Private Eastern Brisshal Ill-Fated Stars

[Nuwa]

Music ( ♬ )​

Overhead, a comet cuts across the firmament.

The instrument to a world's deliverance, the blazing signal by which hope comes to be born upon myriad hearts, or so would it be were it not for the treacherous nature of stars delivered from afar. Its shimmering hues refract, a single stroke of color coming to do away with the spotlight granted to stars that could not even dream to compare with such a sight. Pastel pinks, yellows, and blues burn bright in the gentle mantle of the night sky, dispelling the darkness wherever it flies.

A new arrival to the world.

As luck would have it, however, it would split. A most curious occurrence for anyone who were to witness the scene, watching one half continue onwards on its path, while the other begins its rapid descent to the ground. Torn apart but for a moment, crashing and burning as most beautiful things are wont to do, a truth universal be in this world or in the other.

Unceremoniously crashing against the ground, yet suffering no harm for the trouble, lies Jia. Or Nuwa, as she would call herself. Her body is that of a stranger, strangely tailored to another's taste yet somehow feeling hers all the same. Consciousness returns a moment later, and when it does, magenta-colored eyes are greeted not by the sight of her companion, but by the very reflection of the sky she barely has any recollection from.

Slowly, she pushes herself into a sitting position, senses registering slowly as the disconnect between player and avatar dissipates, but that is the least of her concerns. Where the fuck am I? Jie? Where- ...I can't believe the asshole went and got lost when this was his idea in the first place.

"Jie?"

Not one without the other, twin stars that had flown together, and fallen together.

---

@Fuxi ​

 

[Fuxi]

By now, the denizens of Eastern Brisshal had become accustomed to the falling of celestial bodies, from the sky to their earthly, mortal plane. Not the death of a star, but rather the birth of something, someone. Once these fallen celestial beings must've seemed no different from the Arcian dwellers, save their birth, but now they knew them to be as great and terrible as the stars that cast them down to earth.

Seldom did these falling stars break apart in their sky though, and even rarer was their landing on the outskirts of their own villages.

"Is he alive?"
"Sure seems like it."
"Well check you big dummy!"
"What!? How!? Besides, he looks kinda scary..."

Blood-red eyes opened, and the children gasped, their hovering faces adorned with perfect O's for mouths. Wide-eyed, they both took a step back from the mysterious stranger who'd fallen from the sky. Jie, no Fuxi, sat up slowly, a hand on the soft green grass. Grass? He remembered falling through the sky, far beyond terminal velocity. That he had not died from a physics defying entry to the game, or the subsequent fall, did not surprise J- Fuxi. They were par for the course. But the grass. He'd have expected his impact to create a massive crater. But no. More than that, this grass felt so real. Unlike anything in the real world, and yet had he not known better, he might've thought that this was the real world instead.

"Uhm..."

Fuxi turned to look behind himself at the children, and they gasped again, taking another step back. The young boy, no older than six or seven, stood in front of his older sister protectively. Right, they were afraid of him. Nothing to be done about it, and he needed to find Jia. "Where am I?"
"Br-Brisshal." Of course, that meant nothing to Fuxi. The man's eyes shifted to the sky, perfectly blue. "Was there another star that fell around here?" The children nodded. "Where?" They pointed deeper into the forest. That way it was then. Wordlessly standing, Fuxi began to walk in the direction the children had indicated. He'd only taken a few steps before he paused. "Thank you for your help. You should go home now."

​

Fuxi has lost track of how long it'd been since he started walking. Not more than an hour. But still long enough that he was growing bored of the lush green forest that surrounded him. "Jia!?" the man called, as he'd taken to doing every few minutes. So far, he'd been unsuccessful in his efforts, or just plain unlucky. Perhaps those children in the wrong direction? Or maybe he'd been walking in circles. It didn't really matter at this point. The best Fuxi could do was continue walking forwards and hoping he found his sister sooner or later.

"Jia!?"

@Nuwa

 

[Nuwa]

.

Jia, no, Nuwa, growls in frustration because referring to herself as someone else is a bit beyond her at the moment, even if it was an extremely important skill to grasp as soon as she was able. Not only did her safety depend on it, but that of another closest to her...

No, fuck that, he doesn't even get the compliment of an emotion felt in his absence. Not when he has abandoned her.

Nuwa wills strength into her avatar's body, and much to her surprise, it responds in kind. She has yet to take into consideration all that has transpired before she's put a thought to it, allowing herself the pleasure of discovery at the technological marvels that had transported her, and her senses, in their entirety to a new reality.

"Shit, fuck, god-fucking-dammit Jie!" Folded arms over her chest, she advances without prompting or instruction, discharging her rage by kicking a rock further than what she, at the moment could perceive. And that, however minimal, still surprises the woman. Nevermind how she remains unaware of how it is that her lungs draw in the air with each of her breaths, how her fingers brush against blades of grass and are thus broken by her passage.

"Haha! I'm laughing, look at me, acting dumb! You can come out now!" She shouts, spreading her arms wide as she pivots on the heel of her foot, the world spinning in a haze. Nuwa, alive and loud, brazen and wild, inclines her chest forward ever so slightly as if to bow to an unseen spectator. The perfectly crafted smile that adorns her face crumbles, and in its place, the truth flourishes.

In reality, her tone shifts, it breaks and trembles as her arms lower themselves and she continues her walk, arms wrapped tight around herself. A touch that she immediately recognizes as genuine, for myriad times had it been her only source of comfort in the absence of another. "...Come out now, please. It's not funny."

But predators do not care for such trivialities, but rather relish in them as they seize up prey and draw back with a low growl, stalking just beyond what she, at present, can perceive.

---

A branch snaps underfoot. Whose foot? Because it is not Fuxi's.

There is a little yelp coming from behind the treeline as it occurs, and the blurry visage of a shadow scurrying quickly out of sight the second immediately after. Another, not too far from where the first had appeared, also does the same, and there is the smallest onset of whispers that starts.

Until a trembling speaker makes himself known, face frozen by his evident fear and the unlucky one to be pushed out to meet a potentially deadly foe.

"A-Are you truly a star, sir?"

The weight of a small group's attentive gaze falls all at once upon Fuxi, the target of their curiosity, as does the impending knowledge that none of them will leave him truly alone.

At least for the time-being.

---

@Fuxi​

 

[Fuxi]

No sight or sound, not hide nor tail of Jia. Jie had begun to worry by now, as he wandered through the forest in the vague direction that the children had pointed him in. The children who, Fuxi had noticed, were following him.

Despite still being human, Jie had noticed that Fuxi's body was more...alert. More in-tune with the environment around him. Maybe it was just the game's way of making up for the lack of a mini-map or a radar or something, but he could feel the children's eyes on him. Not in just that vague sense of being watched, but he could feel their eyes boring into his back from behind the tree they were attempting to hide behind. Fuxi paused and looked back over his shoulder and their little heads slipped back behind the tree quickly. Well, at least he knew he could trust this body's sixth sense, or whatever it was.

"Jia!" Fuxi called again as he resumed his trek. Still nothing. 'Where are you, Jia?'

"A-Are you truly a star, sir?" the little voice cut the air. They must've realized he'd spotted them, and stopped trying to hide. Fuxi turned around slowly, an unaware of how hard his gaze was as he looked at them, towering over them, a titan over mere mortals.

Slowly, Fuxi knelt down to their level. He remembered being their age. He'd looked just as ragged as them back then. Clothes torn, tattered, held together by necessity, not threads. It was a wonder that he and his twin had survived those early years of life, let alone infancy. But they'd had each other. And the way these two held each other's hands, and the way the boy had stepped in front of the girl, he figured they had each other too. They'd be alright, so long as they didn't let go. And they had a little help.

"A star?" His voice was different, a bit deeper, and almost entirely unfamiliar, were it not for his shouting for the past twenty or thirty minutes. "No, no I am not," Fuxi chuckled. "Are you two siblings?" he asked, and the children nodded slowly. "Good. You two have to take care of each other, okay?" Just like he and Jia had done. The children nodded again. "I have a sister too, c-"
"Is that the person whose name you keep shouting?" the older of the two asked.
"Very perceptive of you." Fuxi hoped that was a word she actually knew. "You're a smart girl. Would you two be able to help me find her? I'm afraid I'm a bit lost in here."

@Nuwa