damned_institute | Night 46: Main Hallway, 1-West

Entry tags:

Night 46: Main Hallway, 1-West

[from here]

Beatrix had walked this path to the Sun Room so many times, she could do it in complete darkness. Which was exactly what she was doing. Knowing the way, there was little need for light as it would only draw creatures and other unwanted attention. Silently counting her steps, at the right number, the assassin headed left and down the hallway.

[to here]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yuna was glancing behind her again as she ran, aiming the light behind her, and when she bumped into someone, she nearly shrieked at the thought it might be another fiend.

She flailed as she started to fall, but managed not to drop the light and her other hand caught something—an...arm? and as she straightened, she aimed the light up, and seeing that it was a someone and not a something, tugged on that arm she'd caught, gasping out, "Fiend!"

Meche, who'd been paying more attention to her hosiery than to what was going on in the hallway, started as someone barreled into her and grabbed her arm. "Wh-what?" she shot back. Fiend? At first she thought the girl was calling her a fiend, which struck her as a pretty lousy way to make friends around here. But the way the girl was gasping and holding on to her the way someone who'd just been thrown overboard would cling to a life preserver clicked a second later. Meche's head whipped in the direction she must have come from, but she didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Whatever it was, it was gone now.

She hadn't thought the monsters turned up this close to the patient blocks. The new knowledge didn't do much to curb her anxiety.

"Shh, you're safe now," Meche said soothingly. Confident that this was at least sort of true for the moment, she looked down and realized that the newcomer had spiky brown hair. Hadn't their teammate said--

"Sora?" It could be; they'd agreed to meet here, after all. She bent down slightly to get a better look at the girl's face. No, this was someone she'd met before. "Yuna? Where have you--" she started. Halfway through she decided that wasn't really the important question here and changed it to, "Are you all right?"

Safe? But—

Yuna turned to look behind her, and after a beat, turned the light that way so she could actually see. But...nothing was there?

"But I—" Yuna started, turning back to her mysterious someone. "Umm, Sor...?" Was there someone else here? Yuna shone the light around to check, and then up at the ceiling and then down at the floor, in case the fiend came springing up from the ground or down from the ceiling. From her brief glimpses of it, it'd looked like the ground was more likely, but.... "Yes, I'm Yuna," she answered. "I'm...I'm all right." Except for her rapidly beating heart but she was used to that.

...Wait a minute. "Umm..." Deciding that shining the light directly into her mysterious someone's face would be more than a little rude, Yuna flailed the light somewhere close to her mysterious someone's face, belatedly realizing at the same time that she was still gripping her arm and hastily let go. "Have we...um, have we met?"

More importantly, what about the fiend? Yuna directed the light back. Still nothing? What if it had attacked someone else? ...Oh dear.

"We can try to go back and look if you want, but I'm afraid I probably wouldn't do much good," Meche admitted ruefully. She had the three-foot spear, but she was still holding it awkwardly, trying to keep it out of anyone's face. There were a lot of people who were better at fighting than she was; hopefully Alita or someone had already come along and punted that thing into next week. With luck, it'd just crawled back into whatever hole it had come from.

Yuna was relaxing now, so Meche moved back and tried to let some of the tension out of her body too. Maybe she should've done some stretches or something if they were going down into the basement.

"I'm not surprised you don't remember me. I think we only met the once, that day in town the..." She had to think back to when it was. "...week before last. Remember, we were looking at the horse with Senna?" Meche gave the girl a small smile and waved one hand (the one with the spear, oops) in an "it's nothing" gesture. "Well, it's really not important. I'm Meche."

That wasn't good, was it? Yuna didn't feel comfortable involving people if they didn't want to. Still.... Yuna folded her hands around the light tube thing. This was indoors. Kagura and Ritsuka had told her that monsters came out at night, but it made her uneasy, not dealing with the fiend. YRP would occasionally flee from fiends, but usually in caves....

And, er. "...'Remember'?" Yuna looked up, aiming the light back up. "Um..." Oh, hi, spear. Yuna tilted her head at it while she puzzled over her memory. She'd been in several towns last week (although Luca probably only really counted as a "town"), and she'd met lots of people all over but she'd remember someone who spoke to her personally. Although...what was a "horse"?

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Yuna responded. The beam of her light jostled as Yuna reflexively tried to move her hands behind her back and stopped herself because, well, the light tube thing was in them. She awkwardly moved her hands back to where they were.

"Um, were you going somewhere, lady Meche?" Yuna had been, kinda, and there wasn't much of a reason to go out at night, was there? Especially with fiends running around. But with all the other pinpricks of light she could see, maybe a lot of people had reasons....

Obviously she didn't remember at all. Meche tried to keep the unease out of her expression--Yuna's not remembering who she was was one thing, but it sounded as though she was even more lost than that.

Come to think of it, that had been the same day Meche had met Peter.

Something told her she knew what was going on here--Peter, Hitsugaya, and Yuna all fit the same pattern. But she didn't have time to dwell on it now. Yuna was right: she had a job to do, and she needed to get back to it. The flashlight was reflecting off a long swath of white that turned out on closer inspection to be Soma's hair, and next to her was a boy with spiky brown hair who must be the real Sora. Oh, no. Only a few minutes into the night and she was already holding everyone up.

"Yes, I was. I'm on an assignment for one of the clubs tonight," she replied. "Will you be okay by yourself now that you've got your breath back?"

Yuna wanted to ask about this 'clubs' thing, but lady Meche was busy! And Yuna was still worried about that fiend. Not being able to do something was one thing, but. ...She'd worry about that if she got there.

"I will!" Yuna made herself grin. No reason to make people worry! "Lady Meche, um...good luck. With whatever you're doing." She wanted to add 'be careful', but...it sounded like Meche had been here longer, and anyplace that had fiends (and people carrying spears!) went without saying, didn't it?

She'd seek her out tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow in this place and Yuna wouldn't be whisked someplace else.... But she'd get there when she got there! "May we meet again?"

"Thanks." Meche squared her shoulders and grinned back, hoping she didn't look as apprehensive as she really felt about this assignment. "Hopefully I won't need it, but believe me, I appreciate the thought."

She was just turning to go when Yuna spoke up again. "Oh, of course! I'm not exactly swamped with pressing things to do during the day, so I'd be happy to talk anytime." Meche glanced back toward Soma and Sora. "For now, though, I'd better get going. Take care, Yuna."

With a last, hopefully reassuring smile, she turned and started off towards her teammates for the night.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/779336.html?thread=64225864#t64225864)]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Night 46: Main Hallway, 1-West

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject