*Cracks knuckles* Er, first off, I'm editing my last post, because I really dislike how I wrote it- to put it quite frankly, Deirdre just ignoring someone sobbing behind her is very, very out-of-character: she may be harsh, rude and stubborn, but she can't stand someone in pain, whether it's grieving pain or, er, "Ouch, I just cut off my toe with a banana peel!" pain. Though I suppose the latter would also include a good deal of hysterical laughter directed towards the situation.
Besides, it wasn't very interesting and didn't advance the plot in any way.
But anyway. On to ze wonders of copy+paste. Along with a teensy bit of html/BBCode to pretty it up- otherwise, it's hard to figure out who wrote what. Well, at least for me and my ADD/horrid eyesight, anyway.
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...Alex:</center>
Deirdre raised an eyebrow at the sudden existence of the tree, but said nothing, choosing to simply ponder Talim's words.
Could these people really be Geomancers? They did seem to have the Ankh, but if they were what they said, then they were certainly being rather stupid about it. Oh yes, let's go and run around, flashing our Ankhs to everyone and casting as much magic as we can, and ooh, the Counsil's after us? Well, teehee, let's go and do some more stuff that'll make it incredibly obvious that we're Geomancers! Yaaay!
She snorted. At the very least, if they were Geomancers, she could help them. But at the same time, she'd have to be cautious- for all she knew, they could really be just part of the Counsil, and their Ankhs just acquired at a Tatoo Parlour.
Looking up at them, Deirdre smiled hesitantly and took Talim's hand.
"To be quite honest, I'm not sure if I really trust you. But at the very least, this should be interesting- I've always wanted to learn more about Geomancers, anyway. But-" her smile dropped and she scowled at "Major" Tira, "I'm
not going to work with
her."
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.:Chronically Depressed:.</center>
Joy raised her eyebrow at this arrogant girl that stood before them. She watched her as she hesitantly shook Talim's hand. And Heard her say that she wouldn't work with Tira.
"What's she done to you? It can't have been very bad. Can it?"
<hr>
Anka smiled to himself. He had to get back to the others, otherwise they'd be wondering where he was.
He'd stir up trouble later...
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<center>
...Alex</center>
Deirdre looked at the girl who'd spoken- the Light Geomancer, she assumed, what with her little show of raising the dead- and stared in disbelief.
"What did she do to me? Oh, I don't know, let me try to remember everything. Well, first of all, she leashed me with a freaking
vine, as if I were some sort of animal to be tamed, then, when I tried to escape, she knocked me out with more vines, which, by the looks- and feel, for that matter- of it, were meant to kill me. So no, of course, she hasn't done anything horrible to me, aside from being a complete psycho," Deirdre finished, voice a cool hiss.
Turning to Tira, she stood haughtily and, glancing disdainfully at the tree, said, "And everyone knows that it's nearly impossible to grow things in sand- it's nothing like dirt. Creating that tree was an utter waste of magic, not to mention life. Ugh."
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<center>
.:Chronically Depressed:.</center>
Joy's eyes widened as she heard what Tira had done.
"You didn't Tira! Did you?" She stared in disbelief.
<hr>
Anka had arrived back on the beach and he ran back up to them.
"Um... I guess everything worked out OK then?" He asked cautiously.
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<center>
...Alex</center>
Deirdre and Andrew both stared at the newcomer in disbelief.
The former opened her mouth to retort angrily, but her friend spoke first.
"Okay? Excuse me? You
killed a child. You're a murderer! You ran away, clearly not wanting to face what you had done, so now, not only have you shown yourself to be a criminal, but a coward, as well! And now that everything's over, you run back with your tail between your legs, expecting everyone to welcome you back with open arms? I think not," he said coolly, ending as he stood up, helping Deirdre to her feet, who was only thinking nervously as she dropped the sand cats- now sand frogs, for some reason- onto her shoulder,
Andrew, you had better hope he'll just laugh in your face, and not kill you. The child was killed by magic- if I'm right- he seems to know these Geomancers- and if this boy was at the end of the death magic, he's the High Geomancer of Night. You absolute idiot, you don't just anger someone like that...
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<center>
ria</center>
Tira scowled at Deirdre, so what if the kid hated her? The feeling was mutual. She frowned when Deirdre told Joy what she had 'done to her' then folded her arms in defiance, "I'm afraid you've only heard her part of the story Joy. You see I came here with Anka and we both tried to calmly tell Deirdre that she was Geomancer of Sand. Not surprisingly she didn't believe us, however she was also very rude to us and flat out denied that she had an Ankh on her wrist, even though it was in plain sight."
She paused for a moment, glaring at Deidre before resuming her retelling of events, "I then moved forward to grab her wrist when my newfound powers decided to kick in and I ended up launching a vine at her arm. It was after this that she got rather angry and then proceeded to start a sandstorm. After being pounded at with sand for a few minutes I got very frustrated and somehow created a shield of vines around myself. I then launched vines out blindly in all directions, hoping to stop the sandstorm."
Narrowing her eyes at Deirdre she looked back at Joy, "And that's what
really happened."
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<center>
.:Chronically Depressed:.</center>
Anka, startled, took a step back from Andrew.
Joy stood in front of Anka. She started to fume.
