Character Lounge

[Stygian]

Stygian looked at Joat over his shoulder for a second, then smiled a wicked grin.
   "It's not magic. It's not science. It's power, simply put," he said, then led Mel outside.

   Unsurprisingly, since he was a bit of a tech freak, Stygian had remembered to place an insulated sound system in the garden as well, the speakers hidden under benches and in corners of windows and other places. A tap at the remote to the stereo that he had put in his pocket turned on the speakers, and a slow and gentle introduction to a symphony started playing. The faint lights gleamed in what had to be either the sea or a great lake down past the trees, perhaps a few hundred yards away, and the moon was large and full as it cast its ghostly light in the darkness, barely a cloud present in the sky.
   Stepping down to the side of a pond, Stygian unfurled his wings and spread them. The reached out far, being larger than those of a cubi, and the light passed through some holes and tears in their skin, the claws at their tips gleaming.
   "How do we begin?" he asked Mel, watching her white form blend with the moonlight.

[Joat]

*OOC: Alright. Problem. The character, who does not have aspergers syndrome, would probably know the answer to this question; while the player, me, does have aspergers syndrome and doesn’t know the answer to this question. Do they seem to want IC me to follow them outside so that we can both be taught at once or is this a one-person-at-a-time sort of thing?*

*OOC: Don’t know what aspergers syndrome is? Don’t worry about it; it isn’t that important.*

[e_voyager]

e Smiled was he watched the organics eat. he truly did understand hunger bordering on starvation and beyond. his memories of the her first few life times were shaker but they were still there and during that time his soft fleshy body had known hunger very well. he glanced over at Mel and saw that Mel was about to go flying. he smiled she should enjoy herself.

[Stygian]

*OOC: Don't know what aspergers syndrome is? Don't worry about it; it isn't that important.*[/i]

((OOC: I've got it. I know it. And this doesn't seem that much a dance for three. But I think you wouldn't be too wrong off joining in later.))

[Joat]

“Seems they’re off on their little duet,” I say.

“We can do a duet,” Sylver says.

“We can? Oh, wait, what am I thinking? Of course we can. But I’m not sure that I’d be very good at skydancing without a teacher.”

“Well then, dance anyway!” Sylver says with a smile.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel pointed upwards. "Height first." She jumped while snapping her wings fully open with a cracking sound, like a whip. One downbeat and she shot upward like a cork in water then with a few more was high above the house. When he followed she said, "All our dances move around an imaginary central column. Keep it's location in mind and you can't get too lost, even if you're upsidedown. Now mirror my actions." She slid to the left, dropped, then with a twisting upbeat ended up on the opposite side of Stygian.

[Stygian]

Stygian watched mel, beating his wings in pace and keeping up. In this form his tail was pretty short, but a quick change altered that and let him balance and trail with it behind him. Still, since his flight wasn't just with his wings but through suspending himself through... other means too, he had a hard time imitating her movements at first. But he quickly caught up, and followed her with his eyes, trying to respond to her movements as quickly as possible, as the melody quickly moved into a steady but slow accelerando before settling on a flowing six-by-eight beat.

[Joat]

Meanwhile, Sylver and I chronoshift to the opposite external side of the building.

“Might I have this dance?” I ask jokingly.

“My, what a gentleman; I’ll be happy to dance,” Sylver jokes back. We both laugh.

Sylver jumps into the air and fire shoots from his paws, lifting him into the air. I fly into the air near Sylver (but not too near him and his flaming paws). “I think we should start with the basics, such as simply flying quickly,” I say, “Race you ‘round the house!”

“You’re on!” Sylver says.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel saw how quickly Stygian was picking it up and moved to the more challenging rapid direction and height changes that spiraled around each other. Wing edges came dangerously close time after time. The music ended at the highest point of the dance. Throwing a wide grin at Stygian Mel folded her wings and dropped.

[Stygian]

Stygian returned the smile to Mel, his wings turning back into the dark tentacles and tendrils they were really made of, and fell to the ground from high, only slowing down perhaps a few metres off the ground and smoothly halting, suspending himself just above the ground. Then, he dropped with a little tap of his shoes, and took her hand yet again, kissing it gently.
   "That was quite the experience, miss. Pleased to have you as my teacher."

[Joat]

Sylver and I are at the halfway point on our race, in Mel and Stygians’ lines of sight. He and I are actually evenly matched and moving quite fast. Suddenly, I yell “OW!” as my headache returns, worse than before. I make a quick, yet highly controlled landing to the ground. Sylver lands next to me.

“What is it?” Sylver asks.

