The unsought [Active]

[nonomoribird]

Character(s): Ansem, Yorda, Mao, the Master, and Urd.
Content: Ansem has plans for Yorda... and those who know her aren't happy.
Setting: Spira, the Calm Lands
Time: Late morning, late in Week 37
Warnings: Violence, darkness and a case of mistaken identity.

Yorda had quickly learned what to expect whenever Ansem had summoned her. The questions, not all of which she could answer, the doors she'd been made to open, and worst of all, the subtle reminders of her delicate situation. She'd stay with him in order to protect Mao - she had to, or Ansem would hurt him. So the glowing girl had been wholly compliant, bearing her situation without complaint - though meeting Kuja had helped. Arrogant and dismissive as he was, at least he wasn't Ansem, and she'd taken to bringing him tea whenever she saw him lurking about, listening to him talk about himself. It was company, at least, and although she didn't know how long she'd been locked away in the building, she'd found herself growing fond of the odd man, even if she didn't know what he was doing there.

The princess glanced nervously at the windows of her quarters and repressed a shudder. It was always dark in here - she always had to light the lamps or go by her own glow in order to find her way. She'd kept the curtains closed, not wanting to see the strange, sharp shapes hanging over the glass. Yorda tried to push it from her mind and went back to reading the book in her lap - a tome about the history of Paixao. At least Ansem generally allowed Yorda to do as she wished here, as long as she obeyed him.

Comments

[theheartofdarkness]

Ansem would have been lying if he'd said he'd expected people to find him here. He'd picked an out of the way location for the particular purpose of not being found. That people had still managed to find him spoke of one thing and one thing only. Someone had overheard him and spoken to the people of the city. Someone he lived with. Clearly he had been correct in not trusting them any further than he could throw them. He had hardly been antagonistic and if this was how that gesture of kindness was received then he'd have to... not so much speak with them as arrange for matters to be taken in hand.

In the meantime, he had unintended guests to tend to. But these he could count on to be blinding by their emotions for the fallen girl. It was obvious enough to him that she was merely fallen, so he simply watched as first the young demon and then a woman with a guardian very much like his own bent to the fallen girl. Better yet, both had a suitable amount of darkness resting in potentia within them. He'd wanted more thorough test subjects and here they had come stumbling to his very doorstep. Perhaps there was something to be said about finding chances in misfortune after all (especially seeing as how if all went well he'd being coming out of this with two subjects more than he'd started with).

And then man he'd spoken to on his first arrival came charging up past the pair of stunned onlookers, light flaring in his hands as he came. It was only Ansem's innate sense of what was true Light and what was Dark that kept him from instinctively flinching away from the attack. For a girl that was merely fallen it seemed almost over-reaction but he had no time to address the matter. The attack was upon him and for all that it seemed to be little more than lightning he had no inclination to take any more damage than he had to. Not today.

Fortunately, it was but the matter of a moment's thought to recall his Guardian to his side. Or rather, to shield him from attack, as it promptly put itself between the Master's attacks and him without even seeming to care about the damage it was taking.