spira_rp | Well it's my very little wonder and it's one that I will keep

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Well it's my very little wonder and it's one that I will keep

Something was going on.

Something was always going on. The world was a big and bustling place full of the small evils people committed against each other. Road enjoyed that about life. Anywhere you went you'd find people being people everywhere, and it never mattered if those people were tall or short or old or young or lizards or dogs or boring old humes. People transcended the species barrier, and people were awful. Terrible.

Fun.

Sometimes there were the larger evils people committed against each other too, and Road was part of more than one of those. They were Noah. Clandestine, dangerous, remorseless. They had their spoons in more than one pot of evil and gave them a stir occasionally to make sure the nastiness didn't just sink to the bottom and stay there.

They didn't concern themselves with the lowerworld much. Road, and Tyki, and the others, had been busily stirring another pot on Jylland, their usual playground, when the summons had come from Khamja on the lowerworld. They'd had some work from them, in the past, but their relationship with Khamja was normally distant. The Earl had maintained the connection, because connections were good, and maybe once they were done playing on Jylland it'd be fun to find a new place to play, but when the summons had come, he hadn't been able to attend himself.

He'd sent Road in his stead, and Tyki to go with her. It was easier to be underestimated when you dressed cute and sounded cute and looked cute, and had someone that definitely looked like an adult with you.

Something was going on. Khamja were playing their cards close to their chest, but they'd requested the presence of every single member, both shadow and open, for an important meeting.

Road didn't try to surmise what exactly it was that was going on. It wouldn't involve them, at any rate, at least not yet, but there was always the opportunity for new opoortunities. New people, new places, new things to learn and use.

Their directions to the Desert Palace hadn't been the best. The place was hidden, and marking it on maps would be a good way of making it no longer hidden. Not that maps were any help when you were approaching from the other side.

Road gave their transport an affectionate stroke along its bony mask. The journey from Niflheim, where they'd been, to Rabanastre, would have been a boringly long walk if they hadn't hitched a ride. Fortunately, there wasn't a Hollow in existence that would deny a Noah asking a favour.

"Do you think The Earl will be upset if we set off their alarms?" she asked, tilting back from her perch on the Hollow's head to look at Tyki upside down. Her legs dangled down, her feet brushing dangerously close to its teeth, but it wouldn't bite. It wouldn't dare.

The route had been surprisingly well trodden for something in the depths like this. Hollows came this way regularly, but if you were used to Hollows you could tell where they veered away from a spot. They gave population centres a wide berth, or the smart ones did, so you found the paths they took might open out within sight of one, but almost never in one. Not unless they were told to.

The same thing happened here. There were probably wards, or some kind of defense mechanism to keep even the Hollows out of an area that would, normally, be one of their gathering places. Some old, forgotten, sunken ruin beneath the sands, deep in the heart of the Zertinan Caverns would be teeming with Hollows if it wasn't for the fact it wasn't forgotten, or abandoned.

The Hollows stayed away. Whatever was there was too powerful for them to think it worth taking on.

They'd come out of the Garganta into the Caverns, and then pressed on, but now might be a good time to let the Hollow leave. Not that Road was against making an entrance, but it would spoil the fun if everyone knew what they were before they knew what everyone else was.

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Kreeth had grown used to the palace. In the past few days, she'd explored what she'd cared to explore, met a few more of the residents (thankfully none as dreadful as the hilariously prickly Professor Hojo) and settled in as best she could without the ability to easily fly away from the place.

It wasn't too bad, for an underground base. She wouldn't have chosen something without a real sky herself, but it was good enough.

She rather liked Nel, even if she was somebody else's experiment and somebody else's subordinate. She was pleasant, even to her, which was rather nice. Kreeth was used to being treated like something of a pariah, even if she could be useful with her lotions and potions and eldritch spells when people needed them. It was for that reason that she scowled when she saw Nel's discomfort. The lines of her hands grew hard and she felt her tension in the air. It was almost enough to set her feathers standing on end.

