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 Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:42 pm
 Late Afternoon, Middling.
Children do not always take well to adversity, it is a fact well known. A little difference here or there they can overlook, but something blatantly wrong, at least according to their standards, should be punished in some way. At least, some children can be like this.
Unfortunately Crow happened to have pissed off that percentile. A simple visit turned sour as things quickly escalated thanks to Carren's quick temper, and even quicker reaction time.
Two hours previous, the normal Carren had tottled away from her streets and headed towards her old school, where Killian still attended. School had just let out, and she knew this may be her one shot for some time to visit Killian without going home. Most children of Killian's class didn't know her, so it was easy enough to walk by them without incident.
"Killian!" she called out as soon as she caught a glimpse of his sandy brown locks. In an instant he turned and ran to his younger sibling, tossing his arms around her.
"Carren, you're alive!" He cried out. He then let her go, and then simply hugged her tightly as he could, his head resting on hers. "Everyone was worried you had died, or something... Where have you been all this time?" His eyes watered as he searched hers with some desperate flicker of hope.
"I've...been busy. Killian, I've just come to say hello and see how Mom, Dad, Murphy, and Luke have been, that's all..." She was stopped during her train of thought by Killian suddenly shaking her.
"No! You're coming home! Mom's been worried sick--" He yelped, Carren dug her sharp fingernails into his right arm. Carren pulled herself away from him, and decided best to keep a few feet between them.
"Killian... Please. I just... Can't you just leave things as they are, damnit?!"
"Watch your mouth!" A third voice hissed. A father of one of the children, or a teacher, one of the two, stood glaring at Carren and Killian. Killian swallowed air, Carren just glared back.
"I'll see you later, Killian." She turned quickly to her brother and said flatly. She turned on her heel and began to walk away. She felt something hard suddenly hit her in the back as she walked away, the sharp pain stopped her dead. She winced, and then turned back to see where the source of the pain had came from. Killian stood with his arm extended out, he had obviously thrown what hit her. His face was contorted with anger as tears streamed down his face.
She growled, he always made things so much harder for her when it was time to leave. Just barely a year older than her caused that, they were tight as twins and that bond wasn't easy to break, especially since Killian was unwilling to do such. Shook from her trip down memory lane, Carren felt a tight hand on her shoulder--that didn't feel very nice, either. She glanced up and it was that same man who interrupted a moment ago. He started to say something but Carren simply cut him short with a good hard kick to the shin.
"CARREN!" Killian cried out woefully as she dashed away as quick as her bare feet would take her. To make matters worse, her old class heard this cry of her name quite clearly, since most everyone in her class not only recognized her, but hated her, they gave chase.
She had lost almost the entirety of her class within the twenty minutes. But, over an hour-and-a-half later, she still had three large boys who she had beaten up once for picking on her wings. Sometime during all this running she changed again, the good part was her feet didn't hurt anymore as her hooves were much more resilient.
They were in Middling now, she didn't need to note this as she had been through Middling many a time as a normal girl, but this had been one of the few times she had appeared as a monster. She felt her calves ache, but the boys were gaining on her... Maybe she ought to fight?
No, she couldn't, she was outnumbered and exhausted. More so, she added, than the boys thanks to randomly changing during her sprint for freedom. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the busy shops, her heart beating in her ears and her breathing shallow. Her calves were still hurting, too, as was pretty much the rest of her. Her wings flustered and widened, seemingly trying to make her own small form appear much larger.
The three boys slowed down as well. They took a moment to catch their breaths, but soon they were cracking their knuckles, ready to exact revenge. Crow's eyes searched the square in desperate hope for someone, something, anything that may help her.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:52 pm
Dues ex machina, he was not. Lennon Albert Carver the XIV, known to his..."friends" as Len, had been wandering around the lower parts of the City for several days--he had lost count exactly how many--after he got his strange trinket from that...flower woman. It wasn't just the fact that he had never been to this part of the City before, or even some early form of teenage rebellion against his parents.
It was just...
He shuddered even thinking about it. It was easy to block it out of his mind. Sometimes he even forgot about the sudden extra nerve endings on his face, or his fingernails that remained sharp, no matter how he tried to to shave them down.
