Sight of the Soul (Open)

[Pocketfox]

Even the jester can have his pensive moments. This is open, I suppose. Go ahead and post if you like. Players of all skills are encouraged.



He wasn't entirely interested in going anywhere, but the change of pace was something he felt necessary.

So it was there on the shore of Scara Brae that Ayer stood, all six feet and five inches of his body swaying in the breeze. He looked almost like a scarecrow, the fine silk of his shirt nearly translucent to show the rather thin form within. He had been thicker before traveling, months of hibernation and working before and through the winter. That was what he got for living with bears.

Outstretched palms faced towards the sky and eyes closed in deep thought and meditation, the cold water of Scara lapped at his toes. The sand too was cold, course and not un-liked between his toes. The rest of his body felt much different. The farther away he got from home, the more he seemed to ache inside, the calling of his forest's song sweet and sticky. He hated it.

Why? He would of chuckled if someone asked. The family he had once considered himself part of was stereotypical of his kind, the father a dominant figure and the mother an even more oppressing one. The held him down with their religion, their to the earth way of belief. Not to say that he didn't believe in some higher power. It wasn't unheard of.

Lost in his own thoughts, he barely noticed the setting sun and the shadows it cast upon him. An array of purples and pinks colored his cheeks, lit up his hair, and reflected in the water before him. This place was nice; nicer than home. The breeze caressed his cheeks, ran through his hair and tussled it about like a tender lover.

He felt at peace.

It was there he stood, cold, alone, calm, pensive of his own ways on the shore. The world could pass around him, likely not to find him on the section of beach he had occupied. Perhaps one of them would even say hello to him in their ever-so-busy travels.

[Kronos]

Kjniv’s bicycle-rickshaw wobbled, as he peddled across the rocky expanse beyond the cold shores. He had just stepped off the ferry a week ago, and was still new to this island. The breeze ran through his tendril hair, and he was at peace; like his soon-to-be elfish acquaintance, he loved the silence and cold winds of the isle coastline.

To any observer, the Cruz-Yu-Lu-Drebznu engineer would be an abomination of the first class. His squat, catlike body, which resembled the normal Kzin body, ended abruptly at the shoulders. His head wasn’t a head in human sense, but a mass of four tendrils tipped in an eye and two limber manipulator tendrils. – And his attire was strange to boot. A silk body-glove outlined his cat-like body, and leather boots started at the arch of his foot and ended at his knees. A steel breastplate was slapped across his chest, and two brass arms extended from the backplate; they were folded at the moment, like a normal pair of human arms.

The contents of his rickshaw were almost as strange. The arms, legs, and helmet of his armor lay at the bottom, covered by a blanket and wooden planks. Chemicals, inside transmuted glass jars, rattled precariously atop the planks; while a crossbow and woodcutting axe extended from the cover of the blanket, in the space between two planks; a sack was heaped next the chemicals, keeping them from falling off the open side of the rickshaw.

In the distance, his frontal aft eye saw a glint of motion. He peddled onwards.

“Hellu ‘ere!” The accent of a Cruz-Yu-Lu-Drebznu wasn’t suited in the least to Common; it required them to force the complex pronunciation – and in comparison to the complex series of croaks, intonations, and choir notes that was Cruzian, it was downright primitive. But Kjniv was learned in Common, and he could speak it fluently… enough. Two bulky tendrils, from the starfish head, squirmed through the air and gazed at Ayer. They moved independent of his body, seeming to track the elf – if that wasn’t unnerving, Kjniv didn’t know what was. One of the eyes blinked and closed tight. One of the manipulator tendrils rubbed it profusely, as if they were trying to get at an itch. It rubbed a little more, blinked once again, and resumed staring at the elf.

He put his foot down, literally. The four claws of his left foot extended and trailed against the ground for a second; and then his heel jammed into the rocky expanse, slowing him to a complete halt. He retracted his foot and kicked down the kickstand; and with catlike agility, he jumped off his bicycle seat. With arms held joyfully high, and claws fully extended, he speed-walked towards the elf. If he possessed the facilities needed to make a large, toothy smile, he would. In the croaking Cruzian accent, his voice was almost indecipherable. “Nhis to sieh anotzerr creetour; you lhooc nhew! Whelcom to zhe islend of Sccara Brh!”

