HEART BEAT SHORT

[Jupiter]

Jupiter has seen his share. He has been close enough to hell to smell the burning flesh and from there, came all the way back. He would be haunted by the scent, by the memories, if he allowed him to possess them. Sealed tightly with denial, Jupiter knows only that he fought for his country, not in the barbaric way he did it. It's a painful reduction of memories as he himself is so caught up in his refusal to admit that he has forgotten what it is he won't accept. He is driven mad by the itch on his mind but he protects himself, subconsciously.

Now he stands, mind empty, eyes startlingly crimson staring up at the gate. Some part of him familiarizes with the architecture. It makes him feel secure. Safe in a world he knows nothing about. He doesn't know why, but he'd stopped dead center of the street before it, completely taken in. He clings to this feeling.

Later, when he forgets to forget, it will remind him of home.

A disgusting sound cuts through his blank state of mind, two tones that don't belong together shrieking through the night. Startled, Jupiter turns, finding two lights blinking angrily at him. He had never seen a car until arriving here. Airships and rune magic, yes, but cars are something new. With nothing short of caution, Jupiter moves off the black road and onto a gray ledge. A hand slips out the side of the mechanic beast and gives him a gesture he doesn't understand. Then it rumbles away with obvious displeasure.

"It seems I am the only one at odds," he noted softly. To himself, for no one else was there. Jupiter felt the weight of unhappiness. How uncharacteristic. But what was there to be happy about? Besides the irritated automobile, he'd seen little other life this day. And the itch on his mind grew more furious by the second. Jupiter turned his gaze back up to the arched gate, feeling it ease the tension. Thought filtered in this time, curious and calculating. Mayhap he should seek someone out.

If this was a second chance, he was squandering it twofold.

[Mercury Solanar]

Where was he? Why was he here? Why were there so many suns, shining brightly upon his eyes? They had to be suns, as they were not lanterns and they weren't burning oil. Yet, why so many, and why on every building? Mercurius found himself, stumped. Literally stumped. He'd spent hours, in this town....if that is what it was called. Perhaps a city, yet where was the castle? This was no city, nor kingdom he knew of. Had Lady Nervane sent him on a boat to a distant continent? Or worse, sent him above the mist to the forgotten continents? It made him rather agitated all these questions that he could not answer truthfully, without fear of being wrong. He sat upon the stretch of black, that seemed to resemble the road, pondering this slightly, getting the strangest of looks from the strangest of people.

He found solace in watching the Gateway that stood in this town. One of many he was told, however this was the grandest. He quite liked the old man who had told him so, however, he wished he had stopped telling him to rent a 'automobile' and that they were the best way to get around. What was an automobile anyway? A metal monster with rubber legs, that allowed people to ride in it's body when they gave it enough Gil? Perhaps it was like those adorable creatures he use to go in search of in the woods. The cute ones that spoke in riddles and then gave you the Nought and Cross. Oh how he loved their little game. Yet, when he tried to converse with the 'Automobile' it simply ignored him. It was down right rude of it.

So, that was how he found himself sitting in front of 'The' Gateway. Marveling at it's architecture, the ancient feel to it. It was lit up by thousands of suns, and it wasn't being dressed up to look too 'modern.' It was perfect in everyway. It reminded him of how much he missed, the home of Solanar--Whatever his last name was. He was sick of using the full name of it. He was sick of using his name. Mercurius Daken. That was his birth name, if he was born. That was the name he remembered without effort. Yet without a divorce signed, he was technically married to a ghost. Oh how much fun. How much---Why was the road shaking? He canted his head as the gateway opened, two bright suns staring at him, burrowing in his soul.

With hurried breathing, he rose to his feet, and flicked his collar up slightly, placing his hands to his daggers, that lay hooked into his pants. He growled as he lowered himself closer to the ground, not up for any mucking around. He was angry, as there were so many questions he had been unable to answer, and every time he'd given Gil to the Old Man for telling him about the gate, the old man tried to give him the 'Automobile' for a while. It peeved him to no end. This 'Automobile' had a nerve to it, if it was staring down an angry Mercurius Solanar. Getting lower and lower to the ground, his leg muscles lengthened, strengthening as he slowly pulled his daggers from their holds.

The 'Automobile' came at him, blaring a horn of some sign. It must have been like it's roar, like a Dragon made when struck. He pushed into the Earth, and lunged high into the sky, twenty or so metres above the seemingly endless stretch of black. He noticed a person who also must have been greeted by the Angry Automobile. Glaring down, he tilted his body, shifting his weight, to sending himself plummeting back down towards the Automobile, head first. Coming in with extreme speed, he began to spin himself, slicing the air with the daggers, before rotating his body again,slamming his dress shoes into the top of the beast, a sickening 'crunch' as it began to crush inwards, a person leaping out from inside of it, as the Dagger's ripped the Automobile to shreds.

