[PRP] Moving mountains.. { Oxiin & Rindou }

[X Purple--Platypus X]

|| Moving mountains.. ||

Who; Inge & Sam. (Not directly present) Oxiin, Rindou and Jarett
When; Afternoon, 2/3pm.
Where; Junk yard; shipping area of Aimes..

Oxiin’s lack of obedience and blatant attempt at escape the other day at the market had resulted in a defined change in style of Inge’s parenting. Whereas before the teenage had laid down the base rules but had, overall, been rather lax, now the straw haired fisherman was running a dictatorship. His words were law and the dustling knew that if he placed another toe out of line the seafarer would start dishing out punishments. The child wasn’t quite sure what those reprimands would be, but judging by the steeling look in the boy’s blue eyes he didn’t really want to push his luck and find out.

It was for that reason that the dust child was sitting rather placidly on the heap of junk. Normally he would dip out of any requests to escort his father to the scrap yard, preferring not to suffer the stream of oo’s and ah’s from Sam – Inge’s girlfriend (though the teen seemed to object to that way of referring to her for reasons Oxiin couldn’t comprehend). However, in this current state of their parent-child relationship the rust boy had begrudgingly tagged along and had kept quiet as the girl pinched his cheeks irritatingly and had cooed her affections.

Fortunately the dumping ground for broken and wasted bits of ships wasn’t direly boring. Metal was plentiful here and as he waited for his guardian to conclude his business with the vexing woman he could scramble over the heaps of worn out propellers and broken hulls, leaving a visible trail of rust behind him. Right now he was handling a dull metal sheet... Perhaps once it had formed part of a tin roof somewhere? It didn’t matter now, he was turning it into something totally different. Touching the tip of his finger to the cool metallic surface he grinned as it flaked orange. Dragging his finger in a circle he created an o, followed by an x and then hastily his name was completed with two dotted i’s and a jagged n.

Admiring his work he shifted his weight, balancing the metal plate on his knee whilst he used his good arm to manoeuvre himself. However his movement dislodged the signed metal and it slipped from the precarious position on his limb to tumble down the pile with a few noisy clangs. Sighing and mentally cursing his crippled arm he stared after it. To retrieve or not to retrieve?

 

[Rown]

For someone whose job requirements hadn't originally been for him to travel around collecting the artifacts that would be displayed, Jarett sure found himself out of doors a lot more frequently lately. When he first began his work he seldom had to make any trips outside, his days usually spent down inside his little room with labels and scattered items, though it seemed the more he climbed the ranks in the museum the more they sent him out for basic grunt work. Didn't they already have someone who was supposed to be dealing with going out and looking for things? He was pretty sure there was someone out there who got paid to do that and was more than glad to go tromping around all parts of the world and countryside.

Also...didn't he have a broken foot? Yeah.

Common sense would have dictated that no one would send an injured man out to do anything, even if he was able to walk without the aid of crutches now (totally beside the point). His boss had told him this would be an easy job though and sort of made it sound like he had no other choice, though he was given the whole day off from his office to go and get what he needed.

The exhibit wasn't going to have anything super fancy, it was supposed to show items from the everyday life of those in Aimes, and seeing as he had to go out and about for who knows how long during the day. . . he was rather forced to be Rindou along. With tagging and bagging he'd been able to work from home and therefore had been able to keep an eye on whatever it was the rambunctious dusting would be doing, and lately it seemed as though the bottle-turned-child was getting more...antsy. Perhaps getting him out of the house would be the best idea.

And so it was that the pair ended up in the scrap yard, a place Jarett had never been and he had to get directions to in order to find. Rindou stood at his side, head cocked slightly to the right as if he were listening to something. The pair were tied together at the wrist though a rope that wasn't light enough to snap should Rindou try and float away, though not thick enough that it chaffed at their skin to leave behind a red ring. It was also long enough to let Rindou get at least a good three or four feet away from Jarett's side, which the dustling often used to his advantage.

