Loitering [Emi / Lillian]

[Castle]

It was still a few hours away from sunset. Castle knew he wouldn't be able to pull off waiting around here for that long, which was a disappointment. The Postern had a pretty good view.

Not that he was afraid of getting in trouble for slacking off. He was supposed to be back at the Marketplace, helping out with the construction work that had been going on for the past two days, but a guy could only handle being bossed around by an ornery moogle for so long. He thought he'd done enough work to earn a break, anyway. He sure felt sore enough.

No, the reason he couldn't wait around here until sunset was because, well, it would be boring. This was a cool place, appearance-wise, but the sight wasn't new once you saw it for the first time. Still, Castle found himself lingering by the edge, staring out at the landscape. His mind told him that wandering further would be more fun, but somehow, the rest of him didn't much care. Sometimes, he just felt like standing.

He kept thinking about that man. That infuriating "darkness tool." The memory of that fight still burned him up, how easily that guy beat them, how useless Castle was when everyone else fought back. His hands closed into fists. He tried to tell himself he was making up for it with the construction work, but that just wasn't good enough.

"Damn it," he muttered. Part of him wanted to stop dwelling on it, but it was hard. He needed a distraction, preferably one that wasn't small and ornery.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

"Seriously, does someone want to adopt me?"
--

It had been merely a week since Emi had returned to her homeworld and already it was threatened by darkness. Again. Oh no, there would be none of that while she still lived. She wasn't about to lose her home again.

In all honesty there wasn't much she could do at the moment. The enemy that had came and destroyed some of the buildings hadn't shown his face again. Emi had heard only stories and rumors about it, not having been around at the time. The stories said that the man disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared and the attacks made against him did nothing.

Emi grunted. She was sure, had she actually been there, she could've put a dent in him. Of course, she was overly confident in her own fighting abilities.

Considering all the things going against her right now, she wouldn't do much good. She'd run out of munny days ago, had no work and no place to stay. She could go without eating but she couldn't stand not bathing and was happy for the bar of soap she'd managed to snag from the inn on her last night there.

It was nearing sunset now and she was climbing what used to be steps towards the castle postern. The Radiant Garden Restoration Committee was doing a good job repairing the damge both here and out in the town where the Darkness Guy -a name Emi had come up for him- had done his damage. The girl planned on staying the night inside the castle, again.

She walked towards the postern, deep in thought about how much longer she could take this, and almost missed the person standing around looking mad at himself. She didn't want to be seen but couldn't surpress a surprised gasp when she looked up from her feet and there he was in front of her.

If he hadn't seen her before, he did now. She had nearly run into him and cursed her stupidity. She was definitely going to get caught if she didn't stop spacing out like that.

[Castle]

The loud gasp behind him, as in right behind him, was enough to make Castle nearly jump out of his skin. He spun around and saw a figure towering over him, much too close for comfort.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, his quick backward steps making him bump into the railing.

A split second later, he realized it was just a person. He thought at first that it was a tall, unusually slender man, but a few moments of observation proved otherwise. It was a girl, maybe around his age, but boy was she tall. Tall, and flat-chested, hence the temporary confusion.

"What the heck is your problem?" he blurted, very much wanting to know what would possess a person to come right up behind him like that. Not to mention he was still a bit unsettled from being startled out of a moment of deep thought.

[Fate]

Interrupting Something?

It had been a couple days since Mysterious Man had come and attacked Radiant Garden. Lillian had seen the world before he attacked it and it had been a rather beautiful world, much like Libertas. Now it was broken and in need of a lot of repairs. After the fight, Lillian decided to try and help out the Restoration Committee as much as they could, hating to see a world be so torn up like this. Though, part of her wondered if she was being much help at all.

It was getting close to evening, the sun setting on the world. She went out for a walk to look around, sort of wondering where everyone was. Most of the Restoration Committee was back at that Merlin's house it seemed, but she was sort of wondering about that other guy that was there at the fight. She didn't know his name and he didn't seem to be part of the committee. He was just trying to help like she was. She hadn't seen him around all day and so far she had not been able to find him in the town.

She found herself wandering near the Postern, finally finding the guy. Though, some other girl that she didn't recognize was there and had run into him. Okay... well that's sort of odd. Lillian made her way over there, her boots clacking on the ground. The girl was really tall, taller than both her and the guy. The guy didn't seem happy that she bumped into him at all, though Lillian couldn't say she blamed him much.

