Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Dec 25, 2016 1:08:53 GMT -7
“One friend?” Blue Jay repeated, startled. He couldn’t quite decide if he should be more surprised that she actually had a friend or that she only had one. Couldn’t be him or Geata unless Aurora was either practicing lying or teasing, and he hadn’t heard of any other supers repeatedly bothering Aurora. Granted, he hadn’t exactly been looking.
“Glad you found someone, at least.” He mused. It’d probably be good for her.
Blue Jay stared down into the hole Aurora had opened, and the resident of the apartment it’d opened up into stared back. It was a nice main room the young woman had, with a fairly messy and loved open kitchen off to the side and an equally loved couch that was now covered in cheerios and milk in the other.
“Right, not stuck.”
It wasn’t what he’d consider the ideal way down, but he wasn’t about to be choosy. Blue Jay calmly paced down into the apartment, avoiding any further eye contact with or acknowledgement of the presence of the occupant in favor of finding her front door. The roof was a bit of an intrusion, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that at the moment. He’d remind Aurora about it the next time he saw her. He crossed the room in front of lady and her television show, unlocked her door, and closed it softly behind him. Stairs were at the end of the hallway.
“I can believe you care about everyone, but I think the irrelevancy is irrelevant for friends. I care about you regardless of if you care about me.” Blue Jay mumbled mostly to himself. But he couldn’t really pick at what she was saying too much while she was half asleep, nor could he really hope to change any opinions. Not that he had much of a chance under normal circumstances.
There was a flight of stone stairs leading downwards, but the old patterned carpet lead directly into the door of an elevator. He could carry Aurora down five flights of stairs without his super powers because he was expecting the cops to show up faster than his sword, or he could cut himself a break for once. The choice was easy. Blue Jay pressed the down button, and waited.
“I guess I will just have to settle for ‘that one asshole who won’t leave you alone’. Means by right of title I can keep annoying you and I can have a guilt-free range of reactions when you do your Auroraisums.” He said, feeling a good bit more cheerful.
The elevator arrived and he stepped in. “I’ll stop bugging you about it.” He pressed the button for the ground floor, and let the machine take it from there.
“I don’t think you hate it,” he continued, gazing upwards at the single dull light bulb lighting the elevator, “but I do think what you’re doing isn’t healthy, and you’re not listening to the people who’re trying to tell you that.”
The elevator stopped on the fourth floor and opened to a man holding a cup of coffee. They made silent eye contact. Blue Jay glared at the man, daring him to step in, until the elevator doors closed and the machine started to rumble and growl again.
He picked up where he left off. “You’re not eating, and you’re definitely not sleeping. I can’t remember the last time I saw you take a break. Why are you pushing yourself so hard? You’re not going to last long like this.”
A chime dinged upon their arrival on the ground level, and the doors slid open to a small lobby with a vending machine and a desk that was probably supposed to be staffed. It’d be best to get to and stick to the darker parts of the docks from here on, and he was going to have to do that as quickly as possible. He’d apologize to his lungs later. Blue Jay took a deep breath and jogged out the front door.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Dec 25, 2016 12:04:03 GMT -7
Aurora would have been offended at how surprised he was that she actually had a friend, but right now she was too tired to do much about it right now. She settled with an irritated grunt. What might be in that building didn't even occur to her when she opened the roof. What was inside didn't register when Blue Jay walked through, though she did notice the change in pace. It meant she wasn't bouncing around quite as much, which was making it harder to stay awake. Her head started to roll off his shoulder before she caught herself and righted it. It continued even after he stepped into the elevator.
"Then what's the problem? When you're in trouble I'll help you, when I'm in trouble you'll help me. Why need more?" She paused and furrowed her brow again. "That's not even a word.
"No, definitely not healthy. Would not recommend. But it's important, so it's worth it. I need to make sure I finish everything, and I don't know how much time I have to finish."
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Dec 25, 2016 23:29:25 GMT -7
“There’s a lot more to relationships than just helping people. Like spending time with them, or experiencing things with them, or learning from them.” Blue Jay huffed as he jogged, due to the jogging. It was not a pleasant feeling, being reminded that he was probably taking something for granted. Nor was growing tired as quickly as he was. He blamed the morning’s sharp air and his sword.
