Forums » General Roleplay » Eagle Constellation ~ Aftermath

The kingdom of Valencia had a reputation for being resilient, but that reputation was washed along with the blood of the Eagle Constellation War. The neighboring nation of Orion had decided that the gifted and nonhuman residents were too much of a burden, so they opened an emergency scientific facility. In a mere four months, their population had rapidly decreased, and their military was gearing up on Valencia's border. They gave Valencia, with whom they'd been allied for years, an excuse as to why their military was so prepared. On the surface, things seemed fine, but underneath, tension rose.

Trade continued with Orion. Their medical practices were unparalleled, and so they made a deal with Valencia's high food production rates. It wasn't a conventional form of trade, which is why when the poisonous drugs started filtering in, it wasn't caught until the Orion leaders declared war on Valencia. Trade faltered, only for the declaration, but when gifted/nonhuman Valencian citizens started dying at an alarming rate, it was finally cut off. The Orion leaders released a statement about the "disappointment of their experiment on Valencia," and the cry of war echoed from the other side.

Five long, arduous years later, Valencia had been reduced to a mere skeleton of its former self. The once green, rolling hills were now ashy wastelands. Humans and nonhumans grew to despise one another. Humans blamed the latter for attracting the demise the kingdom met, and the nonhumans blamed the others for being the finger on that same trigger. Alliances formed from the survivors, and instead of a precise map to follow, the roads and communities were being formed miles apart from each other. Walls were built instead of bridges, people worried only for themselves, and survival rates dropped.

It was well-known that the final bomb dropped on the kingdom had been fired by its own military leaders, to stop the war once and for all, but many people oddly still pledged their fealty to their now-nonexistent leaders. These are the people who hide behind their personal community's walls.

The borders to Valencia shut down, guarded by the military of Orion, but the Orion criminals were too quick to be stopped by their own protectors. They would sneak in and vandalize the communities and murder anyone found to be gifted/nonhuman. Valencians were not allowed to leave their destroyed home, making their desired escapes much more difficult. There were only human citizens left in Orion; the nonhumans had either abandoned their hypocritical home or had been killed by it.

Radiation was a worry of the past in Valencia, although many Valencians had either been mutated or made extremely sick by said radiation. This was yet another entry on the growing list of problems.

More than racism against anyone nonhuman, there was the worry of nonhuman nomads (specifically those who have the ability to change shape) infiltrating alliances, posing as their members, and slaughtering/robbing the rest of that group, so once the alliances had been made, the groups were urged to always stick together, especially in eyesight.

Most walled communities and nomad groups had already been established, but this is the story about a group of people, human and otherwise, who make their way across the ruined Valencia, trying to find their way...

[THIS IS A CLOSED RP. IF YOU WERE NOT PART OF THE ORIGINAL BOARD WHERE THIS PLOT WAS PLANNED, PLEASE DO NOT POST ON HERE! Although lurkers are welcome!]

Astrol wanders around disoriantated and lost as to were he was supposed to go.

(hopefully I'm doing this correctly)

Rarity took off running down the dusty road. Angry shouts followed her to the edge of the tiny, 10-family town.

"SHE'S NOT HUMAN! KILL HER!"

After slipping through the crack in the outer wall, just behind a rundown shack, Rarity stopped for a breather. A figure to her right made her jump violently. She thought one of the pursuers had caught up to her already, but this person was just another girl, short and seemingly weak, like Rarity.

"I didn't mean to scare you. Is it safe to go in?" the girl asked. She had skin almost as pale as Rarity, but dark brown hair that hung just past her shoulders in limp, sweaty locks. She looked spent. Her lips were cracked, she was shaking slightly, and her breathing was a little too fast.

"No, they chased me to the edge. They may find their way through. Can... Can you run?" Rarity hesitated on the last question because she wasn't sure if the girl could even walk. It was a wonder she could even speak. But, nevertheless, she nodded.

"Alright, I have a hideout near here. Come with me," Rarity grabbed the girl's hand, keeping her bounty hidden under her old cardigan.

They hurried west of the Harper Community. Rarity knew she may need to stop along the way for this girl's sake, but dusk was fast approaching, and she wasn't looking forward to being out at night. Again.

Even more important, she needed to know things about the girl if she was going to know her hiding spot.

"My name is Rarity. What's yours?"

