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 Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 7:02 pm
entry one ; in which nothing much happens to Aster's dismayAster stared skeptically up at the peeling signboard proclaiming the purpose of a tiny little shop out on one of the lesser-travelled roads of Gambino: Arcana: an ique and curio ities shop.
'Talk about pretentious,' She thought idly to herself, gaze trailing down over stained bricks and dusty glass that made up the storefront. Frowning, she compared the address to the one scrawled across a bit of paper held between two fingers, held to catch the light, before crumpling it and shoving it into her pocket and returning her attention to the shop. If she tilted her head to one side and squinted just right, she could almost catch a clear glimpse of the small girl working the front counter. '...Perfect place for my sister.'
She pushed her way in, door creaking ominously (as it should!) The brunette, catching the vague strains of a chime sounding simultaneously, looked up from the cash register and waved at the new customer. "Hello! May I help you?"
Aster only noticed the greeting a few moments later, her attention was too distracted by the pure amount of stuff present in the shop; it was much bigger than it appeared to be from the front, but this didn't actually appear to be much of a good thing... "This junk actually sells?" She said in surprise, slowly beginning to navigate around the tables set out displaying the wares, eyes locked on a pile that she could've sworn actually moved.
"It's not junk!" Came the indignant response. Aster glanced up just in time to see her sister hopping up onto and sliding over the counter in a smooth, practiced, almost graceful movement that looked very, very odd on the girl she knew as a klutz.
"Really?" Aster regarded her with a raised eyebrow, gesturing widely to a table filled with clocks; none of them worked the way they should. Most ticked too fast or too slow, some ticked backwards. They were all pretty to look at maybe, but hardly functional.
"...Okay, maybe junk." Cerena admitted with a similar grimace, scuffing a foot guiltily against the floor. The piercing noise of glass and liquid having an abrupt and unscheduled meeting with the floor came from the backroom, and that was enough to make the smaller girl suddenly stand very straight and begin reciting loudly as if hoping to be overheard: "Junk to you, that is, but to someone else it can be very important--umm... You know, one man's trash, another man's treasure?"
Seeing that her customer was obviously not buying it, Cerena cursed under her breath and let out a disappointed squeak. "You know, I had this whole pretty speech memorized for the whole thing, but I can never remember..."
"Hey, it's okay, I know useless trinkets and the like have always kept you happily occupied." Aster flashed her a reassuring grin, shoving her hands in the pockets of the worn pants she wore. "Still -- I shouldn't have expected much, given your attention span and all, but -- would it have hurt to let me know you were still alive? You never call, you never write..."
Though she had started off in (to her mind, anyway) a very joking manner, she found herself trailing off as the expression on Cerena's face grew more and more stricken. Wondering if she had suddenly come down with the vapours or something similar, Aster frowned and took a few steps back so if the brunette decided to be sick, she wouldn't be all over her nice new shoes.
"I'm sorry -- I don't... Um, who did you--" Cerena stopped and started and stopped and started and finally gave up altogether, wringing her hands and staring at her feet. Aster watched in vague amusement as the smaller girl continued to struggle for words, only blurting out half-completed thoughts, and finally only quieting at the sound of someone clearing her throat behind her.
"Aaa, Astraella! It's been quite a while since I've seen you last." The older woman half-reclined against the doorway to the back, arms crossed over her chest and eyes partially closed. Her clothes, dark robes with spidery patterns embroidered along the length of it, too fineto clearly make out what of, seemed centuries too old (but just perfect for the shop; in fact, if she had not spoken up at all, it was likely that she would have never been noticed standing there.)
Aster forced a strangled smile on her lips, hoping her sudden unease was undetectable. "Lady Hell," She greeted back sing-songily. "It's just 'Aster' now, if you wouldn't mind ever so much." She made a show of curtesying, sweeping out her imaginary skirts and bending down gracefully on one leg before properly straightening again. "I would go on to make small talk," She continued idly, "Like 'I do hope you've been taking care of my little sister since she came to you', but it seems like you broke her along with everything else in here."
"Charming as ever," came the dry answer. "I wonder if we should truly be regretful that none of your genes have seemingly passed onto your sister." Kamilah mirrored Aster's pseudo-sickly-sweet smile back to her before straightening and making her way over to the pair.
"A shame," Aster agreed, completely missing the point as always.
"A what?" Cerena wanted to know, looking between the two women. "'My sister'?" She mouthed to her employer disbelievingly, a gesture that wasn't lost on Aster. The elder blonde opened her mouth to say something that would be undoubtedly and completely unhelpful to the whole situation, but thought the better of it when Kamilah sighed and shot her a warning look.
Slumping in defeat, Aster pointedly thought very mean things about Kamilah and her mother for a few moments before losing interest -- the shop's owner had already pulled Cerena away into the back to explain some things to her, apparently, leaving her alone in the shop for the moment.
With an overly loud and dramatic sigh, she wandered over to the bookshelves lining the walls and stared boredly at the titles. Most of them had pretentious titles in Latin like "Hearts in Darkness" and "A Treatise on Breathing and How We Are Poisoning Our Planet" -- surprisingly enough, those she could make out pretty well. It was the actual English titles that she had trouble with; she stared at one, futilely trying to comprehend it while a clock somewhere behind her ticked away minutes, and when she finally moved on the only thing she could glean from it was something about a "Grammar Crisis Room."
Brain temporarily gone offline, she swept her fingers across the spines of the books and then held them up for inspection. Not even a trace of dust -- well pheh, just how authentically ancient were these books anyway? She wrinkled her nose at the thought and began drifting away towards other things.
Across the room was a display of dollhouses. Vaguely remembering the one she played with herself as a child, Aster gravitated towards it, stopping briefly to paw through a box of gears and widgets and whazzamassits and leaving again once she determined that she was not going to magically find a million dollars there.
