(Nearly) Dead and Bloated

[sieben]

Serenity doesn't come on soft tides. Softly glimmering blue carries frothing white, slowly stalking towards golden sands, then grasping and withdrawing, having taken away the riches and left only grey-brown smatterings of grains. Everything here was warm under the mid-day sun - the rocks, the beach, the air filled with the twang of wilderness...Even something characteristically cold that had been spit onto the break between the war and the thick jungle. It carried the appearance of an industrial trash bag, tightly wrapped in encompassing black and covered in unsightly lumps. A convocation of hungry crabs lightly picked at it, though they seemed rather fussy about staying near to it for an amount of time longer than a few seconds. The chorus of distant songbirds and humming insects joined with the slow rhythm of the waves against his feet was what first stirred the previously motile mass.

A starkly white hand, which under the right lighting looked like a fine marble and under the wrong lighting looked like devilish scar-tissue, passes over an equally pallid face, brushing aside soaked locks of jet, dyed at the tips with a stark crimson. He tries to breathe, but his lungs are already filled. He writhes, twisting a body covered in a whining leather coat to its knees and regurgitating at least a gallon of seawater. His sinuses burn and his throat is completely raw - the sand is stained with a pinkish-red. A wracking series of coughs escape him, sand and aquatic debris falling from his shivering head. A vicious bite of stomach acid and old whiskey assaults his tongue as he attempts to swat away the crabs with his atrophied arms, his eyes not yet opened.

Well, well, sleeping beauty. I thought I'd have to kiss you to get you up. The voice broke apart the harmonic ambiance that floated around this place, its human masquerade now quite stretched and worn by the seductress puppeteer that vicariously spoke through it. Even so, it only became more beautiful and more overwhelming, otherworldly resonance penetrating the hazy veil hanging around the boy's mind. You almost had me worried, James.

"You're pretty full of yourself," his lips let out in a hoarse reply, just above a whisper. "Takes more than a kiss to get me up." He chokes out another few coughs, plugging one nostril at a time with his sand-caked fingers and blowing out as munch junk as possible before the restoration process was to begin. Anything left in him would be fused in with the reclaimed tissue.

Glad to see you're the same pervert you were before you were made into a cadaver. James could feel the subtle switch go off as his heart began to beat at a more steady rhythm. Each pulse brought waves of rejuvenation to his figure; thin, bone-like fingers gained back multiple layers of muscle and strength, the skin of his body was stretched by revival of dead cells and the replacement of the wiry, youthful, if somewhat effeminate figure belonging solely to him. He rises to his feet, dead flesh falling away from his body to reveal the extent of the metamorphosis. His dead face falls away, and a pallor of rebellious youth shines in the sun.

Tourmaline eyes stretch open, verdant jewels set in ivory sockets, myriad black breaks spanning across the iris like tendrils of shadow fleeing a birthing sun. In the shade of his his low-hanging hair, they go uninjured, and James smiles for this. He stretches his arms to the sky with a horrid ripping sound coupled with the popping of tired, unused bones. His coat falls in two when he lowers them. His smile vanishes, and a quick swear escapes him. He doesn't bother with trying to salvage the laden leather - it's not like he was going to find a seamstress on a desert island. His unintentionally torn and water-damaged shirt and intentionally torn and water-damaged jeans would have to hold him, for now.

"This place," he speaks, his low voice now the model of the transition between juvenile status and adulthood, "It's...odd. Look, the sand sticks to my boots and skin - I thought the Earth was starting to reject me?" He experiments with shuffling his feet with a sickly squishing sound of wet sock against sole.

I told you we weren't going anywhere normal. This place is farther away from the physical world than most.

"You said we were going to Europe."

Can't a girl tell a lie?

