ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul.

[yugoleliatrope-blog]

Do you now why Quilby is very very strange?

No…but I wish I understood why he is so hateful…

[letraitre]

Very strange, sure, but very very strange? He must be thinking of the wrong Eliatrope.

[letraitre]

((ooc: sorry for the radio silence on my end -- i've only got two weeks to find a new apartment, and this entire month has been way too stressful for me to get to any rp whatsoever. i'll get to replies soon, but probably not until after i actually have a place to live and i'm all moved in.))

[yugoleliatrope-blog]

[noximilienthewatchmaker]

Nox’s eyes narrowed in thought as he examined the man before them. He was a curious specimen to be sure, his immediate reaction to seeing Yugo and Adamai was nothing if not intriguing. Was he afraid? Unlikely, considering who he was faced with...

[letraitre]

"I…"

Eyes wide, like a deer's in the headlights, he slowly looked from Yugo to Adamai and back. Children. They were mere children which, logically, meant...

His shoulders relaxed as his initial panic melted away. He'd never been so relieved about his brothers forgetting their previous lives. They knew nothing, which meant he had at least some semblance of freedom for the time being. He'd have to take the rest of what he was owed later. Qilby had never been one to let an opportunity go to waste, and within moments of realising the situation he was in, he was already thinking of how exactly to capitalise on it.

"...Yes. I am an Eliatrope." Only half of the weakness in his voice could be attributed to good acting. His head swam and his senses threatened to take leave of him, but somehow he clung to consciousness, even managing to sit up in a more dignified position. He wasn't quite ready to stand on his own just yet. "I already know who you are, Yugo-- and your brother Adamaï, as well."

An acknowledging nod at the young dragon. Qilby opened his mouth as if to add something, but he cast a wary eye over the third person and blanched slightly. He wasn't sure he liked the way he was being scrutinised.

"You're keeping strange company. How... How much time has passed?"

[yugoleliatrope-blog]

[noximilienthewatchmaker]

Nox turned to look as the various people in the clearing started to stir once more, idly shifting the two tiny forms in his arms. He chuckled lowly at Yugo’s excited exclamation, moving to stand from his place. Adamai’s reaction brought a frown to his face beneath his mask, and he clicked his tongue in annoyance...

[letraitre]

A clockwork man-- an automaton, perhaps. Qilby was reminded very briefly of the sorts of creations that came out of Eliatrope labs... And somewhat more chillingly of the metal invaders that came out of Eliatrope skies. Swaddled in the thing's arms was a squirming bundle of blankets and the sight struck him as impossibly absurd. Was he to be greeted back into the world, after his ten thousand year absence, by somebody's robotic wetnurse?

And that was when he heard the other voices.

Some memories faded with time -- never into complete obscurity, oh no, but more like an old photograph yellowing in a box and waiting to be revisited years later. Others were burned into his brain, permanently branded there as if to irrevocably mark him as their property. The memory of these two was one of the latter. Qilby immediately yelped as if bitten, trying to clamber to his feet and leap backwards at the same time but only managing to fall on his backside. He warded off an anticipated attack with his good arm and his mouth opened and closed like a fish on land gasping for oxygen.

Yugo and Adamaï were here to kill him. The king must've got tired of leaving him trapped in his cage and finally decided to kill him-- and who knows where he'd be after that? Completely at their mercy! He couldn't imagine a hell worse than the Blank Dimension, but he could only guess that this would come close.

Then again, they did look a little younger than he'd remembered.

"You--" he stammered, finally finding his words. "Is it really you?"

[yugoleliatrope-blog]

[noximilienthewatchmaker]

Nox’s head turned the slightest bit when he heard raised voices, but he restrained himself from investigating. Yugo and Adamai were the two best suited to manipulating the cube, and loathe as he was to admit it, he would be of little use even if he retained his sanity through the process. He crossed his arms...

[letraitre]

By his one hundred and sixty-fourth year, he'd gone over every mistake he'd made in his thousands of lives that could have brought him to this point. By his two hundred and thirty-seventh year, he'd thought of every possible way he could've escaped his situation, and found each one decidedly impossible.

So by his ten thousand and fifty-fifth year of imprisonment, he'd had centuries to think about every little protracted, painful thing he would do to his jailers upon his inevitable escape -- but for all his thinking and planning and fantasizing, when that moment came with a sensation not unlike a cork being sprung from a bottle, Qilby was at a complete loss what to do.

Time had no meaning for him in his prison (he'd stopped counting the minutes only days after his internment) and he was faintly surprised to feel cool grass between his fingers where he last remembered it scorched with the fires of an old, invading enemy. "Faintly," only because there was far too much else to be surprised over. The breeze on his bare skin. The morning dew just beginning to dampen his clothing. The sound of summer insects (and it might've been the sound he missed most; you could only be satisfied with the sound of your own voice for so long.)

His head hurt. It was all too much for his dulled senses to take, and the sickening feeling of a fainting spell threatened to overwhelm-- but Qilby, blinking blearily in the dim light, forced himself to turn and see whatever was probably talking behind him. It hardly seemed like speech anymore, even the words that come out of his own mouth.

"Where am I…?"

Days later, he would regret not picking something more eloquent to mark the momentous occasion.

[letraitre]

[letraitre]

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