"WHAT IS THIS PLACE? IT SOUNDS WEIRD AND SMELLS WEIRD. DID YOU TAKE ME SOMEWHERE GROSS?"

"It's called a scrap yard. We're here to gather a few things for my work and then we'll be leaving. You're not coming off your leash even if you beg me to let you do so, as I can't have a repeat. . . again . . .of what happened last time. Do you understand me?"

But Rindou wasn't listening of course, the sounds of clanking metal nearby catching his attention. He started off towards it, Jarett sort of following but going his own way, and thanks to the rope they were able to distance themselves enough that Jarett could do his business and Rindou could somewhat explore.

Of course, his idea of exploring meant nearly getting crushed by a falling piece of metal he hadn't seen coming.

"WHOA, HEY."

He backed up quickly, his feet slightly leaving the ground as he did so.  

[X Purple--Platypus X]

Sighing Oxiin moved his good hand from where it rested on a now disintegrating hunk of metal to itch contemplatively at his rusted limb. Following after his personalized scrap would mean negotiating the steep decline. Of course, he had managed the ascent (otherwise he wouldn’t of been sitting there) but not without gaining a few scuffs any scraped from unwelcome shards of scrap protruding from the messy heap. Was it really worth it? He could collect it wwhen he decided to get down for good after all and there was still plenty up here on his little mound that humans deeped junk but he deemed miniature treasures. Nodding to himself and content with his decision to stay put he allowed his hand to meander over the selection of interesting metal objects - the scent of oxidisation filling his nostrils as they corroded.

Unfortunately a loud voice interrupted him before he could get absorbed again in his scavenging for interest. Gritting his teeth Oxiin moved his coppery gaze from a twisted length of wire that had caught his attention to the floor below him. Standing there – not looking at him but oddly staring slightly to the right – was a dark skinned boy. However, he wasn’t dark skinned in the way that Oxiin and his seafaring father were. The tone of the child’s skin was not down to the caress of the sun. No... It was more like the burnt out remains of a fire or even the deep tonal grey of storm clouds. Either way, Oxiin could quickly gather that the boy, like himself, was not human. His assumptions based on skin were confirmed on closer inspection when the rust child spotted two inky black wings protruding from his back and that the child was floating a few inches off the ground.

“Hey!” He barked, moving about the top of the pile so he wasn’t sitting but was squatting instead, ready to make a hasty decent if needs be. This change of position disturbed more of the materials of the pile, though it was mostly just small things like screws and bolts that tumbled and clanged off the sides of the pile. “What’re you doing?”

Really it wasn’t his place to demand explanations, but Oxiin was a little apprehensive about the other dust’s (assuming he was a dust) presence. Even if he didn’t necessarily enjoy coming here because of Sam and the tedium of waiting for Inge to conduct his business, he did feel a little territorial. Who had given this newcomer the permission to be here and what’s more would the white haired boy be taking anything? That was Oxiin’s real concern... He enjoyed looking for interesting scraps of metal and if this other lad took some items he wanted he would not be best pleased... Part of his vexation with Inge also leaked into his snappish questioning too... But for the most part he didn’t want the other to think he could fiddle with his junk so a straight to the point and a little bit rude approach was taken: as per usual.

 

[Rown]

Almost as soon as the clanging sound had happened it stopped, and Rindou now turned his head towards the sound of a voice. At least, he thought it was a voice., It could have been more metal, it could have been a seagull. The voice sounded nothing like Jarett or any of the other people he knew (he could count that number on one hand), and for a moment or two the expression on Rindou's face played between trying to place the noise in a better location. The fact that more items had been knocked around did give Rindou an easier time trying to locate where this mysterious seagull-voiced thingy was, and as he thought he pinpointed the sound he lowered himself back to the ground.

"OH HEY. IS SOMEONE THERE? WHERE ARE YOU?"

It didn't help that he was facing the total opposite direction of where the shouting boy had been. The sounds of the yard had echoed so much he couldn't pinpoint anything, not that his sense of hearing was that good just yet, and Rindou frowned as he slowly tried to move his hands outward in an effort to feel around. His fingertips met empty air, as to be expected since his back was showing against where he needed to be looking, and he quickly crossed his arms with agitation at knowing something was playing with him.

