{IC} The Edge of Everything

[Aesthetic]

The day was bright and blue within the atmosphere surrounding the landmass that hovered high. Inside the sphere was a large chunk of floating land that looked almost as if it had been torn from the ground. Other than the city in the sky, nothing was to be seen for miles. Looking down, one could only see the swirling depths of blue that hid a world ravaged by cataclysm and decimation.

Outside of the bubble is a world that is on the brink of collapsing. The citizens that are still alive are only barely living, having taken refuge in the dense system of caverns underneath the surface. Food is scarce; water is almost non-existent. These people will die from either starvation, disease, or dehydration. Bodies litter the caverns, and the stench of rotting flesh lingers within the rocky walls. The surface fares no better, although the smell of festering flesh is unheard of. The tall skyscrapers have fallen to the ground, he precious metals splintered and bent. Where green foliage was, there is now a barren wasteland, tones of brown gray and black scattered. There are no bones- only dust. Waiting just outside of a protective force field is the creature who wreaked havoc on innocents. It is hungry for the core of the planet. It is seeping in to the people's minds, corrupting them and driving them insane.

The only safe places are above ground or below it. That will not be the case soon enough.

On an airship within the limits of the bubble, people are stirring. Some young, and some wiser. They, too are people of Euthesaea. But these few survivors can control their fates. Save the world, or destroy it. Memories distant and faded lead them on their journey. The world is in their hands now.

--
The wooden floorboards of the airship creaked. Overlooking the passengers was an odd couple: the man has golden hair, like an angel's, while the woman has hair the color of brilliant silver. Slowly, they go about waking up the people. When eyes flutter open, they are already gone. Apparitions? Ghosts, maybe.

A gust of wind blows. Faintly, you can hear the hushed voice of a woman:
"And so the journey begins."

[Irell Starling]

Miromi filched at the touch and went to swat it away but her fingers simply caught air. A gasp flew from her lips as dull brown eyes looked around the cabin. Everything was in place, like it had been before. She was still sitting in her seat wearing a very worn but comfortable pair of jeans (practically vintage) and a black tank that hung close to her chest. Black work gloves with the finger irregularly chopped off surrounded her hands.

”It was just a dream,”. Visions of the spaceship plummeting back towards the planet replayed in her mind. There had been screaming and blood, not just hers. Right before the inevitable flames from the crash cascaded around them, she had been woken up. The woman looked about as the other passages began to stir, hoping their dreams had been more fortuitous. ”This is why I never get enough sleep.” she thought and placed her head in her hands. Black hair swept back and forth across her lap while she rocked herself.

Suddenly she sprang up and walked over to the window, catching the fresh green eyes of a blond woman as she passed. Outside the earth was ever slowly falling away. ”It’s so beautiful from up here.” she whispered to herself. Staring at it she could pick out the turquois and sapphire hues colliding together like some eternal dance. She wondered who else got to see earth in this light. Had it always looked like this?

Her hand pressed gently against the several paned window and then back away again. ”It’s just an illusion as always. Those pretty colors only serve to hide what’s really going on.” Their planet was so tainted with death and decay it was almost unbearable. Corruption and crime went on both on and under the surface as people continued to peck out a living, knowing that death was not only inevitable but almost tangible. ”But you were corrupt all on your own before the entity even occurred.” Miromi thought and turned her back on the scene and promised to never allow her eyes to drift back that way again.

Turning around, she took in the rest of her company. Most looked younger than her and she wondered briefly what it had been like to have had most of you childhood stolen away. Allowing the others to take their time, Miromi wandered around the small airship until she located the control room. To her surprise, it was empty and the aircraft was on auto pilot.

Sitting down on a worn leather chair, Miromi began to press various buttons. ”No good. It’s all locked up.” She gave a small sigh and pressed a few more. Where had the crew gone? Even if the ship had autopilot it wasn’t a good idea to use it since they hadn’t even cleared the Earth’s gravitational field yet. ”Idiots,” another sigh came as she pressed a few more only to give up. ”Why am I always surrounded by idiots? I must have the worse luck on the planet…no wait… the universe. Well there’s nothing I can do about it now.” Grumbling, she continued her work until she felt the presence of someone behind her.”The name’s Miro,” she said without looking up.

[Aesthetic]

"MI-RO?"

Callefine's eyes fluttered open, her heart thumping louder than the angry stomps of a growing crowd. Her hair was only slightly disheveled, as she had rested soundly. A gentle and manicured hand had been caressing her shoulder, like a mother to a child. Which was very strange to the young street urchin.

Callefine had no mother.

Her eyes adjusting to the brightness, Callefine rubbed her head. She reiterated what she had said. "Miro..." Her mind felt light. She only knew the basic things about her. Name, age, appearance. Thin, lacelike scars were etched upon her skin, but Callie couldn't say how and why they were there. Her outfit was clean, pressed, with very few wrinkles. Sitting up, her eyes flickered over to the woman in the chair. "Miro," she said again. The name felt strange, foreign. It was almost as if the girl had not spoken in months. "My name is Callefine," she said, assuming that the woman had introduced herself. "I am- What are we doing here?" the girl asked, changing the direction of her words. Looking around, she found that other Euthesaeans were scattered around the wooden floorboards of the airship. Many of them looked serene, although others looked harassed.

Standing up and patting down her skirt, Callefine walked around. Looking out into the distance, she saw only blue. Looking closer, she saw that a gracious and thick mist was covering what looked like a piece of land that had been ripped from the planet's roots. Everything else was some tint or shade of blue, besides the sun, which shone brightly. Striding back over to the older woman, Callefine looked at her suspiciously before turning to the controls. "How do we get this thing moving

?" she inquired. "I 'aven't ever really been schooled," she admitted. That was one thing she was sure of about herself, that she wasn't going to be very book-smart. She looked at Miromi, waiting for an answer.

[Hymusia]

Stirred from a slumber she did not remember entering the girl was stunned and yet unmoved by the sight that greeted her. The endless mesh of beams and wires that littered the ceiling of the room she was in. An unfamiliar place but somehow comfortable and safe, it was not the first time things of such significance had happened and it wasn't to be the last. She could see and had seen the things that happened, an almost sixth sense about things that would happen which she often put down to sheer luck or a primal instinct within the brain. Regardless, she stirred, the warped metal her comfort and the shape of the room giving away it was a ship she was upon. A ship that no doubt flew through the air, not that she'd any in her life but had read about them fro the few surviving books that she had been able to run through.

Slowly she sat from the cot and felt an ache in her muscles that seemed to suggest she'd been sleeping no mere nap, air escaped from her joints with a subtle and quiet pop that echoed around the empty room, devoid of much but a light source tethered to the ceiling and the cot she was resting on. There was a window, or what she guessed passed for such which was currently allowing light to filter from the dying world into the cage she'd been thrown into. With a wince she managed to stand, allowing her muscles to adjust to the weight of her body and the sway of the ship. Her first few steps were unsteady but quickly she found her feet and made it to the window's edge. With a sad smile she gazed out at the bleakness strewn out before, the grey and brown that made up the planet.

She had known no different but from books she knew the world was not supposed to be this way, that some great war followed by a ravenous monster had destroyed every inch of beauty in not just the planet but the people. It was a hard life but it was not supposed to be easy and she could not feel nostalgia or loss for a world she'd never known.

Once she'd finished gazing from her window she gathered her skirts and once again stood, moving to the only door in the room, she vaguely remembered voices but not the closing of the door and was surprised to find it both heavy and a little stiff, she would not have missed the sound of someone leaving via it. Such proven as it forcibly shut itself as she stepped outside onto the main deck. The ship was confusing, corridors and door ways that lead here there and everywhere but yet not a soul to be seen. Running a hand through her hair she furrowed her brows and her nose wrinkled slightly as she tried to figure out what was happening.

She remembered being spoken too and remembered opting to go with them. After that there was a gap and she could not fill it no matter how hard she thought about it. Hearing voices not far off the woman blinked slowly and decided to try and find the source of the noises. Perhaps there would be someone who could offer answers? Even if there wasn't she was more likely to find the surface of the ship this way.

[Stagnant Soul]

((Can't do colors on iPod, will edit that in and this out later))

A voice, soft, sweet, piercing the fog of sleep to awaken the beast that laid within. Like a knife, it jabbed straight through to abruptly kill the dream that soothed the Euthesaean in his slumber. Jolting up, Ness gasped and gripped his chest. He had been dreaming, but what about? Running a hand through his hair, the man dared not try to remember. Lest it be just another nightmare. Better to forget it, just like he did with everything else, even the things he wanted to remember.

Standing, Ness looked about and took in his surroundings. He was in a cockpit, or so it seemed, with few more sleeping individuals and two awakened, female Euthesaeans. They had not been awake long, as it looked to Ness as if neither of them knew what they were doing. Looking out the window, Ness noted that it seemed as though they were upon an enormous airship, drifting high above what remained of their precious planet below and hellbent on leaving. Or at least, that's how it appeared to Ness. Coughing, he spoke.
"Perhaps I can be of assistance?"
Looking to the seemingly foreign controls, Ness shook his head solemnly and added quickly.
"Er- Never mind."

Offering out a strong hand to the woman and the girl, he introduced himself as kindly as he thought possible.
"I'm Ness, a pleasure to meet you. Do either of you remember how we came to be on this vessel? Or rather, do either of you remember what you were doing before you came to be here?"
While he wished to not say, his second question was witness to the fact that, clearly, Ness had no recollection of even where he was or what he was doing before arriving on the ship. He asked to either confirm his fears that he was not the only one, or to set aside those fears and remind himself that yes, he was still just quite forgetful.

[theskyrocketkid]

“Oh, so you snoozers finally decided to make an entrance to the land of the living, eh?”

The short golden hair boy walked from around the corner he had just found, again, and had begun to lean back for a rest when he heard the sounds of his fellow Euthesaeans, and occupants of the rickety piece of machinery. As he stepped through the door the light shining through the cockpit holes, above what was obviously the command center of the dust rodent ridden old rig, struck the drying water causing him to shine in a fae like moment, the red of his eyes glimmered, like a predator in the night. In contrast to the evil visage of this sparkling, demon eyed fae creature, his face was small, round, cherub like, with a cupids bow of pink lips, the bottom of which was being chewed in unconscious nerves by an irregularly sharp canine. Realizing the females in the room, the first he had seen this close in what seemed a very long time and one of them close to his own age and only slightly smaller then he was in height, though vastly more miniscule in girth. He found himself drawn to her and yet at the same time instantly insecure.

He quickly tugged the black t-shirt folded and tucked into the back of his black cargo pants. He turned his back to them, remembering his jacket outside the door and once again the light played across his skin, in that sudden movement, bringing the markings along his back to life, the wings seemed to shift and the interlacing lines at its center formed a glowing group of five three sided shapes, all meeting at the bottom corners, with the single non-touching angle of each shape pointed in an opposite direction, with one to each of the four corners of his back and the fifth and final pointed upward, the tip settling half an inch below where his short golden hair came to a point at the nape of his neck.

“Be right back,” he mumbled as he rushed back to the door, ducked, snatched his jacket, a rough leathery material, it was red from the sleeves upward to the shoulder where it angled off down towards the chest, below it was white down to the bottom that seemed a bit short. He walked back,w rapped once more in his own thoughts as he debated putting the tight sweaty black shirt on once more, or just wearing the jacket that essentially covered nothing of what he was turning beat red from revealing to this many people that weren’t Deen or Samat.

The thought stopped him dead in his tracks and his normally lively red eyes went blank as he remembered his brothers, their sudden disappearance, which signaled the beginning of his long awaited journey to find out the secrets of his past and fulfill his destiny. He had set out on that path, but he couldn’t remember when. He could remember camping out, walking and then meeting…someone or multiple someones, he felt like it was on the edge of his memory, but then it just went to him waking up with those two, but the man, he was the one who had startled him. He had also sported a main of golden hair much like his own, even his brother’s hairs were blonde and platinum, closer to silver or white then gold. But this man had gold hair just like his and, he couldn’t bring the dream into focus enough to say as even now, despite all his efforts, it began to fade and slip away, but there had seemed to be the faintest bit of recognition and was it concern? He could have been imagining it, the boy’s ruby eyes gazed distantly off toward a spot on the floor with both hands holding upper body clothing before him as if he were still deciding between the two, yet his thoughts wandered trying to fit together the puzzle of what had happened and why he couldn’t focus on that memory, not even noticing as he spoke the question aloud,
”What the hell happened to us, I wonder if anyone else has the feeling that we should be moving, it’s like an hour glass was flipped, but we all decided to take a blazing nap and now we have to play catch up, damn.’

