sm_monthly Oct 25 theme
The fourth part of Graffiti World at last, hopefully following the tradition of lots of vivid description (I wish) and short snippets of incomprehensible dialogue.
Title: Shake the Concrete
Author: purplekitte
Theme: OC--Milestone
Genre: Drama
Version: Anime, post-Crystal Tokyo
Rating: PG
Rose was all chitter-chitter like a bird and Bunny didn’t get half of what she said. Mir had the right idea, making bird calls amid her growls to try to imitate her. Mizuko didn’t even make sound like Mir did but every feral was different. As long as she was trained enough to mind Rose as well as Mir did her, Bunny didn’t care.
Near useless, though. Rose used a lot of words Bunny didn’t understand and after she’d decided they were going north so not to this Mt. Fuji, she stopped trying to listen. The part of her that remembered how close she’d come to going feral before joining her gang and getting educated their way made her want to learn Rose and that old lady boss’s way of speaking. Eh, if she could hardly understand it than neither could anyone else.
Bunny sniffed the air and then scampered up and almost vertical broken slab of concrete to study the exact color of the clouds. “Be aci’clow alright, but int gonna be dropin on us.”
“What?”
Rose was so strange, able to understand her words more often than the other way around but then not getting them, like she’d never heard of the concepts before. Just like she could read little dabs of lines and swirls in paint but was practically illiterate in graffiti and tattoos. She’d thought the girls had been the old lady’s gang’s taggers but evidentially they’d just painted things because they were pretty and not understood what they’d meant and now she was just plum confused.
Bunny shook her head sharply to clear it, bits of strawberry-blonde hair getting in her eyes. About time to cut it again; unlike at home she didn’t have the luxury of tying it back. “Mir.”
Her answering howl was long and low. She nodded. “S’what I thunked.”
“Are we stopping for the night? Are those clouds going to bring the acid rains?”
“Not stop.” She was fairly certain Rose had the opposite of what she’d meant. “Aci’clow, ya. Brin here, no.”
“The rains are going to miss us?”
“Ya, figrin.”
“So we’re going to keep going?”
“Ya ya.”
“Mizuko might not be up to it but we’ll try.”
Whatever her words said, Bunny heard from her voice that she was the tired one. She shrugged. She couldn’t expect them to keep up with her. She was older, a gang thug in good health and shape, had been traveling huge distances already. On the other hand, they could go further than they thought they could and she’d stop and find shelter if they really couldn’t.
“Be near there. Rest then.” Mostly she just wanted to get there to not test her theory about the rain.
There was little gang territory out this way. The walls pitted from the acid had hardly a friendly map for travelers every mile or so, no stakes of claim and warning. She wouldn’t have been surprised by a gang on the mountain itself but all the symbols she could puzzle out said mild danger, more so at the summit, from fire, earthquake, and angry ghosts.
Out this far most of the land had been wilderness before the bombs had fallen. Most of use had already been scavenged off the cities anyway. Mir caught small animals and sometimes Mizuko with the quickness of a feral. Between Bunny and Mir they kept any larger predators off, even jungle cats and spit snakes and hunting plants. Bunny knew well enough what could be eaten in the forest and what not, and to her surprise Rose knew northern plants some, better than she did.
Eventually even the concrete skin of the road petered off. Bunny had an animal’s sense of direction: the sun rose on the right and set in the left and not being able to see it didn’t get in her way to know which way her destination was. Maps were all well and good but knowing in her bones was all she really needed.
The mountain finally came into view, gray and dirty of the sort that Bunny called white and might have been back in the days when snow wasn’t filthy before it reached the ground. It was cold with a strong wind keeping the rain off but it wasn’t much as she reckoned it. No one would freeze to death if they kept moving, so automatically not that severe. Rose and Mizuko were dressed well enough by the gang that outfitted them and Mir in everything she’d been able to get her to keep on. She herself wore the least of any of them to show off her tattoos but a gangster was supposed to be tough, that was the point.
The going wasn’t as hard as she’d feared it would be. The paths had been well traveled at some point in the past and were now overgrown but not broken the way things in cities were. The slope was a pain but it was hilly country everywhere so her muscles were used to it enough.
