ioduanlogs | (open)

Entry tags:

(open)

Characters: Chase AND YOU
Date: anywhen Jan 30 - Feb 2
Location: Breakwater Wing + out and about
Situation: discovering his Talent + this is what rank 5 commerce has wrought
Warnings/Rating: n/a

A. Destruction
[He'd returned to the room he'd been assigned last night, and so it is that he gets up bright and early, ready for the day, swinging his legs out of bed without any need to throw off a blanket because he didn't sleep with one, and heads out.]

[Opening doors...it's a fact of life. But not once in his life has Chase pulled on a doorknob to have the doorknob get pulled without the door. He's left standing with a doorknob in his hand, door still firmly closed, while pieces of metal fall to the floor and roll by his feet.]

[Hope no one wanted to exit or enter Breakwater Wing today.]

B. Commerce
[Chase doesn't interact with the proper residents of Aifaran often; the daily lives of the people who belong here simply doesn't concern him most of the time. But today he's accosted by a man. Wearing shades. Indoors.]

[Who takes one look at Chase's purple leather outfit and, upon declaring Chase the perfect man for the job, has dragged him outside, across the street, and stuck him out in front of a store with a sign.]

Hip & Trendy Clothes
They're hip! And trendy!
[The sign is made of only moderately stiff cardboard and glitter paste. The store may or may not be a front for something. And Chase looks entirely deadpan to be there.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Well, Padparadscha was on their way out, but they're a good way behind Chase. They are not, however, far enough away not to catch that wholesale destruction of the doorknob when he tries to open the door.

Padparadscha comes up behind him, looking over his shoulder at the damage done, before breaking into laughter.]

You know, where I come from, we break the door if we can't get it open another way.

[...Good idea.]

[He takes a single step back and kicks the door down. Problem solved.]

I do not normally break off doorknobs. [He frowns down at the bits of metal on the floor. Looks like they'd fallen off, but from the shape of this doorknob...how?]

[He kneels down for a closer look.] Looks like...this was not installed properly.

[Well, they weren't entirely expecting him to take that at face value, but it was probably better this way anyway, if the door wasn't going to open otherwise. Repairing it probably would've required a new one anyway.

Padparadscha comes around to the side this time, crouching down alongside him and tilting their head a bit at the remains of the doorknob with a faint hum.]

I don't think so. See, this is unusual. [Padparadscha picks up a piece of the doorknob, that definitely looks like it was supposed to be attached to one of the other parts a moment ago, then picks up another, putting the edges together to mark what looks like a very sudden fracture.] It would take a very long time for metal to break like this naturally, unless it was bad from the start. But this is a very clean break.

[He glances over. He's certain he didn't use that much force trying to open it.]

This may have been premeditated. [He's not a cop, but he's friends with a couple, so he gets up and starts down the hall back the way he came, intent on knocking on people's doors and questioning if they heard anything last night.]

[Because clearly that is what's going on here. That is, until his hand lightly brushes a decorative doodad hanging off a plant (Aifaran customs: kind of weird??) and the thing comes apart into its component pieces, one of them bouncing off his foot, the other dropping into the planter. Welp.]

[Padparadscha is about to remark that that's not the kind of damage that generally comes from anything but lengthy fatigue or sabotage, but then Chase touches that plant decoration, and the entire thing falls to pieces faster than anything they've ever seen.

They don't make all that much of an effort to hide their amusement, even as they step forward to fish out the piece that fell into the planter.] Ah, so you're premeditating it, then?

I did not intend it. [Sorry, Padparadscha, Chase doesn’t understand that joke.]

[He picks up the piece that dropped by his foot.] I did not use force.

[As he peers at the thingamajig, it occurs to him that the thing had fallen apart. Like it was dismantled, without him having to dismantle it.]

[He glances at the piece in Padparadscha’s hands, then wordlessly holds out his own piece, to see if it fits perfectly with theirs.]

[Padparadscha's coming to that conclusion themselves as they look at the piece they're holding, though Chase holding up the other one certainly helps. They match theirs along the seams where it came apart - a perfect break.

That only seems to amuse Padparadscha more, and they turn the piece in their hands.]

So it just came apart perfectly, huh? How strange. Almost like this "magic" people keep talking about.

I don't possess magic.

[It's hard to deny that the effect seems centered on him, though. He peers at his hand for a moment, and then touches another doodad on the plant. It falls apart just like the other one, this time into three pieces.]

...It's me.

[He glances significantly at the remaining thingadoodadamajig.] You try.

[It took him a while to come to that conclusion, but Padparadscha supposes it's probably less obvious to someone living it. When he offers to them to try it themselves, they shrug slightly and reach out to touch the third one.

