Eyes That Bleed [P for Az and Rhea]

[Beaver Dude]

Black Mages, in the original sense of the term on Gaia, had been built as war machines. They might have been short, and somewhat awkward, and... and cute and such but at least on Gaia they were a race to be feared. Dee had not once, in his seven years of life, had anyone ruffle his hat quite as vigorously and affectionately as it was being ruffled now.

And especially not in a junkyard. Where he had gone seeking solitude. Because he had been silly enough to believe that the crazy world he was in would leave him alone for a few moments to collect his thoughts.

"Awwww, aren't you a cutie-wootie-looty widdle thing," the thing told him, attempting to pinch his cheeks as it jabbered inarticulately. Dee suppressed a snarl. The human female clearly had no brains at all. The Black Mage had seen the Blue Rhapsodies and Red Nocturnes. Except for the flying thing and the size reduction they looked just like him. Wasn't there a sane thought floating in that skull?

As his cheek was finally pinched Dee realized with some awe that no it probably didn't. It would explain why the thing was being followed by a bunch of pint-sized human creatures ['children'] that were about his height.

"I'm not a child," Dee snapped.

The orphan mistress caretaker nodded cheerfully. “What a coincidence! I happen to be an adult too! So’s Timmy and Amanda over there-” she waved a negligent hand at where the children were scrounging for scraps. Metal hissed as the children efficiently stripped various metals off their frames. “We’re low on adult manpower though, want to help out? Lunch’s on me!”

Dee was about to reply when his stomach did instead. He nodded miserably.

[Rhea]

“Hotaru, Hotaru, over here!” called the voice of a young boy. The woman looked up from the pile of rubbish she’d been looking through with a smile.
“Coming,” she replied as she approached, avoiding other scraps and junk strewn throughout the junkyard. “What is it?”
“It’s too heavy, we need your help.” The boy was indicating a sheet of metal leaning against a pile. Hotaru scanned the object with concerned blue eyes.
“Yes, let me take care of it. You might get hurt.” The boy and the other two orphans moved away while she worked. The mystic pushed broken chairs and pieces of kami-knows-what aside to make room, before finally attempting to move the metal. At first her efforts seemed fruitless, but eventually she was able to slide the sheet over several feet, leaving a deep crease in the ground but enough room to see what was hiding behind it. The boy who’d asked for her help pulled out the first thing he could – an old book. Several of the orphans gathered around, eyes wide.
“Another book,” one said.
“’Nother booky!” cried a younger one.

Hotaru, pleased with her work, brushed her hands off on her pants. “Can I see it?” The book was handed to her. Perfect! It was a storybook.
“We should all take turns reading it later,” she suggested. “How many of you can read?”
“Only the adults can read,” someone said.
“Adults?” Hotaru was confused. Were they referring to her?
“Yeah, the older orphans. We’re the adults.” The girl who’d first welcomed her had walked over, a smile on her lips.
“Oh, I see.” So that was it.

Hotaru got along well with children – heck, she was one herself! She was twenty years old but had the imagination of a five year old. She loved the things many people considered childish – games, sweets, storytelling, and especially daydreaming. At first the orphans didn’t trust her; they’d had enough problems with “grown-ups” like her. After a listening to her chatter for a bit, offering to help out some, they finally said she was welcome to stay with them for the day. In a way, Hotaru was reminded of herself as a teenager exploring the worlds on her own by these children. Yes, her situation had been very different – she’d done so by choice and was only in as much danger as she allowed herself to be – but regardless, she knew what it was like to be alone.

Before anyone among their group could speak, Hotaru heard another of the older orphan’s cooing something. When she heard a snappy reply, Hotaru tried to peer over to where they were talking, but couldn’t see it with the pile of junk between them. “Here,” she said, returning the storybook to the boy before walking away. She had to make sure there wasn’t going to be a fight of some sort. These kids were in a bad enough situation already, they didn’t need to be hurting each other.

She didn’t see two rowdy kids; however, there was one of the oldest orphans and someone in very strange clothing beside her. Warily, Hotaru took a step forward. That someone looked to her like a heartless, though she’d never seen one that could talk. “Who are you?” she asked, suddenly interrupting...whatever had been happening. There was no way she was going to let some talking heartless hurt them.

With the slightest indication of ill-intent Hotaru was prepared to summon her staff and depend the orphans.

[Beaver Dude]

The caretaker was still ruffling Dee's hat (somehow, despite her absolute insanity, Dee had managed to keep the hat and not give her access to his precious, precious scalp) when another human female popped into existence. She was older than the other human tink-a-tots, and towered over Dee like some sort of avenging Goddess. For a moment Dee thought her eyes cold and her demeanour set on a flight-or-fight trigger finger that craved violence. And then he blinked and saw nothing more than another human adult.

