Out for a Walk (Mizuko and Ryoshi)

For once, it was the sun that woke her rather than a duty. Mizuko opened her eyes that morning, and sat up, almost confused, for a moment. She was still getting used to it, after all. She was in a bed, rather than a tent or a hidden shack during a war, or her desk after a night of papers given to her by the Council about her guild members. There was... silence. It was almost eerie, in a way. She half expected somebody to show up any moment with a job for her to do. But there was nothing. Her eyes glanced back and forth as she hesitantly got out of bed, shivering as her bare feet hit the floor, chilled from the cold of night. Quickly, she made her way over to her dresser, pulling on a simpler outfit than her usual, just a loose fitting t-shirt and shorts. After that, it took her only a few moments to put her typical hairpins in her hair, and convert her gem to a necklace. Couldn't have a blue light shine through her shirt, after all. Pausing a moment, she glanced down at the small pendant, a little frown coming on her face. The last bit...

She shook herself. No, she couldn't think about it. Augmenta had told her that the more she did, the easier she'd fall, just as other of her kind did. Turning, Mizuko put on a smile, though she was the only one in the room, and wandered out, dropping the pendant to let it bounce against her chest. She made her way to the kitchenette that the apartment she lived in came with, only taking a moment to throw a leftover sandwich and an apple in a bag. If the guild was quiet enough, she figured today was a good day for a walk. There was a little garden near the eastern side of the town she had yet to visit, after all. Then she left, the bag swinging back and forth as she meandered down the sidewalk. She took her sweet time making it to the guild, but it didn't seem to bother many people. Everybody seemed to be out on a job, or sleeping in today. Barely a soul was there, save a few scattered loiterers. Taking only a few moments to make one of them aware of where she was going, just in case somebody came in asking for her, Mizuko headed out again soon after.

The garden proved to be a bit more hard to find than she thought. She got lost on the way there, and ended up having to ask direction as well. Eventually, however, she found herself right where she wanted to be. It was a cute little place, trees all around, bushes, flowers, butterflies floating along around all of it. It was the sort of place she wished she could be all the time. A place where nature sat in the middle of chaos, and seemed unaffected by any of it. Making her way over to a bench, Mizuko sat down, her ankles crossing themselves and swinging back and forth, left off of the ground while she was sitting, just like always. Setting her bag in her lap, she pulled out her apple, taking a bite and leaning back, simply enjoying the scenery for now.

Ryoshi sighed to himself as he strode out of his guild hall, wearing his formal clothes. His outfit consisted of sandals despite the cold of the mountaintop, long, dark gray pants, a simple white tunic, a white, fur-lined cloak emblazoned on the back with the crest of Light Bringer in gold thread, and a whitewood staff shod with steel and capped with a piece of gold molded into the shape of the guild symbol clutched in his left hand. His head was left bare, and his golden hair shone in the bright mountain sunlight. Ryoshi sighed again, as it was the time to visit Crocus again for guild duties. The guild master walked over to a peculiar stone lying flat on the ground. It was a slab of marble inlaid with intricate golden scrollwork that formed a roughly circular shape on the slab, which was six feet square and set almost flush into the ground. Ryoshi stepped up onto the stone slab and paced to the center, where he stood for a moment, his breath forming a cloud of vapor in the cold morning air. After a few seconds, he tapped the foot of his staff thrice against the exact center of the circle, marked by a gold dot. With a flare of white light, the magic circle activated and Ryoshi disappeared, for the stone slab was enchanted with a teleportation spell, the scrollwork forming the design of the magic circle.
A second later, an identical flare of light erupted in the middle of a small garden near the middle of Crocus and Ryoshi materialized out of it. Blinking in confusion, the golden-haired man looked around, then swore under his breath.
"Dammit... the darned magic circle malfunctioned again... I really need to get that thing fixed." he said, grumbling to himself. He was going to be late for his appointment if he couldn't find his way quickly.

Her moment of relaxation didn't last long. She wasn't sure why she ever thought it would. After all, her life was hectic even on good days. Still though, even then, the way her peace was blown up today was a little bit different from what she'd originally been expecting. Light flared up, blinding her before she managed to throw up a hand to cover her eyes. Automatically in battle mode, she jammed the apple back in her bag and jumped to her feet, swallowing what she still had in her mouth as quickly as possible. "Who's there?" she asked, squinting and attempting to peer around her hand. Her free hand came up to her necklace protectively, ready to whisk it away to somewhere safer if needed.

The light suddenly cleared away again, winking out as if it had never existed in the first place. Mizuko kept her hand up for a moment, wary of another flash of light, but nothing happened. Slowly, she let her arm drop, blinking as the same dark spots appeared in her vision that she got when she accidentally looked at the sun. Where the light had been, a new person now was. Well, new was a broad term, considering people went in and out of Crocus every day, but she knew he wasn't part of Sabertooth. She knew all the members of Sabertooth, and made it a point to remember their names as well. "Who're you?" she asked, her voice afflicting the hesitant nature she always tended to get with strangers these days. Wars did a lot to people, it seemed. Especially when it came to trust in others. Hers was all but gone, save trust for her guild members. Her eyebrows came together at the thought of her guild. Was this an attack? Were others appearing around Crocus like this, in a flashes of light, ready to attack? The hand around her necklace clenched tighter, and she bent bent slightly, reaching over and picking up her bag, slinging the item over her shoulder. "State your name, guild, and business," she said, straightening up and looking at him, her eyes hard. Considering the way he'd appeared, he had to be a mage, though she couldn't see any visible guild mark for her to glean what guild he was from. Plus, he'd mumbled something about fixing a magic circle. He could be a wandering mage? Though, that could make him even more dangerous. Wandering mages were hard to deal with, given you never could tell what side they were on. Though, they weren't quite as bad as neutral guilds. Gleaning what a neutral guild was going to do was like trying to figure out what the meaning of life was. In the end, it was quite impossible, in other words.

Ryoshi, who was still mumbling to himself about the magic circle malfunction, took a while to register that someone was speaking to him. When he finally realized this simple fact, he ceased his muttering immediately and blinked owlishly at the female who addressed him.
"Huh?" he said in confusion, before registering her last sentence and realizing that she perhaps thought that he was threatening. With the war not long over, it wasn't a far-fetched reaction. Ryoshi swore to himself. He should have thought that people would be a bit jumpy about people appearing from thin air in the middle of the capital city.
"I'm so sorry, ma'am. My name is Ryoshi Akuryo, and I am the master of the guild Light Bringer. Be not afraid, I do not come here today with ill intentions. But if the Council is as unreasonable as they usually are, that may change." he said, ending with a humorless smile at his poor joke.
"I didn't mean to alarm you with my appearance. My guild hall is in a rather remote location, too far away from Crocus to walk or take a cart, and I don't like trains. Thus, I use a magic circle of teleportation that usually takes me right to the doors of the Council. But today, for some inexplicable reason, it malfunctioned and brought me here." he explained. After he finished his explanation, he waited hesitantly for the female's reaction. As he waited, he found himself remembering some things from long ago.

A clandestine meeting in a park not dissimilar from the one in which he stood now.
A pretty girl, wearing a red dress, red lipstick and a red flower in her strawberry blonde hair.
Kisses stolen in the dark.
A tragedy, blood staining orange hair.
A white cloth covering a black casket in a green field.
Brown earth scattered over the white cloth.
A gray, smooth stone thrusting out of the ground, marked with gold letters.
Silver tears staining the gray stone a darker black in the white moonlight.
Red flowers set against the smooth stone.

Ryoshi snapped back to himself, to the present as a tiny tear slipped down his cheek, hopefully unnoticed by the female. Surreptitiously, the guild master reached up and wiped away the tear, covering up the motion by scratching his nose. This entire sequence took less than a second, and it took less than that for Ryoshi to recompose himself.