paixaorpg | These Outsider Types [Complete]

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These Outsider Types [Complete]

Character(s): Kovu, open to anyone
Content: Kovu comes into the city
Setting: Muspelheim, just inside
Time: Night
Warnings: ...None really.

"My Dad and I used to do this all the time..." Kiara's voice sounded like it was becoming distant and trailing off. The stars above Kovu went fuzzy for a second, and suddenly all the sounds were different. He looked over to where Kiara was, but there was no one there. He sniffed the air, but her scent was gone too. Everything he should have recognized was gone. None of the smells of the Pride Lands were on the wind, and the grass here was completely different under his paws. He scraped his claws against the ground to test it. It felt less real, almost.

He rolled over and stood up, taking in his surroundings. A huge structure of some sort wasn't very far distant from where he was standing, and a line of bipeds was slowly walking inside. He quietly padded over to them to try to catch their scent, and he soon found himself caught up in the line and being pushed along inside. He turned about left and right to try to keep from getting shuffled along with everyone else, and when he roared they finally did scatter--except they did it in the opposite direction he'd wanted them to. Now he was surrounded, and they wouldn't budge at all, no matter how much he growled and roared. "LET ME THROUGH!!" he yelled before finally giving up. He glanced out of the corner of his eye toward the mouth of the giant cave. A biped was standing there, waiting for him, and seemed very impatient. Kovu growled, and went up to him.

"Where am I?!" he demanded of the biped.

"Welcome to Paixao." The response was curt, and Kovu could tell this guy said the exact same thing to everyone who went through the line. The lion growled again, then blinked when a black box was placed over his neck with some sort of vine. He had no idea what it was, but the line was pushing him through again so he didn't have time to ask.

"Ugh. Whatever. I'll just have to figure out what this place is. None of this stuff looks anything like the Pride Lands or the Outlands. How did I even get here, anyway?"

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"Thank you!" Beryl chirped to the attendant behind the Cafe Beresat, having just inquired about the times and prices for the place without buying anything something about a dress code maybe?. It had been a few weeks since she arrive Like most things in Paixao, and made it her mission to thoroughly explore this side of Paixao to get a proper feel of the place. The alarming thing, though, was that she started to wonder why she bothered: the Cafes were so similar that they bordered on being obsessive about it. Worse then that, she was starting to realize that everything in Paixao followed a sort of strict code of consistency that was everywhere -- the same style clothes, the same fake plants, the same architecture, the same emotions.

It was really starting to drive her nuts.

The few flaws and imperfections that existed seemed to come from the non-citizens, like her. They were beginning to stand out markedly -- like a blotch of colorful ink spattered onto a canvas of endless white. She liked those moments, but was starting to wonder if maybe the citizens were being brainwashed. Or worse, a nagging fear that she would begin to fade into the white nothing too someday.

She quickly pushed out her fears as she approached the Muspelhiem gate. After all, if there was going to be anything out of the ordinary in Paixao it (apparently) would have to come through here first. And boy did it in a big way. After all, it's not everyday that you see a talking lion among the crowd. Even less so one that actually looked familiar. Wading her way through trees of people or, more accurately, their legs the littlest demon made her way to the Scar-lookalike to finally get him back for being obnoxious to her when she first got there.

Maybe she'd have to check the gates more often.

None of the plantlife was real, even. And all these hairless monkeys...they barely had a scent at all. Nothing had any scent. Kovu had been here for barely a few minutes and it was already creeping him out.

But a new smell hit his nose, one that was completely unfamiliar. His eyes darted around looking for its source, and found a smaller one of the hairless monkeys, with a pink mane atop her head. With a quirk of an eyebrow he padded closer to her, wondering if maybe she would be able to help him somehow.

"Hey...can you tell me anything about this Paixao place? I just kind of...showed up here..." He looked down at his paws, embarrassed that he was so clueless.

Well, this was confusing. Surely he'd know where he was? He had talked to her practically on her second day she arrived at Paixao. He was being obnoxious and smarmy the whole time, too. Surely he wouldn't have forgotten about her? And yet something told her he was being totally honest...

