Open A Sound Upon The Air

[Ai Shou]

Timestamp: 82 Spring, 513AV

The sky darkened quickly as Ai finally settled down upon a rooftop after having been running for a while. Her eyes remained slightly bloodshot from when she had cried recently, the tears having carved a streak through the grime and dirt on her cheeks. Her hair was ragged and her clothes dirtied and musty from the fall she had taken. She sat on the edge of the rooftop, bringing her legs up against her chest as she looked out onto one of the small circular spaces between the houses.

Alone. The word echoed in her mind over and over again as she laid her head down on the top of her knees. She'd begun to grow used to being alone. The numb feeling reached deep inside of her, caused by the night where she had lost her mother and father in a spontaneous house fire that had consumed her parent's lives and yet somehow spared hers. She couldn't remember much besides waking up to smell smoke and fire. She remembered the heat that came from downstairs. She could feel the sweat bead against her forehead as she climbed out of her bed, the memory of the soft linen striking up feelings of homesickness in her.

Then came the screams. They were terrible, achingly reminiscent of her mother and father as they writhed in flames in the room below her. Fear had welled up inside of her and she knew that she couldn't stay any longer. She remembered how the door blew open and a ball of flames shot into the room, knocking her over and blowing out the simple glass plane that separated the outside from the inside. Fear welled up inside of her as she felt the ash settle upon her face. She had only one choice...

Jump.

With a burst of adrenaline, Ai darted for the window, tossing herself out of it without another thought. The reminisce faded away as she fell, snapping her out of her dreams as she realized she had accidently slipped off the rooftop and was tumbling towards the ground, skidding across the shingles that made up the rooftop. There were few handholds for her to grab at, but she clawed at each shingle as she continued to slide, a scream welling up inside her throat as fear and panic began to overtake her.

Her body flew over the side and as a final resort, she reached out and managed to grab the edge of the gutters that ringed the side of the building. Only then did she realize that her arm had been popped out of place from grabbing the gutter and stopping so suddenly. She let out a whine of pain as she hung there, too stubborn to let go. Her eyes lowered to the ground below her. She had a fifteen foot drop below her, but she spotted a cart nearby. If only she could use it to her advantage... her fingers slipped on the wet edge, only two of them left clutching to the gutter. Desperately, she reached her other arm up to latch onto the gutter. She was far too weak to pull herself up, fatigue quickly settling in.

Her grip loosened and she found her vision began swirling into darkness. Fear overwhelmed her senses as she felt her head spin. Rain splattered down onto her face as her hand slipped, her dislocated arm unable to hold the sudden jolt. Her fingers slipped altogether and she found herself falling again, through the air and headed for the solid ground below. All she could do was scream and then... everything went dark.

[Quiarinox]

"Did you see that?" "That woman, she fell!" "Jumped, more like," Quiarinox murmured into the cascade of voices, hers lost in the sea of whispers and screams and crying. She wasn't smiling, no, and nor was she crying. The carefully alien look in her eyes was distinctly a mix of disgust and admiration. She had never had the resolve to jump whenever she stood at the edge of a precipice. Of all those times she had lingered on the bridge and stared down into death's gullet, she had been too cowed by the uncertainty of fate to leap. It disgusted her that the woman should change her mind after leaping forward from the peak of the roof and that she ended up clawing and sobbing as she dangled there, broken, for all the world to see her shame and weakness. Quiarinox would never allow herself to succumb to such things as that. "We should see if she's okay," she murmured to her nearest companion, her white hand on the woman's bare wrist. "To think that it could have been any of us to take a fall like that and land so sadly, so horribly weak upon the ground, it brings fear into my heart. We might be as weak as she is at this moment, on the inside as well as the outside." The jaded glare of her eyes slanted off the woman she addressed as she hurried forward then, completely missing the woman's disturbed gaze before she followed as well and people began to close in.

[Ai Shou]

The crowds grew larger after Ai finally collided with the ground, laying on her back and letting out a pained groan as her arm finally popped back into place. Ai's eyes were closed slightly with pain, her bottom lip quivering slightly as she realized people were watching. Then a woman approached, drawing with her a few companions and more watchers. Ai sat up and forced her voice out.

"I-... I'm fine..." She muttered, keeping her eyes off to the ground to avoid needing to look at the people around her, "I just... slipped."

Her eyes were drawn to Quairinox. The woman had a pompous way of standing, much like the girls Ai had learned to put up with as a commoner, but she still seemed... off. Ai clambered to her feet and grunted, swaying slightly as pain ratcheted every joint in her body after the fifteen-foot fall. She was in pain, but she was doing her best to hide it.

