Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Lutetia City: Merveilleux

Aoife sniffed at the ground a bit before looking up to Alysa. She sat on her hind legs patiently, before bobbing her head twice, showing her agreement.
 
She looked at the duo intently as she processed the whole animancer thing.

"It sounds like they don't exactly have very good morals if they wish to force the dead who may be resting at their hand's command. I personally would hold high offense to such a call if I were a spirit. At least necromancers hold a little more decorum by just controlling the body, leaving the soul to rest where it lay." She said thoughtfully in a soft tone of voice. She offers the duo before her a soft smile and looks to the man.

"So, not to sound rude and it really isn't my business I suppose so you don't have to answer me..."She said softly, attempting in making eye contact with the man. "Why are you leaning on her? I always thought women swooned not men." Her voice held genuine curiosity in her question but turned to a slight note of tease toward the man to try to get more information and feel for him.
 
"That's a Black Animancer," said Oriane. "Regular animancers do so with permission. They have a lot of respect for spirits... normally."

At the woman's second inquiry, Ruben grit his teeth. Oh, now that angered him. Whatever energy he had left from feeling the effects of the violent death and expelling the contents of his stomach from witnessing the outcome was being funneled into that anger.

"Yeah, who the fuck are you to speak? You don't fucking know me."

"Ruben! Please."
 
She flinched at Ruben's sudden outburst and looked genuinely confused at him for the statement.

"I don't know you, it is true. But I wasn't stating I felt that way about you. I was stating how I felt about a necromancer. Only way that should be any..." She stopped, her eyes widen in realization as to why he had been so quick to offend. "Oh, my apologies...I...I didn't realize you were." She lowered her gaze slightly embarrassed to have angered him. "If it...uh...makes any difference...thought I doubt it will. Oh hell...I don't tell just anyone this. But I did unintentionally out you in a sense. I...am...a witch." With that she looked up at the two, waiting for the disdain to be apparent in their eyes like she was so accustomed to seeing.

She looked from Oriane back to Ruben, waiting for them to respond.
 
Aaro sat on a bench outside of a coffee shop in Merveilleux, an open book in his lap. The proselyte looked tired, disheveled, grim - his brows drawn low over sharp, watchful eyes. Every now and then he looked up and scanned he passerbys. A sword was strapped to his hip - Mia's.
 
Jimmy didn't know whether or not the danger had passed, but when Aaro called him and asked him to meet at the coffee shop, he couldn't turn him down. He had taken taxi as far as they would go before hoofing it the rest of the way. His fingers ran through his hair as he moved through the crowd, eyes watching every single person, not wanting to be jumped or anything. After a few minutes, he spotted his roomie and relaxed a little, glad that Aaro was alright. Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, he kept his head down, still not back to one-hundred percent.

"Aaro...?" Jimmy slid down into a chair, glancing over towards the Proselyte before spotting Mia's sword. His chest clenched up and he sighed hard, knowing that there had been a lot of loss with all the attacks happening throughout the city.
 
The proselyte raised his eyes, a small smile touching his face as he saw his friend.

"Jim," he rose, closing the book, "I wasn't sure if you'd make it."

Aaro was in uniform - the high-colored military jacket and slacks of a proselyte. It was unusually well-kept, lacking the wrinkles his uniforms usually sported, neatly pressed and fitted to his frame.

"You doing okay?"
 
Jimmy took note of just how perfect Aaro's uniform looked and found himself frowning a little in disbelief. What had he missed? Was it just because of the attacks or did his roommate get taken over by aliens? Shaking his head, the Proselyte stretched himself out, not sure what to say or even how to act, which bothered him.

"Well, I would never turn down a coffee invite from a friend, so of course I'm here." Grinning a little, Jimmy tilted his head off to the side.

"What's with the fancy non-wrinkled uniform anyways?" He questioned, ignoring the question for just a moment before deciding it was stupid to avoid such a simple question. "As for how I'm doing... I'm doing okay. How're you holding up?"
 
