2018-04-28: Best Seraph Friend
- Log: Best Seraph Friend
- Cast: Xantia, Seraph Ragnell
- Where: Plains of the Goddess
- Date: April 28th, 2018
- Summary: A superhero-in-training and an invisible friend meet under a tentacle tree. Nothing about this is weird.
=========================<* Plains of the Goddess *>========================== The Plains of the Goddess consist of an enormous prairie that occupies the heart of the Meribus continent. It is the breadbasket of the world of Lunar; Althena's blessing lives strong in the soil, and the crops grown here are healthy, hearty, and free of disease. As a result of this bounty, the vast majority of the Plains are uncultivated; farmers have little reason to expand into the untamed wildlands when their larders and storehouses are filled to bursting. Only a few roads cross the Plains of the Goddess, linking the major cities to each other, with the ruins of Vane at the hub of a wagon wheel. Althena's Guard patrols the highways regularly, making travel (relatively) safe. Anyone heading deeper into the fields does so at their own risk, however. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_p5wdBrXw
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
A wide open space away from busy concentrations of people. Exactly the kind of place one would not expect to find Xantia, especially not as of late, having not at all enjoyed the lengthy period of time she had to spend wandering around by herself upon her arrival on Lunar. Therefore, Xantia is obviously not here. Just a girl who looks like her, sounds like her, and wears the same clothes Xantia always does. Aside from one very important difference. This person is wearing a domino mask. Thus this can only be Mystery Hero X, Defender of the Universe!
In training.
Acutely aware of the need for training if she's ever going to be a proper hero, she has come out here to do just that, in Mystery Hero X's secret training spot! Which is on a grassy hill, underneath a single tree, right out in the open. It's perfect, no one would expect a secret training spot to be located right out in the open! And besides, even though she sticks out like a sore thumb up there, she's not too worried about being spotted. After all, from that vantage point, she could also see anybody else coming a mile away, remove her Clever Disguise and just act natural. No problem!
Well, unless she wouldn't be actually able to see them. But what are the odds of that happening?
Currently, Xan-- MYSTERY HERO X is engaged in practicing one of the most important arts of being a hero, according to her mentor. The ~dramatic pose~. Which basically means that from afar, it looks like she's doing some kind of bizarre gymnastics routine, moving according to no discernable pattern, with no rhyme or reason to it. Because that's the way she was taught it works. Your movements getting there don't matter as much as long as it ends in a Heroic Stance.
What counts as a Heroic Stance? Who knows! Certainly not 'X' over here, looking like she might be miming completely random things like lifting weights, climbing a rope while not moving off the ground, mopping the floor, watering plants... even just spontaneously falling over at one point.
It makes very little sense looking at this by itself, and only slightly more once getting close enough to hear her. Which doesn't require too much proximity, as she is even louder than she normally is already, practicing heroic lines to go with her routines.
"Halt, evil doer! Mystery Hero X is here to stop you!"
"I am the fist that punches injustice, Mystery Hero X!"
"If you need help with your breakfast, Mystery Hero X will scramble your eggs!"
At least she's aware of the fact that she still need to work on this. A lot.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Mystery Hero X, huh?
"Kind of a dull name."
That's Ragnell's expert opinion as an official Superhero Name Rater(TM) (disclaimer: Ragnell is nothing of the sort), as she observes this girl who is Totally Not Xantia from a small distance, arms folded behind the back of her neck. How did she ever manage to discover Mystery Hero X's secret training spot?! Simple: she just happened to be passing by as Xantia was practicing her heroic lines, then decided to check out the source out of curiosity. She's been watching for several minutes now, and, well... That's her judgment.
Which might not help much to someone who can't perceive Seraphim, or could only see but not hear them (though it's usually hearing that happens first for someone developing the Resonance necessary to see Seraphim and Malevolence and other spiritual matters), but... perhaps Mystery Hero X.... is special......?!?
