Test Drive?

[Rhapsody]

ooc --

A test drive of some character. Hopefully, he gets to be my 'second.'

...But, then again, I've never had a character go passed level 25. D: -shot-

--

"Bad smells, bad smells."

Yue had never really understood how the world worked. From the age of six, his life had consisted of tests and modifications. Those operations that were supposed to make him see in the dark that had taken away his sight, the combat training to make him stronger that just drove him to the brink of dying. He supposed that he had been created and conceived for the sole purpose of having others use him - of living as a blank canvas for others to modify. Yue was not his own person, but a child of the world: Theirs to keep, and raise, and abuse.

And, of course, he had never really minded the fact that he couldn't see, or that he'd been robbed of his childhood. The kid didn't mind much as long as he was fed and clean. Which, after traveling for more than a day, he was not.

The industrial, poisonous small that surrounded the City of Tin was intimidating, to say the least. Already Yue was beginning to lose faith in his ability to get around; already he had become confused. Through the intense wall of scent, it was hard to smell anything else.

"Smells dirty. That's good. Good for Yue. No clean smells."

He smiled, sort of. The boy's voice was hoarse and strange, probably reflective of the strange scar that dominated most of his throat, mutating the skin over his Adam's apple into a dark pink. Darker than the surrounding skin - which was wan and unnaturally soft to the touch.

"Let's go exploring. Come on, come on. Have some fun."

It was clear to anybody that the boy - Yue? - was some kind of mentally unstable. His walk was more of a dance; his manner of speech - never mind that most of what he said was to himself - was choppy and erratic. The child seemed harmless, though. If not horribly diseased and, well, completely off his rocker.

[fever gunner]

(( OOC: Hope you don't mind if I join. I need to refresh my RPing. D: Pulling out my oldest character on here. ))

Wander wander wander wander. What kind of life was this? Not one for Kanjii, she of the everlasting laziness. But there was little else for her to do, in a world like this. Walking tired her out, but she was a simple-minded girl. Walking gave her something to think about -- one step, another, more and more and more -- her equivalent of counting sheep, really.

Sleeping didn't do for her what walking did. Sleeping took no concentration, and when the concentration went away, there was nothing to think about. That was the worst part of it, really -- not being able to think. Nothing to muse over. Nothing capable of convincing her that there was something worth getting up for.

It scared her.

She kept walking.

Kanjii took thirty-four more steps, then stopped.

She coughed. Took a deep breath, and regretted it. Here one did not breathe oxygen, but smoke and smog and ash. It was probably easier, in fact, to simply not breathe.

Yet it was not the clogged air that had brought her to a stop. Something else. Kanjii looked down. The movement immediately caused her hair, long, messy, black, to fall out from where it had been neatly tucked behind her ear. She brushed it back, movements slow and heavy.

There was a boy.

Kanjii's eyes, usually half-closed, opened just slightly wider.

Well, of course. Children were not some sort of freakish creation that only happened elsewhere. It still felt that way, though. Kanjii couldn't help but wonder how the process of life could continue on here.

She coughed again. There was something wrong with the boy. His walk wasn't normal, voice wasn't normal, appearance certainly not normal. A horrible thought crept into her mind -- city like this, no wonder children grow up like that. The corner of her mouth twitched with disgust. She would have liked to thought that it was wholly aimed towards herself, but part was reserved for the city, and part, even, for the child.

She brushed her thoughts away. Sometimes it was easier not to think.

The boy looked like he was alone. Kanjii frowned, looked around, wondered if anyone was looking after him. Frown still on her face, she took a step towards him.

"...Hello?"

Hesitantly, she put a hand on his shoulder.

Edited August 14, 2007 by fever gunner

[Rhapsody]

In truth, Yue had smelled the girl before she had ever really let herself known. Pinpointed her location long before she had laid a hand on him. It wasn't so absurd that he calmly turned around and looked at her from beyond the thick blind over his eyes. With no Inuzuka fang marks to speak of, Yue was often met with the shock of those who couldn't imagine he'd been following his nose the whole time. Taking a deep breath trough it, now, the boy hoped this girl wouldn't be as ignorant as the rest.

"You smell dirty," though the boy's voice was hoarse and strange, it was gentle and friendly, "That's good. I'm Yue." The boy was grinning, and he took another deep gulp of air through his nose. The coal burned his nose but at least now there would be the soft scent of a female to ease the harshness of industrial stenches.

He had turned around all the way by then, but had yet to offer his hand in any sort of greeting. Strangest of all, though, was the fact that his hips seemed to be swaying ever so slightly. As though he was wagging his behind.

