The (Un)Real World
Location: Cupertino | California
Time: 16 October, 2014
Titania
The Loft, a hyper-modern hotel, had accommodated Titania for the better part of six months. The past weeks blended together into a mishmash of indulgence. Titania sat at her desk and worked studiously away at the Book of Fate Lucieon had provided Deborah. She worked by sunlight and lamplight, and when the moon shone bright enough, she worked under her native body. Deborah and Titania had become so ingrained to the small hotel that their presence was immutable. People had simply stopped noticing their presence, they were there and they were not peculiar. No one bothered about who they were, or where their seemingly endless supply of cash came from. The staff ignored their room and the only discrepancies in their lazy lives stemmed from the curiosity of other guests on their floor. Soon enough however, even they stopped thinking about the two young girls who lived together in that room. They had become invisible in the truest sense of the word.
Deborah brought food up for Titania everyday, exactly at the same time. Her zeal in domesticity seemed endless. Her smile every morn held the same glowing property, her advances every night filled with the same amount of excitable desire. She wore a constantly changing wardrobe of dresses, tops and skirts that Titania did not have the time to peruse. They changed with season and fashion, and Titania supposed that they were pleasant enough to look at. Deborah's body was not particularly voluptuous, but had a charming comeliness to it. She was more slender than most, taller than average and had a slim, but not small, waist. Over the time of her stay Titania had noticed her skin becoming much tanner, taking on a healthy glow from exposure to the Californian sun. It did not take much time to surmise that Deborah had taken a liking to making adventures outside the confines of their temporary residence. Titania did not care about the matter, Deborah could handle herself responsibly enough.
Titania licked her thumb and flipped past another page of the book and transcribed its contents into her notebook, the fifteenth of the series. Events kept coming, and nothing seemed to change. BlackHarte was uncharacteristically dormant at this time. Titania pushed up her glasses and put down her pen. The room was bathed in the afternoon sun. Dust motes shone in the vagrant sunbeams, shining like stars lost in a space between life and death. The room was neat and tidy as usual. Titania's clothes lay washed, ironed, and folded in a neat pile on the living room table. A thin layer of dust caked her red leather garments. She had not had the time to leave the room, and more often than not it was simpler just to get up and work in nothing than her small clothes. Her sheer camisole hung loosely on her thin shoulders, crinkled from overuse. Her legs were sore and tired, she crossed them even when she sat in the chair for she was too short to reach the floor comfortably with the heels of her feet. Titania's long white hair fell in knots around her and her eyes screamed with exhaustion. She did not rest save for the times that Deborah beckoned her to bed. Work had consumed Titania, she was not the playful trickster Queen she was before she shouldered the entirety of the responsibility. She worked tirelessly to prevent the 'Nemesis Horizon,' a colloquial term that Lucieon had borrowed from a fighting game he had found interest in. The total death toll of the human race would have to reach 550 million before the others could begin summoning the Master Unit into the world. All the while Titania was still observing Azan. If she stopped, it could be the undoing of both the bumbling Bridge Knight and herself. Hyperspatial entanglement was a headache that not even the best observers could solve. At this point she was Azan and Azan was her. She acted through Azan and Azan acted through his character persona. It was very limiting to say the least.
The door opened. Deborah walked in carrying a silver tray in her arms. She had stacked a variety of sweet pastries on the platter, creations ranging from cakes to fruit tarts to donuts. Yet Deborah's smile was sweeter than them all. Her lips were painted ruby red, her skin radiantly healthy otherwise. Her red eyes still held the same lively fire as they did when she had made her first dynamic appearance in London nearly three years ago. Titania looked up at Deborah and gave a weak smile. Exhaustion was beginning to wrap its frightful hands around Titania. Her own body was fairing less well than Deborah's. Titania's skin had a sickly pallor and she had lost nearly five of her eighty pounds of body weight. The outline of her bones clung to sallow skin and there was a hollowness in her cheeks that made her look twenty years older.
"You haven't been eating," Deborah said. Her voice was half-scolding, half-concerned. Deborah set down the tray on Titania's desk and picked up last night's dinner. The paella was cold, thick white grease stained the rice and pan. Thick slices of blood sausage had hardened and dried, the ruby red tomatoes looked more brown and the greens that sparsed the dish had begun to wilt. The entire dish was untouched, wasted, neglected.
"Even if you are immortal, not eating is going to hurt you, mentally if not physically."
Titania forced herself to smile,
"I can't rest... if there is a continuum shift I have to catch it, or else it could disrupt my observation of Azan." It had been weeks since Titania had the appetite to eat.
"Knowing you are still around is all the motivation I need."
Deborah wrapped her arms around Titania and pulled her close to her breast. Titania closed her eyes, entranced by the warm softness, entranced by the soft rhythmic beating of Deborah's heart. Compared to Titania, Deborah's body was burning hot.
"I hate to think that you're hurting yourself like this because of a mistake I made." The larger girls stroked Titania's hair, running her fingers through the white knots and gently untangling them. It felt maddeningly good and set Titania's heart aflutter.
"It was," Titania paused before continuing, feeling her heart skip a beat.
Continuum shift. She pursed her lips and mustered her strength to break away from Deborah.
"It was a long time coming." The book's own words were quickly being replaced, the inky scrawl devoured by the cream pages and reapplied by an invisible pen. Yet, the words were the same as her notes, Titania's heart stopped. It was not BlackHarte, it was not a continuum shift. It was phenomena intervention. Another observer had forced a reality upon the realm.
"The fool." There was no doubt that his presence would draw agents of BlackHarte. Here was the end to their peaceful existence. Titania picked up a cupcake and put it in her mouth. It might have been the last chance to eat something decadent for a long, long time.
BlackHarte
Location: The Boundary
Time: 16 October, 2014
Kusanagi
There is a discrepancy. I can feel it. It is darkness. We should go. Call a meeting. Dispatch agents. Susano'o not found. That is most unfortunate. Please provide and example. That is a agreeable decision.
Aye there is a discrepancy. I can see it. It is light. We ought to go. Meeting has been called. Dispatching Susano'o. Susano'o deserted. We will send lesser agents. We will send Murakumo.
Murakumo unit activated.
The (Un)Real World
Location: Cupertino | California
Time: 16 October, 2014
Selmy
Selmy was sitting at the bus stop near the city limits next to the high school when some strange girl was hit by a truck. The construction zone directly across from the bust stop (the construction of the Cupertino main street as it were) had increased traffic in the area nearly three fold, but for an accident to happen at this time of day was unthinkable. Selmy rushed out, crossing three lanes to get to the fallen body, strangely unhurt, and scooped her up. By the time a minute passed, both people were on the sidewalk across from the bus stop.
Selmy checked the girl up and down. There were no injuries. Selmy pressed down on the stranger's chest. "Hey, hey! Wake up! What the hell was that?" Selmy was a slim blonde girl, twenty something of age (she refused to disclose that number) with deep azure eyes. She wore a scarf and a cashmere sweater to fight off the bitter autumn chill.
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