Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 7, 2008 13:23:21 GMT -5
Xiu sighed. He reminded her so much of a babe of suckling age, needed to be poked and prodded into place. Xiu had had children before, with foxes, with mortals...all long dead now, of course, both her mates and her offspring, but the sense of mothering was constant where not much else was. Just like a little child, if a tall one. "What are you that you would not endeavor to learn this before you come!" she said, fighting not to roll her eyes, before feeling a sense of guilt that she might have shamed him so.
She steadied herself for replying as evenly as she could, releasing his wrist. "It is not so cruel," she said, voice softer, apologizing without speaking the words to do so. "Those who inhabit here conjure up the food through their own power, their own energy. In consuming it you consume that power, taking it inside of you. It is not done to ensnare you; I should think it is done for rather benevolent reasons. But you do not want to devour this darkness, lest it devour you in turn." She paused and glanced around, then waved in the direction of a tiny, slight, elfin-looking girl with black paint on her lips and a glittery black gown. "Lady Zilia," she said, "is one of the oldest and most powerful personifications of darkness there is. And we are not to be harmed at her parties, as guests. But if our own foolishness - " here she met his eyes sharply - "entraps us, she will not be given to charity."
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Post by Tsuzuki on Dec 7, 2008 20:47:34 GMT -5
"I didn't know!" Tsuzuki wailed, but quietly, arms wrapped behind his back to prevent himself from eating it regardless. "I just got the invitation when I was out the other night! Some dark figure in a cloak gave it to me! I didn't know that things like that could be done to sweets...and they looked too yummy to be evil..."
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 8, 2008 10:17:31 GMT -5
What a very sad figure. Something ought to have been done about him. Xiu pursed her lips as she considered this and then ducked under the table with a formal bow, stepping out on the other side in a way that might have been comic if she hadn't had such stiff, gliding movements, giving the appearance of a odd, formal ghost, the kind that can turn its head all the way around on its neck like a top.
She placed her hand in the crook of his elbow and led him away from the table as gently as she would lead a child. "Poor silly thing...and they're not evil...They're made through the power of those who inhabit this place and exert no influence over them, if they're the ones eating them... There are many other things to do at the party besides, if you're careful."
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Post by Mercutio on Dec 8, 2008 10:55:54 GMT -5
Tsuzuki deflated, giving a soft sigh as he let himself be led away. No food, and treated like a child by a kitsune- had he been the type to analyze himself, he might have been ashamed, but Tsuzuki often acted like this and had an unholy terror of self-examination. At the very least she was a gentle stranger, not like Tatsumi, who was scary and who would have scolded him 'til he cried. To be fair, he would have cried to make Tatsumi stop scolding him, but the comparison simultaneously warmed him to Xiu and made him homesick.
"What are you doing in Paris?" he asked, trying to distract himself. "You're very far from home." Ironc, for his own heavily accented French was certainly not local. "And- oh! I'm sorry, kitsune-san, my name is Tsuzuki." Unsure of the ramifications of giving a fox his full name, he only gave her his last; but it was to be expected that, if she knew the Japanese culture, and she must, she'd have called him by it anyway. Tsuzuki hadn't been called 'Asato' in years.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 8, 2008 11:13:31 GMT -5
Paris, where Xiu had come with a Chinese immigrant who had some desire to escape the old ways in leaving for France...what a surprise he'd had when he had found the fox prints on his floor. He had been a pretty boy, a scholarly one, very anxious to please a spirit as old and powerful as she was. But when he married a second-generation Chinese girl, Xiu had been kind enough to back off and seek other distractions in the city. There were more than she'd thought, but her way of life was slowly dying and the industrialized west made things even more difficult.
Xiu had no trouble with last names, being East Asian herself. Unlike most, however, Xiu gave her first name, as it was her last name, which meant Fox, that always gave her away to mortals who asked her, and she had often to be wrestled into revealing it. "Paris has become my home," she said in a bland tone of voice, features carefully expressionless. "I am Xiu. France is not so terrible once one becomes accustomed. The cuisine can be, on occasion, really marvelous. You will not have sampled the best example of it here, I imagine. Where in Paris do you find yourself lurking?"
