shiningworld | [ TRIBUTES TO THE SEXY GOD ]

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[ TRIBUTES TO THE SEXY GOD ]

[ They say where there is smoke, there is fire, and happily, despite the spat of unusual occurrences lately, this has not stopped being true; there is a large column of smoke rising from somewhere off in the trees, and should you pursue it, you will find a large clearing with a roaring fire. A makeshift altar has been built in front of it, and even the nearby animals seem drawn to the flame.

The altar is sacrificing a large wooden heart, crudely carved from wood, and slowly burning. The smoke is also thicker than it ought to be, and if you breathe it in, you may begin to feel a little lightheaded.

As you examine the altar, or even as you head back to the mansion, your thoughts may involuntarily begin to change. Anxiety and homesickness melt away, leaving you desiring company. What this means may be different for the individual, but it is more or less a unified sensation of craving a companion for the evening. Whether you just want to have someone there, or hold them, or perhaps more than that...

Any way you cut it, the sexy god should be appeased. ]

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[Chell glanced around, looking to see if anyone else was nearby.

What should she do? If this was a trap, then she would know that she could and then she would never leave her alone.

But...she felt she could trust this woman. This was strange, she didn't even know if she was capable of trusting anyone any more. What was going on?

She just sat there silently with an intense look, weighing all her options. There was a part of her wanted to speak, acknowledge that she could, but on the other hand, those feelings were foreign, where had they come from?]

[Alcyone found herself with an immeasurable amount of patience this evening. It was odd. Normally she'd have long since abandoned this woman and gone back to sulking and being paranoid. But here she was, waiting for an answer, smiling.

In spite of looking like an antagonist from a fantasy rpg, the smile on her face almost made Alcyone look normal...]

[Chell gave a deep sigh, she hoped she wasn't going to regret this...

She spoke a single word in a whisper, her voice cracking from disuse.]

"....yes."

[The sound of her voice was upsetting to Alcyone a bit. That sort of voice was the voice of someone who was afraid. That kind of heart wouldn't last long in her world. Suddenly, unexplainably, she felt the desire to protect Chell.]

You're safe here.

[She reached out, placing her hand on top of Chell's head. Her hand was cold. Not a lifeless sort of cold, but just the cold of someone standing outside too long in winter. It was a side effect of decades of ice magic.

~~It's a shame she doesn't know that Chell isn't exactly safe here.~~]

[Chell wasn't afraid, but she was hesitant and unsure of the situation. This was all just too weird. She had faced down several versions of death and survived them all magnificently, so there wasn't much that could scare her.

She is reassured that maybe here was someplace where she could take a break from death traps. Chell's had more than her fair share of experiences with them. Solving puzzles was fun in a way, but it would be nice to rest, even just for a bit.

Instinctively, Chell recoiled from Alcyone's touch. Not from the cold, but from being unused to human contact and the fact that the last time anyone touched her, it was because they were lifting her up with a robot claw (while crushing Wheatley with another), carrying her over to the long-broken incinerator, and tossing her in.

She may trust you enough to speak a little, but it will take longer than a few moments to erase years of being alone with crazy and violent AIs.]

[Alcyone frowned a bit, and any other time she would have reacted very negatively to suck a thing. But now she just withdrew. Her head lowered. It was hard not to take it personally, given the past few months of her life.]

...Do you hate me too?

[She couldn't imagine why Chell would. They'd only just met. But then again, the Magic Knights had hated her without ever listening to her side of things. But that was Clef's fault.. That lying bastard... Her shoulders shook slightly under the weight of her armor just thinking of it. Of how badly she, and more importantly Zagato, had been betrayed.]

[Chell immediately shook her head.]

"...no."

[She thought for a moment. That probably wouldn't be enough for the other woman, she seemed hurt by her reaction.

Chell glanced away.]

"...it's been a long time."

[As soon as she had whispered the words, she immediately regretted them. Those were some of the first few things she had said to her upon being woken up by Wheatley. But, they described what she wanted to say the best, no matter who said them first.]

[The 'no' would have been enough. She wasn't sure why she believed it so easily. Maybe she really was just lonely. Though even like this she wouldn't admit it out loud.

The weight of the armor on her shoulders was suddenly too much to bear. She'd worn it, or armor like it, most of her grown life. So she didn't understand why it now seemed so heavy. Maybe it was her own feelings pushing down on top of it.

None the less, she undid the fasteners for the large, angular shoulder armor and set them aside, the large white cape going with them, since they were what kept it around her shoulders. Without it, she almost looked like a normal person, albeit one who wasn't properly dressed for anything other than a strip club.]

I'm not that bad really. I can come on a little strong, but...

I promise, I'm not a bad person.

[Chell preferred clothing with a bit more substance to them for protection from whatever could come her way. But, if Alcyone felt comfortable enough to wear things like that, then that was her business.

She nodded, then hesitated before speaking again.]

"...I'm not either..."

[Chell wasn't sure why she felt the need to say that, she knew she wasn't a bad person, no matter what she said about her being horrible. She just wanted to live. To be free.

