Scene #8528: The Spear and the Dragon

Owner	Pose
Dysnomia	The instructions for the meetup seem clear enough, but as the mountain where the alchemist hunting party found and befriended(?) Viviane. It should have been easy. The weather was even cooperating, for once. The dreary downpours had alleivated somewhat, into a slight drizzle, while the sun broke through the clouds above, cutting the air in rays of idyllic gold. But on arrival, with Dysnomia nowhere in sight, the vagueness of it all becomes clear. Would Hibiki find her in the mines? In the surrounding forests, somewhere? And if so, where? It was a puzzle, with no easy answer. But anyone who let their attention still long enough would feel it. It wasn't inviting, no. Not a gentle tug at the feet, not like a wind pressing at ones back. It was something hair-raising and cold, like a broken bottle held in a bleeding hand, like a snarling animal backed into a corner. It said, 'don't come! Leave me be! Let me alone!' in a language that was old when the first creatures crawled out of the sea onto earth's shores. And from Hibiki's brief moment of listening to her song, Hibiki recognized the touch of Dysnomia's mind.. Down, the side of the mountain. Down and down, to a clearing in the wood, under the shade of a great tree, dappling the grassy ground below with shadow and sunlight, Hibiki found her. Half curled up in the clearing, having clawed out a hollow in the ground for herself to rest in. There, Hibiki saw the monster from Neo-tokyo at rest, its body in a cresent, face resting in the shadow of the great tree, until it turned to Hibiki.. Until SHE turned to Hibiki. 'Even laying down like this, Dysnomia towered over Hibiki. Burning eyes stared down at her, over a mouth she knew to be full of so many teeth, with the fire of her burning breath still bright in her breast, and her claws-- "Hibiki." The dragon's mouth didn't open, but a familiar voice rang out in the magical girl's mind nonetheless.For a long moment, there was silence.
Hibiki Tachibana	It's a pretty good place to meet up, all things considered, as far as spots on Hibiki's home go. It's far enough out in the wilderness that communications (and thus potential of being spied upon) are spotty, and whatever remained of the alchemist's hideout has been scoured clean in the time since. With everything wrapped up here, there shouldn't be any more eyes on it. And while there's no helicopter ride to ferry her in this time, Hibiki is very used to walking to where she needs to go. It gives her time to think and time to focus, although being left in her own thoughts alone isn't necessarily always a good thing. The heavy boots of her Symphogear come down on slightly damp ground, step after step, as she moves onward. The enormity of the possible places she might actually find her takes a while to reach her. But shortly after it does, so does that sensation. That song, holding a feeling more familiar than she'd like to admit. So she presses ahead. On and on, down and down, until she can see. The dark-scaled beast that doesn't even seem of this world or reality, dwarfing her completely. It's a terrifying form, honestly. Almost anyone would think so. Hibiki doesn't seem to have a hint of fear on her, though. A little bit of exhaustion maybe, but not fear. "...Dysnomia." She answers back with her voice, rather than her mind. On taking a few steps closer, a small flash of light obscures her form--and brings her back into her casual clothing, nothing more than an ordinary girl. For the most part. "I didn't really get the chance to have a good look at you...like this, back while we were fighting. You're..." There's a moment where she tries to find the right words. "...A dragon."
Dysnomia	Dysnomia watches Hibiki release her Symphogear. What that was, what it symbolized, hadn't escaped Dysnomia. Armor and weaponry all in one, cast away and aside. There's a low rumbling in her chest, deep and resonant, that made the leaves of the trees above shake. She lowered her head to Hibiki's eye level. "You, you're fearless, aren't you? To come meet a dragon in the woods?" "You're right , anyway." She said, raising a five-fingered hand to gesture back at her own body, running claw over shimmery scale. "I'm a dragon." "Is that important to you?" Her eyes seemed so much brighter and radiant...Or maybe it was just the size playing tricks?
