gunslingerqueen | IC Contact + Overflow

It means I'll have to work even harder not to viciously kick your ass.

[Witches were ... Kind of a strange bunch to deal with when it came to offensive battles! But Nariko had to admit that they were definitely adaptive and strategic, so she was hardly underestimating the other woman so much as Nariko knew that she had a tendency to go overboard when it came to such things. ... It would be a while before she felt comfortable enough to do such a thing with Les, especially since it hadn't exactly been part of the original deal.

But weapons had been, and that's the most logical step before she ends up hearing a little more about her new student. Tilting her neck to one side to work out some of the strain, Nariko raised a brow.]

So, you didn't know about it your whole life? [Kind of surprising, especially given who their boyfriends were.]

Is there a reason you didn't ask for their help again?

[It's not hard to take a guess at why, and she feels a tinge of guilt about going near it but, hey, Les opened the door and by now, Nariko's actually a little curious. Not that a vampire could have anything on an immortal construct that maintained cosmic balance, or anything.]

Good point. I will be interested to experiment how far I can push my magic, training with you.

[Magic was a complicated situation for Les. She did everything in her power to keep on top form with the magic she held but she also did everything in her power to mask it. The last thing she wanted was to be found out by those she was seeking (to destroy). Les wanted to have the upper hand in those situations. She was quickly realizing that there were a good amount of beings who were underestimating her simply due to the fact that she didn't have the other half of the Enchanted anymore. What they didn't take into consideration was they had been above average in their own right.

It was something that Les was using fully to her advantage.]

No, we didn't. [Les paused. She hadn't intended to share so much about her life like that with the woman but here they were. We had magic from a very young age but when my father and I returned to New Orleans, Jordan's grandmother and my father wanted us to live some kind of normal life. So they hid who we were - bound our powers for as long as they could. We found out during our senior year of high school.

[Les tilted her head and considered the question.]

Ben is dealing with his own shit what with losing Jordan and his Sire. I wasn't going to ask him to help train me. Besides, they'd expect that.

[Besides, he was working on finding out who was involved in the hit so they could take them out.]

[The look Nariko gives her suggests that the topic might be a work in progress for a long time, and that's before realizing what Les' magic use would do, and the attention it would draw. It's one thing to train a witch in more standard forms of combat but magic was ... Weird, and while she wouldn't underestimate the other woman, Nariko did tend to overestimate her own sense of control. Just because she could heal any conceivable wound Les might suffer didn't mean they should just go full-on ham with it.

It's easier and safer to move on to the answer to her question.]

Do you think that was the right way to go about it? Not knowing about it until you were older.

[The question comes with an unspoken caveat, it pokes closer and closer to the guts of the other woman, she doesn't have to answer if she doesn't want to! But Les is the first person whose experience has actually mattered to, as far as Nariko is concerned.]

[Les saw that look and brushed it off for the time being. They'd cross that bridge when they came to it, she figured. Truth be told before they added her magic to their combat training, she likely needed to dedicate some good time to it in general.

At the question, Les paused and considered her answer. It had changed over the years. Later, when she undoubtedly wondered why she shared so much, so soon with Nariko, she'd likely blame the endorphins and the workout.]

At first? Yes, I did. We both did. [Les walked over to where she'd placed her water and picked it up. It was clearly a move that forced her to pause. She didn't talk about this much. Les took a long drink before she continues.]

Now? No. I understand why they did it. They had been worried that our ancestors would find us and take us away for training so we could dedicate our lives, our very obnoxiously long fucking lives to this destiny. At the cost of not having a life. [She turned to look at Nariko.] If that had been our lives... maybe she'd still be around. They both would be.

Huh.

[Maybe they'd still be around. Maybe if you knew ahead of time, you wouldn't have the illusion of a normal life, nothing to miss when it all burned down. And yet, Nariko had seen the result of great people trained in their calling, she'd devoted nearly all of her life to it, and if the question was turned on her it wouldn't exactly be equal. Besides, regardless of how things had gone for Nariko, her fate would have always been the same. It was worse for Les, who could have experienced things differently.]

I never did say I was sorry for all that, did I?

[Which, frankly, is a useless thing to say. Apologies meant nothing to the dead or the living who had to keep on. Empty platitudes and such.]

I choose to say it in the form of teaching you how to take several handguns apart and put them back together in less than five minutes.

[Because that was practical, and real. It was something Les could have control over, and sometimes that was what one needed when certain choices had been taken away.]

Not that I think that life would have been anything either of us would have wanted and you can bet that we would have rebelled in every way possible but...

[She shrugged a shoulder then raised an eyebrow at her with a quirk of her mouth.]

Not exactly but you we're right. At this point, all I can do is move forward and take every single one of those bastards out in the process.

[She appreciated the sentiment all the same. Truth be told, she preferred the practical lessons that Nariko would teach her such as shooting, taking apart handguns, and putting them back together. Physical training. All of it were things that she could have control over and she could focus on for the time being.]

So, what's next?

[OOC- and soon I think we can go to maybe a few weeks later where Les has her dream about Nathan? :)]

[... But what came after that? While occasionally absolutely incapable of keeping her mouth in check, Nariko knew better than to ask a question that she herself couldn't answer. Her life would be different if she'd made different choices, if she could actually put down the person who helped make her into what she was.

Whatever waited for Les on the other side of her revenge was her adventure. She didn't need Nariko fretting over her - Not unless that became an explicitly added service. But the most relevant one was, in fact, tactile and mentally draining. Guns were a little more complex than most realized, and they'd hopefully wipe out Les' remaining strength.]

A long lecture, and many tiny pieces of a bigger thing!

[Leaving the well crafted training area, Nariko takes her to the garage, where she's already set up a decent workbench that could accommodate four people, if needed. With precision, she unravels a handgun, explaining every aspect down to the smallest piece, and then has Les do it.

Over, and over, and over again, until her brain threatens to melt, or her fingers lose direction of where they should even go next.]

[Give Les martial arts, swords, daggers, and/or magic and it took a lot to wear her out. Taking a handgun apart and putting it back together was something else entirely and by the end of that first day, Les swore she couldn't feel her fingers. It was a lot but by the second week, she was getting a bit better. She at least could put it together in a decent amount of time.

To be honest, she'd always enjoyed the idea of taking one apart and putting it back together. It just seemed to badass but she never thought she'd have a reason to. But something she was learning, there was a use for it in the world she found herself in and you could never be too careful.

It wasn't until well into the third week that Les realized how mentally exhausted she was. Since she had taken on this revenge mission of hers, she'd done everything she could to block off any of her dreams both the pre and post-cognitive sort. They didn't come around often but there was always a reason for them when they did. And at this point, she needed to focus on this and not whatever they were trying to tell her. When it came down to it, she'd prefer to not dream at all but she'd learned the hard way to not fuck with that. Two years of nightmares of a past life was enough to just let them be.

After saying good night to Nariko, Les had hauled her ass to her room, took a hot shower, and fell into bed. It felt like no time at all before she found herself standing in a living room with a young man who looked a bit familiar. He wasn't looking at her and she didn't say a word, at first. The fact that she was aware of being in the dream meant there was something she was supposed to pay attention to.]

Apparently I'm more tired than I anticipated - it's been a while since I've had one of these dreams...

[She looked at the boy and tilted her head.]

Are you able to hear or see me?

[She'd know what she needed to know if he could. Normally they didn't and she was a passive participant in whatever happened but it didn't hurt to check.]

[The living room was modern, bordering on detached. Outside the wall-length windows was a perpetual night, a sky littered with shining stars, constellations that would be named by the phantom images of two people at the poolside. One of them was likely to be recognizable despite the phantom-like nature of her profile, Nariko's black hair was just as thick and long in the half-memory as it was in real life, after all. But the person beside her, and the man who stood in front of Les were less familiar, the version outside was younger, but they were the same.]

Huh.

[His eyes were blue, the freckles along the bridge of his nose shifted as his expression scrunched, and he seemed to realize where they were.]

Oh, this is - fuck. [The living room. The sky. The memory. And a woman he'd never seen before.]

I was about to say, that's one hell of a change from what I saw last time, but you're definitely not Nariko. Right?

[That wasn't the sort of thing that should be a question but here they were, just the same.]

[In the time it took for the man to answer, Les took a look around the living room and then paid attention to what was going outside. She could make out the unmistakable form of Nariko and... a younger version of the man standing with her.

Huh. Interesting.

When he cursed, her mouth quirked up. She was just going to say something when he asked if she was Nariko and she tilted her head. While shapeshifting into other people wasn't a completely foreign concept to her, it was a rare gift. One that she certainly wasn't blessed with. ~~Unfortunately.~~]

No, I'm not Nariko. [She paused then tilted her head.] I've been working with her a ton during the last few weeks though.

[She likely wouldn't have said anything but if that was him outside the living room with Nariko, then he knew her, right?]

What is your name?

[At the rate he was going, trusting just his eyes and ears would get him killed, there were far too many people claiming to be one thing while actually being another, and it was kind of dizzying. But this woman, at least, had a kind of straightforwardness that didn't seem dangerous - or crazy.]

Nathaniel Tennore, or just "Nathan". And you are?

[His shoulders rolled back, temporarily forcing his spine back to its proper height of 6'2, but when he sighed it was like the fight deflated out of his body, and he gave a nervous chuckle.]

Please just actually be a person and not like [He gestures to the phantom figures, the illusions outside. It's not obvious from their angle, but the memory plays regardless of whether he and Les watch it. Soon, Nariko will be plunged into the expensive horizon pool and Nathan will maybe, perhaps attempt to drown her.] them. If I meet one more trick of my own brain I think I'll just hop off a cliff.

Nice to meet you, Nathan. In recent years, I've been going by Alessandra De Luca, or just "Les".

[She watched him for a moment - the way he rolled his shoulders and stood straight. Unconsciously, she stood straighter, all 5'8 of her. At his question, her eyebrows rose but she sent him a little smile.]

I assure you, I am a person. A witch, actually. I'm used to pre and post cognitive dreams but this is a bit different. It definitely feels different. I'm assuming you're stuck here then? Wherever... here is?

[From what she could make out through the glass, it didn't feel like she was on Earth or at least, anywhere on Earth she's been to.]

Nice to meet you, Les. [He means it. She's attractive, after all ... But he's also not entirely convinced she's real since-]

"Here" is what might happen when a psychic meets a witch, I guess! This is a dream of a memory I supposedly have somewhere in my brain, and we're both in it for now!

[... So well timed with their conversation, the Other version of himself does, in fact, shove the memory of Nariko into the pool, visibly holding her under. ... It looks really bad, and the way his expression twists into awkward regret probably just enhances that.]

It's supposed to be of me and her, but half the time I feel like I'm seeing things that haven't happened yet. [He rubs the back of his neck, his exhausted groan is a surprisingly sharp nose in the depths of his throat, like the real frustration is clawing to get out of his body.] I don't even know if she's really my sister.

[Les smiled with a little nod before she raised an eyebrow.]

So, you don't actually remember any of this?

[It was interesting. She couldn't remember the... okay, no, she could remember the last person she shared dreams with like this. Les looked outside again just in time to see the Other Nathan shoving Nariko into the pool, holding her under.]

Oh shit.

[She glanced at him and frowned. Truthfully, she understood that frustrated and exhausted sound. Then he mentions Nariko is his sister and she blinked. She probably shouldn't find Nariko's brother attractive but here they were.]

Well. Since I've been training with her, in... the real world or awake world, if you will, I can tell you that she's alive. If that helps. And, before the whole drowning thing out there, she seemed younger. As do you.

Yeah.

[It's disconcerting to watch himself do something so violent and horrible, and to have it occur in front of an attractive woman whose kind of taking all of this in stride? If the cosmic Earth could open and swallow Nathan he might thank it on the way to his death.

But he tries to push through it with a mortified flush of red over his cheeks, and the nervous way he scratches one bicep, as if he could tear out the nerves.]

The awake version of me doesn't remember her at all, actually. But a year or so ago, a woman saved me from a really weird situation and when I looked at her it was like ... [The nerves dissipate as he tries to reach for what really happened.] Like finding something after years of searching. Except - Every time I try to find her when I'm awake I either forget again, or something weird happens. Since reality doesn't want to cooperate, I thought I'd try to look through my dream-memory things. They started up after I saw her in person, so I figured it might be a solid lead.

[He laughs, shrugs.]

And that's led me to you, apparently.

[Les exhaled a breath as she continued to watch the scene outside before she tore herself away from it. Instead, she focused fully on the man standing next to her and watched the way he scratched his bicep (a very nice bicep at that). She could spot a nervous tick a mile away. Considering what was happening here, she couldn't blame him really.

She listened to him and frowned at the knowledge that the awake version of him didn't actually remember Nariko. Was the memory loss intentional then because of what happened here? Was it for safety? She wasn't sure but she could admit she was curious to find out.]

So it was like a lightbulb went off, metaphorically speaking? You had a good idea though because I've found dreams to be helpful like that. Well... helpful and annoying at times when you don't want it to happen.

[She tilted her head a little as she considered everything he'd said.]

Lucky for us both then. In here, in the dream, do you remember anything that happened leading up to... forgetting about everything? Or was this - [She gestured to the glass windows.] - the last thing?

[Not that she truly thought she could help restore his memories at all but she was curious.]

And if you want, I can give her a message from you.

[It's definitely the supposed choking because, otherwise, Nathan's never been the type to falter around a beautiful woman, though Les could still give that a run for its money. Her question is fair but the way he blinks hints at his total confusion because how in the world does he even answer that?]

I guess you could say it was like that. After she saved me it was like someone shoved another set of memories into my brain. One version is just my parents and I, and the other is my mother, me, and someone I think is Nariko, but even know I can't remember her face unless I come to this specific memory.

[A violent skit, an odd choice, one that was somewhat helped by the fact that Nariko was defending herself in it, but they were clearly arguing, still voiceless.

The prospect of passing along a message makes him perk up a bit.]

Tell her ... [Something was doing its damndest to constantly erase his memory, and if it was simple magic then he himself would have found it easily. The truth of the matter was that it only made sense for Nariko to have been the one to cause this. But even knowing she might not want it, Nathan couldn't give up on finding her.] Tell her that if there's something keeping us apart I want to face it together. We're family, and we should be together - and if she's going to disagree, then the least she can do is come and say it to my face. No more running.

[Les nodded. Just from what he's told her, it sounded like there was some very powerful magic at hand, and considering how... personal this felt, it seemed like it may be from Nariko. She'd learned a lot about her roommate so far and she didn't know (yet) the full breadth of the other woman's magic. Still, it was a hunch and she'd learned (more recently than ever) to trust her gut.]

Considering how intense and personal this memory is, I can understand why it would be here of all places.

[She was sure there was more to it but she'd have to ask Nariko about that one day. If... or whenever they got closer.

At his message, Les committed it to memory and sent him a smile.]

I'll let her know. If you don't mind me being nosey, where are you living?

IC Contact + Overflow

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I said it earlier but these two are my fav. :D

they really are so much fun OTL ALSO feel free to shift them to Les' dreams!

Hope this works!

I thought I had Nathan's journal but I think it was attached to an old email x_x

I feel this struggle!

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I know this went in a different way but I do find this interesting! :D

I was really about to message you and apologize for somehow losing control here omg

No! NGL, I love it! (and apparently she also finds him attractive so there's that. Sorry! Lol!)

haha no need to apologize I love surprises like this!

oh good because me too!