Forum Chat and Announcements |
Niwa's Recent News
| |
| They said this was a city for our kind, they said it was a safe haven from the rest of the world. This was suppose to be the city where we where safe from regular humans. But, in a city where Meta-Humans run rampant, is there such thing as safety? When taking what you want is as simple as waving your hand, or closing your eyes, how can there be law? In this city, the truth is there is only one source of law, and that are the different criminal organizations that have formed all around us. The only order is that of the darkest part of humanity, of criminal organizations where the strong thrive while the weak gasp for air. This is Niwa Nights.. This is our home. Can you survive it? REGISTER NOW! |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| Contingency Plans; North | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 1 2014, 10:49 PM (1,079 Views) | |
| Post #1 Feb 1 2014, 10:49 PM | Defiant |
|
((Short post is short)) The interior of the apartment was yellowed from the light of the setting sun. Cici stood surveying her handiwork and congratulating herself for working through several layers of dust. Every book was put back in its place. Every post-it note clinging to its original spot. There was homemade soup sitting in the freezer, dinner in the oven (bourbon-glazed salmon), and groceries put away in the cupboards and fridge. A man cannot survive on scotch and crackers alone though she was sure Declan would argue otherwise. Now all she needed was the tenant to show up. Though she was fairly sure her predictions would stay true much like the lack of surprise in seeing an apartment littered with empty scotch bottles and tumbler glasses laying around. Cici was a little more shocked that he actually used glasses in that respect. Why the need for ceremony? Why not straight from the bottle? Would’ve saved time. Judging by the disheveled mess the apartment was in when she arrived she knew he wasn’t having guests over. That and she hadn’t observed anyone moving in or out of the apartment for some time now. So why all the trouble? Because Declan wasn’t taking care of himself and it was all because the kid smiling in the picture on the shelf wasn’t running around or drawing on the walls. Cici regarded the photo for some time. It probably one of the only things in her life she felt guilt over. His daughter died and hers lived. His marriage fell apart and hers never happened. How was that fair? Life. Right? But he had responsibilities. They both did. Which brought her to the second reason she was here. Now all she had to do was wait for him to get home. Simple. |
![]()
She's whiskey in a teacup.
|
|
.:Cicely | Aisling:. ![]() “As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her.” | |
| Post #2 Feb 2 2014, 10:53 PM | Cowboy |
|
See I've been a bad, bad, bad bad man... 1724 hours. On a Friday. The kickstand of the bike touched down on the pavement outside the building. It was the last workday of the week. He knew the vehicles of his neighbors. Knew their schedules. He knew the people in 12B were getting ready for their date-night. He knew the people across the hall were just getting back from picking up their daughter at soccer practice. The cars that should have been in the lot were accounted for. He knew the labeled parking spaces of the ones missing, and where they were. Apt 24 was working late. 31 was out cheating on his wife but claimed to be stuck in a meeting. A handful of others were at the gym post-work day; they'd return within an hour, duffel bags in hand. But there was a vehicle he couldn't account for, in a spot that didn't belong to them. His spot. That, and the blinds in his apartment were opened differently than the way he'd closed them when he left. His cane unclipped from it's holster on the side of the bike and he hobbled over to the vehicle in question. It was new to him, but the tire-treads showed recent wear. Not brand new, but not in need of replacement. All-seasons; practical. The mud-guards were clean. The interior showed no signs of life; not an open console compartment or a file-folder in the passenger seat. Showroom cleanliness. Obviously a woman's vehicle. It wasn't until he'd taken the elevator to his floor that he grew concerned. There was a different scent within it. Perfume. It lingered like a foul dream; haunting, enrapturing. Not the $10 convenience store brand that the occasional company the single men brought home wore. Expensive, divergent, complex. By the time he got to his door, the smells wafting from underneath the frame, he knew who was beyond the threshold. If it was anyone else, he'd be more angry than anything. Then again, Cici wasn't just anybody, was she? The door opened quietly; WD-40 in the hinges last week to keep it from squeaking. Nothing more annoying than coming home to relax and having to hear that. He could see the side of her head, blonde hair falling in loose curls down her shoulders, book open in her lap, legs folded. For one very, very brief moment he let his mind wander to the thought of how nice it might be to come home to see her every day. This perfect, vibrant, charming, powerful woman, who could cook and clean and drive, who could drink and fight and laugh; who could take on the challenges of being a single mother with a smile and still ask how to help others; while at the same time, possessing just enough backbone to never be taken advantage of. Just for a second. But this was reality; and he'd been down that road before. "You've got a good memory. That or you're a lucky guess. Salmon's one of my favorites." He hung up his coat on the rack near the door, taking off the fedora and staring down at the felt, fingering the brim idly. He added, more quietly; "Reminds me of home." And for a moment, he was in Alaska. With his family. And a slow, sad smile washed over his hardened face; and then it was gone; replaced by that devil-may-care smirk. He was in there, somewhere. "See you wasted no time making yourself at home." He nodded to the beverage next to her; the book in her hands. There was no point in asking her how she found out where he lived, or how she got in. Cicely was as intelligent and resourceful as she was attractive. "What's the occasion?" |
