moritat | Each AU why not

[Judas is actually the biggest of all losers. Rather than try to learn magic or climb the ranks, he's moved out to the countryside to work on a farm outside Treun. And maybe do some rabble rousing and charity work.]

Farm
Hey! Yeah, you, I see you!

[It's dark and someone's stumbled into his field. Either he's worried his crops will be trampled, or stolen. Both? Either way, scrawny, sickly, 5'2" Judas is marching out there, full of purpose, he'll fight to defend his crops, they're for the natives in need!! Strange how his work clothes are distinctly not appropriate to the area, more like something out of ancient Rome - ancient Judea, actually. But what shardbearer in his right mind would be working a field, right?]

Protest
[Might as well get both things he's good at in! There's a rally being held in the square, full of Drabwurld natives as it's largely anti-shardbearer. But there's sentiment against the courts as well - after all, they're the ones who are bringing the shardbearers in to mess up their home, and the war is not helping that either. They're not given defence against roaming raiders and hostile soldiers, or shardbearers doing whatever they please.

And who's in the centre of the crowd giving a speech full of those sentiments? Obviously it's Judas. There's some jeering from some members of the crowd over the fact that he himself is a shardbearer, and in the end when he leaves, it almost seems that he's been run out. He sighs heavily, flopping down on the stone street, back against a wall. He pulls the over layer of his robes off, balls it up, and throws it to the ground.]

Station or castle library
[He comes here solely for the sake of maths. Looking for books of tough problems to solve, maybe something accounting related if he's lucky, but anything will do. He just likes numbers. And frankly, it's absurd how quickly he goes through any material he pulls out. But it's a rare time of excitement and honest happiness.

Please be a nerd with him. (Or maybe make fun of the nerd, that would make sense too.)]

[or make up something else. I'm also down with doing crau from Box/Forest flavour so let me know if that's the way you want it, otherwise it's a fresh start]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[An elevator, a hand on her back and on Judas's, picking him up and then falling. Paloma puts a hand to her temple, dazed by the onset of another not-memory.]

I feel like I do. You knew my name. How did I know yours?

Looks aside, I'm Judas. [He says it perfectly bluntly. It's not that weird that she knows his name.] I don't know how I knew yours, though...it was just there. But I...feel like I do too.

[He looks down at his feet as a memory strikes him - to make sure they're not covered in blood. weird.]

[She glances at his feet, too, and is struck by the same recall of vomiting the bloody contents of her stomach onto them. Embarrassed despite the fact that this may not have ever happened, she smooths over her skirt. Peeks at him.

Realizes this is wrong and she'd be most at ease sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.]

I've never had this happen before. You're someone I would remember-- my head, it's just getting crammed full of things telling me how I do.

No, I, ah- I know what you mean.

[Blood. -Blood? Judas remembers her bleeding, badly - her leg, so they tried to fix it in his room? Now he looks instead at Paloma's feet. Both there.]

[And now they're looking at her feet. For a dizzy moment, she expects there to be a bloody, ragged stump on her upper thigh-- but she has both legs, she walked here just fine...

Paloma brushes hair behind an ear, to stifle the impulse to put her hands in his. Violets.]

... Well. Stranger's happened to me, in this world. [Strange and wonderful things. Hope lights her eyes.] This week was rough, but that changed when I saw you.

[A lot of strange things have happened to him, not just in this world. But this one's different, it just can't be compared.]

...It did?

[He's so used to being a bad thing. There's honest shock in that look finally back to her eyes.]

[A pause-- but she doesn't think he will spook, somehow, at this forwardness-- but Paloma ignores the loveliness of her fine skirt and crawls over next to him. She turns, plunks back down, leaned against the same wall.

She smiles, unsure of this, but unwilling to reject it.]

Hope you don't mind. This feels better.

[He draws his knees up, shy, but feeling he should be much more uncomfortable than this. How could he not be? And yet, he feels that it somehow doesn't matter.]

No, go ahead, it's not my wall, haha...

Five bucks says it could be. What if I write your name on it?

[She tucks her chin into her knees, grinning and equally shy despite the predation that comes otherwise as natural as feeding.]

That wouldn't make it mine!

[DON'T BE A VANDAL, PALOMA!!!!]

[Far from being taken aback at agitating a supposed stranger, Paloma giggles outright. The sideways glance she slants him is all mischief.]

But they'd remember you for something that's not the killing of Christ?

[Now here is a very strange thing: hearing that should normally shock him beyond words, send him into a state of anxiety, he might cry, certainly shaking, and plenty of apologising. But it doesn't, he just laughs, lighting up.]

Oh, that's a good point! Well in that case...

[With a flourish, she pretends to uncap a marker and scribble his name in fanciful cursive onto the stone. It puts her nearer, albeit not deliberately.]

There. You have a new legacy, a new start. What will you do with it?

Hmm, let's see.... Make a good name for myself and proceed to betray my closest friend to the tyrant overlords.

[He says it like it's all planned out and decided. Matter-of-fact.]

[How very Judas.

Paloma is still not sure how she knows it's a Judas thing to say, but it is, and she loves to hear him laugh...]

Ooh, can I be the tyrant overlord in this scenario? I've never been tyrannous before.

No way, you're not a tyrant at all, that wouldn't make any sense. That would have to be- hm.

[Whoever that guy was who seems to be part of many of the snippets memories of Paloma coming to him.]

You know. You'd be more like the best friend - sorry it has to be this way.

[She has a similar idea of who he's referring to, hiding the ensuing gigglesnort behind her splayed fingers. It is easier to handle the memories as they surge.]

That breaks my heart. But at least I don't have to worry about carrying on, since you're betraying me!

Well, your heart already doesn't beat, so it's no great loss.

[That might be an incredibly cruel thing to say. And yet, not only is that his sense of humour, but there's no reason at all to worry she'd take it badly. But strange that he knows it doesn't - he's not even entirely sure what that means.]

It still bleeds! I think?

[That this is a genuine question and one she has yet to answer only makes her laugh harder, oddly. DOES her heart bleed? She knows getting stabbed in it won't kill her. She remembers getting stabbed specifically. And... crushing his plants in the struggle following.

Paloma regards this man with her fangs out in the widest grin she can physically pull off.]

You know, you'd make a good Kindred. People anticipate treachery.

[The fangs - oh, that's right, that's what she is, a vampire. He remembers being bitten...but it was disgusting, like ash. And then- well.]

No it's no good if they anticipate it!

How are you defining good, here? You like that surprised look people get when you do something off-kilter, huh?

[ELBOW NUDGE]

Each AU why not

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject