TRP is a post-Great War AU RWBY RP set in Mistral City and Haven Academy with no canons, no rank claims, no maidens, and no god interference. We offer a progression system and site-wide events that change the setting based on player actions.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 11, 2020 0:35:17 GMT -5
The pair split apart as they hit the rock, in a pattern of luck that was likely losing its novelty. Sienna pushed off of Raul's gut as she swung wildly at the fluttering shapes dive bombing them, and though Raul probably could have held on if he really wanted to, the strength required to do so would have been enough to do injury to one or both of them, and even with his mind operating at the most basic levels of instinct the wolf knew enough to simply allow his friend to escape.
Teal light flowed out of the gashes left in his jacket as he tumbled across the stone floor, and splashed through the puddles of water falling from somewhere above. The shocking cold of the alpine spring was enough to shock his mind and fix him firmly in the moment, and all at once the world seemed to crystallize around him. Raul's body contorted strangely, making use of a skeleton that was not entirely human to take control over his own momentum and come out of the roll on all fours. Sienna had been onto something when she guessed that his joints had more in common with an animal than with a man.
In that instant his identity dissolved away into the flood of instinct that came with the threat of a violent death. His hair stood up on end, as his lithe frame undertook a subtle filling out of musculature. The feral lines in his face grew deeper and more defined, as the pupils distorted and constricted in his eyes. His lips parted and let forth a deep echoing growl at the same time that they exposed a mouthful of fangs that were subtly longer and more bestial than had been the case a moment earlier. Had there always been that much hair on his forearms? Had his fingernails always been so long?
Like watching one of those optical illusions that revealed a hidden image when looked at from the right angle, all the vaguely unsettling details of Raul's appearance, usually underplayed or concealed by his mannerisms, slid into sharp focus, and the effect was so striking that he could have been mistaken for a different man, if not an entirely different species.
His pale blue eyes, now beady and uncanny, settled on Sienna as she hurried to place herself between him and the incoming threat. The Grimm already outnumbered them at least a dozen to one, and even as he was taken over by the beast dwelling inside him, Raul knew that she wouldn't last long on her own. He made no indication that he'd heard, much less understood her frantic warnings as he looked past her and snarled hatefully at the fluttering swarms, and with a mighty leap that carried him right over her head, he charged headlong into the diving flock of Grimm.
His tattered jacket fluttered to the floor as he lunged howling into the fray whilst drawing a pair of elaborate knives from sheaths in the small of his back. As he swung the first, a shot rang out through the cave as a dust round fired from the blade and propelled the slash up into the jaws of an incoming Ravager. The knife cleaved cleanly through the Grimm, dissecting it down the center from head to tail. A second shot erupted from the blade in his left hand, dicing up another and casting burning fuel over a third. The remaining few bats, blinded and surprised by this brazen counter-assault tried vainly to swerve away from the threat, lashing out blindly as they did so. Raul twisted in mid air, contorting his body with an almost feline grace to avoid nearly every gnashing maw and grasping claw as they streaked by. A streamer of teal light sprayed away from his cheek where a lucky bat had struck a glancing blow, that barely even slowed the faunus down.
Still airborne, and the second swarm having had enough time to overcome the surprise of an insane mortal flinging himself right into their path, Raul crashed bodily into the cluster of flying demons. The Grimm swarmed around him, snapping and slashing with wild abandon. Meanwhile Raul brought his hands together and embraced four individual Grimm in a spine-shattering hug, as he tore into them with his own teeth, tearing out chunks of black flesh a mouthful at a time.
By the time he hit the ground, all four bats were dead, or so close that it made no difference,the swarm reduced by more than half, whilst he was streaming teal radiance from his aura in nearly a dozen places where ivory fang and claw had made contact.
Raul fell into a low crouch, the tips of his knives biting into the earth, snarling as he watched the remaining bats circle up for another pass.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 11, 2020 13:41:34 GMT -5
She was more forceful than she intended and winced as she saw Raul roll away. Hopefully he wouldn't take it personally, she really needed to be able to get up if she wanted any hope of being able to properly fight off the swarm. She could apologize later if she survived this. That still feeling like a big if right now. They were lesser Grimm, but she had absolutely no faith in her ability to fight them. Despite being a mercenary, Red rarely fought. Her partner was a prodigy that she could never hope to compare to, so she focused on other skills. Even though she was still learning how to fight and considered Knight a great teacher, she was still ultimately comparing herself to a standard even many experienced fighters would not reach. As long as she kept comparing herself to Knight, it was unlikely she'd ever see her skills in combat as anything but subpar and weak.
But none of that mattered here. She didn't fight Grimm, but it didn't matter. She wasn't sure how to beat them or if she could, but it didn't matter. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to protect Raul like this, but it didn't matter. Either she did or she didn't. It was do or die, and anything outside that was completely meaningless. If she failed, she would be dead and wouldn't have the consciousness to care anymore. All she could do was take every step she could to try to keep the two of them alive.
Turned out, Ravagers were flimsier than she was. While she knew more about Ravagers than she did most Grimm, that wasn't saying much and Knight could turn any lesser Grimm to ashes in less than a second, so it was hard for her to tell just how strong any of them were. She didn't even need to impale them on anything, just having them slam into the stalagmites at high speed was enough to get them to disappear. That meant that even a fairly weak punch should be able to eliminate them, but considering their numbers that still wasn't comforting. Even if she only had to punch each one once, that would still be a couple dozen hits she had to make, and those suckers were fast and hard to hit. Her aura wasn't strong, and it was only a matter of time before it was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. And she had to do all this while protecting a civilian.
Except maybe not. She looked back over at Raul, or at least she was pretty sure it was Raul since that's where he was before. He looked different and was pulling out weapons of his own. The sound of bullets would likely always be very unpleasant for her, but after working with Knight long enough, she had gotten used to it. It still made her tense briefly and hurt her ears, but that was the extent of it. So he could fight. Maybe. She hoped he could fight given he was trying to. Some of the Ravagers were going down, so he was succeeding to enough of a degree that she didn't feel the need to intercept and stop him. She didn't have time to process everything that was going on, but if she could move without worrying where he was it gave her some flexibility.
What was she even supposed to do with it. Trying to fight the swarm one at a time wasn't working, but she didn't have anything that could hit groups. She didn't carry dust, she did have some electrified grapples hidden in her gloves, but swinging those around to deal with a swarm seemed ineffective. Her semblance wouldn't be useful even if she wanted to use it. It was really hard to think too with all these loud sounds assaulting her ears. The Ravagers screeching and clawing, the sound of the bullets, the sound of her boots on the ground, the sound of running water...
Wait water. That might actually help. Red's head jerked towards the water. There was a fair amount of it and between the battery in her gloves, the metal on her toes, and the stone floor, she should have everything she needed to try something. She darted towards the far side of the water, flexing her fingers to extend both her grapples so they dragged on the floor rather than latching onto something.
"Stay away from the water!"
She wasn't sure if he heard her like that given he didn't react at all to the last thing she said, but she figured she should at least try to warn him that she was trying something stupid. She crossed the chains over one another and spread out the ends of the grapples a little more than her shoulder width apart. From there, she started staring at the water as though she was trying to punch a hole through it. The process was slower than she liked, but it's not like she needed much gas for something like this. All the while, she was trying to bob and weave through any of the Ravagers that followed her without disturbing her grapples. As long as she couldn't be moving her hands around too much, she couldn't do anything more than ram her shoulder into them or kick them if they came in especially low. It would take a good minute for her to generate enough hydrogen to do what she wanted, but with any luck, it would be enough to rid of the swarm because her aura was going to take a beating in the process.
Hydrogen was a colorless and odorless gas that was extremely flammable. Even a small spark would be enough to ignite it. By sending an electric current through the water, she could deconstruct it into hydrogen and oxygen, and she could then cause a deflagration that would hopefully engulf all of them in a fireball. All she needed was enough time to generate the gas, then to make sure the Grimm were in place, and then a spark. It wouldn't be nearly large enough to engulf the entire room, so as long as Raul listened to her and stayed away from the water, he'd be completely safe. Unfortunately, it also meant that the Grimm had to be close enough. However, if there was one thing she believed her brain was good for, it was calling Grimm.
If she was able to get enough time to do this, she'd take a look at the bones and other remains in the cave and try to summon every negative emotion she could. All the people she failed to save. All the people she never had any hope of saving. Mounds of bodies from the aftermath of attacks, whether human or Grimm. She let herself relive that moment where she watched her neighbors get torn apart by a Huntsmen's semblance. The terror of moving across an active battlefield, knowing if she was discovered she would almost certainly die, and the sound of bullets made that especially easy to picture. That her father would never be coming him. That he lied to her about her mother's death and probably a lot of other things too. Anything she could muster. She was finding it difficult to breathe through it all, but she needed to make sure that whatever negative emotions she was outputting were significantly stronger than whatever Raul was putting out if she wanted any hope of succeeding.
It felt like the world was spinning a little, but the job wouldn't be done until she could generate a spark. The toes of her boots were made of metal, except for the very bottom so they wouldn't be loud while she walked. All she had to do was tip her toes forward and kick the ground and a spark would come sooner or later. It was harder to do than she would have liked because she put herself in such a terrible mental state, but after a few kicks the hydrogen ignited and a fireball started expanding outward from that point. At its largest, it would be a few times bigger than she was, but not nearly big enough to swallow the entire lake. Igniting it with her foot was stupid, there was no other way to say it, but it was the only option she had. She'd have maybe half a second to get out of there, so the moment she saw the spark she turned and ran as fast as she could manage.
From there, hopefully they'd be able to clean up the Ravagers more easily. There were at least a few stragglers still chasing her, but if that was all that survived she might even take them out before Raul could get over there. At the very least, she started swatting at them while using her other hand to dry the tears on her face. She didn't want to be seen like that. She might not have a choice because it was going to take a moment for her to pull herself out of that spiral of negative thoughts and she didn't have the luxury to rest yet.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 13, 2020 1:47:48 GMT -5
Wild blue eyes traced the circling flock of murderous bat-winged monstrosities. His lips pulled back away from his teeth, so far that his rushing breath was causing the saliva around the corners to froth. His blades felt as natural in his grip as a part of his own body, and eons of selective breeding and conditioning sang war-songs in his veins. The world around him crystallized, taking on a definition so sharp that it made him feel as if the rest of his life were just a thin shadowy existence, a pale imitation of the life that currently filled him. Raul distantly loathed just how much he liked it, just how powerful he felt when he gave in to the fury that lurked in his blood, and how purely gloriously alive he felt when the fire finally caught and seemed to fill him with light.
That light swallowed up his anxieties, his uncertainties and connected him with his body in a way he spent much of his life actively denying. He felt so much more than he was, saw so much more, heard, tasted, with so much more clarity. It was like someone had struck up a tune to a familiar song and his body just knew every step without needing to be told. It was liberty. It was wild. It was life. Even the pain of the claws and jaws that lashed him were like a sweet melody to that song, a low to contrast the highs.
To look at him, to see those sky blue eyes drawn wide, and his ears alternating between flat against his skull and panning about to track the danger, teeth bare, one might have thought he was furious. But it was not rage that filled him. Rather an alertness so all consuming that it left no room for subtler impressions.
The swarming grimm reunited in the air with the first swarm, the only one to have made a pass through the two hunters unscathed. The other pair of swarms had their numbers reduced by more than half. They swriled into a writhing shrieking mass of black, white, and blazing red, suspended in the air a half dozen meters off the floor of the cavern, like a school of startled fish churning together to dazzle the eyes of a predator. Then they broke apart once more, each group erupting from the central mass at an angle seemingly decided at random, though no doubt it was a instinctual hunting strategy employed to make them unpredictable.
A massive claw of flapping shapes, opening in the air, they split apart and then streaked outwards, like a hideous black bloom blossoming with death itself, until the extents of the mass, spread thin, filled Raul's entire field of view.
The wolf couldn't help but marvel at the grizzly splendor of such a display, of half a hundred individual creatures acting in such murderous harmony, even as the scale of the display itself succeeded in utterly overwhelming his ability to focus on any specific entity. Then they converged upon him in a blinding hail of shrieking, slashing, hateful bodies.
Sienna's voice, half lost in the rush of those Grimm specters of oblivion, served to remind Raul of his objective, just as his reality became an indistinct blur of claws and wings. She was doing something over by the pool, but Raul couldn't spare even a fraction of a second to figure out what it might have been. Instead, he charged into the swarm as it crashed over him like a wave of howling midnight.
Never had Raul felt so sure of himself, so utterly laser focused on what he was doing. The swirling mass stunned the brain, but as they got close, it was as if the entire world slowed down, as if another being were piloting his body through the danger. Three ravagers fell upon him at once, fortified and flanked by a dozen more, with a gap of safety between them no wider than the narrowest point of the wolf's neck. It felt like a simple thing to simply twist his frame and flow right through that gap, smashing the Grimm aside with bone shattering might. Once he passed the cataract of gnashing jaws and gleaming claws into the storm of beast's beyond, the Waning Moons unleashed gleaming streaks of destruction through the ranks of the enemy, as if they were simply standing still.
Like a grey monolith splitting the tide in a great black river, Raul's dancing blades cut a burning swathe through the storm of Grimm as they streaked past, showering the walls and floor behind him with gore and black pestilent blood. A heap of smoking offal coated the floor slickly, populated occasionally with maimed, thrashing shapes that quickly grew still and started to evaporate.
One swarm was reduced to utter ruin, wiped out entirely in the exchange, whilst the surviving hosts circled back around with their numbers halved. Raul for his part stood not much further ahead than where he had started, but was caked from head to foot in a layer of charnel slurry that was already beginning to wisp away in a long plume of acrid black smoke. Aquamarine streaks of the hunter's aura rose from him in thin misty trails, mingling with the evaporating remains of the fallen Grimm.
The Grimm were not stupid beasts, or at least, not reckless. Initially it had seemed like an obvious choice, because all the negative emotion in the world was not enough to distract the ravagers from the threat posed by that mad dog, but after being reduced by more than half their total number after just a couple exchanges with said dog, they were clearly starting to have second thoughts. Suddenly the female seemed like a much easier target.
Seemingly communicating, the swarm coiled away from Raul, and split apart once more, this time converging on Sienna as she stood over the pool of water in the chamber's surface.
"SIENNA!" Raul howled, too late in his shock to intercept the horde as they fell upon her, but lunging into a full sprint all the same.
The swarm came down just as she was shuffling back and striking her boots off the stone. Without the expertise to recognize which rocks could furnish a spark, it was just dumb luck that she happened to contact a suitable rock just as the cloud descended. A blinding orange radiance swallowed the horde of fluttering forms, reducing many to smoke in a mere instant. Others were quick enough to break off, but were battered out of the air all the same by the sudden wave of force striking them from below.
Raul, in a move that probably shouldn't surprise anyone at this point, tackled Sienna at full tilt as she tried to leap clear of the blast. Having already the time to build up speed, he managed to shove her clear, and just like he had before, curled himself protectively around her as they forms were thrown smoking and tumbling into the uneven rocks of the cavern floor. He cupped her head close to his body as they tumbled, yelping as he took each impact of the unyielding stone floor. Eventually the relentless abuse was too much and his grip on her failed, as they burst apart and rolled to an uneasy stop several meters from where they had started. Raul didn't get up right away, between being bitten, scratched, exploded, and finally tossed across an uneven stone floor, he was hurting in so many places that it took several moments to be sure that nothing was broken. Even when he was sure that everything was more or less where it should be, he didn't get up, and just laid there in a crumpled heap, breathing heavily and willing the world to stop spinning around him.
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Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 22:56:57 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 13, 2020 12:50:24 GMT -5
In hind sight, she should have tried to explain what she was doing more. She probably looked completely ridiculous moving around the pool like this for one, but for two anyone would be surprised when the Ravagers started swarming her and the water turned into a fireball. She was too used to working with Knight. Distractions in combat were supposed to be kept to a minimum. Communication short and to the point because who had time to make sense of a bunch of words in the heat of battle? They knew each other well enough that a simple statement like that would have gotten the point across just fine. That she was trying something and heading in that direction would be very bad. But with a...well maybe not a civilian, but someone she didn't know anything about? That was careless. She should have known better.
