#orphanedshadow

[helltechnicality]

@orphanedshadow + starter call

hunters are usually one of two things when it came to a case. a hindrance or a reluctant help. especially if the hunter is against the continual existence of ghosts on the mortal plane. with how long he's been around edwin is capable of spotting one fairly easily. the familiar weaponry and look of violence in their eyes. it's rather depressing and he just hopes she falls on the kinder side of the spectrum.

not that he'd let her catch him if she didn't.

" i assume, like us, you were drawn by news of an unknown entity leaving beheaded bodies attached to the lampposts? "

[halofcrged]

@orphanedshadow continued from [x] Everything was so fascinating. The creature could feel its…no her vessel, the wispy tendrils flowing from her scalp, the strange limbs, the way the hunger collected in her core instead of spreading through every cell. It was all so stable, not like she was constantly falling apart and pulling herself together. Of course her other form was there, it would take only a thought to allow this odd scaffolding to return to being undifferentiated cells… but why would she, when this form was so new and exciting. The creature didn't really realize that the noises she was making were audible, not when her newly-formed senses were echoing with the sound of her own shadowy blood rushing through her veins. But the growling felt good, it made things rumble in new ways, and opening her mouth let her taste things, like the cellular fluid that dripped down her face in bloody trails. It also revealed far too many extremely sharp teeth, not that she realized it meant anything. She was so caught up in the sensations that it took a moment to register the sounds of her kin's attempt at communication. With her mind feeling clearer than ever it only took a second for her to try and copy one of the signals he always used, clumsy fingers, actual fingers, how fascinating, attempting to signal that it was all clear, no threats present.

There was very little about the last few days of his life that made a great deal of logical sense to him right about now; maybe, one day, after he had the time necessary to process how he'd gone from being transported from the Halo to this once Covenant controlled world, to fighting for his life against the remnant creatures of the Flood that had somehow managed to survive and perpetuate themselves here for ... decades, centuries? to ... watching the inky shapeless entity that he'd dubbed Rex in honor of his childhood dog sink into a vat of goop and come out .....

Human shaped?

Maybe. One day, very very far from now, he might have all the pieces he needed to put the particulars of this puzzle together.

The creature had started out as little more than a shapeless entity, the feeling of eyes on him that he couldn't shake. Only after he'd winged it with a spray of bullets had it even taken any form that he could recognize as anything other than shadows and he still wasn't entirely clear as to why it hadn't retaliated and tried to eat him, and instead, settled for consuming the Flood entity that had been moments away from trying to swallow him whole, but here they were.

He'd taken to talking to it, maybe just to keep him a little more sane, maybe to convince himself that there was some kind of sentience in there for his own comfort. It hadn't taken him long to realize that maybe there actually was.

By the time they'd made it to the safety of the underground bunker of the original owners of the foundry, he'd accepted that he was stuck with it -- and it hadn't been the worst partnership he'd ever found himself in, though maybe the most unlikely.

He'd watched, equally wary and fascinated, as the entity had slurped its way out of the vat of ... nutrients, that it had consumed, fascinated by the attempt it had made to find form and function. Or at least form. The helmet that he'd removed on entering the safety of the bunker was recording everything. He expected Cortana would have much to say about this later on. "Right." His brow furrowed a little as fingers formed, and conveyed a response. "Right." Definitely not a dog.

"No biting. That seems like a good first ground rule," John said. "You don't bite me, and I won't bite you." Sounded like a good plan.

"I'm John. John 117." He tapped a finger to the number on his suit. "Do you have a ... designation? A name?"

[furyanfcrged]

@orphanedshadow sent a meme.

send ⛓️ to find my muse bloody, bruised and restrained

It hadn't been enough for them to simply subdue and restrain him. They'd taken their time, working him over, each of them taking their pound of flesh -- vengeance, they called it, for the members of their crew he'd taken out -- he'd called that self preservation, he saw that as common sense, but clearly, they hadn't seen it his way. Still, he hadn't begrudged them their bloodshed. He supposed they'd expect him to be grateful that they'd kept him breathing.

The prison guards had been pleased enough to seen him already tenderized. Less trouble, they'd assumed, if he was already limping when they threw him into the pit that they assumed would be his home until he drew his last breath. Another super max, with deeper and darker holes, and inescapable.

Just like the last one. And the one before that.

They hadn't bothered to take off the restraints before dumping him down the chute. They were paid for breathing bodies, and until they found him without a pulse, they could keep his name on the books. That's as far as their concern went.

The chains that draped from wrist to wrist, and ankle to ankle, had been an impediment, sure, but they'd also served as weapon enough to get the bravest of the prisoners off of him, when they'd swarmed him. He'd stripped the bodies of their shirts, and a jacket, which he'd spent the last hour tearing into strips that he'd wrapped the manacles and chains in - enough to keep them from wearing his skin raw, and more importantly, to muffle the clanks that would be the biggest giveaway of his location to anyone that wanted to hunt him.

Inevitably, there would be someone, that wanted to make a name for themselves. They'd have to find him first.

He'd managed to squirrel himself into one of the deeper, darker tunnel systems. One that not many people would be physically capable of traversing, and that almost none would have the ability to navigate without light that would give away their approach. He'd settled back, liquid silver eyes half closed, his breath and heart rate easing into a slow and steady pace as he let himself relax. Almost doze.

The shift of movement was subtle. A shade of black, in black. The faintest of whispers of cloth, shifting against skin. His breathing didn't change, or his pulse, but the angle of his gaze tilted, finding the shape of something - someone, small, lithe, crouched in shadows. Pale skin, dark and cluttered hair, dark eyes; had she even ever seen daylight? A blip in his pulse, then, a twitch of a low and long burning rage. "I won't bite, if you won't." His words were low, graveled, and in the darkness, the barest glint of teeth, visible as he flashed a moment's grin.

[hauntfcrged]

@orphanedshadow / gets a starter.

It was often difficult to sift fact from fiction when it came time to research the history of places that she and Ed had been asked to investigate. Time itself eroded much in the way of facts, often leaving only distorted oral histories and superstitions in place of anything concrete that might offer a lead as to who, or what, was corrupting, or haunting a house, or land leaving it, more times than not, for Lorraine to have little choice but to trust her instincts and her sight to reveal the truth when she arrived on location.

Initially, it had seemed that this would be the same. While there were plenty of rumors, and local legends about the property (a forty-odd acre expanse of land, complete with a dilapidated and barely-begun-remodeled mansion) to fuel the imagination, it hadn't taken the Warrens long to realize that whatever had taken root on the land seemed to have been present for quite some time, and had been rather well documented over the last century and a half. Crops, rotting and withered; diseased and desiccated herds; adolescents and adults, the elderly, all falling ill and into fits of madness - newspaper articles, even the occasional media news clips, in more recent decades, medical reports for some and lab results from tests run for radiation, metal or infectious diseases, fungal infections, poisons, chemical run off and more filled the boxes that were in the trunk of Lorraine's station wagon.

She suspected that this case would be unusual in more ways than just the abundance of potential proof, though why she could not explain just yet. A bedroom, most of the kitchen, one bathroom and the study had been mostly completed with the modern renovations before construction had been halted, and she had passed her first night in the house with surprising ease.

Now, only a couple of hours past sunrise, she had finished her cup of coffee and eggs, and toast, and with the copy of the blueprints of the house and the property line surveys, her bible, rosary, her vial of holy water, and a thermos of coffee tucked into her bag, she set to make her way through what parts of the house she would deem safe to examine and, if time permitted, scout the clearing around the house before it got too dark to continue her investigation.

[rasafcrged]

@orphanedshadow gets a bg3 starter.

"It's okay --" Elizabeth showed her hands, palms out, front and back for good measure, a soft smile offered as she dropped into an easy crouch in front of the wreckage that the girl was hiding behind -- or trapped under; she couldn't quite tell. "I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to help, but we shouldn't stay here any longer than we have to." The crashed ship was undoubtedly going to bring people investigating, and chances seemed high that some of those people would be allies of those that had first taken all of the unwilling occupants of the ship hostage to start with.

[tuppencetrinkets]

made as a gift for @orphanedshadow ; do not reblog or use if you are not the person tagged in this post.

[faunafcrged]

@orphanedshadow; for kara. / do not reblog w/out <---'s permission.

[caelumfcrged]

@orphanedshadow / gets a starter.

Even if she didn't know where she was, she knew where she was going. She could feel it, like a tug against her wrist, or on her spine. The dark was pervasive, and the tunnels were slippery and she'd knocked a knee or an elbow more times than she could count, and had collected more momentary scrapes and scratches than her dignity would've liked, but they didn't linger more than a moment. The threads of silvery blue flame sparked outwards every now and then, tendrils of heavens fire pushing through the inky darkness, giving her enough light to avoid the worst of the slips and sudden drops off.

