3/4/2003
12:19
AM
Logfile
from Tomite.
Central
Park Zoo
The
'animal conservatory' is ostensibly split into two areas. First, is the
Children's petting zoo, which has recently undergone a major rennovation. The
entire upper area is now netted, so that free flying birds within the zoo can
spread their wings while remaining in the small area. A huge, fabricated tree
is the centerpiece, around which small, dirt paths lead the wanderer to view
and pet the animals available, including goats and sheep and a surprisingly
gentle ram.
The
other area is much larger and contains the main viewing spots for the larger
animals. An oval pool complete with a center island and large rock hideaway is
the first sight you see, with about six sea lions diving up and down within the
clear glassed-in tank. Around this point, there are several buildings
representing the different temperate zones where animals live - polar,
temperate, and tropical.
Amefuri
and Hikitsu are here.
Obvious
exits:
Central
Park (EA)
You are
no longer on 'Public'.
Tomite
The
slightly tousled brush of sloe-black hair tickles at the nape of his neck as
the dark and straight fringe cascades over his forehead to oft overshadow
perceptive gaze. Irises of a stormy sea green lashed with fog and foam are set
in almond-shaped eyes, framed with lashes as dark as his hair. Youthful
features are harshly angled, the strict lines drawn with the descendant of the
same native blood that grants his skin its dusky cast. With his pronounced
features and despite the gaunt appearance, a lithe grace characterizes his
slightly less than average height as the low swell of toned muscles leave his
wiry form svelte.
Loose
cargo pants in typical khaki drop down to fold over the top of his
slightly-scuffed mountain boots, pockets littering the fabric down the length
of his legs. A short-sleeved shirt of midnight blue, marked with the logo of
Abercrombie, tops a long-sleeved one of Oxford grey. Faded blue baseball cap
that seems to have been through quite a few years of wear often is pulled
around so that the bill is to the back, if he is even wearing it.
Tomite
appears to be 18 years, 1 months, and 19 days old.
He is
awake and looks alert.
Amefuri
Seafoam
tresses fall in undulating waves around shy, pixie features before trickling to
an end in the smooth caress of her lower back.
Fey aquamarine irises peer out at the world from beneath a dark fringe
of lashes, managing to look lost and knowing at the same time. Petite and lithe, there doesn't seem to be
much substance to her small frame, but as in many cases, appearances can be
deceiving. There is an indication of
stubbornness in the tilt of her angled jaw and the firm set of her generous
lips.
Well-worn
jeans swath limber limbs in denim so tight that it could be considered a second
skin while a snug sweater skims over her upper torso in a vain attempt at
warmth. Cowboy boots peek out from the
flared legs of the pants, their dusky leather setting her apart from the
cosmopolitan feel of the city that she now calls her home. You can take the girl out of the country,
but it seems you can't take the country out of the girl.
Amefuri
appears to be 18 years, 3 months, and 25 days old.
She is
awake, but has been staring off into space for 5 minutes.
Brice
nods, hesitating before awkwardly patting her hand then gently prying his
fingers loose. "For us, everything's fine. Ash and I live together. I have
my powers, and I can protect her. I see Chase pretty often, and the rest
besides. In fact," a slightly annoyed look and tone develop, "I'm
gonna force the little idiot to move into the same building as the rest of us.
He nearly gets killed because he doesn't have anyone around, and he doesn't
bother to call me. Idiot." Despite the words, it's said with mucho worried
affection (especially the worry/aggrivation). Hey, they're brothers, it's to be
expected. And time for a change in tactics. He does move his voice back to
sympathetic, though "Well... You can protect yourself." Coward. Going
the route of least resistance. "But you can't stop it. I thought I could,
and it took awhile, but a few people proved I couldn't. And you're much more
emotional than I was to start with." Blank fact. It's true. "It'll
happen again - hopefully with someone without his head up-" Stop RIGHT
THERE!
Chase
was just out for a jog through the park, enjoying the weather, the air, and
everything that goes with it. But then he got that feeling. You know the one...
or not. The kind of feeling that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy as only
Genbu can, and then you further realize that the aniki is in the area, and it
is about now you consider turning right on back around. Nope, Chase doesn't do
that. Instead, he seeks out that tweak in his senses, entering into the zoo
area and from there tracking in on that sense. Look at that. Brice... with
someone else? Hat is settled to rights, long pack over his shoulder is
adjusted, and then he is trotting up behind big brother with his ever-silent
pace. Throat clears as he gets within a couple of steps of them. "Brice?"
Mina is
sitting on a bench facing the sea lions, Brice by her side. "I'm glad," she nods her head,
sniffling just a little. "I'm glad
that things are finally worked out for you and... Ash, did you say?" Turning back towards the sea lions, she bites
her lower lip to keep it from trembling.
Who are you calling emotional?
"Why? Why can't I stop it,
Brice? For you, it's different, you and
Takiko were obviously meant to be together... " Mina trails off and stares at the capering sea mammels before her. "What's it like," she asks
softly. "To be in love when it
doesn't hurt, when you don't cry yourself to sleep each night?"
"Because
it's one of those things you just can't stop. Sort of like gravity. Everything
goes 'splat' eventually." Hopefully the more light-hearted analogy with
cheer her up a bit. "And it's like... shit, what /is/ it like?" Brice
really has no idea how to describe it. "It's like... You're secure. You
know you always have something to go to when things are bad. Amd you're... you're
warm. Jesus, I don't know how to explain it, it just /is/." But then...
His name! BUSH MONSTERS! "YAAAAARGH!" Or not. Brice yells and jumps
and spins, landing in an instinctly defensive gesture, hand raised to cast
snakes - then realizes exactly who it is. "/Chase/?!" Good god holy Jesus don't do that to him!
"You /bastard/!" And, in complete contrast to his words, he
immediately reaches out and yanks the smaller seishi to him proectively in a
brotherly smothering hug. "Shit! You have /any/ fucking idea how worried I
was about you?!" Note: his vocabulary degenerates with the suddenness and
seriousness of the situation. End note.
Okay.
Now if Chase knew that Brice was having some sort of heart to heart with a
woman, he would have turned right on back around and head back the way he came
with nobody the wiser. So, as soon as he hears the young woman's words, and his
own prompt to brother is muttered, he is wincing at the poor timing.
"Damn," he mutters. "Look, I can call you later if you are
busy?" A rather uncomfortable moment here, but then Brice is leaping and
attacking and... *oif* Chase winces just the slightest. Its been about a week
since his fight, and some people didn't have the luxury of seeing a healer.
There are still a few welts here and there. But the teenager does respond with
a wry grin and does hug him back, "Its... uh... Its fine. Brice? I need to
breathe."
At
Brice's yell, Mina startles and screams herself. Only instead of a really brave, attack-type yell, her's is a more
frightened "Aiiiiiieee!"
Jumping back, she puts a hand over her heart and bends over. "Don't. Do. That." Pant pant.
Well, at least she's been thrust out of her self-pity. Watching the brothers embrace, Mina suffers
another wave of homesickness. Standing
a bit to the side, she'll just wait for an introduction and let her pulse rate
return to normal.
"I
don't /care/ if you're fine, you /don't do that to me/!!!!" Happy, Mina?
That popcorn should be disappearing very fast. But, proving he's actually
listening and not just ranting all over the place, Brice does indeed loosen his
grasp, ending up with his hands on Tomite's upper arms. "You /don't/ just
not call me during a fight, or even /after/ it! I was so angry I fought Reese
to get revenge for your sorry ass!" True. Once he figured out it was her,
of course. "Namame nearly got killed!" And then, surprisingly, the
fierce tone drops almost completely. "Just don't do that again, okay? I'll
get a cell or something, you can reach me any time." Tap tap. Brice. Remember
your manners. "Oh, yeah. Chase," he begins, releasing one of Chase's
arms and stepping back so the eighteen-year-olds can see each other, "this
is Mina. Mina, this is Chase. Or," he continues, in the rituals of
seishi-introduction, "Tomite, this Amefuri, Amefuri, this is Tomite. I
think you guys come from the same region of the country."