So she couldn't even be mad when he dove her again. This time she didn't see it coming because she had turned away from the fireball to get away from it as quickly as possible. If she had she might have tried to do something. Instead, she was flung across the cave like a ragdoll and landed face first in the rock and dirt. As unpleasant as something like that normally was, she was grateful to have an excuse to keep her face hidden for a moment. Red was never one to take chances, so she did everything she could to make sure that plan worked including sending herself down a spiral of unpleasant thoughts that was difficult to escape from. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she was finding it difficult to breathe. That was only getting worse as the immediate danger passed and she was actually able to think of everything she did wrong.
That was stupid on so many levels. All of it. That she would be standing face first in a fireball of her own creation, one that she was creating up close, was probably the least stupid thing about it all. If her timing had been even slightly off, something she couldn't even guarantee because it relied on her being able to generate a spark, it wouldn't have worked. It took awhile to setup and there was no guarantee that she'd be able to do it or that Raul wouldn't be seriously hurt in the process. Further, her attempt to summon the Grimm to her location so they'd pass through the fireball left her in a compromised state where it would be hard to think clearly after and would likely make it difficult to move. She hadn't even been thinking about what she might do after, just what she needed to do to deal with that particular threat at that particular moment. Worse than that, if there were any other Grimm in the cave, she wouldn't be surprised if that called all of them here too.
Her mind was still running at million miles per hour with more thoughts running through it than she knew how to handle. All of this was her fault in the first place for falling into the cave and luring him after her. She had no way of knowing if that was actually true or not, but her mind couldn't think of any other explanation for why someone would investigate a hole like that, and even if it didn't make complete sense, her mind would blame her for it anyway. If she hadn't frozen when it counted they might have been able to handle this situation better. If she communicated better maybe he wouldn't have been caught in the deflagration as well. If she could fight better she wouldn't have needed to resort to something so ridiculous in the first place. Her head hurt and not because she was just flung across a cave and landed nose first into a stalagmite.
As much as she wanted to lay there face down in the dirt she knew she couldn't. It didn't matter how much she hurt, she was still stuck in a cave with someone and she needed to make sure both of them got out. She let herself have a moment to breathe. A moment to feel the cold of the ground on her face and how uncomfortable the bumpy surface was to lay on. A moment to feel her clothes against her skin and to wiggle her toes in her boots. Just a moment to center herself so she could force her body to do what it needed. Red forced herself off the ground, still not quite able to stop the flow of tears.
When she saw Raul's fallen body, she rushed to his side as fast as she could manage, tripping over her feet and the ground a few times as she forced her body to move. Her mind flared once more and her eyes widened, worried that she was too slow or that her stupidity just got someone killed. He was breathing, so he wasn't dead. That did little to relieve her worries as he was clearly hurt still and it was still her fault.
"Hey are you awake?" She nudged him slightly, her voice airy and quiet. "Can you stand?"
Regardless of his answer, or lack of one, they couldn't stay here. Not with her mind like this and potential Grimm around. Unless he stopped her, she'd start trying to lift him up enough to drape his arms over her shoulders so she could either help him walk or carry him. At least, as well as she could given how much taller he was than her. From there, she'd go to retrieve her scroll and continue towards the water's source. Hopefully that would be an exit. Regardless of whether he let her lift him or not, she figured she should say something after all that. Something to make him feel better about all this.
"You were really cool back there. Good job holding off the swarm."
It was fortunate that she had excellent control over her aura. She was able to stave off the injuries she would have gotten with it, and she could push through the momentary pain until her body realized it wasn't actually hurt. As shaky as her movement still were because of it, and as shallow and uneven as her breathing still was, she was glad she could push through it well enough to move and hopefully get them out of there.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 13, 2020 17:22:07 GMT -5
Raul whined like a kicked puppy as he shifted on the ground, trying in vain to find a position that didn't make a dozen different parts of him ache while he labored to catch his stolen breath. Small hands shook him experimentally, and the grey haired huntsman squinted up at Sienna as she attempted to lift him off the floor. Raul watched with confusion as her lips moved, but all that came out was a shrill and persistent whining sound that seemed to fill every nook and cranny of his skull. That dull toning in his ears made his head hurt tremendously, and so he tried to ignore it. It was as he tried to respond, and discovered his own voice to be that same deafening ring that Raul suspected something might be wrong.
The young hunter had never been exploded before, and being in possession of a pair of especially sensitive auditory organs was quickly finding it to be a less than ideal experience.
"Muh? Wah?" His voice was thick and stupid, like his tongue had swollen to twice its usual size in his mouth, and being unable to hear his own voice to modulate his speech caused the inflections and volume to shift alarmingly, "WhAt dId YoU SAy?"
The ringing was making him feel dizzy, and his legs a bit like stilts made out of flexible rubber, and he leaned on Sienna for support far more than he'd usually have been comfortable to do. Trying to keep track anything further away than arm's reach likewise made him feel profoundly unwell, and so he stopped looking at where they were going, and instead fixed his attention on Sienna, using her face as a fixed point to settle his upset guts. Her smell filled his head, and despite himself, he was cracking a goofy drunken grin as he rested his head against hers. She smelled nice. Unlike his senses of hearing and balance, smell was fully intact, and being his preferred and primary sense meant it was greatly comforting.
His long sinewy arm laid across her shoulders, stupid expression on his face, unsteady gait, and head resting against that of his companion gave the wolf an overall impression of the drunken reveler staggering home after a long night of high spirits and poor decisions. With his height and mass dwarfing that of the girl, the pair cut a truly comical silhouette, as she endeavored to hold him up straight, and he was forced to stoop so far down that every step was a bow-legged shuffle of gangly limbs. He was content at first to simply go where she lead him, doing his best to keep up with her stride and not flatten her beneath his weight, thinking very little more of the current situation than the comfort of Sienna's scent and the security of her body propping up his own. That was until he noticed the line of moisture falling down her cheek.
Raul couldn't make out much of her expression, not from such a close angle and with so much of Sienna's face wrapped up beneath mask and hood, but he recognized tears. His expression of mindless contentedness dissolved into one of feckless concern, and he emitted a low whining sound. Usually, when in full command of his faculties, Raul actively suppressed such a mannerisms, but unable to hear even his own sounds, the noise was fabricated at maximum volume with utter heartbreaking sincerity. Never since a brand new puppy waited by the door pining for a caregiver without any way of knowing if they would ever return, had such a sound of such heartrending sadness been produced.
"sAD?" He inquired, eyes with and ears flat as he pawed at her cheek with a knuckle, until it put him off balance and he had to grab a handful of her shirt to keep from pitching over.
Raul took a moment collect his legs under him once more, hauling himself up once more, and half dragging Sienna down before he was able to fully steady himself.
"HuRt?" he asked, as he tried to inspect her body from a few inches away, to limited success. It was clear that he wanted to help with an utter sincerity, usually only seen in the loyalest of hounds, but at that moment was unable to do much more than stay standing.
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Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 22:57:46 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 13, 2020 18:19:29 GMT -5
Deflagrations, especially ones of that size, were not nearly as loud as most explosions thankfully. It hurt her ears for a moment because they were extremely sensitive, but only for a moment. By the time she got up and picked up Raul, they were back to normal and she could hear every bit of his loud whining and rambling. His head was right next to her ears too, and she didn't have it in her to completely suppress her winces as he shouted into her ear. She didn't bother to say anything because that pain was completely deserved at this point.
Red wished she could do better than let him choose between being awkwardly hunched over on her shoulder or letting his feet drag on the ground, but, for as strong as she was, she didn't have the strength to carry someone over her head for as long as she was probably going to need to. Especially someone as heavy as he was. This really was the best she could do for the moment and she hated it.