The girl hesitated. Rarity wasn't sure if she was shy, careful, or unable to speak. After a long moment spent racing through some tall grass and getting their legs scratched up, the other girl answered.

"Stella."

"It's nice to meet you, Stella. Let's rest here a moment." They stopped in a small clearing with what looked like an old campfire setup. There was enough wood leftover to make a new fire.

"Is it safe here? Maybe someone's still using this camp," Stella worried.

"This setup is at least a week old. It rained last week, remember? The wood is still damp on the inside, but it's better than nothing." Rarity covered her stolen goods with the cardigan and moved them to the side so that she could make the fire. Stella sat down on a nearby log.

With the fire going, Rarity opened her cardigan to finally reveal her bounty: a loaf of bread, a large canteen of water, some carrots, and a rare treat: a tiny chocolate bar. Stella's eyed glazed over at the sight of the food.

"Oh... Wow. They even had chocolate there?"

"This was a surprising find. I swiped it last-minute as I was headed out the door. Here," she broke the bread loaf in half and handed one piece to Stella. They chewed quietly for a while until Stella let out a small laugh to herself.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, it's just... It seems silly, to get excited over one loaf of bread and a piece of chocolate. I remember these feasts my family used to have during the holidays that we would work on together, all day, and then..." Stella trailed off, her small smile replaced with a haunted look of fear. Rarity understood and didn't press the issue. She wondered how many feasts she'd enjoyed in her previous life...

Stella chewed quietly, thoughts of her missing family swirling in her head. Something about Rarity irked her, but she couldn't place her finger on it... Or didn't want to.

"Well, what's this?"

The two girls jumped up at the sound of a maniacal male voice. A group of four bandits had convened upon the campfire, which was easier to see in the setting sun.

"Get back. We're armed," Rarity said in a dark voice. Stella wondered if there was also a knife in her cardigan; she certainly wasn't armed.

"Oh really? Then where's your weapon, huh?"

Rarity faltered. Shit. Just as Stella thought, they really were unarmed, and outnumbered. She turned around, searching frantically for someone, anyone to help. She saw a mousy boy wandering aimlessly down the nearby road.

"HEY!!! HELP US!!!" she screamed in his direction. The bandits laughed and started advancing towards the girls.

Astrol kept wandering around he slowly gave up on staying alert and looking around, he was slightly battered and bruised from running, tripping and falling the only thing he had on him was a note book and pencil, so if he was caught he thought it wouldn't matter since he didn't have much to lose, he kept his head down as he walked.

He heard the girls and saw the bandits, his face was filled with shock and fear, he was thinking on running off right then and there but on the last minute he threw the notebook aside and clasped his hands together, shut is eyes and chants something in his head, a blue magic circle when around him, then a heavy gust of wind struck the bandits.

The first bandit started towards Rarity. Before he had a chance to make any kind of move, she lunged at her cardigan and pulled a gleaming dagger from within it. The bandit stepped back, but his buddies each pulled out a weapon: one had a sword, one had a small gun, and one had a set of ninja stars.

"Grab something to fight with!" Rarity shouted to Stella. "If we are going down, we're going down with a fight!"

Rarity started fighting with the guy with the sword, leaving the other three to figure out if they wanted to help their buddy or go after Stella.

Astrol without thinking decided to run to their veiw to atleast get one of the bandits attention, he waved his hands around with, he thought if he was cornered he'd figure something out soon.

When the gust of wind from the boy hit the bandits, it knocked the one with the stars to the ground. Stella hurriedly snatched up a torch from the campfire and began swinging it at the one with the gun. He pointed it at Stella, only to get it knocked out of his hand by the fire itself. He let out a scream, which distracted the bandit with the sword and allowed Rarity to land an incapacitating blow to his leg. He dropped the sword, which was quickly snatched up by Rarity and tossed to Stella.

Instead of tossing her torch aside, she aimed it at the man Astrol had just knocked down. His dry leather coat, which had probably been finished with flammable fats and oils upon being made, immediately caught on fire and he struggled to get the coat off, screaming. He ended up fainting, his body slowly burning more and more.

There were only two men left who could fight.

Astrol clapped his hands as loud as he could to attracted them and stood still and waited for atleast one of them to chase him.

The original bandit, without a weapon, turned to chase after Astrol. He made a claw-hand with his left hand, summoned fire into it, and began casting fireballs at Astrol.

