springing [age event: end]
Feb. 18th, 2018 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dustless posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
castle_perraultAll across the castle grounds, anyone awake to observe the midnight hour is witness to snowdrop flowers bursting from the snow.
The air settles to something softer, warmer. The layers of ice and snow start to melt away, enveloping the world in a gentle fog, though it will still be a few days yet before the slush outside dries away.
Almost tentatively, more flowers push their way from the ground; leaves on trees bud and start unfurling by sunrise.
Inside, the distant caroling and laughter gives one final burst of cheery sound before fading into nothing. Between one blink and the next, the castle is back to how it was; faded, old, quiet.
And, of course, the changed beings of the castle will find themselves back to how they once were, with added remembrance of everything that happened while the world was encased in winter.
Frisk's change back is...uncomfortable.
Judgement's sickness takes hold of them again, but at least it's a jerking shift all at once, instead of making all their teeth fall out and changing everything back over the whole day. They've even got some energy.
Their body not feeling completely awful is absolutely made up with their head. They weren't too mean, but they weren't nice, either, and they couldn't help their friends. But their mama's still gone. They didn't think they'd ever see her again, but at least they accepted that. They missed their friends before, but they never missed home. Homesickness really is a sickness.
And...and they don't have their truck anymore. Which is tiny and stupid but it's the thing that tips Frisk over the edge again, trying to hold something big and solid in their arms and not finding anything.
Inside the castle, Frisk hides behind some ratty curtains and sobs into their scarf.
//don't forget, even if this is making it 'official', backdating for more age-related shenanigans is absolutely allowed!
The air settles to something softer, warmer. The layers of ice and snow start to melt away, enveloping the world in a gentle fog, though it will still be a few days yet before the slush outside dries away.
Almost tentatively, more flowers push their way from the ground; leaves on trees bud and start unfurling by sunrise.
Inside, the distant caroling and laughter gives one final burst of cheery sound before fading into nothing. Between one blink and the next, the castle is back to how it was; faded, old, quiet.
And, of course, the changed beings of the castle will find themselves back to how they once were, with added remembrance of everything that happened while the world was encased in winter.
Frisk's change back is...uncomfortable.
Judgement's sickness takes hold of them again, but at least it's a jerking shift all at once, instead of making all their teeth fall out and changing everything back over the whole day. They've even got some energy.
Their body not feeling completely awful is absolutely made up with their head. They weren't too mean, but they weren't nice, either, and they couldn't help their friends. But their mama's still gone. They didn't think they'd ever see her again, but at least they accepted that. They missed their friends before, but they never missed home. Homesickness really is a sickness.
And...and they don't have their truck anymore. Which is tiny and stupid but it's the thing that tips Frisk over the edge again, trying to hold something big and solid in their arms and not finding anything.
Inside the castle, Frisk hides behind some ratty curtains and sobs into their scarf.
//don't forget, even if this is making it 'official', backdating for more age-related shenanigans is absolutely allowed!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-20 12:35 am (UTC)There's an odd noise and feet visible below the curtain. Soulless empty bodies don't cry and Garland certainly doesn't. He's never had any reason to cry himself, so it's not clicking right away... he peeks around the curtain, obnoxiously curious.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-28 04:57 am (UTC)They do their best to hide their face, scarf over mouth and hair over eyes, but the flush on their cheeks will still betray them.
Along with their voice, shaking and tiny: "...K-Kuja?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-28 05:34 am (UTC)He's never comforted anyone either. All he can think to do is offer his tail, like he's going to use that to shake hands.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-02 07:12 am (UTC)Why is Kuja still a kid?
"Wh--what's--a-are--are you, are you okay?" They need to force that out first. They need to know, they need an answer, what's this stupid castle doing to another friend again?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-03 01:41 am (UTC)...They can talk now, just not well?? He waves his tail back and forth twice, in case they didn't see it's there for more grabbing. "Yes? Why would I not be alright?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-11 09:13 pm (UTC)"'Cause...'cause the castle magic," Frisk says. "It's...you're different."
...Right. The tail. He's just being nice to them right now, it seems, so they reach over to pet it. Still feels nice.
little Kuja is strangely my favorite rn
Date: 2018-04-11 10:24 pm (UTC)everyone loves a tiny cute
Date: 2018-04-17 02:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-17 02:47 am (UTC)Oh no you didn't. That's just about the worst (accidental) insult he's heard in his entire short life. Huff. "I can't make myself grow any faster! Nobody can do that. And I'm already taller than you."
So there.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-20 10:49 am (UTC)They keep petting his tail gently after a quick wipe of their eyes.
...Maybe this is a different Kuja. They don't know. They don't know if that's better or worse.
"Sorry," Frisk mumbles, looking down.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-26 12:17 am (UTC)"...I wouldn't forget being bigger. There are things I need to do."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-28 10:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-27 03:12 am (UTC)There's a joke to be made here-- 'there are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know'-- but no one to make it. And isn't that the thing. A place like this he would've expected to be bustling with servants, or something similar, but...
Regardless of any mystery, he's never been able to just mind his own business. The sound of something? someone? crying catches his attention sooner rather than later, and in following the source of the noise he ends up at the foot of curtains that have certainly seen better days. He doesn't do anything, though, outside of settling gently down beside where the curtains are at and leaning back against the wall to let whoever it is have their peace, until a lull comes where he thinks it might be okay to speak up.
"... Hey now," he says, with a soft-spoken sound to it. He sits back on his hands, shifting himself around until his coat lays comfortably on the ground rather than in a lumpy bundle. "Not... a great time, huh? I'm sorry. I guess that just happens, sometimes."
He adjusts himself again, staring up at the high ceilings. "It's a shame, though. It's a beautiful day outside. To not be able to enjoy it... I don't mean to pry. But is it something you want to talk about?"
If Frisk peeks at the stranger, they'll catch sight of dark clothing, a dark hood-- and beneath all that, a person. Pale hair, pale skin, eyes a light honey brown flecked almost red when the light catches it right. Albinism is a funny thing. (Inconvenient, really, when your homeland is a desert.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-03-01 12:56 am (UTC)Sobs lower into harsh breathing after a struggle, and they hate it, they just want to cut it off completely. There's a heartbeat where they glance at the blurry glass beside them and think I could break that, but the ground's kind of far and even freaky humiliated homesickness isn't worth potentially dying for.
Frisk's also supposed to know who's around. A beautiful day outside, sounds like one of their Underground friends, but they don't recognize the voice either. Their own noises must be drowning it out.
Could just run, but they might get chased. Some of their friends worry too much. Who is this?
They take an extra moment to awkwardly wipe their nose on the curtain--the scarf's gone through enough abuse--and indeed peek. More feeling dumb, like they carried some of the worst parts of being small along with them.
"...n-no?" It's not someone they know, and that does a little towards stopping their gross sounds. A new person hasn't happened in a while...and this is a pretty terrible introduction, so they do their best to keep their body and face hidden.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-03-01 01:42 am (UTC)He's very wrong, it turns out. They're so young. Surely this isn't where the dead go?
"That's all right, then." He doesn't move, not sure what might be taken as too strange, too threatening, and he does remember he's a stranger, dealing with a strange child whose parents or caretakers were nowhere in sight. "Is there anything you want to do about it, instead?"
... Really, it's rude that his own time traveling children have denied him the experience of learning how to properly handle children of this age. Coming back to before they were conceived, really, (
and now they might never be born) but... that doesn't mean he can't try his best, right?(no subject)
Date: 2018-03-05 06:13 pm (UTC)"...no." Still watery, but that comes out almost firm. There's nothing they can do, or this stranger can do, short of trying to tear the damn place apart with bare hands. Presumably. They haven't got more than the Dagger hidden on them right now.
Frisk tries examining more closely. This one's a pretty person, but pretty definitely doesn't mean nonthreatening. To others, not themselves, they'll be fine--they'd almost want a fight right now with someone who isn't fragile.