He pulled himself out, and bit his lip, skipping slowly over, through the gates, ignoring the angry cries and yells from the man in the car, as he moved towards the person he had seen. A man in fact. Oh how sweet. Smiling softly as he came in close he bowed slightly. "Well, what have we here? Hmm? A hidden one? No a creature or a beast. Well, not that I can tell. Horrid beasts these 'Automobiles', no?" Classic, oblivious and too friendly, Mercury.

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[Jupiter]

He blamed the numbness of his mind for missing the lead up to the show.

It all happened quite suddenly, Jupiter's thoughts broken and weak but elsewhere all the same. The hand gesture tossed out the window had not been the end of it as he'd assumed. It was the sound of metal caressing metal, the ear shattering noise of it tearing and grinding against each other, the spark of a memory through a fog, like catching a déjà vu from a dream but finding no purchase in the act that is all so familiar. But Jupiter turned all the same. Curiosity bound him and the need to stop the itch that drove him half-mad. The need to remember what he didn't know he wanted nothing more to forget. Fortunately -- unfortunately on another hand -- he found nothing in the sight that greeted him except bewilderment.

A man stood atop the now metallic wreck, daggers in palms. A different man, as the one that had no doubt offered Jupiter his hand was sprawled out on the black road staring up at the other as though he was the scion of light. And the oddity continued, as the blonde atop the shards of the beast dragged himself from the mess and moved without hesitation toward him. Jupiter blinked but the danger the situation could pose him was lost with the lack of his current emotions. He stood like a man accepting death. When he was met with a friendly smile and equally accommodating chatter, he blinked again, trying to catch up.

“Automobile,” he repeated, the word strange on his tongue. Jupiter bowed just slightly in return. Nobles had etiquette, at least, to others that seemed of their class. He had more than once committed the act of looking down on the lesser. This man’s accent was curious, different even from the people Jupiter had confront, but it was seemingly proper. He made himself off as important enough.

“Naught for their cry." He answered, turning his head to look upon the mess left of the 'automobile.' Efficient work, if a tad hasty. The ruined car nagged at that hazy part of his mind. The rise of agitation made him look back at the stranger a bit too quickly. He gave him a polite smile, though even he could feel the obvious strain it made on his mouth. He tried to cover it by closing his eyes and lifting a hand. “Ugly, perchance,” Jupiter offered. “Metal shine withstanding.” He did so have a weak spot for that silver glint, the cold steel.

His lips pursed, pushing back the dullness over himself that made him so very disinterested at the topic at hand. It was the angry grunt of the man outside the loop that stopped him. "However," he drawled, eyes cutting to the man, before locking with the one before him, "it seems it's master would request restitution for your handiwork. We'd do well to move this conversation elsewhere." The man lumbering away from mourning his totaled machine seemed to want a bit more than payment. He had an obvious desire to take the man's head additionally. Jupiter's ears may have been virgins to the words he was spewing but he wasn't ignorant enough to not realize they were curses. And the man was moving toward them, red in the face, and all meanings of the word 'mad.'

Jupiter himself wasn't at danger and for a moment, he was surprised he'd addressed the situation as both the stranger and his own. But the answer was quite clear: he longed for conversation. Intelligent or just mindless banter, anything to right the strange and unknown wrongs that plagued him. Anything to take his mind off of the abyss that offered nothing. He felt stranger in his own skin now than in this foreign place. Jupiter knows that in the end he wants nothing more than to be happy.

Right now, he was anything but.

[Mercury Solanar]

Has those words come from his mouth? Has he spoken like the true nobles of Alexandria as he was supposed to? He bit down on his tongue hard, as he thought about it, furrowing his brow slightly. Had the confusion of recent events altered his way of speech. Had he finally come under the spell of the nobles of Alexandria? He shook his head as he turned his gaze off to the side, stepping in beside the man, leaning slightly towards him, as he admired his own handy work. He'd successfully vanquished the Automobile. Or had he?

Perhaps this was not as easy as initially thought.

He'd witnessed such events before. A creature hiding within another, using it as a shield, or a barrier. Yet before he could think any more on it, his attention was brought back to the darlin' of a man that had caught his attention. He rose a brow, as the man spoke the word 'Automobile'. It sounded....strange coming off his tongue. What threw him off even more was the 'bow'. He rose a brow, and near choked on his own breath in shock. Was this man, what he despised above all else? A noble?

Shaking his head, he wouldn't believe it and bit down on his tongue, returning his bow, as he turned his head back to gaze at the now looking angry traveler in the 'Automobile'. Canting his head, as the strange language of the man hit him slightly more. Ugly Perchance? Metal Shine Withstanding? He scratched at his head slightly, biting his lip slightly. "You don' say? It twas awful shiney, I'll give it that. Al'ough, I gots to say one ting. That ther' traveler is as red as a cowering Nooble."