Due in part to the slow decline of her grammar and her head, Aurora didn’t seem like she was going to hold out for much longer. As Aurora falling asleep would leave him in the predicament of either figuring out how to carry whatever else she was still hauling around in her aurora with her or just leaving it wherever it happened to drop, Blue Jay began plotting ways to keep her awake for as long as possible so he could get her to bed as quickly as possible. First he shifted from a sort of very fast speed walk to a bouncing jog. Then he employed the tried and true method of not shutting up.
“You could call that helping each other, too. And it may not be a word, but it’s totally a thing.” He mused. He was very glad base wasn’t too far away.
But it was what she said next that halted all other plans and slowed him to a walk. “What do you mean you don’t know how much time you have?” He asked tentatively.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Dec 25, 2016 23:54:34 GMT -7
"Yes," Aurora nodded forgetting that Blue Jay was there, thus slamming her nose into his shoulder. "That's why I don't want to be friends. Don't want to do more."
The bouncing was unpleasant, but effective. Aurora tried to keep her head down for awhile, but after having her head flop around enough her already sore nose was hitting things again. It was harder to keep her head up, but less painful. The trade off was worth it in this case. Though her head didn't stop bobbing, and sometimes her chin would hit his shoulder.
"I don't even know what you're talking about." Aurora paused for a moment to think about how to explain her unknown time limit. "Dragons. And other things probably, but mostly dragons. Have to fight them, can't let the city be destroyed. But can't always count on winning. Even if we win it doesn't mean I come back."
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Dec 27, 2016 0:55:59 GMT -7
Blue Jay would take Aurora’s nose and chin slamming into his back over her aurora any day, but relief from the sparkle bull wasn’t the main reason he hardly noticed. It was the same reason as to why her rejection, which normally would’ve warranted at least one whining sentence in return, barely registered in his mind.
He stopped on a final hard step, tensing in expectation for a collision as her aurora had trained him. It was only a little farther to the base, but this had to be addressed now. Even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer. The alleyway was silent, and his voice was flat. He had to be sure.
“You’re kidding. Is that the only reason?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Dec 27, 2016 11:16:53 GMT -7
The sudden stop made Aurora's whole body shake. With the bouncing gone, her head flopped onto Blue Jay's shoulder and showed no signs of rising. She had to think about how to respond for awhile so she didn't give the wrong impression. It was the reason she thought about the most, but she wasn't sure if that was the only reason and her current state made it difficult to analyze her motives. She took long enough that it might have looked like she fell asleep. Even she was a little surprised that she didn't.
"Think...it's in my nature. Just not this much normally. Don't want to leave anything unfinished. Cost of failure is too high. Can't let anyone get hurt."
Even while talking she didn't raise her head, it was too hard. Once she finished she kept it there, though it started to roll off his shoulder as she started to doze off again.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Dec 29, 2016 18:48:33 GMT -7
As long as her sparkles weren’t spewing stuff all over the ground, she was still awake, and as long as she was awake, he was going to wait for his answer. Said wait did not help is irritation when she finally did his response.
“Aurora,” He said lowly, elongating several of the vowels in her name. “You’re pushing yourself to the point that you’re trying to fall asleep on your feet outside because you know you have a limited window of time to live and you’re afraid you’re going to have regrets when that time comes.” Blue Jay was wearing an expression akin to if he’d been presented with an 80-page thesis on why the sky was green. With a grunt, he bounced up and readjusted his grip to make sure Aurora was secure, and began off again down the street. “You and me are going to have a conversation about this when you’re more awake, got it?”
As he was coming upon the final block, he cast one more hopeful but ultimately hopeless glance around for his sword. Right, because since he wasn’t in any danger, it could go and show up whenever it damn well pleased. The base and the area directly around it was going to have a higher density of people, and thus him a higher chance of entering a collision course with one of them. The ball of floating light stuff was going to help about as much as his sword. His tactic was going to be a jogging quickly while trying to come up with a conversation topic as means of distracting himself from how tiring jogging was.