Chase
blinks over Brice's shoulder at the young woman, and her screaming and... and
he really should learn to walk a bit more loudly from time to time to stop
these sorts of reactions. "I... I'm sorry. Damn, it wasn't like I wanted
anyone to know. I mean, I did it all on my own and /yes/ I heard what happened.
Damn, I was gonna go see her again and offer Reese flowers by way of apology,
but... Genbu." He slowly shakes his head from side to side, still a touch
of worry to his eyes as he looks back to big brother, "Yeah. Yeah, I'll
call." More than one lesson learned. That pack on his back? Carries the
bow. His gaze slips back over to Mina, and then he startles as he hears the way
Brice does the introduction, "Senshi?" A crooked smile appears,
"/Chase/. It is Chase. Nice to meet you."
"Reese?" Mina repeats the oni's name shocked as her
eyes widen. "Reese
Winterbourne?" Shaking her head,
it's finally dawning on the Byakko that perhaps the oni isn't all that she
appears to be. Blinking and flushing at
the introductions, she dips her head in greeting and adds her own shy grin,
"And I'm Mina, Mina Mitsukawa.
It's nice to meet you too, Chase."
A teasing smile appears and her sea-green gaze twinkles as she quips,
"Ah, so you must be the idiot?"
Now the question is which way she should duck, left or right?
Brice
sighs at Chase's words and shakes his head, pulling his other arm back to cross
them both over his chest. "I know, I don't like fighting Reese either, but
when I heard her talking about you..." A flash of pure rage crosses his
eye; he hasn't forgotten the words. "We fought the oni. The Reese who
dressed up in leather and paraded in front of you isn't the same person. Hell,
we were speaking /nicely/ to each other after we nearly killed each other! We
were concerned! Shit." He groans. Confusions. This life's made up of
nothing but confusions. "We gotta work this out somehow..." But
Mina's repetition of Reese's full name draws his attention. "You know her
too? Oh, she's Byakko," he adds as an afterthought to Chase. "With
Dylan and Cat and Lee." His eye widens a bit at the smile and the quip,
but he says nothing - he's rather amused by it (of course) and glad that Mina's
not staying in a depressive state.
Chase
reaches a hand up to readjust the ballcap on his head, and then shoot a
questioning glance to Brice at Mina's words. "Idiot?" He sighs,
rolling his eyes, "I suppose I must be." Yeah, its the truth, and
especially this last time. He shrugs his shoulders and offers Mina yet another
crooked grin. Brice is given another concerned glance though, "Suna was
pissed at all of this. You should have seen him." And it just made Chase
want to curl up under a rock with guilt all the more. He sighs though before
nodding, then looking to Mina, "No, she would have to be the first Byakko
I've gotten a chance to meet. Haven't had a chance to catch Suna's boyfriend
yet."
"I've
met her before, with Toroki," Mina explains. "She... she seemed nice enough. I've got her card, in fact." Although Mina's never had the nerve to call the oni up. "But she.. err.. paraded around in
front of you with leather?" Mina
gives Chase a rather shocked look as she blushes at the mental image. Great, thanks Brice. That's something Mina didn't really want to
be envisioning. "Well then, you
shouldn't judge all Byakko based on me, Chase-san. Most of them are normal."
Most as in everyone but Tokaki.
"You know," she adds with a slight smile, hiding once again
behind pleasantries. Life is so much
easier that way. "I've never met
Setsuna, either. They should throw a
dinner party, invite us all along."
