aka CHERRY BOY HUNTER
Played by stallas
Cash
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Post by SUZIE Q on Dec 28, 2017 0:53:57 GMT -5
[attr="class","cherrymain"] [attr="class","cherrytop"] [attr="class","cherrylyrics"]keep the family close. [attr="class","cherrybody"]Where'd the time go? Looking out over that ocean, ripple, swirl, and stream; the ticks of the clock faded beneath their expanse. She'd seen thousands of its sun rise and sun set, wondering if her other half had been watching them all the same.
The winds were changing. The Marines had been called forth and Suzie felt it deep in her bones that this might be the last time they could meet for a long while. It was hard enough when the seas stretched past the horizon. Harder still when Suzie was always deployed, hardest yet when Kara was always wandering. Somewhere along the road their purposes forked into two very different paths.
She was standing on one of the ports off the side of the island, away from the hustle and bustle of main Marineford and the Headquarters behind. Here, the families of sailors went about their day. The mood was more somber than usual, given the losses of the War of Pride. Some children played knee-deep in the fronds by the pier: teenage dockhands worked the supply crates; and women, young and old, walked about in varying stages of heartbreak.
Clad in her usual uniformed attire, it was hard to drop the stiff, balanced stance she'd become accustomed to using as a captain. But as that ship drifted closer to shore, she might as well been one of her own vain statues—forgetting how to take a breath, so uncharacteristically nervous. [attr="class","cherrybottom"] KARA Q [GoogleFont=Glass+Antiqua|Lancelot] [newclass=.cherrymain]width:400px;background-color:#ffffff;border:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrytop]border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybottom]text-transform:lowercase;background-color:#f3f3f3;border-top:#dbdbdb 1px solid;font-family:Lancelot;padding:10px;font-size:11px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrylyrics]color:#ec879e;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-family:Lancelot;text-align:center;border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;text-transform:lowercase;font-size:20px;padding:10px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody]font-family:trebuchet ms;width:350px;padding:15px;color:black;text-align:justify;font-size:11px;line-height:14px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody b]color:#ec789e[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody u]margin-left:40px;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-color:#ec879e;[/newclass]
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Post by KARA Q on Dec 29, 2017 20:29:39 GMT -5
Marineford. The one place in the world she had leaped at the chance to reach, now the one location where even the mere sight of the pier could bring her to tears if considered for too long.
Kara tried not to entertain such thoughts as she neared the shoreline with thoughtful eyes. The pain in their depths was muted and deep down, chained to its post to never resurface. Instead, she remembered the good times from the ghosts, and looked forward through the small coast crowd, seeking the one part of her past that was near and dearest to her and also alive.
Looking for Suzie was a nostalgic dance, requiring Kara to pirouette to a variety of emotions. Ever she had to bite back the need to pull her other half off the plank she chose to perch on. Suzie stood out, with her ideals forward expecting to never lose balance, knowing there were hands to reach and keep her upright. And because there were, Kara kept faith, deep in her heart knowing that she would see again a familiar long flow of pink hair in the sea breeze.
All notions of time and loss peeled away to leave the picture of a uniformed pinkette, limber and straight in the sunlight. Kara walked over to her with a light step and would reach out slowly to tenderly touch her arm in greeting.
“As portrait perfect as ever,” Kara chimed, the jest in her tone failing to sweetness that matched the foundation-form fondness in her eyes. “How long has it been since you’ve worn a dress, sister? I thought your crew could forgive your beauty on your days off…” And without asking, Kara would pull her twin close, warmly embracing the stiffness until either it melted or Suzie pushed her off.
“I’ve missed you.”
