taxonomites | Entries tagged with { illyria

hawksandbullets.livejournal.com

Once upon a time, there was soldier. This soldier had just served in a war, and when she returned home, she found that her parents had died and she was left with nothing.

A man appeared before the soldier and gave her an offer. She would become rich is she could go for seven years without cutting her hair, trimming her nails, bathing, praying, and wearing a coat and cloak which he would give her. If she survived to the end, she would be free with riches, but if she died, her soul would be his. Desperate, she agreed to his offer. Her coat would have limitless money and she was also given a bearskin she had to sleep in, and thus be known to others as Lady Bearskin.

[Riza's going to be out and about everywhere in Taxon, and she's going to be pretty filthy. Black Hayate is going to be with her still, but he's going to know that his master isn't acting right. Have at!]

Current Mood: creative

the-bluethunder.livejournal.com

This world has proven to be as worthless and unfitting as the last. It is curious, still, and unfamiliar. From strange, small towers she has seen objects release from nothing into the hands of humans. She wants to understand them.

A little human girl blinks at her, a mere ant to a giant. Much like this realm which holds it, it is a shell occupied with empty, meaningless space...and yet, unfettered by the weakness of memories--of humanity--of which her own shell burdens her. It serves no purpose but to be. She wishes it to cease its pointless existence or make itself useful.

"You. Speak. Explain the purpose of this machine."

It does not answer. It stares. It is nothing. "I could crush you where you stand and you would be just as effectual. Be gone."

It pains her to think how far she has fallen.

smecker.livejournal.com

Paul stalks away from the sink, digging out his cigarettes with one hand while punching buttons with the other to send a visual broadcast to anyone who happens to have their tablet on.

He takes a long drag on his cigarette, a long exhale, before opening his mouth to speak.

"Paul Smecker here," he says, his words short and clipped, all business now. It's just like filing a goddamn police report. Just the facts, ma'am.

"The kid calling himself Party Poison stole a personal possession of mine. The thing that showed up here with me from home," he says. Doesn't feel the need to elaborate on what it is, but while they are all here from different worlds, all here with different backgrounds, he's learned enough to know that apparently everyone gets to bring something. He doesn't know who has what, except Wyatt-- Wyatt has the horse, the horse he'd made for his son. Something important.

Paul would bet that everyone here cares about what they brought with them, on some level.

"He took it a few months ago, when I was distracted by icing his broken nose for him. He's refusing to return it, and his brother, at least, is threatening armed force if I attempt to take it back."

"In short, Party is a thief, and I advise keeping an eye on your possessions while you're in his vicinity. Maybe his brother's too for all I know. They're clearly operating on a survival level where they can't comprehend respecting the rights or property of others. So watch the things you don't want to lose.

"And if you're listening, Party? I hope to Christ you don't try and steal from someone who'll break your neck with their fancy superpowers. For your dumbass sake.

"Paul Smecker out."

He stands there a few seconds, smoking furiously, then turns on his heel to go to where he keeps the janitorial stuff, the broom and mop and scrubby brushes and the Chlorox.

He's got a mural he doesn't want on his building any more.

[ooc: Takes place immediately following this thread.]

Current Mood: angry

the-bluethunder.livejournal.com

"I wish to do more violence."

Blood. She would drench herself in it. Bathe in it. Wear it like a suit of armor. It would fall from the skies as the rain fell--in torrents.

Wesley was dead. He was just a human, nothing, and yet . . .She felt anger for his death, and his loss was an unfamiliar weight she had no will to bear. Blood was all she thirsted for, and if it would not ease this accursed mortal feeling of despair, then she would pile heads upon heads of these creatures until she could sit upon their mutilated corpses like a king, once again. King.

The half-breeds and the human would die. Only she would live on.

She.

But then the world blinked, and suddenly the air reeked of cold metal and silence. Water dripped from the ends of her hair to the floor, but elsewhere the room was dry. Space was no longer wide but insufferably small, no longer loud with the songs of battle, but utterly without sound. The half-breeds and their human warrior were gone. Illyria was alone.

"What is this magic?"

Her frozen, blue eyes roamed the empty room, taking in its strange accoutrements. Her body remained as it was before the blink--a statue, still and deaf to all who looked upon her. The wolf, The Ram, The Hart. Only they possessed the power to pluck her from time and space. They were fools.

"Treacherous. To think this sorcery will prevent your undoing." Nothing, but silence. Baring her teeth and clenching her jaw, she spoke calmly, lowly, and dangerously. "Speak," she commanded. "And your deaths will be bearable."

captbrownie.livejournal.com

One of the scariest, most heart stopping things the Gump ever did was wake up in a room completely void of the call of nature. No winds. No trees and no foliage, no fragrant moss or blossoms just waiting to greet the day as eagerly as he.

