Forgetful Days

[Mandaz]

Everett shot the busty barmaid a glare that could shatter glass. She had gone along with the bath, what was the use of tormenting her more? A little grumbled gurgled up in her throat and she tried to snatch the clothes away from the much larger woman. All to no avail, she was not fast enough, and once the clothes hit the water her expression dropped to one of ultimate defeat. Without skipping a beat she glared harder and angrier than she ever had in her life at the barmaid, folding her arms and stamping her feet as if to say ‘what am I supposed to do now?’

That answer came to her in the form of two bathrobes that she had previously overlooked before. Now was her chance to spite the barmaid. While Belle was busy washing Everett’s clothes the sly girl snatched the larger blue robe obviously intended for lager women. She nearly swam in it, but reveled in the fact that she had gotten one up on the maid. There was no way she’d fit into the pink robe, and there was no way Everett was going to give up her azure circus tent.

Now donning a little bit of protection, Everett slowly pushed open the bathroom door, ready to be jumped by an animal at any time. She peered around the room, no dog to be found. This was a great relief. The girl strutted confidently into the next room, taking a seat on the comfortable bed with a wide, satisfied smile on her lips. It was only then did she realize that the door she had closed for protection against the beast was open. Had he gotten in? Could dogs use doors? Immediately frightened once more, Everett brought her knees into her arms and stayed frozen on the bed, hoping not to be jumped by the wild canine, not once thinking that she had been spied upon. Daniel had gotten off Scott free.

[Lemon]

Everett's dementia must have been affecting her memory;the open door had allowed Daniel easy access to the room and allowed Flit to smell the volumes of fear seeping from the girl's pores. Were he a stronger pseudokinetic he could hear her thoughts, but he'd have to be an idiot to need that to tell why she was scared. Daniel's graceful crash woke the sleeping mutt, and while Daniel made his way down, Flit made his way up. Up to the hallway with a wide-open door with the smell of human pouring out of it. He'd hoped to find them both up here--or at least to find only one of them alive up here--but he must have missed the boy when he stopped off on the second floor to piss. Her fear struck a nerve. There wasn't much that didn't strike a nerve with Flit, but she persisted in systematically plucking each and every one. He rounded the corner, entering the room halfway with his rear still well into the hall.

Wow. I. I know you're like, a female and all, but you? You carry a bigass sword. You were dirtier than a wrung-out alley cat--actually you look very nice now that you've cleaned up, really. I like the freckles. You should, totally--HEY! Ok, you're a fuckin poser. You act like you're on some big crusade or somethin', but as soon as you come across a big--a moderately sized dog with incredible fur and fantastic breeding capabilities, you cower under the blankets like a little pup! I mean, what? Is the sword from your father? Did a big dog-lookin thing kill your dad and now you're out to avenge him? Issat it? but now, like... you find an actual dog... and you're scared... or something? I dunno! Quit fuckin askin me shit!

Flit's drunken stupor forced him to lean against the door frame as he delivered his rant unto the child, his eyes fluttering between closed and half open as he used all his energy to stand and rant at the same time.

[Nayt]

Odd. Flit wasn't downstairs when Daniel got there. Was anyone downstairs at all? At least, in the bar? As he calmed himself from the previous rush to get back to the bar, he passed a wayward glance around the area. It seemed pretty deserted, in fact. That was extremely odd.

He didn't know where Flit could have gone, but he was awfully curious. Not curious enough to go searching around, though. At worst, he ran into Everett and/or the maid she was with, both of whom may have known about him peeking in on them, and both absolutely destroying him at the same time. That was the worst possibility, ending with a slow and painful death . . . or Everett skewering him with her sword, which would be a fairly quick death, but equally as painful. With this in mind, though Daniel sort of wanted to go looking for Flit, he was certain that the risk was not worth it, and that the presumably telepathic dog would return eventually.

Until then, Daniel would remain seated before the bar, simply staring at the flat surface before him. There wasn't much else he could do but wait.

[Mandaz]

“You know what.”

It was a miracle. Either that or something inside the girl’s head had finally snapped. She listened to the mutt. Actually listened to his every word! She took in what he said, instead of shrugging it off as hysterical fantasy, and a part of her thought the dog actually made sense. She loosened her grip on her knees and opened her eyes.

“You’re right!”

