PHANTASMAL AND RESPLENDENT!

selective rp blog for ava ire based on the webcomic 'ava's demon' haunted by elias 𓁿

[sinshosted]

When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal.

Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying.

Others are abrupt and unfair.

But most are just unremarkable,

unintentional,

clumsy.

✩ medium-low activity, canon-divergent, selective rp blog for ava ire based on the webcomic ava's demon ✩ with verses for the amazing digital circus, the magnus archives and more! ✩ please read rules before following! ✩ formerly bystcrdust ✩ HAUNTED BY ELIAS (25+, he/him) 𓁿 

✩ pride icon(s) made by batty!

SEMI-HIATUS.

[modestmuses]

   Technically, they have nothing to hold her on, and if they did, she wouldn’t be allowed in Grissom’s office.  The only thing keeping her here is the fact that he doesn’t feel good about sending an unsupervised minor into the wider world by herself, especially into a Sin City like Vegas, especially with everything he has seen over the course of his career, the worst humanity has to offer.  But she is not a prisoner to anything other than his conscience.

   “Yes, you can go outside,” he tells her.  He drags a piece of paper in front of him begrudgingly relenting that if he cannot entertain Ava, it would behoove him to get some actual work done before someone comes breathing down his neck about it.

   “Nobody will stop you if you do run, either.  They might think it’s weird but you’re not being charged with anything, so you’re not required to stay.  I just really wish there was someone I could call for you.”

   He also wishes he knew what she apparently knows about the plant material that Hodges found, but he elects to take the investigation another route, focus on the evidence they can identify.

   “It is a little stuffy in here, true…  Not good ventilation, just in case any contamination gets in.  Do you need help finding the exit?”

[sinshosted]

Ava damn near stands up the second Grissom says she can go outside, but holds herself back because it feels like it would be suspicious if she did. Just having the okay to step out unsupervised is more than enough, she could finally get Odin over here to get her out. Having him see her in the state she was presently in was also not an option, so coming back in after she sends off the insect is the best option for everyone.

Setting the cup aside, she drags her hands down her face and lets out a heavy sigh. Grissom saying that it'd be weird to other people didn't really help her current mindset, but she has visibly gone down in brightness within the last minute or so. "I'm sure it'll all work out," She mumbles through her hands. "But I'll be back in a bit."

Her water is grabbed again as she shoots a small smile up towards him. "No, no, I think I got it," There were exit signs, after all, and if she really needed Ava thinks she can work up the courage to politely ask someone else to point her in the right direction. "Thank you, though." Finally rising to her feet, she makes her way to the door and slips out.

Getting out was easy, thankfully, and not being in the building helps to get her back to a baseline of normal. Timing the dragonfly send off took a little bit of time, but the insect is sent off. She lingers outside for a little while after, finishing off the water before making her way back inside and into Grissom's office.

"See? Back." Sitting back down, she leans herself over to get back to studying Grissom's shelves again. It would help pass the time, after all, give her something to do while she listens to the dragonfly's progress - and tries to give it answers for Odin as best she can when it does get to him.

[box0pals]

"Oh! This is a Moose. Now this is a Mutant Moose," Angel would happily inform her with a hologram of a regular Moose... which looked fairly intimidating but an herbivore. Then the Mutant Moose looked like something of nightmares with exposed chitinous plate-like bones on its fur. The horns straight forward and jagged, and then its fur covered what put a war stallion to shame in a muscular frame with thunderous hooves and thick limbs, "They were engineered for harsh environments for other worlds as horses have a tendency... to die a lot from the most gentle breeze? So someone had the 'brilliant' idea to domesticate Mooses and then mutate them. They're about ten feet tall in 'corporate units' if you know what feet and inches are, but its mutations are what you need to look out for." The Mutant itself was around ten foot tall simply standing on all fours as a mega-fauna of an animal.

Angel exclaiming, "Thankfully, it's an herbivore, unfortunately? It's highly territorial like most large herbivores are which is a misconception that most people have that they're 'peaceful'. They won't chase you past their territory, but you need to go into it for a good portion of the objectives.... and you will find only Moose and crazed bandits there that far in, as most don't dare venture inward and neither do carnivores tend to chance their areas either. Thankfully, you'll have to deal with the Yetis first today, the Moose will come later, hopefully," Angel noted as she showed a series of videos of a Mutant Moose bulldozing into a bandit's humvee like it was butter, easily able to keep up as gunfire and a even missile left it unphased, then the footage blipped to another walking through the flames of a camp it destroyed. Bodies littered the area as the Moose seemingly understood what a 'camera' was as it walked over and smashed it.

"Yeah, yeah, I don't know why they made these things or thought it was a good idea to make them fairly intelligent as well. They couldn't be tamed as you can see because of it."

[sinshosted]

Definitely not creatures she's ever come face-to-face with, although she thinks she might have seen their smaller counterparts. Deer, maybe? Elk? She doesn't quite remember. "That's familiar-" Ava starts to say, cutting herself off when the Mutant Moose is shown. The plating almost reminds her of the dragonflies at their largest size - something that should look normal but has elements they absolutely shouldn't. "Well. They do look cool, I have to give 'em that. Normally I don't condone unethical mutations, but if it was kind of for their own survival, I get it."

Having their height was helpful, shockingly, as Ava does need practice in either avoiding or briefly crippling beings double her size or more. She does hope that she won't have to harm it at all, and she lets out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding the second Angel confirms that they aren't predators. "I can work with that," She says, giggling. "Been around my fair share of animals I accidentally pissed off 'cus I wandered somewhere I wasn't supposed to. When I do have to go in there, I'll figure something out." So long as it didn't hit harder than her, withstanding a ramming from them seemed doable. "How fragile are their horns? I- I don't wanna hurt it if I have to grab it or somethin'." Creatures with horns like that usually have some understanding that if you lock horns and win, you're the bigger being around. Maybe the Mutant Moose were different, but at least that might be a start in dealing with them.

Clearly, sturdy enough to ram a vehicle, but that was a different distribution of weight she'd think. "Mutations kinda make it hard to tame most things, though, don't they? At some point, evolution takes back over and you'll lose the reigns." There are a couple of ideas bouncing around in her head on how to eventually deal with that, but at least the Yetis and the bandits followed the same line of thinking. Punch, don't worry about maiming too much because that's exactly what they want to do to her. "Good to know they're smart, I- I assume most animals are, but... Still."

[modestmuses]

   Mattie knows he shouldn’t be shooting a gun out in the open like this, lest he attract the wrong kind of attention, but continually fucking up in a range where other, more seasoned people could see him didn’t exactly strike him as a great time, either.  And there’s no point in having a smart pistol if he can’t reliably use it.  So, with Ava’s encouragement, he takes aim at the eyes of a Maelstrom mural, one of the big spiders, not because he has any particular beef with the gang, but because the bright red circles make easy targets.  Hopefully, they will just blame the damage on the Tygers.

   The first two bullets hit dead in the center of their targets, but the autolock appears to run out, and the bullet swings wide to the right, marking up the spider’s body.  He doesn’t want to risk taking out all the eyes.  Three out of four shots made isn’t bad, he supposes, as he lowers the gun to his side again.

   “Yeah, you get it, we’re all—everyone—a little psycho,” he says.  “You don’t willingly stop in NC without being a little… how do you say…”  He pretends to be fishing for a word, even though he already has the most apt description on the tip of his tongue.  “…off your fucking shit.”

   Her mention of flowers makes him giggle more than it probably should.  “See!  That’s exactly what I’m talking about.  I’ve heard the girls with plant tattoos, you gotta watch out for.  Don’t let that put you off from getting them, though.”

[sinshosted]

Hearing a random gun being shot off doesn't seem like it was that out of place in the city, although she obviously doesn't know much about the area at all. Ranges probably would have been better in the legal sense, but they weren't actively trying to cause harm to anyone or excessive property damage, so it should be fine theoretically.

If anyone did try to come and give them shit, she would have made sure that they could either get out of there or that Mattie would have more than enough time to escape while she ran a distraction. Neither of those things should happen, should being the key word. He's doing a damn good job with the gun right now, two of the three hitting and the third still making contact, even if it didn't go to the same place, was improvement.

