The First Age

She didn't look like she was having an easy go of this. She at didn't seem angry at him, at least not after he'd explained himself. The guy didn't seem overly caring either, Nox just go a strange feeling that he didn't care about much.

She introduced herself. Nox grinned down at her and offered his name as well. "Nox."
He was saddened by the fact that she was alone in all of this. He remembered being alone. Remembered before he'd met Bas and Pyotr and then later Aria. Moscow was a big place, could feel like a conspiracy. In his case it probably was. He grinned at the thought, the Atharim could have been hunting him and he'd never even known it. Thankfully they weren't, they hadn't even known he was in town. But he was now. And he was a full fledged member, minus that tattoo. He'd have to get that done soon, Aria knew a guy.

Ashavari agreed to stay with Aria, he really didn't know what to say other than to reassure her, "She's good people. Might be a bit distant, but she has her reasons. A little cold at first, but she's a sweet girl."
None of it was a lie, Aria had her reasons for being distant, for not getting close to people, but he was sure she'd help out when asked. And Nox kinda had an extra reason for taking her to Aria, maybe Aria could tell him if his secret was safe, if she saw anything out of the ordinary.

As if she was reading his thought she said the ambulance was coming, and Nox didn't want to be around when it came. "We should probably get going before the ambulance gets here, it'll probably bring the CCDPD, and unless you want to report this, I'd rather not be here."
He'd really not want to be here, he'd really not want to be taken in for questioning, for further viewing of the footage he was sure captured his heroic attempt at saving the now stolen car. Hell of a way to go, brought down by your own people.

Ashavari turned to the man in black, was goth back in, or was it a Moscow thing? But either way he was there, helping out, he'd probably be the one to blab about whatever he saw, but then again maybe not, rejectors of authority and all that, he seemed a bit distant, like he didn't want to be here either. She asked him to come, make sure he wasn't an axe murderer. Nox laughed. With his best redneck accent, he grinned, "Nah, Duckling, I ain't no axe murderer, might slice and dice ya, but an axe, that's too impersonal. Have to really put your body behind an axe, no finesse."
There was no doubt in his mind that it was clear he was making a joke, the humor in his voice, the light in his eyes. Nox knew it was probably uncalled for, uncouth and pretty much off putting but really if you can't laugh when you are down when can you.

The man in black offered his name and his hand to Ashavari. Elias Donavan, he put the name in his memory banks, thought he was likely to forget it.

"Let me see if she's home."
Nox turned away from the pair of them then pushed the speed dial button for Aria's wallet. Though he could probably dial it if he had to, it was one number he'd stuck to memory, a life line so to speak. She picked up. "Aria, favor to ask. Got a friend, she needs a place to stay for a little while. Her car got stolen. Figure since you aren't home at nights, she could crash there."
He could tell from the sound of her voice, that she wasn't happy but she didn't say no either. Nox knew Aria wouldn't say no to helping someone, he'd counted on it actually. She reluctantly agreed and he smiled, "We'll there as soon as we get things situated here."
She told him about the hidden key if she wasn't there when he got there, but she reassured him she'd be there in short order. He hung up the phone and turned back to them. "She's game. Shall we?"
He held out his arm all gentleman like to Ashavari. He looked to Elias with a playful grin then back to Ashavari. "I will warn you both now. Aria is distant, can feel almost cold, but she's not, it's a protective shell."
He frowned. "And her uh, apartment might seem a bit uh, armed to the tooth."
Now his prior comment seemed a bit worse, made Aria seem more dangerous than she really is, at least to non-monster anyway. Monsters beware though.

Nox started them towards Aria's place. They'd have to get on the metro to get there quickly.

Asha looked at Nox oddly as he admitted wanting to be far away from the ambulance when it arrived, but not with much accusation. Her uncle had been of a similar disposition, with stark mistrust of those in the regular channels of authority. He hadn't been a bad man, just one with unique views on justice, and inevitably his views coloured Asha's own. She did not regret the accomplice car jacker's broken leg, for instance, but she was not sure she'd have had the stomach to meter out such retribution herself.

"No. Me either,"
she agreed blandly. One thing her uncle had always insisted upon for both of them, but especially her, was the preservation of anonymity. Don't make waves. Don't bring attention to yourself. They'd never had an explicit conversation as to why, but she of course had an idea as to his concerns, and took them seriously enough to maintain them even after he'd gone. It was natural anyway after all this time. And aside from that, she was very ready to be away from the pain of the man's broken leg.

