Topic: One-Thousand Paper Cranes

Kajiya Crimsonheart

Date: 2009-09-15 10:57 EST
Kajiya wheeled his massive racing cycle in through the back door of Antonio's Pizza Palace. It just barely fit, taking up the entire back hallway of the building....though Antonio had never minded, as long as he got it out of the way again before the restaurant opened in the morning. Closing and locking the back door, he turned and bounded up the stairs that led to his little studio apartment above the shop.

He glanced around as he opened the door. Everything was just as he had left it....which was to say, a complete mess. It wasn't so much the clothes on the floor, or the unmade bed that did it. It wasn't even the few dirty glasses and plates that lay scattered around, or the slightly grungy walls. It was the origami; There was not a surface in sight which did not have paper animals on it.

His coffee table was nesting grounds for little birds. There were dogs and cats and bears and frogs on his dinner table. His mantle was home for a few monkeys, and a big elephant. Even half his kitchen counter was just crabs....rock crabs, fiddler crabs, horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs. They were all folded in varying sizes, and in drastically different levels of complexity. Kajiya threw his coat down on the back of a chair and wandered over to his table, taking a seat....and pulling out an unfolded piece of paper from under a little blue frog.

He began folding. He had gotten the idea earlier, when he caught himself wishing. There was so much going on right now that it made his head spin. The Prop 37 riots, his start into the unarmed combat known as the Duel of Fists, and of course, there was Ahni....But a long time ago, back when he had first started folding (God, it must have been....20 years now?), he remembered being told that anyone who folded 1000 paper cranes could make a wish, and it would come true.

Kajiya didn't believe in wishing himself....wishing was like the easy way out, when you wanted something but you didn't want to put in the work for it. He was doing everything he could to get his life on the right track, but....maybe he could do a little more. And folding Origami certainly couldn't make it any worse....He creased the final folds, and held up a little green paper crane in one hand.

"...One..." He grinned to himself, setting the crane down and digging about for a second piece of paper...

Kajiya Crimsonheart

Date: 2009-09-21 09:38 EST
Kajiya sat up in bed wearily, rubbing the back of his head and glancing towards his clock. He didn't need to be up for another hour, but he couldn't fall back to sleep. He'd gotten up for a glass of water, and now had too much dancing around in his mind to get back to sleep.

He threw off the sheets and stood, stretching his arms way up above his head, just barely scraping the ceiling. After a moment he plopped down in a chair at his table. The table was barely visible though, since almost every square inch of it had been covered in paper cranes. He gave a bit of a frown as he looked over them....There was probably a better system of organization than 'pile' for them, but he wasn't exactly the most organized fellow around.

He started to fold. It had been a busy week, but he was still making great progress on the birds. He was getting more and more into dueling with each day that passed, both magical and melee....though he hadn't touched any weapons yet. Probably for the best, he thought.

Then there was Ahni....Oh, just thinking of her put a grin on his face. He'd brought her to his place several days ago after a....mishap on the isle. A bit of a mental-link meltdown that left Ahni....overwhelmed to say the least. He had brought her here, since it was closer, and had gotten the chance to ask her a lot of the questions he'd been meaning to. He chuckled to himself for thinking that she had been a secretive girl before that....she just wanted him to give in to his sliver of curiosity before she'd answer.

Then there had been the Alice in Wonderland birthday party. Oh lord, that had been pure madness, and that was coming from the March Hare himself. The costumes, the duels, the food, the rhyming! Ahni had been the sweet little dormouse, dressed up in that skintight...

His brain shut down for a moment, but quickly rebooted when he realized he was about to drool on the crane he was folding. That night, they'd finally kissed for real. Like, for real, for real. He couldn't remember a better kiss in his life....and then they'd spent the night at the Inn together. He'd had been oh so tempted to do something....drastic then, but he had restrained himself. Somehow, he was sure they'd both know when the time was right...

