horror / survival .

     Kai’Sa sits, wedged in the small space between the fridge and the ceiling above it. It’s comfortable, kind of hidden, and out-of-the-way. She’s used to finding nooks and crannies to rest in, and finds the bedrooms slightly too open for her tastes. In her arms she’s hoarded a small collection of fruits out of the fridge, and she lounges, taking slow bites out of them one-at-a-time and savoring the taste.

     There’s a creak, and she sees another door in the apartment open. Someone there? Her second skin lights up, points of bio-luminescence running just beneath the scales for a moment as the creature reacts to her surprise. 

     She lifts up a hand in a slight wave.

     ❛ Oh— ❜ She says through a mouthful of food, and then swallows, ❛ —good morning? ❜

     Besides, she likes being out of the city. Cities back home were strange and unfamiliar, and this one is even stranger; with its tall buildings and contrasting districts and odd technology. It makes her head spin and her skin crawl, a lot of the time, and she’s glad to be out.

     The wilderness is something else. Even if she’s never really been close to the forest before, the rules of wilderness are always the same. Men and beasts follow simple laws, when there are no walls and roads to shape them. These are laws that she’s lived by for her whole life; even before being claimed by the void.

     Today, though, she’s not the only hunter out here in the wilds. The mask falls away from her face as she draws a claw back over it, revealing her eyes.

      ❛ You remind me of old stories, stranger. The kind that they tell every Shuriman child, about the wolf and the lamb, and two deaths. ❜ A macabre subject, for sure, but when you live where death is so ever-present and threatening, even children must know the stories of it. ❛ Is that what you are? ❜

     The bird is a crow, she thinks. Maybe a raven? She’s not very good at bird identification. When she’d known wildlife back home, she’d known it by local names at best, and usually she simply identified animals by appearance. No need to label them. Still, the symbiote is hungry, and she’s got to hunt something. Kai’Sa herself has her helmet up, making her face look far less human than usual.

     The bird flits around the corner of a building, and Kai’Sa follows it; remembering only a moment later that she’s lacking her usual ability to dash and dart where she pleases as she crashes headlong into another person and knocks both of them to the ground.

     She collects herself as quickly as she can, watching the bird turn a corner and fly out of sight with a soft sigh of disappointment. Then she remembers that she’s not the only one here, and turns to face the person that she just bowled into.

      ❛ I’m sorry, the bird... ❜ She stands and awkwardly offers a clawed hand to help the other up, wide-eyed under the mask and a little bit embarrassed, ❛ ...Next time I will be more cautious. ❜

    Maya had quickly taken to doing her errands later in the day, when there weren’t as many people around. She never liked being gawked at very much, and the people in this city were even worse about it than the people in her own solar system at times. So, when the noise from the streets began to lull and the sun started to set, she took to the markets. 

    She’d seen the day’s eclipse fade away as she left a convenience store, acknowledging it with a disdainful shake of the head; More poor souls being dragged to this damn place no doubt. It made her angry, knowing that there was so little she could do in this situation. Being forced to sit on her hands every day, without a tangible cause to fight against? It was torture. One of these days, she’d do something about it, but today it was her job to take her boxes of cereal home in one piece.

    She becomes more lost in thought with every step she takes, meandering through side streets with an austere look on her face. Fighting the urge to get miffed about something you couldn’t change was a hard one. Most folks took care to avoid her when she carried herself that way, but… This person was different, it seemed.

    The tap on her shoulder made her jump slightly, instinctively tensing her posture. She quickly shifted her attention off the ground, and onto the person that’d (thankfully) interrupted her brooding. Maya braced herself for the usual ‘are those tattoos?’ question, but that (also thankfully) didn’t come. She was just another person newly netted into Spirale’s nonsense, and when she realizes this, her posture softens.

    ❝ It’s not a bother at all, don’t apologize. ❞ She says with a faint smile, glancing down at the phone in her hand,  ❝ The currency is entirely digital. All you have to do is show the cashier or merchant your device and the transaction will complete itself. ❞

    Maya pauses so she can shift the bags of groceries on her arms, before continuing.

    ❝ I’m guessing you’ve just arrived with the last eclipse, then? My name’s Maya. I’ve been here for a few months, so if you need any help adjusting, i’m happy to lend a hand if possible. ❞

     Digital? Eclipse? Neither word really has any meaning to Kai’Sa, though she can somewhat parse them through context. She shifts the device in her hand so she’s looking at it vertically, and then nods. It seems simple enough. Even if she’s not used to the level of technology here, she’s also a smart and resourceful girl and she’s had to adapt to stranger conditions before.