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aka CHERRY BOY HUNTER
Played by stallas
Cash
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Post by SUZIE Q on Jan 2, 2018 15:31:06 GMT -5
[attr="class","cherrymain"] [attr="class","cherrytop"] [attr="class","cherrylyrics"]keep the family close. [attr="class","cherrybody"]Always so strange to see her own reflection. Not that they were indistinguishable from each other; in fact, they could not be canvases painted more differently. Suzie was rigid, cool, with a tenseness that swirled through the air even on a good day. Kara was slightly taller, with an ease in her stride and mischief in her eyes. But seeing her twin brought her back to the days in their family castle, back before Suzie learned temperance and the necessity of her own iron guard.
She sank into that hug like a glacier melting under the desert. "Kathrara," were words that flowed as she remembered how to use her limbs warmly to embrace her back. Suddenly the nerves soothed as well.
A smile not seen, but perhaps heard as she rested her chin on Kara's shoulder. "Not too long ago, truthfully. But it's difficult enough to earn respect in uniform, let alone in what I'd rather wear." A sad truth that being a Marine—a petite, pink-haired, pretty Marine that utilized femme-fatale powers—was stifling in itself. As much as Suzie would prefer to dress loosely and accentuate her features, her pride and tenuous grip on command would not allow it.
At least, not on duty. This was probably why she loved her disguises.
Suzie pulled back to look Kara full in the face, hands till resting on the other's shoulders. "Have you been well? Did you travel safe? I've gotten your postcards, and the occasional call, but..." She peered back at the ship her twin had arrived on, as if suspicious of its sort. It had been a long time since Suzie had the pleasure of cruising entirely on her own and she near worried about it. She was going to have to invest in a personal transponder snail for Kara. "I'm sorry to bring you back here of all places. Unfortunately, there weren't many options." [attr="class","cherrybottom"] KARA Q [GoogleFont=Glass+Antiqua|Lancelot] [newclass=.cherrymain]width:400px;background-color:#ffffff;border:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrytop]border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybottom]text-transform:lowercase;background-color:#f3f3f3;border-top:#dbdbdb 1px solid;font-family:Lancelot;padding:10px;font-size:11px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrylyrics]color:#ec879e;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-family:Lancelot;text-align:center;border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;text-transform:lowercase;font-size:20px;padding:10px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody]font-family:trebuchet ms;width:350px;padding:15px;color:black;text-align:justify;font-size:11px;line-height:14px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody b]color:#ec789e[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody u]margin-left:40px;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-color:#ec879e;[/newclass]
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Post by KARA Q on Jan 5, 2018 22:44:51 GMT -5
Back to the days of their castle stay was not somewhere Kara liked to travel. She had been capricious, stubborn, irreverent and often unforgiving. She had slapped away more hands than she had taken in her own, and through it all only few had made it to her current world. Suzie was an exception, the one light in her life she hadn’t dared to try and extinguish, the one person she could be mad at and envious of without striking to even out the perceived offense. Suzie was her half and her heart and Kara would die before laying a hand to hurt her.
So she smirked softly at the sound of her given name, and slightly nuzzled against her sister’s similarly pink mane of hair as they held on tightly to each other. The warmth of her hold was bold and stabilizing, perhaps one of the few times and few places where she had more surety of anchoring.
The words that came from her twin were causing her nostalgia for the girl’s ways, always the one more interested in status and the approval of their parents, and now the overall crowd. Where Suzie had started to climb under everyone’s eye to get renown, Kara had instead slipped to the shadows to nurture a disinterest in anyone’s opinions. At least almost. There were always the few who lured her gaze and got her to think twice before acting or speaking, for fear of the way it would change their attitude towards her. But those were few and far between.
“For what it’s worth, you do wear the uniform well, better than I ever could.” Kara wasn’t nearly charming enough or gregarious enough to carry leadership. What she usually attracted were souls looking to try themselves against the fates of peculiar roads. “As you develop the potential of that fruit of yours, the whole world will be stonily reverent before you.” Kara was also relieved that her sister was so skilled at not only outmaneuvering her opposition, but at defending against it.
The safer Suzie was, the easier it was for Kara to simply roam.
