Monday, January 19, 2015

Page 954

After a fashion, the chatter among their group began to return, but something else cut through it before long.

Oh.’ Chergoa abruptly stopped moving, which made everyone else do the same. Her skeletal grin widened, and she looked to Emiliana, then nodded down an adjacent side street.

They all turned in time to see a little girl rush up to Emiliana and hug her.

Hector recognized Ramira Elroy from her photograph, along with Marcos Elroy following not far behind. Asad and Qorvass were there, too, as was an unfamiliar reaper.

Chergoa handled introductions. ‘Garovel, Shenado. Shenado, Garovel.

The brother?’ said Shenado. ‘What an unexpected pleasure.

It is very nice to meet you,’ said Garovel. ‘I was sorry to hear about everything your family has had to endure. Axiolis told me all about it.

I see, thank you,’ said Shenado. ‘Ah, and this is Marcos Elroy. Say hello, Marcos.

The boy looked exhausted. “H-hello...”

Hello there,’ said Garovel. ‘This is Hector Goffe.

Hector offered him a handshake, and Marcos took it. “It’s, ah... nice to meet you,” said Hector.

Marcos just returned a polite nod. When Dimas offered him a handshake, however, the boy dove in for a hug, instead. “You came back for us,” he mumbled into Dimas’ torso. “You kept your promise...”

Dimas was slow to return the hug, but after a moment, Hector saw the man’s face soften.

Next up for introduction was Ramira, and Hector stiltedly made his way through it. But soon afterward, the adults and the reapers began conversing, and Hector and Ramira were left standing there with nothing to do. He didn’t mind being excluded himself, but he felt a bit bad for Ramira. She didn’t appear to have a reaper of her own, which meant she couldn’t even hear half of what was being said.

After a period of deliberation and brainstorming, Hector knelt down next to her and with effort, forced himself to ask, “...What’s your favorite animal?”

She stared at him with big gray eyes, perhaps wondering what he was getting at. But then she smirked and said, “A trapdoor spider!”

Hector’s expression faltered. “Uh... really? Not, like, a giraffe or something?”

“Psh. Can a giraffe camouflage itself to take its prey by surprise, and then eat them by liquefying their body with its venom? Because a trapdoor spider can.”

“Ah...” Hector had to laugh a little. “Okay, then, tell me what a trapdoor spider looks like...” He materialized a generic spider figurine in the palm of his hand.

17 comments:

  1. I can't wait for Ramira to be a servant.
    And Hector was such a sweet boy.

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  2. came back for us,” he mumbled into the Dimas’ torso. is the the meant to be there? and also Ramira seems kinda badass lol

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  3. I can't tell if tomorrow is a donation bonus day or not. Too tired.


    Thanks for the hard work, Mr. Frost.

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  4. Somebody needs to show that girl the baboon spiders. She'd totally geek out. :/

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  5. "When Dimas’ torso"
    There's something wrong with this sentence.

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  6. Yep, good catch. Fixed now, thank you.

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  7. Ah, yeah, I fixed a typo by making it worse, apparently. WHOOPS. Sorry about that.

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  8. Servants are immortal! They can be a thing!

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  9. Yeah, tomorrow will be the last donation bonus day.

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  10. Dimas sometimes reminds me of an older version of Hector. Anyone else get that feeling?

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  11. Awwwwwww! Adorable, he's making her a spider!

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  12. "You...you're a destruction user. How did you...how did you twist that into..."
    "SPIDERS! :D"

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  13. I'm missing something funny...

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  14. Not really. Hector is really shy, but Dimas isn't so much shy as humorless. If Hector ever did get completely over his shyness (unlikely) I get the sense he would mature (for a certain value of the word) into something like Roman.
    In some ways it could be argued that Dimas is the opposite of Hector, who restrains his emotions if he even has any, where Hector is so overwhelmed that he has to flee unless he has a purpose to lend him courage.

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  15. It is kinda cute, and pretty funny how her favorite animal is something that would give most non-servants nightmares. I wonder if becoming a servant tends to reduce injury-based fears, since injury itself holds so much less weight in their eyes. I mean, getting your flesh liquified into necrotic craters is pretty scary, but one whole class of servant does worse to themselves on purpose on a regular basis.

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  16. Whoa. You can see him growing into someone like Roman? I can't really see that but I'll just agree to disagree

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  17. What I was saying is that Roman might be basically Hector sans the social anxiety. I'm definitely not saying that he's ever going to become as confident as Roman, but I think they would be fairly similar if he did.
    I can kind of imagine him as an old servant, 200 or so, with his own badass servant title (technically he already has one, but one from terrified servants would be way cooler), yet still freaking out any time he has to talk to anyone, especially a girl.

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