InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "icu sharpay"

alphonsine channing. (alphonsine) wrote in haunted_roads,
@ 2008-01-30 23:05:00

Entry tags:

alphonsine, ayamfua

WEEK ONE : Wednesday

WHO; ALPHONSINE & FUA
WHEN; Wednesday, in the early evening hours
WHERE: The Underwater Dome Exhibit, Seattle Aquarium
WHAT; One of Ally's nights off leads her to take in the peace of the underwater life
RATING; G, can be changed if necessary

It was so quiet here; she wondered what it would be like to really be at the bottom of the ocean or even suspended in the middle of it. The looming darkness below, the haunting unknowns of creatures and places that had yet to be discovered--the only uncharted waters left in this world. Here, she could be at the bottom and be safe from harms, but she wanted to feel the quiet against her ears. Maybe, just maybe, one day she would have to make arraignments for one of the private dives into the aquarium. There was always tomorrow, and the next day, and the next...

The Underwater Dome Exhibit was her favorite in the whole of the Seattle Aquarium. The regular hours had ended some time ago, but on particular nights when no other events were scheduled, and if one knew the right persons, people like her could have all the time that might like to wander through. Some nights, she would buy her ticket and stand against the glass at her favorite patch of reef and watch the fish live their lives. They darted in and out of the many holes as if in play, in their own backyard, until they felt the desire to rest as all living creatures do. Other nights, like tonight, she was content to lie on the floor in the middle of the room and just look up, very much as she would when the skies were especially clear and revealed the stars.

She wondered what other creatures might move like sharks--snakes, perhaps, but it was difficult to say. There was something in the way they glided through the water that reminded her of how quickly snakes could slither across the ground. It was their grace that made her take notice. Even the especially large sturgeon was a beautiful swimmer. Ally imagined that human bodies looked terribly uncoordinated to these creatures, if they had the capacity to make judgments.

Hands folded on her stomach, legs stretched out before her, Ally was fine to lie on the floor. It was carpeted and they did vacuum it often, so it was not as if it were a filthy practice. Her blonde curls had softened and began to lose their shape, splayed out a bit around her head and above the collar of her leather trench coat. She looked like any other stylish, young woman that cared to venture out on this Seattle evening, save for the fact that perhaps others would be a bit more reserved with where they laid their head. The only real differences were, of course, that as she laid there, her chest did not rise and fall as another's would; and when she grinned, which Ally did from time to time when the fish did something that amused her, she was careful of how much tooth she bared, as two were a bit longer than usual.

A shark gave a short chase to a smaller group of the salmon and they darted over the glass and past Ally's head. She tilted some to see where they had veered off, but she knew they would be fine. They traveled in a great quantity and must be able to avoid predators. Ah, the shark, though; she wondered how solitary their lives truly were. People came and went behind her, or rather above and behind her head, but she paid no mind. Times like these, she wondered if there really were mere-creatures and if Ariel had been a real creature before Disney stole her identity for profit.

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hopewithoutholy
2008-01-31 08:16 am UTC (link)

Museums and libraries were older than most people gave them credit for. Fua was, to no one's surprise, much in love with them. Since she learned how, she had been visiting them after hours and marvelling at their work in her own quiet, singular way. There was no comparing seeing a great work of art in passing as it was to stand in front of it for hours and contemplate why it was great. What about it made it exception. Standing and marvelling at old works of art, thinking where a found object stood in someone's home and what it might have meant to them, if anything.

Modern structures were, in some ways, easier and more difficult to deal with. Cameras and security made it more difficult, but if you were vigilant in reading the paper, an event or some such occurrence gave you a bubble to enter. With her powers, she could just eke by, using the larger bubble to cling to for her loophole.

She had already done so at a few establishments in Seattle. Having a honed ability to keep organized, Fua had small ways of reminding herself of things. A smooth stone of grey-blue in her pocket had been her reminder to come here tonight. Now that she'd had her in, she could usually enter without being bothered too much. Without saying much the befuddled guards would assume they had forgotten something. So she was able to enter, touching almost nothing and leaving almost no trace she'd been before.

And Fua was generally believed to be harmless to all. Many still assumed she was a nun or missionary of some sort. Wearing almost no color and threadbare articles, conservatively cut, with her manner led to that assumption. Today she wore a long, simple cotton black skirt in a faded black that fell just past her calves. Some thrifted lace-up ankle boots, a bit outdated, were also black but scuffed considerably around the toe. She had on a white turtleneck underneath a black corduroy jacket that had been patched around the elbows and random places quite a few times. Fua liked the jacket and had had it for many, many years. Since she owned so few clothes, what she kept and used became very worn very quickly.