A place like this, so full of different sounds, was frustrating when he couldn't see what he was trying to look for. Rindou knew though that the blinder he wore on his face wouldn't be allowed to come off, it must never come off, or Jarett would have him for all that he was worth.

Whatever that meant.

"I SHOULD WARN YOU, JARETT SAYS IF YOU KIDNAP ME HE WON'T GIVE YOU ANY MONEY. YOU'LL HAVE TO PAY HIM IN ORDER FOR ME TO GET TAKEN BACK."

Rindou gave some sort of satisfied nod at this, as if he understood that phrase as well. Jarett had said it shortly after their trip to the market, as well as after their trip to the park, so it wasn't like it was an uncommon set of words.  

[X Purple--Platypus X]

Confusion was clear to see on the rust child’s face as the other boy responded to his shouting. Rather than correct his already misaligned stare the grey skinned youth had twisted his body away from where Oxiin was and had directed his booming tone in the opposite direction from him. It didn’t even seem like he was doing it as some bizarre form of mockery either, the child had a genuine twist of confusion on his face as he had floated to turn around. Oxiin frowned, sitting back on his buttocks and regarding the boy again with a thoroughly perplexed expression. Surely he wasn’t that hard to spot? He was sitting only about ten metres at the most away from the other child.. The other kid was just being stupid and it wasn’t sitting well with him..

Before he could shout again, in hope that the boy would turn round and actually face him rather than continue talking to an opposing pile of junk like an idiot, the dark child was yelling again. This time he seemed to be warning Oxiin that he shouldn’t attempt to steal him... This further confused the rust dustling and led him to choose to investigate the newcomer closer. Something certainly wasn’t right – that much was sure.

Steeling himself Oxiin lurched into a descent. His feet were clad in battered yet think leather boots that offered welcomed protection from the jagged metallic objects that made up his perch, however despite his care to avoid hurting himself he could not prevent a miniature avalanche following him as he dislodged all sorts of metal objects including the half deflated lone wheel of a bike which rolled for a good few metres, stopping just before it bumped into Rindou’s exposed feet.

“Hey, look... What’re you doing here?” Oxiin questioned, raising his good hand and placing it on the other boy’s shoulder, applying pressure to manoeuvre him so that he could look into his face. Strangely the child’s body glided under his touch almost without resistance and Oxiin’s curious eyes could examine the other dust’s face. Ahhh. The realisation hit Oxiin. The white haired child was sightless – or at the very least he was blinded by the black strips of material. He mumbled an apology and removed his hand, prodding the ground with his toe feeling guilty. He had been mad at the other, but it wasn’t his fault. Inge’s parenting had at least established not to be unnecessarily rude to the disabled.

 

[Rown]

It happened almost instantly, Rindou's body reacting far faster than his mind every possibly could. The moment he felt a hand on his shoulder he spun around and almost back away, unable to shake the offending item from his skin, and around the pair if but for a brief moment several objects levitated themselves into the air. They were of varying degrees of weight and size, some of them too heavy to be lifted by a child's arms, yet they all floated about a foot off the ground as though there were strings in the sky holding them in place. The boy had also let out a scream as the sudden shock, one that was high pitched and rather girlie. Normally people would be ashamed, but hey - Rindou was screaming. It's not like he could see who he was making an a** of himself in front of.

Of course his screaming summoned Jarett, the man having only been a few feet away anyway. He'd been listening to Rindou's yelling about this and that, taking it all in stride and generally tuning most of it out, though at the scream his instincts and memory of what the boy could do when terrified forced him quickly over.

"Rindou?! What's going on?"

He didn't sound too pleased, and by the time he reached the gray dustling's side he noticed that there was another child directly in front of his own. Although he didn't come right out and say it there was something about this boy that made him feel a bit uneasy at first glance, the crippled hand hardly being the item to do so, but something more underlying. Whatever it was though it all prompt slipped his mind as Rindou seemed to figure out where he was, the dustling wrapping his arms about Jarett's waist in a probably overly used action.

