[Chloro Smoke]

we are the lost
and the silent

   tags: Bianca Sabbato

  WHERE THE SKIES END -- STARSET

 outfit: As described

words: 937/937

It had been a full year and a half since Chloro sought out to fix her personal situation, and became a huntress-in-training. There has been no time to take a break since her time that started in the city many, many years ago. Friends were made and friends were lost along the way. Some for good, some for worse. All her work has been to help others, but the last year and a half have become the hardest in her life. Unsure as to why to begin with, Chloro had begun to slowly but surely realise, especially with the rekindling with Bianca and the discovery of Nastya recently. Things have become more complicated and more complex, and she wasn't thinking about her engineering learning. Blood, sweat and tears had been shed over her engineering learnings, but she has refused to let blood, sweat and tears flow with this issue. Her memories of Misha have been coming back in full in recent months, the girl that she loved first. The girl that rekindled her love for life after theirs were destroyed in a night's passing.

Misha, dark skinned with bright green eyes and dirty blonde hair. Misha, the leader who kept everyone in check and also invigorated as they traveled from the destroyed village to Mistral. Misha, the girl who protected them from the Grimm. Misha, the girl who fought side by side with Chloro on her final night... Misha, the girl who took a blow for Chloro before falling in battle. Chloro cried her eyes out for the first few days, and since then, she has been ever lost with her responsibilities to get the others to the city. How did they repay her? Half of them backstabbed her and the others were killed off by the brutality of the city. Ever since Misha's passing, she has never cried a single tear, or at least had a good cry about anything. To honour her memory, she has been learning odd bits that Misha knew, like playing the guitar. She has been practising for a full year now, behind everyone's back, so when she learnt enough about her engineering she could regain her voice again.

What was Chloro doing in the Cloud District though? She had found a nice spot that overlooked the entire city, and at night it was like gazing at a lake that reflected the night sky. A sight she often akinned to Misha. It helped her think about the problems she was experiencing. Her thoughts would occasionally drift to Bianca and Nastya. She could compare both of them to Misha in different ways. Nastya, her partner in crime, was like Misha in that she was a little shit and a troublemaker when she didn't have to be something else. Always joking around, causing issues back at the village, toying with other kids with pranks. Nastya was just the grown up troublemaker with access to tools to destroy buildings. Bianca, was similar in the way that Misha would always keep an eye out for Chloro. They both make sure that Chloro was happy and good, at times at the detriment of themselves. There was just lots of similarities between both of them and Misha, that it was starting to cause problems with her headspace.

She liked Nastya alot, definitely. However, feelings towards Bianca were beginning to grow as well. The small ratty lizard from almost a decade ago, who whilst took a different path and made things more problematic, had come back. It was just certainly lots to take in, enough to make a girl with such a lack of experience like Chloro to break down. Which, was another reason for her to be on this rooftop in the Cloud District. She had been picking away at her guitar, and when the memories had come flooding like they normal do at night, today had just been too much and she had began to cry and sniffle like a small child. Nothing was comparable to the night Misha died, but this was the first time since, and it threatened to break the dam she had built up for this very reason.

Taking a moment to rest, she would lay back and stare at the starry skies above her. Things were just piling up, and she still never figured out some way to vent it. So as she stared to the sparkling void above, tears left her eyes and trickled down the side of her face. Misha would've known what to do. Yet, all she had was barely two different halves of her in Nastya and Bianca. Guitar rested to the side, she still wasn't any good but she was decent enough to play a few cords and make something from it. A few songs she knew from old days still rung through her head, and they definitely played to the heartstrings right now. The words of one specific song would ring very close to home as she lightly hummed it with the occasional gutteral sound to come from her damaged vocals.

"I used to think that the day would never come,
I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun,
My morning sun is the drug that would brings me near,
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear,
I used to think that the day would never come,
That my life would depend on the morning sun"

The more she hummed it, the more her tears would flow. It was too ironic to be taken as truth, but it was also so close to the truth that it hurt. It hurt a lot.