![]()
|
| Post #3 Feb 3 2014, 10:59 PM | Defiant |
|
Sometimes she wished she had more time to sit back and read. Neil Gaimen really deserved more of her attention. Sadly most of the literary adventures involved children books and a less than captive audience. There was a subtle sound of the door opening, the clicking of the lock mechanism and the almost silent sound of hinges grinding. Metal on metal. Cici was thankful for it in a way. Now she wouldn’t have to deal with a new addiction. “Well judging by the previous state of your kitchen I’d say ending world hunger one cupboard at a time.” A wry smile danced across her lips as she shut the book and finally looked over to him. “But we both know I’m not that saintly.” Rising from the couch she took up her glass and began walking to the kitchen. She wished she could have truly sent him home. Back to a time when things still made sense. It was a bit beyond her power though. Instead she’d have to settle for helping out a friend. There were still friends, right? Setting her glass down she attended to the oven where she’d stored dinner to keep it warm. Heated air brushed past her face as she opened the door and began to pull out everything; the salmon, the rice, the grilled asparagus. “Just thought I’d check up on you and see if my suspicions were justified. Which they were.” She moved around the kitchen like she lived there. Taking freshly cleaned glass and plates from their hiding places. Trying not think of how much fun it might be to play house and actually be someone’s wife. To know that satisfaction. “I also needed to talk to you about a rather… delicate matter.” She was careful with her word choice. It would have too cheesy to say it was ‘grim’. ”But first… we eat.” |
![]()
She's whiskey in a teacup.
|
|
.:Cicely | Aisling:. ![]() “As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her.” | |
| Post #4 Feb 5 2014, 06:37 PM | Cowboy |
|
She looked to be right at home working through his apartment. Working through his kitchen as if she possessed the skills to do so. Granted she was a single mother; she must've had to cook sometime, right? This wasn't the seventeen year old he'd met; carefree, lax, pink-haired and fun with frequent visits from the T&A fairy. He watched her as she leaned over the stove to procure the supper she'd made for them. The A-fairy must've visited recently. That or she was pretty big into squats at the gym. Either way... Was it a fluke that she had prepared salmon or was she doing something nice especially for him? What was it exactly that she wanted to ask him? What was so delicate? Did she want to freeze his sperm for biological testing? Examine his dead and rotting leg just for shits and giggles? He didn't feel the need to sit. Not just yet; he stood in the doorway, leaning against its frame. For a moment he felt at home, and for a moment he felt disconcerted. He had never met a person who could illicit such a wide array of emotions within him in such succession. A violent, vexing turbulent storm rolling around inside his aura. For a moment he wanted to reach out into the ether for Grim, for despite their troubles they were still as close as two people could be. But this seemed to be more a matter of life than one of death, and there wasn't much room for a Reaper at the dinner table. Not Declan's, anyway. Two seats only. He only typically had one guest. And it wasn't usually her. "Mmm. Alright. You can catch me up on what you've done with your life in the last ten years. Or tell me about what happened to you in all the years before that, since I never really did get more than your name back at S.S." Was he trying to get to know her? Solving a puzzle? Then again, it's hard to solve a puzzle when you don't have all the pieces, and Cicely was one complicated, thousand piece puzzle of a clear blue sky. |
![]()
|
| Post #5 Feb 11 2014, 09:12 PM | Defiant |
|
There were a lot of things Declan should have learned by now. First and foremost, Cici was hardly an open book. She wasn’t about to give him a ten page exposé about all of the intimate details of her life right down to if she liked to put potato chips in some of her sandwiches or if she dipped her fries in chocolate milkshakes. Either his questions were going to have to get more specific or she was going to cut him some slack. Making her way over to the table she set the plates down then went to retrieve a couple glasses. One wine, one tumbler. Water for him, because she could hear his liver screaming from where she stood, and white wine for her to take the edge off. Before taking her seat she unzipped her jacket and shrugged it off to reveal a more flattering deep v-neck t-shirt. If this was going to happen she was going to at least be comfortable. “Tell you what. I’m a reasonable woman and you look half-starved. Start eating and I’ll start talking.” Gesturing to the other chair she made herself comfortable and waited for to do the same before she started talking again. “The long and the short of it is that my father was military and my mother was… well she was something else. Dad managed to smuggle a number of children out of the US before it all went to hell and then vanished. Always presumed he was dead. Mom started working at the school as a doctor, I started classes. It’s all pretty simple really. You know the rest. At least up until the point where you disappeared. That was quite the trick.” She scooted some of her food around on the plate before taking a bite. Edited by Defiant, Feb 11 2014, 09:12 PM.
