Failures and Surprises [Riley]

[Kaien Tsubakuro]

There were so many rumors about mutant sightings and “strange happenings” around Endonia to fill the newspapers to the very last page. Crime rates had gone up as well, for reasons everyone had different theories about. The more remote locations on the city’s outskirts were experiencing a boom in un-safety and it wasn’t any better in the city at night. There was a general sense of unease in the population at large and many were gathering to discuss aliens and the possibility of their presence amongst humans more than usual. Skeptics were talking their mouths dry and oftentimes had to pause and consider when someone produced hastily filmed clips of unusual sightings on their own cellphones.

Night had brightened into morning much too early for Kaien’s liking. He walked at a quick pace down the winding streets of Endonia, his sheathed sword scantily hidden in the folds of his long coat. Although he had a permit for it, he preferred to not display it so openly during the light of day but had gotten no chance to pass by his apartment yet. The crimson eyed young man had spent the entirety of his night in search of a rumor that ultimately turned out to be false. The pointlessly lost sleep made him irritable but his anger gave way in stages during the walk that took him into an internet café near the Library he rarely visited.

The patronage inside the coffee shop was typically lacking for a Saturday morning, just a few stray faces scattered amongst the tables and stools that littered the shop and lined around the counter. Kaien took a moment to notice all of them before stepping inside, the sound of his boots noticeable on the wooden floor in the still slumbering environment. To his left, a young woman was asleep on her day’s issue of Endonia Times and her occasional snort of a snore was painfully obvious in the quiet ambient music that floated through the shop.

With red eyes slightly strained from weariness and prior irritation, he headed straight for the counter and ordered a black coffee. The dark Levi’s wearing, tall young man didn’t bother to take a seat while his drink was being fetched, his attention already caught by something else within the café.

((Hope this works!))

[Riley Whelan]

Now I'll be bold...
As well as strong...
Use my head alongside my heart...

Morning was Riley’s favorite time of day. Even when she stayed up late reading or playing in the internet she always woke up early. Always. The same could be said for this day. Her small cluttered room had bright light filtering through the many colored curtain, and revealed that the short girl was already up, dressed in her usual jeans and t-shirt ensemble, and sipping at fresh made coffee. She was however, in a contemplative state. She was debating if she wanted to add some of the temp dye she’d gotten the other day to her normally pale hair. Shaking her head she determined that she didn’t want to take the time to do it this morning. The outside called to her, and she was rearin’ to go advernturin’.

She sat at her desk as the dawn light first spilled into her base floor room. Setting the coffee aside she rested her hands on the keyboard of her desktop computer, and shut her eyes. Since the change, as natural as normal hormones so she guessed, checking her morning email was easy. She was thankful for her dad willing to supply her with a data enabled smartphone, but she had a satisfied liking for using a normal computer to integrate herself. She settled in for only a moment, her email and other communication sites checked with the flicker of a thought. Smiling she opened her eyes and scopped up her coffee, downing the now warm liquid with a gulp.

She thought about the email’s she had received. She was a little surprised that she hadn’t yet received an email from her mother. She contemplated wandering through her father’s email, but it was likely that he had some sort of virus attached to it. So, instead she packed her laptop into her carrier and sat down to put her shoes on, thinking about where she wanted to go. She settled for a nearby café that she could get some nice breakfast and flavored coffee.

With that thought in mind she opened her bedroom door and stepped into the living room of the house she shared with her dad. Who was just waking up and giving some gloomy looks to her chipper morning attitude.

"Morning daddy. I’m gonna go out and about today, if that’s okay?" she asked him with a grin. He gave her a grunt and raised his phone, "Keep in touch." was all he said in answer to her question.

With a little hop she bounded out the door and to the sidewalks, walking towards her destination with a certain air of happiness about her. She made it to her goal in swift time, only slightly breathless as she arrived and went straight to the counter. She gave the grumpy girl, not more than a year older than herself, her order with a chipper smile and handed over the money in the form of a ten. She gratefully accepted the change and ignored the gloomy thoughts of the still sleepy people around her. She waited patiently for her drink and breakfast, before givine another happy smile and taking her items to a corner table near the window.

She loved the outside. Really and truly. Enjoyed going out and being near it. She settled herself there, listening to the thoughts and mummers around her and sipping her delicious coffee with nibbles of the fruity bread that was her breakfast.

It was there, while she was listening to the thoughts and mummers that she found her mind empty. Not full of other thoughts, and not connected to the phone in her pocket’s internet. She blinked, blue eyes wide before looking up around her with a startled look. The only thing that had changed in the room… Had been someone walking into the shop. She stared at the tall man, openly as though he had caused her mental blockage from the people around her and the technology buzzing. A sharp pain went through her skull, strengthening to a headache at the silence. She didn’t realize she had visibly gone paler than normal, or that her eyes were wide as saucers, her cheap paper coffee cup clenched in her hands.