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki shifts her head just enough to follow Dysnomia's being lowered, staring back into...well, 'eyes' is a little improper all things considered, but at least one of those burning irises. "Some people would say really stupid instead of fearless, probably." And when she gestures to herself, the magical girl briefly scans over it. "...But I'm pretty sure I don't have anything to be afraid of. I wasn't before, was I? So I don't see why I should be now." Well, maybe just in the 'prickly personality' and the much more ordinary worries that come with that. "So I guess that part isn't 'important', more like...I can't say I've ever been friends with a dragon before. Or even seen one like you." Which is kind of weird when she thinks about it. Maybe there just aren't enough draconic Elites in the Multiverse. "...Sorry if that sounds shallow, or anything like that." Hibiki moves to rest her weight against one of the nearby, smaller trees rather than the massive one that Dysnomia had been lounging under. "Especially with...well." Her face scrunches up, just a bit. "...Everything behind why you showed it at all."
Dysnomia	Her eye swivels away, and she snorts, releasing a short burst of plasma from her nostrils. "Sometimes, fearless and 'really stupid' are the same thing." "I'm nobody pet, nobody's trophy. Whether that's like that, or like THIS..." She pulled her claws beneath her body. "...But I guess I appreciate, you didn't spread the word. A little." "You're right." She looked straight on at hibiki then. "I didn't WANT to show you. Reiblood...Pulled it out." "What about you?" She turned her focus entirely on the magical girl. "Just what did he try to pull out of you?"
Hibiki Tachibana	"'Course not," Hibiki mentions on the subject of spreading word with a shake of her head. "If you weren't walking around like that, it had to have been for a reason." A very good one, she can have something of an idea of. Reiblood's name gets her to wince a small bit, eyes finding the ground beneath her feet as a hand comes up to her chest. Her palm rests over where her heart is. "...Not my true self," she says a little more hastily and forcefully than she probably meant to, recalling what the Alien had said to both her and Dysnomia. "All the...things I buried away inside me. All the ugly, terrible feelings...and that awful impulse to destroy everything..." Hibiki winces for the second time, this time solely at herself, as her fingers scrunch in at her jacket where her hand sits. "...I can't ever let it come out again. I won't go back to how things used to be," she whispers to herself. After a moment, she grimaces and glances back up to Dysnomia, just to slightly shift her gaze off to the side. "It's something...that made me an uncontrollable monster, drowning in my own darkness. I don't plan to ever let anyone see that...ever again."
Dysnomia	"A monster." Dynsomia repeated, letting the irony of who that word was coming out of speak for itself. "Humans call all kinds of things 'monsters,' Hibiki. I don't trust it." Dysnomia stretched out a wing overhead, swallowing Hibiki in shadow, blocking the drizzle as rainwater ran in rivulets down the outside of her wing. The violet shine of her throat and the glow of her eyes made strange shadows. "Monsters destroy the peace. Monsters shatter what's ordinary. Monsters challenge what people believe..." "But, sometimes peace is cruel, isn't it? When it holds someone back from protecting themselves, from what everyone else decided is 'normal?'" "And what's ordinary...Sometimes it's rotten, isn't it? Sometimes it needs to be thrown out!" "And what people believe?" She growled then, a deep sound that resonanted in the hollow spaces of Hibiki's chest. "You KNOW what people BELIEVE." Her thoughts seethed, caustic, like acid.
Hibiki Tachibana	The irony isn't lost on Hibiki at all, although she doesn't have an immediate reply as the massive wing stretches itself overhead to shield her from the rainfall. She's...surprised about that. And the impression of being loomed over and the change in lighting, with Dysnomia's bodily glows becoming that much more obvious, gets her to make eye contact once more. "Sometimes...people believe they know what's best. For you, for everyone. For the future. Right?" It's quiet, as her hand slips away from her chest and lowers itself some. Her expression falls a bit, as that rumbling voice still echoes inside of her, and thoughts feel like they bear down almost oppressively. "...I don't see anything in front of me but Dysnomia, at least. Someone who's...been hurt a lot, by the things that happened to her. And wants to change them all." Her head tilts down, to glance at the palm of her hand. "What you are...doesn't deserve to be called that, or anything else, in fear. At least from where I'm standing. The only reason I said that..." Her lips purse briefly, finding the words. "...is because that part of me isn't anything like that."
