2022-06-29: More Than Ever
- Log: More Than Ever
- Cast: Hicalu Wilwisp, Lan Lilac
- Where: Zoara Badlands
- Date: June 29, 2022
- Summary: A baker runs into bandits. The bandits run into his sister.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
The Badlands are, as it happens -- bad lands. A terrible place to get turned around and lost in, if one had, say, just fled the safety of his sleepy little village before it could turn into an origin story.
'His', of course, because this lost soul isn't a hypothetical.
Enter Hicalu Wilwisp, pursued by a gang of thieves. They're kicking up quite the dust storm in their thunderous rampage.
"AHHH I'M SORRY!" Hicalu wails, running for his life. "I DIDN'T MEAN TO WALK INTO YOUR CLUB!" He's clutching a pack to his chest, as if he didn't have time to put it on his shoulders.
"Apologise in gella!" The ringleader yells, brandishing a club. Wait, was Hicalu being literal-- "It's the only language we understand!"
"I already gave you all my muh--moneyyyyy!" Hicalu sobs, still running. He has to run extra fast, because the fluffy tail trailing behind him is deeply convenient to grab.
The thieves sound more exasperated than anything as they yell: "There's no way you only had that much! Now stay still and stop crying!!"
"DON'T -- WANNA!" Hicalu puffs, and steadfastly keeps running. He's very good at running, but there are five thugs and one Hicalu. Even with the finest running boots Little Firelight can provide, this isn't a winning strategy.
He's either forgotten or is wilfully ignoring the metal gadget on his belt.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
The Badlands aren't a great location for an origin story, especially if you don't want your tale to be a tragedy, or one of those stories that you think is funny because you lived it but anybody that hears it calls child endangerment.
Lan doesn't hang out here too often, because she's discovered that she really likes the sea and there isn't one here, but the Badlands are still the shortest distance between a few places and it's not like she doesn't know how to survive out here. Like right now! Lan is pitched up underneath an overhang below a cliff face, ready to move on again when the sun isn't quite so high in the sky. She got a nap in, she drank some water, she read one of Gwen's five-gella novels, she napped again.
The desert is usually pretty boring when it's not killing you.
But something interesting is going on, at last! There's a weird dust cloud in the distance, and it's getting closer by the minute. ...Awfully small for a stampede, she muses, and stands up to get a better view.
*====*
Above Hicalu, the heavens open and a meteor the size of a horse (why does it have a face) plummets toward his pursuers. In the distance, and approaching rapidly, is a familiar form. Tall, tan, pale blonde, and righteously indignant, LAN IS JOINING THE PARTY.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"WOULD YOU STOP!" The thieves, unaware that they are about to have the very worst time, yell.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" Hicalu yells in response, sans punctuation.
"Like we're just gonna let the first sucker to come by in three days just--!" The gnarly woman yelling that suddenly realises there's a shadow in the desert in the middle of the day. Shortly the rest of them also look up.
And the meteor lands, right in the middle of them. Crash!
Hicalu doesn't, immediately, look back, because he's still screaming and still pressing L2 and R2. He sees the figure approaching in the distance, and his first instinct is to yell: "Heeeelp!!"
And then he thinks: wait! Is that desert-hazy figure familiar, or is it just a mirage...???
Once the thieves pull themselves out of their meteor crater, though, they're yelling to each other:
"What was that?!"
"That's no traveller! That's a Drifter!"
"Oh, hell no! I've barely recovered from the LAST one I ran into!"
"You damn cowards! Get back here..!!"
Promptly, the Thug Leader's gang decide to press L2+R2, instead, and he's left alone. "F...fine!" He yells, brandishing his club. "That's more payout for me, you weak cubs!!"
Suddenly, the pursuit is much more fair..!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's probably a mirage. After all, Lan is probably on another continent, and anyway wasn't she last seen hanging out with two other Drifters? (It's complicated.)
Except that she's getting really close now and if he was imagining Lan she would probably look happier, wouldn't she? This one looks like she's ready to fight god!
She doesn't even slow down when she passes him, swerving just enough out of the way to keep from completely running him over - its not hard to judge his movements, even after a couple of years - but does reach out a hand to ruffle his hair as she passes. It's not him that she's mad at!
That same extended arm then clotheslines the Thug Leader right in the throat. "HAAAA!"
If Hicalu doesn't intervene things might get uglier...!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"AAA---??" Hicalu's yelling gets interrupted QUICK when he realises it really is Lan, and when she reaches out to ruffle his hair he puts his feet out and goes screeeeeeeeeeeech against the desert pavement (it's all natural!), kicking up a storm of dust as he goes. "Lan! Wait! Wrong way, Lan!!"
