capeandcowl | Entries tagged with † trowa barton

[Trowa is sitting cross-legged on the spartan little thing that passes for his bed, and is petting his kitten, Angus. The little ball of fluff seems to be walking back and forth across his lap, repeatedly marching up off the bed, over his legs, down to the bed, and back again. Apparently, a stay with Humee didn't hurt it any. Trowa, however, looks pretty lost in thought.]

...Sorry.

[How else would you apologize to everyone your Skrull pissed off when you're the type that's light on words?]

( [Private (not encrypted) to Jonathan Crane:] )

thesoundofsilence

[Well, you've all wished for bigger display of emotions from this kid. And with your help, he's slowly been getting more capable of it. Now he's staring into the communicator with a mix of sorrow and anger and it looks like the combination is more than he knows how to handle, with the force of all his previously-repressed thoughts regarding his home world crowding up behind them.]

Here is different. You said that, but you lied. It's just like my time.

Everybody hates the people from outer space. They always fight about it. That's how come there's war. And mobile suits. People hurt each other, and then they die.

[A little louder.]

People here are s'posed to be good. But you're all like them! You said being different's okay. And you said you liked other people. Now you're hurting everybody.

[And then quieter again.]

I don't like it here anymore. Home has to be better than here. I want to go home.

[You know you done screwed up when the war orphan child wants to return to an empty field of loneliness and starvation. Looks like he's got a stuffed-full backpack on, too, and a small closed box with airholes poked in it. And that definitely isn't his apartment at the MAC serving as the moving background behind him, for once.]

unetrustworthy

[Two small children can be seen walking down the City streets early in the morning. The short distance between them indicates familiarity, and the awkward angle of the camera tells that they don’t realize one of their communicators’ had self-activated]

[For nearly a full minute, there is nothing but silence. They pass several couples along the way. People getting a head start to the day. Various shops and display windows were garishly decorated in every shade of red and pink imaginable. There were doves and blonde babies in diapers and every other typical Valentine’s mascot one could imagine.]

How come there's so much candy? It's not Halloween again. [He peers into one of the windows with boyish disdain, frowning.] And everything's... pink.

[The girl doesn’t even look at him as she answers his question.]

It’s Valentine’s Day, Trowa.

Who’s Valentine?

I do not know, actually.

[It is at the point that the girl visibly frowns, a hand rising to her chest. She absently rubs at it as they continue down the sidewalk. The boy notices this, frowning slightly, but says nothing for the moment.]

Maybe... it's the baby. The one with wings.

No, his name is Cupid. He is supposed to be the Angel of Love.

But it's not Cupid Day.

[She stops in her tracks. Her chest continue to aggravates her as she talks, causing her to visibly wince.]

I know this. But the name is not important. Only what the Day represents.

[He stops, forgetting the conversation completely, and stares at her.]

What's wrong?

My chest. It hurts, like last time. I think...

[But she cuts herself off mid-sentence as the pain quickly becomes too much. She cries out, doubling over in pain.]

[Last time--! The cry is familiar. Too familiar. Trowa doesn't even stop to think about what he's doing; he yanks one glove free with his teeth and grabs her hand. He has to stop this!]

[Gradually, the girl’s cries subside, leaving only deep, heavy breathing. It’s working. It’s...actually working! She lifts her head, giving him a weary smile.]

Thank you. I...

[Her body gives a sudden jerk, and she gasps softly before her eyes roll to the back of her head. She collapses right there on the sidewalk, hand still clasped in his.]

((ooc: And the Emotional Nullification plot has begun! Feel free to tag into the open log, create a network post with your affected character, or both! Everybody's welcome!))

((Additionally, Midii herself will be unconscious for the next 24 hours; anybody attempting to contact her will have to get through Trowa.))

thesoundofsilence

If Mr. Black is gone, I don't...

...I can't have any more lessons.

[Oh, this is so not anything he's been looking forward to saying. The thought of attending had interested him, true, but he'd rather have been allowed to ask when he was damn well ready.]

How do I go to the Institute?

unetrustworthy.livejournal.com

[Trowa and Midii are seen sitting directly opposite one another in the park. In a secluded area, judging by the quiet that surrounds them. Obviously, a private moment...or, at least, it would have been, had her comm not accidentally been activated.]

[The former of the pair holds a short, metal pipe of some kind against his lips. Several vain attempts at blowing into the side hole later, and the frustration on his face is just barely visible. It becomes clear that the sounds he’s attempting to make aren’t coming out the way he wants them to, and he looks to Midii in question.]

How come you can do it? I just make ugly sounds.