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Post by Mercutio on Dec 8, 2008 11:28:44 GMT -5
( Sorry i'm still posting as Mercutio. I'm at school and can't switch over, given my sneaky posting. )
"I'm not really sure," Tsuzuki admitted. "I can't understand all the French names. I was staying at the - um, it's not a French name, i think it's...Ber- no, the Bates motel, but then a vampire tried to eat a friend of mine and so I'm looking for someplace new. Everything's so expensive! I'd rather buy food than stay someplace nice, and I can't do both or Tatsumi back at home will hurt me- he handles the money accounts for the office- so I might stay where I am." He gave a short bob, still trying to be polite. "It's a pleasure to make your aquaintence, Xiu!"
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 8, 2008 20:06:10 GMT -5
Xiu would have grimaced if she were more inclined to reveal her feelings on her face, which she wasn't. He was like some large ungainly puppy...well, that was terrible imagery for a fox-spirit. She felt very greatly burdened with him and she was not entirely sure she could bring herself to mind it.
She tilted her head at a deep angle and considered. "I cannot help," she said after a moment of consideration. "I myself sleep as a fox in public gardens and the like. If you would like, I can tell you where and give you permission to call on me for assistance, whatsoever I can give. I can doubtless find my way around better than you, at any rate."
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Post by Tsuzuki on Dec 8, 2008 20:18:28 GMT -5
(( i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/alex_shinigami/TsuzukiAsato_1.jpg)) Tsuzuki blinked. "You don't have to help me, I didn't intend...I mean...that's very kind of you." What a nice fox...maybe the legends had been wrong. Not that they were very clear in the first place, but he'd still thought to be wary, even if it hadn't lasted long. The thought that she might be tricking him in some way never entered his mind- unless given reason to suspect otherwise, Tsuzuki tended to think the best of people. "You have a noble spirit."
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 8, 2008 22:08:37 GMT -5
((...aww.))
Xiu nodded very deeply, eyelashes long in an almost demure fashion, but her whole demeanor very calm and deceptively unperturbed. Large ungainly child indeed. Well; she supposed he was pretty enough. She reached up a hand, stretching on her balls of her feet in a canine way to reach, and brushed away a longish strand of hair that had strayed from behind his ear. Her hands were pale and cold as rose-water, and to her his skin seemed hot and feverish.
"Yes," she said, not narcissistically, but not with affected modesty in the least. "I do. And you have a naive one. Who is your friend in Paris?" She did not ask to make small talk; her only intention was to discover whether or not he was as foolish as Tsuzuki himself was. If he was they were both in for a great deal of trouble, for Paris was crawling with the paranormal. Her voice was soft and gentle, but had a vaguely throaty, almost hoarse sound to it, for all its melodic qualities. And if she raised it it could sometimes sound very like a bark.
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Post by Maria van Helsing on Dec 9, 2008 4:47:55 GMT -5
*Maria frowned, contemplating the woman's offer.*
"Thank you for offering, but I really couldn't. I'd only make a fool of myself and maybe step on your toes. I really couldn't."
*She smiled, though her cheeks turned somewhat red. It wasn't just that she couldn't dance, Maria was also very weary of letting her guard down. After all she was in the lair of the beast and how knew what kind of person, or thing the lady really was.*
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Zilia
- Masterful Virgin -
Life is a party. Death is, too, once you get the hang of't.
Posts: 20
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Post by Zilia on Dec 9, 2008 9:47:19 GMT -5
Zilia smiled brightly and took a step forward, hands still out like a supplicant to show she meant absolutely no harm and was not being shady in the least.
"You really could," she said, voice almost a dove's coo. "Very likely could. It doesn't hurt." She held out her hands as though begging to be given something she had just asked for. Up close, she was even more petite, more childlike, more inviting. "Come, now, you know no one can be harmed at these gatherings, don't you?"