As much as she hated that, she hated that he could see her face even more. She had no time to decompress after forcing herself into such a terrible mental state, and walking while carrying something as heavy as a person was making it difficult for her to focus on her breathing. That there were dangling limbs about and the person she was helping was hurt made it even more difficult to stop her mind from going in destructive directions. Every time she tried to focus enough to regulate it, she'd hit an uneven patch of terrain, see movement from the water or a bug out of the corner of her eye, or would hear Raul's foot hit something in a way that didn't sound like the footsteps she was expecting. The entire experience left her far more vigilant than she was normally, and considering her usual state was hyper-vigilant in general, that was saying something. Every movement, every sound, every smell, all of them were impossible for her to ignore in her current state, and it meant that her eyes were darting around and her head was jerking in the direction of every sound.
On top of that, she wanted to make sure Raul was okay and wanted to do everything she could to make sure he was emotionally okay as well. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like he could hear her at all. He didn't seem to be bleeding, so that confirmed that he likely had some aura of his own if that fight wasn't enough to confirm it for her. Hopefully he'd be able to piece himself back together. For now, she was glad he seemed more out of it than seriously distressed.
"Oh, no I'm okay," she shook her head in case her couldn't hear her. She was trying to project her voice a little, but was finding it difficult in her current state. "I can keep us moving. You can rest a little if you need to."
Still unsure if he heard her, she tried to think of how to get her point across without words. After a moment's hesitation and with a stiffening of her shoulders, she put her scroll in her teeth to free that hand, and gently patted Raul on the head. It seemed like such a demeaning thing to do to a faunus, but it was the only thing she could think of to do that would make it clear that everything was okay and he didn't need to worry. That he could just lay his head down and rest, or even out right fall asleep if he was so inclined.
Everything was okay. Maybe if she told herself that enough times she'd actually start to believe it. Until she saw the sun, until she could get away from the smell of death that was here, she probably wouldn't. Red was never any good at lying to herself.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 13, 2020 20:28:55 GMT -5
Raul's hearing was already beginning to recover somewhat. His hearing was several orders of magnitude more sensitive than an average person's and that in combination with an enclosed space, and general proximity to a sudden change in air pressure, meant he was uniquely vulnerable to hearing disruption, and due to the close relation between the organs of hearing and balance, said disruption had also produced a notable impact on his coordination. However, the piercing ring that had felt like an augur being driven into his skull, had subsided into a thin needle lodged somewhere between his ears, being occasionally twisted. Meanwhile, his drunken uncoordination had resolved into a general weakness, punctuated by the occasional pang of numerous bruises and a weakened aura. He was still a good way removed from moving around unassisted, but if he continued to recover at a rate consistent to what he had been, then it would be only a few minutes before he was travelling under his own power.
Of course, he'd have been recovering much faster, were he able to rest a bit, but Sienna seemed adamant that there keep moving, and Raul was in no mood to argue. He would have been mortified to admit it, but with his various aches and complaints, there was something very comforting about the close proximity of his ally and her dutiful assistance, and even if he were able to move about unassisted, he still would have been reluctant to relinquish Sienna's assistance.
Raul and language had a tenuous relationship at best, and he was much more a creature of action, and while it might have been nice for her to say "you're my friend", having such a thing demonstrated by Sienna literally carrying him and expressing concern for his well-being was far more meaningful to him that just a cunningly arranged string of syllables meant to convey the same meaning. He was a very physical creature, perhaps more so than most, and this language of bodily contact was one he understood intuitively. In a word, it was comforting, not to have to worry about misunderstanding a gesture when the intent was so patently obvious. Ironically it was the same reason that he guiltily enjoyed combat, because it was something he understood. Not that he enjoyed the results of fighting. He didn't even like killing the Grimm, and was very likely to have some regrets about all this later. Luckily he'd never had to harm a person, and hopefully he never would.
Sienna tried to answer his clumsy inquiries, but her words were half lost in the din filling his head. She must have suspected as much because a she shook her head elaborately as if speaking to a simpleton, which she sort of was at that very instant. Raul admittedly didn't fully understand whether she was denying his question, or the implication of it. Then she patted him on the head, and that was, to say the least, a surprise, not simply in of itself, but in how Raul reacted to it.
Raul's mother used to pat him on the head quite often, before he grew so large that she could no longer reach the top of his head without him crouching down, though even then, Raul would still endeavor to stoop down every now and then to provide the opportunity. Pats had been their own private little language when he was a pup. There had been a pat for a job done well, and another for a gentle admonishment. There had been pats for affection, and other pats for when Raul did things that his mother couldn't understand, or behaved in a uniquely inscrutable manner that would develop into a strangeness that would define his relationship with other people. There had been a swift spiritedly pat for when he was being mischievous, and a sharp firm yet gentle pat for when he was being a brat. There had been gentle pats for when he was sad, and caring pats for when the thunder of the spring storms had him cowering in her lap. Comforting pats, exasperated pats, disappointed pats, a wide variety of emotions, and concepts communicated with the same gesture, because even in his youth Raul's mother had known he was a bit odd and didn't always grasp the meanings of words, but would readily understand the difference between a two subtly different pats on the head.
Sienna was right to be cautious in delivering such a gesture, though remarkably not for the reason she thought. It was an act that was dangerous to appropriate, but never because Raul might have mistaken it for demeaning. Raul's mother had been singularly understanding and supportive of her peculiar son, and though she had used the act of patting his head to convey a broad array of impression of infinitely complex subtlety, she had never once used it to demean him. The very concept of a pat on the head being used to demean was an utterly foreign concept to the great grey goof, because in all his wide experience of being patted on the head never once had he associated the gesture with ill-will or maliciousness. Any person who might have demeaned him with a pat on the head only required but a single look at his hulking seven foot tall frame, limbs of lean, mean muscle ending in blackened claws to have the thought forever barred from even entering their heads.
The risk Sienna was taking in her attempts to comfort the big wolf lay on the opposite end of the spectrum. It was such a deeply personal facet of his identity that she risked insulting Raul in a completely different way by misappropriating the act of patting his head.
That pat told Raul a lot more about Sienna that she probably could have ever guess, much less intended. His ears flattened in surprise and then perked up again at the familiar but unexpectedly affectionate gesture, and his tail immediately swished back and forth a half dozen times. The first thing Raul noticed about it was that it was a very formal pat, either meaning that Sienna was unaccustomed to offering gestures of such familiarity, which implied she might not have many friends, or at least not very many close relationships, or alternatively that she did not really care very much about Raul and just wanted him to be quiet for a bit. Raul wanted believe that it was the first one, because Sienna had already demonstrated the same sort of social anxiety that plagued his own life, and it was hardly the marker of the callous manipulator who would insincerely toss out a gesture of affection or comfort just for a bit of peace. Secondly he noticed that it showed that she was more concerned for him than for herself. It said, "Don't worry, you are safe, and I'll look after you. You are fine, and therefore everything is fine." What it did not say was, "I am fine, don't worry about me." and even if it had by some miracle, a single look at Sienna was enough to tell Raul that would have been a dirty lie. It told Raul that Sienna thought it was important that she care about his well-being, but not important for him to care about hers, as if they weren't in just as much danger, as if it hadn't been both of them who were nearly violently killed by a swarm of flying mouths. It told Raul that Sienna didn't care very much about herself, or at least in her mind it was more important that he not have to worry, rather than be concerned for her.
It made him sad.
There was no way to articulate all that in any way that would make sense, especially for Raul who genuinely struggled to put more than a few words together without tripping over his own tongue, or choking on his anxieties. So instead, he frowned deeply, which on his habitually neutral face looked just like a slight scowl, and came to a halt like his feet were suddenly bolted to the floor. Sienna would suddenly find herself fighting the mass if the wolf instead of just trying to support it. Then as she turned to see what the issue was, Raul encircled her with his other arm and gave her the biggest hug shed ever had, assuming shed never been hugged by a seven foot tall giant before.
"I am glad you are not hurt." He said, in part because it was the honest truth, and in part because it was the closest he could come to saying what he really meant without putting Sienna in a very awkward position by pointing out the blatant dishonesty of her just claiming to be "Okay" while she was literally weeping.
Then he squeezed her, and in so doing reminded her just how big and strong he was, and perhaps just how silly it was for her to worry about his welfare at the expense of her own.
