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[se] just to show herself up - Weaver - 01-22-2020
LongHeat has flown by and Weaver has spent very little of it in Halo. How strange to spend so much time elsewhere, though she is beginning to miss her home and thinking it might be time to return for a while. She’d be back in the Grounds, of course, because there was simply more going on here than there was in Halo and as such, it seemed a necessity. For now though, she is working on a basket, because her first attempt was pretty hideous and probably not acceptable. She could just trade for one, which would be vastly more logical, but now she’s just hell bent and determined to make a half decent one.
She’d gone to the field and collected a bunch of tall grasses but this time decided to bring everything back so she could sit in some shade. Last time she’d made the mistake of staying in the field with the brutal sun beating down on her and damn if she did not like the heat. Maybe she should take to visiting the Hollowed Grounds in the winter…
Finding a nice shady spot in a patch of grass next to a rather uninhabited looking building, Weaver settles down against the wall for attempt number two on the basket. This time she has a much better idea of what she is doing, and so she begins to weave, creating what will be the base of the basket. Granted, the weaving is the easy part, it’s getting this flat piece of woven grass to hold into the shape of a basket that was more challenging. Hopefully take two would produce something good enough. The first basket was just embarrassing, and she is a stubborn thing sometimes who just needs to show herself up.
Deimos
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Deimos - 01-23-2020
The Sword stretched across the Settlement on pathways and networks: one likely could’ve pinpointed the way his strides maneuvered along the grounds, by the way he’d tethered himself to certain points, a revolving door of movement, motion, and automaticity. It’d become a routine, a structure, in the passing days, to simply wind his way back and forth on the nuances of his responsibilities and roles, thinking naught of the predictability. It brought him to a certain mindlessness, a haze he’d rather not have been immersed or shelled within, moments spread along the intervals in lists and accords of what he’d set out to accomplish for the morning, for the afternoon, for the evening. He was a restless, but impenetrable force, predatory gaze seeking, searching, for nothing in particular on his way back through – Artisan’s duties taken care of – presuming he’d orchestrate much the same as before, savage pace conducting its machinated march through streets and avenues, onward bound to barracks, then back into infirmary folds.
Except this time there was a change, an alteration in the routine, eyes adjusting to particles of shadow and light, buildings blocking ranges, and he might not have noticed her at all until he’d completely passed by. But there was Weaver, settled in along grass, next to another empty building, like ghosts and wraiths, and he gave the slightest nod, a tilt of his head, an inclination of curiosity in all the other conflagrations. Her hands were unmistakably weaving, and he half-snorted, an inward gesture, muffled in its grumbling tones, because for some reason he hadn’t expected her to be regaled into the festivities. As he maneuvered, intending to breeze by, he tossed his head again, comfortable, warrior prowess and greetings, before a rumble of his deep vocals cast its way towards her. [say]“Joining in?”[/say]
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Weaver - 01-23-2020
A shadow falls over her, or really just a darker piece of shade. She’s not oblivious, and though she doesn’t look up right away there’s a clear tensing of her muscles that Deimos would notice (though most others would not). It’s an immediate response, something both prey and predator in it. She would fight long enough to flee, because sometimes it wasn’t about winning but rather simply living to fight another day. She wasn’t the towering hulk of a man before her, and she knew that winning wasn’t always in her cards, but she sure as hell wasn’t going down without a fight.
She looks up as he speaks, and she grins at him in her playful way. [say] “I thought I might as well live up to my name, and if I am going to make this stupid basket I am going to use it at least once.”[/say] Real truth? She is joining because it’s the smart thing to do. Smart though foolish, given his tales of a less than stellar previous festival. Her plan is to run if things go south, assuming she can help it, but really there is information to be found in festivals. Life happens around moments like those, and she knows to miss it is to miss out in general.
She puts the basket (well, the beginnings of a basket) down for a minute, resting her hands on the ground beside her and leaning against the building to look up at the tall warrior. [say] “No chance you know how to weave a better basket, do you?”[/say] she asks with a chuckle, not particularly expecting him to be any better at this than she is but then again, stranger things have happened.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Deimos - 01-24-2020
The Sword made no comment on the tensing, on the rigid contortions – fellow predators and warriors conveyed the same sentiments. It was preparation for battle, for upheaval, for sedition, constantly swarming and harpooning in their veins. Sometimes it was a flight instinct as well, for when the outcomes were not favorable, for when retreat was an inevitable sway, caught in the crossfire and incapable of alleviating the incoming anguish. He just usually failed miserably at the latter.
But then the grin was there, an invitation in the shadows, and he lost the keen edge in his stature too, rummaging closer to inspect the basket. To be fair, he wouldn’t know the first thing about weaving, winding, or tucking in the fringes and fronds. He’d created one the previous year, mainly to show up the Fae in their own village, spiteful and petty after Amalia, Kiada, and the rest had been snagged, captured, and sacrificed. This year he’d done much the same: ornamental and adorned with fragments of worlds gone and fleeting, recollections and remembrances. [say]“I do not. I just create mine,”[/say] half a smirk embedded, as if he’d found a way to cheat the system.
He settled himself against the nearest wall, still upright, a tower, a Colossus, as his hands came before him, gilded and glowing for a time as the crafting invocations contemplated and reeled once more. A gift, since they’d have to offer them at the festival anyway, concocted in his mind then came to life: silver dagger, polished and gilded handle, the long, slender pommel embellished in vivid lightning strikes, like a storm, like a tempest, like namesakes of Queens from before. Not the least bit helpful for Weaver though. [say]"Yours looks fine."[/say]
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Weaver - 01-24-2020
He comes closer to inspect the basket, and she finds herself a bit surprised that he no longer looks like he’s about to flee the scene. Maybe she’d made an impression after all (well, certainly she made an impression, it was just a matter of whether or not it was a good one). I just create mine, he says and there’s a smirk on his face and she finds herself surprised yet again. A man of little words, but look at that, he was capable of something a little playful. [say] “Magic?”[/say] she asks, wondering if he was like her. Well, probably a far more talented version of her, but it would be someone who could maybe explain how to go about actually learning magic to her. It’s more than she had now.
He comes to join her on the ground, sitting tall like a gargoyle against the building, and she finds herself really surprised now. She hadn’t quite expected him to stick around, though she’s pleased he does. He may not be the greatest conversationalist, but she finds she likes the statue of a man. Besides, he seems like a useful one to know. His hands come up and before long there is a knife gleaming between them. She stares at it for a moment, the craftsmanship beautiful.
[say] “One, that is not fair,”[/say] she says with her usual grin, gesturing at the basket that was half a basket at best. She turns her attention back to weaving as she speaks, working on turning up the sides of the basket and getting them to stay put. It works better than the last time, the basket edges actually even and square. It’s a small thing, but no one said she needed a large basket. [say] “Two, that knife would look brilliant somewhere on my person.”[/say] She knows it is not intended for her but the festival. Still, she cannot help herself.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Deimos - 01-25-2020
[say]“Magic,”[/say] he ascertained; inclining an arch to his brow at her inquiry. Perhaps it was a guarded notion, the way most Abandoned (Naturals anyway) hastened to hiding and sheltering their incantations, born into a world hostile towards those with such predilections. But where he’d been born and raised, they were expectations, passed down from bloodline to bloodline, coursing through veins, an anomaly to not possess such arts. He’d never backed off from utilizing the techniques, the fortitude, the mastery of his capabilities: too much inherent, instinctual notation in his movements, in his existence. Perhaps it’d been accepted though, as he bent and contorted and coiled for the masses in the Hollowed Grounds; as Deimos yielded to neither prejudice nor spite, going through the haze as he so often did, indifferent and nonchalant.
