[PRP] Something Wicked (Kirkcaldy, n'Barit, Alice)

[shibrogane]

On a fairly dark and cloudy day, you could hardly ever find anyone sitting outside with any kind of real motive for risking electrocution of any sort. And yet, there was a woman- easily in her late-twenties- risking death by lightning bolt, sitting on a bench and watching cars go by. She had a bright red sunburn across her bare shoulders and on the tip of her nose, and the backs of her hands were just as lobster-colored as her shoulders. It was probably because of the strangely pale tone of her skin; it was almost as though she was glowing in the strange, greenish light from the impending storm. A rain cloud as stormy as the greenish ones in the sky hovered over her head; she didn't seem to really care.

Alice sighed and slid a little down the bench- as much as she could, with a wing to think about- and caught one of the eight red balls orbiting her. "Hey there," she said to it, though her comment could be misconstrued as intended for anyone nearby. "Care to share when the rain is going to start? I'm getting a little impatient." Her voice had a lilt, a strong emphasis on her vowels that changed monosyllables into musical notes. She let the orbital go and sighed. Rain was calming; she wasn't so manic when it was near. "Come on," she said to the sky. "Rain."  

[romesilk]

Across the street, a car horn blared in answer. Some pedestrian trying to get across without any regard for his own safety or the law had stepped into the street. But instead of him hastening back to the sidewalk's safety he waved one of his crutches in the air and shouted over the horn's blaring: "Hey! I'm walking here!" He seemed unimpressed by the car's size and ability to kill run him over, which was probably how he had gotten the broken leg in the first place. (Or maybe it was just a sprain, there was no cast visible.)

That in and of itself would not have been enough to warrant much attention, being a sight frequent on many a metropolis's streets, but it was followed by the terrified wail of a child. Attached to the man by virtue of a silver cord was a little red-haired girl, just a toddler, frightened out of her mind at the car's honking, her feet just inches away from the curb. Had the man stepped out a little bit further he would have pulled her into the street with him.

Crossing into the street unlawfully was one thing, but doing it with a child in tow was quite another. Some things were simply unforgivable.  

[shibrogane]

"That's not rain!" She gave a hurt glare to her orbitals, before standing up and making her way over to the street. Seeing as she escorted no young girl, Alice felt no societal pressure at walking through moving traffic and across the hoods of cars, just a vague feeling of annoyance at the parked cars. "But I'll take it. It's something, anyway." Her feet brought her right up next to the two, and from there she placed two hands on their shoulders and pulled them back. Just then, her cloud decided to roil with lightning and began to rain, drenching her near-instantly.

"This is rain," she said, satisfied, before turning to the man on crutches. "As a septar, I find it my duty to tell you that you are being highly irresponsible and putting a child in danger with your actions. Please do cease and desist, it's very irritating and probably makes your daughter very frightened." Alice released both of them once she had maneuvered the pair onto the side of the street that had originally been their destination and her location. She stretched upwards, sunburned skin cracking a little. Thank the multitudinious, ever-changing god she had encountered them before a rain, or else she would be laughing and giggling and not serious at all. As it were, she was able to give the offender her dryest, most disinterested 'listen-to-me-obey-me-or-hurt' look she had ever copied off a teacher from the Imperial College.  

[romesilk]

Shocked, n'Barit took a moment to resist straightaway hitting this stranger with his crutch. The offended car, freed of its obstacle, went screeching off with a final blast of its horn and the street resumed its normal traffic against the sound of Kirkcaldy's crying. N'Barit gasped quickly, fighting several conflicting instincts including fear, and summoned up every bit of fury he was repressing by not immediately striking this stranger into a formidable yell.

"Get your dirty hands the Hell off Kirkcaldy!"

With that, he grabbed his daughter with a degree of force not normally used on children by responsible parents and yanked her to his side. Kirkcaldy's sob caught in her throat, momentarily interrupting her crying if not her tears, and she stumbled against his crutch. Only the fact that she grabbed the crutch kept her from falling. She was completely jarred by n'Barit's pull. It took her several moments to recover her breath again.  