"No, but a Demon certainly can." He pauses, his eyes scanning the horizon of greenery as alien songs drift from within the shadowed masses. It seems foreboding to him, the treeline - one set of his eyes sees each individual tree, and, indeed, the jungle as the combination of those trees...But another set sees a solid wall - a place impenetrable by the outside environments, completely independent. He viewed the massing mind of the jungle - the shared consciousness of all the root systems and the soil and the beautifully coordinated thoughts of such a massive entity. He wasn't ready for that yet.

"Where the hell is this place, anyway?" He asks passively, falling on his ass and digging around in the pockets of the half-destroyed coat. He fingers out a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a Colt .45 single-action revolver weighed down with heavy hollow-points. He sets the weapon on top of the coat to dry, though he is not nearly as patient with the cigarettes - his hand warms one of the filter-less wraps until it begins steaming, then brings it to his lips, inhales, and sparks a promising flame with the lighter. It bothered him that little things like that no longer caused the withdrawal - still, he wasn't complaining. The subtle comfort of a hand-to-mouth movement and the taste of mentholated tobacco coupled with the whispering of the ocean were well worth the death of his soul.

There he sat, staring into the heart of the jungle and tracing little clouds before his eyes. Off and on, he gives little smiles as some fleeting falsehood passes through his mind and dies off...Those shadows sure were beautiful.

[Secernia]

Secernia Grelix stepped through the underbrush of Perdu Forest, having teleported there from Soto. Her cherry red hair was tied into an easy bun on her head, as swet had begun to form on the back of her neck. Her nose and forehead too were forming droplets of the stuff in the dire heat, and every few minutes, Secernia pushed her sliding glasses further up her nose.

The girl waded through the wild greenery in denim shorts, her legs getting itchy by the brushing plant-life. She was carrying an old knife with her, at her waist. It was contained in an old bit of metal that was fashioned into a sheath. The weight of it felt comfortable and familiar to her as she stepped rhythmically. Her maroon eyes watched the flickers of life around her, all fleeing at the signs of her movement.

It wasn't long until she reached the edges of the jungle, and between the bits of trees saw the beach. A small smile crossed Secernia's face, as she noticed the boy staring straight into the jungle. She remained perfectly still for a moment, remaining in the darkness for a few short seconds.

Without a sound, she suddenly appeared behind his shoulder. "Hi there." She greeted with a grin. "You need some help don't you?" Her voice sounded sincere, "I haven't seen you around- You're soaking wet!" She looked him over for a moment, moving in front of him. She put both of her hands behind her and clasped her fingers together, leaning forward slightly, as if stretching. "How did you even get here hm?"

Now that she was out of the forest, Secernia felt the sun against the flesh of her legs and back, her large tattoo and pale scar down the center of her chest on proud display with a bikini top. "More than that..." She continued, her eyes narrowing slightly, "What are you here for?"

[sieben]

The boy seems a little surprised by the sudden appearance of the woman; enough so that he accidentally drops a few hot ashes from the cherry of his cigarette onto his chest, his laid-back posture allowing them to roll down his near-bare body and into his lap. He chases it lazily with the hand not supporting his back, though he doesn't quite catch it. The water that still lingered on his body was enough to keep it from doing much damage. He bites down on his pacifier and scratches his chin, feeling a few black hairs poking their ways through. He begins to dig in his coat once more, hardly paying attention to the woman.

"Does 'long story' work for you?" he asks absently, his hands lost in one of the myriad pockets. He didn't even think to grab his gun - his mind was still in the process of waking up. He tosses aside a patch of seaweed, nearly at the girl's feet, and then produces a stainless steel shaving razor without a handle and a piece of broker mirror. His hands begin to daftly cut at the stubble around his lip and chin, somehow avoiding any severe damage to his face. Every once in a while, his eyes fall from the mirror and start to look at the girl's legs. It had been a damned long time...

Down, boy, Liala snickers just as the first whisperings of lust hit the boy's mind. He wasn't sure how the she managed to catch him every time, but it sure got annoying. He juts his upper lip up to divert the cigarette away from the razor, a good bit of ash massing on it. He grabs it up with a few free fingers in his left hand, holding it next to the razor, and taps the waste off.

