thenashira | Verse 1: The Stone-faced Flower In Ice

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Verse 1: The Stone-faced Flower In Ice

In the month leading up to May, and now on into it, Natalia Koutolika has had her entire life upended.

Gone are the vicious tutors of home, smaller dictators following behind a larger one! Vanished, the spectre of being turned out, starving in snow. All of the familiar things from home are gone, to be reconstructed as best they can in this new place, this... Chalra City.

Everyone else flourishes. Sergey, especially, has taken to his new home like an ermine changing his coat. Her father and mother find work and joy in the immediate.

Her mother takes to making home-made knits and clothes to sell; this little cottage industry has its word spread immediately, and people come for custom orders of good, strong clothes, ones that can be mended and re-mended and carefully taken care of for a lifetime. And if the people she makes them for need advice or special fitting or have peculiar requests, she does not complain. What would be the point? They asked for custom clothes. She gives them custom clothes. What they do with others is none of her concern.

Her father captains a fishing vessel, on which her cousins, Vanya and Aleksey, turn tidy profits out of trawling with a net. Perhaps he transports other things. If he does, he does not speak of them to Natalia or Sergey, at least, not where he thinks they can hear.

And Natalia... Natalia... Struggles. While so many of the things she was told of her own country turned out to be lies, so many of the things she was told of places outside it seem true. The mercenary nature of everyone. The strange, passing styles that address nothing. The willing blindness of people around her.

And yet-- somehow-- it works. It continues working.

Her heart, were it not already frozen, would be troubled. Instead, she is visited by how nonsensical everything is in the city, and seeks to find out more about the country she has come to. Where does the food come from? How does everyone get by somehow? How did they find such a windfall of technology? Do her fellow students really have problems with basic set theory, or is that all an act?

I: Pins
There is one thing she's familiar with, here or anywhere else: getting around limits on personal expression. As such, she did take a bit of mother's ribbon, and carefully sewed it on to the strap of her approved satchel. Now, of late, she has found that pins are allowed, so long as they do not, in fact, appear on the outside of it.

As such, she has a few pins she's affixed to the inner flap.

They're almost certainly knockoffs. She can't afford to spit in the general direction of Fancy Dan's, or whatever the place is called. But she has a shop and a button maker and has seen the designs around. Why not make knockoffs?

Besides, Mother made the ones with the especially cold stare, and Aleksey had patterned the skull one off a bit of graffiti he'd seen once. She... Couldn't bring herself not to wear them, really, though it likely marked her as a bit of a poser.

II: Rime Scene Investigation (Neos)
Neos has been laying low, as ordered, and yet, something about this particular disappearance had rankled her. And so, she knelt, trying to figure out what bare concrete could tell of this vanishing.

Another minor monster? Already? This was getting troublesome, wasn't it...? She gathered herself up and extended her senses. There must be something more here...

Including, it seemed, a friend. She waves, once.

III: Library Time.
In the immediate wake of learning what she was-- who, arguably, she was-- Natalia retreated to what she had hoped would remain her sanctuary-- Everwave's library, where she had plenty of references to look up whatever she needed. She'd hoped to look into Nautis's story-- surely something that drastic, which happened mere centuries ago, would have been recorded?

Alas, it looked like she'd have to go looking for proper archives and primary sources for that, and she wasn't entirely sure where to begin, being new and therefore unfamiliar to Chalra City.

Still, she wasn't sure she trusted Nautis. Laying low was good sense, but...

She crosses her arms and twitches her lip slightly and draws up several game incentives, trying to figure out Nautis's angle if it wasn't true, or wasn't the whole truth.

But... The problem with this being her preferred hiding spot is that everyone already knows where she hides, and so now, she is having to defend against random students who saw how well she did on the mock exams at the end of April, looking for tutoring.

Among which might be you! or you might be there to rescue her. The choices are yours, and yours alone!

IV: Wildcard
Feel free to use any of the other bits I posted for flavor to jump off for a thread!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"A dozen little warlords," she says, like it's an incredibly familiar situation. "And here I hoped this city would be less like back home, eh?"

Hope doesn't smile. "If you think you can take on a dozen warlords without getting hurt, then be my guest. Investigate away." The longer this goes on, the more they like their terrible thought. The more it becomes, probably, the best plan they can think of.

"I already told you, I don't want to control what my students do. Or what anyone else does," they add, unnecessarily. "All I want is to make sure everybody gets to see tomorrow."

"... You really think it's them behind the disappearances?" A dead end. And she'd been so sure Hope knew something.

"I think it's possible," they say, realizing that they sound a lot colder than they want to, but not doing much to change it. "It feels like the most likely answer to me, but I don't know." They finally soften when they admit that, and their shoulders sag a little.

