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dofensphinx replied to your post: unspokenwordsandcoffee answered your question: ...
I’d think some darker shoe polish should work?
ye ye that's probably what I'd do also did you know your girlfriend was basically super duper awesome? Because she is. You lucky man.
dofensphinx replied to your post: dofensphinx replied to your post: dofensphinx...
That’s how I felt the first few years I did it and then something clicked and the I CAN EDIT THIS LATER switch just flicked on and now i have 35,000 words about queer magical girls and one who wants to bang an alligator man
THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO TELL MYSELF and omg you better believe I'll get to reading that once november is done omfg
dofensphinx replied to your post: dofensphinx replied to your post: I’m so behind...
If it’s too hard don’t push yourself. being creative can be tiring, especially if you aren’t in the best mental health already.
Eh I'm getting better, so I'm getting encouraged. I'm aiming at the 3k per day, 1.5 before going to bed (past midnight) and another 1.5 at work, more if I can fit it in waking up. I'm just at a lull in my story, I feel like what I'm writing is nowhere up to par with what I usually write. But I'll push through it ^^
dofensphinx replied to your post: I’m so behind in nano but I can’t muster the...
How far behind are you?
not *THAT* much. I've got 29k. I've been more behind this month. But still.
I'll try to write at work at least
dofensphinx replied to your answer post
In this case it would be so much easier to look at your self then straighten Honey's hair. Seriously it just seems like a ridiclious amount of work for something that doesn't even look better...they just took away something awesome.
it's really sad that people have such a narrow view of what is beautiful. and from the tone in the tag, it seems like people are already making straightening honey's hair a statement similar to the catty face paint; they're using it to make some sort of point, and nevermind how racist and hurtful that point is.
Why is it any times there's drama in the tag about poc it all goes straight to but WHITEEE PEOPLE or but WHITE PEOPLE ARE THIS like holy fuck people i thought you would have learned by now no one wants to hear you "explain" away something racist.
it’s seriously the online equivalent of sticking their fingers in your ears and going LA LA LA because they don’t want to hear it. if they listen to rational talk about PoC and representation, and accept what PoC are saying as genuine, then they might have to examine their own thoughts and behaviors. they don’t want to do that. it's easier to pull out strawmen and false equivalencies and feel edgy or superior because they're ~not PC~.
Her happiness merely increased as they stood before the notice board, her finger glued to the cork as she pointed excitedly over and over at a notice.
"Guys! Look at this!" she crooned, fluffing up her hair as she faced the other girls. "A few of the Aphrodite girls decided to hold a meeting about how to be 'Drop dead gorgeous' even if Aphrodite didn't bless you, and they have Cyrus watching over it!"
"He's going to be murderous," Lyra stated in wonder, shaking her head at the thought of sickly Cyrus crouched between glamorous young girls and boys all smearing make up about themselves.
"I wanna see it!" May cackled, slapping her knee as she grinned. "When is it?"
"You have to take part in it, if you show up, May," a voice behind them sniffed, and they all whirled to see Serena. She was staring at them with no particular emotion upon her face, and so they returned it.
"Says who?"
"Says the Aphrodite girls," Serena informed her, with a light shrug. "Go ask your friend Touko, they're trying to rope her into it." With that she went strutting off, and Lyra marveled at that interaction. It had been neither cruel and embarrassing or sorrowful and wretched.
Good.
"C'mon, let's go save Touko!" May cried, and played a fake air horn.
-(-o-)-
Touko didn't really mind the girls, but she wished that they'd let her be. She'd told them repeatedly now that she had no interest in make-up, though they kept insisting that she must have something on--though she didn't.
She had the same face as her brother, and they weren't harrassing him. And regardless, she cared more about her lineage at the moment then a make-up party with a corpse.
As her mind wandered, though, she saw the Aphrodite girls fast encroaching once more. The leader was a young, shy girl named Erika. She was beautiful, her eyes slanting up into soft ovals and her pale skin going perfectly with her jet-black hair. She always wore colorful kimonos, and a headband, while the clay beads marking her status at Camp Half Blood clattered around her neck.
"Touko?" the girl said timidly, and gave a soft smile. "Please do reconsider. I know we've been harrassing you more then we ought, but I do wish to have someone like you there--especially as a model!"
Touko just stared at her, and sighed once more. "Look, Erika, it's nothing against you, I'm just not interested in this stuff..."
"And why not?" a voice said reproachfully behind her. Turning in shock, she saw a short boy with green tousled hair around his elfish face. Sneering at him, Touko decided she didn't like him. His nose and ears were to pointed, and his eyes seemed cold, though silently laughing.
"What's it matter to you?" Touko demanded, and saw that Erika's eyes were narrowed in distrust at this new comer.
"It's a matter to me," the boy stated, flipping his bangs obnoxiously, "because I'm attending to laugh at you fools. I hope Cyrus puts you all in your place. Foolish love goddesses," he sneered, crossing his arms.
"Excuse you?" Erika shrieked, face flushing with indignation and her hands curled into fists.
"What is it?" the boy taunted. "Going to blow me a kiss?"
"You little shit," Touko hissed, stepping between Erika and the despicable little worm. "The Romans were built off of Aphrodite's work, a whole nation born from her whim. Wars happen thanks to her influence, and she moves everything you've ever seen. You'd never have existed if she hadn't reached down and tickled your parents' fancy, though I'm sure they regret that whenever they look down upon you. Maybe your Hephaestus' child, what with how you were cast out and all?"
Erika gasped, and the boy took a step back, shock and anger splashing all about his face. He was shaking, and a normal person might have felt a stab of pity, but Touko felt a strong sense of satisfaction. He was pathetic, and she was strong. Maybe she'd even play with his crush a wee bit....
Squinting her eyes, Touko peered into his thoughts, though she quickly recoiled. She didn't want to see that, and she refused to believe it. Huffing, she crossed her arms and turned he head aside.
"What, gonna cry, little shit?" she demanded.
"Not from a bitch like you!"
"Drew!" three voices cried behind her, and Touko jumped as her three friends swarmed past Erika to stand next to the tall brunette.
"Andrew Rose, you miserable little brat, don't talk to Touko like that!" May griped, glaring at the little faerie boy.
"Touko's a lady!" Dawn sniffed, looking as offended as if he'd adressed her. As Touko stared disbelievingly at her, Dawn shared a confirming nod with Erika. Clearly those two understood that in some universe Touko was a 'refined lady'.
Lyra stayed quiet, peering around them. "Guys..." she muttered, tugging at Dawn's jean skirt.
"So you know this worm?" Touko asked, looking at the other girls, and ignoring Lyra's bid for attention.
"Unfortunately," May replied, shrugging her shoulders. "He's one of the Apollo kids."
"Ooo... sadder then belonging to Hephaestus!" Touko cringed.
"I'm right here!" Drew snapped, stomping his foot. Touko curled up her lip, and strode right up next to him. She was clearly taller then him, and in her brown boots she gained another two inches.
"You're insignificant," she laughed, bending down to Drew's ear. "And let me tell you something, beautiful, you've got no chance with your crush, so just forget it."
"What?!" Drew snapped, jerking away from Touko as if he'd been hit. May and Dawn looked at each other in surprise, and Dawn slid closer to Erika. May cracked her knuckles, and Lyra kept up her attempts to gain the girls' attention.
"Solidad, you know," she chuckled, shrugging her shoulders. "It won't happen. The daughter of Nike--who stands for victory--and the pathetic son of Apollo, who can't even garner the attention of a girl for two seconds without her reverting to plant life?"
Drew stared at her, shaking even more. May lifted a hand slightly, and muttered "Touko..." but Lyra shouted above them all.
"YOU STUPID BITCHES LOO--"
A hand clamped down on Lyra's shoulder, and she shrieked, for towering above her was Ghetsis. His hidden eyes shone a fierce red in the sunlight, and Lyra immediately silenced herself.
