Iwaku SHATTERED - Redux

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[size=+1]"The long hours are jus' gonna fly by w'th you, aren't they?"
The irrational thought to drag the good doctor to the edge of the fragment and chuck him off it briefly enters my mind, but I brush it aside; aggravating as he is, Doctor Surgeon is a useful asset to keep around. I look down to the sleeping figure I'm kneeling next to. Their name's on the tip of my tongue… but keeps escaping me. Another side-effect of our mysterious change of locale, I guess.

The growling sound snaps me out of my musing and fixes my attention on the doctor. He's looming over one of the survivors, and I catch the glint of a scalpel in his hand.

Can't leave him alone for five fucking minutes, can I?

I can vaguely remember the woman he's 'helping'; we dragged her aboard whilst she was unconscious, if memory serves. She's not sounding too thrilled by the doctor's attempts to operate upon her, going by the snarling.
"Doctor, ah sa'd 'get them back on the'r feet', not 'take a fuck'n blade to them'. Put tha' scalpel back 'fore somebody gets hurt."

The tone of my voice does a little more than just imply that it'll be me doing the hurting.

You have to take a firm hand with sociopaths.[/size]
 
A doctor is never surprised, He knows exactly what he means to.

Or is it that he arrives exactly when he means to?

Or is that a wizard?

Regardless, when the scar-girl, affectionately named Stitchy, lashed out at him, the Doctor did not dodge the scything claws. Instead they grasped into his shoulder caught the edge of his beak and spun the mask sideways, turning it just upward enough to reveal a human mouth, scowling, brown hair softly crossing pale skin like a blanket. Reaching up with one hand, he straightened the mask again, standing away from the hissing girl and cocking his head at Aeolus.

"Hurt? Again, faux captain, I must point out that you're feeling addled again. I'm a doctor, I do not hurt, I help." He shook his head, disappointed in her grasp of reality, "I am beginning to worry about you." Turning back to Chanter, he inverted his fingers into a v beneath his mask, a smile, hopefully to calm her down. It really wouldn't do to have her lashing about when he needed to examine her stitchings. "Besides," he said to Aeolus without looking at her, "We do not know the extent of health our occupants possess. We are missing quite a number of survivors. Who's to say that one of them hasn't been cannibalizing on the others while we slept in torpor? We may be the lucky lottery of survivors...or maybe their injuries from an earlier crash in the desert have become infected. We can't know till we know. Now hush, I'm trying to communicate with Stitchy."


Crouching down to her level, Doctor Surgeon put away the scalpel and held out both hands, put them together, put them to the side of his head, mimed sleeping, then mimed cutting stitches. "Hiss" He said, "Hiss hiss hiss. Hiss hiss hiss? HISS. Hiss hiss hiss hiss."

Then paused, and stared at her.

What if someone stitched the brain of a cat into a girl's head?

It would mean two things.

A. There was a genius to congratulate.

and

B. He'd need to start learning how to speak cat.
 
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A point appeared in the world of IWAKU, a perfect zero dimensional mathematical point. It traced out, clockwise, a rectangle of zero width. The rectangled opened into the third dimension, a black abyss from which a dessicated, shrivelled body plopped out. The rectangle lost its third dimension and untraced itself, closing the dimensional rift between IWAKU and limbo.

"Ugh .. " The creature thought this onomatopoeia of frustration and pain, for its vocal chords were rusted shut. Its eyes swivelled in their sockets, seeking. A day, a week passed until a rat perchance wandered in front of it, for its body was not rotting, but just a mummy and held no allure for scavengers. They locked eyes; the rat's glowed red, and it dragged itself, trembling, against its will into the mummy's mouth.

Rastul stood up and stretched, "Nnnnnnh ... !" an accompanying symphony of cracks and pops from joints not moved in an eon. He punched both fists into the air, a torrent of shadows drained from nearby objects fountaining up. His nostrils and whites of eyes flared, and his grin was a sawtoothed crescent moon.

rulhap.jpg
rulohno.jpg


The smile flipped upside down. He fell to one knee, then the next, coughing, retching, grabbing his throat and throwing up slick, irisdescent worms. They were thinner than hair, but the sheer amount of them made their collective motions look like a swarm of maggots. The shadows he tossed up impacted the ground, rippling like a giant sheet of rubber. They leapt onto his body, but were almost immediately thrown off, splattering against the ground with great force. Tendrils extended from the sludge, reaching for him, but they never made it, dropping lifelessly onto the ground. The vampire ceased his writhing and lay still on the ground for a long time.

Eventually he stirred, rousing himself from the black mud that he had kicked up in his frenzy, a panicked pig. He limped toward a nearby pool of water, spider silk strands of shadow clinging to his body, snapping as they were over tensioned and falling back into the bubbling pool. Small waves disturbed the shadowed surface, drawn by the residual magnetism emanating from his body.

He glanced at the still surface. A stranger in stranger clothes glanced back. The stranger reached up, bemusedly fingering the mole just below his left eye. An unbelieving chuckle bubbled from the corner of his mouth - the stranger did the same. He threw his head back, arched his back, arms dangling at his sides, and let loose a wild roar, birds lifting off from a nearby tree against the sunset. The stranger mimicked the dramatic conclusion to the dream ---

"Hargh!" Rul - I - start awake. Where am I? A glance around tells me that I am in a dusty bar. My legs are crossed, I am reclined in a cushiony seat and my head is cupped in my hand. Something wet is creeping down my cheek, but it is cold. The tip of my gloved finger picks up the red moistness of blood - apparently my dream was horrifying enough to make me cry. A musical chime sounds on the table, an ice cube shifiting in the glass of tomato juice sitting on a wet coaster. I toss it back with only the slightest hint of irony. Though I do not need much nutrition, it is mostly food for the voracious worms in my body. The canteen fastened to my hip jangled when I reached for the glass, reminding me of my commitments. My cheek feels crusty, so I wipe it with a paper towel. The blood is crumbled and black, yet another hint at my ... chronic condition.

All in all, not really a great way to wake up. A few coins are tossed down in payment and I push myself up from my seat to walk outside. As I exit, I throw my will at the shadow of the door. It jiggles slightly, but does not obey me. The sun casts fiery red rays into my face. It still bothers me, but it doesn't really bother me. You know?
 

Much like being buried beneath the crushing weight of dirt, pressing every limb down to the ground, the slumber felt like an enormous blanket over the body. The heavy feeling in her body was difficult to resist, the soporific feeling of being pressed down and unable to move was hard to overcome, but her mind began to wake. The thoughts sprung like fire, unbidden, flickering and enflaming until she couldn't stand to be still any longer.

Na'ava inhaled sharply, sucking the air in as though she had just surfaced from nearly drowning. Her eyes fluttered open and she sat bolt upright, her eyes darting around the ship, trying to remember what happened before she slept. The memories came slowly back, reminding her of how she fled the burning town with the others and ended up on this ship. She hoped that those memories were just another dream, though that hope seemed less likely as she took in the forms that were slowly coming into focus. The others, then, had also survived. She scowled, remembering that some of them had been less than pleasant travel companions.

Though the rest seemed not to have yet noticed Na'ava, she had certainly taken notice of them. One of them appeared to be going after another with the scalpel and she remembered the one wielding the scalpel as a vexing person to be around. The person he was intimidating with it seemed to be in agreement. Groggily, Na'ava took to her feet, feeling as though the dirt she'd felt buried beneath had migrated to her head and was causing a dull pain. There was a discussion going on, something about changelings and faeries. Who was she to disagree with such things?

"What are we doing now?" she asked, her voice hoarse. She didn't even know if the others would hear her. She was unsteady on limbs that seemed to have forgotten what their function is and her lungs still seemed a bit deflated. She moved with little grace to be nearer to those already awake, to try and discern what they were going to do, whether they would wait for the rest who might have succumbed without fight to the sleep or if they would forge onward to get out of this forsaken place.
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The sound of faraway voices gradually drew close and Lucille willed herself awake. As the brightness filtered past her blinking eyes, she took a sharp breath, and although reluctant to leave her dreamy state, rose from the ground. When she came to and looked around, there was confusion in her eyes. Where am I? What happened..? Who.. So many questions pricked at her mind. She looked over to see Aeolus, the strange woman from earlier, the one who had been piloting the ship...

It all came back all of a sudden, in a thrilling, sort of rush. Surfing over the crowd, escaping, and watching as people suffered, left behind. Even with the tragedy that begged her to cry, Lucille was surprised at how thankful she felt to still be alive. She was glad to be able to look down at her hand and bend her fingers. With each curl of a finger, she felt a pang of desperation, an urging to remember those left behind, the faces in the crowd. She could not erase them from her mind. With a thoughtful nod, she attempted to stand. It took a few moments of stumbling until she regained her balance. Her mind was still slow to catch up, causing her to trip over the next unconscious body as she ambled towards the others in motion.

There was the ship's pilot, the strange woman with her weird way of speaking. And the masked doctor. A familiarity to his mask suggested that she might have caught a glimpse of him in town earlier.

After a bit of standing, she was struck by a sudden dizziness. She sat down, putting a hand to her head and looked around. Bodies of the others survivors lay randomly across the area. Would the others awaken soon? Would they remember? Should she try to wake them? She turned to Aeolus for commands. Or perhaps the Doctor could tell her what to do. What happened, she wanted to ask, but instead, "What can I do?"
 
An ocean: it consumed Acqua's drifting body. In the deep blue, sapphire eyes pierced through. Gazing at the descending youth was a young man, adorned with armor. Without notice, she found herself gazing at this man in the waters of a river. The prompt realization that this man was her reflection caused her alarm, only to realize that it did not point at its creator in horror. A heavy beat seemed to assail her ears, between which the river seemed to murmur. The man in the river mouthed words, but none reached Acqua's ears before she suddenly found herself in the ocean's grip.

Darkness was too hard to beat. Along every inch of her body, an unbearable pressure weighed her down. But to her joy, lights began dancing around her. A sensation of rising welled up. The water's obscurity weakened. Her necklace's sapphire burst with a cool hue. An unknown force jerked her from the water.

Then came reality. Ripped from the vista of splendid sunlight on the waves, she found herself sitting up in the ship that housed other survivors. Her disorderly mane and necklace erupted with an aquamarine light upon the area, shedding light on those who were already becoming agitated by one another. A force within her assaulted her with lyrics, each line a firework waiting to explode. Though lights blared from the little songbird, their owner's voice seemed to leave her, unable to voice the chant coursing through her. Some dizzy attempts made to get up resulted in returning to her knees, unable to get a hold of her body.

After a matter of seconds, Lucille's youthful voice snapped some focus back into Acqua's picture of her surroundings. She struggled up from the ground, her hair and necklace fading to a pale pink. A few attempts to sing having failed her during her awakening, she forwent interaction and surveyed the people around her.

Summary: Acqua has some weird dream about a blue-haired man and the ocean and wakes up from it in a weird trance with her hair and necklace all lit up brightly. After Lucille's question cuts her out of it, she struggles onto her feet.
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A mask of black was her only protection. Mocking her disguise, Blu circled the bearer of his old master's necklace from above. Her parasol shielding her spell from sunlight, she continued along the market place, her dark attire fading into the hustle and bustle of the crowd. Though most rushing by seemed to fade in her sapphires, a particular woman caught them. Accompanying her was an owl. Without leads on the necklace she kept hidden, Natalie figured that the woman and her pet would at least be a start to finding out about the necklace. She let a few people in between the owl-owner and herself, as to not make her pursuit
so obvious.

Summary: Natalie's following Zen somewhat stealthily, wondering if her owl or she has information regarding the necklace and/or the singer that appears in it.
 
While the warrior monk ignored her hunger, her owl couldn't. The small soft thing fluttered silently off of Zen's shoulders, gliding over the shacks of the market place. Up there, Tian could see the variety of people and colors; his ears were at peace, no longer assaulted by the sounds of activity. He was nocturnal by nature, but since Zen had taken to traveling during the day, he adjusted.

The owl wasn't gone for very long. He returned with a small cricket in its beak and swallowed it whole. Zen turned and smiled fondly at it, running the side of her finger against its belly. Onlookers gave her weary looks - her robes were scarlet and orange, close to the colors worn by the recruiters. The woman knew the citizens were making their comparisons, she knew she looked like the preachers. While apprehensive she didn't allow the emotion to show on her face. Show fear and everyone knows you are vulnerable.

Instead she walked, and kept walking until a sight met her eyes.