The task of getting into the base wasn’t hard. The one of getting through the base without being seen, however, was failed within seconds of opening the door. Mostly because Blue Jay attempted to slam it into the face of a hapless Pandaemonium. He threw a hasty apology over his shoulder, hoped the fellow wouldn’t hold the loss of his jam toast and clean pair of pants against him, and picked his pace up to a run. All further interactions were avoided at any available costs, and all eye contact averted upon that failing. No questions were going to be allowed to be asked, and none that arose were going to be given any answer.
Blue Jay was so occupied by making sure they were avoiding people that he didn’t notice the door of Aurora’s office until he’d nearly passed it. With no small amount of relief, he slowed to a stop and entered the room. He went directly for the closet without any sense of the oddity, and in an effort to keep Aurora awake now that they’d slowed down again, he asked the best thing he’d managed to come up with up until that point.
“Aurora, what’re you going to do if you fail?”
He just needed to find the closet shelf that was also a door, and upon locating something that seemed to fit the bill, gave it a try.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Dec 29, 2016 20:07:30 GMT -7
When Blue Jay made her bounce, Aurora's head bobbed back up and swayed as if she were trying to remember how holding her head up worked. It flopped downward again, only to bob back up because of the bounce in his jog. After a few failed attempts, she managed to keep her head up. She stared blankly ahead of her as she tried to keep her head steady. Trying to make sense of what Blue Jay was trying to say was a lost cause at this point. Didn't she already say that's not what happened?
"There's nothing to talk about," she started mumbling again as her head gradually started falling. It snapped back up once she realized what was happening. "...never happens."
To her it felt like seconds from when they were on the roof until they were in front of her office. During that time, her head flopped backwards instead of falling towards Blue Jay's shoulder. She didn't fall asleep, but she was fading in and out of consciousness. It made her aurora materialize things, only to have those things break back into particles again a moment later. Getting inside the closet registered before his question did. The door had to be pulled open, which wasn't easy considering the amount of clutter both on the shelf and on the floor. She had a system for opening it, which she was too tired to explain properly right now. She tried anyway, but most of her words weren't audible.
"...then pull on the..." She continued babbling for awhile longer until she paused to consider Blue Jay's question. "I'd probably be dead, so not a lot. If not dead then, I'd keep trying so that's not failure right?"
Aurora took all the stuff from her room back home shortly after getting the base. This room was much smaller than her old room, so she had to take some liberties to get everything to fit. Despite it being bright outside, it was dark in the room. From the outside, the curtains made the windows look more like a wall even though most of the outer facing wall was covered with windows. The bed was a fluffy queen sized bed with an ornate wooden bed frame and far too many pillows to be practical. On the far wall, was an equally ornate desk with several book shelves and drawers build into it. The shelves carried what looked like hand written journals, many of which had cheap locks on them. The desk itself had an open area in the middle, but the sides were covered in stacks of spiral and steno notebooks. The spot right in front of the chair was the only empty spot on the whole desk. The chair was a nice rolling chair with a fluffy seat and equally fluffy arm rests. In the back was another door, leading to a private bathroom.
The rest of the room was covered in books. Shelves lined the remaining wall space, all the way from the floor to the ceiling, with several above her desk and bed as well. They were packed with books so tightly that it would be difficult to pull one out. Even with that much space, there were still books stacked on top of the other books in the shelf, and several piles of books on the floor that she couldn't find space for yet. There were a couple of shelves that were meant to be attached to the ceiling that she hadn't gotten around to installing yet, that would hopefully carry some more books, as well as a couple of imitation renaissance paintings that she was pretty sure weren't going to be able to fit in her room at this point. The books themselves were almost entirely non-fiction. The topics covered most anything imaginable, from religion to biology, philosophy to physics, geography, geology, botany, space, matter, architecture, engineering, animal behavior, psychology, and anything else that happened to catch her eye when she went to the library or book store. Right now they were ordered haphazardly, something she would have to fix later, but given this was her personal collection she didn't see it as much of a priority.
"Just...down over there."