This room was a lot like that first room of Taxon. It was dark, it smelled wrong somehow, and there was not even the slightest sliver of natural light to be found.

For the space of a heartbeat that lurched and squelched in his chest like some sort of alien infestation, the Gump was once again gripped by panic.

He opened his eyes wide, turning to his tablet - only to find a hand that was not at all his attached to his bracelet.

The forest wasn't just quiet.

He couldn't feel it at all.

He pressed the symbol to broadcast, trying his best not to sound like a complete lunatic when he wasn't even sure if the moon was out to begin with. "Where am I?! Where have you taken me! Answer me!"

((Timed to Friday 29th!))

spikedwatcher.livejournal.com

Wesley slowly awakes with the faintly disconcerting taste of cigarette ash in his mouth, but he doesn't rouse immediately because there's a lovely warm naked body pressed next to his and he's presuming that he's coming out of a particularly nice dream. He snuggles closer for a moment, indulging himself until he realises that the woman he's holding feels very very real in his arms. And the scent of her is distinctly...

"Buffy?"

Wesley's eyelids flicker open and he freezes, seeing the blonde hair and distinct features of the Slayer. He hastily releases her and scoots backwards, to climb out of the bed. This isn't his bed. This isn't his room. How did he--?

Looking down he realizes that he is in fact sans clothes. Without a bloody stitch on. Overcome with embarrassment and confusion he lunges forward to grab the end of the bed sheet to try and get it free to cover himself with. Which has the unfortunate side effect of revealing more of his sleeping companion.

It's at this point when Wesley also realises that his body doesn't feel or look like his own (from what he can see of it). He certainly doesn't normally have abs rippling quite so distinctly down his torso. Instinctively he turns to check himself in the mirror and to his dismay, there is absolutely no reflection.

"Oh my god, no!" He exclaims with mortification and horror.

[ooc: Meant to happen pretty much simultaneously with Spike's post, for maximum WTF LOLZ]

notabluemeanie.livejournal.com

The first thing that Casey notices when he wakes up is that he's sprawled on the carpet of some office he's never seen before.

What the hell?

Then he notices that he's got long hair hanging down over his face, long girly hair and it's tinted a weird shade of blue. He quickly brushes it back, clambers to his feet and looks down at himself. He's in some kind of red leather cat suit or something and he's got...

...woman parts. He's a goddamn woman, and he's much shorter than he used to be.

No way, this can't be happening to him. He'd heard about the glitches, even helped out others when they'd glitched, but he'd never prepared himself for it happening to him. Not like this. The truth glitch was a blip of inconvenience in comparison to this.

He starts to snarl, the feeling of violation and seething anger at being trapped in a body not his bursting forth. Casey doesn't realize that the tablet is on when he speaks.

"I swear as soon as I found out who did this, I'm gonna rip them apart and wear their entrails for a hat."

exvampire.livejournal.com

Wesley is wearing a lot more black than usual. That's because it isn't Wesley, it's Spike. And he looks grumpy. Waking up in someone else's body will do that to you.

"Right, so, there seems to be some bodyswapping going on. If all the screaming and waking up as someone else didn't tip you off."

He pushes his glasses up and rubs his eyes. It's been a long time since he had anything but better than perfect vision. Now all of his senses are muted and human, and he feels weak and his head hurts. Plus, Wesley's body is disconcertingly different from his.

"So, uh, probably best to be careful what you tell who and who you sleep with. Things could get messy." He pauses. "Oh, and this is Spike. Wesley, are you in my body? And who and where is Buffy?"

noheatnikki.livejournal.com

Kate has been flipping through Reid's books and pacing the spare room in Reid's apartment for several hours before she remembers the tablet thing, which has been on since she had tried to see if it had Solitaire on it earlier. She drums her fingers on the table for a moment, debating what she wants to do, before clearing her throat and looking into the screen.

"So...what do people do around here? Work? Drink? I'm going stir-crazy here."

bigbad

Spike is sitting on the floor in the Hyperion lobby hunched over and concentrating hard. He's holding a deck of cards, and several other piles are in front of him on a foot stool in the solitaire set-up. He moves an ace up and stares at the cards for a little while before flipping three down. Then he moves the cards around again. This continues for a while until finally, he shifts into his vampire face. His forehead wrinkles up and his eyes turn yellow, teeth lengthening.

He growls and knocks over the table, sending cards flying. He smiles for a minute. It's vaguely satisfying, but it doesn't really help anything.