May stumbled slightly backwards, and Dawn literally hid behind one of Erika's sleeves. Touko just stared at him, and Drew did just the same. Ghetsis took his time staring at each of them in turn, and the only one who didn't flinch was Touko.
"I see we've resorted to bullying?" he grunted, releasing Lyra. The pig-tailed girl squeaked and stumble away, gripping Touko's arm. Touko felt a fierce protectiveness of the girls, and slid her arm around Lyra's shoulders, lifting her chin defiantly to Ghetsis.
"Come to my cabin, now. All of you."
Drew felt quite proud of himself, til it became apparent that while May, Lyra, Dawn, and Touko had to come, so did Erika and Drew. Both were rather sullenly trailing in the back, as if throwing their blame in lobs of silence as the group of girls truding before them.
"I don't tolerate bullying," Ghetsis hissed, his cloaks billowing about him in the myriad of confusing colors. Touko felt the air stir behind him, and marveled at the exotic smell that rolled. It was constantly shifting, and it never stayed long enough for her to commit a name to it. Though, it was never unpleasant.
As they ascended the stairs into the head-cabin, they were lead through the living room. Or, what Touko supposed was a living room. There were couches in there, and a TV, which currently the big three sat sprawled about on, and one occupant their own age, a red headed boy who was staring sullenly at the wall.
When they were led through, they saw four pairs of eyes following them, and the young red head even was so bold as to stand up and follow after them. Ghetsis didn't even stop him.
Heading down a hall, they finally veered off into a bland, generic office. A mahogany desk, with little shelves littering the room, and random mythology books sprawled about. A few classical paintings of a strange woman were hung as well.
"All of you, sit," he demanded, and they all scrambled to find either a chair, a stool, or the carpet. Ghetsis allowed himself sanctuary in a chair behind his desk, and he steepled his fingers to watch them.
"Care to explain what happened?"
And, all of them drawing breath, quickly slammed their stories into one.
-(-o-)-
Touko sat outside the head-cabin. He had ran into Ruby today, who'd been bent double shrieking with laughter, and Gold beside him. Apparently his sister had dissed the son of Apollo so hard she'd been sent to Ghetsis' office with her lackeys.
Or, that's what the two doofuses said anyways.
He didn't quite know how much truth was in their words, so here he sat, awaiting Touko, and reflecting over his first night here.
His first night in the cabin had been uneventful. He'd met the head of his cabin, Sabrina. She was haughty, and a little rough around the edges, though. She had shown him his bed, then had had little to do with him. After all, there wasn't much adjusting, really.
Everything you did at the camp was of your own volition. There were no 'classes', per say, but you could attend training sessions for just about anything. Sometimes counselors held them, or sometimes they just stood as chaperone for children-led events.
Black had not signed up for anything yet, though. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. The only people he'd talked to insofar--outside of the necessity--had been prickly Silver who'd disappeared into the head-cabin, and Gold with Ruby. But those two, Black decided, were a little to close for Black to try to thrust himself into their relationship.
He felt much too awkward.
Sighing, he placed his head in his chin. He wished Touko would hurry up.
-(-o-)-
Lyra heaved herself out of her chair, and tread solemnly from her seat. She cast them all a look of courage, before exiting the office. After Ghetsis had made them all be quiet, and had listened to them one at a time, he'd decided that Lyra was allowed to leave, since she was the only one that had bothered to keep her mouth shut.
He had, however, sentenced her to go wash the cabin walls for her mouth. At least until he told her to stop. She began walking down the hall, and heard the door click behind her. Stopping, she assumed one of her friends had been released as well.
She turned with a smile, just to find the strange, read headed boy staring at her.
"Um, hello...?" she greeted, raising her eyebrows at him.
"Shut up," he snapped, glaring at the carpet between them. Her brow furrowed, and she gave a great huff as she turned from him.
"Dick..." she grumbled, stuffing her hands in her pockets.
