Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 16, 2009 21:09:51 GMT -5
Zephyros looked around, his eyes growing wide. He was alone... completely and utterly alone. But he'd been in the auditorium, and it had been full of people! Where did everyone go?
Where did JASON go?! Zeph's hands threw to his heart, his fingers clenching around his shirt. How... how was he alone? Did everyone leave him? His eyes grew wide as he felt his heart race. Had his dream come true? He knew everyone was angry at him... still angry at him... But he hadn't thought everyone was that angry.
And why wasn't there any light? He could see himself clearly, but outside of that, everything was black. He had no floor to stand on, no walls around him, no ceiling above him... just black.
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Post by Frog on Nov 16, 2009 21:38:43 GMT -5
A light, musical laugh echoed around Zephyros, both distant and very near.
"All alone, the west wind doth blow, forsaken in the dark," a young man's voice sang.
The voice whispered, "I wonder, then, if the breeze blows warm, and no one is there to feel it, does it still drive away the winter frost?"
Taunting laughter filled the air, until the echoes and the laughs were indistinguishable from each other.
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 16, 2009 22:00:00 GMT -5
Zephyros yelped, curling up tightly as he looked around frantically. Where... where was that voice coming from?
"Who are you?!" he asked, his voice high and panicked. This was worse than him being alone... no, now he was very alone and being tormented by someone he couldn't see. A voice he didn't know... "What do you want?!"
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Post by Frog on Nov 16, 2009 23:11:30 GMT -5
"The wind howls and howls, but it knows not which way it blows," the voice chanted, amusement evident in every word. "Such a pretty thing, the little master of winds. But what happens in autumn, I wonder, when he drops his leaves and the flowers die? Will they still love him then?"
The darkness broke around the figure, a mirror image of Zephyros. He grinned wickedly.
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 16, 2009 23:26:16 GMT -5
Zephyros' head jerked back and he scrambled to get away. His heart was up in his throat as he stood, his eyes narrowing as he looked at his... what was the word. Doppelgänger. Jason would be proud of him getting that word right.
What did this stranger mean... W-when the flowers die? D-does h-he mean... me? He swallowed, moving into a defensive posture. He'd been gaining back the muscle he'd lost when his despression had made him so ill... Golden eyes narrowed, looking at his reflection. "I repeat... who are you? What do you want with me?"
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Post by Frog on Nov 17, 2009 0:06:35 GMT -5
"I'm just a boy who wants to play a game with you," he cooed, his smile almost gentle. "This one's called the weather game. I wonder how the little wind will do in a place where spring never comes?"
The blackness faded into white. The air around them blew crisp and cold, surrounding them in a white storm. Already the snow was ankle-deep, and there was no sign of stopping. The blizzard swept around them until they could barely see one another. There was nothing but white in every direction.
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 17, 2009 1:09:40 GMT -5
Zephyros immediately wrapped his arms around his chest, shivering. What was going on? What had he done to deserve this? ...Was this punishment for trying to kill himself?
But couldn't this kill him? It didn't make sense... He tried to look through the snow, at the mirror image of himself and closed his eyes. The wind around him started to swirl the snow away from him, slowly, almost as if he was struggling against another wind to push it away. Finally, the snow moved away from him and he was in a bubble of warmth. Ha. Now, I need to let the cold air in so I don't die of a lack of oxygen but... I won't freeze. I should remember this trick...
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Post by Frog on Nov 17, 2009 19:22:31 GMT -5
The other boy laughed, his eyes narrowing in an almost feline manner. "He's getting better at our little game, but for how long?"
The harsh winds swept away the blizzard, bringing in a chilly current of autumn leaves which began to gently spiral around Zehpyros. The snow blew away to reveal a narrow stone ledge, dropping several stories. The very same ledge that Jason had fallen from only weeks ago.
"How will he deal with autumn, I wonder?" he asked.
