HereComesTheSnow

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR

A blued gleam behind the crook of the opponent's elbow heralded a howl, full of rage, pain, swearing vengeance. He had opted for maximal safety, retreating from their range immediately after diverting Gerard's strike with his own blade and imposing a skeletal wall between the pair of Roses. It had proven to be an obstacle beforehand, something worth taking note of, but now...

"Kill her, kill her!" he howled, glaring fury in the direction Vosahnn must have fled.

Bone snapped beneath steel as the Captain darted to the side, following that same wall of reanimated corpses and interposing herself between it and their young Nem charge. New orders given, they began to move as one towards the side of the chamber. Gerard was similarly quick on the uptake—

But rather than dashing to the right side of the room, he instead surged forward. This was an opening he would be braindead to not take, even within the deepest pits of the fervor that consumed him. His Captain could more than handle keeping young Vosahnn safe from mindless skeletons— that much he could plainly see. Here, against this man, she could be said to lack size, strength, experience— her training was nothing to sneeze at, but Gerard did not believe it was particularly boastful to conclude that this fight suited him better.

He would ruthlessly push the advantages on the table.

A compromised arm.

A distraction, blinding lust for reprisal.

That same horde Fanilly engaged, now so far away from him.

Fights were decided by moments, and this one Gerard seized.

Naturally, the burst of motion in his peripheral was noteworthy enough for this man, experienced in spite of his clear outburst of anger, to take note of. To catch a man like this wholly off his guard would be asking too much. However, he was nonetheless forced to react rather than act— Gerard had all at once filled the space that existed between them, bearing down on him with blade drawn.

Immediately, in the same instant the armored man's eyes widened, Gerard swung.

A zhornhau to open. Diagonal cut starting from the right shoulder, something quick, high, and immediate— draw the eyes. Feint.

Off-balance, stuck in readjustment, he would bite on defending it. Heavy strike right for the head again, no chance that did not flash every warning signal.

He felt the clash of blade on blade, but not the pressure of a bind. Immediately, Segremors stepped forward and to the left on a diagonal, his longsword riding rebound and twisting in his grip to attack the other side. Zwerchau, a windmilling horizontal cut at head height. Delivered by the twisting of the arms above oneself, it could rapidly attack either side with successive strikes. Great for pressing an advantage and driving forward, further and further into space.

His step in had served a dual purpose— not only did it activate the legs and hips in powering the Zwerchau, it took his foot position much closer to that of his unnamed foe.

If he could get close enough, he could initiate a wrestling exchange by tripping him over that lead foot if he barred his vambrace over the man's throat, and the Knights would have their prisoner with a fresh blade against his neck quite quickly. No way this one wasn't some kind of big shot within the present corps— the plate alone was reason to believe he fit the desired bill.

If he could not, and his opponent gave ground, he would continue his furious assault with more strings of cuts, either herding him away from that talisman or outright killing him, ending the threat for good.

As long as they won, Gerard personally found himself unbothered with either outcome.

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pandora is a city of gamers

Lostman Graffiti

Thanks for having us. I’m sorry I let the schedule slip on my end, for whatever that might be worth.

I look forward to seeing and playing with you guys again, wherever down the road that may be. Stay cool, Team Sharehouse.

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---

"So it'd seem," he replied evenly as the hulking form of the old Russian bear, Zakharin, filled his peripheral vision while taking his seat nearby. "At least I get to feel all ten fingers nearly dropping my tray instead of one set. A good tradeoff for not being so interested by the idea of electromagnetic warfare that I can stay awake during the powerpoints."

Another bite, and and a tilt of the head to his right welcomed the man likely their senior even with ages combined. Unlike Volana's lilting, measured Inner-Colonial accent, the rough bass of the larger man could never have fully hidden his homeworld Russian heritage, even if his command of the lingua franca was as flawless as you'd expect from a hardened vet.

"Zdravo. Good to see you again, Colonel Iron Side. You look damned good for eighty, have to say."