"Wait, are you stupid or something?" the boy demanded. Feeling quite tired of the insults, Lyra turned angrily on her heel.
"What, you moron?! Was being a nosy little busy-body in that room not enough for you? None of that even involved you, and you had to stick your stupid big nose in it! Who are you, anyways?!" Lyra hissed, trying not to garner attention from Ghetsis.
As it turned out, it wasn't he who she should've been watching for.
Because soon Giovanni was next to her, staring at her with an inscrutable expression. "That's my son, Silver," he replied, straitening his straight lapels. "Was he bothering you?"
Lyra flushed, and stared at the short gangster. "Uh.... No...." she mumbled, her voice fading off in front an authority figure.
"Ah, it's just, evidence suggested otherwise," Giovanni intoned, giving her a weighted look. Lyra felt a trickle of cold water roll down her spine, as she recalled movies and documentaries of the mafia killing people over their family....
"Well... It's just.... Uh...."
"I wanted to give you the mop bucket and brush," Silver suddenly interuptted, staring angrily at his father. "And this is no business of yours." Shoving past Giovanni, he wrapped his hand tightly around Lyra's bicep, and began dragging her.
"Ow you jerk!" she cried, as he pushed her out the cabin doors. She was so busy struggling out of his grasp, that she didn't watch her step, and went tumbling into a stranger.
She felt their heads knock, and their teeth clatter together. Groaning with the pain, she shifted her lips, noticing they were against someone else's.
"Oh, hey..." Lyra muttered, raising herself up with a deep blush. Silver stood up on top of the porch, staring down at them with the mop bucket clenched tight in his hand.
"Who just stands at the bottom of the stair case?" Silver spat, crossing his arms and staring down at Black, who lay flattened underneath Lyra. Black didn't answer, however, his face flush as Lyra rolled off of him, and he stood up himself.
"Sorry bout that," Lyra giggled, and brushed her hair behind her ear. "I got in trouble with Touko and her gang, so I came out here to scrub the walls."
"Yeah," Black muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm Touko's brother, I was just waiting for her to come out."
"You'll be waiting a while, then," Lyra replied, shrugging her shoulders. She hesitated for a moment, before grasping Black's hand. "Hey, if you're stuck waiting here, why don't you keep me company? You don't have to help, but it'd be pretty lonely out here alone."
Black was sure he heard Silver mutter something about 'not alone' but if faded quickly and he ignore dit. Silver was just grumpy about everything. He gave Lyra an assuring smile, though, and she clapped her hands.
The brunette quickly spun about, taking the mop bucket and scrub brush from Silver's hands. "Thanks for the stuff, Silver, but you're free now. C'mon Black!"
Black laughed, and followed after her. Maybe now waiting for Touko wouldn't be so boring after all!
-(-o-)-
Touko sat in the office alone now, with Ghetsis. He was glaring angrily at her, and it seemed, to her, that he thought this whole mess was her doing.
"This is all your fault." Point 1 for Touko.
"How do you figure?" she argued, crossing her legs and throwing her head back. "He was insulting my friend, myself, and my cabin. He needed to be taught a lesson." She flipped her ponytail over her shoulder.
"It was not your lesson to teach, you insolent brat!" he snarled, slamming his fist onto the table. Touko shrugged at this show of aggression, and she heard his heavy breathing through the nostrils.
It amused her.
"My lesson is whatever I wish it to be," she retorted. Ghetsis was staring at her now, some of his anger dissipating.
"Perhaps, child," he mused, rubbing softly at the scruff decorating his chin. Touko wondered if this was a new addition to his person. He seemed so preoccupied with it, that she doubted he was used to having it.
"There is no perhaps. And if I have to attend this camp, then I'm doing it with my own code of protection. You couldn't have stopped me if you wanted to." Touko preened her ego, though she saw Ghetsis give a dark smile.
"You think so, do you?"
"I've overpowered many men before, what makes you different?" she smarted off. She'd never held her tongue before, and she didn't plan to now.
