How did it come to this, again? [Blair]

[schrodinger]

Night blankets the sky, embers dotting the black heavens as if replacing the stars. She limps, her legs burnt, cut, and bloodied, along the pavement leading away from the crumbling cinders she once called home. Hugged against her heaving chest is her comatose twin sister, a frail, sickly grimalkin girl with shoulder-length white hair, draped in little other than a silk nightgown, stained with blood and ash.

The limping twin carrying her gasps for air, having escaped the smog that threatened to smother her, crumbles to her knees, clinging to her dear sister. She is all she has...and now she may never wake. Broken sobs and spiteful curses spit at the gods from the haggard twins lips. She screams at them, how could they let this happen to them? They took their home, their father, her sisters hopes for salvation, what more did they want!?

She presses her tear stained face against her sister, sobbing in distress, before her eyes glance down at an object sitting in front of her.

The Obsidian Grimiore.

She remembers then, who did all this, who would face her wrath and burn in flames more fierce than hell by her own hands. Hatred fills her with strength as she looks up to see...her.

She has long, silky, jet black hair. She wears a black hoodie, shorts and shoes that the older twin had given her. Dug in the ground next to where she stands is her pure Zeronium sword. A humanoid girl whose eyes shine crimson red in the night. These eyes are not filled with the same hatred as the grimalkin twin, however. These are the sad eyes of pity.

"This isn't what you want," she pleads. The grimalkin scowls. "I'm the master here...you're the pawn! You'll do what I say!" A soft hand holds hers, and she looks down to meet the ocean blue eyes of Aylia.

"I don't want this...please don't do it!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Miss Cheshire jolted, raising her head from her arms that cushioned her head against her desk, her face drenched in sweat.

"Master?"

She glanced beside her to see Saya, regarding her with concern. "Are you all right?"

A dream, Kye realized as she cast her wary gaze at her desk where she had fallen asleep...again. After bathing the night prior, she had returned to her desk in her t-shirt and her pink and purple striped pajama bottoms, her reading glasses still sitting on the bridge of her nose.

Beside where her head was resting sat the ominous black grimiore, pages open and notes scattered everywhere. She was up late working and apparently dozed off longer than she intended. "-'m fine," she answered. She rubbed her temples tiredly. How long had she slept anyway? She heard a tap on her desk and looked over to see that her loyal servant had set a mug of coffee there, anticipating her master's request. " . . .thanks." Kye said as she took the cup and brought it to her lips.

" You ordered me to remind you of your arrangements with Miss Salem," the familiar stated, folding her hands in front of her. "So I did," Kye answered after drinking. "At noon if I'm not mistaken. What time is it now, anyway?" she asked, taking another drink.

"11:00 a.m."

Kye spat out a mouth-full of her coffee. "Damn it, why the hell didn't you wake me up sooner!? You realize the crazy she's going to throw at me if I'm not there after the other day!?" She kicked her chair back from her desk and stood up, retreating through the door behind her desk into her personal room which she was practically living in.

A few minutes later, she emerged back into her classroom in her typical casual attire, white midriff T-shirt, black pants, and white heeled sandals. She looked at the clock, now reading "11:05 a.m.."

Striding back and forth through the room, stressful swears muttered under her breath, she gathered her coat, wallet, and keys. She was about to head out the door when she patted the inside of her coat to discover, to her dismay, something was missing. "Sonuva-Saya!" she called as she spun around. "Have you seen my-" her assistant teleported in front of her, handing Kye her box of pocky. The grimalkin was taken aback by her foresight for a moment, but soon regained her composure and took the box and placed it into her coat.

"Right, then," she said, casting a look around her room, her desk and grimiore, and finally back to her assistant. She bore an expression of hesitation, to which Saya replied to with an inquiring one.

"Yes ma'am?"

While she didn't want to admit it, Kye was concerned that something might happen while she was gone from her lab, that the grimiore would be stolen, or perhaps more importantly that her assistant would be kidnapped again. However, despite that, she knew she couldn't allow Saya to come with her today, someone needed to watch the book and make sure no one stole it. Still...

