御冷 ミァハ | Mihie MIACH (
imitationsoul) wrote in
daybreakacademy2020-02-01 12:24 am
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Entry tags:
You're pretending you don't know anything
Who: Miach & Nana
What: A seemingly harmless recon mission to the Outlands.
When: Early February.
Where: Outlands.
Warnings: Miach's edginess, mission-typical fighting.
[ Miach hasn't taken her mission duty as seriously as some. She only goes out when it suits her fancy and there is something to see that she believes worthwhile. So maybe it had been a little surprising to some when she signed up for a fairly simple recon and retrieval mission to the Outlands. Go to a secure location, scope out any changes in the local wildlife, retrieve a few sacred stones that are useful for certain rituals. Simple and straight-forward. Almost boring. Almost.
Miach hasn't been to the Outlands since that fateful day she was rescued from the clutches of demons. She longs to see it again and going out there with Nana as her mission partner is a good bonus. In school, Miach is still fairly isolated from her peers, but Nana's company has become a welcome constant in her life.
Stepping out of the gate to the Outlands, they find themselves on what appears to be a normal meadow - if you ignore the fact that the colors all seem a little wrong.
Miach twirls around on her heels once, getting a good look at the place. ]
This is prettier than I expected. Have you been to this kind of place before, Nana?
What: A seemingly harmless recon mission to the Outlands.
When: Early February.
Where: Outlands.
Warnings: Miach's edginess, mission-typical fighting.
[ Miach hasn't taken her mission duty as seriously as some. She only goes out when it suits her fancy and there is something to see that she believes worthwhile. So maybe it had been a little surprising to some when she signed up for a fairly simple recon and retrieval mission to the Outlands. Go to a secure location, scope out any changes in the local wildlife, retrieve a few sacred stones that are useful for certain rituals. Simple and straight-forward. Almost boring. Almost.
Miach hasn't been to the Outlands since that fateful day she was rescued from the clutches of demons. She longs to see it again and going out there with Nana as her mission partner is a good bonus. In school, Miach is still fairly isolated from her peers, but Nana's company has become a welcome constant in her life.
Stepping out of the gate to the Outlands, they find themselves on what appears to be a normal meadow - if you ignore the fact that the colors all seem a little wrong.
Miach twirls around on her heels once, getting a good look at the place. ]
This is prettier than I expected. Have you been to this kind of place before, Nana?
sorry, Saturday was super busy!
Maybe with Miach, especially. It's nice when it's just them. There's a little more she can say. She steps into the Outlands with her, in...
Well, it's the same white coat and skirts as usual. But, it glows a little; she's using her Flame, and the Radiance gives it that subtle sparkle. She looks at Miach, and she's falling into the persona. Her nod is more sure; more confident; more... commanding.
But her voice is friendly.] I have. It's beautiful, really. It's a shame, that our relationship with the Outlands is so... complicated.
... and here is the latest tag in the history of late tags, I swear this is an isolated occurence
[ Actually, just getting a good look on her feet isn't enough, it's time to go to her knees to stare at a type of flower she hasn't seen yet before. Knowledge! Knowledge is good! But she does glance back at Nana with a small smile. ]
Complicated means we get to come here - just imagine if it were peacefully segregated! We might never have even known! Conflict brings suffering and pain and it makes Earth a living hell, but I think a boring world would be one all the same.
totally okay!!
[Nana smiles, then she walks up behind Miach, bending to look over her shoulder. She peers at the flower.]
Let's keep our wits about us, though. It isn't entirely safe here.
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[ But okay, she'll get up and take a better glance around again. Though she likes to flirt with danger, it's not like she has an extended interest in dying here or seeing anything happen to Nana. ]
When I was in the Outlands before, it was only ever indoors. Certainly not worthwhile. Gloomy castles seem to be the same between worlds, really. I wonder what compels people to keep building those, no matter what species they are.
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[Nana nods, then stands up a little straighter. But she spares a last look at the flowers. There's so many different sorts; it's the type of thing one could get lost in. Things she can't see on earth.]
I think they've got a... hm. A gravity? They're an astounding setpiece. Unfortunately, everyone realized this. If I were going to be an evil overlord, I'd pick something original.
A theater, maybe?
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[ She hums appreciatively as she turns the idea over in her head. ]
A bit Phantom of the Opera flavor... Though, to be perfectly fair, I doubt the Phantom counts as an overlord. His motivations are far too localized and personal.
[ So for rulers this is still territory that should be largely unchartered. ]
Would you make people perform? Or would it be you on the stage?
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[She maaaaaybe identifies with the Phantom a little too much.