"Don't tell my friend that, he'd freak the fuck out," Odin probably has already realized most of the people here are a little worse than normal, and they would have already been gone if it was really that bad. "Like he's not already traveling with someone who's a little off their fucking shit, but that's never stopped him from worrying before."

Ava blinks, staring at him blankly. If that was really a thing, she's never heard of it, but it does sort of make sense. She's already someone to watch out for just being someone who really enjoys flowers and plants, and while it wasn't entirely likely that anyone would have counted a girl who was a plant, it still feels a little too on the nose. "Why...? I mean, 's not gonna put me off of doing it if I want to, but, uh... Should I be worried?"

[sillymuses]

"Well, not unless they're hiding in the shadows. Or under the bed." Admittedly, Twyla liked to do both. She was still a monster after all. The boogeymonster was much more careful in her entrance. Purple eyes glanced all around and just took a moment to bask in the abandoned area. For a monster it was a nice and relaxing place.

A simple thumbs up is given in response before peeking into the nearest room beside them. She wasn't going to go in, as she preferred to stay close by enough to Ava. Just in case something were to happen. Looks like this area was formerly the main room as she spots a small tv just covered in dust off in the corner along with two chairs.

The boogeymonster moves on however as she walks down the hallway alongside her companion. Eyes glance at the pictures that still hung though a few had fallen down over the years. "Be careful of the glass, Ava. The last thing we want is to get that stuck in us."

[sinshosted]

"Eh, I've never seen anyone try to hide that well." The last time she had run into someone, Ava thinks she had scared the poor man more than he had to her. She's well aware of how horrifying she can look in a dark hallway, though she at least had the grace to leave and pretend it never happened before either of them could do anything. "At least not from me, maybe they'd try harder if it was someone actually searching for them."

Ava stands in the middle of the entry hall, hands on her hips, as she sizes up the stairs. While they looked fine, she's not going to suggest they go up there until she tries to run up it herself and confirm it's safe for Twyla to follow. The bottom floor was going to be better to explore for now, anyways, and she starts to walk not long after.

She's trying not to look at the pictures, if only to keep herself from feeling like there's a whole family here judging their actions. "I will, 'nd I'll let you know if there's a bad area to step. I've gotten really good at being able to tell just from listening to them move, but falling still isn't great." If Twyla wanted to look for journals, though, they'd have to chance the upper floor eventually. The bedrooms were most likely up there, and while houses weren't often what Ava sought out to explore in her free time, they were certainly more comforting. "Also, uh, don't open any appliances. If there's food left in there, it needs to stay sealed up."

[the-rp-atelier]

|| ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆ 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙾𝚃𝙸𝙲 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙽𝙲𝙴 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙴𝚁

(Add "+🔁" or "+ reverse" for the reverse)

“Don’t panic, but I may have accidentally joined a cult.”

“Good news: I found a sword. Bad news: It’s haunted.”

“How many chickens are too many chickens?”

“The raccoon is not our pet. Put it down.”

“I need you to distract the cops for… reasons.”

“The good couch is on fire.”

“Do you think we could fight God? Hypothetically.”

“I replaced all your mugs with skulls.”

“There’s no law that says we can’t rob the mayor.”

“The plan is flawless. Step one: chaos. Step two: profit.”

“That’s not my blood, and that’s all I’m willing to say.”

“I bought a cannon.”

“Quick—pick a crime!”

“You can’t prove I’m the one who summoned it.”

“This is fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. (It’s not fine.)”

“Why is there a medieval knight in our kitchen?”

“I think the fridge is possessed.”

“You said you wanted excitement!”

“They can’t arrest both of us.”

[modestmuses]

   “That’s said!” Lydia says, sidestepping the panel on the floor that Ava mentioned.  “I’d hate to just lose all of my jewelry like that, to put it somewhere safe and then not be able to get it back.”  None of the bracelets that jangle on her wrists or necklaces that swing against her chest are worth much, cheap children’s jewelry from a department store, but she still values them.  Nobody would steal them, sure, but having them buried in rubble would still suck.

   “Still… we probably could take a little something if we find it.”  She knows the temptation will be too great for herself at least.  “As long as the panels are already loose and we put them back.  It’s not like they’ve gotten around to inventorying every single thing in here, so they wouldn’t know the difference.”  Unless, of course, her dad confronted her on it directly.  She isn’t the greatest liar in the world.