Dysnomia	When her breath released in a frustrated grunt. It smelled a little like iron, like the scent that crawls into your nose when you're standing in the wake of the lightning strike, ionized and brimming with energy. "How kind." But the tone of her words were hard to place. Her eyes closed. "But what do you think that means? Do you understand?" So said the dragon, half coiled around Hibiki. "That rage, that hate inside you, where does it come from? Is it part of you?" Dysnomia challenged. "What is it to you? Is it part of you, to strangle, to cage forever in the dark of your heart, until the day you die?" "Can you tell me I'm wrong?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Are you willing to let it gnaw on you forever, never giving it a voice?"
Hibiki Tachibana	Does she understand? Dysnomia is pressuring her in an entirely different way than Alien Reiblood did. While he appealed to a need for more power, her need to protect, the desire to not have to abandon anything--right now, she's being questioned on if she intends to deny it and keep it pushed down forever, rather than letting it free. "That's--" The hand at her side tightens up, tense and taut. Her voice catches in her throat. And it takes several seconds before it steadies and comes out, quietly. "That darkness...everything that built up inside my chest...it's mine," she agrees. "It's all mine. The part of me that just wants to use my hands to destroy it all, instead of taking other people's in my own. ...Maybe I will just keep it down for my whole life." "...Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll end up letting it loose, or even make peace with it, someday. I don't know," she admits with an air of discomfort. It lasts a second, before her tone hardens up, and she makes herself look at Dysnomia again. "...The only thing I do, is that nobody else is allowed to wrench it out of me. Not Reiblood, or anyone or anything else."
Dysnomia	There's another low sound from the dragon's chest...Almost...A laugh? Her eyes open, again. "Good." She said. "That's the way it should be. Not for him. Not for me. Not for anyone else. For YOU." "I was human too, once." She looked up, through the branches and leaves, into the sky, and this strange yellow star that this world revolved around. "At home, they learned to teach children how to shape the world with their thoughts. Control it. Make it theirs." "They didn't want it for us. They did it so we could give back. Because it's what they needed. Because it's what 'all of us' needed. And if what we wanted didn't fit, they'd make it." "But, when power shapes the world, what do you think happens to us? What do you think we become, when we can't stand being [human like this] anymore?"
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki actually looks...briefly surprised, at the sight of Dysnomia laughing. A few blinks accompany it, before some of the tension leaves her shoulders, and she gives a little exhale. Still, the unbidden concern can't help but come to her mind. Still...if Reiblood ever does slip into the cracks, and things go that far... She shakes it off only a split second after, re-centering herself just in time to not miss Mia speaking up. Slowly, her head lifts up to glance past the expansive wing and through a gap in the treeline. "Teaching children...how to shape the world. But..." 'For them'. "...Nothing like how it is with Persephone and them..." Hibiki murmurs to herself. A question is asked, and Hibiki's answer comes in the form of shifting her view, to look over Dysnomia's body, from head to tail. She takes in her form, what Reiblood called 'the true self', and the mention of being human once. After another moment, she looks back up towards the sky. "What is it like for you, now? ...Like this."
