deercountry | Chrollo Catch All

Entry tags:

Chrollo Catch All | February [Open]

Who: Chrollo, & others
What: Various February happenings
When: All month
Where: Around Trench
Warnings: None in main post; Will be added to comments as needed

Wait For Me; backdated to the end of January

A month since Chrollo washed up from the sea, it was time for more Sleepers to come ashore. He had no interest in helping any wayward soul who happened to need a hand, so he lingered further back and let those with an interest in such things greet new arrivals.

The only people Chrollo cared to see were his own. If one of the Troupe washed ashore, he didn't want to miss their arrival. There was also a chance that a squid could take on a less than friendly face. Being unable to permanently kill them was a hindrance, but knowing sooner rather than later would still be better.

Wrapped up to wait out the cold, Chrollo watched, and waited. The sudden feeling of stiffness was a surprise, there was no obvious source of it. Soon, he couldn't move at all. There was no apparent source of danger, as the twelve legged spider omen on his shoulder remained small but visibly agitated. It looked like he'd be waiting longer than expected.

You Take My Breath Away

After the past month, Chrollo was becoming accustomed to the sudden onset of effects with no obvious source. Suddenly being unable to breathe was still surprising enough that Chrollo reached up to his throat to reassure himself there was nothing around his neck. Even though he hadn't anticipated holding his breath, he still had at least a few minutes before the situation was going to become desperate.

A nearby commotion made it obvious he wasn't the only one struggling, and as soon as he caught sight of someone else visibly struggling to breathe he was hit with a sudden need to reach that person.

As far as coercive abilities went, Chrollo didn't have much experience with being on the receiving end of them. But he didn't have many options, and the only risk was to himself. Without giving it more thought than that, Chrollo made his way over and reached out.

Speed Dating

Chrollo Lucilfer, emotionally unavailable and married to his work. He enjoys reading, acquiring antiques (especially books), spending time with his friends, and exploring the darkness in other people's souls.

Chrollo has never done regular dating, much less the 'fast' variety where you're given only a few moments to get to know someone. As far as ordeals go, he's had a much milder time with this month than the previous one even with his odd run of bad luck.

He knows the motions to go through well enough, he's met people and 'hit it off' to get close to them when a situation required it and he's stolen more than one priceless artifact or ability that way.

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Pyrrha grins at Chrollo. "Oh yes."

She squeezes Chrollo's hand in solidarity. Though Pyrrha had to be the last of her cohort standing, she was not the first of them to come to Trench. John and Augustine, Gideon and Harrow, they were all here before her. They had set up house, even if it were coming apart. Chrollo's the first. He has that burden and the uncertainty, the lack of any guarantee.

The description of the rose is close enough to nuclear weapons for Pyrrha to get the gist. She hates it, thanks. Not strongly, not with much of a reaction. That's Gideon. Simple fact. "Nuclear bombs," Pyrrha says, "Planetary revenants are the size of planets easily. No effective way to deliver the payload. Not for lack of trying. In ten thousand years, most ideas that aren't suicide runs and a few that are have been tried."

She guides the way onto the beach, packs away most of the supplies she carries onto her person, and passes the blanket over to Chrollo. His crab dinner is full service start to finish. "Don't worry about making noise. That'll attract them. Just don't let their attacks breach your bloodstream. As a darkblood, you'll get especially fun hallucination times. I have no doubt you can kill crabs, but allow me. Consider it part of dinner."

"Nuclear. Strange word to use for them," Chrollo says, trying to get from what he knows about the miniature rose to nuclear bombs and coming up short.

Suicide runs are a popular strategy with the leadership of Meteor City, something that Chrollo heavily disapproves of. Even when his inability to use two-handed abilities kept him from using Sun and Moon, it was a worthwhile investment to take it away from the elder.

When the blanket is handed over to him, Chrollo spreads it out with a flourish that uses only a small amount of nen. He is quite adept at manipulating cloth of about that size due to practice using yet another stolen ability, even if a conjured cloth was easier to control than a plain blanket.

"Watching is less fun, but, if that's what you prefer." If anything gets too close Chrollo can deal with it in any number of ways, but he is interested in seeing what Pyrrha does, too.

"You're splitting the nucleus of atoms," Pyrrha says. "At least in my world. They're... not popular among most people anymore. We only pulled them out due to the special circumstances and to avoid the suicide runs if we could."

She raises an eyebrow at the one handed blanket handling and gives a few claps against their bound hands—technically that makes it the back of his hand.

"I know, but they aren't a challenge for you. I do prefer it," Pyrrha says. They aren't practice for taking down D, not when they want to end up with well seasoned food. It's still the principle of the thing. Pyrrha's making him dinner. She leads them a little away from the blanket, taking out the bone baton, extending it to full length as a spear, and humming the theme song to a popular old series to attract the crabs. These she kills in sharp precise stabs, one hit one kill. Pyrrha kills enough for dinner and leftovers.

Sheathing the spear as a baton, Pyrrha pulls off her cloak, sweeps it under the crabs in a smooth move and crouches before the crabs to tie up the cloak and carry them back to the blanket. Is it showing off a bit? Certainly, but Pyrrha's definitely having fun.

"Those exist, too, but they're much more expensive and harder to use than the roses, so they never became popular," Chrollo says.

He doesn't comment one way or the other about crabs not being a challenge for him. He hasn't done much to show his strength to anyone except Sharon, but he hasn't hidden that he's capable, either.

The crabs are sizable enough to make a good meal, and Chrollo allows himself to be led along, he watches the use of the spear- interesting weapon, not one seen often among nen users except for conjurer.

The way continuing to hold hands subtly changes everything they have to do is more amusing than anything else.

"This is much more entertaining than last month. Even if it comes with a side of strangulation.

"Better off that that way," Pyrrha says. "Shame about the roses."

On the way back to their blanket, as well as the crabs, Pyrrha grabs some large rocks. These go in the cloak as well. It's heavy by the end, but she lifts it over one shoulder and walks along. It leaves her without any open hands to react to anything. If something attacks them, she's delayed at least a few fractions of a second to reach her spear, her gun, or her knife on that side, or she could let go of Chrollo's hand, lose the ability to breath, but reach the gun or knife over there. Alternatively, she's trusting Chrollo to take care of whatever attacks.

In any case, they get peaceably back to their blanket, where she sets down the burden.

"Not interested in strangulation, noted."

Pyrrha takes the rocks out of the cloak and eyes Chrollo. "Mind if I borrow our hands?" she asks. He assents, and she brings them over to the rock. Not breaking contact, she disentangles their fingers and rotates so his hand rests over hers. With each rock, Pyrrha meditates over them, biting her cheek, until they're heated up. That's quick, easy, over in a second. Longer is sealing it in so they stay hot a long time. At least she's not as exhausted (blood effect) as when she learned this process.

She sets them up in the sand and makes a flat surface on top of them. "Time to get water," she says cheerfully."

"There are worse things in the world, but I'm more grateful we don't have to deal with anything like what you described. My home isn't shy about suicide runs," Chrollo says. His tone makes it clear what he thinks about that. Even without Sun and Moon, the elders are far too quick to send people to blow themselves up for a chance to take out an enemy.

"Isn't that a bit forward to say to someone you're not on a date with?" In his head Chrollo does the math on how long they've been holding hands and how long this effect might last against how long he can hold his breath. Flirting and death threats go hand in hand sometimes, but killing is meaningless here. A brief blow to the ego, a reminder of fragile mortality, and then you wake back up again.

The display of cold blood magic is interesting. "Are heat and fire popular among cold bloods?" Chrollo asks as they go to get water.

"Sure, it's nice to have a shorter list of shit to deal with," Pyrrha says. Sometimes the little stuff, irritating and real as it is, is nice after all the epic big times. Whether to buy meat that's of questionable origin. How to convince a planetary soul in the body of an eighteen year old girl with less than six months of memory not scream her head off and get them all killed. Alternatively, to eat breakfast. The little things.

"Only if I misread the vibe of what you're comfortable with," Pyrrha said. She eyes him. "Did I make you uncomfortable (in a bad way)?"

She turns over how much to share, but it's definitely a hook. "Coldblood goes one of two ways, if not both—fire or ice, heat or cold. It's easier to heat those rocks, use them, etc than to make and maintain a large bonfire. Using direct elemental magic like that, the bonfire, is draining. Nap nap time for Coldbloods. Guh, which, I gotta say, frequently, the blood effects for Coldbloods are exhaustion—directly or indirectly. Pain in the neck when some of the strongest effects of your magic do that already. I get a lot of use out of bloodstones. Bullets. Grenades. They aren't as powerful as using my magic directly, but they don't make me need a nap either."

She steps far enough into the water to be able to fill the pot as deeply as she needs. Goal accomplished, Pyrrha turns right back around and walks back, unbothered by the cold wet water soaking her boots.

"Benefit though, we generally are unaffected by the weather. Don't feel it."

"Just trying to figure out if you playfully offer to strangle people you aren't dating," Chrollo says. Fond threats of violence that could easily turn into actual violence are common enough among his friends.

He listens to the explanation of coldblood magic, so far he's seen more fire than cold, but perhaps it's just personality of the coldbloods he's met. Sharon has the fiery, angry sort of wrath to her. Chrollo knows the cold kind of hate as well as he does the hot burning kind.

"That sounds useful, a natural benefit even when you're not actively using blood magic," Chrollo notes as they make their way back to the heated stones and crabs.

"Depends on the vibe of the relationship," Pyrrha says with a shrug, "I definitely have friends like that." Most of them not here. That sinks into the tone of her statement the tiniest amount. The absence of friends. The absence of people she'd have her usual dynamics with. Time apart. There's a dearth of a circle of people she can playfully threaten with violence. Step up, Chrollo. Dating or not, she could use it.

"I'm a bit more intense with people I'm actually dating," Pyrrha adds in a light tone, thinking of trepanation with filtering cerebral fluid with Gideon or public challenges from Nonius or murders (not only attempts) with Wake. The attempts were a lot too.

She sets the pot on the stones and sits on the blanket. "Can you pull out the other supplies—the spices?" Pyrrha asks. One handed will be fun.

"Makes up for the naps. Our blood also makes beautiful jewelry, and I've heard if you toss it in the dark, it'll glow if someone or something's feeling fear," Pyrrha says, "Haven't tried that one." She has made something that qualifies as jewelry, but that was personal—for Sharon. If Sharon ever feels the need to toss it in the dark, so be it.

It's almost too bad Pyrrha has so many claims on her loyalty already, but Chrollo doesn't know how ruthless she can be. Her moral compass seems to point towards doing good for everyone. He suspects she can do terrible things if needed, but probably wouldn't let the world burn for the sake of a smaller number of people. Unlike Sharon, he doesn't think she'll reach that point even if he pushes.

He understands the tone of missing friends clearly, because his own are all absent. Chrollo considers inquiring about how much more intense she is with her husband, but that topic has all the hallmarks of an emotional landmine. Whatever caused Duty and Pyrrha to be one person was probably not pleasant. She's left Sarasa alone, so he'll avoid bringing up the husband.

"This almost seems like something you'd see on a reality show," Chrollo says as he starts pulling out spices with one hand and setting them down where Pyrrha's one hand can reach them.

"Fear is an interesting thing. People use it too often when something more measured would do, but emotions don't listen to logic very often." Chrollo acts out of caution, but he knows what real fear feels like. He hasn't felt it very often since he truly came to understand it.

The vibe check gets dropped, which says something in and of itself. Pyrrha lets it, not applying pressure where it's not wanted so early in something half-information exchange half-not a date. Neither of those need that kind of pressure. He got real with Pyralis, but Chrollo's still playing in the kiddie pool with her. For some reason, he won't touch Duty or her husband. Why?

"I heard Palebloods got really into baking last June," Pyrrha says, "Baking competition and everything. Blood effects kicked it off, so it might be more difficult without that to get things going. Still, given the right circumstances, you could get it going."

She talks while working one handed—opening the spices, shaking them onto the laid out crabs and working them in. Once they're all on there, she even sears them slightly, so they don't come off in the water. Not proper cooking technique by everyone's standards, but spend enough centuries to reach millennia on the battlefield, and you adapt a lot.

The crabs don't all fit in the pot at once, which has almost reached boiling, so it'll be batch work. Pyrrha listens to Chrollo. "People have a lot more buttons than fear, if you want to use emotions, and emotions aren't the only tools out there," she says. "Fear's a pain in the ass once it roots itself into people. The sky could fall and kill us any day. That's great, Bob. How about we lay the next layer of concrete instead of you trying to kill Dick over there. He's not ending the world."

Not that fear's the worst. No, some people want to save everyone— or every dog. Real life doesn't work like that.

"I think I'd rather watch that show than host it," Chrollo says, dismissing it. The entertainment value doesn't seem worth the effort.

Pyrrha's words about fear sound like personal experience, but given the kinds of threats that exist in her universe it's not that far out there. Some of the spices Chrollo recognizes by scent and could name, others he knows but couldn't put a name to. He's not as resistant to poisons as the Zoldycks or their butlers, he has to be more aware of what he's putting in his mouth or inhaling.

"Fear spreads quickly, so it's a useful tool at a distance. But I am curious how many things people think are fear but really aren't would cause cold blood to glow. Or the things people think aren't fear, but are."

Pyrrha raises an eyebrow. Chrollo gives off that director vibe. Get things kicked off and running. Perhaps not this. Something. Something not entirely serious.

She finishes treating the last of the crabs and monitors the pot, occasionally sticking her truncheon like weapon, previously a spear, into the pot to stir things around. It's better than a lot of battlefield cooking.

"Coldblood jewelry's available all through Trench. Easy enough to obtain," Pyrrha eyes Chrollo thoughtfully, "as for the rest, you'd get best results from repeatable experiments of solid design. Otherwise it's anecdata."

She grins, "I don't scare easily, unless there's heavyhanded Pthumerian influence."

Chrollo considers the logistics of it. An experiment involving emotions is finicky. More so than perceptions, and he deals with those all the time with Skill Hunter and other people's nen ability.

"I'm more curious if there's a difference between different coldbloods. Will some light up in a situation but not others at the same time is there an output limit in how many can be lit up at one time by one person's fear? Blood magic seems more individual and intuition based than hard metrics and science."

Pyrrha laughs a little. "Oh ho, commercially available Coldblood jewelry isn't going to cut it for you then, is it?" she asks rhetorically, "Doubt you could trust any documentation about where the jewelry came from unless it's the jeweler themself. No, you need to get personal."

With one hand, she fishes out the first batch of cooked crabs, setting them out to cool some, and drops in the next batch.

"More than that, if you want to control for blood effects, you need to get them all the same month too," Pyrrha notes, "Blood effects affect bloodstones, even from the same person. Why would jewelry be any different?"

"I'd have to collect it myself, which means I'd need to trade for it," Or steal it. Chrollo looks at the cooked crabs as they sit out steaming, looking at the way heat has changed their coloration.

"Right, blood effects." He'd definitely have to get the blood himself in that case.

"Blood magic is such a strange and inconsistent thing."

Pyrrha nods. "That or work with person(s) you trust on that matter," she says. "How many Coldbloods do you know?"

She considers the blood effects. Exhaustion probably isn't a great effect to study differences between Coldblood, an emotional dampener of sorts. It's happened a lot. "More interested in the differences between people than the blood effects? Only need one regular and reliable source for the latter."

A lot easier than a lot of people. "It is, yet it does so much. A lot more than fighting and cooking, even for Coldbloods," Pyrrha comments.

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Chrollo Catch All | February [Open]

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cw: mention of suicide bombers

CW: reference to disordered eating

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CW: reference to potential dog harm

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