♚ Made by SYLVIA of SA and GS ♚

[Nastya Pozhar]

Two and a half months.

That's about how long it had been since Nastya had met Chloro Smoke.

It was a sweet little arrangement the two had going on. She got a place to crash, ample opportunity to do whatever the hell she wanted, whenever she wanted, and a charming engineer to help with all her harebrained schemes. And in return, she helped with some of Chloro's. It was kinda nice. She wasn't sure how long it was going to last, of course, but that was always the case with these little partnerships in her experience.

Fun while it was still going, though.

She hadn't really given much other thought to their relationship, honestly. Sure, Chloro was pretty cool and she liked working with her, but she wouldn't really say she felt much else towards the girl. She could tell that Chloro probably felt pretty differently, though, so she wasn't much inclined to express that. If anything came of it, the ball was in her court- Nastya wasn't planning on making a move one way or the other. Not opposed to either outcome, though. As long as the good times kept a'rolling.

And their times were pretty good. Chloro was likeminded, and for once, it was refreshing to meet a true equal to her genius. She was more skilled with the hardware side of things- the actual mechanical engineering. Which was a perfect match for Nastya's prowess with software and programming. They both knew a bit of the others' fields, and that meant there was seldom a language barrier there, plus having two experts in different, but related, areas meant they functioned impeccably well as a team. Not too different, but not too similar either, avoiding the classic "Too Many Chefs" conundrum.

Baby Bear. Just right.

She wiped the sweat from her brow with a rag, and turned down the heat on the oven.

The nice thing about Chloro's apartment was that she had a pretty nice kitchen to work with. She propped her elbows on the countertop, tossing her messy ponytail to the side as a stray hair wormed its way in front of her mouth. Idly, she scrolled through the Mistral Internet Boards for something interesting to read while she waited for the fruits of her labor.

And, after about five more minutes of mindless social media, they were done- a perfect pan of perfect little blondies.

Which she thought was just the cleverest and funniest joke, considering they were getting packed for a surprise picnic with Chloro. Chloro didn't know she was getting a surprise picnic of course, because that would ruin the surprise.

Nastya wasn't entirely sure why she felt like doing this, honestly.

Felt a bit cruel to play with a girl's heartstrings like this, with no real intention to commit to anything more than their little casual game of flirty courtship and coy banter between projects.

But she felt like having a late-night picnic, and that was what she was going to do.

First she had to find Chloro, though. That was the fun part.

No idea where the inventor had scampered off to this time, but if she were planning on coming home any time soon, she'd have already been there.

No matter.

It was more fun this way.

Pulling up her GPS app on her Codex, she flipped over to a tab labeled "1-800-QTPI," which was, of course, a tracker for both Chloro's Scroll's location, and also the GPS chip she'd snuck into the tag on her shoes a few days ago. Unsurprisingly, the chip was pointing to her own location. With a grin, she checked her pockets and sure enough- Chloro must have found it and returned to sender. Heh. Good one.

But the Scroll location was still active. Somewhere in the Cloud District, looked like.

Well, their date would be somewhere nice at least.

Climbing onto the countertop, she retrieved a little wicker basket from the top shelf, before stuffing it full of little sandwiches, a summer sausage, a wedge of cheese, some nice wine, and of course, the pan of blondies. If she was quick, she could probably make it to Chloro before they cooled down too much.

She threw on a riding jacket, her "Haree" glasses (can't be too careful out in public), and a helmet, before hopping on one of the bikes in the garage and burning rubber towards her target.

It was kinda funny, actually- she hadn't expected Haree to last more than a day or two at best, as far as her personas went. But by some stroke of fate, that one had stuck, and now it was the most pragmatic disguise for her day-to-day outings. At least, the legal outings anyways.

Kind of a pain, really.

Vacuo had a stupid accent.

---

Soon enough, though, she arrived at Chloro's location. A high-rise, right at the top of the mountain?

Damn.

Had she figured out the picnic date surprise already?

Nah, that wasn't possible. For one, Nastya had only just had the idea about an hour ago. And two, she had rather cheekily replaced the kitchen security feed with a looping clip of her making faces and silly dance moves at the camera. So even if Chloro had been spying on her, she wouldn't have seen anything she hadn't seen plenty of times before.

Still.

Killer location. Mad props.

Parking the bike, she sized up the building for a moment, before noticing a cracked window with the lights out. Seemed like a good enough place to get in. She wedged the window open and slip in through the opening, into what seemed to be someone's hotel suite. Quietly, she let herself out through their front door, and made her way to the elevator. GPS said Chloro was up high, so probably in a penthouse suite, or... Rooftop?

Easier to check there first, so she rode all the way up to the top, and climbed a last two sets of stairs up to the roof.

The door swung open and, lo and behold, there she was. Sitting alone, playing a... guitar?

Huh.

Didn't know she played. And she seemed to be singing too? Or well, humming. It sounded nice. Not wanting to disturb her, Nastya just stood in the doorway and set her helmet and the basket down to listen.

When it seemed like she was done with the song, she cracked a smile and applauded, with appropriate hoots and whistles. One of the lights turned on downstairs, and her grin widened, as she toned down the raucous cheering a bit.

"Sounds pretty good. Cute, smart, and multi-talented. Man, you've just got it all, huh?"

Grabbing the basket, she let the door shut behind her and strolled over to Chloro to take a seat nearby.

"Hungry?"

WC: 1134 | TWC: 1134 | Aura: 100%

[Bianca Sabbato]

Once again, I was pulled up onto some shit I had no business with.

I was just walking my way back to Haven after getting a package of violin strings. Because apparently, I was the kind of gal who just waited until her last ones snapped before deigning to buy new ones.

And since I wasn’t looking forward to modding my violin into a balalaika, I needed new ones. So I decided to head out in the middle of the night to the only music store I knew was open at such ungodly hours... For some reason... They probably sold pot under the table or something like that.

Whatever the case. The Cloud district was safe, and there was no one roaming the streets that late. So I looked forward to a nice, peaceful walk with nothing but the occasional hooting owl or screeching rat to keep me company. I went out in my uniform just to discourage anyone from disturbing me that night... And also because I didn’t feel like changing just to go fetch some strings.

Everything was running smoothly. At least until I caught a glimpse of someone standing at the front of a hotel. A boy with a distressed expression and a scroll in his hand. He looked at me, noticed my Haven clothes, and quickly made his way towards me. The guy was young and made a brief pause upon looking at my tail, but it seemed like whatever was on his head was important enough to need my help, even if I was a faunus.

I would say typical, but that’s a little beyond evident at this point.

Although I believed he would simply ask for some menial shit or complaining about his neighbors making too much noise... I began paying more attention when he said he thought someone had broken into his building...

He took me to a window, broken and open. And said that the woman living there was on vacation or something. Apparently, he had heard some noises early into the night and ignored them, but began worrying when he heard footsteps just a mere moment ago. And no one had entered the building through the proper door either...

Frowning. I told the boy I would take a look into the building. And that he should go back to his room. I would go back to him if I found something suspicious... It could still be something innocuous like a cat or a dog seeking refuge in the building. But I needed to properly check things first.

I guess that happens when you are too lazy to change your uniform. People just assume you are there to help them... Well... Whatever it was, I doubted it would be too much of a hassle. And I was looking forward to trying and help out people a bit more, even the fools up here in Cloud district.

I entered the building from that very same window. Clearly, it was big enough to fit a person. I jumped into the darkness but didn’t feel any presence there. And there were still valuables on sight that a robber wouldn’t miss in a thousand years... Strangely, the front door was open, something that could only be done from the inside.

Peeking into the hall. I noticed the elevator lights indicating that the machine had stopped on the highest floor, where no one lived. And that was definitely bizarre, considering what the dude told me before. So I took the nearby stairs as quick as I could, my bare feet masking away my sounds and darkness serving to shelter me from human eyes at least.

As I reached the top floor. I thought about focusing my aura on sense if anyone was near. But I didn’t even need to do that. Since the music notes coming from the roof were enough to draw my attention.