A little girl was begging at a street corner, her rags hanging off of her small frame. She was worse off than Zen, whose ribs were clearly defined against her skin. In the girl's hands was a cracked bowl which she kept shoving in everyone's face. No adult begged with the child, but even still, people passed by her, refusing to look her way. Zen even saw irritation in their eyes. Seeing this made the monk's stomach clenched painfully. Without hesitation, Zen walked to her, purpose filling her strides.

"If you can start a fire, I can give you some food," she said, lifting her satchel off of her shoulder.

The child looked grateful, but Zen didn't see the expression. The woman was scooping rice into the bowl, tight lipped. Not only was fire needed to make the rice edible, but she also needed water. Unfortunately the monk never traveled with a canteen of it. Frustrated with herself, she cast her eyes about to look for a source.​
 
[size=+1]"Who the fuck taught ye' beds'de manner?" I snarl, finally losing my patience, "the Gr'm Reaper?! Leave that g'rl alone 'fore ah do you some damage." Doctor he may apparently be, but it seems complex things like common courtesy and knowing when someone doesn't want a scalpel waved in their face are lost on him.

Lucky me; I'm the one who has to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't attempt to forcibly attach gills onto everyone who's still sleeping.

Another survivor seems to have come to amidst the commotion; Na'ava, I think her name is.
"What are we doing now?" she asks in a voice almost as hoarse as mine.
"Ah'll let you know when ah f'gure that one out myself," I reply, "Are you alr'ght?" If the rest of them are feeling like I am, that's a fairly pointless question, but I need to make sure anyway.

Suddenly the figure I'm kneeling next to starts to come back to the land of the living as well, and her name suddenly remerges in my mind. Lucille.

Wait, no. That doesn't sound right. Wasn't it something else?

Yet no other name pops into my head; as far as I'm aware this girl is called Lucille, even though some small part of me screams that this isn't right. Slowly she rises to her feet before wobbling, her legs starting to give out from under her. "Careful there, g'rl," I say gently as I help her sit back down. She looks up at me.
"What can I do?" she asks, and I can't help but smile. The girl's got heart; she's just coming to with the headache from hell and yet her first concern is for the others.
"You can stay where you are just now an' let your head settle, Luc'lle," I inform her, "Ah'll worry about the others."

Nearby another is starting to get to her feet; Acqua, the singer from Rift Town. Rising to my feet I approach her; best make sure she's alright as well. "Welcome back t'the land of the l'v'n. How are ye feel'n?"

Another stupid question. Fuck, I need to get my head back on straight.

I'm sure Doctor Surgeon could do it. Literally, and for a nominal fee.[/size]


[size=+1]The two figures cut a metaphorical swathe through the crowded marketplace, a grubby, shabbily-clad Red Sea parting before them.

Gas masks cover their faces, hiding their features behind a façade of filtration systems and thermal lenses. Their androgynous forms are clad in suits, pristinely crafted and maintained. This is finery that is never seen in the wastelands of Iwaku; the locals of Fragment City have no idea what to make of it. They stride through the crowd with purpose, their steps in sync, paying no heed to the staring faces that surround them.

One merchant decides that this is too good an opportunity to pass up and steps in front of them in an attempt to hawk his wares. He's barely managed to get out the first few syllables of his sales pitch before he's been knocked back into his stall by the figure on the left, a single arm snapping out to sending the merchant reeling away.

No-one else dares to try and intercept them as they move through the shops and stalls.

Passing through the marketplace, they steer themselves down towards the seedier side of the upper-tier; not quite the lawlessness of lower-tier, but authority is far more lax in these regions. Junkies and dealers, gangs and sneak-thieves. The underbelly of Fragment City. Not a safe place to walk, but the two figures are not stopped or troubled. The locals of this region have good survival instincts.

They know superior predators when they see them.

Together the pair moves through the labyrinth of ruined buildings and shanty-housing, expertly navigating the winding and misleading route. They know exactly where they're headed, even if no-one else does. Soon enough their destination comes into sight; a building, still in some modicum of repair, resting amidst the rubble and ruin of the city around it. Two heavily-set guards stand outside it, guarding the doorway with their weaponry in full display.

When the masked figures come into sight one ducks inside, off to let whoever's inside know of their arrival. The remaining guard almost manages to keep his face expressionless as the two stride towards him, but the fear is noticeable none-the-less. The pair pays him no heed as they enter.

Inside is a single vast, dusty room, with tables and chairs scattered about the place amidst the rubble from crumbling walls and a broken ceiling. A crude stencil of an eye has been sprayed onto the less damaged wall in red paint. The second guard ducks inside after the pair, making the headcount inside four people. The two guards, their pointed ears, lupine facial features and heavy-set forms marking them as Shifters, a young woman with hair dyed crimson and spiked into a mohawk, and a heavily-muscled and bearded man with a Norse tattoo design etched on his face, clad in leathers.

A few feet away from the door the suited pair come to a stop, facing the bearded man directly.
"Operative Agnar Westbrook?" the masked figure on the left asks. It's a voice without gender, without emotion; dry, cold and matter-of-fact. The bearded man rises from his chair with a nod.
"Aye, that's me."
"We are here to transport the package." There's suddenly an ominous silence pervading through the room as Agnar looks from the girl to the two guards with an expression that's barely holding back panic.
"We are here to transport the package," the suited figure on the right repeats; it has the same empty voice that emanates from it's partner.

Again there is silence for a moment, before Agnar finally speaks up.
"There's been an issue with the package."
"Please clarify," states Lefty. Agnar clears his throat and looks around nervously.
"The, uh… the issue is that we don't have it. It's gone."
"Please clarify," echoes Righty in the exact same tone.
"Gone. Stolen. Missing. That clarified enough for you?" These freaks are making Agnar nervous, a fact that disturbs him out in-and-of itself. He hasn't been scared in a long time; a gunslinger and mage shouldn't need to feel such an emotion.

For what feels like an age, there is nothing but silence. Lefty and Righty continue to seemingly stare at Agnar.
"This is unacceptable." Lefty's the one to finally break the spell.
"The package is of extreme importance," Righty clarifies, "you were told failure would not be tolerated."

Agnar suddenly finds his courage again. He's a Viking, goddammit, he served under Lord Torstein; he doesn't need to take this shit from these creeps. From his hip he draws a massive pistol and levels it at the suits. The girl beside him drags up a shotgun and the two guards begin to transition from human to animal form.
"Well, you're just gonna have to fucking tolerate it, aren't you?"