She looked to the door, head turning around just a touch too much. Newcomers. Those chakra signatures weren't here when she'd arrived. Dark Elemental, much like herself, but not the same. It was said there was more variation in that element than any other and, at this moment, Kreeth believed it. She recognised one of them, if only vaguely.

"A Noah," she said softly.

Nel was right to be afraid.

Kreeth was weird. She was Dark elemental, and one more piece of evidence in why you shouldn't judge by an elemental alignment. She moved wrong, and the wings made her size and frame deceptively tricky to figure out with a glance.

Nel liked her. She was respectful towards those that were respectful back, and had made a fantastic first impression on Hojo that had instantly endeared her to Nel.

She also knew a lot. Nel hadn't asked Kreeth much about her activities, just in case she didn't want to know the answer, but she got the impression that Kreeth had been around the block a few times, and run into plenty of nasty things on her travels. Probably done them, too, to be a member of Khamja.

So when Kreeth named the thing that was approaching that had set Gamuza's hackles to rising, Nel didn't doubt her. She just didn't know what the name meant. "What's a Noah?" she asked, feeling the presence approaching.

She made herself let go of her cup in case she squeezed it a bit too hard.

"A clan with the ability to subjugate Hollows like Beastmasters do animals," she said quietly, quickly, and under her breath. "Don't show your fear, dear."

The Noah were well-dressed predators, to Kreeth's recollection. They dressed rich, pranced about wearing their name like a badge of honour and moved in the higher circles of Jyllandi nobles, particularly in the Niflheim, Tenebrae and Uberwald regions. They had influence, and power, and they used both. It was better not to turn your back on a creature like them, nor show them you were vulnerable. Kreeth would know.

Tyki pushed the kitchen door open and, this time, he didn't hold the door open for Road to enter first. Instead, he walked through it, upright and confident in his continued safety.

He looked at the two women at the table and rather hoped that his suit didn't look too dusty after their walk through the caverns. Well, first impressions mattered, didn't they?

"Good afternoon," he said in the common tongue of Ivalice, his Jyllandi accent rather different to Kreeth's. The smile he provided to accompany the words was, he hoped, disarming.

The ability to subjugate Hollows like Beastmasters do animals.

That was the source of Gamuza's dislike. It wasn't her own fear Nel had to keep under control, but the Hollow's fear was rare, and infectious. Nel found herself having to keep conscious control to maintain a steady reiatsu.

When the Noah entered the room Nel was struck by those predatory yellow eyes, and the dark grey skin. If his presence wasn't making Gamuza so concerned she'd have taken him for a Mist Mutant and left it at that. There were enough of those in the Palace, after all.

The charming smile didn't help one bit, either. Nel wasn't sure what she'd expected, but an attractive man in a nice, if slightly travelled in, suit wasn't the first thing she'd have conjured to mind.

"Hello," she said, because staying silent and hiding behind Kreeth, even if it was only conversationally, wasn't going to help her not show her fear. "I take it you're the ones that have just arrived?"

There was a girl behind him, with pink hume skin. She didn't flag so much on Gamuza's radar, at least not with the man around, although Nel could sense the Dark in her.

Road could practically smell the fear before she walked in the room. Tyki made someone in there very nervous.

She could feel the Holy elemental controlling herself even before she rounded the doorframe and got a look at her. Green hair meant she was a Selkie. There were a lot of them in Khamja, she knew, and a lot more of them on the lowerworld than on Jylland.

She was pretty.

The other one was an Aegyl, she could spot that right off. There weren't many of those around, these days, and they tended to keep to themselves, so finding one here drinking with a Selkie was fun.

Road clasped her hands behind her back and tilted her head, looking between the two women. She gave a bright murmur of confirmation. "Are we early?"

"Not as early as I was," Kreeth said, her abrasive voice cutting through the silence that hung after the girl's question. "I think you're the only other ones to arrive so far, so ... yes, I'd say so."