"Am I interrupting something?" she asked as she got closer, her arms hanging at her sides. She didn't think she was, but eh, she never knew with these people.

[/size]

[Oathkeeper Emi]

"WHAT THE --"
--

"I don't have a problem![/color]" Emi shouted in a momentary lapse of self-control. This kid had better be glad she didn't haul off and punch him in the face for screaming at her like that. "What's your problem, just standing around like that? Are you stupid or something?![/color]"

She took a few steps back, trying to calm her racing heart. Her heart rate skyrocketed when she was angry and it was only made worse because she was scared. Her accusations echoed around the postern for a moment before the area was quiet yet again, a stunned silence.

Emi took a closer look at the kid and realized it wasn't a kid at all. He had too mature a face. She looked to be about her age, if not older and had unsettling red eyes. She crossed her arms in front of her just as another voice broke the silence in the postern. Asking if she was interuppting something.

Great, thought Emi. Just great. I'm never going to get into the castle at this rate. Where am I supposed to go?"

She was of the right mind to just take off running and find another entrance into the castle, but she was calming down now and needed to apologize for her outburst. She addressed the new comer first.

"No, you aren't,[/color]" she answered. She turned to the red-eyed boy. "And sorry about that. You just startled me.[/color]"

[Castle]

Getting screamed at by the girl, or the tall chick, as Castle silently dubbed her, turned his startled nerves into real anger. Well, maybe just annoyance. Lots of it. Who did she think she was, flipping out because she ran into him? However, his still somewhat startled brain could not piece those words together right away, which led him to just stare at her, mouth partway open, through the awkward silence that followed.

Just as he was about to finally put his thoughts into the air, taking a breath in to do so, another girl beat him to the next vocalization. He sighed the breath out and turned his attention to her. To his surprise, it was the gun-woman from the other day. Her appearance quelled some of his annoyance. He had meant to talk to her that day, after the battle, but she managed to vanish from his sight before he could do so.

Then, somewhat suddenly, the tall chick was apologizing to him. The appearance of the gun-woman must have settled her down, too. With the situation thus pacified, Castle regained his composure.

"Don't worry about it. Stuff happens," he said to the tall chick, resting a hand on his hip. With that out of the way, he turned to the gun-woman. "Didn't think I'd see you again. You remember me?"

He let his mouth curve into a casual half-smile. Especially with flat-chested-tall-chick next to her, gun-woman was more than a little attractive. His eyes flitted briefly, subtly (a well practiced technique), over her appearance as he waited for her response. That outfit was good for her legs, that was for sure.

[Fate]

Uhh... Okay...

It certainly seemed like she was interrupting something; it sort of looked like the two were arguing. Lillian wasn't even going to ask. It wasn't any of her business and she was going to keep it that way. She walked closer onto the scene, looking at the two. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she shifted her weight over to one leg, trying to figure out the situation. Eh, she might as well get introductions out of the way and then see what happens. She didn't really have anything else to do this evening.

"Yeah, I remember you," she said to the guy who she was somewhat familiar with. She wasn't here to talk about the fight though; she didn't want to think about the darkness and the tainting and... She forced her thoughts to stop right there as she offered a hand out for him to shake. "Never got your name though. I'm Lillian." Was it just her or was he looking at her? She couldn't really tell, though she admittedly wasn't really paying much attention.

"So, do you guys all live here or something?" She had to pick somewhere to start for conversation, trying to bridge the awkwardness that had came when she entered on them arguing. It was as good a place to start as any, or at least she thought. She didn't know anything about either of them and she might as well now. They also probably shouldn't stay here too long either; the Heartless might come around and she wasn't in a fighting mood at the moment. Though, she wasn't about to suggest it; she always had been bossy and she didn't like it showing.

[/size]

[Oathkeeper Emi]

"Well, if by live you mean I can't afford to eat and I sleep in a dusty library, then yeah..."
--

Emi fidgeted. She was unsure how to anwer that question.
"Um...guess you could say that...[/color]" she muttered, rolling her eyes. It was true. She did live here. Just not in a house. She looked nervously towards the castle entrance, trying to figure out a way to get out of this mess.

