2021-07-14: The Worst Way to Meet Someone

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  • Log: The Worst Way to Meet Someone
  • Cast: Isiris Shango'Ra, Gwen Whitlock
  • Where: ???
  • Date:7/14/21
  • Summary: After what feels like a long sabbatical, Gwen is drawn back to Isiris. She asks questions, and meets a loud, proud, and very unsound young man with a little ghost on his very big hat. Gwen is not sure which person is worse to deal with in getting answers.


<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

     The earth folds beneath you.

     The instability is hard to describe, something originating deep within a knot inside you never knew you had, the tense song of twisting hemp in your ear pulling tighter until the earth crumples, cinching down and twisting under a tremendous pressure, forcing dirt between your toes. Something from the sky pulls the rope, hauling as hard as an ox. An 'idea that doesn't exist' should not be so compelling, should not make you feel so light.

     Your heels slide on the ground, inch by inch as your body begins to move.

     The low frequency buzz in your ear grows headache-inducing, loud enough to you and just you that words tumble out of your mouth with no meaning, water spilling from a tributary with no more meaning than the sound of a babbling brook. The world tilts on its axis as the earth folds, the next step becoming more and more treacherous until it is no step at all but a climb. And in the white-hot knifing between your eyes, you see it, a black obsidian throne, empty and threaded through with nonsense and ill reason. A flash of insight, accompanied by a squelching blast of white noise. Old birds sit atop the bridge of the throne, chattering to themselves before the mind is gone away.

     You see the temple, a place far and away from where you are now, as he lays hold of you in no uncertain terms.

     You see him as he may have been years ago, ascending the alabaster whitestone steps.
     It is not a friendly thing he does now, as the child who watches you quietly notices, the one who quietly feeds the birds. This is the one who lays hold of you, bodily. Every thread, every fiber, every thought you've ever had is subject to all-consuming gravity as he reaches deep inside. You see him as he kneels, his coat gathering at the soles of his boots. You see his hands and smell the old air as he splays his glove in the ancient dust, spreading it, parting it. He pulls, and it is the earth that breaks first. He pulls, and there is no longer any ground to stand on.

     He pulls you, and you hang.
     He pulls you down from the infinite sky.

     And then, irrespective of everything else, you are here, thrown into this place, standing as if some part of you were less thrown like a ragdoll and more as if you were shot like an arrow into your own heart and mind, a lethal bullseye from miles away, a deadly bolt that slays anything that came before.

     That is how he brings you, the young man kneeling in the dust at the foot of the temple.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    It's hard telling just what Gwen was doing, in that exact moment. Specifically, she was likely enjoying some air on the dock, feeling that the sun's heat had gotten to her as she walked through the market. Stepping over to the shade of a tree, she wipes her brow and--

    And ultimately, it fails to matter. This might be how exactly he summons her, very literally, or a manifestation of the reality of whatever summoning spell he had used, as to go into specifics would likely break a few laws of physics. Or possibly rewrite them. Or discover them.

    Again, it doesn't matter.

    What matters is the way Gwen feels something she briefly considers as 'faint', or 'fainting', except that was a thing she hadn't done in forever, not since her heart was on the verge of that first death that made the installation of her ARM so necessary. Gwen never fainted, since then. And, in the small parts of her memory from those days, it never felt like this.

    It never felt like this, like she was light, grabbed ahold of, where she is in two places at once, becoming one place, but not immediately. Back then, in her childhood, the earth was like a sentinel that rose up to hold her, but now it's folded like origami, leading to a climb upwards that her boots step upwards, as she speaks nonsense words to the tune of the low buzz in her ears.

    To the audience of old birds, sitting on a throne.
    
    To that familiar child, who feeds those birds.

    It doesn't matter.

    She is summoned, like a being of old, summoned from a neverending sky.

    Gwen Whitlock, gasping and coughing, trying to grasp her head and breathe, to find some purchase of land she could press her feet into. This is not the sort of flight her soul yearns for, nor the sky.

    But again, does it matter, for his purpose?

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 
     It feels a little bit like being underwater and suddenly being pulled out of the water at the same time.

     If this is what the Guardians feel when they are summoned, it is no wonder why they birth into the world full of spite. The world shivers all its own, as if too cold, and the focus for everything is all wrong, shifting randomly, with a volatility that's hard to grip onto. He stands. First the focus is his boots, as he comes back down from the steps, the soles of old drifter cruisers overlapping harshly with -- the light his eyes are casting across his face, just barely, as looking him in the eyes is --

     "Breathe in the vapors of this old world," he says quietly, as he stops there on the steps.

     The feeling of tightness never actually ends, as if he were still pulling her into place, as if parts and pieces of herself were scattered across the entirety of all creation. But whatever he may be doing, it is not actually something evident. For all his company could gather, he was simply standing there, watching her cough up water that doesn't exist, for air that doesn't want to be breathed.

     "Places like this are the only evidence remaining. The only evidence remaining of 'true life.' The air here is purer than the rest. Take it in, and remember what it feels like," he tells her. "It is a gift."

     Above all else..
     "You have done well."

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        It's too cold, it's hard to focus, the air feels impossibly tight, as if not made for lungs like hers. It scratches at her chest, makes her feel like she just breathed in a load of cold ice water, but there's nothing that physically suggests it being more than a phantom pain.

    Her eyes, when they open, are blue-grey like the fog of a forgotten world, clutching onto the movement of the Stranger's old soles. With a slow crane of her head as it rests there against the ground, she's looking up towards his face, seeing the light case by the man's glowing cornflower blue eyes.

    Gwen's mouth tenses in an irritated grunt as she turns her face away, like she had just dared to look straight into the sun.

    "... I was considerin' thankin' you for the..." She breaks off in another fit of coughing, her mouth feeling like it wants to spit out nonexistent water. "... for th'chance t.... meet a new friend, but... the disaster in Luca? I'm lucky my friends still give me the time of day, after that mess."

    For all her glum spite, she can't even bring herself to look at his face, even if she can picture it perfectly in her mind's eye. "I 'ppreciate the gesture..." she says, through a throat that refuses to clear up, "but you need some lessons in delivery..."

    The retort sounded better in her head.