Sure enough, as I peeked through the door, I saw the silhouettes of two people. One of them had just finished with the guitar, and the other one was saying something... Welp. There was the chance that these were just homeowners minding their fucking business. But if there was a robber around, it wasn’t safe for them to stay here, so I decided to make my presence known.

Knocking on the door two times. I gently opened it to reveal myself, still clad in my uniform, and clearing my throat. I was unarmed but ready to act if some of them decided to try anything funny.

-Good night. I’ve been noticed some strange noises coming from this building... So if you would be...-

I stopped and double-checked the face of the girl down on the floor.

It was most definitely Chloro...

-So I just...Huh...- I said, really blown off my feet by the revelation. -Well, this is awkward...- I called out from where I stood. -Wasn’t really expecting to find you here, Chloro-

And there was another girl whom I gave a quick lookover. Blue-haired, with glasses, no fucking clue of who she was. She sat near Chloro.

I gave my mind a second to soft-reset before I refocused my gaze on Chloro again. Only then I noticed that she seemed to be... Crying. And my eyes turned a tad bit curious at that.

-Is... Everything alright?- I asked, hoping to get, like... Any answer at all. If Chloro was here to steal things, that wouldn’t be something out of the ordinary. But her demeanor kinda threw me out of the loop.

---

920/920 Words

[Chloro Smoke]

we are the lost
and the silent

   tags: Bianca Sabbato

  WHERE THE SKIES END -- STARSET

 outfit: As described

words: 456/1393

As her fingers picked away at the guitar, she could hear something moving up the back stairs, and the door open wide before no more movement. Knowing that someone was now watching, she made her playing a bit better before she then laid back and simply stared at the sky. A face appeared with a voice to accompany it, Nastya, or Haree as she had been calling her for a bit. One of the issues her brain was creating, but a welcome sight nonetheless. They brought some food with her too, cute. Nastya's comment made her laugh and smile lightly as she sat back up, making a just of "just a little" when asked about being hungry. Taking one of the particular blondies that had been made, she would take a bite and smile lightly. Decent enough, and definitely tasted on homecooking. Powering up her gauntlet, she typed up a message and rotated it for Nastya. "Cooking now are we? Call me multi-talented when you're the one bloody cooking."

As they bantered a bit, she rested back and laid down just before another person came to the door. Of course, it had the be the other half of this seemingly self created issue. Bianca had appeared, seemingly answering a call for help or something. Did Nastya make noises entering the building? Probably, she always liked to make an entrance of some sort. She gave a light wave before wiping her eyes down fully, clearing up any remaining tears that had been shed. Patting the other side of her that Nastya was sat, she beckoned her forward whilst she typed out a message on the hologram keyboard for Bianca before spinning the display to her. "I'm okay enough, just been thinking on the past. Bianca, this is Haree." At which point she would turn to Nastya and show her another message. "Haree, this is Bianca, a close class friend of mine." After, it returned to moderate silence, with the sound of the night life below them.

Uncomfortable with said silence, Chloro picked up her guitar again and picked away at a few notes and a few tunes to fill the awkward silence that was between the three of them. How else could it not be awkward though, on one hand there was terrorist Nastya Pozhar, and on the other hand, there was the girl that had managed to arrest her once, Bianca Sabbato. Hopefully they would never come to the conclusion about both of them, especially Bianca remembering. But now, Nastya had a good disguise in place for now. After a bit of her haphazard notes, she put it back down again and brought up a message between the three of them. "So, been busy you two?"

♚ Made by SYLVIA of SA and GS ♚

[Bianca Sabbato]

Still unsure of what was happening. I shrugged and went along when it was clear nothing too serious was happening.
Would have left if the chameleon girl told me she wanted to be alone, but she seemed to call me in. So I accepted and went to sit beside Chloro, putting her between this blue-haired girl and myself.

I frowned a bit when I read why Chloro seemed to be down, but there wasn’t a lot I could say about it that wasn’t evident enough. So I merely gave her an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder and a knowing look. I knew the past had been really shitty for Chloro, so I wasn’t surprised that she sometimes felt melancholic. Hell, it would be weird if she didn’t.