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia - if that is indeed Mystery Hero X's true identity - is known to have the Resonance of a rock. And yet... also oddly able to pick up on things she shouldn't be able to. By this point, it's perhaps not quite as unexpected anymore to see her jerk her head around in the direction the commentary was coming from. She clearly heard something... but she shows no indication of having seen anybody. For the brief time her head is turned, anyway, because she is soon otherwise distracted, the voice having thrown off her routine. Her mock punch ended up being thrown just a little further and more forcefully than she meant to, so now she has her fist stuck in the tree.
"Gah! Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" ...Is she apologizing to the tree? She must have been, as she keeps talking after pulling her hand free, examining the hole she made in the trunk. "Oh no... but, don't worry! I can fix this!"
She's already seemingly forgotten about hearing what she could swear was a voice just now. Because if she thought she was being watched, she certainly wouldn't have done what she does next. The hero wannabe places the palm of her hand over the hole she just made, and closes her eyes. A soft white light surrounds her hand, lasting only a short moment, before...
A new branch suddenly shoots out the opposite end of the tree, bending and curling inward. Xantia yelps in shock and surprise. "Oh, no no no, that wasn't supposed to happen! I must've done it wrong, hang on, I'll try again!"
A few moments later... The tree now has several new snake-like appendages, looking like some kind of tentacular nightmare. And it still has a big hole in it. Xantia stares at the whole thing in dismay, then looks at her hands. "I don't get it... why it is so different?!"
Special, yes... special is one word for it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Indeed, Ragnell's noticed Xantia's ability to hear and even "see" her without actually being able to do either. Maybe it's something she can only pick up on subconsciously, or when she's not really paying attention--something that slips in only on the peripheral of her senses.
Oh, but that's Xantia, and not ~Mystery Hero X~. Whether Ragnell realizes they're one and the same or not (let's just pretend), at least there's plenty of entertainment to be gleaned by watching X's idea of what a good heroic pose, and the leadup to it thereof, looks like. So when X jerks her head to the side, right towards Ragnell, when she makes her pithy comment, then goes back to punching a tree... Ragnell just laughs.
That laughter doesn't last long. Xantia uses some kind of arte on the tree, and to the Seraph's shock, a branch starts growing... then Xantia starts yelling about how that wasn't supposed to happen, and no freaking kidding, Ragnell realizes as that branch turns into a tentacular horror.
Her red eyes are wide and her jaw is dropped. "What the fuck was *that* supposed to be?" she declares, not really caring if X can hear her or not.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
This time, Mystery Hero X isn't in the middle of anything, and thus her tendency to get super easily distracted doesn't get in the way when she hears that voice again. Abruptly, she turns about, pressing her back against the tree. Which is still beautiful, don't let anyone tell you otherwise, tree.
"Who's there?!" Though she shouts this, her looking around frantically, in which her gaze passes directly over Ragnell several times, is proof positive that hearing is all she's managed to do. Not immediately seeing anybody, she thinks to first take off her domino mask, revealing to all the world that Mystery Hero X is, in fact, Xantia! Incredible! What a shock!
The mask is stowed away in the inside pocket of her cloak-turned-cape, which had the superhero look down before she ever decided to become one, before Xantia steps away from the tree, now more confident in her demands: "Where are you hiding? Come out and show yourself!" She doesn't assume anybody would be hiding unless they have nefarious intent. She isn't so quick to assume that there might be someone here she can't see. Sometimes her thought patterns do make some modicum of sense.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Who would have ever thought?!
Actually Ragnell is mostly wondering why Xantia was wearing a domino mask and calling herself Mystery Hero X in the first place. (AND THE TRUTH COMES OUT)
"I'm right in front o' ya, Xantia," Ragnell says mildly. "Remember your pal, Ragnell the 'ghost'? Gwen told you 'bout me? Introduced us, more or less." Technically Ragnell had already known about Xantia thanks to the Lacour Tournament of Arms, but they hadn't been formally introduced, so... "Looks like you can hear me properly now. Kind of a drag when you don't have the seein' to go with it, though, huh?"