The biggest one on display -- Aster counted five, but the other four were more miniature type of deals whereas this one actually had room to play with dolls in -- also seemed the newest. Perhaps it was just recently remodelled (with miniature painters and carpenters even?), but the paint job -- white with gold accents -- seemed new. Clearly this one was much more expensive than her childhood toy -- hers was barely more than a wooden box with a few holes cut in it and two floors (and all the neighborhood kids had been jealous too, even if it was probably only because it was made by her eligible older brother...) This one, however, had little glass windows, three separate balconies, a mailbox, a cat lounging on the front step and even windowboxes filled with tiny pansies. Aster frowned and bent down to peer through the front door, determined to find out if it came with heat and running water too, when a familiar squawking and awkward shuffling noise behind her stole her attention away.
Cerena came barelling out of the back room, diving behind the counter and grabbing her coat from where it'd been draped over the chair she'd been sitting in. It was made from some heavy white fabric with neon-color flowers embroidered onto it -- not enough flowers, Aster decided, or flamingoes -- it could use some flamingoes too.
She watched idly for a few moments more as Cerena continued to scramble for various things: her purse, found tucked away under one of the display tables; the store keys, not in her pockets, or hanging by the door, or in the fridge (Aster wasn't going to ask) but in fact on the counter where she had left them; her wallet, found in the fridge in her search for the store keys. For a moment the elder blonde began to wonder if perhaps this was leading to any Good (and, consequently, whether she should start running), but by that time it was too late -- finally the younger girl whirled around to face her triumphantly.
"Let's go for a walk!" Cerena suggested distractedly, shoving her hands into each of her pockets to make sure that she did, in fact, have everything she needed. At the bewildered look on her long-lost sister's face, she hurried to explain: "I mean, it's such a nice day outside, and.. er... It seems like we have a lot to catch up on?"
Aster considered this for a few moments. "Will there be ice cream involved?"
This, Cerena also considered very carefully, eyebrows bunching together and lips pressing together. Finally she replied, half-hesitantly and obviously confused, "Has there ever been a time when it was not?"
"Good answer." Aster decided, flashing her younger sister a bright grin before opening the front door to the shop and, sweeping an overelaborate bow, ushered her out.
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Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 1:40 pm
entry two ; in which Aster is introduced to the highlight of her life
It seemed they had a lot to catch up on.
It was odd to think that Aster did not feel very surprised at the fact that Cerena had lost her memories; her whole family was genetically given to dramatics, of course, and Cerena herself had never been particularly known for her memory span. If anything, at least she was no longer of the grudge she was supposed to have against Aster for performing, er, 'experiments' on her hamsters when they were both much younger.
"So how did this happen, anyway?" The blonde ventured at last when the last bite of ice cream had disappeared. The two, after a period of wandering down the streets in an attempt to stumble across some sort of bonding moment, had at last given up and settled down on a bench in front of the ice cream parlor, facing the ocean.
"I don't remember," Cerena admittedly sheepishly, and stuck her tongue out at Aster when the elder made some bemused noise. "Well, see, I have this kid--"
"A kid?" Well, that was new. How old was she -- sixteen, seventeen? "Okay, who's the lucky guy I get to beat up?" Aster raised an eyebrow.
Her sister immediately flushed. "She's not mine! I mean -- she is, but not genetically... Here, look..." She twisted around in her seat, searching through the pockets of her coat with one hand while trying to deal with a leaking ice cream cone with her other. Finally she produced a wallet, a pretentious snakeskin thing that looked severely out-of-place in her small, white hand; with an expert flick it dropped a chain of photos, and suddenly Aster was no longer so concerned about how many people her younger sister apparently had to kill to get such a wallet.
The photos showed a new house; it seemed she moved out of her apartment at last and into an elegantly designed oriental house that even their mother would gawk at (if she were the kind to gawk, of course, and suddenly Aster wanted to find out if she would.) Below that was almost literally a rainbow of people: there was Cerena, a minty-haired girl, and a very pregnant black-haired woman. Below that were two infants, one with a mermaid tail, the other with that of a wolf's, and both with dog-like ears. There was a weird pale kid with a crown on his head and peacock feathers sticking out of his head, and then there was...
Cerena hurried to explain, introducing everyone in turn: herself, Chai, Koyuki, Eden, Raziel, and: "That's Lethe." Aster had to lean in and squint in order to more fully make out the girl's features: she was impossibly pale, face partially hidden by a mass of curly black hair. All in all, she looked like someone out of the Addam's Family.
"It's a long story," the younger girl began hesitantly, "And I still don't have all the details, but... She's a Fa'e -- they're legends, godthings, beings of power reborn. So.. You know.. Lethe. The River of Oblivion. 'Forgetfulness'. As her guardian, we're connected, that much I know -- so maybe this is just a manifestation of her power..." She trailed off there and frowned, unable to put any more of her ideas into words.
Well, it was official, Aster decided as she smiled, nodded, and pulled back to eye her sister with some concern: Cerena had obviously lost it. "That's, er, nice. Can she drink water? Is that like cannibalism to her?"
Unfortunately, by this time Cerena had already changed the subject, happily babbling away just like Aster had always remembered her. Stuffing the wallet back into her pocket, she returned her attention to her ice-cream cone and might have said something about marshmallow sheep (Aster wasn't paying attention.) And then: "So -- so... What about you? I'm sorry, I never meant to, I hadn't realized that I had family.. Well, not that I thought I was an orphan, but... Hey, what's mom like again? Are there more siblings I forgot about? Do you have any kids yet?"
It was only after that last part that Aster finally managed to explosively get a word in edgewise: "NO." When Cerena promptly halted and turned to stare at her in a mixture of fear and awe at the sheer amount of volume the elder blonde could produce, Aster had to hurry and elaborate: "No kids yet. Not ever, I hope."
She tried to imagine her potential offspring for a moment, and the mental image of little shrieking blonde brats just like her made her shudder. "I'm just not a kid person, you know? You were alright, Lian was too, and En was born old anyway, so that's okay, but... Well, I don't envy you."