But shh.
Nana taps a finger against her cheek.]
You're quite right. He would be a poor overlord... though, I think I would have others perform. A place where they could have fun doing so, feel safe knowing nothing bad could happen...
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That's terrifying.
[ And she means that genuinely, despite the usual casual tone. A Golden Cage is about the worst thing she could ever imagine for herself. ]
And not all that different from your usual MO, though I appreciate the added aesthetic in the setting.
[ There's no malice here though. No matter how much Miach would hate to be trapped in Nana's ideal world, that world will not come to pass and Miach won't discourage her at lest trying... ]
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[At present.
She wonders, though. Is that in her?]
But it's a little fun to think about what I might do.
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[ It's like a horror story but for non-conformists... ]
Though that'd of course give a lot of inside information to the resistance, if you'd ever execute them.
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[Nana even laughs, but...
She means it, too.]
I have less plans and more those idle musings you sometimes get. A lot of it's in the design of the theater...
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What does it look like? Did you find a way to make bananas imposing yet?
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She tilts her head, then shakes it.]
I'm afraid not. Bananas are much too cute to be imposing. But... it's grand! Really, it's not scary as much as grand and old-fashioned.
I might make it, sans the world conquest, some day.
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[ Judging by the fact that she's giggling faintly as she says it, this is a joke. ]
No, I do like buildings like that though. It's architecture that is really designed to make people feel small in the face of history and grandeur. Even churches have some of that flair, and I do not like the church very much.
aaaah sorry, work has had a conference, some tours to run, just the works
[She pauses.
There's a shuffling, behind her, in the woods. And then a thunderous step.]
no worries at all, we got time!!
However, Miach is not accustomed to missions and her instinct is simply to spin around and stare the danger in the face. The danger is big and definitely intriguing but uh, staring longer is probably a bad idea... ]
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Not the size of a Rune Armor massive, but it's nearly ten feet tall, and muscular in a way that humans just don't usually do. Its head is more like a mass of muscle, a too large jaw, and a single, bloodshot eye in the middle of the head. Its skin is one of those impossible shades: blue-grey, like stone.
It looks at them, eye flicking between Miach and Nana, as they both stare.
Nana stares back, not quite comprehending, until she does: a daemon, and the sort that would like to brutally kill them both. She swallows; that understanding passes between them. The cyclops daemon roars, shaking the forest.
Nana's voice is quiet, in comparison:] ...Miach. Stay behind me.
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So she isn't afraid when the daemon yells at them, she just acknowledges the rush of adrenaline that instinctively gets pumped through her body.
Nana draws her attention more than the monster. Where the threat to her life registers distantly and theoretically, Nana's serious voice feels immediate, real. It's surprising and Miach wants to keep watching.
That's bad reasoning to have for listening to one's advice and staying back as ordered, but at least it works. ]
Go for the eye.
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Everything in her mind screams that she's just an ordinary teenager; that she has no business facing down this monstrosity. She wants to scream and hide, and she hates that. So she makes herself walk forward, head held high, and gives the daemon a cold, angry look. It's a walk with purpose.
She nods at Miach's advice.] I can do that.
[Then she runs forward. She lashes out with her two swords; the first cuts across its chest, and then she leaps, trying to strike for its eye. One meaty fist catches her, though, and the punch throws her back. Back past Miach, and then she slams into a tree.
Bark cracks, and Nana stumbles down.] Gh...
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Nana with double swords is new, different, and exciting. Maybe capable of enforcing this new world, her reign---
She needs to stop staring and thinking because Nana is getting injured and none, absolutely none, of all their whimsy hypotheticals are ever going to be worth a damn if they die here.
Miach doesn't know how to shoot well, but that doesn't mean she won't try. Staring between Nana and the approaching monster briefly, Miach makes the executive decision to run into a different direction and shoot at the monster from there.
Between them, Nana is surely the one with more combat experience. If Miach can just give her time to recover...
The cyclops seems more irritated than pained by the two shots Miach fires at it. No wonder, they barely graze its torso. But it does turn its one-eyed attention to her for just the moment. ]
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Nana can't quite move fast enough to stop its first attack. The cyclops scoops up a rock -- not a boulder, but bigger than anyone would ever want thrown at them -- and hurls it through the air with a bellow.
It starts to run immediately after, but it stumbles when Nana leaps and lands on its back. She doesn't find purchase with her legs; she finds it with the sword in her left hand, which she rams into the meat just to the side of its shoulder. The blade sticks out the front of it, black blood dripping down. The daemon reaches a hand back, with a bellow.