What did it matter what this other woman thought of her?]

[The clothes were something like a uniform. An altered, corrupted version of what she'd worn as a court sorceress when she'd been at Emeraude's side. Part of her wanted to be rid of it now, but she had nothing else.]

I didn't think you were...

[Freedom was a beautiful thing. Something Alcyone was enjoying here. Not needing to feel dependent on a Pillar for the world's stability, not having to feel loyal to some little bitch who chose to unnecessarily martyr herself...]

[Chell just nodded politely in return. True, she had done some...unpleasant things, but she had to in order to survive. Killing the Companion Cubes, the cores, and her and letting Wheatley fly out into space were top on the list. However, she hadn't much choice on Wheatley and even she didn't know whether or not she would have even tried to save him if she had been able to. There was also the matter of the other cores, but she hadn't been directly close enough to even think about attempting to save them.

If she hadn't done any one of those things, she would be dead. And she didn't plan on dying for a long, long time yet.]

[Alcyone isn't exactly the best person in the world either. She betrayed her mentor and tried to kill a bunch of teenagers. She also ended up betraying one of her own allies and killing his weird giant snail monster.

But in fairness, her mentor had betrayed her first. And rally, everything she'd done had been for the sake of love she knew she wouldn't get. But being acknowledged by him just once.. That would have satisfied her. But she couldn't even accomplish that. Still, she had no regrets.]

...I don't want to be alone here.

[Why had she said that? It was such a strange thing to say. But she wasn't the type to ignore her desires. Knowing what you want, and striving for it whole-heartedly is what brought strength where she came from.[

[Chell inclined her head slightly to the right, there was plenty of space to sit down beside her and she wouldn't mind the company. Though she really wanted to get the sand out of her boots soon, this didn't seem like the time to concentrate on that.

If this woman was somehow a prisoner of hers, they could work together to escape.

Though, the last time she had tried it, well...it didn't turn out so good. At first, anyways.]

[Adiane was still for a moment before giving a small nod in response to the gesture, sitting beside Chell. She tilted her head back, staring upward at the rising smoke from the burning offering.

Part of her wondered if she'd made the wrong choice back home. No... No, Emeraude would have died either way. At least having chosen to fight for Zagato, she had no regrets. She glanced toward Chell, still curious about her, but she didn't seem to speak much. It only made Alcyone more curious, but she didn't want to overwhelm her.]

...It's been so long since I've been able to make my own choices, I think I've forgotten how.

[Chell tilted her head to the side and thought on this. She had been making her own choices for a long time now, but part of that was choosing to listen, or not listen, in some cases, to what others were telling her to do.]

"You do what you need to." [And sometimes that meant following orders and other times it meant ignoring them to escape a pit of fire.]

I suppose.

I still can't tell which one of us won.. She got him, but I'm not dead.

[She let out a slightly bitter laugh.]

Well, they're all probably dead by now.

[Chell listened to this silently. There were so many questions she had, but it was probably just better to let Alcyone talk at her own pace. Whatever had gone on sounded quite unpleasant, since she expected to be dead and thought everybody else was as well.]

[Alcyone seemed surprisingly unbothered by the thought of her world ending and everyone she'd ever known dying painfully. Really, she felt most of them deserved it. Maybe not the Pharle... She'd been all right. She could bet that Clef lied to her too.]

I just hope we weren't dragged into the same situation. It seemed like it at first... But there's so many of us, and more just keep coming.

[Chell frowned, she wasn't ready to die and she'd do nearly anything to stay alive. Even though she no longer had the portal gun, she'd find another way to fight.]

"What is this place?"

[If it was a place of her creation, then likely she wouldn't get a straight answer.

She was still halfway expecting her to pop in out of nowhere and triumphantly cackle that she finally got her to talk.]

To be honest, I'm not sure. An island, and obviously another world from the one I was in. Probably you too, The woman who summoned us called it "Bermuda", but that doesn't mean anything to me.

All I know, is that here, I'm beyond the influence of a pillar. No one can sacrifice me again. I am free.

[Chell mulled this information over. An island would make sense, with the ocean, but there was still one important question to be asked.]

"How did we get here?"

[She wasn't sure what Alcyone was talking about with pillars, but she knew that sacrificing somebody else was not a good thing.]

Magic, most likely. This "Lady Eureka", whoever she is, is probably some high class of sorceress.

What exactly she wants with us is still a mystery.

[Chell frowns at this, trying to figure out what this means."

"She uses magic?"

[Chell sounds perplexed at this, perhaps even almost unbelieving. Though, she's seen a lot and it probably wouldn't surprise her that magic did exist. She's just been surrounded by science for so long.]

I assume so. I can't say for certain since I know next to nothing about this woman, but I've never heard of summoning from another world being done by any means other than magic.

Or by anyone other than a Pillar, which is what has me so concerned about her.

[Chell nods, processing the information. Maybe Alcyone could tell her more about magic, since she seems to know so much about it. She was going to need all the information she could get in order to figure out a way to escape.]

"I've not been around magic."

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