yogen | I'm feeling alive like it's the first time

Entry tags:

elsword: noah ebalon

I'm feeling alive like it's the first time

Who: Noah & YOU!

What: August catch-all

When: August

Where: Various

Warnings: Typical Noah things including violence, PTSD mentions, depression, his ability to make literally any thread sad for no discernable reason... etc etc y'all know how he gets

Hi welcome to my catchall for Noah things! Mostly closed prompts for now so feel free to hit me up for plotting purposes! If you're looking for something open and event-related he has an event toplevel over heeeeere. Feel free to also wildcard me on this post, I'm down for anything. :)

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[Childe has a huge family, considering he's the exact middle of seven(ish) siblings. Which means he's quite used to the excited sketch show-and-tell from Anthon and Teucer, and as a result watching over Noah's shoulder to examine the drawings is something that feels warmly familiar to him. He's a little slouched against the row of lockers, undoing the tight and methodical ties on the neck of a small leather bag. The moment he does finally get it open, the smell of fish is immediately bleeding into the air as he reaches in to pluck out a single piece of shredded squid. He then proceeds to tear it in half, offering one segment to Noah and popping the other into his mouth.

He had been mostly investigating each sketch quietly, offering the occasional praise here and there on composition and linework. It's when the conversation shifts to void talk that his interest goes from stemming from a place of warmth to one of an immense sense of curiosity, straightening in demeanor just the slightest amount.]

So does it happen anywhere, then? The ghosts, I mean. Do we know if there's a limit to how far they can go to find you?

[Noah takes the offered squid with a quirked brow, because he's... never had squid before, oops? He's not quite sure what it is but it smells fishy and he figures, why not, he'll try anything once. It's actually quite good, and Noah makes a mental note to find the ocean and try squid back home. Maybe... Port Lurensia... it's a port, right, they've gotta have seafood.

Anyway.]

Mm... They can pass through walls and doors, which we found out the hard way. They'll superimpose themselves over your body and drain your life away if they think you're a threat, too, so when I was killing the shadow people left and right to try and defend Senku, Kokichi, and Nao, it drove them away from the room they were in at the cost of my wellbeing. I was cold and numb-feeling all over for about a week afterwards.

[It might be obvious as to why Clamor is constantly freaking out over Noah's wellbeing considering he does stupid shit like that on the reg.]

However, if you don't mess with them, they leave you alone. For some reason they have a fixation with corpses and dying people. I don't know why, but... if you're in there and you're in mortal danger, you need to break a mirror to get out immediately, or they'll grab you and throw you in the auditorium void. I don't know what happens to you after that... I'm assuming you die horribly.

[And probably painfully! Or numbly?]

[He spends a few moments just thoughtfully chewing, tying the bag back up as he runs Noah's explanation over and over in his head. His knots are ridiculously tight; he's been trying to ration and that means these have to stay as fresh for as long as possible. ]

Walk through walls, huh? [These things sound very unique, and he desperately wants to know how they work so that he can conquer them.] But they die, like anything else? Was it hard to kill them?

[After a moment he realizes his curiosity is getting the better of him in a very obvious kind of way, and he should probably pull back the twenty questions just a bit. He shifts then, draping an arm around Noah's shoulders and giving the boy a little jostle of camaraderie.] It sounds terrible. I'm sorry you had to do that. [This, at least, is genuine. Noah's just a kid, he shouldn't have to be doing the job of adults all on his own.]

[Not the jostle of camaraderie!! Noah makes a noise somewhere between a surprised cat and a "wh—" before he just kind of bonks his head against Childe's shoulder in acceptance. Harque would do this too, though a little lighter and easier, usually picking Noah up in the process... sigh.]

I was the only one who could, was the thing. My shadows, [and he flicks his left wrist, black hand whirling with wisps of shadow all of a sudden,] were the only things that were able to cut them. No one else could do anything.

[Though, Stephanie did try to kite the shadows around, and that worked... but she couldn't kill them. Not even Sherlock's powerful kicks could disable them. It had been Noah. Noah's moment to shine, to save everyone, to uh... unfortunately show off the side of him that knows exactly how to carry a fight.]

They do die like anyone else, though... that's true. If you can kill them. They don't fight like someone who normally fights would... fight...

[That's a lot of "fight" for one sentence.]

And... it's nothing new. I was always fighting back home. This is just another battlefield.

[Only shadows work against shadows. That made enough sense to be one logical step to the next, and Childe idly wondered if his Vision would be enough to make some sort of dent in things... Not that it matters, given the circumstances. He doesn't have it right now, so there's no point in planning things around anything otherwise.

Recon then. It wasn't his favorite approach, but he could play it slow. Safe.

Boring.]

Oh c'mon. Thinking like that's gonna get you down! [Noah's right, of course. Life's always been about flitting from one fight to the next, and that's part of the appeal of being alive. But Noah's a kid. Noah doesn't have to start thinking like that, not yet.] I'm real impressed that you made it out though! Has anyone given you a proper celebration yet?

[That's the thing, Childe. Noah is always down. Some days he's just better at acting happy.]

Well... y-yeah, I got thanked and stuff. The real success was getting Nao out of there alive, considering the circumstances. The fact that she lived is kind of a miracle.

[Senku did surgery on her because Senku apparently can do that, and she did stab Kokichi right in the leg which is admittedly super funny. Noah doesn't necessarily think of himself as deserving of a full-scale "celebration"; to him, this is part of day to day life. Saving people from monsters is just a thing he does, after all.]

Oh, but Clamor tried to fight things with a broom and I'm not letting him live that down. [Bitch.] Have I introduced you to Clamor yet...?

[Someday and somehow he's going to take this kid to Snezhnaya and get him some hard liquor. When he's not like twelve and tiny, at least. He withdraws his arm so that he can put the bag of squid back into the inner lining of his uniform blazer, an amused grin sneaking onto his face when Noah speaks of Clamor.]

Don't think you have! He's the one that's always mothering you, right? Did he at least... Snap the bristle head off the broom? To make it sharp and deadly?

[~~Yeah Clamor is *elswordtwt voice* hyung.~~]

Mmhmm, the half-elf with the monocle who I usually hang out with. He... did not snap the bristle head off of the broom, no. I think he enchanted it to follow him around and sweep after him, though...

[The ultimate form of magic.]

I don't know what a sharp and deadly broomstick is gonna do against the shadow-people, though. He was trying to sweep the black cat away too because it gets... all growly and scratchey and bitey.

[Nods like yes, this is how to describe cat. Soft and squishy, sharp and pointy. The black cat is mostly the latter, though.]

The white cat is nice, but I can't get the black cat to be my friend... prrrrobably because I summoned a shadow cat to try to get it to stop biting Clamor and everyone else and it freaked out and now it hates me.

[Does Childe know about the cats... He does now.]

Sounds useful. [He gives a little snort at the mental image of a broom frantically chasing after someone, trying to remove any shoe scuffs that crop up in the wake of traveling the halls. That's one way to keep things tidy, at least.]

Usually I've found attacking someone tends to put them off on the friendship department. Which is... Sort of unfortunate honestly. Have you tried bribery? It's worked for me in the past. [He's definitely seen the cats around the school but he's mostly just left them to their own devices. Cats will be cats, Childe will be... Up to no good, clearly.]

[You see, Clamor's broom is very useful. Clamor himself is pretty good too.

Noah's going to just... casually ignore that whole thing about how fighting people puts them off of friendship and stuff, it's fine. Everyone in this school is a goddamned psychopath anyway, this isn't any worse than Komaeda or Moriarty, who was... up to something, frankly. Whatever.]

Uh... no, not really. I don't know what I'd bribe them with. I mean, a while ago — when I first came here — I found cat food for them and I fed them, but the black cat wasn't all that interested in what I was offering. —Also, I didn't attack the black cat, I was just trying to spook it!

[Noah, it's a cat. That's like, the same thing.]

[Childe has never quite considered himself good with animals. Okay with them, certainly, but aside from patting the odd stray dog here and there in Liyue's stoney harbor he's never gone out of his way to seek affection from a pet of any sort. He didn't mind them, it was just as simple as he had more pressing matters to attend to when it came to winning the hearts of little furred creatures.]

Generally speaking, spooking things tends to get them mad at you. So I'm gonna have to say the anger is probably justified. [He hums thoughtfully, tapping his foot a little as he mulls things over] Maybe it was offended by the idea that you thought it couldn't feed itself. Seems like the type to be self sufficient, maybe you have to earn its respect through hunting, or... [It dawns on him that he's now humanizing this cat, and after a moment he simply makes a face at his own words. This is so incredibly off topic.]

...it's a cat. [Shut up, catboy.] I mean — don't cats bring humans prey because they think humans can't feed themselves? So the cat would be a hypocrite if it got mad at me for trying to feed it.

["It's a cat", Noah says, and then goes on to do the same damn thing Childe just did. As if the black cat has any understanding of what it means to be hypocritical. That little furball is only interested in guarding corpses and yeeting Noah off to the void.]

What would I hunt here, anyway? Oh — I guess there were rats in the walls several months ago, but I think they're gone now. And, if I brought the cat a rat, it would be the same to it as me bringing it regular old cat food, so it would probably still be offended.

[Sound logic.]

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I'm feeling alive like it's the first time

this void fixation is very quickly becoming a problem

wdym noah's only gone like 6, 7 times

hey kid wanna make it 8

it's inevitably going to happen anyway

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