"See,
I've been avoiding being at home much over the past few days. Knew everything
would be exploding, didn't want to have to defend myself or my actions. I'd be
much too tempted to freeze someone before the night was over." To someone
who knows him well, such as Chase, Brice's tone should betray another, deeper
meaning - not everything is happy in Eye Patch-Land. But back to Mina and the
problem of Reese. He nods in sympathy. "Reese is my classmate. We met
before I had my powers back, barely remembered anything - hadn't even met Chase
- and she seemed to be great. A little too stuck on my looks, but a fun person.
And she is. It's when she gets into oni mode that she... starts getting us
angry." He shakes his head, thoughts once against tumbling against his
other so he can't really catch them. "Chase, Cat and Lee came the day
Anana got hurt - Cat fixed her, remember?" She seems to spend a lot of
time patching up Genbu. "Maybe they should, even before the fight I hadn't
seen either in forever."
Chase's
gaze draws back over to Mina, "Uhm... yeah. Well, hey now Brice, she did
show me that place where we got those tattoos. And we really must do that
again." Just without giving Inami access to permanent markers. "Oh...
Mina, I like that idea." Chase is always all for everyone getting
together. Big happy family -never mind last time everyone was arguing. He nods
his head slowly in agreement with Brice, "Uh... Yeah. She sorta said some
things that set me off." Some things very close to what Brice said to
Chase once. Spooky that. "And the game was on from there." Blood
whips suck. "Yeah. Sure. Them and half of the seishi world that came
romping through my place." It got awfully crowded awfully quick.
Mina
feels like a rather retarded parrot, but she just blinks and repeats Brice's
words back to him. "Oni
mode?" Narrowing her eyes
somewhat, she wonders, "Is that anything like a multiple
personality?" That would explain a
lot. Sitting back down on the bench,
she looks from one brother to the other trying to follow the flow of
conversation. Okay, so she's lost. Mina has a rather good memory for faces and
facts, so everything that they're talking about now is sure to come up
later. "Anana was hurt? What this when Nainokami tried to kill
her?"
Brice
doesn't mind playing translator for Mina - she's probably never heard most of
this, after all. But first... "NO, Chase. No more tattoos." He still
doesn't show his much. Only Ash has really seen it. No, that is NOT intended to
mean anything, get your minds out of the gutter! Anyway, back to Mina. "I
guess you could describe it like that. She acts very, very different when her
powers are surfacing - I do it myself, I revert completely back to
Hikitsu." Forget the fact that Ame doesn't know what he was like back
then. "I'd say she does something similar, at least not acting the way she
normally does when just herself. And yes, that was when Nainokami tried to kill
her - the first time. Through Dylan, who'd been brainwashed." Doubtless
she knows about that. She's a Byakko, after all. Okay, back to the brother.
"Chase, you're moving." No arguments boy, Brice's got the height and
weight advantage.
Chase
is plucking off his ball cap once more, dragging his fingers roughshod through
is hair to pull back the majority from his eyes for a moment, and then it is
all cascading right back into place. "Yeah..." And then there are
some people who are exactly like they were back then no matter what, and even
wish that everyone else was the same as well. "Yeah, that was awhile ago.
Anana is good now... trying to.. uhm... She's good." And spending quite a
bit of time with insane-seishi Namame. But then Brice's last statement seeps
in. Uhm. The teenager moves to sit down on the bench, right beside Mina after
settling his pack on the ground. He leans towards her and stagewhispers,
"He didn't just say what I thought he said... right?"
Mina
hasn't really used Amefuri's powers fully yet, there's still a seperation
between the seishi and her reincarnation that Mina unconciously keeps up, a
defense mechanism that keeps her sane.
"Dylan tried to kill Anana?"
Ye gods, Mina hadn't heard that story yet. What has the older Byakko *not* done - he kidnaps Kai, tries to
kill a chibi, oy, he's a one man soap.
No wonder he's burdened with guilt.
Eyes widening as the other seishi sits down next to her, Mina erks and
scoots over a bit. "I think he did
indeed," she stagewhispers back.