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 17, 2009 19:36:06 GMT -5
Zephyros stood stiff, his heart racing as he remembered Jason about to jump... Jason turning... and slipping... He licked his lip a little, biting it as he felt his balance waver. Closing his eyes, he took a slow breath. Whoever this person was, they weren't going to scare him...
The ancient Greeks didn't have four seasons. This was still summer by their calender, still warmer, no frost yet. This was still warm enough that he didn't have to worry about freezing...
Thinking only of the myths, and not the danger he was in, the wind began to carefully swirl around him. Every time he started to overbalance on one side, the wind blew him just enough to the other to keep him upright. It was hard; sweat was beginning to pour down his face, and soak the white khiton he was wearing. He watched his doppelgänger, his eyes golden and reinforcing his costume.
Hopefully Jason wasn't facing anything like this. Zephyros longed to hold his boyfriend again, play with his hair and tease him for letting Aritha put a clip in his hair. Eros and Psyche... a forbidden love, like their own. Maybe next year he'd talk Jason into Beauty and the Beast... and even be the one in the dress. Focusing on Jason happy helped him forget why this roof scared him so, and his heart rate slowed again. This wasn't so bad... in fact, it was almost like flying. Like Notos wanted to do...
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Post by Frog on Nov 17, 2009 21:31:14 GMT -5
For a while, the other boy was silent, simply watching as the winds swept Zephyros' hair about his face. Zephyros was very pretty, and he couldn't have that. Frog didn't mind too much the others that Angel liked... the girl who went first, or the girl who was friends with Zephyros... but not this one. Frog wouldn't share with this one.
"Will they still love you when the flowers wilt and the leaves fall?" he mused, reaching out and touching his fingers to Zephyros' face. For a moment, it seemed like nothing would happen...
Then the sky went dark, and the boy who wasn't Zephyros laughed sweetly. "It was a pretty face," he mused. "Much too pretty for you."
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 18, 2009 0:30:30 GMT -5
Zephyros recoiled when the stranger touched his face, then staggered to catch his balance before he fell. He knelt quickly, making his center of balance that much closer to the ground. Swallowing, he looked up at the mirror-image and stood up quickly, beginning to lose his balance as he stared in horror at what he saw. His hands flew to his face, feeling to see if what was before him was what he had become.
No, his cheek was whole; he couldn't feel his teeth through it. And his eyes were not so deepset, his nose felt right... His forehead and hair, all of it was still right. He still stepped back, then his foot slipped. Tottering for a moment, Zephyros screamed in terror and fell, grasping desperately at the roof-tiles. His fingers caught, torn and bloodied by the tiles, but held him up. He whimpered slightly, pressing his forehead against the roof.
So, this was it then. I'm sorry, Jason. This time, I really didn't mean to hurt you...
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Post by Frog on Nov 18, 2009 16:36:36 GMT -5
Frog looked down at Zephyros, no longer in the other boy's image, but instead identical to how he had appeared in the cooking class where Zephyros had first seen him. Frog smiled sweetly, grasping Zephyros' wrists and lifting him slightly off of the roof.
"Don't worry," he soothed. "Even if the flowers die, the next spring will bring in more."
Frog tossed Zephyros from the ledge, but it was the castle that fell.
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 18, 2009 16:50:29 GMT -5
Zephyros stiffened when Frog grabbed his wrists, confused. Why was this boy... he'd only seen him once. Why was he torturing Zeph? He never had done anything to him... he'd not even come close to cutting him with the glass. He clutched at Frog's hands, clutching at anything that might help him.
Zephyros screamed when Frog shoved him, curling up in panic. He had no idea what he had done, and now he was going to die for it!
He blinked and looked up when he didn't feel like he was falling. What...? Looking around, he curled up tighter. Everything... shattered around him, dissolved away until he was left in that same empty blackness he'd first awakened in. It terrified him just as much as it had earlier, and he whimpered, burying his face into his knees as tears escaped to soak the white cloth over them. His fingers tightened around his legs, curling him into a tight ball as he trembled.