But at least I could take her mind away from it for a while. While also taking this opportunity to get to know this Haree girl. So, with a nod in her direction, I extended my arm to greet the blonde scientist.

-Nice to finally meet you, Haree. Chloro talks about you quite often- I told the blue-haired girl. Both as an introduction and to tease Chloro a bit while I was at it.

Now, onto this Haree girl... She had a similar height and build to Chloro, maybe not as skinny as her... There was also something else, some weird aura around her...

-Your face looks... Kinda familiar...- I mentioned, squinting my eyes a bit to take a better look at her face beyond the relative darkness of the roof. -...Have you ever been on tv or something?- I asked with genuine curiosity. If she was some kind of famous scientist, then maybe I had seen her face pop out sometime before.

Anyway. Chloro told me that Haree was a little shy around new people. So I wouldn’t try and push her too much about it.

For the moment, I leaned back as I enjoyed the evening wind. It sure was nice up here, with the stars and shit. My tail bounced lightly on the floor behind me, not really a lizard thing, but more of a Bianca thing, if I was being honest.

I considered the situation for a moment, regarding Chloro and this girl Haree being there... But they hadn’t actually stolen anything, so I didn’t see a reason to make a big deal about everything.

-By the way. I’ll just tell whoever asks that I didn’t find anything suspicious. So y’all don’t have to worry... Just be a bit more careful next time. Okay?-

I called out before Chloro began playing the guitar again. Entertaining myself with watching her go at the instrument. She wasn’t perfect, but I could see that it was a work in progress, especially with the burns in her hands that probably made everything even more difficult.

-Same old routine. Training, studying... I was picking up some new strings to keep up the practice as well- I called, taking the small package and shaking it a bit. Those were a little nicer than what I was used to buying. But I had a little extra money from missions that I didn’t know how to spent.

-Didn’t know you played an instrument...Then again, I probably ruined the surprise. Right?- Chucking, I gave a quick look at the guitar before shrugging off and turning back to the two girls.

-Nothing I can do about that, I guess- Smiling, I gave Chloro a small poke on the ribs with my elbow to get her attention. -Fair warning. I’m going to start bothering you to practice together- Yep, Chloro knew how much I wanted to have a musical buddy. So now she was legally obligated to humor me.

Besides, I wasn’t lying when I spoke about writing a tune eventually. So now I knew I had to add a guitar part to it, which was exciting on its own right since I knew of a couple string duets I could draw inspiration from.

-On the other hand, I’ve been toying a bit with that new weapon you made me. I’m interested in some of the dust functions. And some other stuff I can talk about with you later, so be on the look for that...-

Deciding I was monopolizing the conversation, I turned to Haree for a while. -So... Chloro told me you are a scientist. Any cool projects you two are involved with?- I asked with a friendly smile, conspicuously wanting to gauge Nastya’s reaction to see how interested she was in Chloro. Just for fun.

I didn’t know if I was interrupting something. But I figured I wasn’t, else Chloro would have probably given me a hint that she wanted me to fuck off already. So I was comfy with getting to know this girl a little bit better.

---

801 / 1721 Words

[Nastya Pozhar]

"Hehe, I didn't say you were the only multi-talented..."

"Haree's" head spun around at the sound of an unfortunately familiar woman's voice.

Why the hell was she here!?

Ugh.

Can't even have a nice little picnic date without being harassed by the fucking cops... Somehow Mistral was even worse than Atlas in that regard. At least there, they weren't as unpredictable about it.

And then Chloro introduced the two of them, which was the cherry on the damn cake. She knew dirt girl? She was actually pretty sure Chloro had mentioned as much, back when they'd first met. But there were a million people in Mistral City! What were the odds she'd cross paths with her again? Seriously!

She smiled, and offered a friendly wave.