"Sorry to be rude," James states, still looking into the mirror. "I've just got a lot of catching up to do. Squall wasn't very kind to me. Have you seen a little red cooler lying around here anywhere? It wandered off."

[Secernia]

Secernia patiently awaited him to take out whatever it was he had been looking for. She watched as he shaved, and after less than half a minute she took a seat on the sand. "Long story works fine." She smiled, pulling her knees closer to her body as she sat. A little smile appeared on the corner of Secernia's mouth as she watched the boy.

"I don't mind." She listened to the rest of his short speech. "Red cooler..." She turned her gaze out in contemplation to the sea. The waves rolled in with a shushing sound, as though they tried to quiet one another and ended up making more noise than was necessary.

Then, she looked over to the longer section of beach to their right and raised her hand above her brows to block some of the harsh sun. The woman vanished and a dark spot appeared on the horizon of the beach. It doubled, and doubled, as it came closer and closer.

"No... I think it's simply gone. Probably got filled up with ocean water and sank." She smiled, perhaps a bit too merry with the news as she sat once again exactly where she had been before. "Don't worry, Solstice has all those kind of facilities for it's students..."

"Well what's your name?" She asked him, abandoning her attempt at searching for the cooler. "I'm assuming you're here to attend class, hm? Well, you're on the wrong Island. I'm Secernia." She held out her hand and stifled a laugh, "Are you done shaving, yeah? Something tells me this isn't really the time for grooming."

[sieben]

James takes a pause in his primping when the girl mentions a school. He can feel it in his bones that every move made by this girl is off from a normal being, though he has been too busy paying attention to his face to notice her absence. He sets the mirror flat against his lap and the blade neatly atop it, looking up to her and shielding his eyes from the harsh sun.

"Oh, I get it. This is one of those boarding school islands for rich kids," he halts his words for a moment, scanning the horizon; pristine shores, deep, unsettling jungle, silhouette of a dock far in the distance, an air of old and forgotten knowledge - it was all about two steps away from a prison, but it made perfect sense if one was inclined to have their child learn along a strict and unwavering set of guidelines. "Why would you think I'm here to learn, though? Unless fashion degraded to the point where rags are the 'hip new thing'...I really hope not."

You can't have been born this dense, kiddo, Liala moans, her tone carrying that bite typical of a small child rolling her eyes. Still, she wasn't prone to just giving away the revelations she came buy - James hated that she could use his body to gather information better than he could, but that was how it was. He'd probably trip and bruise his ego if he were to request help, anyways.

"So, what is this, the Bahamas? No...water's too clean. Jamaica? No...land's too clean. Haiti. No..." James seems to be going through a checklist in his head, which has a rather hard time working its way out of his mouth in time. He stumbles on several names of obscure gulf islands, two trying to play their ways across his tongue at once. He as now taken to pacing up and down a six foot stretch of sand, a bit lost in his own contemplations to even notice that his boots are making that horrid, wet sock squishing sound.

[Secernia]

Secernia let her hand hang in the air for a moment as she had held it out to him, and then after a moment let it drop casually. She didn't seem to take any offense judging by her outward actions, continuing to watch him play with mirrors and razors- though he soon put the tools down.

She gave a small laugh at his words, "No, not for rich kids, per se. Though, it's not to say we can't be wealthy..." She placed her elbow at such an angle against her knee so to rest her face against her palm easily. "You're in pin-prick centre of the Bermuda Triangle, actually. Solstice is a school for kids with powers, you know, like you've probably heard on the news? The government likes to keep us out here, so we don't cause hassle on the mainland, you understand... But most of us are here to master our abilities."

The girl pulled back her hand from her face and put her hands behind her, digging her fingers into the soft golden sand as she leaned back her head, closing her eyes to the sun. "I assume you have something supernatural about you, too. Otherwise, you wouldn't have ended up here... Even if you don't know it yet yourself, but then, maybe you do... Which is it?" She opened one of her red eyes and looked at him out of it's corner. Light bounced off her glasses, which once again were sliding down her nose. Secernia didn't seem to even notice that though.

"You still haven't told me your name either, actually- which..." She began with a smile, "Is quite rude, since I've told you mine..." Her eye continued to follow him as she soaked up the sunlight, almost unblinking. She felt that her voice would be able to carry at least the three feet in either direction which he was pacing.

[sieben]

James eventually took to not even voicing his thoughts, which now flowed with the direction of fifteen crowded conveyor belts trying to fit their products into the same one by one window. He fell still when she asked for his name, his footsteps having already plowed a fine line in the sand. He sighs, his posture becoming just a little more upright as his shoulders roll back, shrugging off the last of some vile rigor mortis. He pushes some hair out of his freshly groomed face, revealing a few bloody lines that once appeared to be the tips of the fine strands.

"James," he states without much bearing to the word, his eyes meeting hers. His tone conveys that she isn't learning much about him because he doesn't want her to - it is not abrasive in any way, simply withdrawn. He once again settles in the sand, using the turned grains as a pseudo-nest. He smiles at her, his face taken up entirely by long, slightly yellowed teeth, high cheekbones, and one revealed eye that carries all the likeness of burning copper. He looks at more than her face - he is feeling her, every inch of her, with a lost sense. He looks almost in a trance as a tear rolls down his cheek from the sting of a searing retina caught in the sunlight.

Within the breadth of an impulse, he is returned to only himself. He shakes his head a bit, lowering the drapes, as it were, and shrinks his smile down a bit. "I've got my tricks, I guess," he speaks with that same reticent listing, though it does carry a distinctive twinge of probing friendliness. "A school. Damn," he takes up his revolver, the iridescent black coating catching enough of the sun to appear multicolored. His fingers play restlessly with the sixgun, pulling the hammer into half-cock and lightly spinning the cylinder to create a soothing rhythm of clicks. He pulls the hammer entirely back and then pulls the trigger with his thumb still guiding the hammer, letting it down easily as to avoid firing.

"Never thought she'd take me here," he mumbles in a manner just audible to the observant. He once again turns to face the jungle, that smile returning to his face. It was something primal...predatory. He wanted whatever was in there - he could feel it. But, he couldn't go after it. Not yet. This place was a mouth - an island-wide mouth that drew in power and swallowed it whole. He could feel the trembling lips on the beach - the gnashing teeth of jagged trees and bladed leaves. He knew the throat was in there, waiting for him to tempt it.

You may want to listen carefully, James. Liala's suggestions were never definitively meant to suggest. She had millennias' experience with exploring the nuances of her voice and how it could be used to command and imply seamlessly together. If only James had the experience to hear this - she'd have saved herself the trouble of melting bone-matter back together many times.

[Secernia]

"James... What a nice name." Secernia commented, her voice seemed to play with the words. As he stared and smiled, Secernia gave a small smile in return, seeming open and friendly. No word was mentioned on his reservations. She folded herself forward once more, content with her basking in the heat for now. Her arms wrapped in a delicate way around her knees, bits of sand now embedded into her palms.

Her eyes were ever curious as he played with the gun. Secernia watched him but said nothing for a moment. "I'd think the revolver would be broken, having been underwater, no?" She pondered with raised eyebrows, before hearing his next comment.

"You never thought who'd take you here? I'm sorry if I seem intruding, I'm just trying to understand..." Secernia didn't even hesitant in asking, and her eyes held the same curious look to them as she watched him.

As he looked off into the jungle, Secernia felt a small smile once again pass her lips. "That is Perdu jungle. A dangerous place... I can take you there if you like, it has lots of secrets. Maybe you're a little curious, huh?" She didn't seem to take her eyes off him for a moment.

[sieben]

James snickered a bit at the comment about the revolver breaking, taking a moment to admire the truth in misogynistic stereotypes. He says nothing about it, though he does set his aim on the jungle, pull back the hammer, and squeeze off what would be a shot. Wet powder holds back the roar of the peacemaker, but the sound of the hammer striking the firing pin speaks for itself. He keeps his eyes on the jungle, watching, waiting, as if he had issued a challenge that would soon have him set upon by dire creatures of the vilest nature. A few heartbeats pass in silence and he lowers the weapon, snickering just slightly and setting it on the ruined pile of leather.

"Woah, woah, girl," he starts in a good-hearted manner, laughter dancing just around the tip of his tongue, "You've only just asked my name. Tell you what," James slips into an overtly curious grin, turning himself around to face the girl without standing, deepening his nest in the sand. "You buy me lunch, and we'll talk. I haven't eaten since hell last froze over."

James doesn't really give the girl much of a choice, rising to his feet and beginning at a slow pace towards the distant peer. He takes a brief pause to bite his lip and rip the soaked boots off of his waterlogged feet, tossing them into the ocean with all the vigour of an angered Zeus. He digs his toes into the sand with each step, breathing a deep sigh once in a while. Something about being back on land put him in a mood too jolly for his countenance to dam up. It also seemed to make him rather forgetful.

James, the boy swore he could hear a palm colliding with a forehead, where's Coyote? She had that scolding teacher voice - the one made for asking rhetorical questions and only rhetorical questions. His next sigh is noticeably less pleased as he turns on his heel and looks down the beach at the distant black puddle where he knew the revolver lay waiting. He twists his mouth up and simply stares, the sloth in him definitely not wanting to waste the time to retrace his steps.

[Secernia]

Secernia blinked in what looked like amusement. "I buy you lunch, do I?" she repeated, raising her eyebrow slightly. "Ah, I see..." She seemed to think for a moment and then gave a slow nod. "Fine then, I buy you lunch, if that's what you want..." The crimson haired girl laughed and turned to see the pier which James was looking over to.

She stood up then as well, though didn't walk after him, for a while, but instead simply appeared a few feet behind him after he turned back to his old stuff which he had left behind. Although there were no footprints in the sand from her, it would have otherwise seemed as though she had been following him as he walked.

"Have everything you're taking with you? I'd rather not have to come back unnecessarily, okay?" She looked over to the pile somewhat vacantly, then turned back to James. "I'm sure you can get new shoes on the other island." She added with a bemused grin. "You could probably get a new everything, only you don't have any money. Hm, shame about that."

She gave a sigh. "You have an option, You can take another boat to Soto, or we could teleport directly to the Cafe. Whatever you'd like." She shrugged and leaned her weight on one leg, as if bored of waiting for him to make up his mind, but in no way fed up.

[sieben]

James stares at the girl with a bovine expression for a moment or two at the mention of teleportation, his lips pressed together into a small, unyielding little line. He blinks once or twice and slowly raises a half-visible eyebrow, his toes digging into the sand in a manner most like an ornery bird fastening itself to a branch. He clicks his teeth together, his face changing from sedate to absolutely befuddled without so much as a rest, his head cocked and his eyes squinted.

"You're pulling my chain, aren't you?" he speaks in a convicting manner, flicking his tongue against one of his canines. "Teleporting? School for the gifted?" James stops in his tracks and begins to search the sky for something. He gives this a good minute of his attention, but not much more.

"You're serious. You're not even joking. There are hundreds here - a thousand? Maybe. I can't tell," James speaks in a fast drone as he had done before, all conveyor belts and not enough ports. "Why a need for money, though? It's a paradise - Utopia - no place...No taxes, at least. No country. Just a school. Expenses - travel, food, pencils, a shitload of pencils."