On instinct, their hands tighten on the curtain.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-03-05 10:55 pm (UTC)Most things about him are travel-worn: a well-worn dark coat, well-kept, not frayed, not falling apart, but still showing evidence of long marches under the sun; dusty and broken in leather boots, pants a sandy beige; high collared shirt light and breathable, all built to last. The hilt of an odd sword with a jagged blade-- like lightning-- is affixed to one of the belts underneath the coat, and a couple large pouches of lighter tomes beside.
(He smells somewhat distinctly of ozone, if they can recognize the scent of it-- things that happen when your favoured magic is electric. His hair is windblown, windswept. There's an odd faint scent of ocean around him, as well, as if he was caught in the spray or was out above the sea for a while.)
He catches the slight motion, though he doesn't openly react or comment. Tension, then; reflexes tend to betray more than measured actions. Flight, fright, fight... Really, any of them are equally possible, though he's distantly curious what in specific made a child this small (maybe not so young, actually? he's not good at pinpointing the difference between what should be owed to malnutrition and what to youth, but he's sure that war has left no shortage of the former, even if their attire is strange) so wary. There's no shortage of possible reasons for that, though, not when he doesn't know the circumstances, which is why he doesn't think more of it. Now to leave alone, and not possibly make a bad situation worse, or to try to figure out what's wrong in the first place, hm...
Well. He's always been a worrywart, and what kind of person would he be if he willfully walked away from a child in distress before at least trying? He thinks of another world's Morgan, briefly, and- well, no need to follow that thought to its end. It's over, it didn't- won't happen.
He offers up both hands, palms empty (but his fingers and palms have the calluses typical of a practiced swordsman), a sheepish grin on his face. "All right." Then he leans back, letting out a sigh that's less tired and more just an exhalation of a held breath. Libra would be better than he at handling hurt children, considering he doesn't even remember his own childhood. "Is there anything I can do to help, or do you just... want me to go? I'd understand, really. Sometimes you just want to get sad- or mad-" he says, stifling a grimace, "without it bothering anyone. But sometimes it's also easier to just... work it off, with someone else?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-03-16 07:50 pm (UTC)There's that whole book-by-its-cover thing, but monsters are usually actually nice. It's the humans that tend to just look nice, and get too scared to stay that way for long.
...Only those are red eyes. Red eyes, they've noticed, are usually bad news for the people with the eyes--and he's trying to be nice, he's showing his hands, but that doesn't necessarily mean a lot, they don't trust (they don't care, they bet they can't hurt this one much no matter how angry they get).
They scrabble for a reason to do something besides being mad, being scared, being sick and settle on they're helping protect their friends. At least...they can give this person a test at how he might deal with the castle's strangeness and monsters.
Frisk scrubs their face again until they don't feel too much wetness left and slip out, padding up to the sitting human. Too close, maybe, on purpose. Their nose is a little messed up from all that crying, and there's something from too far back in their memories for them to properly place anymore; still, they catch something clinging to him.
* Smells like storms.
"You--you're new," they say, flat, and they make sure to show their maw full of fangs that definitely should not be in a human's face. (They might've even pulled their raggedy green scarf down to show their throat if there was still a scar, but that's been gone for a long time, and they're not gonna pull up their shirt to show the ones on their belly from antlers. That would just look ridiculous, not creepy.)
if there's one thing im good at, it's overthinking outcomes -robin, 2k17, as yet another tag rambles
Date: 2018-03-16 10:50 pm (UTC)Flight,fright, fight of a sort, then. He knows how people and animals alike can turn challenging when cornered. Well, fair enough. He can work with that, even if internally a brow raises at the teeth. Taguel or Manakete blood, distant, perhaps? Panne had made it clear that much of her fellow rabbitkin had been killed, she and her son the last ones she knew of, but perhaps, outside of the immediate population and diluted over time... or perhaps, the races of cat-wearers or bird-wearers she'd mentioned once? Not- bird, in this case, maybe, but...... Well, that's neither here nor there, outside of only being one potential explanation for how wary they are.
