BENEATH SHADOWED BOUGHS

[abaxmods]

"Sleighbells ring, are you listening? In the lane snow is glistening... A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, walking in a Winter Wonderland..."The eerie melody echoes through the quiet, snowy streets. A single line from a song so familiar to some, and yet there is no festive cheer that accompanies it. It whispers through the park, carries across

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Cheetara | not intending to visit tree | OPEN

[guardsthecrown]

Cheetara had little more clothing than usual to shield herself against the cold; just the dark-green, wool coat she'd taken from a shop, and a few extra strips of cloth wrapped about the balls of her otherwise bare feet. The coat she wore more for its color than out of need, which only coincidentally provided camouflage against the evergreens of the park. She had fur enough on her legs to keep them warm when she was still.

Cheetara had been warned against the tree by several others in broadcasts, but the park itself was something she wanted to see. She ran through the border between districts, where previously she would have been displaced back where she came, a green and gold blurr. Only when she stopped in the park, did her feet sink into the accumulating snow. A set of three short sticks was strapped to her back with hand-stitched lengths of lingerie elastic.

She ran again, stopping short at the edge of the lake. That eerie feeling was there, as others had warned. Cheetara reached behind her back and slid loose one of the sticks. In her hand, it shifted length to a staff equal in length to her height. It wasn't magical itself, like her last one, but she'd held it long enough to change it with her own power. And, she didn't need an enchanted staff to test thickness of ice, anyway.

That's two of them trying to avoid that tree. B|

[snowwhitesoul]

Rukia couldn't believe how many people insisted on seeing the tree up close, despite the warnings given about it. Despite how much she'd pleaded with Ichigo and Shiro to stay away there were on the opposite side of the lake somewhere, firing off Getsuga Tenshos at the tree.

Idiots.

Which is why Rukia is there, trying to circumvent the lake border while buffering herself with a layer of her own reiatsu as she shunpos along. To go stop her stupid, idiotic, hard headed, absolutely stubborn companions from hurting themselves, due to whatever malicious presence was in that tree. But coming out of the treeline, Rukia has to hit the shunpo breaks to keep from colliding into the Thundarian at break-neck speed.

Cue the huge divot of snow and a yelp as a tiny shinigami materializes out of high speed movement to nearly crash into the ice herself.

[guardsthecrown]

Cheetara had been watching the display of fireworks coming from the other side of the lake, the sort of reddish wheels being the latest addition. She was struck directly by the shower of kicked-up snow, and slid one foot onto the ice, and held her staff perpendicular to her body to keep her balance.

She felt someone was there, before she cleared snow from her fringe of hair to see Rukia. "Rukia?"

Cheetara mentally pieced together what had just happened. "Spirits do move quickly." This didn't bode well for her race with Shiro.

[snowwhitesoul]

Rukia's Kuchiki pride was more dented by her ungraceful landing than anything else. In her landing, she'd managed to crouch down and stay on her feet, but she'd definitely cut a path through the snow.

"Cheetara-san?" Shaking the snow from her own hair, Rukia rounds on the poor pedestrian she'd nearly crashed into. Her face flushes pink in embarrassment as she bows her head in apology. "My apologies, I didn't see you."

Then, standing up straight again, she glances at the tree and the presence that seems to dominate her whole spiritual sense, she gives Cheetara a confused look.

"What are you doing out here?"

[guardsthecrown]

Cheetara was about to answer, but found herself disoriented, as if she'd had the conversation before, but couldn't quite remember how it ended. Her attention was caught by a dull glow from the snow-coated ice beneath her right foot.

Slowly, she took a step back, unknowingly minus one small memory of why she'd recently taken to liking the color green.

Cheetara lifted her eyes to Rukia. "Right. Rukia." She smiled then, in full recognition. "I was testing the ice. It looks like some others walked onto it, and Arcee had been concerned some might fall in."

She looked across the frozen lake again. She had a sense of that presence, but the tree seemed to be physically brighter than a short while ago.

She remembered something she had meant to say."Is it your custom to use titles?" She asked, as she looked to Rukia again.

[snowwhitesoul]

Rukia manages to pull her own gaze away, Sode no Shirayuki chiming in her head. But why, though? Her zanpakutou wasn't necessarily chatty, but she only ran like that when Rukia needed to pay attention to her. Laying her hand on the pommel of the sword sticking through the belt that keeps very baggy slacks lashed to her waist, she gives Cheetara a nod.

And like that, a memory of a pale white boy kneeling to zip up a boot on her foot for her evaporates like water.

"Titles indicate familiarity and intimacy, as well as status. Some are not comfortable with them, so if you don't wish for me to use one..." Because politeness dictated that she go with whatever makes this new acquaintance comfortable.

[guardsthecrown]

Cheetara smiles in what she supposes to be - at least among Thunderians - the appropriate amount of politeness, which doesn't show teeth. "Were one of us in the other's kingdom, I would know whose customs to give weight. But, being here, I can only say do as you will. By my custom, it doesn't matter, if we're alone. I wouldn't address my King or Teacher in front of the court, the way I might when we are among close companions."

She's quite practiced at switching between being the King's Guardian Cleric and Lion-Os confidant.

"I feel like I was going to say something-"

[snowwhitesoul]

"I think that is a fair agreement," Rukia conceded. In such a cosmic melting pot as this place, who knew what kind of culture clashes might occur? Best to avoid as much unnecessary strife here. But something that Cheetara says pricks at her thoughts.

"You said something about a court? And a king and teacher? You must've been highly ranked among your people." Rukia didn't know that Cheetara was possibly a noble lady among her kind. There might be some deeper bows towards you in the future Cheetara.

"Oh, something about the tree...?"