"HEY!" Rarity screamed after him, scooping up the dropped ninja stars and throwing one towards the bandit, but aiming towards the ground since it was the same direction their helper was in. One lodged in the bandit's ankle and he let out a yelp as he went down.

Astrol turned when the bandit fell and casted another wind spell on him, he then did more heavy wind spells to put out any fire that still lingered around him so they won't cause anymore damage after.

Astrol held a thumbs up to show he was fine and not hurt.

"Nice shot!" Stella shouted to Rarity. She brandished the sword in front of her face and locked eyes with the last bandit standing. His face twisted into an ugly, angry expression. He lunged for the gun Stella had knocked out of his hand, but she was too quick. The sword slid through his leg, at the back of his shin, and he collapsed.

Now that the nuisances were taken care of, Rarity began collecting all the weapons for their use, and Stella walked over to Astrol.

"Thank you so much for your help. I'm Stella, and that's Rarity. We're on our way to someplace safe, and given that you just helped save our lives, I'm sure it's okay for you to come along. Right?" she wondered in Rarity's direction. Rarity had only been half-paying attention, but she nodded.

"What's your name?"

Astrol waved at them in greeting but then pointed to the spot his Adam's apple and vocal cords is located and made his hand flat infront of it, trying to signalfy that he was mute and couldn'tspeak at all.

"Oh, you can't speak? It's okay. We'll have time to get to know one another. Let's get going."

Rarity finished gathering anything useful (and therefore useless to the bandits that survived), and motioned to the other two to follow.

The safe spot Rarity had told Stella about turned out to be a cave with a campfire setup deep inside it. The cave was covered with plenty of rocks, making it nearly impossible to spot from outside. They shimmied through the spaces between the rocks to enter, and other than the campfire set, there was nothing in the cave. A couple of stick figure sketches were on the wall.

"So this is your safe space?" Stella wondered. Rarity rolled her eyes.

"I know, I know, it's nothing much, but it's shelter. Come one, I'll show you what I've been using for bedding."

Stella turned to Astrol. "Are you hungry? We have a few carrots leftover." She didn't mention the chocolate, just in case Rarity decided she didn't want to share it. She already felt bad enough that Rarity was suddenly sharing her seemingly large bounty with two other mouths.

Astrol shrugged and shook his head, only to have his stomach rumble soon after and his shoulders slump and nodded feeling kinda bad that he was eating their food but casting heavy spells can make him tired and hungry faster than anything else.

Rarity dug a pile of blankets from behind a smaller rock inside the cave. She began making pallets for everyone, just around the campfire. It bugged her that she needed to share so much with more than just herself, but she stopped herself from thinking that way.

They deserve a chance at life, too... Even a sad one like this, she reminded herself.

"Okay guys, listen up. We can easily get more food tomorrow, but I can't just shelter you both and do all the work. Nor can I sit around while you guys do everything. This needs to be a team effort, and if you're not going to contribute to the team, then you won't be allowed back in this cave. Remember, I have a gun now, so I can make kicking you out of here easy."

"But... What if you aren't a team player? Do you get kicked out of your own cave?" Stella pointed out, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"I... Yes. But I would keep the gun in that situation. We could all always find different shelter. I just like this because it's easy for me to find, and easy to keep others out."

Rarity got the carrots and chocolate out. There were four carrots. She and Stella each got one, while two went to Astrol. She divided the chocolate three ways, as a mini-survival-celebration.

Astrol munched on the carrot and nodded to say "thank you" and ate the chocolate too, he didn't eat the second carrot and gave it back to Rarity, he was not much in for eating too much food from someone else because he felt like he would come off as greedy, he rather have the girls slit it among themselfs.

"Hey, I promise it's okay. Stella and I ate more earlier, so you can have it. I insist."
While getting the fire started, Rarity noticed that her shirt was riding a little bit above her waist. She yanked the back of it down before the other two could see her embarrassment.

Stella noticed a long, thin scar across Rarity's lower back, from hip to hip, but given how quickly Rarity covered it, she decided to keep her mouth shut about it.
"So then," she said, turning back to Astrol. "Is there any way you can communicate? Maybe you can write your answers or something. If not with paper, we can find something else. Besides, I ought to know the name of the guy who just helped me set another one on fire!" She laughed.