Wanderings [Open]

[iron59]

Who: Felix and You!
When: October 27th
Where: Anywhere cat-free Far Shore in the morning, Near Shore in the afternoon.
What: Since an invitation to look at cats isn’t high on his list, Felix is going to use the day to get a feel for the area.



A. Western District; early morning

[Even as the sun is rising, Felix is jogging through the Western district, coat tied around his waist. He’s making a point of looking around at all of the different places that exist around him, but he never lets up on his pace.

Jogging along behind him is a soulless shinki, their feet hitting the ground out of rhythm as they move through the district. Periodically, Felix will take a sharp turn, never speeding up, even if he is testing the agility of the figure behind him. She keeps up effortlessly, of course.

The longer they spend jogging, the more focused he becomes, taking turns, doubling back, really seeing what his shadow is capable of. If he wasn’t so consistent with his speed, even checking himself once or twice so she stays with him, someone might even think he was trying to lose the poor woman…]

B. Central District and The Heavens; mid-morning and early afternoon

[Having successfully given his shinki the slip, for better or worse, Felix has made his way into fancier parts, though his coat is still tied around his waist and he looks a little grungy for the area. Unlike his calculating (if meandering) path from earlier, he’s now wandering around looking for the sake of looking, because some of these places are amazing.

It takes a few hours, but he eventually finds his way back to the meeting hall, though he is wary of spending too much time there, given the dangers of being press ganged into cleaning by the white-robed shinki that practically swarm the area (or so he claims to anyone who asks).

Before he heads home in the afternoon, Felix will lose himself for a little bit in the Sakura grove to the North of the meeting hall. While he does spend a bit of time appreciating the beauty, he spends more time practicing teleporting himself between the trees.]

C. The Near Shore - Tokyo; late afternoon and early evening

[It’s not dark, yet, but the day is winding down. Even if people aren’t supposed to be able to see him easily, Felix has no intention on taking the chance that he missed something important to make that happen. As crowds increase on the streets, with everyone getting out of work and heading either home or out to socialize, he’s feeling a little more comfortable slipping away into the mortal world.

Alone.

It’s not exactly that he hasn’t been told about the dangers, and not even that he thinks he’s going to be able to handle it better than anyone else has. But he doesn’t like being told not to do something, and besides, if this was what he was meant to be doing, putting it off isn’t going to make it better.

Besides, he’s never, ever been to Japan before, and after the all the stories he’s heard from his family back home, he’s not about to pass up a chance to see it for himself.]

Comments

B - Central District

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai, this morning, is outside of one of the least impressive of the Central District temples, a brightly painted two-story brick building with a wooden balcony and a richly scented Chinese garden full of edible and medicinal herbs.

He's lecturing several cats who are sitting on the back of an enormous, enormously fluffy dog.]

-- and Bon is not a horse, and I do not appreciate you riding him in the house.

[One of the cats lifts its hind leg and begins to lick itself ostentatiously. Hakkai's eyes narrow.]

As guests in my house, I expect you to take a certain amount of care--

[iron59]

[It was a little harder than he expected, slipping away from the shinki that had followed him around all morning, but not nearly as hard as he'd been afraid of. The district was all so engaging that even if the building he approached isn't the grandest, he still holds his phone up and snaps a picture; the colours are really bright, and he wants to save it.

The sound of a voice makes him freeze, just for a moment, but as soon as he focuses on the sound, he recognizes the timbre; and Hakkai is someone who seems useful, too. A teacher who enjoys bladework isn't safe, but is certainly interesting. He lowers is phone and rushes forward, eager to show off the fact that he's figured out how to use the stupid phone a little bit.]

Mr Hakkai? It's Lucky, from the other day. I don't know if you remember me but I wanted to...to...

[He stumbles to a stop maybe ten feet away from the scene. At first, it looks like he's more confused by Hakkai lecturing cats than anything else, but as he stands there, staring at Bon and his passengers, he doesn't move. His lips thin, and his breathing starts to visibly speed up.

If that wasn't clear enough that something was the matter, his phone slips from his fingers and bounces off of the ground. He doesn't even seem to notice, with his hands still held out in front of him.]

[reformedsinner]

Lucky?

[Hakkai turns, distracted from his lecture, and then pauses. The boy's pale, chest heaving with too-quick breaths, and as Hakkai blinks him into focus his phone tumbles from his hand to the floor.

It's not hard to recognize frozen terror. It's harder to guess what's wrong, but Hakkai breaks into a jog towards the boy, worry widening his own eyes.

