[MP] Milk (NPC)

[shibrogane]

A dark-haired girl child stood in front of a street stall, perusing the milk and ice cream cooler. One hand, on her hip, held an adorable little black cat purse. The other pointed at the milk, then to the small pint of chocolate ice cream, then back again. Her lips moved, calculating prices and apparently coming up to an unsatisfactory total. She pouted, and stared at the milk longer. Choosing from good and evil was never her strong point.

She sighed and turned towards the crowd to think about this with more detail. If only she had someone quiet to keep her thoughts in her head straight. Someone... Liet tilted her head to the left, narrowing her green eyes. "Vast-o," she said disapprovingly. "You're gonna get lost, Vast-o."  

[evermore_crystal]

A black-haired boy trailed at Liet's side, his unblinking gaze staring intently at nothing. He was quite a bit taller than the girl (though that could have had to do with the fact that his feet didn't touch the ground, but rather drifted about an inch off the pavement) and appeared much older; but, no, the elder was not in charge. The more capable (at least from the perspective of an observing human) was. It's not that the boy looked unintelligent at all; he looked rather like one of those dreamy-eyed aspiring-to-be-a-poet young man who is always in their own little realm. It's just that...well, there's just something about him. Any passerby would be able to pick up his oddity, yet few would be able to pinpoint it. Perhaps it's just his tendency to travel without touching the ground. Perhaps.

He turned his eyes (so strangely blank!) on the girl next to him. "My name is not Vast-o," he said, with no trace of having taken offense. Or anything at all. "My name is Vast." Again stated like reading straight off of a textbook. He then looked at the strange black thing (a face? No, faces are not as pointy. Are they?) the girl was holding. He pondered to question its presence for a moment, to question whether or not it's necessary and what for; but decided against it. She might look at him funny and then not answer.  

[shibrogane]

"I know your name is Vast," Liet said patiently. "I call you Vast-o because we're friends." He forgot things all the time. "I'm Liet, remember? We're like siblings, so I call you Vast-o." That was maybe why they were great friends. She patted his arm and brought the kitty purse to her mouth, chewing blankly on an ear while contemplating the milk.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Avedis was hunting Illusionary. This was not, in itself, an uncommon occurance. Much of his time happened to be spent hunting down, terrorizing, and then marking the locations of Illusionary. What was uncommon was that Strae was with him, and he wasn't dragging her by her hair. He paused, scanning the skyline for that distinctive spike of energy that meant the person was an Illusionary, and spotted something quite queer. There were clearly two of them standing in front of a dairy stall, but there seemed to be two souls concentrated in the younger body, and none in the first. "Strae, I've located them," he pointed out the obvious. "Over there, the girl with the leather jacket and the floating boy."  

[evermore_crystal]

"Liet," he repeated after her, testing the feel of the name on his lips. The motion seems familiar. A word he's said before, for sure, though it brought along no burst of recognition. "Do I..."

He stopped mid-sentence as two unknown, significant presences neared them. He couldn't see anyone at all; but the distinct feel of powerful and life-filled spirits is something he cannot ignore for miles and miles. "Two people are focusing on us," he said out loud in his textbook-voice. "Two important people."

"I do not recognize their feel," he added as an afterthought. Well...of course he wouldn't. He never does.


While she wasn't being dragged by the hair, Strae wasn't exactly following along with the plan happily. She wouldn't have bothered at all, had They not sent down a no-nonsense order for her to finally do something useful. Not that there really is anything useful to do, in her opinion, but she would rather not take chances with Them. But Ave was the a**-Kisser, right? Why not just let the good little boy do his job and leave her alone?

"Yes, I see them, I see them," Strae responded. "But why are we going after them individually? I recall no part of the order having anything pertaining to a hit list. Our target is the book, not them." She paused to consider her own questions; Ave probably won't answer them satisfyingly. "On second thought, let's just get this over with."  