She weakly rose her arm to try to indicate her bed, but it didn't even make it past Blue Jay's side. There was a small table with a lamp, an alarm clock, and a sleeping mask on it. On the foot of the bed was a long white nightgown with a small string in the front to tie in front of her neck to prevent it from slipping off her shoulders. They were plain, but she didn't need anything fancy to sleep in.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Dec 30, 2016 1:27:22 GMT -7
Blue Jay elected to ignore Aurora’s vaguely coherent instructions in favor of figuring out the secret door himself. First attempt was ‘just pull the thing open’. A little hard with only one hand, but he was determined. He had not come all this way to be bested by a door.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. And then I died.” He grunted. He gave it a good hard yank, and felt it give. Pulling it the rest of the way open, he added the cursory, “Probably.”
He stepped into Aurora’s probable gate to Narnia, and considered her response. He guessed it really was as simple as she said, but, “That wasn’t really what I meant.” He mumbled, but it was mostly for himself at this point. It was on him for not asking a good question, he knew she’d say. It was, and he could ask again later.
The books were the first thing he saw when he stepped through the threshold. Blue Jay lacked much for circumstantial evidence on this point, but Aurora had always struck him as the book loving type. That she hoarded books like a dragon did gold seemed somehow fitting and probably nickname inducing once he was a little less distracted. It was the bed that murdered his expectations. It was so… fluffy. The chair too, but the size and pillow volume of the bed made it the larger oddity. Aurora was just so pragmatic and precise, he’d assumed she’d have something like a small twin bed with plain white sheets, a down blanket, and maybe a stuffed bear with an eyepatch and a cute name. Or maybe one of those army cots. It was also this that he assumed she was referring to by ‘over there’.
He paced over to the bed, taking care not to step on anything he wasn’t supposed to, and set Aurora down on the edge of the mattress. It was immediate relief; he was pretty fit by virtue of running around and swinging his sword about, but in comparison to what he was used to, once the sword left it felt like it’d turned Aurora into solid gold as a final spite. Now that he’d delivered his follower to the quest objective, all of the wear he’d built up came rushing back in a single reward. A thirty minute break with a soda and a couch was sounding extraordinarily appealing.
Blue Jay took a step away from the bed and tiredly turned towards Aurora. “Need anything else, or are you good from here?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Dec 30, 2016 9:06:43 GMT -7
"You're not dead."
Once she was set down, Aurora wobbled on the bed until she regained her balance. Even then she wasn't steady. She started untying her shoes, and sent her Aurora over to her desk. With the bright light no longer obscuring her face, she looked even more like a zombie. Her eyes were having difficulty focusing on what was right in front of her, and she regularly paused to either regain her balance or think about something. She always recounted the day, what she got done, and what still needed to be done before going to sleep. Sometimes she was able to sleep despite knowing there was something else she should be doing, sometimes she couldn't. She did it all the same. Her aurora dropped off several notebooks, pens, a small collection of knives and other small weapons, her cell phone, various small wires, her first aid kit, her toolbox, and a few other items she always kept with her. Her aurora was nearly gone by the time she got her boots off. The last thing in it were the metal parts of her shoes, which she put on the ends of her boots once she took them off. She set them down neatly next to the end table and removed her mask.
Normally she'd be more concerned about doing that in front of other people, but she was too tired to consider that right now. Her features were sharp, and there were freckles dotting her cheeks and nose. Most notably were the dark bags under her eyes. They were nearly black. Aurora set her mask on the end table and reached for her sleeping mask. Before she could grab it, she froze and stared forward, looking like she just realized she left the oven on.
"I didn't restock the fridge or water the plants."
Both were minor tasks that she'd been putting off in favor of more important things, but they could only go unaddressed for so long. There probably would be enough food to last until tomorrow, but she knew they were running low on a few popular items. Those would probably not last until she could go shopping. Keeping morale and her approval rating high was important given the circumstances. The plants would start to wither and die if they weren't watered for too much longer. She wasn't sure if she wanted to risk that. She blinked slowly a few times, her eyelids feeling so heavy that she was having difficulty opening them again after, then reached for her normal mask.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Dec 31, 2016 0:45:15 GMT -7
No, he wasn’t dead, but that was somewhat besides the point. Sleepy Aurora seemed to take his words even more literally than normal Aurora, which was saying something and would probably be useful information if he ever ran into her like this again. Since he was going to believe and do everything in the little power instilled in him to keep this from happening again, however, he was going to consider it unnecessary.