[guardsthecrown]

"Not in the sense of noble birth," Cheetara insisted, "I was without clan when I was a kitten. But, I met a friend who helped me find the Clerisy, and to stay strong enough to pass their tests. It was only then My Teacher accepted my into the clan of the Thundercats, and I became his pupil and a Cleric."

She smiled fondly at the memory, still remembering both Tygra and Jaga very well. "It's been my honor since to serve the royal family." The corners of her mouth turned down. "Until I arrived here, without our King or Prince."

"Was it the tree?" She asked. "I have a strange feeling I was going to say something about Tygra, but I can't remember what it is. I don't even know why I would talk about such things. Maybe it was the glowing lights."

Cheetara dropped to a crouch, near the edge of the ice. "It's not like the train station, here. Something's different." She spoke to someone there, but as the glowing orbs gather near her hand, she can't quite recall her conversation with Nathan Drake.

[snowwhitesoul]

"Ahh," she mused as she watched the Thundarian kneel down at the lake's edge. "It seems we have something in common. Though, I would say that the shinigami an the Gotei Thirteen do not serve a king, even if we do have one, supposedly."

Mentioning the tree again makes Rukia turn her back once more, remembering that the tree was...bad. Yeah, something like that. Inside her head, Rebecca Crane's encryption code she'd made for her slips away into the recesses of the lake.

"Who is Tygra?" she questioned, parts of the earlier conversation already slipping from her grasp. "What was the train like? I've heard people speak of it, but it was all before I came here, so I'm curious about it."

[guardsthecrown]

"Oh? You had some other life or position before you became a shinigami?" Cheetara wasn't sure how it worked, for all she knew, Rukia might have been created or born as she was now.

Cheetara looked up from the ice to the tree, and back to Rukia. "Tygra? He's King Lion-O's brother, and he's a friend, who gave me- a flower." But, even though she remembered knowing Tygra for many years, she had trouble picturing what he had looked like last she saw him. "He was shy and kind, as a kitten, and rather cute." But, what did he look like now?

Cheetara stood and put a hand to her head. The orbs at the edge of the lake drifted away beneath the ice. "The Trains. I noticed them on the first day I was here. I got out of the hospital, and I went down into the station. There was a bulletin board there. And-" The conversation with Nate was already gone from her memory.

"But, I know I talked about it with Arcee, and later with Edmund and others. The presence seemed to ebb and flow through the district, but we figured, it was connected to the train schedule Edmund sent out. Whatever it was, was with the trains. Until that contact that hurt everyone."

[snowwhitesoul]

"Shinigami are trained, and many candidates come from the Rukongai - the Alley of Loitering Souls - who happen to have enough spiritual power to require food to sustain them. Some, usually officers, are from the noble families in Seireitei. My first memories were of Inuzuri, the seventy eighth southern district." Inuzuri was also a hardscrabble, lawless, filthy slum. No place for an infant, much less the roving bands of children who pilfered and stole to survive there against the cut-throat adults. "I applied to the Shino Academy to become a shinigami and was adopted by my brother there."

"He reminds me a bit of Renji," it seems their stories were even more alike than thought. "What is he like now? Have any tattoos?"

Yes, that was a joke.

"So it moved from the trains to the park, and right as that district opened up, no less." Tapping her finger to her lips, "Has this happened before? That presence causes that outlash and then a new part of the city appears?"

[guardsthecrown]

Cheetara took what facts she could from Rukia's account: a place with alleys, districts, area where nobles dwelt; candidates, academies and training; and adopted families. It was curiously parallel to Cheetara's own past. The Lizard Wars had left many orphans in Thundera, and they too had their slums, outside the city walls, or royal district.

"Renji must bee a good friend. Tygra's still kind, and shy; he's My King's adopted brother." They were both, like Rukia, adopted into noble standing. But, even as she Cheetara explained this, she realized that visually, she really couldn't remember what Tygra looked like, now; tattoos or not. Another time, she might simply have responded with a joke that he had stripes, but even knowing he was of the tiger bloodline, didn't help her see him!

Her eyes widened in full realization of the loss. "Rukia! What spell is this? I can't remember what Tygra looks like!" Her fingers rose and covered her mouth. "I kissed him," she said at a whisper, "and I don't know his face!"

She wasn't consciously thinking of the tree or the presence which had transferred there with the opening of the park, but instinctively, she stepped away from it.

[snowwhitesoul]

The parallels were incredibly alike. Rukia's childhood was not the result of a war, more as it was simply the way Soul Society was structured. When passing over, souls were randomly assigned districts in which to live, which meant it was as likely that a child would end up in the first district - lawful, clean and peaceful - as it was they could end up in Zaraki: the eightieth and most violent and anarchic district of all. Seireitei itself is barred to those from the Rukongai, only shinigami and the highest ranked nobility.

"I've known him for a very long time, we were..." The magic of the lake tugs on her mind again and the name of the district she once roamed slips away from her as it dies on her tongue.

"Cheetara-san..." Her panic rises in her throat along with the Thundarian. "We need to leave, it's the tree." Rukia reaches out and grabs her shoulder, trying t push her along. "Come on!"

[guardsthecrown]

Cheetara was certain Rukia was right about the tree. The presence hadn't stolen memories when it came and went with the trains, but now, here, that tree, or the presence behind it was taking things from their minds!

She moved quickly, holding her staff at her side, as she ran. She didn't know how far its power reached.

"It's been affecting our minds all this time," she called.

[snowwhitesoul]

Rukia becomes a blur as she follows Cheetara, finding the forest path she took to arrive here. She's not going to stop until that wretched presence fades from her senses.

"And everyone who has ventured here...!" There was no telling who or how many had lost memories to this trap. "How do we reverse this!?"