It's a stand-off now, but if the suits are in any way perturbed by it they don't show it. Agnar and his crew have their eyes fixed upon them, anticipating what their next move might be. He knows he's got the drop on them now; if they so much as move he'll blow them the fuck away, right back to--
"Your services are no longer required." It's a statement issued by Lefty; an ultimatum.

The suits speak no more words.

They let their actions speak for them.

Faster than should be possible, Lefty has reached into it's jacket pocket and withdrawn something, flinging it into the air with a casual toss. Something small and cylindrical. Before Agnar can squeeze the trigger the device has detonated, a burst of Cyclic energies blasting through the room. The mohawk-sporting girl is blown off her feet by the force of it, shotgun discharging wildly as she falls. The Shifters don't even get the chance to rush the duo; they're on the ground and writhing in agony, their forms suddenly transitioning painfully back to their human forms.

Agnar's knocked off his feet by the blast too. He's felt this sensation before, a long time ago. This is Binding energies, powerful and absolute; the harsh laws of reality are in effect now, and magics have no place here. He goes to raise his weapon but the suits are already moving, silenced pistols in their hands.

Their weapons discharge with muffled clicks, blasting Parabellum through both the girl's head and Agnar's throat. The Viking bleeds out quietly on the dusty floor as his assassins swing around in simultaneous, fluid motion, executing the writhing Shifters where they lie.

Four bullets, and the occupants of the room are suddenly down to two.

The pistols are returned to their holsters underneath suit jackets and the duo are moving once again, this time towards the corpse of Agnar. They are silent once again, moving in perfect unison. Both kneel down next to the body and Righty withdraws a cable from his jacket with a long, thin bladed tip. Without a word it drives the tip into Agnar's ear, a brutal crunching sound emanating out as cartilage is pierced.

Minutes pass as the pair crouch next to the corpse, before Righty finally tugs the blade out from Agnar's head and wipes it off on the viking's leathers before returning it to his jacket. Then they're up and moving again, this time towards the door.

They do not have what they came for, but they have a lead.

They know who took the documents they were sent to retrieve, and it is their intention to find him.

A pair of mysterious figures clad in immaculate suits and gas masks briefly pass through the market before disappearing into the labyrinth that is Fragment City. They're looking for a 'package', the the people who fail to deliver it are dealt with decisively. They seem to know who took the documents.

And they are coming after him.
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"Hiss hiss hiss. Hiss hiss hiss? HISS. Hiss hiss hiss hiss."

My eyes widened at first, and then narrowed to slits as I realized exactly what he was doing. Scowling, I shoved at his beak- or rather the beak of his mask, for I hadn't missed the reveal of a very human mouth beneath- and slid further away.

"Chanter." The word escaped my lips like gravel through a loose sieve. "Don't... call me... Stitchy."

The walls were spinning, but I could see several forms standing now. Three women, none of which I knew, and a myriad of still bodies scattered across the floor. Was he here? Had anyone ever answered me? It felt that the more I slept, the less I could ever remember. This time, though... Something was different about this time... Just thinking about it, my skull was splitting in two. I clapped a hand to my temple, my claws receding rapidly to make up for the stores my body lacked. I needed to eat something, and soon.

[SIZE=+1]"Leave that g'rl alone 'fore ah do you some damage."[/SIZE] The accent was so thick that I could barely make sense of the words, but it clicked that I was being protected. Why? No one protected anyone without wanting something back; I'd learned that long ago. I could see that in the scissors that the so-called doctor was pantomiming at me. So why had I been brought there? Why were threats being made on my behalf?

I didn't trust it.

Maybe I could ask him, as soon as I found him.

I crawled toward the nearest sleeper, not quite turning my back on Doctor Surgeon.
 
Drifting.

Pain.

Confusion.

Weightlessness.

There was a voice, soft and feminine. The words muffled beyond comprehension. A faded memory revisited in the darkness. A hand reached out and Raziel took it. The fingers remained limp against his palm and he followed the arm with his eyes and his lips parted in a silent scream and he pushed it away, the severed limb turning slowly in the featureless void that surrounded him.

Echos.

There were voices, indiscernible yet all around him. He was floating and soon more gore around him. The top half of the torso trailing organs spinning slowly, crystalline droplets of red floating lazily after it. That's when he felt it, his arm splitting, the lowed down to see the skin parting as is an invisible knife were cutting into it.

No it wasn't his arm, it was slimmer, longer, but it hurt all the same. Then his stomach opened and he closed his eyes wishing it would stop, the pain. It felt like and angry angel were mutilating him and then… his nose…

Skin and cartilage parted and he scream loudly his hand moving to clutch his face.


He woke with a start his hands coming up to bat an invisible force away from his face his hand slapping against his skin before he realized he was on the hard steel floor instead of weightless in nothing. His arms dropped to his side and breathing heavily he looked up at the rust-covered ceiling and became aware of someone over him. The girl with stitches and behind her the doctor. He also became aware of a sharp ache running in a line across his face and rubbing the sleep from his eye he propped himself up with his hand and trying to shake the dream from his head reached out to the closest thing he could see, the girl. She was awake at least, and wasn't trying to kill him. "Good to see you're awake." He said trying to find something better to say blinking to see of it helped east the pain. "Sorry about…" his eyes went to her hairline where he had… done... something. Damn this foggy head and thinking wasn't making the pain any less. The groaned and rubbed where the pain was concentrated. "I didn't get your name…"

No this was no good, more pain was flaring up and his hand was shaking slightly as hi put it in him lap so no one would see. "Doc, do you have any more painkillers?" he didn't mean to snap, he really didn't but the strangeness of the dream and... He sighed again, the deep breath that went with it meant to calm him. "Please?"

 
"I'm fine," murmured XC when he was offered the styrofoam box of steaming hot food that had just been bought from the vendors outside. The hard, callused hands, the mark of someone who has done labour and perhaps even had blood on his hands all his life of the thug pulled away the box and he sat in his chair, shrugging. It merely meant that now there was going to be more food for himself. XC was hungry, but he just didn't really trust the food that Paul would buy. Paul always opted for the weirdest sort of foods, and even though the stuff in the box had been piping hot XC swore he saw something wriggle in there.

He shuddered.

Pulling out a flask of purified water - a rare commodity, since you couldn't trust most of the water sources you see around these days, XC took a small sip from it. He didn't want it to run out too fast. He had a job protecting Isaac Tyrone, a gang boss and it paid quite well, especially when they eliminated a threat. With the power of Excalibur, threats were always eliminated quickly and efficiently.