Ah yes, his horrendous and outlandish accent was still there. He was a country boy at heart, even if his outlook spoke different. He smirked slightly, gently brushing his hand along the mans. He indeed was correct, the owner seemed in anger state furious. He whispered slightly into his ear, only gently, his breath cool and calm. "Best head elsewher' then, betten we?"

He smiled slightly, as he swayed around him, taking his hand gently, biting down on his lip slightly, as he pointed off to the side of the gateway, an area seemingly enclosed in shadows, yet with light enough to see, talk...and if need come to be, go further. However, he wouldn't mind a nice talk. The screeching of his wife had done nothing but upset him daily. "Over ther' should a do it, yes?"

Reaching into his pocket, with his free hand, he tossed a bag of Gil at the rather angry man, whacking him quite heavily in the face. Almost 100,0000 Gil having been within the pouch, as he pulled his newly found friend over to where he'd pointed out.

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[Jupiter]

Jupiter was confused to say the least. When the blonde opened his mouth to speak again, the air of nobility had disappeared. In it's wake was a backwater dialect, the kind Jupiter had only heard slip from the mouths of some of his younger friends in mockery of the lower class. And yet, despite it's similarity, the phrasing, the accent: it wasn't of Archadia. Not even of those fools in Dalmasca or Rozzaria. It was stranger yet then even the obviously down-on-their-luck in this foreign land. But there was a quick flash of shock in his eyes, as though the man hadn't expected Jupiter to speak so finely himself. Was he feigning low class? The way he bit his lip so frequently: was it a sign of nervousness?

Cowering noble?

Despite all the suspicious tendencies, Jupiter let them all go. What did he care? He didn't know this man. He didn't know his accent -- either of them to be frank. He didn't care what he'd done or even what he hadn't done. He didn't care. All he wanted from this man was his company, his conversation, no matter what pattern of speech he wanted to use. The self-conviction fell away, fortunately along with the accusation, as fingers touched his own. Breath in his ear and then the fingers were back, taking hold of his hand and ushering him away. It had been his idea, but the man seemed to claim it as his own and Jupiter didn't mind. The numbness still spread throughout him like a plague and letting someone else take the reigns was a pleasant feeling. He nodded a bit lamely to the others inquiries.

He let himself ignore the significantly full pouch of Gil that leapt from his companions hand. "My name is Jupiter," he said as they moved. The introduction was swift, unhindered. "What do they call you?" Briefly, he glanced over his shoulder, mildly sated to know the furious man, while not completely happy, was quite alright with taking the Gil and being on his way. Perchance it was enough to by him a new. Automobile. Right. Jupiter's body moved on auto-pilot, feet coming to a halt in the area the man had pointed to prior. Without realizing it, Jupiter's head turned up toward the gateway for another moment before swinging back to the blonde.

His lips pursed, pausing for a moment on the thought. "Strange as it may be, I must ask: are you," the noble paused, searching for the words that would not make him sound as crazy as it came off in his head, "familiar with this land?" His fingers were still caught in the others. The warmth of the hand was soothing, so much so that he'd forgotten he was still holding it.

[Mercury Solanar]

Jupiter....such a wondrous name. Strength and Presence, a name fit for a power to be, yet a noble in his own class. Biting his lip out of nothing more then habit he turned his gaze elsewhere, as he murmured slightly. Bowing slightly, hand still holding the others, fingers linked, he smiled brightly. "Pleasure t' meet yeh. Meh, Of'ciate name is, Mercurius Solanarantar, how'ver, Mercury shalt do justice." Smiling slightly, he pulled Jupiter to sit with him upon a rock, which seemingly acted as a make-shift seat.

Smiling softly, he had almost forgotten that they were both, still linked by the hand, the warmth all that reminded him of the link. He gazed down, biting his lip as he turned his gaze to The Gateway, listening quietly to him. It was an interesting question. He pondered it quietly as he gazed at the gateway. He knew two things. The Old man had told him these two things. One. He was in Deling City. Two. He was on Galbadia Continent. Shrugging he thought this man might know how to make more sense of it.

"Past this 'ere Gate'ay, is Deling 'ity. Which is 'n t' Galbadia Contin'nt. Whatev' th't means." Shrugging slightly, he bit down on his lip, looking back, with confused eyes, before looking down at there hands again. "O' Sorry. Gets a bits ahe'd of meself, I do." He slowly unlinked his fingers from Jupiter's, placing his hands in his lap, as he crossed his legs, lightly leaning on his palm, as his elbow pushed lightly into his pants leg.

"I don' t'ink I are in Gaia anymore."

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