A-Z Challenge: @thewinedarksea vs. @ibuzoo
D - Dokkaebi; also known as Korean goblins, possess extraordinary powers and abilities that are used to interact with humans, at times playing tricks on them and at times helping them.
opheliancano:
Ophelia watches in amusement as the incubus tries, and fails, to hit his target. She wonders if it was on purpose, if maybe he finds more value in hiding his strengths than showing them off; a move to make her underestimate him. Or maybe she’s making chess out of checkers, and he just truly has bad aim. Still, she finds it better to be overly cautious than overly trusting, especially when dealing with a creature whose true nature remains unknown to her. Everything he shows her could just be a precalculated move. “I think you sell yourself short too much. I’m certain there’s a game around here somewhere in which you would excel.” She grins as she speaks, and picks up the next dart from the counter, before taking her aim and letting it soar with a flick of her wrist. Not a bullseye, but close, only off from the red center by an inch or so. Let him make of that what he will, she thinks, as she turns back to face Silas. “I believe this means I’ve won this time. Unless you’d like to go best out of three.”
“I’m up for the challenge,” he states, even if his more pacifist nature showed no real desire to continue playing any of the games. None of them were his speed, but the incubus’s curiosity for Ophelia outweighed the inclination to find something else to do with his time. Not to mention Silas didn’t know what else he would fill his time with anyway. Maybe find Rimona again, see what trouble she may have found while he was away, but his feet stayed planted in the dirt. “There’s got to be something else we can try out,” charcoal irises scanning the location they were in as if there would be much more than this. After all, it was Pride and carnival games weren’t as prominent. “That booth looks like it might have a kind of game, maybe trivia?” he peered around the crowds of people that started to gather, “Want to go check it out?”
Several days had gone by with the curse lifted, but Silas was still showing hints of fatigue. Nightmares had dissipated into solid REM sleep, though the incubus’s body had yet to fully recover. He kept the shop closed for those days, placing a sign for anyone that came by that read “temporarily closed due to illness”, and stayed huddled up in his loft just above. Guilt swiftly crawled into the sheets as he slumbered. The scale had plagued him, changed his core moral compass to something the cubi had never expected nor fully realized. Not until Safiye had ripped it from his grasp to pulverize it, bits of jade and emerald dust fading into nothingness. When he woke, all Silas could think about was his fellow incubus and the way he had treated someone he considered a close friend. Lies and for what reason? An object and a false sense of doing a good deed? Hardly the path the Kyun was known to walk and it showed in the way Gabriel believed him.
The smell of books permeated his nose as the cubi slunk into the library, peeking around each corner in hopes to find the fellow cubi working his usual shift. A text was too impersonal for an apology, charcoal hues bouncing around the room until chocolate locks were seen and Silas made his way over. “Hey—” his usual warm grin and eyes that actually looked as though there was life behind them, “Got a break soon?”
@gabrielxnikephoros
gabrielxnikephoros:
“You, of course,” Gabriel flashed a smile in the other’s direction, glancing away from Silas after a moment so he could actually turn and see what was in the other’s store. It hadn’t taken long for the incubus to decide that he was definitely going to be dragging the other into all sorts of trouble. It had begun some sort of unruly friendship between the two, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the company of Silas. “When are you closing up shop? I think I promised to show you an even better time tonight than like…last week’s night. This one involves a tea recipe stealing scandal.”
“You had me at tea recipe, but started loosing me at stealing scandal,” the fellow cubi said without much conviction, but held onto a curious expression. The last so-called adventure left Silas setting up ground rules for what Gabriel was allowed to toss him into, along with some warning so he could behave accordingly. “And I’ve got a client in a half hour picking up a table, so fortunately for you— I close up shop after that,” a slight grin fluttered back onto Silas’s lips at the idea of what he could be stepping into. For once the unknown gave him more sense of excitement than total dread, a quality that his new friend was the root cause of.
gabrielxnikephoros:
Gabriel waited not so patiently for Silas to hold good on his promise. And as soon as the other incubus exited the store, Gabriel was beside him in a second, “Fucking finally. Now come on. You distract the barista. She’s cute, kinda young for you though. She goes to the college down the road a bit. Don’t get any ideas,” he put his arm around Silas’ shoulders, steering him towards Tranquilitea first. “Then…when I get all their packaged teas, we’ll go to the other one. Switch it up, and watch the madness ensue.”
Eyebrows furrowed slightly at the idea of getting ideas when it came to a college student. If anything, she would accidentally become his meal at any given local bar but the cubi often tried to make sure they weren’t too local. The last thing he needed was for someone to remember his face vividly and want to keep any kind of relation going. “Is that really all we are doing?” a laugh fell from his lips before locking up the shop and walking with the fellow cubi, “Just mixing up tea and watching barista’s swear they made that person a chai latte?”
Jason
Jason: Have you ever betrayed anyone who loved you for personal gain?If I have ever done such, it was unintentional. I have no memory of anything in particular and would honestly regret doing such a thing to another.
ikarosxtheoinos:
Ikaros sipped his drink idly as the man reached across the bar and left a tip, generous, considering that it was absolute free fall everywhere else. It would have been easy to drench the other man in a similar scene, see what was necessary to push him towards similar fits of madness but decided instead that he appreciated the man’s candor. He’d looked terrified but that was the only real sane reaction to the display that Ikaros was putting on, the kobalos had wanted his arrival in town to be defined. This worked well for that. Somehow he doubted that those who attended the bar on this particular Saturday night would ever forget the fit of madness that had overtaken them.