    She sits up, carefully lifting herself to her feet with a coltish lack of grace, far from any summoned deity. She wipes her mouth.

    "... I got a lotta questions, if you're havin' me over for a bit of tea."

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 
     The entire world shivers, as if chilled to the bone.

     Trying to hold focus on any specific point beyond 'your own hands' or 'your own feet' is like slipping on ice. The eyes are drawn to one another, as he is so endlessly inviting. As a person yearns to make contact with another person, so too does the specific 'gravity of the saccade' inexorably bias wandering attentions to his face, promising and inviting a terminus to -- every moment you don't climb is another moment you slide back toward the cliff -- broken, shivering, alien -- looking him in the eyes is --

     "The delusion of 'bonds,'" he recognizes.
     "An annelid motility to convince us that the world is still living.."

     There is no variation in the tone he takes with her, his manner kind in the vague sort of a way a person would be with a stranger in need of warm food and a bed. He crosses the space between with the soft click of his boots over the alabaster without real movement. He has the movements and mannerisms less of a man and more of a ghost, a slowly descending curtain.

     "Fleeting things tethering you squirming, wrist and ankle to the corpse of what came before.."

     He is not far from her now, and though it is hard to imagine the young boy anymore, the sensation of being watched by a thousand eyes is still rampant. The plates lining his coat shift only slightly as he comes to a stop, though it is hard to determine or fix him in an actual relative space. Insofar as the drifter is concerned, he may be a mile away, or he might be occupying the same literal air she is. If one speaks of a 'bond,' it is harder to think of a more apt definition than simply 'being' the person one is bonded to. Right?

     You can almost hear it, the mourning song she sings for you.

     His gloved fingertips intercede in her discomforts, and she will feel the weight of his hand over her head as she coughs. It takes him nothing at all to do this, even though the meaning of centimeters and kilometers are hopelessly lost in the exchange. "You are young yet," he tells her pointedly. "And have yet to..." -it's hard not to see a refraction of him, at another angle, in another world, in the same repose, with her, in the same repose. But she is not the same. Time is a little further on ..

     ".. finish the part discharged to you with the life she bought for you .."

     Throughout, it is easy to lose track of where 'he' is. In a moment, he is only a step or two away. In a moment, he is somewhere far from you. In another, it is you who is scattered, and he who is pulling you together on the workbench, weaving you into something more whole than you've ever known, piece by piece, bit by bit. You are the total of everyone and everything that has ever been since the beginning of the world, they say. But then, there is a 'thing' that has been since before the beginning. And if you squint hard enough, you can see the outline of a black obelisk, so far away it is part of the sky.

     Something that cannot be part of anything rational.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "I wouldn't be here, if it weren't for those bonds," Gwen answers back, her mouth close to that cold, fracturing alabaster. "It was one of the few things that kept me from burning up in Luca. I wanted to see them one last time, so I could say I was sorry."

    Is he drawing closer?

    Yes, he's far away. No, he's kneeling by her.

    She aches for that slight touch as a measure to ground herself, but the person doing it, and the way that it simply leaves her more unmoored makes the contact just as distressing.

    "... Who is 'she'?"

    ".... and what else are you having me do? You took that spark from me. You got what you wanted." She keeps her words soft and measured. She's determined- she *will* fully experience this place. And she will ask those questions, pushing aside the facade of friendliness, but also not embracing the blinding warmth of hate or grief, despite how it leaves her shuddering.

    "I saw the young boy, on the way here. I met him before. Is he another you? Or someone related to you?" She purses her lips. "A son, perhaps? Someone you lost? Maybe someone from this world."

    She is many someones. Gwen cenches her eyes shut, and opens them again, reminding herself to focus. There could be many, many different hers. But this is the one she is now, and she will find her answers.

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

     "Careful now," the weaver warns with a smile.
     "You wouldn't be here, but for me."

     Even when he says it like this, he only touches on a point with the lightest of provocation. There is a layering to his implications, and outside of all of the reality-churning turmoil settling in the pit of her stomach at so much as his very touch, her confidante makes a point. At multiple levels, she only stands here, in this moment, at this juncture, because he wanted it to be so. The thought evokes unbidden. 'There are after all,' it comes without invitation, 'many ways a person can burn.'

     The vast black rock in the distance casts a long shadow, and for its very presence, the world seems just a little more grey. The same grey that is in his coat, a smoke color that chokes off the air everywhere else but here. A place of open, old air, older now than any man has ever been, and sweet unlike the poisons of the desertland forced down the throat in ideas so insipid as 'home.' Alien, unfamiliar, broken --

     "And what is 'this world?'" he asks quietly. The facade of camaraderie falls from her, though the burn in her chest has no succor, for at times the weaver seems barely aware she is speaking words, let alone questions. Though she might as well be speaking another language to him entirely, certain threads have enough relevance that even a muted curiosity such as his is gained. And when he deals with her, he is not at all impatient for her batteries.

     As the world tilts along an axis unseen, her focus allows her to ignore what is happening in her peripheral vision, as other iterations of her are dressed in fineries otherworldly to her sensibilities. Her scars are the same as those of the world, and if the world bears those scars for her, then, maybe...

     "Is it not something you remember?" the nameless man asks mildly.
     "The gifts we give cannot be for us. And the job will never be done until you-know-when. But there are those whose parts have yet to be played, and those who will sacrifice themselves uselessly. It is our burden to trouble them awhile longer in this place.."

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    There are many ways a person can burn.

    Gwen would know this for a fact, something that is clear in the way her freckled face blanches a greyer shade of that pale pink-blue. "..... I get your point," she concedes softly, through lips pulled thin.

    "... What is this world, to you? What is it to the boy, to Lan?"

    The next comes unbidden, out of step with keeping him interest. "Why were you there, at the Ethos headquarters? What did it have to do with this mission?"

    'Is it not something you remember?'

    The question hits Gwen as quickly as the pace with which she tried to derail the conversation.

    "I remember another self. I'm seeing many other selves as we speak. I'm guessing they're... other possibilities, not memories of another world. Your powers... they ain't strictly illusion."

    She sits back down, arranging her arms over her knees. ".... I don't want there to be anymore sacrifices. What sort of world would require all this? Maybe that world passed by for a reason... Is it worth hurting Lan? Changing her into something else? I came to you for selfish reasons, but she didn't."