Behind him, with a low and resonant bark, Bon breaks into a lope as well, easily outpacing Hakkai's run and brushing past him in a hail of loose fur and excitedly yowling cats. There's a new person! Bon loves new people. He particularly enjoys leaping at them.

Hakkai's order comes with a snarling note of command.]

Bon! Sit!

[The dog is barely half-trained, but he has sense, and his butt hits the dusty path barely a few feet from Lucky, still moving fast enough that he keeps skidding forward.]

[iron59]

[He doesn't look up at Hakkai when the man speaks and starts to move, but he takes notice when Bon barks. A single half step backwards and he goes down, hard, onto his rear, hands and arms coming up to cover his throat. Bon seems like a perfect charming canine, all things considered, once you remove the fact that he is barking and running towards Felix with yowling cats danging from his back and otherwise, yes, perfectly good boy.

As the dog slides to a stop practically between his feet, Felix leans back to the point that he falls over backwards, still covering his throat. He doesn't make a sound, but as Hakkai runs up, the boy's eyes will be squeezed closed.

It seems he may not be a fan of dogs. You know, not exactly.]

[C]

[unlucky7]

[Tokyo certainly isn't Davenport. It's a much bigger city, more densely populated, the skyscrapers far greater than even the tallest in Davenport, the transportation an efficient delight, a sense of presence and age far beyond the small New England city. It lives and breathes, the crowds rising as people leave their offices to go to restaurants and bars, an endless shift of people getting on and off the trains. The arcades, the karaoke bars, the cafes and stores begin to fill with teenagers in uniforms, fresh out of school or clubs and spending some time hanging out before going home.

Tourists stand out in the crowds, gaping and meandering through the crowds, sometimes moving with the flow, other times wading through like salmon flopping upstream. But Felix is a rock, people moving around him no matter where he stands and moves, unseen, ignored. Even if he draws attention to himself, it's no more than a few seconds of surprise before he becomes part of the scenery again.

But there are things that notice those of the Far Shore; other denizens and ayakashi.

Maybe he's noticed them, the brightly colored things lurking about. The ayakashi feeding on greed around the pachinko parlors. A sense of dread around a school. The low slither of something sliding into a canal or ditch as he passes by.

And even if he hasn't noticed them, they've noticed him.]

You smell good... so tasty... come over here...

[The whispers carry as an undercurrent over the bustle of the city, blending in, lost in all the city noise, but still present, still there.]

[Ginia steps out of a cat cafe, an easy smile on her face as she waves goodbye, stopping to dust cat hair off her jacket. She has a milkshake in her hand as she walks along, sipping lightly as she decides to stay in the city a little more, wandering freely.]

Re: [C]

[iron59]

[With the evening, things are starting to cool down, but not nearly enough for him to put his jacket on. Keeping it tied tightly around his waist, he slips through the crowd, wide eyes taking in the full force of one of the busiest cities in the world. Davenport was impressive, in its own way, with a sort of ponderous early-modern grandeur that it tried to cling to even as it updated itself to the standards of the Modern urban plan in 2115, but this is something else altogether.

He lingers at storefronts, face pressed to the glass. He stops to watch people eating in restaurants, though he isn't hungry himself yet, if only because there are so many different things that they're all eating. Despite earlier statements to the contrary, he shows no signs of minding crowds, even taking time to watch the people around him.

He doesn't mean to wander away from the major area, but there's this group of young adults all dressed up in Halloween costumes that look really crazy, and even as he is trying to get a closer look, they turn off, and then again, and again. He keeps missing the lights, forced to wait on traffic because it never occurs to him to just jump over it, and by the time he catches up to them and realizes that the costumes are actually kind of really terrible, once he gets close enough to see the bad stitching and mismatched colours, he is well and thoroughly lost.

For a movement, he demonstrates a solid level of maturity, pulling his phone out and making it as far as pulling up Hakkai's number...but then he just stands there, staring at the phone. NO. He can do this, no problem. It's not the first time he's been lost in a strange city that was dangerous to him in particular, and dumb spirits aren't nearly as scary as a lot of things in his life. He stuffs the phone into his pocket and starts walking.]

Smells...nice...

[He stops, looking around. He's never actually seen an ayakashi, so he's not necessarily as attentive as he should be.]

Hello?

[He looks towards the canal running along the road, though at least he has the sense not to step any closer...]

[unlucky7]

Smells...nice...tasty...

[There's the voice again, a low hiss. The water in the canal is low from the long stretch of dry weather, but it's still deep enough for something to slide through it, water rippling slightly from the movement. Despite the slightly murky water, the thing in the water is a vibrant green, blue, and yellow, colors shifting and bleeding into each other.

It stops in the water, colors swirling about like droplets of ink slowly mixing about.