He would be a wealth of invaluable battlefield experience on this mission. Granted, they were officially security detail, but packing upwards of a dozen orbitals straight from UN active duty had Konstantin guessing that somebody was expecting some kinda fight somewhere. A bureaucrat or a scientist somewhere, perhaps— the kind of people who could definitely be wrong, but usually were right about enough things to listen to.

They'd find out when they got out there, confirmation only an hour or so away. However, to speak of unknowns being walked straight into—

"And I may need to take you up on that one. Jacira's got a bogey to her nine. Don't remember her face." he stated, regarding the demure, almost skittish young woman that had quietly taken up residence a little further down the table. She had the air of a new arrival, unsure if she was welcome amongst the rest of them... on a ship that had ostensibly been crewed by the same people (albeit in rotation) for over a decade.

Probably some need-to-know bullshit, but since her garb was very pointedly an ancient model flight suit, chances are they did need to know, and she'd be joining them out in the void. Best not wait on that. He extended a hand across the table, dropping his cake into his muesli without even a hint of fanfare.

"We don't bite, you know. You are?"

Besides, even if he had lost most of his youth's decorum, being a gracious host was part of his culture.

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DARK

BLUE

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---

It was a clear day.

Amidst an endless expanse of wheat, the figure of a tall man clad in a dusty bomber jacket loomed high, a lone spot of brown against the amber waves tossed by a gentle wind. His face, normally composed of firm, resolute lines, had long relaxed into something much more placid as his eyes slid across the field. Honestly, it was a little stroke of luck that his blonde hair was a touch off the color of the grain— at least whenever it blew in front of his face, it served to break the monotony.

He had been here an unthinkable amount of time. Most definitely not a short while, yet simultaneously impossible to truly perceive as long; it was unthinkable in the truest sense. A long and continued stretch of the present moment. He had just gotten here, yet he had always been here. Somehow, it did not in the slightest feel strange— rather, it was akin to the simple acceptance that this was the state of things being carried on the rays of the sun high above.

If there were anything to pique one's actual interest, it would be the blurred figures that appeared in the distance, every so often. No scheduling to it that he could discern, so clearly they weren't military. Rather, they were by all accounts a well-off family of civilians— one appearance would be a boy and a girl chasing after an excitable Labrador. The next, a man and woman gathered around a table, three seats going empty. The boy and the father looming imperiously over a chessboard, Knight pinned by Queen and Bishop while Rook threatened Check in one. The girl and her mother, learning to ride on horseback, not quite understanding how to swing herself up onto the stirrup yet.

He knew these people. Even with their ephemeral presence and form, the feeling of familiarity was inescapable when it washed over him, every time they appeared. He did not have the presence of mind to question how he knew, even when they were at the far reaches of his vision. He simply did.

By the time they had drawn close enough for him to start trying in earnest to make out the faces, he had long known what just clicked when voices came to his ears on an errant gust of wind.

"Konstanin! Konstantin! Have a look!" someone called. He could hardly place who if he thought about it— it was as if a ghost's. The memory of a certain cadence and tone, carried through an old and crackly radio. He tried half-heartedly, but seemed to intrinsically understand the effort was futile. Instead, he focused on where the small silhouettes— No. Where he and she were pointing. He knew.

His eyes swept up from the golden waves, and into the sky. High above, impossibly dwarfing the wheat that he already thought to be infinite, was a cloudless sapphire sea. A true abyss of blue, enough to swallow the whole world and be lost forever within. He vaguely felt the edges of his mouth prick upward into a smile, familiar lightness entering his chest. Pride. Elation. Awe.

Freedom. More than anything, that endless expanse was freedom. The deep dark blue that eventually gave way to the stars... He looked at it and saw a home. A place where a man like him was at his most primal, at his purest, drawing dancing lines of white contrail as he pleased. A painter against the azure canvas, he vaguely began to note his perspective matching that of an old plane their fingers had been following, climbing higher and higher into the blue as two roaring engines pushed further upward.

