She stands indifferently. He is laying across the floor, panting and properly worked. She leans on seemingly nothing. The entire class had a wide reaction of what that display was. The speeds. The reactions and reflexes. Monstrous. They were in awe, afraid, excietment, fear, envy and there was a low layer of murderous intent that changed from a target to her. That move of intent made her snap instant stare meeeting the eyes, she couldn't help it. That soul made it easy. She did a lick. A bite on that energy. She barely edged the soul itself.
"Oi!" Raven hissed at her and she breaks the enjoyment of the snack, "Do not make me bottle you!" Pointing at her from the floor in deep rags of breath and she posed hands at her face in being all acting, "Do not eat things." There a confusing looking around by plenty tha didn't know or understand. The one that felt it, dropped backwards hard, "Go heal them."
"They started it." She was right over the collapsed one and looked into them, "Oh. That isn't a human. No wonder." She then hums, "That is an old freind." She recounted vague enough values of the thing before her, "We cross paths often." She peels them off the floor, "Up on them limbs." She got it to stand up, "Why are you trying? You know who we are. You know what I am." the mock thing looked deeply of her, "You forgotten us? Forgotten me? Don't make you remember?" She leans a little with giving personal space, "You are moved from the god realms. You were a gaurdian between that place of Omens and that other place of the crafting shop. The soul that made the clock." the sharp look into her, "I see you." the looking about her.
"Do you have something in need of fixing?" It finds those words and she broke a smile that isn't human. She pats the head and made a deep purring that felt inside chests, "That is what I need to ask you." She scuffed the head. They illusions of mock humanity was slipping for both figures and plenty held weapons up in defending. The crowd is plenty ignored.
"We can go about exchanges some other time. You are closely living to a human life then you have in many lifetimes. I am not going to take that time from you. Instead, I will be a friend. We have been good exchanges a few lives. You're work is very sought for across the rifts. You are like me. They want our skills. Want us to do things. Here we are peaceful. Relaxing." The thing measures her words plenty and then, a shoulder drop a little, "I have plenty of objects, bits and replacement parts. We worry about those things when it matters to." She pats over and puts a scarf of not human materials around the neck, "There, peace exchange. I will try not to lick your soul again. Just careful with your intent around what is mine. I can't help but be protective. I would also like to warn you. I look like a monster, be considered about my partner." She looked into the eyes deeply. A last head scruff.
"Wait!" The instructor steps in her front, "You can speak his language?" She rolled eyes.
"Of course I speak many languages." She smiles back to a human form, "I am looking forwards to finding the one's I have never seen." She pushed the instructor with left hand. The floor dirt dug down, moved lightly like a feather. A brick of a man treated like a feather, floor showing how strong that is. She circled her partner as her partner got off the floor and then steps into his foot work naturally. That she knew his dance, his his steps instinctively. She fits with him naturally and she wasn't any problem at all. It is food time for them, end of day.
Free time.
He uses it exactly as she knew he would. Going around being the omens follower that he was always. He was doing the things undertakers do, misplacing bits. Putting teaching papers to spot they going to be needed. He was doing all the abnormal security checks, looking are fire alarms and other checks of the same nature. He has been at this a while, sweeping a set path. Plenty of know of his rounds and attempts were made to break that pattern or ruin things. There is was typical that see him for being a busy body or a teacher's pet. She worked beside him on the rounds. She doesnt intervene with his doings. Instead she sees what naturally happens and what curtain creatures come about due to it. She makes mental note of the crest of undertakers that are paused due to him getting to their work first. She exchanges with the few minor things that are related to his shuffles but doesn't change the fact. She sees natural tangling that humans network fate for themselves and she sees the cuts her partner causes in preventing bad tie ups. He seems to know patterns or the people his meddling with well enough to be confident.
"You." It isnt rare for the clothus to be passing by at the fencing between premises. The paths here are natural and shaded well enough. This one is however an aged one, a chess peice or card in the poker set. Someone with minor authority. Someone that feels her negative status as a past clothus. Those with pasts are almost impossible. This guy just was right to react as he had; curiosities and fear.