As such Asha delighted in the brief flash of Elias' surprise at her request, both as a distraction and for its own sake. It was like dropping rocks in a still pool of water just to watch the ripples, all the more enjoyable because she was the only one who could sense the nuances. Though she hadn't expected him to agree so readily. The handshake she was a little less enthused about, but at least his hands were mostly covered. What little she sensed in the flicker of his fingertips was stolid, hardly intrusive, but she slipped her hand free quickly anyway. Still smiling widely, but quick about the touch.

She didn't need the social cues to understand Nox's joke; the mirth hung off him, infecting her in the process. So of course she laughed, though probably more from the feeling than the words. It felt good anyway, to shuck off the misery like old skin. Actually, she was fairly sure neither of them posed a threat. Nothing in their emotions hinted as such, and she wasn't quite so foolish as to go off with strangers she didn't trust. Or had reason to mistrust anyway. She shoved her hands into her coat pocket while Nox made the call, and though she stared some way off distant, she did listen to the side of the conversation she could hear. It was her immediate future after all, and she had no idea what she'd do if Nox's friend refused to help her.

Fortunately she at least won a little luck from today.

Asha snorted laughter at the offered arm, and didn't take it, though clearly it was not out of offence. She just didn't want to be that close. Neither of the two's company was particularly taxing, but she preferred distance with strangers whose emotions might fluctuate in ways she could not predict. For that same reason she was rather glad this Aria was described as cold, and therefore not likely to molly coddle over the fact Asha was essentially homeless. Distant was fine. Distant was good. Though...

"Armed to the tooth?"


Her brows rose. She glanced at Elias, but was compelled to curiosity anyway.

"My first day in Moscow, a man was shot in the cafe I was in. Is this city really so dangerous?"
She sounded more inquisitive than afraid, as she trotted in the direction led.

Nox's joke did little to ripple the vacancy of Elias' expression, which found the joke uncouth just like the rest of the man. Nox's accent pegged him American, but the man's dialect and behavior were more telling. Agreeing to go with Ashavari so quickly may have been a mistake.

But this friend of Nox's sounded interesting, but if she was so cold and distant, Eli doubted she'd welcome a trio of unexpected guests especially when two of them were strangers.

Nox was leading them toward the nearest metro, but Elias senses heightened. It was in a metro station that he'd encountered something as dangerous as it was fascinating. The one and only encounter, he reminded himself. His feet picked up the pace, trampling snow, boots dismissive of the slick walkways, and where he was the last to leave the parking lot, it seemed he was now the first to descend underground. His coat flung behind him as the rush of air from the tunnel billowed it away on winds of changing air-pressure, and he walked the escalator as it churned ever-downward, doubling his speed. He'd been with a beautiful girl and an annoying prick the other time, also, but this time, the annoying prick was a juicy steak that could be dropped into shark-infested waters. Nox seemed to like showing off his powers... perhaps Elias should encourage him to show them more.

His Wallet paid for Ashavari's fare and he waited at the turnstile to wave her through when she caught up. "I assumed you hadn't been using the metro since you had a car,"
he spoke plainly. "So this ride is on me."
Pale lips tugged at the corners of his mouth like he might smile. He didn't.

Instead, he turned toward Nox. "I assume you can make your way on your own. One way,"
his eyes flickered a dare, his soft voice coaxing a display of what could be done about pesky turnstiles, "or another?"

Nox was surprised she laughed at his joke. It made him smile. She didn't take his arm and he grinned at her. "Suit yourself, Duckling."


She commented on Aria's place and his grin widened. "The city isn't that dangerous. But Aria, well she has a dangerous job, a bit of a private investigator, a tracker most specifically. She's a bit stranger than your average PI though. Swords being her favored choice of protection."
He grinned. His prior comment resonating in his head. Though Aria would probably not slice and dice ya, just chop of your head. Poor monsters never stand a chance.

They got to the turn stiles and Elias paid for Ashavari's fare. How gentlemanly. He grinned at Elias, he wasn't exactly sure what the challenge was all about. The turn stiles were easily fought with a metro card that he had on his wallet. He watched Elias as he waved his wallet over the turn stile, Nox grinned at the man as he walked through. He had an idea, he grasped the power and his smile widened, his eyes completely on Elias. He wove weave of air in front of Elias, it was a wall of air as tall as the man, and about 2 feet wide. He could see the man through the weave, and he watched his expression for any sort of challenge or that he might actually see what he wove. Elias would either see it or walk into nothing. Nox grinned as he watched.


Edited by Nox, Nov 28 2014, 08:14 PM.