[He holds the object at arm’s length, giving it a suspicious little glower. There’s something wrong with it; he knows there is. He can’t see what it might be, but there aren’t any other acceptable explanations. So, setting it down on his lap, he comes to the only conclusion he can:]

It’s broken.

[Midii resists the urge to smile at his assessment, and instead extends a hand for the pipe.]

I’ll show you. Watch my lips carefully.

[She holds the pipe to her lips in a similar manner to how Trowa had, only with the hole turned more outward. The fact that they were essentially sharing a mouthpiece didn’t seem to register in the 10-year-old’s mind. Or, if it did, she showed no signs of caring.]

[An off-key, but sustained note comes out. Lasting a solid five seconds.]

[When she hands it back to the younger boy, she makes a point of helping him adjust the position so that it precisely mimics what she had done.]

Try it again. Like you’re whistling, only you’re trying to blow the air over the hole.

[With Midii holding the pipe along with him, Trowa manages to get out a shaky, but somewhat decent note. For about two seconds. Considerably lower and softer than hers, due to the lack of breath support.]

[He lowers the pipe to his lap once again, rubbing his eyes to try and make them focus.]

I don’t feel so good. My head hurts.

[She nods, trying to look sympathetic but not patronizingly so.]

That happens a lot when you first start learning. We can take a break, if you like.

...Fine. You play it. That’s better.

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[He's got the camera mostly facing himself, although it's backed up far enough away that you can, on occasion, catch flashes of his right hand holding a hex key or a strange little box wrench. Someone got an Erector set for Christmas. (And a nice new pair of white gloves, apparently, though some viewers might wonder why he's still wearing them inside.) Trowa looks deep in concentration, occasionally tilting his head to stare at something just off-screen.]

[Not so deep that he can't tell the Network what's on his mind, of course.]

...Santa didn't kill me. But he didn't bring anything. Other people did.

[Not that he seems too broken up about that. In fact, he sort of just sounds like he accepts it. If he's been too good to die, but still too bad to get Santa presents, then it makes sense that nothing should happen at all, doesn't it? Of course it does.]

[He grows silent for a little while, focusing on something and then raising whatever it is into the air where he can see it, closing one eye and squinting the other. After a few seconds of that, he sets it back down and thinks, twirling the tiny hex key between thumb and forefinger. It isn't until he comes to a decision and moves to resume his work that he continues talking.]

I got a train, but it was wrong. They're machines. It's not suppose' to have bug legs. That was bad. And the noise hurt. I didn't like that. It made real smoke, though. I took it outside.

[...He might have let it chase him around in the snow. Possibly even had a little bit of what might be considered a taste of 'fun'. Gasp!]

It's not there anymore. I think somebody stole it.

[That's right, Calendar Man. You don't scare him (yet). He just thinks you don't know how the hell a train works. The card was nice, at least. He kept that, even though he can't read it.]

This is good, too. This building-things toy.

[Trowa picks up his comm and turns it to point at the model he's just finished--some kind of jet--before pointing it at the flute sitting on the floor next to a telescope.]

I don't know what those are. They're dumb.

[Back to work.]

...I guess Christmas is okay. Maybe.

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[Trowa has a picture-book again. This time, it's somewhat appropriate for the season, though there's no sign of Santa to be seen. But the reason for that is another post altogether.]

[He's discovered an illustrated copy of one of the Christmas carols he keeps hearing over the radio; it has a thick plastic bar on the side that would play a tinny version of the song if he pressed the big red button on it. Thankfully, he won't do that over the Network. It's pretty terrible. Still, it's helped him figure out what's going on in the 'story'.]

[And it's very clear by his expression--which he is not bothering to hide this time--that he is not satisfied. Even if he didn't look the part, he's certainly saying an awful lot all of a sudden, and none of it with the childish joy you see and hear on TV specials.]

...I wanted to know more about gifts.

The lady in the store told me to take it.

[He holds up 12 Days of Christmas.]

I don't think I can give this many things...

[He's a kid, for Pete's sake. $200 goes quite a ways, at his age, but it doesn't go that damn far.]

[Something else is bothering him about the book. Irritation begins seeping into his expression around the edges of what had only been simple frustration.]

And the man is stupid. He gave her too much. She has--[Uh. Hold on. He's gotta count again. And stumble over the name of the animal. One, two...]--12 p... partridges, in pear trees.

And lots of other birds. And people. [Annoyed. The thought of it offends him.] You can't give someone people. Or buy them.

[Trowa opens the book to the last page, which has a colorful drawing jampacked with all the items mentioned in the song. He takes a moment to consider it before adding:]

...They're bad presents. I think he hates her.

[What? It's a valid conclusion to draw.]