The monitor that was linked directly to Isaac's own, that detected his heartbeat suddenly went flat. I jumped to my feet - what the fuck was going on? Assassin? There couldn't be. The security system encompassed everything from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Aside from your standard state-of-the-art burglar alarms and laser tripwires, there were enough hexes and curses and whatever spells in place to blow a small army to bits. Very small bits.

When all four of us arrived in the Eden that had been integrated into the tower, we found his body.

There the man was. Slumped in his chair.

Dead.

The body was still warm. The spells, the security system was in place.

Isaac had died of old age. Not an assassin.

"Wow. Dead, huh?" asked Paul, running a hand over his bald scalp. I turned around and frowned at him, sarcastically saying, "No, no. Totally alive. Because that's what alive people do, right? Sit there, in a chair, hanging limply, heartbeat gone." I shook my head and out of habit I reached out to check for a pulse. Nope. No pulse.

Very dead.

This would be trouble. A power vacuum. Isaac didn't name a successor. He had a number of lieutenants that would jump at the chance to get the top spot, and that would be a lot of trouble. Trouble that I could not profit from. I'm only young. Barely nineteen, and even if I managed to take power through Excalibur I wouldn't be able to lead. I wouldn't know what to do with the gang and it would probably all break apart in weeks, give it a month at most.

Isaac had treated me well during the time I was part of his gang but practicality was priority here.

Before I thought more something caught my eye - an empty journal book on the floor. It looked like it had been open when it had fallen, judging from the way it rested. But it was blank. He never knew that someone like Isaac kept a journal - it made sense; a man like him would have had to find something to confide in, if he couldn't have found someone that he trusted enough to confide to. But the journal was blank. Lifting the pages to my nose I sniffed it, and I could smell ... Ink. This was certainly weird. While Paul busied himself with phonecalls to the more senior lieutenants, men that Isaac had accorded the most meagre amounts of trust to I slipped the journal into a pocket in my hoody. The other two men were inspecting the body, willing to avenge their leader if he had truly been assassinated and not missing any clue.

"Guys?"

The men who had been milling about in the room called back at different speeds and volumes, "Yeah?"

"Take care of the body and whatever, will you?"

"Where are you going?" one of them had asked.

"Away."

Without waiting for a reply from him, I dashed out from the room and into the same web of sunlight that Azazel and Meds had vanished into.

Minutes later XC found himself in the city. He pulled his hoodie over his head and zipped it up to his chin. Excalibur was wrapped in bandages and he clutched it to his chest.
 
Words: flooding her mind, but still control of her tongue eluded her. From within and from those speaking around her they poured in. Of many tongues, they flowed and gathered in her mind until they became her own. She noticed the makeshift leader of the group approach her. She appeared friendly, though Acqua had a fear that she wouldn't be able to respond. All the meanwhile, a vast emptiness seemed to gnaw at her, making her expression all the more unreadable, like a fae stripped of her wings, doomed to an unfulfilled life on the ground. Hints of light seemed to poke through her thoughts before fading back into streams of words.

"Welcome back t'the land of the l'v'n. How are ye feel'n?" Aeolus' thick accent plopped into her mind like pebbles falling into water.

At first, her mind played around with the accent. It was quite odd, really, the way she chopped up syllables. The fancier tongues giggled for a few seconds before letting it join the slew of others. All the meanwhile, Acqua gave Aeolus a blank stare. After replaying it a couple times in her head, Acqua at last understood the question. Words began to flare red in her mind, the stream turning into a flow of lava. How is a doe to feel when her forest's been set ablaze, her comrades robbed by Night's wolves? Was she happy to still be standing here, starving to death while she watched fate creep upon those around her? A creature of such grace would not divulge such questioning, especially if it were harmful to a group with such low morale already. A couple tries with her mouth resulted in no sounds, but she managed to utter a response following them.

"Su--I'm fine." She stated without much conviction. "How're th'others? Any idea where we're now?"

Summary: Acqua responds that she's fine after some delay due to processing what Aeolus was saying, and then asks about the other people and the ship's current location.
 
It was not uncommon.

There were three types of sand in Fragment City, as any child was taught. The first was desert sand, that commonplace debris composed from weathering. Then what the locals termed Cookie Dust, a residue of bone and ash that floated in from calamaties far and forgotten. And then there was the third dust, the ghost dust, the dust you couldn't see. The dust that came with whispers of what you were and might have been.

Degradation, Death and Conscience: enough to make any man shield his flesh. So it was that most folk of Fragment City covered their faces.

It was not uncommon.

So Azazel went like any other through the streets of the lower tier, a heavy coat where flesh should be. He moved slowly and left no footprints. But none had time to notice. And any who did look to where his feet were would instead be drawn to the beautiful kitten that sauntered alongside. Meds kept the pace, occasionally skipping in circles or stopping to sniff as Azazel caught up. The cat was restless, but respected its master's tentative gait.

This was their first time outside in over ten years. They had almost forgotten the sand, the lifelessness beyond the garden. They had almost forgotten how to live without Isaac.

Now and then, Azazel would turn the hood of his coat to regard a merchant or washer-woman, a wastelander or whore. He was searching. It was all he knew. Since first awareness, over a century ago, he had been possessed by nought but a singular urge: a singular memory of a mission and purpose. He was meant to find people. People of will and means. People fit to shape the sands and change the world. That was why the kitten was with him and why he could sense these kernel of human intentions.

This was why he was here. This was all he knew.

"Mrow!" It was a level meow, neither question nor exclamation - a meow of certainty, a meow that indicated knowledge. Meds had stopped at the junction ahead and was looking across the street, one paw held up mid-tread. Azazel drifted, slowly, and drew up to follow his companion's gaze.

Ah yes. There we are.

Shadow and kitten watched as Zen began cooking the rice for the beggar child. It was like some fantastical mirror had been placed across the street, mirroring Azazel and Meds with Zen and the girl. A pair of robed curiosities and a pair of innocents. This pleased Azazel. For long minutes he regarded the beautiful scarlet of Zen's robes, and the contrast between high cheekbones and shaven head. The woman was as intriguing as the sword she carried.

And, most telling of all... she smelled of delicacy. Not in her body, but in the thread-bare balance she had set within herself. There was an equilibrium at work, between anger and discipline, between the trappings of freedom and the afflictions of duty.