...At least it was a sign of happiness.

edit--

Of course I don't mind. xD;

And anybody else can join if they want~

Edited August 14, 2007 by Rhapsody

[fever gunner]

Kanjii had been taken aback, for a moment, by quite a few things at once. First by his words -- 'you smell dirty'. Despite the amiability of his voice, Kanjii's mind had automatically registered that as an insult, albeit a strange one.

But then -- 'That's good.'

"--Oh," Kanjii said, swallowing her response to his first statement -- which had been nothing more than a confused 'I do?'. "Oh. Alright. Uhm. My name's Kanjii."

The second thing that surprised her was the boy's -- Yue's -- appearance, now that she was closer. And -- the blindfold? Was he blind? Kanjii's frown grew deeper as she studied him. His walk had seemed strange, yes, but it hadn't been what she'd have expected from someone who could not see. In fact, she had not even thought of the possibility until now, when she could see him clearly.

Well. She had heard of people getting around the loss of their sight. Enhanced senses, hypersensitivity to sounds and vibrations, little things that someone like her would never notice. She had an aunt, once, who'd been blind, yet somehow always managed to notice when Kanjii was sneaking food out of the kitchens.

It was possible.

She stopped looking at him, feeling abashed -- just because he couldn't see didn't give her any right to stare. She had to keep herself from staring at his throat, too, and the scar that spread over it. What sort of life had Yue been leading? Seventeen years, the past three spent keeping away from the NCIA, and Kanjii had never encountered a wound that left a scar like that.

This time, when her hair fell back into her vision, she did not push it away.

Her frown finally softened and disappeared. Yue was...sort of cute, really. There was a gentleness to his voice, to his entire demeanor that Kanjii liked. Her general experience with children had not been a happy one. Most tended to get loud, overexcited, a bit too full of life. Kanjii liked her quiet.

"Are...you by yourself?" she asked, looking around again, as if expecting someone to swoop in and drag her away.

(( OOC: This whole time I've been referring to Yue as a 'child', but I'm not sure how old he actually is. If I make any wrong assumptions please feel free to correct me XD; ))

Edited August 14, 2007 by fever gunner

[Rhapsody]

ooc --

No worries. Yue is actually 15, nearly 16, but his thought process is so simple and canine-like that he's probably more of a child than a mature teenager.

Oh, and he's wearing a sort of blindfold... thing. All fancy and buckled at the back. Completely my fault for not describing it better. xP

"Alone..." Yue shrugged, and for a second, the grin had faded. Being that, at times, the boy truly thought he was a dog, he certainly did not fit the description of a 'solitary animal.' But, the girl was around now, wasn't she? Yue's pinked lips curled upwards into a smile. This time, his enlarged canines managed to show through. Unsettling, yes, but he didn't seem aware enough to be scary.

"Most of the time. I'm going to go see the people," he motioned towards the behemoth city behind himself, excitement rising in his tone. He'd been wandering around in the wild for quite some time now, hunting for his food and finding solace in various tea houses and inns dotted over the countryside. Amazing how much people pitied an apparently handicapped 'orphan.'

From the girl's scent alone, Yue was almost confident that she was friendly, perhaps not much older than himself and probably a bit sweaty. His expression was gleeful as he buried his hands his pockets and hunched his shoulder's up, the lower half of his face disappearing behind the high collar of his furry-hooded jacket. Rabbit fur, it was. And it smelled of someplace the back of Yue's mind associated with home.

"Are you going to the city, too? Make sure they smell dirty. The clean smells will hurt you, yes they will." He'd tipped his head to the side. Even from behind the blindfold, he kept somesort of eye contact.

[fever gunner]

(( OOC: Thanks I went ahead and edited the previous post, replaced references to Yue's eyes, so it should work now. ))

Kanjii looked towards the city. It was one of those places. The sort that made you feel like you were already there even when you clearly weren't -- Oto had always given her that feeling, too, but that was different. Oto was home. And far from here.

She hadn't truly been planning on going into the city. Just skirting by the edges, maybe, getting a look at it and then deciding whether or not it was interesting enough to explore. Or if there was a nice bit of shelter where she could curl up for the night. But from the look -- smell -- of it so far, she didn't think she'd want to spend the night. Definitely not.

On the other hand, Yue seemed excited about going in.

She looked back towards the City of Tin once more.

Not the night. But perhaps the rest of the day wouldn't hurt. She had nothing else to do, after all. And she had the nagging feeling that one shouldn't let a blind boy wander around by himself, least of all in a city. Despite the fact that he seemed to have been doing fine without her help.

Fine? Kanjii found herself thinking about Yue's scar, and wondering.

"Mind if I come with you? --I'm not too good at telling smells apart," she said, voice low and tired as usual, almost monotonous. The last sentence was not meant to be mocking. It was not quite honest, either. She had included it in order to humor Yue.