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Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 22:58:38 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 13, 2020 22:24:19 GMT -5
This was exactly why she made a point to steel herself and numb her emotions before going on any kind of mission with Knight. It didn't matter how easy the mission was likely to be, it was vital in order to get herself into the right mindset. Do or die, don't hesitate, do everything she could to make the mission succeed. Everything else was irrelevant. Part of her was still thinking like that, not that she tended to think her well-being was all that important even when she wasn't. The problem was that it had been contaminated with her emotions and anxiety after summoning the Grimm, so she was having trouble thinking clearly. Even if what she needed to do was to get them out of the cave, it still might have been more sensible to rest for at least a few minutes before carrying on, but every instinct in her was screaming to get out of here. That they couldn't stay here anymore because it was a very bad place. And she was terrified of messing up as badly as she thought she did before.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, it was still easy for her to think of Raul as a civilian in over his head that needed her help. It didn't matter how big they were or how tough they looked, if they didn't have experience in life or death situations they would still react poorly. Even her twelve year old self handled such situations better than some tall, muscular men she'd seen in the past. Thus, his size meant nothing to her, only his reaction to the Ravagers and that wasn't quite enough to overwrite how he acted afterwards or how he got himself stuck in a wall so easily or anything else he did earlier. If this were Knight or anyone with a similar amount of combat experience it'd be easier to say that they should just suck it up and deal with it, or at least accept that their emotional well being had absolutely nothing to do with the mission because it was unlikely to jeopardize it in any way. They were used to the stress. Civilians were not. They needed the extra care and protection, and she had it in her head that part of her current mission was getting him out of here.
So when Raul stopped and hugged her, she froze. Red wasn't adverse to hugs, or touch in general, but she wasn't a huge fan of getting them from strangers, mostly tolerating it when it happened, and this was a tense situation already. They were still in the bad place they needed to get out of and now she couldn't move. He had already seen her less than reassuring face, and now he was going to feel her heart pounding in her chest making how tense and scared she was even more apparent than it already was. At least he wouldn't be able to feel her breathing because she stopped doing that the second he pulled her close. And she had no idea how to react to it. He could stand now, which meant they could probably move more quickly, but it seemed inappropriate to mention that. She supposed it was supposed to be comforting, and if it had come from someone she knew it might have been, but this was coming from someone she was supposed to be protecting. Either he was still feeling anxious and was doing this to make himself feel better, or he was worrying about her and was trying to make her feel better. Both were unacceptable and a sign she needed to try harder. But what was she supposed to do? If it were just her voice she could fake comfort well enough, but her body would give her away immediately, especially with as tightly as he was hugging her. There wasn't much time to think, so she defaulted to acting almost robotically polite while complimenting him when she could.
"Yeah. The Grimm weren't able to break through my aura because you did such a great job keeping them away from me. Thank you." She managed to keep her voice even because of years of practice in doing so, but she did have to suck in another breath of air to keep talking. "Are you feeling better? Sorry about the fireball. I didn't mean to surprise you."
While she spoke her eyes were firmly pointed ahead trying to find the water's source. She didn't struggle or try to to press forward, and would even let him move her around as much as he wanted, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't make herself relax. She was perfectly content to stay there for as long as he needed despite the scent of death surrounding them, but she couldn't do anything more to sound comforting. She reached up to gently put her hands around his, about the closest thing she could think of to reciprocating the hug. Cursing her own inability to do more, she continued trying to think of nice things to say as though they would mean anything at all with as stiff as she was. She didn't know what else to do. It was all she could do.
"If you weren't able to hear me before...I can carry you if you need to rest for a little bit. Don't worry, I'm stronger than I look. I can keep moving and I'll make sure we get out of here."
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 15, 2020 16:51:55 GMT -5
Raul could tell almost right away that he'd erred. The girl went stiff as a post the very instant he started to squeeze her, and the smell of anxiety on her redoubled. Raul didn't understand. He liked to be hugged, especially in stressful situations, and even by strangers. It always made him feel safe and supported, and like a candle in the pitch black of night, a bit of comfort in moments of strain was all it took to chase away the dark.
That being said, Raul was also seven feet tall and weighing in at as much as crate full of bricks and protein shakes, and felt very little physical threat from strangers. His strength and size were supposed to make people feel safe and secure in his company, but often people just treated him like a dumb brute, or a clumsy ass. His chief anxiety regarding strangers was that he would say or do something that would make them dislike him without even realizing it, an anxiety compounded by a lifetime of being excluded or treated with suspicion, mostly by humans. Were he ever in a situation to receive a hug from a stranger, he would take it as a symbol of being accepted and treated like a person, and would summarily have been utterly elated.
He had only thought to risk hugging Sienna because he took the pat on his head to be an indication of her being comfortable with him, and because he wanted to return some of the comfort she'd given him.
Of course, Sienna wasn't like him. Few, if any, were, at least in his experience. He saw that there was something, not necessarily wrong with Sienna, but something different about her from him, and try as he might, he did not have what was needed to reach her right in that moment. Odds were that he'd never reach her, that if they got out of here she would just say her thank yous and farewells and she would be gone from his life forever, having only ever, at best, tolerated him.
When she chastely patted his hands, rather than hugging him back, Raul understood all too well. His tail, which had been happily swishing back and forth, slowed to a halt. Raul knew it wasn't her fault. He knew he couldn't force anyone to be happy, or to accept him, strange as he was, but it tickled that well of bitterness inside him, a saline lake in the bottom of his heart that added up drop by drop over a lifetime of rejection or exclusion. Even Sienna's kind words of encouragement were but a drop of honey lost that sour, chilly expanse.
They sounded sincere, but everything in her body language refuted them.
Raul released her, his habitually neutral expression betraying nothing, but the chilliness in his baby-blue eyes.
Suddenly, where he'd welcomed her assistance, had felt comforted and supported by it, Raul's continued reliance on the girl now felt like an intrusion, like he was taking something not his. It felt as if the bodily contact which to Raul was warmth enough to endure any storm, had not been a gift, but rather something he'd stolen because the one from which he'd taken it had not the means to stop him. It was all he could do to not recoil as if Sienna had suddenly transformed into a colony of squirming eels, not because he didn't want to be touched and supported, but because he was now nearly convinced that Sienna did not, and he'd only gotten as far as he had because of her gentle temperament.
He did not pull away entirely, but the sudden discomfort of his invasion of having unwittingly invaded her personal space, made his motions stiff, and the way he allowed her to carry him more formal. He likely could have managed perfectly on his own, but to do so soon after Sienna making it clear what she thought of him would be too obvious even for the unsubtle wolf. He thought long and hard about what she'd said to him, so long in fact that it started to seem as if no answer would be forthcoming as the pair made their way up through the winding passage past the trickling of a subterranean stream.
"My ears are still ringing. It makes me feel dizzy." Raul said with a sharp shake of his head, as if trying to shake something loose, "It seems I needn't have bothered at all. You could have wiped out that whole flock on your own."
There was no keeping the bitterness out of his voice at the last, and able to hear it himself, Raul shut his words off with an almost audible click. He sought for some change of subject almost immediately, though he was still curious as to how Sienna had created that ball of flame, though he guessed it was a semblance or dust technique of some sort. At least that verified to him that she was indeed a huntress.
"Daddy... My father, always told me that the gods made me big and strong for a reason." He said, despite the apparent non-sequitor, "He said it is the duty of the strong to share their strength, not to horde it for themselves. It's why I am going to be a hunstman one day."
Raul held out the hand that wasn't draped over Sienna's shoulder and punctuated the statement by pulling the paw-like extremity into a massive meaty fist that could have fit easily around Sienna's entire head, then squeezing so that all the lines of muscle and tendon stood out in sharp relief. As the fist fell limp back to his side, Raul continued.
"But he also told me that no one can be strong all the time, and that is why it is OK to borrow strength from your friends." Raul's rural drawl turned wistful, because he missed his parents terribly, "He fought in the great war. My mom said he was the strongest fighter she'd ever seen. But after the fighting was done he got tired, and sad, and then mom had to be strong for them both. She said it wasn't because he got weak, she said it was because he needed to rest."