She'd had to back track a couple times cause even if she'd been heading in the right direction, even she couldn't jump some of the distances, or phase through solid rock, so there'd been a few setbacks but she tromped onwards. She hadn't come this far to give up cause of a rockslide and if she'd done all this and then gave up and went home without Kara she would be in loads of trouble for nothing and -- even if they'd never say it, she was pretty sure there was some part of her moms that wouldn't ever forgive her if she failed ... so onwards she went.

[wyldefcrged]

@orphanedshadow sent a meme.

I hunt alone. I suggest you leave before you discover why.

While it was certainly not unusual for her to run into others pursuing the same prey as her, there were enough things about this particular competition that had made her pause. Young. Female. Alone. -- at least as far as Wynter could determine. All of which were things that were generally considered detractors for those in this particular line of work. Things that often led to a sometimes quick and always bloody end. If they were lucky, it was to the monsters, and not the hunters.

But this one? She was silent, and slippery, and if it hadn't been for almost sheer accident of attempting to choose the same perch to watch and observe, she might not have even known the other hunter was present. Head tilts, at the emphatic gestures cast her way, in such a way that left little need for understanding the signs to get the gist. "I haven't followed him this long, to walk away now," she signed back, gaze narrowing fractionally as she shrugged her pack off her shoulder, sliding it down to rest against her leg, though still making no move to go for whatever weaponry she had hidden on her person.

[helltechnicality]

@orphanedshadow + orbwin

a small white orb floated in the office. edwin had not noticed he'd reached a point of exhaustion deep enough with the slew of cases and his research for location niko that he had reverted to a ghostly form most uncommon. the orb glows and shimmers white and is barely larger than the common cricket ball. as the door opens he moves hoping it to be charles but it isn't. great.

[halofcrged]

@orphanedshadow gets a starter.

He was cut off, stranded, and he didn't know how long it would be before rescue would arrive. It wasn't the worst situation he'd ever found himself in but --

He glanced at the ammo count on his heads up display, and bit back a grimace that no one but Cortana would even be able to see beneath his helmet. All right, so. Close to the worst. He'd have to improvise. With enough time, he and Cortana could find enough mechanical and chemical components to create a flamethrower; it wouldn't be the first time he'd had to craft his own weapons and explosives. And it was about the only option left if he wanted to survive the flood-infected forms that shuffled and swarmed their way through what was left of the facility. Intel had suggested it might be an outpost of the civilization that had built the Halo, but from what he had been able to glean from the fractured computer cores and generally useless equipment he'd come across so far, it seemed like something else. Something else that had been experimenting on or ... he wasn't one given to shudders, but if he had? Experimented on by the pathogen infected lifeforms.

The thought of them being that cognizant was not something he relished. The thought that there might be some other alien force out there that was (or had been) scientifically advanced to build this place wasn't exactly comforting either.

A faint slither, a sound in the peripheral had him pivoting on a heel, weapon at the ready. Cortana's overlay of the room and what she could identify read in pale lines across his hud; workbenches, a room, specimen containers, barely flickering overhead lights and the low thrum of whatever power converter still kept this place its version of operational.

Nothing triggered movement with his night vision or the heat sensors of his helmet. He clicked on a low level of the flashlights on his shoulders. "Cortana, any life signs registering on your sensors that I'm not seeing?" No blips of movement on his hud atm, either.

[greatwrath]

"I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions!"

Argumentative Sentences, Vol. 3

"Oh. Oh, really?" Azrael asks incredulously as she watches the unruly, disobedient child storming off. This is why Archangels should not be caretakers of children; she, like her siblings, just does not have the inherent skillset to handle this...this hell-raiser of a creature. Kara needs a mother or, at the very least, her blood relatives.

"Well, that's an outlandish assertion, isn't it? Without supervision, your decisions almost always lead to catastrophes of spectacular proportions. You are unpredictable and reckless at the best of times. Kara, do not walk away from me!" Azrael shouts after her, but her voice is much too loud and angry for a child, and she knows instantly she has gone too far.

[hauntfcrged]

@orphanedshadow gets a starter from bb lorraine.