Kanjii kept her eyes fixed on the city. Strange, that someone who was blindfolded would maintain eye contact, yet she, with her perfectly normal vision, chose to look away. Kanjii had never liked looking people in the eye. When she talked, she usually talked to the patch of ground next to the other person's foot.

Then again, with the amount of pollution in the air, she didn't think there was much difference between looking at the city and looking at the dirt. She was probably dirty herself. The past few days had all been spent sleeping out in the wilderness. No wonder Yue could smell her, though he'd pronounced it a good thing.

The frown returned, albeit smaller than the last time.

"How will clean smells hurt?" She'd always thought washing was hygienic.

[Rhapsody]

For a little bit, Yue had been happy. Grabbing the girl's hand and attempting, at least, to drag her off towards the city as he himself pranced along like some happy little puppy. But, then, his face fell as though he had been slapped, and Yue turned to look at the girl with a droop in his shoulders.

Clean smells, it as beginning to look like, were something the boy truly loathed. He himself didn't look dirtier than one might expect of a child wandering though the forest: his jacket was a little dusty and there was a smear of mud on his face where he might have wiped away fly or soothed an itch with a sullied hand, but he didn't look ungroomed to the point where one might assume he hadn't bathed in a very, very long time.

"They smelled of clean. Just of skin, and just of hair. No natural things like dirt," What Yue was referring to was the sterile and cleanly scent of a Scientist who wished not to contaminate his or her work. Scientists who bathed every day and washed themselves with the most potent soaps and scrubs they could bear. There had also been the smell of sterilizing chemicals, which Yue had not understood was never a part of the Scientists, but something they had used to further rid themselves of germs and traces of their experiments.

"Time to go to the city," he added suddenly, and started back on his course towards it. He was no mad or annoyed with Kanjii, and sort of hoped she would follow. In fact, he'd already sort of forgotten she had asked about the clean smells. His memory was funny like that.

[Cloudnine]

[i'm jumping in too! With a new character. =D]

Keen eyes honed in onto the two slowly approaching figures.

Potential customers. She sprung from her roost.

She ran.

She ran harder.

Maybe with their offering of bills and jingling coins, hunger could be stowed off for one more day. A small bun could be purchased. Or maybe even some noodles. She detested hunger. It was worse than pain. Pain went away eventually- scrapes closed up and turned into ugly skin. Hunger never went away on its own. It ate away her arms, her legs, her brain...

"Lotus," she said. "Lotus." One hand firmly grasping the boy's arm, the young girl, hardly prepubescent in appearance, waved a large woven basket in the other. An oversized tunic clung about her shoulders, draping down to her knees. Uneven eyes flickered back and forth between these newcomers to the city, a reddish birthmark spanning over part of her face distorting one eye.

The basket carried a strange scent, contents covered with a threadbare blanket.

"Keep it secret." Strangely raspy. Perhaps that's what happened once the city smells got you high.

Yeah. Launch into some business deals.

"You eat it. And you sleep nice." Pause. Large eyes roamed around, searching for anyone intent on foiling her dealing. "Aaaa- ap'thy," she slowly sounded out. Obviously she had no idea what that meant. But it sounded professional. Scientific.

[fever gunner]

Kanjii believed in...eyes. She believed one could take away the rest of the face, save for the eyes, and she could still figure out what sorts of emotions were going on in the mind. And thus, it was strange for her to recognize Yue's sudden depression behind the blindfold.

Body language, she thought. That was how.

The topic of cleanliness was evidently something Yue was not comfortable with. That much even Kanjii could deduce, with her groggy mind. She did not press the matter, though it still intrigued her. But what did it matter? She was not planning to stay with him. Acquaintances made on the road. Then left behind. She'd never felt comfortable about that, but the alternative was worse. Spend years never forming any sort of attachment to anyone? The loneliness would be imposible to bear with. She would take friendship when she could, no matter how brief it was.

She dragged her feet after Yue, but that was her normal gait. In fact, she strove to lengthen her steps just slightly, so as to keep up.

The City of Tin was unfamiliar. It was like no place Kanjii had ever visited -- mostly because she had a healthy distaste for places where the air had a distinct color. She didn't know what to expect from its depths, but as soon as the raspy-voiced girl appeared, she found herself wondering -- once more -- whether the city could disfigure everything it touched. Kanjii's eyes were drawn to the girl's birthmark.

It was only that, she told herself. An unfortunate birthmark. No need for herself to demonize this place even further. Or its people.

She stopped only reluctantly, not sure if Yue would go on without her. "Wait?" she called out to him. If he didn't stop, she wouldn't stay long anyway.

"What...is it?" Kanjii asked the vendor. She blinked at the basket with sleepy interest. Kanjii usually had no trouble going to sleep easily, but she had yet to master the art of falling asleep immediately. It was something she'd like to master.

Then again, she had very little money.