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Post by kian on Apr 15, 2012 16:43:29 GMT -5
TAG: open | | WORD COUNT: 600  Music echoed in the atmosphere. Birds chirped in a rhythmic manner while the wind whistled the melody. The meadow swayed in tune with the song of nature. The greenery of the land was so utterly lush, it contrasted from the pale blue of the clear sky. The tall trees of the jungle surrounded the meadow at all angles. Looking from the sky, directly in the center of the meadow, lied a boy who appeared unconscious. There was quite a nasty cut on his forehead, not to mention the small bump. Clearly, someone had meant to knock the poor boy out. The child groaned as he began to stir. His eyelids fluttered open but he was quickly blinded by the powerful sun overhead. He immediately raised his arm and shielded his eyes from the light while his other hand jumped to his forehead, rubbing the little wound. He wasn't able to remember at first what had happened. He was pretty sure he had been drinking rum, and it was possible he collided with a tree and fell where he was lying now. But when he carefully sat up, he remembered the wooden plank as if it was yesterday, which it was. Slightly pissed off at the thought of it, he looked around the area but only saw wilderness and nature. He didn't see any figures standing in the shade nor any faces leering at him. He did not also see these strange creatures from last night. As he thought of them, he suddenly remembered the captain and jumped up to his feet at once. From the sudden uprising he had a short burst of dizziness and nearly lost his balance, but he was able to regain his senses. He glanced around once more, possibly looking for a way he could follow. He trekked through the tall grass and entered the depths of the jungle once again. However, it wasn't to go searching for his captain. He knew at this point he needed backup. He was headed in the direction of the village where they had made port last night. He hoped the ship was still there as well as the rest of the crew. As he walked through the jungle, he tripped and stumbled several times. It was not easy especially when he had a headache. But finally, he made it to the village, smiling at the sight of the ship. He kicked at a dozing crewman's feet, waking the older male. The man was one of the people he could trust the most, along with the cook who was still necessarily resting in the ship's gallery. The fight had most of the pirates defeated because these creatures were not of this world. That was one of the things that piqued the boy's curiosity, their magical prowess. He wanted to study these small beasts, but his captain was more significant. Without the captain he felt lost and so did the rest of the crew who didn't already think of committing mutiny. “ You be comin' t' help me find t' captain.” He said to the crewman who nodded in response and jumped to his feet quickly. Some of the crew understood perfectly well the strong bond between the captain and the cabin boy. From experience, most knew it wasn't wise to upset the boy, because by effect they would upset the captain. Once the crewman appeared decent, however decent a sober and ready pirate could be, the boy hollered out loud for the rest of the crew and the villagers to hear. “ Anyone wantin' t' help us, step forth now.”
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Post by riku on Apr 15, 2012 18:39:47 GMT -5
Amongst the crew, a rather dirty and unkempt group of men, there sat a stranger. His manner of dress was far different from the rest – dark blue jeans and a black sleeveless vest as opposed to the muted blacks and browns the rest seemed to be wearing – though there was something about him that seemed to cause a person’s gaze to slide off of him, seeing without truly seeing him. Shoulder-length silver hair, bright aquamarine eyes, pale skin; everything about his screamed stranger, screamed interloper, and yet the men around him continued about their business as if he wasn’t even there. They should have been turning on him and demanding to know where the ‘captain’ was at the very least but not. Hardly a glance was passed in his direction.
Riku let out a soft sigh as he reached up to scrub at his face. Losing Roxas had been a horrible start to his journey and the going hadn’t picked up since. Examining each and every one of the worlds… there were so many of them, far more than the silver-haired keyblader had first guessed. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been aware of all of them (there were only a handful that he had never visited before, though their investigation was oddly low on his list) but before there had always been a very clear itinerary of what to on each world. What he needed to find, what clues he needed to leave behind for Sora-
And this time there was none of that. This time he was the one looking for Sora, and beyond that? There are heartless. I need to take care of them. Killing heartless would only do so much, though. The creatures would continue to be born from the darkness that was festering inside each of the worlds if he did nothing to take care of that. But why is there darkness- why? I thought we had…
The answer would probably become painfully clear as soon as Sora was found. Which led to the next question – which one was more important? Defeating the heartless or finding the brunet? Letting innocent people die because of his inactivity… but more would end up falling to the heartless if he didn’t find a way to stop them for good.
It was a conundrum for sure, and one that he was going to try to put out of mind for the moment. For the moment he was simply looking through the worlds to try to find anything that just stood out, and this did. A group of pirates being ordered around by a child? Peculiar, to say the least. The men seemed to accept it as if it was nothing out of the norm, though the child didn’t look like he could possibly be stronger than any of them. And he obviously wasn’t the captain; the fact that they were going to look for the captain made that clear.
Peculiar. Without saying anything the silver-haired teen found himself shifting to his feet. The magic of the keyblade kept others from truly noticing, though Riku knew that if he stepped forward to volunteer himself the effect would end and he would find himself the target of the full scrutiny. Still, he would never find anything out without doing so and he doubted that any of the men here would pose any sort of threat to him.
