the c r o w n &scepter.

Still, that it is so comparatively dull makes it all but perfect as a place for rest, so that she might gather her reflections for the day— Unless, that is, something or another rears its head and proves a distraction.

       "Voyeur?" Yukine's tone suggested he didn't quite understand the        word. Had it ever come up in his studying? His expression grew heavy        with contemplation as he tried to remember reading the word        somewhere in the dictionary he borrowed. In the end, nothing came to        mind and he was left with only the general assumption he was being        insulted, "There's nothing wrong with taking pictures. People do it        all the time at these kinds of places!" 

          Despite the wary way he held himself, Yukine's eyes sparked with a distant           sort of curiosity and when he spoke, it was with a confidence that didn't quite           suit his earlier action, "You don't look like you read much."

          Perhaps because he realized the statement may have come off as rude,           he tapped the space in between his own eyebrows meaningfully, "I mean...           you don't have wrinkles here and you look kinda bored."

                                              Maybe that wasn't the best explanation to his theory.

          The youth shrugged lightly before he tucked his hands into the folds of his           sweater. He stared at the stranger he may have just insulted. It wasn't           intentional, but as usual, his brand of honesty was more blunt than necessary.           Yukine blinked as a thought filtered into his consciousness. He spoke           thoughtlessly, "It's because you remind me of Bishamonten." 

Confused and a little bit dazed Nishinoya had ambled around the park trying to wrap his mind around where he was and how he got here for most of the morning. By late afternoon he didn’t care anymore, he was in this huge theme park like place and everywhere he went he was never asked for a ticket for anything. While it was strange that the workers didn’t seem to interact with anyone outside of the arrival to the park, he seemed to give little thought about the workers and rushed off to find something fun to do. This is was like a candy store and Nishinoya was the kid with a really bad sweet tooth who just got his allowance. 

He could go check out the aquarium it’d be fun to poke fun at some of the strange fish in their tanks, Tanaka would….. Hmm or the Haunted House he could watch Hinata… right…. He didn’t know anyone here and as far as he knew no one he knew was here either…. Time to make some new friends then! really how hard can it be? He’d just have to find someone by themselves and try and be super friendly there’s no way it couldn’t work!

The problem was finding someone who was alone, people were walking around in pairs or in groups. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets watching another group pass him.

"At this rate I’ll have to walk around by myself…." 

Lips were curled into a pout as sneakers scuffed at the sidewalk as the teen sulked. Until that is a rather unfortunate blonde came into sight. He was by himself unlike the rest, meaning he might just not have to explore alone. He pulled his hands from his pockets that pout cracking into a grin as he jogged towards the other.

     If anyone asked why he toted all those things with him, he would have explained      his desire to be prepared in a worst case scenario.

     Still, as much as he loved the camera, it wasn't what he meant to bring with him.      The book he'd taken from the library remained atop the duvet of his roommate's      bed. The youth sighed, his shoulders seeming to deflate from the action, and a      pale hand ran itself through his wind tousled, flaxen hair. A mutter passed through      his chapped lips, "I don't want to go back just for a book."

     His shoulder seemed to ache a little more at the thought. Perhaps a change of      plans wouldn't be so bad. He hadn't taken very many pictures since coming upon      the camera in the underground mall. And so began Yukine's day of sentimentality.      People, with their strange outfits and strange mannerisms and strange      personalities, were his top priority. His feet, clad in a comfortable pair of sneakers,      moved of their own accord. He could have been in Tomorrow Land or Atlantis for      all the attention he gave his surroundings. 

     In the end, when he was forced back to reality, he found himself in the mostly      unfamiliar attraction known as Julia's Kingdom. He hadn't found much reason to      visit in the past and he blinked orange eyes at the unfamiliar surroundings. 

     "... Blondie?" The adolescent swung around, camera still poised for action, to      stare at the speaker. Was it retaliation at the strange nickname or an accidental      mistime when Yukine's finger took a picture of the young man not much older      than himself? It was hard to say -- and he certainly made no attempt to explain      himself. His small nose wrinkled with an amused snort and he glanced down at      the preview screen to see what kind of photo he'd taken.

He rolled his gaze back to human to properly examine him. True, he didn’t look like an employee, though that bunch wasn’t usually very helpful either. Usually it was difficult to tell humans apart, but this one did have striking eyes that stood out among the usual spectrum. Meowdar gave a hum of disappointment before slinking back from the wall.

