i generally refuse but i go along anyway (OPEN)

[chimerad]

Characters: Some loser with blue, rocky skin and some winners of the mixed bag variety!
Setting/Location: Outside of the mighty ogre rickshaw and not too far away from that thur Sleepywoods settlement
Date & Time: Day 1, early afternoonie
Warnings: You tell me *eyebrow waggle
Summary: No way am I loadin' my one-ton ass onto an oversized mulecart

Comments

[chimerad]

And suddenly, the very aggravated, very blue man was no longer alone.

Footsteps were not a hard thing to hear from faraway with those pointed ears of his, but such a thing required attentiveness-- attentiveness which was currently being sidelined by the mounting frustration of each and every failed or misfired spell cast as time wore on. Of course, Zelgadis was not the sort to blame his own shortcomings on being caught unawares; he would blame the girl. Or the moss underfoot. Maybe that still mildly-pleasant echo of his. Probably mostly the moss. It seemed the safest bet, least likely to offend.

Regardless of the reasons behind being surprised, that's what he was. Before Mega Brand! escaped him, there was that gentle, female voice. His Mega Brand became more of a "Deh--?!", which wasn't exactly his idea of a cool and dignified response to company. His shoulders drew up stiffly as he turned his head to send a sharp, accusatory stare in the voice's direction--a very who dares disturb my agitation? thing to do. It almost immediately dissolved when he beheld the young girl (he was never quite so good at dealing with the sort, you see).

Under the mask, Zelgadis opened his mouth to come up with something more coherent than Deh-?! in reply, but that sound was interrupted by another voice. Older, more nonchalant. Offensive. Was this a not-so-secret gathering place that nobody told Zelgadis about? Instead of a reply, his mouth clamped shut and his teeth began to grit.

He turned his head to glare out of the corner of his eye at the woman making her merry, roundabout way over. Though he'd never fault himself for such casualness among strangers (especially someone so mysterious and armed as himself!), her air was unappealing. To her remarks, only the slightest hmph he could grunt while settling curled fists against his hips.

[tattoosandropes]

No longer able to cast spells...? So those things he'd been shouting were spells, like something out of a novel. But wasn't this whole place like something out of a novel?

"That's unfortunate," she said, a bit sadly.

Sensing tension out of the strange (blue?) man, Miku felt a little uncomfortable. (Was that really blue skin she'd glimpsed, she wondered, or was she just imagining things? Blue... Like Reika's tattooed skin. That thought made her shiver.)

"Do you know him?" she asked the woman quietly.

[dissentive]

"I do not," Morrigan replied, finding another tree to lean back against, behind the hooded man. "I was simply drawn here by all of the incessant shouting." She canted her head to one side, amber eyes sliding between the man and the little girl. "Indeed, it seems all of us have been affected in some form by these strange lands."

She focused once more on just the man, eyes narrowing briefly. "No need to stance yourself so firmly," she commented, smirk curling at the right corner of her lip. "I mean you no harm, stranger."

[chimerad]

Zelgadis never did like it when people talked behind his back. This was a...slightly different kind of talking-behind-his-back, to be certain, but he interpreted it quite the same. Already quick to judge, he turned a quarter of the way to keep an eye on that Morrigan who he only knew as Possible Trouble. The other girl, well...despite having fought (and been quite killed) by monsters parading as young, charming children, Zelgadis decided he didn't need to keep a wary eye on that one.

"In some form," he repeated, wary. "You mean to say that it's not just magic that's been tampered with?" A brief, fleeting thought brought upon a twinge of agitation in his gut: So if things are so different, why am I still in this body?

[tattoosandropes]

Were Miku a mind reader, she would have sympathized heavily with what Zelgadis was thinking. If things were so different, why was she still cursed? But Miku was not a telepath, and so the only thing she could tell from Zelgadis was that he, at a first glance, seemed to be a somewhat hostile person--judging by how he appeared to be reacting to Morrigan, anyway.

Morrigan, on the other hand, had an air of confidence about her--confidence that Miku could have only dreamed of having. There was courage and there was confidence, and Miku had come to realize it was possible to have one and definitely not the other.

"I don't see why it would be just magic that's been tampered with," Miku interjected softly. "Our senses could have been affected, for example." She couldn't speak from experience--all in all, her five (six, really) senses seemed to be in functioning order. Well, that was a probably when it came to her sixth sense. She hadn't seen any visions yet, but they were sometimes an uncommon occurrence. It really depended on the day.

[dissentive]

"Magic," Morrigan retorted, "is certainly such a thing. Guile and strength, however, prove to be a certain other - but they are all, never the less, the same. 'Tis our capabilities that seem to have taken some form of a repression, indeed - and you nor I are the only ones. Just as the forest is mute, so too are we ourselves." She remained still against her claimed tree, arms coming to fold across her chest once more. Morrigan had seen enough of the other's struggling to call upon the powers they once had to know that they could not be blamed for the infallible ability to make fools out of themselves. Indeed, 'twas a larger force that quieted them all - Cid Amon himself, perhaps, for protection. 'Twas something she could believe to be true enough. She herself would not stand to share home with foreigners who had unrecorded abilities - yet the power alone to repress every single one of them had to be massive. Indeed, much like the same force needed to send them all back to their homelands, if such as promised.

Though Morrigan was more likely to believe that the latter was simply not true. She nodded towards the girl in muted agreement. "The child could very well be correct."

[chimerad]

The ladies offered up their thoughts and observations and Zelgadis offered up a less prickly stance as they went. Thoughtful talk got him to thinking, and he certainly was no idiot about negation and other magic cons. It was a problem to be hashed out over the course of that first day when all that Lina Inverse could manage was the saddest hover of a Levitation spell. When that was the best that he could muster, however, problem-solving took a back seat to let's-just-fire-off-everything-and-hope-something-works.