|
![]()
She's whiskey in a teacup.
|
|
.:Cicely | Aisling:. ![]() “As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her.” | |
| Post #6 Feb 13 2014, 11:05 PM | Cowboy |
|
That seemed a fair compromise. Well, that and the smell of the freshly prepared food seemed to permeate his nostrils and fire off synapses in his frontal lobes, impulses of which went straight through him, surging through his body and conveniently reminded him of just how empty his stomach currently was. Maybe a morning biscuit, a salad for lunch and a bottle of scotch for dinner wasn't such a healthy diet after all. Not that he needed a woman taking care of him... Maybe it's the reptilian brain, those powerful, red-blooded instincts that had his eyes follow the cut of her shirt. Had they gotten bigger? Must be the light. Those darkened eyes found their way back to hers by the time he was taking his first bite of salmon. For a moment his eyes closed; how long had it been since he'd had salmon cooked like that? Years. She was good. But why? They opened again and leveled on her; posture leaned slightly in, but back straight. Her eyes voided his when she spoke on her past; good, the recollection required a break in eye contact to more accurately recall information. Only liars look you in the eyes telling a story; they need to see if you believe them. She'd wrung her hands. Just once, but it was there. There was something else going on. Oh, right; he never did quite tell her how and why he disappeared. Never a bad time to start, right? "Yeah..." He put his fork down, wiped his mouth with his napkin before setting it back in his lap, and picked up his water, (a quick glance at her for doing so), before taking a sip. "When I did that job for The Warden back at Shadowside, that's when Grim and I started out working together. During that time he taught me how to properly use something we call Omni-presence, which allowed me to place my body in multiple places at once by splitting my soul into various pieces." He swirled his glass around in his hand. He'd lost eye contact with her, thinking of the events in the desert. The Trial. Elysium. All happening at once in his mind. "There's a hitch with a power like that. What happens to one body ripples through the others, since they're all connected. There was this...event... She already knew what happened. Chad would've told her. He'd told her to take care of her in his wake, bleeding through his balaclava after they were pinned down. "Turns out hurling yourself into a black hole causes some pretty big ripples... and took Grim some time to find me. By the time I got out and could pull myself back together, it'd been years. I was in a different country when I came back from the ether, I woke up in a freight container headed for a country I didn't know the name of. Didn't think you'd even remember who I was, let alone see me again...." Well, it was true. And the longest sentence he'd strung together in some time. He went back to his salmon; that was enough sharing on his part for one day. |
![]()
|
| Post #7 Apr 1 2014, 10:20 PM | Defiant |
|
Cicely chased a piece of salmon around her plate. Little bugger was being tricky tonight. It was little things like that that were truly annoying. That’s the fun part of being able to multi-task. She could think about how annoying this was and still listen to Declan. There was some of it she already knew thanks to a brief stint with a rather shady organization. She wasn’t too sure Declan would remember his first encounter with Beta-Human but she sure did. The mention of omni-presence made her lift a brow though. Interesting. She shoved some rice in her mouth. Yeah, she certainly knew about the -event- as he so eloquently put it. When she had left the campus there was still a hole in the marble pathway in the garden where Chad had told her about his death. Either it hadn’t been reported or the grounds keepers were slacking off. Either way the feelings were the same every time she recalled that moment. Cicely cleared her throat and took a sip of her wine. “Oh c’mon now. You really think I’d forget?” Blessing or curse Cicely very rarely forgot anything. As if her thousands of years’ worth of memories were any testament. He didn’t really know that yet though did he? “If it makes you feel any better I didn’t exactly go looking for you,” she toyed with a piece of asparagus before pushing her plate forward slightly then leaned in to rest her crossed arms on the table. “The intel just sort of came to me.” That was one of the truest statements she had ever made. It hadn’t been her choice to know he was still alive. However, fate had intervened and there they were. Drawn to each other like moths to flames. Or maybe like moths that were mourning an extinguished flame. More like an ember. “You were missed.” Edited by Defiant, Apr 1 2014, 10:21 PM.
|
![]()
She's whiskey in a teacup.