Turning around at least means he gets to see--
"Ghk--!!" Thug Prime yelps, as he runs straight into Lan's outstretched arm, and goes down in a heap. He lifts his club to try and crush her, only to find himself promptly denied the opportunity. "You piece of--!! Arrrgh!! GEDDOFFAM-- eeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppeeee!!!!"
Hicalu covers his face so he doesn't have to watch what just caused the thug to squeal like that, which mercifully means it goes totally undescribed in his narrative. He lowers his hands in time to wave them, though, stammering: "L--Lan! C-c'mon, that's enough, right?! L, look! I'm fine!!" Aside from being really out of breath...
"AAAH I'M SORRY, ALRIGHT?!" The Top Thug yells, because he's evidently used to snacking on NPCs.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Some things are better left undescribed. It was probably very violent, but in a funny-haha way.
When we pan back to the action, she's sitting on top of the Thug Leader's midsection so she can beat him with his own club. It sounds a lot like BONK-BONK-BONK. "How dare you bully people in the middle of the desert! It's hot and people have died out here, you know?!" It doesn't matter that they're within running distance of a small town, because it's the principle of the thing.
But he apologizes, apparently defeated, and even Hicalu calls for clemency. "...Are you sure you're okay?" Lan asks, craning her head back to check Hicalu over for bumps and bruises or sucking chest wounds or the like. You never know! "They didn't pull your tail or anything?"
She remembers their childhood.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
The Thug Leader, having been savagely bonked by his own implement, scrambles up and flees. He drops a bunch of gella in the process! Sweet!
And just about as soon as he successfully presses L2 and R2, Hicalu descends on Lan, diving for her in a ferocious GLOMP of a hug. "Lan! Lan...!! I can't believe it!"
He's a bit muffled by shoving his face into her shoulder, as he wags his tail and says: "Nuh! I-I'm okay!" His tail is at maximum fluffiness, but nonetheless looks totally fine.
"I got lost, so when I found some people I wuh -- I wanted to ask them for help but -- then they wanted to steal all my thiiings!" Hicalu wails, having not, apparently, seen this coming. "I don't even have anything..!!"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
And as soon as her mortal enemy flees, Lan is GLOMPed! She spins them with the motion, hugging Hicalu tight and laughing. "You can't believe it? I can't believe it! I missed you! I went back home to visit but you'd already left on your journey!"
Though when Hicalu mentions not having any thiiiiiings, it does kind of explain why he's so... light. "Oh no, don't tell me you lost your stuff! Or that someone else stole it from you." But it's fine, because he's okay, and because here's a piece of the home she misses so much, out here in the desert like a drink of water on a hot day.
Eventually she puts him back on the ground, but continues to linger close just like she always did. "Come on, my stuff's not too far from here. You look like you need some water..." She'll start leading him back the way she came unless Hicalu has other ideas. "How long has it been since you went home to see everybody? Have you found anything good to take home? Not that there's a rush or anything, it's not like I've been hurrying--"
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"I know!" Hicalu wails, when Lan says she missed him when she went back home. "Mana told me when I got back! I was so sad!" He discloses this without a moment's hesitation, of course, all wibbly-eyed.
"It's not like all outsiders are like this," he grumbles, which might be a 'yes' on whether his stuff got stolen already. "Some of them are nice..."
His ears perk up when Lan says her stuff isn't too far, though. "Oh, thank the stars," he exclaims, jaunting on after her. "After running like that, I thought I was gonna die..!" He might be a desert fox, but even he needs water to keep going in the desert.
"I got back a while ago..! I brought back cooking techniques from Guild Galad!" Hicalu exclaims, quite proudly. "Since they're all stuck in the ground, and there's no hope for the surface, they need to be really good at food preparation... there were some really interesting baking tricks, too!" He says, quite proudly. "I've been telling Brastel all about them!" Brastel Bloom, that is -- the indomitable baker of Little Firelight.
But if Hicalu finished his journey, then... why is he out here..?
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's really comforting to see Hicalu being... well, Hicalu. A little hapless, a little dramatic, and one hundred percent ready to believe the best in people even when it was People that stole his stuff.
"Guild Galad has special techniques...? I guess they would have to make up for being underground and having less access to fresh stuff. I've only been there a handful of times... it was weird, not being able to see the sky." It had made her unhappy to be underground for too long, she doesn't say. "Do you have any favorite dishes? I ate at Ida's house there once" (Lan does not mention that Ida lives in a mansion, mostly because Lan still really doesn't 'get' the idea of a building with so many rooms being an actual home) "and aside from being good quality it seemed like... normal outsider food. There were sandwiches and cookies and things."
They walk on, the cliff with Lan's rucksack and glass bottle in a little sheltered place below within easy sight. "..." Wait for it. Waaaaaaaait for it...