It dives down, out of view.]

[iron59]

[There are things that make sense, at the time, and only later does it become clear that they were mistakes. As he steps forward and closer to the canal, this is not one of those times; it is obviously dumb from the beginning. But, hey, he is armed...right, he is armed! He pulls out the throwing knife he stole from the dojo, holding it ready as he steps in closer...and closer...

Back home, Felix is fast. His reaction time beat even the rest of his group of subjects, and that's saying something. If he wasn't a god here, though, it wouldn't have mattered how fast he was.

As he started down to the water, the surface erupted. Without thinking, he jumped forward, over the canal and hitting the other side hard, even as the brilliantly coloured snake twists around behind him.]

Come closer.

[The water roils as another, small snake lifts its head clear. At this point, Felix begins to back up the canal, but he's only getting more lost with each step...especially when he's focused on the spirits and not where he's going. The fact that the far side of the canal is blocked by a fence doesn't help, either. With a moment to think, he'd climb it, or even just jump over, but the snakes are coming, and even with his blade, he remembers talking to Hakkai about this. Run.

He wavers, for a moment, then turns and starts off along the fence. He just has to outpace them and he'll be fine.]

B - Central District - Sorry for repost; I liked this idea better!

[priforprince]

[ One of the more - amazing - structures the Central District has to offer is a temple that looks like a giant white-and-purple fairy-tale castle. Golden statues of a person in a prince costume adorn either side of the front door.

Which is ajar. What almost sounds like carnival music can be heard from within, and there's a faint glitter of movement.... ]

All good!

[iron59]

[Wandering through the district with his new phone out, Felix has been taking pictures of things that catch his eye, though this doesn't always mean they're the kind of things most people would take pictures of. Gates, fences, rooftops are all overrepresented by a good margin. There are also several flowers, to be fair, and at least five pictures of a rock he really liked.

A fairy-tale-castle rates a solid three pictures from a couple of angles, and he's about ready to move on when the sound hits him. IF the door wasn't open, he'd ignore it, but he's here to explore, and, well...

A quick look around confirms there's no shinki running towards him, so he walks up to the door, and without even knocking pushes it open and steps in.]

Hello?

[priforprince]

[ The hall in which Felix finds himself is grand and opulent, with marble floors and a sweeping ceiling. Multiple hallways branch off in all directions, promising untold spectacles within.

No people show themselves, but a plush purple goat toy on a wheeled platform trundles up to Felix and rolls in a circle around him with a whirring noise. It seems more curious than anything else. ]

[iron59]

[Toys that move by themselves are actually not so terribly uncommon back home, so Felix doesn't bat an eye at that. He's never seen a kind like this that doesn't look as mechanical as normal, so he lifts his phone.]

Cool. Can I take a picture?

[He's smiling, and though the music is around and he's still curious, this is pretty neat. He even crouches to get a better look.]

What are you, anyway?

B! >.>

[welcome_home]

[ He's not the only who had wandered in this direction this afternoon, although to be fair, Nanako had been drawn by the Sakura grove. The little girl is wandering through the trees, a serious expression on her face and... a baby deer bouncing along behind her? Even though she seems pretty used to that, occasionally reaching out to absently pet it when it headbutts against her side, demanding attention.

Although if someone is practicing teleporting and vanishing and reappearing in her vicinity, she would stop to see what's going on, peering around a tree trunk to see who else is here today.]

[iron59]

[Well, at the very least, he's trying to disappear and reappear among the trees, but it's not exactly working like he was hoping. He flickers, and briefly disappears...but comes back in the exact same place.

For a moment, he stands still, then looks around and drops to the his knees, searching the ground. He holds up a stick and starts laughing.]

Hahaha! You moved! I moved!

[welcome_home]

[ His excitement over his accomplishment is very similar to her own when she'd finally figured out how to do this, but she can't quite stifle the quiet giggle at his excitement as she peers out from behind a tree trunk to watch him exclaim his victory to the stick.

Realizing she'd made a noise, she finally steps out with a shy smile, clapping her hands softly. ]

You did it! Are you practicing?

[iron59]

[On his knees beneath the tree, with his back to her, Felix is not prepared for anyone to speak, let alone to start clapping. He makes a slightly strangled sound and vanishes, appearing a good ten feet farther away from the girl who startled him. And about four feet in the air. With a yelp, he drops to the ground. After a moment, he sits up, twisting to look at her with an embarrassed look.]

Hey. It worked again! Heh.

[He stands up, and crosses his arms, hunching his shoulders, and speaking a little louder than he really needs to for the distance between them.]

I'm kind of new at this.