[Andhaka Adiir]

Among the aforementioned cold and loving winds Andhaka the elemental was watching a group of her kind rather enviously they dipped into the waves, causing them to crash at unnatural angles, frightening many people on the shore. Invisible as they were, no one could tell what was doing it, but many magically inclined passengers on nearby ships could see the cloud of Andhaka's barely visible glittering blue form, and she had taken the blame for their actions.

Thinking this quite the game, a male spirit, the only among them, gathered himself up and pulled along a huge wave, tossing it over the side of a ship that was trying to dock. The other two in the group Andhaka had been blowing around in laughed their whistling giggles and caught the male's spirit's wave before it went over the other side and turned themselves around, causing a whirl pool in mid air, howling with jubilant laughter the entire time.

"Annnn," the two females coaxed in wind whispers. "Why no play, Annnndhhaaakaaa?" Andhaka was only half wind spirit, as these knew full well, since she had told them a dozen times already. Also, she was young and often could not control her changes. Getting extremely wet would surely cause her to go substantial, so she hovered nearby, trying not to be touched by the waves and trying at damage control, while controlling her own urges to abandon all reason and play.

A mage on board started shooting electricity out of a thick wooden staff, not at her friends, but directly at her. Some of his shots went wild and hit one of her companions. Charged with electricity, all of the gaseous molecules she held to herself dissipated and she was no longer able to hold her share of the water. The others sensed her panic like a choking force, experiencing it without realizing it's cause, and took off, dropping the entirety of the wave on the boat. The defensive mage took this as another attack. He aimed another attack at Andhaka, which hit. She went down into the water she had tried so hard to avoid, no longer able to keep herself airborne.

Once she hit the water she turned physical, and took in her first breath as she always did, swallowing water instead of air. She swam as best as she could and, after some struggle, ended up wading to the shore, coughing and sputtering, in the place where two gentleman stood conversing. Her hair, which normally flowed around her as if she were underwater, twitched weakly. Her barely covering top and small skirt were, as always, perfectly dry and glittering blue, wafting around with life of their own, showing her bedraggled state by simple contrast.

Panting, she lay down on the sand near the two men to catch her breath.

[Pocketfox]

Well...this was rather unexpected. And I thought they said new threads wouldn't get much attention for a while.

Pah. Maybe it's just my luck. Welcome!




Perhaps, in the light of company, the elf would have returned to his senses.

This decidedly did not happen.

With arms continuing to stay aloft, the elf's already closed eyes were drawn even tighter. He felt the welcome pass through his mind, followed by fear and struggling; the feeling of drowning, quick and painful like an assassins blade drawn over the throat of his target. Air barely passed through his lungs and he struggled for a moment to grasp himself back to the world before him. Words forced him back.

"Hellu ‘ere! Nhis to sieh anotzerr creetour; you lhooc nhew! Whelcom to zhe islend of Sccara Brh!”

They came from some atrocious looking creature: tentacles with eyes and feelers, four clawed toes and a strange cat-like gate that nearly caused him to- quite frankly- wet himself when he turned round. His toes curled, his eyes widened in the slightest, and he forced himself to bow low at the waist.

Now Ayer...remain pleasant...

"Ehrm. Hallo there," He didn't know whether to offer a hand or just keep it at his waist, the awkwardness of this...man's curiosity and intrusion a bit on the unpleasant side. "Nice...to meet you, I suppose."

He clasped his hands tight, fear still lingering on his mind like a sour aftertaste of milk. It unnerved him to look at the beast for a while, eventually growing more adaptive of it's presence. He wasn't all that bad, when it came down to it. Just...slimy and wriggly. Curiocity enticed him.

"...What are you, exactly?" He murmured in the low of conversation, the amethyst of his eyes lingering on the beasts own. Yet, not long did the beast have to reply. He heard the slosh of activity behind him, twisted to see the woman hoisting herself out of the water and sucking life back into her lungs.

"...! Hold on for a second, sir...! I think someone's hurt over there!"

The sand gave way as his feet left the soft, watery sand, morphing back as he left. It only took him a few seconds to get to where she was, but he still felt the situation was a bit urgent. He knelt beside her, checking her breath, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Ma'am, are you alright?"

[Andhaka Adiir]

The sky was pretty above her, and Andhaka was staring at it with mild interest, collecting herself, when a form passed in front of it. Andhaka spit water up into the air that had collected and was trying to go down into her throat. The form above her was radiating concern and curiosity, she received this more clearly due to the physical contact of his hand on her shoulder. Andhaka scratched her head, her hair which tended to waft about managed to wind itself through the sand enough to get plenty of it stuck in her hair.

