Benzaiten

Existence - Aliens, Cryptids, and myths.

@Spinosaurus Is this dead?

SYCEP: The Institute

Mhh... bump?

Ink On Your Soul - Reboot (Members Needed!)

The sun shone bright above the high trees, the light that fell between the leaves playing a glistering game on the brown dirt to her feet. It all felt so wrong. Bitterness spread in her heart, a hard expression made the young face look so much older. And somewhat wiser. But she wasn't.

"Aaliyah", a voice next to her forced her to turn her head. Her expression remained unchanged. The former queen looked down at her daughter with concern, a concern that was beyond the one of a mother only. "It's time."

But the young woman, in her all white, delicate dress that flowed around her naked feet and that newly received crown on her brunette hair which lied on her back openly with those special braids in them, shook her head. "I am the last to board." Her voice was soft and broken, as if something was missing, something great, something huge, but nevertheless it was firm.

The woman beside her, that had so much more in common with the young queen other than their undeniable relation in looks, looked at her with much more concern now than before, a heart was broken but a mother was proud. The face of the queen in white had returned to the trees that build the forest she was born in, raised in, grown up in, lived in for all her life and that she had sworn she would protect. The two women stood and looked onto the deep, green home, hundreds of people were coming out of the forest's heart, walking towards what would mean a new life. The older woman looked at her daughter once more, all the sorrow she saw behind the mask of her beloved child, and then turned to leave her alone.

As her mother returned to the ship that would lead all of them to a new safety, Aaliyah looked at the fleeing people. Her people. The crown on her head weighted heavy, but it was all out of responsibility and failure. A strong breeze of wind let her hair fly around her face and the silk dress flatter around her ankles. The feeling of warmth began to linger of her skin, faint screams could be heard, the queen stood still and waited for the wind to slow down again. But it wouldn't. Her heart told her what was happening before her eyes saw it.

The steps of people coming from the forest fastened, they started to run, some screamed, fear was sitting on their face very clearly. Aaliyah's hard expression shifted and horror danced over her face. The scene in front of her changed rapidly, the air made her folk cough, their eyes glistering with a fear in them that stopped Aaliyah's heart.

And the forest burnt.

Rapidly the fire was swallowing everything in it's reach, trees were lit up like torches, branches fell dangerously as people tried to dodge them, bushes turned into deadly traps. The queen's eyes glistered with concern, horror, worry and fear. The people ran for their lives as the ones behind were being burnt alive - screams of pain and pure horror mixed the air as the fire spread over the landscape deathly, with no mercy. Aaliyah had trouble not to throw up when the smell of burnt flesh hit her nostrils, the painful screams for help made her stomach turn. They screamed for help. Her help. But she was frozen.

The trees made cracking sounds as many of them trembled and fell. The sun shone bright as the burning leaves and wood destroyed everything she hold dear. Everything she had known and loved.

A loud, high pitched scream rang to her ears and her head moved - for the first time since the rapid death has announced itself - towards the noise of it. Another high pitched scream, full of terrifying fear. Her naked feet moved over the dirt before her mind even registered it. Her pace fastened until she was running, right into the crowd that was fleeing the other way. The people looked at her and some screamed for her to stop and turn around, many tried to grab her but she dodged them all skillfully. She pushed through.

Her skin was hurting from the heat that lingered all around in the air, she didn't slow down, a burning branch fell down from a thirty-two feet high tree and hit earth in front of her. Sparks flew through the air as she took the jump and covered her face with both arms as she flew above the burning thick, heavy branch. The tip of her dress caught a spark and fire danced on the hem around her ankles.

Her feet skillfully flew over the ground until she could see the one that had caused her to run into the deadly danger. A child that was barely five years old sat on the ground about fifty feet away from her with tears streaming down her face, dirty all over, her expression a terrifying state, she called out for her mother. A leg was trapped under a gigantic branch that had fallen down and pinned the child to the ground. The leg looked broken.

Aaliyah didn't think about it. Her feet carried her over the ground but it felt awfully slow to her, she tried to fasten her pace but it wouldn't work. She could feel the fire on her dress burn into her skin on her calf now and she knew her toes were bleeding from the stones and tiny branches that felt like spikes on the ground. No tree around them was left unharmed from the fire, it was a forest of red death.

Aaliyah got closer to the girl, it all felt like slow-motion at this point, she extended her hand to the girl who reached out for her in hope, their fingers would touch in a second.

A male voice, deep and rough, cold and certain, teasing and knowing, that made her stomach twist and turn, making her want to throw up, cut through her mind. "Queen Aaliyah...", it whispered into her ears with nothing but the worst intent. And something behind the little girl exploded in a spark of fire, taking her body into a deadly embrace of red heat and her face lost all hope towards the queen before it was swallowed completely.

Aaliyah screamed out with her arm still extended to the girl, her whole chest filled with sorrow and pain, pure pain, as she felt two hands on her shoulders that stopped her movements and dragged her away from the scene. Everything went numb around her, she didn't feel the cuts on her feet, not the heat in the air, not the burnt flesh on her own skin. Her whole face was a screaming grimace in silence, her eyes blurry from tears that deeply cut into her cheeks, her heart felt spiked with ice and her chest felt smashed like a whole tree had hit it.