They parted from each other, with Suzie’s hands still on her shoulders and Kara’s on her twin’s waist. The peace behind her gaze stayed. “I’ve been okay,” she said, not fully a truth but not a lie either. There had been times when she had been deep in the dark, times when the sky was light enough to lift her mood. “It’s getting better every day.” Something that was both positive and a sadness to her. She didn’t want to forget David, but she didn’t want to carry the pain of his loss forever…
As Suzie apologized, Kara shook her head and reached out to stroke the side of Suzie’s fringe, fingers slow in the air as they neared the soft ends. “It’s good for me to be here,” she decided, a firmer mood in the soft chime of her tone, something that reached her eyes. “I had to face this. I couldn’t keep running forever.” And maybe one of these days she would actually visit his grave, to say her goodbyes. But not today.
Instead, Kara moved to take one of Suzie’s hands in hers. Turning from the sight of the sea, she gestured to the unfolding view of Marineford. “What about you? How have you been?” She smiled over to her twin. “Have you gotten any closer to we know who?” The look in her eyes had regained its mischief. Her sister had been fated from the first to be teased about her more intimate connection with someone they had both grown up with.
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aka CHERRY BOY HUNTER
Played by stallas
Cash
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Post by SUZIE Q on Jan 9, 2018 4:49:10 GMT -5
[attr="class","cherrymain"] [attr="class","cherrytop"] [attr="class","cherrylyrics"]keep the family close. [attr="class","cherrybody"]Seeing her own face mirrored brought her back to those castle days indeed. But they'd been set apart early on in deed and demeanor. Kara smelled of the far sea, the air of freedoms and the color of loss. All the things that Suzie had set out for at the start, to journey the blues, bring heel the dissenters and lose her dearest companion in order to set him free. The burdens of the child become golden were no easy thing themselves. Losing one of the twins meant more the pressure for the one left behind. And while Suzie did not fault Kara for it, she too held her own envy under the crushing weight of their parents, lineage, and destiny.
"This fruit taught me that you need respect and fear in equal measure," she said hollowly. While the subject of the Mero Mero no Mi was a sore one for Suzanna—who would be able to wax eloquent on its intoxication and laments—it certainly had changed her outlook on life. More distressing, alienating... turning her cold like the stone from her fingertips. For a moment, her mind wandered back to the myriad expressions on her crew's faces, that moment she had initiated them onto her ship. Terror by and afar the most common response, but a few had surprised her in the past.
Suzie smiled genuinely as her twin brushed the hair that framed her face. It reminded her of them as young children. As their embrace moved to their hands, Suzie squeezed their fingers and turned to glance at the hive of Marineford. "It's different here without you," she admitted. "But it's been... good. I like my crew. I just hope I haven't been too hard on them. I think... they like me too," though she drifted away with a kind of vulnerability that she would kill for before revealing to anyone else.
The next bit caused Suzie to glance over at Kara, who wore that knowing fox face. "What do you mean?" she said defensively, pulling away her hands to preoccupy them with each other. "You know that's not how it is... nor what I desire." Suzie turned away then, staring at the brick and mortar locales that lined the harbor. "But if you must know, Percy is fine," she allowed. "Still confusingly content with his lot. And besides, it wouldn't be professional for a captain and her first mate..."
By this point she realized she had made a mountain out of a molehill.