[say]“Life rarely is,”[/say] he shrugged, an undulation and chord of muscles maneuvering in their otherwise rigid contortions, hands coming to rest on the blade again, tucking it away, and then hastening off to the gilded effects in his palms once more. He’d be content to manipulate and craft while she wove the basket, back into relative silence, quiet concentration building and pluming between his melding, his molding. This time a helmet made an appearance along the unwinding, unfurling precision: made to match a certain chest-plate, fire emblazoned upon the sides, an entangling of antlers and horns embellishing the back and front. He shifted his head in study, eyes narrowing, before hastening a line down the middle, in case the future owner wanted to add some dramatics (as she was prone to do) along the center.
The Sword only inclined his attention back to Weaver on her third statement – the envious glance unfurling the barest hint of mischief in his features – recalling her preference towards knives. [say]“I have made quite a few knives and daggers for the armory,”[/say] an invitation for her to meander there too – militia and warrior instincts honed. [say]“What is your preference?”[/say] It wouldn’t take much for him to instill another stiletto, blade, or the rest of its ilk.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Weaver - 01-27-2020
She rarely talked about actually being Abandoned. It wasn’t that she actively hid it, didn’t skirt the truth or avoid the topic, it’s just that she never exactly came out and said it. Then again, it wasn’t the sort of thing that typically comes up in polite small talk because it was too loaded a question. To be Attuned or Accepted was one thing, to be Abandoned or Ascended was another thing entirely. There are others, of course, but to be Fae or Demi-God is to be something even more other than what they already were. Though they were all, in their way, something rather other.
For her, and it seemed for Deimos, it was to feel magic in their veins but because of it, to be less than scum to the gods of this world. She has never learned her magic, but she wants to. The gods do not care that she can only light a candle, can only snuff out the embers that skip out of the fire and land on their blankets. They do not give her more attention because she is not good at her magic, and therefore why not be good at it? Why not learn? Why not become exactly what they already assume she is, for they have given her no other option anyway.
[say] “Is creation your only magic, or do you have others?”[/say] she asks, watching as he again works on a helmet this time. Her attention wavers between his magic and her basket, the sides now secure and her fingers working to plait some grass around a flexible twig for a handle. She can do this without much thought, her fingers so used to the motion from constantly braiding her hair. He turns back to her with something of mischief in his eyes and she wonders how much is hiding behind that stony, brooding exterior. There was certainly more than meets the eye, for unlike her, he did not wear his emotions so plainly. [say] “Armory? How large is the army in the Hollowed Grounds?”[/say] she asks, curious to know more of what they have put in place. [say]“You know, I have never had a preference. I’ve collected so many different knives over the years, taking whatever managed to come into the market in Halo, that I have become used to having an assortment. What is your favorite?”[/say]
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Deimos - 01-28-2020
In some ways, it was defiance, subversion, a hint of infamy and treachery against those so set against wielders of magic and enchantments; to continue their way into learning arts. They’d been born into it, out of their control, and damned as soon as they took their first breath, so why continue to unravel? He’d honed far more skills here than he had in Helovia: life drain’s pulsing power accommodated by creation, and then fire, an outstretch of his father’s beacons, something familiar and twisted back like home. And while the heralds and their gods might not have liked it, they unfurled and prospered. [say]“I have others,”[/say] he provided, placing the helmet within his bag for safe-keeping, before turning one of his palms upward, as if to face the sky. In the middle, a flame erupted, bright and blistering and beatific in its sensation – an unfurling in his veins of yesteryears, and then former seasons, monsters in its distortion. It extended into various heights, as if leaping and bounding for the infernal extent of power and precision, before folding back into his palm, disappearing, lingering only for a moment. He gave no demonstration of the pulse and pervading of life drain – something felt, not seen, not heard.
As for the questions about the armory, about the militia, he remained very careful, secluded, guarded. Were she a citizen of the Grounds, he might not have been so reserved. But she lived beneath Zariah’s wake, and frankly, any information passed to the Merciless wouldn’t work in their favor. [say]“Enough,”[/say] lacking a smirk or smile, because it was a bald-faced lie, but his features betrayed nothing of the sort. They’d never have enough for all the demons in the night, for all the enemies and adversaries longing to bang down their doors. But he’d do what he could, recruit and serve, patrol and punish, train and wield, defend until his dying breath.
