exsiliumlogs | But I was so much older then...

Date & Time: Monday 21January and Tuesday 22January, all day
Location: Oot n aboot
Characters: Lea!Axel and YOU
Summary: Axel is now an obnoxious trolly fifteen-year-old with a heart instead of an obnoxious trolly Nobody without one. Who wants to play frisbee?
Warnings: Gratuitous use of catchphrases

It wasn't the first time he'd woken up someplace he didn't recognize, but the last time it had happened it was because he and Isa had fallen down a rocky hillside and he'd been knocked unconscious. This definitely wasn't a rocky hillside. In fact, it was kind of like a hotel room or something. What was he doing at an inn?

Lea sat up and scratched his head. No, this wasn't a hotel room, there was no TV and no little fridge and it looked a little too lived-in somehow. Was this someone's house?

With a shrug, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up, stretching his arms over his head and then letting them fall to his sides. Well, wherever he was, he sure wasn't figuring it out in here. Grabbing his frisbees and poking his head out into the hall, he headed into the hallway and for the front door.

[feel free to run into him wherever! he doesn't have any marques, so he might be hanging around food establishments peering mournfully at noms. buy the skinny kid a burger? he likes infiltrating fancy looking buildings, too, so you might find him scaling the ruins later in the afternoon. you're also just as likely to find him napping in inconvenient places. he's also always up for a friendly spar or a game of frisbee, so long as you're willing to call it a draw.

[as the day progresses and Tuesday rolls around he'll be kind of distraught cuz he has no idea where he is or where his best friend is, so if you're planning to see him later on Monday or on Tuesday you are welcome to note that.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well the stuff outside this city was way more interesting than the stuff in it, that was for sure. At least the buildings that were falling apart out here looked cooler. Lea had always liked exploring, and so when he spied a crumbling structure on the outskirts of town he made a beeline for it, hoping maybe he'd find something interesting within.

It wasn't long before he realized he wasn't alone, however, and paused where he had been attempting to scale a high wall to regard the figure that emerged from the shadows. It was a girl, with silver hair and a rather disapproving look on her face. Well gosh, what was her problem? It wasn't like these were her ruins or anything.

... Were they?

Lea shoved his hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall.

"Photo'd be easier to memorize," he said with a cheeky grin.

Cooler was a matter of degrees. Literal and figurative, of course.

These were not the sort of ruins that Gwendolyn was familiar, and possessed an ugliness that was shared with the general cityscape. It was off-putting. But it was also quiet, and few people appeared to come out this way.

Apparently she wasn't the only one to have such an idea, however.

That wasn't a very impressive attempt at wall climbing - well, it /looked/ like hard work on his part, certainly, but the redhead hadn't made much progress up to the point he'd spotted her. The disapproval seemed to fade, though the frown did not, Gwendolyn mindful not to show too much wariness when he turned such a bright grin in her direction.

"..what is a foe-toe?" Or maybe that was just confusion keeping that frown fixed in place.

Well it would have been easier if he could find a good foothold, but the wall was mostly flat-faced and so he kept slipping! But that wasn't important right now. This girl looked really interesting--was she wearing armor? How cool was that??

"You know, a photograph," he said, holding his hands up in front of his face to pantomime a camera. "Like a still picture. You've never seen one?"

"No." Gwendolyn genuinely could not tell if he was mocking her, and her eyes narrowed slightly in confusion. "You mean, a painting?"

Her armor clinked slightly as she approached, still a little wary, even as her gaze flickered between the redhead and the wall. Once closer, she came to a stop, and let the point of her spear dig into the cracked asphalt. She quirked her head slightly to one side. She judged herself at least 3 or 4 years the boy's senior, though the excessive hand motions made him seem far more youthful.

Wait, she'd really never seen a photo before? Wow, talk about living under a rock. ... Actually she kind of looked like she'd stepped out of a storybook, to be honest, with the armor and the spear and stuff. Had Lea been a bit less trusting and a bit more world-weary, he might have been apprehensive about talking to an armed stranger... but he was neither mistrustful nor jaded (yet) and so when she stepped closer he hopped down from the ledge he'd been perched on.

"Wowwww," he breathed, dropping to a crouch where she'd stabbed the spear into the ground to admire it. "Neat! Is this a real spear? You know how to use it?" He grinned excitedly up at her. "Man, that's so neat! I always wanted to learn how to use a real sword or something, but my ma said I'd put somebody's eye out."

Back to the subject at hand.

"But... well, I guess a photo's kinda like a painting," he said, rubbing his chin in thought. "Except it's like a painting of real life. Uhm... and not done with paint."

Which sort of negated it being a painting in the first place, but he wasn't really sure how else to explain.

'Stepping out of a storybook' was closer to the truth than Lea might ever know - certainly, there were no knights dressed quite like this in regular history texts! Both his approach and his relaxed attitude earned him a continued frown of silver brow, lips remaining pursed in confusion.

But as she listened to him speak, his obvious youthful enthusiasm for both her weapon and battle in general softened something in her expression, and she allowed herself to relax. A little. It was only when Lea mentions his mother (and her likely accurate summation of Lea's would-be weapons training intentions) that a small smile finally emerged - briefly, but still a smile. "Tis called the Psypher Spear, and it has brought down many foes in many battles." Not all by her hand, admittedly, but she would never deny Griselda's past triumphs. "I have trained as a Valkyrie since I was far younger than you."

And then a blink. "An...unpainted portrait?" Was she following that correctly? Surely not. "Might that be some sort of enchantment, then?" How else might some one create an image without paint? "Or more of this, technology, that the Initiative possess?"

"Psypher? That sounds pretty awesome," he said, his hands sort of hovering near the bladed head without actually touching it. Oh, he wanted to, but he wasn't going to touch it without permission. Lifting his eyes he grinned brightly at her. "Wow, what's a Valkyrie? Are you a superhero or something?" He supposed that all things considered, meeting a superhero after everything else that had happened today wouldn't be the strangest thing he could think of.

He made a 'hmm' sound and sat back on his haunches then, teetering a moment before tumbling onto his backside and leaning back on his hands.

"Technology," he said, "not magic or anything. You use a camera!" He sat forward and held up both hands then, pantomiming the device. "You can look through a lensy thing," he explained, and then made a clicking noise with his tongue as he pinched the fingers of one hand together as if pressing the shutter, "and then push a button, and it makes a photo of what the lens could see." He leaned back on his hands again and gave her a slightly apologetic look. "I... don't really know how it works, though."

You are most definitely not getting permission for that one, Lea.

The blue crystal seemed to glow a little brighter when his hands shifted near the 'blade', reflecting the red head's features in its facets. Gwendolyn rested one hand on the butt of her spear, mindful of the boy's enthusiasm, even as he teered and tottered over completely. Not the best of balance, it would seem.

She did her best not to sigh, and settled for shaking her head at his question. "I am a warrior, from the kingdom Ragnanival." Yup, definitely sounds like something from a storybook.

After listening, her head shakes. No, none of these are familiar to her at all, and her smile was perhap equally apologetic. "I know not what this 'cam-rah' is. Such images you speak of would seem a fanciful tale to me, were it not for this world and its oddities."

But I was so much older then...

i suppose i can forgive tense changes, but only because i love you

ilu 2 bb <3333

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