[shibrogane]

She narrowed her eyes at him. "It seems you just hurt her a good deal more than I did," Alice said primly. "Also, if you had continued on your projected vector, she would have been in greater danger than your fear of germs." For a moment, it seemed she would yell right back at n'Barit, her eyebrows moving together in a confused look.

Then she smiled brightly, a sudden and complete mood swing. "Kirkcaldy, is it?" Alice sat on her heels to look the redheaded child in the eye. "Hi there. I'm Alice." She removed a lock of dripping hair from her face, adeptly hooking it over her single remaining horn, then carefully diverted an orbital that was careening towards the green-haired man and the little girl.  

[romesilk]

Before Kirkcaldy could respond to that (she managed to open her mouth to answer but nothing more) n'Barit growled through clenched teeth, "Get away," in a tone that suggested he was a mere atom's breadth away from physical violence. His left hand tightened on his crutch, his eyes narrowed, and there was even hint of a vein popping out on his forehead. His right hand found Kirkcaldy, pressing her back against his leg protectively, fingers digging into her jumper. Kirkcaldy's own hands curled around his, and her mouth went from preparing to speak to a little "o" of uncertainty. Continuing his furiously accusatory glare, n'Barit said, "I don't know what manner of trick this is, but if you don't step back I will kill you."  

[shibrogane]

"Really?" The way Alice said it, she wasn't taking n'Barit's threat for much of a threat at all. She stood up. "That would be messy and unadvisable, but if you really want to, then who'm I to stop you?" Alice slid one foot backwards and held her hands up in the air, a rather empathic shrug. Of course she was someone to stop him, but she didn't particularly care for physical violence in front of children unless she was teaching them not to be physically violent. And defending herself would be really funny, and she knew she wouldn't be able to defend herself well if she was giggling.

Maybe it'd be easier to see if his head would steam if she sent her raincloud over to visit him. That would cool anyone off; the raindrops were like icy needles. But again, there was the problem of the child. Had the little girl done anything? No, so she wouldn't be justified, especially not to a court of her betters. The Thscier valued life, and young life was the most valuable kind of life. Any injury to a young child was met with harsh penalties. Though Alice herself didn't see why- some children were awful- she still had to follow the rules, by virtue of her commission.

"What exactly would I dare to do to your little girl, with you right there, spitting death threats? Those aren't exactly friendly, and not a good thing to be saying in front of a young being of any sort." Alice could say this, because she wasn't young, really. Young for a Thscier, yes, but not young for a septar or a human. "For shame."  

[romesilk]

Now that Alice had stepped back, n'Barit could relax a little. The zooming cars were still unnerving him, but at least Alice was no longer threatening them.

"Indyadin," said Kirkcaldy, calming n'Barit further still.

"Go clean yourself up," said n'Barit, releasing Kirkcaldy. To Alice he said, "The shame is yours, tainting her with your corruptive filth and unworthiness." He seemed level and calm now, at least in comparison to his furious anger a moment earlier. He still sounded fairly put-off.

Kirkcaldy freed her bauble from n'Barit's crutch and carried it with her over to the other side of the sidewalk, n'Barit between her and Alice. She wore a white shawl around her little shoulders which she removed and placed on the ground. Then she sat down on it, her feet curled underneath her, her hands flat to the cloth. She clenched her eyes tightly shut, scrunching up her face.  

[shibrogane]

Alice delicately nibbled on her fingernails. "It's raining. I would think any relative filth I had would be washed off. You see?" Her makeup, what little she wore, had long since run off her face. Even her sunburn was looking much better. The only thing that he'd said that remotely unsettled her was that she was unworthy of something, whatever it was he meant. She was worthy of whatever she sought to have; such was the gift and the curse of the Imperial College.