"Saya," she said. "I'm ordering you to guard the grimiore while I'm gone. Under no circumstances should you let it fall into anyone's hands. However, under the unlikely scenario that it is lost...I want you to come to me. We'll work to get it back together. Understood?"

"We'll work together." The girl reiterated. "Understood. Have a good day, Master," she finished with a slight bow of the head.

A slight exhaled breath of relief escaped the grimalkins lips as they curled into a wry smile. "Yeah, we'll see about that." Turning back to the doorway, she cast a final glance over her shoulder to the familiar and said, "Thanks Saya. I'm counting on you," as she exited through the hall.

-------

"12:10," Kye read off her cellular communications device as she stood in the plaza of the Historical and Artistic district. She stuffed the device back into her pocket and looked around. "Good thing she's not super-punctual or anything...right?" she asked herself. Was Blair a stickler for time? Somehow, Kye rather doubted it, but who knew?

[Rikka]

In a house in district one a 5'8'' frame crawled out of bed her purple hair rumpled and her skimpy nightgown just barely covered everything. Checking the time she found it was about 8 am. Smiling she quickly took a shower and changed into some milder clothing. Stepping in front of a mirror in a grey t-shirt and a pair of hip hugger jeans she quickly brushed out her hair and pulled it back into a braid that hit about mid back. Smiling Blair added a touch of make up just to brighten her features before heading to her kitchen. Making herself a cup of chai tea she raided her cupboard for a bowl of cereal as she checked the time. It was only about 9:30 now.

Sipping her tea she munched on a bowl of cheerios as she started to get nervous. This was the first time she had actually seriously asked someone out. Finishing her breakfast she moved to the sink and washed her dishes before placing them on a towel to dry. Blair looked at the time and it had barely been twenty minutes. Arriving early would make her look too eager right? Oh what happened if Kye didn't want to go on the date. Pushing worst case scenarios to the back of her mind. She started putting her things together for the date. Today it would all be completely her treat. Tucking a set of Amusement park tickets into her pocket she pulled on her light purple jacket and headed out. Sure she was going to be early but she could pretend she had just arrived right?

Arriving at the plaza in District 5 she sat on a bench and checked the clock hanging from a light post. 11:00 am. Damn she was really early. Pulling out her cellular device she check up on the reservations for dinner. That took a total of 10 minutes of her time. Giving up on trying to make herself be busy she waited turning down several offers from the men hanging around the plaza.

By the time noon rolled around Blair almost started pacing from nerves before she made herself take a deep breath and lean against a light pole. When Kye finally arrive a knot in her chest disappeared and a glad smile appeared on her face. Making her way over to Kye she waved and called out a greeting. "Hey! How do you feel about an amusement park after lunch?" Looping her arm through Kye's she led the woman over to a small cafe that looked rather homey and small. Blair looked over Kye and noted her eyes had a few circles around them which meant she probably had fallen asleep on her desk again. Keeping it to herself she hummed happily as they were placed at a little booth meant for two.

[schrodinger]

Kye's ears flicked in recognition as a familiar voice called out to her. She half-turned her body to see her "date" approach. "Yo," she replied before Blair looped her arm through hers.

Amusement park? Kye thought. When did we get one of those here?

She didn't often venture to this area of the city, or hardly anywhere too far from the school building. Blair could have told her that a canyon divided the Fifth District and Kye would have believed her. Well, I agreed to this adventure, might as well play along with it, Kye thought. "Sure, why not?" she answered.

Having been led to the cafe, out of the corner of her eye, Kye thought she felt Blair looking at her strangely. As soon as she looked to meet her gaze, however, it seemed it was only her self-conscious imagination as Blair seemed to hum to herself as they were seated.

The cafe was cozy and welcoming in atmosphere, yet unfamiliar to the grimalkin, who felt like a foreigner to the district. Curious, she asked, "So, do you come here often?" After realizing the inadvertent line she unintentionally asked, she mentally scolded herself, Dear god, did that phrase really come out of your mouth? Really? Really Kye Cheshire?! "Do you know what kind of food is served here, I mean?"

[Rikka]

Blair smiled and noted that Kye didn't seem super thrilled but wasn't totally against their date today. She was happy that she had showed up. Smiling as Kye agreed to the amusement park idea she scratched her plans for district 8 and decided they would just stay here for the day.

As she sat across from Kye she chuckled as she used an unintentional pick up line. Watching her Blair gave her a Cheshire cat grin before responding. "Well I live in District 1 so I like to come here often enough. Its a lovely cafe if you ever want to come back. They have sandwiches, coffees, salads, and breakfast items." As a waiter walked over to take their orders Blair gave him a small 'out-of-your-league' smile to deter him from making any moves on her or Kye. "Hi! I would like a Chai tea and a blue berry muffin with a club sandwich please." Looking to Kye she allowed her date to order. Though if she didn't get something healthy to go with the coffee that the Grimalkin was sure to order Blair might have to amend her order.

[schrodinger]

"You had me at coffee," Kye said as she glanced through the menu, thankful that Blair didn't make an obnoxious scene over it. Huh, this sounds pretty good, she thought as the waiter came to take their order. Following suit with Blair, she said, "I'll have a coffee and a cinnamon scone with the Roast Beef Croissant."

As the waiter departed for the kitchen, Kye sat quietly one arm resting on the table on its elbow with her hand cradling her chin while her other arm lay on the table fiddling with a sweetener packet, giving the aesthetics of the cafe a look of slight intrigue. It was a significant change of scenery compared to her lab in the academy, which was nice, she supposed. Depending on how well Saya could guard the Grimiore on days like this(as she still didn't figure a cafe would be necessarily secure enough for her research purposes), she just might start coming to this place more often.

After a moment, Kye began to sense an awkward silence drop in for a visit as conversation on her end came to a halt. Uh...am I...supposed to say something, or something? she wondered. Even in the privacy of her lab, she and Saya hardly had anything to say to one another much more than the familiar playing the role of a listener to her masters rants.

"So," she attempted, her fingers subconsciously tapping against the tabletop. "What's the story with you and the twins? You seem somewhat chummy with them. A teachers favorites, perhaps?" She wondered if maybe that was a bit blunt, but it was the only topic that came to mind.

[Rikka]

Blair grinned as they sent the waiter away with their orders. Blair sat relaxed happily enjoying her date with Kye. She didn't even mind the silence that had fallen. She did in fact find Kye's reaction to the looming silence funny. The awkward look was just cute and adorable, though so not to cause Kye to get up and leave she kept her thoughts to herself. Kye's attempt at conversation had Blair grinning before she could stop it.

"Well they are my favorites. Though I, unfortunately, never be their favorites. They have a little Henko that is their hearts desire." Blair watched as the waiter came back with their drinks setting the coffee in front of Kye and the chai in front of Blair. Sipping her chai she thought of simple topics to talk about with Kye. "How's your research on your Grimiore going?" She figured it was a simple subject that Kye could easily talk about with out going into details if she didn't want to.

[schrodinger]

"That so? Ah well," Kye remarked with a slight shrug as the waiter approached. "'Spose its not so surprising. It's the twins after all. The other day they were practically engaged to one another."

Ahh, sweet, bitter, glorious coffee, Kye mentally sang as she took a sip of her caffeinated reprieve. She would get through this date and all the social interaction it entailed, even if it took 50 cups of this miraculous elixir to keep her mental stamina up so as to force conversation topics to materialize in her mind for her disposal.

Or perhaps it would not be so complicated? After sipping her tea, Blair asked of her research of the grimiore. At first, a sign of slight irritation might have been visible in the correlation of the twitch in her left ear and eye as her first thought was withheld from her tongue. It'd be going better if you people wouldn't keep throwing distractions and kidnappings at me. However, she decided to humor Blair, especially since it was easier than finding something else to change the subject to.

"Well, it's going as well as one can imagine translating a lost text into a language pattern comparable to one another when the said text was once spoken by a race of magicians whose speech patterns were nine hundred times as intricate as cthulu's, the spoken dialogue in turn made in correlation to the sounds of this language. Especially when there's little to no reference as to exactly how one would even translate Jabrawoxi, as no one has heard their tongue and kept their sanity enough to record notes of it in the last few millenniums." She continued, her tone growing from reluctant to passionate, gesturing with as she outlined her points. "Though, this is the nature of the grimiore and the text it contains. These bastards were so mystically advanced, it blows the mind. With a single spoken word acting as the 'mantra', even a mere magus novice of such a species could trigger a supernova in a galaxy millions of lightyears away. One, freaking, spoken, one syllable, word, for shits sake! And as such, the runes, the "legitamate mantra langauage" of the species that makes of the spellcircles in the grimiore are a mess of shear insanity. See, I can't just memorize the pattern and hope to someday use just any of the hundred-thousand spells recorded in it, the standard sentient brain with an IQ under 9999 can't hardly commit a fraction of the patterns design, and the typical tongue could much less hope to mimic the sounds of the mantras. And so I've focussed on alternate words that most closely resemble the spoken mantra and runic symbols, 'dumb-down the code from 310284784613714357842329842372334576238097523958 to 0101010101010101110010101000101010,' so to speak. And thus far, I've managed to break down a fifth of this language and apply it to text regarding their culture and technology, a 17th of their alchemic procedure, an encyclopedia of their most common uses for renewable resources, the various possible combinations of elemental paradigms of fused and or transmogrified eldritch chimeras,-"

This continued for a couple minutes, as the grimalkin seemed to forget she wasn't simply raving at her familiar whom would often endure the listening end of such a report. 

"- and more notably, an excerpt on the theory of how one might execute a chronomagical feat of chronosynclastic infundibulum within a range in space time of 30 feet per yoctosecond." Kye finally finished, adjusting her glasses before taking her second sip of coffee. "All in all...progress has been rather slow. I haven't even come close to finding translatable runic characters for the circle formulas I'm looking for." She paused a moment. F*ck, she thought. Where was I again? Ohright, conversation topics. Uhhh, lessee...

"Sooo," she started. "What about you? Done anything interesting or productive outside of your class?"

[Rikka]

Blair listened at she became rather passionate about the Grimiore she was working on. Maybe she could help though she doubted she would be much help. While Kye was talking the waiter came out with their food and set it in front of them before slipping away silently again. Munching on her food she listened intently as the Grimalkin continued on and on about her research and her passion. Smiling as she finally came to an end, Blair took a sip of her tea as the Grimalkin looked for another topic of discussion.

"Ah not really. I usually go home and relax. Or I come and find you!" Well she had done some things out side of class except they weren't exactly legal. Plus she didn't exactly want to scare Kye off by saying she was taking care of loose ends in her old assassin job.

[schrodinger]

"I see," Kye replied as it finally came to her attention that there was now food placed in front of her. Everyone has something to fend off boredom I guess, she thought.

She picked up her roast beef croissant and gave it an examining look, as if debating based upon looks if it was something she would actually like. However, after a moment, she took a small nibble of the peculiar sandwich, and several scrutinous chews later, the grimalkin's face lit up with pleasant surprise. It was delicious! Kye couldn't remember the last time she tasted something more satisfying than the instant meals she heated using her White Hare as a microwave.

"Amazing...!" she exclaimed before taking another bite. 


(derpdiderp, ima post this now after a few days of bashing my head against it rikka, sorry xD I can come back and add more if you need more)

[Rikka]

Blair smiled at her as she replied. Noting her attention getting caught by the food she watched Kye examine it then debate. "I hope its better than those TV dinners your always eating. You really need to eat better." Finishing off her food she watched Kye as she continued to eat. "When you're done would you like to move onto the next part of our date?" Even as she spoke she motioned the waiter over and asked for the check and a Large Coffee to go. Soon enough he was back with the check and said the coffee would be out in a few minutes before disappearing again.

[schrodinger]

"Watsh dat 'posed 'o 'ean?" Kye garbled before swallowing. "It's not like I always eat that kind of stuff or anything! Taking time to cook is just...time consuming."

