Catalina Mendez, Lunar Affinity (catalunar) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-07-10 21:46:00 |
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Everything was going to hell. There had been fighting for the better part of the day, but now the IVI guards seemed to be gaining the advantage. They'd seemed to have doubled in numbers, and were herding Vols into the warehouses at an alarming speed. Raphael had been separated from Cati when the bombings began, and had spent the interim on the hunt, trying to avoid guards and violent Vols alike. He could feel the nagging exhaustion at the base of his skull from conjuring too much, too fast; but he knew he couldn't stop yet. He waved a hand and an elegantly embroidered carpet folded itself into existence, laying flat for a moment before jolting itself off the ground. "Pronto, andiamo." He said to the rug, somewhat redundantly. He stepped onto its rippling surface and it darted the both of them into the air, to soar above the smokey, bombed-out quad. He grit his teeth as black spots blossomed in his vision, but pressed on, searching the bodies below. After several minutes he spotted her below, being backed into a corner of rubble by several guards. "No! Andiamo!" He shouted to his woven mount, who dropped into a dead fall, aimed for Cati. "Catalina, pronto!" He shouted as he zoomed towards her, reaching out his arm for her to grasp. Still essentially powerless (what good was Endurance when she'd already been injured during the new moon?), Catalina couldn't let herself be rounded up without a fight. What could she do, though? Her mind was running through hopeless possibilities when she heard Raphael's voice and stopped short. A jolt of fear ran through her - what if the guards shot at him to stop him! - but she found herself reaching up regardless, and then being pulled up onto a magic carpet. It was strangely comforting, this ounce of ridiculous showmanship in the midst of the nightmare they were all living. "Careful," she gasped, clinging tightly to Raphael as they swept away from the scene, staring fearfully down at the guards who were shouting and waving at them. "Where will you go?" The carpet zigged and zagged as the guards fired tasers and rifled after it, but the moving target proved too formidable for their marksmanship. Soon he'd disappeared from their sights, one hand holding the hem of the rug and the other wrapped tightly around Cati's waist. "The force field, I think it is down..." He answered, though the strain in his voice was obvious. He squinted through the haze that hung over the IVI grounds since the battle began, searching for the telltale shimmer of their mysterious bubble. "Come, we shall make our escape." He tried to drum up enough confidence to be convincing, but as he flew directly at the edge of their existence, his body tightened with doubt. Cati held her breath as they soared over the barbed wire fence that separated campus from the force field. It wasn't far, she knew, though not from first-hand experience. Still, they had traveled a good hundred yards beyond the former border of the force field before she felt she could release her breath. "I think we're past," she said, still cautious. "I just... Raphael, we can't survive in the desert!" Particularly not as they were now, she still recovering from her guard-induced injuries, he clearly straining to keep them aloft on a figment of his imagination. "We will not have to," he answered defiantly, as he banked the carpet over the rocky terrain and low shrubberies. "I shall fly us... all the way to Rome... if I must..." Sadly confidence alone could not keep the carpet flying, and as Raphael's last syllable fizzled into a whisper, so did their fabric aircraft. The carpet first dipped sharply, pulling up just before crashing into the underbrush. It was but a momentary reprieve, as it them flickered out of existence entirely, leaving the two Vols to tumble right into the unforgiving Australian foliage. Crying out as they hit the ground, Catalina rolled to halt and lay there for a moment wincing as old bruises and new throbbed. "Ay..." she groaned, picking herself up so she was kneeling in the dirt. It seemed darker down below, where the reaches of pre-dawn light hadn't yet reached them. "Raphael, querido, are you all right?" Raphael's consciousness had blinked out along with the carpet, leaving him to bounce through the underbrush like a rag doll. Going limp may just have saved his life, but at present it was hard to tell; he lay face down, sprawled in the dirt, unmoving. "Raphael?" she asked again, uncertainty creeping into her voice. Stay calm, she directed herself. The last time he'd burnt himself out with powers-overuse he lost consciousness as well. That didn't mean he was seriously hurt. Of course, it didn't mean he wasn't seriously hurt, either. Cursing under her breath, Cati crawled over to the Italian and rolled him over with some effort (how she hated being without powers!), checking him anxiously. Breathing, yes. "Raphael!" she said, more loudly. How did one revive someone? Bypassing the (largely irrelevant) teachings of the Vol Underground members, her mind flipped through popular movie tropes - shaking them, slapping them, dumping water on them, kissing them... "Raphael, get up! ¡Levántate!" she pleaded, pushing gently at his shoulder. The still Italian stirred in her arms, showing the first sluggish signs of regaining consciousness. His face scrunched into a wince as he regained feeling in his bruised limbs, his eyes squinting open. "Did we make it?" He managed to whisper, managing a wry smirk for the girl who looked down on him. "È questa Roma?" Cati sat back on her heels with a huff, equal parts relieved and exasperated. "No, we did not make it to Roma," she said, the severity of her tone undercut by the affection on her face. "Nor will we like this, it's impossible. You can't go for so long without hurting yourself, we have no food, we don't know how the world will treat Vols, and..." she hesitated, looking back over her shoulder at the way they came. "We can't... I can't just leave everyone. I'm sorry," she bit her lip, looking back at Raphael and shaking her head. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that was a ridiculous speech, how are you feeling? You must stop overextending yourself!" Raphael listened to the moving speech from the comfort of Cati's lap, though abandoned his cushy spot to sit up in defiance of her last comment. "I have exerted nothing, I am fine! A trifle!" He announced, forcing the theatrical boom into his voice to cover the tender way he moved in the wake of his tumble. "You wish to return?" He repeated doubtfully, but immediately dispelled his own hesitation with a wave of his hand and renewed bravado. "Bravo! I shall thwart these upstart 'risers' ten at a time!" he slashed at the air, with scarcely a stumble when the sword he'd attempted to conjure did not appear. "Or do we fight the guards now? I cannot keep track." Cati watched him, how even after falling from mid-air after pushing himself to the limits to save her he still rallied to her wishes. He wanted to go home to Rome, not return to the chaos of campus. Not fight the guards and insurgents. Not join an underground resistance. And yet, here he was. Something inside her chest hurt, and not because of the way she'd landed. "You don't have to do that," she said, quietly because the lump in her throat wouldn't let her speak above a whisper. "You don't have to do any of it, you haven't had to do any of it, ay, Raphael, I'm so sorry for dragging you into all of this..." "Dragged?" Raphael repeated incredulously, "Do you see me kicking and flailing, like so? An Amante is never dragged anywhere. I go where you go because," Now it was his turn to falter, the usually rhythmic cadence of his speech suffering a jarring pause before finishing with a lame, "That is where you go." You are trouble for me, he'd said, and it was true. She'd gotten him into this mess, and for what? Why was she so invested in his behavior, in his choices? The ugly truth of it, the one she wanted to blurt to him now, here in the dark, cold desert beyond the force field, was that she didn't want the only person to have ever shown romantic interest in her to be, well... so like him. The sort of person her friends recoiled from when she flirted in a moment of ill-advised inhibition-lowering. "Raphael..." she started, because the logical part of her, the staid and cool center of her said she should confess this. But she paused, like she had before, after his confession. She stayed her tongue, because every other part of her knew that while maybe that ugly thing was once true, partially, it wasn't any longer. And it hadn't been for a while. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes and leaned in. "Gracias," she whispered, just before her lips touched his. Raphael had never in his life been surprised by a kiss before, but the gentle touch of her lips to his managed to set a precedence. Not that he railed against the surprise; he lost only a moment before returning the gesture in kind, and seemed to regain a fair bit of his strength for it. His hand came up to lightly cradle the line of her jaw as he held the tender moment for as long as he could, keeping his forehead touching to hers even as he finally broke away. "Prego." He answered with a smile, delighted and at ease, as though their former lives weren't falling to pieces under a mile away. It was miraculous, how they could smile. It felt like a gift, this kiss, and how it could take them away from the horror and grief of the past two days. Just for a little while, but the reprieve was so inviting that Catalina was reluctant to move away. So she didn't. She shifted, one arm wrapping around Raphael as she closed the distance between them again, savoring how close they were, how alive. They were outside the force field, and they'd have to go back, of course, but not right away. And so it went, until a pair of bright headlights shone on them and they broke apart in a panic, shielding their eyes. Raphael spun from the embrace at the flash of lights, he arm gesturing like an angry magician. Several half-formed figures flashed in the dawn light - a dragon, a mounted knight, a Roman centurian - but none could hold form yet. "Hold your distance!" He barked into the glaring light nonetheless, his booming tone doing nothing to betray his weakened state. His other hand swept Cati behind him protectively. A voice called from the vehicle, "Who's there? Are you students? We're from the BBC..." "Raphael, it's all right," Cati said, though she clutched at his arm and squinted at the vehicle with trepidation. "Si," she called back, "We're students. We managed to get away, but they are rounding us up... it's not as they have been reporting." The headlights dimmed, and a journalist stepped out, holding her hands out in conciliation. No weapons. "That's what I thought. I'm glad I found you, do you think we could talk?" Cati looked to Raphael. "They can bring us back," she said softly, uncertain though she still was, and reluctant to return to the nightmare they'd only just escaped. "And we can tell them the truth." Raphael seemed disinclined to trust anyone, but he nodded his assent nonetheless. "Very well." He said, taking a step towards the vehicle. As he approached he made an effort to don one of his more characteristic smiles. "I always knew I was destined for the screen..." |