the miles are way too long

[saviorexe]

WHO: Markus, Ardyn, V & various
WHERE: All around.
WHEN: The first half of IC November.
WHAT: This is basically a catch-all log for my characters.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: None, will add if any crop up.

[Closed starters below! If you want a thread, just hit me up at aurajen and we can figure something out!]

Comments

[gasping]

[ even as caroline wishes things would calm down, she's drawn in; her attentions and her feet both drag her closer, closing the gap between herself and the edge of the ring inch by inch.

oh, but she'd love to just jump in, to vault over the cage and pin down the bloody, beaten fighter, to dig her teeth into the crook of their neck and savor the taste of their spent energy pulsing through their blood. the desire of it screams in the back of her mind, only encouraged by the human feeding she's done since arriving, but she can't.

held back only by pure self-serving fear, caroline lets her hands curl into fists, nails digging half-moons into her palms. ]

Did you bet?

[ any topic of conversation is better than what people feed on. ]

[verselet]

[At first, her wandering receives an arched brow. Now, she inches closer as if the fight possessed its own gravitational pull, a contraction to what he had perceived just moments earlier.

V actually has to close the gap with a step or two, continuing the conversation as the underdog staggers close to the edge of the ring. Everything is the scent of sweat and blood; the rest is just the impossible noise of a crowd going rabid with nearing victory.

Or defeat, depending on where one's bets were placed.]

No. I'm just here to watch.

[Only a half-step behind her, he spots how her nails bite into skin.]

...Why are you here?

[gasping]

To watch.

[ to learn, to observe, to try and be useful for once in a way that isn't pure violence and power. she's struggling to learn that aspect of things; in retrospect, perhaps the fighting rings with its bloodshed wasn't exactly the best place to practice those kind of skills.

her voice is taut, overly so, like a string on a bow tightened past its stretching point, her shoulders ramrod straight as she stiffens in place. the temptation is stronger here, but she manages to hold herself back. only just — and only as the fight comes to a messy end with the collapse of the losing opponent onto the mat of the ring. ]

This is a mess.

[verselet]

[He watches as the body crumples to the ground, wondering if the man is conscious at all. He looks like he's been through a meat grinder and back, and medical attention will likely be needed.

Caroline's voice, however, is somehow more poignantly striking -- gone so taut and tense -- than the sight before him. (V's seen plenty of violence in his time, or at least, in the memories he still harbors of another life.)]

To watch. [A question implied at the end of that, a question mark rather than a period. But then V turns, waving a path that they could weave through the crowd to leave, if they wanted.] To what end?

[gasping]

I don't know.

[ if leaving is an option, it's one she takes without much hesitation. there's an urgency to it — easy to assume, given the literal everything about her, that it's from fear — though she doesn't bother to elaborate. just books it outside as fast as her long legs will carry her, past the crowd and the air thick with the scent of blood and sweat and drink and into the outer alleyway, where brick untouched by the day's sun is cool against her skin as she leans up against it.

there's a measured purpose to caroline's breathing now, in and held and then released between pursed lips, reminiscent of a woman in a lamaze class cramming the material a week before her due date. ]

This was a bad idea.

[ to him, not to him; it's said out loud out of habit more so than striking conversation. ]