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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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.

Road tried very hard to resist roling her eyes. She liked Tyki, he was her favourite, but sometimes he needed to remember who he was.

She slid back down onto the chair, settling onto her heels and hugging her knees to her chest with a smile. Nel was trying very hard not to react to her letting the Noah side show, too.

"They're nice gardens," she said. They reminder her, a little bit, of the ones from back home. Someone put a lot of attention into the gardens, and the flowers, especially to be growing them underground. Especially to have got everything here. They were still underground, after all, so they couldn't have had everything dropped in through the roof.

Tyki, in his surprise at seeing a sky underground, hadn't noticed the gardens. He was barely able to drag his attention from it long enough to look out across the arrayed greenery when it was pointed out. They were okay, as far as garden's went. Not too heavy on the decorative flowers, not too sparse and populated with only grass. He liked the vines crawling over the ruins. He did not like the creepy things he could see shuffling way in the distance, near the flash of reflecting glass that suggested a Greenhouse.

"They're not so bad," he said, huffing smoke through his nostrils.

He was just glad it wasn't raining. He'd suffered too many well-placed, cigarette-killing raindrops in the past.

"Nel informs me that they're looked after by one of Khamja's newer members," Kreeth said, conversationally. "Unfortunately, he also keeps Malboros."

She'd seen them, but not got near enough to bother them. She would hate to have to murder somebody else's creepy pets.

Malboros. Road's eyes widened a fraction. Keeping Malboros was somewhere up there on the level of keeping Akuma when it came to things that would creep out most people.

Her face settled into a smile again quickly. "Don't wander too close to them, Tyki," she said, in an almost sing-song. It would be a shame if he upset someone by having to take them apart.

"Marluxia," Nel said, with a small nod. Some deep part of her would rather Marluxia didn't meet these two. She had the awful feeling he'd like their Dark, creepy auras. "You'll meet him before long."

Unfortunately. Tyki didn't seem like the sort of born manipulator that would get on with Marluxia, but she couldn't tell yet if he was someone Marluxia might view as useful, like he did Lumi.

She wasn't sure where he'd stand with Road. Lumi would probably be completely indifferent to both of them. Nel had softened towards Lumi, but he was the sort of coldly aloof type that wasn't out to make friends and allies.

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

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