Maybe he could simply picture it from here on the ground. Maybe he was really up there this whole time. He did not know, nor did he care, his emotions windswept by breaking the sound barrier all over again. As he climbed, the blue grew deeper and darker until it bordered on black, even the burning white sun unable to pierce the depths of stratosphere—or beyond, above him.

"Isn't it beautiful, Kon?" the girl asked, seamlessly returning him to the ground.

Yeah. It was the most beautiful thing a man could ever see, short of maybe one other contender. He hoped dearly that one day, he could show the both of them just how right they were. They had no idea.

He looked down for a moment as the wind picked up— but when his eyes had returned to the ground, his brother and sister had faded again. Shame. He had so much of his world to share.

He looked up again, a downburst forcing fresh air into his nostrils as the distant rush of wind rang in his ear. Squinting, he could just barely make out the craft as it ascended still, his mind's eye beginning to make out stars. It pushed higher and higher, further and further, greedily drinking in all the beauty of the wide blue sky as it screamed towards unending opportunity and wonder. Far higher than it was probably ever meant to go, heedless of anything beyond its own wish to keep going.

He reached upward, tracking it with a hand, and for a brief moment broke through the Kármán Line. Space.

Then, the burning sun grew too harsh to make out anything more.

---

"...peat, all crew proceed from cryostasis chambers to ready stations. Pandora will reach orbit in one hour. Follow the post-hibernation routine and proceed to your station by then. I repeat…”

The florescent overhead greeted him in white.

He had slept in both extremes of condition, from the lap of luxury to inexcusable squalor. As with most things given such a wide range to work within, he found the experience of waking up from cryo to be...

"Urgh."

Eh, middling. He'd logged a few naps before—

"Rise and shine, big guy." a technician chuckled, his humor evident behind the facemask as he began to guide the impossibly rusted joints within Konstantin's torso upward. "Welcome to fifteen years from yesterday."

But never so long as this one. It came with the territory of being a pioneer, apparently, to feel like you'd been coated in molasses and clogged like a miner's lungs. Commiserations to anyone who'd pushed west into the New World, centuries ago. The first swig of Rakia would be to them, and the second to the warm shower that he vaguely remembered was coming.

"Well, no wonder I feel middle-aged." he replied blandly, working his muscles to reintroduce circulation and remove the feeling of static. "I spent the past decade and a half dreaming about missed opportunities."

"Grim."

"I'm due a crisis, just for the record."

Rolling his shoulders proved fruitful, as did tensing his thighs. For a big long nap like this, it was natural to assume everything would take a moment or two to come online— but this thirty-second conversation proved his wits to be more or less back. Therefore, the rest of him was probably close enough. Couldn't waste time forever.

He rose, taking a moment to lean on the pod as his balance finished calibrating... And began to slowly walk towards the reheating treatment, each step a little less unsure. It was pretty uneventful from there, a brief glance in the mirror prior to stripping down and entering the pleasant warmth reminding him that his hair had been growing out, and that he'd let a short beard grace his jaw.

His flight suit fit mostly well, if a little loose— almost being like he'd remembered it, were it not for how he'd gone a bit thin after fifteen years without a meal.

Luckily, there was plenty of signage to help him out for that. Refreshed and awake, he was quick to snatch out an MRE (Beef Goulash and Liver Pate, if it made any difference.) and seat himself in the mess, bluntly dropping in across from a woman with hair of ice. Volana Jacira, if he remembered right— the pilots had all gotten more or less familiar with each other before the Pandora expedition had launched proper— at least, enough to avoid introductions and confusion regarding combat roles.

"Zdravo." he said, greeting her in his native tongue as he bit into the dense cinnamon-and-nutmeg-tinted sweetness of a fruitcake.

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prepare for serb fall

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well, at least she wasn’t late to her post

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

on the busier part of my usual weeks, but i'm of course still around

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<<It's starting to come down.>>