thenearshore | Wanderings [Open]

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Wanderings [Open]

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.]

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[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--

[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.]

[ 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.... ]

[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?

[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.]

[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...]

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.]

[ 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.]

[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!

[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.]

[ 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. ]

[ 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.

[The largest snake lunges at Felix, just barely missing his feet. Several more small snake ayakashi surge out of the water, slithering along as they give chase. Their purpose is singular; get the god, eat him, rejoice, rejoice.

A viper-like ayakashi explodes out from a pile of rubbish, a swift blur of florescent purple and pink as it slips through the fence and lunges at Felix's leg.]

[Ginia's chocolate milkshake is almost gone as her wandering takes her through side-streets and quieter areas, eventually drawing close to the canal. Her steps are long as she strolls along, enjoying the peace and quiet even as the back of her mind brews. There are things to do, things she must ask, and she dreads the conversation, but for her sake, it needs to happen.

You smell good...

A shiver runs down her spine at the low hiss and her empty milkshake cup is tossed to the ground as Ginia frees her hands. A bright pink and yellow snake winds out from some stacked crates, waving back and forth as it approaches. Even with a borderline at the ready, Ginia turns and runs, long legs putting space between her and the ayakashi. In her wake, three more snake ayakashi join the chase as she sets on a course that brings her perpendicular to Felix's location.]

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.]

[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!]

[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.]

[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?

[ The goat neither objects to the picture-taking nor answers Felix's question. In fact, given that the goat's mouth is a little thread line, it seems incapable.

Felix will get his closer look, though: the goat wheels close enough that it nearly bumps noses with him. Its eyes look kind of lens-like up close. ]

Shi...

[It's his fault, really, as the snake latches into his leg. First rule in a foot chase is don't look back. You need to see where you're going, and they'll either catch you or not. But these are big, bright snakes. They're magical. They're trying to eat him. So he looks back for a second, and still two snakes, and then something's biting his leg and it hurts.

He stumbles, goes down, but training kicks in and it turns from a deadly spill to just a tumble, rolling and coming to his feet just barely in the water. He reaches down and grabs the snake, wrenching it away and hitting it once with the blade in his other hand as he throws it to the side. The blow doesn't kill it, but at least gives him enough break to jump across the canal again, narrowly missing a strike by the larger snake that is following him.

His leg gives out as he lands, forcing him to roll again. He switches the pain off and forces himself up, running again. His hand, likewise numb, is marked with a discoloured blotch, and he starts to actually run, pushing himself far harder than is wise with an injured leg - especially when he doesn't know where he's going.]

Shrine...shrine...where...?

[The fact that he is pushing hard enough to be breathing hard is a bad sign, especially with the sound of the snake ayakashi still hot on his heels. He barely registers the sound of running footsteps coming from the side as he nears an intersection. He's more interested in the bridge...now he can actually take a direction instead of following a path that has already proven dangerous.

Now, he just needs to figure out which direction...as a shape comes into view, with more snakes after it, he doesn't even think. The knife, clearly not of much use to him at the moment, flashes, striking one of the hideously beautiful things just as it is about to bite at the heels of whoever it is that's running down the street. The blade knocks the creature aside, but now he's totally unarmed. If they are attacking that person, though, it has to be someone else from the Far Shore. He pushes hard to get to the bridge at the same time.]

Across the bridge, they're in the water!

[Bon is a good dog, but Bon is also a very large and only moderately trained dog, who Hakkai has been trying to convince to behave himself for the several weeks since he moved into the temple with the shinki who have pride of place as his current favorite people. He can't blame Lucky for his reaction.

The cats are leaping down from Bon's back, grumbling and swearing in perfectly clear Japanese; a few are sitting down to wash themselves in elaborate shows of unconcern. Hakkai ignores them all and kneels next to Lucky, reaching out to put a hand lightly on his shoulder.]

Ironclaw, if you could take Bon into the back garden, please?

[One of the cats, with a loud sniff, announces, What's in it for me?]

My gratitude. Go.

[With a flirt of two tails, she hops up onto the dog's back, and leans over his ear, muttering.]

-- Lucky, I'm sorry to have startled you. Don't worry, Bon won't jump on you.

[Well, a close up is still a kind of picture! As far as lenses, most toys like this back home have AI suites designed for full interaction; he literally gives it no thought at all. It would have been more shocking if they weren't kind of lens-like.]

No speaker, huh? That's okay. I still think you're neat. My sister would love you. She likes purple a lot.

[He stands and looks around.]

Um. Is anyone else home? The door was open and...no one came when I called...and...

[So, talking it out, it sounds less like a good idea than when he started, but at this point, he's committed.]

I was hoping to talk to someone. If they're here. Do you know?

[If he has any idea how odd it must seem to talk to a toy, he doesn't give any indication.]

[Find a shine. Find a shrine. The thought pulses with the slap of Ginia's boots against the ground, arms pumping as she sprints away from the ayakashi. There are thousands of shrines in Tokyo, all she needs is a single one, yet this seems to be the one area without a single one in sight.