    And, maybe, that would be the reason to ask an impossible question, one whose answer she isn't sure she'd be able to understand.

    "Maybe you can tell me the answer to this... related question."

    The redhead steels herself, then risks chancing a look towards those glowing eyes.

    If she were to make her question short enough, perhaps--

    "Who is Ashansi?"

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 
     He looks at her, his eyes narrowing slowly.
     The expression is winnowing. He is never anything less than kind, but the expression on his face does not reflect the accomodations he makes for her. She asks questions, one after another, and the man in the grey coat is quiet for a long time, looking up to the sky slowly as she struggles for reason in the world without. He doesn't reply. At least, not for a long time. The world shifts as his attention wanders. It shivers as her reason threads onward.

     Even as she speaks, the buzz turns to an audible shriek in the ear.
     And then the threads holding the world together snap. And then it changes.

     The courier will find herself in another 'iteration,' standing again. She is stranded to herself in motion, as if she were dropped wholesale into herself in midstep. Somewhere above, the sky churns white alabaster, as she goes to the ground in each. In some, she is fitted. In others, she goes mad. In others yet still, she runs.

     "The world that is is the 'space that is left behind when everything lovely is taken away, and there is nothing left over for us but misery.'"

     He stands some ways away from her, the favor of his searching touch gone. And when he speaks, he says his own simply, as if it explains everything without limitation. And so he speaks. In such, he speaks with a mild counterpoint sharp in his voice, as if something she'd said to him so long ago were simply wrong at a base level. It takes a long time to understand that 'so long ago' could have been years ago, or minutes ago, or seconds ago. And the way the man looks at, past and into her, the simple truth of it is, there are some in the world for whom the distinction simply does not matter.

     "There are those that remain who are destined to suffer, those whose suffrage I cannot stay." As he speaks, the pressure mounts. "And in those are born a bright and shining thing, the tip to a grand spear, a blade capable of being wielded only by those strong enough to end this world in every moor.."
     Then, she looks at his eyes, and then the world simply ends.

     "Geez... you guys talk way too much."

     By the time Gwen is thrown violently back through the world, he is pulling her up onto a vast black basalt. Despite the fact that there is hundreds of feet between her and a very unbecoming death on the ground below, his grip is sure, and his grip is strong. He is an irrepressibly young man, but old enough that were he a wine a king might consider him a worthy vintage. Even so, he is everything someone else is not, a fit and cheerful man wearing a fucking awful looking cowboy hat, with something somewhere between a gun, a sword, and a dragon hung from his belt. In the minutes he hauls Gwen up bodily onto the plateau and sets her on her boots, it really is impossible to tell at a glance what the hell that is on his belt, but -- man, is that a toy ghost tucked into the brim of his hat? And worse yet, is that toy struggling to get loose?

     He seems to notice, and flicks the toy ghost in the nose. 'ow!' it says.
     And when he flicks it, you can feel a miniature shockwave, as if he hit the little toy really, really hard.

     "Listen, ah ... I wouldn't take this whole 'tumultuous world' thing too seriously, if I were you," the boy advises. "I know a thing or two about nightmare hellscapes, because navigating treacherous terrain is my #1 S-rank ability. And the big thing is, if you think too hard, it just ends up giving you a headache. Best to just power on through. Name's Teraya. Oh-- I guess, Teraya Ashansi." He is very tall. He offers his hand.

     "Number one super-monster hunter and adventurer first class! This's -- hey," Ashansi starts, crossing his eyes to look up at the brim of his awful hat, "th' hell's your name again?"
     "woe is me"

     Ashansi frowns. "--uhm. Sorry about him. He's kind of dramatic."

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Gwen asks questions, which fall off Isiris like water off a duck's back.

    The low buzz heightens to a rough, jagged noise, silencing Gwen finally as she's forced to press her hands over her ears in a gesture she already knows won't work.

    ".... ah." When the courier's eyes open, she views another world, more or less similar to the one she left, in the one version where she has succeeded in resuming her former state.

    ".... You've explained this all to me before, haven't you." She turns, earrings swaying with the cant of her head, looking for Isiris, but at the same time, keeping her eyes to the ground. She can't risk an accidental exposure to his gaze, even if she gears herself up for the intentional gesture of doing just that.

    "I figured there'd be those who'd want to use my ARM as their weapon, but you..." She turns fully, having found where he stands, but stepping no 'closer', even if it's not something she's certain she could even achieve in this space. "I'd say you seem like you see the core of me as a weapon, not just a part."

    But who is the one who is a part of the Stranger?

    Who is
    Wh

    'Geez... you guys talk way too much.'

    A semi-limp Gwen is pulled up onto an expanse of black basalt, numbly holding onto the young man with the awful hat. Her head loosely rises, and she squints, her mouth slightly open, as if trying to understand the idea of him.

    Ah, this is this Ashansi.

    Gwen looks up towards Ashansi, her wits split between being ripped through by blue, and tries to remember a name. Any name. "... Gwen... Whitlock," she says dully, her mouth automatically going through the motions of that whole song and dance her face isn't ready to commit to. ".... Super... courier..."

    He and his companion are everything Isiris isn't, completely breaking the anxiety like an absurd sand castle after a wave.

    "...."

    Then, likely to the horror of Ashansi, Gwen just grips him in a deathlock of a hug, burying her head against his chest and openly weeping.

    And this is how Ashansi made Gwen cry.

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 

     Oh man. That cowboy hat is something truly to be despised. It was probably dashing at one point. But now, between the ghost, and the band, and it really does look like he's just collecting whatever isn't bolted down and adding it onto his hat. Like. Really. Is that harlequin stripe?

     "Whoa. A super courier?" the really-rather-tall guy repeats incredulously, as if Gwen were speaking perfect sense to him. "Can you ship like, a whole planet? I mean, I guess the moon isn't a planet. Long story short, I need it sent someplace. Someplace where all the clothes chafe. All of them. Not an unreddened butt in the land..."