(She did have nice hair though. It would probably suit an avenging Goddess.)

She spoke in the tones and flavours of honest, straightforward suspicion. If she were any franker she’d have probably asked: “Are you a heartless? Are you really alive?” As it was, Dee was relieved: at least there was someone with two neurons to rub together guarding the children. It was there in her stance and in her eyes: the sneaking suspicion that the world wasn't a wondrous and benevolent place; experience that had hardened what it could through that which had been neither nice nor safe nor pleasant.

But she hadn't run. Dee could relate.

"I'm Dee, from Gaia." The Black Mage replied succinctly. “Mrs-”

“Anderson.” The caretaker supplied helpfully. “Mrs. Anderson-Robbin-Loraxas the Third.”

Dee tried to figure out if she had made that up on the spot or was being serious. In the end he couldn’t tell and stuck with, “Mrs. Anderson has offered me food in exchange for... umm, helping. With the scrounging. And stuff.”

Mrs. Anderson beamed. Apparently his lacklustre explanation had her backing. “Now run along, dears. Food doesn’t fall from the sky! And we need to eat!”

And then, using powers that were clearly magical, she whipped out a bandaid and a bottle of peroxide and rushed towards a pair of scrapped knees, leaving Dee and the other adult human alone. Dee kicked at the dirt awkwardly.

“Ummm... so what am I supposed to do...Mrs.?”

[Rhea]

“Oh.” Hotaru’s expression was that of surprise. The heartless-looking-creature was not a heartless at all, she realized. He (she was pretty sure it was a he by the voice) was actually helping the orphans look for food. “Oh,” she said again. Hotaru was usually not the judgmental, presumptuous type, but Dee had looked so similar to the flying, spell-casting heartless. Now her face became flushed, she was embarrassed. It was so unlike her to react that way.

The orphan who called herself Mrs. Anderson scampered off to fix up some scraped knees. The other orphans continued their searching, paying Hotaru and Dee no mind.

“Sorry about that, I just thought...” She trailed off. “I’m Hotaru. Just Hotaru.” Attempting to make up for her mistake, she smiled friendlily.

“Well, Dee, I guess we should just do what the kids have been doing – looking for anything that might be useful. I’ve been trying to move the stuff that’s too heavy for them.” She paused. Dee was small, and looked like he might be a child, but she wasn’t sure. Height wasn’t the best way to determine age or strength. “Food seems to be the priority right now, but I don’t know if anything they find here will actually be edible...” It was a junkyard, after all. If any food did end up here, it was sure to be rotten.

“What I’d really like to do is go into town and buy some food for everyone, but I don’t have any munny.” She sighed. “Do you have any particularly, um, useful talents?” It seemed she had been left in charge of the helper, even though she was one herself. Hotaru moved her weight to one leg, setting her hand on her hip. Oh well, the more help the better, right? She grinned again. “Hopefully you can make yourself useful, otherwise you don’t get to eat!” She was joking, of course, playing another of her games. She seemed forget about her earlier rudeness. Anyone could be a potential friend, right?

[azrael]

"Whoa check that guys hat out Mikey!" One of the younger orphans said to his two friends, pointing at the weird looking kid with the hidden face. Two young boys and a girl were sitting around a junk pile sifting through it.

"That's the coolest hat I've ever seen, I wonder where he got it." Mikey said. "I want it..."

"Guys we gotta find some food, forget about that stupid hat for now." said the girl, who seemed to be more mature than the two boys.

"Geez Steph, your never any fun." The first boy said turning back to the junk pile.

The boy and the girl went back to rummaging through the junk as Mikey was seemingly distracted by the strange new kid who had shown up in the junkyard. "Hey look, Hotaru is talking to him. I wonder what their talking about." Mikey suddenly jumped up "Lets go spy on them."

"Mikey sit down and help us look for food please." Steph said rolling her eyes at the boy. "We need to find food for.... hey.. whats this?" She reached into the pile and pulled out a black, fist sized stone. It was perfectly round and almost shiny. The stone had several very strange symbols carved into it. "We should bring this to the adults mabey they can sell it for some food." She said standing up.

"Ok lets give it to Hotaru, that way we can go see that new kid." Mikey said grabbing it from the girl and running towards Hotaru and the strange person she was talking to. "Hotaru! Hotaru! Look what I found!"

"Hey Mikey come back I found it!" Steph said chasing after him.

"Guys dont leave me here!" the third child jumped up following after his two friends.