"Tome keeper." She wafted her left hand and although it doesn't understand that title. It felt the energy of powers. It turned away from the fencing and leaves, softly. Looking back over shoulder.
"Its occasional those types of folks that brings us the needed relief aid. We have manage to grow enough on rotation. We have enough creatures corpse captures to exchange with. But we are at the edge of surviving around here." He says to her, "Its two meals a day at best and anything we bring back from expeditions or exchanges with the Travellers." He watched back the horizon as they shared path between dorm areas.
"I can make some contacts. See what would take interest." She softly tilts head, "We around the Pickenham right? Farm fields. Historical lost village. There is past here. It can work." She nods at herself about these facts.
"Not that all the parts of this area survived the recent survival and neglect." He walks them towards his dorm, given it is late enough, "This is Bury St Edmunds, well what remains of it. We have recycled all we could of the fallen buildings. We use magic practices on the older buildings, using magic to restore the historical values of this small town. The bigger parts are our recent additions."
She frosted up to the spot and look at the area more. More careful of trying to see the place. She started taking in that there was decent enough road work. The trading stall area was the old market of the town centre. She started seeing the things she over looked. The flattened structures. Completely changed from what it used to be.
"We have to get back." He coos in reminding and she softly paces back to being at his side. Her eyes lasering about the ruins and the shadows seated within them. Plenty of bodies not buried yet. There is a few creatures that are taking care of that exact issue, that a team of three was pulling rubble and lifting parts out the ruins. One was looking for shiny. One was clearly corpse taking. The last was picking up things that aren't human based.
"They were given approval to continue picking the ruins and are camped in the old churchyard, which is where we magic practice a lot. They take any meat found and we take anything they give us from their findings. It is a loose peace." He quickly hooked his arm around her, getting them to be faster walking out of the area, "You met the hidden student. They hunt the one's with no approval among us." He got them to the safety of the entry doors into the dorm he was allocated to, he looked around their backs. He made sure that none of those mock humans were hunting them, assuming she had not been given approval for stay yet.
"Do you like your room mates?" She asked softly with going onwards to the registering desk. There isn't anyone here, it is late. The guy who should be watching the desk left a note and key. Clearly is very used to Raven being the last marked. The log in was a contactless data, his personal crystal gave a hum in the light created by energy transfer. She pats her hand over the data sign in point, and he felt the pulse of energy linking.
She had a whole manual of rules jump in her sights way and the requirement to give a signature promise to defend the humans around here. She stood rigid with taking the time to read the rules, and the exact wording around defending humans part. It was more or less the last part she needed for allowance of stay for the week without attachment. Raven was shuffling about the desk area, locking up the front door like he should and he was doing his typical things. He was however very tired, and he kept looking towards her in hope she was done yet. She softened up with the last wax stamping. He was slumped beside her, leaning hazard at the desk. She soft pats his side, finger moved hair out of his eyes and gentle tilt of asking for directions.
He sighed glad, he did a quick scan over of his own tech to be sure. He sees that her profile is linked with his, that they are tied networks. Her permissions suited the minimal needed for dorm. He hooked arm around her. He guided them through the maze of corridors with a smirk. They did pass a few folks that were wondering around the corridors, even this late at night. He takes the stairs, clearly a route everyone knows as they wave or gave nods. Some are looking at the watch and swapping money hands. A girl from another building stares caught and is frosted to the spot watching him take the stranger through the dorm. The girl goes back to the room she left from, since the place is locked down.
They kept going up the stairs, everyone hears them going. The dorm was settling down, knowing its locked. The take the last landing. Some left thier floors, watching them climbing higher up the floor. The range of emotions, mostly confused for who she is and why he was late for her. They take a corner, double door. He pushed it open and its a small corridor. Leana looked back towards the stairs. She had energy measure the floors they passed to get here. This is top floor. Any higher is actually the roof, the last stair landing is the roof exit.
"And for once you're late." Ahead of them is in this short corridor is six off rooms. Two people in rooms across each other leaned. They all been waiting for him. The one spoken is a rough kid with rougher edges. Strong from moving heavy materials and the more normal then anyone here. Honest work, barely any social skill.