"You came!" Glee, mingled with a tinge of relief and surprise, propelled the exclamation, a wide grin thrown towards the dark haired girl that had made her presence known to Lorraine the day before -- prompting Lorraine to invite her new friend back to the treehouse for an afternoon tea the next day once Lorraine was back from school. She'd barely slowed down long enough to drop her book bag in the kitchen, swapping it out for the hodge podge of cookies, bread, cheese, pickles and olives that were the easiest to transport and quickest to grab things she could find when raiding the kitchen.

The plastic gallon jug of sweet tea had been the hardest for her to transport, but she had managed it with a surprisingly minimal amount of spillage. Climbing the ladder with it had been an adventure, but she'd jury rigged harness with her scarf, and she was quick to deposit the jug and the bag that held snacks, and plastic cutlery, plates and cups into the center of the tree house that her father had built for her oldest brother many years before. "I didn't know what you would like, so I just brought a little bit of a lot of things," she explained, a little breathlessly.

[uraharashouten]

Her girlfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble—

[spokewar]

"A Jedi is just another channel through which the Force flows." A religion, philosophy, culture, people, language, and place all wrapped up into one, something which was nearly impossible for nulls to understand. Perhaps once calling themselves an Order had made sense—long before the Army of Light had ever been founded—but now the title left an ill taste on his tongue (and it certainly didn't help the public's misconception of thinking them either a cult or government body).

"Some of us are rancor-bait, but the way we view and learn from the Force, I suspect, is much different than yours." Or, at least, how hers was because when Kara had run from home, she had not only left her teachers, but her way of life behind as well. Obi-Wan wasn't going to push his own beliefs onto her, not when her presence in the Force was so wounded, so raw. The Jedi creed might have helped him through his turmoil, but it was not a set solution for every sensitive and it could very well do just as much damage as it did heal.

Lacking any further words to explain, Obi-Wan extended a tendril of himself and held it in the space between him. In it, he held a remnant of what it meant to be a Jedi, what it meant for him personally and his new path as a Wayseeker, the trust and love he experienced throughout his childhood, and the bittersweet memories of growing up, letting go of those who passed into the Force, and his new vows to the Clones and the coming generation. Visions of a homely temple, the feeling of safety from being wrapped in his Master's cloak, the thrumming of a room of Kyber crystals, each with their own gentle tune. The smiles of those he helped, the mourning for those he couldn't, the thrill of battle, and the hope of seeing resistance and rebellion grow through the years of war and growing tyranny. Fondness for his padawan; pain at how far he had fallen without his notice. Gentle hope for an uncertain future.

"You are a patient young, aren't you, it's quite refreshing." His ears twitched at the thought, a small smile curling at the edges of his lips as he pulled back his essence and let it dissipate into an air of content. "Many learners at your age are ready to, ah . . . stop learning. You know, I don't intend to pressure nor force you to do anything you don't want." Not that he fully believed he even could. "But I think I knew a few Jedi who would be pleased to meet you. Who could probably teach you many things if you are willing."

The blood-mothers had been far too obsessed with their own petty scuffles to teach Kara much about what was found off-world. She knew about some of the tribes, specifically the ones that she had been created to destroy, but the Jedi had not really been mentioned, apart from a the few snide comments about off-worlders who didn't understand magick.

The Jedi's ramblings were met with intense focus, as if each word would possibly explain the secrets of the universe. After all, despite Kara's raw power, she didn't know much about people, or how to live in ways that weren't those of feral children and stray animals.

Dark eyes seemed to bore through him as she listened, forgetting to blink as she soaked up every bit of knowledge he has to offer. Even if it didn't seem the most helpful, given her inability to speak, it was still fascinating to her.

"WHAT IS A JEDI?" Of course she had heard of them, and the Angry had told her that Obi-wan was a potential ally, but she didn't know the details. Just the few rumours she had overheard, and the rare foggy memories from when she was little. Not that she had the words to ask, but Kara did not really want the child’s version of the answer, she wanted to understand, to know what the Jedi were, and what exactly the Wayseeker was hoping to achieve.

“BLOOD-MOTHERS CALLED THEM RANCOR-BAIT. LITTLE BOYS, HIDING FROM DARKNESS. SCARED OF MAGICK, OF HOME.” Not that Kara felt the same, after all she didn’t know anywhere near enough to have a real opinion…and there were things more important than strength. That much she did know for sure, because it was not just strength that kept her going every day, it was something else. Something she didn’t have words for, but knew had to be somewhere, the Angry said so.

When he stopped Kara found herself shaking her head no, hoping he would keep going. “WANT TO LEARN. LIKE LISTENING.” It was interesting, even if she couldn’t understand all of it. She knew she wasn’t cultured, that was not a word anyone would use for bare-footed little girls in scavenged robes, and she definitely hadn’t travelled much. All she really knew was Dathomir, and everything else was strange and didn’t quite make sense. Like some of his words, turns of phrase she had never heard before. “WHY TAKE EARS OFF? WOULD MAKE LEARNING HARD.”

[rasafcrged]

@orphanedshadow / post order 66 starter.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

The maw that existed, the ragged edges of the lives that had been torn out of the Force felt like a tangible, open wound inside of her, and while she may not know yet who all of her allies and friends had lost their lives in the recent days, she knew it was likely most of them. The attack ... attacks, had been efficient, brutal, timely. Coruscant and the Temple had likely been the largest force, the clone troopers that had served as allies, that had fought and bled and died beside the Jedi for years, cutting down servant, youngling and Master alike, without hesitation. She had replayed the recordings over and over, as if she'd needed to watch them more than once to remember every frame, every detail, every face, every sound.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

It would have been the simplest thing in all the worlds; to flip the metaphorical switch within her coding, to shut down the torrents of emotions that were the bane of logical thought and that went against the tenets of the code by which she had chosen to live when she accepted a position within the Jedi temple. After all, rage was only a few simple steps from grief, and hate and anger were the path to the darkness that she had vowed to fight against -- but grief, and love, they were the same side of the coin, and for all that she was meant to not be ruled by her emotions, to deny them made her less than what she was -- less than what she wanted to be.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

And to deny her grief, and her rage, to simply shut them off, instead of allow herself to work through them and find her way back to the peace and balance that she served, that was as much an injustice to the Order as it was to the memories of the many that had fallen in the attempt to protect its precepts. So many. She had recovered snippets of recordings of distress calls sent from hundreds of Jedi across the galaxy as padawans, knights and masters had found themselves betrayed, cut down, calling out for help or trying to warn others of the impending, concurrent betrayals.

There is no death, there is the Force.

Grief, and anger, sat heavy in her chest, and for all that she knew that they should not, she knew as well that it would take time. Time, and meditation, and the weak salve that came with knowing that if she, and the youngling that lurked in the shadows of the ship that she had commandeered, that she inhabited, and had used her nanites to shield, to conceal; if they had survived, so, too, others had. There had to be others. The statistics alone reinforced that thought. No matter how cohesive, how strategic the attacks, there was no scenario in which the totality of the Jedi were eliminated in one single strike, no matter how many prongs of attack. There would be others. She would find them.

She had done what she could, with what she had. Even now, miniscule fragments of her code crept through the web of the Republic communication systems and seeped into the cracks of the intelligence network, scanning for any signs of life, any hint of a survivor, survivors, that she might find before the Repu -- the Empire could.

. -------------------------------------------------------------------

In the interim, she had to focus her attention on what she could do, in the here, and in the now, to keep herself safe, and perhaps more importantly, the unlikely ward that she had found huddled and hidden away in the depths of the ship that she'd absconded with. The youngling had barely had time to make herself familiar with the Temple, having arrived only a few days before the attack, and had already been frightened, uncertain, a mix of timid and feral that had caused the council to voice their concerns. She .. Kara, had not even been assigned a Master yet, when it had all fallen apart around them.

Elizabeth had done what she could to keep the youngling comfortable, keeping the lights dimmer, the environmental systems warmer, even introducing a low thrum of vibrations through the ship that would so subtly mimic the sound and sensation of a heartbeat, to give some small creature comforts. She'd also ensured that the food and water rations had been made accessible, but otherwise had done little to interfere or interact actively with the youngling. She had integrated herself into the ship's systems, occasionally making announcements of the time, or navigation changes, or similar ship alerts, and she had easily modified a few of the small repair droids to work as her physical hands, or eyes and ears, where needed, but she was content for the time being to remain enmeshed into the ship. It was safer for them both, for now, if the ship appeared to be automated, and uninhabited.

The small droid, six legged and squat, clasped a box in its forward limbs, the next serving of ration bars and filtered water, as well as a small electronic pad that would allow limited access to the ship's databases (primarily entertainment and educational programs) with the virtual assistant with the voice and projection of Elizabeth's default form was scuttling its' way to where the youngling was cocooned, issuing a soft but insistent series of chirps and beeps to get her attention.