Aaro half grinned, rubbing behind his head. "Ah. I figured it was about time I did some laundry."

His smile fell. "You didn't come home last night. I was worried." He shook his head. "I guess that's silly. I'm sure the Castellanes or the Lacroixs or whoever took good care of you." He tried to laugh. "Bet you were safer last night with them than I was at the Monastery."
 
"Wait, you mean that huge pile on your side of the room is finally gone? Wow, it's a miracle." Jimmy grinned, unable to help himself poke a little bit of fun at Aaro. He kept grinning a little even as the conversation shifted, though it started to dim quite a bit. He couldn't explain why he had gone with Arien, Elsa, and the twins. Couldn't reveal what had happened during the attack and how he came to be standing before his friend instead of being buried in the ground like he should have been. There were tons of things he wanted to say, but he just couldn't.

"I couldn't come home last night, Aaro. Things were still unstable and they weren't safe for me to wander around and I didn't want to ask someone to bring me back. I ended up at the Castellanes and yeah, I was well taken care of, though I did miss our midnight talks." Jimmy smiled a little, not quite liking how this conversation was going.
 
"It's not just last night," Aaro replied, "come on, Jim - you spend more..."

He stopped himself. "Damn. Sorry. Here, let's get some coffee first, then we can talk." He sighed. "Light knows I need caffeine anyway. Too early in the morning..."

He moved to enter the shop.
 
He tensed up at Aaro's words and although the male didn't finish, Jimmy knew exactly what he was going to say. He hadn't meant to pull away from them, but a lot had happened ever since his father's transformation and he wasn't sure what all he could tell Aaro without things being completely ruined between them. Hell, he didn't even know how he was going to explain this to Inarin. Frowning a bit at that thought, he simply nodded and followed the Proselyte into the coffee shop, not really wanting anything anymore. Well, what he wanted, he couldn't have at the moment and that was something he would just need to deal with.

"Sure, coffee sounds great and then we can shoot the breeze." Running his fingers through his hair, he stepped towards the counter and ordered a small black coffee, needing a bit of pep in his step.
 
Aaro ordered a flat white, liberally sweetened, and chose a table near a window overlook Rue du Marmont. There was a light snow, and the flakes tossed in the morning breeze like flecks of cloud.

"Alright Jim," Aaro settled into his seat and took a sip. He looked both uncomfortable and determined. "This is something that I've refrained from saying for a while, but you're my best friend and I can't just keep ignoring it." He nodded. "I'm worried about you. Something's happened to you these last few weeks - ever since Arien's party. I don't know what it is, but I've watched you grow distant, reclusive. You skip class. You sneak out. You spend more time with Arien and the Castellane gang then you do with anyone in the Monastery." He shook his head. "I don't know what's happening, Jim, but I can't help but feel like something's wrong."
 
Sliding his tall frame into the chair, he placed his cup of coffee down on the table and just watched the steam filtering up into the air. He focused on it for a few minutes before his gaze shifted slowly towards Aaro at the beginning of a conversation he was not going to enjoy. He slowly sipped on the hot drink and attempted to keep his expression as stoic as possible.

“Yeah, something happened to me Aaro, but it has nothing to do with Arien’s party. Having my father shift into a beast and watching him kill others and barely avoiding being killed by him moments before a dickface murdered him in front of me changed me. Fearing that I was going to shift as well and be murdered changed me. As much as I tried to be the same Jimmy you all knew before that incident, I wasn’t and I knew it. I…” Jimmy paused and rubbed his forehead, sipping on his coffee a little more.

“I really didn’t realize I was spending more time with them than anyone else, but I’m not judged when I’m away from the Monastery with them. I know you and In don’t judge me, but I see the looks others shoot me and I just don’t want to be around their judgmental personas. I wish I could tell you everything, but right now I just can’t. Especially with everything that’s been happening.”
 
"Who's judging you, Jim?" Aaro's brows knit, "lower classmen? Proselytes whose names we don't even know? Me. Inarin. Celeste. We're the ones who count - we're the ones who'll be fighting at your side when we take the silver. Let the rest of them say what they want - I know what kind of guy you are."

