i'm not CRAZY [open]

[Amber]

"Once upon a time, Zane had gone to an amusement park. He
had a lot of fun there and got to ride on the spinning rides, eat
cotton candy, and throw rings to win prizes like crazy. He'd eat
icecream and get to ride on his father's shoulders, having an
obvious good time. This once upon a time was when Zander was
three and he was still with his real father. He only remembered
this vaguely, since it was such a long time ago, but that was the
last time he had seen his father. Then that other person came in,
who his mother insisted was his real father, but he had a feeling
he wasn't. He looked nothing like this mysterious man, and just a
little bit like his mother, but he couldn't make this connection,
since he was so little at the time.

"Since that day, Zander had never been to an amusement park.
Truth be told, he hadn't been outside the house before he,
somehow, convinced his mother to let him go to school," the
shimmering form in front of Sophie took a deep breath, running
her fingers through her ghostly hair. "So, as you can see, my
friend really needs help, and seeing as I died here a few years
back, I haven't been able to help him out at all, and I really need
to help!" The ghost shimmered, and Soph silently wished she
had brought her katana, then this figure wouldn't be bothering her
about her long lost friend that was probably already dead, but
she couldn't really say. Sophie wasn't good with communicating
with the dead's relations at all.

"How about this? I'll summon you when I can fix your problem,
'kay?" she said patiently and the ghost nodded and seemed to
fade away. Sophie gave a sigh and shook her head. "I need to
get on a ride," she said to herself, and headed for the nearest
attraction, which seems to be a Ferris Wheel, but she really
didn't mind. Ghosts would be on the ground, not in the gondola
like seats. She easily slipped in line, taking a sip of a lemon-
rasberry smoothie that she had gotten earlier, trying to calm her
ever-fraying nerves. This carnival seemed to have far to many
people and casualties, and she rather wanted to get away as
soon as possible, if only her powers would come back to her a
little quicker...

Sophie didn't notice that more line was coming up behind her,
and she continued through thinking she was the last one in line.
When she got the the assigning of the seats on the Ferris wheel,
there was a lone person behind her that seemed to be waiting
for her to scoot over so that they could take the seat across. She
had no idea who this new arrival was, but they appeared
innocent enough and she made enough room for whoever it was
the come in at their own time, or at least until the guy told them
to hurry it up. She was in no hurry, she never was, but that really
didn't matter. There were a lot of people who did hurry their
short lives to try and add more, but they were just making it
harder to enjoy life, right?

[superalan]

Xenku was at a carnival? He was confused, the entire area was one that was noisy, full of people, and generally chaotic. In short, it was not the type of area Xenku liked to frequent, and yet he was there all the same. He was unsure who he followed here, or why he did, but he was here now so he might as well make the best of it.

He wandered aimlessly, his headphones pumping music that only marginally blocked out the cacophony that was the fairgrounds. The noise was unsettling to Xenku, who practically lived in nothing but his music. Some people weren't even sure if he listened to what they said, or if he merely learned to read lips. The fact that he never spoke anything did nothing to solve that argument.

As he continued to move about the fair the noise continued to bother him, until obvious strain appeared on his face as he clutched his headphones closer to his ears. He did not like the noise, he did not like being here, though he was unsure how to leave. As the noise piled up the obvious action finally came to him.

He spoke, a soft, quick whisper, unintelligible to anyone but himself, and the entire fairground became silent. The rides continued to move, but all the people were noticibaly confused. Xenku took his hands off of his headphones and just stood there, finally enjoying the pretty lights of the carnival without all the annoying noises. He didn't even notice that he stood out like a sore thumb.

[Amber]

Sophie couldn't help it. After the first slow rotation of the Ferris
Wheel, she needed to get off the ride. Not wanting the man
running the ride to get upset at her for stopping it, and getting
the humilation of people who would think it funny to make fun of
her, she focused all of her attention on where she was at and
where she wanted to be. The many sounds that were echoing
throughout the carnival made it hard for her to concentrate, the
sound pounding at her eardrums. It was hard for her to focus on
the subject of Traveling out of this ride. Short rides like she was
going to do wouldn't harm her as much as on between worlds,
so she wasn't really risking anything too bad. She just needed to
concentrate and get rid of all this noise...

Suddenly, she noticed that all the music and meaningless babble
seemed to drift away until it was completely gone. Her flood of
concentration suddenly pulled her into the nearest shadow and
into the one behind the Ferris Wheel. Most of the people seemed
to be more curious as to why they couldn't talk or anything, and
so nobody noticed her curious appearance. She turned her
attention to a boy, who could be no older than herself, standing
in the middle of the attention, and she had a feeling at once that
he was a Nobody. She'd seen plenty of Nobody's, and nobody in
the place seemed to know what was happening except for that
one boy. She walked briskly over towards the other boy, coming
up from behind him.

