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 Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2025 8:39 pm
As autumn bled into winter, and temperatures in Destiny City plunged, Carterhaugh found himself enjoying the chilly nights. There was a certain charm to winter, and honestly, he was looking forward to snow. As much as he enjoyed the new growth of spring, there was nothing like the quiet of a snowy morning, before it had gotten disturbed, when things were cold and silent and glimmering with promise.
A childlike wonder he had never quite let go of.
And, anyway, it had now been nearly a year since he returned to Destiny City. Since he decided to take up the Knight name of Carterhaugh properly once again. Since...well, since he had stopped running away and hiding in England. He was home, now--and Destiny City really was home--and things were starting to feel real again.
He didn't have any particular aims tonight, and he had been sort of wandering, enjoying the pleasantly chilly weather, but he'd noticed someone else's aura and gone to find them--and found a pleasant surprise once he did.
"Oh!" He recognized those bunny ears, and those colors. "Hello! I think I saw you on Dagon, didn't I? That was some fight, yeah?" To say the absolute least. Carterhaugh didn't think he'd seen anything like it before. ...Perhaps that was for the best.
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2025 11:15 pm
The biggest problem with a spontaneous, emotionally motivated patrol was that Arcalís……didn’t rightly know where he wanted to go, or what he wanted to do exactly. His clearest motivation was simple and straightforward: get out of the house. Get away from the urn. Put distance between himself and Mauritz’s ashes, and all the ghosts of the man he’d loved that he’d carried around since killing him.
As if it were even possible for that distance to really exist anymore. After so long with Mauritz’s memory haunting him—hanging over his mind, heavy and cold as guilt, whether he was digging in community gardens as Lilitu or patrolling the streets while powered up—Arcalís didn’t know if he really remembered what it felt like to exist without those ghosts dogging him. They popped up into his awareness without him needing to think about the urn sometimes. Then, whatever the skeletal leviathan on Dagon’s world had done, Mauritz’s ghost had conjured itself out of the fog without Arcalís needing to think anything about him.
But as he wandered near one of the parks a few blocks away from home, Arcalís shook his head. He tried to banish those thoughts because they weren’t helpful. Deep breaths of the cold air, letting it fill his lungs with the sharp reminder that he was here. He was alive. Mauritz wasn’t. But Arcalís was. And so was the person attached to the friendly-feeling (or at least fellow Order) aura, which he eagerly turned toward. Meeting more friends in town couldn’t hurt, he figured.
When Arcalís saw the Squire attached to the aura, an earnest smile came to him easily.
“Oh, it’s you!” He hadn’t gotten a very good look at the Squire up there, barely more than a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. But now that Arcalís could better appreciate the view, he thought the Squire looked quite pretty. He had a kind face—or at least it currently seemed that way to Arcalís—and warm eyes. “Yes, my, uh—my partner and I were up on Dagon to help her with her Chaos problem. It, uh……really was quite unexpected.”
To say the absolute least. But Arcalís was trying to clear that thought from his mind.
Extending a hand, the senshi added, “I’m Arcalís. And my partner isn’t here right now, but he’s Madriu. And……thank you, for bringing your magic to the battle. It helped us to keep fighting. And I know it made me feel more capable of fighting that leviathan even when my own magic ran out.”
This was, he felt, a quite nice turn of things in the evening. Running into someone who had helped so many and whom Arcalís wanted to thank? That felt like a perfect way of getting out of his head, where he could not feel so dogged by Maurtiz’s ghost.
Perhaps, if Arcalís had not focused so intently on the Squire, he might have noticed the feeling of a youma’s aura flaring up nearby.
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2025 11:22 pm
Carterhaugh felt his cheeks flush warm, a mix of embarrassment and pride all at once. Being recognized for what he'd done felt...well, it wasn't totally unusual? But it was new to him as a Knight, at least. Asher, and then Ashe, had gotten acknowledgements for things they'd done at work, but Carterhaugh had been a fumbling Page and even now barely felt ready to be more than that.
Still, this was a Senshi from beyond Earth thanking him for what little he was able to do. That felt good.
"I'm glad I was able to help," he said. "It was a massive fight, and we all needed to look after each other out there. If I could make that easier..." He'd done well, he thought, first just by being there and second by ensuring those with more physical capability got to throw the punches they needed to.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Arcalis. I'm Carterhaugh of Earth," he introduced himself. "I'd love to meet your partner sometime, too, it was brave of you both to--"
Show up, he'd wanted to say, but he was startled out of speaking by spotting something moving in the dark behind Arcalis. A large shape, low to the ground, with the vague body outline of an alligator. If alligators had massive spikes down their backs and thagomizers on their tails.
"Behind you," Carterhaugh warned, reaching out to gently grab Arcalis's arm and tug him back to get some more space.
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Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:16 pm
Arcalís smiled, when Carterhaugh took his hand and introduced himself. Maybe it was a simple meeting and only a simple exchange of pleasantries, but……it still felt good. It felt like Arcalís was finding more of his footing in this modern era, outside of Madriu (whom he loved above all others, yes, and had done since before Mauritz had ever flirted with him……but it wasn’t fair to either of them for one to make the other into his entire life, and limit himself to nothing else). Connecting with more people felt like taking steps back into a real kind of life. Like more of those steps could be within his grasp too, with the right help.
He was allowing his thoughts to drift to Mauvians—about trying to find one who could help him and Lex set things up with their house, so they had the electricity that humans had in their own homes, and so they could work and pay taxes like full, participating members of society—when he felt his ears instinctively p***k up. It took a moment to consciously recognize that he was feeling the youma’s aura. Once he did, though, Arcalís stiffened with a throaty, disgusted sound. Youma had yet to stop unsettling him, with the deep sense that something was deeply, horribly wrong with them in addition to the fact that they were powered by the Negaverse’s Chaos.
“My magic should work pretty well on it,” he whispered to Carterhaugh, raising a hand and readying himself. “But it’s been unpredictable since I came to Earth.… Could you maybe channel yours at the same time for me? Please?”
On one hand, sometimes Arcalís’s magic had been unpredictable in ways that went far in excess of what he needed it to do. But that was the thing about unpredictability, wasn’t it? You could never tell what was going to happen. Having the additional support of Carterhaugh’s magic, with the way it emboldened its recipients and empowered them…… Technically, it wasn’t necessary, but it would have helped give Arcalís more peace of mind.
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Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:28 pm
The creature lumbered. It was probably heavy and nasty, Carterhagh would bet, but at least it was slow--and slow could be used to their advantage. Plenty of time to set things up. On his own, Carterhaugh probably would have run from such a beast, given its size and his lack of ability to directly defend himself, but...well, he felt far less intimidated standing next to someone else than he might have if he were by himself.
Especially someone he already knew to be thoroughly capable in a fight, given what he'd seen on Dagon.
"Of course," he said. The request for his magic made sense; a little extra help was always good. So he focused on his weapon, and let the scent of roses flow out around him. "I'll leave actually dusting that thing to you." He was better in the back lines, but Arcalis already seemed to understand that. Good.
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Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:57 pm
Carterhaugh’s Wonder had bestowed on him powerful magic. As Arcalís breathed in deep the smell of roses, he already felt emboldened. Raising his hand felt easier than it might have done. His nerves felt steady and steeled, all earlier thoughts of Mauritz—the ones that had so shaken Arcalís—temporarily forgotten, swept up in the feeling that he could handle anything that the beast lumbering toward them had to offer.
Hopefully, though, it wouldn’t get too close. Once it got within range of Arcalís’s magic, he spun and swept his hand toward it.
He knew very little about what thoughts or feelings youma had going on in their strange, Chaotic minds. But whatever this ground-creeping, incredibly spiky youma was capable of feeling, it did understand the emotion of being beset by adversity and knowing that the entire world was against you. Or maybe Arcalís was projecting too much pain onto the loud, bellowing croak that escaped the creature’s mouth. Maybe he was interpreting it as an emotional response, when the youma only actually felt the physical weight of that adversity crushing down upon it.
Whatever the case, it dissipated into dust by the time it finished its noise.
Turning to Carterhaugh, Arcalís smiled. “Much appreciated,” he said. “And, y’know, I’d love to patrol again sometime if you ever want? I can bring Madriu out with me so he can say his own ‘thank you’s and everything.”
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Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:03 pm
Carterhaugh winced, at the noise the youma made. They didn't seem to really be alive, at least as far as he had observed, given that they crumbled into dust when they took enoguh damage, but...it did still sound like an animal in pain, and that wasn't exactly fun to listen to.
Still, Carterhaugh focused on his magic and kept channeling, all through the creature's struggles, until it collapsed into dust and it was just him and Arcalis, their foe vanquished.
He flashed his new friend an easy smile.
"Glad to help," he said. "And I'd be glad to see you again. And to meet your man." He laughed, briefly. "Good luck to you," he said, though maybe Arcalis didn't need it. Running into him was good enough luck, clearly.
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