At least, I hope I do.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am about your dad, Jim," Aaro continued, "but you're not... you're not letting me in. You're turning to people you've known for a handful of weeks instead of the friends you've grown up with. You're trusting the wrong people."
 
"It's not just our classmates, Aaro. It's some of the ..." Jimmy just paused and shook his head, not even sure if it was worth discussing anymore. He clenched the empty coffee cup and took in a few deep breaths before calming back down again. "It's the adults too." He finally finished his thought, tossing the cup into a nearby trash can with a slight snort, knowing that he wouldn't be able to take the silver. It was only a matter of time before he would end up having to leave the monastery. But, that wasn't something he could tell Aaro, not yet at least despite how much he wanted to come clean.

"Why are they the wrong people, Aaro? Just how much do you know about them to make that judgement? Sure, they're not Proselytes or Paladins, but that doesn't automatically make them the wrong people. I would be ... I..." Jimmy floundered a moment before just leaning back in his chair. "I'm not meaning to keep any of you out, but it's hard. It's even harder with everything that just happened."
 
Aaro sighed. "Okay, you got me. I can't tell you exactly why I think they're the wrong people. Maybe I'm biased. Maybe I'm just jealous." He glared at Jimmy. "But you have to admit, some sketchy shit goes on around them. Our dear friend 'Malcolm' sticks to them like glue - almost like he's drawn to them for something. Every single time we're in danger, they're involved somehow."

He put a hand to his temple. "And I can't... I can't put my finger on it, Jim, but there's something about Arien. Something about the way he talks to us. I feel too comfortable around him, like, the way I do with you and In. And when I go home and think back on everything, I keep wondering what in the void he did or said that made me want him to like me so much. It doesn't make any sense."

He looked back at Jim. "They're trouble, Jim. Maybe they don't mean to be or maybe they do, but I don't want to see you put in danger because of them." He nearly growled. "And Light's mercy - what is this thing you keep wanting to tell me but can't?"
 
This conversation was not going how Jimmy imagined, not one bit. Fingers ran through his hair as he ignored the glare, though he had to admit he never thought about Aaro being jealous of all the time he was spending with Arien and the twins. His eyes narrowed at the mention of Malcolm, but he bit back whatever comment he wanted to make, needing to focus on one thing at a time. "That isn't fair, Aaro. They were at the park for the festivities. It's not like they were out of place there." Jim frowned a bit, stopping himself as Aaro continued, mostly because he knew why they were all so friendly and comfortable with Arien, but that was just one more thing he couldn't tell his friend. Was he even a friend anymore with all the secrets he was keeping? His stomach was beginning to hurt and he was beginning to regret agreeing to meet.

"Aaro, I am alive because of Arien. Trouble or not, I would be dead if it wasn't for his quick actions and thinking at the park." Jim tensed up at the growl and flicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. "It's a very long story... and it's also something not to be discussed with so many ears listening."
 
"And at the rave?" Aaro pressed, "was it coincidence that he just happened to show up there? Is it coincidence that he targets the Castellanes and their friends? Coincidence that Inarin's parents died a week after he met Nox?"

He realized he was raising his voice and shut his mouth. The proselyte stared into his coffee, brows knit, silent as stone.

"I just..." he shook his head, "...I want my friend back, Jim." He looked up. "I miss you."
 
"No, Aaro, it isn't a coincidence. He is a bastard who ruins lives without a care. Maybe we should go somewhere else to finish this conversation. Somewhere that's not so public." He coaxed again, needing to discuss things with Aaro, but refusing to be overheard by someone that might be a wee bit snoopy, especially with everything that had happened. He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing the locks out of his eyes, face falling into yet another frown.

"I'm still here, Aaro. I cherish our friendship more than anything, but stuff has happened and it's been difficult to come back to where I was before... before the rave." He grimaced, not wanting to admit that the rave changed things between them all whether they realized it or not.
 
Back
Top