The Heist [Open]

[Kagami Usan]

It seemed that both of the guys were trying to say they were better than they actually were. Talking about how they were different or strong enough to protect their happiness. It was obvious that they thought a little girl like her couldn't do such a thing, although they would be wrong. She was more than strong enough, she was away from her family after all.

Her family wasn't anything near kind to her. There was something that they just didn't like about her, probably because she was a halfling, and they felt she was cursed. That didn't matter to her anyway, not now, not that she was able to do what she wanted. "No one can tame me, or take my freedom," Kagami made her deceleration of protecting her happiness.

Once they started talking about technology, Kagami became lost. It seemed that the two of them knew quite a bit more than she did about it. The best she could equate it to was an enchanted item. Even if she got her hands on any, she doubted that she would know how to use any of it. Listening to his come back, it sounded as though Skye knew how to use Technology, with his boast of using a television in the past.

"Wait, you have a pendant? Can I see it?" She looked at the bird with expecting eyes. She wanted to see what kind it was. There was no chance that he would give it to her, and she didn't expect him to her. Really she just wanted to see it.

Kagami sat and waited for a response from both the guys. Aiden hadn't really spoken about himself, except for his mother beating him. Taking another small nibble out of the bread in her hand, she prepared herself to hear a story of some kind.

[Aiden Rhytek]

Aiden listened as Skye burst out. Maybe he'd had something to say about protection and “freedom” and how useless he thought the word was if you couldn't defend your own freedom, but the thought was gone the moment Skye admitted he knew what planes were. “You've never seen one? You have to, you've got to see one while you're in this world!” Aiden leaned forward and his ponytail fell over his shoulder. The expression on his face seemed more suited for an excited child than a grown man. “They are huge and made of steel. They carry people across the world in hours, hundreds of people. It's incredible! And they make the most delightful sight when they blow up. I saw one crash my second day here, and the flames were beautiful.”

“You know how to work a television...?” Aiden trailed off. Maybe he can come back to the Endless Realms and be my servant. I've never had one before, but he could just fix the television for me whenever I wanted to watch something. It wouldn't be that bad of a life. But even as he considered it, he knew it would never work. Gah, at the rate this conversation is going, he'd probably poison me in my sleep.

And then the conversation took a less pleasant turn. “Family heirloom, eh it might work,” Aiden said. The next question—what was he? It wasn't as if he was ashamed of what he was (rather proud actually, he'd worked damned hard to become one) but flaunting the knowledge all over the city. What the hell. He'd be back home in the Endless Realm by tonight, and no one except (maybe, his mind preened) another Eternal could hope to touch him there.

“I'm an Eternal,” Aiden drawled cheerfully. “I'm here because I haven't visited my homeland in seven hundred years. My father kicked me out of the hosue when I decided to utilize my considerable talents and become a magus. I never got around to going back, even though he's a mouldering skeleton by now. And it's not that the other realms are better, they're just...well if you fly around Sidhe, no one will bat an eye.” Aiden sat back down as Kagami asked about the pendant. It would be interesting to see how Skye handled that. Aiden didn't envy him, having that girl around. She was too self-righteous and stubborn, insistent that she didn't need any help no matter how bad the situation was. Just like a certain fae...? his mind chirped. Aiden squashed the thought ruthlessly.

[Skye Asherei]

Skye looked up at Aiden as he spoke. Were planes really that special? He hadn't had much interest in them considering that he could fly on his own, but the man's excited eyes made him wonder if he was missing something. They did sound a bit odd. How did humans make steel fly, anyway? And it sounded like they could move fast, too. Maybe he would have to check that out at some point. And perhaps, even though he could fly himself, a ride inside might be fun if he could get in. He dismissed that last thought, though, as soon as Aiden added the detail about flames and explosions. He'd pass.

"Err...yeah! Kinda..." He admitted, looking down a bit as the man brought up his claim about televisions. "I can turn one on..." He added, fearing that if he kept making it sound like he could do more that he might be asked to prove it. At least he'd said that his family heirloom idea might work, though. He hoped so...he needed to do something with it after all that trouble.

Skye's eyes widened, though, as Aiden answered his question. ...An...Eternal? That man was seriously an Eternal? And over seven hundred years old?