A

[smilingbullet]

[ D2 doesn't usually see many people out and about this early in the morning (his god is awake, of course, but not to go for a run), but apparently new people still pop up once in a while. Though, this sight is slightly unexpected. Jogging together this early, what dedication. Except the woman seems ... ah, soulless. Well, he has met plenty of those. ]

Good morning.

[iron59]

[Morning exercise is a routine drilled into him from years of training; that, and he's one of those kids who would always be up before dawn for morning cartoons if you let him. Dragging his poor shinki along is simply a bonus. He slows, though, at the call, and turns, slowing to a stop and shaking his hands out.]

Hello.

[He offers a smile and a little wave as the soulless shinki comes to a smooth stop behind him, hovering silently over one shoulder. He ignores her, and she doesn't seem to notice.]

Um. Yeah, hi. I'm kinda your neighbour. Kinda. I live that way!

[He points in the rough direction of his temple. He's maybe a little awkward, but at least he's not shy!]

[smilingbullet]

[ They're the same in that: he had to exercise for several hours every day, particularly in the morning, or he wouldn't feel right, even before he remembered anything about his life.

He waves back and makes a little salute because he feels like it and he's in a good mood. ]

Kinda it is, since I live in the southeast district. But I do spend some amount of time around the area. [ Once close enough, he sticks out a hand for a shake. ] Hi, I'm Carl, called D2.

A

[futhark]

[ Sometimes Caster is a truly morning bird. Mostly when he intends to run some errands. Or fish. But they're not biting today so he changes his spot several times. And always, always without a fail, a certain pair ran past him.

Finally, when he sees them approach the bridge he took as his new base of operations, he waves to them and raises his voice ]

Watch out, there's a woman behind you! [ Yeah, dumb joke is dumb, but why not. He's kind of curious- where the kid is running to ] Need any help?

[iron59]

[He's pretty focused as he runs, the counterpoint of his shinki's feet against the ground setting up a steady, if slightly awkward, rhythm he's pacing himself with when the call sounds out. He's only peripherally aware of Caster at the call, but the reaction is immediate. Instead of taking another step, he plants his foot as it comes down and twists, pushing his momentum to the side.

Hitting the ground in a roll at full speed, he twists as he moves along the ground, slapping hard with one hand to bleed inertia as he comes up to his knees, almost completely spun around. His other hand has a knife in it, his dark eyes fixed on the path behind his shinki, who is also turning, though more from his reaction than the call.

Nothing.

As he slides to a stop, Felix stands, looking down at his hand (scrapped, but not badly) and his knee (mostly unharmed, but the fabric's pretty well ripped up). Then he looks over at Caster, knife still held at the ready.]

Where did she go?

[His reaction times are not that bad, but this kid seems pretty damned jumpy.]

[futhark]

[ Things that are to be expected after making a silly joke: Not. This. The reflexes are uncanny, and everything about how he moves shows that this kid knows what he's doing. And what he's doing is getting ready to fight.

The hell this kid is from? You generally don't see this level of skill in modern kids, and perhaps that's for the best. Because it means they really don't need those skills to survive through childhood. ]

Uh.. chill kiddo. I meant her- [ He awkwardly points at Felix's shinki ] Don't murder her here, okay?

[ He'd feel that he should be interfering if that was to happen. But beating a kid isn't exactly his way of spending nice morning. She was just jogging, let her be. ]

B

[kokuyoyo]

[Before one reaches the Meeting Hall, of course, there's the Library to pass by.... and, as things happen to be, that's where Chikusa tends to spend a lot of his time. Although he seems a bit preoccupied, scribbling something into a notebook as he leaves the doors...]

[But then he's looking up at the sound of footsteps. Oh.]

You're that kid...

[iron59]

[It's only been a day or so; this place is different from home, a lot different, but that doesn't mean he's used to the changes. And someone he doesn't recognize calling him 'that kid' has never been a good thing, at least not that he can remember.]


Um.

[He looks up, freezing, one hand balled at his side into a fist before he's finished making a sound, the other sitting at his waist. For a breath, he stares at the other guy, and then realizes that they met here, talking about weapons and teleportation and...he lets his hands fall back to his sides, but still looks apprehensive.]

Hi?

[kokuyoyo]

[Now that's an interesting response, and one that doesn't escape Chikusa. He's not exactly a people person, and the intricacies of emotions often escapes him... but he can recognize fight or flight instinct threatening to kick in. Often, it's been one he and Ken have often experienced plenty of times in their lives.]

[So he tilts his head in Felix's direction.]

...You don't have any sort of reputation yet. So....

[There's no need for that.]