James continues to walk on, though he now doesn't seem to be moving with the stride of a person drawn to a physical location - he was walking towards something only in his own mind, his head downcast as he babbles on, his stream-of-consciousness vocalization just as much a means of ambulation as his legs. He recognizes the outside world as a non-entity and cannot be convinced otherwise for the time being.

"PR - can't have this place be too vocal. Can't be too quiet, either. News, media, merchandising, school sweaters. This place is a damned tesla coil - hundreds, maybe a thousand fists worth every drop of blood the other six billion makes up. Open, not defenseless..."

James returns to the anchor. His toes trace lines in the sand as he clears his throat. "What's teleporting like?"

[Secernia]

Secernia gave a playful laugh at all his various reactions to the idea that perhaps this is real. "No, I'm not joking." She sang with a grin. "To be honest," She began, "I'm not quite sure how many pupils there are..." She placed her index finger against her chin and looked up as if tallying it up in her mind. "Somewhere around a thousand, and more all the time."

After listening to his rant with outward patience, Secernia gave a smile and began calmly explaining the situation to the boy. Secernia rest her hands on her hips, watching him walk aimlessly. Her eyes following the movement of his feet as they embedded and uprooted themselves into and from the sands.

"These Islands are owned by the USA, so it's their property. They still want tax for it and everything, though most kids would get a scholarship to go here simply by being gifted- and you have to pay a fee to enroll of course as well..." She laughed again as she explained, "Calm down, kid you aren't in Never never land."

Secernia's eyes opened a bit wider when he asked what teleporting was like. "It's... difficult to explain. Easier to just show you. I'll take you to the cafe and prove that this place really does exist." She said with a playful roll of her eyes. She held one hand out to him, her other hand remaining on her hip, "You ready yet?"

[sieben]

Just as the lapping of the ocean was guaranteed to draw away a petulant shard lodged in the sand, James mind found itself drawing his current contemplations away from him and adding a whole new set that had to do with the matter presently at hand. He stood as stiffly as possible, blinking at the girl's hand, as if doing so would materialize some truth he had overlooked. Every thought he had was in the family of "I will be torn apart and put back together, but what gets left behind?" It was not pleasing.

"Yeah," he manages to choke out, his fists curled up in tight enough balls that he cut through the skin of his palms with his nails. He stands straight, extending one of those fists into her waiting hand and bowing his head low. Before his eyes closed, he could be seen peeking back at his belongings, one last time. Whatever anchor he had to reality, he left it in that miserable, black pile. "Do it."

Hang on to your atoms, kid, Liala speaks, knowing she is churning the boy's viscera with a simple sentence. Not much perturbed James, but when she found something, it became her goal to breed familiarity through contempt. Her soft, quiet voice echoed around his head, his eyes still very much shut together, awaiting the coming of his unmaking.

[Secernia]

Secernia gave a small smile as she saw him shut his eyes. "Don't worry..." She said slowly, her voice seeming to draw out the words for as long as she could. His hand touched hers and her eyes flickered for a moment as a small voice stuttered in her inner ear. She let out a light chuckle, "Alright then, here we go." She said. His palms felt sweaty to her.

Wrapping her somewhat boney fingers around his fisted hand, she looked off towards the distant island. She invisioned the Café, with it's brightly coloured chairs and tiled patio. The world began to blur around her, and him too. She kept her eyes open, well used to this happening.

There was a rush against her skin, like all matter had to get out of the way as she positioned herself exactly where she wanted to be. The universe folded itself to suit her imaginings. Then it all stopped. It didn't take more time than a blink, and she was there, standing in exactly the same way as she had been on the opposite beach, down to her hand on her hip and her fingers around his hand. She let go of his hand, and started walking towards the line.

For one unused to teleporting, it wasn't inconceivable that there be dizziness or motion sickness, but Secernia forgot herself and got to the line without bothering to ask if he was alright. "What do you want to eat?" She asked instead, putting on a light smile as always.