[shibrogane]

"Of course not," Liet began to say, but then their presence hit her also. She staggered bodily and turned to face them, face slightly red in anger and humiliation. With a large step, she stood between Vast and the two unknowns, kitty purse tucked into an invisible pocket. "Don't do anything stupid. Vast-o." She looked like a slighted child, but that didn't change the fact that she definately seemed to have had some training and could probably hold at least Strae off for a few moments.

Avedis would win by sheer size. He chuckled and decided to answer Strae. "If we find all the Illusionary, we will find clues to the book, won't we? Also, this is a way to occupy ourselves until such a time as we can give the book to the myriad." Strae called their master and commander 'They', but Ave preferred to call them the Myriad. "Don't do your infamous insubordination routine. We should present a united front."

He stopped directly in front of Liet and Vast and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Hi," he said, pleasantly enough.

"Go die," Liet said.  

[evermore_crystal]

Vast did not respond. Instead he looked on at the intruders, innocent as a bystander. He knew something those are serious beings, but one far more so than the other. The woman, though clearly with a goal, although seemed not to particularly care, while the man...yes, the man is the one they need to be most careful of. On the plus side, simply being in the presence of their energies would keep him from feeling hungry for quite a while.

Strae snorted at Ave's comment. "Well, I'm alive, aren't I? No one seriously angers Them and survives the thing. I'm not stupid, I know where to draw the line."

Had she been the I-want-to-be-a-villain type, Strae would have sneered at the little girl posing rather pathetically in front of them. instead, she merely frowned. "Please don't make this more difficult than it already has to be," she informed the child. "It's not like I'm here to kill anybody." A glance at Ave. "Then again...he seems to be taking this way too seriously."  

[shibrogane]

Liet half-smiled, feeling cold metal against her chest. "Well, then who are you? And why the hell would you choose to talk to us instead of the million other people in this street?"

Avedis chuckled at Strae again, then pressed fingertips to his cheekbones. "I thought I was taking this admirably good-naturedly," he said cheerfully. "It's amusement. So, down to business, kids. Do you know of the Book?"

Her brow furrowed as she thought. "No," she decided was the correct answer. This would be a bad time for Vast to have a sudden bout with rememberance, as very rarely happened. It wasn't worth worrying about, it was just that rare. It wouldn't help to tell them that the lady who looked after Liet and Vast had had the book for a time. No, it wouldn't.  

[evermore_crystal]

"Well, it just so happens that we have to. I honestly can't give you a straight answer." Strae eyed the child once more, and sighed. "Don't try anything. It would be a fleeting annoyance to us at most. It would provably end up the worse outcome for you." She didn't sign up for any of this. Well, none of them did. But if the girl persists...she can't be held responsible for her own actions under stress. Anybody who knew her could vouch for that.

"See? I told you this was pointless," Strae told Ave with a hint of exasperation. Just a hint. It must be a good day today.  

[shibrogane]

"Who's trying?" Liet was fairly confident, possibly overconfident.

Avedis shrugged. "It amuses me," he hinted to Strae. "Are you suuure?"

"What do you want it for, anyway?" She eyed both of them, trying to determine if they'd be fast enough to catch her and Vast if she grabbed the other and took off running. Probably. The one had really long legs, but then, she was small and Vast floated. They could get through the noontime crowds faster than Strae or Avedis.  

[evermore_crystal]

Strae could feel her annoyance building. Must not think about brat, she reminded herself. Must not think of bratty, self-satisfied, pretentious little gits...hmm. That sounds like Ave, actually... The thought almost amused her, but did a decent job of alleviating the rising feeling. "Believe what you want," she retorted, both to the girl and to Ave. "Though your ideas of amusement disgusts me." This was directed just to Ave.

She directed her eyes towards the strange, floaty boy. He seemed quite...blank. Empty. Not the way any living thing is supposed to be. "Your friend over there," she said to the girl, "he seems to be..." A pause to reconsider her words. "I think I know what's wrong with him."

Vast looked on with an air of disinterest. It is impossible to tell whether or not he understood anything at all; most would assume he didn't. Or perhaps he did, and just forgot his own conclusions.  

[shibrogane]

She wondered, for just a second, if Vast would get an idea if she thought it hard enough. Sometimes, when she remembered something important, he remembered too. Maybe... But then Strae spoke again, and that thought went clear out of her mind.