And then she'd made blueberry pancakes the next day! They were so good! And they'd rhymed a lot....like, possibly even in their sleep, though of course he couldn't verify that personally. They followed that up with a long walk to Ahni's place in the Southern Glen, and he'd told her about Techanthalon. That....surprised him to be honest, but he couldn't keep his past hidden away forever, no matter how hard he tried, and he felt a little better after telling her. She'd taken it quite well herself, even the bad parts, and the parts that were really confusing without a background of technological knowledge.

And then her cave....Oh, it made him feel like a kid again. He smiled, thinking about the night spent on that soft, comfortable earthen bed, laying beneath the stars, surrounded by flowers....And of course with Ahni at his side. He'd told her that he loved her....and now he wondered why he'd waited so long to do it.

He sighed contentedly as he tossed another crane onto the table gently. Digging through the field of birds, he uncovered a sheet of paper entitled 'Crane Count', adding the tallies for the handful he'd just completed. Then a quick count up of those collected marks.

"137....Not bad, I suppose..." He grinned and stretched in his chair, before hopping up to his feet to get started on breakfast.

Kajiya Crimsonheart

Date: 2009-10-04 07:03 EST
Kajiya's giant pile of cranes was growing, and by now many of them had spilled off the table and onto the floor around his table. He was folding another one at this very moment. He was lucky he could do it in his sleep, because he had a whole hell of a lot on his mind right now. He chuckled faintly as the folded bird was finished and he bounced it onto the pile, causing a minor avalanche of a few cranes down onto one of his chairs. He took no notice.

He had two grease stains on his cheeks, left over from some cycle or other. He'd started working for Pslyder, and so far, it had been fantastic. Riding and putting together bikes came naturally to him. He was still getting used to the selling part, but starting with knowing the specs was good, and his semi-competence with charisma had been pulling him through so far. Or at least, he thought so....and he hadn't been fired yet, so all was well in his mind.

But as usual, Ahni was on his mind more than anything. Oh, he fell for her more and more every day that passed. Even if things weren't always....perfect. Recently, there'd been times when she'd torn his heart out by blowing him off on the Isles. She hadn't meant to, but....She always seemed to act strange around the Neo guy. His mouth curled as close to a snarl as it could without becoming malevolent. He'd barely spoken a word to that sparkle-winged nancy, but something about him just rubbed Kajiya all wrong. And his presence seemed to correspond to Ahni's mood swings.

He'd more or less put her thoughtlessness behind though. In the more recent occurance, he'd just talked to her about it right away, and she understood very quickly how he was feeling....and in the earlier instance....Well....He'd stopped by her place the next day with some gifts and snacks to try and lift her spirits some. But one thing led to another....and then another....and then...

He stopped, glancing down to his hands. The crane he'd been working on had about 11 or 12 extra folds than usually. If he'd had a mirror near by, he'd have been able to spot the bright flush to his cheeks as well. The mutant crane was tossed over a shoulder, landing on his coffee table lightly. Needless to say, they'd had an interesting time at her place. He plucked a new sheet of paper from the neatly organized piles beside him. It wouldn't be long before they were a lot less organized, but Ahni had only just gotten these for him, so he still had plenty of time to make a mess of them. He smiled, looking at the piles as he started in on the next crane...

He should save some of these sheets to use in the rings as well. That'd probably make Ahni's day. Apparently, there'd been some rumblings about his Duel of Magic record recently. He hadn't thought much of it. He just enjoyed thinking up fun things to fold from his origami....it was as much about presentation as it was about competition, at least in his mind. Couldn't hurt to show that Keeper of Water guy a thing or two sometime either....Oh, he'd teach him. But that was a thought for another day...

He still had more on his mind, but he was getting weary, and his cranes were starting to get a little sloppy. He did a quick count of his tally sheet, then scribbled down a number and circled it before he groggily stumbled from his seat and rolled into bed.

Current Tally: 311