He'd heard stories about Eternals, but, as far as he knew, had never actually met one. Never thought that he would. He didn't know the details or a whole lot about them, but according to what he'd heard, they were powerful enough to wipe out the entire world in the blink of an eye if that was what they wanted.

He almost found himself inching back a bit, swallowing hard in spite of himself as he suddenly tensed. Maybe he should've acted a bit more grateful for being rescued...he felt his heart pound.

Still, he frowned a bit, trying not to look taken aback as he looked up at the man. "I...I don't believe you!" He protested, his nervousness audible in his voice despite himself. It was an easy thing to claim. True, the man did obviously have some magic, but it didn't seem to be anything like that. He hoped that he really wasn't now. If he was, what he'd just said might make him angry. He wouldn't want to make an Eternal angry.

"O...oh..." He sputtered, turning almost cautiously away from Aiden to look back at Kagami, remembering her request. "Umm..." He hesitated a moment. "I...I suppose, just don't touch it!" He added, not quite trusting of the girl. Still a bit shaken, he pulled the pendant out his pocket, holding it out for the other halfing to see.

[Kagami Usan]

Kagami looked at a distance at the pendant. The gem shimmered as Skye held it out for her to look at. There was a desire deep inside of her to have it, but she knew it wasn't to be. There was no possible way for her to get him to give it to her. He was going to sell it, and she had nothing to give him of equal value.

It was then that she returned her vision to Aiden, who explained that he was an Eternal. This fact alone was enough to keep her attention. She had never seen an Eternal in person, at least not to her knowledge. Inching closer, she looked up at him. "Really? You should do something that requires alot of magic."

It was a desire to see what he could do that made her suggest magic use. Though it would be more useful for her to save a little face. "You know, so Skye will believe you." The more powerful the magic he showed, the better in her opinion. Knowing full well the rumors of the powers Eternals hold, the desire to see how strong one was welled up. It was far too strong for her to even resist.

Now the only thing she could do was wait for Aiden to show what he could do.

[Aiden Rhytek]

Aiden's heart sank as the kids looked at him expectantly. They wanted demonstrations? Usually when people found out he was an Eternal, they just shut up and left him alone. He should have known better with these two. And Skye at least, didn't seem to trust him, regardless of the boy denying he was an Eternal. It was just his luck. Just. His. Luck.

“Working magic is hard in this realm,” Aiden said, and nearly winced at his own words. Gods above, he sounded like a spineless backpedal-er. “Because first I need someone to verbally state that the acknowledge me as an Eternal, and are aware of my power. Even after that, I'm not as strong as I should be.” He waved his hand and an oak tree a dozen yards off was struck by a strong wind. Bending as if in submission, the tree creaked downwards until its topmost branches brushed the ground.

“I can do basic wind magic,” Aiden motioned at the tree. “Simple things like flying, using the wind as a shield or a weapon. But in the Endless Realms, everything is so different.” His voice dipped, became almost reverent in tone. “We Eternals shape the Endless Realm to our whims. The power was like nothing I could have dreamed of as a simple Magus.” He dropped his gaze to his own hands, curling them into fists. “People die, but we can bring them back. They call us Sorcerers and Witches and Pariahs, but that doesn't matter. The potential is...I can't say what it feels like. The entire world opens up before you.”

Aiden shook himself out of his reprive. “But how come I'm the only one sharing, huh? Shouldn't kids speak and not listen? Or is it listen and be silent? I don't care. Cough up an interesting story.”

[Skye Asherei]

Deciding that Kagami had looked at it enough, Skye put the pendant back into his pocket. She'd had hungry eyes as she'd stared at it. He could tell that she wanted it, and was almost surprised that she didn't say anything or try to take it. If it'd been him...

Hearing Aiden's voice, he looked suspiciously back up to him as he spoke. Ha! Sounded like he was putting on a cover up instead of proving it. No surprise there. Still, his eyes widened a bit as the man spoke something about reviving the dead. Was that...really possible? An image of his late sister popped back into his mind. He didn't care how - if...there really was a way to bring her back... No. What was he thinking? He forced the memory of her face out of his head. Such thoughts were foolish. He'd never see her again, so what was the point in wishing that he could? Wishes that could never come true only brought pain. She was gone.