[sinshosted]

She laughs, continuing to walk out a safe path for Lydia to follow. "Oh, I'd feel terrible too, but it does make you wonder why that was their thinking. Surely there's gotta be better places to put your valuables than this, y'know?" People were buried with important items in some cultures, she thinks, although graverobbing was usually a worse problem because of it. Not only were they coming in with the intent to steal something, they had the added moral and legal crime of desecrating a corpse.

"And if they were already under the floor, how would anyone comin' in after know to begin with?" There wasn't that high of a chance that whoever had left the house even remembered they had hidden something away, much less that they would have some sort of list with the dollar value on each piece. "The big ticket stuff in plain sight is much more important, anything else people find is a bonus. I mean, I personally would only take somethin' small, like a pin, but that's just me."

[modestmuses]

   Smeech isn’t stupid.  He recognizes the inflection she puts on the word behave and knows that her dragonflies don’t especially want to behave around him.  They don’t have to like him, and he doesn’t have to like them, he supposes, similarly to him and Ava.  They just have to be able to tolerate each other for this one mission.

   “Eh… does one of them have to come with me?” he asks, giving the dragonfly a skeptical look.  “Won’t it be easier to have them all carrying the drill?  Help your focus, too, right?  I don’t absolutely need one of ‘em on me for navigation.”  Ava probably wants to use their eyes to better know where they’re going, but if she does that, there’s hardly any part in Smeech being here.

   “Right, right, ‘cause bugs can carry a million times their body weight.”  He scratches behind his ear.  They could easily pick him up and take him off with them.  He pulls Ava up to him, listening to the groaning of the drill below.  “Well, I don’t think it matters much at this point, but that’ll keep us a li’l less conspicuous at least.”

[sinshosted]

Peony might have tolerated Smeech, it likes everyone regardless of who they are. The other two take far more time to warm up to people, if they ever do. It just got easily distracted, wasn't the best at conveying important information amidst the rush of things that interested it. Her worries about her focus were less about having to keep the dragonflies summoned now that she's gotten the hardest part out of the way, they took little to no true concentration to keep them around and she's got a decent grasp of filtering out which thoughts were helpful and which weren't.

"Yes, they do." She answers, firmly. As much as she would like to claim it was just to have a second set of eyes to help watch for anything that might impede their path that he might have missed and relay that information back, she doesn't trust Smeech to not run off. "And no, it wouldn't help my focus. If I knew where I was goin', I could let them do all of it, but I don't and this'll also help me build a better mental map."

Having her under the drill to help walk it along was safer, keeping the dragonflies small enough to not smack into buildings or pipes. "I mean, I could carry it myself easy, but it's shaped too weird for me to feel comfortable doing that." Dusting her hands off, she paces back to the drill and gestures at the bottom of it. "Can't get under that without help, and 'm not gonna be able to lean this against my body and still be able to see. They're really only helpin' me keep it from tipping while I'm under it, or I guess lifting it over things I'd need to climb... Which, y'know, I'll probably have to do."

[box0pals]

The smells became rather intoxicating the closer Ava would get as Betilla hummed, whole roasted... orb-like birds for the two of them, then well-seasoned roasted bean-stalk beans with a few fruity, fresh drinks. Rayman already coming over as a leg and roasted 'bird' breast of some kind were set aside for him with a roasted bean.

Betilla sitting herself on a rather large chair, her plate resembled that of a Giant's with several of the roasted birds on it with a few stacked giant beans to the side. The fae remarked, "Eat up now, I don't need to eat but the hunger of concepts does settle in for me, ohayo~ What about you, Ava? Rayman here needs to eat 'energy' at the very least, but he prefers food as you can tell~" Rayman had manners but boy was he pigging out as Betilla talked to the fiery youngster.

[sinshosted]

With some effort, Ava hauls herself up onto the stalk and takes a moment to survey what Betilla has made. Where did those birds come from? She elects to not worry about it, instead moving in to snag one of the drinks. A mumbled thanks is given as she sits herself back down to take a break and sip the drink. She does love fruity things, and having a drink was nice after climbing - she's out of practice, clearly.