She looks back at the tree. "So, uh." She would rap her knuckles on the wood, but, let's be real, she's not going anywhere near that thing. "The hell'd you do t' that tree? Or what were you *tryin'* t' do, as, uh, I take it what happened wasn't what you were exactly aimin' to do."
A beat.
"Also, the hell is up with that mask an' hero bit?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia properly focuses on where Ragnell is standing when she receives an answer, still not seeing anybody, but as she receives confirmation on the voice's owner... Yes, she realizes, she has heard that voice before, hasn't she? Somehow it just never parsed as being strange hearing it mixed in with other voices, to the point where she just casually answered questions as if it wasn't anything unusual. By itself, it stood out a little more.
Nevertheless, this is plenty for a smile to come to her features, greeting her 'pal' like she would any of her friends. "Oh, Ragnell, hi! It's nice to--" See you, she was about to say, but that wouldn't make any sense, now would it. "...hear you?" Saying that feels weird also, but at least it's accurate. She shakes her head, deciding, "It is nice to hear you! I knew I could do it, I've been practising!" So she claims, as if there was some kind of obvious way to practice something like that. "Maybe if I try hard enough, I could see you now, too!"
It doesn't appear to really disturb her much that she's talking to thin air, regardless. She seems just fine speaking in the general direction of a disembodied voice. It's far from the most abnormal thing she's ever done.
She blinks, and looks briefly over her shoulder at the tree when prompted. "Oh, uh... I was just trying to heal it. I can heal people just fine, but... I guess trees are different." That's about as well as she can explain it. It's not like she fully understands what she can do. Which might have something to do with it going wrong just now. It's a bit disturbing to know something like that can happen, but right now she's more embarassed by someone having seen her mess up than anything else.
And speaking of embarassment. "...oh. You saw that, huh? You weren't supposed to see that..." She scratches her cheek, feeling awkward a moment, but it passes. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter too much, it's just that Superheroes are supposed to have a secret identity, so please keep it a secret I'm training to become a Superhero!" Surely this explains everything.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
'It's nice to-- ...hear you?'
Ragnell laughs. "Likewise," she rumbles. "You're really takin' this in stride, huh? You do seem like the kinda person who ain't bothered by much, though." Though 'much' isn't the same as 'anything,' the Seraph reflects as she thinks back to that day in the desert, when Xantia had seemingly regained some of her memories. She doesn't seem to have suffered much long-term in the wake of that, unless she's hiding it, but... Xantia doesn't seem like the type to hide her scars, either.
"...Aha. So that was just regular healin' magic gone... terribly, terribly wrong," she says, looking back at the tenta-tree. "Makes sense. Sorta. Magic that's aimed for use on animals," humans being a type of animal after all, "probably *wouldn't* work the same on plantlife." She tilts her head back at Xantia. She uses that... strange magic that's particular to Solarians, as she recalls. Interesting that it has a limit like that... though then again, most people wouldn't even think to try to heal a plant.
"A superhero, huh. Well, that's no skin off my nose. Sure, I'll keep it a secret," she says. "Do you really need t' do that, though? People already know you got magic an' other powers. You were in the Lacour Tourney, for cryin' out loud. There's probably shirts on Filgaia with your face on 'em. If you wanna run around stoppin' crime or whatever, why d'you need to do it as someone who's not 'Xantia'?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia doesn't confirm or deny being someone who isn't bothered by much. She gets that a lot, but she has no idea how accurate that really is. It's hard to judge from her frame of reference, often unsure which things are even supposed to be unusual. It's not worth second-guessing herself over, at any rate. She continues taking it all in stride, casually responding, "We are friends, right? What is there to be bothered by?" Nothing disingenuous about that. She probably wouldn't know what that word even means.