The earthquakes started further up, little tremors of warning that they really didn’t want to go all the way up to the top. Bunny knew earthquakes as well as anyone and had never seen anything like it. Not natural. Ghosts. She was superstitious enough but they bright lady had said here so it must be worth it.
She was just considering ordering the others to stay behind when the ash and fire began falling from the sky. She started in the primal fear of someone who had grown up on the stories of the bombs from old-timers.
“I can handle this,” Rose said unexpectedly. “Neptune Power Makeup!”
Bunny looked at the girl with a new respect. She didn’t know much about witches but she was one and was sure the old lady had been too. It sounded like what the bright lady had taught Bunny to say, so her and Mir and Mizuko were witches too by her reckoning.
Rose’s magic keeping the fire off showed two figures in the murk. Bunny had out her lasgun and a knife in an instant, though she moved her fingers to signal Mir not to charge in.
There was more water now. The storm clouds were suddenly closer, as well as she could tell through the smoke and ash. Fire too, and the world jerking and swaying like walking on a rusty beam about to give out.
Bunny gestured stronger to Mir to grab Mizuko by the teeth and go away both of them. She herself stood strong as she could while trying to see what Rose and the other two were doing to each other. They certainly were paying her all the mind, and dressed like her, maybe…
It couldn’t hurt and might help. She recited exactly the syllables she’d been taught. “Moon Power Makeup!”
She didn’t really understand how magic worked other than through here, but it said it wanted shields and it got them. Invisible if shimmery.
They did make visibility better too. They were dressed like her and Rose, just in a red skirt and purple bows and a dark blue skirt and yellow bows. A lot of them were covered but she could see enough of their tattoos to know gangsters, even if she could only read a bit of them.
If Serenity had sent her Mir and to Ami to pick up Rose and Mizuko besides, she’d probably meant her to collect these two too. If she’d had a gang with her they’d probably had only have used violence and intimidation, but that wasn’t very practical for her. Oh well, she wasn’t stupid to only think like a low-ranking gangster.
“Eh eh there. We be looknin far ye. Wanna talk.” They were listening to her at least. “Sent by Se-re-ni-ty. ‘Kay? Tis ere be Rose-of-the-Sea en I be Bunny-of-the-Moon.”
Title: Shake the Concrete
Author: purplekitte
Theme: OC--Milestone
Genre: Drama
Version: Anime, post-Crystal Tokyo
Rating: PG
Rose was all chitter-chitter like a bird and Bunny didn’t get half of what she said. Mir had the right idea, making bird calls amid her growls to try to imitate her. Mizuko didn’t even make sound like Mir did but every feral was different. As long as she was trained enough to mind Rose as well as Mir did her, Bunny didn’t care.
Near useless, though. Rose used a lot of words Bunny didn’t understand and after she’d decided they were going north so not to this Mt. Fuji, she stopped trying to listen. The part of her that remembered how close she’d come to going feral before joining her gang and getting educated their way made her want to learn Rose and that old lady boss’s way of speaking. Eh, if she could hardly understand it than neither could anyone else.
Bunny sniffed the air and then scampered up and almost vertical broken slab of concrete to study the exact color of the clouds. “Be aci’clow alright, but int gonna be dropin on us.”
“What?”
Rose was so strange, able to understand her words more often than the other way around but then not getting them, like she’d never heard of the concepts before. Just like she could read little dabs of lines and swirls in paint but was practically illiterate in graffiti and tattoos. She’d thought the girls had been the old lady’s gang’s taggers but evidentially they’d just painted things because they were pretty and not understood what they’d meant and now she was just plum confused.
Bunny shook her head sharply to clear it, bits of strawberry-blonde hair getting in her eyes. About time to cut it again; unlike at home she didn’t have the luxury of tying it back. “Mir.”
Her answering howl was long and low. She nodded. “S’what I thunked.”
“Are we stopping for the night? Are those clouds going to bring the acid rains?”
“Not stop.” She was fairly certain Rose had the opposite of what she’d meant. “Aci’clow, ya. Brin here, no.”
“The rains are going to miss us?”
“Ya, figrin.”
“So we’re going to keep going?”
“Ya ya.”
“Mizuko might not be up to it but we’ll try.”
Whatever her words said, Bunny heard from her voice that she was the tired one. She shrugged. She couldn’t expect them to keep up with her. She was older, a gang thug in good health and shape, had been traveling huge distances already. On the other hand, they could go further than they thought they could and she’d stop and find shelter if they really couldn’t.
“Be near there. Rest then.” Mostly she just wanted to get there to not test her theory about the rain.
There was little gang territory out this way. The walls pitted from the acid had hardly a friendly map for travelers every mile or so, no stakes of claim and warning. She wouldn’t have been surprised by a gang on the mountain itself but all the symbols she could puzzle out said mild danger, more so at the summit, from fire, earthquake, and angry ghosts.
Out this far most of the land had been wilderness before the bombs had fallen. Most of use had already been scavenged off the cities anyway. Mir caught small animals and sometimes Mizuko with the quickness of a feral. Between Bunny and Mir they kept any larger predators off, even jungle cats and spit snakes and hunting plants. Bunny knew well enough what could be eaten in the forest and what not, and to her surprise Rose knew northern plants some, better than she did.
Eventually even the concrete skin of the road petered off. Bunny had an animal’s sense of direction: the sun rose on the right and set in the left and not being able to see it didn’t get in her way to know which way her destination was. Maps were all well and good but knowing in her bones was all she really needed.
The mountain finally came into view, gray and dirty of the sort that Bunny called white and might have been back in the days when snow wasn’t filthy before it reached the ground. It was cold with a strong wind keeping the rain off but it wasn’t much as she reckoned it. No one would freeze to death if they kept moving, so automatically not that severe. Rose and Mizuko were dressed well enough by the gang that outfitted them and Mir in everything she’d been able to get her to keep on. She herself wore the least of any of them to show off her tattoos but a gangster was supposed to be tough, that was the point.
The going wasn’t as hard as she’d feared it would be. The paths had been well traveled at some point in the past and were now overgrown but not broken the way things in cities were. The slope was a pain but it was hilly country everywhere so her muscles were used to it enough.
The earthquakes started further up, little tremors of warning that they really didn’t want to go all the way up to the top. Bunny knew earthquakes as well as anyone and had never seen anything like it. Not natural. Ghosts. She was superstitious enough but they bright lady had said here so it must be worth it.
She was just considering ordering the others to stay behind when the ash and fire began falling from the sky. She started in the primal fear of someone who had grown up on the stories of the bombs from old-timers.
“I can handle this,” Rose said unexpectedly. “Neptune Power Makeup!”
Bunny looked at the girl with a new respect. She didn’t know much about witches but she was one and was sure the old lady had been too. It sounded like what the bright lady had taught Bunny to say, so her and Mir and Mizuko were witches too by her reckoning.
Rose’s magic keeping the fire off showed two figures in the murk. Bunny had out her lasgun and a knife in an instant, though she moved her fingers to signal Mir not to charge in.
There was more water now. The storm clouds were suddenly closer, as well as she could tell through the smoke and ash. Fire too, and the world jerking and swaying like walking on a rusty beam about to give out.
Bunny gestured stronger to Mir to grab Mizuko by the teeth and go away both of them. She herself stood strong as she could while trying to see what Rose and the other two were doing to each other. They certainly were paying her all the mind, and dressed like her, maybe…
It couldn’t hurt and might help. She recited exactly the syllables she’d been taught. “Moon Power Makeup!”
She didn’t really understand how magic worked other than through here, but it said it wanted shields and it got them. Invisible if shimmery.
They did make visibility better too. They were dressed like her and Rose, just in a red skirt and purple bows and a dark blue skirt and yellow bows. A lot of them were covered but she could see enough of their tattoos to know gangsters, even if she could only read a bit of them.
If Serenity had sent her Mir and to Ami to pick up Rose and Mizuko besides, she’d probably meant her to collect these two too. If she’d had a gang with her they’d probably had only have used violence and intimidation, but that wasn’t very practical for her. Oh well, she wasn’t stupid to only think like a low-ranking gangster.
“Eh eh there. We be looknin far ye. Wanna talk.” They were listening to her at least. “Sent by Se-re-ni-ty. ‘Kay? Tis ere be Rose-of-the-Sea en I be Bunny-of-the-Moon.”