Nana just manages to dodge that. This time, she's shouting at Miach, and it's more of a frightened frenzy than calm and controlled:]
Miach, RUN!
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So she takes off. It's been a long time since she ran from something at full speed and there are unpleasant memories associated with it that she didn't even knew she had anymore. What a strange feeling. ]
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So that's when she gets the other one under its neck, and uses all her weight to fall, and cut its head off.
It's a little while later that Nana approaches. Her swords are sheathed. But, she's covered in blood; the cyclops's reddish black, congealing blood still managed to do a good arterial spray and coat her from the neck to her knee in the stuff. She's peering out into the woods, warily.
It occurred to her, after the fact, that she might be yelling at Miach to run at more of them.]
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The battle-hardened look works well for you.
[ Miach has saved herself up onto a tree after the initial running period, figuring that being hidden in the foliage is a much better idea than rampaging through the forest in plain sight. And then she'd waited.
Honestly, she's relieved to see Nana and a little impressed, too. They'd never talked much about combat skill, so seeing her now is a revelation and a half. ]
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Her smile widens a little at the compliment.]
I'm glad you think so. Are you okay? Nothing else came to bother you?
[She remembers when being covered in blood was upsetting. Now... it's still upsetting, but there's no crowd. And Miach isn't bothered. She wipes herself off, globs of blood falling to the forest floor.]
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[ Since they relied on the information given that there wouldn't be huge demons before, except there was one and it wasn't a very pleasant experience.
Miach deliberates just jumping down from the tree, but to her own dismay, she can tell that her legs are too shaky for it. The cyclops may not have scared her, but the sensation of running for her life...? Miach can deduce what is so upsetting about it, even if she doesn't have the concrete memory to go with it.
So instead of jumping, she winds up taking the simple road and begins climbing downward. Her hands are shaky too. Great. ]
I'm fine. I had a brave knight protecting me, after all.
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[She catches the way that Miach's legs are shaking, then her hands. She blinks; it surprises her, because she just sort of assumed Miach was unflappable. Oh, she could surprise Miach -- it's fun to do, really -- but she never really has seen her scared. Even if it's a more visceral fear, perhaps.
She takes a second, because of that, before she steps forward, and extends a hand upward.
And then she turns red at being called a brave knight.]
I-I can help you down?
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It's fortunate, really, that she managed to fluster Nana, distracting a little from whatever is going on with her own body's involuntary reactions. She laughs. ]
No need to be any more charitable than necessary.
[ Instead of taking the offered hand in any way, she does let herself drop down the rest of the way, landing shakily and just... kind of toppling over backwards and coming to lay on the grass. It was not comfortable exactly, but she's down now? And being on the floor isn't so bad as long as her legs aren't cooperating.
She grins up at Nana. ]
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She walks over -- and she doesn't flop down into the grass next to her, but instead sits down next to Miach.
She looks down at her, smiles, and... hesitates. It's nice, she thinks, seeing her like this. Nana puts a hand down, steadying herself.] We shouldn't stay too much longer, probably...
[But she isn't taking a single step to leaving. Far from it.]
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There is something extraordinarily beautiful about Nana's smile while there are bloodstains still splattered over her. It's a beauty born from the contrasts, Miach would like to think, but part of it is also... a strange sense of a gap closing between them.
Miach views herself as coming from a world of violence and survival. Her time in the Outlands might have been comparatively brief, but it shaped her so deeply that all her years in Japan had been spent without forming a single human connection. Miach hadn't wanted any of those people; nice and smiling and compassionate and utterly blind to the violence out in the world. Nana had reminded her of her old classmates on more than one occasion, but now... It's clear once more that Nana is an in-between like her. Nana can survive in the Outlands. Nana can fight and kill.
They're destined enemies, sure, but they're still playing on the same field. ]
Even in a beautiful place like this, the Outlands are deadly. We really are in danger. A world between physical life and death, the polar opposite of our human lands...
[ She trails off a little, then re-focuses herself. ]
We should absolutely dutifully retrieve the sacred stones and leave.
[ She's not getting up. ]
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But is it a change for the better? Or did she finally lose part of herself, after spending so long trying to keep everyone safe? She wonders if she hollowed herself out, a lot of days, and just hasn't really noticed.
Here, now, with Miach, it doesn't seem so.]
We should. It's as dangerous as it is beautiful. We've had a firsthand demonstration about why we should go.
[She doesn't move to stand up. She looks down at Miach. She's so different than her. A background she knows so little about, a past she can only imagine. An outlook on life that seems destined to lead them to argument and strife, one day.
But she makes Nana not feel like a monster wearing the trappings of her old life, somehow.
And that's enough.
