Knights Of Ratatosk (OPEN!/ACCEPTING!)

What was that sound? What was that incessent banging noise? Was that the kids in the apartment above? They had to be either stomping or playing basketball up there, that sound was LOUD. Jesus christ, kids. SHUT UP. Mari grumbled, opening her eyes and vaguely registering her lack of clothing under the silk sheets she was currently buried beneath. She shifted in bed, facing the opposite direction from the window and reached up under the lace-edged pillow that her head was currently resting on. Pulling it up into the sides of her head and pushing hard on her ears to try and muffle the idiotic noise. It worked.. sort of. She couldn't exactly HEAR the noise anymore, but she could FEEL it now. Reverberating through her queen-sized mattress, mocking her, violently shaking her to intentionally disturb her sleep. Fuck it, Mari thought as she slowly resigned herself to releasing the pillow, letting it fall back into place, albeit slowly, as she wearily pulled the sheets off of herself. Mari sat up, stretching her arms into the air and yawning, her long brown hair cascading behind her down to her mid-back. Mari stood up, noting a pain in her right leg as she did so. Damn, must've slept wrong.

She blinked a few times, rubbing her eyes to clear the sleep away before looking around the apartment. A simple morning routine, make sure she didn't get drunk and break everything. Alright. The small-ish apartment consisted of only the one room. The entirety of the apartment was the one room,save the bathroom, which left a lot of space in the middle. There was her bed, on the west side. The most elegant thing in the room, lace and silk adorning it. The large dresser containing all her clothing was standing next to the bed. Oak, double doored. On the north side, the kitchen. A stove, an oven, cabinets, a sink (the faucet itself being almost completely white from all the limescale), and a refrigerator (always stocked with what Mari wanted, never quite with what she needed, causing constant grocery runs). On the east side, a door that leads to the bathroom, a simple 10 x 12 room with a stand-up shower/bath combo with a see-through curtain, a sink and counter with a hairdryer, a razor, tissues, soap, and deoderant resting on it, and a toilet, white. Also on the east side was a roof-to-ceiling see-through door that led out to a 7 x 10 balcony, showing an amazing view of the city, especially at night. There was also a tv, 42" plasma that sat on a small stand against the wall between the two doors. On the south side of her apartment was a coat rack, the door that led out into the hallway of the twelve-story complex (she lived on the twelfth, just for the nice view). Smack dab in the middle of the room was a sofa, about 2 yards wide, that reclined, facing the TV. Black, old leather, comfortable as hell. Mari nodded, making sure everything was in place before walking drowsily to the shower, pulling back the curtain and turning the water on, cranking it up to the place she had memorized as being the heat she was comfortable with and letting the bath water spray out down the drain while she examined herself in the mirror, still trying to wake up.

She was 19, and yet somehow living on her own. Most people wondered if she stole the place. The fact of the matter was, she had earned this place. The education she gave herself led to a lot of odd jobs around the city that earned quite a bit of cash up over time. She looked his own body up and down in the mirror. Five foot, nine inch height, check, she hadn't grown at all since some time last year. Not that it mattered, she was tall enough in her opinion. She poked her stomach, the small finger imprint left behind in her skinny frame fading almost instantly. At 135 pounds, Mari wasn't at all one of the more "butch" women in this area. She was skinny, but a bit of weight came from her c-cup breasts, as it was. Mari looked straight at herself in the mirror, making eye contact with her reflection. The light blue eyes met themselves for only a second before Mari turned around to check the water. She slipped her hand under the faucet and felt it, perfect. She slid her hand over another dial in the wall, turning it all the way as the bath water stopped and the shower switched on, the water blasting down into the tub beneath. Mari pulled back the curtain further and stepped in, closing the curtain and facing the wall opposite the showerhead. The hot water, not quite scalding, but close enough to tingle, hit Mari's shoulders and upper back directly, spraying over her shoulders and against the wall. The hot spray had.. a bit of a sleeping agent type of quality to it.. Mari could feel herself dozing off, even standing up like this.. She could vaguely make out the shampoo and soap dispensers on the wall next to her, and she shook her head to try and wake herself up. Come on, Mari, pull it together. The day has started, it's time to face it. Resignedly, she raised a hand under the soap dispenser, raising the other hand to the small, cream-colored button and pushing it in, rewarded by a large dollop of the red soap dropping into her hand. It took her about five minutes to finish applying the soap and rinsing it off. As she repeated the dolloping process for the shampoo, she pumped a few extra helpings of it into her hand. pushing the lot of it onto the very top of her head and rubbing it in, allowing the large, foamy, helmet-like mass of shampoo build up before sticking her head into the water, letting the shampoo naturally flow down her long hair and down the drain. She had discovered quite a while ago that this was the most effective method for washing it. After close to ten minutes, she was satisfied and sure that all the shampoo had been washed out. Reaching for both dials on the shower, she turned them both into their respective "off" positions, and pulled the curtain back once more, stepping out into open air and grabbing a towel from the rack on the wall. She always had two ready on the wall, one for actually drying herself, and one for ifs he forgot to pull the curtain (there were some mornings where she really was that tired) and made a huge mess in the place. This happened more often than she'd like to admit. After drying her body off the best that she could, Mari grabbed the hair-dryer off of its holder on the wall, turning it on. She tilted her head to one side, letting his hair fall to that side like a curtain as she moved the dryer up and down, aimed at her hair, effectively drying the length of it. Once finished, she switched off the hair dryer and laid it on the counter next to the sink, walking out into the main room and closing the bathroom door behind her, leaving the lights on as she always did. Fuck going green.

Mari crossed the threshhold of the room to the dresser, opening it and pulling her clothes for the day out. White, button-up t-shirt, a skirt that went halfway down her thigh and then stopped, black, black stockings, tennis shoes, and her hairband. After promptly dressing and putting her hair up, Mari grabbed her glasses off of the top of the dresser, slipping them on and walking out the front door, proceeding down the hall to the elevator, down to the ground floor, and out the front door. She didn't know why.. but today felt.. she didn't know.. exciting, maybe? She headed down the sidewalk, holding her own hand behind her back with her arms close to her, walking brusquely down the walkway. She felt.. something.. the closer she got to the entrance to karakura downtown. Was that... a reiatsu? Felt.. quincy... She'd find out soon enough. For now, best to keep walking.

Archived.