It remains entirely intact, and Padparadscha even applies a little bit of extra pressure to be sure. Despite the hardness of their body, it doesn't break this time.]

Well well, you might need to rethink that first little thing, huh?

["Magic" seems the most reasonable explanation for these perfect breaks.]

[He still looks unconvinced by the magic. But he supposes that his being alive (and perfectly fine and hale) is enough of an anomaly that he can't argue it much.]

It must be...a new development. [Which isn't reassuring when it comes to the tattoo-via-surgery theory...]

Nothing like this has happened to you? [The two of them have the same mark on them, after all.]

[It is certainly food for thought considering he says he had nothing like that before, and Padparadscha is already running through what it could mean when he asks that question.]

Not yet. It might be that I haven't become aware of it yet...or haven't gotten into the right situation. There are a lot of things that could be causing the difference, huh?

[Even if the marking is the same, the circumstances may not be.]

[He hadn't been thinking or doing anything different as he'd gone through the door. There aren't any other variables in the situation that he can think of.]

[Still, the fact remains that it happened. He'll just wear gloves until he can figure out how to control it, if it's controllable at all.]

I may need...your assistance.

[If he's going to dismantle everything he touches, then his gloves idea may not work. But first he has to find a pair of gloves.]

I will need to go into my room. But I have a roommate. [He doesn't want to break the door to the shared room.]

Lend me something of yours...to cover my hands. I will return it, or get you a new one.

[Padparadscha tips their head a bit at the request before holding up one of their own hands.] I could just open the door for you.

[But that seems more a matter of him omitting part of the request, and they drop their hand after the fact.] But I suppose that won't help if you need to look for something, huh?

[With a slight shrug, Padparadscha removes their already open shirt and holds it out to him. It doesn't make a great deal of difference to them whether they have it or not, in the end.]

[Padparadscha helping him open the door simply hadn't even occurred to him. For one, he'd also need to retrieve his key.]

[He takes the shirt cautiously, watching it. The door was made of wood, the doodadamajigs had been made of some kind of plastic as far as he can tell, so it isn't a matter of material. After a few seconds, though, it doesn't look like the shirt will dismantle, so he wraps it around a hand.]

[Yep, looks like this will work.] You have my thanks.

Nothing like this has happened to you?

Nothing. I'm sure I'd remember if things started falling apart when I touched them. [Of course, there's all this talk of magic, and rumours about Dreamfolk, so Padparadscha can make a guess that this might happen to them sometime soon as well. But for now, it seems, they've escaped it.

They give a smile somewhere in the vicinity of amused.] Seems like I have something to look forward to, huh? Though I don't know if that's the right way to think about it.

[Destroying things at a touch seems like a little much, even for someone like them.]

[He carefully pulls out his key when he reaches his room number, and has no trouble unlocking the door since he'd made sure that he'd wrapped Padparadscha's shirt around thinly where his opposable digits meet.]

[Which is a long way of saying that he might have accidentally grazed the doorknob when the shirt slipped a bit, which he notices, but it doesn't seem like the doorknob will collapse this time, so he enters with only the barest pause.]

You look forward to it...? [Still can't detect Padparadscha's jokes. (Film at eleven.)]

It is unpleasant.

[He opens the drawer and unwinds the shirt from his hand but doesn't hand it back to Padparadscha yet, cautiously picking up the glove and staring at it for signs of decomposition.]

You also have a pair of gloves? [Just in case it really does mean something that they have the same tattoo, and already having a pair would mean they wouldn't have to go buy one.]

[Padparadscha watches his interaction with the doorknob fairly closely, but it doesn't seem like this one's going to fall to pieces, so they let it pass without comment. Rather than follow him into the room, they wait at the door, leaning on the doorframe and taking the opportunity to inspect another dormitory while they're there.

His apparent inability to pick the joke just seems to amuse them, and they wave a hand.] It's still interesting, isn't it? Besides, I'm no stranger to unpleasant.

[As the gem-filled holes in their torso probably attest to. Their existence has not been an easy one.

As for his question, they hum an approval. Diamond-class gems and those of similar strength were always fond of long gloves, even if they hadn't had a pair with them.] I "bought" some with those coins we got when we arrived.

[He glances up at "interesting," because, of the people he knows who would use that word with a situation like this, not many of them are...pleasant. But, after a moment, Padparadscha doesn't strike him as one of those people, so he turns back to the gloves and places them aside.]

[He's spotted the little toy that at some point he'd picked up at the festival. It was tiny and doll-like, meticulously assembled and painted, but which he'd had no use for at the time. He holds it up and stares at it for a moment, until—it breaks into its component pieces and falls out of his hands.]