Putting on a confident grin as he brushed his thoughts away, he looked back up to Aiden. "All right then. I acknowledge you as an Eternal." Even as he spoke, he gave the man a look that still stated that he was unsure - after all, all he'd said was that he needed verbal acknowledgement, right? It was more of a dare than anything. "Can you give us a demonstration now?" He smirked, eager to see how he would react. "Even if you can't use all of your power here, if we verbally state that you're an Eternal, you should be able to do something pretty impressive, shouldn't you?"

A part of him was nervous. If he was an Eternal, what sort of thing would he do? He couldn't imagine that sort of power - it scared him, even if the thought was kind of exciting at the same time. Waiting, he stared up at the supposed Eternal. "I don't really have any interesting stories, but maybe then I'll try to come up with something..."

[Kagami Usan]

Kagami didn't have any problems believing that he was an eternal, but she just wanted a demonstration. Less of proof, more of a show that would be entertaining. They were some distance away from most humans, so she didn't have to worry about anyone seeing anything.

Aiden said that magic was harder to do in the human world, but even after he said that, he waved his hand and broke a tree some distance away. If that was his idea of weak, then Kagami was slightly worried about what he would consider to be strong. She still wanted to see what a full power Eternal, "And I acknowledge you too."

She really wanted to see what he would do. If he had the power to raise the dead, would he? There was no clue what he would do. Regardless, the anticipation was enough to make Kagami smile and keep watching him.

HE then said he wanted a story. "An interesting story?" Kagami was quite young and thus didn't really know of any interesting stories. At the very least nothing she thought he would like. Suddenly she remembered something from when she was a child. "OOH! Do you wanna hear the story of how I got up on the roof?" Aiden probably wouldn't find that story very interesting, but it was funny to her, in hindsight.

[Aiden Rhytek]

If Aiden had been the type to worry about the world, he would have been very worried now. Just look at these kids! Stealing jewelry from old ladies, daring Eternals to unleash their power---they'd end up dead or in jail before they hit puberty. But he wasn't the type to worry. So instead he smiled. Some people might call his smile predatory or feral—Aiden thought he had a perfectly nice smile however. They wanted a demonstration, and they had been brave enough to acknowledge him and restore his power. Why shouldn't he deliver? Maybe something interesting would happen as a result. Racking his brain for a display that would both impress them and keep him under the radar of the local humans, Aiden filed away the change in Skye's expression when he had mentioned his powers of resurrection. That would be a fun bit of knowledge to play with later. Had he lost somebody?

Throughout his musings, the wind began to pick up. Aiden was the Sorcerer of Winds and Sky, the only Eternal he knew to focus on a power so....concrete. The Witch of Ends, the Sorcerer of Lies and Heresy—he supposed those were very nice titles, but nothing beat the sky. Nothing beat flying across an infinite sky, or the inherent nature of the wind. He half-watched the kids as he focused on controlling the winds—they were slippery in this world, twisting out of his grasp if he didn't watch them. What to do, what to do? Something flashy, but not very dangerous for them...he had just the idea.

Snagging a breeze that had been dipping over someone's illegal barbeque a half-mile off in the park, Aiden pulled it towards him and twisted—perfect. A small firewhirl before him, growing in size until it was at least two dozen feet, all swirling red fire and ash. This wasn't pure wind magic, and took a good deal of effort in this realm, but it was pretty and threw off sparks. He wrapped an extra layer of winds around the flames proper and sent the creation spinning around the three of them in a circle, performing a few loops before extinguishing it and dispersing the winds.

“Beautiful, wasn't it?” Aiden sighed. “I love fire. Not as nice as winds of course, but very close.” Aiden had thought it was very nice, but kids these days were jaded. Especially these ones, he thought with a scowl. “What more do I have to do? Raise a tornado? I don't think the people of this city will like that, but--” He turned and smiled at Skye. Maybe it was pure coincidence that as he did so, a squall of wind blew in behind him, straight at the halfling. You couldn't blame Aiden for everything the wind did. Well, yes you could, but he wouldn't own up. “And you kids are far too young to need anything else, eh? Now how how about that roof story?”