"I've no doubt you've held down mortal men at your beck and call, delivered bruises and pain upon them, both mentally and physically." Again, Touko felt a swoop of pride at these words. Though her guard flew up instantly as Ghetsis rose from his chair, cloaks whispering eerily along the hardwood.
"But hubris is not becoming of a child."
Touko hissed as Ghetsis snatched up both her arms. In an instant he had her arms pinned to her lower back, and her chin thrust against the desk while his person stood by her side.
"At any time, upon any day, child, there comes someone who can defeat even the best. You must learn this lesson here. No one is immortal, and those who are wish they never had been."
He ground her chin into the wood, but she bit her lip, not crying out. He would get nothing from her, outside of the thought that perhaps he had taught her a lesson. Though, Touko knew, as soon as she left those doors, it would be gone from her mind.
This old man knew nothing. He'd over powered a teenager, big whoop. He was also probably in his late fifties. Touko felt nothing, and he would believe that indeed.
"Do you hear me, girl?" he snarled, and she gave a shrug of her shoulders. His grip tightened upon her in anger, though at that instance a shot fired through the cabin, and a magnificent peacock flourished through the room, smacking Ghetsis with its tail feathers. The old man fell battered to the ground, releasing Touko.
She stared at the peacock, and it returned her gaze for just one moment, before it faded away once more.
She let out a maniacal laugh. "Did you see that, old man?" she demanded, gleefully cackling. "The Gods favor me! I have been here but a day and yet the goddess blesses me over you! Foolish elder."
Shrieking with glee, she walked past him, and gave him one last sparing glance. She expected to see hatred, anger, and the makings of a mortal foe.
Touko, however, saw all of these things reflected, along with one that she, daughter of Aphrodite, knew quite intimately...
Lust.
so, when i took a YA lit class, we read a book about a young man enlisting in the army after 9/11. I believe around the same time, I was watching Madoka and Symphogear.
This draft of a brief prologue was the result:
The creature that stood before Anzu could only be described as adorable. It looked as if someone had taken all the more charming qualities of a ferret and combined them with the broad plumpness and overall stature of a well-fed badger, with a chinchilla's plush fur added in along with everything else. Wide sky-blue eyes blinked up at her in an exaggerated expression of confusion, a small mouth hung open in awed silence, and large ears tipped with dark tufts of fur twitched and pivoted. Little paws bearing perfectly fitted gloves revealed the slightly stumpy thumbs that definitively marked this as something more than a mere animal, especially combined with the custom-tailored shirt, trousers, and shiny black boots it wore. Oh, and of course it was all literally topped with the broad-brimmed hat with holes cut into the fabric so that the aforementioned twitchy ears could fit through. Yes, this was a being precisely formed for cuteness, and all of Anzu's instincts were screaming at her to snatch him up and hug him tightly.
Anzu was, of course, ignoring those instincts, as it would have been what is known in some circles as a Very Bad Idea to try that sort of nonsense with Sarge, no matter how adorable he looked in his specially made khaki uniform. Particularly since the downward tilt of his eyebrows now indicated that he had moved from confusion to frustration, and she was about to get a dressing-down.
"WHAT in the name of my great granny is THAT, rookie?" cried Sarge, leaping into the air to deliver a sharp poke to the left side of Anzu's head.
"It's... a hair clip, Sergeant," replied Anzu, eyes darting up to the side—although there was no way she could have actually seen the cloisonne decoration that she had carefully worked into her hair this morning—and catching a glimpse of the other girls down the line, who were struggling not to be too obvious about watching the encounter. Like Anzu, all of them were clad in solid khaki outfits that looked somewhere between a girls' school uniform and combat fatigues, and all of them had their hair buzzed short. None of them were wearing a hair decoration of any sort, although more than a few looked as if they wished they could have gotten away with it.
