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Alternia (Second Timeline)
updated 10 years, 4 months ago
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161
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-Zembra trekked across the sand into the forest and smiled as she knew she’d be guarded now if the sun rose. She made her way towards the mountains near the forest and read her logs. She then typed as she went.
AM: The land is fine.
AM: I feel like a fish out of wwater.
AM: 8ut what is wrong with your lusus?
AM: I can hear the screeching from here.She weaved through the trees and made her way to the foot of the mountain. She looked up and sighed as she started trying to climb up.-
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Trollian flashed a few new messages, humming a catchy jingle from an adventure movie. The lusus immediately pin-pointed the noise and began clacking up the stairs to its charge’s respite block.
SS: -> I like t0 w0rk eaarly in the m0rning 0n vaari0us pr0j%s, aand frequently l0se traack 0f time.
SS: -> My lusus gets frustraated when I f0rget t0 eaat becaause 0f w0rk
SS: -> It aals0 d0es n0t help that I wish t0 bec0me aa vegetaariaanThe talonbeast lusus entered the room and gazed about, tilting its head and using its superb sense of sight to locate the young troll charge. Yet another experiment lay unconscious but miraculously void of bruises in the pens, clear proof that Skvaada had not been merely asleep but willfully neglecting meals in favor of that bizarre and disturbing hobby of hers. Glass shards and pink fluid were scattered across the floor, and there was an enormous crack in the middle of the desk, all pointing towards a frustrated young troll. Letting out an angry screech, the lusus waited for one moment before taking hold of the drapes in its curved beak and in one deft stroke tearing down the juvenile fort.
SS: -> Well, jaazz.
The next instant, the angry lusus plucked Skvaada up from her position hunched over the keyboard of her husktop with a white beak and began shaking her around. “Stop! Stop! Unhand me at once!” The lusus refused and dragged the young troll back to the food preparation block before releasing her and flexing a wing pointedly to the uneaten food.
“No! I’ve told you time and time again that I do not approve of eating wild creatures.”
The avian lusus merely screeched again, this time pointing to the prey it just brought back.
“You have to stop! It’s fine if you need to eat those things, but it just burns my biscuits when you bring them back to the hive like that.”In response, the lusus batted at Skvaada with a wing. The blow wasn’t strong enough to crush bone, but packed enough force to knock over the troll. This descended into a short strife between them. The lusus’ downy feathers absorbed the force from any bare-handed blows Skvaada could deal, and the wing bats served to punish the young troll for not paying sufficient attention to her defense. By the time the strife was over, the indigo blood was exhausted.
“Oh swizzle sticks. You win this one.” With a contrite expression on her face, she cracked the eggs into the one remaining glass and threw the meat onto a cooking apparatus.Appeased, the lusus left and then returned with Skvaada’s husktop so she could continue trolling her friends.
“Thanks, Tobias.”
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-Zembra kept climbing the mountain and typed back:
“AM: Take it your lusus got you, 8ummer.”
Zembra climbed higher and got about halfway up to the hive. She saw it ahead but had to stop for a moment. She decided to look at her log and typed once again.
“AM: You still alivve?”
She took a deep breath then resumed climbing up the mountain, her goal right in front of her. She pulled herself up and eventually got to the hive, sitting outside the door and instead of knocking or anything, she typed.
“AM: Hey land dwweller, guess wwho is outside.”-
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SS: -> Y0u’re here aalreaady?
SS: -> Excellent timing
SS: -> I will be there m0mentaarilySkvaada made to peel herself away from Trollian when Tobias, that dratted lusus began kicking up a fuss at the neglected meal. To appease the talonbeast, she quickly slurped the egg yolks down with a grimace before wiping her upper lip off and setting the glass down (carefully!) into the sink and then rushing down a long and elaborate hallway for the door to the hive.
Curious, since the young troll never had any friends over, the lusus followed behind. It’s talons made a loud clicking noise as the beast took flight and rested in a perch overhead.
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-Zembra sat outside, hearing the noises inside of the talon beast and noticing the last log sent. “Close Trollian logs for activve chat,” She spoke to her computer and it obeyed. She stood herself in front of the door and brushed off her dress a little bit. She stood at the ready with her hands behind her and her computer still on over her one eye, just in case of other replies. She blinked a couple times as she waited for the door to be opened for her so knocked once or twice out of courtesy.-
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Skvaada opened the double doors to the hive, thankful her sunglasses shielded her eyes from any traces of the Alternian sun. Catching sight of the troll, she broke out into a small smile.