A pause. "So no getting you to babysit?" Her sister pouted, narrowing her eyes and playfully glaring up at Aster through her lashes in a way that suddenly reminded her of herself.
"Why, do you hate your kids that much?" Aster grinned, shaking her head. "No... I will definitely have to visit you, of course... I imagine that with your current 'condition', we have quite a bit of work to do on you." Plus that house of hers -- how did such an absentminded girl apparently come into such riches? Aster debated asking her, and then realized that she'd probably recieve some answer involving leprechauns.
"Yeah..." The brunette's eyes bunched together and she frowned deeply, obviously troubled with this response. "It's been like this with everyone. My memories past a few months ago... Well, I don't have them -- I had to make notecards to remember the names of my own kids for a while... But now that I found--well, you found me, maybe I can finally--hey, do you like leprechauns?"
Aster surpressed a long, suffering sigh; well, if there was any question as to why she hadn't checked up on Cerena sooner... "Only with ketchup."
"I thought you'd say that," Cerena said proudly, finally finishing the last bite of her ice cream. Wiping her hands on her dress, she hopped to her feet and turned towards Aster with a self-important flourish, "See? I'm getting better already just by seeing you again!"
"Else I'm just that predictable." Aster leaned back against the bench and smirked, "Though let's go with your version, it's more flattering. --Do you have to head back?"
It seemed it was only then that Cerena remembered about the time at all; the brunette immediately started hunting for a clock, ripping once more through all of her pockets as if expecting they would spontaneously generate some sort of working timepiece. When Aster offered Cerena her watch-adorned wrist, the younger seized it and squinted at the face and immediately looked as if the world were ending.
"I was supposed to be back ten minutes ago! --Do you think she'll notice?! Agh, maybe we can just.. But it would be bad to just leave you, especially since you still don't have my address and--here, come on, we're late!" With this last cry, she adjusted her hold on her sister's wrist and immediately yanked her up. Aster obediently rose up off the bench, only to be immediately tugged along down the small dirt path between the ice cream parlor and the next building over; this in turn led back to an alley (with an overabundant population of cats, judging by the sheer amount of waste they left behind, and Aster was apparently going to need new shoes now.) It was only a short dash from there to the small side street that ultimately led them back to 'Arcana', and it took Aster a few moments to regain both her balance and her senses.
Cerena would have none of this. "Come on, quickly!" She hissed quietly to her sister, expertly opening the door in silence and ushering the older blonde in. Aster obeyed, doomsday alarms going off in her head -- but there was nothing that seemed to deserve the reaction, as everything was settled and still in the shop.
"I think that we're..." Aster began, still dazed, and promptly forgot what she was going to say before she had even managed to get the words out alright. "...I don't think anyone's here."
The only response was silence. Cerena peered around nervously, eyes trailing over every darkened place. But it was just as Aster had said -- there was no one there, no customers and no Kamilah. "Maybe she's watching," she suggested at last, her voice habitually dropping a few decibels, "Watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike..." At Aster's bewildered expression, she protested: "She's like that!"
"...Well, we're not being very entertaining then, are we?" It took her a moment, unfamiliar with the layout of the store as she was, to happen upon a likely target -- but finally she saw the jewelry counter by the far side of the wall, near the cash register, and the blonde purposefully made her way over. Snatching a chain from a rack without really looking at it, Aster turned towards her sister, who was still half-cowering over by the entrance. "Come on," she mouthed to her, beckoning her over with a jerk of her head. More loudly, she drawled in a boredly practiced tone, "I don't think this is my color. What do you think?"
It was only when she was close enough to see that Cerena made any indication of whether or not she agreed (such an amateur, but what could she do? Obviously she'd forgotten everything Aster had taught her.) The younger girl wrinkled her nose at the piece Aster held up -- silver with amber stone dangles, something Aster realized would look sophisticated on anybody but her.
"No.. You should stay away from yellow, I think. It would clash with your hair -- or.. or your complexion..." Cerena struggled with her own pretentious tone for a few moments before giving up and crouching down slightly to peer into the display case. "Gold would be alright, I think. What sort of thing were you looking for? Simple or expensive? Miss," she added belatedly, shuffling around the counter and reaching into the back of the case to take out a diamond necklace.
"Something simple." Aster dismissed her words with a wave of her hand, turning her nose up and looking away as if the whole thing disinterested her, diamonds and all. "Heaven knows I have plenty of those already." This wasn't exactly a lie; hopefully Lady Hell, should Kamilah be actually listening in, wouldn't know the difference. "Something I can wear without worrying about looking like a prime mugging target," she added a bit more seriously.
Cerena nodded, reluctantly replacing the necklace and wandering down a bit down the length of the display to where the semi-rare gemstones were kept. "How about something like this? It tends to be pretty popular with our customers..." She gestured to a birthstone necklace, gold and studded with sapphires -- even Aster had no idea if the stone was the correct one for her birthmonth or not.
"Maybe a little more dangerous than that. Something that screams 'look at me!' but 'don't touch!'" Aster decided with a shake of her head.
"Hmm..." Cerena tapped a finger against her cheek in thought, mentally searching through all their available inventory. "Oh," she remembered suddenly, "Well, there's this one..."
Aster followed her gaze to a finely-cut purple jewel pendant on a thin golden necklace. Oddly enough, it was both simple enough to fulfil Aster's request and yet gaudy enough to interest her; when Cerena lifted it from its velvet cushion and handed it to her, Aster took it and held it up, dangling the jewel from the chain so it would catch the light. "I'm surprised no one else's snatched this up already."
"Yeah," Cerena agreed automatically without thinking and then frowned. "Well, actually -- it's been sold five times before.. But all five times it was returned, various reasons, mainly because I guess the owners didn't 'click' with it. You'd think you wouldn't have to bond with a necklace, but, you know, some people..."
"Like bad luck?" Aster wanted to know, thoroughly intrigued now. "A hope diamond sort of deal? Did they all turn up a year later dead for unknown reasons?" Stringing it around her neck, she prepared herself to struggle with the clasp and was surprised when the two ends joined together easily.
"No!" Cerena wrinkled her nose. "Else we wouldn't be selling it, Lady Kamilah'd prolly be experimenting on it instead. They were expecting something different, I guess, that's all. Even if it was bad luck, I have a feeling it'd be the complete opposite for you, as contrary as you are--" She stopped there, confused at her own words, and looked at Aster questioningly.
The blonde merely flashed her a reassuring grin. "See? Those memories are in you somewhere. You just need to coax them out of hinding. 'Good luck' indeed." She turned to admire her reflection in a floorlength mirror set up against the adjacent wall. "...Too bad I don't have any money." She sighed at last, turning back towards her sister and reaching up for the clasp. "Better luck next time, eh, kiddo? The ice cream entirely cleaned me out."
When it didn't immediately pull apart, Aster grimaced and yanked harder at the chain, wondering why it was suddenly stubborn. Ignorant of her sister's troubles, Cerena smiled happily and bounced away, closing the display case. "No, it's alright, you can just take it. The thing's already been paid for five times over... No one ever wanted a refund. Weird, right? Kamilah will be sad to see it go, she had already made plans to make a fortune off of it, I'm sure... Besides, I think it's.. bad luck to deprive someone of their good luck charm."
"Oh, so now it's already mine? Are you sure this thing isn't cursed?" Giving up on the clasp, Aster shot her sister a wary look but nevertheless felt it wouldn't do any good to further protest -- since when was free stuff a bad thing? "What's the catch?"
Cerena's smile widened into a very familiar smirk. "You have to give me your phone number and promise to come visit me on the weekend."
Aster sighed and rolled her eyes halfheartedly, but nevertheless obliged and dug into her pockets for a scrap of paper to write on. The pendant, slipping into her shirt, rapidly warmed against her skin; in the back of her mind she vaguely wondered what it was that she was exactly getting herself into.
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Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:57 pm
entry three ; in which eden is intactBy the time Aster reached the apartment complex, she had forgotten it was even there; somewhere between the antique store and the elevator ride up to the 11th floor it had become less of some thing coming along for the ride and something that was just as much a part of her as everything else she was wearing.
Fumbling momentarily for the keys in the left pocket of her jeans before remembering that she always kept it in her right, Aster finally located it in her jacket pocket and managed to swing the door open without further incident. She took a step in, swinging around to the side to prepare to kick her shoes off, and immediately recoiled at the strong smell of paint and scurried back out the door and into the hallway again.
It was only a few moments later that, pinching her nose shut, she dared to venture back into the apartment. "Did the widdows threated to put gub in your hair if you dared to try and oped theb, Ede?" She called out to the wide open spaces, peering into the living-room-area but not immediately locating her younger sister at her normal spot in the armchair there.
But of course she wasn't -- the paint studio was on the other side of the apartment, a hastily converted walk-in closet.
"Sorry!" Finally came the far-off reply. Aster sighed and retreated further into the living room to reach the windows at the far wall, catching the last strains of Eden's words: "I just don't notice the smell anymore -- I'm sorry -- I guess I forgot..."
She worked quickly, throwing open the windows and only letting her fingers work themselves loose from her nose when the warm outside air breezed into the room. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes in an attempt to quickly clear her head, her impromptu quest to seek inner peace was interrupted by the loud creaking of floorboards, protesting under approaching weight.
"Just stay there, I'll come to you," Aster yelled back, heading in the opposite direction towards the small kitchen area in the corner of the room. "Want anything from the fridge?"
"No, thank you. Could you bring some clean rags, if you wouldn't mind?"
Aster grabbed a cold soda -- one of the overly sweet 'fruit'-flavored ones that Eden liked, but at this point she didn't care so long as she could properly pour it down her throat -- and obligingly made a sidetrip to the hall closet to grab what she hoped wasn't their spare set of bedsheets. She passed through the master bedroom, noting how clutterless Eden kept it and briefly entertaining the notion of making the younger girl clean her room. She finally reached the entrance to the 'studio' and held out the sheets through the doorway before popping the top to her soda and gulping it down.
"Thank you." Eden smiled and reached up for the rags, using one to wipe her hands on and dropping the rest on a small nearby sidetable with the rest of her art supplies. Aster squeezed in behind her, tilting her head to one side and critically eying the painting. "What do you think?" She asked her anxiously.
It was another one of her trademarked landscapes: iridescent colors, a blurry dream-like quality, trees that didn't grow in quite the right shapes and birds that seemed more feathers than living creature -- "Do you miss home?" Aster asked.
Eden responded with quiet, and then an obviously practiced indifferent shrug. "A little."
The elder blonde grinned and vigorously ruffled her sister's hair until she looked a bit like a disgruntled poodle with a bad haircut. "We'll go back and visit. Someday," she amended quickly with an indifferent shrug of her own, backing out of the closet and into the master bedroom. Eden followed shakily after her, slipping off her stool and leaning heavily on her walking stick. She hurried to stand at her sister's side while Aster eyed the bare corner of the room.
"Hey -- wait --" At this, Aster turned towards her. "--Is that a new necklace?" She reached up cautiously to take the gemstone pendant in her hand, fingertips pressing over every facet. "Amethyst?"
"Ame-what? Cerena gave it to me, just some defective merchandise she wanted to get rid of or something. It may be cursed," Aster said in a tone more appropriate for a speech about an adorable new house-broken puppy.
Eden smiled again, a little wider this time as she felt a little more brave, and finally let it go. "She was alright?"
"Yeah, you know Cere, surviving as always. Said she missed you."
Eden accepted the lie with a nod, finally following her older sister's gaze to the same corner in contemplative silence.
Finally the blonde broke it, suddenly unsure of her words, "Hey, do you think a dollhouse would look good over there?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:20 pm
entry four ; in which hell may or may not have broken looseThe next few days proved to be chaotic. Struck with the sudden inspiration to shop shop shop, Aster found herself bringing more and more useless trinkets picked up from random stores on her way home from work. It was not likely that she would have realized it either until Eden jokingly asked her who her 'sugar momma' was. Aster didn't even realize Eden knew such things existed.