     The basalt monolith gives a huge view of the surrounding environment, though the mists curl at the fine edges of the world below. The vista is a panorama of a pristine and savage land, and there is no hint of the temple where Gwen stood only a moment ago, when she made the mistake of looking her (self) in the eyes. ?!
     The world itself doesn't seem to suggest any one reality over another, as if the magnitude of potential were augured solely to this place, and the sensation is like feeling the blistering heat from a volcano, were it actually hot at all. The 'oppression' is something exclusionary, and it's actually rather doubtful that anyone could really stand here at all, were they not strong enough to withstand in their body the process of pure unfettered perspectives. A thousand ideas clash garishly against the backdrop of a senseless, cracked blue sky, and weigh down everything.

     Not that he is having literally any of it at all.

     "ACHOO!" Ashansi sneezes, and waves off something, as if the crushing ennui was a stray smoke that had gotten into his nose. "Anyway, I've got a lot of hunting to do regardless, and I'm guessing -- WHOA CALM DOWN FISTED SISTER! D:" he exclaims as Gwen roots to his middle and starts waterboarding his elite hunting vest with her whole slate of emotions. To his merit, his magnificent combat ability could have allowed him to dodge her tears, but then maybe she'd trip and he'd have to figure out how to push the whole pillar down after her or throw a cloud to break her fall or something. He frowns, his hands locked up in a good old fashioned double 'up high!' position as Gwen deals massive launder damage to his vest. Mmnh..

     The little ghost points a pale white sewn fingerless limb down at Gwen, and looks at Ashansi accusingly, spreading its arms.
     (What? No, no, this is not my fault! Her arm is perfectly fine!) (...!?) (I don't know, maybe you scared her! Some girls can't handle ghosts, even crummy ones!) (...!!!) (That wasn't even the arm!! That was like that when I got here. No this is definitely all your fault. I never had this problem until you showed up.) (--!!) (You beanbag full of garlic! My hat is great! Ugh, listen, I can't trust you to fix this.)

     Gwen will feel it first as a gentle prodding in the head. "Hrmm..." like he's trying to find her off button or something. Then, failing that, the cavalier pats her on the head. First once or twice, awkwardly. Then eventually he lets his thick leather glove rest on her head. Like, all of it. His hands are pretty big. She might reflect that he smells like the river at night. "Okay, okay, that's enough of that, nothin' to be afraid of out here.."

     Ashansi pauses. "I guess except for the assuredly lethal hundreds of foot drop... yeah, best not to go stomping around blindfolded or any other daredevil stuff like that for the time being til I get us a rope. Don't want to go splat on some rocks or a wandering horse or something, yeah..."
     (That was smooth, right?) (....) (Oh, you are just jealous.)

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Yes, there was a temple here once, where Gwen looked at another self, and fell into oblivion.

    Did she summon Ashansi, or did he summon her? Which he? Ship what? Shp what where? The moon? To a place where clothes chafe?

    "... I'm sure I could manage something," she mumbles, oblivious. "... Badlands, probably, but don't think that's big enough for the moon. But I think it'd piss off my friends there, on the moon... Maybe you mean the other moon..."

    Maybe she's shipping the moon already? It feels way too heavy already. Maybe she should just take a short breather, right here, and use this nice tall garish pole as a support.

    The pillar sneezes. Loudly.

    Gwen is prodded back, after her crying spree.

    Ashansi is comforting, in a way. Smelling like a river at night, something vaguely nostalgic, completely the antithesis of everything.

    A perfect thing for a Lan to anchor her self to, regardless of how the Stranger conjured him into being.

    "... No, no," she mumbles to the ghost as she mercifully lets Ashansi go, "that ARM's me."

    Grey-blue eyes peer up towards the ghost on Ashansi's hat. Gwen blinks.

    Is that ghost.... what is that ghost? Is that ghost... the Stranger?

    She stares dumbly for a second longer, then laughs, tears of a different kind falling from her eyes. "... Thanks, I needed that." Wiping her cheeks with the back of her left hand, she answers, ".... I just looked oblivion straight in the eyes, so, bear with me a sec, Mr. Ashansi."

    She offers her right hand up to the little ghost, index raised. "So. Is your name really 'Woe-is-me', or do you prefer to be called somethin' else?"

    Lowering that gaze down to Ashansi, Gwen continues, "Lan told me 'bout you. I say she was pretty on the mark."

    Will this Ashansi know who Lan is?

    He better.

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 

     "Oblivion's no sweat. Like a lot of things'n life, you just have to hit it with all your might. Like this!" Ashansi holds up a fist for emphasis. "Sha!!" He snaps out his fist, and hups into a full-on power slug of nothing in particular! There actually is this kind of curious whipcrack sound when he punches the air, and there is a noticeable backdraft from his punch when he lets it loose in full martial abandon. Of course, it does nothing more impressive than that. Unless you are looking at one very specific tree a couple miles out. That tree slowly crumples and falls to the ground.

     (....) (Hey, I'm not showing off. >:( Weren't you listening anyway? I was so freaking right and all you can do is hate on it! This is why you lost the fight, keep your head in the game or -- wait she's listening again)

     Ashansi is sniffling again by the time Gwen starts to ask questions, rubbing his nose with a finger. The action causes his shades to cock jauntily on his face, a look he doesn't mind enough to stop. "Hey, hey hey.." he interrupts slowly, olling his eyes into the back of his head as he sniffs harder, as if nursing some wicked allergies or a punch square to the face. It's not clear which. "Don't start with that mister stuff. I'm not -that- old. The only thing I'll answer to is my name. That, or a genuine call to adventure. The more danger the better. I'm always ready, like a coiled spring. That explodes. And takes out a dragon. A full one! No half-dragons. Unless there are two of them. I'll take them both out -- with nothing more than wit, grit, and a well oiled catchphrase!!" Ashansi shouts, punching into nothing again. "Huh! Yeah! Umph!"

     The ghost doll shrugs at Gwen, helpless on this journey.
     "woe"

     "Oh!" Ashansi realizes. "Uh... yeah, I think that's really all he says. He's my bounty right now. At least, I think he is. That's what I was told, anyway. Come to think of it, that shopkeeper could have been a secret wizard too. Ugh, I knew I could smell adventure while I was talking to him. Or was that the stew? Hrn."