“I’ll help. I volunteer.”
[/justify] Words:: 569 Notes:: I don’t know how I feel about this |
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Post by kian on Apr 16, 2012 21:37:33 GMT -5
TAG: riku (riku) | | WORD COUNT: 200 Momentarily he stared at the boy with the odd hair. He hadn't ever seen such a person before. Instantly he knew this adult wasn't part of his crew. Naturally, the captain would order the crew to seize the man and take him to the brig, but the man wasn't there to do it. It was then the boy's responsibility to interrogate the stranger, but he did not make such commands. After all, he was more concerned about finding the captain safe and alive. Once that was handled, they would in time take care of the interloper. For now, he nodded. He extended a hand for a shake, accepting the offer to help. There were likely more disadvantages in allowing the stranger to tag along, but the boy grew up learning several things. One lesson was to judge a book not by its cover but by its contents. In other words, anyone was innocent until proven guilty. He had to stick to the code. He also admired the man's valor. No one in their right person would often take a pirate's side or even show up in the midst of a pirate crew. “ Good. I be Kian. Who be you?”
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Post by riku on Apr 16, 2012 23:55:28 GMT -5
Riku couldn’t rightly say that he had been entirely aware of the rapid flicker of thoughts that had passed through the child’s mind, but he had found himself a bit surprised when he reached out to take his hand. All the keyblader really knew about pirates could only be summed up from what he had learned from books and – if he was really being honest with himself – movies. Bloodthirsty, shifty, untrustworthy killers who would sell out their own mother if that meant earning an extra gold piece. Right? Or maybe sell out their own son, which would explain why the child was here, at least. But it did little explain why the silver-haired teen wasn’t finding himself facing down the barrel of a loaded gun.
Was he complaining? No, no I’m not complaining about that. And yet… As Riku stretched his hand out to take the child’s, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of unease. Unexpected bumps in a plan, whether for better or for worse, always seemed to knock everything out of whack. Maybe it was going to go smoother than he had originally anticipated but that didn’t discount the possibility of this just being the trap for something but worse later on down the line.
“Riku.” He squeezed the other’s – Kian’s – hand firmly for a moment before letting his arm drop back to his side. “My name is Riku.” Kian might have wanted to know a little more, such as who he really was and where he came from, but the keyblader saw no need to just eagerly volunteer that information.
“So tell me about this Captain of yours. When did you last see them? What happened to them?”
[/justify] Words:: 282 Notes:: ---- |
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Post by kian on Apr 20, 2012 13:11:18 GMT -5
TAG: riku (riku) | | WORD COUNT: 200 The young man called Riku had a very odd appearance, something that couldn't possibly be of this world. But the boy was not permitted to think such things since he himself had an odd attire of his own. He was almost naked except for chains, pieces of cloth and small armor here and there. The most outrageous piece he wore was the shendyt around his waist. The handshake was accepted though it was very short, which only made the boy more suspicious. The young man could be nervous around the pirates, which would mean he was up to no good. When the questions came he was ready to answer, though he had thought he would be asking the questions. “ Last night,” said the child, still keeping his eyes on Riku, “ He vanished through some kind o' black hole, seized by t' creatures o' t' night.” By these creatures he meant the Heartless, but he wouldn't know what they really were. “ I think he might be in t' forest, since t' villagers said the creatures came from thar.” Having a heavy accent his voice sounded rough, but that was one of the side effects of being a pirate.
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Post by riku on Apr 20, 2012 21:44:34 GMT -5
… what?
Riku had to resist the urge to rub at the back of his head as he listened to Kian explain what had happened to this captain of his. Creatures of… creatures of the night? A black hole? … oh! Realization hit him suddenly and the keyblader found himself nodding along. The creatures that the boy was describing must have been the heartless, and that black hole? Well, Riku didn’t actually know for a fact what that was but he had a few guesses. It was something related to the heartless though, no doubt about that. And possibly related to-
No. Stop it. He didn’t need to go down that route, not again. If it was related, if the brunet was here… he would find out about it. If he wasn’t… I just need to deal with the situation that’s in front of me right now. That’s all.
“Alright, so we start our search in the forest then.” Riku had been expecting to hear something much worse, like that the man had been dragged away and had disappeared while at sea, and the fact that they were going to be able to stay on solid ground provided the silver-haired teen with a sense of relief. Aquamarine eyes shifted to the side as he glanced back over his shoulder, looking at the ground of pirates that had gathered around him. This must be the rest of his crew. Or his captain’s crew. Semantics at this point and either one made no difference. The men would simply get in their way if they came along. Frankly Kian was going to end up as nothing more than extra baggage, but Riku knew he needed him as a guide.
“You’re not going to need any more men on this search. Show me the way and I’ll find your captain for you.” No false bravado, no building himself up – nothing more than the simple truth.
[/justify] Words:: 321 Notes:: ---- |
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