"I suppose I am," he returns, mildly, a cool if curious humour glittering in his eyes. The man's hands return to his lap as he smiles, an easy motion, posture lax, retreating behind the imperturbable guise that had given him a reputation for always being able to stay three steps ahead of an opponent regardless of any situational truth. "Perhaps you know where it is I've managed to wake up this time? It's shameful, but I don't seem to recognize this realm."
=w=b
Date: 2018-03-21 10:47 am (UTC)That's...okay, they begrudgingly admit to themselves.
Habit has them playing with the edge of their scarf, and they think their stare is only a little weakened by the fact they keep having to sniff grossly. Probably. Least he's not laughing at them.
"'Course you don't. Nobody wakes up here on purpose. You're in a castle. It's a time-and-space-hub and it's in the sky. You're stuck," Frisk says bluntly. "Everybody is."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-03-21 09:37 pm (UTC)But he does have to take a bit of time to catalogue that. All right. In the sky- fair enough, maybe. If removed and isolationist enough it... could explain some things (though not how it's up there in the first place- Miriel might have loved to examine this). Time-and-space hub- something like the Outrealms, then? Or rather, perhaps more specifically like the Gate, connecting and linking... or is this somewhere in between?
Briefly he revisits the 'realm of the dead' idea. If there is an afterlife, then he supposes no one ever said it had to be for only one world or timeline. No one who could know for sure, anyway. And no one waking up here on purpose... well.
'Are you dead' is a terrible question to ask, bluntness, irreverent humour, or no. And he- has to be dead, or else what was it all for.
Instead he goes with, "Ah, well. That's good. It means I haven't been slacking. It would be pretty silly to not recognize the castle of another country when your job was to advise royalty."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-02 07:09 am (UTC)They never thought they'd be jealous about people who could just be mean whenever they feel like it. It's not that they never can, but this isn't important enough to keep their anger doing more than smolder low.
Advising royalty? They didn't think of that from his clothes--no, he feels more like a wizard. Maybe he is. Still, that's not what comes out of their mouth next:
"...You're a...royal guard?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-02 07:57 am (UTC)Still, their general demeanour rings of tension whether repressed or not, at odds with themself (understandably so, maybe, if they're caught between fight and flight...) and he's having trouble tracking exactly which things he's doing in specific that are exacerbating it. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem... helpful, really, to them. That's... no good.
He does draw himself up a bit, hand on chin in thought, the other crossed to support it, expression somewhat more sober. "Whatever it is you're thinking about, don't," he says, slightly more firmly than his tone has been thus far. "I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. I sure don't, and it's my amnesia to begin with." Given the state of his familial relations, and the circumstances of his birth, he doubts that it was worth remembering anyway. "But, ah, no. Not exactly."
He grins, sheepishly, close eyed and open palmed, shoulders raised in a half shrug. "I'll leave that to the knights proper. I have a friend who already has the... babysitting part covered pretty well. Me, I just get paid to tell people to do things. Or not to do things." His hands lower again with a mildly thoughtful hum. "I guess I might count as a guard, though, if the things I told people to do generally helped to keep the crown alive and the kingdom functional? Only if you define guard pretty loosely, though- the place I came from doesn't have 'royal guard' as a specific rank or division of the knights."
god they are so grumpy. sry robin.
Date: 2018-04-02 10:43 am (UTC)They might be a little paranoid; only it's not paranoia if an erased memory came back and chained you to a wall and killed a few of your friends in the meantime.
Right?
But they're not going to explain this to a new person. Too much for either of them.
They force their one fist to unclench, wiping their palm on the side of their pants and pointing to the hilt of his blade. "'S guards and..." the word mercenary slips their mind-- "...and people--monsters--hired for FIGHTing that had those. Where I'm from." Accusation is slick over their words. Why does someone who advises have that thing, huh?
this is fair tbh
Date: 2018-04-02 05:05 pm (UTC)As for their actions next, that's more understandable. Distrust of those who were armed, without explicitly being tied to protection of some sort... Doubtless they've had experiences, secondhand or otherwise, with unsavoury sorts. Looters, or bandits, or perhaps simply those drunk on their own power...