"Are- Like what do I like to eat? Or did I need to?" She figures it was the former, and has no problems with going over her favorite types of foods. "I really liked sweet things. The more sugar the better, not that anything really came close to matchin' what I was used to, but 'm a huge fan of fruits too." The drink is raised as she takes another sip. "I, uh, for a long while I just ate whatever convenience food Odin and I could get our hands on, it was like... The only things we could get, and it was fine."

[troublcmakcrs]

   “Yeah, that begs the fucking question, though…  Why didn’t she just just alive and go somewhere else, bide her time, gather her soldiers to her location?”  Craig isn’t actually expecting Ava to have an answer to that question, nor is he expecting Khalass to respond to it.  He is sure that she could come up with some excuse that would sound stupid to him.  He wasn’t there, so he can’t know what happened, how she might not have been able to get away or something.

   “I dunno, it just seems more convenient than scattering all her soldiers as ghosts across the whole universe, especially when you guys have spaceships and crazy GPS technology and shit like that.  Forming a suicide pact seems pretty extreme.”

   He shrugs.  “Our government seems to be fucking a lot up lately, but you don’t see me and my friends all killing ourselves about it.”  Maybe because he’s still a little young to feel or register the full effects of it, but still.  He can’t imagine a lot that would drive him to that extreme.

   “Yeah, don’t worry,” he says, “I’m not expecting it anytime soon.  Or at all.  It’s just another one of those things that would be funny if we could pull it off.  She’d probably just bitch about how it’s all fiction, but based on what you’ve told me, some of the shit in Star Trek seems plausible.  Maybe we could watch it together, at least, and you could point out how much of it does or doesn’t make sense.”

[sinshosted]

She knows he doesn't expect her to answer, but for the sake of further pissing off the empress Ava will do so. "Probably for the same reason she didn't think out her suicide pact, she doesn't have a brain and just expects everything and everyone to bend to her will immediately and not ask questions." Khalaas doesn't make a sound, attacking her ego usually worked well enough to prove Ava's point. "I know that sorta shit happens to people in power, and she does too, so..."

While Ava's never been too keen on learning about the empire proper, she had gotten the feeling that there were things happening in the background that either the specter didn't know about, or had seen the signs of everything going wrong for a while and just ran out of time to try and get a fix in the works for.

"Governments fuck up a lot." As much as she hates the Scavengers, Ava can't deny it was a good use of a scapegoat. A scapegoat that was created and designed to be just that, but it was smart so long as no one else figured it out. "If they don't have good PR, it probably looks worse to everyone listening to them, but it is still a huge leap to make, yeah."

Ava turns to look at Khalaas one last time, watching as the ghost decides that she's had enough of this slander and disappear. "Depending on what they're talkin' about, I think a lot of it probably would or does exist. Maybe some of it would be a little off-base, but I'd still like to watch it." She can appreciate a good piece of fiction, thankfully, and enjoys talking about the things she does know. "We didn't have a lot of that stuff, y'know? I like just watching things that seem improbable to most."

[airxn]

" 𝐀𝐧 𝐚𝐱𝐞, 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐱𝐞… 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐱𝐞. " Xavier parrots, enjoying how the word rolls off his tongue. Those weapons, or tools, have been described to him before. A girthy blade which aids in murdering… trees. Is that what this little feign is? A tree murderer? That’s no good… not good at all. No wonder her life energy is so sour and tainted.

A chuckling hum jerks from his throat, and then he wriggles a finger in Ava’s direction. " Chunks of trees, you are bad at taking down trees. " He then mutters axe quietly over and over again. He should send one of those " texts " to Airin with the word… he quite likes that word.

" I will deny you more chunks. You will make my brother very, very sad… He is annoying when he is sad. " Xavier rolls over to cross his arms, laying his head atop them—and continues to allow one leg to hang. If one didn’t know any better, he looks as relaxed as a drowsy feline. " No more axe, child. I will confiscate it, yes… "

[sinshosted]

Battle-axe might have been more appropriate, but it didn't roll off her own tongue nearly as nicely as just axe. It was comically large comparative to her stature, but appropriate for a battle weapon.

"Wh- I don't chop down trees!" For a couple of reasons, the biggest one being that there was no need to gather anything for fires because of what she was, and of course there was also the fact that someone she cared about was a tree at this point. "Besides, that's not what my axe is made for. It's for fighting, not for- Y'know, deforestation." Those axes were smaller anyways, weighted differently, and while they could be used in a pinch as a weapon they were clunky and far too small.

Squinting up at him, Ava puts her hands on her hips and weighs her options. She's not about to make Airin sad if she can help it, but because she's not actively engaging in any harm to the natural environment she doesn't think this would apply. Now, letting Xavier try to hold the axe would be amusing. It was far heavier than most thought it was, made for a being ten-times her size and only wieldable by her because of the boons granted by said being. "You can certainly try to do that. I don't think you'd be able to, though. Fair warning."

[supraxstcllas]

a nonchalant shrug, " I don't know. Was it? " he taunts, fanged grin wide and shit-eating. one clawed hand comes up for him to inspect, bright red eyes looking for any dirt, ectoplasm, or chips to the sharpened tips. this was much more entertaining than wandering through the mortal world or messing with his past self,

brow quirks as his gaze turns back to her, cape shifting with his movements as he snorts, " For the sake of being annoying. " he states, rolling his eyes at the thought of his past self and Clockwork keeping an eye on him and what he did.

" Let's just say I'm a danger to certain people, and they don't want me to…. stray from the path of 'redemption'. " he states the last word with air quotes, a look of utter disgust on his face. sure, Dan was glad he hadn't been completely erased from the timestream, but the consequences of his actions were annoyingly frustrating, " You destroy an entire world, and suddenly you're a liability. "

[sinshosted]

She'll take that as a yes, even without the shit-eating smile it had definitely read as purposeful. "It was funny," Props to him for managing to break her piss-poor attempt at stoicism, not that it was hard to do. "I swear, if you try to force any though, we might have a problem." The last thing she needs is Khalaas hearing and then trying to be funny.

Ava nods in a way that could be read as sympathy. From what she had gathered, most ghosts - dead aliens aside - either stuck around because they had some sort of unfinished business or they just wanted to torment people. She does think it's a little funny that a ghost also has this happening, but she's not going to comment on it.

"So, to recap, you've got a handful of ghosts that hang around you as a punishment?" If that wasn't the story of her life, she doesn't know what is. You fuck one thing up, or commit the ultimate crime of being born, and suddenly there's a bunch of ghosts that won't leave you the hell alone. "Well, I mean, if cratering a planet puts me on a shit-list, I'd think destroying a world probably would earn you a title much worse than liability. What world did you destroy? That kinda gossip travels fast, 'nd I mighta heard about it." Probably not, but it was worth asking all the same.

[sillymuses]

"Oh, I hope it tastes good! If my status as the next Mad Hatter doesn't work out then hopefully, I can hit things up as a wonderful chef!" While most other students were trying to figure themselves out, Maddie herself had long decided on her potential paths. She may not be the sanest individual but at the very least she could think!

The small smile is returned with her own big one. How delightful of Ava to agree to the idea! It'll be fun for the both of them! Plus, she'll get to show Ava even more of the sights around Book End!

"Isn't that just the truth of the matter? What's silly and strange to you is completely normal for me! And what's silly to me is normal for you! It's just a matter of where and how you came to be!" Adjusting to a place as normal as Book End wasn't easy for wonderlandians where things rarely made logical sense. If it did? Well, it was certainly an unorthodox way of thinking!

"If we do stop by Wonderland, I have to show you the hippo cards and origami deer! They're both so cute and silly!" Well, for a wonderlandian at least.

[sinshosted]

Ava laughs, nodding enthusiastically back at Maddie. "You're a wonderful chef, I think you could do both! If anything, baking is a fun hobby, I've heard, 'nd it's always good to have those!" Some of them were mindless enough that they could be picked up and put down at any point, although sometimes that mindlessness was a little bit of a detriment depending on what it was.

"That's the fun of it, I think. Sure, 's a bit of a weird adjustment, but it's fun. Usually." A few of the planets she had been to were far too much of a time-sink for her to really be able to appreciate, given how they had usually left before the adjustment phase could have ever started. Having a literal crash-course like Maddie had given her in terms of seeing a lot of what was happening or could made it so she felt more at ease. Not as many unknowns if everything could be an unknown.