     Kai’Sa clutches at the device and then looks down, somewhat sheepishly. Then, she straightens up and brushes the hair out of her face with one clawed hand. Be polite, Kai. She thinks, You started this.

     ❛ Oh. Thank you. Yes, I am—new. I’m called Kai’Sa. ❜ Shuriman, she wants to add, but she’s not actually sure where Shurima is in relation to here, and she hasn’t heard anyone else mention it yet. ❛ And I... would appreciate help. I’m just a bit... ❜

     She searches for the right word. ❛ —frazzled? ❜ She finally says, ❛ Also most other people are wearing clothes, and I figured, since he doesn’t really count... ❜ 

     Kai’Sa taps her fingers on her shoulder as she talks about her void companion, and the scales ripple slightly, lifting and then settling back down. The symbiote lets out a soft growl, and her skin prickles underneath it — but Kai’Sa has been able to ignore the thing before, and she ignores its complaints now.

     Kai’Sa has been lurking on the outskirts of the festivities, nearly leaping out of her own skin every time there’s an explosion in the distant skies. The crowds make her nervous, and she’s still feeling a little bit frazzled by all the new things she’s had to process lately. She copes well with big uphevals in her life, usually—the perks of being intelligent and adaptable, but the sheer volume of the change has been dizzying.

     Back home, she wouldn’t have been so bold. Then again, back home, she would have avoided all traces of civilization as much as she could, unless she thought they needed her. Best not to stress the hospitality of the commonfolk, who almost never wanted her around. Things have been so different. She’s getting lax.

     She pulls her stray hand against her chest and leans back, pressing her back to the wall she had been leaning against, trying her best to stay out of sight of any passers-by. Her own hair is rather a mess, still; though better than it had been.

     ❛ I'm sorry, I don’t mean to invade your boundaries. ❜ Kai’Sa puts both her hands up to show that she’s unarmed, to show that she isn’t actually a threat—not that it’s exactly true, but it’s a gesture of intent. ❛ I like your hair and makeup... when I was younger I always thought of cutting mine short, but I never had the means to make it look good. And cosmetics were... a luxury I was never afforded. I have been seeing a lot of things, and I’m sorry if I frightened you, or... ❜

     She’s staring through a glass window now, phone in hand, trying to forget the fact that she has absolutely no idea where she is, and she’s been struggling to read any sort of map she’s seen since arriving. Which ‘ward’ is she in? Cotes? This is a city street, lined with small shops. Not the ward she ended up in initially, for sure. 

     On the other side of the glass in front of her are a number of brightly-colored articles of clothing all hung up on mannequins, and she runs a clawed hand over the surface of the window. The sign on the door says open, and she likes the idea of trying to blend in more than wearing only her ‘companion’ allows, but...

     Kai’Sa has been in a shop before, but she is tentative about entering this one, despite her interest in the merchandise. She rocks back and forth on her heels, glancing up and down the road, and takes a moment to decide what she wants to do. In the end, she waits until she sees a passerby who doesn’t look too terribly strange, and taps them on the shoulder.

     ( hopefully, in a place with such colorful inhabitants, she isn’t going to frighten strangers with her unusual appearance. hopefully. )

      ❛ —I, ah, ❜ A pause, she averts her gaze for a moment, and then says, ❛ Sorry. I don’t mean to bother you. I am... not from around.. here? And I am trying to understand the currency—the device says I have some, but I wasn’t—I wasn’t given any coin, or anything. ❜

here goes, it’s Kai’Sa !

just a young desert girl and the symbiotic eldritch horror physically melded into her flesh.

kassadin’s long lost daughter, presumably.

her hometown fell into a hole filled with horrible alien monsters when she was a wee child and she had to survive on her own when everyone else died.

stabbed a monster and then the remains grew onto her skin like weird gross armor.

loves people but doesn’t really get how they work because she grew up alone in a hole filled with horrible alien monsters

has to hunt and feed the symbiote because it’s hungry so she hunted more of the horrible alien monsters to do it.

awkward dweeb + horror suit

does not know how her own (mostly fantasy) world works and DEFINITELY doesn’t know how a relatively high-tech world works

needs help

slime guns