[Skye Asherei]

Skye kept his eyes on Aiden as Kagami verbally acknowledge him, too, looking up at him expectantly. What sort of thing was he going to do? Anything at all? Noticing him pass a smile and start concentrating, he tensed up, waiting.

The winds quickly started picking up, swirling around them as a wheel of flame was suddenly dragged above them. Skye's eyes widened, dazzled and started at the sight of fire in the air as the burning wind stretched out in size.

He stepped back in spite of himself, briefly closing his eyes for just a moment as the whirl of flames suddenly started circling them, the boy feeling the heat - amplified by the strong wind - as it streaked past them. He gave out a slight, startled cry, but stifled it quickly, hoping that no one had heard as he watched the fiery wind perform blazing loops around them before it suddenly dissipated.

He looked up at Aiden again afterwards he spoke. He opened his mouth to speak as the man turned a smile toward him, but before he could say anything a sudden gust of wind appeared out of nowhere from behind, briefly knocking him down into the grass before he could react. Pushing himself up on his palms as it passed, he glared up at Aiden, finding it unlikely that it was coincidence. He didn't say anything, not necessarily wanting to antagonize someone with that sort of magic, but kept his irritated stare for a moment before sitting all the way up again. "Fine!" He eventually agreed, somewhat indignantly. "I guess I'll believe you for now." As pretty as it had been, he figured that an Eternal would still have more power than that. Still, he wasn't sure he wanted to see anymore power than that. He wouldn't have liked a tornado anymore than the people of the village.

Passing Aiden a last stare, he moved his gaze towards Kagami, waiting for whatever story she was going to tell as he dusted himself off from the fall into the grass.

[Kagami Usan]

Kagami felt the wind suddenly pick up, apparently verbally accepting Aiden was enough. It was then that a sudden, flaming wind surrounded them. This had to be some high level magic. The heat of the flames pushed her away from them and closer to the center of the circle.

Once the flames dissipated, the rabbit girl was looking on in amazement. "Wow, I've never seen something like that before." It was something that she had found truly beautiful, even though she had no way of repeating it. It was obvious that Aiden was telling the truth, even though Skye still had some reservations. "How can you say that?" she asked the crow boy. "Ohh, never mind." There was no point in arguing with him.

It was after that she realized that they were both looking at her. It must time for her to keep up her end of the bargain. "Oh, right. Well It happened about five or six years ago." Thinking back, she placed her hand on her head and scratched it a little. The motion didn't do anything to help her remember, but she did it anyway.

"My siblings just got done playing a game of tag. I went to join them and they said they were gonna make up a new game. They told me that I was a bird," then she took a small pause. Maybe this story wasn't the most pleasant for her to tell them after all. "And they threw me up into the tree. Then mom called and they left me in the tree.

"I managed to crawl over to the edge of the tree and jumped out and landed on the roof. Mom finally came out, cuz she was tired of waiting for me. Lets just say she wasn't happy that I was on the roof. I finally got down...and then she started chasing me with a frying pan. I slept in a hole in the ground last night." Kagami let out a small, tense laugh, trying to make the story sound funnier than it really was.

She then sat and waited for their reaction to her story. It was actually entertaining to her, looking back on it, but at the time she had been scared out of her mind. The one thing that she never figured out was why her mom had a frying pan.

[Aiden Rhytek]

Aiden smiled at the crow halfling as he stood up and brushed himself off. Skye still didn't seem to believe him, but that didn't really bother Aiden. He supposed he should have been a lot more indignant that his power as an Eternal was being so blatantly spit on, but one halfling's disbelief couldn't erase the basic truths of the world. But life would be much more pleasant for Skye if he never met Aiden in the Endless Realms. He'd like to see how far his wings could carry him then. Enough mental pleasantries though, no matter how nice the images were. Kagami still owed him a story, didn't she?

Turning his head towards her, Aiden listened to her tale. Had that been her childhood then? It didn't sound like a very pleasant time for her, though the girl forced out a laugh at the end. "Forgive me if I'm asking a dumb question," Aiden said. "But--no offense--I've never interacted very much with halflings. I know one pure shifter who's a friend of mine, but that's all, so I want you to clarify something for me. Are you the only halfling in your familly? Were they an average family except for you?"

