Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

As they rode the elevator up, Tillie kept talking. About never having seen how big they were. Quinn had mostly gotten used to it at this point, but yeah...they were pretty huge.

A tiny thorn of sadness buried itself into Quinn's heart the same way it always did when people talked about their parents, but she ignored it as best she could and kept listening to this excitable new person in her life, occasionally throwing in a comment. "I don't know if it's really cool, but it's nice to be able to make a difference." She smiled an awkward smile; the smile of someone who hasn't smiled a lot, and is still trying to get used to the sensation.

As they finally reached the top—dear lord, the trip up always took forever—she slowly took the standard trio of long, deep breaths to offset the anxiety that always started bubbling inside her gut when she got up here, and the hangar floor that dropped a hundred feet away. It wasn't exactly a point of view she was unused to, but being outside of the Savior made it feel much more keenly dangerous. One more long, shuddering breath as Tillie walked over to a little console, and her mouth kept moving.

"I-I saw your fight in Casoban! You really surprised everyone, even me! Uhm! I mean, not that I didn’t think you wouldn’t—well, maybe I didn’t, a little. But I was rooting for you! Ever since they first started talking about you. Actually, it’s kinda why I signed up."

Quinn couldn't help it; a laugh burst from her, nervous and trembling and frayed around the edges. "Don't worry," she said when the laughter abated, "I didn't think I was going to win either."

She would've kept talking, but the chill rolled over her body again and she tensed up. It felt a little like when Quinnlash was giving her feelings, but there was something deeper and more alien to it. Something totally devoid of any semblance of humanity. She shivered.

Actually, on that note...

She turned to where Tillie stood next to her and shook her head. "No, it's fine, really." A moment went by that felt much longer than it really was.

"But, um...you've never seen inside a cockpit before, right?" At least she had a lab coat on. "It's really, really cold, I'm more used to it and even I can't stay in without my suit on for more than a few minutes." One last deep breath. "And...there's no walls or roof." She fished her phone from her pocket. "Or lights."

Then, as ready as she was ever going to be, she turned her phone flashlight on, pulled open the skullport, winced at the absolutely frigid air, and dove into the darkness.

By the time she even made it the few steps to the chair, she was already shivering. The air was filled with the scent of lemon and vanilla from the two small tablets taped to each side of the chair, and she was grateful for them; it made it a little less painful to breathe.

She checked the surface of the chair first, running her fingers along the padded grooves form-fit to her body and the suit plugs, and trying to ignore the brain of the Modir softly pulsing around her, coated with a glistening shell of ice. Nothing was wrong with the chair; all the plugs looked right, nothing was out of place. She was shivering hard enough to nearly drop her phone now as she knelt down to check the stem of the chair, where it had attached to the floor. Where Roaki's had broken off and—

She sucked in a calming breath, though the effect was lessened by the fact that the cold was like a knife to her throat.

"Welcome to my cockpit, Tillie."

Amygdala Circuit

Ah. So that's what Tillie was doing here. Volunteered-slash-assigned to be Quinn's technician. Not a bad idea, and the more she thought about it, the more she warmed up to it. Though she could do without the container of ichor in front of her, it was hard to understand Ablaze sometimes, and a modiologist would be a big help, she hoped.

...Not to mention, Quinn was starting to get lonely. It'd be nice to have someone to talk to when Deelie and Besca were busy.

"No, no no, don't worry about it." She tried her best to make her tremulous smile warmer as best she could, to be met with...debatable success. "I'm not...upset with you or anything." She sucked in a long, deep breath as she kept up calming herself down. "And I don't really think there's anything wrong. I'm just...stressed, is all, so I just want to make sure everything is okay. Being a pilot is..." she hesitated. "Well, it's nerve-wracking a lot. So I'm, um, sorry if I sound mad or anything."

A moment passed and she pitched her head slightly downward. "'Course, I might not be the best to talk about it. I'm still new at this." Another delay. She picked her words carefully, a little like she was talking to Roaki. There was an instinctive understanding in her that whatever she said was going to be picked apart and dissected to its finest pieces by Tillie just the same way. "What I'm trying to say is—" her smile grew warmer, but also somehow sadder as well. "—I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm tired. I'm glad you're here."

A sudden idea popped into her brain, followed by a soft "oh!" as she peered between the Savior's massive legs to spot the platform that was indeed there. She cleared her throat, feeling intensely self-conscious as she awkwardly waved towards it. "I was about to go check the cockpit to make sure everything is okay." Pause, and she started slowly walking towards around the side of the Savior to the lift while she spoke over her shoulder, "You can come if you want."

