a hand over her chest, her expression blank.
"...I don't idolize him," Suri murmured in half-protest, still too stunned to comment on the rest of his barbed statement. She let her eyes slide away from him, lingering in her frozen pose while she considered the bubbles of her drink, and then leaned forward to down the rest of her liquid courage. With the way her hands shook, she found that she suddenly needed it in spades.
In silence, she let herself settle in to the warmth of a whiskey glow, the exhaustion in her bones, the unsettling line of thinking that James had inspired to quiet her probing questions. The bartender came and went by, but Suri didn't lift her hand for another round, not when she was already swimming too much in her own thoughts. James was no danger, unmotivated as he was, but the greatest danger to Suri was often herself, her own incompetence and failure to succeed.
"Being who I am does make me weak," she began, breaking the silence with a terrible truth that snuck through her lips before she had time to be afraid he might hear her. She didn't look to him for a response, focused instead on the way half-melted ice slid in the bottom of her glass as she swirled it around. "A sword has a use. Chase has a use. I..."
Suri caught the last of her words before they could spill out of her throat and choked on them, coughing. She ordered a water, a proverbial throwing in of the towel. She was done sharing these feelings, playing this game. If she couldn't win their argument, then they weren't having one, and that was that.
"You're a terrible drinking buddy," she muttered darkly, one last little jab before she nursed her bitter pride over her glass of water.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:29 pm
James had stopped looking at Suri and his glass had been returned, with an audible thunk to the table with the barest dredges of whiskey clinging to the ice cubes. It was the slowly melting ice that he fixated upon, the condensation that built up around the glass and slowly trickled down as it sweat to stain the counter with a wet ring, and he waited.
I don't idolize him, Suri had protested and he nearly snorted, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.
"Are you sure?" He asked in return, head shaking and tongue sliding from the inside of cheek and across his teeth in agitation. "Because with how blindly you follow him, it's hard to tell if you even know how to do anything without asking for permission or waiting for orders to be given." After he said it, James knew that he was being unfair, perhaps even harsh since he had only seen Zircon in relation to Labyrinthite a handful of times, but how she spoke made him angry.
It reminded him of what chaos did to those that didn't want to see it as anything other than something that corrupted and twisted a person.
Of course, that reminded him that he didn't used to be so painfully aware of how anxious it made him, how much power cost and he didn't think it was worth his soul but he didn't know how to do anything about it.
And Suri was talking again so James shifted in his seat to give her his full attention, green eyes staring at her face until she looked back at him in return. "Being human doesn't make you weak. Being a little damaged doesn't make you useless. If you can't overcome your struggles because you're 'too weak' or 'not useful enough'--" He cut himself off abruptly, mouth clamping shut and adam's apple bobbing while he tried to reign in this flash of anger.
"Swords have uses, yeah, including not being able to control who they hurt because they gave up their ability to choose and if that's the kind of life you want...Don't expect it to be a happy one."
Money was fished out of his wallet and he slapped down the bills before sliding off the barstool.
"You're right, I am, but so are you."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 7:16 pm
In that moment, Suri hated James. Not because he was cruel or wrong, but precisely opposite--that he had spent so little time in her presence and already was calling attention to her edges and flaws, mocking her for her obedience and her sacrifices. His green eyes burned her, and she didn't want to look at them, and so she didn't, staring hard at the crutches next to her barstool instead.
It took him moving to divert her gaze, but there wasn't much a woman on crutches could do to stop a man who towered above her, even when he slouched. She started to call out to him, to prepare some kind of venom in her barbed response, but before she could think of anything his back was to the door and she was alone, tired and bitter and so incredibly done.
"Bring my check," she hissed to the bartender as he came around, and then she buried her hands in her hair, clenching her jaw so she wouldn't have to scream. Her life already wasn't a happy one--shouldn't she at least have a use? Wasn't that still a choice, to plunge herself headfirst and give it her all? She would show James--she'd prove him wrong, someday when she was strong and he was still some ungrateful captain.
She struggled to scribble a name onto her receipt and nearly fell onto her crutches, her expression a dark cloud as she hobbled for the door. Someday she would walk up to him herself and give him a piece of her mind. Someday.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