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[It's been a week and a half since he was seen after having beaten up another kid. His lip is healed, and there are only the faintest traces of the wide bruise that had come with having his nose mashed in. Even the scrapes and cuts on his knuckles look as though they have almost finished disappearing. Normally, they'd be hidden from sight, but as there isn't anyone around he hasn't bothered putting on his gloves.]

[Someone on the Network had informed him that because it was the Christmas season, people would be scared of anyone who didn't act happy and loving. The holiday was supposed to make everything better, and they didn't like knowing that it couldn't always manage. He hesitated before speaking, not sure they wouldn't try to hurt him for it--or for what he'd done before--but not able to ask anyone in person. While it was true that he was opening up to more people at one time this way, it also allowed him to turn everyone off and put them in his pocket when he was tired of speaking to them.]

Don't wanna be a soldier.

[He'd thought he might, when he'd first come to the City. The Captain had been kind, and there would always be work. But now he'd attacked someone, and without the benefit of the training he'd have been given in his own world--not to mention the extra ability to clamp down on his emotions it would have provided--he couldn't completely ignore the bad feeling he'd gotten from doing so.]

What do good people do?

[Trowa had no intention of making it sound like he was a good person. He definitely didn't think he was. (Of course, he didn't think he was much of any kind of person at all, but that was a deeper issue.) There wasn't another way to ask it, though, and so he proceeded despite the implied connection between the two questions.]

What... what do I do?

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

["Trowa" makes an appearance on the network today--or, at least, his eyes do. One of them, that is. The rest of the boy can't be seen so far. Still, something doesn't seem right.]

[Clever people might notice that the feed isn't catching the sound of him breathing, despite the fact that he's holding the comm unit so close to his face. As a matter of fact, it isn't picking up any sound at all. It's definitely unusual for him to skip the voice option, since he can't read or write, leaving him with no other way to communicate with anyone. Anyone capable of working some extra technical mojo would see that it wasn't actually deactivated.]

[As he finally pulls the comm away and sets it on a curb next to his shoes, it slowly becomes clear that there should be sound. Two people down the street are yelling at each other over something having to do with a broken flower pot, and don't appear to be having trouble understanding each other. The device is knocked over when something catches his attention off-screen, the tip of his grey sneaker bumping it as he turns to face it, and what the video feed shows is nothing like the sad, gentle child people have come to know over the course of a couple months.]

[Trowa is cradling what appears to be a puppy tucked into his half-zipped hoodie with one arm, his other hand held at his side in a tight little fist. Both hands are smeared with grit and blood, as are the sleeves and the front of his sweater. The angle is odd, but there's blood running down over his chin as well, and he's clearly sporting an expression that screams cold anger. It's a horrible thing to see on a boy his age.]

[What's worse is when he stoops to pick up his comm again, and moves to pocket it, briefly flashing a bit of the space right in front of him. Not five feet away, mostly blocked from outside view by walls on three sides and Trowa on the other, there's a kid not too much older than he himself is, crumpled into something approaching the fetal position, bruised, and looking far worse off than Trowa himself does. There's a discarded BB-gun at his side, the wooden stock cracked clear across.]

[He's screaming and crying.]

[...And for some reason, nobody can hear him.]

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[A familiar soft voice pipes up, sounding far less lost than he did the first time he'd been imPorted. He's starting to take this dimension-crossing thing in stride, already having recognized himself as arriving in the Porter room and started on the walk to the MAC a long while back. It's dark, but that doesn't seem to bother him--not that very much of anything ever did.]

[He murmurs into the comm while he waits for the stoplight to change, tired, but curious.]

Why is it colder?

I didn't go home a long time.

[He barely went home at all, actually. This time he actually got partway onto the truck, but fifteen seconds isn't much of a return visit.]

Miss Lily? Miss Laura?

[No-Name threads his fingers through his bangs. They're back, once again looking the way Mr. Lupin had made them for him shortly before the day he'd been put back in his original world.]

Or... anyone...

[He stares at something in the distance before quickly sending the post through and stuffing the device in his pocket.]

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[When the communicator clicks on, there's... something different about the boy who has been popping up every now and then. Oh, he's still very young, still small, and just as quiet. But that hair--that hair! The bangs have gone from his nose to his chin almost overnight, and now, it's almost impossible to mistake that style for having ever been anyone else's. Not only that, but instead of its usual overall scruffy, shaggy look, it's been neatly trimmed around the sides and back. He's even wearing a long-sleeved shirt today. It's not a turtleneck, no, but combined with a dark grey scarf and the loose, lighter grey cargo pants he's wearing, it, too, calls that same person to the mind's eye.]

[How strange.]