“The headache. It keeps getting worse. I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” I say.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel bobbed a sort of a curtsey, "Thank you. That's the most fun I've had in years. I'd put you against any of my previous partners." Then she heard the shout off to the side. "What's that?"

[Joat]

I blush again as I hear her ask that. “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about. Say, do you have a couple metric tons of aspirin I can borrow? Ow…” I say.

“You should seriously lie down or something,” Sylver says to me.

[Stygian]

Stygian places a hand on the side of his head, feeling the pain with the presence of Joat.
   "Seems our guest here doesn't know how to put up a proper shield," he says annoyedly. "And I thought I was rid of all these intruding emotions... Guess I still need to tone down my awareness. Or preferrably he has to tone down his feelings. I'm wondering just on what feelings he is feeding thoug... because I'm certainly not sending out any."
   That's when a white, winged figure walks up behind Joat, and lays a perfectly shaped hand on his shoulder.
   "You are in pain from the knowledge. I will hide the truth from you."

[e_voyager]

*OOC: Don't know what aspergers syndrome is? Don't worry about it; it isn't that important.*[/i]

((OOC: I've got it. I know it. And this doesn't seem that much a dance for three. But I think you wouldn't be too wrong off joining in later.))

(your in good company and if Joat wants a partner i'll dance with him. calls Gospel as well)

[Joat]

“Knowledge? I thought it was because I was absorbing too much energy from the emotions of the people around me,” I respond, “Or is that what you meant?”

*OOC: He fails to take into account Sylver, who has plenty of emotion to spare, as well as the others IC Joat has been around. By the way, the fact that his headache returned when it did was purely coincidence, resulting from the hypnois wearing off.*

*Sylver: Lessee… yeah, me being around him would be a pretty good way to make him have a headache.*

[Mel Dragonkitty]

At the sudden appearance of the white stranger Mel barely managed to avoid jumping back a foot in surprise. But her wings, which she had been neatly folding down were startled back open, arching over her head and giving her the appearance of a frightened kitten puffing up. Mel had yet to see a new arrival at the house be anything but a harbinger of battle. Her euphoria from the dance and final plunge to earth shattered as the adrenaline that fueled it was converted to a fight-or-flight response.

[Joat]

Sylver and I, meanwhile, do not seem nearly as scared.

[e_voyager]

e who had been wondering around the house noticed Mel's reaction. he looks around to see if the others are reacting similarly. "what's wrong Mel" ask E when he fails the detect and incoming threat.

[Joat]

“No idea what she’s seeing, but I don’t see anything that looks like a threat,” I say.

[Stygian]

Behind Joat stood a feline woman, with snow white fur interlaced with slight black scar-like markings, a pair of angelic wings emerging from her back and her eyes gleaming in shades of emerald green. Atop her head hovered a spiked green and blackish halo, and draped over her perfect form were some sort of light, thin robes of white and black that fluttered in the gentle breeze. You noticed that it was moving beneath her as well, for she was hovering, her bare clawed ivory feet dipping slightly so that her toes were perhaps an inch or two off the ground. Her face was impossibly calm and serene, and the dim light of her eyes seemed to peer into the very soul as she eyed Joat apprehensively. Her touch was gentle, but he could still feel sharp, blade-like claws on his shoulder.
   "I mean many things, but you do not perceive them. Your mind is not great enough yet, and your thoughts pained," she chimed. "I shall ease the pain, and bring you relief through unknowing." Then, she turned her head and looked upon Mel for a moment, her face unchanging.
   "There is no need to be alarmed. What you do not know... cannot harm you," she said.

[Joat]

Despite the woman saying that I should not be alarmed, my wings fluff out and I do look quite alarmed. I think for a moment and say, “I do not believe in ‘ignorance is bliss’, for it can only lead to trouble in the long run. I will let you ‘protect’ me on one condition. You will send someone to teach me how to manage this knowledge so that I no longer need to be protected from it; or teach me yourself. I do not like to have a lack of knowledge, for knowledge is power.”

[Aisha deCabre]

Meanwhile, Aisha stood at the refreshment table, nibbling on some more pizza and listening to the new music that had been put on.  She smiled at Gareeku when she came with him off the dance floor...it felt like she was on a date, albeit an unexpected one.  Outside one of the stone-encased windows she could finally tell that it was still sometime during the night, with the moon so full that almost everything had a line of silver along their dark edges.  From the clear night to the mansion itself, everything seemed to carry a bit of poetic beauty.

She had watched Mel's illusory show with utmost interest.  Back where she had come from, dragons were a great rarity, if there were any at all.  Now, the panther almost took it for granted that she was a friend to one.  As Mel took Stygian and a few others out to fly, Aisha's eyes were drawn to the acrobatic display until they started to stop.