"They approved of her?" snorted the more brat then the edge lord. This was the magic based sort, soft hands and has plenty of opinions. The last trace. This kid goes into their room and slams the door. The edge kid shook of that, soft door closing. There was someone's else door that closed just now, she noticed that a door at the corridor end closed softly to be avoided. She could already taste the energy from that room.
"and this is my room, shared with one other person. Every room you passed by if four person per room. Well there is a closet down the left... but." He shoved her into the shared room. She took in how it is shared. The room mate sighed, closed a book and was about to turn a light out, "Don't lick his soul."
"I don't need to bother." She crossed arms, "Darkwood... or at least a bloodline. I am not surprised." She walks gentle in the room, seeing who owned which bed. She sees two empty beds. The way shared space is figured between these two, "Mutated by the times, so your cursed side isn't normal." She already figured out plenty about the room mate, "It's fitting. You never fit in with normal poeple."
"I should be offended." He was getting his gear off, and hung his cloak to his bed post, "Yet you are not wrong. I am not fazed by the normal things that makes others shiver. Why else would I be fine with you?"
"What?" the room mate looking between her and him, "I didn't have a message about this."
"Oh, sorry. I tend to have information about me blocked. I don't let just anyone be informed about me." She wafted and picked a bed not used. She stretched out of the mock human, and puts herself to be comfortable across the bed. More like a massive dog trying to make do with a small bed. Walking all fours, makes four rotations. Paws patting down the fluffing to the right pressing. She took her face off, and with a sink down. She rolls into a feline posing like a shrimp. Her toes flexed and set. She sunk her head down powerlessly, feeling completely sapped of everything.
"About time." Raven sighed and sits down across from his room mate, "Right. You know when we first met, I warned you about any intent around me. You know for the past year I had been having vivid dreams." He talking seriously to his room mate.
"She is real?" the look over shoulder at her. The long measuring of the thoughts, "The freak could reap souls out of everyone here." Good smack across the arm, "Right, intent." calm tone back, there wafted anxiety. They stare watching her and she is still sleeping.
"She saved us from a blood bath on the road. If I didn't track her down, none of us would have came back. She already changes the outcomes that would have had me in a bad way." He sighed, "She paid for my debts here. She prevented my death with the false student during combat class. The strange avoiding her."
"Yeah, I would to. She hasn't anything of a face." they leaned looking, "That isn't a mask of a normal damned like me. That isn't even something for a Clothus. She is a gaping void inside meat puppet body." They looked at her strange body from how she sleeping, "And like you said. She's your problem." In something of strange reminder from some previous conversation.
"I just hope the last freak doesn't react to badly." They got up and go to bed with this. She crunched a bit and a long energy left her. A spill of things she held back. She got to comfortable, as part of her detached. She was very safe in her little bubble.
"It's another morning. It is just another morning. It is a normal morning." the room mate spoke to themselves. Collected their stuff and was heading for a wash. Raven was plenty awake, seated in a chair next to her bed. He had been staring at her strange this entire time.
"Vesper!" Shouted from the corridor and she flexed joints with knowing it was intent at her. She was rolling her body joints to click back into place and with her right hand. Smoothed a mock face over her gap. She pulled a strange material for a cloak to hid more other body parts. She stretched a last bit, a click and up off the bed. She nosed Raven's head and steps around to the door. She walked all fours, trotting the corridor smug and simple.
"What's up?" Her voice flexed just right. Raven was quick after her, stopping short of the hunter.
"Give it's your 1st day here, you didn't know." The prick pointed at a board, "You clearly didn't read all of the fine print about..." The prick pauses with the need to read the id warning that flashed. That he was trying to access something about his pay grade, " Ranks..." He was loosing words fast, "earning dorm..." he was dried up of his mock confidence. More folks are stood here watching the sceptical.
"You want me to bribe you to be allowed what I am already been granted to have." She posed her left hand, "That Raven used the dorm showers this morning while using my permissions? It was flagged on your watch and here you are to earn a bribe. No one is allowed to use the private showers without some fee. You expecting me to what exactly? Grovel?" She adjusted and stood up to two. Her head bent away from the ceiling, "Do I need to pay you a visit away from this crowd to discuss the exact rules you are mugging folks with?" The hunter drops the floor and crawls to the stairs door, bubbling nervous noises. She lowered back down.
"And this is one the benefits of being in the top floor." The brat huffed, "For that matter being around Raven. Hardly anyone can out done by a Clothus like that."
"We have classes. Come on everyone." A more sensible youth among hissed with claps. Here is another person that has blood connections. Between those claps was someone acting between the moments. Forced their mates out of bed and did try to steal. They were temporarily in a pause she causes in preventing them from stealing. So this kid knew she acts within the same moments as themselves. So now they are acting good instead. The room mate back from their shower, passed her without even bothering about the whole situation.
"Normal morning." He must have been muttering this mantra like his life depends on it. Back to the private room to change out and be ready for the day. She shook out of the interruption. The hunter got off the floor and flees. Everyone else in these six rooms are rolling out. She softly trots back to Raven.
Raven was prepare enough to function through the day but he wasn't always there in the moment of focus. He spent more time worried about backgrounds that surrounded about her; her accesses impacting the trades and travellers that come in. The increase or decrease of her protection. He was already trying to hard thinking ahead of what could be.
She spent the day observing his side of the timetables. Seeing how classes played out, what groups were tough cookies. She was seeing a lot of mix bloods, many strange ties. This was the generation born after the apocalypse; they didn't know what stable looked like and were used to short relationships. Nothing lasts, no one made meaningful ties. Those who clings on to something, finds it is the anchor that everyone else uses you for. She became Raven's anchor but there was a bit of working out to figure any use to that. He wasn't a straight forwards type and it was a good assessment to assume she wasn't as shallow as her animalistic traits.
"Next sit down, we will talk about raiding points and variables. We will give a floor plan scenario. In your teams, you will tactically plan out how you go about a successful plan." They are dismissed with a dismissive hand throw. Plenty were getting up, gearing up and ready for the next classes.
"Vesper!" A runner pants at the door, and got in. Looking around. She stretched from under Raven's feet and stood. Like She stood towered over him with hands on his shoulders. She leans with chin on his head, vaguely looking about the sweaty person, "You have a private message in the lounge to take." She rolled left hand with needing details, "The creep of shadows asked for you." She shrugs of this.
"Oh no... He was the last one." Raven groans, "His the one guy I wanted you to avoid. Don't eat him." She had to deeply figure through a string of guesses. She pulled herself into a presentable look with a sharp clatter. Her stone heels were back. The look she chosen when not with him. She dry brushed her sleeves a little, taking any wrinkles out.
"We are going to be following the timetable." One the party told her and she gave a thumb up. His party hold him back from following her. She fusses a little of him, ties a few good charms and then she left. Follows the runner to the teachers lounge from before. Back to the war room. Yet she was shown over to a booth instead of the map area.
"How are you?" It asked her upon her seating across from an old pal. She measured the being for what it has become, chosen clothing and body shape preference. She senses that it mirrors her a lot, that she was its inspiration. But where something is inspired, the real deal has those features for purpose. Façade as it was. She took plenty of time to value that body meat and with a last scan the soul value. But she barely needed to try the soul value, she sees something that was a part of herself. So why bother trying to look at something you already had.
"Confused on the best of days, always being glitched thrown across time space. Having no anchor means that I don't experience time like I should." She pauses, "But this is the only universe that I have felt every second of the causes. The pain is real. The scars left are bone deep." She looked around and back forwards, "My grief of loosing what I love is still eating my soul."
"He was sent off and brought back a few times since you last hung around. His soul memories dulled with the over use of oblivion on him. He hasn't changed who he is and what he does act within the rules I need him to. However that is always those parts he lost. There is moments of where it would be easy to know his going to do the right thing, and sure he acts on them but not his way." She gently nodded at this observing fact calm, "Ah, you had them too. But with your soul's changed adaptions... you could recount enough." She softly nods of this too, "What happened to the between things?"
"Depends. I sure died a few times to that demon lord wrath... I died a few times in realms that humans aren't meant to be in. Including undertaker realms." She does something in habit, reaching about her folds of skin for something, "The realms I been stuck in as not human. The soul roads I have travelled, the long way home. Part of it was loosing myself and meaning. Then it was proving I could correct my wrongs. The realizing not all things can be a clean slate. Change has to be if I was going to be a better me. I took a detour a little. I found a decent job, retired to a good point. Came back to..." She looked around at something no one else sees or feels. She blinks a little, "I built it back, turned it back. The souls around here knew of the changes and moved on. Not all of them liked the outcomes."
Eventually she clasp onto such object of her past times. The silver case tarnished old. Inside was well perfect cigarettes made of dreamland material. She perched it to not her mask lip but her real lips. The mask pulled to the side of the head in the meantime. She lights the smoke with finger tips, a purple spark. The cloud puffed by three rounds made colours dancing in her aura. It stares in how a cigarette is floating where a face should be. She offers one with left hand, it declined politely. She closed the case with a click and it back into her skin fold.
"Would you take back my entitlement if I could offer it?" She studies the being deeply. Sure it said this, but it wasn't what the body is saying. That posture.
"You are a mercy when souls don't give up." She softly explains for to herself then it, "But I can see how it can be a punishment to any souls. You are the embodiment of letting go. That relax of relief when you know it will be ok. It doesn't have to be dying or death. It is also the cut of happy or sad times. You are that hold between sorrow before rage." She roll the cigarette to travel her lip from one side to the other, "That letting go is in a lot of other things. Relationships. Ties. Families. Bloodlines. Dignity clashing justice. Thing need a pause. A gap. An end."
"How do you fit in?" It asked with turning this on her. And for the right it asked, she thinks over this question. She has been a normal in a while, made something of herself but even then at wanting to core what she is.
"I would like to think I am the acceptance or that moment of when pain is smoothed enough to move on with. The voice of soul when it says, it will be ok. That turn over after the price of love made a mark." The being blinks a few times. As likely it thought she misspoke, "We hurt inside because we love so hard. Souls love other souls, regardless of the vessel or situations. Love can be hate too. But it is at the core still love." She finds herself leaning comfortable with thinking this chose of words. What comfort it means.
"You have changed." It eases matching her relaxing posture, "The side affects of coming back home." She nods with that, "You gone away a long time, has your perception changed?" She sorted the ashes of the cigarette with a soft use of a magic case. Minor cantrip to clean away the imperfections. She got a little carries away with giving the being across from her a little tidy up. She stops with open palms, "We will be making good exchanges when needed. Working on the the paper basics, hired as a huntress." It pats about itself, the materials moving folds and soon opens to a little stack, "These... we need to sort them or this place will be raided." She leaned over, left hand and takes the stake. She altered the paper into crystal data and automatically inputs through her ID. Parts move fast from that, and the being nods, "You best get back to his side."
"Did the god souls bother with their foundations?" She asked in looking at the majority of the issue, "We just going to draw a line between souls for its vessel? It was the gods that put human souls into everything for a game." She stands up, "Well see you around, enjoy." She puts the stub away to a separate box, and her heels clicked away from the corner booth. It stays there a long time watching her back with many deep thoughts. Once she was out of range, it moved away too.
"Wow, I had no clue it could talk." a hunter that was watching from the other side of the room and the person stops short was the leader of Raven's group. Staring at the empty booth.
"They were just staring each other down the whole time. There wasn't sound." the hunter jolted at that.
"Oh, they were using a language that was outside of human hearing." the hunter nods of that. The leader looking at his papers for assignments. He is left alone looking about the rest of the room, seeing who else was interested in the sceptical. For now, there wasn't a lot of attention that was focused about the minor small talk at the booth. There was a small set that weren't interested of her, but were interested in the leader's reactions about her. As it was more about what the leader of the hunter group was going to make of the new member. Does the guy know the worth of her merchant ID or high ranking outcome stats? This is what the room was measuring, not her. Not her business. The group that gained her was the business.