"She reminds me of one of the statues outside the Cathedral in Jubaer. It was of a saint, I think. I don't remember." She sighed. Sometimes being rock-steady like the other septars was so boring. She'd like to hit this guy. It would be lots of fun; he even looked like he'd hit back, which was a rarity, really. Only the Arbiter of Dispute ever really slapped commissioned officers, and she lacked the hand to make it really hurt.  

[romesilk]

"It's some trick," he said of the rain, eyeing it with distrust, moving to block Alice's view of Kirkcaldy. His crutch scraped across the damp pavement. He was completely ready for anything, but so long as Alice did not strike him first, he had no justifiable cause. Not that cause usually stopped him, but so soon away from the Imperium he had Emperial's reminder fresh in his head.  

[shibrogane]

Alice carefully wiped one hand along the hem of her jacket and held it out again, examining the water that pooled in the lines of her palm. "Ha-ah~ you remind me of the Unir. He's so protective of all his ickles, too." It didn't even seem to halfway cross her mind that n'Barit might not know that a unir was, in essence, an admiral. "It's actually rather cute. Humans as a whole are rather cute. With their little cars and everything? Yeah..."  

[romesilk]

This statement freaked out n'Barit on two levels. First, he was gravely offended at possibly begin confused with a human, and second, he thought cars were about as cute and little as graxwhal'qs, a particularly large and ugly sort of mythical whale that supposed lived in Yuul's small ocean.

"They are not cute," protested n'Barit, hoping his emphasis on the word "they" would mark him as a clear outsider. "Humans are dirty and filthy and corrupted by the taint of their foul, lying religion and god." He tended to lump all human religion into one giant ball of filthy belief systems, otherwise humans tried to argue the points of one religion over another, and frankly n'Barit was not interested in such a point-by-point argument. He would rather just rail at the whole.

"Indyadin," called Kirkcaldy, "I am finished." She rose up from her shawl but left it on the ground behind her as she moved to join n'Barit, still keeping a few feet back from him but in a position where she had a better view of Alice.  

[shibrogane]

"Oh, but they're so... ineffectual. Religion doesn't hurt anyone but themselves, and sure, cars are dangerous, but so are certain kind of steamships," Alice said, flipping on one hand and flapping it, as if n'Barit had made a particularly funny joke. Personally, Alice prescribed to no religion at all. She'd mouth the prayers at school, but nothing more than that; no god got her fealty without earning it, and so far, none had. "If there's any real divinities out there, I don't think they're too offended, or else they'd all be drowning in retribution."

She laughed behind one hand. "If there's any divinity, the unfaithful would all be dead, don't you think?"  

[romesilk]

N'Barit gaped slightly. "Y-yes. That's right." Hearing a version of his own argument from the lips of another was immensely surprising, and even a little upsetting, as if he had been robbed of something. His purpose was suddenly redundant.

The addition of Kirkcaldy's hand on his crutch set him right again. She said nothing, simply stood there half a step to the side and behind him, resuming the position she belonged in. N'Barit straightened.

"The idea of any such deities goes against the truth of the divine order. It's a lie designed to corrupt the people." He nodded in agreement with himself.  

[shibrogane]

She sighed, half-stepping back again and spreading her arms to emcompass the street. "What does it matter? Humanity is inferior. To borrow the words of a questionable novel I once read, it is a flower that sheds its life to blossom. I fully expect it to burn out soon, and then your divine order will not have to deal with them." Alice didn't particularly care about the fate of any species; she thought that she might even be able to ignore it if all of her species was wiped out but for her. Nothing lasted forever, after all. It did no good to get attached.

A bit belatedly, she seemed to recognize that n'Barit had agreed with her. "Isn't it?" She laughed again, this time using both hands to hide her teeth. Of course it was! She'd said it, after all, and she was always, always right. And if Alice happened to be wrong, well- she'd tell them to see rule number one.