IC Contact

[peripheries]

"Ah, you've reached Nagisa but I'm away from the communication device. I'll have to return your call at a later time".

voice || text || video || action

Comments

text; un: Lothrat

[ezra_of_lothal]

My name's Ezra. I don't think we've met.

Paul said you had an idea to try to reach out to the Leviathan some of us have been having visions about. I had a similar thought. Seemed like we should compare notes.

[peripheries]

Paul did?

[An emotion along the lines of "senpai noticed me!!"]

So far I've been sensing it, moving beneath the waters, out in the distance. What have you learned?

a Visitation; early March

[unsheathedfromreality]

[Some fine evening early in the month, Iskierka drifts in through the closed window of the room Paul and Kaworu share. She is a creature on a singular mission; fixing eyes on Kaworu's notebook, no matter where it might be, she goes straightway to retrieve it and drag it to the nearest flat surface.

It is only after she's flopped it open to a blank page that she notes there are two Significant Personages here. That stalls her for several seconds as she looks between Kaworu and Paul, Paul and Kaworu, in apparent indecision.]

[peripheries]

[There's a fact about the Trench. If someone is gone, really gone, their Omni signal dies. All messages are returned. The Old Man's Omni is still lit up, a glimmer of hope that something lost can be found again. And now here was the bird. Hope was painful and so often false and he knew if he found any he'd dig his fingers into it like claws and never let go until there was nothing left of him.

He digs his nails into arms and only the long sleeved shirt he's wearing saves him from drawing blood. It's like there's not enough air in the room or in the house or in entire world and he has to take all his breaths a little deeper.]

What do you want, Bird?

[It's not the real question he wants to ask, but he's not ready to ask the other.]

text; un:scifo; a few days after leviathanfall

[thinkfirst]

Kaworu,

I hope this message finds you returned to us, and as well as one could reasonably expect. Yuri has not yet returned, but I am beginning to hear reports of fallen soldiers washing up unturned, and so I hope the same is true for you.

When you have the eyes to read this and the fingers to respond, please let me know that you are well. I owe you much, including an apology.

I should not have let you fall.

Please be well, and return to us soon.

Yours,
Flynn Scifo

[peripheries]

[The response is delayed until the third of March. Then it comes, dictated via his omen.]

y̷e̸s̶,̸ ̵i̴'̴m̶ ̸b̴a̷c̷k̷.̶ ̶i̸t̷'̷s̷ ̸o̶k̵a̷y̵

post-leviathan, as promised

[laniidae]

[What keeps Renfri coming back to the beach in the days and weeks after the Leviathan incident finally draws to a close is ultimately a single word rendered in text: Yes. Not the sort of thing that would seem to have the power to preoccupy a person's thoughts — or at least, not unless you happened to know the question it was answering.

Did you see me die?

Yes.

It's a strange thing to be so hung up on, when she's already died once. When she talks about it in casual conversation because it's a thing that's already said and done, the very reason she's even in Trench to begin with. It's not even the first time she's escaped a moment where she was supposed to die and didn't; she's been doing that, after all, since she was fourteen.

But there's something about this that won't go away, because it's not that someone intended for her to die, it's not that she was supposed to die, it's that but for things unfolding the way they did, she would've been just as dead as the others who were taken in the chaos that gripped this beach just a few short weeks before. She would've been among them because it was a vision that would've come true, but for the influence of someone standing just a little to the left of it.

She would have died here, and she didn't, and she keeps coming back to thoughts of when she'd been running from the beast and it'd cornered her, when it'd had every chance to finish her off, and yet for just one instant —

Did you see me die?

Yes.

There are no answers to be found on this beach, she knows, but that's not enough to keep her from coming back again and again, anyway.]

[peripheries]

[There's another lone figure on the beach. It sits atop a bit of rubble, bits of unturned stone and what used to be pieces of the mess hall and tent. The pile is so precariously put together that it seems unlikely the person was able to climb up there and yet there they are, surveying the grave of the camp and the ocean that held the beast that destroyed it.

The sea calls to Kaworu Nagisa and it has for a long time, before he was even aware that he could hear its siren song. Then it consumed his body and now it has laid stake to a piece of his mind. There's always the soft sound of churning water that gets louder when he sleeps, always a gentle tug on his steps, turning his feet towards the Further Shores. He shouldn't heed the call: it lead to his death the last time after all. Yet here he is, giving in yet again.

He hears a sound, somehow, despite the rush of the tide, and glances down to find a familiar face. And it's strangely comforting, even if he doesn't have a name to put to it.]

Ah. It's you.

debacle pending, un: warden

[megatheorem]

Do you know how big fireworks can get?

[Attached: a picture of, ironically, a simple sparkler, sparkling, held in the deeply resigned beak of a large harpy eagle, as Palamedes makes his omen pose for pictures.]

Picture only semi-related.

[peripheries]

Hmm, I thought they were bigger.

Video | 1stStrike

[strikefirster]

Hey twinklebottom.

Three fifteen at the flagpole.

