Nightshift 35: Greenhouse

[grosse-sklaven.livejournal.com]

((From here.))

So... this was the greenhouse. Adelheid had to admit, it was much more eerie in the night hours than it was in the day. Something about the shadows, the long lines of plants, the sheer amount of reduced visibility, made the young man cautious and on alert. Something could be in the foliage... knowing his luck, the foliage itself could be a danger. Good thing he had a sharp blade at his disposal, wasn't it?

While he waited for Hohenheim to come around, Adel started looking around, wondering if anything had been left behind that would be useful. Not necessarily tools, either; if he could find a plant usable for his alchemy schemes, then...

Comments

[carved-deeper.livejournal.com]

It began as a whisper of cold, the soft sound of a pained sigh. Down the row of plants, on the opposite end of the greenhouse from the young man, the vague figure of a young woman appeared, head bowed.

[grosse-sklaven.livejournal.com]

...was that a sound? Adelheid immediately looked up, his eyes narrowed as he looked down the long rows of plants, bringing his curved blade and flashlight up to scrutinize whatever had made that. It definitely didn't sound like the wind... not that there'd be anything like that in a green house.

To his eyes, it looked like a young woman, though at the distance he could hardly make out any distinguishing features. What he did know, though, was that it likely wasn't a patient- they'd be making more noise, and no one had been in here before, Adelheid had paced the entire length while he'd waited. And yet, his upbringing prevented him from striking first. "...who are you?" His voice was strong and firm; no Bernstein showed fear, not even standing alone.

[carved-deeper.livejournal.com]

Head still hanging, she took one slow, staggering step forward, and then another. The tattoos covering her body made her skin look almost blue. Another soft sigh of pain, and she whispered, "Help... the pain... their pain..."

[grosse-sklaven.livejournal.com]

Was she in pain? ...knowing his luck, she was moaning about the pain she was going to be causing him in just a moment. Adelheid found himself torn with indecision, wanting to bolt, help her, and strike her with ki energy all at the same time. As it was, he kept his sword drawn and pointed at her, but didn't move, not quite yet.

It was sad, but the skin tone was almost unnoticed as an irrelevant detail. Adelheid's world contained quite a few anomalies, and that familiarity left him vulnerable for the moment.

[carved-deeper.livejournal.com]

Another few steps, her pace unhurried. "My skin," she whispered. "Carved into my skin."

...she disappeared.

[grosse-sklaven.livejournal.com]

...the marks weren't her natural skin? Before she disappeared, Adelheid's eyes widened. Those looked... a lot like tattoos he'd seen before, in some horrific pagan rituals. Not quite the same, certainly, but... the similarity was enough to make the boy shiver.

Then she was gone. In the blink of an eye, she just disappeared. Fighting instincts had Adelheid stepping forward as he spun around, giving himself some space if she'd appeared behind him. He'd fought a ghost-caller before, but his mind was warning him that this was no summoned spirit.

Suddenly, the door beyond him looked far more appealing an option.

[carved-deeper.livejournal.com]

Nothing, nothing, nothing... a breath of cold across the back of Adel's neck, a soft sigh in his ear.

A hand reached out from behind him, moving slowly to try to touch his cheek.

[grosse-sklaven.livejournal.com]

Adelheid spun in a wide arc, his blade slicing through the air with a speed and power that would have been fatal to any normal individual. The boy was strong and he wasn't afraid to strike to kill, especially now that he knew that the woman was trying to kill him as well. The problem was that she was a ghost, and such a strike wouldn't do much against her.

Well, that was one problem. The other was that she was reaching for his right side, the side with the prosthetic eye. The eye that, at the moment, couldn't see her.

Which meant that the boy couldn't see her hand reaching for his cheek...

[carved-deeper.livejournal.com]

Reika's fingers gently touched the boy's cheek; for a moment, they felt normal, solid. Then in an instant, searing cold bloomed from those fingers, lines of it spreading across Adelheid's skin, twisting and turning into fantastical, agonizing shapes. Though Adel couldn't see it, a tattoo the color of indigo ink mixed with blood spread out on his skin from under her fingers, the echo of the tattoos that covered her.

"Deeper..." she whispered to him. "Deeper."

[grosse-sklaven.livejournal.com]

It took a lot to make Adelheid acknowledge pain. He had endured much in his young life, and being a proud warrior, he rarely acknowledged those things which pained him in any way.

But those tattoos were painful beyond anything that he'd experienced. His cry of pain echoed in the greenhouse, and in his pain, his power activated. He blindly created a shield of his ki, his life energy, between himself and the ghost. After that, he started fleeing towards the door, clutching the side of his face with one hand and flinging aside the door with his other.

((To here.)) (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/465431.html)