No preference on a knife meant he was free to create whatever he wished, settling into a shrug while listening to her predilections. More of someone who snagged and took what was offered, not a scavenger, but opportunistic. Deimos accepted the notion with a nod, hands glowing once more on the edges and fringes of contortion and creation, a neat little dagger taking shape while he answered her question. [say]“Besides my magic, the sword.”[/say] He had proficiency in a multitude of other weapons, but the feeling of cutting, ripping, and tearing one’s opponent apart had a satisfying plunge to it. Eventually, between conversation, the etchings and form of the dagger had come to fruition: curlicues of frost billowing on its sanction, the hue of silver and argent, as if dipped in portions of ivory – reminders and memories of a time where he’d lived amongst and midst mountains too. Then he extended it to her without a word.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Weaver - 01-28-2020
She has seen magic at it’s finest, and she knows the power that lives inside her veins. Power that she simply does not know how to access yet. Her mother had just begun to teach her when she was taken from Weaver’s life, there one moment and gone the next. It is why she knows the little she does, this ability to flicker a small flame or snuff out the life of an ember. It is useful, but it is not power. The desire to learn more, to feel that power flood her, is consuming and distracting. As his palm bursts to life in flame, she smiles, and perhaps he will think she is impressed at him specifically or at this thing she has never seen, but she has seen it. She has seen her mother engulf the world around them in flames, a goddess in an icy wasteland.
It is not him she sees for a moment, but her mother. Straia, her hair long and wild, tumbling over her shoulders in curls always too close to the fire, palms outstretched like his is now, explaining to Weaver how to call on the magic. Weaver had been sitting there with a stupid little candle, of course, managing only to pull some of the flames to it’s little wick. She could not create, only manipulate, and only in the smallest of pieces. ”You will learn,” her mother had said to little Weaver, the flames disappearing from her hands.
The flames disappear from his hands as well, and she focuses on the present instead of the past. [say] “Me too,”[/say] she says with a grin, nodding to the place where the flames had been only a moment before. [say] “Only I haven’t learned to use it, not really. Just the basics.”[/say] Though as the topic turns to the armory the mischief in his eyes disappears, and his answer is the sort you give when you are dodging the answer. There are two possibilities. The first, that he is telling the truth and they in fact have an army to be concerned about. The second, that he is lying and there are too few. She doesn’t even know if Halo has an army to speak of under Neron, so keeping secrets from her doesn’t much matter, but she doesn’t press it. There may be no issues between Halo and the Grounds now, but she knows how easily things change.
She would like to be called opportunistic. That is exactly what she was, a girl who’d grown up learning to survive and as such, taking opportunities when they presented themselves. Sometimes that was simply a beautiful knife on a market table, snatched away by her hand for the cost of some dried beef or a collection of ningo feathers. She watches as another dagger takes shape between his fingers, the answer to her question coming at the same time. [say] “You do fight like you were born with that sword in your hand,”[/say] she says. She puts the finishing touches on her basket as she works, hooking the handle to either side and swinging it around once or twice to make sure the thing holds together. It does, looking sort of small and silly, but at least not lopsided and sad like before. In his hands, the dagger has become something more, covered in etchings of frost, made of silver and white. He extends it to her, and she takes it, saying in the most sincere way she can, [say] “Thank you. It is beautiful.”[/say] There is an empty sheath on her belt from Sascha, and she tucks the dagger in there, enjoying the pieces of the Grounds that she now carries with her.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Deimos - 01-28-2020
Conduits and catalysts, anarchical swings and sways immersed within enchantments and invocations. His had rippled through a multitude of times in a multitude of ways – to save, to protect, or to destroy. Power, precision, and pernicious persuasion, his favored properties in unwinding, unfurling, unraveling upon adversaries, whether they included monsters or humans, or the simultaneous inclusion of both. If it wasn’t the flames, then it was the pulsing beat of the life drain, pervading, surrounding, defying anyone and everyone. No one had taught him how to properly wield the latter; some afraid, some curious, left to his own devices because it’d been the first of their bloodline and accord to signify the depths of death. His father had mastered fire, his mother had mastered water, and everyone else had wandered somewhere in between, twisting and turning amongst the elements. But she noted she too held embers and cinders, the blistering maelstroms capable of flaring to life, tilting his head on the minute fraction of a grin too – fellow pyromaniacs. [say]“In time then.”[/say] Because the more they practiced, the more they coaxed, the more they maneuvered around this world, the more they seemed to embody and strengthen, appeal and counteract.