[Beaver Dude]

Well, that was certainly a quick change of heart. Dee wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but if everyone here in Traverse was some sort of survivor of apocalypse this 'Hotaru' had probably gone through a lot... The Black Mage wasn't a bleeding heart by any stretch of the imagination but the sudden shift had seemed terribly-

awkward

Dee tried to smile back but was hampered by the fact that he only had his eyes to work with as visible parts of his anatomy. He turned them into tiny luminescent crescents, hoping they didn't quite turn into slits. He had been told that he looked rather vicious when his eyes were in that state.

"...I’ve been trying to move the stuff that’s too heavy for them.”

The Black Mage nodded perfunctorily at her words: though he was stronger than his four foot frame would suggest he probably wasn't, um, going to be able to do much in terms of heavy lifting. In the end he could maybe lift half his body weight if he tried really, really hard. Still, he'd at least try. His stomach and continued survival kind of hinged on that. Plus, if they were letting children accomplish such tasks it surely couldn't be too hard? Maybe? Just potentially?

"I can... make things." The Black Mage said, feeling slightly lame. It was so much more impressive to claim control over the elements. Dee snapped the fingers of his gloves and let them become envelopped in softly glowing light that switched through a small rainbow of colors. He snapped his fingers together again and the flame disappeared.

While the mysterious 'Prythian' Dee had met in Traverse Town had told him something about the ether upon which magic was imbued Dee had only managed to instill magic conventionally into his objects instead of being able to access it directly.

Dee was about to show Hotaru his experimental 'High Jump' when they were interrupted by the pitter patter of small feet. Dee almost thought they were Black Mages until he had gotten ahold of himself, given himself a good whack in the mental head and crossly repeated : "This isn't Gaia," a few times to himself.

"Hotaru!" One of the children yelled. "Hotaru! Look what I found." They rushed up, displaying their findings. Dee examined the rock, a feeling of foreboding sweeping through his frame. Were those signs...?

"Hotaru..." Dee said slowly, "Are you familiar with magic sigils?"

[Rhea]

[Sorry about the wait, I've been a little busy these last few days.]

Make things? Hotaru’s head tilted in curiosity. What did he mean by that? As if answering her question, Dee snapped his fingers. A flame appeared in his hand, transitioning through colors of the rainbow. Just as quickly he snapped again, diminishing the fire. “Wow,” she said in awe. That was nothing like the type of magic she knew; she was pretty sure that was a real flame, simply colorful. Her magic revolved around tricks and illusions. “That’s cool.” She smiled again.

Three of the orphans were running over; Hotaru waved to them. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Dee hitting himself in the head...but she was probably imagining it.

“Hotaru! Look what I found!” Mikey had a glossy black stone in his hand, and at first Hotaru just barely glanced at it. She was about to congratulate him (because surely they could find some use for the stone), but Dee spoke before she had the chance. His tone and words sent a chill down Hotaru’s spine. She took a better look at the strange stones, this time noticing the strange markings that should have been obvious to her in the first place. Surely enough, they were magic sigils, if not something similar. Miju, the old sorceress, had taught her the beginnings of her magic knowledge. However, Hotaru could only remember a little about magic sigils; she’d never learned to use them herself.

“Not familiar, but I’ve heard of them.” She responded, eyeing the stone wearily. “Symbols that allow the user to cast some sort of magic, right?” Hotaru didn’t know what the markings on the stone meant, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk touching it and somehow activating it with her own magic.

“Mikey, could you put that down right here for me? Thank you for finding it.” She said this in a soothing voice; the tones of the two magic-users may have frightened him. She smiled briefly at the child, then turned to Dee. “Do you know what it means?” The mage probably knew more about it than her; after all, she hadn’t even noticed the sigils.

[/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

"...not directly." Dee muttered as he looked at the object, remembering No. 1203. That one had been talented in Runic Magic and languages. Dee had presided over his funeral just a two years ago. He cycled through the little knowledge he possessed as he considered possibilities. Was it inert? Primed to explode? Deactivated? Sigils had parameters - circumstances that required to be met in order for what they were designed to do to function.

Well, they did on Gaia. It was possible these worked slightly... differently. Telemetry? Some sort of passive observational device? A strength-enhacing object? But no, it didn't have to be magic. A piece of art? A living creature?

(Dee hoped it wasn't the last)

"I... I think we should move away." Dee whispered. "Dee isn't..." Damnit. Not third person. He could use first. "I'm not sure what it is. And without an expert it's hard to know if it's... dangerous."

Or helpful, or damning, or soul-stealing or nourishing or any one of the billions of combinations. It was most likely inert. But a year had over 31 million seconds. There were many chances to die. No sense in tempting fate or the powers that be. They had done more than enough to convince Dee if they had meant well they had gone horribly old and senile by now.

"Dee? Hotaru?" The caretaker had returned. Minus the injured child but though her eyes were straightforwardly inquisitive something a bit more somber had taken root in them. "Is everything alright?"