Absently, she reached for the cigarettes in her pocket. Stress relief. Until she remembered she'd gotten rid of them. She sighed. Now she had no house AND no material possessions besides her clothes. What had she been thinking!?

"Are you guys...here to watch the sunset or something?[/color]" Emi said. Perhaps trying to remind them in a roundabout way that they had other places to be, other things to do. She turned to look at the mentioned sunset. Beautiful, as usual. Not nearly as beautiful as Twilight Town's though; that had been one really great thing about the city. She took a few steps towards the railing and leaned against it, next to Castle. She smirked to herself, and suppressed a laugh. How did that shrimpy little kid even see over the railing? She realized Lillian had been polite enough to offer her name. Emi decided to return the favor.

"I'm Emi.[/color]" she asked, speaking to Castle.

[Castle]

Castle's grin broadened briefly as he accepted the handshake. "Castle Carmindy," he said.

He glanced at the tall chick as she responded to Lillian's question. Her answer was more than a little bit sketchy, but that wasn't his concern. He saw a lot of that back in Traverse Town, people who weren't willing to give direct answers about themselves or their pasts.

Her question about the sunset made him glance over at the horizon he was watching earlier. Indeed, the sun was setting now. He had apparently overestimated the time it took for it to do so. That was no big surprise; he was still getting used to having a sun in the sky at all, let alone it's daily behaviors.

As it turned out, the tall chick's name was Emi.
"Nice to meet ya," he said, sparing her a glance. He noticed, when he did, that her eye color was a very nice shade of green.

"And yeah, I guess that's why I came out here. Sunsets are pretty cool when you come from a place that has no sun at all. I'm from Traverse Town, by the way," he directed that line to Lillian, since it answered her earlier question, "Got here a few days ago. I take it you're not from around here, either?"

He leaned casually against the railing, posturing himself in a carefully aloof fashion. It's okay to check out the short guy, that posture said.

[Fate]

Well, Aren't We an Interesting Trio?

Emi, which seemed to be her name as Lillian figured out now, gave them a little bit of a sketchy answer. She wasn't about to question it though; now wasn't really the time to get into that. The guy's name was Castle and they shook hands, Lillian taking her hand back afterward. He wasn't from around here either; he was from Traverse Town too, that world that she had been on after Libertas had been destroyed. Emi was the only one who was from this world it seemed.

"I came looking to see what was going on," she said, her arms still crossed. "I never saw this part of this Garden place either, so I was kind of curious. I'm not from this world either. I ended up on Traverse Town a couple of years back after the Heartless killed my world. Then I just got bored and came here. I didn't really expect any of... this though." Her statement was ambiguous and she was going to leave it at that; she didn't want to go into what she or Castle had to deal with a couple of days ago. She also casually talked about her world being destroyed as if she were talking about an interesting cloud in the sky; she always did that though, that being her defense mechanism. If she pretended she didn't feel the pain of losing her world, she would sooner or later start believing it.

"Maybe we should get back into town," she suggested, trying her best not to sound too bossy. Her arms went to her sides, looking at both of them. Castle was leaning against the railing, looking sort of aloof. Lillian merely raised an eyebrow at this and stopped the temptation to laugh. He was the shortest out of the three of them there, shorter than both of the girls. She never really met many guys that were shorter than her; Castle was now one of those very few.

[/size]

[Oathkeeper Emi]

"Yeah, yeah, that's great. Move it along now."
--

Emi stayed silent throughout most of the conversation. It seemed she was the only one from the Garden originally. She got an odd sense of superiority because of that.

She wasn't sure what to say until Lillian mentioned going back to the town. What was there in the town to go back to, anyways? Not much.

"No thanks. I think I'll just stay here for a while...[/color]" Emi said. If they asked her why, she could make up something. Something that was interesting enough to seem legitimate but no so interesting as to make them want to stick around. And it wasn't like she could just whip out that cloak and open up a corridor to get away. Zexion had been insistent about keeping it a secret.

Although, she was going to have to go back to the town at some point. For the past few days she'd been out in the country trying to avoid the town as much as possible. She wasn't sure why. Something was just repelling her from it. Maybe she just couldn't stand to see it destroyed again.

But she was going to have to go back. She had to in order to find some way to support herself. Maybe there was some place for her working on the reconstruction. She was a hard worker when she wanted to be and didn't mind manual labor too much. She would inquire about it, but she would do it tomorrow. It was already to late to do so today.