He didn’t expect the compliment extended towards him, muffling another grin – because while he hadn’t been born with the weight of a blade in his palms, he’d grown into the regard, childhood left behind for war and invasions, for tenacity, for glory. [say]“How did you learn?”[/say] He suspected some notions of family or simply by sheer experience and necessity, life in the mountains occasionally solidifying into cruelty, into danger, into malicious purposes. The knife itself was then taken, [say]“You are welcome,”[/say] embedded into his rumbling tones, before he gave way to creating other pieces.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Weaver - 01-31-2020
In time then he says, but she has never been patient. Not once she has set her mind to something. Unlike her mother, who was always patient, always calm, always willing to wait for the opportune moment. It was something she had tried to impart on Weaver, but Weaver was more impulsive than her mother. Her mother was a slow, steady, creeping fire; the kind that consumed entire forests over days. Weaver was an explosion, loud and attention catching, but short lived. Her patience burned as quickly as the rest of her.
Yet she knew he was right. It would take time. That particular truth grated on her though, made her restless, left her with that sort of figurative itch you just can’t scratch.
He seems to hide a grin at her compliment, and she finds herself pleased. He smiles more easily today than their last meeting. [say] “My mother and older brother mostly, my stepfather was well sometimes. The scythe was a gift from my mother though. She was always unorthodox. What about you?”[/say] she asks, assuming some similar life but then again, who knows. Weaver was lucky, she knows, to have had a family at all. Not everyone was given that gift, even if she wasn’t given the gift for long. It wouldn’t have mattered how long she’d had them, it never would have been long enough.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Deimos - 02-01-2020
Patience, a fortitude immersed in calm, in composure, had been the backbone of his existence. He might have had fire in his blood, but it was significantly weighed down by ice in his veins, a bewitching conflagration of tenacity, obstinate, and precision. He waited for right moments. He calculated endeavors and pursuits. He thought through actions and motives, his own foundation of eloquence when words would never be enough. It had served him well, this perseverance, endurance, and might, the closed-off philosophies of detachment, of ruin, of sheer willpower when everything else yearned, craved, and longed to crumble around him. His shoulders were strong, his back was straight, and the world would assault, siege, and destroy; and he meant to clench his jaw through it all.
His hands ghosted through a menagerie of trinkets and gifts, some gilded or seemingly dipped in silver, some taking a slower amount of time, as if summoning a massive amount of concentration to perfect the nuance. The last was a whale, star-configured, a dazzling mirage of blended constellations and galaxies painted on its sides, meant to be a symbol rather than anything outrightly useful (which irked him slightly, so he started adjusted things while it took shape). Meant to hold a likeness to Jyoti, he pondered over instilling some sort of magical property to it, but in the end configured it to hold dual purpose as some sort of container; while decorative stars maintained charm-like presences, musical chimes when the wind brushed against them.