Over the half of her people... burnt alive.

A body shot up in bed. Heavy breathing, trying to get some air. Sweat all over the skin. Sticky tears on the cheeks. Yet another nightmare. The young woman tried to calm her racing heart, she still felt the tears drop down her cheeks and chin. Her hands ran over her wet with sweat hair to brush it back.

She sat like that for fifteen minutes before her body had calmed down enough for her to make a move. She climbed out of the bed and fell five feet until her weak legs hit the ground. She moved her hand over her sweaty hair yet another time. Her bed sat in the corner of her room - five feet above the ground. It was a decent bed, two people could fit in it if they tried, made out of a simple big wooden 'floor' where a big, comfortable mattress sat upon. The wooden foundation for the bed had a little railing that consisted of perfectly smooth, thick branches. Above the bed on the ceiling there was a vine entangled with a chain of tiny lights, it didn't spread further on the ceiling than the size of the bed was and went down the wall both to the right side of the bed and to the headboard side.

The woman made her way straight to the bathroom, a quick glance at a clock on the wall before, and turned on the shower, slipping in. She had slept naked. She finished her 'morning' routine quickly. It's not that she had slept all Sunday, she had been up and running, but had wanted to take a quick nap that turned out to be a three hour sleep. Now she had no time left to dawdle, she had to get to work.

Work, she called it. But technically she didn't have a job.

---

Thirty minutes later she parked her bike in front of a small, charming location called Shorty's. She hopped inside the darling little bar/café mix of a place. It was exactly that, a mix of a decent café and a tiny, delicate bar. The atmosphere was always welcoming and warm in here, which was a thing that had pulled Aaliyah to the place so often.

Her eyes wandered over the place once, behind the bar on a little TV news talked about the f5 tornado yesterday, but it was muted. She looked up to the stage where a small band played and a young woman, around the same age as she appeared to be, sang softly to the people that were gathered along the bar stools, the tables and even some hanging around at the walls. A couple of young men were playing dart in the corner.

Aaliyah walked past the stage without removing her eyes from the act, she then felt a hand on her back. Her head turned and her long open hair almost hit the man into the face as it swung around. "Oh - sorry." She smiled up at the fifty-something man who everyone called Shorty. He wasn't really short, average height actually. Aaliyah didn't know where that nickname came from. He had grey hair that didn't manage to cover his head completely, chin and cheeks that were always covered in very short grey stubble that seemed to be too resistant to get shaved properly. His stomach was round and full, his deep brown eyes full of trustworthiness and gentleness.

"Liyah, you can go right up after this, if you like", he said with a soft smile.

The woman nodded. "Thank you, Shorty, for putting up with me."

"There is always a spot here for you, Liyah." He returned to his spot behind the bar after giving her a reassuring squeeze to the shoulder.

The act on the stage got a couple of claps and Aaliyah was one of the few that made her applause rather loudly. Then she went up on stage and grabbed the guitar that stood there. She moved up to the microphone and gave a shy smile. "Hello. My name is Aaliyah and I'll be singing something for you that I've written. Here we go." She started to play. The band already knew the drill, it wasn't the first time she sang those songs here. Shorty was watching her with the eyes of a proud uncle, but she didn't notice.

Performance

_{No need to watch.
(Ignore what she says, the singing along and the screams - no one screamed for Aaliyah)}

The Maze (High Casual)

@ineffable And me. I'm just waiting for people to post their CS so I can form an idea of what I wanna do for my character. I always have to wait for a couple CS before I get the right idea of what I want. But I am in, so far.

---

Edit: I am planning on making my character a young mother who has just lost her 1-year-old daughter. If anyone feels interested in playing her wife, you can totally PM me or something. There's not much details yet, so if you're interested we can work it out together.

Otherwise, I'll make her a single mother. 😊

Dear Gamer... (Anyone?)

Bump. The GM could really use some players. It's a very interesting story setting. Check it out at least.

SYCEP: The Institute

Bump... 3 (I think) people showed interest so far. Anyone wanna join?

Ink On Your Soul - Reboot (Members Needed!)

@ihinka You have fun! :) maybe my character can find someone else to interact with until you're back. Or I'll just post solo posts every now and then xD works too.

Ink On Your Soul - Reboot (Members Needed!)

Could someone maybe give me a quick summary of what already happened? And it'd be helpful to know what date and time it is? Saturday evening? Monday night? Especially the time of day would be cool.

Hopefully then I'll be able to drop a post tomorrow after work.

Ink On Your Soul - Reboot (Members Needed!)

@GoodLuckTuck How can I jump in the best way? Any suggestions how I can get started?

Dear Gamer... (Anyone?)

@SpeakNoEvil I had the same idea.

We need people to join this. Check out the first OOC post or the IC posts if you're not convinced yet. This GN truly is a gem. Come on people.

@Jiatsu Hoshido Theres always the option to posting an interest check on General Interest Checks as well to reach more people. You can add that two slots are open to the name or on the very first page here for easier access to that information. But really I wouldn't know what else to do.