“Hello! Come on in, come on in! Welcome to my hive.” She quickly got out of the way to allow Zembra easier access. “I’m afraid everything is a bit stuffy in here. I haven’t bothered to clean in a while.”
The hive consisted of a long hallway with many sets of spiraling stairs branching off. Some curved downwards, leading to rooms deep into the depths of the mountain while the others curved up to the higher levels. All of the windows were tinted a deep blue to combat the scorching bright rays of the Alternian sun, but the underground rooms were still clearly the more heavily used. Lining the hallway were mounted specimens belonging to Skvaada’s collection of hatched fiduspawn beasts. There were quite a few which could not have possibly be obtained naturally since they sported a hodge-podge of appendages and features all bordered by a faint line of stitching.
“Well, to be honest, I’ve never actually had anyone here before. I could show you around if you like, but there isn’t much. What is your hive like?” Skvaada asked, feeling just a bit self-conscious.
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-Zembra came inside and looked around. She smiled a bit and turned back to Skvaada as she was asked. She placed her hands in front of her and feld them. “Your hivve is really nice. If my lusus wwasn’t my lusus it could be better. Most of my hivve is under water and everything has to be pushed to the sides because my lusus will either eat it, break it, or get hurt. My real room is a royal mess, but it has all my materials and computers.”
She thought for a second and said, “Oh, and I wwas making a metal scythe and wwas wwondering, if you’d like to test out the metal? If it is strong enough I could make the utensils out of that metal but I’d have to get it and that means dealing with my pissed off lusus.”
She shuddered at the thought of going back to face her lusus. She resumed looking around while staying in place.-
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Skvaada blinked, feeling a significant amount of platonic pity for the seadweller. Not all lusii were great care-takers, and it sounded like she had a particularly uncooperative one. While she was struggling to formulate an appropriate response, her guest asked another question about her scythe metal. In response, the indigo-blooded troll replied, “Certainly. I would be happy to test this metal for you…”
Skvaada trailed off when she noticed Zembra’s slight shudder after mentioning her shark lusus. “I would be willing to go back to your hive with you, if only for moral support. However, if you don’t want to go back immediately, that is also perfectly fine. I have some troll adventure movies we could watch in the entertainment block.”
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-Zembra smiled a bit to Skvaada and said, “Most wonderful~! Though a feww movies sound really good before going.” She thought a second before continuing, “Do you havve The male who takes a peek into the opposite room and finds his moirail going flush with his kesmisis and jealously attempts to win her back over by faking flushed feelings for a psychotic male that lives on the other side of the planet but it goes awry when his kesmisis sets up traps and tries to send him on wild goose chases to only find that at the end of the goose chase there was no other male and the kesmisis tells him the only way to get his moirail back is to aquire an artifact that was long lost to society and he has to go back to the other side of the planet to find the ruins get through the booby traps and get his moirail to be his matesprite? I knoww that wwasn’t the wwhole title but you get the drift.”
She blushed a little bit and tried to cover herself up for it, “I really liked the part wwhen he gets the relic and gets shot with spearkind and arrowking. It is a bit entrancing.” She pulled her long black hair over her face.-
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With a large amount of exuberance in her voice, Skvaada replied,” Oh my, I actually DO have that movie! With any luck, it should still be in the movie player! If you get the movie started, I’ll make us some popcorn.” She flashed a toothy smile before descending one of the stone stairs to the right and gesturing for her guest to follow suit. “I built my entertainment block down here.”
The block was fairly simple and like most hives was mostly grey in color, with some decorative carvings in the wall giving the room a sort of primitive temple or dungeon kind of feel. The block had no windows but a few electric torches lined the walls for illumination. There was a scanty amount of furniture in the room, a medium-sized television screen complete with a disk player, a couch with stone carving along the sides and furry cushions along the interior, and an antique popcorn popping cart.
Skvaada immediately went to turn on the popcorn making machine and add the uncooked kernels, knowing full well that there was a 100% chance of the movie still being in the player. After watching that movie for the first time, she had enjoyed it so much that the risk of taking it out and accidently damaging the fragile disk was not worth the benefits of seeing other movies. So instead, she tended to buy entirely new movie players for each movie. She had about fifteen in total.
Tobias, the avian lusus fluttered downstairs, with a tray on its beak. Balanced on the tray was the remaining glass and some salt. “Thanks,” Skvaada said, accepting the tray carefully. Doing little things like that were its way of apologizing, and all in all the talonbeast did make a pretty good lusus.
“Do you like salt on your popcorn, or no?”
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-Zembra followed Skvaada down to her entertainment block. She looked around even more awestruck than before and tried to figure out which player it was in. She then saw the Talonbeast and smiled as she first responded then asked, “Yes, I love salt! And is that your lusus~?! Seems so precious!”
She started poking the players to figure out which one it was and stopping them when she got them wrong. She then gave up and went over to the Talonbeast, looking to pet the head gently. She knew that a bird would rather eat a fish than be pet by one but she was more than willing to take the chance.-
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The bird fixed Zembra with two beady and wary eyes as she approached, its crest raising up in alarm at the presence of the fish resembling troll. Her feathers ruffled as the newcomer troll approached, and Skvaada took her eye off of the now popping snacks to keep an eye on her lusus just in case. For a brief moment it looked as though that hooked beak would lash out aggressively and leave in its wake a fresh splash of violet colored blood.
Then, the beast’s feathery frill relaxed and the tense moment was over. Skvaada returned her attention to the popcorn cart, using the remaining glass as a scooper, and Tobias closed her eyes happily and accepted the proffered hand. If the seadweller tried anything, she would rip the troll to shreds, but otherwise, preening was preening. Besides, it was good for her young charge to interact more with other trolls. Talonbeasts may be solitary creatures, but social interaction was necessary for a developing troll.
Having finished scooping the popcorn, Skvaada brought the popcorn glass over and then noticed the lack of progress on getting the troll movie up and running. “Oh, I apologize, there are a lot of players. It should be this one,” she said and began to start up the movie.
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-Zembra smiled and continued petting the lovely lusus of her new friend. She smelled the popcorn and heard her speak about the movie player. She patted Tobias once more before taking a seat near Skvaada and prepared to watch. She spoke in a light tone, “Your lusus seems really tame. I was scared I would get eaten.”
She took a piece of popcorn, not really having such before due to water making it soggy and enjoying. She heard a voice and looked around then face-palmed as the creation of the spontaneous voice wasn’t there. She stared at the screen and watched the male troll caressing his moirail in jest. She blushed a bit and said, “Oh that poor girl! She doesn’t know what’s coming!”
She giggled to herself like a little schoolgirl before covering her mouth and silencing at the sound of another voice. She shook her head to knock it out of herself and took another piece of popcorn to munch on.-
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Skvaada chuckled in response as she took her place on the couch, “Not tame, just well trained.” She decided not to mention that she had been worried too for a second. “She knows not to pick fights with highblood trolls, even if they are seadwellers.” Probably full on seadweller lusii anyways…
When Zembra startled briefly at the start of the movie, the land dwelling troll gave her a strange look. Had she ever seen a movie before not on her computer? If so, that was an absolute tragedy, that must be fixed! Then, of course the movie started getting good and all of
her attention was focused on the events unfolding upon the electronic screen, as the protagonist’s kismesis began devising all sorts of mischief and ruin.“Oh, nooo! Don’t fall for that! That’s the oldest trick in the book, and you’re how many sweeps old!?” Only the fact that the young troll had company over kept her from angrily flinging popcorn in the general direction of the screen. Despite her vocal complaints, the indigo blood had a grin on her face as she twitched slightly, anticipating the newest string of kismesis induced catastrophes.
Meanwhile, the pale lusus had lost interest in the movie and stalked over to the popcorn cart, sniffing it curiously as if wondering why any creature would choose food grown in the dirt instead of fresh meat.
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-Zembra smiled as she heard the yelling at the kesmisis and giggled a bit. She took the popcorn and threw it at the TV after seeing her twitch. “Take that ya 8loody sno8!”
She giggled in having fun but was definantly appauled by the ongoings of one of her favorite movies. She also noticed the lusus seem confused but threw a piece over to see if it’d try it. She turned her attention back to the movie and watched the Kesmisis sneak in and takes a look into a journal of the main protagonist’s private thoughts to find what he likes.
“SNEAKY 8ITCH!” Zembra yelled at the screen as her fins seemed to spread a bit like a frilled lizard. She even looked half about to fight the movie. She was so easily wound up by it she was inching towards it and would need held back eventually or an outlet for the pent up energy.-