Before long, Kye had finished the last bite of her croissant. "Hm? Well..." she started. It was true that she was having fun, being out like this, eating something other than microwavable Heat Pockets for lunch, but a force of habit kept nagging at her to get back to her work. Hoping to form an excuse, she started to reply, "I dunno if I should leave Saya to herself for too lo-" she cut short as the Large Coffee to go was mentioned and quickly changed her tune. "-*ahem* I mean, sure, sounds like fun."

Damn me and my addictions, she thought to herself. As she sat there, eagerly waiting for her caffeinated crack, so to speak, she asked, "So, what's next on the list?"

[Rikka]

Blair looked at her and shook her head. "How about I cook you food? That way I know your eating your vitamins and I don't have to go to......extremes. Although the latter option is rather enjoyable." Blair grinned at her last comment but she probably wouldn't follow through with that again. Probably..

As Kye tried to get out of the rest of the date a hurt look slithered into her eyes before she hid it away. "Well I was thinking an amusement park then afterwards dinner. But maybe if your too tired after the amusement park we can save dinner for another time." As the waiter came back with her large coffee Blair payed him and said the rest was a for a tip. Standing she offered her hand to help Kye from her seat before she led the way toward the amusement park.

[schrodinger]

"Oh yeah, you did mention an amusement park, didn't you?" Kye replied with slight intrigue. Now that she thought of it, she'd never been to one before. She wondered what they were like. "Arright, let's go, then." She gave Blair's hand a hesitant look for a moment, not being used to the gesture to recognize it as one of courtesy, but nonetheless, she soon took it and allowed Blair to help her out of her seat.

"ermrh, th-Thanks." She said a bit awkwardly with a brief nod. She reached over to take the GLORIOUS sized cup of coffee from the table before following Blair out of the cafe and toward the amusement park.

~~~

One coffee later, Kye stood beside Blair, wide eyed at the amusement park before her. "Wow...!" she breathed. "This is..." her eyes seemed to glimmer as a slight squeek seemed to sneak into her voice, "so cool!"

[Rikka]

Blair smiled as the intrigue in Kye's voice leaked out. Taking her hand she helped Kye from her seat and waited at she took the coffee cup. After she lead the way to the amusement park as she asked about what types of food Kye liked.

Once at the amusement park Blair watched as Kye seemed to light up over the amusement park. Grinning she took Kye's right hand with her left one and pulled her to the smaller rides first. No need to scare her on the first time here. The smaller rides consisted of tea cups, swings and other rides that used magic to fuel them. She was saving the Ferris wheel for last as a very cheesy end to the amusement park.

[schrodinger]

Kye might have felt ashamed over how much she was enjoying riding in such rides as magic powered teacups, but she was having to much fun to care, giggling and laughing like a little kid in its first carnival. If any of her students saw her behaving like this, they would be very hard pressed to recognize the teacher they knew and possibly feared.

In fact, several rides later, it was not Blair, but the grimalkin herself that was practically dragging her date towards a section of carnival games. One in particular where players would pay a fare and be given 3 softballs. These tennis balls were to be thrown at a board with several holes in it. Depending on which hole you managed to throw the ball in, you got a certain type of prize. There was only one grand prize though, a giant stuffed elephant with a stripped pink and yellow pattern around it. It would seem that most people went for that hole rather than the other ones, and yet no matter how well thrown their shots were, they would never go through the hole that would win them the prize.

"Eh? How hard could it be to toss a ball into a hole?" Kye said aloud. Paying for her game, the grinning man tending to the game handed her the three softballs. Kye then took her position in front of the game, steadily drew her arm back, and flung the first ball towards the Grand Prize hole. It bounced off the board and into the "no prize" rack.

"Fuck." She brought her arm back and threw the second ball. It bounced off the rim and into the no prize rack. "Piss." The third time, she paused, narrowed her eyes, and heaved the ball. It appeared to be a straight shot dead in the hole...but then it seemed to bounce off of something and fall into the no prize rack. "What the bitch?!" Kye exclaimed. She knew her aim just had to be perfect that time.

"Another go, miss?" the game tender asked in what had to be the most irritating British accent imitation ever, of all time. "Maybe you would like a go, madam?" he asked Blair.