"...Anyway, Kara. Did you want to catch up over drinks? There's a good bar over, um, there." She pointed at the first sign she saw, a brick establishment labeled The Malt Shovel. [attr="class","cherrybottom"] KARA Q [GoogleFont=Glass+Antiqua|Lancelot] [newclass=.cherrymain]width:400px;background-color:#ffffff;border:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrytop]border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybottom]text-transform:lowercase;background-color:#f3f3f3;border-top:#dbdbdb 1px solid;font-family:Lancelot;padding:10px;font-size:11px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrylyrics]color:#ec879e;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-family:Lancelot;text-align:center;border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;text-transform:lowercase;font-size:20px;padding:10px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody]font-family:trebuchet ms;width:350px;padding:15px;color:black;text-align:justify;font-size:11px;line-height:14px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody b]color:#ec789e[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody u]margin-left:40px;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-color:#ec879e;[/newclass]
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Post by KARA Q on Jan 12, 2018 20:56:27 GMT -5
They certainly had their ways set to different tunes, approaching life from skewed perspectives. As Suzie talked of respect and fear, Kara listened with a tilted head, not able to agree or disagree. There certainly had been times, and especially when involving their collaboration, where they had inspired fear in their opposition, if only by reputation of deed or posturing alone. Fear had the power to bend foe into friend, securing an alliance looking more profitable than a dangerous face off.
But Kara had fallen from grace, losing much of her talents to disuse and dispassion, by the time she was done self-destructing leaving Suzie to hold up reputation on her own. It was one of the things she was sorry and not sorry for – acknowledging the toll it took on her twin on one hand, and realizing Suzie paid the price of her own will on the other. They both gained and lost in equal measure.
Seeing Suzie’s smile muffled all of the unimportant noise of their circumstances. It would never matter which way the two went, the love they had for each other would be forever. Kara smiled slightly as Suzie’s tone gained a wistfully bedraggled note, a vision of the past shining through to contrast the present. “It’s different not being here, not making the meetings to see you,” she spoke back, missing it all and not affording to miss it, too. While they had never spoken of it in plain terms, Kara’s spirit was not suited to the uniform. It had never been. Hers was not a flame that could stay to a candle-shape, obedient to imposed frame. Deeper, she dared not express at all.
“I’m glad to hear you’re getting along with your crew,” she said, feeling a smile creeping along to the thought. “Do you have any favorites? Besides Percy, of course”. She gave a wink, and just in time to the start of Suzie pushing the thought away. And truly, this was something Kara would never understand - why her sister was so sluggishly slow to warm or to want such. She watched on with barely muted amusement as Suzie batted away all notion of her attachment to the white knight. Kara’s hands were to her lips, partially disguising her forming smirk, but her eyes said it all. Suzie had dedicated her life to finding for Percy who he was, while the blond himself had dedicated his to her wishes. It really didn’t take a sisterly bond and a close friendship to tell the two had destinies conjoined in more than just action.
But she said nothing, and merely nodded to the proposition of poor strong liquor but good cocktails and ales, no longer envying their bond and instead ready to speak as witness to its existence. “Lead the way.”
---------- Once inside and partially disrobed, with her cloak to the back of the chair, Kara placed both her elbows on the table, hands joining to support her chin as she watched Suzie with her cat eyes. “Over the span of your youth, I’ve never heard you truly gush about anyone, my dear,” Kara would persist, not feeling like letting the other pinkette off the hook just yet. “If it’s not like that, then what is it like?” Kara watched Suzie with soft, curious attention. “How do you feel about our dear white knight~?”
No way of dodging that one.
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aka CHERRY BOY HUNTER
Played by stallas
Cash
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Post by SUZIE Q on Jan 17, 2018 3:38:27 GMT -5
[attr="class","cherrymain"] [attr="class","cherrytop"] [attr="class","cherrylyrics"]keep the family close. [attr="class","cherrybody"]In the back of her mind she enjoyed this feeling, the surprise, the being caught-off guard... the talking about something intimate and interconnected. But she dreaded this strange nervousness in the pit of her gut, the way her words fell out of joint instead of flowing smoothly in her mind. All of this strange sea-change just cemented the notion that this was a topic that she needed to talk about; eventually, before the years of ignoring it would break her.
Suzie Q took to a table at the back of the bar—as far away from eavesdroppers as possible—and for the most part stone-walled the glint in Kara's eye as she took to ordering. No food was to be had, but she opted for a starting bottle of wine; one for the occasion, as it were.
