[ 1v1 ] watched it wither and die ( aleria & otto ) fin

[its me debz]

It was not often that the house of haunts called to them, but they had just been so lonely, this past year. Amityville Academy had not turned out to be the hopeful thing the demon had wanted: they did not feel secure in their future, they did not feel as though they belonged.

They did not know anyone, truly, and what was worse, they were unsure if it mattered.

The Haunted House sang its siren song, intercepting Aleria on their way back from another class that they had heard but did not truly listen to; something about the nature of FEAR and why it functioned the way it did.

Nothing mattered. Not truly. They flexed a hand, pale white and clammy, and pushed open the door to the first room, dizziness overtaking them. The vines in their head murmured lowly, indistinct and unhappy, but that was nothing new. The vines were separate entities from Aleria, but they were a truer representation of the demon's nature than they cared to admit.

Long, teal robes dragged behind them as they wandered through each incongruous room, and not for the first time in the past few weeks, Aleria found that they didn't care if it got dusty, torn, or stained.

They did not care about much, these days. Caring was troublesome. Caring was setting yourself up for disappointment.

Quote:

Rolling a 1: ALL DAMAGE IS MULTIPLIED BY 2, but you CANNOT USE FEAR/ CHARGED ATTACKS. You feel slightly dizzy, everything around you flickers to greys.

bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

The haunted house was a welcome change after months of being stuck in Deus (save for an unplanned stay in the Sahara). The blonde teen did not miss the vile atmosphere, or the suffocating fog, but it was a change of pace nonetheless.

The door opened, and he instantly felt heavy and disoriented. He was stuck in a room that made him dizzy until he could find the room's answers. It didn't take long to find the other visitor to the house, her robes and skin easy to spot despite the flickering grays. She was Halloween. An easy thing to pick out in a crowd.

His first thought was to simply kill her and move on. However, taking his duties a little more seriously, he tried to approach this in a way that reflected his Division: Information gathering.

"Hey." He called out, pocketing his hands, "What're ya doin' in this place?" His tone was agitated, as it always was. He hated socializing, PR and all that nonsense. But that was the Division he was in. He wasn't a Sun, and needed to keep away from relying on his measly strength to solve his problems.  

[its me debz]

Aleria stuck out very easily, considering their height often resulted in towering over most others, this new stranger included. They peered down at him, this angry creature of bright yellow and crisp white, and slowly shrugged their bony shoulders.

"I wonder that, too," the demon mused, looking around the dismal room for a place to sit. They were in no mood to fight unless absolutely provoked, and this small thing did not seem to be itching for a confrontation. A good thing, too, because Aleria was all too aware of their ineptitude in combat.

"It found me, not the other way around. Did it find you, too? Did it draw you in with its siren song?"

Bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

Holy cheese on a cracker. This demon was tall. Too tall. Everyone was always taller than Otto as a default but this one made it a total overkill. He couldn't even tell what gender they were, but from what Tenya described, a lot of these creatures often came genderless.

Despite the demon's odd rambling, he took solace in the fact it wasn't an arrogant Hunter hater with a passion for lectures and preachings.

"Uuuuuh.... sure, yeah. Drawn to the damned alure of dust and creakin' floor boards." Otto muttered sarcastically, hoisting himself up on a higher crate than Aleria to sit on.

You know, to feel taller.  

[its me debz]

The corners of Aleria's eyes crinkled, recognising his misery as something long suffering rather than any true upset.

"I shall take that as a no, then, but that is fine. Your reasons are your own; I shall not pry."

Aleria took a seat on a low crate, crossing booted legs with an elegance that seemed unlikely from such a spindly creature. They turned their face upwards, gazing up at the wilful boil, their face splitting into a wide grin, revealing pointed teeth that fit together nicely, a razor sharp smile.

The room was cold, and a gust of wind swirled dust across the floorboards into crystalline patterns. The demon traced it with the toe of their boot, despondent.