"Oh, so this is Bianca! Nice to meet you at last. Hopefully you've heard good things, haha." Ugh. She was really hoping for a chance to drop the Vacuoan drawl for once. At least her good habits would keep her identity a secret. As far as Bianca knew, Nastya was a boisterous Atlesian OAN train hijacker. Haree, on the other hand, was a softer-spoken, geekier, Vacuoan scientist. They looked similar, but so did a lot of people- blonde hair, blue eyes, and a small stature weren't exactly unique traits by any stretch, and people were often much less proficient at putting names to faces than they believed themselves to be. The best disguises were simple, and brazenly worn in plain sight. All she needed was a pair of glasses, a consistent accent, and a shift in demeanor.

She froze for just a second as Bianca nearly proved her theory wrong, though. "E-eh?" Shit, she couldn't have seen through the act that quickly, could she? No way! Her performance was flawless!

She laughed, covering the urge to breathe a heavy sigh of relief, as the tension lifted, though. She was getting worked up for nothing- lizard girl recognized her face, but not nearly enough to place it to a name. That was a good sign. She smiled, a bit flustered and embarrassed. "TV? Oh, no, not me, haha. Well, I might have been in the background during the news reports on the Mountbatten Mining Expedition. Lake Matsu, you may have heard the news. Sad thing, what happened there..."

There was some truth to it, at least- there had been news reports both before and after the expedition; press releases and the like. She wasn't in either of them, as far as she was aware, though. She developed her Haree persona the morning of the expedition, planting her identity in the personnel files, and the less that was said about her week following the catastrophically ill-fated venture, the better.

Still, it was a plausible lie. And she had proof of her involvement with the expedition. Hell, for all she knew, maybe someone actually did snap a photo or two of her at work there?

Chloro spoke up again, before returning to her playing, and Nastya contented herself with resting her head on her fellow inventor's shoulder as she did, listening to Bianca ramble on. There was something irksome about her overly familiar interactions with Chloro. And the fact that she played an instrument as well, and saw the need to bring it up pressed the wrong buttons.

She didn't wear those concerns on her face, though- all smiles, as she helped herself to some of her snacks.

Her ears did perk up at the mention of a new weapon, though. She glanced first to Chloro. She hadn't really been aware of any project like that, though she supposed it made sense that she wouldn't have known; the engineer had so many balls in the air at any given time, it would be pointless to have her explain each and every one. By the time she finished talking about one, she'd be working on a new one.

"Dust functions? Ooo. Intriguing. What kind of weapon is it? U-uh, if you don't mind me asking, I mean." She chuckled again, scratching the back of her head as she turned to face Bianca. And as she did, it seemed the lizard had about the same impulse to address her, so she adjusted her glasses and responded in kind.

"Projects? Oh, yeah... Well, I mentioned the Lake Matsu expedition already. We've been trying to take some of the data gleaned from Chloro's survey beacons and see if we can extrapolate any useful new insights into the gravitational forces at work on the site." She smiled back at Chloro, giving her a chance to chime in if she wanted to, before continuing.

"Aside from that, I've been helping a bit with some of her other work- lots of projects, all the time, hehe. And working on some of my own in the meantime. Chief among those being communications research- looking into ways that we can better engage with others, from anywhere on Remnant." Not necessarily a lie- that was actually the basis for her Atlas University capstone thesis. Her Codex was initially meant to be something great for society- a symbol of a more united world. Even the name; codex, a collection of scrolls, in a sense. And the ancestor of the modern book. The progenitor of knowledge.

Lack of faith and funding from the government had sullied that purpose. Now it was a powerful weapon. But still no less capable of great things.

Not that she was all too willing to mention that, specifically, to Bianca. She had no idea how much homework the Huntress had done on her. It wouldn't be easy, considering she'd changed her name before fleeing Atlas. But it was conceivable that some thin trail existed, linking Nastya Pozhar back to Anastasia Tournesol, and with that connection, linking her to the Codex, and her arson attempt at the University.

Low risk, but she still wasn't too keen on sharing that information just yet. Hell, not even Chloro was aware of much, aside from her earning her degree in Engineering, and leaving Atlas shortly after.

Cards close to her chest- how she liked them.

WC: 1028 | TWC: 2162 | Aura: 100%