The force behind the words rose slowly and reached its zenith with the slamming of his shirt holding fist into the leather jacket covered palm of it’s opposite as he whispered it again to himself turning slightly to the side with his face scrunched in consternation, "Damn,"

[AmongHeroes]

Iadalis sat up with a start, a staccato yell issuing from his throat as his eyes opened. The image of the silver haired woman was still echoing within his vision like some lingering desert mirage, and he darted his gaze around searching for her. She was the one that had awakened him, and now he could find no sign of her save for the now fading visage within his memory. He sensed that another had been with her as well, though he could hardly recall a face for this second apparition.

A dream? Iadalis thought.

He stopped himself, frozen, as a second thought coursed across his psyche. The last time he had been conscious he was deep within the mineshafts of Euthesaea, and now he was clearly in a wholly new and foreign place. His eyes darted over his new surroundings, and from the fixtures and trappings he surmised that he was in some kind of ship or vessel. The absurdity of such a fact was instantly lost upon him as his gaze became filled with the light that was streaming through the ship’s porthole windows. Illuminating the deck around him was the sky, the true sky. Blues of varying shades and hues supplemented by the bright blaze of the face of the sun graced his vision, and his mouth fell agape in awe. He had not seen such natural beauty since before the cataclysm, and the ethereal colors were like a spring of cool water to a man plagued by thirst. Iadalis was lost in the splendor, his initial pang of confusion instantly forgotten.

It was when he stood to gaze more intently upon this other worldly sight that he finally noticed that he was not alone on this ship. He quickly found that he was only one of several on the deck, and a renewed sense of confusion came over him. As a result of years of training and habit dealing with outlandish situations he managed to keep his façade calm and collected, and he attempted to appear as if he was exactly where he wanted to be, that nothing was out of the ordinary. At first glance he could see that the others consisted of both men and women, and most appeared to be around his same age. Most importantly, several appeared to be as confused as he himself was feeling, and though such information was not overly comforting, he took some solace in knowing that he was not the only one out of his element.

Placing his hands in his pockets Iadalis stepped towards two individuals, a teenage girl and a woman of about twenty that were gathered around what appeared to be a control panel. He had made a split second decision to take the smooth, calm, and friendly approach to his current conundrum.

“Hello there, my name is Iadalis.” He paused to pass a calming hand through his long ebony hair, “can any of tell me where we are, because I for one do not recall buying a ticket for this particular ride?”

[Irell Starling]

So many questions. Why are we here? Where are we going? Why us? Why now? Who are you? Who were they? Miromi looked up from her activities at the control panel. Three other people had drawn around her, the way humans tended to come together around light in the darkness. Still, they kept insisting on asking their questions as if she was their savior or something. The thought almost made her laugh, almost. She eyed them each briefly. There was the innocent looking child with light brown wavy hair that called herself Callefine. Her admittance of being uneducated was met with merely a nod and a blank stare. Having been the bearer to other’s pity for so long, Miromi found it a difficult emotion to bestow. The next one she looked at was the man who seemed to be the closest to her age. What struck her were his brilliant green eyes. But unlike Callefine’s, she couldn’t stand to hold his gaze. As one who was permanently scarred by an emotional tragedy, she could sometimes pick it up in others and was terrified, in turn, that they could see it in her as well. The last one to have joined her in the control room had hair the same color as her own, but with a bit more length. Iadalis looked younger than her but no longer in his teens. Miromi fiddled with a few more buttons before sighing to herself again and pushing back in her chair so she wasn’t so close to the dash. She swung around to fully face the three around her. ”It doesn’t matter.”

Did she detect confusion? So be it, she’d spell it out to them. She looked at Callefine first, her features softening slightly. ”It doesn’t matter if you have been schooled or not. Lots of people had before the Everlost and it didn’t do most of them a bit of good. Besides, no one teaches you how to do this in school.” she said and pointed to the various buttons, levers and wheels she’d been trying. ”or at least none of the school I’d been to.” Miromi didn’t really understand why she was being so nice.