     Lan? Ashansi SNEEZES again. "N..nope. Wasn't his name," he says, thinking hard. "Come to think of it, he wasn't a her either. Man that's a nice name. Is she a princess? Sounds like a princess. Did I sleep through another adventure and save someone? She sounds awesome. Like some kind of damsel. An exploding damsel, made up of coiled springs! Like a whole bag of adventures, all rolled up into one big beautiful blue-eyed package! YEAH! Or wait, no. That's not right. What's better than blue eyes? I know! BLUER eyes! They'll have to open up the record books when they see those babies. And then they'll have to blow up those record books! Hah! That'll show those nerds and poindexters."

     Ashansi is at this point now forgetting there was even a conversation at hand.
     The ghost doll smacks itself in the head in frustration.
     "woe"

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "..." Ashansi could probably just see Gwen's heart break, with how close he's standing to her right there. "You..... don't..."

    And now Gwen is bawling on Ashansi again, almost vengefully this time, which may be unfair to the man, considering he genuinely may not know.

    Maybe he is simply a new version of Ashansi, or one where Lan was edited out.

    Gwen's not sure what would be worse.

    "... Y'don't even remember her, after all she tried to do to keep you safe..." Now Gwen is the one sniffing and rubbing her noise. "Ain't sure to be angry or sad at you, or, at the Stranger. It's too cruel! And don't talk about blue eyes! You forgot somethin' big, I'm tellin' you!" She's gripping Ashansi by the arms and gently shaking him, peering up into his eyes-- well, his askew shades.

    Is he even aware of the Stranger? Is the ghost? "... Wait. Shopkeeper? N' why are you hunting for a bounty you're keepin' on your head? And who's your bounty supposed to be, if y'can't remember their name?"

    Just how many selves does Isiris keep inside him? Is there an entire narrative world? Because the world he was describing does *not* seem like the same world that would have an Ashansi.

    "'ey, uh, Woe. You know who Lan is? Two woes for yes, one woe for no."

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 

     "Hey!! Aw, come on, not this again--"

     Ashansi, though possibly not entirely unempathetic to matters of the heart in this case, is certainly not immune to being cajoled. Equally as certain is this is about what Gwen is doing, alternating between sobbing on him and shaking him and demanding he know things he is awfully sure he shouldn't. Through the nineteen point interrogation and waterboarding, the cavalier's hat wobbles back and forth on opposing axes to Gwen's shaking, eventually forcing a getting-a-little-soggy Ashansi to hold onto it with a single hand, as if riding an angry bronco.

     "Hey, what's wrong with blue eyes? Never interrupt a guy when he's fantasizing!!" Ashansi protests, before finally just pushing Gwen away with a boot mid grabby hands, and holds her at knee's length so she can't latch onto him anymore. This gives him time to straighten his hat, though his shades remain askew and it's almost certain he doesn't notice, because he's busy arguing with Gwen now.

     'You forgot somethin' big, I'm telling you!'
     "--Whoa! Don't slather my honor! My memory stat is rank S! Nothing gets past me, my mind is like a steel trap full of gumshoes! Black belt gumshoes trained in every martial art! If something even gets within a mile of thinking it's going to get past me, my mind proactively has it in a headlock before it's even born! It knows all the super moves and has all the best gear, and I can't even think of the last time I let..."

     'Wait, shopkeeper? N' why are you huntin for a bounty you're keepin' on your head?"

     "--would catch it in the greatest, zestiest explosion! Like you shaved a lemon onto a meteor! That zesty! Then, before the castle blew up I would punch the bad guy right in his face, and then I would jump - no, I would zipline out of the castle, princess in one hand and a meteor in the other! And, I mean, I guess I would need to have a third hand, but by God it would be great! Now THAT'S a real man's adventure! Woo! --"

     You'd think he was done. You'd be wrong. This goes on for a bit, a merciless daydream the likes of which has never been dreamt before by animal or man, rendering Ashansi relatively impenetrable to even a super courier's reason. All of this goes on while the ghost doll wobbles and waves all over helplessly in the litany of punches and amazing kung fu Ashansi powerfully imagines mid-adventure, to the point that it (he?) is relatively desperate to get free by the time Gwen thinks to talk to him. But he seems offended by Gwen's line of questioning, and the doll puts up two wide angry open mitts in response, gesturing to Ashansi with fierce double chops, then back at the world at large, giving Gwen an angry look and saying "WOE, --"

     WHAM.

     The entire basalt pillar -- all 20+ stories of it -- quivers as a blade with a breadth broader by a sight than Gwen's own head sinks at least a foot into solid stone like a lightning bolt. The metal sings, loud and long, as the seismic impact of the blade wanes, the earth's shudder audible in the distance. It's at this point Ashansi decides to snap back into the real world. "...Hey, um, listen," the cavalier starts a little awkwardly, scratching the side of his head in confusion and finally straightening his shades, "... I'd not been credited with a lot of, you know, poindexterin' in my life, but, case I didn't mention it before, my insight is also rank S. So, every'n'so often I like to notice stuff. And, you know, just seems to me that you're real, real interested in my bounty."

     The ghost doll is sweating now, and waving its limbs at Gwen willy-nilly.

     Ashansi is not mad, per-se, but his eyebrows are all knit up, and it is very obvious that he's coming to a conclusion or two. "Kind've like you know... you wanna steal him..." he supposes.. "help him escape..." he squints at Gwen closely, before pausing, looking up. "'Ey. Come to think of it. You got a twig and berries up there?"
     (....!?)
     "Ugh, you'll have to pee sometime. Then I'll definitely find out."

     Ashansi frowns, his suspicions returning to Gwen. "Anyway... I'm pretty sure I know a tussle coming up when I see one...and.." he wags a finger at Gwen, knowingly.

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 
     "Huh," Ashansi says, making a point to think real hard. "You sure bout all that? I tend not to forget much, and this guy sounds like a real asshole. Assholes don't got them big pretty baby blue eyes. That's definitely for super princesses. And to that point, can't say as I've ever recall been saved by a super princess before. Somethin bout that seems flip-flopped. Like, you'd need a castle and some kind of weird dungeon bedroom tower to hold me, and they haven't invented one of those. It'd have to be made out of like, some weird indestructible moon metal. Or meteor metal. Or really like, any kind of them extraterrestrial's-- listen, what I'm saying is, they ain't made the rock or stone yet on God's dusty ball that I can't get loose of. Even if I was naked, I would karate chop my way out, and even if I was tied up head to toe, I would chew my way out! And if they put a ball gag on me I would -- hmm. Come to think of it, that might work. Even so! I would piss on the danger. Right in the danger's eye. That's what I think of danger. You come across any danger, you tell it I said that, too. Can't let danger go thinking I respect it."