On the subject of her magic, Xantia raises her right hand to look it over once more, wiggling her fingers around a little. "Well, I'm not sure how regular it is, but..." It's pretty obvious how little she still understands about what she can do. It's more than a little concerning that sometimes it might not even work the way she thinks it will. Ragnell's explanation is thus a bit of a relief, helping to make sense of what happened. "I see... I thought it would be the same on all living things. I guess I need to be more careful." Not just how she uses it, but also when.
Not using it at all isn't an option, of course. She'll never understand it if she never uses it. "Maybe I just need more practice..." She looks back at where Ragnell should be at this point. Being an open book, it's pretty clear she was just wondering how this would work on a Seraph. But... one thing at a time. Would be hard to try healing someone she can't even see. If there was ever even any reason to. "...Can Seraphs get hurt at all?" Just in case her thought pattern wasn't obvious enough yet.
The question whether it's necessary to become a Superhero visibly confuses Xantia, who only blinks blankly in response at first. She interrupts her own thought pattern and Ragnell's by immediately interjecting, "No, the shirts have an X on them," when that matter comes up. Because that's important to go on about. "They look just like mine, I have a whole bunch of them!" Explains a few things, just nothing that was actually important.
In the end, she shrugs, agreeing, "I guess I don't need to do it. I just want to." She takes a moment to actually think about her motivations, crossing her arms and looking up at the sky. "People just... really look up to heroes, you know? If they know a hero is looking out for them, they'll feel safer. It'd be nice if I could have that effect on people."
But an introspective moment never lasts very long for Xantia. Soon, she returns her attention to where Ragnell should be, eagerly suggesting, "Hey, hey, let me try if I can see you now!" And then proceeds to stare intensely at nothing, trying to convince her brain that there's something there. It's not the first time she tried. Maybe this time will be different? Ragnell could try to make it somehow different, of course...
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia isn't actually going to tell Ragnell any such thing, because, as she scrambles to answer, "N-no, I meant, there isn't anything to be bothered by! Sorry, I should've been clearer about that..." She feels genuinely bad about it, too. She's been on the receiving end of misunderstandings due to wording that wasn't literal enough so many times. What's next, is she going to start to wording things figuratively now, too? That's terrible! That's... normal, actually, but it sure doesn't feel natural to her right now.
A bit more quiet for a moment, she listens with genuine interest to these new facts about those formerly known as Imaginary Friends, not knowing a whole lot about them. Still sounds a lot like ghosts, except that those are already dead. "So... like ghosts, but alive," is thus her conclusion. Things make more sense to her when she equates them to things she understands, or thinks she does. Of course, the important thing here is, "Then, if you ever get hurt, let me know and I'll try to heal you!" Pay no attention to what happened to the tree. Xantia certainly doesn't seem to.
"Thanks!" is her simple response to the well-wishes on her path to becoming a hero. She's pretty psyched for it. Like she was once psyched about becoming a pirate. Equal odds on this being just a phase, or something she becomes strongly committed to. That's just how she is.
But the more important matter right now is trying to see what she couldn't. Having Ragnell's cooperation will make this easier. All she has to do now is just keep staring at this one spot, and--
Xantia frowns, and starts looking around. "Ragnell. Where did you go? You said you were standing right there."
Her eyes widen as it slowly dawns on her what that means. "I... I know you moved. But I didn't see you move. I didn't see you at all." But as for what THAT means... she couldn't begin to guess.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell laughs when Xantia gets flustered and explains herself. "Oh? Well, okay, then," she says. She'd understood that, too, but... if Xantia thought it was a misunderstanding rather than Ragnell being deliberately obtuse, so much the better.
The best friend someone could have, that Seraph.