"You are too bright to be one of ours," Aleria said, sneaking another peek at the stranger. "Your coat is too white, the trim is too sharp. You are one of those Human Reapers, then."
 

[Bittiface]

Now that Otto didn't have to crank his neck up high to talk to someone, his shoulders relaxed. Resting his arms over his knees, he looked down on Aleria as she spoke.

"That'd be me." Human reaper, huh? She must not have had much contact with Hunters. That might be an advantage. "Ain't met too many of us, I wager?" He asked in an attempt to be slightly conversational. Not his strongest suit. No, in fact, it was his weakest.

"How is it you people find this place, anyway? Or does it find you?" He already knew the answer, but why not make it feel like it was helpful.  

[its me debz]

"I have had limited experience with your kind," Aleria confirmed with a nod of their head. "My first exposure was during the Famine Room. My second was during a siege upon your home, if I am not mistaken."

They tapped their chin with a sharp claw. "I am still unsure of the specifics, to be quite honest. It all seems so far away, now, and rather cruel."

Aleria removed their coat, revelling in the cold air, revealing a short sleeved button up shirt beneath, in cream trimmed with aquamarine. "It finds us, always. I have sought it before to no avail, and it finds me when I am, ah." They smiled again, an open mouth grinned that revealed a secondary row of teeth behind their front row. "Morose." The demon waved a hand dismissively. "The mood strikes me more often than not, in recent days. Tell me, Human Reaper. Do you belong?"
 

[Bittiface]

Oh. That siege. Otto didn't much care for that particular part of his Hunter life. It was a bad time. Cringing, he turned his gaze away a moment, scratching his neck. "Yeah, well, no one likes gettin' attacked in their own home." He grumbled.

The teen shivered, the cold unwelcome to the boy who preferred a warmer climate. Throwing up his hood to keep his neck protected, he slunk back into a slouch on his perch. "It brings you here when yer moody..." That could mean a few things. He kept note of it. From the sounds of it, this demon was feeling out of place lately. A great start, almost too easy. Just up his alley.

"Belong? Like...hm. I guess so, yeah. Ever since I joined the Hunters, I've felt more at home than I ever did with my family. What's up? High School ain't doin' it for you?"  

[its me debz]

"I suppose. My home has never seen attack. I do not consider Amityville to be my home; I hail from a northern village far, far away from the likes of Halloweentown and its inhabitants."

Aleria clearly did not include their own person in that calculation.

"Ah. Hunters." The word rolled over their tongue, and the demon committed it to memory. It was not the first time they'd heard the word in this context, but the first time that such a thing truly mattered or had any weight.

"Amityville is a fine academy, but I do not think my attendance betters it, if that is what you mean. I have no ties that bind me here beyond my enrollment; this school may as well be another, for all that I am concerned." They laughed, a little. "My apologies. The drear is overwhelming. I am not truly strong enough to make a difference, so I find myself along the outskirts, more often than not."
 

[Bittiface]

"Well then do somethin' about it." Otto said bluntly, looking down at the student. "If you feel like you bein' there ain't doin it for ya, then make something of yourself. Sitting on your a** ain't gunna push your life further, yanno."

The teen was bullshitting. It was a Division specialty. The demon seemed at a crossroads, and Otto needed to get them motivated in the right direction. The Deus direction.

"If it's strength you need, of the body or the heart.." Otto rubbed his neck, "Well, having someone to push you to be better? Making you feel like you're actually happy with yourself.. that's the kind of strength that'll get you places."


He gave the demon a serious look, "The bonds I've made as a hunter make me strong, and make me feel like I'm a part of something bigger than myself. I never feel lost or uneeded." Lies lies lies, but damn it was pouring out so smoothly.  

[its me debz]

Aleria looked at the boil.

He was one of the hunters, true, which meant that they shouldn't trust them. However, the demon didn't really have any true logic for that reasoning; merely regurgitated propaganda that they had overheard from somewhere in the grapevine.