Avedis seized on this opportunity. "We can help him, you know. All we'd need is the Book. And then he'd be okay-" and taking a slight risk "-and so would you, kid. I bet that the lady who made you-" another guess "-******** you up pretty badly, too. We could balance it out."

She was so tempted; Liet looked over her shoulder at Vast, at his blank eyes, and then turned back to Avedis and Strae. "Shut the hell up. It's not his fault-" All the sudden, she felt teary. Where'd this come from? Damnit, she had to look like she knew what she was doing, and she tried, but the shimmery quality to her green eyes belied that they'd struck a nerve.  

[evermore_crystal]

Vast turned to Avedis, his look almost accusing...but of course, this is Vast. Vast who never managed a true facial expression. So it was just an almost accusing look; he probably appeared the same as he always did. He didn't say a word; just looked on in his slightly eerie way. The faint not-really-there expression was hard to notice, yet at the same time hard to miss in his eyes. It was kind of like him: there and not-there at the same time.

Strae suppressed a grimace at Ave's declarations. That b*****d...but now that things have gone this way, she saw no reasons to go against the tide. Orders were orders. By whatever means necessary, right? It's for the greater good of the universe.
"It wasn't his fault," she agreed. "That's why he shouldn't be like this. I am fairly certain I can help him...but we would need to know more. This book is key in understanding what you guys are; without more information, it would be like trying to perform bypass surgery on an alien when you don't even know if it has blood vessels." She looked at the girl again, her expression truly earnest. "No one deserves to pay for something they did not do."

Damn, there she goes again. Attachment. Damn her own nature. But she just...I'm digging myself into a hole, aren't I. but it's all for the orders, she kept trying to remind herself. This is necessary to carry out the orders.  

[shibrogane]

Liet knew the nuances of Vast's blank face, and wondered why he had that expression on. It'd always been in use when she'd blamed him for something she did, when they were both the same age, before he'd gone and Grown Up, something that was apparently very important. "How do I know you'll help him?" Go on, tell me I'll have to trust you, she thought viciously. Give me a reason, and I will.

"You can come with us," Avedis said, acting on another idea. "So you'll know everything we know. And this way-" He looked at Strae and smiled bitterly. "-This way, you can see just how badly Shenella messed you up. That's the one who you're bound to, isn't it? The both of you."

She took a step back. How did he know?  

[evermore_crystal]

Damn. b*****d, b*****d b*****d, b*****d. Strae knows the kind of stuff Avedis is usually up to, and none of them tend to end up well for the other party involved. All Avedis cared about was his own goals, which matched his orders to the letter and every single punctuation, stressed syllables included. But she can't openly go against him; she is in no position to possibly derail "the plans." There are always consequences, and Strae is careful to never take unneeded chances. Like she said, she's not stupid.

"It wasn't really her fault, either," she chose to mutter. Subtle enough for her purposes. "I can't force you to trust me." Well, I can, but I've got principles, ya? "It's up to you to take the offer, since he," a look at Vast, "obviously is in no condition to decide for himself. If you provide everything I need, I guarantee you I can at least make him better. But the results will all be based upon your actions. Withhold anything, try to trick me, and things will probably go wrong, whether I intend it to go that way or not."


Vast stayed silent. Yes, he understood what was being offered. but...he didn't exactly mind being like this. Except for feeling hungry all the time and knowing that he is always missing something...it's not too bad. As long as he never knew what it's like to be in Heaven, Hell isn't such a dreadful pit.  

[shibrogane]

He smiled. He had her; he knew he had the girl now. "It's not like she ever let you meet the others. You just have to help us a little."

Liet looked back at Vast. If she did accept... she'd have to get him home, somehow. He couldn't remember the way. She turned and bought the milk she'd been sent to get, thinking it through. It didn't occur that Avedis might be intending to leave both of them, Vast and Liet, dead in a ditch somewhere. She just wanted him to get better. The girl shoved a gallon of milk into Vast's hands. "You gotta go home, Vast-o. Need me to show you the way?"