"Good team work." clapping from the instructor with everyone pulled back from the attacking. Wood sticks for swords. Magic use was safe amounts only. The one that can't control are sat out from, who instead are making notes on their own. Raven relaxed his posture from magic use, energy shield flickered gone, "The feather's breath is still making good at the top. Although you are still individually needing a few pointers. I am sure you leader will address it." The instructor turned eye over the defeated team, "Scale's warmth. You have no harmony. You are out for yourselves."
She trots softly like a large dog. She lowered to his feet, laying like a feline bun. tucked in feet. She cares not as they were huddle around, talking to each other about things they noticed about each other. The instructor raised a brow to why she appeared and why she pinned herself in the way.
"Ok..." the instructor claps with attention back, "Reset. One more go." The kids make a gesture between them, a little team moral thing. They got into postion. She stretched, moved with Raven and rolls back down on the new spot, "Miss Vesper, are you going to help them?"
"No. I am a bump on the floor." She replies in a purr. Raven nods at that.
"She's not worth the bother arguing either. She will just do a ghost thing or make the floor move." He said and they all make a sharp look at that.
"That is hindering." the instructor voiced.
"Fine, I will go move aside." She got up off Raven, tail does a thing with his charms. She trots over to the side benches. She sits more like a cat, tucked paws and curled tail. Her eyes were tracing the crystal panes in her argued vision. She was working on things, and just wanted to be close by to Raven for his peace of mind. She was seeing a few needed matters that meant some actual face to face trading. But she slide a side glance about the class battle, the watching crowd and that her gaze lands on the adults. The elders who we are measuring the youths poteintal. She stops on the Ender, the shadow they talked of. It made private gestures and she understood. She slides watching the group battle and the instructor.
"Oh, mock battles." the scavangers of the ruins, the three freaks have came here. They wouldn't bother unless, she can figure it out. They found something interesting to her.
"Leave the youths to learn." She voiced of blocking herself between them and the humans, "Trade." She makes the hand motions needed and the smart one of the three replies.
"It is more that we dont know what to do with this." the middle one mutters, "It came out of the rift." She open palms and the lowerest poured a cloth sack out on the floor between. She studies the mess. She looked a long time, looking careful. Looking interested, "Well?"
"A soulless." She nods with having encountered what this is, "The hollowed ones. They could eat souls and become. But... that isn't a nice thing. This one is empty stomach, so its smart about souls. Pretending to be dead." She nods softly, "Yes, a scary problem for humans and beings alike." She shurgs, "It does not live and does not die. It keeps going on fumes, energy it can devour." She thinks about this and claws into the thing at the floor. Putting the body back together. She was soon taking bundles of wraps, and a sewing needle at some point. She puts it back together. The three backed off with frowns. And with the hollow stood back up, "And there we go. What do you want? No souls. We don't trade souls. We can however do energy trades. Electric. Magic. Ether." She was looking at its lacking reactions, "I will not eat you. I know I could but your empty. Not worth the dust and ash."
"Oh. You not going to erase me." the hollow notes, "Huh, that is a first." the hollow scans around, "Can I hung around in the ruins?" She shrugs at that and looked to the three that brought it here. They shrug. They lead it away from the grounds. She nods a few more times with measuring the being with other senses. She removed a tome and checked, she noted the amount of oddities are hidden here. She closed the book, it went back. She goes back and lays in a tight bun.
"Hey," Raven approached with sitting gentle at her side, "What was that about?"
"Just another hidden thing that been brought to the light for a flicker. It be gone back hidden once released." she closes down the panes of her eyes, "Don't worry about the world, worry about your survival in it." She rolls into him with making sure his ok, she listened how fast his heart races about the event and the calm she brought him. The group comes around close, sitting down around and still talking about the sparring team match.
She did a last look back of the four disappearing the distance still, moving stay with eyeing what value that the strangers would like to find in the ruins. Eyes measuring the veg gardens between area and the equipment that could be replaced. She measured the Hollow, it facing the garden in a different reflect - it was hearing the souls of plants. Tilted about bugs. It slide about someone using magic nearby.