They were both Noah. Kreeth could feel Dark Chakra clinging to both of them, though it was far more pronounced in the man. He hadn't bothered to keep his family-related Mutation hidden as the girl had. They made the usual suppression effort of the magically powerful, but no matter how much most tried, they could still be felt and she suspected that Nel, Holy Elemental as she was, felt them both acutely. She was, after all, in a room with three powerful Dark Elementals.

"Better to be early than late," she added, and then grinned. "Better pick of the rooms."

That wasn't bad. Tyki didn't object to arriving fashionably late when it was, well, fashionable, but when it came to representing the Earl at Clan functions, where turning up late would negatively reflect upon him and, as such, incur his wrath in his direction, he preferred to be early. Not as early as the early bird, evidently, but early enough.

The Aegyl's accent, together with her feathered wings, marked her as Jyllandi. It was unsurprising that there would be more of them there, but it definitely meant they would need to be careful who they spoke around. Spotting the people from their homeland and making a mental note of them would be necessary. Fortunately, he had been told that Ivalicians didn't tend to learn Jyllandi. There wasn't much point when they all learned their language instead.

"Good," he said, his voice low, tone bright. He half turned to the door he'd just walked through, eyebrows raised. "You know, I had expected that there would be guards."

Nel felt hunted. Cornered. She was a Holy elemental in a room that felt suddenly much too small, surrounded by Dark elementals.

The man was an almost overwhelming presence, but the girl wasn't exactly nice either. It was like being stuck next to Ulquiorra when he had his mask out. His Hollow was nasty, and Dark, and these two felt similar, him more than her.

Kreeth didn't feel nasty, as such, to Nel, just like something she should be wary of.

Nel made herself breathe. Despite the fact that a part of her wanted to go and camp out in the garden instead of sharing such close quarters with this many Dark elementals, the stupid part of her with terrible taste in men was eyeing this newcomer up and whispering that he looked very good in that suit.

"There are," she said, tamping down her urge to find an excuse to go and instead being nice, "they're just outside. You'd have attracted them if you'd tried getting in without clearance."

Road mentally ticked off the Aegyl as one not to have private conversations around, not that Road had private conversations in front of others unless she wanted them to know what she was saying. Still, it was useful to know. They weren't likely to be the only Jyllandi attending, but one being here already made things fun.

She crawled up onto her knees on a chair, resting her elbows on the table and resting her chin in her hands as she studied the Aegyl and the frightened Holy elemental.

Guards outside, that they could have attracted by breaking in. Or possibly by riding too close on an Akuma's back. It sounded like someone had subdued local monsters and set them to guarding, which was more than possible if she had her facts right about the White Genome.

"Who are you?" she asked. Neither of the two women in front of her were familiar.

Edited 2018-04-30 19:47 (UTC)

Kreeth felt sorry for Nel. Her discomfort was tangible, even as she tried to squash it under a veneer of pleasantness. She expected she'd get used to the feeling when their chakra signatures became routine, but until then... she was in a most unenviable position.

She turned her attention to the girl. She wasn't shy then, crawling up onto furniture in a strange place without invite. The word 'precocious' came to mind and lodged there like a fishbone in the throat.

"Kreeth," she said, the word grinding like a handful of slate as all words in Krakish did. "Who are you?"

Tyki gave a nod at that.

He hadn't heard of her, but his knowledge of the Jyllandi underworld wasn't as extensive as Road's or that of the Earl. The continent was too big, the scope of his stamping ground too small. He'd heard of big names, of course, the big-time gang leaders, the dodgy company owners, the corrupt nobles, but the seamy underbellies of the different cities and the individuals that carved their livings in the murk there often went unnoticed by him just as a rat's comings and goings went ignored by the wolf.

They were on a different level. It might not have always been the case, and at one time he might have ran with them, scaled tail and keen twitching nose and all, but upon awakening his Noah blood he was far more likely to be found howling at the moon.

He turned his attention to the Selkie woman when the Aegyl had spoken, reaching into his coat for a small metal case as he listened.

"Nel Tu," Nel said, making sure to keep a smile on her face. The girl reminded her more than a little of Lilinette; there was that same playful, cheery talktativeness and tendency to make herself at home. There was also a similar sense that more was going on upstairs than she really let on.

But then, this girl was either a member of Khamja, or a minion of one. It wouldn't be surprising for her to be canny and observant.

"And you?" she asked, looking from the girl to the man.

They didn't know Kreeth, and since Kreeth was introducing herself, she was guessing Kreeth didn't really know them, either. She wondered if Aizen knew them.

Mentioning that she was a minion of another member was, theoretically, something that would put her firmly on a list of things not to go and damage because as far as Khamja was concerned, she was Aizen's property. Unfortunately, she was Aizen's property, and right now he was locked away in a Galbadian prison.

It was an uncomfortable feeling to be so vulnerable.

Road narrowed her eyes slightly at Kreeth. Kreeth was a gap in Road's knowledge, and she wasn't pleased about that. The name was only distantly familiar, a footnote somewhere in the information Road remembered. The Earl mustn't have any stake in this one, or anything she was involved in.

She was too confident not to be a member in her own right, too. The way she looked at Road and Tyki didn't have the frightened lamb behind the eyes aspect as Nel Tu did.

Nel Tu was trying not to be scared. It was cute. Tyki was probably scaring her, with his Noah side out and on show like it was.

"Road Kamelot," she answered, keeping her chin in her hands as she watched Nel be nice and kind, like a rabbit realising it's in a room full of foxes.

She kept one eye on Kreeth's reaction too, to see if the name got any response. Kreeth was Jyllandi, after all.

Tyki opened the silver box with deft fingers, the hinge swinging with a barely audible squeak. Inside, belted to the case, was a line of hand-rolled cigarettes, just slightly off uniform, as if he'd rolled them himself. He pulled one out, snapped the case shut, and replaced it in his pocket, swapping it for a small book of matches. They were something of a rarity in a world where people could create fire with the click of their fingers and were, rather unlike the cigarette case, cheap looking.

"I am Tyki Mikk," he said, slipping the cigarette between grey lips and striking the match to light it.

Kreeth ignored Road's eyes on her, not reacting to the name at all. She seemed perfectly at ease, unruffled by the girl's introduction. She titled her head to one side upon Tyki's version of the same, however.

"Mikk?" She asked, a smile spreading across her lips as he put the cigarette in his mouth. She knew what Nel had done to Professor Hojo for the same crime and she doubted this man's nice suit and pretty face would be enough to save him from the same fate. "Why don't you have the Kamelot name? You're a Noah too, that's obvious."

Nel saw the cigarette, she saw it slip between the man's lips, and she saw him light an actual match. Matches were something people with no skill in magic used. Something that people that didn't hunt and didn't tend to be outside when they were trying to light fires used.

A little book of them had the overtones of seedy bar about it, too. You'd have expected a lighter to go with the case, perhaps, but not a little matchbook.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at Tyki. It wasn't fair that he had to look good with a cigarette in his mouth. "I have to ask you not to smoke in here."

As much as a part of Nel trembled at the idea of telling this man, Tyki, what to do, another part of her was too stubborn not to. She couldn't enforce the rule for Hojo just because he was a grotty little slimeball and not enforce it for Tyki.

No response, well that was no fun. Either Kreeth didn't know, or didn't care.

But then, she knew they were both Noah, so obviously she knew enough to know who they were and what that meant. Definitely no fun, then. Kreeth wasn't even slightly intimidated.

Road turned her head, and her attention, slowly towards Tyki as he went to light his cigarette. She had to give Nel Tu some credit; she was scared of Tyki, but still asked him not to smoke. Road liked it when people were determined not to let it show that they were scared. They were way more fun to play with when they were like that.