Yes. It would be Zen. Azazel would approach the monk and determine her journey. And then he would as--

"MROW!" Azazel's reflection was cut short as Meds dashed across the street, between the legs of merchants and beggars, before jumping onto a stall, skittering along a wall, and pouncing claws-first at Zen. Or... more precisely... at her owl.

There was a yowl and screech as kitten and owl collided, then fur and feathers flew.

"MROW!"
"AUHRK!"
"MROOOOOW!"
"AUHRRRRRK!"

It was a brief scuffle. The owl was not only older than the kitten, but a seasoned skirmisher. And, moreover, it had not just emerged from a ten year period of being pampered and hand-fed. The owl shot up swiftly, with the kitten still biting its leg, passing one storey, then two, then three. The owl cleared the street then thrashed, swinging the kitten around before finally kicking loose.

"MROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!"

Meds hurtled over the rooftop and plumetted into the next alley.

Crash!

Zen had just gotten to her feet when the owl returned, disgruntled and missing a few feathers. It settled on her shoulder and spat out some fur. Then together they looked at the building which the cat had been tossed over, wondering if they should check on the defeated creature.

But at that moment, thick shapes of ink appeared on the wall before them.

My apologies. He is not usually like that.​

They turned as a shadow loomed over them. Azazel had approached, slowly, from across the street. Beside him the beggar girl was frozen in awe, a handful of rice halfway to her mouth. The sleeve of the coat patted her on the head, then the hood peered anxiously to the alley where Meds had been tossed. As if remembering himself, Azazel bent over slightly - an emulation of a bow.

I am Azazel. I hope your owl is unharmed. And might you help me find my kitten?​
 
Arkie was woken by the bitter, earthy smell of opium.
"Uuuuwaaaaaaaagh..." Her right eye, the blue one, twitched open, then closed, followed by the left, the gold one, which stayed open. When she realized it was her blind eye that was open, she opened her right eye again, then winced when the mother of all headaches ripped through her skull. "Blaaaargh..!"

She had been sleeping on mat that was somehow both flea-ridden and threadbare, in a dimly lit and extra smokey room--the term, in this case, used very loosely. All around her were somnambulant addicts puffing away at long hoses. Most of them seemed human enough, but there were a few odd ones here and there who had animal traits, or other weird appendages. Not that she could judge, she did have a pair of awkward wings jutting from her back.

A grubby hand, with spindly fingers decked with tarnished bling, seized Arkie by the wing and hauled her to her feet. The girl gave a holler before turning away from the harsh grip, to face her assailant. A man in a top hat, covered in writhing tattoos, glared at her with beetle eyes.

"W'ot de' hell are ye' doin' 'ere, luff?" His scowl glittered with gold teeth.

Arkie's hands flew up in immediate defense. "Whoa, chill man, I probably just came here to score some pot, I think." Come to think of it, what was she doing here? And where exactly was here?
The oily pimp/drug lord/circus performer didn't seem too moved by her confusion. He took one menacing step closer, drawing a sharpened metal shard. "D-A don' giff away free rides. Ye use de' Welcome 'Fread, ye gotta pay."

Arkie arched a brow. "The Welcome Bread?"

"Welcome 'Fread."

"The Welcome Fred?"

"Smart ass bitch! Oi'll cut ye'!"

"Eep!"

---------------
​

The alleyways outside weren't much an improvement in terms of scene change, excluding the one important fact that she had managed to lose the knife-wielding sideshow psychopath among the maze of hovels. Wherever this place was supposed to be, it was low on the city's beautification agenda.
What if this was the city?

Arkie was interrupted mid-muse, when her blind eye became briefly unblind long enough for her to see quite possibly the biggest foreshadowing device plop precisely into her arms from out of the sky. Arkie blinked, the device blinked back, just as confused as she.

"Mew!"

Was she high, or-- no, she was definitely high, but a kitten really had just landed in her arms. "Oh 'mah gad!" Arkie held the furry, mewing creature close to her chest. "This place rains kittens!" It couldn't be all bad, then.

The two were suddenly surrounded by shadows. The kitten hissed before it was snatched from Arkie by a troll. His companion, a hoodrat, sneered at the cat as it hissed and swiped uselessly at his aggressor.

"what'cha got here girly?"

"A kitten, duh."

"looks like lunch to me." Said the troll who didn't seem to really be paying much mind to either of them. He was watching the kitten squirm in his grip. The hoodrat snickered.

"looks like meat's back on the menu boy--ARGH MY GROIN!!"

Arkie drew her foot back after the hoodrat had collapsed into a quivering heap, narrowly dodging a swipe from the troll as she did so. Her gold eye flashed just as a window in one of the taller buildings opened.

"Buhr?" The troll looked up, mouth wide open.

"YOU KIDS SHUT THE FUCK UP DOWN THERE!" Screeched a Neko woman as she dumped the contents of a crock pot down upon the troll's head. Blinded, the troll stumbled backwards, slipping and sliding on the raw sewage. The kitten managed to wriggle free and leaped back into Arkie's open arms.

The winged girl wasted no time in running away, unfurling her wings and flapping them to gain momentum, her feet already starting to barely brush the ground. Yes, she would fly! Fly them to freedom!

Arkie's golden eye ceased to glow, sending them tumbling back down to earth as reality reasserted itself. The girl and kitten shrieked their freaking faces off.
 
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Doctor Surgeon drew away from Chanter, standing straight and pulling a notepad out of his pocket. "Patient seems to exhibit an aversion to the name...Stitchy, but successful communication was made. Patient calls itself Chanter. Personal note, I fail to see the resemblance to a Chanter. I do, however, see the resemblance to a Stitchy. Patient exhibits feral movements and instincts, raised by wolves perhaps? Wolves that stitched? Prognosis...unlikely. Wolves would need superior telekinesis to stitch. Personal note: Faux captain has threatened me with 'damage'. I must now presume her dangerous. Her preferred method of attack is vehicular destruction. Do not get into any manner of vehicle with her."

Looking up, Doctor Surgeon tapped his finger on the page, the finger he'd been using to write with. Other passengers were awakening, one by one. He counted them, noting that many had vanished and a few others seemed amiss. Something about his nature let him remember that things were different this time...something about the Insanity that gave rise to him. "Feyfolk." he muttered to himself, scribbling something else down before reaching absently into a pocket.

Withdrawing a syringe, he handed it to the rugged man from the bar, the one who had asked for perfectly good painkillers and was denied a sale of service for faulty product. "I will consider your bill open," Doctor Surgeon said to him, cocking his head to the side, "You will pay me when I ask for payment...or I will be forced to retrieve my product from your veins."

He could do that.

He's a doctor.

Surgeon.

A Doctor Surgeon.

"Oh," he said, turning on Aeolus, "Again, I must remind you that we have not transcended into a magical realm where everything is alive. Allow me to correct you." He looked down at the girl and inverted his fingers into a smile beneath his mask, "I assure you, little girl, the captain is having feminine troubles and severe bouts of irrational guilt, owing in part to her ludicrous exaggerations and threads." The fingers were a frown now, turning on Aeolus. "We are in an unknown land, but I've seen the outside and form what I can gather, the dead still exist in this realm as they did in the last." Nodding sharply, he strode away from the passengers and to the hatch. "You can see for yourselves, of course. Personally I blame the mythical isle of Arcadia, but it's too early for me to collect skin samples to test for faerie dust..."

He paused, tapping a finger against his beak.

"Yet."

Another smile beneath his beak. "Besides, I would like to vacate this contraption as soon as possible. I do not trust certain...people, aboard flying machines."
 
Boring. Despite the ridiculous state of the world (defying all known physical laws) and the inhabitants, nothing has really caught my interest. Half of the world's interest comes from it's inhabitants, after all, and humans for the most part are boring creatures. Left to their own devices, they will engage in the same old tired power politics and scrabble to establish a pecking order. I've seen it happen at the lower levels of Fragment City, and though I have not had a chance to go upwards, I'm certain the same things are going on up there as well.

For someone like me, boredom is lethal. I don't know why - great swathes of static conspire to block access to my memory. But I can feel it in my bones. I get restless if there is nothing interesting going on. I feel as if I am about to dissolve into the world, as if I am going to become indistinguishable from that nearby rock. The bottom drops out of my stomach and I can feel infinity yawning beneath my feet. The border that separates my mind, my will, my being, from everyone else grows dangerously indistinct.

That is, until a girl crosses my path. Not only did they cross my path, but they crash landed. And she did not crash land because of a malfunctioning lift device, but because of a pair of broken wings on her back.

I can feel it. It's the sort of chance meeting in stories that always leads to something greater. I cannot let this opportunity pass, so I quickly walk up to the tumbled bundle of girl and fur, crouch, and take a deep breath (that I normally do not do. Not needing to breath the air - and the dust - has probably proven to be a benefit to me. It's not like I would survive living in the water or in a vacuum though. Certain preparations need to be taken to do that).

rultalk.jpg


"Miss."

"MISS."

Hopefully this is the beginning of something wonderful.
 
She was worried the rice was going to burn, it smelled like it was. There was barely enough water to cook it but still the monk was worried, if only that trickling faucet yielded several more droplets. She gave it another stir, pondering. Zen didn't have any other edibles on her, well aside from her owl. Even then the Heavens would have to kill her first before she even entertained the idea of killing her companion.

Either that, or a cat could do it.

A very hungry cat.

Completely startled, Zen whirled around, panicked. The idea of prying the two apart crossed her mind, but before she could reach out with her hand, Tian gave a mighty flap and was airbourne, kitty in tow. Surprise and wonderment filled the monk's eyes. She never thought her owl could lift something as big as himself - she had only seen him go after insects and rodents after all. But she watched with keen eyes as her bird carried the cat higher and higher, its yowls reaching her ears. She felt sorry for the poor thing, but it was a very hilarious sight indeed. Besides, Zen thought to herself wickedly, the fur ball started it. When Tian returned, Zen was chuckling softly. Obviously her owl did not find the ordeal entertaining whatsoever.

She frowned as inky blobs appeared in her line of vision, causing her to turn. The woman was surprised at the newcomer, but she was more intrigued than anything. The beggar girl shoveled the rest of Zen's rice in her mouth before taking off. A faint concern about when her next meal was going to come flickered in Zen's mind - this thought was pushed aside stubbornly.

Zen regarded Azazel with uncertainty, scarlet robes fluttering gently in the hot desert breeze. She greeted him with a bow as well, never taking her eyes off of him. There was just something peculiar about this man, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. But the inquiry about his cat scattered the rest of Zen's thoughts. A small smile appeared on her lips.

"They call me Zen, and this is Tian." She gestured towards his owl. "He's a little ruffled but I think he'll be fine." Her voice sounded awfully mature. Perhaps it was the shaven head, it made strangers think she was younger than her twenty one years. "I'll help you find your kitten, hopefully Tian dropped it onto something soft."

Amusement appeared in her eyes before she tore through the streets. Her scarlet robes whipped about from the sudden movement. It wouldn't be hard to lose track of the monk in the crowd of people.​
 
Myron Dyne, Self-taught archeologist, adventurer and historian walked the streets of Fragment city with brisk purpose. He had come to the city trying to sell some minor 'relics' he no longer had an interest in. What had interested him in them had been the proof that the ISAF had been around for far longer than anyone initially assumed, and seemed to have been an organized military faction in the past. Once he'd read the old handbook and studied the few dog-tags he had recovered from the old ruins though, there was not much use for them anymore. The names on the tags were meaningless to him, and the knowledge gleaned from the damaged handbook was firmly planted into his memory. Or what was left of it anyway.

The strange puppy knew that he was old. Knew that he'd survived the absolute war. It was beyond that where it got hazy. He'd been a leader of sorts, though of what exactly he did not know. The knowledge gnawed and ate away at him everyday, as lingering feelings of guilt and despair of which he had no clue where they came from unsteadied his mental state on a regular basis. What had he done in the past that deserved this kind of feelings? Or what had he neglected to do? IT was no surprise that he had taken to uncovering as much of the shrouded past as he could, though sometimes he secretly wished he would never found out what happened. What if the shattering had been his fault? How could he live with that kind of knowledge?

Myron shook his head to clear it from any of those thoughts. He needed to be sharp for the negotiations with his usual contact. He stepped into the market place and immediately got overwhelmed by all the smells and sounds it brought with it. He stood still for a moment, breathing in deeply and letting his breath go while getting used to the ruckus. If he concentrated he could recognize several strong smells in the crowd. Fish, fresh bread and the strong scent of sweat were amongst the foremost. Rather then give himself over to the particular palette of this market though, he ignored it as best as he could and weaved through the crowd, the tiny puppy dodging and turning around people, occasionally blinking out of existence and reappearing somewhere nearby if necessary. With a bit of luck, he would find the stall of the specific merchant he was looking for soon.