|
|
.:Cicely | Aisling:. ![]() “As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her.” | |
| Post #8 Apr 6 2014, 09:36 PM | Cowboy |
|
Only Grim looked for me... Only Grim could. By that point in the story Had they always been that particular shade of rainbow? How much had she changed since he'd seen her? Over a decade had passed. They had both moved on with their lives since that school. They had both had children. His gaze faltered, a chill rumbled through his core. How did this happen? For a woman so full of life and cheer and mirth, with a smile that made unicorns cry and a laugh that stopped hearts, to keep slumming back to a man who'd all but given up and just coasted, knowing life wasn't worth living, but knowing he'd never die. Deflated and debunked. They couldn't be more diametrically opposed to one another; like yin and yang. Was that it? Some bullshit cosmic scale? Were they destined to do this dance once more? Magnets of polar opposite, violently attracted to one another for reasons inexplicable, incomprehensible? Who would have missed him besides Cicely? At the school he was a trouble-maker. A vandal. No family, half a dozen friends who he had always kept at arms length, and Grim... But irregardless, it was nice to hear someone say it. I miss these little talks. A long, slow breath escaped past his thin lips as he reached for the water Cicely had provided him, his gaze absorbing the signals she was pushing out into the world. Putzing food around her plate, the way her words seemed shorter than they should have been. Their inflection was off, the way someone who's making smalltalk is just a little on the awkward side while they're waiting to get to the big subject. Declan wasn't big on beating around the bush, though. "Tell me what you came here to tell me dear." Maybe he was wrong... but you don't make a living reading people by a string of flukes and bad luck. |
![]()
|
| Post #9 Apr 13 2014, 03:39 PM | Defiant |
|
Something stirred just under her skin and suddenly it was as if she could taste everything circling in the air around them. It was a crucial moment and suddenly every detail seemed important. From the smell of the food slowly cooling to the thread that was starting to poke out the shoulder seam of his shirt to the subtle twitches of muscle just beneath his skin. It was all so painfully clear. She finished off her wine as if that would dull her senses. He wanted her to get to the point but the subject matter was just so fragile. Her gaze level on him and she sat back in the chair, crossing her arms and trying to think of a more eloquent way to put things. Nothing came. “I wanted to ask if you’d be Diana’s godfather. Just in case.” Because people like us don’t work 9 to 5. Because people like us don’t get headstones. Cicely didn’t need to give him a reason why. Declan already knew she got involved with a vigilante group bent on cleaning up the city. Not because she was morally sound or had some pre-conceived notion to be a superhero. No, she had her reasons; they just weren’t all good ones. And maybe, just maybe, it’d give him a reason to clean just a tiny bit. Open the damn curtains and let the sunshine in every once and while. |
![]()
She's whiskey in a teacup.
|
|
.:Cicely | Aisling:. ![]() “As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her.” | |
| Post #10 Apr 13 2014, 09:39 PM | Cowboy |
|
The water glass was halfway through its journey back to the table when the words tumbled from her lips like a waterfall. Graceful but dangerous, powerful and serene. Full of promise and disaster. Cicely was many things. Many things, but she was not a fool. She had mulled this over in her head over and over and over, playing chess with herself inside her mind thinking of every possible way he could have reacted to her asking such a thing of him. She would know that, having lost his own daughter, who looked so eerily similar to Diana, this was not just something trivial. This held weight. There were very few chinks in the old mans armor. Very, very few. All his nerve endings had been singed over years, decades lived in countless universes over a thousand lifetimes. He had been berated and emasculated and horrified and tortured in a million worlds. None of it compared to the day he took the spirit of his little girl from her body and let her slip into the afterlife. His gaze fell; for the last few seconds since she'd asked her question, in his silence, his hands had fallen to his lap, fingers playing with the bracelet around his wrist. He hadn't even noticed it until after the fact, at which point he stopped and leveled his gaze back on hers. His jaw set. If she knew that this was no simple ordeal to ask of him, she wouldn't have done so lightly. Not her. She wasn't the type to play with people like that, just to watch them squirm. She was either worried or playing it safe. He knew that she was spending her free time with Mercer's Vanguard. She didn't want to leave Diana without a caretaker, should the worst happen. That much he understood, and since he didn't play with that type, despite her connection with Mercer she knew better than to ask him, who's lifespan was probably shorter than her own at the rate he was going. She needed this, or she wouldn't have asked. It had been quite some time now since she had asked, and his facial features displayed an uncharacteristic array of emotions he'd once thought were safely buried under layers of machismo and liquor, scars and riddles. "What kind of friend would I be if I refused?" Those dark eyes fell down to his plate; half eaten salmon and suddenly found his appetite lacking. His chest rose and fell slowly as he reached, once more, for the water he'd been given. He took another slow breath, a slow sip, and looked back at her, leaning back in his chair with a slow, forced smile on his lips. She had drudged up years of painful memories within a moment, and yet, he would still be there for her. He was too invested in whatever they were to not have her back, through anything. "Why don't you tell me some more about your daughter, Memoire." |
![]()
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
![]() Our users say it best: "Zetaboards is the best forum service I have ever used." Learn More · Sign-up Now |
|
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · Roleplay Archives · Next Topic » |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2




3:04 PM Jul 11