Spike sighs and lets his features go back to being human, then turns to the tablet. He notices it's already recording, but at this point it's really too late to do anything about it. He picks it up and speaks into it.

"Anyone want to fight? I'm this close to seeing if I can hatch a demon to kill, I am so bloody bored."

a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com

As Spike had shown her a few days ago, Angel's office - as quiet and neglected as it was in Taxon - had a telly. The forest didn't. Oh, the forest was beautiful, yes, but it didn't have a telly.

Miss Edith had been missing the telly.

Drusilla sat on the floor of the office with her legs crossed and her doll in her lap, watching the screen with unblinking eyes. At first, it hadn't seemed as if there was much on. There never was, in Taxon. But then she'd found something wonderful. Not just because of the pretty colours, although they were terribly pretty, but because the strange, discordant voices that floated from the screen spoke to her. Really spoke to her.

They were quite mad, those little monsters. If only they'd been able to hear her replies!

As a new episode began, Drusilla - who had already watched half a dozen, drinking the odd images in like warm milk - hummed along to the theme tune. (So did Miss Edith, even if the tablet - watching Drusilla watching Floop - couldn't pick up her tiny - tiny, but sweet as sugar - little voice.)

OOC: Again, backdated to a few days before the end of Glitch's glitch. This is all Keri's fault and I've finished spamming the community now, I swear.

skort

Kara's tablet turns on when she smacks it as she turns over in her sleep. From the looks of it, it's not a particularly good dream. In fact, judging by the choked off yell as she sits up, it was down-right nasty. She looks at nothing in particular, her expression shocked like nothing else. "What... What the hell was that?" she murmurs quietly.

Without thinking, she brings her knees to her chest, curling her arms around them as she mutters to herself quietly in Kryptonian, trying to figure out what just happened. Her breathing is coming a little quickly as realization dawns on her and her expression slowly turns to something akin to horror.

"Oh, Rao..." Cue more angered murmuring in Kryptonian before Kara just buries her face in her knees.

The feed times out.

[ ooc | canon update! also. forward dated a few hours to like. 4 AM Wednesday. ]

revivedqueen.livejournal.com

The tablet turns on to a view of a certain God-King standing in front of a bookcase in Wesley's office. Illyria looks around her; odd, that this place has managed to right itself, when it wasn't long ago that she had blatantly destroyed it.

Unimportant.

She focuses on the books, lifts one hand and touches the covers with something akin to reverence. Certain phrases make sense to her, courtesy of the fragments that litter her function system. Symbols. Numbers. Formulas. Equations that should be within the context of something bigger for it to be fully understood.

Illyria takes one book, thumbs through it, and throws it in annoyance. The second, the third, the last offers no such familiar things.

"Worthless," she speaks, in a tone that strongly conveys her displeasure.

greenballadeer.livejournal.com

Lorne had a dream that wasn't a dream.

( Spoilers for After the Fall )

Lorne awoke, knowing this dream was far more than a dream. It was memory. It was prophecy. It was true. With a song in his heart and on his lips, he cleaned himself up, put on his magenta suit, and switched on his tablet. Now he turns on the visual feed and makes an announcement.

"I had a dream. From home." He smiles, a little shakily. "The news wasn't all good. But you know what? I'm keeping my chin up, 'cause there's a lot to hope for. Hope? That's something new. Also, I've joined the distinguished ranks of Elton John, Judi Dench, and Mick Jagger. I've got people calling me Lord Lorne, and it's definitely throwing me for a loop."

"Spike and Connor? You two are superheroes. I mean it. You should have your own comic strips, with options for a movie. Even Lady Blueface may have earned a guest star slot."

[private to Angel]

Angel? I think… I think we should talk.

likeajoan.livejournal.com

[ There's some vaguely ambient sounds in the background here, clinking glasses and faint music. Apparently it's a slow night, because Buffy has the time to consult the tablet. She doesn't sound terribly thrilled, and there are reasons for this. ]

Hey, does anybody know how to get red wine out of formerly-shiny white cashmere-blend?

[ And a pause. ]

And does anybody else think it's weird that nothing's blown up for a while?

greenballadeer.livejournal.com

Caritas is impeccable tonight. The bar is washed down and gleaming. Every surface that can be cleaned or swept has been. Casey's behind the bar, and Lorne is on stage with his microphone.

"It's great to have you all here, my friends. Family," he amends. "We've all been here for each other in tough times, and being trapped in an alien zoo is far from the toughest. I've invited you all to celebrate one very special member of our family. We're so glad to see him out of Martha's surgery and back on his feet.