The bare corner of the master bedroom had been transformed, now displaying the dollhouse from the antique shop (Aster had visited it again on the pretense of wanting to see Cerena, but it turned out that she wasn't on duty when she arrived; Aster bought the dollhouse anyway), several stuffed animals that Eden was mysteriously not allowed to touch, and some potted plants Aster had shoved in there to hastily construct a garden. The rest of the trinkets -- necklaces, bracelets, the subtle tasteful things that Aster would never wear -- went into her jewelry box, one of the only things that her mother had given her that she kept. She couldn't even remember all of what she had bought.
She also found herself growing more and more sluggish. She slept in longer now, nearly missing work on more than one occasion. She only wrote in short bursts now, interspersed with long naps, if she even had the energy to touch it at all. Eden wondered if she had caught a cold and if she should call the doctor; Aster wondered if someone slipped her crack when she wasn't looking and if she was going to have to choke a b***h.
The necklace never came off.
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Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:25 pm
entry five ; the requisite dreamingThe dreams stopped around that time too. Aster usually had very little trust in dreams, sleeping or awake, nor did she think she would ever start to, and didn't care one way or another that they left; but sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night gasping for breath and feeling half-dead and never knowing why.
Then she would lie awake and try to remember if there was anything, anything at all, but nothing ever came. All she could remember was a deep senseless black that enveloped everything, the same black she saw when she was staring at the insides of her eyelids. Sometimes she caught small glimpses of things: pink hair, a tinkly sort of laugh, a kingdom long since fallen; but there was nothing tying this together, no proof that she had not just spontaneously thought this up to comfort herself, no underlying thread that would force any of this start to make sense.
Aster had the distinct feeling that something, somewhere, was laughing at her.
So she started to dream in other ways. Sometimes while she was writing, during the short periods of time when she had the energy to, words and phrases would slip in between the things she had meant to write. She attributed it to a wandering mind and usually erased them and continued, but finally curiosity and frustration alike got the best of her.
Gathering up all those stray thoughts and half-sentences as well as she could, Aster slid the plain composition notebook out from its place from underneath its pillow, and turning to a fresh page, began to write anything that came to mind.
...when the Earth was just created but nothing had taken root, spirits and magic floated freely in the void, not yet bound to anything. There was nothing: for a long time there was nothing, and still they waited because they had nowhere else to go.
Soon they themselves began to more fully manifest, and soon they had names, faces, emotions, beingnesses: anger made her home here, as with apathy, love, sympathy, loneliness, solitude, greed.
Greed, perhaps, was the most impatient of all; since she was aware of its existence she had been calling the Earth hers: the life that would soon bubble up and pool over into glorious beings, those would be hers too -- the trees, the flowers, the butterflies, the delicately spun laces spiders, all these things to come would -- in her will alone. So she imagined, and so she was subdued as long as no one told her otherwise.
And the shadows, and the dust, and the dirt, and the things no one ever wanted to look at -- that was all she would leave to anybody else.
But still nothing came, and she was not the only one that fell to warring: in one glorious, violent, and final clash, all the spirits came together, mixing and twisting together until there was one Being alone; and with an equally violent heave they all tried to spring apart again. It was too late though, they were all impossibly tangled in and to each other now, and in the pattern came life.
Greed had given the gift of drive and ambition to the earth, as double-edged as it was; she brought the ability to change and evolve, to reach and strive for something more.
And when they, one by one, all fell asleep, and were to leave proof of their existance in their joint world, Greed was not satisfied with one form or color alone; she scattered herself across the earth, deeply embedded there, to be discovered in a rainbow of colors and shapes, valuable and deeply desired...
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:38 am
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:40 am
entry six ; an ambiguously lucky meetingAster was not quite sure where she was anymore (well, somewhere in Gaia, but how helpful was that?) nor was she really paying attention to where she was going. The short blonde girl was focused solely on the business card she was holding between two fingers, slightly tilted to catch the sunlight. It was white, pristine, and had "Durem Psychiatric Clinic" printed across the top, with her appointment time below at three.
"This is all your fault, you know," she mumbled, keeping her voice low so she wouldn't be overheard by random passerbyers -- this just made her seem even more mentally unstable. Her words were not, in fact, directed at herself though -- but instead towards the flying little pink cloud trailing her ever move, with a tiny little girl peering out sleepily and giggling at her silly, stupid guardian.
Aster was not sure why she was having these hallucinations, or why the hallucination in question had to be pink. Pink. Why couldn't she have had something a little more dangerous -- black hair, pale skin, crying tears of mascara? But no, it was a harmless little whatever-that-was, with pink curls and chubby cheeks and agh. "You'd better not get me committed," she said, a little more loudly, "I have a shift later tonight, you know!"
Ianthe couldn't care less.
Ghost looked up into the crystal clear sky, the sun's light and warmth pouring down on him. "God, this weather rules." He thought out loud as he walked. He heard the footsteps of another person, and quickly brought his attention from the glorious sky, to a girl, a cute one at that!
Ghost could never bear to pass up the opportunity to admire a cute girl, even if it was from afar. Though something struck him as a bit...odd. Perhaps it was the flying pink creature on a tiny cloud floating behind her. Ghost rubbed his eyes frantically, then looked again. It was still there, floating behind this girl as she walked, looking at what appeared to be some small white card.
"Excuse me! Miss!" Ghost yelled as he ran up to the girl. Normally he wasn't so outgoing, but when there is a pink little baby floating on a cloud following someone, it's hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't ask what the hell it was. "Excuse me, im sorry to bother you. But may I ask what is that little thing following you around?"
The demon had returned home from fixing her eldest son's latest problem only to find Haikaido spazzing. At first the demon didnt know what was going on. When Hai got his mind around something it took a bit to get him to calm down enough to say anything in a way you could understand.