The little demon looked around curiously at this new lion. Something seemed a bit... off.

"Where's your scar?" She finally decided to ask, peering over his left eye.

Edited 2010-08-18 23:45 (UTC)

"...What scar? I've never had any scars at all. Are you sure you've got the right lion?" Kovu couldn't think of any reason that she would have asked him about a scar that wasn't even there. And she hadn't answered his question either.

He looked down at her as she inspected his left eye, trying to gauge what she was thinking and not having any luck. "Who are you, anyway? I've never seen you before, so why are you asking about a scar that I don't have?" He paused for a second. "And quit looking at me like that."

"Oh, whoops." Beryl let out a nervous laugh. That was pretty rude of her, she thought. After all, just because he was a lion doesn't meant that he was that lion. And, if anything, hearing him talk without the smarm definitely and condescending arrogance definitely made it clear: this was not the lion that she had thought he was.

"My mistake. You look like somebody I know." Beryl replied, wishing to change the subject quickly to skip past her little faux pas.

"Sorry about the lack of introductions. I'm usually pretty good about that. The name's Raspberyl, and I'm the number one delinquent of the Nether Institute Evil Academy -- though I like to be called Beryl by my friends. Oh, and this isn't the Academy either. This is Paixao -- and from what we can tell it is an inter-dimensional paradox where..." Beryl thought about what she was saying and decided to clarify before there was any more confusion. "It's a place where lots of people from other worlds gather together."

The lion's face screwed up for a second at the inter-dimensional paradox thing, but she corrected herself quickly and Kovu got what she was talking about. "Sounds...interesting..." he said with a hint of cynicism in his voice. It was hard to believe something like that from someone he'd never met, especially when he'd just appeared here out of nowhere.

"I'm Kovu." He took a few steps to try to see things from different angles. "I got that this was Paixao when the hairless monkey handed me this black thing, but I was wondering about all this other stuff. And knowing something about why he threw this weird box over my neck might be nice too."

Beryl smiled as she took the time to teach this new person. "That hairless monkey is called a 'human' -- and there are a lot of them here, so you should probably get used to that. And before you ask, I am not a hairless goat. I'm a demon and trust me, there is a big difference. As for your questions, as much as I would love to teach you about the other stuff -- I would probably be talking about other things you don't want to know." Something told her that he would appreciate not wasting his time.

"But I can teach you about your communicator." She took a few steps closer and picked it up to eye level with Kovu. "This thing lets you talk with anybody else that has one of them over long distances. Think of it... kinda like an echo-box. Sorta." Her attention focused to his eyes, checking to see if he was understanding any of this.

"Okay, humans...demons...how do I tell them apart? You guys look sort of similar." They didn't smell alike, really, but that didn't help from too far away, at least not when there were this many in one place. They didn't look different enough. But the next thing Beryl said was more important.

"An...echo box?" Kovu's skepticism was hard to miss. "How does it work?" He'd never heard of something like that before, but if it would let him talk to someone who was far away, it could be really useful.

"If they're a demon, they'd probably tell you if you ask if they're human." Beryl answered. She imagined this would be really hard to tell to those that don't know. But at least he was aware of the difference.

Beryl looked over at Kovu's box and noticed that there was no buttons to press. While this made intuitive sense, she wondered how this worked exactly... "I'm not sure how this thing works exactly. Maybe you have to talk into it?"

"Talk...into it?" Beryl had to be crazy. What would talking at an inanimate object accomplish? Kovu quirked an eyebrow at her. "What should I say? I mean...what's it supposed to be able to do?"

He tried to get it off his neck with a paw, but the vine holding it on was making that somewhat annoying. He pawed at it again, and managed to get it to get it over his head so that it fell onto the ground.

"Huh..." Beryl whispered a bit, thinking about this some more. "How do those things work for you guys?" She was puzzled. This shouldn't that hard, should it?

"Maybe I should try calling you?"

"Um...okay..."

Kovu stared down at the demon, trying to figure out what she meant by "calling." If it let one person talk to another, maybe "call" was supposed to be a way to say it could happen over a long distance, like shouting might? Something like that...at least it made a little sense that way.

"You can try that, I guess."