“Do you want to check?” Ikaros quirked a brow at Silas and canted his head in the direction of the bartender. He wasn’t about to go check himself, he also didn’t really know, if Ikaros had to guess, he’d say maybe a concussion. Someone fell from the second floor and crashed through a table not far behind Ikaros, as if to punctuate some bizarre display of scenic madness. Ikaros shook his head, as if in some display of disbelief, “This is a mad house, I’d be careful, there might be something in the water.”
A daunting smirk had crept onto Ikaros’ features as he turned to examine the display around him, the police would be here soon, the man would slip away quite soon after their arrival. Still, it was fun, and most of what these people had experienced was pleasurable. Though there was also pain, Ikaros always had to mix both. “You live in town?” Ikaros asked easily before he peppered in some easy lies, “I just got here, this isn’t what I was expecting.”
He immediately began to shake his head in disagreement. There wasn’t much the incubus really wanted to know beyond the necessary to get through the rest of this night without incident. Checking on the bartender, talking to a complete stranger— probably not the wisest choices in his lifetime. The more Silas knew of the whole situation, the more likely he would guilt himself into honesty if any questions arose on what he might have seen and he was close to his limit. But there was something magnetic about Ikaros that kept him still in his seat and wondering how this man seemed so untouched. Onyx hues darted towards the chaos that started to unfold behind Ikaros, a tightness forming in his chest, and turned his gaze back to the man’s haunting cerulean stare.
“Guess it's a good thing that this isn’t water,” he quipped, shaking his glass and trying his best to casually smirk back. Senses tingling more with each moment of being surrounded by all the manic energies. The bay had proven itself to be more than interesting when it came to the supernatural hub and that was hardly without notice from Silas, but everything felt so electrified. Sure, strange things were bound to happen when aligning with who sought legends and myths, though this was out of his realm. Each experience such as this only went to reminding him that he had yet to see and learn everything.
Bits of tension clung onto Silas shoulders and the question only added to his anxieties regarding the individual in the seat beside him. “Yeah, a few years now,” integrity, despite the burning in his gut that screamed at him to stay cautious and tread on the waters lightly, “I presume you are new in town then?”
franciscoamore:
It was a busy time of year when there was any type of festival happening. Francisco had been to his fair share of them in his centuries of living and it was always the best time for him to work his magic. Unfortunately, it was not the same for Silas. The two of them were very different in how they went about surviving and Fran was never one to judge the people he cared about most. Silas had been and still was one of his closest friends. That also meant that he was going to have a very special mask waiting for him. And he was certainly right when the other cubi pulled a neatly wrapped around package out from behind the desk he was at. A slow smile lifted onto his face. “Silas, have I ever told you that I love you? If not, I certainly need to say it more.” He would wait until he got home to open it. Anything from a friend was something he was bound to like. Especially if it was hand-crafted. “What’s your plans for the festival? Got a hot date?”
A gentle scoff came from Silas at the question, trying to remember the last time he even went on a date that didn’t end with him feeding off them after. He wasn’t sure that was even considered a date to anyone but the other party, not giving them any indication that he was interested in them after it was all said and done. Even before the curse, Silas was not known to be the dating type. He was quiet, didn’t flaunt who he was and often didn’t stand out to those who didn’t know him best. Slow kindling was more in the cubi’s wheelhouse and actually finding anything that resembled a relationship had long slipped into the back of his mind. “My plan was to drink casually and watch the chaos,” a tired grin emerged onto his lips as he spoke, taking the compliments tossed his way and trying to hid the flush of his cheeks, “You know by now that hot date and Silas don’t usually find themselves in the same sentence.”
giovannixrusso:
Humanity came with a variety of weaknesses that supernatural beings intended to exploit, but it also provided what might be considered the greatest weapon of all: being mistakenly underestimated. What he lacked in witchy voodoo powers, he made up in precise intelligence, meticulous plotting, and his own brand of charm. “It most certainly has been. Hope you weren’t avoiding me after our little chat.” He did like the other man, for what it was worth. Call it an indescribable magnetism which drew Giovanni in, but he also had a job to be done. “I’m actually still curious about something. Has anyone come to show or sell you a candle lately? It wouldn’t be a mundane thing; kind of old and ostentatious.”
“I’m too much a creature of habit to avoid anyone,” which was mostly true when in places that felt comfortable enough to not consistently be ready to run. That was a quality that Corinth had provided, even with the recent displays of unrest and painful occurrences, Silas had yet to think that he was time to move. On top of it all, he had worked diligently to get the brick and mortar operation functioning in the bay. “A candle—” eyebrows furrowing slightly. It wasn’t often that anyone actually sold him a candle on purpose. Typically they were found in old dresser drawers that hadn’t been cleaned up, locked wooden boxes that hadn’t been touched in years, and the incubus’s onyx irises locked onto Giovanni, “Got a little more detail than that? Maybe color, even what it could have been accompanied with?”