Amygdala Circuit

The hangar had become a...strange place for Quinn in recent days. Until very recently, it had been a place of abject fear and pain for her. Her disastrous phase test, the traumatic drawing of her weapon, the horror of what had happened in Casoban; if she was in the hangar, it usually meant that things were going terribly wrong, and it was her job to make sure they went back right.

But the recent visits had slackened that off a bit. She'd started talking to the staff more, getting to know them on a deeper level than "the ones that manage my Savior." So when she walked through the open door into the cavernous interior of the hangar, she took a deep, calming breath.

...Before she was poleaxed by Ablaze standing and staring at her.e

A shudder ran up and down her spine, and a thrill of fear jabbed claws into her mind. It had been two months and change since Hovvi. Long enough, however long it exactly was, that the sharper edges of the memories were starting to wear themselves down a little. But no matter how often she saw Ablaze, a part of her was still lying on that street crying as Jubilee stood headless above the wreckage of a town she'd never known. She took long, deep breaths, bringing herself forward in time again and doing her best to calm herself down as she began the long walk across the hangar to her Savior.

It looked okay. Nothing was wrong with it, as far as she could tell. The searing eye was dead, staring unseeing out. At her, it almost felt like, and breathed away another shiver as she remembered the last time it had looked at her. The yellow metal plate was fine; all the scratches it had accrued had been buffed out and it looked like it had just been recolored.

It was as she was approaching—wondering whether or not Ablaze was equipped with a lift platform at the moment for her to look at the cockpit—that she noticed the figure crouching by the Savior. She walked over, curious what was going on, what this person was doing, when they—she—turned and nearly sprinted over. Quinn's eye went wide in something like alarm as she started spouting words like a broken spigot. A new hangar intern named Tillie, and, uh...from the way she was talking, she was probably...a fan? Though she was aware they were out there, Quinn had never actually interacted with any of her fans as yet.

It looked like that was about to change, as she stood there and suddenly realized she had no idea what to say. She stood there for a few more seconds, feeling like an absolute idiot as she tried to put together words of some kind. Somehow this person managed to be intimidating without any attempts to do so. Her throat had gone dry.

"I...um, can...can I call you Tillie?"

She paused for a moment as she collected herself, and a smile—pale and wan, but probably more genuine than anything Tillie had ever seen out of her—came to her face. "And, uh, just...Quinn is fine. If you want." She stole a curious glance at what Tillie was carrying, whatever device was now holding some shavings of her Savior and beeping aggressively. It set her teeth on edge. What if it meant there really was something wrong with Ablaze? A distant part of her knew that was absurd, but it still dug into her. "So, um," she motioned to the plate, hating how unsure she sounded, "is there something wrong with my—"

My Savior. It still felt wrong to say out loud.

"—with Ablaze?"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn could still hear Safie's voice faintly in her head—trust me, Quinn, you're gonna do great things!—when her door was pushed open, and Dahlia nearly lurched in before coming to settle in next to Quinn and near-instantly passing into dreamland. For a few moments, Quinn was tempted to just lie there. To snuggle in with her sister, forget the rest of the world, fall asleep right next to Dahlia, and go back to the lake with Safie, where it was safe and cozy. But then the chill passed over her again—more insistently this time—and she acknowledged it was past time for her to get up. Shimmying gently out from under the covers, she picked her way to the foot of the bed and crawled over it, careful not to disturb Dahlia. The more rest she got the better.

She'd been pushing herself like mad for the past week, barely eating, hardly sleeping, and when she did it was in Quinn's room most of the time. It didn't take a genius to figure out why her sister was doing this, and that knowledge filled Quinn once again with a deep, cloying guilt. Just another one to add on to the pile.

Once she'd managed to extricate herself without waking her, Quinn walked quietly through the open doorway and gently closed it behind her, leaving it a few inches ajar, as was habit. She still hadn't gotten used to the commons being quiet when she awoke. Usually it was filled with the sound of Deelie cooking, and probably humming as she did. But she'd been spending so much time in the sim pods Quinn rarely even saw her anymore unless she crawled into Quinn's bed before or just after she woke, as with today. A sharp pang of loneliness bit her in the side. She missed her sister. She should be making more of an effort to get her out of the sims, or to make her food in the morning the same way she always had for Quinn. She still couldn't cook very well, but even just toast and jam and some fruit would be better than what she'd done so far, which was nothing.

Selfish girl.

Some minutes later, a silent breakfast of buttered toast and poorly-cooked eggs passed by as she forced herself to eat instead of just picking at them. A quick glance at the clock on the wall showed her that it was a quarter past six, and she suppressed a groan. She should be grateful that she'd managed to catch Dahlia awake, not lament the early hour.

Taking a few minutes to shower and roughly double that time if not longer amount to dry and braid her hair, she crept back into her room to pick out clothing for the day, donning it stealthily before taking the jacket that Besca had given her from the hook on her door and tossing it on to complete the look.

So then, she thought as she threw the door to the commons open and stepped out into the hall, what was the first thing she needed to do today?

She needed to have her eval with Docter Follen at some point in the next week, but maybe not today. Or if today, later, when she went to visit Roaki as usual.

She would've liked to spar for a bit, but Dahlia was obviously indisposed, and she didn't know how confident she felt sparring against members of security, or how comfortable they'd feel about sparring with a teenage girl, even if she was a pilot.

She needed to...yeah, that was probably the first order of business.

For the past few days, she'd been making nearly compulsive checks on Ablaze every day, just to make sure it was always ready just in case she needed to drop right away. She didn't know what she expected to find; it had always looked just the same, and it probably always would, but still, the hangar called her name. At the very least, she'd started to learn more about hangar staff. It couldn't hurt to say hi to them when she was there.

So, mind made up, she started off towards the elevator. No need to put on her pilot gear today, at least.

You Can Become a Hero!

Midori-sensei, hmm?

As they traversed the campus that she'd be spending the next few years of her life on—a quickly-suppressed jolt of fear shot down her spine, they wouldn't make her go back after the school year was over, right? She'd be able to stay, right?—Kayo made sure to keep her eyes peeled. She wanted to remember everything about this place as quickly as she could.

As they kept going, she glanced over to her left where the tall fish girl Izuna was walking, and murmured as though in sheer awe of everything around her, "Woooow, we're really here! Can you believe it, Izuna-chan?" And the campus was nice, as expected of one of the best hero schools in the country. Still, though she of course didn't show any of it, her conniving thoughts belied how innocent and cheerful she seemed. And though she seemed as though she was looking at Izuna, her thoughts were on somebody completely different.

Kinzokuma Midori-sensei. She seems like a hassle.

Like bad news. Like she knew something.

Kayo ran her hand through her dry, slick hair, twirling a pale green strand around her finger as the tiny teacher led them around back of the school and giving them an excellent view of the campus dormitory buildings. While of course they weren't nearly as nice as Kayo deserved, she could use them just fine. Anything to get her away from the psycho bitch waiting for her back in Kyoto. As they passed, she wondered idly as she kept her mental mapping; she recalled there being roommates in Ishin, something that she had been less than happy with when she'd first heard.

So...who would hers be? Izuna the fish? The one with tentacles for hair? The tiny girl that walked nearby? The purple-haired kid?

Well, whoever it was, they'd better get used to someone else calling the shots.

Before she knew it, they'd gone around the back of the campus and headed into a huge, empty space. She craned her neck at the ceiling in genuine wonder. It was...really high.

"Alright."

Kayo couldn't stop herself from jerking at the unexpected noise, reflexively tensing up. But just half a moment later, she realized it was just the tiny sensei.

"Leave your belongings with Inuhara and come to the front of the room."

Walking over, she gave the backpack containing what were now all of her worldly possessions to that "Inuhara" guy and gave him a sweet, quiet "take good care of it, okay?" before she turned back around.

Somehow in the seconds she hadn't been paying attention, Kinzokuma-sensei was now holding a pineapple. She held back a heavy sigh.

It was going to be a long year.