Perhaps it was now time to think again, he thought.

"There's anti-magic barriers and curses that come in different scales," he mused, that overly-judgemental pose of his slacking. "Even Seyruun was designed as a barrier to the Mazoku, but from this level I can't tell if there's something similar built up. If I could fly up high enough to look..." Well, he couldn't, so saying so was stupid. His sigh was more of a huff.

He wanted to say that the gods and demon lords didn't apply here. That this was a wholly different world with no attatchments whatsoever. It would've been so much easier to blame that instead of something else he'd have to hunt down and beat up to fix it all (though that was appealing, too). He couldn't, though. Xelloss was here. That meant Mazoku had a role, and if there were Mazoku, there were the demon lords.

Which meant, basically, he was screwed. And that soured his expression and tone yet again, sour as it all was already. A walking, talking lemon folded his arms.

"That Cid, then..."

[tattoosandropes]

"I'm not really a child," Miku felt the need to (politely) mention to Morrigan--perhaps the slightest bit insulted. She wasn't a child, she was an adult--she'd gotten more self-sufficient, hadn't she? Or did she still seem like the timid, withdrawn girl she'd been two years ago? Was she still so timid, so withdrawn...?

Miku felt a chill when Zelgadis mentioned 'curses'. She knew he wasn't referring to what Reika had done to her and Rei and that Yoshino woman, and to so many others (had Mafuyu and Yuu been cursed too, trapped within the Manor of Sleep?), but it bothered her nonetheless. He continued on, however, and Miku had to mentally shake off her unease at the word and continue listening. Flying, he mentioned, as though he were once capable of it...

"Miss Diana said that Mister Amon didn't have anything to do with this," Miku told Zelgadis quickly. "I don't know how trustworthy she is, but isn't it something to keep in mind?"

[dissentive]

"Certainly, let us trust the words of those we know not," Morrigan said dryly. "'Tis seemingly the theme of our travels." Diana's words or not, she would be keeping all others - and certainly this Cid Amon - at arms length. Even the child could be of suspect, though that was certainly less likely. Morrigan could not feel much touch of the Fade from her. "Perhaps it is indeed a barrier," she continued to muse. "Or perhaps 'twas a poison slipped to us. Indeed, we shall be depending on the caravan for food - quaint, is it not?"

"Perhaps one should question Amon further," Morrigan stated, fingers tapping on her chin briefly. "Indeed, such queries as to the witch of Loophole in question would prove to be most useful - particularly, why she seems to have such power, whereas we have been so thus... diminished."

[chimerad]

Morrigan's sarcasm resonated quite well with Zelgadis (who was ready to say virtually the same thing, sans the 'tis); his judging look was just slightly less sour, but only just. She seemed intelligent, but knowledge was power, and power could easily be made an enemy. It was suddenly a comfort to know he wasn't the only one suffering from some mysterious force-- even more comforting to know that he still had that one-ton sword swing to back him up, regardless. He felt he could afford a bit of confidence in that respect.

But he hadn't thought about the food. His judging look suddenly gave way to that, stretching a comical grimace with a half-second half-squint that became wider, oh shit eyes. Lina Inverse was probably gorging herself at this very second, and even she couldn't Ray Wing to save her life.

Oh, shit indeed.

The notion of the witch wafted into thought during that moment of oh shit, giving him something less damaging to focus on (he was getting hungry, after all). While shifting weight to his other leg, Zelgadis considered this Loophole witch and the missing magic...

"Might be getting drained. Somehow..."

[tattoosandropes]

"...I didn't say we should explicitly trust Mister Amon, ma'am," Miku clarified, doubting that Morrigan would actually listen. "But I don't think that we should accuse him either--not until we have solid proof. We should be wary, of course, but..." with that, she trailed off.

"I tried some of the food from the inns," Miku assured them. "I'm still alive, aren't I?" she laughed weakly, mainly because she knew that the way Reika's curse was going, she wasn't going to be alive for much longer.

Powers getting drained, and a witch with immense power... Miku had experience with losing powers before, but that hadn't been caused by a witch or a suspicious man. She decided to stay quiet, and would see what the other two had to offer in terms of theories.

[dissentive]

"Would you not be alive, were you not sustained by some sort of otherworldly force?" Morrigan questioned, eyes immediately focusing upon the girl. Indeed, 'twas not unheard of - the old hag, indeed, was thus sustained by the spirit within her. Yet, without magic, no body could sustain much of anything of the Fade - benevolent or no.

"Curious, indeed. 'Tis fortunate for you that our powers have not fully been depleted. 'Tis merely more difficult to call up the spells upon which I have been most adept for some time," she mused, splaying her fingers out before her, looking upon them curiously before turning them inwards into a fist. "Yet, were it of a draining force, I do not expect them to last much longer."

[chimerad]

Being more prone to listening than speaking didn't make him particularly good at listening--just better at it than speaking. His poorer listening skills started to surface in the face of heavy thoughts: the notion of being drained of magic was starting to take priority over the conversation about the notion of being drained. The 'tis lady certainly wasn't without fairly decent input, keeping half of the hooded man's attention where it ought to be while the other half started up the Wild Speculations Machine again.

"A talisman, maybe," he murmured, unfolding his arms just enough to let a hand settle fingers on his chin. "Or a marked zone...Something big."

The thoughts drifted into mind and trailed out as words, and as the words wafted away in one direction, Zelgadis started drifting in the other without so much as an excuse me for the ladies. Quite a force of habit: most folks didn't want him around for conversation anyhow.