[html] Tamerlane hooked his hands imperturbably on the sides of his rope belt as they made their way across the drawbridge. The land was sprawled out below them quite majestically, and before them loomed the vast, leaning structure of the dark penitentiary. What made you return? he asked, charmingly involved in their conversation regarding the interesting female.
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[html]“It's home,” she answered plainly, gazing down at the worn drawbridge beneath their feet. “I guess that I got a little homesick.” And maybe part of her believed that coming back would fix everything that felt broken in her life. So many things had been disrupted, and so many things would continue to be disrupted that after a while, she wanted a sense of wholeness to fall back on. But Corona should have known that she wouldn't have found it here. Now her mother was gone, and her father was still blind in her eyes. “What brought you to this place?”[/html]
[html] | A rather ambiguous feeling moved over Tamerlane's dark gaze as he followed the line of the horizon. He was not jealous of the female's home -- that was, the fact that she had a home -- but it was more an acknowledging that she had something that he did not; something that he could never have. Storm was something of an official home; but that wasn't where his heart lay. What brought you to this place? I suppose... the fact that I don't have a home, he replied honestly. As a traveller, it sometimes feels as though you are chasing something that you can never find. It may be a romantic, often false concept, but it is still there, and perhaps some travellers use it as a comfort. After all, it's a dismal thing to think that you're moving towards nothing. |
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[html] It was perhaps a minor, trivial thing to wonder how one could not have a home. She did ponder over it, but wondered if in some sense she had been sitting in that kind of pit all along. She had been between homes growing up, willing to help one and the other. The situation hadn't changed since then; her father probably needed her help, and her brother had flat out more or less asked for it. His words rang solid truths in her, answers found more easily there than listening to two sides tug at her relentlessly. “That does make perfect sense. I believe I've felt that way for a majority of my life, trying to chase down that balance where everything seems right. For me, coming back here has done little in the way of juxtaposing things.” Which naturally brought the question of why she was even bothering to stay. But even that seemingly tied back to why she had come all along. “Have you seen a lot of the world around this place?” Perhaps in a sense he would see where she was coming from, but it was never as simply as night and day for those who had ties back to such a dismal place. [/html]
[html] | Both creatures seemed immersed in the kind of thoughts that were decidedly adult – not the arrogant ‘emo’ ravings of self-pitying young people, but the genuine doubts about the angles and pitfalls of the life in which they had little choice but to survive. Their conjoined philosophies weren’t mused deeper, but acknowledged. Have you seen a lot of the world around this place? You mean Bleeding Souls? Some. I continue to travel, using Storm as a base, and these lands are so vast and diverse that I could never grow tired of it. He turned his gaze over the vast, dark structure down whose side they were now roaming. What places would you say are worth visiting? |
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[html] “Here and the world,” he clarified after he had spoken, though easily changing gears to the places she had been fond of, “but the human city is always an interesting place to visit, if you haven't yet. It has… an element of danger, of course, but has a lot to offer too. Museums, art galleries, libraries, shops of antiquities, a lot of it still stands. Can't guarantee it's all untouched though.” As her eyes scanned over the rocky face of the building, Corona debated what else there really was outside of the city and its neatly divided sections. “There's an old aeroplane base just outside of the city, and a run down amusement park. To the west of all of that are caverns that look like they're mostly made of up quartz.” Ironically, though she had grown up in Bleeding Souls, she had never visited all of its territories for good measure or in their entirety. [/html]
[html] | Here and the world, yes. She sounded like she had taken a leaf out of Tamerlane's book, and despite her fit and athletic physique, the young female did not look like the type to devote herself to travelling as he had done. On the contrary, she looked like, in her eyes, home was where the heart lay. Tamerlane's heart didn't seem to have a home; just a closed and stony shell. Looking at his companion as they walked, he listened with interest. There must be maps or charts of Bleeding Souls somewhere, he mused, before glancing up to follow the line of the building. Come to think of it, there's probably a few in this prison. Though the humans may have called the areas by different names... |
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[html] “I would think so, and if not there… she trailed in thought with his words, “I could always give you directions to a library. I think I've seen them there before.” All of that wandering around, and Corona had never thought about maps. Moreover, if all else failed, there was always the idea of drawing up their own maps. Eyeing the cold front of the building once more, her eyes settled for a rather obvious placed door. “Do you reckon the front door is unlocked?” [/html]
[html] | A library? Tamerlane had been into as many of those he could find, clawing through crispy yellow books, sitting in a corner bent over huge sprawling charts; committing them to memory. It was probably not the type of image one would have of a creature as evidently active and physical as Tamerlane, but it didn't need to be an image for it to be true. So he looked at his companion with interest when she mentioned a library, but was distracted when a large door loomed in front of them. He assumed there was some sort of huge, bolted gate that had been broken down and was by now non-existent; a gate into the prison grounds themselves that they had missed, because this door didn't exactly look well protected. Tamerlane stood forward and tried the door. It was caught. He pressed his muscular arm against the wood and pushed gently; the hinges buckled easily and the door swung open. It is now, he replied, exhibiting the dusky interior of the hall within. Where's this library you speak of? he asked, jumping back a subject. |
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Gah, sorry for holding this up. Would you be up for fading this to black in a couple of posts?
[html] With the door open and out of the way quite easily, Corona slipped past him and carefully into the sweeping darkness of the prison, their figures casting long shadows down the corridor. “Well, if you go back to the very beginning of the drawbridge and head south-west towards the skyscrapers, you'll find a rather large one nestled between them. I think it's the biggest one, so it's liable to have just about anything you're looking for,” provided of course, it hadn't burnt down to the ground or something of equal demise. But it was the pause following her words where an unpleasant itch stirred in her nose; Corona had no more buried her muzzle in the crook of her arm before she sneezed. There was one thing that jumped out in her mind about the place, and that was that few had been there in quite some time. [/html]
OOC – we can fade it to black now if you’d like.  One last post from you?
IC –
[html] | As was quite customary in Tamerlane, wanderlust was paired with a lust for knowledge. Luckily, both were being quenched, at least partly so. They walked down the corridor, and slanting ahead of them was blue light that shot in through a vast gape in the crumbling wall. It led straight outside again; the male's keen dark eyes noticed the drawbridge his companion spoke of, stretching out in the distance. He was already going in the correct direction to reach the library, then. Care to join me? he said, gesturing faintly in the proposed direction. His nameless partner knew much about Bleeding Souls already; but few intelligent creatures, he thought, would pass up a chance to hustle more. |
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[html] There was nothing of real interest to Corona inside of the prison walls so by the time they had found a way back out into the world as it they knew, she had long forgotten about how she had felt some while ago. Rather disappointed in the lack of anything overly interesting, his offer was a very tempting one to go along with. Nodding at his proposal, the two headed off towards the city and the libraries that it contained. [/html]
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