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Post by Tsuzuki on Dec 9, 2008 21:01:24 GMT -5
((...aww.)) Xiu nodded very deeply, eyelashes long in an almost demure fashion, but her whole demeanor very calm and deceptively unperturbed. Large ungainly child indeed. Well; she supposed he was pretty enough. She reached up a hand, stretching on her balls of her feet in a canine way to reach, and brushed away a longish strand of hair that had strayed from behind his ear. Her hands were pale and cold as rose-water, and to her his skin seemed hot and feverish. "Yes," she said, not narcissistically, but not with affected modesty in the least. "I do. And you have a naive one. Who is your friend in Paris?" She did not ask to make small talk; her only intention was to discover whether or not he was as foolish as Tsuzuki himself was. If he was they were both in for a great deal of trouble, for Paris was crawling with the paranormal. Her voice was soft and gentle, but had a vaguely throaty, almost hoarse sound to it, for all its melodic qualities. And if she raised it it could sometimes sound very like a bark. (( Well, it seemed too ironic to pass up. )) Tsuzuki swayed back a little. Blinking, he gave a fleeting, nervous smile, almost a twitch, purple eyes looking large and startled. Tsuzuki was by large a physically affectionate person, but he didn't know Xiu very well, and her act of tucking the hair behind his ears only served to make him notice how lovely she was again and exactly which wrist it was she was holding. The other, the arm on which he wore his watch, moved back a little to hover behind his hip. "A girl that I met on the streets- an elf. An orphan. But I haven't seen her for weeks." Tsuzuki hoped that the girl's former caretaker hadn't caught up to her. Wild had been beaten, abused, dirty and scared when Tsuzuki had found her and torn her away from her bastard of an orphanage director. If the man had somehow managed to capture her again, and if he was treating her like before, Tsuzuki wouldn't be able to help getting angry. But he'd checked all the orphanages he could find, but hadn't seen any sign of Wild, and unable to read French very well he couldn't tell which ones he was missing. It was depressing, in a way- he missed her big eyes and lovely singing as she'd straightened up his room when he steppe dout to get her some food, but he couldn't have taken her back to the Meifu with him. He'd hoped..he could have found somewhere for her to stay.
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Xiu
- Masterful Virgin -
Fox in the snow%\1\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Xiu on Dec 9, 2008 21:17:59 GMT -5
He was a big overgrown thing, but a charming one. Xiu continued to walk along passively, the sussurrations of her robe hard to hear unless she was paying rather specific attention to them, and she was, as a matter of fact, as she found it to be centering. She did not like to get caught up in parties, particularly not here, at the Chateau. She had gotten into enough petty fights here, with fox-faced messengers and other fairies and all sorts of things in general, to know better about it now. Not that she was acting like she was the kind of personage to do those sorts of things now - she rather deliberately made herself all the more elegant and serene-seeming for the benefit of Tsuzuki.
"Ah," said Xiu, for, although she was not certain that elf would necessarily share many of the traits of Xiu's temperament, she was some distant relation to that kind. "Certainly she will be all right. But if the vampire attacked only her and not you, is there not some chance of your returning to the motel? Vampires I know well enough, and their like, though; perhaps pride will endanger you if you run into that vampire again." She mused on the problem a little less seriously than perhaps she ought to have, but that she was troubling herself with anyone else's troubles was a good enough sign.
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Post by Tsuzuki on Dec 9, 2008 22:09:11 GMT -5
Tsuzuki frowned. "I really hope so." And, "Yes, I probably will. He was scary, but I don't think he was very interested in me." A thought occurred to him, perhaps an inappropriate one, but she'd been nice to him and maybe wouldn't mind.
"Do you...don't you get cold as a fox, at night, if you stay in the parks? If you've been here so long- and I've heard the winters are very cold."
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Post by Roxanna on Dec 9, 2008 23:17:25 GMT -5
*Roxanna entered, smiling at the sight of Maria. She came over to her, smiling seductively both at Maria and her female companion.*
"Go on Maria, give it a try."
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