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Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Nov 18, 2009 17:21:42 GMT -5
The blackness stretched around him in every direction, on and on without end. There was no wind, no light, no sound. Nothing but emptiness. Then quiet sobs, thunderously loud against the silence, broke through.
He began to make out shapes in the darkness... There was a boy, and this time, it was one he knew. He stood quietly a few feet from Zephyros. Was he an illusion? He must have been real. If this place were going to create an illusion to toy with him, there would be much more effective things than this. And whether or not he liked Zephyros, finding another person in the haze was incredibly fortunate.
It was no coincidence that they had found each other.
"Are you just going to sit there crying or are you going to get up and do something useful?" he asked, not nearly as sharply as normal.
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 18, 2009 17:25:59 GMT -5
Zephyros looked up, his eyes dilating in shock. He stood slowly, moving toward Hitoshi. "A...are you going to hurt me too?" he asked hesitantly. He rubbed his fingers carefully, then looked at them. The blood was gone... the pain. He started shaking, biting his lip. "I... I don... I don't understand... It... it was all so real... I..."
He trembled violently, covering his face for a moment as he tried to control himself. It was failing so far...
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Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Nov 18, 2009 17:38:56 GMT -5
Hitoshi sighed. "What possible motivation would I have to hurt you?" he asked irritably. "Unless you're some feeble illusion designed to annoy me to death, I've actually stumbled upon someone real inside this illusion. If you have any desire to find your boyfriend, stop crying and try to help me."
There had to be some order to it all, some logic. There was something -- or someone -- in control.
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 18, 2009 17:45:47 GMT -5
"I don't know why Frog would want to hurt me either but he... he tried to kill me and..." Zephyros bit back the rest of what he wanted to say, closing his eyes and taking several slow, deep breaths. It wasn't real... he was still alive, and this seemed like it was another real person... He wiped his face, though he continued to shake. He couldn't help it. His golden eyes focused on Hitoshi, steady now. Their natural green started to show through in the back, a sign of his growing control.
"I'm sorry. I just... I swear I was just thrown off the school roof..." He shuddered again, but didn't give in to his distress.
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Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Nov 18, 2009 17:58:50 GMT -5
Hitoshi was quiet for a moment, watching Zephyros. "You see strange things here," he said. "I don't think whatever is doing this meant it specifically to hurt us, but that probably doesn't mean there aren't things here who might."
Zephyros had seen the boy who called himself Frog in the illusion... It probably wasn't particularly relevant, but even so, Hitoshi stored that knowledge away.
He glanced out at the darkness. "If we found each other, there's probably a way..." he trailed off, turning back to Zephyros. "I want to find Alex, and I'm betting that you want to find that Hiller boy you're dating. I don't think either of us would be capable of it alone."
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 18, 2009 18:07:30 GMT -5
Zephyros nodded slowly. "No, I wouldn't... not right now. I need to find Jason..."
He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, worrying at it as he thought. You need to calm down, Zeph. You need Hitoshi's help, and he thinks he needs yours... you need to focus enough to be of help. So calm down...
He focused on finding Jason, on having Jason with him again. If Veronique found out, she would probably... actually, he didn't know how she would handle it. Well, if he did, Hitoshi and hopefully Alex would be there, and that should be enough to content her considering how wild things were right now. "You're probably thinking better than I am right now... what do you think we should do?"
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Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Nov 18, 2009 18:59:50 GMT -5
Everything around him felt strange, magical but not anything he was used to. It was faerie magic, he was certain.
Hitoshi closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating. "This place seems to respond to us, for the most part," he explained. "It's like a dream. It's possible that we could control it, or at least aspects of it."
He would start with something simple. The faintest amount of light began to break through the darkness. Pale specs formed high above them, casting the black backdrop into a deep blue. As the nothingness faded, grass formed beneath their feet.
"There," he commented. "That's something."