A PI. That was interesting, though the sword thing was a little weird. A tracker of what, exactly, that would necessitate that kind of protection? Asha pondered as they walked, realising a little late that they were headed towards the metro. Her fingers flexed amongst the small change in the depths of her pocket, wondering if she had even half enough to cover the fare. A favour was one thing, something she could return in kind. But money. She'd felt bad enough accepting Emily's cup of coffee, offered in genuine kindness, let alone having to now broach the subject of the fact she was broke.

As Elias stormed ahead on the escalator, Asha lingered to travel static all the long ride down. Observing the scenery was not a poor excuse, something she might have enjoyed had she not been anticipating embarrassment at the bottom. But Elias surprised her again when he took the burden of her ticket. For a second he looked as though he might smile, but the flicker faded without truly approaching anything close to a curve. In that Asha found a challenge; to find some way to sneak the emotion out passed his guards, to coax a reaction from those calm depths. She was not so sparing with her own grin. "Thanks."


She hopped on through, aware of the tight challenge in Elias' words. It was clear he didn't like Nox, but Asha chose to leave them to it and hope that those less pleasant emotions did not grow too large for her to comfortably ignore. Nox didn't appear overly perturbed anyway; he seemed to view the entire world through that devil may care grin, so she imagined that he at least was not too likely to get wound up.

Abruptly, her sense of Nox winked out.

"What're you doing?"
She blurted it without much thought. They'd been nothing to signify how he could hide from her, but it had to be something, right? For a moment she almost moved to grab his wrist so as to better feel the sheer emptiness, but thought better of making a scene. Rather lamely, she added, "Can we hurry up and leave the posturing to someplace warmer?"

"What're you doing?


Nox stopped stunned, the power fled from him and the wall of air dropped from in front of Elias. His usual mirth drained away with questions. Nox reached out to grab her and then remembered, the only female who knew he could touch the power was Aria and Aria was different than every other girl he'd ever met. He stopped inches from her arm. "You felt that? Emptiness, yes?"


He grinned at Ashavari, his humor returning. "Oh you will and Aria will get along just fine. She's like you."
He laughed. "I'm going to give you my coat, I can keep warm other ways."
He grinned at her and let her decide what he meant by that and took off his black leather jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She was wet after all, sitting in the snow like she had. He turned to Elias with a smile. "I'm assuming you know more than you are letting on too, challenging me to do something."


Oh this will be fun. He walked past the pair and stood on the platform out of the wind. He looked back and rubbed his arms. "Just to let you know I'm just going to warm the air. If that's alright with you. Which means I'm going to go away again. Just so you know."
He grabbed the power and warmed the air around him. He made it large enough for three, hopefully anyone else would assume that it was just a warm air vent or something. And he waited for the train to come barreling down the tracks to take them to the Enlightened District where Aria lived.


Edited by Nox, Nov 29 2014, 12:37 PM.

A lot happened in a few short moments.

A curtain of light appeared before him, and Elias stopped before passing through. Ashavari cut the silence with accusation. A cloud of peril loomed briefly, but the paltry menace faded soon after. Eli glanced over one shoulder, and although the majority of his face was veiled with the thickness of his hair, what expression could be seen was curious rather than sharp. Nox was more clever than Eli guessed. It was almost worth a modicum of respect, which was showed by the faintest nod of his head. Alright, so Nox wasn't dim, but he might still attract the attentions of the specter. There was nothing else to do but wait and see. Eli doubted it would be so easy to summon the ijiraq, and until it appeared, Eli had other things to ponder.

Like Ashavari and how Nox might 'go away'.

The group had moved to the platform. Many of the train stations in the famous Moscow system were warm and comfortable, but this one was drafty. Since Nox already knew Elias could see what was done, he studied the design of his heater unabashedly. He could duplicate it, he was sure, and in fact, his imagination was already spinning potential variations.

The overhead tracking system alerted the passengers of an approaching train, but before they boarded, Eli turned back to point-blank confront the other two, but it was to Ashavari he spoke. He had the sense she would answer plainly when the directness of his gaze leveled upon her delicate face.

"What does he mean, that he is going to disappear? And why do you know that he will?"

Her words wrenched Nox back as abruptly as he'd disappeared. When he made a move to grab her, she flinched pretty bad to get away from the touch and sudden severity emanating from him. Her head swam with the accusation, her thoughts stuck on that one word. Emptiness. He knew what she was - or something of her extra senses at the very least, and it unnerved her. He shouldn't have thought anything of her question (stupid stupid question). Instead, she had betrayed herself.

For a moment feat thrummed in her temples. But then Nox's hand dropped, and she felt the amusement swell in him once again.

Like me?