She falls silent, looking down at Miach with a thoughtful expression.]
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For a moment they're just looking at each other. And then Miach reaches up to grab Nana by the fabric of her clothes and pull her down onto the grass with her. She's surprisingly forceful. Though her body is delicate and her muscle strength isn't anything to brag about, Miach has a determination in her movements that would only be stopped by brute force. ]
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[There's a squeak of honest surprise from Nana. She goes from contemplative to surprised, pulled down onto the grass. She lands to the side of Miach, in the grass, and stares at her for a moment more. Her cheeks start to redden.
Then she stops contemplating -- or maybe makes herself move, before she can overthink it. Nana leans forward, sighs softly, and kisses Miach. For all that she's usually having her thoughts race...
There's a simple clarity for her, right now.]
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Somehow, astoundingly, this manages to be entirely outside of the realm of Miach's expectations. In her head, she is the instigator. Of this, of everything. Other people follow suit, even people like Nana, who have captured Miach's attention and care entirely against her own predictions and will.
She had something planned out that she was going to say once she succeeded with her grand gesture of pulling Nana down, but... that doesn't really matter now, does it?
Miach's never kissed a girl before. For all her flirting, the reality is that there has never been anybody who's been important to her that way. Fleeting attraction to girls who would never hold her interest, yes, but not...
She'd really, really thought she would be the one to initiate her own first kiss. Forward and bold, experimental like all her actions.
This isn't how it was supposed to go, but it's... it's good. The kiss, the way it happened. Both of it. After the initial surprise fades within the first split second, she closes her eyes and leans in a bit. She can feel the blood on Nana's jacket, where her hands relax their grip and only linger softly. The blood, Nana covered in blood.... the softness of her lips...
Miach is smiling when they break apart, and for once there's nothing enigmatic about it. ]
I like us, out here.
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She's never kissed anyone either, outside of a few plays that called for it. A kiss on stage, though, is different from one done genuinely. She was tempted... but it never really came to this point, even with Kano. She imagined her first kiss as being entirely mundane -- on Earth, maybe in a park somewhere, and almost divorced from the reality of Daybreak Academy. But she can't complain about this.
But she worries if it was the right move; if it was forward or unwanted. She worries a little that she picked the wrong time. That she should be resolute and strong and in control, even now, and spontaneously kissing someone isn't any of those things.
But... no, the split second of uncertainty ends and Miach returns it. Nana's hesitation lasts no longer, and one arm supports her, bent at the elbow, as she stays there.
When she pulls apart, she brings two fingers to her lips -- a look on her face that says, 'I really did that.' -- and then she looks down. The smile has to fight nothing, to be as bright as it can be.]
I do too. We should stay for awhile.
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Let's. I'd love to watch this Nana for longer, free from the Academy for a fleeting moment, just herself... You're strong. I had no idea you were such a fighter.
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But it's not like that can be separated. I'm glad you like it. [She reaches out, her hand brushing Miach's cheek, almost experimentally.]
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You're contradictory, yes. Not easy to slot into a simple category, not easy to put a label on. You try so hard to bend to that, but... this bloodstained you is beautiful exactly because it's at odds with it all, you know?
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I like how you can see that sort of thing... and like me all the more for it. The way you see the world, the things you notice... they always amaze me.
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Were you expecting to be rejected? For saving my life, no less.
[ Miach is well aware that her standards are absolute abnormal (and she wouldn't have it any other way), but this seems like a universally acknowledged good deed to her... ]
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[Normally, she overthinks everything. She keeps smiling, though.]
Normally, I would hesitate, overthink, and... not act on impulse.
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You should go that more often. It's no good to suppress your impulses all the time, it's just going to make you unhappy.
[ Miach knows well that not all impulses are good and that living on impulse can have some ugly consequences, but even so, there is just something to be said for being true to one's desires.
Not that this case has been at all unpleasant or unfortunate. She just has too much thought on the subject. In the moment she just keeps smiling. ]
I certainly won't hold back.
[ Be scared. Maybe. ]
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[At nearly every junction of her life, really.
She watches Miach's smile, and there's a chill at what she says. She can't say, for sure, if it's anticipation or concern.
But she finds herself smiling again.]
I don't want you to.
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There is a level of comfort here that she isn't sure she's familiar with, but maybe for as long as she closes her eyes and just breathes in and out, she won't have to think about it much. ]
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[That's a happy noise from Nana.
She wraps both arms around Miach. Not really tightly; not really enough to be a hug in any sense. But it feels nice, she thinks, to have her in her arms, and look up at the alien sky with open eyes.
And listen for any more monsters.]