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
|
Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 18, 2009 19:13:20 GMT -5
Zephyros watched him, then watched the grass form beneath their feet. His eyes were almost completely green again as he took a slow breath. A slight breeze blew past them both, playing with their hair. Closing his eyes, Zephyros focused and a tree formed behind them. He nodded slowly, running a hand through his blond curls. The breeze rustled the leaves of the tree and over the grass, causing a soft, almost song-like sound around them. The sound seemed to relax Zeph, and he sighed slightly.
"Alright, so we can control it a little. Like a lucid dream. I couldn't earlier because I was too upset, but I'm okay now..." He kept controlling his breathing carefully, moving to sit on a root of the tree he'd 'created'. It felt as real as the roof had. "But even though we know it's not real, it feels like it is. Which means we probably can't just wish to be with Jason, or Alex. If we did, we'd probably get illusions...
"But then again... maybe we would end up in the same dream they are in." He bit his lip thoughtfully
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Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Nov 18, 2009 19:24:08 GMT -5
Hitoshi pursed his lips, trailing his fingers along the bark of the tree. "We might be able to get into the same dream as them, but they're probably in different places. We would have to either chose one to go to first, or we would have to split up, and even if it works, there's no guarantee we'll be in the same part of the dream as them. And that's also assuming this place works like we think, which may or may not be true."
He looked back at the other boy. "So what do we do? Your boyfriend, mine, or do we split up?" He didn't particularly think it was a good idea to split up, but if there was any chance of finding Alex...
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 18, 2009 19:34:27 GMT -5
Zephyros closed his eyes, covering his face for a moment. He took a slow breath, rubbing his face. How could you feel tired in a dream? Taking a slow breath, Zeph spoke slowly. "Who do you think would be better able to take care of themselves? Jason's a werewolf... I'm not sure about Alex, I barely know him. But then again, in dreams... you are likely to run across what you fear the most, what you think you can't face... I don't know about you, but I was alone. It... It's been my biggest fear since..."
He rubbed at his wrists nervously. Ellie had made it unnecessary for him to wear the bandages now, but the scars were still there...
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Post by Hitoshi Gilespi on Nov 18, 2009 19:56:36 GMT -5
"I don't know if being a werewolf will really matter here," Hitoshi replied frankly. "Alex is a mage, but he's very new to it, so I don't know how well that will help him. Until he started school at Dunehelden a few months ago, he never had any contact with anything out of the ordinary."
Hitoshi would have liked to tell himself that Alex was at least as capable of handling this place as Jason -- Alex was smart, after all, and it wasn't as though knowledge about magic or the supernatural beyond the basics (which Alex had learned rather quickly) would make a big difference. Of course, Hitoshi really had no idea what Jason was like, since he had never really talked to him, and he did want to go to Alex first.
"We shouldn't split up," Hitoshi said firmly, as much to himself as to Zephyros. "If something happens, it would be better to be with someone else." He paused, sighing. "I think Alex can take care of himself in someplace like this, at least for a bit. I suppose we'll just have to hope it won't take too long."
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Zephyros Aetai
Kitty Kat
Academy Junior: Small God
Even the mightest Hurricane started as the gentlest of breezes...
Posts: 1,380
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Post by Zephyros Aetai on Nov 19, 2009 1:42:01 GMT -5
"Neither one of us really wants to go for the other's first... How about we flip for it? Or... maybe we should try to find a way to each of them, and then if one works and the other doesn't... that decides our path for us, no?" Zephyros said thoughtfully.
"You see if you have a connection to Alex that allows you do create a doorway into his dream, and I do the same with Jason. If only one door appears, then that is decided and we go to that person first. If both... well, we created a tree, we can create a coin," he shrugged, standing. Brushing his curls from his face again, he looked at Hitoshi curiously. The other mage probably knew more about these sort of things... Zephyros' elemental magic didn't really lend itself to illusions or anything like this... necromancy should have more connection, right?
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