"Yeah, I guess," she says, of Xantia's conclusion. Like ghosts, but alive. Sure, why not? It's close enough to the truth, anyway. "I can use healin' artes on my own--but if it ever happens that I'm hurt an' you happen t' be right there, I'll consider askin' ya for help, sure." If nothing else, it might be interesting to see how that strange magic of hers interacts with her. Hopefully with no tentacles or anything. Although there are women who're into that kind of thing...
Xantia concentrates on the spot where she was--and a moment later, calls her own on having moved. Ragnell's eyebrows rise as Xantia figures out for herself what that means. "Hmmmmmm," she murmurs. "That's interestin'. Really interestin'. That's not somethin' people can usually tell... Tell ya what, Xan: why don't we keep practicin' and trainin' like this a while longer? Maybe if I keep gettin' sneaky on ya, your senses will get sharper."
Though those senses might be something different from Resonance entirely. But hey--they won't know until they try, right?
And so the day continues...
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia doesn't see anything wrong with a friend like Ragnell. Mainly because she may well never even realize it when she's being tricked. Does that make it more fun, or less? That's up to her Seraph friend to decide.
For now, she is all smiles, beaming at the prospect of getting to help out someone else with her healing powers. "Okay, anytime! Just, um, it'd be better if you didn't get hurt that badly to begin with, of course." It's a weird clash of interests, wanting to both help your friends and not needing to help them. Especially with the rather selfish component of wanting excuses to test her powers in new ways. While also being kind of scared of what might happen if it goes wrong. Her feelings about this sort of thing are all over the place.
It's much more simple if it's about something like seeing what she can't see. She thus eagerly agrees to practicing for a while longer, wanting nothing more than to figure this out for herself, and finally see Ragnell properly. It takes some time, and quite a few tries, but eventually...
"I can see... I can see you! ...You're all see-through, but, I can see you!"
In the end, somehow, she manages to see Ragnell, in a way that makes the ghost analogy hold up quite well. Transparent, intangible, but visible. But as for whether this is actually because of Resonance... probably not, given that not all attempts yielded equally positive results.
Whatever it is instead, by the end of all this, Ragnell can probably piece together what makes the difference. What matters is Intent. Xantia can only sense things directed towards her. If Ragnell intends to trick her by moving, she can tell. If Ragnell simply doesn't want Xantia to perceive her, she can't, not even audibly. Thinking back to previous instances when Xantia heard Ragnell, it was always when Ragnell had a question directed to Xantia. She never heard Ragnell when she was speaking to others. It's certainly unusual, but that's how it seems to work. Whatever 'it' may be.
Naturally, this isn't something that Xantia herself will figure out unless told. Good thing that she has such a good Seraph friend, who certainly wouldn't hide anything from her because it makes her really easy to mess with. Right?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Always more fun. ...Though Ragnell does see the intrinsic value of such an honest human as well. If Xantia *is* human. It's always weird to her to be so wholeheartedly trusted by someone who knows so little about her, but that doesn't stop her from reaping the benefits of it.
"Ahaha, yeah, agreed," Ragnell says, crooking a half-grin at Xantia. "Well, I'm not the only Seraph out there, so hey, we'll see how it goes!"
And so they begin the tests. Ragnell has a lot to do--she always has a lot to do--but helping Xantia out with this is relevant to both of their interests, and who knows when she might run into her by chance again? So she's got time enough for this. And given all the different tries they make, it *does* dawn on Ragnell sooner or later what makes the difference. Intent... In other words, Xantia can only see or hear her when Ragnell wants to be seen or heard. And upon reflection, yeah, she never could hear her if she was talking to someone else, could she? What a convenient form of Resonance! Convenient for Ragnell, that is--although she doesn't really think it *is* Resonance. Resonance just doesn't work like that. Then is it connected to Xantia's Solarian magic...?
Either way, her only response to Xantia's success is a hearty, "Congratulations!" It even comes complete with clapping. It's like this girl became a legend! ...or something like that.
Ragnell might clue Xantia into what she's figured out later. But... later.