[Skye Asherei]

Ignoring Kagami's brief comment, Skye sat and listened to her tell her story.

He just blinked, bewildered by her tone and slight laugh at the end. She thought being abandoned by her siblings and chased with a frying pan by her mother was funny? She really was strange. It wasn't like he'd never endured similar things - at least from his parents - but he'd failed to find humor in any of it. Before he could make any comment, though, Aiden spoke up again.

"That's the way my family was." Skye inputted to his question. "My parents and my older sister were normal, and I was born in this realm! I was normal too until age four." After all, halfings were just pure shifters who'd failed their first transformation and gotten stuck as a half-breed between human and the animal they would've been able to transform into - hence the many 'defective' comments he'd received from pure changelings. "That was when I instinctively realized that I could shift, I think." It was hard to recall anything from such a young age - what was left was more vague images and fragments of feelings. "Or at least, I thought I could shift - I ended up getting stuck like this. My parents completely freaked when they found me! It's not like they were great parents to begin with, but nothing like how they became afterwards. We had a lake outside our house, my mother pushed me off the dock shortly after and tried to drown me" He shivered at the memory.

"It was my sister who saved me and convinced her not to kill me. She protected me from my parents, but...she left me... She disappeared three years later." All that'd ever been found was blood - too much blood. Sometimes, even though it didn't really make sense why she would've been the one killed, he almost suspected his parents, as unrealistic as he knew it was. "It only got worse after that...they kept me captive in my own home. I heard rumors and eventually ran away to the halfling towns in the other realm after that."

Not that he'd liked the halfling towns, much. In the time he'd spent there, he'd forgotten most of what little education he had about this world - he'd been kept apart from the world to the point where almost everything now was still new to him - but he'd never really wanted to leave it.

Realizing that an eye had started to water, he quickly turned away and wiped it. Why had he told them all that for? That'd gone beyond just answering Aiden's question, and it hadn't really been addressed to him necessarily to begin with. He'd gotten swept up and lost track of his own words. He regretted now, feeling embarrassed. Oh well, did that count as his 'interesting' story, he'd said something about that too, hadn't he?

He quickly turned back to Kagami, hoping her response to Aiden's question came quickly as he waited.

[Kagami Usan]

Kagami listened to Skye's response to Aiden's question. There were things that he said that were scarily familiar sounding, if a bit extreme. Her mother had never truly tried to kill her. At least, she didn't think so.

As she looked Skye as he told his story. He turned to her, thus signaling it was her turn. "Well my family was a little different. I'm the youngest of about ten or so. It's hard to keep up with so many coming and going, buuut that's not the point." She honestly assumed that was how many siblings she had, at most there were ten in her house at once. None of them were ever introduced to her, so she figured that they had to be siblings. They could have been cousins, but if her parents had as many siblings as she thought she did, they wouldn't know half their nieces and nephews.

"It was so long ago, that I don't even remember when I first tried to shift. I don't even think that my family knew I was a halfling. They always said i was 'cursed' or something like that, but they never called me 'broken' or 'defective'." As she said the insults that were most common to halflings, she looked to Skye to make sure that she was using the proper terms. "Either way, it was obvious that I wasn't as well liked as my siblings. They were always doing things like pulling my ears or hair." Even as she said it, she unconsciously grabbed some of her hair and ran her fingers through it, to make sure it was still smooth and unmatted.

"Up until about six months ago, I just lived with it, thinking that was the only place I could be. But, after a while, I figured if my older siblings could leave and go places, than so could I. The next day I left. Looking back, I should have thought to pack more, but I seem to be doing okay." She tried to keep the unimportant details out of the story.

Once she told her story, she realized that she had said way too much. He only wanted to know if she was the only halfling. She felt that it was due to the familiarity of Skye's that she had said everything that she did.

[Aiden Rhytek]

Aiden listened intently as the halflings told their stories, perhaps shared more than they realized or had meant too. Both their childhoods put his to shame, he supposed, but Aiden didn't feel guilty. If his grief had "less cause" than theirs, that didn't make it any less painful to him. Everyone had to carry their own burden. Even Damaris, he supposed, must have some sort of hurt that she carried. Hmph. It would be death to try and coax it out of her, Aiden decided in a huff. Stupid, proud fae.