She scrambled to her feet and looked at the man, then past him at the odd character he was with, thinking not much certainly nothing to do with fear.

"No, um, I'm alright." she bent over and used her fingers, rubbing them rapidly against her skull to get the sand out of it, then flipping it backwards. "There was just a mistake...I was flying with some friends and I got shot by a mage...so, uh, I became all solid like this. It...well...it happens." she sighed and put her weight on one foot, her other scratching the back of the first. Her arms twined together, her fingers wringing each other tightly as she gazed at the man in front of her.

[Andhaka Adiir]

((Edited))

[Kronos]

How rude...! It was like the elfin creature had never seen a Cruzian before; from what Kjniv saw, the elf took a second to fortify himself, and bowed deeply – perhaps in greeting, or perhaps in a kind of fear. Still, he proceeded towards the elf, hands high in the air. Just in case, he pulled his tendrils inwards, wrapping them around his neck. ‘Really…’, he thought to himself, ‘does a six-foot-tall creature with tendrils and orange fur look bad?’

He swung his raised hands down, and extended his right hand a clawed handshake. “Nhice to meeht zu, tooo” When the elf clasped his own hands instead of politely shaking, he gave a shrug and lowered his hands. “Krau-Sci-Scu-Nijv…” In the language of Cruzian, this simple chain of sounds was a minor insult, roughly meaning “Where the hell are your manners?” Kjniv simply wasn’t getting that, maybe, a creature would be scared of his outlandish appearance; to him, the tendrils, fur, and beak-like mouth inside a jaw articulated four ways was, well, good looking.

“Khauht!”, Kjniv swung a tendril in the direction of the woman and followed behind the elf. Wet sand flecked his furry, clawed feet, and wedged in the gap between skin and leather boots as he trod. He stood over the elf – it was all he could do – and waited for it, for it undoubtedly knew more about human physiology than him, to saw something. His two frontal tendrils loosened and moved in a for view over the elf’s shoulder. “Isz ‘shee… oak-, Khauht… oak-kay?

[Pocketfox]

Sorry for the wait and the post length, all.

He felt the bit of hostility in the Crusian's words, but none the less he had to remain focused on the woman. She could have been hiding some injury...

He hated to see a woman in pain.

“Are you sure you're okay?” He began to rise off of his knees, offering a hand to the woman as sense of calm fell over his mind. His hand would be firm and secure if she took it, hoisting her to her feet as quickly as she felt comfortable with. If not, that was fine too. He would fold his hands before him, watch with concern. He could see that the strange character look a bit concerned as well, though he made no comment until the woman had risen.

“My name is Ayer and,” he turned back to the Cruzian, offering quite a sincere apology. “I'm sorry if I offended you, sir. I've never seen a being such as yourself. I'm not from around here, obviously. ”

After dusting off his reputation, the elf looked back to the woman, gave her an estranged amethyst eye and opened his mouth to speak.

“...Did you say flying?” She...didn't seem to have any wings to speak of; he almost circled her just to make sure, but that would probably make her uncomfortable. He was perplexed to say the least. "Y'certainly don't seem to have any flying appendages..."

The wind tussled his hair a bit more, the sun just nearly breaking the horizon now. Purple and Orange were cast about on the sand, on their faces, and beautifully on the water...

[Andhaka Adiir]

These people seemed friendly enough. Then again, there weren't many who didn't seem friendly to a creature as amicable as a wind elemental. Andhaka had failed to notice the Elf's outstretched hand and thus did not take it. The solid form she was in now, but her height at a healthy 5'6", yet she was dwarfed by both of the large men who stood in front of her. She gazed up at them, not at all harmed and actually felt a bit confused as to why they thought she would be. She felt their genuine concern on her skin and it warmed her.

“...Did you say flying?” The taller of the two asked. "Y'certainly don't seem to have any flying appendages..." Andhaka cocked a smile at this question, giving him a quizzical look.

"Flying appendages? You mean like those silly birds and whatnots with the long fingerless arms they have to push up and down endlessly just to stay airborne?" she giggled allowed, unable to help herself. "No, you see," she explained, "I don't soar on the wind. I am the wind. Or, uh, part of it rather. My mother was an elemental. A wind spirit." she looked from one to the other alternately. She could feel that there had been some mild tension that had been relieved. She was glad.

[Kronos]

"Whell - if shze okayh, I willh leave you beh." With that, the Cruzian strode over to his Rickshaw-Bike, mounted himself on the seat, and peddled into the distance.