Reick

Ceres look at the grey sliver of sky she could see from her location within the hollow of a large tree. She was in the Woods near Reick, a place old man Acht had wanted to guide them too, but they hadn't managed to make it before the rain worsened.

They had hustled her into this hollow, citing health reasons. She pouted. They were Hippokrit-kal in her opinion, because they stayed in the rain themselves, 'standing guard' according to them.

She meant... Well... Sure, she was slightly grateful because she disliked such heavy rain, but wouldn't they too? Wouldn't they get sick too for that matter? But when she asked these questions she merely got indulgent smiles from the adults, and she didn't like that.

It was like... Like there was this huge secret between the three of them, but she was left out of the loop.

She huffed slightly.

Her thoughts drifted to mr. Rhowain, the nice pointy-eared man they had to leave behind in the forest surrounding Ackbar mountain. He had a lot of stories to tell, but had said he couldn't leave the place he lived in behind. It was fair enough she guessed.

Either way, maybe he would have told her?

She sighed, probably not. While nice, the man had babied her a lot.

After what seemed like an eternity the rain began to lessen. Ceres had been bored out of her skull, even though Lily had come back about half way through. It had been common consensus between her, Cain and Acht that she would be the one to entertain Ceres when the little girl was in one of her moods.

Lily sighed, while the girl was a delight to be around due to being able to interact with them -where before they couldn't affect anything-, she sometimes wondered about her personality. She was a nice girl, certainly, but she acted a bit dim. She was not sure whether this was because it was an actual characteristic of the girl's or that she was so far in denial it wasn't even funny.

Not that Lily didn't care about Ceres, because she did, but that did not mean she was unaware of her faults.

"...My eyes...", the answer seemed to be correct, as the girl pouted. She had probably been proud of the trick question. Two can play that game though. "I spy with my little eye... something blue..."

At this point the rain had stopped entirely, although the skies were still overcast.

"... My hairclip?", the girl asked, having listed a plethora of other things before that. This was the right answer though.

"How about we go do something else?", Lily suggested, having grown tired of the game.

Meanwhile, Joost thought he was weaving a Utopia built on city states and barter systems. In actuality: he was weaving together an allready completed mesh of his sleeping sack. He now knew that he had to be stalling for time.

Joost tested lifting himself from the floor to see how much pent-up cramp caused his ligiments to crook. He looked into the senses of the back of the neck and returned with a report of stuffiness, like an influenza of sorts. Subsequently, he reared his right hand and stretched his fingers out to far reach: before the elasticity expiref and they were drawn back in. Swiping this behind his head, he notified his eyes to go idle somewhere in profile while he checked for the cause of the stuffiness. Soon it was clear: he'd been sleeping on a quantity of icy water. Quickly, Joost compared this to the pillow. The warmth of the pillow in contrast to the siberian humidity as an output didn't quite fit. He let his head wave from side to side and his eyelids amptly settle without giving any conclusion. The first aura of calmness in weeks for him.

What's more: the water didn't trickle but instead it feebly clung inside the pores of his great lizardlike, waxy stoma-blocking insoluble skin. Furthermore Joost did not see the point in reaching a conclusion, though he explored briefly in his babbling right-brain that it could be associated with the hardness of the water.
The water continued to cling as this continued: Joost was far more compelled to travel away from the water that seemed to be allocated to this environment before it condemned him to more than stuffiness. Without batting an eyelid: he managed to focus his eyes centrally-placed. His iris was the right size to allow the light taken in to be insufficient to cause flinching, and he let his eyebrows calmly droop at the discovery of a shiny pale grey zip as a way to open or close this fabric-bound doorway. His eyes continued like this for a little while, allowing themselves human mistakes, or as Joost puts it: daemon mistakes. Water streaked over the retina and they were both dull and uninterested. This may be, in part, what allowed Joost himself to be relatively content and grateful for his time he was given to be peaceful.

Nonetherless, if there wasn't cramp: he would break this tranquility and make a physical effort to bargain for a nice day-trip. There was a nearby pond, in which sticklebacks and other local animals such as toads quarelled with a great pacifism, should his mind serve correctly. This may be where he intended to spend this incredibly nonchalant and dim day. It fitted perfect, the rain here carried on tapping, the ground must have been solvent. After concluding that shaking his head: he was more than ready to nod at this idea.

He began to plug his head and conduct a nod, his head sliding a bit more horizontal to begin with: but he soon regained full control over the nod and this lucidity was gone.

In the end: Joost ended up refusing to finish the nod he'd started, and brought it up to whatevet you'd imagine as a casual position. He was not very cultured in what made a "casual" angle to place your head at.

Heaving his great slumped mass towards this potential opening in the mobile countryside-meanderer; he began by digging his arms into the floor of the tent, focusing the pressure of his body between his ten fingers which scattered like spider's legs once they got the chance to settle down into the planet crust. As his arms became less folded, slowly but surely, his torso began to rise, and leave a greater gap between him and the entropy of the ground in correlation with his weight. His arms didn't flicker at this small burden, they remained flat, mechanical and insensitive. Thought his fingers were quivering a bit.

Before too long; Joost collected himself to two legs, with his kneepads facing his chin. He hovered to the exit like a slug, the movements of his limbs subtle enough that you'd imagine he was only being blown towards this ultimate goal.
His finger quickly analysed the ring around the zip sensually. This was his index; and it interfered with it no more than finding out its form on one side. Then with his thumb and the finger directly next to it; he met the fingertip and the tip of the thumb through this ring where not much else of the hand could bypass. His arm was but narrowly extended, at what was an obtuse hinge.

This was slightly twiddled and fussed about with.

Then he began to take the metallic zip handle upwards, making it climb all the zip joineries and dislodge the strong puzzle pieces. Through this: more and more of the circle encapsulated as this zip chain's space began to lower, and he could choose to see more and more of the landscscapes that haunted his local environment. Naturally; Joost was too impulsive to take notice of nature as a first resort.
Instead, his eyes were beaming; the cornea at the top and bottom showing, as he stared with immense concentration and precision at th movement of the zip. The laziness that was described had parted ways; gone back onto Joost's timetable for a different day or time where he was allowed to be lazy as such. For now: he perpetuated his idea of non-laziness, not relieving himself of his duty to alertedness just yet.

In actuality; now that Joodt had all of this external stimuli; a fortunate expression where his mouth went from ear-to-ear with delight struggled on calously, as he took in the fresh and crisp morning air, still dazzling all that took it in with its rawness and organic feel. It smelt like flecks of corn and lingering woodsmoke and peat in this area. This was a mixture and a barrage; that was thick enough that Joost had to decide to lean his head back slightly, taping the very top of the back of his neck to where his head began, do he could truly indulge in every inch of the atmosphere.

"I d'nt think thshe'th been thith' nith'e for the whole m-month!" Joost remarked with shock and clarity.

"I gotta th'ay..." Joost began to widen his mouth, his pointed tounge that was brought to a hurtful close at the rim of his lips could just about be seen. His mouth's shape now implied that he'd a small rubber ball bent on keeping his mouth open like this. Promptly, Joost continued: "Thith' doeth' make a change from the uth'ual contrith'ance I uth'ually get in the morningth'"; he finished with his mouth in a wide broad sweep; the millimeters in the area it encapsulated may be extended out to figures in the googol, and anyone would notice how his jaw stretched his gum with his skull in this exaggerated, yet somehow still subtle, demeanor.

He closed his lips, removing much of the height. And then Joost downplayed his muscles: taking off a slight ammount of the width. As it closed: it did so over an ecstatic period of ten seconds, and it was hovering without an organic feel to this close. It was truly an ultimate close, he was respirating in at the time and his breath almost cut short by something other than delicious trout or Romantic landscapes for once.

Once again: Joost played his cards in the morning all right. It depended on how subjective you wanted to be. If you thought that it would be better that he exerted himself to his absolute limits before retiring, you couldn't see that in Joost right now. The marks under his eyes only laziness for the sake of concius retribution. The idea to "never relax" may have subdued him into these ovular circles which bound him to daemonic restrictions of mind and body. He could not simply hover about. He remained almost completely inert, the hinged arm still struggling on for the purpose of nothing other than supporting the frame of an allready exposed fabric capsule, two-way entry to the rest of the world and this minimal tent.

And part of the outside world: the air, was quickly fusing with Joost's skin in a biased direction. He felt like he was at one of the poles of the planet allready on his back to a small and safe degree and furthermore all this did was paste the same sense on to his dry and cumulative epidermis.

Soon he'd be programmed to leave. A hint of a tree extending into the equator of the sphere of the dim, pastel, neutral, milky atmosphere; its purple l and green life sentiments clashing with that of the tree: he took as a sign for further life. Relying on his environment for subtle and noneffactive hints could injure no one, he briefly contemplated. But it wasn't a relative thing to contemplate; and behind these eyes that were focused on the tree lay sufficient gratification that he couldn't find the need to think much further.

Close to the exit all ready, and with the foreboding sweep of his left foot, left crawling along the earth: he prepared himself to brace the cold air. After about ten minutes of pure, unadulterated procastination, Joost had taken a pleasant exeunt that required no bargain. The subtle tree awaited, the crackling rain awaited, a lean, varnished and mahogany-built fishing rod with an iron cast and million colour fly fishing rod awaited, that nice pond awaited, acquaintances he would meet today: he awaited them as they would him. How it felt to have the most and to own it too.

Joost's head remained unwrinkled, despite the sudden change and constant frowning. There were no ridges to note: only the reptillian pores of his skin comprised this organic surface, though something must have been lightly stagnating his skin all thin; what could it be than that meddlesome brow. Frown once, and you're stuck with an expression symbolising thoughts of fire like a hormone haunting you for a daunting three days. His skin was flattened, but took a kerb in accordance to the structure of his skull. Because of its elasticity: this part of his flesh may very well present that of a calcium frame that Joost possesses. Or hopes he possesses as he hasn't been dissected or scanned recently, living in a rural area concluded that. It seemed pasted like the fabric of a wall coloured in with red food colouring, and adding subtly immaculate diamond-shape scales crossing the craft, and stretched to fit in the same vein as wallpaper. It curved around in an uneven bracket shape that got progressively less steep towards atop his head. Towards a direction of stretched brackets; it could be argued by an idiot that his skin is paper, though a proffesional could rationally state, compare and contrast this to the model of a paper affixed with chemicals lay in this skin to the degree it was left attificial.

Below, Joost yields the capacity to yield a brow that is obtuse from the first angle at the perspective of bird's eye. It had snapped into a well-established configured position of a firm downward vision, and the problem with this for the sacrifice of his time was to allow it to click out again. If a moment passed and another lingering second severed its sail towards a place of steadily apparent lower time speed affection. Joost was prepared for all of this external stimuli supplied amptly and off-the-hand by the richly churned scent of nitrogen in the air, the trees flowing at their gaits full of purples that zipped into lighter purples, and coated with the cream of the clouds compromised with brown in other places in an unprompted act of kindness and flavour. Today Joost felt truly favoured in this regard; endless spans of oppurtunities to inherit this like a sensual bag of commodities and bring them to his creativity at great value. He needed not paint nor practice other mediums to provoke this non-vocational absorption of artistic knowledge and thought.

As life was good for him; the wind for him thus began to inherit the mentally indoctrinating ability that posessed him to think of the wind that was something that was always behind his back. He did feel this mushiness in his back temporarily freeze and turn into collapsible solidity as the wind was the final component scorching his back. This kind of scorching was scorching from exceptionally low temperatures rather than high, common in animals such as him. But he'd a lack of clear classification, he just noted that he'd experienced this drizzle to freeze combination more times than he'd care to recall.

Humans. Would he ever meet one again? A silent drowzy thought offered by a universal conscience.

He ignored it for now.

Seeking to call on the courage to leap to his feet, Joost was still slightly crouched as the tent's ceiling disciplined him, heavily restricting him from putting his head much more than level when he'd his current bedtime attire on. This discluded his finely and machinistically bound fibrous straw hat, which on the other hand wasn't all that rellevant to his height and may be worth dismissing to the life of the figure and measurements. In any case; his head was ducked by a good acute degrees and was immersed in ecstasy-inducing shelter from the rain. He'd noticed this was not quite where the tent's land ended, as if subliminally. He felt his maximum height able to raise but was still aware of a limit to his sky, placed by the will of the people above him labelled as a tent lobby roof.

The lack of rain gave it away. The prescence of many rain sounds but keeping an aware lack of intimacy, as if wearing a coat but the hood massively extended and consistent with twice the shielding capabilities gave him the impression something larger was ultimately taking him under its delicate maternal paws to shield him from the rain. Sadly, Joost couldn't familiarise himself with maternity, ever. No one had ever taught to him the taxes of emotion so great that it reached maternity. He just kept what is known as "platonically submissive" to the valuable item that improved his quality of life. Delicate maternal paws may have well been rugged maternal claws, and he wouldn't have gone for minuted without breaking from his familiar acceptance and hopping along to the new one. He decided it was pointless to fish around for stimuli at the moment. He limited himself to the grass and faraway tree; emanating closed body language and his whole stance vertical like that of a stout person in a rectangular ready made box. His legs glued together like pasted sterile ligiments of an unaroused man, and his hands lightly clasping each other around his back just before his narrow and bony hips by joining them together fingers to each thumb. It was assumed a default pattern by Joost now, one that he'd use for questioning, gathering items, and he'd shop about for other meanings, as if it wasn't quite ammounting to qnything compiling a list.

Eyes were quite beaming due to stimuli. It was possible by looking close to see the process of them becoming wetter and wetter with the strain of maintaining the strain. It was no justifiable or universal action and sometimes one area of the eye needed more lubrication than it got while the rest engorged in it and was splashing about in sensual wealth that would ultimqtely asphyxiate it, suffocate this. His iris took focus like a camera to the correct level of detail far-away, an odd event which he wondered if he were to be trialled on later as his body had now recognised the blinking of the eye.

Now he'd become all fidgety and have to blink for himself.

A fisherman at the bank of the lake was no uncommon sight down in Reick.

A massive dragon assembled from garbage however was more of a sight. Out on the edge of the lake on this stormy day Joe sat atop of Frank's head which loomed over the deeper waters. Under a busted parasol with a tarp pulled over top Joe sat reclined back on a bunch of tires, one foot up on an old metal pole held next to them while he lazily gripped his fishing rod. Calling it a fishing rod might of been a generous term as it was really just an old street sign pole with the sign having been taken off and replaced with a length of piano wire tipped with a small mangled piece of sharp metal that served as a makeshift fishing hook. At least the worm at the end was authentic.

Joe had been on the road for close to two years now. It was no easy living though with Frank it was much easier than most had it and it was far easier than living in Mekhnar. Now and days Joe could go for weeks without seeing a Daemon. However with new territories came new issues like always. People never quite trusted them, mainly because of Frank. Nobody ever really knew what to make of him. He was a large intimidating monster to be sure so most would usually jump to conclusions which often led to conflict, conflict which Joe and Frank could do without.


Needless to say neither of them were beloved around these parts. So long as they minded their business Joe minded his. He didn't want trouble so he typically avoided cities and camps, rolling solo like always. The only issues that he couldn't fix with his tools at the moment were ammunition and food. This was Joe's attempt at fixing the problem, at least for now. Some dried fish would help him make it past the week before he needed to find more. Looking on the bright side at least he didn't need to feed Frank. He never did understand Frank. By all appearances he seemed to not need anything at all. Was this really the case or did Frank just make do on his own? These were among many questions which Joe knew he was quite likely to never see an answer to, at least within the scope of the near future.

The present was the place he preferred to be anyways. Right then the rain which pounded atop his cover started to lessen to some relief. He didn't have any rain weather clothes or any change of clothes at all for that matter. It had been a month since he last found a pair of boots in better condition than the ones he used to have. Any tears in his clothes were either left unattended or at best poorly patched over with whatever fabrics he had at his disposal. Sewing was not a proficiency of his and it showed in his handiwork.


No tugs yet a thought lazily passed through his head as he relaxed, not at all worried at the moment. He knew there were things he couldn't necessarily know or weren't in his power to prevent but such were matters of the future, a time he had yet to be bothered with. He was well aware of the fishing town not far from him and Frank. Given Frank's size he knew for sure that the townsfolk knew they were by the lake. Joe never bothered them and they had yet to approach him. He hoped to keep it that way. He raised an eyebrow as he felt something in the pole that might of been a tug. He couldn't tell for sure since it stopped but his attention was well in the moment. He kept track of the terrain around him while he waited for any more ques to reel the line in and see if he got something.

Joost cathercised one of the supporting beams for the exterior tent. All of his fingers bore it like hooks, and to surpass those was his thumb, which had a whole medium pressed against the pole itself. Joost did not leave this position as concrete; it was not soon before the hand spiraled around. His arm thrusted back, and one of his legs was constricted around the other, forming an acute pin of force as he pirouetted forward onto the muculent grass. Joost was soon to dismiss the tent flooring and found himself on viscous ground. This was where the ground had its first true collision with the humidity of the atmosphere; tiny, icy moisture droplets gathered on Joost's face, which made him shiver. A veil from purgatory, a thick anti-nimbus of fog, was a moving feast for the valley. Water slithered down into the soil and allowed it to accumulate even greater incredulity of form.

Joost's brow was abrasive. He cajoled his lips to accept nothing and breathed irregularly through his nose. His eyes were doing a good job of bisecting the surrounding area like knives. As if it lost all will: his hand loosened, and left to his side with a flaccid dance. He took one hand up to his chin to allow his thumb and finger to massage it. His feet were close and compact, unwavering. What he looked at was the fog itself; it was not the trees, and it was not the birds. It was totally possible that he was being arrogant. His knees gained full faculty and he stood upright like a monolith. Below his eyes: his face went caliginous. His neck also seized the dim veil.

Joost's mind went on to think about purgatory. Noneffective temperatures coming from this fog made him feel some sort of judgement. Fog always subconsciously bonded him to that large machine of worth and non-worth. It wasn't exactly non-horrifying. He was acutely aware of what his acquaintances were doing, if they had sustained themselves for this long.
Before leaving: he accounted his materials. He had the bait, he'd received the stick of fishing from an inventory, which was bundled in his rucksack, supported by an ovular tin of flies. He made a quick plan: the fish would find themselves in a sort of purgatory; he must still have a light fly that could work as consumption to their will to dwell with only divine afterworlds-men. This would tackle them into what would be his dinner, with salad. As for their will: he was sure such facets would come afloat in the next form, as he broke the bread and the soul transcends.

Truly: Joost made one of his feet start what would be a long adjourn. Foot after foot after foot: he walked in incalculable, varied strides while looking up at the sky. The earth split gelatinously beneath him, and the death of an overgrowth befell the grass blades as they were stamped out by the figure. His weight lent to the foot was exceptionally substantiated and boor great weight. Joost was peering deep into the great expanse ahead, and the tree-towers, which had their branches made almost electrical by the indoctrination of the acerbic weather. They scratched out unnecessary and nonsensical directions to grow their leaves in. His gaze loosened slightly, and became more Machiavellian. While his head was facing forward: his eyes set on up. His arms moved back and forward with more stability than his strides, of which there was only one. The other hand was contemplating the stubble he'd accrued. He was travelling somewhere a little logically westwards, though he himself couldn't make much of any direction without the intuition of the compass or sun. The sun was a great hallucination as well; he'd studied it carefully enough to percieve that its starting and ending points enjoyed radical freedom, much to the annoyance of any custom.

Only thoughts, never speech, was he fuelled on while he walked. No path was built, and so he walked in an uneven and corrugated line such as was the corrugation built in to the workmanship of his foot. Joost winced; his subject was now the individual leaves of the trees. His foot upon each subsequent step landed heelfirst and quickly expanded to the rest, making each step an explosion. He was walking downhill towards some sort of reservoir, one in which there exists a pale and smooth earthbound bowl of water.