"What gave him away?" she asked, flashing Kreeth a grin.

Kreeth's grin widened. The little girl was exactly as she thought then. She was smarter than her age would suggest, but she dressed it up in a childlike costume. Better to present your questions and comments as immature curiosity than what it really was.

She resisted laughing at Nel giving Tyki the same rules as she had Hojo. So it wasn't just dislike of the man on her part, and she had the nerve to say it to somebody she was clearly afraid of. That was good. Kreeth liked Nel.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "Might have been the accent."

Tyki blinked at the firm but politely phrased request from the Selkie woman. His eyebrows went up, but his back didn't. Well, the Earl had similar rules about smoking in kitchens and Sherril was a total prick about it. He curled his hand around the cigarette's glowing end, shaking out the match with his other hand.

"Ohh, fine, fine," he said around the stick, gripping it in his teeth. "Can I use the back door?"

Nel decided, in that moment, that she liked Tyki despite her instincts. He was scary, at least to her lower ranked Holy elemental self, but he could have been a prick and challenged her to make him stop smoking. Instead he accepted the request with little more than a raised eyebrow.

"Of course," she said, with a smile. "It's only the kitchen where I'll stop you." There were others that might have opinions if he tried it in other places, and she half wanted to see Ienzo's reaction if he tried it in the library, but the kitchen was her domain. She'd be the one doing the telling in here.

Road giggled, kicking her ankles up into the air and waving them as she balanced on the chair on her knees, and the table on her elbows.

Since they knew who she was, there was no real need to keep her true nature hidden, and Road wanted to see what effect it had on Nel to be subjected to her like she'd been to Tyki.

She let her Noah bleed through, darkening her skin. It was a little like taking off a coat when you got inside. It was comfortable, not that she'd been uncomfortable before, but it was a more relaxed comfortable.

"Looks like we have to make ourselves at home," she said, throwing Tyki a meaningful look. They were going to be here to watch others arrive, so at least it gave them a chance to get to know the ones that were already here.

Tyki let himself out of the back door and stood on the step. It didn't take long before he realised exactly what he was seeing and he blinked, taking a few steps out, eyes trained on the sky. When he finally exhaled, his breath was smoky, and he coughed.

"Wha--" he paused, scooted back to the door and stuck his head around the doorframe, cigarette in his hand, hand held outside. "How does that work?"

Kreeth laughed her abrasive laugh and grinned at Tyki's shock at the sky. She'd wondered the same, but she was glad to see she hadn't been as graceless about it. He was stunned, poor boy. She suspected he didn't see much magic or wonder in his life. He used a match to light a cigarette, after all.

"I'll let Nel tell you," she said, settling back into her chair. "She did a good job explaining it to me."

She tried to ignore the girl turning as grey as her... half brother? Cousin? He hadn't answered her question, so she had no idea what the man was to the girl. Distant relative maybe. It was bound to make Nel even more uncomfortable, but reacting to it wouldn't help anybody.

The ripple in Road's reiatsu sent a warning shiver down Nel's spine that she fought to suppress. She swallowed, and willed Gamuza not to freak out any more than the Hollow already was. When she had chance, she'd have to speak to the Hollow. Beasts didn't react to Beastmasters this way, but then, Hollows weren't really beasts; Gamuza, and the others, had sapient minds, or the remains of them. Was it exacerbated by the chakra opposition, or would all the Arrancar find their Hollows retreating?

She didn't want to consider what would happen if some of them were this unhappy with Arrancar hosts they didn't have decent relationships with.

For all the Noah were horrifying, however, Nel found herself re-evaluating Tyki. His chakra was terrifying, sure, but he himself was a bit sweet.

"It's a weather machine," she said. "We can pick a location and have their skies." And weather, including all the fun of the Thunder Plains on that one setting. "It's easy to forget we're underground," she said, with a smile.

Well it's my very little wonder and it's one that I will keep

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