Well, what could he say to the kids? Good job, you ran away from home just like me! Someday you too can ascend to near godhood and discover that being immortal isn't very fun! Hah. As if they didn't already doubt his status as an Eternal, they certainly would after he pulled that. And bringing up his past would just make him angry and the kids...he had no idea. Would they accuse him of running away from his responsibilities, as he had once been told? No idea, and it didn't matter very much to him. What was done was done. He should at least focus on what he could deal with.

"Do you have any idea where your sister might have gone?" He asked Skye. "If she's in this world, the winds will be able to tell me if you can describe her and give me her name. It will take some time though." Not wanting to leave Kagami out, he looked at her as well. There wasn't much he could do for her, though. His powers couldn't fix emotions or dispel hatred. "Er..." Inspired, Aiden reached up and untied his hair ribbon. His blue strands once again cascaded over his shoulders, recalling memories of his mother's nickname for him: Hime. Her beautiful princess. Infusing the red ribbon with a swell of his power, Aiden handed it to the female halfling.

"I mean if you're in trouble or something--doesn't matter which realm--just say that you need me when you're holding that ribbon at the same time. You'll get help." Aiden paused for a moment and then added: "Really serious trouble. I don't like being bothered very often."

Pfft, he was getting soft. Next he'd been inviting both of them for dinner and tacking on nursery rooms to his house for them. Stupid kids.

notes: sorry for how late this is. i really need another computer :/

[Skye Asherei]

Skye blinked a bit when Kagami mentioned her siblings. Ten brothers and sisters? He'd loved his sister, but he couldn't imagine ever having that big of family. He wondered what that would've been like. Though considering that she was a halfling, probably not well, he figured. His thoughts were confirmed as the rabbit girl continued telling her story, perhaps slipping out more than she'd meant to like he had.

So her family hadn't even known that she was a halfling? Thinking about it, he wasn't sure that his family had, either. He'd heard plenty of 'defective' type comments from pure changelings and other races, but his parent's choice insults had been things like 'bad omen' and 'devil child'. Had he even realized what he was at first? He blinked, suddenly trying to remember when he'd first realized what he actually was, but somehow finding himself unable. Maybe the knowledge had come instinctual with his first, and only, shift. He didn't know, but perhaps it would have been better if his parents had been able to learn what a halfing actually was - they'd almost acted like they'd feared him. But, then again...his parents had never been great, and he doubted that they ever would've been.

"H...huh? My...sister?" Skye blinked, looking up at Aiden in surprise as the man's words abruptly knocked him out of his thoughts. "I...I don't know, I'd always assumed that she'd..." Considering the blood and signs of a struggled that they'd found, both him and his parents had always believed that she'd been killed. And...she wouldn't have just left him, would she? If she possibly could've - if she was still alive - she would've come back, wouldn't she...? But...what if she'd been taken prisoner? What if she was alive, but being held captive?

He gave his head a brief shake, trying to clear his suddenly wandering thoughts. He'd accepted her death long ago. At, the same time, though, he looked back up to Aiden. If he really was an Eternal, it wouldn't hurt to take him up on his offer, would it? What reason was there to turn it down? "I...don't know what happened to her...but she had dark hair and pale skin, relatively tall...she was a lot older than me..." He momentarily paused, trying count in his head. She'd been fifteen when she'd disappeared, back when he was seven... "I think she'd be twenty-one now. Her name's Sophitia. Sophitia Sylestine Asherei. Is that enough?" He looked up at Aiden, hoping that he recalled enough details. It was so long ago now...

He looked over and watched as the man let his long blue hair lose, handing the ribbon that'd held it up to the other halfling. So...now he was going to be sort of like her personal guardian? He blinked, for a brief moment almost feeling left out. Pfft. He didn't need a help like that anyway! And besides...searching for his sister had been the supposed Eternal's offer to him. He kept reminding himself that it would probably prove pointless, but still...he felt oddly nervous about what he was going to hear.

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Notes: No worries^^