So take my flesh...
And fix my eyes...
That tethered mind free from the lies...[/color][/font]

((Works well enough!!))

[Kaien Tsubakuro]

Kaien had noted the little blonde’s lengthy gaze and was staring right back, an unnervingly calm look in his crimson eyes. The face she was showing him painted him a ghost, a freak or someone simply scary or shocking without actually trying. Her unprovoked reaction could have any number of reasons. Maybe she had never seen someone with a sword before, maybe she had issue with the sharpness in his tired red eyes, or maybe she was a mutant whose power he had somehow disrupted. Whatever the reason, Kaien raised an eyebrow.

“What’re you staring at?” He asked her nonchalantly just as he was granted his black coffee. Raising the cup to his mouth after muttering a “Thanks” to the waitress, he watched the pale Riley over the rim of ceramic. A generous sip of the blackness warmed his throat and promised to sober him from sleep soon enough. “Never seen a man carrying a sword before?” Kaien started walking towards Riley, apparently taking her staring as an invitation to sit with her. With a few long strides he was before her table and then taking a seat opposite her, his cup of coffee already planted on the wooden surface.

“So what’s your name? If you’re going to look at me like that might as well tell me.” He grabbed a menu from where it lay on the center of the table as copies of it did on every table. His elbows were on the table as he looked through the various breakfast items. Might as well have some food with the coffee. It may have been rude to walk up to Riley like that and invade her private table. It might have been bold or direct also, but Kaien didn’t give it much thought. After all, it was she who had provoked the interaction with her big blue eyed staring.

She was also not the only one suffering a headache. After having been out all night and missed both sleep, food and drink, Kaien felt his temples throbbing with protest. Hopefully the coffee would buffer it with another few sips and some food couldn’t hurt either.

[Riley Whelan]

Now I'll be bold...
As well as strong...
Use my head alongside my heart...

She stared even harder as the tall man turned towards her, eyes widening further at his eye color before writing it off as contacts. When he started walking towards her though, she quickly took interest in her coffee, almost inhaling it before she coughed and said sternly to herself, “I cannot breathe my coffee...”

At first she didn't realize he was actually talking to her, and when she did she blinked, “Sword? I see no sword...” she spoke to herself mostly, eying the man a little harder before she started at actually seeing a sword. Or what could have been a sword. She wasn't quite sure having only read about them...

She sputtered as he approached her table, and sat down without her ever actually talking to him. She glowered and buried her face into the coffee a moment before glaring at him. “Haven't you ever heard of manners? Its usually polite to introduce ones-self before asking for anothers name.” she told him almost sternly, clearing her throat.

Though she found him impolite, it would be even more impolite for her to not answer his question, she said haughtily, “If you really must know my name is Riley.”

She focused on the people around her, frowning in concentration while she ignored him a moment or ten. She still couldn't hear the thoughts. She dug into her jeans pocket and brought her phone out, putting it to her forehead and shutting her eyes tight. She wasn't connected to it. She couldn't feel the 'spirit' of the technology. Growling she almost slammed the tech down on the table, but feeling more restrained set it down gently, turning her anger at the intruder to her table.

“Is there a reason you felt so inclined to interrupt my almost perfect morning?”

So take my flesh...
And fix my eyes...
That tethered mind free from the lies...[/color][/font]

[Kaien Tsubakuro]

He didn’t quite catch what she muttered into her coffee after almost drinking it through her nose but did take note of her averted attention. When his words finally got a direct reply he uncovered the blade on his belt (usually hidden, aside from its hilt, more or less, under his coat), its sharpness contained within a dark blue sheath. “This sword,” he clarified but when his eyes returned to her they narrowed briefly, “but it hardly matters if you didn’t notice it in the first place.” And his coat was concealing its length again and he was sipping coffee.

He closed one eye and watched her though the one left open, lazily noting her scolding. The faintest smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Heard of them? Yeah. Do I think they would greatly add to the quality of our interaction? No.” She cleared her throat and he was flipping through the menu pages, trapped in a debate about whether to have sausages or bacon. He looked over the paper to her. “Have you ever heard of going with the flow?”

If he noticed the degree of her self-importance, Kaien didn’t show it. “Riley. So tell me, do you usually gape at people for no reason?” Kaien set the menu back on the table and leant back in his seat, all lightheartedness sapped from him as his gaze bore into her. It was probably paranoid to make so much of the small incident but the crimson eyed man didn’t believe in coincidence. Something about him had definitely drawn her attention, and not in a favorable way, and he was determined to find out just what that had been.

“As for interrupting you, don’t you think you have that backwards? The first move was yours, after all, I’m merely responding to it.” It was probably not the best moment to remark on her quiet growls and Kaien had to admit that she appeared to have quite the temper, even from someone who suffered from anger management issues’ perspective.

“My name’s Kaien,” he finally returned a name and looked away from her, for the first time letting his attention drift and search for something in the small internet café that just couldn’t be there.