[He rolls over the piece left in his hand. So that's how he controls it...intuitively, like the difference between Mashin and Rider. But he puts the gloves on anyway, because he had just been dismantling things accidentally, and he should make sure he can't do it unintentionally again.]

Unpleasantness is inevitable, but it is not enjoyment.

[When he makes to exit, his eyes land on the gem-filled holes briefly. He'd asked about them, and then had chalked them up to a simple species difference. But with the talk of unpleasantness, for some reason the holes look like scars.]

[He hands the shirt back.]

Would you rather it be a surprise, or will you find out now? [The magic, that is.] There are some things we can try right now.

Well, not everyone agrees on what's unpleasant, huh? It could be something very different.

[Padparadscha takes the shirt back, swinging it back around themselves with a rather casual air. They still leave it open, and the gem fillings open to view from anyone who might happen to look.

He does have a good point about the powers, though, and Padparadscha hums a little.] I think a surprise like this might be more of a problem for someone else than it is for me. So maybe I should try now. But where to start? I don't think it will be as easy as the same thing for both of us.

[It's never that easy, in their experience. Different people align to different things, and people express different skills. Even if their mark is the same, Padparadscha can't believe it will be as straightforward as all that.]

The variation isn't that high. [Though Padparadscha did seem very amused about Chase breaking things. It seems to him that Padparadscha is amused at a lot of things in general, though.]

[He starts to head back to the broken door.]

We use something disposable. [Rocks, for example. Loose bricks, even bits of paper.]

I was built to protect...to fight. The magic just now...uses my fighting mentality. [...Something like that. He's never had to explain his instincts other than as blunt statements of fact.]

Maybe it works the same way for you. [In any case, it seems to him that if this magic were thoroughly uncontrollable, Dreamfolk wouldn't be as welcome as they are.] Someone said once that that tattoo is connected to our souls. If it really is connected to this magic, I don't think it would be something alien to you.

[Padparadscha follows him, hands behind their head and manner rather casual. They don't remark until he mentions being built to protect, which gets an interested hum and a glance over from them.]

Oh, so you're a sentry, then. That's one thing we have in common. [Those roles seem to be considered a little differently in this society than the one Padparadscha came from, but it's still similar enough to make the connection. Protecting, fighting threats, staying alert and in control - all the roles of a good sentry, a job Padparadscha has done for several thousand years now.]

I haven't gotten to have a good fight for a long time...but maybe you're right. Something like that would feel a lot like something inherently "me".

[Being broken, causing other things to become broken. That those are facts of who they are is something they've reconciled with a long time ago, even if it's not an enjoyable position to occupy.]

[He glances at Padparadscha for a second, because the only Sentry he's heard of lately is the Verdant Sentry, and he's certainly not a member of that. But he catches on a second later.]

That will make this easier, then. [He wouldn't call himself a sentry, exactly—there's a reason he's called "Chaser"—but if Padparadscha has made the connection, he supposes there's something to it. In fact, that might be one of the reasons they have the same mark, though of course, without any other idea of what the mark does or is supposed to do, it's hard to say.]

[Outside the Dreaming Bridge, he picks up a pebble.] You have already tried touching...

How about this? [He tosses the pebble lightly at Padparadscha.]

[Padparadscha just waves a hand as if to indicate that yes, the touching was already a failure. When he throws the rock, though, Padparadscha is prepared to catch it, using that same hand to cup it out of the air. Even with that fairly gentle motion, it chips a tiny bit off the pebble.]

Ah, well, I broke it a little, but that's just because I don't think this is a very hard kind of rock compared to me. [Padparadscha opens their hand to show it - it definitely doesn't look like anything magical, just the result of something hitting something that outclasses it in hardness, knocking a tiny fragment off.]

Did you think I was going to burst it in the air? [It's a funny thing to think about, admittedly, but perhaps not the most likely thing he was testing there.]

[His forehead creases a little as he looks at the rock in their hand. He'll have to be careful.]

I don't know. [Because, in a very literal way, he didn't. But combat was the first thing that came to mind, probably due to Padparadscha's talk of sentries. But Chase's didn't activate when he was thinking of fighting or protecting.]

[But he said that these were things that they could try—and having something thrown at someone was one of the more basic ones.]

[He crosses his arms.] How about jumping?

Jumping? [Padparadscha seems even more amused by that suggestion, but they do so anyway, stepping forward and then kicking off the ground properly to leap up. Their jumping arc is extremely high, but they've tried not to overdo it, at least, so they come down again before too long, landing in a crouch on the stone.

Straightening up, they stretch a bit, turning on their heel.] I don't think that one worked, huh? Maybe we'll have to cast a wider net.

A

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject