A Date with Time

Sednai invites an old flame to reunite, but finds that he’s changed immeasurably.

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Brunnhold's college town, located inside the university grounds.

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Sednai
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:04 am
Topics: 10
Race: Human
Occupation: Resistance
Location: The Stacks
: "Cypress"
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Quix
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Tue Jun 18, 2019 10:28 pm

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Hamis 28, 2719....
Nearly seven months had passed since Sednai had first killed. She had stopped morally low in her 27 years, stealing, framing, and lying through the arms of the law. It was survival by allowing her to obtain needs; never had she truly been in the immediate vicinity of death. Yet, in Dentis, Sednai had been forced to squeeze her moral of “do no harm.” In a Resistance plot, Sednai had been cornered by two Seventen and forced to kill or be killed. In the moment, it was instinct, done without thought. Yet, for seven months, Sednai had not been able to stop pondering that night.

She had killed first a young woman in her early twenties with a long auburn braid dripping down the back of her green uniform. She had pretty pale skin and scared grey eyes that betrayed the anger with which she pursued Sednai. Sednai’s vision and hearing had been shocked temporarily in the explosion of dust and rubble, but she had seen the shadows of the woman behind her partner, a stocky man with red-blonde hair and hard brown eyes. Two pursuers, and two daggers at Sednai’s control. She had moved quickly, knowing she had to act before the Mona danced for them. She had ran first at the man and swept under his arms to slide her dagger into his knee, forcing down on one knee before she used his body as a step stool and kept at her. The fear in her eyes had stained Sednai’s vision, but she had to kill to survive.

By the next week, The paper came with its headline announcing the tragedy of the week, and the girl’s fave was there. Her name was Sylvia. She was twenty-four, engaged to her longtime sweetheart, and her parents’ only child. And Sednai had ripped her away from everything and everyone in a second. It was then that Sednai realized how little death cared. He did not differentiate between someone like Sylvia who he the hearts of the world holding her and Sednai who, as she thought of a reversed situation, would be forgotten from the world the moment she left it. She had spent so long working alone and running away from who she was that she had not taken a moment to stop and look around at the world and it’s people. She was nearing 30, and she hadn’t anyone in the world who would write her or even think up her a nice piece in the paper. Realizing the fragility is life, Sednai decided to stop dwelling on death and live, not for the future, but for the present.

It had taken her two months to find Luther. Luther has been met in Sednai’s early says of resisting, before the death of her best friend and a desolate lifestyle causes her to withdraw. Luther— Pinto, as he was known for his horses— was a man of swift getaways and delivery by land. And he was a man hard to reach because of his variable location. Yet, Sednai had, with Cecelia’s help, written him, and he had responded. Now, Sednai waited outside the door, the simple olive dress Teuila had gifted her over St. Grumble’s blowing in the Hamis breeze. She could barely remember Luther’s face, but his smile was vivid in her mind. She hoped his smile hadn’t changed.

BURNED, NOT BURIED.

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Alexis Geradot
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:45 pm
Topics: 3
Race: Raen
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: [url=http:/fullurl/]Plot Notes[/url]
Writer: Rigel
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Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:03 pm

Time Stamp
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The carriage rumbled contentedly beneath him as he eased the horses from dirt to cobblestone in the mid-morning sun. From afar, Luther looked completely normal. He was tall, lean, and dark, perched on a carriage well-cared for if certainly a few years behind the latest styles and technology. His horses, two white and brown paints, trotted obediently where he led them at a calm, unhurried pace that was clapped into the air by the mismatched shoes he had fitted to their feet. Luther was in control, so it seemed from afar.

Internally, Alexis struggled. He had spent the last fifteen days trying to at least become mediocre at the skill Luther had been known for— driving carriage. Alexis had ridden horses before, at least, and he had sat with his family’s driver as a child and begged for the reigns. He was not a complete stranger in his body. He had wrapped the reigns tightly around his wrists to avoid disaster in the already many instances where he found himself losing control of his hands. A floppy, wide-brimmed hat covered much of his face now to obscure the inevitable moments where he forgot to control his face and left an expressionless glare on Luther’s canvas. He had pulled Luther’s long, messy hair up off his neck because he couldn’t stand the unkempt feel of it, and he had grown out his facial hair both for fascination and security. He had never been able to grow a beard half as dense as the evenly painted one on Luther’s face, and it created another protective barrier between the raen and Luther’s world. He had fully bathed for the first time in Luther’s body the day before he had left Vienda, and he was scared to do it again. He felt so wrong, so sick to look upon Luther’s naked body and pretend it was his own. It was a wrong he couldn’t explain— a wrong that made his stomach sink as it reminded him how much he didn’t belong. He was looking at the covered parts of Luther’s life, the parts saved for those loved and trusted, yet that love and trust meant nothing in his hands. He wondered if his corpse had been stripped and examined similarly, but, no, that didn’t matter now. Alexis shook it away. He was Luther Penn, and, today, Luther Penn had appearances to make.

Alexis assured the horses were going straight, then unraveled one hand from the reigns that dug into his dark flesh to reach into the itchy pocket of his pants for the letter. He confirmed the address, and was grateful to be in an area familiar enough to his past life for him to recognize the streets as he passed them. A few turns, though, and Alexis was back to the unknown, the backstage of the Stacks a galdor was never expected to see.

The houses here were little more than charcoal shacks. Each was the same shape, but in different states of repair; here, one had no door, there, one had collapsed, and there, only the roof shingles were out of place. There was no paint for their surfaces of mismatched, warped wood, and each was afforded what could be called a sagging porch of five bowed boards and one window. The streets were quiet now as the working class vacated them for the day, leaving only fragments of the night— broken bottles, cigarette butts, and a pair of broken heels wedges between the bricks. So focused on the road was Alexis that he nearly missed her.

It has to be her, didn’t it? He had not expected someone with a borderline illiterate invitation to look so sophisticated. She wore a sweet, olive dress that buttoned to her waist before being interrupted by a modest ribbon of the same fabric. Below that, the top layer of the dress split at the skirt to reveal four layers of spotless white underskirts that just brushed the ground with their gathered frills. Delicate lace lines the olive, from the bottom trim to the square neck to the short, ruffled sleeves. Clearly, the dress was new. Clearly, it was made for her, not a hand-me-down, and, clearly, by her smile, this was the nicest thing she had ever worn in her entire life. Alexis smiled at her. She was pretty.

Her house was by far the most well-taken care of, with the little grass her rent bought her trimmed and bright flowers waving through the window planter. By the looks of it, she had taken one little white flower and woven it into her short, dark curls. Alexis slowed his carriage to a halt, then climbed with a careful awareness of his own body onto the road. He secured his carriage, then, hands in pockets, crossed the road to her with purposeful strides. He took off his hat as he approached, holding it to his chest as he prepared for a test of everything he had learned and assumed about Luther and his body. He stopped a few feet short, and took her in from a better vantage point than a moving carriage.

She was really pretty, he thought. She was tall, thin, and graceful, and her dark hair framed her narrow, structured face and delicate shoulders like clouds crawling over the rosy sunset and the silhouetted mountains in Hox. She had dark eyes and the drops of kisses on her cheeks as freckles, and she carried herself with a confidence of self that did not make him roll his eyes in embarrassment for her. For a moment, he forgot that he was Alexis Geradot, a man of a higher race, and he hoped that she thought he was really pretty, too.

"Been a minute," he greeted her simply, with outward ease. He was working so intricately internally. Smile, he reminded himself, and he smiled with his voice and his eyes, watching her for a reaction. How am I doing? he begged silently. Is this good enough for you?

Alexis realized, in that moment, that he wasn’t performing for his shrivels, but her needs. She has requested Luther, and he didn’t want to disappoint her, to tell her that Luther was dead, avoiding the “I’m-sorry-for-your-loss” speech he had been taught in school but never put into practice.

"How are ya, Sednai?”
Death is not a friend, but I hope in the end he takes me in his arms and lets me hold his face, he holds me in his arms and whispers something funny, he lifts me in his arms and tells me to embrace his attack. Then the scene turns to black.
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Sednai
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:04 am
Topics: 10
Race: Human
Occupation: Resistance
Location: The Stacks
: "Cypress"
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Quix
Post Templates: Post Templates
Contact:

Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:22 pm

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Hamis 28, 2719....
His smile. A soft grin of crooked teeth that all pushed to the front of his mouth in the excitement to look out the window of his mouth into the world around, a smile that grabbed the corners of his eyes and begged them to look and smile, too. He was tall, and his dark hair waved at her as it escaped his hat and ponytail. He was clean- not something she could say for most human men- and his trimmed facial hair had groomed him from a gawky, baby-faced boy she had met in her teens years ago to a lean and humble man of aged experience and growing wisdom.

He stopped at a polite distance, but Sednai closed it. She grabbed her skirts by the handful, revealing the laced boots beneath, and closed the gap in two-long legged bounds, wrapping her arms around the man's neck and pulling him down to her. She nearly turned to kiss him on the cheek, but, no- these weren't quite the old days she remembered.

She remembered. She remembered the days of holding his hand and forgetting that they were human, the nights of looking into his face. She remembered running in the rain, dancing in the dark, remembered the nourishment of love that filled her stomach when food became scarce, the warmth of love when her blankets wore thin. It was the most love she had ever felt. Yet, they were but children then, and, to be the most loving only meant to be the first to love. It was a first love, though, that she had not forgotten, and, foolishly, she hoped that he hadn't, either. They each had another passion, and that passion, that Resistance that had brought them together, sent them to different places. But she hadn't forgotten.

"I've missed ya longer than I've known ya," she sighed, relaxing into the hug before pushing herself back with her hands on his shoulders and looking at his face this time from the vantage point of close quarters. She gently turned his face with her hands, looking it over.

"Few new scars," she observed aloud, poking his a pale slash on his cheek that she had not seen before. She tapped his chin. "And this. Don't quite look like ya used to."

She stepped back. "How've ya been?" she asked. "Wouldja like to come in? It's at least a little shadier inside, little cooler. We can catch up, if you'd like." And she listened to the sound of her own voice, of her tumbling words. Gods, she was nervous. She stepped back again. Why'd she hug him? Probably made him feel awkward. Gods, she had messed up already. She clasped her hands in front of her, swaying on her feet gently to expel the nervous energy that balled up in her stomach.


BURNED, NOT BURIED.
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