She spots someone ahead as she nears an interaction--young, a child?--dodges instinctively as there's a flash of metal flying past her. Ginia doesn't look back to see if it hits, but reaches the same realization about Felix that he reaches about her; they're also from the Far Shore.

At his warning, she pushes toward the bridge. She turns on a dime as she reaches it, her hand slashing through the air, a thought screaming in her mind, her other hand spelling out the word.

LINE!

A streak of white light cuts across the entrance of the bridge as a barrier shoots across it. The first snake bounces off the barrier, hissing furiously as it slithers along the perimeter in search of a way past. The other snakes strike the barrier--it shudders and Ginia knows instinctively it'll hold for another minute at most--and trade a few more blows before they seek another way around.

But the barrier only covers one end of the bridge. The presence of two from the Far Shore --unpaired, defenseless--stir the ayakashi in the area. Hissing and overlapping voices rattle through the air in a rising crescendo.

A lot of people cross through this bridge everyday. People on their way to work, on their way to school, on their way home. I don't want to go to work...I failed that test...Maybe he won't be home...I'm so alone...Everyone hates me...

Come into the water...end your problems...you won't be alone...

Ginia looks at Felix, eyes widening for a moment as she recognizes him as the boy from the training day. She notes the heavy rise and fall of his chest, the slight limp from an injured leg.]

Keep running!

[Her fingers snap through the air as quickly as her borderline, brushing away ayakashi and preparing a path for him. Wasn't this what she wanted? Wasn't the chance to fight, help someone everything she was craving? Yes. Yes, it was. The pulse of her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Ginia sizes up the ayakashi around them, pulling down her barrier and recasting it to protect Felix, a large snake crashing into it instead of him.]

[Even after the animals start off and Hakkai speaks to him, it takes a moment for Felix to open his eyes. His arms don't come down even then, however, as he sits up and checks to make sure Bon actually is leaving. He watches the dog retreat, and takes a breath.

His entire body is shaking, but his breathing has already leveled out. His face is carefully neutral, now, and he looks around, eyes settling on his phone, out of reach.]

I thought I could show you some pictures.

[He doesn't look up, but leans away from him slightly. Despite the calm voice and face, he tenses, as though he expects to be hit.]

I'm sorry.

I froze again.

[Ginia.

There isn't time for him to react to her, and so he doesn't. Not yet. Instead, as the barrier snaps up behind him, he charges forward, head down. He shoulders hard into one of the snakes that had followed her, running it hard into the railing and bouncing off. Grabbing it with the same hand, he tosses it over the edge and ignores the spreading stain of blight as he turns to follow her across the bridge.]

Straight on. There has to be a shrine.

[His limp is growing worse, slowing him down as the leg itself weakens, even if the pain is gone, for the moment. His arm, likewise, is sluggish and unresponsive, though he doesn't say anything to her about that. Instead, he falls into lockstep beside her, dialing into her network. It's easier than wasting breath on speaking.]

I am not sure where the closest one is. I got a little lost. If you know, take the lead.

[He looks over at her and holds out his hand, the good one, keeping the injured one pressed to his chest for the moment.]

Knife. I lost mine. Watch for a pipe or something. I need reach and I'm down a hand.

[Later, he'll freak out, and kick himself, and whatever he hads to do. Right now, they are going to get out of this. Somehow. And if she doesn't remember all of her training, well, damnit, he remembers his. If she is unsettled by the commanding tone or disciplined attitude of a 10-year-old, he couldn't care less, because this is what they were both made to do.

Well, minus the colourful, magical, eating-you-alive, evil-spirit snakes.]

[Ginia sweeps her leg at a small cluster of snakes and sends them scattering like twitching strands of neon silly string. She throws out more borderlines ahead, cutting ayakashi and leaving them writhing and coiling in pain, but it's not a rend, a killing blow.

Her memories may be gone, but her training is etched deep into her body. When his voice fills her mind, she doesn't even flinch as she continues to attack. She draws her knife from her back holster, slices through the hood of a lunging neon blue snake, and passes the weapon off to Felix in a smooth movement. She doesn't need a knife when she has her borderlines and she's ruthless in her attacks.

This is what she was made for. She's a shinki, she's a tool. (She's an operative, she's a killer.) Her blood pumps hard but she keeps her cool, gaining more ground toward the other side of the bridge. A thin green snake manages to coil up her leg, the squeezing bleeding past her clothes as her calf begins to burn. She grabs the head of the snake and whips it off her body, ignoring the burning sensation across her hand. It's only blight, she can treat it later with holy water.

There's an opening. She hauls Felix onto her shoulders and takes off running, careful to keep her blighted hand away from any exposed flesh as she carries him. Even with his weight, even with her own leg burning, it's still faster than him limping along on an injured leg. She's a shinki, it's her job to protect and dammit she's going to.]

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Wanderings [Open]

B - Central District

[C]

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

All good!

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B! >.>

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A

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