"I'm CURIOUS, Rookie," growled Sarge, who had no other name, so far as he had told the assembled rookies on their first day of Basic. Chatter among the barbers had suggested that Sarge was built from the ground up specifically for the purpose of making trainees miserable, genetically engineered for becoming infuriated with minor infractions and removing one's sense of self-worth. His cuddly appearance and miniature stature was variously explained as a result of budget cuts, or a deliberate attempt to lull rookies into a false sense of ease before the screaming began. "Can you tell me what page of your Blue Book permits the wearing of hair clips?"
The Blue Book, or the Instruction and Procedure Manual, had been handed to Anzu along with her uniform shortly after the single most humiliating shower experience she had been subject to in her seventeen and a half years. Still shocked from the combined sensation of high-pressure water hoses (set to a coldness she was sure was somehow below freezing) and the bizarre feeling of now having roughly a centimeter of fuzz where she had once had luxurious orange hair reaching down to the base of her spine, Anzu was informed that the Blue Book was her new reading assignment. She was expected to crack it open any time she instructed to relax; it was to be her sole source of entertainment, her only break from actively following orders, and it had better damned well be so worn out from re-reading by the end of Basic Training that it needed replacement, or she would be made to repeat the entire course of Basic as if she was brand new. It had been three days since she had received it, and in those three days she had read the entirety of the Blue Book from cover to cover twice, in addition to countless re-readings of sections on particular regulations regarding uniformity.
As such, Anzu was acutely aware that _no_ page permitted the wearing of any kind of decoration, accessory, jewelry, or other item not expressly permitted; in point of fact, she was acutely aware that the Blue Book in great detail _forbade_ the wearing of such items: page 19, section 13.a. However, the very precise wording also created some loopholes that she believed she could exploit. For example:
"The Blue Book does NOT permit the wearing of hair clips, Master Sergeant," Anzu barked in the clipped tone that trainees were expected to use, although with her high voice, it was more of a yip than a bark. She continued, feeling beads of sweat start to form from nervousness. "It does, however, permit the wearing of ornaments and insignia which have been issued to Corps members by the governments and armed forces of nations participating in the Osaka Accords or their representatives, such as the item in my hair, Master Sergeant!"
Her fellow rookies would later remark that Sarge's jaw dropped so low that they were surprised that they didn't hear it hitting the ground. Anzu, however, was too distracted by her nerves and memories to take note of such details; at the moment, she was reliving the course of events that led her both to be wearing the accessory in her hair, but also to be standing where she was at the moment.
Six months ago, Rennin Anzu's world changed completely. To say that it had been a perfectly ordinary, typical schoolday would be unfair, just as it would be untrue to say it was something special; for while it was not Anzu's first day at a new school, it was her first week there. She still stood out, painfully so: her long orange hair, braided so as to not hang quite so far down as it would if kept loose, was already attracting negative attention. The teachers at the decidedly rural Shakudo High School had immediately decided that she was either a delinquent or a brat from the city trying to impress more sensible folk, her unusual natural hair color being mistaken for a dye job as it so often was. But Anzu ignored this, much as she ignored the teasing whispers of the rotten girls in her classes, or the immature boys who tried to tug on it or made lewd remarks. It had been decided when she was a toddler that she would be neither proud nor sorrowful about her natural appearance, something encouraged by her whole family. The Christian faith that her ancestors had briefly clung to had handed down the value of humility and integrity, although the virtue of religious devotion had been something that the Rennins of old had not quite managed to grasp.
The result was that, when crumpled paper was flicked at her on the first day, Anzu dropped her pencil just in time to bend down without being obvious that she was dodging, leading to the paper ricocheting off the teacher's glasses.
When she overheard some of the older girls planning to gather outside the school walls with scissors and dye at the end of the third day, Anzu timed her exit from school grounds so as to collide with the principal, causing him to crash into those same girls and wind up with black dye burst all over his nice white shirt, leading to such a spectacular fit of scolding that Anzu was not even noticed as she continued home.