Lan blinks as something occurs to her. "Wait, you finished it though! You could've just stayed home!" It's what she really expected from him too, knowing just how hard Mana probably had to push to get him to leave Little Firelight in th first place. "What brought you back out again? Is everything all right?!"
He would have mentioned it if something had happened to the village. They wouldn't be talking and laughing like this.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Yeah!" Hicalu agrees, all full of cheer to be talking about one of his favourite topics: food. "Ahh, you're right -- most of them are just about making things taste normal, 'round there -- but there were some really good tricks for food storage and stuff!"
He shows Lan his arm, and points to one of the new markings: "I even found an artist who could help with my tattoos about it! Though, he wanted to give me some extensions to help with travelling, too..." That would explain how he has so much more detail to his tattoos, now. Hicalu buries a hand in his fluffy hair, as he laughs: "I don't really feel like I need sorcery I can use on people, but I guess I coulda used it back there, eheheh..."
Hicalu, sweetie...
Did you forget you have combat spells..?
He sighs, though, when Lan finally realises it -- his hand dropping down to clasp at the light shirt he's wearing, all suited to the desert. "Home -- home's fine," he hurries to assure her, first. "Actually, they were worried about me, so I hadta sneak out... ahhh, I guess it's obvious I'd get lost out here if I was travelling at night, huh..?" Hicalu sighs, hands dropping down.
"I was just... worried about staying... I heard something." There's a typical evasiveness Hicalu takes up, when he's asked about his nightmares or his early childhood, eyes darting anywhere else and voice trailling off; it's the same pattern, here. "I think there's... something coming, Lan," Hicalu settles on, and his nerves are quiet. "I didn't want to cause no trouble... so..."
... so he just ran off into the desert?!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Of course he forgot he has combat spells. Hicalu is a baker, not a fighter!
Lan looks when he shows off his new ink. There's definitely more of it than when she last saw him. "You've really been giving it your all, huh?" she smiles, cheered by the thought. "Even if you don't like using it on people, I don't think just having it is bad. Plus if you need it to use on not-people, you'll have it." Assuming he remembers he has it, if a Metal Beast or pissed-off Shoopuff comes knocking.
But home is fine. Lan wasn't holding her breath, yet she feels somehow like she can breathe again. She hasn't been home in a long time. Not since she woke up from what Myya did to her. If some parts of Gebler thought she had taken refuge there, there's no guarantee that Leah could stop them in time. Better not to risk it.
He gets that tell-tale shiftiness about him when he talks about things that are difficult for him. Either things he doesn't remember, or doesn't want to remember. Things that could hurt. Things he doesn't want to bring into their home. "Something bad," she prompts gently, because he wouldn't be pussyfooting around if it were something good. "Well it's not like you're the first to do it!" Exhibit A: walking right next to him.
Her things are still where she'd left them. Lan settles down in the shade of the cliff and beckons to him to join her, passing over her water bottle in the same motion. "The planet ... I think it's dying," she sighs, wiping a little sweat from her forehead. "Like that, or something else?"
<Characters> Marivel Armitage says, "hm having trouble coming up with a name for this mystic art. what kinda names did y'all give your mystic arts."
<Characters> Cyre H. Lorentz says, "I just upgraded Cyre's biggest attacks"
<Characters> Cyre H. Lorentz says, "His 'usual' finishers"
<Characters> Loren Voss says, "largely that, yes"
<Characters> Ratatoskr says, "I'll share the two we've seen IC, a moment"
<Characters> Jacqueline Barber says, "Only Jay has one out of my alts, she has 'Elemental Symphony'."
<Characters> Lan Lilac says, "Magic Lantern Butterfly Moth for Lan's basic form, Z A K U R O for her scary boss mode, and uh... IIRC her gear mode has Starlight Brigade?"
<Characters> Ratatoskr says, "Ratatoskr's is more of a phrase, 'The Ink That Writes History Within Us...!'"
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
If a pissed-off Shoopuff comes knocking at Hicalu's door...
Listen, there's not enough booze in the WORLD that could make him take on that fight. Hicalu doesn't care HOW many demons from hell he can summon. (He can summon demons from hell; he's always been able to. They're very good at eating table scraps.)
Hicalu settles down beside Lan, as easily as anything, his tail flopping over her leg entirely casually. (It's still VERY fluffy. He's a fluffy boy.) He takes the water bottle, and drinks, gratefully. "Haa," he gasps, afterwards, "I'm alive..." Passing the bottle back -- careful with it, as they always had to be, with water -- he sighs.
"No, it's... it's not the cries of the planet," Hicalu says, ears wilting down to aeroplane at either side of his head. "It's... um... i-i-it's..."