"GAH, THERE'S SOMETHING THERE JARETT. SOMETHING IS THERE AND ITS NOT A SEAGULL."

"You don't even know what a seagull is."

Jarett placed his hands around the boy and watched as the floating items came clattering into the ground, some of them even making slight dents with their impact. Thankfully they all went back where they had come from, none rolling away, or else that odd child who had most likely meant no harm towards Rindou but had startled him nonetheless may have been injured. He didn't have the money or the desire to try to explain to a parent why their kid was further injured, so he was somewhat relieved to see it all go down well.

"If you're done screaming you might as well say you're sorry too. There's a little boy here and you've startled him way more than he bothered you. In fact you may have even hurt his feelings, what with him only wanting to say hello. Isn't that right?"

Putting on his best face Jarett smiled over at Oxiin, trying to peel Rindou off himself in the process. The comforting usually lasted only as long as things were in the air and now that stuff was on the ground? Comfort time over.  

[X Purple--Platypus X]

Whatever Oxiin had been expecting the boy to do it certainly hadn’t been what actually happened. A wave of nausea rippled out from the white haired child and made the contents of Oxiin’s stomach lurch like he was on a swing, reaching the peak of a movement and descending rapidly down... It seemed that the odd sensation wasn’t restricted to Oxiin’s bowels either as soft thuds from all around announced objects jumping and falling all around the scrap yard. The rust child obviously reacted to the bizarre action and took a stumble backwards, attempting to put a little distance between himself and the child... Never before had he met a dust with such a peculiar sense to them. Ziya had indeed sent a crackle of static over him and at the dust meeting the various auras of the glitter bearing individuals there had created a confusing medley of sensations... Never before had he met someone whose innate powers were so... assertive?

Fortunately before Oxiin could be further unsettled by the dark skinned lad the man tied to him by a rope – another odd feature of the boy – was paying attention to them as was hushing the child, Rindou, and prompting him for an apology. Oxiin blinked, still taken aback by what had happened, he did crack a nervous half smile at the man as the parental-like figure (Jarrett?) turned a question to him. He’d just wanted to say hi, right? “Yeah... Hi...” Oxiin nodded, clasping his crippled arm tenderly. “What are you doing here?” He tagged onto the end of his awkward greeting – he might as well make sure his original (apparently startling) question got an answer after all...

He felt a little better now that the adult was guiding the conversing between them. Not that he would’ve acknowledged the satisfaction gained by the older person’s presence – preferring to believe in his happy independence. With his panicked heartbeat slo0wing and his gasped breath returning to normal the stunned seconds in which the objects had moved played back in his head and a peculiar query was raised on his lips.

“Did you call me a seagull?”

 

[Rown]

"Forgive me for not saying so earlier - my name is Jarett, and this is Rindou. I'm a curator from the musuem in Aimes, and I'm currently working on collecting various items from around our world for a display we're working on."

Jarett patted Rindou on the head after giving out his name, though he was certain a child like this would already have caught on based on the sheer amount of yelling it he'd done to get the blind boy's attention. The string that tied their wrists together swung slightly with the motions, its texture touching against Rindou's cheek in the process, and the boy wrinkled his nose out of displeasure and perhaps an itch.

"As for him calling you a seagull, I would just overlook that. He tends to talk without thinking and half the time he talks about things he doesn't know about anyway."

"YES I DO AND HE SOUNDS LIKE A SEAGULL. THE WHOLE GRAAGRAA SOUND HIS VOICE MAKES IS JUST LIKE A SEAGULL."

Rindou pointed his arm out towards Oxiin, his finger actually pointing past the boy and off into the distance. Jarett could only stare at the confidence this little dust seemed to have, and he sighed as the hand that had been touching the mass of white hair slowly moved to rub a throbbing temple. This wasn't going well, he wasn't going to be able to collect anything at this rate.

"ANYWAY JARETT, YOU SHOULD GO BACK TO WORK. I WANT TO TALK MORE WITH THE SEAGULL SINCE I'VE NEVER MET ONE BEFORE."

"He's not a seagull, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble. . .would you mind humoring Rindou for a while? I really do need to get some things together for my job and it would certainly be easier if I did not have to worry about him wandering around and getting into places he should not be."  

[X Purple--Platypus X]

The response of the man shed some light to the situation and Oxiin felt most of the concern that lingered drain away almost completely. The man seemed sensible enough and his calm matter of fact way of speech gave the impression that he was used to dealing with his “son’s” peculiar ways. Even the slight irk of still being called a seagull wasn’t enough to deter him from agreeing to aid the man in keeping an eye on Rindou. He had very little to do anyway besides continue to make junk go rusty and there was always something of interest to be found in another dust, even if they were a lot weirder than the norm.

However, right now, standing awkwardly next to the floating dark skinned boy Oxiin was completely lost for words. What kind of things could he talk about with the blind shouty child? Oxiin could barely imagine what it was like to be without sight but he assumed that as a result of not being able to see things the white haired youth must be lacking knowledge on a lot of stuff within the world. That being said... Rindou knew about things by ear – seagulls where an example of that, and on reminding himself of the comparison Oxiin felt a slight stab of annoyance – so he wasn’t entirely without topics to discuss.

“So... uh, Rindou...” The boy’s extended finger was still lingering in the air pointing beyond him. Oxiin wanted to raise a hand and put it back at the dustling’s side, but considering his reaction to touch before... Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea. “What are your favourite things to do?”

 

[Rown]

"THINGS TO DO?"

Rindou tilted his head to the side as if in thought, his hand lowering to his side and his body actually turning in the direction Oxiin was in. Jarett had walked off by this point, thankful that someone was going to be watching the boy for him - and before he left he'd handed his end of the wrist string to Oxiin just to be safe. A word of advice to just 'pull like hell' if anything happened was spoken as the man departed, which lead back to the conversation at hand.

"I LIKE TO CLIMB ON THINGS AND JUMP OFF THEM. I USED TO HIT THE GROUND ALL THE TIME WHEN I DID THAT BUT NOW I DON'T, NOW I JUST . . . .UM. JARETT SAYS THE WORD IS 'HOVER'."

A smile of joy spread across the Dustling's face as he thought about it, the thrill of zooming up and down in the air. Rindou hadn't even thought hard enough to try anything like flying, seeing as he probably wouldn't know how to fully maintain himself in the air. It was something he'd certainly have to think on and work on in the future, since it sounded pretty cool.

"WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO? SNEAK UP ON PEOPLE?"  

[X Purple--Platypus X]

Oxiin rubbed his ears, cringing after being responded to by the loud voice of the other dustling. He seemed to speak in a continuous shout, regardless of the fact Oxiin was right next to him... Just because he was blind didn’t mean that he had to shout. The rest of the world wasn’t deaf! Gritting his teeth and raising a brow the rust child crossed his arms. “Sneak up on people?” He sighed, exasperated by the boy’s continued childishness. First calling him a seagull, now making silly assumptions that Oxiin spent his time ‘sneaking up on people’. He hadn’t even snuck up upon Rindou in the first place, if that was what the dark skinned dust was implying! If that was the case then every person who approached the blind boy was sneaking up on him! The logic Rindou used was just too stunted and it made Oxiin look at him as if he was not only blind, but stupid too.

Never the less, Oxiin kept his words civil despite the fact his growing disgruntlement was etched all over his freckled face. “Not really.” He replied, picking at a scab of rust on the elbow of his right arm. “I like playing with metal junk.. I make it rusty.” He motioned over to the pile that he had earlier been sitting on but then felt foolish as he remembered that his movements would not be seen by the Rindou. Remedying his error he added, “That was what I was doing when I saw you...”