A wry, languid shrug. "If I'm going to do my job, it's better if I can defend myself rather than need a guard myself. I'm a battlefield tactician, so I work best if I actually can see what the actual knights and guards are doing instead of telling them what to do from half a continent away. I think it's better this way." Seeing the people you're ordering around, rather, knowing each of them is a life and individual not to be thrown about carelessly as opposed to some of the others he's faced. "I don't like the idea of hiding away while talking about other people's lives.
"If you're worried about me using it here..." He tilts his head, just a little, and crosses his arms. It's a position hard to draw a sword from, in any case, whether deliberately so or not. 'Monsters' hired for fighting? Literal or metaphorical? If they had bad experience with armed sorts, he supposes those who actively sought out opportunities to fight could very well seem like monsters... Or is it a derogatory term for all those not fully human, given their few odd features?
Hmm. "I doubt I'll be given much reason to have to use it, and I know my word doesn't mean much when I'm a stranger to you- but would you be more satisfied if I promised I would only fight in self-defense, or if someone wanted to spar? As long as someone isn't actively attempting to take my head off or something, I'd much rather a nice chat myself."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-20 10:45 am (UTC)"No battles here. FIGHTS, sometimes, but those're usually 'cause someone's scared, not just bad. Not a lot of people, either, even though it's a really big castle."
Belatedly, Frisk hopes this isn't someone from the war on monsters. Those are old-fashioned clothes, though a lot fancier than that one with the poncho wore.
"...'s fine." Perfect, actually. "'Cause there's a bunch of monsters here. Like skeletons. They're my family," they add with a cold stare of warning.
Maybe they're a little overprotective. Maybe they don't care about that.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-20 02:58 pm (UTC)He huffs out a breath that otherwise would have been longer, slower than it needed to be, shoulders sagging in a way that seems at odds with his overall unperturbed demeanour. "Gods, I would hope there's no battles." Two wars across the span of three years, nevermind what that last resistance against Grima qualified as. There's emphasis on the way they say fights, versus the way they do battles, but whatever meaning they attach to it likely stems from contexts he's not privy to. He thinks he understands that any would be conflicts are probably more along the lines of personal squabbles than anything world shattering.
That's fine. That's fine, even if his mental eyebrow raise turns physical. That is quite the glare.
"...Not Risen?" Or- Deadlords, or anything of the sort, as a sympathy ploy or some other form of psychological warfare. But from the way they speak of them, it implies they could think, could act of their own accord. Were autonomous entities in their own right, unless there were in fact some necromancer around for the entirety of this child's relationship with their skeleton family who hadn't bothered to make their presence known, for some unlikely reason. Doubtful, in other words.
Well, if this is where the dead go, why wouldn't there be skeletons. Maybe their appearances here depends partially on the manner of death. Slightly belatedly it occurs to him he might want to define the term, but he leaves it be- he's mildly curious what the child makes of it otherwise.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-20 08:35 pm (UTC)Fuzzy guilt grows, and they try to make themselves relax further--only that's blown out of the water almost immediately.
Risen, he says. That word's unfamiliar, but Frisk thinks the meaning behind it certainly isn't. "My brothers aren't zombies," they say, puffing up. "They're monsters. Monsters're made of magic, not dead humans."
...Probably. At least mostly not. Maybe their brothers have some SOUL-stuff from the lab weaponizing them, willingly or not, but they don't want to talk about that to anybody, let alone a human stranger.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-20 10:10 pm (UTC)"There were mages, back where I came from. With loose morals and even looser concepts of respect." And an ancient dragon god of destruction unimpressed with humanity hell bent on destroying everything, and lording it over those left in their wake using the faces of those who would hurt the most, but he doesn't say that aloud.
(He's grateful to Naga, for her counsel, and general apparent benevolence, but can't quite entirely stamp out the barest flicker of resentment that what feels like it should have been an affair for those designated as gods was left for those below them to deal with. But then again, maybe that's only his forgotten upbringing as Grimleal speaking. Not worth thinking about.)
Instead, he unfolds his arms and raises a hand to allow a few tendrils of aimless dark magic to curl out from it, slow and soft flickers of violet-black.
They bounce, a little, when he waggles his fingers, miming puppetry. Then it all vanishes as he releases the nosferatu spell again.
"I'm glad, though!" he follows up. "That you have family here." Skeletons made of magic, and not of someone's remains. Certainly a form to be given them, and rife for misunderstanding... he'd suspect a joke were it not for how fervent they are. No, the child cares, and he can't fault them for anger when they're only defending the ones they're close to. Something about the thought strikes true, somewhere, and- he almost smiles.
"Are you the oldest, then?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-28 10:39 am (UTC)Frisk's eyes snap to the stuff. Magic. He's a mage? Something like that, but he probably doesn't want to be called that. Even Frisk started disliking being called 'human' before their SOUL got messed up into...whatever it is now, whatever they are now.
Still, their head's a little less jumbled now. He's been so calm, and it's easy (and hurts less) to latch onto old bad things than new bad things. "Magic humans--mighta been called mages--locked monsters underground where I'm from, a long time ago. There was a war. 'Cause they were scared. Got trapped there for a really long time. Magic got forgot, the monsters got forgot. Then I fell in and broke the barrier and saved them. Don't want humans to hurt the ones that got here."
And then they just nod a little awkwardly. It's a weird subject for them, family. Toriel was going to be theirs, but that's not ever happening now. They certainly don't want it to.
"Second, I think. Serif and Papyrus're just babies, but they...grew fast, so they're like kids. They're taller than me," they tell him with a frown, but they loosen up at the same time and it's a really big one. Exaggerated effort, it doesn't actually bother them.
(...usually.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-30 12:06 am (UTC)"...A thousand years ago," he begins, "where I came from. There were different races. Humans- and other. There's, ah, a lot of others out there, but let's just call them all Taguel for now so it's easier, okay?
"Anyway. Back then, humans treated Taguel like... servants." Slaves, more like, like they were things and property instead of people, but he's amending it slightly based on his estimation of their age. "Worse than prisoners and livestock. They were treated horribly. If they ever did anything slightly wrong they were punished harshly. Because they were different, because they looked less than human. There were rabbit people, cat people, bird people, lions, wolves, and more, I'm told. Dragons, too."
A short sigh, his arms folding back over his chest, more in the shoulders than in his breath. "This is just what I'm told, though, because the thing is, none of this is in the history books."
"... I guess my point is, we do some pretty terrible things to other people when we're scared, don't we? And then we forget, and we erase it. If you wait long enough, it's like you can pretend it never happened, if no one still remembers it." His smile is a little flat. "I won't try to hurt anyone who's had to deal with that sort of thing, believe me."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-30 02:23 am (UTC)His son might show up, or he might not. They weigh whether or not they should say so, and maybe they're guiltily relieved they don't need to decide before he keeps talking.
'Servants'. Frisk understands the implication regardless. And with stuff like wolves and dragons, no doubt plenty of those Taguel were used to fight, too. More weapons. Dolls. Things.
Anger they had left drains out. "Yeah. Good. Thanks. And...sorry." They exhale and straighten up when it catches a little. No more crying. And to clarify: "You don't scare me. I was angry at something else first."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-30 05:37 am (UTC)Then his head tilts, a little owl-like. "I'm guessing your brothers aren't the only monsters here?"
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-01 04:20 am (UTC)Tap-tap-tap, they pace around him and offer an arm. If he wants to try. He might pull them down instead, but that doesn't occur to them. "No. There's...goat-monsters kinda human shaped, or ones that look goopy, and robots. I think. Right now. Sometimes people disappear, sometimes they come back. Dunno why or when. Um, there's a giant diamond--she's not a real monster, but stay away from her."
What are they forgetting? A lot of things--
"Name's Frisk," they add. That isn't the most important thing, but it might make things confusing later.