At this point, Blue Jay was mostly just milling around her room, absently reading the titles of her books to make sure there wasn’t anything else she needed or another thing to go wrong. When he cast a glance back at her, suddenly she was taking off her mask. Blue Jay froze, stifling a yelp and a jump with an open mouth stare. Wasn’t Aurora super tight with her identity? She seemed to put a grudge on you if you shared your identity with her, but sharing her own? He wondered if he was supposed to look away and swiftly flee the premises or something.
By the time the thought to do so arrived in his mind and his legs began working again, it was too late. He’d already gotten a good look, and if there was anything shock was good at, it was burning memories into one’s mind. No point in leaving now.
It was a good thing he didn’t. They’d just done what felt like several errands and she was already coming up with more things to do. Aurora seemed absolutely determined not to see to those bags under her eyes, and it wasn’t good for either of their healths. Blue Jay marched over to the side of her bed and caught her forearm in a light grip.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll take care of the plants and fridge for you if you go to sleep now. Deal?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Dec 31, 2016 1:11:42 GMT -7
If she wasn't so tired she would have been more concerned about Blue Jay seeing her face. However, in her sleepy state it didn't seem important. It was unlikely he would even recognize her because of how much effort she put into making her maskless super self look different from her civilian self. Even if he did recognize her, it was even less likely that he would do anything with that information. It was such a non-issue that it didn't even register in her mind right now.
When he grabbed her hand, Aurora was more annoyed that her arm suddenly couldn't reach her mask and tried to adjust accordingly. It wasn't until she leaned forward a bit that she realized that the reason she couldn't reach it anymore wasn't because she was too far away, but because she was being grabbed. She furrowed her brow and looked up at him while she tried to figure out what to do about this. That expression gave way to a more thoughtful one when he said he'd take care of it. It didn't sit well with her that he was saying that to get her to do something, but she recognized it was different. She couldn't figure out why it was different right now, but she could tell it was. Even if he was only doing it to get her to go to sleep, she had little reason to doubt that he would actually do it. The tasks themselves were simple too, so there was no reason to think that he couldn't do them. After a moment's thought, she nodded. Then, she stopped resisting. She didn't even bother laying back down, she just closed her eyes and let her body fall backwards onto her bed. Her legs were still hanging off the bed, and she wasn't in the most comfortable of positions, but she was so tired that her body didn't even care. She was asleep before her head even hit the bed.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Jan 1, 2017 0:53:54 GMT -7
Blue Jay didn’t know what else to do but let go. She had… certainly held to her end of the bargain quickly. He sighed, rubbed the back of his head, and tried to decide if he should be concerned that she literally fell asleep or relieved that it was finally over and she was finally sleeping. Probably a bit of both.
But like that she was going to get a kink in her back and neck and maybe shoulder and then she was going to be more grumpy, he realized absently. He didn’t really think about it; autopilot kicked in and he picked up her legs, moved her so she had a pillow and wasn’t drowning in the rest, and pulled a blanket over her in case the electrical company cut the power again and the heat didn’t turn back on.
He was about to head off to figure out where all the plants were and what food was missing, and had turned to do so, when he remembered he’d actually been looking for Aurora earlier. Her clawing her way towards base with a metal pole in sun form had just taken a bit of precedence.
He wandered over to her desk. Through the trip his shoulder bag had taken a bit of a beating - albeit not as bad as his sweatshirt, which was now worn enough at the sleeves to show bits of the body armour he’d begun wearing underneath - but it would walk it off. He did a brief check to make sure everything inside was fine - it was - before pulling out one of the two cardboard tubes inside. Each end was topped with a little round metal lid, and at the base was written, “Merry (late) Christmas, -Blue Jay” in his handwriting when he bothered to make it nice. Inside was a rolled copy of the map of the docks he’d drawn, printed on the large shiny paper at the library instead of the messy drafting stuff he actually drew it on.
He leaned it against her chair. Casting one last glance back to make sure she she wasn’t going to rise as a vampire, thus explaining her lack of sleeping, he left quietly, pulling the shelf door shut and the closet door closed behind it.
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