Dysnomia	Dysnomia closed her eyes, lost in her daydreams. "Words are too small," she said, struggling to find a way to describe it. Then, her attention locked on Hibiki. Images and sensations cascaded in, and-- --Her wings were spread wide as she soared through the stars. They sang to her, all of them, shining with marvelous, vibrant colors no human would ever see. The solar wind and cosmic rays of the cosmos swaddle her in their warmth, like a child feeling the warm sun on their back at play-- --She ducked and wove throuhg the the rings of Saturn, reaching out her hand to pass through of film of dust, like slipping her hand into a cosmic river-- --Deep space surrounds her, as she flits between the comets of the oort cloud, like a hummingbird in search of a drink. Lingering in the dark and secret spaces of the universe, untouched and sacred, resting eyes upon little marvels that no living eye ever had or likely ever would again, if not for her-- --They were still on earth, in the shadow of that mountain, the pitter-patter of drizzle making little impacts on Mia's wings, above. Earth's gravity still tethered them to the ground, as it always had. As it always would. "Like that."
Hibiki Tachibana	It's an alien sensation--as it could only be, as something no human could witness. The warmth, even in the vacuum. The feeling of dancing through countless particles with ease. At home, resting easily, exploring the cosmos without care and with ultimate freedom-- And then it's gone, and Hibiki jolts, eyes wide and mouth caught open. A few audible, heavier breaths escape before simmering back own to normal, and she repeats quietly, "...Words are too small. Like they are so much of the time..." It takes her several seconds past that, still, to fully settle back in. Eventually, her eyes close themselves, and the air leaves her lungs in a drawn-out exhale. "...And now I get why, a little bit. Just a little bit." But that's understanding enough, to help take in more of Mia's decision. "...I think I might still be too attached to that gravity, and to humanity, though. Maybe if it was a few years ago...I'd want at least a little bit of that for myself, too."
Dysnomia	"It's hard to let go." Dysnomia's voice rang out in her head. "Some people never can. Maybe they're happy being human. Maybe they can't break free of 9.8 meters per second..." She pulled her wing back, standing on all fours, her head held high. "I can't understand it. Holding onto it, that shape. Just pretending aches so much..." She took a few steps, just enough to pull back her wings. "But, Reiblood doesn't want to make us ourselves. He wants to make us HIS." She growled. "His purpose, his strength, his genes...That's not freedom, is it? No, no matter what he says." "Just spending your life on someone else's dream."
Hibiki Tachibana	"Make us his and use us for whatever his own ends are...just like the kaiju," Hibiki agrees, with an atmosphere of sympathy around the last word. As Dysnomia pulls back, she remains looking up towards the break in the tree cover, bringing an arm up to partially shield herself from the gentle drizzle. "...I won't let that happen. If I spend my life on anything...it'll be for what I care about." A small moment passes. "...If he gets to me, somehow. I'll count on you more than anyone else to stop me, okay?" It's said in a tone that could be either genuine or a joke. But even a surface reading of her would be enough to tell it's the former. "Although that's kind of unfair to ask." Hibiki smiles, just a tiny bit. That one has less of a sense of seriousness about it. She turns properly towards Dysnomia, a moment later. "...I don't think I'd be able to really hold onto /that/ shape, if it came down it. Puts me in the 'happy being human' camp, I guess. There was a time I thought I'd never get this back, you know?" "...But even if we can't entirely understand each other's shapes, or why they're held onto...we still understand each other on at least one thing. And maybe there'll be more times like this in the future too." Mutual understanding breeds friendship, after all. And she did mention /friend/ of a dragon.
Dysnomia	"Maybe that's enough." Dysnomia half-agreed, staring up into the sky. "To understand just a little more of each other, flying under the lights of the same stars star." "Watching someone like that, warping people into things they can't stand...It'd be fun to tear that away from that smug bastard, wouldn't it...? He won't take you. I won't allow it." "And if, somehow, that thing gets into my head...?" That dragon lifted a great claw, reached it forward and-- --Let too claws rest on the crown of Hibiki's head, surprisingly gentle. "You'll do the same, won't you?" Not waiting for an answer, she pulled back her hand, spread her wings, and took off. Once, twice, thrice, and she was in the air, her nose turned upward. A violet trail burned behind her, as she cut a path into the sky, until the trail was all that was left. Until there was no sign of her at all.