"That would probably be fun," she said about the others flying, leaning against a part of the wall.  "Or scary as hell."

[Joat]

“Taking away some of a scientist’s knowledge is like taking away some of a warrior’s strength; I’m surprised he even partially agreed to it,” Sylver says to the feline woman.

[Stygian]

The woman calmly listened to Joat's and Sylver's words, her face calm and perhaps even slightly bored.
   "Knowledge is a power, but a commodity that must be managed too. And ignorance must be kept in some, so that they remain uncertain or unwise," she said, and wlked over to Joat, placing the tips of her middle and index fingers on his forehead. "Knowledge, in truth, is reserved. It belongs only to those who have the right and intelligence to own it." With that, a slight green light enveloped her hand, and Joat's head. He shook a bit, feeling as if something was gliding around his brain and occasionally probing it, a little sharp edge of thoughts cutting into his own every now and then. In just a few moments though, it was over, both his headache and the sensation was gone, vanished without so much as a trace.
   "Better?" the woman asked, and glided a step back.

   Stygian didn't even stay to watch much of what was happening. He only cast a quick look, his eyes gleaming darkly, and then walked back up against the house and inside again, the darkness slithering back into his backside as he did and his skin and fur instantly healing over it. With a smile to Aisha and Gareeku, he took off his vest-like jacket and threw it by the window, grabbed another drink, and then slumped over on the sofa, stretching out and warming his feet against the large fireplace, humming to himself.

[Joat]

*OOC: NOW you’ve done it. IC Joat is a person who tends to be very curious about things. Combine that with his avid pursuit of knowledge and, well…*

“This girl doesn’t know Joat very well, does she? He is SO not going to take that for an answer,” Sylver thinks.

“Hm… looks like I won’t recieve teaching. Looks like I’m gonna have to learn how to manage it and relearn it on my own,” I think.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

It appeared to be the girl who started this whole chain of events. Mel thought her still unconscious in the infirmary but supposed that she had to awaken at some point. But she hadn't really cared for the girl then and still didn't. It was probably nothing more than the slight resemblance between the girl and Mel's hunting form. Her feline persona was a careful compilation of subliminal cues designed to gain trust. After so many years of living as that stupid white creampuff and watching people fall for it over and over the same cues made Mel wary.

Mel forced her wings flat, tightened her mental shields, and bowed politely to the girl. Courtesy and respect were all that Mel had to give until trust was earned. Then all ideas of trust flew out the window when she started talking about managing knowledge. Mel's whole existance was about the flow of information. With a discusted look Mel started back for the house.

[Stygian]

The girl looked oddly at Joat.
   "You have a... an oddness in your knowing. In your way of knowledge. Yes. Very interesting," she said, then smiled and curtseyed to Mel, sinking to place her feet on the ground. She looked a bit surprised when Mel turned abruptly and made for the house, and it seemed as if she did not know what to do next, as she simply stood there and looked at them, not saying a word. After a while, she walked down by the pond, looking at her own reflection in the nearly perfectly still water with interest, and then dipping a toe in the water. She then placed the tip of her foot on it, and then stepped out and walked on it, still watching her own reflection.

   Stygian looked up as Mel came in, and sensed how she felt perturbed and sour, both a bit through her scent and through the simple feeling of her, though her mental shields let out so little emotion that he might as well have been mistaken. But he was fairly sure that he was not, not when she was making that kind of face. He slid over, and sat up on the sofa, taking the glass standing on the low table before him.
   "What's troubling you, shivers? Are you angry?"

[Joat]

“An oddness… what does that mean? What did I lose? How do I prepare myself to get it back? And, when the time comes, how do I get it back? What do I do now?” I think.

Sylver sees me in a state of concentration and walks over to me. “Joat? What are we going to do now?”

“I don’t really know,” I say, “I’ll have to think on that.”

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel was startled when Stygian spoke to her. She had been thinking so hard that she hadn't even been paying attention to her surroundings. "Angry?" Mel sighed and answered, "No nothing that strong. The girl and I have a fundamental disagreement about the flow of information. But people are allowed to think differently. Well, that and I don't ever trust pretty white felines."

Mel made herself release her negative thoughts, it was a party and she didn't have to interact with the girl. She smiled at Stygian. "And I'll be less of a grouch when I've eaten some more." She produced the remainder of the quartz rock she had been nibbling on earlier from where she had stored it. "Your pizza is good but it doesn't quite provide all the minerals I need, particularly after using my breath weapon so freely earlier." She pulled a piece off like it was a block of cheese rather than a stone and popped it in her mouth.

Casting around for a new topic she asked, "Where did Saltica go? I'd love to hear her play some more."