"But I think the important question is moving where?" Chase might be lucky, he could be moving
right above a stripshow or XXX shop.
Brice
gives Mina a surprised look - he honestly thought she knew. "You didn't
know?" Yeah, state the obvious Kent. "It was awhile ago..." [on
the old server!] "Apparently Nainokami took control of both Karasuki and
Toroki when they were kids, just born or something, in an effort to sabotage
the Byakko. Anana broke them both out of it, thank Genbu, but before they
really believed they were oni, and even acted as such. But they weren't, and no
one blames them now." And leave it at that. But yes, no wonder Dylan has
guilt-overload. And he gives Chase another 'no arguments' look. "Yes, I
said that. Look, there's already four of us in the Berkley - it'd be safer for
you if you lived there too. Hell, /I'd/ feel safer with you around. That way if
anyone tries anything funny, we know where to go for help." He's actually
thought about this. "John has a two-bedroom place if they don't have any
spots open. I haven't talked to him yet, but I can't really think he'd mind you
there." Okay, so his tone got more concerned-older-brother as it went on.
He's just worried about Chase, that's all, and really would feel better with
him nearby. "I'm not going to force you, but won't you think it
over?"
Chase
nods his head sagely at Mina, "That's what I thought he said." He
leans back on the bench and extends arms to either side of him along the back,
more than likely having one go behind Mina if she is still there. The teenager
blinks up at Brice, "No." As if he really wants to end up living near
where his brother and Ash are and watch them rub their relationship in his face
all the time while he keeps his mouth good and shut. But then Brice launches
into his explanation, and he is left to fidget in response, generally looking
rather uncomfortable. "Dammit, just bring up the whole keeping an eye on
each other thing, why don't you..." *smirk*
Mina had
heard part of the story, but not the entirety.
As she struggles to understand Brice's words she leans back, only to sit
bolt upright. There's an arm back
there! Trying to ignore Chase's
invasion of space, after all, he probably doesn't mean anything by it, she
remarks softly. "Kai still blames
Karasuki for what happened. And by
extension, so does Matt." Turning
her gaze downwards again, she clasps her hands together on her lap. She won't cry again, she won't. She'll get to the point where she can say
his name without breaking down.
Brice
sighs, raking a hand through his hair in an attempt to hide the fact that he's
pulling words together. Which is more important, reassuring Amefuri or not
falling victim to his brother's teasing? Let's see if he can walk a fine middle
line. "Amiboshi nearly died, too, and Suboshi's just... himself." He
deliberately uses the seishi names, as they'll be less likely to set her off.
"I saw him - he was torn to ribbons. I can understand his point. A glance
at his watch and he sighs again. "I gotta get home. Been out too long
avoiding the crowd." Crowd=fellow Genbu (except for Chase). Brice digs in
his bag, pulling out a piece of scrap paper and a pen, and writing his phone
number on it. "If you wanna talk, call me there. I might not be in, but
there's an answering machine." The good thing about Ash - she doesn't mind
him having female friends. "In the mornings is probably better."
Chase
smirks just the slightest, "Well, I managed to hunt down Dylan and full
well intended to kill him. But it was only a matter of time though before Anana
unbroke the guy. If Anana was cool with your seishi, Mina... then I would be as
well. And seeing as Suna and he are all mushy, I'm still cool with that."
As long as Suna is happy. He flickers a glance to Mina though as she speaks,
and then leans over just the slightest to give her a bit of a squeeze with that
arm behind her after feeling her tense. But in the next breath he is pushing up
to stand, shouldering that damn pack. "And I've got to drop this off at
home and grab the..." Not going to say gun in the presence of the aniki.
Nope. "Got another job and a long night ahead of me." He glances back
down to Mina, "Nice to meet you. Give your companions my best. I'm sure
we'll be seeing each other around." Brice is given a good all-american
chuck on the shoulder, "And you too. Stay out of trouble." Isn't that
suppose to be the other way around? But, anywho, the boy is trotting off down
the path at an easy lope.