"You do origami too?" She's out of practice, and admittedly the best she had ever been able to do were cranes and her bunnies had never turned out particularly well, but she did love trying to work it out. "I- I only had learned how to do rabbits before I had to stop, how complex are deer?"

[unluckieststar]

Jovanni eyes narrowed down the street. A small bit of fog was rolling into the streets. "No." He said softly his demeanor getting little more serious. "Ava. I can feel something wrong. I can feel in my spine. Keep close to me ok?" He asked softly as he peered down the street with the smoke. "I grew up in cities my whole life. A silence like this ain't normal even for the night. Hell sometimes nights in city are louder then the day." He chew his cheek some.

[sinshosted]

Now Ava really thinks that he might have jinxed it, her eyes narrowing at the sight of the fog. Gods, she hopes - prays - that it's just weird weather, some mechanical failure somewhere. Wishful thinking from her, maybe, but having to always be in fight-or-flight has done a number on her and will continue to do so.

She shuffles a step closer, trying to leave enough space between them that she can fight if need be. "I've been in some places where this kinda thing is normal," Ava mumbles, still trying to hold out hope that it wasn't anything bad coming their way. "Was just kinda hopin' that was the case again..."

[sinshosted]

@dog-tagged said: Chi stopping ominously as she holds an egg while also cooking congee for Ava: I think we can fry an egg on your forehead now.

"Don't you dare." Ava is, of course, highly amused by just how ominous this all was, but she's not about to let it happen. "At least- If you want to try it, at least let's not do my forehead, fair? I'd settle with my arm or somethin', but not my head." She really didn't want egg in her hair, or her eyes for that matter.

[carnival0fdreams]

@sinshosted

"I hope this doesn't sound RUDE, but I feel another presence within you... Are you aware of this?" Quinn hoped the girl wouldn't freak out about him mentioning that. But it was a little concerning..

[sinshosted]

"Unfortunately, yes." It would take much more than just a simple observation to freak Ava out at this point. So long as no one knew the exact name of the being with her, it was fine. "It- It wasn't rude either, don't worry. Wouldn't be the first time someone's noticed, and probably won't be the last either..."

There was some sort of comfort in being seen, even if there were less desirable circumstances that it could continue to happen in. "And uh, I'm sorry in advance if you, uh... Can see her."

[box0pals]

A casual smile, "You're probably right, it would be, Ava." It would be of no surprise if Ava could remember Nora's name at this point, given all their past lives and eons together. Nora was fairly quick with her actions, however, biting the collars off with her spine-breaking draco-teeth. That deceptive frame of a fit 17-18 year old 'girl' was supernaturally charged, quite literally as she crackled with purplish lightning.

Meanwhile, Nora punched and elbow-tackled a guard in a magical dash here and there that got in the way; sending each of them flying in a clatter from her grizzly-like strength and confused from her chaotic movements from using portals on the go. Ava meanwhile had to deal with a group of guards which she could easily handle, now unbound. And it was as Ava feared, it seems the guards were on the back of lesser dragoturkeys overhead. The last of the slaves in this district were freed, Nora appearing from a rift behind her, "Oh, they're bringing us lunch, dear sister. How thoughtful of them- but can you transform? I can teach you how if you've forgotten."

If Ava complied? She'd find their newly acquired older sister on their back, ready to fly and fight beside her.

[sinshosted]

Not initially remembering Nora's name had been upsetting her, using that to fuel her attacks until it clicks again. The anger that remains at being separated for so long replaces that, almost making it easier to keep up the pace with the fight, though she's still wary of going to far with it before what they would need to really focus on rolls up.

And lo and behold, there they were. She casts a quick glance over her shoulder when Nora appears behind her, then back to the skies. Does she remember? Not quite, it's there - in the back of her mind, kept just out of reach by time or something else - but nothing concrete enough to give anything other than a no to. She shakes her head, but steps back closer to Nora. "Some assistance would be nice," The weight that settles on her brings more of those memories to the forefront of her mind, a relieved laugh escaping her as she gestures up to the rest of the guards.

"Shall we? They've been so nice already, shame if we didn't take up their offer."