The demon leaned upwards, eyes narrowing.

"You would not deceive me, would you?" It was a naive question, and their sheltered world view was on display, raw like an open nerve. What he said made a great deal of sense. There was no one that was going to help them, so they had to help themselves.

"I cannot," they admitted, the first tremors of fear creeping into their voice. "Not on my own. But where would I acquire someone to assist me?"

The bonds he'd made as a hunter...

"I am envious. I do not think I could acquire such kindness and strength within these walls." They glanced around. "Well. In the walls of Amityville, not specifically this house of haunts, as its walls go where they wish, no more and no less."
 

[Bittiface]

"Me personally? No." Otto replied with a brow raised. "There's a handful of shitty hunters who'd do otherwise; I ain't gunna lie to you about that." The no bullshit approach seemed to work for him, so he felt more natural letting that part of his bloom.

"I can't speak for you as far as the island goes. It's worked for a lot of Halloween folk like yourself find partners for life. That much I know for fact. I've only experience Amity offhand a few times. Can't say it has that same kind of depth." He gave a huff, curling into his coat some more.

"This place is ********' freezin.." He grumbled to himself. "Well.. if you're at all interested, you could always take a tour. Try it out. If you don't like it, come back here to High School of the Dead."

astrazilla

 

[its me debz]

"I appreciate your candour. This information will be filed away for later. Do you think some others would talk with me? If I met them?" They were concerned about being attacked; did assaults on the mind come with assaults on the flesh?

"For life," Aleria repeated, and they shrunk into their seat, shoulders hunching over as they contemplated it.

It meant a loss of life, but what sort of life was a half-way thing? The lost sort of wandering, without any purpose? In a daze, Aleria lifted their heavy, velvet coat and stood, still tall enough to reach up and drape it over the boil. He was a small thing, slender and petite; it was a wonder he did not freeze sooner.

"I was not aware tours were on the table as an option."

A visit was far from abandonment. What harm could it do?

"If I request one for later, there's no way to contact you again, is there?" Aleria asked, wondering if he had a skellyphone or something equivalent. "I am assuming jack frost signalling is as unheard of out of the North as it is in the world of humans."

The demon began to pace, a look of serious intent on their pale face. They were...contemplating it. Quite seriously.
 

[Bittiface]

"Nah, they don't attack you when you're a guest in the facility. You'd have to stay in this boring a** white room, but hurting you while you're there is against the rules." In his experience, that's how it worked.

While he felt weird accepting a coat from a Halloween student, the coat was blocking off the chilly wind. He twitched the corner of his mouth, as if he tried to smile as quickly as possible before returning it to a frown, pulling the sides of the coat closer around him.

"Yeah, getting ahold of me is near impossible." There was probably a way, in fact there was, but that would mean more work. If he could get this done in one fell swoop, that'd be easier. "Jack Frost... huh?" She spoke funny.

Her contemplating was noted. Otto drifted his gaze for a moment in thought. "Hey. I'm Otto, by the way. What's your name?" He held out a cold hand, figuring pleasantries might help the demon feel more obligated or comfortable to come along.  

[its me debz]

"A truce? How novel!" It seemed so strange that these creatures, who Aleria had heard terrible stories of, would behave like civilized beings when faced with cross-faction relations. It was a wonder they were not aligned with Amityville entirely, truth be told.

The demon smiled at the image of such a tiny boil wrapped up in eight feet of fabric, fond of him against their better judgement. He was an 'enemy', but if an 'enemy' cared more to socialise with Aleria than their own classmates, what sort of rival was he? Truly?

"I am Aleria, an arctic flora demon, from the northern city of Shayala." If it sounded like a rehearsed line, that's because it was. Aleria stopped their pacing to take the proffered hand in their own, shaking it once neatly, careful not to try and wound him with their claws, unaware of the protective shield that kept him safe from worse things than a wayward student.

"Doomed to meet you, Otto. Do you have a surname? A ranking, perhaps?"