Mister Lupin said... [He presses his lips into a thin line, trying to think of how to say this without offending people.] ...said not to go to school. He's... I'm going to learn at home.

[Part of him is sad about this, since that means missing out on meeting people every day, but he'd had it explained to him and generally understood the reasoning behind it. Besides, there were still some people he would see there every day. He could meet everyone else over time, as he'd already been doing.]

He cut this but... it grew. I don't think hair should do that. [Examining a lock of it, he goes nearly cross-eyed in the process.] It's okay.

[Oh, right. He's getting off-track.]

Mr. Flynn said I could be anyone. Can I--[He shrinks into himself a little at this. It's a big question, and one he's not sure he won't get in trouble for.]--can I be 'Trowa'? He's not here. Terra said he was... good.

[Quietly.]

I want to be good, too.

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[He turns on the comm, and then the video function, half-length bangs still doing a serviceable enough job of hiding his expression for the moment. Which is good, given that he doesn't seem to be in the best of spirits just now. Not that he's ever truly happy, but really, he'd been feeling a bit better for a while after his arrival. The reason that's changed will probably clear itself up soon enough.]

I listen.

It's okay, if some people come here. Then their friends come, too. Or... their family.

[Like a certain extended set of redheads, for a very visible example.]

I don't... have those.

Nobody's coming for me.

[He sits down on a very short wall of concrete that looks like it might be the border to some kind of house or business' lawn and sets his communicator down next to himself. It's at an odd angle, since he really isn't paying attention to what it can see anymore, but it manages to catch sight of him sitting on his legs--and yes, Laura, he's wearing shoes--and setting the same tattered picture book from before on his lap, staring at it. It's been carefully taped up and seems a little brighter, too, as if he'd somehow gotten some of the dirt off the cover.]

...I'm lost.

[And pretty tired. Two and a half hours walking in every direction after missing his bus stop and getting deposited somewhere much too far from home to even think about getting back on foot will do that to a boy his age.]

(OOC // No-Name is technically going to be 'rescued' by Lily, but things are going to happen, so. This post is left open to everyone for a reason -- talk to him, question what he means by 'lost', try to get there too, mock him for screwing up his bus ride, whatever you want! I'm totally open! :D )

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[The nameless little boy had learned to use the video function during his last post; it was fairly simple, so after a day of near-constant use, he'd had the quick little process pretty much memorized. As such, he's using it for this post, which means that people can actually see the strange kid that got pulled in last week.]

[He's managed to use the money the Porter gives the Imports to get himself some clothes that actually fit, judging by the fact that his jeans are no longer rolled halfway up to kingdom come, though the thin, long-sleeve shirt he's settled for is a bit baggy and he doesn't appear to be wearing any shoes at that particular moment. Of course, keeping them clean is another matter entirely, since he hasn't exactly had the luxury of freely available washing machines and/or the money required before and so knows nothing about using them. Still, baby steps. At least he's figured out (and become mildly fond of) the bathtub.]

[That damn, hair, though--it's as scruffy as it was when he first arrived. If much, much cleaner... which means it's also naturally falling into a much more recognizable shape. The boy's bangs are only half as long as they used to be, covering down to somewhere around his nose, but the short hair on the rest of his head and the one-and-one-thirds-visible green eyes combine with his clothing to makes him look vaguely like a certain far-older someone, were a decently observant character to turn their head and squint a bit.]

[The boy also seems to be holding something in his hands. He raises it up so the comm can catch sight of it.]

I found this.

[Opening it to a page with a lion head on a fish's body, some weird wiggly dinosaur thing, and other typical Seuss illustration creatures. He points at the first.]

The pictures are nice.

But... that's not right. The cat.

neverwasanyone.livejournal.com

[The voice that comes over the communicator is shockingly young--that of a boy, likely no older than six or seven by the sound of it--and requires a touch of patience from anyone attempting to listen, as soft and slow as the new Import's speech is. It wouldn't be too much of a reach to conclude that he lacks some degree of confidence in his own words, given his hesitation and the short sentences used.]

[Those who can clearly remember the things that happened when the City was aged down might know this voice from before, if he spoke to them often enough.]

[So cautiously:]

Is this Earth?

[It has to be. He can see the sky. But...]

[A note of doubt begins creeping into his voice. The Porter definitely couldn't be part of that troupe. She'd given him a book, but he couldn't read it, and anyway, she'd said he had to be a hero. The man had never said anything like that. Did he get taken away? Was it a trap? Why couldn't he remember how he got here? Had the man lied to him?]

There was a soldier. We talked.

He said I could eat.

[Try as he might, the boy just can't completely hide how uncomfortable the situation is making him.]

Is... he here?

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