His hands fold, in his lap, one clasping the other tightly. "... there's... someone who l-l-looks l-like me, who's, who's doing... r-real bad things, Lan." He's rather pale, even given how pale he is, for a man of the desert -- which only speaks to the way he's a delicate sort of fellow who's generally kept inside. "If it's got nothing to do with me... how come people keep recognising me...?" He sounds a touch helpless, as he insists: "I never met them before..."
<Characters> Ratatoskr says, "Ruth's has a cadence matching the Tales games, Hollow Radiance."
<Characters> Cyre H. Lorentz says, "Except for his robot, which got equipped with a First Solaris War-era beam cannon"
<Characters> Loren Voss says, "the only one i think i built new was citan's? which i just went full weeb on"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There is enough booze in the world to get Lan to do it. Don't ask how she knows this.
He flops down next to her; as always, Lan's hand rests on his tail, absently petting it while she listens. But what he reveals next is somthing even Lan has a hard time comprehending. Not that there's a Hicalu doppelganger out there, but that it's apparently evil?! How could anything Hicalu be bad?? He's always been someone who tripped over himself thinking about the feelings of others. The idea that even a counterfeit could be anything different is... weird.
"Real bad things," she repeats, turning her head to gaze at him with dismay. "I mean... maybe it's just people being jerks about Beastfolk," Lan tries to reason. "You know, like they see one fox and think they've seen them all." But she doesn't believe it. Even having grown up safe in Little Firelight, Hicalu wouldn't make that mistake.
Leaving the familiar comfort of petting his tail behind, Lan reaches an arm around his shoulder and tugs Hicalu against her side. "I don't know what's going on, but it's going to be all right. We'll figure it out. Maybe it's a Shadow, or maybe someone's playing a nasty trick. But there are people we can ask for help." She rubs her cheek against his temple to comfort him and breathes in the familiar scent of home. "Okay? I'm so sorry someone's doing this. Or something. But it's something we can handle."
It has to be. Lan is so tired of leaping at shadows.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu shakes his head. "No, it's..."
There is a solid ten seconds of silence,
"... bad."
Like his brain is glancing entirely off what those travellers told him, when they recognised him; regardless, it might be clear that it isn't just people being jerks about foxy gentlemen.
Hicalu sinks against Lan as if it were the most natural thing in the world, because it is -- they grew up together, after all. "I don't know what those are..." He says, still quite hapless, about tricks and shadows -- which might make perfect sense; apparently, even when he went on his journey, he settled in the first city he found.
(Which is just like him, really. 'Come on an adventure!' 'Can't we stay inside??')
He can swallow down his dismay, though, because it's Lan telling him; and Hicalu sighs, his hands coming up to rest against her arm in turn. "I... I'm scared, Lan," he says, easily -- "I feel like something really bad will happen..."
again,
A detail that glances off his eyes, uncaught, before they close. "... but... if you say we can handle it... I trust you, Lan." It's not that he's not worried about her, too, but...
Well, Lan was always the one who was better at adventures. Just look at that meteor!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Hicalu has always been the delicate sort. Who wouldn't be, after arriving at the village in the condition he'd been in?
Who could blame him for seeking safety?
"It's a word for a few different kinds of spirits that like to play harmful tricks." Mana's lessons seem like a lifetime ago. "Especially the kind that change their shape." That's the problem with using a common word for an uncommon thing! It gets confusing.
As if that were their greatest problem now.
Something really bad will happen. The ink, the madness lying dormant in her veins, is quiet for now. But it's always there.
And she'll use every last drop if it will save Hicalu.
Leaning against him, Lan looks out across the scorched sand with troubled eyes. "We can handle it. It might hurt us, and it might be really scary, but we'll get through it. I've made friends we can ask for help, and I'll introduce you so they can be your friends too. We'll warn them, even if we only know a little bit about what's happening."
Because they'll need to know, if it's something this bad. "I'm glad you told me. Even though it was scary, and it probably hurts to think about. Because I'll always be here for you, even when we're apart."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"I never liked those stories..." Hicalu whines, about the spirits who like to play tricks. Maybe that's why he never heard them?
Or maybe he heard them, and forgot. He does that, sometimes, when he's upset.
He would be very, very upset, to hear about what's taken root in Lan's veins.
"Ahhh... you're popular out here, huh?" Hicalu manages to laugh, though the sound is a little wan. "Ehehehe... yeah, that's just like you..." Hicalu swallows, pressing his hands a little tighter against Lan's arm.
"I know... I'm glad you found me again. You're always lookin' out for me, huh..." Hicalu shakes his head, becoming, if anything, even more boneless.
"... but let's rest here a tick, okay? I'm tired..."
Hicalu is the delicate sort; he's not used to the sort of action Lan takes every day, as a Drifter. He's doing his best, but he's a baker, not a fighter.
And talking about something like this... takes a lot out of him.
... at least Lan can keep them safe out here, even if Hicalu can't.