He had eventually drug her to the libary where she was greeted by the sight of a little grayish purple cloud cradling a little winged boy. Haikaido said the cloud appeared where the demon's stone had been. So it had been something strange.
Now she found herself wandering around looking for a place she had been directed to by a person who probably had a few screws loose. The little cloud, and the little boy therein, floating beside her shoulder.
"You know. You better not have an ego to go with that crown." She looked at the tiny boy who's only responce was to roll over and flick his tail at her
"If you don't get the ******** off of my head, I swear to deities I'm going to flick your little a** like a paper football."
Rune was beyond irritated as he attempted to catch a look at the little cretin hugging his horn tightly, resulting only in straining his eyes and getting a good idea of what the underside of his furrowed brow looked like. Genova huffed lightly, gripping his horn tighter with one arm and yanking at his hair with the other.
"God damnit," He swore, jerking his head forward in an attempt to throw his little flight attendant off. She held tight, however, his actions resulting only in another stern yank. She was controlling the show here, and she was going to make damn sure he knew that.
"You l-" Rune paused suddenly, his gaze falling on the blonde. The other two didn’t matter; it was hard for anyone else to matter when there was a blonde chick in sight. Especially a blonde chick who seemed to be plagued with the same pestering problem.
"Excuse me," he spoke up, sidling over in the direction of the assembled group, "But how the ******** did you get that thing to float around like that?"
The moment one young man had called out to Aster and started hurrying to catch up to her, she immediately swore, "Oh hell no," and immediately started hurrying herself to get away before he started asking her to sign some stupid petition to save an orphanage or give money to neuter kittens or some other s**t like that. It was only when Ianthe giggled that she even remembered the tiny sprite-like thing, and only when she looked back that she realized the Pink Puff wasn't even following.
And then the guy asked her what she was.
"What, you can see her too?!" Aster immediately exploded, turning on her heels and storming over to Ghost. "What, are you crazy or something?! Did they name your disease?! I mean, s**t, if I just google it or something, I could save a hundred bucks on this stupid consultation appointment!"
Ianthe, meanwhile, having no patience for mentally-cracking guardians, immediately caught a flash of something far more interesting. No, not the other girl of her kind but -- the one she was sitting on! With the colors and the feathers! Fully wide-awake now, the tiny Seraphii zoomed casually over to Rune with all the innocence of a very hungry snake. Ooh, if she could just have one feather, it would look so very good in her dollhouse -- no, not just one, she needed one of every color!
Aster, meanwhile, was just about to place her hands on Ghost's shoulders and give him a very good shake for not answering her right this very second when something distracted her. Something yellow. And looking very remniscient of an M&Ms commercial -- "Everything tastes better in color!" Agh, what the hell was spawning these creatures?!
"I don't know," she frowned slightly, deciding that it would not be in her better interest to insult one of these weird creatures. He could turn out to be carnivorous, after all. "I just woke up and she was like that; maybe she comes with different settings, but I haven't figured out--"
She immediately cut herself off the moment she caught a glimpse of Genova. "--The hell, you have one of these things too! It's a goddamn plague!" She immediately whirled to face Ghost. "You see the both of them too, right?!" She demanded, gesturing wildly to Rune and Genova and nearly smacking Ianthe out of the sky as she carefully scoped Rune's wings out.
Ghost's jaw dropped, what the ******** hell were these things? "I...I..." Ghost stuttered, in complete and utter amazement. He looked into Aster's eyes and just nodded. "I see both. And I don't think I could be any more confused in my damn life. One day my sister drops off this warm, glowing rock at my door, and now I am seeing these little monsters flying around everywhere."
"Am I crazy? Am I insane? Are these things real?" Questions began floating through Ghost's mind, and straight out of his mouth. He wanted some answers, and didn't care who from. But he wanted to know something before he actually did go crazy from all the confusion. He couldn't be crazy, could he? They were flying around right in front of him, there is no way that they all were imagining the same thing...
The demon turned a corner out of a alley and found herself staring at a strange group of people. Was she not already used to people looking strange she would have stared at the yellow things that looked like someone had gone a little crazy with the dye, but instead she just chuckled as she listened to the blond girl spaz.
She walked up and tapped the blond boy on the shoulder. "If they werent real then you couldnt be able to touch them and..." She nudged Andulvar away from her shoulder, ignoring his huff if protest. "As you can see you can touch them."
She almost laughed as Andulvar huffed again and fluttere his wings. His tail curled around him, falling into one of is tiny hands, as he hunkered down in his cloud. Who were these people making all this noise and why were they babbling about useless things.
"..Are you two on crack or some s**t?"
Rune looked from Aster to Ghost with a raised brow, not quite understanding what the big deal was. Of course, when you cam from a place with giant, child-raping wolf men, snake ho's, blue-skinned skanks, and other such things, having your own cloud-straddling midget really didn't seem like such a big deal.
Still, having his hair pulled like a set of reins was beginning to take its toll.
As Ianthe zoomed over towards Rune, Genova's eyes locked on, following her every move with a nervous glance. This was her mount. Who needed a cloud when you had a unicorn? It was hers. Hers. The cotton-candy powder puff couldn't have him! Hers, hers, hers!
She settled further down into Rune's hair, her tiny metal wings clicking as she fluttered them back and forth. An irritated frown covered her face as the second Seraphii came into view. They were trying to take her throne!
"A rock?" Aster repeated in some confusion, staring at Ghost blankly as she tried to comprehend the relevence of what he'd just told her. It was only a few moments later that she remembered the necklace, and she dubiously hooked a finger into the neckline of her shirt and, pulling it out, peered down to see if it was still there.
...It wasn't. Well, it wasn't like she'd paid for that thing. If she had she'd want a refund anyway, if it had anything to do with the appearance of this... this...
She found herself staring blankly at Andulvar, thankfully having let go of her shirt by now. Why couldn't she have ended up with something like that, at least he looked badass! "Where'd they come from then?" She wanted to know, having calmed down slightly -- though was still obviously sullen. 'Crack', as the yellow-thing had just said something about, made the most sense.