She turned to Ness and Iadalis next. ”It doesn’t matter where we are and frankly, it doesn’t matter how we got here because we’re here now.” They seemed to be expecting a little more so she added on, ”I also have no idea how you got here but by the looks of things,” she said a pointed to the giant bubble domed window in front of them, ”We are in an airship which is currently floating around dead-in-the-water in our planet’s, oh so wonderful, gravitational field.” She paused only long enough to let the others take that fact in. ”We can worry about the who’s, what’s, how’s and why’s later.” Miromi had learned from a very early age that it was always best to land on your feet than land on your face.

Out of habit she reached into her left pocket for her pack of cigarettes. But it’d been years since she’d kept a pack there and months since her last cig. She’d practically had to sell her soul for that one but maybe if she’d known where life was taking her she’d have saved it for right now. ”This baby isn’t moving anytime soon. Everything’s completely locked down and I can’t figure a way to bypass it. I mean, I know machines but newer machines. I found what I think is a manual override switch here.” she pointed to an empty keyhole to the side of the control panel, ”But the key’s missing. Obviously. So right now it’s useless. I figure someone on this ship has to know how to get it up and running again, you know, unless it was just programed to stop midflight to allow us an heavenly view of our planet while we all died of thirst and starvation.” Miromi shrugged, completely unphased by the prospects. Sure, she wanted to continue to live but there were much, much more terrible ways to die.

Just as she finished explaining to them, yet another one of the ship’s occupants burst in. It was kid, but this time it was a boy with short blonde hair. His words echoed through the room. ”What the hell happened to us, I wonder if anyone else has the feeling that we should be moving, it’s like an hour glass was flipped, but we all decided to take a blazing nap and now we have to play catch up, damn.’ Miromi closed her eyes and seemingly counted to herself. ”Rational.” she though, ”Couldn’t I have been stuck with rational, unexcitable people? Too much to ask for I suppose. It’s my fault. I know. I ask for too much.” ”I’ll let one of the other’s catch you up on the cliff notes,” Miromi said not even bothering to face Kale.

[AmongHeroes]

Iadalis was completely nonplussed by the woman’s response. Irritation rippled through him like an earthquake the more she talked, his left eyebrow rose and he fixed her with a stare of exasperated disbelief. He shot a quick glance to the other man standing close to him, aiming to judge his reaction to this self-absorbed fool of a woman. He looked back to her, again fixing her with a clear gaze of annoyance.

“I’m sorry Miss, but are you mad? Of course we’re here now, what kind of nonsensical platitude is that? If you truly think that the who, what, when, where, and why are irrelevant to this current situation, then you may as well jump of the side of this ship, because if none of that matters then your life apparently contains no purpose.” Iadalis paused to point a finger at the raven haired woman, “for starters, answering the question of how we got on this ship could be the key to getting us off as well. Doesn’t matter? What blithering foolishness!”

It was rare, but Iadalis temper had got the better of him. The confusion of the moment exacerbated by the hot-air answer of the woman had combined to send his nerves over the edge, and as he stopped talking he realized he needed to regain control. He breathed in deeply before turning to the younger girl, and in turn to the man beside him.

“I apologize. Again my name is Iadalis, and if you two are interested in finding real answers perhaps we can work to figure out our current predicament?”

Before the two could answer, another individual burst into the control room. It was a young man with blond hair, and a wild look in his eyes. Immediately he began to yell;

”What the hell happened to us, I wonder if anyone else has the feeling that we should be moving, it’s like an hour glass was flipped, but we all decided to take a blazing nap and now we have to play catch up, damn."

Iadalis almost laughed at the boy’s exclamation, but instead he smiled with a predatory grin towards the woman. “You see? Now that is a more natural response to this situation.” He walked over to the boy and extended his hand, trying his best to present a calming air to him. “Yet again, my name is Iadalis, and I am also wondering some of these same questions my friend. Perhaps if we can all at last introduce ourselves we could start attempting to glean some answers we all could find beneficial?” Iadalis said encompassing the whole of the group with a wave of his arm.

He sighed to himself; This is like trying to open a lock with a key that keeps growing new teeth.

[theskyrocketkid]

“You see? Now that is a more natural response to this situation.”


The man in possession of the silkily confident voice was tall and intriguing to the boy’s young mind, to say the least. He stood at least a head taller then Kale and, beneath the sturdily layered black jacket and plain white shirt, not much different in design from his own black version, he was in the same prime physical condition as Kale was. Kale knew the signs of someone used to fighting and used to coming out the victor and this put him in an immediately defensive manner, snapping him from his quiet revelry and mental shock over the sudden shifts in his situation.

“Yet again, my name is Iadalis, and I am also wondering some of these same questions my friend. Perhaps if we can all at last introduce ourselves we could start attempting to glean some answers we all could find beneficial?”

The cunning snake labeling himself Iadalis spread his arms wide as he spoke, including the entire group.

The boy’s eyes glistened even as the shadows within it morphed, deepening and then becoming shallow once more like bloodstone, as he shifted his gaze to each person occupying the room in turn. Sub-consciously he shifted a solid step backwards, always keeping a large distance between himself and Iadalis as he quickly assessed the room.

The first his eyes roamed to was the obvious other fighter in the room. She was about his size, maybe slightly thicker in the muscles, so he knew she had a few years on him and that meant a few years experience, possibly from before the Event, he nodded to her, “Miro,” Next was another male, shorter then Iadalis by an inch or two, at most. He had shorter white hair, not platinum but truly powder white hair. What truly amazed him, wasn’t the odd hair, or even odder tinge of sage green on its tips, but the fact that he had clearly over looked yet another fighter. His eyes widened at the beauty and symmetry of the man’s scimitars and his jaw dropped in sheer childish amazement at the craftsmanship of what he could see of what could only be a piss-tohl, at least that’s what his broth…he shut that thought out, it wouldn’t help to let his mind wander. And that’s when he saw the man’s eyes, he wouldn’t know if their eyes met because he was blinded by the deep sadness there, a sadness that seemed like it should be obvious to everyone in the room. It was like a black hole that could swallow everyone in the room, the ship itself, hell even Euthesea itself, whole and not choke.

Then he noticed something else, it radiated off the man just as much as the cunning of Iadalis had radiated from him, not in an evil or good way, and it was simply a large part of each man. This man cared, he didn’t let that black hole swallow him and he wouldn’t let it swallow anything else, whatever caused that hole, he held it at bay within himself. He had time enough to slightly catch his breath, nod to the man and then he was shut out, it was as if he was gifted with something,

A Purpose and suddenly a vision of a golden haired man, with eyes like his own was followed by a whispered voice in his ear,

And with cords like steel, woven of air, you shall bind them to you altering to be what they need you to be, and in doing so shall bind them to each other just as tightly…

The boy spun to his side looking to see if he could catch a glimpse of the man he knew would not be there. Cursing to himself he tensed his entire body, tightening back muscles and once again flexing the pale red markings on his back before he turned back to them with his eyes closed and a slight frown on his face.

When the golden haired boy opened his almond shaped eyes, the long pale golden lashes only seemed ironic once the luminescent orbs, the color of a rose, or blood, were revealed. But, he sighed and the innocence of childhood shown through his steely caution. He looked once more at the small girl who seemed closest to him in age, though infinitely younger in her innocence. He slipped his jacket on, to cover himself and slung the damp black shirt over one of the sturdily crafted half hand sabers attached to the backs of his thighs by scabbard-straps made of hide.

He raised a hand in a short playful wave away from his face, which was stickered with a smirk, seen in typical teenage boy fashion when trying to calm a potentially upsetable teenage girl in a new situation,

“Callefine,”

From there his eyes shifted once more, hardening, though only slightly, not in a challenge to the older man, but with the intent of showing that he was no mere child and that he could and would defend himself and this girl, no matter what the others chose. He nodded once more, “And Iadalis, right?” With one last look at the girl he stud once more, dusting his hands off on his black cargo pants before extending his hand towards the older man. The boy took a step forward, placing himself in the shadow of what seemed the most physically dominant presence on the ship at the moment and spoke,

“My names Kale, I don’t know how we got here, but from what I’ve been hearing either we get this hunk of beautiful junk up and running or we are gonna end up dead, so,”

The boy leaned out ward, balancing on the outer edge of his left foot, he looked at the rude, but obviously resourceful woman sitting near the controls,


“Well, I know this drop-shaft of a situation and you probably think I’m just some wet-nosed, no smelling mole pup, but if we are gonna Get the hell out of Dodge, then first we are gonna need to find the keeh, right? Or I think that’s what she said,”

The last statement was mumbled half to himself and half out into the air to see if anyone else had been paying attention.