"Pretty sure, but not completely sure,” he noted, hands held behind his back as though to reign them in. “What’s the point of having all these fish here if you can’t eat them? I know this park has a great deal of weird things, but surely they’re not here just to look at.” His face screwed up in confusion as he tried to make sense of it, but it was true - nothing about this place made sense.

As the human gained his interest instead, he made a lazy circuit around to the boy’s other side, eyes flashing over as much as he could see of the stranger. “Anyway, I wouldn’t call it stealing if there’s an abundance. No one would miss a few.”

     The last comment left a bitter, unsavory taste in his mouth. His lips twisted      into a furious scowl. He thought he knew better than to get angry. Nobody      but another regalia would understand the intensity of the fiery, all-consuming      emotion that streaked through his chest and flashed across his eyes, leaving      behind pinpricks of white in his vision. He turned to face the ignorant young      man, his arms leaving his chest only to allow his hands to ball into tight fists      at his sides. Sinning as a regalia was the same as stabbing the god that      saved him from being a lost soul.

     He was Yato's moral compass and the path to understanding humanity.      Unfortunately, this also meant that stealing something as simple as a fish      that probably wouldn't be missed would still blight a blameless god.

     "Stealing is stealing, regardless of whether it'll be missed or not."

                "—…”

      For once, a snarky comment, or worse, a misguided claim of ownership,       didn’t play on the deity’s lips. Instead, a small, almost inaudible sound       of frustration came from his throat—he would never learn, would he?

      Crossing his legs as he sat on the opposite side of the bed as the youth,       an pale hand ran through tousled bangs, as if to remove them from his       vision. Pursing his lips, Yato allowed himself no more than a few fleeting       glances at his regalia, and a stubborn silence.

      It was a few moments after the other’s statement, and the man had       remained silent—around those whom he knew well, the right words never       seemed to find their way to his lips, always over-zealous, or not enough.       Laying a hand down on a white comforter for support, Yato uncrossed his       legs and stood up, his back to the teenager and hands slinking into his       tracksuit pockets.

                "—Well, I guess I should be going,                          …Sorry for… uh, barging in.”

      Yato turned his head slightly for it to be visible to Yukine; a small smile       awkwardly contorting his features. The youth was as unreadable as ever,       even with knowledge of his thoughts, every move was a shot in the dark.       Gods and regalia seldom spent extended time away from each other—       but in the absence of immediate danger or need for money, the raven       haired god felt it to be beneficial for each to develop his own identity.

      Yukine seemed to be fairing particularly well in the arrangement—a quick       glance about the room and Yato could see items he’d never even heard       of, and photographs of people whom he’d never met. Slowly exhaling, he       took a few long strides until his hand rested on the frame of the window,       azure eyes tracing the silhouettes of passerby on ground level.

      The god’s days had consisted largely of futile attempts of getting jobs,        making friends—and mostly, drunken nights. In the isolated park, it       was as if the entire framework of his universe came crashing down; the       Heavens seemed to have no jurisdiction within the walled boundaries,       and those gods on the other side had never attempted to make contact.

          The thought clung to the youth's consciousness. It weighed heavily           against his shoulders and threatened to break his spine beneath the           pressure. He hated these silent arguments more than anything. Not           for the first time, he cursed the fact that only Yato could see into his           heart. He'd be able to mend the seemingly broken bridge between           them if the connection they shared was shared equally. In the end, he           felt as left in the dark as the deity; however, unlike the dark haired man           that intended on slipping silently away for who knew how long, Yukine           swallowed the thick pride that wanted him to keep silent.

                     "That's it? You came here just to run away? Stu----pid."

          The elongated insult wasn't truly meant to hurt any feelings. All he wanted           was to shatter the air of wrongness that hung in the air. The relief he felt           dissipated like smoke after opening a window. He was left feeling hollow           and unhappy.

          Trust. There it was again. Yato didn't -- or perhaps, couldn't -- trust him           enough to know he wasn't going to abandon him. Sunset tinted eyes           slid closed and he fell back against the comforter with something akin to           defeat. His hands laced themselves together over his abdomen. He chewed           on his bottom lip until his teeth caught a chapped crinkle to gnaw on. When           he released the nearly bruised lip to speak, the cadence of his youthful voice           was heavy with reluctance and resignation.