This morning, he was wandering an area of Middling that he had never seen before--they all looked the same anyway, but at least today he would have a little bit of novelty--when he heard a sound that he had never heard before. It was a...clopping would be the best word, in a furious pattern that sounded like running on the pavement.
He moved to the side of the street he had been walking on, towards the wall like Len had become acustomed to the last few days, trying to push himself as much into the building as he could...when he saw a girl run at the next cross-street.
A girl with wings.
Len's mouth opened in shock. Another one? That flower-woman DID mention something about others... His heart leaped with joy. He was no longer alone.
He started to walk towards the next street when a group of boys flew passed as well. These were normal boys, although a little tall and terrifying to the weak child...they reminded Len of the other boys, the ones that had caused him to go into that forsaken shop.
Suddenly, his head flushed with rage.
It was an emotion that he had never really experienced before. Len had been angry, what he thought was a terrible anger, but he had never, EVER in his life felt this...this insane explosion that had suddenly come over him.
It was the Dreamer's influnece. It had gotten to him, after all.
His eyes now literally a firey shade of red, Len started to chase after the boys and the winged girl, following them into an empty square of some sort. They had all slowed.
Len stood at the entrance to the square, weak fists clenched together, waiting for the next move.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:53 pm
Writ was briskly walking down the sidewalk from school. It was alright, boring, but alright. The end of school is always the best part of the weekday, it was time to think about what to do, what to see, and how to do it all while avoiding the dreaded grip of homework.
That, and wondering what the heck a crowd of kids were doing chasing... Was that Crow? He walked down a block to get a look, and saw a pair of wings on her back. What other winged girls did he know? Just Crow.
Whatever was going on, it didn't seem to be a game of tag. Tag was fun, this, it had a Manhunt vibe to it. Writ never liked that game, one against all wasn't the fairest of odds, especially when you're being chased.
"Hey Crow!" Writ called her from across the square, waving his hand to come here. She's helped him, time to return the favor.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:08 pm
"A LITTLE HELP HERE?!" Crow yelped out upon hearing her name. Her hands were curling inward as she hesitantly stepped backwards. "Really, any..."
"Like anyone would help you." One of the boys teased.
"A freak like you?" Another added.
Crow growled, but then she simply went back to huffing. All that running was more than her empty stomach could handle. But, she had to fight, it was the only choice.
"There's others, like me, and...and...they'll...they'll come after you!" Crow stated through her shallow gasps of air. Resting for a minute made it a little easier to talk, but not much. She wasn't entirely sure how many others like her were out there, nevertheless, if they would help... Well the Writ kid might, but he was pretty small, too.
The three boys stepped forward proudly, "we can take them, too." With that, one boy swung and hit Crow in her shoulder, which she had thrown forward to shield her face.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:18 pm
Fish was on a mission for Miss Floros. It was a mission so important it seemed that it had required Poseidon encouraging him to cut class in the middle of the day and go see what was up. And then it had turned out she really hadn't needed much of anything, just some more potting soil, and where the blazes was he going to find that?
As he rounded another corner and walked into the middle of what seemed to be a rather fair sized street brawl of kids. His hands flew instinctively for the trident in the sling across his back, and he struggled to tug it out as he assessed the situation.
That girl had to be a godling. After all, wings? The square seemed to crackle with energy, which implied more than one. It took him a moment to spot Writ, and another to pick out the slight-looking angry boy.
The girl called for help and the boys struck a blow. Fish clenched his hands around the trident - fishing spear, really - and debated rushing in.
Finally, almost spontaneously, "Hey, leave her alone!"
And then, silently, he thought, she's not yours to beat up. You don't play the game.
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:26 pm
Maria had once again decided to skip school just because she saw it as a mindless waste of time; it was not her fault though that she could not careless about her classes. And now because of her careless planning for skipping that day she decided it would be best to hang in Middling for a bit. That was because she did not want to go home and listen to her mother continuously ask questions about why she was skipping and where she had been. On the far worse end, she really did not want to sit at home, wait for her father to get home and then listen to him yell at her, and give her the lecture why she needed an education and how he was spending good money on a good school. Therefore, to avoid the wrath of her father she decided to walk around Middling for a while, just to kill time and maybe run into someone.
As Maria walked around the familiar surroundings of Middling, she could not help but notice the sound of clomping hooves. “Hooves,” she thought. “There aren’t any kinds of farms around this area or hooved animals for that fact.”
Therefore, Maria tried to follow the sound, meaning she had to get around the area where she heard the noise. Deciding to take short cut, she found herself in an almost empty square; except for there were people there. Taking a minute to assess her surrounding she gathered all the info she needed. “Three thugs, and a winged- hoofed Godling. Maybe,” she thought to herself as she continued to gather info and not jump to, to many conclusions. “And three others, two who were Fish and Writ. I guess I found the someones.”
Seeing Fish dart in toward the girl as she was slapped triggered Maria to immediately run into the beginning fray, yelling stop also at the school thugs. “Don’t you dare touch her again, ” yelled Maria as she punched the guy who had just landed a punch on the other girls shoulder, causing him to slightly falter and Maria to crack her few remaining uncracked knuckles. "Come any closer and I'll hit ya again, punk."
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:33 pm
Coyote woke up. Even as an entity inside Writ's mind, he still had every right to laze around. But the energy around here was too overwhelming to ignore.
There was that girl again, her name was Crow if he remembered right. She was going to get killed if she doesn't do something. He can't really tell Writ to stay away either, because the kid was running like hell to "Save" her somehow. Stupid! He was gonna get beaten up! It was time to step in for a moment.
Writ ran in front of her and yelled, "Hey! Stop it!" He had no idea what he was doing, he really did not want to get in a fight, but he did owe Crow one.
"Get out of the way kid, this is none of your business." A large boy came in front of Writ, almost towering him, and shoved him down to the ground.
Writ slowly stood up.
"Leave. Her. Alone."
Then something unusual happened, Writ's eyes seem to grow into a narrow glare and his eyes seemed to glow in anger, his ears seemed to grow a little longer, even his voice sounded different for a moment.
The God needed his prophet to survive, why not give him a little help once in a while?
The energy around Writ crackled, to the point where the thugs could feel it. With that, the two remaining boys panicked frightened by the strange sensation of fear, bolted.
Ears receeding, and eyes becoming normal, Writ turned around and smiled to see Crow safe. He offered a hand, "Are you alright?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:25 pm
As the other Godlings had entered the square and came to the winged-girl's rescue, Len instead stood at the edge, watching, observing. While he had originally planned to help her out, the sudden presence of...something, something new and original and that he hadn't ever felt before.
He felt electric.
The boys tumbled past him as they tried to leave the square. He glanced over at them, revealing his face and red eyes, not afraid for the first time in days.
"This kid's a freak too!" one of them yelled and kept running. The second bolted past.
The last started to run past, turning his head, making eye contact, slowing, fear creasing his face, feeling himself slipping, slipping...and then broke contact and started to run again.
Len smiled slightly before his eyes faded and The Dreamer let him come back down to earth. He held a clawed hand to his head, as if he had a headache that had just suddenly let up.
"Oh! Uh..." Len slurred his speech slightly as he came back. "Oh! Hey!" He jogged over to the the forming group in the center. "Are you...okay?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:54 pm
Before Crow knew it, as she recovered from the shoulder blow, three had come to defend her.
Writ, another odd boy with...dear goodness, was that a trident? Oh, yes, and the girl. She didn't seen anything odd about the girl, but the boy with the trident was obviously like her. One helluva an oddity.
She got to her hooves, brushed herself off before quickly peeking her head betwixt them, and smiled. "Well... I didn't expect this, but...wow, thanks."
Her wings tucked back as her fluffy wolf tail wagged. She smiled gleefully for a moment before calming down once again, although still smiling. "I'm... Crow, but...who are you? Are you...?" She took in the odd features of the boy, obviously, he was a player. Or he should be, at least. The girl on the other hand...she couldn't see anything blatantly odd about her. She cocked her head lightly at the girl; why was she so...normal?