"I really just... don't know. But this is something I'm making myself okay with not knowing. I know it's not that easy for you, though."

And she heaves a sigh, and, in a way that would be entirely normal for anyone else, but is more than a little overacted given Natalia is Natalia... She tells a half-truth. "Very well. I shall cease investigating the mob. Even if this does seem a strange departure from their usual modus operandi."

"I don't know anything about modi operandi," they say, briefly proud of themself for the shallow dive they'd done on Latin phrases a while back, "But if this is a new way they're approaching things, all the more reason to be wary of it, you know?"

It's astounding how quickly hearing Natalia say she'll stop investigating has made Hope relax again. They lose the tension from their back and the pit in their gut, and they smile gratefully. "I appreciate it. I have enough things to worry about without adding 'a student got whacked' to the list."

And in that shift, Natalia's eyes flick open for an instant, a simple reaction.

Hope does know something, but is trying to keep Natalia out of it. ... Could they be...? She wants to believe, but things being the way they are, she doesn't have a good code that would help. She pulls out her cell phone and hums. "Still, it's a shame. That computer friend of mine is likely to explode at me for stopping."

She begins to carefully fold up the map.

Shit. There's the tension again, the second it looks like they're not in the clear anymore. "Computer friend?" they say with a smile that they're really trying to pretend is skeptical. "Well, that explains it. You have to be careful not to believe everything everyone tells you online."

That's not enough, they don't think. It was too deliberate on Natalia's part. They're going to have to hang out near the crash site tonight after all, aren't they? Great.

"Eh, they try to be clever and manipulative, but it's obvious what they want. It's a pain." She's referring to Nautis, but really, letting Hope bitch about any such friend would take the pressure off.

If another Knight shows up at Lucky Stars tonight, though, she knows why.

It hadn't been Hope's best plan, they think to themself as they stand guard near the entrance of the arcade. Go Supernova and what, wait for this normal high school student to come around and... then what? Chase her off? Fight her? They thunk their head against the bricks of the alley they'd positioned themself at the end of. Shrouded enough in darkness that their presence would be more felt than noticed, they hope.

Their boots ad a couple inches, which at least helps them feel more imposing, and they'd decided to hide the lower half of their face with the purple scarf wrapped around their neck. With no need to brandish weapons, their phone hangs from a belt loop on their more form-fitting outfit racing with purple and green vertical lines all down the front. Make no mistake, this is Nova Pandora. Hope Carassia? Never heard of them.

Their eyes are peeled for a form that they'd come to recognize. "You shouldn't be here," they say from the shadows, affecting their voice a little deeper. It's a practice run for when they do actually run into Natalia; they clear their throat and repeat it under their breath.

Well. Nova Pandora is right-- Natalia is, indeed, getting into Lucky Stars via the back-- specifically, via a way that she'd discovered Kalim had used to haul in the parts for a whole-ass sectional couch.

It did, however, demand she know her way around a lock.

Or, perhaps, more accurately, know her way around a door shim. How in the world a high schooler got her hands on a steel door shim is a question she's not going to answer and it's not really what Pandora wants to know, now, is it?

They spot movement near the back door, where they'd already idly been looking (because no self-respecting investigator would just waltz right into the main entrance, right?), and hustle back there from the alleyway to try to stop whoever it is. The person they desperately hope isn't Natalia.

Ah, crap, they think when they realize that their worries exactly match reality. "You shouldn't be here," they say in that same practiced tone, thinking that disguising their voice and face will make it less immediately obvious. (And forgetting about the magic that would protect their identity anyway.) "If you want to play games that badly, you don't have to break in to do it."

"Tyi glyupetz," Natalia says under her breath, then opens the door and walks in like she owns the place, slipping under the camera's blind spot. "Nova Pandora, there are two people privy to that conversation and you are neither, unless you are who I suspect you are. And in that regard you are very lucky as to who i am."

She casually enters the secret code. "Come. I show you."

Instantly, Pandora is on the defensive. They don't want to beat up a child, especially not one they know and are at least a little bit academically responsible for, so they don't really know what else to do except watch Natalia break in and follow her inside.

She already knows too many things about them. The hideout, the codename. The secret code. There's an easy answer here, one that means Natalia isn't actually a threat, and a much harder and worse one that Pandora, that Hope is trying to stop their mind from landing on. They breathe deeply; their heart hurts just a little bit from the anxiety.

"Who are you?" they ask pointedly, trying to grit their teeth but barely even making that happen. "If you aren't someone who belongs here, I know how to stop you," they lie.

She holds up her charm-- a single, sea-green glass star bauble, marked with a golden 'v' that always meets your eye, connected to its silver chain by a single silver ring which seems to spin and turn freely.