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Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 22:59:32 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 16, 2020 0:10:17 GMT -5
She wished his reaction was unexpected, but it really was the only thing that could have happened given her own incompetence. Red wished she could act. That she could do the same thing with her body that she could with her voice. Though even then, she was only good at keeping her voice pleasant and neutral, and she could do that with her expressions as well. It just wasn't good enough.
At this point she had no idea what to do. With every perceived mistake she made each one after felt worse, quickly snowballing into making everything feel utterly catastrophic. Normally she could keep such feelings in check, at least until after the mission was done, keeping herself in a state of almost nothingness. Or at least what felt like nothingness and apathy compared to what she normally felt. With that not happening, she was starting to feel overwhelmed. On top of that, she still refused to stop and collect herself, thinking the situation was bad enough that she couldn't, and still felt the need to do everything she could for Raul. Even if she had no idea what to do. Even if trying to think of what to do was eating so many brain cycles on top of everything else she was worried about that it was hurting her head. She wanted to apologize. For failing so horribly. For not being able to lie better. For hurting his ears. For everything. For things she didn't even know about and probably didn't even make sense. But she couldn't do that. She already apologized once and continuing to do it was only self-serving. It'd do little more than ease her own guilt while thrusting her anxiety on him, putting him in a place where he'd be the one having to make her feel better and that was unacceptable. So, she kept walking, and kept trying to think of what to say even though her mouth felt dry.
"Hopefully it'll clear up soon. My hearing is sensitive too. Unfortunately, I didn't bring anything to help. I didn't think I'd need it." The 'I'm sorry' went unsaid with effort on her part. "I know it must hurt, but...I'm glad you were there. My plan took awhile to setup. Holding off the entire swarm myself would have been dangerous. And difficult."
Was that reassuring? She had no idea. Hopefully it sounded nice, but she was worried about making it sound like she wouldn't be able to fight off future Grimm. While that was likely entirely accurate, it wasn't something she wanted to project. But she also didn't want him to feel useless and sad. Maybe she was saying too much? Or not enough? She didn't even know anymore. She just had to keep walking.
His change of subject started out nice, but she stumbled over her own feet and nearly choked on her own saliva when she heard the word 'Huntsman.' She quickly righted herself and kept moving, but in that moment, flexing his hand held an entirely different meaning to her. The cave still smelled of dead bodies and all of her encounters with Huntsmen in the past were still fresh in her mind from the Grimm summoning. He could probably crush her head with minimal effort, especially now with her aura so low. She knew what happened when someone's head was crushed and what it looked like. She could picture it clearly. Shaking her head, she tried to get the image out of her mind and regain her balance.
Because that couldn't be right. She couldn't have been hearing right. Her mind wanted to completely reject the idea that he might be training to join their ranks. That he was just talking about future plans, as terrible as that still felt to her. There was no reason for her to believe this. He could fight, he brought the subject up out of the blue with no prompting, and Haven was willing to recruit just about anyone right now, even faunus. It added up, but she didn't want to believe it. The sheer terror and hatred she had for them made her want to reject the idea entirely. There was no point in dwelling on it. No point in thinking about it. She could believe what she wanted. The odds that they would meet again in a city this big seemed slim anyway.
But that still left her in an awkward place. She didn't want to talk about this, but she needed to find a way carry on the conversation. Needed to do it. Absolutely had to. Her father also fought in the Great War, though he didn't stop fighting after and dedicated himself to faunus rights after, then fought in another war that he died in. Red figured her life would go a similar direction because her attempts to stop fighting and be normal failed so badly. But she wasn't sure she wanted to talk about that either. It was a link to who she was and a way she could be identified. More than that, it was sad and uncomfortable.
She couldn't even ask him about his parents. Maybe it'd be fine, but they were probably faunus too. There was no guarantee they were even alive. Neither of her parents were. How could she make him talk about that? Even if he was the one that brought it up, that was on his terms, not due to the cruel curiosity of a stranger. She coughed, trying to get the bit of stray spit out of her windpipe, glad that it gave her a moment to think. She tried to latch onto something. Tried to be as inoffensive as possible. Tried to give him something to talk about still. It was hard. Dealing with people was hard.
"They sound like wonderful people. Are you trying to follow in his footsteps?"
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 18, 2020 17:50:01 GMT -5
Sienna's response to his declaration transmitted through her like an electric current. Raul felt that charge as it leaped from he to him via where their bodies were in contact with each other. The fact that she nearly choked and sent them both tumbling into the dirt when he raised his fist had more than a few subtle implications, many too subtle for Raul to discern. He had no clue why she might react like that, other than to say that it was not the typical reaction garnered when he spoke of becoming a huntsman.
Reactions to his goal of joining the ranks of heroes dating back to the Vytal agreement tended to range from pride, to indifference, to curiosity, and everything between. On one occasion the reaction had been closer to pity as if he'd just admitted to having a terminal illness. Sienna however, if Raul didn't know any better, seemed to panic at the concept. The air suddenly stank with the musk of terror, and it was as if she'd entirely forgotten for a moment how to pilot her own body. It was strange, very strange.
Raul had hoped it would reassure her, to learn that he wasn't just some country bumpkin, and was actually trained in the art of combat and survival, but it seemed to do the utter opposite. Did Sienna not like Huntsman? Surely not. Hunters were the good-guys. Hunstmen put their safety on the line to bulwark the settlements of man and faunus kind against the ever present threat of Grimm. They were good. They were brave, and strong, and selfless, and Raul admired every last one. Though come to think of it, he'd never actually met a huntsman in person, but surely not just anyone could be one, it was a title meant for the best of the best. Wasn't it?
That left only one explanation. Since Sienna couldn't possibly hate hunstmen enough to justify her sudden terror, then it must be Raul himself that she was scared of. It had been a somewhat threatening gesture, hadn't it, and he was much, MUCH, bigger than her. Was Sienna afraid of him? Was that why she was being so nice to him? Was that why her words sounded kind while every communication of her flesh was one of panic and fear? Was she afraid of what he might do to her if he got angry at her the way he'd been angry at those Grimm? Was she wrong? The bitter taste of Grimm in his mouth served to remind Raul of what he must have looked like fighting the swarm. He'd killed with his teeth, like an animal. When had he chosen to do that? Had he chosen, or had he just done it because the wolf inside told him to. Did he even know the difference?
Raul grunted as he pulled out of the supportive embrace Sienna was providing. He was still a bit dizzy, and a little weak, but he could no longer bare to feel the panic of his companion as it radiated off of her, not now that he knew he was likely a contributing factor to said panic. The great wolf leaned on the wall instead as he walked, pressing himself up against the stone, and supporting himself against the cool impassive surface which was such a contrast to Sienna's soft warmth that it made him want to weep.
He missed his parents. He missed his home in Toll. He missed the animals that lived there. Like a pin pulled from a grenade, heartache and longing exploded inside him. At that moment he would have paid any price to be out of that tunnel and back in Toll, back in his family's little cottage with the bear-pelt rug in front of the fireplace. Of course, the cottage wasn't there anymore, or rather it was no longer his. His family had been forced to relocate, and though his parents had never told him why they decided to move from Toll to Argus, Raul knew it was because of him.
"I didn't want to actually..." He answered Sienna's question, which he now recognized as a masquerade of polite curiosity, because as long as she kept him talking, his mouth would be too busy to rip out her throat, "I wanted to stay in our village. I didn't understand why they were so eager to send me away. I just remember that they were scared of something, and that they thought I would be safer at Sanctum. Mom told me that they had fought their war, and now it was time to fight mine."
The combination of the current mood, thinking of his parents, and his exile from his childhood home was having a physical effect on Raul now. His voice was low and his face carefully blank while his tail and ears sagged.
"My dad taught me how to fight, and I tried my best to learn, because I wanted him to be proud, and he would smile and tell me how proud he was of me, but really I think it made him sad. Like he didn't want me to actually learn anything." Raul continued, head low, voice lower, "I didn't choose to be big and strong. But that is what I am. I'm not smart, or good with words like my mom. I'm not a warrior like my father. I didn't get a choice. Being Big and Strong is all I can give, So I want to be a huntsman, because if I am big and strong enough, then maybe someone else can stay in their village. Maybe someone else can have a choice instead."