Ianthe only glanced at Genova a moment, eyes narrowing as she sized her up, before finally deciding she wasn't worth anything. She wouldn't match her decor at all; her wings were shiny, yes, but they weren't detatchable like hers...
She fluttered her own wings proudly at the thought, gemstone feathers clinking together, obviously showing off. She dropped a short distance in the air, to better approach Rune's wings, and reached out with a tiny hand to experimentally pull at one of his feathers.
"Yes.. A rock." Ghost felt a tap on his shoulder, turning, he saw yet another one of these floating babies. What the hell was going on? In one day he has seen more crazy s**t than he ever imagined to be possible. "Well, I suppose you couldn't touch them if they weren't real... At least im not crazy."
Ghost looked around to the group, each of them owning one of those little... Things. He took a deep breath, trying to relax a little. Though, this was quite a chore seeing as there was 3 little fairy, pixie, babie...THINGS flying all around him. "Okay... Can someone please explain what these things are, if they are safe, and where they came from?"
"Rocks..i think." The demon looked at Andulvar. "Well i found a rock that did strange things and now i found this baby where the rock was this morning and his wings match the designs on the rock." She watched as Andulvar sat up and streched before laying down again.
He was in no hurry to have anything to do with the others. They were beneth him. Hell, the thing he was folling around was probably not worth the time but he needed her for the time being.
Genova had the sudden desire to punch Ianthe in the face.
No so much for the fact that she was touching her mount, but for the fact that she had looked at her without so much as the courtesy head nod! Was there something wrong with her? Did the ignorant ball of fluff not understand who she was looking at? Genova huffed softly, pushing herself away from Rune's horn and fluttering over to the intruding gemstone Seraphii.
There were no words. Genova immediately zoomed in front of Ianth. She snatched at the feather that Ianthe was experimentally tugging at and attempted to yank it right out of Rune's wing. If successful, she would go so far as to try and swat Ianthe away with it.
Her unicorn! If she let them get a feather, they would try to take the whole thing!
Ianthe, realizing that the wing was not about to give up the feather without a fight, was just about to reach with her other hand to give it a good yank when the Seraphii from before came to join her. Surprised, the pink-haired Seraphii let go and fluttered away a bit, allowing Genova enough space to do her work.
Well! It seemed she had misjudged her! Obviously she had recognized Ianthe's superiority and was now helping her in her quest to have Rune's feathers -- what a smart girl. Ianthe let out a pleased coo, turning over onto her cloud and watching Genova upside-down, holding her hands out and wiggling her fingers for the feather whenever the other Seraphii managed to work it free.
"Hell if I know," Aster rolled her eyes, trying to look like she couldn't give the most flying-est ******** in the world and instead just looked like she had stepped in dog poo. Finally giving up on her natural urge for dramatics, she shifted her attention to the woman accompanying the Badass Seraphii -- at least she seemed to know what she was doing. "So. Rocks. It seems all I've ever been taught about basic human biology has been a lie." And she reached out to experimentally poke at Andulvar, if only to confirm that he was, in fact, not a product of her sick imagination.
Ghost felt a tingle run straight up his spine. Rocks, the word kept echoing through his mind. That rock that his sister left outside his door, the one that stabbed the bottom of his foot first thing that morn...Er...afternoon...
It was going to turn into one of those. "I knew it, I knew that rock had something to do with these creatures. That glowing rock of mine is going to turn into one of these!" He replied to the demon.
Ghost had NO idea what to do to prepare. What do they eat, how the hell do they live? Quesions raced through his mind. He began to observe the three that were floating around him, and noticed that they played and acted like tiny, little humans.
"I guess i'm in for quite the surprise, I can just imagine what is going to jump out and attack me when I get home..."
Andulvar huffed and sat up slightly. He didnt like being poked. Where did she get off poking him like that. His tail twisted out of her grasp and poked at her wrist to make her go away.
"I dont think he likes beign poked." The demon chuckled. "And i dont think human biology would help. I rather doubt they are human. I mean humans dont come out of rocks." Then again she wasnt human either but that was anothe story.
"Well, as long as your rock dosent have teeth you're probably alright." She watched as Andulvar twisted around and his crown glinted in the light.
Oh, Genova would give her the feather all right. Oh, how she would give it to her. Wielding the brightly-colored thing like a baseball bat, Genova pulled it back, ready to beat the pink right out of the other Seraphii.
Not that she would get the ********!" Rune had yelled as soon as Genova had pulled the feather out, twisting around to catch sight of the two Seraphii and instinctively stretching out the offended wing, "Why the hell would you do that!?" He yelled, pulling back the rainbow-feathered appendage and putting it to use as one would a tennis racket. He batted Genova - and Ianthe as well, if she was still in the path of his wing - as hard as he could manage.
Unlike Ghost, Rune was not concerned with what they ate or how they lived. He hoped they hit a ******** wall.
...Hey, this was actually kind of amusing. Sort of like poking a snail. These things never got old. In some desperate attempt to put off processing all of this information for as long as she could, Aster poked him again. It was true that his tail sort of hurt but then again -- she was the kind of person who'd stick a fork in an electrical socket just to see what it did. "...So what is he, Satan?" She asked brilliantly.
"EE!" Ianthe immediately squealed, completely ignoring the loud noises the owner-of-the-feathers was making. Nothing else mattered to her except getting that feather -- and thus she was in prime position to be smacked, and oh, how she was smacked.
It took her a few moments to regain her bearings; she'd been flipped several times through the air and had ended up being whacked right into a bush. The tears already started to fall as she untangled herself from the twigs and leaves around her -- it wasn't until she had managed to make it out from the bush (and thus able to be seen) that the tears turned into loud, racuous wailing. Taking a deep breath, Ianthe screamed as hard as she could at the injustice -- how dare the feather-wielder do that to her! how dare she not have the feather in her hands right now! -- her face rapidly turning purple with the effort.