[Kenept]

Looking up into the sky, Kenept felt the cool rain falling on his face. He closed his eyes as the water trickled down his forehead, into the corners of his eyes, making its way down his cheeks only to drip off of his chin onto his red cloak. He had put his cloak over his black shirt in the occurrence of the rain, and pulled it tight across his chest to prevent any chills. It was a cool rain, one that cleansed the body as well as the spirit. Kenept had always disliked the rain; he found that it always clashed with his personality, as well as his natural affinity for things. The occasional rain though, like this one, was not a bother. In fact, it was much appreciated. Still looking towards the heavens, Kenept opened his eyes again; it was typically strange for a man to stand in the middle of the path staring up at the sky. Taking a step forward, Kenept began to move his gaze back to the path before him. But as he did so, his eyes caught sight of a startling incident. On a rooftop, a good three buildings away, he saw someone slip, and begin to slide down the roof, towards the edge. Kenept stopped, awestruck that nobody around him had noticed the same thing, most too busy trying to get out of the rain, or too involved in their everyday lives. Watching as she clung on to the edge of the roof, Kenept began to push his way towards her. Pushing though the crowd while trying to keep his focus on the person proved somewhat difficult, for the rain had caused the streets to become full of people attempting to get home and dry. A building away from what he could now recognize as a girl, Kenept saw her fall, her grip no longer supporting her body weight. "Move out of the way," he said sternly, pushing his way through the throng of people who were just standing there, staring. Pushing through the final group of people, Kenept entered the circle that contained the fallen girl. She was half way back onto her feet. There was a small group of people standing around her, not many, but a few. Kenept reached out a hand and said,"here, let me help you."

[Quiarinox]

"I'm already here," Quiarinox's snapping retort came without just cause as she shot a green glare at the man that had elbowed his way forward, already in the process of kneeling and helping the woman to her feet before she stood on her own. She reached forward to lay a comforting hand on the woman's back, if the gesture was received as comforting at all. Inwardly, Quiarinox was cringing at the necessity of touching somebody, but bore it with soothing sounds to make up for the lack of considerate words peeling past her lips. She wasn't a person to go to for comfort. "We should take you to see a doctor, make sure you are all right," she said. A sidelong glance told her the man was still there. She made a face at him that wasn't altogether kind nor trustworthy as she spoke, in the hopes that the woman was still too preoccupied with the ground to look up at them. "Is anything broken? Can you move everything all right? How does your head feel?" The urge to lay a curse was truly overwhelming, but her recent lessons with learning tact was helping her hold back the need. There were better times and better places to lay curses, even if she just placed a poorly timed one on the woman that had rushed forth with her. She was sure any more rash curses like that were going to earn her a place in a stockade before she made her way out of Lhavit.

[Ai Shou]

Ai shifted her stance a little so her arm didn't look so strange hanging from her side. She let Quiarinox help her steady herself, but something about the lady still seemed... off. The mention of a doctor made Ai's cheeks flush as she realized her brave front wasn't working as well as she had thought. "N-no... I'm... fine." She reassured Quiarinox just as Kenept pushed his way into the circle. Her cheeks flushed even more as she looked over and noticed the man who had extended his hand to her in an effort to help her. Quiarinox's last three questions were lost to the wind as Ai's eyes widened slightly, changing from a calm blue to a violet pink. Her mouth moved, but she seemed lost for words.

He's... cute... She thought to herself, blinking, the pain from her previously dislocated arm beginning to cloud her thinking a little, but she had always been the first to judge others on attractiveness. Her voice finally caught up with her mind and she managed to stammer something towards Kenept, "Yeah... sure." She says, reaching out with her good hand to take his, her eyes slightly unfocused. "I'm not too sure if this is the pain talking, but you're kind of cute..." She says with a soft giggle. She stumbled slightly and grunted in pain as she leaned into Kenept, her shoulders shaking in pain, "I'm okay... I'm fine... Just stumbled..."

[Quiarinox]

Annoyance coloured Quiarinox's face at the realisation that her would-be victim was actually taking the opportunity to make a play on the man that had come forward too slowly to help her up. Irritation soon followed. What kind of woman was this? She was sorely tempted to shove her away and be done with her, but she bared her teeth in something like a smile and allowed the woman, or rather weak little girl, make her attempt at wooing this stranger. Some perverse, sadistic part of her surely hoped the man was a rapist. That would teach the girl some sort of propriety and to keep her legs closed after she had just jumped, or if not then it would ruin her. "Come on, come on. Best not to keep the doctor waiting, especially if you're in so much pain," Quiarinox's words lacked empathy for the woman but they did possess urgency. Prey were best taken where there wasn't bound to be anyone to witness. She was learning to maintain her curses in secrecy, slowly. She felt that her evolution in the methods she found and cursed people meant that soon she could go home. Finally. "Coming with us?" She directed this question to the man, already ignoring the others that had come to see if the girl was okay. They were concerned for her well-being, as humans often were when one of their kind suffered, but Quiarinox did not need any of them, not even the man.