She glanced over at Castle and snorted, rolled her eyes. He was posing for god's sake. She looked over at Lillian and saw why. Emi sighed, but smirked. Castle was shorter than the both of them and thought himself some kind of ladies' man.

He must have boundless confidence to still get girls when he's barely five feet tall, she thought. Guys who are repeatedly rejected don't have that much confidence. Either that or he's just stupid.

[Castle]

So the Heartless had killed Lillian's world. And she'd been in Traverse Town. Now that was interesting. Not new or surprising, but interesting. Castle wondered briefly how he had never run into her before, but on second thought, the time when the most worlds were being destroyed was also the time that his mom made sure they were almost always locked up in the house to avoid the Heartless. That was only about a year or two ago, now. How time flies.

Well, between Lillian's backstory and Emi's sketchiness, he was beginning to feel like he was back home again.

"Yeah... I'm supposed to be back at the Marketplace, anyway. But let me tell you what, Mr. Ornery the moogle is one heck of a slave driver. Not exactly looking forward to going back to that," he laughed.

Then he heard Emi make a noise and glanced over just in time to see her roll her eyes. Something told him that she wasn't doing that in agreement to a certain moogle's lack of labor laws. Some of his good mood capsized, and he cocked an eyebrow at her.

"You got something to say?" he asked.

[Fate]

Ridiculous

It didn't seem like they were going back into town at this point; well, Emi seemed to have her own agenda going or something of the sort. Though, Lillian had to admit, there wasn't much of anything to do in the town besides work. There probably had been more to do when the town wasn't destroyed; in fact, there was. Lillian had only gotten to see a brief bit of that though, not much of it to really matter. She guessed they were staying here then.

She put a hand on her hip and shifted her weight to the other side. Castle was talking about the moogle he worked for and how much of a slave driver he was, which Lillian was semi-surprised with; she thought the creatures were rather sweet and couldn't be that mean at all. Emi snorted at something, making her raise an eyebrow. She looked over at the tall girl, who seemed to be looking at Castle in his pose; why the heck was he posing? Who the heck was he trying to impress?

"Why are you posing like that?" she asked him bluntly, then looking away. She decided to look at the large castle in the distance. It was an ominous building and it watched over the entire town. She got an eerie feeling just by looking at it; there had to be a lot of darkness there or something. It looked sort of nice, though she bet it looked a lot nicer when there wasn't darkness all around. Part of her wondered if someone was living there or something, some dark person that made the castle dark. It was a vague thought and she chose to ignore it, turning her head back toward Castle.

[/size]

[Oathkeeper Emi]

"Some people don't learn the first time..."
--

Castle had known Emi barely five minutes, but that was no excuse. He didn't know how easily she was provoked but again, not an excuse. His arrogant tone irritated Emi and she growled quietly and clenched her fists as they rested on the railing. She was about to turn and tear into him with harsh words, but Lillian interrupted. She asked the same question Emi had been wondering and her blunt interruption calmed Emi a little. She turned and smiled smugly down at Castle a look that said I was just about to ask the same thing.

She hoped that this little gang-up would be enough to knock his ego down a few rungs. It was obvious to her that he was definitely compensating for his lack of height with an inflated self-confidence. Then again, as she had observed before, if it had been so easy to beat him down he wouldn't be so confident in the first place.

Well, if the beating to his big head didn't work, Emi could always literally beat his big head. When emotional attacks didn't work, a nice punch to the stomach usually did.

[Castle]

Given that he'd spoken directly to Emi, Lillian's question caught him completely off guard. Although, even if he hadn't been speaking directly to Emi, it probably would have caught him completely off guard, anyway. He turned his head back toward Lillian, his warning gaze sliding off to reveal a somewhat bewildered expression, his mouth partway open and taking a few moments to make any sound.

"Posing? What posing?" he laughed then, his expression recovering its confidence as his mouth curved into a smile, "I'm just standing here!"

He glanced back at Emi, as though to get her opinion from her expression, and as it turned out, he did. But, it was most definitely not in his favor. The smugness made him mad again, but since Lillian was the current issue here, he turned his gaze back to her. He would deal with Emi if she decided to made a comment, or a noise, again.