Only then did she notice that she couldn't speak. Nobody around
the boy seemed to be able to either. Damn it, how do you talk
without a voice? she thought angrily, and she couldn't give
herself a response. She faltered a bit as she was behind the boy,
trying to figure out on how to introduce herself.

[blueskysummer]

Adrian loved the carnival. For several reasons.

First: no-one stayed. It was easier to avoid detection if no-one stayed long enough to notice his differences.

Second: The crowds. With so many people, he could dissapear at whim, slip into the currents, be swept wherever others are.

Thirdly: The freak show. It was sad, yes, but it provided him cover. no-one gave his forked tounge and fangs a second glance when there were seven-foot tall giants wandering the paths.

He licked at an ice-cream cone, his black, lizardy tongue catching the drips before they could move to his fingers. A little boy looked at him strangely, and he grinned at the kid, forgetting his pointed teeth. the boy suddenly found his shoes to be very interesting to stare at. Adrian felt guilty but bad feelings were near impossible with all the rides lighting up and vendors shouting and laugter and....

<sup>Her hair shimmered in the stuffy July sun. Her friends were all sweating and fanning themselves to dry the sweat that covered their faces and made their heavy make-up melt. but her un-powdered face was still as beautiful as ever. Her eyes wandered from her chocolate-dipped strawberries-on-a-stick (which had dyed her lips a mix of brown and red), up to the tree where i perched. I shrank back, though secretly wished she would see me, she would come to the trunk and climb up to join me, she would...

she looked back to her friends, elbowing one of them in the side and laughing at a joke. she dissapeared into the crowd of the carnival, but her scent still floated to me, distinct above the reek of hot people.</sup>

Adrian blinked, coming back to the present. he realized he had stopped waking, and also something else.

there was no noise.

He rubbed his ear, and heard the slight sound of skin-on-skin. he opened his mouth, experimenting, but his voice didn't want to work.

odd. very odd. he moved to the edge of the crowd, his obsidian eyes looking out for a sorce to his sudden muteness.

[superalan]

Xenku stood stilled and smiled for a split second, the lack of noise bringing him a small comfort in the noisy carnival. The reaction on everyone's face was priceless. None of them knew what was going on and all he could do was enjoy it as best he could. Truth be told there were few things he really knew he enjoyed. that everyone had to communicate without sound was one of them.

He turned around to continue on his way and stopped as he noticed a girl whom he though was staring at him. He didn't like it, he never liked it when people were staring at him, or following him. He cocked his head to the side as he stared right at her, waiting for her to respond. He was well aware she couldn't say anything, but he didn't quite feel the need to give her the ability to speak back. Who knew what kind of magic the silence was cutting her off from. He knew he couldn't keep it up forever, but he also knew this wouldn't be the first time a powerful wizard was out to kill him.

Could he even die? was he even alive? these questions were only in his head for a second before they went away. He simply continued to stare, waiting for a response.

[Amber]

Sophie gave a small jump as the boy suddenly turned around,
and cocked his head to the side questioningly. She could see a
glint of mistrust deep within his eyes. She had a feeling that this
boy, whoever he may be, was hard to get along with, and
seemed a rather powerful mage at the magic that he was using.
At least he wasn't trying to attack the voiceless others, but she
did still have her dagger if all came to all. Why was it that bad
things happened when she left her katana at home? She shook this
off, knowing the boy probably wanted a response. Though Soph
wasn't one to play charades, she did know a little sign-language
and it would play as a disadvantage to the boy's magic if she
didn't need to talk to communicate.

Sophie blinked a few times before putting two fingers up, her
index and middle finger together, and placing it sideways on her
chin before flicking it downwards. She could remember that this
meant "thank you" and decided to free-style why she was
saying, er, motioning, such. She tugged on her ear, meaning
sound, and then made the universal sign of crazy and confused.
She was trying to say, in short, that all the sound was making
her confused and driving her crazy, but she couldn't put her
minimal skills to that much extent. It wasn't as if the boy was
expecting something like this anyways, or was he?, so she had a
feeling that if he was going to attack everybody that he would at
least be occupied for a moment for her to quick draw.

Sophie noticed that the others in the carnival were still a bit
confused about what was happening, but a few people had
followed her minor example of communication. It was like a big
game of charades, only there wasn't anybody to yell "YOU GOT
IT" and then it was your turn. Now, it was her turn to cock her
head and await the response from the other, if he could talk or
use the typical symbols. Otherwise, it would seem completely
unnessacary and she could probably just walk off and pretend
nothing had happened and get far enough away to where she
could talk. It wasn't as if she needed words to use magic the
entire time, if the boy was intent on a fight. There were plenty of
ghosts around, they would listen if she got their attention...

[blueskysummer]

Adrian stood, looking out at the crowd blankly. A woman approched him, trying (failing) to communicate via sign language, but after a minute she realized Adrian wasn't even watching her, and turned to try her luck with someone else.

There was a clatter from above. Adrian looked up. He had stopped right beneath the ferris wheel. His eyes narrowed, the top carrage's door was open. the operator, in the confusion, had wandered off, leaving the passengers stranded. A girl's face peeked out, eyes wide and terrified, her lips parted in a silent scream.

Adrian's heart raced. He had to do something. He knew it, and he also knew it would mean having to leave this planet quicker than normal.

Well, Shit. he mouthed, temporarily forgetting he couldn't speak. His shoulder blades tingled, and suddenly his shirt stretched, as his back twisted and morphed and swelled beneath it. two holes tore, and wings sprouted out of them. they looked almost like angel wings, but they were black. like the arch-angel. like me.

He bent his knees, propelling himself upward. he hated flying, he really did. he was terrible at it. he nearly crashed into several lower cars, clearly scaring the occupants. He tried to appoligize, but gave up, tiring of their sound-less screams. He was nearly there... nearly to the car...

He perched in the doorway, steadying himself against the swing he produced from the landing. two girls sat within, staring wide-eyed at him. They looked nearly identical, except one looked about 9, the other maybe 6. He gave them a small smile, holding up two fingers, a universal sign of peace. hopefully, they would understand it the way he meant it.

I'm here to help.

[superalan]

Xenku could only give an empty stare to the girl in front of him as she went through a ridiculous set of hand motions that meant nothing to him. His only guess was that she was somehow grateful for the silence he brought, but the specifics were lost to him. Charades was clearly not his game. He continued to stare as he considered whether or not her actions were seemingly hostile.

The girl was curious, to say the least, if only for the fact that she somehow deduced him as the one who took away all the sound. The silence was getting him nowhere and at the very least letting her speak would allow him the comfort of knowing what exactly it was she wanted to say.

Xenku snapped his fingers and in an instant the sound returned, the bustling noises of the carnival reached their usual levels as people slowly went about their business, shrugging off the temporary silence as some sort of small anomaly. Xenku simply remained placid, his stare still fixed upon the girl who tried to speak with her hands.

He said nothing and did nothing. He neither motioned for her to come to him nor did he indicate that she should go, he simply stared. He wondered what she would do next. Would she ask him to return the silence? would she attack him out of fear of what he was? Xenku could only stand still and wait.

[Amber]

At the look that Sophie got from the boy from her 'sign-language'
meant that he only had a slight clue of what she was trying to
portray. See, Sophie. This is why you weren't born mute. You
couldn't communicate without your voice if your life depended on
it, one side of her thoughts was taughting at her. The other
one, however, was arguing that it was just the boy's low level of
no-word communication. Which would be a bit odd, seeing as he
was the only one that Soph could single out seeming to enjoy
the sudden silence. Maybe he was just a quite person and the
silence wasn't anything new to him. Either way, even if this boy
was just a quite kid, he should know a few of these symbols
easily... Sophie mused quietly to herself.

Sophie didn't really know what was happening as the boy
snapped his fingers, because quite frankly she thought he was
doing some kind of magic or something of the sorts, but suddenly
the sound seemed to burst back to life, like when you forget that
the volume on your iPod is all the way up, and then you put it in
your ears as you enter a quite room. Even as it came back, she
remained silent for a whlie, and so did the boy. Though his blank
stare and his wordlessness was a bit annoying for her, she
wasn't going to push him to talk like she did to normal people. It
was quite curious, actually, how even he seemed to not talk
when the sound was better. Maybe he's mute and his power is
to make others around him, too...

As the boy remained where he was, at least he wasn't going to
pull some other trick of magic, Sophie gave a brief smile. "That's a
pretty handy power you got there. But probably using it in a
small crowd would be better than using it on a large portion of
carnival..." she mused quietly to herself, but also was still loud
enough for the boy to hear her. "And don't worry, I'm not going
to attack or anything, I typically don't do that in the middle of
public," she said briefly, putting a hand to her chin like people do
while they are thinking. "I'm Sophie, by the way. I guess you
could call me that if you want to call me anything, or Soph if you
just wanted to say that. It really doesn't matter to me," she said
again, holding out her hand. "And you are...?"