                     "You should stay. Y'know, pretend you trust me for once. Or..."

           Yukine's voice trailed off into a long, drawn out sigh. He could have said            things like telling him sleeping in a room with someone else was too            strange to really get any rest or that he never had as much fun without the            idiot around or that he was lonely, even with all the people he'd met. They            weren't the same ---- there was no way for his relationship with them to            even compare to the relationship between a god and regalia.

                     Instead, he said, "Or are you too busy?"

                "—So this is where you live now…?”

      Allowing the pads of his fingers to follow the contours of items       stowed on the tops of low shelves, the deity kept his voice as mono-       tone as he could manage—turning an azure age away from the       younger.

      He remembered the other’s words with an almost deafening clarity;       a request for independence, a chance at the pseudo-normal life that       he’d be robbed of so long ago. Yato could understand his sentiment;       it was one not unfamiliar to the deity.

                   (  —But then, why,                              why did he feel it necessary to come find him? )

      As if he didn’t have anything better to do, the god managed to find       the room the flaxen regalia resided in; and entered through an open       window. Pursing his lips, an anxious bead of sweat rolled down his       countenance—he’d only just realized how… creepy this all was.

                                    Swish, swish, swish ----

          Yukine rested at the end of his bed. One foot was tucked beneath a           slender frame. The other swung back and forth. With each downward           swoop his socked toes rubbed against the plush carpet. The friction           created the incessant swishing. The noise may as well have been the           ticking of a dusty grandfather clock chronicling the eternal passage           of time.

          Pale nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply. His shoulders rose and fell           visibly from the action. He curled his fingers into the depths of the high           class comforter. Behind him, on the nightstand between the two beds,           was a book still open to the page he'd been reading when Yato made           his appearance. He wasn't in the least bit surprised to have the raven           god show up unannounced -- irritated, but not surprised.

          Yukine rolled his eyes towards the ceiling with heavy exasperation           tugging on the corners of his lips. When he spoke, effectively           destroying the monster he was making in the silence, his tone lacked           the other's neutrality, "Yup. Should I even bother telling you it's           bad to break into people's rooms?"

          In truth, beneath the strict air and sharp tone, the pale haired youth was           glad to see Yato. His heart felt at ease more than it had in days knowing           that the guy hadn't gotten himself killed or, worse, gone back to working           with the stray. His head canted to the side and his weight came to rest           against his palms as he leaned backwards.

The word “Atlantis” was unfamiliar. With all the other parks, he could guess at the theme before seeing them, but this one garnered no images in his head alongside the odd word. Naturally, he went in with all senses on high alert. At least, he tried to. The fish were a terrible distraction.

As if the glass floor hadn’t driven him crazy enough, darting toward each glimmer of a fish as though he could grab it from beneath the glass, the tunnel had his pupils in slits. He ran from one wall to another, pressing his hands to the glass and staring down every different creature he could find.

None of them were quite like those from his home planet, but he was far from picky. Fish was fish, and he hadn’t gotten a good meal in ages. As one the same size as him wandered by, he pushed up to his tip-toes, smashing his nose to the glass. Surely there was an area somewhere in this magical place where he could catch one.

It took effort to tear his eyes from the water, and the nearest human became his target instead. He stopped just short of plowing into them, bouncing on his toes as he began his interrogation. “How do we get to the fish? Where is the opening to the tank? Can we eat the fish? How many fish? Oh! Look at that one!” His attention was once again stolen by a rainbow eel. “I need that one. Let’s go get it.”

                   But, really, it wasn't such a big deal. 

     The pale haired youth's heart said otherwise at the sudden and entirely      unexpected approach of the stranger. Half-lidded, orange eyes shot open      as his expression twisted from peaceful to agitated in a moment. He      stumbled over himself to create an acceptable amount of space between      him and the excited boy. His shoulder bumped into the glass with a hollow      thump.

     "W-what are you asking me for? Do I look like an employee to you?"       Yukine's brows furrowed together in discontent. He edged farther away.      His steps this time were a little more graceful as his heart calmed from its      rabbiting thumping. His slim hands found their way into his pockets in a      habitual sign of discomfort. Still, the teen decided at least attempting to      answer the... strange... uhm, the other's demands was simple enough.