Of course, there was also the even, gentle tone in which she corrected the teachers when they read her family name wrong, and the care she took to point out that someone had helpfully written the phonetic pronunciation out in furigana over the more complex kanji that indicated her name. She always happened to be distracted by something or be elsewhere by the time someone thought to comment on how the furigana hadn't been on the paper earlier, or at least, there hadn't been before Anzu tripped while carrying the papers over for them.
The embarrassment on the fourth day when she slipped and fallen when an underclassman made an attempt to grab her bag was genuine, but more due to the fact that it led her attacker to instead grab the star of the kendo club in a suggestive place, than out of anything in the way of personal shame.
So, despite standing out, Anzu felt neither excessive pride, nor the shame of the ridiculed. To show pride would be to indicate that she had done something worthy of pride, anyway. All she had done was be a little clumsy; if things happened to those who looked down on her as a consequence, that was just more bad luck. Indeed, word soon reached her classmates and teachers of the bad luck that seemed to follow Anzu, as the trailing thread of rumors finally reached from her old school to the new one. The consensus became that some sort of spirit of ill fortune was following Anzu—she was always falling, stumbling, or running into things, after all—and that it did not care for competition, practicing its uncanny powers on any who tried to mess with its favorite victim. Anzu did not intend to do anything to shatter this illusion.
Some things cannot be kept under wraps for too long, and it happened one day that Anzu was walking home at the exact moment a small, unmarked black car made its way through town at a moderate speed. An onlooker might have thought it was going a bit fast, but not that it was exceeding the speed limit; they might have noticed that the windows seemed unusually reflective and that it was hard to see who was in the back seat, but that might have just been due to the rays of the setting sun. This being Japan, they most certainly would have failed to notice that the driver was a very large man who wore a double-breasted suit and black sunglasses, unless the onlooker was worldly enough to realize that the local criminal organization would be unlikely to include Caucasians in their membership. That was not too likely, however. The locals who did notice the expensive foreign car paid it no mind.
The two young men from out of town who were following at a distance in their own car, however, certainly took careful notice. Of course, Anzu did not find this out until later, when the facts were connected by those with a head for investigation. For example, the out-of-towners were likely talking to the short, ungainly man who stood at the crosswalk next to Anzu. He was muttering into a cell phone, his sickly skin quivering as he spoke. Anzu tried not to stare as she waited for the light to turn, but she noticed certain things. The man's clothing was much too large, but hung on his unhealthy physique in a way that made it obvious he was not concealing any weapons. His arms seemed a bit too long, his legs too short, his skin too shiny. Beady eyes—a smidgen too far apart—glistened with either tears or mucus behind thick glasses, and a mop of thin and stringy hair stuck out at odd angles from beneath a baseball cap. But being of poor health and poorer dress sense was not necessarily an indication that the man was dangerous. Indeed, Anzu was about to put him out of mind, ready to cross the street- when she realized the man was walking into the other crosswalk, where the light had just turned green.
Weeks later, Anzu would have liked to have said that time slowed down from the adrenalin rush, but was forced to admit that it all happened too suddenly. The man walked into the middle of the road, stood to face oncoming traffic, and that was when the black foreign car collided with him. The driver, of course, had tried to put on the brakes, but with only an instant to react, the best he could do was to reduce speed enough that the man in the road was not simply sent upward into the windshield.
Anzu had never seen someone get hit by a car in real life, but she had seen enough accidents on television and in manga to know that it was incredibly unlikely that the victim of such a collision would get right up, walk over to the car that struck them, and drive his open palms through the hood. She was also pretty sure that people didn't normally change into an instant from sickly weirdo into hulking monsters. In that instant, Anzu had no time to take note of the exact form of the creature. In fact, she would later be surprised at just how little she could recall of the details of its form, as if it was somehow deliberately difficult to describe.
Questions of what and how, to say nothing of the why flew out of Anzu's head as the monster reached out and slammed its fists (or were they claws, or perhaps it was holding some kind of weapons?) into the windshield. Glass cracked, and shattered, and Anzu heard screaming. She would later learn that a fair portion of that screaming had been herself, half panicked and half, well....