Still, the General listened as she described where she’d learned her skills, the trade of knives and daggers, the swing of stilettos – family, the scythe a gift (a grand taste for presents). He grinned slightly, before the inquiry fell back to him, and the beast was forced to wonder which lifetime to proceed within. [say]“My father, at first. He was called the FireSword, but mostly because of his predilection towards flames.”[/say] The smile rested there again, for several moments in memory of the man who’d shaped him. [say]“Then when I signed up for the militia, the real training began.”[/say] He shrugged, and the grin turned into drawn lines of acceptance, of ways blades stabbed through chests, of the ways glory was promised and turned to decay.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Weaver - 02-04-2020
They might have gotten along, Deimos and her mother, if time had proceeded differently. Time never played fairly though, never proceeded as you wanted it to. Sometimes she wondered if her mother was truly dead, or if she’d found a way to escape. To escape Halo, to escape Caido, just simply to escape. Straia loved her children, but her children were not enough to hold her. She’d raised them not to need their mother, to be independent creatures, to go on even once their mother was long gone. She knows this version of the story is unlikely, that the truth is probably as simple as a snow squall or an avalanche or an Ursur; the things that took lives in Halo often. Yet Weaver could not imagine her mother succumbing to something so common and would rather believe that her mother had chosen to leave them behind.
They spend some time crafting, conversation dotting their time together rather than filing it. Weaver is made of more words than he is, but she doesn’t necessarily mind not talking, doesn’t mind simply sitting in quiet companionship. He’s the closest thing to a friend she has in the Grounds, and she finds it sort of nice to simply watch him create and she fumbles through the act. The last piece he makes is stunning, a strange whale made of constellations, and she wonders what inspired the creation but doesn’t ask.
Instead she listens as he answers her question, speaking of a family as well and then the militia. [say]”When did you join?”[/say] she asks, somehow expecting him to say that he’d joined just as soon as he was old enough. He was made for war, in a way, despite the kindness in him. He was built for it, certainly, and had the temperament and personality for it. Unlike her. [say]”I suppose Neron is probably building some sort of army for Halo, though I suspect I won’t be enlisting anytime soon. Orders grate on me,”[/say] she says with a bit of a grin, sure this doesn’t come as a surprise. The training would be useful though.
RE: [se] just to show herself up - Deimos - 02-05-2020
Joining the militia had been something paramount in his mind at a young age: admiring munitions, the scalding, blistering wake of swordplay, of fighting and pummeling one’s adversaries into the ground. His mother might have hoped for some scholarly distinction in him, and it was in roots of curiosity and sagacity, but otherwise barely noted over the roaring flames of glory, of prestige, of power. He’d always taken to witnessing his father, or anyone else moderately endeavored into soldier-hood, thought to become a warrior, a protective shield for the land and kingdom he grew within. It might’ve worked out in some capacity: because he’d done just that, but the triumph quickly faded, contorted and covered in his friends’ fallen forms, in the decaying, withering platitudes of retreats, in the roaring pulse of failure and catacombs beating well over the drums. Then it’d only been survival. Then it’d only been stillness, returning home to a world already burned and sieged to the ground. Efforts in vain.
Helovia was another story altogether.
The whale and its constellations stared at him in the face as her inquiry floated past, and he shrugged, indulging the curiosity when machinations or calculations couldn’t reach it. [say]“Sixteen.”[/say] Young and naïve, intrepid and audacious, the world telling them that fortune favored the bold. He learned only sometimes did it support anyone at all – while he ran a blade through chests, while he carried dying comrades.
Her next words though coiled a little down the back of his mind, and only because he’d lived too many other lives, once reigning along winter walls, striving and seeking out any grain of information. That Weaver grated along orders earned another snort. [say]“I thought I would too,”[/say] but the training had been good for him, instilled routines and habits he’d continued and persisted within even now, leading into assisting those who sought out the same regards. The Sword just intended for better results. However, this didn’t alleviate the notion of the Warden gaining access to militia either, the reasons for it (same as then – defenses? Or offense?), or that someone else was behind the scenes, orchestrating in the shadows – a name most of them had come to seethe and rebel against. [say]“Neron or Zariah?”[/say] A neutral tone, but his eyes were narrowed all the same, trained on artifacts, placing the whale amongst his collection of items in the bag.