Lem's Stash

_______________________________________________ // INFO - Full Name - Axan Endryss Sturke Age - 26 Gender - Female Heritage - Valefor, Land of the Dragon Magical Affinity - Fire // PERSONALITY - Soul Alight Axan is an incredibly driven person. After she chooses a course to take—leaving her home, learning to fight with the best, honing her magic, becoming a mercenary—then come hell or high water, she is going to make it all the way, or she'll die trying. That's not to say she's stubborn, exactly. She knows how to be flexible or take a break; the world is too amazing to not sometimes. But what she doesn't seem to know is how to give up. However long it takes her to get where she's going, she is getting there. Heart Ablaze But what's the point of getting anywhere if you step on everyone in the way? Surprising those who have heard of her by name and reputation and nothing else, Axan is a very warm and caring person, always ready to help people out and to do it with a smile on her face. She has a strong moral compass, and this tends to be responsible for a number of those breaks and distractions; no matter the inconvenience it causes to her, she's not the type who'd find someone in distress and think, I'll leave it to someone else to solve. Tears Aflame Driven, compassionate, helpful, intense. As might be gleaned, Axan is pretty much incapable of being clinical and emotionless. Partially as a side effect of using almost exclusively the chaotic strain of Incantation inherited from Vaalascha but mostly just because of the kind of person she is, she feels everything very strongly, from joy to hope to grief to sorrow. And no matter what emotion she's feeling, she shows it. Her heart is very much worn on her sleeve. It all comes together to form a picture most really don't expect; a caring, compassionate mercenary who eschews the cutthroat reputation of her occupation. After all, she's never really been one for rules. // SKILLSET - Dragonsong A wild, chaotic strain of magic, Vaalaschan Incantation is unpredictable and dangerous, often just as likely to injure the wielder or their comrades as it is the enemy. Axan, thenn is an unusual case study. From long practice and constant use, she has begun to exercise a strict control of that dangerous dragonic strain of fire, and bend it firmly to her will in a way that's not altogether common to see. And it makes her quite a threatening presence, because not only are Vaalaschan Incantations powerful in their own right...nobody really makes use of them. She is unpredictable and hard to read. Emberdance All those dancing lessons as a child came in handy after all. Hand in hand with her magic, her fighting style further increases that strange combat style that makes her so hard to read and dangerous. While she is of course proficient in standard swordplay and often incorporates pieces of it in combat to confuse and distract, her principle form is that of a quick Valeforian dance. With the great deal of strength she has at her disposal, she can whip her greatsword around faster than it looks like she should rightfully be able to, whirling it in a dervish of brilliant sanguine steel and flashing fire. Her steps are quick, her smile is undaunted. And she always keeps tempo. Kindlesoul Keeping tempo indeed. Axan prides herself on being able to react to anything, and do it with a smile on her face. And downtime is absolutely no exception to the rule. As merciless as she is in battle, once she gets off the battlefield, she is just as skilled and happy applying herself inside the home as well as outside. She may not look it, and she may not advertise it, but Axan is rather good at homemaking. Whether cooking a roast over an open fire, baking a pie, keeping a garden, or arranging flowers, she channels that privileged upbringing, putting it to good use to make herself and anyone around her at the time just a little bit happier.

Physical Description Axan Endryss Sturke. One of the more well-known mercenaries in Grayle. When people near the Alexandrian border hear the name, even if they don't recognize it, it often strikes a chord. Miss Axan. Lady Sturke. Firebrand. Dragon Sellsword. The Molten Lady Axan has been called many different things in her life, and has lived many different lives. But all of them call back to the fire. And befitting that, she looks quite fiery herself. She's a tall young woman, but the most noticeable and recognizable of her features is her long mane of brilliant red hair. Character Conceptualization Asceron Navietas, Lord of a military family, is a man stricken by grief. His first child, Dicen, was a fine young man. He would've been eighteen now, by Asceron's reckoning. But he was taken young. Not by fire. Not by war. A strange fever that refused to break ravaged him, turning his tall, fit form into a shivering, wasted thing before finally, mercifully, letting him slip softly away into the night. And that, on top of his wife dying soon after childbirth years before, giving him his second child: a girl, who she named Luenciel before she passed. And a bizarre child she was; from the moment she opened her crimson eyes, Asceron knew that something was strange. And when her hair grew in stark and white, he was ever more concerned for her. Her strange appearance, and Asceron's grief at Enuiel's passing, caused her life to be sheltered, secluded one from the beginning. And the spreading rumors—no doubt house staff who'd caught glimpses of white hair and red eyes, Asceron thought—convinced him quite well that he was right to do so. The outside wasn't just indifferent to her. It was outright hostile. For years, she sought solace in her father and her brother. Though...at one point, her uncle came to visit. She'd never seen him before, but...he seemed nice, right? And the rumors hadn't truly found their way to her yet. He saw his niece, one of the very few that Asceron had let see her at all. He was nice. Gave her candy, patted her on the head, went to bed, and...the next morning, tripped and fell down the stairs. Broke his neck. And just like that, dead. More grief from Asceron. Condolences from Dicen. And...confusion from the seven-year-old Luenciel. A few years later, an elderly woman who lived next door to their house broke several bones from a fall and couldn't get up. She lived alone, and her voice wasn't loud enough. Unable to move, she stayed there until she died. A year after that, a vendor hawking his wares in the street below seized, and his movement ceased as his heart stopped beating in his chest. And then, when she was twelve...Dicen. So very grief-wracked now, Asceron kept Luen inside not just for her own sake, but for his own. As strange as she looked, she was his last family. He wanted so desperately to keep her close. And though nobles came and went, events were held and released from the manor of the Navietas—though he told her to stay in her room, flashes of her were noticed, just barely, and the rumors intensified—the years passed, and Luen remained. By now, though, she'd heard the rumors. So, so many of them. Enough that she started to believe them some: that her being around someone put them in danger. So she looked at her father. She looked at his glaive on the wall. She looked inward. Did she really want to be locked away like this for her whole life? No. No, she wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to see the outside for herself. She wanted to talk to people. She wanted to escape her curse. And as she thought of these things, an ember kindled itself in her chest. What she wanted was... ...To fight. Two more years passed in the blink of an eye. She trained with her father, learning from him how best to leverage her water magic and creating her bracers. She remained inside. And then, as she packed to leave, she sat down with her father again. She talked to him about names. About how she wouldn't be able to go by hers, and would need to find a man's name. Her father—upset she was leaving, but unable to bring himself to stop her—thought for several minutes as they sat together in silence one last time. "...Lucien." And so, Lucien Navietas—scion of the Navietas family and a cursed child born under an ill-fated Star—left her—his—family home. To see. To talk. To escape. To fight.

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Assigned DPS at birth

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

Graves is basically a tank, I mean have you seen the punishment that boy can take?

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

---

As the heavy wooden sword swung down at the Valeforian's head like an axe, Luen sucked a quick breath of air in through her teeth in a sharp sympathy wince. The poor boy. That was going to hurt, wasn't it? She felt a ghost of a tug on her legs, an impulse from a hidden place in her mind that urged her to run out there right now and stop the oncoming blow. Or at the very least to help the poor guy find a place to sit after he was so thoroughly trounced. And she actually did shift like she was about to start running, though of course she stopped herself before he inevitably—

And then he had to go and surprise Keros with snow magic and knock him out of the tournament like the snap of a finger.

"Wow."

The word slipped out before she could really do anything about it, and a little smile grew on her face.

“Wasn’t expecting incantations this early. Especially not from commoners.”

"Neither did I, but I'm glad. This way nobody got hurt." A moment passed before she realized how incredibly sappy and—and—and womanly what she'd just said was. After a beat of quiet that she felt was far too long and a self-conscious cough, she added: "After all, a heavy waster like that could break, what was it? Ferros' shoulder, and a commoner might never be able to get it fixed properly. Failure and pain are one thing, but being permanently crippled is quite another."

Steal Away The Light

Location: Uhladein, Eastern Marches

---

Quinnlash, by force of long, long habit, was snapped out of her distraction by a question about pyromancy. Which was not exactly her favorite subject; it reminded her far too much of things she'd left behind. But still, something—maybe her massive venting of pyromancy in the hearthfire keep, the memories that had been gnawing on her mind, or Galiel's last few words getting under her skin—compelled her to answer. So she glanced back at the pink Hunter. Lexann, she thought, as she locked eyes—or, well, eye—with her. Her mouth was fixed into a scornful sneer, as it often was. But when she spoke, her voice, on the other hand, was most unlike her. It carried none of the loud, angry vitriol that characterized "Quinnlash" so much of the time. Rather, it was quiet, level, and deeply bitter.

"Pyromancy has more limits than you think."

She stared up at the dark, clouded sky, and a small, tightly-controlled flame leapt between her fingers. "There's only so much energy in one person. Humans are finite, by definition; the Void is infinite. And finite versus infinite reaches a predictable, inevitable outcome. Which is why we exist. We—Hunters—we're still finite in theory if not normal praxis. Just...less so. So the conclusion is less clear-cut and obvious."

For the barest fraction of a fraction of a second, her face was writ with something like despair.

Then her hand snapped closed, and the flame vanished with it. Her brow creased into a thundercloud, and she mantled a scowl once again. Stop it. Stop it! FUCKING STOP IT! You aren't like that anymore! You are better!

"Ugh! Fuck! Why am I even talking about—telling you about—FUCK! It's not like dumbasses like you can understand it anyway, so why am I even BOTHERING?"