"If this is true then Anka, who only found out he is a Geomancer today I might add, might also have used his powers in self defence, not knowing what he could do, and lost control of them. Most of us have only found out today. He had no way of knowing what his powers would do. After all he's called the Geomancer of the Night, not the Geomancer of Death! So don't you attack him for something he didn't mean, and is probably regretting as you all have your Petty arguments!" She shouted at the three of them.
Anka was surprised, he and Joy hadn't liked each other from the moment they met, but here she was, Defending him! He remained quiet.
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<center>
...Alex</center>
"Oh, for... What are you, his bodyguard? Because after your little feat of resurrection, it would seem that you're a Geomancer of Light. As a result, you imbecile, you'd be his-" Deirdre gestured angrily at 'Anka' as she raised her voice, "opposite.
Everyone knows Light and Dark always end up hating each other. It's the story of time, idiot. Light and Dark are enemies.
Always. Light against dark, day versus night.'
"And-" she continued breathlessly, glasses askew, hair starting to come out of it's braid, "everyone who's ever researched Geomancers know that Geomancers of Night are bringers of death. It's not freaking self-defense if someone dies. The second he realized he was the one behind the light and everything being sucked out of here or whatever, he should have stopped. And if he couldn't, he still shouldn't have run away once it was over. A child
died, and you're yelling at me for not knowing that our new Geomancer of Night had only discovered his powers today?'
"Death isn't something you should deal with lightly. Instead of throwing a temper tantrum on someone else's behalf, you should be finding out how he lost control of his powers, and what he should be doing to stop it from happening again. Next time, he'll only be stronger. Next time, more people could die. And what will you do then?" she asked, glaring at the group in front of her, thoroughly irritated.
"And as for
you,
Major," she spat, glaring at Tira, "I have one question- if you were lauching 'vines out blindly in all directions', how could you not think that you could have strangled someone? Oh, never mind, I just answered my own question," she said, wearing a vicious smile, "you weren't thinking, obviously."
"God, what idiots you lot are. You're exactly the type of Geomancers my father warned me abou-" Deirdre stopped short, mentally cursing herself for saying too much, but managed to finish with a short, "Never mind. I give up on you all," as she spun on her heel, marching back to the street as she dragged Andrew by his wrist, intent on reaching her mother's bookstore to see if it had sustained any damage during the earthquake.
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<center>
ria</center>
Tira's eyes narrowed to mere slits, she ground her teeth together to stop herself from saying any more and her hands were clenched so hard they were trembling.
Talim on the other hand was trembling from being so upset, her eyes were clenched shut as she tried not to cry. Why oh why was nothing going according to plan? When Deirdre announced that she was leaving Talim finally decided that she couldn't take it anymore.
Sinking down onto her knees, Talim let out a heartwrenching sob. Tears began streaming down her face and her whole body was shaking.
Tira snapped out of her angry daze and turned in shock to look at Talim. She was rooted to the spot for a moment as she watched their poor leader let out all her sorrow and grief. "Oh Goddess..." she whispered, voice cracking as she felt a tear slide down her cheek, "Why are we all so stupid? Poor Talim has being trying so hard to unite us... and there are still only half of us here... and what do we go and do? We fight and argue amongst ourselves. By now we could have found all of the High Geomancers and begun our training..."
Also sinking down onto her knees, Tira bowed her head down in shame, "I'm sorry Talim."
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<center>
.:Chronically Depressed:.</center>
Joy glared at Deirdre.
"He ran off to get ME! YOU STUPID GIRL! And I may not like him but that doesn't mean I'll stand by and watch as you gang up on him!" Joy's hot-headed nature was coming into play, She hated it when people ganged up on others. It reminded her of all the times her little brother had been bullied in school.
They heard a sob. It had came from Talim. They listened to her talk to the goddess. Joy started to feel guilt, she had forgotten of their quest to find all of the Geomancers in all of the action that had took place.
Joy ran over to her and knelt beside her to try to comfort her.
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<center>
...Alex</center>
Not looking back as she stomped onto the street, Deirdre yelled back, "Gang up? Don't be stupid, there are two of us, while we're being fought by three of you people!"
As she marched towards the opposite sidewalk, a group of shrieking tourists- upset because of the earthquake, sandstorm, blizzard and Mother knew what else- separated Andrew from his irate friend and drowned out the sound of Talim speaking. Muttering darkly about stupid foreigners, Deirdre waited for the group to move on.
Eventually, they did, and to her great chagrin, she could now clearly see that one of the Geomancers- the Moon one- was on her knees in the sand, sobbing, clearly quite horrified at how the others had been squabbling like infants.
Unfortunately, however, Deirdre's attention was brutally ripped away from Talim when she noticed that Andrew had vanished, seemingly into thin air.
((Ow. My fingers hurt. But I know I must write this endnote, for when I die, you must find this and make sure my evil son will not inherit my planet- er, wait, wrong universe. Anyway. When I write 'Mother' or 'Mother of magic' or whatever, I'm just using it as an exclamation. Kind of like 'OMG/OH MY GOD', as in, 'OMG THE BOOGIE MONSTER IS BEHIND YOU AND HE'S EATING YOUR COLLECTION OF BRITNEY SPEARS CDS!!!'.
Perhaps Deirdre and Andrew just made it up when they were younger, or some such.
(I like to make up new exclamations or phrases when I'm writing, so that's why I made it up.
)))