Desert Memories:

A log from the Nameless Planet Zi RPG, others can be found here and the main NPZ page can be found here :)




Raven sits slumped over from exaustion, his head drooping toward the ground and his face obscured by the curtain of black hair falling forward and a water bottle clutched to his head. He makes a strange figure, a dark spot in the vast sweep of yellow desert, all alone, or maybe, not quite.

A dark organoid steps out from behind Raven, pawing impatiently at the earth with a footclaw and with a slight tilting of his head, Shadow rumbles a throaty question as he looks down at his human companion.

Riese approaches Raven, her short blue hair stringy from sweat. She touches Raven's shoulder, her aqua-teal eyes searching the bowed head for his face. "Raven?" she asks softly.

Specular watches it's mistress talk to Raven, then looks up to shadow, its golden eyes glinting. It approaches Shadow to growl a concerned question.

Shadow growls softly in greeting as he catches the gaze of Specular, looking down upon Raven with a turn of his head and a slight expression of concern.

Raven starts out of his exausted state, becoming once more aware of his surroundings at the touch and his soft spoken name. Turning his face to discover who it is, Raven's hair falls back neatly, surrounding, but no longer obscuring his face. "Oh, I thought it might be you." His tone could be said to seem almost condecending or uninterested if anyone else was using it, but that is just the way he talks all the time. "What are you doing here, Riese?" He stumbles to his feet seeming for a moment to shrug away any previous exaustion, and holds out the water bottle, half empty from the sloshing sound as it moves, to Riese "There isn't much left, but you're welcome to it, though it's not much use to keep cool," He adds grimly "the heat here penetraits everything." And so saying he turns to look at a point beyond the distant horizon that apparantly only he can see.

Riese receives the water bottle. "Thank you." She sips a bit, then hands it back to Raven. "I came looking for you."

Raven smiles slightly and tucks the bottle away into a small pack, "I guess that makes sense, what else would anyone be doing in the middle of nowhere. So you've found me, now what?" He starts with surprise at the appearance of the canine zoid. "You're welcome to join us if you want, not that we're going anywhere much."

Desert Command Wolf halts. Appearantly the pilot wasn't expecting someone else to be out here. The wolf lowers its head, the cockpit opening to reveal Bianco.

Bianco has arrived.

Shadow snarls at the newcomer, his mouth opening angrilly to reveal sharp jagged teeth.

Riese looks at the wolf, and its pilot. She obviously wasn't expecting them to come. "Who are you?" she asks.

Specular growls, head turned to the command wolf, gold eyes glaring like jewels at the pilot.

Raven hitches the pack over his shoulder and glances suspiciously out of the corner of his eye at the stranger "Even the desert is crowded these days Shadow."

Bianco watches the two humans and their organoid companions a moment. It's been a while since he saw people around here. He had withdrawn from civilization after Rosso headed off with Rudolph, so he was at a loss for words, plus the 'cold shoulders' where something to be concerned about. With a lost look on his face, he turned back to the command wolf.

Raven calls half heartedly after the stranger, "You might as well tell us who you are and what you're doing here." Raven focuses more keenly upon command wolf and it's owner, a flash of faint though very distant recognition passing swiftly over his face.

Bianco stops, turning around. "My name's Bianco. I'm here because this is usually the one place I can retreat to be alone." Haha, ya right. He could go almost anywhere on the desert, but this place had the most memories. And since when was he NOT alone?

Riese watches Bianco, somewhat confused about this. Raven seems to know this man, but how? "Who is he, Raven?" she whispers in Raven's ear.

Specular watches Bianco and his command wolf curiously. With a slight growl, it turns to its mistress.

A small sigh escapes Raven's lips as he looks upon the desert sands with purple-grey eyes clouded over in memory, "That's what I thought once, it seems to be almost as busy as a small town now, no space for time alone in a crowd..." he trails off as a stray tendril of wind scours the area, blowing a gust of heat and whipping up a small amount of sand, unearthing a mostly submerged zoid claw, lying flat and sepparated from from it's zoid, a dead thing, eaten and pitted by the mild errosion of the desert. Bianco isn't the only one with strong memories of this place. He lowers his voice to a barely audible murmer and replies to Riese's whisper "Someone I saw once, long ago. The memory almost seems to belong to another lifetime, and it doesn't matter anymore."

Shadow continues a low growling, softly in the depths of its throat, though the sound builds slightly in volume from time to time as if to launch into a roar or snarl. It obviously dislikes Bianco and seems to regard the command wolf almost with the same expression as a hunting eagle regarding a hapless mouse, and keeps throwing glances in Raven's direction as if asking for permission, or waiting for a cue.

Bianco looks at Raven. He could recognize Raven, but he didn't know where from. He heads toward his command wolf, halfway desiring to stay and talk, but he could tell by Raven's aloof attitude that he wasn't in the mood for that. Besides, Bianco swore never to talk to another soul again. Already he broke his vow, and he didn't want to break it further. Suddenly he stopped, turning around, just now realizing that he had seen something similar to the smaller zoids before. A silver one, with another kid. He studied the other two for a moment, his gaze fixing on Shadow the longest. Niether were the one he had spotted before, and he didn't really care anymore. It just brought back memories. He turned back to the wolf.

Specular watches Bianco. To Specular, the human seemed almost lonely, but Specular was not going to leave Riese's side, and it was not going to cross Shadow further.

Riese looks at the departing Bianco, then at Raven. She halfway wants to talk to Bianco, he seems so .... lonely. But there's Raven, who is more aloof than most.

Riese finally decides no one should rightfully be alone for too long. "Bianco," she says, glancing at Raven out of the corner of her eye. She approaches the white haired young man.
Bianco Elemia Desert Bianco stops, looking over his shoulder. He sees the approaching Riese and turns around to face her. Even tho he was trying desperately to keep his vow, it was almost refreshing to have someone call his name and talk to him.

Raven abruptly stops what he's doing, he /was/ readying himself for his continued trek into the desert, but now for some strange reason Riese apparantly wants to continue a conversation that's already obviously at an end.

Riese hesitates. She's not exactly sure what to say, but she wants to help Bianco... he seems so lonely. "Mm. Nice wolf," she commented, motioning to his Command Wolf. She felt utterly stupid but at least someone was breaking ice.

Bianco looks to where she gestures. "Thanks," he says. "I don't think I got your name."

"Riese," she replied. After hesitating a moment more, she looked at Raven, almost as if she was asking for what to say next.

Bianco nods, also at a loss of words. He looked also to Raven. Finally he recognized the face. Raven was the maverick soldier from the Imperial Army.

Raven stands slightly apart from the others, watching impassivly the conversation unfolding between Bianco and Riese. His breathing shallow, nevertheless stirs his hair slightly as he exhales in a sudden rush, why should Riese be looking to him for help with the converstation? She started it, if she wanted to continue it that badly she should do it herself, but resigning he adds "I'm Raven, though you probably don't remember me, and you didn't ask my name..." He glances again at some point in the far distance, weighing something in his mind. This place has too many memories, which though why he came, is also why he is anxious not to stay, and yet Bianco's presence dredges up still more memories, of a time he'd rather forget, that he thought put well behind him, though in this place and with Bianco's presence, seems startlingly close. "I suppose if you're going in the same direction, you're welcome to tag along, but don't expect us to wait for you if you slow us down." Unlikely though that seems as Bianco is the only one traveling in a zoid...

Bianco nods to Raven. "Well, Raven, I'm not really headed in any direction. I'm just.... wandering." As he has for four and a half years. Bianco feels he should be searching for something, but he isn't quite sure what he would be searching for. "I'm looking for something," he finally says, half to himself, half to the others.

Riese listens to Bianco. "What are you looking for?" she asks, glancing yet again at Raven. She felt somewhat bad for dragging him into this, but Bianco was lonely. Something told her that he was lonely by choice, altho why she couldn't figure out.

"I--" Bianco had hoped no one would ask that. "I-- don't know," he stammered. He glanced at his wolf, almost as if he was expecting it to answer his question. "Something... but I don't know what," he said dreamily.

"A soldier without an army, and therefore a purpose. You're probably looking for the rest of your group, or for someplace where you feel you belong, like you did with them," Raven stops talking, underlying contempt evident in his voice as he adds "Something that I never needed." He walks deliberatly past Bianco in the direction he'd had chosen earlier, thereby removing himself from the conversation, even if he can't so easily remove himself from Bianco's company, and leaving footprints indented into the sand for the wind to worry at, and the shifting sands to errase.

Bianco looks at Raven, almost as if that was the exact thing he was looking for. He glances down, thinking this over. "I can't really look for them. I know that they're just happy where they're at," he muses. He nods to Raven and Riese, turning to his command wolf, heading off, continuing his never ending search.

Shadow trudges resolutely after Raven, leaving a set of prints that entwine with Raven's, his ever present shadow... And seeming quite pleased to be moving on, rather than staying around with this long-haired human he remembers from before though long ago.



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