Everett pushed herself off of her bed sanctuary with renewed vigor. Zweihander in her grasp, she stomped on the floor towards the door and the mutt.

“This sword was a gift from my lord! You know nothing of my life! Where I’ve been to get where I am now! Or where I’m going! You’re just a dog! And according to my math, the sword is greater than the dog!”

She took a hefty swing at Flit, throwing all of her strength and momentum into her sword, aiming to slice the dog clean in two.

[Lemon]

As the sword plummeted toward the dog's midsection, Flit burped. The alcohol in his system was still fogging his brain, making him slow and unprepared for the coming steel. He hadn't considered she'd act so bipolar; huddled in fear one second and attacking the next wasn't the most predictable course of action, and Flit hadn't even been watching her. He was too busy looking toward the bathroom, wondering why one of the maids was taking a bath in this room and not in the maids' private quarters. The blade brushed past his fur and broke through his skin, rending the muscles and obliterating the spine on contact. The sheer weight of the blade did the job, gravity and metal making short work of the poor mutt. After splintering the spinal column, the viscera underneath offered very little resistance, making the cut a clean one, cutting him neatly in two. Although neatly probably wouldn't be the best way to describe it; the surprising attack didn't kill the pyrokinetic dog immediately. Shock and pain played out on his canine face as the blade destroyed his body. Reflexes acting of their own accord, Flit's forward half crawled a few inches forward, even as the blade was slicing through his flesh. His consciousness was short-lived, thankfully, and both halves slumped with a wet thud to the ground as the cells within died as their hemoglobin-carried oxygen supply leaked out, staining the floor beneath. The entire blood supply of the severed arteries and veins sprayed out all over the room and onto the vicious girl who'd done the deed. Two crimson pools seeped from hunks of organ and bone, meeting in the space between as if trying desperately to reunite the halved corpse pieces. The savior of dogs, fetcher of humans, only canine companion of the premier pseudokinetic of all the land, and the skilled pyrokinetic canine, Flit, was reduced to little more than a disgusting mess in George's personal room at the top of the Eleven Saints.

[Nayt]

And then, it rewound.

In reverse motion, a halved body clawed itself back up--guts swiveled and rewebbed themselves into proportions, blood flowed in backwards momentum, and soon, the fur began to intertwine as the skin melded back together, bone resealing and snapping back in place, all whilst the blade chipped itself from the floor on which it had been indented, plummeting upwards through the animal's bone structure, until readied in the hands of the girl once again, not yet swung, but prepared. It would be an altogether sobering experience, to feel death, then to "unfeel" death--only to find oneself in a world frozen like series of painted glass sculptures. Nothing moved--not a thing, not the girl, not the door, not the maid; even the bathwater remained perfectly frozen in time.

There were only two bodies capable of movement or even the thought of such--Flit's own, and the other, sitting with a forward lean upon the bed behind the girl, yet far enough down that he was visible to the pyrokinetic hound. Were he standing, he'd have been over six feet tall--perhaps six and a half feet, if not a few inches more. He wasn't a particularly wide man, though, nor were his shoulders all that broad, but he was imposing enough with his preferred type of clothing. A black coat covered nearly every part of him, a black leather long coat overtop of, at the very least, gloves, dark pants and heavy boots, with a substantial hood over his face. The coat was tattered, though . . . old, even. It had imperfections and scuffs everywhere, as old, worn leather often did. Notably, it was stitched together using a brilliant blue stitching; azure, in fact.

All one could see beneath that hood of his were his lips, curled into a hideous grin, a visage of indescribable malevolence. It was as if his expression could not change, not even when he spoke; his lips moved, but he retained the same smile, the same irrepressible sneer of rapturous joy!--the grinning man.

"Afternoon, pup," he greeted Flit.

[Lemon]

... OW. FUCK. WHAT. THE. FUCK!?

[Nayt]

"Good God, that felt good . . ." he sighed in relief.

Right there, at that moment, he had disregarded Flit entirely. The obvious, and understandable, reaction from the animal may or may not have even been noted at all; the grinning man was speaking to himself and himself alone, narrating the feeling he experienced just a flash of a second earlier, or had it been sooner . . . or later? How did it feel to know the extent of two times, from present to past, of a literal experience in that order? Even if it were only a three seconds difference. And what of the grinning man--had he been there three seconds ago, or three seconds later?

His form rose from the bed, just feet to the side of the girl, still ready to drop her blade into the floor, and through Flit. He dwarfed her in height, and with a casual grace, stepped foot by foot until he occupied the space between girl and dog.

"Right then, pup. It's strange, but you still have a job to do. Would you kindly take a few steps back? At least clear four feet--at least," he didn't plead so much as he declared, as if it were in Flit's own best interest to take enough steps back to clear four feet . . .

Though it was strange, it wasn't misplaced. Flit was a telepathic, free thinking dog that could control fire--that in itself was strange. This wasn't even remotely tame in comparison (quite the opposite, in fact; telepaths could create this "effect," but none could make it a genuine reality), but still.

[Lemon]

Fortunately for the stranger with God-like powers, he didn't really even need to ask. After Flit had regained both body and mind--each in an excruciating, alcohol-free amount of pain--the fist thing he did was jump back. He also seriously contemplated blowing taking the opportunity to blow the girl apart, or perhaps to slowly claw her uterus out and beat her with it. If he had opposable thumbs, he'd push her eyes into her brain, rape her, and then saw off each individual limb as slowly as possible, keeping her awake all the while, but he was a pyro and a dog so he had to settle for tearing things out and blowing them up. Maybe he could blow her face off and piss in the smoldering flesh... but perhaps that was getting a little morbid... and it'd be better if he could find someone with some debilitating sexual disease for which there was no human cure and came from having sex with monkeys to piss in her exploded face. That'd take too much time--

WHATTHEFUCKWHEREDIDYOUJUSTCOMEFROM!? Get the fuck out of here, I need to do some horrible, life-ending things to this fucking bitc--CUNT. Biggest fucking cunt I've ever fucking met; MAGNACUNT. I need to kill this fucking magnacunt.

He'd partially blocked out what the stranger had said for several fleeting moments as he decided which freckled chunk of flesh he'd blow apart first, but the gravity of the situation--being brought back from the dead and all--dawned on him, and brought with it the memory of the man's words. Flit would have to attribute his resurrection to the man who had definitely not been there only moments before. Which made him the guy who could turn back time. Which both made him the one who made Flit re-live that experience but also saved his life. There was a very good chance, Flit figured, that he should listen.

Er, what? Job? Before or after she dies and I piss on her ashes?

[Nayt]

"Never, I presume. This is, after all, a drunken daydream. You can just disregard, if you like. Not that you really have a choice, but . . ." replied the grinning man. "Well, you see, it isn't my cards for . . . well . . . either of those two to die just yet. It was for you, though."

Flit's initial reaction of rage had also been (for the most part) disregarded. Again, for the most part. It had, at the very least, made him grin wider. He was amused.

"The problem with this fate is that if you die, neither of those two progress forward, and, in fact, turn around and go the other way--which is the exact opposite what isn't supposed to happen. You still have some guiding to do before, well, you're allowed to die," he then lifted one index finger, declaring, "This is the problem, though: Each person only gets one chance, in my book. Be a little more careful next time."

The grinning man looked behind him. The girl was ready to start swinging, but not with this sword. It was going to take another step for her to be apt for cleaving. Three seconds had been the threshold--just the rewind of three seconds, and all was well again . . .

"Thank you, and . . . enjoy the rest of your dream," remarked the grinning man as his form began to fade--quickly, though, far too quickly for Flit to have the opportunity to react.

And, for that matter, the opportunity to find reality in what just happened. Three seconds passed quickly, and the girl was ready to swing her sword again, but Flit, much more sober this time, was way out of her reach . . . not that he'd have remembered the experience, if it even happened. It may as well never have happened at all; truly a drunken daydream, something fickle, remembered only in fragments. Some guy with a dark coat, stitched up with blue, talking about a "job," "guiding," or something, one of two sporadic drunken thoughts of what could possibly happen next (a infrequent but potential occurrence that caused a temporary lapse of alcohol's hold on the brain: the passive reconsidering of reality and the prompt realization of "holy shit, that's way too much to think about right now"). The other possibility was much bloodier and in no way ended well. Many people died and fire was not involved in any way, shape, or form, dramatically decreasing the appeal of such a possibility.

Fortunately for Flit, though the girl was armed, she may not have gone so far as trying to attack the dog this time. There was a fair chance that the attack itself was actually part of the sobering daydream. He could even bail out, believing that this was a distinct possibility, before the plausibility--although potentially impossible--became probable!