"The Hunstmen from Haven came to Argus while I was there with my family." He added after a moment of thought, clearly an introspection triggered by his recent statements, "They helped put up the big communications tower. Now I can talk to my mom and dad whenever I want with my scroll. I think that was when I actually decided to be a huntsman."
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Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:00:28 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 19, 2020 13:37:49 GMT -5
The effects of her shallow, uneven breathing were starting to catch up with her. She was getting light-headed and dizzy, enough so that when Raul decided to stand on his own she wobbled a little because of the change in weight distribution and had to regain her balance. For as much as her mind felt like a swarm of angry bees right now, she was still able to recognize that as a bad sign. Blinking, she made herself try to take in more air, though it was choppy because her chest still felt tight. Like someone kept shutting off a valve in her lungs before she finished taking in the breath. But she still forced herself to count to four before exhaling, where she would then count to four again.
Because she was trying to focus so much on breathing while she walked, it took her a good few seconds to realize that Raul was no longer leaning on her, and she was pretty sure she missed the first part of his response. He didn't look like he was quite feeling up to standing up, so she wasn't sure why he felt the need to force himself. Her mind was taking longer to process everything than it normally would, so it took her a second to realize that he had probably been trying to convince her that he was strong. She didn't particularly doubt it, not in the way he probably thought she did, this just wasn't the kind of circumstance where physical strength was all that mattered. Plus, Red was never one to take chances if she didn't have to. The risks she did take tended to either be very calculated or were forced on her in some way. Thus, even when she worked with people that had field experience, she tended to take whatever course of action would require the least amount of trust. It was safer to assume they couldn't do much of anything than it was to rely on someone and have them fail. The only exception was Knight, whom she trusted completely.
As much as she wanted to offer him her hand again, she also didn't want to embarrass him or otherwise make him think she thought he was completely incapable. Instead, she wordlessly made sure to move close enough that she could catch him if he stumbled or changed his mind, and made her her pace was the same as his. Part of her wanted to run ahead. Her mind was still screaming that she needed to get out of here. She was very fast, and with such a clear path to follow it wouldn't be that hard, even in her current state. But she couldn't abandon anyone. So, she focused on trying to calm down and catch her breath. She continued to fail at both.
Somehow in her attempt to be as inoffensive as possible, she still managed to hit an uncomfortable spot. This was exactly why she didn't want to ask about his family, and yet, for some reason, she still did it anyway albeit more indirectly. With one hand free now that she wasn't having to support Raul, she made sure to shove it into a pocket so she wouldn't be tempted to fidget with her coat. The other was still holding her scroll out, so all she had to do was make sure not to tap on it. That proved more difficult than she would have liked. What was she even supposed to say? It wasn't that she wasn't listening, it was that she wasn't thinking in terms of having a conversation, but rather thinking in terms of how she could avoid making things worse. He was the one that started the conversation, so she assumed he wanted to talk. Even if he didn't seem to mind the silence before, that was before they came across a pack of Grimm for one, and she could have been misreading what he wanted anyway. As long as it might help, she'd keep trying.
"That's an admirable goal. The world could really use more heroes."
Red wasn't sure if she was lying or not. 'Admirable' and 'hero' were not words she'd use when referring to Huntsmen, or really anyone in any kind of similar position, but she could appreciate what he was trying to do. Not everyone that entered that system could be as insane as what it seemed to output. There had to be a reason they wanted to try, and her faith in humanity was too high to assume that no one went in with good intentions. A couple of her old friends were participating in the Vytal tournament, so they somehow got sucked into the system, and she had known them for a pretty long time. She just wish she understood what made them all go insane. Part of it probably had to do with the type of work, but there had to be more to it than that. She met soldiers that were more stable than any Huntsmen she'd ever seen, and they probably saw similar circumstances. There had to be something in the environment itself. Considering Haven also accepted a notorious bandit and a borderline war criminal, she didn't find it that hard to believe.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 20, 2020 6:29:04 GMT -5
Something was wrong. Raul wasn't an intellectual giant, nor was he a mind reader, but luckily you didn't need to be smart or psychic to see that something wasn't right. Sienna was acting strangely. Her breathing was ragged and deliberate. Where her body language did not radiate with anxiety and terror, it seemed distracted and clumsy. It was even more obvious with a bit of space between them. Up close he hadn't been able to see all of the tiny details that practically surrounded the girl, but with a bit more distance, like a painting was unintelligible up close where only a few strokes were able to be viewed at a time, from further away a coherent picture took form.
That picture wasn't pretty. Every fiber of Sienna's being seemed to radiate with either anxiety or the attempt to conceal that anxiety, as if it wasn't obvious. There wasn't any concealing it from him, not in this place beneath the earth where there were no odors to confuse the scent of panic on her, and not deep within the silent passages of stone where there were no sounds to drown out the hammering of her heart or the jagged gasping of her breathing. What's worse is it did not seem to be getting better for her. If anything it was getting worse.
It made Raul think of a mouse he'd caught once when he was young. He'd been just a bit past six years old, and had inadvertently discovered the little creature in some boxes his father kept in the workshop. He'd scooped the little rodent up and had carried it with him all day until at dinner his mother had noticed how he kept one hand in the pocket of his hoody. She'd asked him what he had and he'd shown her the frightened critter. His mom had grown very serious and told him to release the mouse, but Raul didn't understand why. He'd been very gentle with the mouse, had kept it warm and safe, had petted it, because pats always made him feel safe, and had even snuck it some of his dinner. His mom explained that what he was doing was cruel. He may have had no ill-will towards the mouse, but it did not know that. It did not understand. All it knew was that something much bigger than it had abducted it, and held it captive.
Raul had learned a valuable lesson then. He'd learned the limitations of speech and comprehension. There was nothing he could do to make the mouse understand that he was a friend, and to try and force that understanding would only inflict more damage than he had already. There was no easy or quick solution to building trust, especially when he lacked the tools to communicate his intentions directly. He'd eventually obeyed his mother, and had taken the mouse back into the workshop and placed it carefully in the crate where he'd first found its nest, and sure enough, no sooner was the mouse out of his grasp did it scurry away in blind panic, no doubt thinking itself supremely lucky to have survived.
Sienna made him think of that mouse now, because despite being keenly aware of her panicked state, there was nothing he could do to soothe it. He wanted nothing more than to hold her and give her pats on the head, and tell her it was alright, and do all the things that would have made him feel better, but there was an unsurpassable gulf between them. If he tried to do those things, if he tried to force her to no be afraid, it would only make things worse. So what was he supposed to do? What had he done for the mouse?
That hadn't been the end of it when he released the creature. He'd gone back to the workshop for several days after, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shed's tiny tenant. He would sit very quietly in the center of the floor, and wait for long periods of time. After a few tries, he saw the mouse come out to investigate him, only to flee once more when he moved to look at it. So he tried again, and eventually it reappeared, and made it all the way to his feet before scuttling off again. It became ritual, and once the mouse would come right up to him, Raul started bringing food and placing it down before he started his vigil, and was able to watch in carefully cultivate silence as the mouse came and ate the food he'd placed. One day he did not place the food, and instead held it out in his hand, careful not to move as the rodent approached. Eventually the mouse appeared, and though skeptical at first, it was by now used to the peculiar object that sometimes squatted in its domain and chanced to nibble at the morsel it held out. After a great many such encounters, Raul finally withheld the tribute of food, but the mouse still came to visit, and it did not flee even as he reached into his pocket and drew out a sliver of hard cheese. By degrees, so small as to be utterly imperceptible, Raul gained the trust of that wild animal, until it would willingly climb into his hand and allow him to pet its fur. It was one of the greatest triumphs he'd ever accomplished.
So what did that mean for Sienna? It meant allowing her to decide what she was comfortable with, and not forcing his expectations upon her, despite his frustration. She was clearly comfortable to talk to him, though if Raul didn't know any better he'd think she was just waiting for the right opportunity to bolt like a startle hare. So he would keep talking to her, and hopefully she would grow accustomed to him, and feel secure around him. It was just a matter of being patient, and even in the eventuality where she never became comfortable with him, at least he would have done all he could to let it be her decision.
"When did you decide to become a huntsman?" he asked gently, as they climbed up through the throat of stone and soil, allowing her to set the pace.