(Summary: Myron Dyne walks through the streets of fragment city, lost in thought until he comes upon the market. Initially overwhelmed by the sounds and smells of the market, he steps into it anyway to find a specific merchant to sell some "relics" to.)
 
[size=+1]Sebby and the old man talk for a time, before the dust storm begins to stir; the air begins to fill with the debris and ground-down ruins of the old world.

Sighing, Sebby reaches down under his chin to grab the pair of goggles hanging loosely around his neck, dragging them up to shield his eyes. His last mask got clogged up with shit the last storm and he's not managed to replace it yet, so he's stuck with tying an old shirt around his face to keep his mouth and nose protected.
"I should make tracks, old man," he informs his companion, "before this storm gets any worse. Shouldn't you, I dunno, be getting under cover?" In response the old man just stokes his fire some more and leans back in his chair with a wry smile.
"No need for you to worry, boy. You'd be surprised how sheltered my little corner of the world is from these storms." Shrugging, Sebby pulls himself to his feet.
"Your call, man. Just don't go dying from cookie-vapours, now."
"Come by later when the storm's abated. It's almost time for everything to come together."

"Fuckin' finally," Sebby chuckles and he starts to move away. He turns back to give the pipe-smoking man a wave, watching the haze of the storm begin to stir up around and cloud his vision. Soon the old man is nothing but a silhouette amidst the dust.

Even amidst the haze, he remains unmoved, unflinching as the storm rises up all about the city.

A rock, standing firm amidst the swirling vortex built from a shattered empire.[/size]


[size=+1]Through the doors of the ship I see the dust begin to rise up, swirling and spilling in through the open entrance. Winds must be picking up; as the good Doctor elects to answer Acqua's question for me (complete with sardonic remarks about my ability to fly and my mental health) I move back over and seal the door before we're no longer able to see for the sand flying everywhere.

Several more survivors are back on their feet now; one of them is busy asking the Doctor for painkillers of some kind. Of course my dear friend is only happy to provide, for the right price. Finishing dealing with the request he turns to address the rest of the group that is awake.
"Besides, I would like to vacate this contraption as soon as possible. I do not trust certain...people, aboard flying machines." I clear my throat to interject.
"Afra'd yer gonna have t'cope for a l'ttle wh'le longer, Doc. Storm's flar'n up outs'de. We should jus' wa't 't out a wh'le, then see about f'gur'n out where the hell we are."

Moving to check on some of the unconscious figures on the other side of the bay, I briefly pass by Doctor Surgeon. "Don' worry yer pretty l'ttle beak about 't," I say in a sardonically sweet voice as I pat him quickly on the cheek of his mask, "Ah'll keep mah 'rrat'onal fem'n'ne hands away from the sh'p controls."

'I'll do my best to keep them from wrapping around your neck, too, but no promises', I add to myself.[/size]
 
"Doc, do you have any more painkillers?" For some inexplicable reason, Raziel's words sent a tickling agitation through Acqua's mind.

So here the sentiment pooled, beginning to fill a hole in her head. Whether it was the fact that nobody believed she was of use to them or that she was unable to use her powers when someone would have need of them was beyond her. Feeding the anger's steamy lake were the stream of incomprehensible words that continued streaming through her mind. "I need a mission, a dream, t'stop me talkin' to myself."

"I assure you, little girl, the captain is having feminine troubles and severe bouts of irrational guilt, owing in part to her ludicrous exaggerations and threads." The Doctor started, deciding to answer her question before Aeolus could.

Again, red and yellow words bubbled up and burst in her head. You did I ask? Little? Little I may be, but do I point out your insanity? How practice medicine you should not? About what you say do you think, Doctor? Feminine troubles? Now that's just plain . . . All the meanwhile, an expression as passive as an observing bird."Hold the city to the ears so you can hear the wind come in."

"We are in an unknown land, but I've seen the outside and form what I can gather, the dead still exist in this realm as they did in the last." That much any animal could well tell.
Tired of listening to the loon, she decided that staring at her necklace would be more fruitful of an activity until something else happened. What is this? Something feels close. Her pale locks colored themselves blue, her eyes becoming bright. Somehow still in control of her body, she continued to gaze into her necklace's sapphire. Within, a fair countenance concealed by a dark shawl stared into the distance, the wind wailing and hurling sand in all directions. As abruptly as it came, the vision within the sapphire vanished, her floating mane and eyes losing their rich blue hue. She looked up at Aeolus. The urgency of the vision forced the lazy rivers of phrases to organize themselves.

"It seems the crystal has found someone important. He or she feels near . . . ," Acqua felt an odd sense of vertigo overcome her as she collapsed back on her knees.
Summary: Acqua hears Raziel and listens to Doctor Surgeon's response to her questions, becoming quite agitated beneath her emotionless expression. Deciding to kill time by staring at her crystal, a vision of a youth with sapphire eyes and a black shawl covering his or her face appears in the crystal adorning her necklace. She tries to inform Aeolus before falling to her knees, overcome by a sudden dizziness.

Credit: The quotation marks around the italicized words in my character's color are lyrics from the song "Believe Me" by Ellie Goulding.
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Like a dark moth on a dun tree, Natalie's form evaded the eyes of Azazel and Zen. A spot of admiration for Zen's kindness to the starving child poked through Natalie's preoccupation with surveying the area for possible thieves and other potentially harmful people. Standing several meters away under the dark shade of an abandoned stand, she observed the squabble between Zen's owl and Azazel's cat, a hint of a toothless smile tugging at the black shawl cloaking her face now that the sand was passing through. Without much notice, Azazel's spectral body peered out from the wall near the young girl and Zen. He introduced himself to Zen, terrifying the young girl. Yet again, Natalie's smile tugged at her covering.

"I'll help you find your kitten, hopefully Tian dropped it onto something soft." Zen bolted off, her bright attire like flames struggling against the gale of sand.

Seeing as she had little else to do, Natalie waited until Zen was almost a mere silhouette before following her. A spot from above, Blu circled around Natalie, unaware of what was going on below. Perhaps I should ask that cloaked man and his cat. They might have a lead.

Summary: Natalie continues to observe Zen. She quietly follows her from a distance when she goes off in pursuit of Meds.
 
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