"Span of our youth," she took to correcting her twin, who in many respects really did seem like the older, more nautical of the two. She blew the hair out of her face in a sigh as she traced her finger across the oak wood. "And you ask a lot of questions," she whined playfully, "so it's a good thing I'm aching to answer them."
"Percy is... hard to talk to. I'm sure you remember. It's not that he pushes back against any conversation I try, but he's dense. Still has a fan club. Still oblivious to them." She chuckled, though the sound became strained against the air as she leaned back, uncharacteristically lax in her motions as she stared up at the ceiling. "It must have been because I'm the one that found him on the shore that day. And you were the one that was already stealing swords from the weapons master, so... they assigned him to me. It was a young crush. He was older, put together, mature..."
The waiter came around with the tall bottle of red. On it's face was a white label depicting a pink flamingo, a rather familiar brand to the South Blue girls. One that, incidentally enough, was funded by their family and kept in ample stock in their wine cellars.
Suzie thanked the man and sat up to accept her glass, which sloshed about as she waved it about. "And... that's about as far as that went." [attr="class","cherrybottom"] KARA Q [GoogleFont=Glass+Antiqua|Lancelot] [newclass=.cherrymain]width:400px;background-color:#ffffff;border:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrytop]border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybottom]text-transform:lowercase;background-color:#f3f3f3;border-top:#dbdbdb 1px solid;font-family:Lancelot;padding:10px;font-size:11px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrylyrics]color:#ec879e;background-color:#f3f3f3;font-family:Lancelot;text-align:center;border-bottom:#dbdbdb 1px solid;text-transform:lowercase;font-size:20px;padding:10px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody]font-family:trebuchet ms;width:350px;padding:15px;color:black;text-align:justify;font-size:11px;line-height:14px;[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody b]color:#ec789e[/newclass] [newclass=.cherrybody u]margin-left:40px;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-color:#ec879e;[/newclass]
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Post by KARA Q on Jan 19, 2018 20:51:33 GMT -5
Faintly smiling, Kara relented softly. “Our youth…” It was hard to tell when ‘we’ had become ‘I’ during the ordeal of their growing and separation, but at some point it had. Being part of a team had become being alone, twice now, one cut more hurtful than the other, and admitting that there still was an ‘us’ gave her warm and fuzzy feelings. The resulting dopey smile from this realization was quick to transition to its usual Cheshire as Suzie revealed she was aching to come clean on the Percy deal.
Kara listened attentively, absorbing every word, nearly snorting at the thought of Percy’s fan club. But her gaze went low and grew thoughtful as her youthful turbulence was remembered alongside what she considered to be the beginning of their separation. When Percy had been introduced to the family, something had shifted, rearranging the pieces. Kara pulled the wine glass close as she was offered one, expecting to be downing it any minute now.
The flamingo bottle stood staring at her, reminding her of how she had abandoned it in exchange for hard liquor that she mostly used as antiseptic.
Her gaze rose to watch Suzie over the brim of her glass, not unsympathetic to her troubles yet slightly amused. “And we both know how much you love to be subtle and mostly veiled. A match made in Heaven,” she chuckled, but soon after shook the fringe out of her eyes and fondly gazed at her beautiful sister. “Are you satisfied with things being this way, though? I know he’s not the easiest to approach, but equally I don’t think he’s as oblivious as he displays. He’s been by your side all this time…” Kara placed the glass on the table and slowly trailed a finger down the stem. “If he’s not acting on what’s behind that, it could be because of you.”
Kara gave her sister a longer, more serious look. “Do you remember when he trained us, how he would keep to our pace until we advanced?” Those were some of her fonder memories, of the three of them on the training field. “I bet he’s still keeping to your pace, and that somehow that makes sense to him.”
Taking the wine, Kara too leaned back, one of her knees coming up to be propped against the table. “Maybe you should just sneak into his room one night after the moon is high in the sky and make things clear. What sort of lingerie do you have? Do we need to go shopping?”
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