Maybe she was a changling, like herself? But before she could question further, a fourth arrived. He seemed a little dazed, but no less concerned. She immediately spotted the strange green mandibles on either side of his mouth. She smiled at him, and then placed her hand on her bruised shoulder and smiled.
"I'm certainly better now than I could have been... Thank you all."
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:13 pm
Maria turned around after she watched the three so called thugs run off and looked at the other girl and a few of the other children that had managed to come over to the group. “You’re welcome, anytime. Glad to hear you are okay, though,” said Maria as she finished the knuckle cracking and noticed a light purple color forming on her knuckles.
Remind me never to get on your bad side for any reason, spoke the woman in her head. Also, your hand is bruising a bit let me take care of that for you.
“Hah. I’ll take care of it later,” replied Maria through her thoughts as she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets, and began to channel a bit of energy to them, just in case they were bruising. “I did hit that thug pretty hard though. Hopefully, she has seen the last of them at least for today.”
“Anyway, is your shoulder injured? I just want to make sure he didn’t hurt you,” said Maria as she looked at the other girl.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:27 pm
Fish relaxed his grip on the trident as the thugs ran off. Well, that had been fast. He looked over at Maria, having not really known she had the guts to punch someone, and then approached the girl who had been the bullies' target.
"Hey!" He called after the retreating bullies. "We travel in packs!"
He turned back to the girls and to the other two boys, the gills on his neck flaring in anger.
"You okay?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:58 pm
Writ turned back and yelled after Fish, "Yeah!"
That's when he realized that Fish was actually there, and his friend Maria. Where'd they come from?
"Oh, hi!" Writ greeted them, still gripping Crow's arm. He let go. "Oh yeah, this is Crow." He waved an arm to her direction, "And this is Fish, Maria, and.... New guy." His fingers pointing to the respective person. Even the kid with those funky tentacle things. Godling? Duh.
Writ's ears twitched out, and heard the crowd muttering, he looked around. They made quite a scene. Usually, Writ would've felt comfortable being the center of attention, but there were people who knew his parents, and he didn't quite want to explain the whole, "I've gotten choosen by a God and now I'm fighting a bunch of other kids to win a game." story just yet. Nor the, "My new friends have wings, hooves, gills and tentacle things." Either. Neither wasn't exactly asking for a raise on his allowence.
"Uhh... To my house?" Writ started to walk briskly, closest place he could think of. He beckoned all of them to follow him.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:59 pm
Crow went silent for a few moments to let everyone have their say...this was quite an odd situation to her, still. A nervous glance to the crowd around her, and she huffed.
"I'm fine, I've been hit a lot harder." She started. She then turned to Fish and gave a quick nod, and then finally to Writ. "M'kay." She simply said. She was still at a lost for words in the whirlwind of the quickest fight she's ever been in.
She knew she was going to like this whole game quite a lot.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:36 pm
Len was startled by the sight of so many new people...all like him. Most of them were touched, some even moreso than him. He was in shock. All of them at once... he nervously put his hands in his pockets.
"Uh....I'm Len," he said, his voice quivering as the the group around him talked. They all know each other? His hopes faded. Len felt like a fifth wheel--not a new feeling for him, but one that hurt him nonetheless...even though he knew that he was supposed to fight them, somehow.
"...your house?" Len was again shocked. The thought to return home hadn't ever occured to him. He had stayed away from his home; he was sure that his parents would shun him for being a freak now. He frowned slightly.
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 2:13 pm
Fish looked over at the tentacled boy and smiled. He was starting to get used to the idea of there being more players now, and he didn't feel inclined to ask everyone how they had joined the game. "Hi, Len," he said brightly. "My name's Fish."
He glanced in the winged girl's direction, "Crow, righ'?" he asked, and then looked over at Writ.
"Your house? You sure no one's gonna mind?"
It was nice like now. Sure, at any point in the future he might be expected to severely injure or kill any of the people in attendance, but today was for fun. Fish felt genuinely happy, his task for Miss Floros forgotten for now.
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