Now, I can't give fancy speeches like our man Wesley can. If my vocabulary and his went for a few rounds, mine would be on the mat in a few seconds, but I'll try to talk a bit about what Wes means to all of us. Now there's a saying from my dimension: M'tech shakrow br'leth kuun, com teklo. It means, more or less, 'The uphill path is a hard slog, but the downhill path leads to a cliff where you'll eventually fall to your death.' What I'm trying to say is, whenever Wes sees a fork in the road, the thought of taking the downhill path never even crosses his mind. He gets out the ropes and goes straight uphill.

So, in a nutshell, we've all missed Wes a lot, and now we're all going to have lots of drinks on the house, and I'll sing whatever Wes calls for."

revivedqueen.livejournal.com

The tablet flickers on to an image of the god-king staring intently down at the screen. Illyria gingerly presses a button, and her image disappears, as the voice function of the tablet is activated - but only for a short while. A few clicks later and the visual mode is on again - and this time, Illyria's expression is that of clear befuddlement.

"Odd. How mere humans seem to master this device without difficulty, given their many limitations."

bigbad

There's muffled swearing and clanging from behind a door within the halls of Castle Summers. It's not entirely clear what's going on, but after half a minute of this, there's one final, unpleasant clunk, followed by the sound of lots, and lots of water. Plus, more cursing.

The door opens and Spike comes out, shirtless and soaking wet. He's holding an even wetter shirt in his hand. He closes the door again and glances around nervously before leaning against the door and looking a little relieved.

"Sometimes I miss having a harem of gorgeous and scantily clad women eager to fill my every whim," he says absently before going to pick up his coat, still not noticing the little light on his tablet that says it's recording everything. "Sod it all, I'm calling a plumber."

[ooc: Backdated to the truth glitch!]

couldbeavillain.livejournal.com

Say what you will about Andrew, but he's not dull. It hadn't been hard for him to learn the basics of working in a shop like Tamper and Trick. It's a nice shop and it vaguely reminds Andrew of the Magic Box. He'd always wanted to go in there as a customer, but because of Warren, he was only able to go in once to plant a camera.

So Tamper and Trick is a nice environment for him. He enjoys the atmosphere and all the magical items in the store, even if he doesn't know what most of them are for. He recognizes a smattering of objects from his demon summoning days, and he was sure he noticed some marijuana when Tara was giving him the run-down, but everything else just looks like the foreign objects Jonathan always used in those confusing spells.

But now Andrew is manning his post and is somewhat surprised to find how little he has to do at the moment. He is behind the counter studying a photo of Tara and a man he's never seen before while he hopes for something exciting to happen. And nothing does. He isn't sure what he expects. This is a magic shop, after all, so shouldn't it stand that something magical could happen all of a sudden?

Finally, Andrew activates his tablet and begins an video feed. He's frowning frustratedly at the camera. "I thought having a job would be a lot more exciting than this, but now I'm just really bored. Which isn't to say that I don't really appreciate Tara giving me a job, 'cause I do! But it's pretty extraordinarily boring just sitting here alone and not having much to do."

A thought occurs to him and the excitement is in his eyes as he speaks, even though he knows he probably shouldn't say this sort of thing out loud. "I bet it would be a lot cooler if I could use magic or do anything with magic, you know? There's some neat stuff in here, and I know how some of it works..." He looks off, eying some objects, then frowns, realizing how that sounds and refocuses on the camera. "I--...probably won't, though." Somehow, he couldn't quite force himself to say that he absolutely wouldn't do anything risky.

"...anyway. I'm still bored."

[ooc: Truth glitch. My pathological little liar can't lie...]

demonologist

It's a slow process. Logically he knows that. Doctor Jones has already warned him of what to expect in the coming weeks. Cautioned him not to over-tax himself in a rush to recover. His body will heal at its own pace. But it doesn't make this being confined to bed rest any easier to bear.

It grates on him that he still needs assistance to do some of the most basic mundane tasks. Eating, bathing, dressing. Going to the bloody bathroom.

And on top of that, he can't concentrate for more than a quarter hour at a time. Reading a chapter has become an exercise in futility. Translating anything at all is a laughable endeavour. His brain just rebels and the headaches return with a vengeance.

He's on mild pain-killers now. That's meant to be a positive thing, but he doesn't think it is right now when he's struggling to focus on the page of the book he's trying to read and it's all becoming a blurry jumble of nonsense and the pressure behind his eyes is starting to build...

Wesley lets out a harsh cry of pent up frustration and hurls the book away from him. It goes out of frame and a dull thwacking sound can be heard as it hits something.