I've got some questions I want to ask you.

[peripheries]

[Ugh. He was in the middle of a nap! He rolls over and squints at the video feed of one someone he did not want to see after first waking up.]

Ask them here then.

four texts

[terriblepurpose]

text | un: spicecake

[terriblepurpose]

Hello Kaworu. I was thinking about your advice.

text | un: lizardshinjikun

[terriblepurpose]

I'm sorry that I didn't end up following it.

text | un: deku | early june unless it's a problem then nbd time is fake

[wannasmash]

[ This being the second time he's doing this, Midoriya is a little more coherent starting off. He uses text due to the amount of information he has to give. He always gathers his thoughts better in writing anyway. ]

Hi Kaworu-kun. If it's all right with you, I need to talk to you about something important. Do you remember a few months ago when I told you that my work as a hero meant someone could come after the people I care about? Nothing's happened, don't worry. I just wanted to tell you more about that.

There's this old enemy of mine from home in Trench. He may have seen us at the tournament. I fell asleep in one of those Sleeper cocoons and was home for a bit, so I learned new information about him. He's more powerful now than I thought.

[peripheries]

I see. So. What should we do? Kill him? He'll only return as a squid but it would stop him for a bit.

Still, he can't hurt me. And I'll protect Paul.

text; un: v

[mehanizovati]

I have heard some of what happened from Palamedes, enough to want to check in on how you are doing.

text; un: tabris

[peripheries]

Recovering from beasthood seems to leave no lasting physical damage.

In the days before Boatgate, un: enpawnsant

[hearthebell]

Kaworu? It's Lazarus. I hope you've been well.

I was hoping we could talk about something, when you've a moment.

[peripheries]

What did you want to talk about?

july 5th | voice sent via Omen 1/??

[wannasmash]

[ With the sound of the beach and the storm, ]

Kaworu-kun, where are you? Please come in. I had you safe. Are you hurt?

voice sent via Omen 2/??

[wannasmash]

I looked and you were gone. There were no signs of a fight. In the sand, whose footprints were those next to yours?

Omen Speak!

[possessum]

( It may seem like a random encounter, that Peter's Omen finds its way to Kaworu's spirit by chance. It isn't, because maybe they only spoke once or twice and maybe it was a long time ago, but connection was still made between Peter and Paimon and this mysterious being that looks like a young man on the surface.

Susurrus (a name that means a hum, a hiss, a whisper of wind through endless trees) is reaching out these days. Cautious but curious, shy but alien, some mixture of the two souls that the Omen belongs to. His mental voice is a soft hiss that gently calls out to Kaworu's spirit, tries to find the Omen tethered to it, wherever the other entity may be now. )

Are you there? Isss ssssomeone there?

[peripheries]

I am here.

The reply is light, almost lyrical, with an undercurrent of self-assurance that radiates in even the simple words spoken. The omen, called Shinji-kun though perhaps not named as such, also sounds like an adolescent boy in pitch but something else in cadence. The mixture gives away his distinct nature as an omen.

What is it that you're reaching for?

text; un: gaiaonline; misfire

[lipochrome]

[ uh oh........... look who is doing some late-night search engine activity ]

how to talk to lizards

[peripheries]

Did you forget?

video | misfire | un: younghuman

[terriblepurpose]

[That is distinctly a young Duke in a low slung towel around his hips standing in front of a familiar mirror, water still dripping from his wet hair as he holds up his Omni and takes a series of photos of himself at different angles, flexing hard-earned, slight new muscle with a look of furrowed concentration.]

[peripheries]

[Kaworu nods appreciatively. Paul has been trying hard and he appreciates that. It also helps him ignore that, even as an angel, he knows deep in his inhuman soul that this is cringe.]

Not bad.

Text; UN: boom boy (omni misfire)

[detonating]

Quit complaining. I brought you a fucking muffin.

[peripheries]

I don't see it and I didn't want one anyway.

day after Karate Fight, text, un: kickflips

[strongroots]

Hey, this is Robby.

Wanted to say sorry for what happened between me and your boyfriend. We talked about it and things are good between us.

If I thought things would turn out that way with the fight I wouldn't have bothered asking for one

Anyway, just keeping my word about not pissing off a guy's boyfriend. (or however I said it on the post)

[peripheries]

You don't need to apologize. It's on Paul. I'm sorry for my cringefail boyfriend.

Christmas and New Year's

[wannasmash]

Since Midoriya is spending Christmas with Paul and Kaworu, he has the opportunity to present his gifts in person. There are enough Sleepers who miss things from Earth that they've adapted many devices to run on the kind of Moon Orb that comes with every household.

Midoriya was able to get his hands on a record player. Music can be played on the Omnis well enough, but a record player provides an entirely different sound. Midoriya had the proprietor demonstrate for him, and even his untrained ear could tell that Mozart sounded warmer. He bought the record too, to start off Kaworu's collection.

There's dinner and Christmas cake. And for New Year's, he's gotten them all Japanese sweets, satsumas, and green tea to have together.