Without so much as a word she entered the dome almost silently, but for her muted steps. Giving Alphonsine a good berth as she made her way to the glass. This, too, was one of her favorite places in the building. Imagine, one of her kind here. Perhaps it was a common thread amongst them all. There was so little sunlight in commonly occupied sections of the ocean, capable of easy diving. Was this girl old enough to know that there used to be legends, amongst their own kind, of vampires so old they actually went to live in the ocean where the sunlight could not harm them? Some old Vampires did go feral, but never in the ocean, as far as she knew.

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alphonsine
2008-02-05 12:40 am UTC (link)

An eyebrow arched when she and this woman made the mutual distinction that they were the same. The same, but more than that. Supernaturals lived and thrived in this city, as they did in quite a few others in this country and many more across the world. Perhaps they had crossed paths in another lifetime, another place; maybe it was during Alphonsine's state where she fould it to be a necessity to keep herself distanced from all supernaturals for her own safety.

A few of the fish darted about near the surface of the water and it caused a ripple, of which the light caught and bounced around. The ripples were magnified below, over the woman at the glass and the woman on the floor. Ally was happy to continue to watch the fish in the quiet, almost peaceful existence, but the presence of this stranger nagged at something inside her. It was not a negative thing, not in the least, but something that often rose in the naturally curious soul--who was she, where had she come from, what did she do and what had she seen? What did she want to see? Where did she want to go? What did she like to do?

Variety was the spice of life, someone had once told her, and the variety in the experiences of everyone, including humans, was seductive. The lingering silence, as they could both exist and move under a whisper, appear and disappear in the blink of an eye, only encouraged Ally to slowly rise onto her elbows. She watched the woman watch the fish and after the faint, slow beat of their hearts, the blonde moved to rise to her feet.

It was a respectful and cautionary gesture, to move further away from the woman and to the side. She did not want to come up behind her and give reason for start, as a start might have a reaction that could very well be unpleasant. Though, if she could guess so easily and without a word spoken, the stranger did not seem to be the particularly flighty sort, or she would not have ventured into the dome.

Alphonsine's voice was soft, just enough for either of them to hear, and that was well below the range of humans. "This is my favorite place in the entire aquarium. I wonder if they know we watch them, and what they think, if anything, about that."

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hopewithoutholy
2008-02-07 05:53 pm UTC (link)

Ayamfua turned to look at Alphonsine, her sometimes startling eyes staring directly into hers. She had seen them, the white-gold tendrils snaking from under her hair and just before her ears. They grew and dissipated, pulling back and waving, whisper-thin and little more than slivers of shadow reversed, whispering into the great beyond. Her powers of perception were nowhere near perfect, but she guessed Alphonsine had some connection to the great everafter, everbeen, or everwas. When you had a power to experience beyond the there and then, it was impossible for her to see where that otherplace went. Without her own sense beyond time and space, she could not personally understand it and only know what it was as it touched place to where she stood.

Her stance was easy. Fua cared about her appearance only enough to not take up too much notice. If anything, she got attention for just being so serene. So lucky she was to not have been guilted from birth about the powers of evil. In all her years she had never taken a life or came to blows with a man, woman, or child. The waters of her life were a lake, her waters very still and reflecting the rest of the world in clear pictures.

She was silent for some seconds before replying. Her voice was a little deep her accent rich and cluttered with hundreds of years spent in many places, learning to speak their languages in their native tongue. It carried over into English, which actually was a newer language for her. So varied it made it hard to identify, but tended to soften her vowels and give her tonal quality that made everything she said sound a little hushed. "All things think, even in ways we cannot understand. For these fish, we may call old thoughts to them, of predators of the deep. They do not seem scared, so perhaps they tell these old spirits to get with the times." She said it with a little irony and humor.

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alphonsine
2008-02-10 06:05 pm UTC (link)

Her mouth pulled into a smile and she looked up at one little fish swimming about on its own to dart over the glass and down, down, down to the corals below. The idea that this woman proposed was something that Ally could believe. Her hand lifted and very carefully, her fingertips rested on the glass in front of her. The fish did not seem to notice her present, or at least, did not acknowledge it. Was it because he did not know what she was, and they had learned not to go too close to the strangeness ahead of them? Or had so many people and children already pounded on the glass and smushed their faces against it that the fish knew of these strange creatures. "Sometimes, I think they stare at us with as much fascination as we do to them." Even that was amusing, to think that two fish now swam next to one another and were somehow conversing about the two creatures on the other side of the glass.

Ally still did not want to spook the woman, and she had a tendency to be very outgoing and often forward. Most humans, at least in this society, did not always seem to mind it, perhaps because they had very little to hide or they simply did not know any other way to be. But for these women, whom had been alive for much longer than any human could ever last, were not born into a world where there had been so much questioning. There was a chance that Fua, though she did not know her name, might not be so interested in Ally's inquisitive nature.

"You have an intriguing voice," she gave gently, her eyes wandered from the fish to the woman again. "Like you've been to many, many places, a map of sorts." Ally's original accent and her speech pattern had changed over the years, though sometimes, she could sound more British and less American.

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