Something of what the boy had said did interest Oxiin enough to diffuse the irritation that the loud boy was causing him with his stupid remarks and loud speech. The boy said he liked to jump off things, a ridiculous hobby in Oxiin’s opinion, but he could also hover. The rust child’s coppery eyes had spied through their meeting that Rindou’s feet were slightly above the ground and now that he was standing right next to the boy, with his attention brought to it, he was highly intrigued. “How can you do that?” Oxiin’s brows creased. Was it the boy’s equivalent to Oxiin’s strange rusting aura? He wanted to tug on the rope and see if Rindou would drift through the air like some sort of balloon, but he thought it was best not to do that if he did not want another blast of the child’s surprised voice directly in his ear. "How can you hover?"

 

[Rown]

"I DUNNO, I JUST CAN. JARETT SAYS THAT WHEN I WAS A BOTTLE I USED TO FLOAT ALL THE TIME. I DON'T KNOW WHY I WAS A BOTTLE THOUGH."

Rindou lifted himself a bit more off the ground, now about a good foot or two from its surface. The rope that tugged on his wrist reminded him that he couldn't go too far and for some reason he still equated the string to being tied to Jarett's wrist. The Dustling knew that Jarett didn't like him floating off, hence the rope, and it was in his better interest to just stay on the ground and not make a big scene. That being said and thought of course, it didn't really matter to Rindou. He was going to do what he wanted to do and really wasn't bound to anyone's commands - Jarett just happened to have a bit of sway over him and that was all.

"I CAN ALSO MAKE MYSELF REALLY, REALLY HEAVY. I DON'T KNOW HOW I DID THAT EITHER BUT I'VE BEEN PRACTICING AND FIGURED OUT HOW AFTER A WHILE. JARETT SAID I RUINED HALF THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR AND I'M STILL IN TROUBLE."

As he floated Rindou pulled his legs up and underneath his body, as though he were moving into a fetal position. He touched the tip of his free hand to the tips of his toes, holding on to them as he rolled a bit to the side. The roll wasn't intentional and he straightened himself back up quickly, the silly grin from before still on his face. He wanted to show off to this person who just liked making things rusty.

"WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SHOW YOU HOW I CAN GET HEAVY TOO? THEN MAYBE AFTERWARD YOU CAN SHOW ME HOW YOU MAKE THINGS RUSTY."  

[X Purple--Platypus X]

The boy rose further off the ground and Oxiin was very much in awe of the child before him. Despite all his annoying traits he had a very impressive trick. The rope tying them together pulled taught as Rindou moved through the air, seemingly weightless. He wondered what it would be like to be like that... Free he imagined; like a bird in the sky. They floated in a sense... But Rindou wasn’t flailing around like a bird flapping their wings – he was hovering without any physical effort. In a way Oxiin was a little envious. His skill, if one could even call it that, was mundane in comparison.

As the boy playfully manoeuvred himself in the air Oxiin chewed on his lip... The new knowledge that Rindou could also do the reverse – make himself extra heavy, presumingly grounding himself firmly to the ground – made Oxiin wonder whether if he could also flip the coin and reverse his ability. He had never thought of trying to take away rust. The aura surrounding him had never really been something he could consciously control beyond pushing it larger or drawing it in smaller and even then he could only have a small influence.

“Mm.” He responded with a feigned indifferent shrug. He was curious as to how the boy could control the ability but he was trying not to show it. Was there some sort of action? He half wanted to inquire but judging from all the responses he had received thus far he guessed that he’d get something that would only serve to irk him. Before the boy returned to earth Oxiin did do him a slight favour; the bike wheel that had rolled down with him from the junk pile was roughly underneath Rindou and since the boy had bare feet the rust dustling didn’t want to the blind child coming down painfully on one of the broken spokes and injuring himself.

“Go on then... I’ll show you how I make stuff rusty afterwards.” Exactly how he would show the blind boy was yet to be discovered... But that was a problem they would tackle afterwards. Judging by how excited Rindou had been over discovering Oxiin’s rather boring ability the copper eyed child had some doubts over whether Rindou knew what rust actually was.