A moment's effort makes it shine, like holding a distant star in her hand. "A friend."

It dims, and she pockets it. "Come. I show you."

With that, she tips herself backwards and slides down into the Nashira proper.

Edited 2025-05-27 19:56 (UTC)

...Okay.

Well, now they feel stupid.

They don't recognize the charm specifically, but they know what it means. While that assurance does a lot to make up for the immediate terror, it does put a lot of other stuff into context and introduces its own fun little suite of problems. They follow her down into the Nashira, knowing the place pretty well by now (hell, they'd just transformed in there), and when they land on two feet again, they can only ask one thing.

"Neos?" The magic they always forget about stops them from making a certain statement, but they know Natalia's build and they recognize the way she speaks and there's only a handful of other Nova Knights who could possibly be down here with them. "Are you serious?"

In response to the question, she incants. "O ancient and distant beacon, shine forth!"

The star shines in her hand, and she struggles to grasp it, taking in a sharp breath as her hand finally closes. It's not so slow as beloved stock footage, but Nova Pandora can clearly see the light spread from her left hand across her body before the more familiar and protean armor of Neos, stone-like and solid, flashes in all at once. "Of course. I am always serious. My sense of humor was frozen off during a training camp in 2372."

Sigh. Yeah. Well, now it's undeniable that Natalia has been Neos this whole time, and that Hope had made a huge ass of themself trying to keep her away. They lean back against the wall of the hideout like they belong there, which they know now both of them do.

"I know it was. Ugh, Neos, I can't believe I let this go on for so long. I feel like a total asshole." And, once the initial wave of emotions fades, they look just above Neos' head and try to keep the fear out of their voice. Why are they so afraid when they're pretty sure Neos is capable of keeping a secret? Who knows. "So, you mentioned that there were only two people who knew that you shouldn't be here tonight."

"Yes. Myself, and Hope Carassia. No one else was sticking around in the library long enough to put together where I was going and ostensibly why, with maybe one exception, and... Forgive me for saying, Pandora, but..." Neos shrugged. "You do not much look like an Optimus Prime."

"In any case, it remains prudent to conceal our identities. I was very much the best case scenario for what may happen if someone comes to investigate us who appears to be an average human."

That's sort of a relief, that even though Natalia absolutely knows who they are outside of Supernova that she'll keep it quiet, but it's really hard for Pandora to actually contextualize it that way. "Yeah, I panicked," they admit, saving the internal monologue for later. "If you weren't someone safe, I was ready to beat you up," they say, and that's not as much of a lie as they would truly, truly like it to be.

"Not that that would've solved the secrecy problem," they admit quickly through mumbled words and put one hand up behind their head. "I just didn't know what else to do. I'm not much of a planner."

"How for this, then: Rather than directly confront an unknown investigating the arcade, keep a more distant eye on them and determine their reasons and actions for doing so first. By understanding what an investigator wants, you can more easily determine the correct course of action." She hums. "Example: Someone investigating alien activity and disappearances is likely looking for evidence of the attack on Lucky Stars by the Abyss. Having a Nova Knight show up in that case is counter-productive. Let them see a normal arcade, with no overt evidence of a struggle.

"They may continue to investigate in daylight, but the Harbingers' desire for secrecy also helps us deter..." She pauses. Hums. "No. I refuse to call us gods, demi or otherwise, nor yet witches. We have access to technology far beyond the pale, but we mustn't get full of ourselves."

They nod along while Natalia explains infosec to them, and they actually really appreciate it, but they doubt they'll actually retain most of this tomorrow which sucks that they already know how their brain will react. Stupid. Awful.

"We aren't gods," they decide to tackle instead of focusing on their traitorous and miserable thoughts. "We're people with magic powers and that doesn't make us any better or worse than anyone else. Especially when we don't know how many others there might be. I just helped Nautis sort through a bunch of data and she's still not done—who knows how much more there is? How many other people are still waiting to be woken up?"

This is a much easier conversation to have than to focus, at least outwardly, on how badly they'd screwed up.

"This still leaves me a trouble-- I want to refer to people without calling them 'civilians'. We're not a military. Nor... is 'normal' what I am looking for. And 'mortal' is what made me flinch in the first place."

"Well," they try, going with the first thing that comes to mind. "We could call them 'sleepers' if we really had to. But I wasn't really thinking about it like that, either. I don't... Nova Pandora," and they start rewriting the sentence in their head again like they're building a bridge in midair, "Is someone entirely separate from who I am outside of costume. So that means that everyone is just people, to me. If that makes sense."

"... How long can we deny who and what we are?" Nova Neos pauses. "When... When I am Nova Neos-- There are times it feels like removing a mask, as much as it feels like putting one on."

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