Summer "The Witch" Moran (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whichcraft) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
awashlogs2018-10-06 10:09 pm
whichcraft) wrote in awashlogs2018-10-06 10:09 pm
Entry tags:
if you're feeling dead i'll be your reanimator
WHO: Summer and YOU!
WHAT: All over Chroma!
WHERE: Various times in the month of October!
WHEN: Catch-all prompts for the month of October, some open, some closed! See below for links to open top-levels.
WARNINGS: Will be marked in their individual threads!
QUEST 29 (SKELETON WAR) — OTA! | QUEST 30 (TRICK OR TREATING) — OTA!
WHAT: All over Chroma!
WHERE: Various times in the month of October!
WHEN: Catch-all prompts for the month of October, some open, some closed! See below for links to open top-levels.
WARNINGS: Will be marked in their individual threads!
no subject
[ Noctis is raring to go despite the casual words -- he's got a cool front to upkeep, you see, and when she offers he's more than happy to go along. Fighting relaxes him almost the same way naps do, and Noctis has a lot of frustrations he has to dispel recently.
He nods at her, giving Spot one last pet before he veers away to meet her halfway, hands in his pockets. ]
Are there a lot of them mucking about?
no subject
[When they meet up, she pivots and falls easily into step next to him, though perhaps curiously she carefully manages to stay about a quarter-step behind him as they proceed — not enough to make it obvious that she's letting him get a little ahead of her, but enough that he's got a hint of a lead on her, however slight it might be.]
How do you want to do this? Teamwork, or split them in half and each take a side, or...? What works for you?
[She flexes her fingers absently, making the folds of her cloak shift.]
I'm not exactly a close-range fighter.
no subject
[ Noctis considers her, calculating. He's not quite the strategist that Ignis is, but he can do in a pinch, and it's pretty easy for him, considering the fact that he's been in more skirmishes than he can count. ]
If you're good at mid to long range, I need to know that you won't hit me with one of your spells.
[ Because that might be slightly troublesome, considering everything. Then, he adds. ] And I move quick. Really quick.
no subject
[He raises a good point, though, about the possibility of friendly fire — pun intended. She'd adapted well enough to avoiding her boys back when their battles came fast and constant, but those were her boys. She knew what they were like, what their habits were. Noctis is more of an enigma, and if he's really as fast as he claims to be...]
...Show me. What you're working with, I mean. One of my friends was fast, too, but I knew how he moved, so.
no subject
[ More or less. Noctis considers her briefly before he decides to demonstrate, and instead of charging he warps into the midst of the skeletons, mowing through them with his word, phasing and warping, darting amidst them like a wolf tearing through sheep. Turns out, he probably doesn't need cover all that much, but still.
Noctis is a dervish of movement, appearing and disappearing in flashes, and before long this particular army is nothing but bones, with him standing in the middle of them, his sword disappearing from his hand with an idle flick. ]
no subject
[That's...that's actually terrifying to watch, in a way that hits her with a sort of rare apprehension she doesn't usually experience, even in battle. There's fear, and of course she understands the fear of a credible threat, but there's the sort of fear that makes you aware that you have to be careful of something, and then there's...well, this.
Watching Noctis reminds her of how it felt to watch the old man cast magic: the sudden, sobering recognition of someone whose skill so far outstrips yours that you wouldn't even know where to begin when it comes to trying to stand against it, and the fear that feels like a block of ice dropped into the pit of your stomach when it occurs to you that if this person wanted you dead, you already would be.
She's so used to sword boys being stupid and dumb and reckless. She's not used to this.]
...Fucking fuck.
[Congratulations, Noctis. You've rendered her both wide-eyed and speechless.]
no subject
Up close, however, he notices, and his brows raise in concern. ]
You okay?
[ Is it the skeletons thing? Is she scared of them? He knows she hates them to pieces, but you never know with girls. ]
no subject
Kind of funny in retrospect — she'd gotten him to love her, except that then she'd kind of fallen into the exact same trap of her own, and in the end he'd abandoned, betrayed, and killed her anyway, on a battlefield just like this one.
She's glad for her cloak, because it means she might stand a chance at hiding the way her hands are shaking. She's glad, too, for a moment to catch her breath, because it leaves her time to remind herself of all of the good things Prompto has ever said about Noctis, and how she trusts Prompto's word if nothing else, and how his promise that she's safe has meant so much toward freeing her from fears exactly like these in the past.
She swallows hard, and tries to get hold of herself.]
I've never seen anyone move like that.
[A shaky laugh escapes her, accidentally betraying some of what she's really feeling as she adds absentmindedly: ]
Maybe I'm the one who should stay off the battlefield, so you don't get me mixed up with one of them.
no subject
[ Something's not right here, but he doesn't know her well enough to put a finger on it. What he does know, however, is that something about this whole thing makes her nervous, and he's not entirely sure what to do. ]
Good that you're long range, I guess...?
[ He offers, not coming any closer for fear of spooking her. ]
no subject
[And here, maybe, reveals another telling difference between her experiences and his. One of them was trained to be a warrior, taught to use his abilities, pressed and grilled and honed into the skilled fighter he is today. The other was dropped into it and told to survive on nothing but her wits, surrounded by boys who simply picked up swords and thought that somehow that made them heroes.]
You just...
[She motions back vaguely at the piles of bones where skeletons had once stood.]
They're...all gone. By yourself. With a sword.
no subject
[ Noctis tells her simply, not quite understanding the question because it is what it is. His friends, Ignis, Prompto, Gladio, they bring their own gifts to the table, they show him the way. They make things less... lonely.
He tilts his head at her, curious. ]
You haven't seen something like that before, huh.
no subject
[And there it is — the thin, nervous admission that really digs into the heart of the problem she's grappling with: the clarity that comes with seeing someone who knows what they're doing at work doing it, and having to reexamine even her own successes beneath the new lens of what it looks like when someone is capable and competent, and not just reckless and lucky.]
My friends. We just...found weapons. Practiced sometimes. Tried to stay alive most of the rest of the time.
[She shakes her head, still visibly stunned.]
I've never seen anybody fight like you fight.