a happy death // joining

[candorosa]

[align=center][div style="width:70%; text-align: justify; padding: 1px;"]Welp. Moonlight Vale was gone. Apparently, running a group was very hard work and Lemy hated hard work. Who knew? So, after the group went down the drain, he jumped ship and fucked off into the great unknown. He laid low for a few months to make sure the angry ghost of Videogames wasn't going to haunt his ass for being an undependable piece of shit. (Sorry Vid, he thought, still love ya.) Although technically, it wasn't his fault; Videogames was the one who played the vanishing game first. He completely convinced himself of this within the months of hiding. Absolved of all culpability, Lemy returned back to society.

Without a guilty conscience, his soul grew purer, he shed his demonic taint and was then elevated to a saint.

That abso-fuckin'-lutely did not happen. As a matter-of-fact, he learned nothing and the entire experience was wasted on him. And so he went on his merry way in search of another group to free-load off of like the obnoxious flea that he was.

And then he got stranded near the mountains. What the fuck... he thought as he stared off into the horizon, looking like he'd just swallowed a gallon of shit. Where am I? asked the man who had not bought a map because he thought the merchant was a panhandler. (Also he was poor.)

He wandered for a few moments until he caught the scent of a border. Oh man, he never thought he'd be so happy to smell a line of literal piss and god-knows-what-else. He wasn't about to die in the middle of fuck-all nowhere, thank god.

He sat down at the border, gave himself a good grooming, and fixed his cloak. He sat in silence for one second. Then he screamed: "Hiya! Hey, hey! I'm here to join, name's Lemy Abelard!"

[Warringkingdoms]

  [font=trebuchet ms]Rin despised freeloaders, deserters, and their ilk, enough so that the thought of being one of them kept her up at night.

  Logically, the facts were on her side in all cases. In the Ascendants' case, she had provided medical and therapeutic services for some time, so she had done something to justify her taking shelter with them, eating their food, bringing down on them the curse that never seemed to leave her alone. It would never compare to how much they had done for her, however, and that was all she could think about- the way that they'd taken her in when she awoke with no memories, given her a home, friends, family even. She could never repay that kind of debt.

  The same was true even now with Elysium. They had offered her shelter even when she stayed long past her welcome, even when her presence caused violence to rain down upon their heads. They hadn't even questioned her when she took over, despite the fact that they had no reason to believe she had a good motive for doing so. (She knew she was trying to protect Tena, but they couldn't have guessed that.) It'd been true with her first home, too, as they saw fit to remind her every time her dreams returned her to the past.

  Rin had never seen the stranger at the border before, and for a brief moment she found herself wondering if he would be the threat that she knew was coming- somehow, some way, she knew she would either end up inviting the wrong person into Elysium's borders, or fail to stop the wrong person from entering without permission. As she approached the newcomer and listened to his greeting, however, she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. He seemed a bit... ostentatious to be an evil mastermind. Granted, she'd adopted even more ridiculous disguises when attempting to spy in the past, but nonetheless- at the moment, he did not seem like a threat. She'd watch him closely, as she would all the others, but he could be allowed in for now.

  With a nod, she answered, "You're free to stay, but if you want to officially join I'll need to swear you in at the next meeting." Twitching her ears, she added, "I'm Warringkingdoms Kepler-Langley, but just call me Rin."

[candorosa]

[align=center][div style="width:65%; text-align: justify; padding: 1px;"]Oh? He turned his head to meet the first inhabitant, making sure to flash them a big ol' friendly smile. He took in her appearance. A cat, just like him, huh? She seemed to be assessing him, and that was fine by him. He had nothing to hide, he knew he looked inoffensive at first sight; he was smaller than the average cat, skinny, harmless.

When she spoke, Lemy watched her just as she watched him, smile plastered on his face. As soon as she finished, he opened his mouth to speak again. He wasn't going to give her the chance to collect her thoughts. "Yaay! Thank you so much, Rin! I've been alone for a while, y'know? Gets lonely out there," he said as he stood up, brushing off imaginary dust off him.

After some thought, he paused. "Huh. What's the difference between joining and staying?" he asked. "Do they stay in some kind of inn? Is there a time limit? Do the people who stay have to hunt their own food or somethin'?" he continued, head tilting back as he thought. If so...that...did not seem safe. Isn't it a security issue if a buncha random strangers run around the territory unchecked? thought the random stranger who was to do just that. Oh jeez, he just jumped out of Moonlight Vale's incredible paranoia of outsiders only to find himself in a group that allowed free movement across the territory.

Ugh. He was going to get shanked. "Hey, hey, how do you know if someones stayin' and not joining? Like, you know, duh, but if someone's not there at the border, how do they know? Is there a mark?" There were a lot of other hypothetical 'ifs' he wanted to ask, but. Maybe he should just shut his mouth. That was a good idea actually; he did so.

Then he opened it again. "Sorry, sorry, just ignore me," he stuck his tongue out and knocked a paw upside his head, "could ya show me around though?"

[charactercemetary.]

[align=center][div style="width: 45%; text-align: justify; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: -1px; font-family: georgia;"]❆ — She'd watch this prospective joiner for some time, on a hill, with her eyes. She scanned every little detail she could pick up - a somewhat small domestic cat, a cloak, the way he walked suggested he could be a bit confident or that he was just a jerk who was looking to get free shit. I bet it's the latter, he looks like shit, the detective sneered to herself.  She spreads her wings out, blues and silver shimmering like frost in the sunlight and flies down, smoothly and swiftly.

Winterwish came just in time for the volley of questions. "Damn." That was the first word to deadpan out of her maw, looking at Lemy with a cold yet self-assured look. Would this guy shut up? Her tails flicked again, and she raised a paw to the domestic cat, her wakizashi making a clinking sound as she does so. "How many questions are you gonna ask? I'm a detective, and I don't ask that many. From what I understand, no inn, no time limit, and you gotta do an oath if you wanna get up higher in the rank system - though that part is logical. It probably gets around by word of mouth. The rest, I'll leave to Rin-sama."

[Warringkingdoms]

  [font=trebuchet ms]Lemy, it seemed, had a motor mouth. His questions were somewhat hard to follow, but Rin did her best to pay attention throughout his rambling. A specific mark for strangers didn't seem necessary, as she could keep track of who was and was not sworn in- she had it written down on paper in the house she'd sheltered in. Meetings were fairly well-attended, too, so that information was essentially public knowledge.

  Before she could say anything, Rin saw Winterwish swoop down and land a short distance away, commenting on Lemy's long-winded speech. Well, aside from having to swear the oath to get promoted (which was technically true, but in practice she'd gotten away with bending that rule), everything she'd said was accurate. Upon being referred to as "Rin-sama," however, Rin glanced off to the side, tugging at her scarf with one paw. "Just 'Rin' is fine," she muttered, twitching her ears. If Winterwish insisted on referring to her with such honorifics, Rin wouldn't stop her, but she preferred not to have joiners thinking they were necessary.

  Looking back at Lemy, she answered more loudly, "Yes, I can show you around." Turning around, she proceeded in the direction of the mountain. "If you'll follow me, I'll take you by the camp first. There's a pulley system that leads up the mountain."