     Oh, he's getting off-track.

     "Anyway, listen, you ever think you got it twisted?" Ashansi asks, thinking about patting Gwen but definitely not doing so for fear of being attached to again, "she sounds cool, and I tend to have way more bad luck with ladies than good. And, seems like you know an awful lot about this Lan lady, maybe she went and adventured with you instead? I mean, I wouldn't go so much so as to call you annoying, you might be a bit of a barnacle but annoying is kind've a strong word. And then maybe she saved you or somethin' like that? You know, when you don't have a rank S memory like I do, you can kind of get stuff mixed up like that. I am -definitely- sure if I met this lass of yours, I would save her, not the other way around. I would save her right back into the stone age. You make sure to tell her that: That if I ever meet her, I'm gonna save her socks right off. She is the sock type, right? Tell her that she's going to have to buy a whole new set of socks when I get done saving her."

     (....)
     "How would you know? You keep quiet, or I'll get you sewn into a sock! Then I'll wear ya, and run a marathon. Find out, twiggly, find out! and-- HEY!"

     That's right about when Ashansi draws his sword.

     Even as Gwen asks the question, she might realize the answer. The sword is now conspicuously missing from Ashansi's sword belt, and as she asks, he takes one step to grab onto the hilt again. "It's okay if you missed it. Penumbra is my big excellent big villain-rustling sword, and my *Quickdraw ability is Rank S..." he surmises, even if it's not exactly clear how he pronounces a command '*' in normal speech. Even so, he closes a hand into a fist ahead of him, and you can hear his glove tighten up. "I can't even let a second go by without training my muscles, or else I won't be ready, when the real adventurin' begins. That's when we beat up whole kaiju! Or robots! Or kaiju robots! YEAH! Takin' out a whole godzilla-type with a single manly strike! That's what happens to troublemakers on my watch, don't you forget it."

     "So, listen, courier gal," Ashansi makes a point of saying, pointing to his eyes, then pointing to Gwen, then pointing to his eyes, and pointing to Gwen again. "Seein' as how you seem pretty contrite, I'm gonna give you a little lady freebie, on accounts of I don't usually like to give women the 400 blackbelts pancake treatment n' all... but I been horse-eyed before by a pair of pretty eyes and a no-account personality, so -- I'm gonna be keeping an eye out on you. If you try more funny business, trying to make eyes at my buddy bounty, I'm gonna have to throw you all the way up there." He points up.

     Nothing up there but the open sky. And he keeps pointing.
     "All the way up there," Ashansi repeats. "Got it?"

     Throughout all of this, he's completely forgotten to answer where they are, or who she was talking to. There is a noticeable price to pay for trying to get questions answered while talking about danger and princesses and martial arts.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    How did Lan ever get along with this guy?

    ............. oh, right.

    Because he is who he is, in a way that Lans and Gwens can't deny is genuine.

    But Gwen is not a Lan, and Ashansi.... definitely has some qualities that almost make her wonder if he's some sort of reflection of them. Just, in a form that is 'overconfident young man'. "And what if it was something so awesome that some villain made you forget it, as a kind of blow? Because clearly they wouldn't be able t'take you on in hand-to-hand combat, right?" Gwen gestures with a hand. "But, I remember what she's told me, so, by listenin' to me, even if it's not that memory, it's still you gettin' 'round that guy's plan, right? And, it doesn't really change what you're here doin', really. This bounty business n' whatnot."

Her voice softens. "... N' yeah. I think, if you met her, if she hasn't lost anything that made you two like each other in the first place, you might like her all over again. A romantic like me can only hope. But yeah, you're right-- she is pretty cool. N' hey, don't be so hard on yourself, when it comes to ladies." She folds her arms, and grins. "I just presented you with evidence that you do have luck, occasionally. You'd make for an awesome knight in shinin' armor. Like somethin' out of a one gella novel!"

    Ashansi probably did get plucked from Gwen and Lan, and now, hearing her own enthusiasm, the redhead feels downright self-conscious.

    "The huh-wha?" How did he pronounce that attack name again?! "Whoahwhoahwhoah." A wide-eyed Gwen holds her hands up, palms facing out. "I ain't here t'fight! Quite the opposite, really. I mean, I'll spar if that's what you're lookin' for, but, like." The young woman rubs the back of her neck. "It's kind of a bad time? I ain't even sure how I got here, or even where 'here' actually is. N' that's traumatizin' for a super courier, you know?! I'm supposed t'know this stuff!" She glances out over the edge, peering into the space beyond. "Pretty great view, though... ain't sure how we'll get down."

    .....

    "Wait, who was this lady who horse-eyed you?" Gwen folds her arms. "N' you can keep your eyes on me, I don't really got much t'hide. I won't question your insight, though, since it's gotten me all curious now who this guy you're lookin' for actually is." She rubs her chin. "I mean, you're pretty strong, n' all. If you're that concerned about it, guy's gotta be at least that strong. Like, maybe they have a tiny ghost on their hat too."
    
    Just who is the ghost? What if the ghost on Ashansi's hat is.... Ashansi? Lan's Ashansi.

    "..... But like...." Gwen itches her head. ".... I don't even know who this guy is? Just that he's a guy, and that's not really narrowin' it down, right? So like, if things *do* turn out like what you say, I'll probably be mighty surprised. Because you don't seem t'be the kinda guy who goes after good people, y'know?"