He was still operating under the misconception that Sienna was some sort of hunter as well. She'd held her own in the fight against the Grimm, and had moved with the grace of, if not an expert combatant, at least someone who had trained for battle, slipping past blows and attacks with a skill that Raul couldn't match without the aid of his semblance. Speaking of semblances, there was the explosion to think of too, which Raul still expected to be some sort of semblance, because in his mind, being utterly unaware of electrolysis as a concept, the only explanation for such a thing was a semblance, or actual magic. Finally there was the first thing he'd noticed about her, which was her vaulting between trees, an activity not usually observed in the general population.
Huntsman wasn't the only profession that could account for all the aforementioned feats, but it was the best befitting, as Sienna didn't look much like a soldier, and she didn't act much like a bandit.
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Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:01:24 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jun 20, 2020 14:08:02 GMT -5
For the time being, she was trying to focus on breathing. Trying to push past that tightness in her chest and the swarm of thoughts in her head. It'd be pretty bad if she passed out because of it, and she was probably attracting more Grimm as long as she stayed like this. There was a lot to worry about though. Moving, making sure she didn't stumble against the uneven ground, keeping her posture as confident looking as she could manage (even if that was probably pointless at this point), making sure her traveling companion was okay, keeping the conversation going, looking and listening for potential danger...there was a lot demanding her focus and that made it difficult to count and breathe.
So when he asked a question that assumed she was a Huntress, she wheezed as she let out a breath faster than she intended and blinked with her eyebrows raised. Where the hell did that assumption come from? There had been a few people that acted like she had any idea what she was doing lately and she had no idea where that was coming from. She didn't think she looked the part at all. Her clothes were about three sizes too big for her, making her look like she was practically being devoured in them. Her fashion choices were extremely casual and beat up, making them not the slightest bit professional looking. She had dark rings around her eyes and noticeable bags from years of insomnia, and her teeth were crooked and stained from drinking too much coffee. A few of them were missing, though she rarely opened her mouth wide enough for those to be too noticeable. Her ears, even the two human-looking ones on the side of her head, were huge enough to make her look a little ridiculous. It wasn't exactly the kind of look that she thought would inspire much confidence in most people, though she supposed it was good that it did here.
At least, she was assuming it was confidence and not the insult she wanted to take it as, because that was how most people thought of Huntresses and that feeling was likely to be stronger in someone that wanted to become one. It must have sounded so romantic to people that never saw what they were capable of, or even thought about the implications of the organization. It must have sounded so nice to say that these people weren't bound by any country because their duty was to the world and the people in it when all that accomplished was making it so they had no accountability. All it did was create an organization where the members could do whatever the fuck they wanted because no one was strong enough to stop them, and they couldn't even use the law against them. It must have sounded especially nice to someone that lived in Mistral, a place so mired in corruption that any organization under the influence of the government was likely to rot. She wouldn't be surprised if they really wanted to believe that Huntsmen would be different somehow given how much they needed to rely on them. It made her sad and angry, but this wasn't the place for that.
"Huh? Oh, I'm not a Huntress, I'm just a mechanic," she rubbed the back of her head, and paused realizing he probably wanted an explanation for what happened back there. "I'm from Vacuo."
Red left it at that, hoping that would be enough to explain why she knew how to fight. She wasn't from Vacuo, but 'Sienna' was, and 'Sienna' moved to Mistral to try to get into one of the major universities in the city, something that 'Red' had no desire to do. Neither of them were violent or confrontational, so it was easy to say that 'Sienna' wanted to leave Vacuo to get away from all that, when the reality was that 'Red' didn't like Mistral very much and actually enjoyed her time in the desert despite its hazards. Even if it wasn't why she learned to fight, and by the time she moved there she already had some idea of how to throw a punch, fighting was a useful skill there. She hoped it wouldn't be surprising that even an ordinary mechanic would be able to do something.
Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jun 21, 2020 5:58:26 GMT -5
Wrong again. It was hard to tell with all the stuff wrapped around her head and the omnipresent gloom of the tunnel, but from how Sienna's eyes went wide and trembled in their sockets for a few moments, as she literally sputtered, Raul would have sworn that his question had offended her somehow. Maybe she truly didn't like hunstmen for some reason. Just because they'd never given Raul a reason to dislike them, didn't make the experience universal. It would also explain why she didn't seem to like him very much either, not to mention her feigned politeness and the stark change in mood when he mentioned his aspirations.
This was why he didn't talk much to strangers. No matter how friendly he wanted to be, Raul always managed to say the wrong thing, or to be sabotaged by his own appearance before a first impression could even be established. He was much better at listening than he was at putting words together. His conversational skills laid squarely in observation, not participation.
Every instinct told him to stop talking, to just enjoy the amiable company of Sienna and not to ask for anything more than that. He wanted to just accept her words and her presence at face value, but so much wasn't fitting together. He couldn't shake the suspicion that she was hiding something from him. Too much of what she'd said contradicted every interpretation of her body language, and while there might be perfectly innocent and reasonable explanations for it, it didn't exactly fill Raul with trust for her when there was a subtle undertone of deception running from the very beginning of their encounter. He wanted to be patient, and allow her to come out in her own time, but by now he genuinely felt as if he was putting far more effort into building a rapport than Sienna was.
It told him, in no uncertain terms, that she was at best utterly disinterested in developing a connection, and at worst actively resisting anything but the most superficial attachment. It was hardly a surprise.
Raul had no friends, not really, and had grown accustomed to the ways that people would gently rebuff or reject him. Sienna hadn't gone that far yet, but the more she acted strangely, the more certain Raul grew of that being the case. If it weren't for this hole they were both trapped in, she probably wouldn't even be talking to him, and would have been long gone ages ago.
His neutral expression shifted a bit as he slowed his ascent slightly to fall behind just a bit. The fluffy ears on his head sagged lower. All he wanted now was to get out of this hole and go home.
"Oh, okay." He said quietly in his bassy growl, allowing the long suffering conversation to finally die where it lay.
Their climb fell back into a restless silence, with the only sounds being that of the water trickling down the sloping walls and floor, the shuffling of their boots, and something else, barely audible even to Raul's keen ears, but steadily getting louder. It was hard to tell where the noise was coming from at first. It seemed to be coming from all around the, and with a shock the wolf realized he could feel the vibrations of the sound when he placed his palm on the earthen wall of the tunnel. Something occurred to him as he did that, and took a closer look at the tunnel they were in, his dormant ears rising to dance curiously on his head.
"That's odd..." He said quietly, as he tested the air's scent to no avail, and ran his hand over the gently curving wall of the tunnel, "I just realized that this tunnel is almost perfectly circular..."
He blinked, his faunus eyes twinkling eerily in the gloom. It occurred to him that many of the tunnels that branched off of that main chamber were also inexplicably uniform. He'd been dazed from the blast, and too concerned with Sienna to give that detail much thought until now, but it was remarkably odd. Natural erosion didn't typically produce such clean formations. He took a closer look at the tunnel they were in, and noted that the profile of which only deviated from a near perfect ellipse where it was obstructed by solid rock jutting from the hard pack dirt, of where the flow of water had worn down the floor and deposited silt. A naturally occurring passage would be arbitrary and random, not so uniform.
Raul felt as if he was on the verge of puzzling out the explanation for such a peculiar phenomenon, but that noise that had been barely audible when he noticed it, he grown loud enough that even an average human would have heard it clearly. Raul couldn't concentrate, not with that grinding, shifting, scratching sound distracting him.
"Do you hear that?" He asked finally.
Seemingly in answer the arch of solid dirt above them gave way and dumped a wave of loose earth upon the pair before Sienna could offer a reply. A shower of sod fell like a curtain between them, and Raul had a brief moment of panic for a possibly cave in, that filled his open eyes and mouth with grit.
Raul cursed and scrambled back, trying to blink the dirt out of his eyes, only seeing, far too late to do anything, but yell an inarticulate warning at Sienna, as he saw several sets of beady red eyes and glistening ivory jaws charge out of the falling soil and lunge for him.
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Last Edit: Jul 10, 2020 23:02:39 GMT -5 by Raul Adalwulf