SHAMELESSLY STEALING IDEAS FROM HEDGE

[twin-fans.livejournal.com]

Fleischheim. It's a bustling medieval metropolis, possibly a port or trade city of some kind, surrounded by massive walls. In the center is a fortress, the home of the ruling authority of the land. It's an old-tech place, one where people who claim to have magic are believed, for they may or may not be telling the truth, alchemists yearn to transmute lead into gold, and guards in chain mail and knights in plate keep the peace.

Your characters are now in this place, as visitors or citizens. If they're not human, they are now. If they're superhuman, then they're merely the stuff of legends here, be it through skills or amazing physical prowess.

Go.

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[lilyofthedrills.livejournal.com]

Yuri is a refugee from the far eastern islands. It is said her village was destroyed by rampaging oni (http://x00.xanga.com/f5fc2a0179533171161099/w129910357.gif). Yet a small, sarcastic red one dances on her shoulder and tells her to hold back her tears. Perhaps the magically sensitive might see it.

The merchant vessel she worked her way away on has no more need of her. She sits in the marketplace, uterrly alone, having nowhere to go and a rumbling stomach. She has no money and neither the skill nor the courage to steal.

I won't cry. Bougu will be mad at me if I cry.

[twin-fans.livejournal.com]

Kazami wanders through the marketplace, out of armor, snagging an apple and tossing a coin in the direction of the vendor. He eats it as he roams, wandering and wondering at the same time. It's a peaceful place, for now, he believes. Perhaps it's time to join his brotherhood outside of Fleischheim? Maybe...

He finishes the apple, tossing it over his shoulder, and sighs, hooking his thumbs into his belt. By pure chance, he spots a young girl, an Easterner like himself, alone in the crowds. She looks a little down. He watches her for a moment, then turns around.

Once he is properly armed with a pair of sweet buns, he makes his way towards Yuri. "Ho, there." He grins and kneels, offering a roll to her. "This isn't a place for one such as yourself to be alone, child."

[lilyofthedrills.livejournal.com]

Yuri looks up at the knight, her countryman. The buns make her stomach rumble and she swallows saliva. She can hardly believe it when he holds one out to her.

"Th-thank you, kind warrior." She says in her native tongue before taking a bite almost as big as her small mouth. It takes her a bit to chew and swallow. "I d-don't have anywhere to g-go..."

[twin-fans.livejournal.com]

He sits down next to her and watches the bustling crowds. Thoughtfully, he chews his own bun. "Don't choke on it." He doesn't have anything to drink on him.

Kazami looks down at Yuri with honest concern in his face. He obviously can't see the little devil on her shoulder. "Nowhere to go? What's wrong? Do you not have family near?"

[lilyofthedrills.livejournal.com]

Yuri shakes her head and tries to eat more slowly, fighting against the clawing of hunger at her gut. "M-my village was destroyed by oni. I escaped on a merchant ship but they have no more n-need of me..."

[twin-fans.livejournal.com]

Oni? Demons, in the terms of the lands he now lived in. His own family had been killed by bandits posing as oni. His two elders had aided in killing them all, but... An actual oni?

Kazami stares at her, face crumpling a little as he considers her situation, then loosely loops an arm around her and pulls her close. "Don't worry. I'll help you." He is a knight, after all, with a sworn oath to aid those less fortunate than he. Could he really listen to a story like this and say that he deserved his title?

[lilyofthedrills.livejournal.com]

That kind gesture is all it takes to open the floodgates and on come the waterworks. In a few minutes, Sir Shiro's hauberk will be soaked with tears, even as Bougu admonishes her about being more careful around strangers. "H-how?" She finally manages.

[twin-fans.livejournal.com]

He strokes the back of her head as she cries, looking up to try and figure out an answer, even before she asks. It's important for a child to get these things out, he knows.

"Well..." He ponders for a moment. She's too small to be a squire, and there's no place for a girl on the battlefield anyway. But... Suddenly, he grins broadly. "How are you with horses?"

[lilyofthedrills.livejournal.com]

"I ah, I don't know anything about riding, but animals all like me..." Not so much Bougu, but he could stay home in his box.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

A young man sees her, a young man in ragged clothes, with calloused hands and a face darkened by the sun.

Johan Albetez had been born a poor boy, the son of migrant workers from lands to the south that are full of sun and near the desert. His family settled in the big city a few years back, his parents hoping they can work hard enough for their children to have a better life--that he might have a chance to be apprenticed in a trade.

But he's taken to his own trade at night, wearing a blue mask, when the murderers and cut-throats roam the streets, and made a pretty penny from the rewards of turning some of them in. All of it is saved for his family and for his future. He wants to be a knight, or perhaps one of the city guard. In his wildest dreams, he sometimes imagines what it would be like to go to university, to be learned, and perhaps be a physician. But dreams are dreams, and at best all he can hope for is that his parents are taken care of in old age, that his sister has enough of a dowry to be married into a good family, that he can be apprenticed to a blacksmith or shoemaker so that he can provide for his own family.

At night, though, they call him the Blue Spirit, for how he spirits in from nowhere. They curse that--and his cleverness. He spends far too much time (when he's not working) with the mechanist down the road, and he's learned so much. How to read even! But most of all, how to fight in ways that outwit his marks.

He smiles a little when he sees the oni--and he does see it, for the blue spirit-creature on his shoulder, a little chittering thing that looks almost like a bug, gives him many gifts. A second sight for things unseen by others is one of them.

"Your little friend looks hungry," he comments, kneeling near the little one.

[lilyofthedrills.livejournal.com]

Yuri looks up at the tall (to her), kind, dark stranger. He has the look of one from the lower city but the honest smile of a knight from a storybook. She trusts him instantly, but Bougu bares miniature fangs at the mushi-bake on the boy's shoulder. Another onimiko? But they could only be girls and they did not have such things in the western lands...

"We b-both are..." She says in shaky Common, trying to keep herself composed.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

It's his marmeño. He had put a pin's box over a bramble, the day before St. John's, and looked inside when midnight struck, just like his old grandmother had taught him.

Time and time again, he'd tried it and always looked at just the wrong moment, or blinked, but one night, he had looked at just the right time, and the little mengue had been inside. It's a tricksy little thing, with a malicious sense of humor, but it had served him well, and been taught kindness over time. They are very close now.

But Khaji hisses back at hers and Johan laughs at the two.

"I guess they don't like each other, but they'll have to deal with it. Would you like some food? My ama will be cooking supper soon."

[lilyofthedrills.livejournal.com]

"[Bougu, it is troublesome if you are rude!]" She admonishes the creature on her shoulder in her native tongue. "R-rearly? I oh thanksu you so much..." She replies, her Common dissolving as she tears up again, this time from happiness.