Aster looked on helplessly, not even having the faintest of clues as to how to turn off this thing. "...So, hey, anyone in the market for a pink powerpuff baby?! Only twenty bucks, major discount!"
Starting to grow a little more used to the sight of the little monsters, Ghost began to inspect them closer. "I have to admit, that Satan-ish one is pretty badass looking." He commented as he poked the little thing.
Ghost immediately heard the purple one's crying. He quickly turned to see it sticking out of a bush, yelling and screaming its brains out. "They sure as hell aren't much different from the little brats of our species..." He commented to Aster. "You may have a hard time getting something that loud off your hands."
"This is Andulvar. I'd say he'd need a set of horns to be Satan" The demon snickered
Alright. He really didnt like this. Now there were two of them poking at him. He huffed again and squirmed. He needed to find a way to make them stop.
Hatter was about to suggest they not poke Andulvar when she twitched at the sudden whailing of the pink baby. "Well, we know her lungs work." She was going to go over and help the little pink one but Andulvar got the jump on it.
Annoyed, and now pissed, he didnt want to hear someone screaming. Floating over to the pink one he reached back and smacked her. She needed to hush and she needed to hush now. He didnt want to hear it.
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:44 am
entry seven ; an invasion on safe territoryIt was life as usual, really. Wake up, pour some coke into a bowl of fruit loops and eat half of it before wondering why it tasted so funny, shower, slip on the tiles, emerge with bruised knees, throw on the first outfit she came across regardless of whether or not the colors actually matched, and be out the door before realizing that she didn't actually have work that day. It was not necessarily a bad life. Sure, she wasn't queen of life, the universe, and everything quite yet, but everyone would rue the day she would come into power.
...Well, they would.
Aster's plans of world domination did not include taking care of little crack-babies though, especially ones that stole fruit loops out of her breakfast bowl and cried when it wasn't the exact color she wanted. Or crack-babies that followed her into the shower and cried when she got wet (she immediately cheered up at the slipping part, though.) Or crack-babies that demanded that she wear an overly sparkly wire headband with fake jewels encrusted on it (that didn't even match her outfit at all) so she could sit on top and act as if she were the star of her own one-man parade.
She wandered down the hallway and, passing a mirror that immediately reminded her of the 'passenger' napping on top of her head, heavily considered smacking into the wall. She finally realized though that any injuries Ianthe might sustain in the process would undoubtedly leave her wailing for days, and the thought made the short blonde slump down in a full-body sulk. Finally coming to the elevator at the end of the hall, she jabbed at the buttons and glared at them crossly as if they were personally responsible for AIDs, world hunger, and Ianthe's existance; they, of course, took no responsibility though. The cheerful 'ding!' of the elevator was obviously meant to mock her.
She had originally planned to maybe check out the library to see if there were any books on the subject of crack-babies. Now she vaguely thought shhe should check herself into a drug rehab center for days, even though the strongest she took was aspirin. She stepped into an elevator and pressed for the first floor, and secretly thought that if the elevator cables wanted to snap and plummet down to the ground, she actually wouldn't mind that much. (Ianthe, of course, did not care what her guardian thought or felt of her as long as she continued to make with the shinies.)
"Wait, wait, wait," Chai muttered, and tapped her foot on the carpeted floor. "I am waaaiting." The little screen above the elevator crawled slowly through the floors. Remiel yawned and settled on her shoulder.
"Where are we going now?" he asked, smokey tendrils of his cloud curling absently around him.
Chai ignored him and kept staring determinedly at the screen. A fly buzzed by her ear but stopped abruptly when an arm of cloud shot out and knocked it out of the air. It twitched on the floor for a few moments and then became still. Remiel yawned again but didn't bother repeating his question, opting instead for settling more comfortably in the crook of Chai's neck.
Chai pressed her nose into the stainless steel doors. "Ding!" went the elevator. Moving forward before the doors were even half-way open, she walked right into the blonde girl already occupying the elevator.
"I'm so sorry..." Chai began, but trailed off when she spotted the purple thing on top of the blonde's head. "... oh my God, you have one, too?"
It is likely that Aster wouldn't have noticed the elevator stopping, or the doors opening, at all -- until some minty-haired midget promptly ran into her. The fact that she was just handed an excuse to yell at somebody promptly cheered her up, and with eyes shining, she lifted her head to best arrange her features into a cross glare and parted her lips to begin yelling--
And then shut it.
"Yeah, you do too," Aster brilliantly informed her, eyebrows furrowing. She did know that there were (theoretically) others like Ianthe; she just hadn't accepted the previous meeting as anything more than an acid trip until now. "...I think God sent them to punish me for not donating to enough homeless kitten orphanages or something. Are you a demon? I think you're too late if you've come to claim my soul." She tilted her head to the side, obviously unsure of what exactly to make of Chai.
Ianthe squeaked at the sudden incline, though, the angle sending her and her cloud tumbling off Aster's head. She grabbed ahold of her guardian's hair, prompting an entirely too loud 'ow!' from the blonde girl who straightened properly again. Ianthe pulled herself up to her former resting place, briefly considering a Loud Noisy Fuss -- but deciding at the last minute that she didn't want to waste her energy.
Remiel stared at the purple Seraphii for a moment before closing his eyes and snorting. "Too bad she's still a baby," he muttered under his breath, "Maybe she could have helped me figure out what Seraphii are."
"Oh, I'm not a demon," Chai offered helpfully. "And I wasn't sure what my Seraphii was at first, too! So this is too cool. I only knew one person with a thing like Remiel, and that was Jinju... but you live here, right? So we could like talk and share info about our kids?" She moved closer to the other girl's Seraphii and poked the tiny girl gently with a finger. "Oh, she's so cute... what's her name? Oh yeah, mine's Chai," she added on an afterthought.
Remiel yawned and said, "My name is Remiel." Chai nodded firmly and supplied, "He came from a powder. What did yours come from?"
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