Taking her cue, the little demon pulled out her communicator and, though it took her a few seconds to get Kovu's name spelled correctly, managed to get a connection.

"There, see?" Beryl said, with Kovu's own communicator shortly echoing her voice. "That's how you talk!"

"All right, thanks." Kovu picked it up, then looked it over as well as he could, with it in his mouth. "So...what about everything else in Paixao? I've never seen a place that looks like this before...or a cave that's so bright..."

His eyes looked around above him, wandering over all the really odd things that were all over the place here. Nothing looked right...not even a little.

"Well, there's a lot of this place that doesn't make sense to me. I'm not from around here." Beryl looked up for the nearest source of incoming light. "Look there, you see those little clear parts in the "cave?" Those are little portholes that let light in. This is actually a dwelling place for humans. You might see them wearing really elaborate clothes."

"As for what we're supposed to do here, I couldn't tell you that. It's anybody's guess why we're here--that's something you're probably going to have to figure out on your own." To be honest, she was wondering the same thing herself.

"Great. Well...at least that helps a little." Kovu paused for a moment, and tilted his head to the side. Oh right. You were supposed to sound grateful when someone helped you. "Uh...thanks for the help, Beryl."

He made to put the...communicator...back over his neck, and found himself having a lot of trouble with it. He was going to have to figure out some other way to carry it, this was getting really annoying already.

His thoughts turned to what Beryl had said, about how he was supposed to figure out why he was here on his own. That was what he was trying to do in the Pride Lands before he got here...and now he had to start all over again. "Just...great," he repeated sardonically, but in a very hushed voice.

Beryl was feeling good about this so far. Sure, Kovu looked as confused as everybody else she met at Paixao, but that was normal, right? And, she reasoned, if he wanted to talk about what was eating him, he would be more than happy to let her know. There was nothing wrong with him keeping quiet and looking sullen. Nope... nooooothing at all.

Except it was boring as hell.

"Something on your mind?" Beryl asked cheerfully, curious if she could get more secrets out of her new interest.

"It's nothing," Kovu answered quickly. "At least...it doesn't matter here." His sullen tone was accompanied by a few steps away from Beryl, and into a space in the crowd that was much more open...and made him much more alone.

"Just...don't worry about it." He looked at the foreign ground next to his paws. "...Please."

"Well... alright." Though Beryl's interest was piqued, something told her that he wouldn't tell her anything about it for all the flattery or threats in the Netherworld. No use pushing it now.

Rather, the little demon decided to follow the lion, partially out of concerned and partially out of curiosity to see what a lion does when confronted with a situation they are not familiar with.

Kovu's paws picked at the weird stone underneath him, claws scraping against it to try to test it out. He was glad that the demon wasn't pushing the subject any further, but he still wanted to just...be alone now. He didn't know who she was, not really, and if he was going to be somewhere so unfamiliar he at least wanted a chance to try to find Kiara first.

But she was following him. He stopped and looked back at her for a moment. "What?"

"What nothing, I live this way." Beryl stated plainly. Though that certainly was true, that also wasn't the whole answer. Still, why give up the opportunity for some good delinquency? "You know, if we're going the same direction, I could show you around town a bit. At least, until I get back home."

She extended an open hand of invitation. "What do you say?"

"Sorry. There's someone I need to look for." Kovu turned his head forward again and continued, aiming for spaces in the crowd that were less populated. The last thing he wanted right now was a bunch of hairless monkeys bumping up against him just because they weren't watching where they were going.

He felt the communicator thing swinging against his mane, and wondered if Kiara might be here too...and if she'd gotten one. If she had, that meant they would be able to talk to each other, right? Even if they weren't right next to each other.

Well, she knew an outright rejection when she saw it. And that was about as blunt as her lesson in projectile trajectories.

"Well, if that's what you want. Don't be afraid to ask if you ever need any help okay?" Beryl waved him on.

As she saw the lion slink into the crowd and getting bumped into by people not see him, she mumbled to herself. "Eh... he won't call." Still, it's nice to meet new people!

Edited 2010-08-21 04:30 (UTC)

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These Outsider Types [Complete]

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