She'd never met anyone "like" her. Even her uncle had never really been clear on "what" she was, just that it was a secret to be kept for reasons he had never been clear on. Different was dangerous, that's all she knew. Asha stood still as a hunted rabbit as Nox placed the coat around her shoulders, but when nothing else alarming happened, her fear retreated. A thousand questions spun in its place. She moved after him, shifting the jacket on her shoulders so that it would not fall. It smelled strangely masculine.

Around them the air warmed. It physically warmed, and apparently Nox took responsibility for it, and god above her head was probably going to explode if one more thing she believed to be true shattered into a thousand shards. She followed to the edge of the platform, ignoring both the whir of the oncoming train and Elias' blunt question in favour of questioning Nox. "How are you doing that? "
Almost immediately her gaze spun to confront the other man, more in wonder than accusation now. "How is he doing that?"


Elias must know. He had not batted an eyelid at the shift in temperature, only asked about her, like she was the only strange thing here. "Disappearing from my senses,"
she explained, openly trusting now she was outed anyway, but more keen on gathering her own answers - imploring for a trade. "Whenever he does that."

Elias studied the weave, Nox wanted to do so much more, he could do so much more to show off but right now he had to maintain the weave that warmed the air, it was simple, but it required his attention.

The man in black turned and confronted their companion, which under normal circumstances would have sent Nox into his normal attack stance, but the man who wielded the power of the gods before didn't seem threatening at the moment, at least that's what he thought he was, but it was so not the place to discuss the uniqueness of their abilities, it was bad enough Nox was showing off. He sighed and chided himself, Aria's going to be pissed off. Not even a week in and he's got more special friends for whom they'll be responsible to keep off the Atharim radar.

She asked how he was doing it. He grinned playfully. "Born this way, Duckling."
He turned to look at her more serious. "Probably best we don't discuss this in public. Too many ears. And for you, Duckling, I'm not sure I can explain anything, my memories are a bit hazy. Aria can explain, she's kinda my resident expert."
Aria was helping him help himself. His memories were coming back because she walked into his life, saving his bacon a few times too.

The train came to a full stop and the people all came off and the three of them got into the car, it was mostly empty, Nox dropped the power, he knew it bothered Aria, and he was pretty sure that Ashavari was uncomfortable as well with his complete lack of emotional state. He didn't know why he cared, but today he did, so he went with it.

But Nox quickly added to his statement to ease both their reassurances, he wasn't exactly sure what Elias was, like Bas or like Aria, but it didn't matter really he saw what he did and that was a good to know. "But I survived my power manifesting itself unlike so many others. Giving me a unique ability. Don't know why you don't feel me, Aria doesn't either, I asked. But it's what happens we hold the power, we tested it to no ends."


He waited until everyone was on the train, it was mostly empty. "I am special, you are special, I don't think my kind has an official name, Aria calls us godlings. But you, you Duckling, are Sentient."
He turns to Elias. "Basically she senses emotions."
Nox grinned widely and leans back in his seat. "There is a great many things the normal world has no clue about."

"And here I was thinking you'd been bitten by a radioactive spider or something."
She realised suddenly how much more difficult she found it to read someone when she only had the regular cues to inform her, but she was pretty sure he found her inquisitiveness amusing. She also found she could grin back, despite not having the comforting sense of his emotions with which to synchronise. That was another thing she relied on, but discovered she didn't completely need in order to relate. Though even as she bantered, he felt distant. Like a thousand miles away, a speck on the horizon.

The idea of too many ears gave her pause. His admitting to a lack of memories did too, though both she buried to ponder later. For now she was more enamoured of her company than inclined to be cautious. Both her companions had helped her today. She felt safe.

Once inside the train, Asha scooted into a chair by the window. She loved travelling, any sort; it held a kind of nostalgia she was helpless to resist, the feeling of slicing through the terrain to someplace new and unknown. A little music to accent the hum of the engine and the moment would have been perfect, but all that had been in her car. She could rig up her Wallet she supposed, she'd never really used it for that though, wasn't really sure the old tech would even hold up to the demand.

Nox stopped doing whatever it was that shielded him from her. She smiled brief gratitude, for a moment also adjusting distractedly to the feelings of the other new people in the mostly empty car. "Powers..."
She trailed off, thinking furiously over every piece of folklore she had ever chased across the continent. Others had disappeared from her senses since she'd been in Moscow, which meant... the world had just spectacularly fallen upside down. Strangely she never doubted his explanation. She should be calling this whole thing crazy, but instead she soaked it all up curiously.

Sentient. So she finally had an official name along with the revelation she was no longer alone. Her head was spinning a little, but she mostly took it in stride. Her gaze blinked to Elias, seeking his reaction. Her uncle had seemed to think her abilities would not be favoured by those who learned of them.