We are all just prisoners here, of our own device

[iattractmushi]

Characters: Cloud (iattractmushi) and YOU
Date/Time: March 11 through March 16 (though he'll only have rainbow hair the 11th through the 13th/when he washes his hair on the 14th)
Location: Primarily the Wilderness. He'll have to leave eventually because of the mushi lurking among the trees and to feed his cat, so feel free to place him anywhere you want.
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16th, Wilderness? /picks a date that makes this not seem incredibly late

[andcountry]

Cephiro thought he liked this Wilderness. It was a forest, which itself reminded him of home - but also a very... spiritual forest. Which reminded him of something more specific. He could sense the individual spirits in a way, almost see them, but there was another sense that was much more attuned to their presence. Something in between feeling, smell, and taste.

This made it a good place to practice light magic. What he ended up doing was almost like a sort of game: he'd stand very still and silent to try to attract the spirits to him and then, after he thought he had a good sense of them, he'd craft an illusion of what they would look like if he could really see them. Bonus points for making it move around in a similar way.

Hahah, late tagging is always cool~

[iattractmushi]

Cloud had actually spent all of yesterday up in the Tree. The headache had gotten impossible to ignore, after his meeting with Hawk, so he had finally bowed to reason and retreated.

He hadn't spent enough time up there to allow the headache to fade completely; it lingered as an unpleasant promise, like a storm threatening to break any moment. So why he was back here again... it was because of the mushi, of course. Seeing them floating around was so right he couldn't help himself. Even if it caused him pain.

Pushing his way through a particularly thick stand of trees, he paused. He could hear... something? coming from a short distance away. Moving in that direction, he peered around a tree...

Huh. A young man, surrounded by mushi--luckily, all types he'd seen already. He tried not to look at them anyway, just in case, his attention instead concentrating on... whatever the boy was doing. He seemed to be controlling one of the mushi, but... something was wrong with it? Cloud couldn't quite figure out what was wrong at this distance.

[andcountry]

Cephiro turned sharply at the sound, eyes wide like some sort of startled herbivorous animal. The mushi nearby fled from his sudden movement - all except his false one, which stayed put. It moved in a natural manner, of course, waving its flagella around and opening and closing, but it remained unnaturally stationary.

"Hello," Cephiro said, when he got over being startled.

[iattractmushi]

Cloud blinked. He was just all kinds of clumsy lately... or maybe that should be called 'carelessness'. Either way...

He straightened up a little, and moved more into the open. "Hey." He eyed the 'mushi' that still fluttered its 'limbs' in front of the young man, without really moving. "...what is that?" Cloud was pretty certain it wasn't a mushi; it didn't look quite right, and it certainly didn't move right.

sorry for the one-liner orz

[andcountry]

"Oh. It's an illusion," the boy replied, waving a hand to dispell it. "I was just playing."

<3

[iattractmushi]

"An illusion?" His curiosity really piqued by now, Cloud walked over to take a closer look at the thing. Thankfully, it was just different enough from whatever mushi it was supposed to be copying that looking at it didn't set off any of his symptoms.

He reached out a little, wanting to see what it might feel like, just as the boy waved his hand and the thing vanished. Cloud lowered his hand, and raised an eyebrow. This kid called creating something like this 'playing'? Just what was he? "...playing? What do you mean?"

[andcountry]

"Well..." he looked at the ground. Cephiro knew he really shouldn't be embarrassed about practicing magic, but perhaps it was the sheer frivolity of what he was doing, specifically. Or maybe just the fact that he had to explain.

"There are spirits here," he began, looking up but still not really at Cloud. "They're invisible, but they have a definite... I can almost imagine what they would look like." Those weren't the right words. Oh, well. "So, I thought I'd cast illusions of what they'd look like if you could see them."

General 'you,' of course. Cephiro wasn't aware that, gasp, people might actually be able to see them, much less that he might be talking to one such person.

[iattractmushi]

Cloud tucked his hands into his pockets, cocking his head to one side. He smiled slightly as the kid finished his explanation, not unkindly.

"...it wasn't too bad. You got pretty close to the right look. And... they're not exactly spirits, though I guess that isn't a bad description for them, either."

He sat down on a convenient rock. "I can see them... but it looks like all the ones in this area have gone, for now." Thankfully. Maybe he'd be able to carry on a conversation with this guy for a while, without suffering.

[andcountry]

"You can?" Cephiro was smiling, but he thought he felt a little flush of embarrassment coming to his cheeks at his assumption that the man wouldn't be able to see them. Oh, well. "What are they?"

OTL sorry this is so late!

[iattractmushi]

Cloud chuckled softly at the blush of embarrassment on the kid's face. "It seems that it's a rare ability, in my world, at least." He shrugged, trying to convey that he didn't mind the small mistake. There was no way he could have known Cloud could see them.

"They're called 'mushi.' They're creatures from my world, though as you yourself experienced, not everyone can see them." He shifted position slightly so he could reach in his pocket, rummaging for a moment before he produced a cigarette and his box of matches. Lighting it, he took a drag before he continued. "Some of them can make people sick, or influence them in strange ways, but those... don't seem to be here." He hadn't seen any of them so far, and no one had been complaining of strange illness... so, he was going to hope there weren't any of the dangerous kind.