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 

     The thick blade of Penumbra wobbles noticeably as Ashansi pries it loose from its holding point in the stone with a single hand. Of note, though Gwen wasn't privy to the actual strike, it seems there was a non-trivial amount of steel plunged square into the rock, and the basalt seems to ooze clear serum when the cavalier pulls his sword loose, as the strike seems to have gone way deeper than the blade's depth would have suggested. Teraya sniffs audibly as he lifts the long length of steel, the ornamental fittings rattling pleasantly as the balance shifts back over his shoulder, attaching the sword to (another) unseen catch behind him. Wasn't it just sheathed at his side before? "...You tryin' to confuse me?" Ashansi asks suspiciously, tripping up the brim of his hat with a thumb and causing the ghost doll to flail and disappear from immediate view above the brim of the cavalier's hat.

     "Listen, if a villain used a big enough blow on me to make me forget something important like you say, I wouldn't just take it layin' down. I would blow him right back. I would blow him right into space. And if there was any bits of him left laying around after, I'd blow those too."

     At the very least, Gwen seems to not want to fight enough that Ashansi's also seemed to have forgotten the idea, but the young man seems nettled, the way he takes off his awful hat now, revealing a truly sad state of affairs with his hair, an unruly mop that he runs a hand through in a sign of the mildest kind of distress. To say nothing of the ghost doll, who, tied to the side of the hat in Ashansi's grip, is jostled and waved around like a nobody being taken on a roller coaster ride. Gwen can kind of hear the doll complaining every time the hat's brim is not facing her, in soft 'woes' that cut out abruptly whenever Ashansi moves the hat, the voluminous brim soaking up the tinny sound. "This stuff is way simpler than you womanly types seem to like makin' it. Just like that heartbreaker Stratos girl, awhile back. Least'n you don't seem as bad as Parringer... that one I'm gonna have to settle up with eventually, n'I just know it.."

     Ashansi points, finally slapping his hat back on his head, to the dismay of at least a small country's worth of fashion experts. God, that thing is colorful. "Now, that's enough out've you for the time bein', little lady. You're mighty pretty, you're mighty confused, and you're filled with more questions than a toddler sphinx at a rodeo run by the census." What's a census? "..But none of those amount to a recipe that I wanna cook today. So, listen up. Bounty's here --" he says, finally thumbing to the ghost doll hanging on his hat, who seems kind of offended at being marginalized like that. "Out's that way." He points down, off the edge of the pillar. "The princess must be in there," he points at Gwen's head, "and the villain is..." Ashansi starts, pointing ... a slowly swirling finger as he turns. Frowning, he makes almost a whole full circle around before he gives up, "...hiding from rockstars like us, clearly! I'll have to get to him later. Simple! Piece of cake."

     Ashansi grins, for the first time since Gwen got here.
     "An' we're gonna get down the way we got up here. We're just gonna jump! Easy."
     He is clearly proud of himself.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    If it was as simple as them being stuck on a big black rock, and there was a decent-looking guy in front of her pulling out a gaint sword from the rock like some sort of weird Arthurian ritual, Gwen would likely be a bit more into this. There's flashes of consideration, but the terrible fashion sense, his stubbornness towards giving Gwen any answers or context, and the strange clear serum that weeps up--

    ".... Huh. Normally rocks don't do that." It's a lot easier when other people are there to be concerned and she is left to be Gwen. This terrible Ashansi is forcing her to care about all these details!! "... Then again, normally rocks don't form like this, so it's consistent, at least." Hey, they weren't questions, so Gwen's learning.

    'I would blow him right back. I would blow him right into space. And if there was any bits of him left laying around after, I'd blow those too.' Gwen's cheeks suddenly puff out, and she coughs, trying to hide that horrible laugh that threatened to barge out. "I'll take you at your word."

    "Can ya blame me?" Gwen says with a shrug. "Normally I'd be content t'just accept things as they are, but, when the things begin with 'I'm suddenly on top of a giant rock'? Well, I was falling off a giant rock, I should say, since you did help me up."

    To this, Gwen gives a quiet, solemn nod. "Thank you for that, by the way."

    The bounty is down there, the princess is in her head, and the villain is... somewhere.

    "Fine, fine, we'll do things your way." Gwen gives a shrug. "You're better company than the dude that yanked me over earlier." But just as confusing, oddly enough. "So, okay. What'll it b--"

    They're going to jump.

    ".... I mean, sometimes I'm the one who says that, but when I do, it's because I got a plan..." Gwen's face wrinkles into one of regret, facing all the times she may have said or committed to equally hare-brained stunts. ".... So... we.... jump."

    .....

    ".... So how're we gonna account for the sudden stop at the end?" YES IT'S A QUESTION

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 

     It's not a big deal.

     Ashansi, finally free of a consistent battery of questions, steps out towards the edge of the basalt, the spurs on his boots jingling. (Because he absolutely has a pair of oversized spurs to go with his hat, now that he's passed Gwen and she can see him from the back..) The cavalier licks his lips, kicking at the wound in the earth and its clear serum as he passes with no more regard than an inconvenient rock sitting in the footpath. "Just some liquiefied madness n'whatever all else they got goin on in this weirdo's hellscape. If you see it, just give it the leathers. Nothin' to fret about, kid."

     The earth shudders just a bit, as a pulsating sense of vertigo seizes the very air around them, the earth tilting ever slightly on an unseen axis as Ashansi approaches the edge of the sheer drop. The pillar is smooth and featureless, and as Ashansi peers over, he idly flicks a copper piece over the edge, wind whistling as the tiny bit of metal is just sucked away into nothing. If Ashansi was waiting to hear it hit the ground, the wind is his only answer. The ghost doll seems mystified by the precarious drop. Luckily, Ashansi is not facing Gwen while she gets ahold of herself, so he is only paying a half-measure of attention. "'Course I'm better company," he interjects, halfway distracted by the greatest drop ever made by men. "It's because I'm the best company.... s'like I'm a whole conglomerate. My chief product is ... kung fu and zingers...twenty four hours a day, all week long. ...hrn..."

     By the time Ashansi turns back to Gwen, he is positively beaming, one thousand watts and ten thousand lumens of pure wide-eyed excitement as she asks him what the plan is for the stop at the end. "That's the fun part! It's all in your wrists! ... Well, I guess some of it is definitely the solar plexus, and then there's the real important part with--urgh, no, listen!" Ashansi starts, clapping once -- loud. Then, he poses for effect, taking a squared up stance, and shaking the earth with a stomped boot. "Jumping is about being tough, and being tough is all in here." he says, thumbing to his chest, right over his heart, and tapping twice. "All in here. You start with what's up here -" he says, inadvertantly offending his ghost doll bounty by pointing to his head again, "the world'll shake you off, sure's shootin'. So listen. Trust me, alright? If you run into trouble, it's no problem. I'll use my rank S++ strength to catch you."

     He steps back, as if not looking made everything a little more exciting. The wind catches Ashansi just right, and his jacket flutters around him. He grins again. "'Sides. Girls n' guys like us gotta stay alive to save them rockstar princesses. Just remember what I said. And don't forget to save some princes too. S'only fair. -- YAHOO!!"

     And then that is literally it. There is no more time to say anything to him. Ashansi is off, because there is absolutely zero hesitation when the young man turns and just jumps clear the hell off the edge, boots first and hollering into the abyss. What Gwen might notice is that Ashansi doesn't just seem satisfied to step, or even to leap forward. No, as if unsatisfied with being this high up already, Ashansi jumps straight up no less than a house's height into the air first, cycling his legs and howling allll the way down, gripping his hat tightly as the ghost doll holds on for dear life.

     At some point, his voice drops off, and you can't hear it anymore.
     Then it's just Gwen Whitlock and the howling breeze.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Gwen watches Ashansi kick at the break in the basalt with idle curiosity, then turns those wide grey-blue eyes as Ashansi seems to acknowledge the truth of the space they're in.

    "... Right," she says, with a prompt nod of her chin.

    The way to beat the Stranger's reality is to deny it and replace it with your own. .... More or less.

    Which is like saying that falling is easy as long as you deal with the sudden stop at the bottom.

    Thankfully Ashansi has that covered too!

    Gwen, when faced with Ashansi's grin, answers with one of her own. "... Okay. I'll trust you. If I can't... do that thing, you'll catch me."

    What if it's all just a way for Isiris to convince Gwen of some fact?

    But maybe that's how Ashansi has survived here, in this madman's landscape.

    Watching Ashansi answer the tilting void with a yell and a comical leap, Gwen squints her eyes and looks up at the horizon, and takes a breath. "Really, somethin's gonna catch me, eventually. Ashansi, the Stranger, the ground, my own hubris..."

    The courier takes a step back, and another. "... And if it was all just a prank on a needy person's mind, at least I'll have something to tell Lan."

    This, she squares away as a token, beating a hand over her chest twice.

    She takes a final step backwards, and then, with a whoop, she runs, and leaps forward into the howling air, right after Ashansi.

<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.

 

     And then there's nothing but the open expanse.

     The world stretches out as Gwen makes the bold jump into the abyss. It seems less like she moves and more the world moves around her, the idea of 'solid ground' stretching out behind her into irrelevance and the idea of 'the mad open sky' enfolding her. Vertigo takes hold of her slowly but surely, ropes of it cinching around her wrists, her ankles, her waist, her neck, every part of her body retreating inside of her as she begins, inexorably, inexplicably, tumultuously, to fall from a place she never was atop. The world stretches away, peeling and fraying in layers and threads, whirling up into great piles behind her as the fabric of everything crumples.

     And then, as she falls, she feels the hand at the back of her neck, his forehead meeting hers.
     "The time has come to release the 'ens' of all those who would still love the world that was."

     He whispers into your lifeblood. His voice is impossibly fluid, ridiculously inviting. It is as if he wrote just for you, and every part of you, every blemish, every flaw, every ill thought had been lovingly contrived into a place. A place made just for you, surrounded by the things he knew you'd like the best. A place where you were allowed to forgive yourself, and a place where you have the ability to make yourself as strong as you have ever wanted.

     "You must go 'there,' to that place. In the dark, I will come for that boy, and he will suffer as he awakens. He will cry, and he will beg, and he will rage. And I will not stop. He will struggle, and he will writhe. And I will not stop. And when he has the moment, he will do as I will, and he will think as I have once thought. And when he opens his hands, he will die."

     "....unless."

     There is no more. By the time the ground slowly rolls under Gwen, she is safe, and she is sound, and he is not there. She is alone, at the foot of that temple, her body scattered like a rag doll's under the warm stone in the strange, warped sun. The temple is ablaze with a staccato, reasonless fire, billowing out of its every seam, but never leaving a single scorch mark. The tongues of flame do not drift as flame is wont to, and instead licks at the fine edges of the stone in a slow undulating writhe, leaving nothing to the imagination. Those fires are but ghosts, greyscale ideas of flames once past. But the beasts do not go near these flames that leave no smoke, and the birds do not sing for a mile out.

     Though Gwen is safe, it is not safe to stay here for long.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    But Gwen is not Ashansi.

    She never was, which, would be a good thing, because she's not of this space.

    Everything wraps around her like a constricting fabric, tumbling her out until any bravado is similarly shaken.

    It's enough for Isiris to press a hand to the back of her neck, and press his forehead to hers like he was simply meeting her face to face, embracing her in an intimate way.

    It would have been easy forhim to hold her there, if he had stayed quiet beyond his initial statement.

    A wild bird can be lured into a cage, but it will still fly out the moment the sky calls back for it. To hold her there would be a commitment to stasis, and there are things to be done.

    The boy is in danger. Gwen feels she knows who the boy is the way she knows who touches his forehead to hers, even if her eyes are closed. He will die.

    And even if their subsequent meetings have been neutral to traumatic at worst, Gwen can't deny the protective feelings she's formed. That boy will die.

    Unless...

    "... Unless I stop it."

    She holds out the fingers of her right hand, operating on an instinct that couldn't have arisen until that top varnish of her psyche had been rubbed away.

    The hand shakes, generating an unfamiliar cold that seeps out, dealing a minute measure of ice against the fire in her way, as she moves out, dealing enough to snuff out the embers that collect in her path as she makes her escape.

    Later, when she reaches the edges of that tree, and feels the warm air of the world that is now, her body shudders, and the ice that collected on her left hand ebbs away like a half-remembered dream.

    Thoughts and plans that seemed so clear clash with the logic of this world, forcing Gwen to a sit by the tree she had earlier sought for refuge from the sun.

    As she sits there, the courier rubs her face until it's red, her hands muffling a single confused, frustrated word.

    "....... ..... shit!"