spellbinders | [JANUARY INTRO LOG

[JANUARY INTRO LOG | WORLD TWO]

Who: All coven members, especially new folk!
Where: In and around the new world’s apartment building where the coven is staying, as well as the rest of Shehui
When: Day 160
Open/Closed: Open to All
IMPORTANT: While some prompts are newbie exclusive, all characters can tag this intro log!

How did you get into this building? This apartment room? What the fuck is going on? Let's refer back to this page for a semi in-depth, wow so detailed, explanation of your current situation. You'll also have a letter slipped under your door with some explanation about your whole coven situation, as well as info that explains you have magic now! And yet what kind of magic is conveniently left out.

Are you up to speed? Great.

Now, here's the question of the hour: what are you going to do about all this?

your flower will be decided

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[ Old habits of self-responsibility die hard.

But on to the more pressing question: ]

Why are they suspicious about magic users?

[ Julius is technically not one but his ability can appear to be it to the uninitiated, which is basically everyone else ever. ]

[ Jun has no idea how to handle this. He can't relate at all. Is this some sort of coping mechanism? It's gotta be, right? No one this positive can exist. Or... maybe he's just the one fucked up and surrounding himself with equally messed up people...? That is also a very valid possibility. Maybe he should distance himself now before ruining a good thing.

The only question is how to disengage and escape this too high level boss. His mind scrambles, and he becomes more aware that he should say something, so he'll just... blurt out the first thing he can. ]

You're... really positive!

Edited 2018-01-10 05:13 (UTC)

[ JUJU........................................................ ]

It's complicated. [ - is his first response, but then he remembers that this will probably egg her on more and has to resign himself to providing an answer. Plus, she knows one of his secrets. ]

It is better for me to be away from my world than within it.

[ She probably can't read much from his face yet. ]

[Well, if he really wants to know.

Python shrugs again.]

Oh, you know. Some explosions in a festival. Real loud ones. Then we all got locked up and questioned a while after. Just the kind of excitement you'd need to really round out your vacation.

Looks like they're on to us now.

[ he came out here to help this very small cat and he's feeling so attacked right now. his momentary relief that the cat has accepted his smile as tribute is washed away as soon as okuni starts laughing, and all the hard work he put into that smile goes right with it. he's progressed from frown to rightout grimace.

he rightout snatches that toy from her hands when she thrusts it at him. ]

And I'm sure you're the type to needlessly aggravate someone for your own enjoyment. The smile clearly worked, so it was good enough.

[ she forfeited her thanks! —for now, at least, he's entirely focused on getting this nightmare over with, dangling the toy in front of the kitten and pulling it just out of reach when it paws at it. ]

So you bought a can of tuna and tried to find them for her. How very noble of you.

[ it is both a genuine observation and meant to poke a bit of fun at him. most people don't go out of their way to find stray cats, much less spend money on doing so. ]

I just wanted that lady to leave me alone, to be honest.

[ Needless to say, she was persistent. In retrospect, he shouldn't have spent the credits probably, but what's done is done. ]

What else can you do with this thing, miss Lapis?

[ his eyes start on the road, but the more julius talks, the more jusis' gaze strays to him. this is definitely the most reliable person he's met since he arrived here. moreover, this is someone who's been here much longer than anyone else he knows of. there's respect, but there's pity, too. some anxiety when he realizes that could be him, a couple of months down the line.

when julius finishes, his immediate response is— ]

How long have you been here?

[ and then, remembering his manners: ]

I mean—yes. I would appreciate it if you did introduce me. I can hardly call the situation reassuring, but ... it is comforting to hear I'm not expected to blindly assimilate.

[Apollo lifts one of his hands, poking his pointer finger right into the middle of his forehead. He's taking a moment to think hard about that one - his only involvement with a kidnapping so far was very clear-cut, with a known perpetrator that gave clear demands for a trade. Mr. Wright had an old case with a kidnapping, too, but it wasn't so entirely different...]

I know what I'd do with a murder. Er, not to say she's been murdered! But if anyone knows her last location, or who might've seen her, that's the place to start looking for clues and questioning witnesses.

[Then he pauses. Wait, didn't she just say...] Did you just say telepathy?

[ Jusis reminds him a little of himself - his past self, before the truth had come to light. A life that had not yet been destroyed. ]

A few months. Though I have heard that some people do return by chance, and back to their own world.

[ Julius went home, was proof of it - though he could not discern the flow of time smoothly within the Tree, so the temporal alignment is still up in the air. Everything blended into each other. ]

The imperative is to survive, I would think. [ Especially since how there's apparently a witch hunt for magic users. ]

[Apollo pauses, clearing his throat awkwardly as he looks over to her. Whoops. She seemed awfully serious, and Apollo's already a little worried that he might've annoyed her somehow.]

S-Sorry, I didn't see you there. I didn't mean you! I meant... fate? Life? Murphy's Law? Take your pick.

[Juju truly knows her too well... Okuni would like to think she knows him too -- but his face is perfectly expressionless, so she thinks back on when she first met him.

The way those strands of hair had disintegrated in her hand. It gives her a piece of the puzzle, but the rest of it stays blank. Better? To be in a completely different world?]

Better how?

[He probably expected that, he already knows that she's nothing if not persistent.]

[ Please free him from this awkward questioning... he doesn't want to be here. It's like an exact replay of their first meeting, so he'll just pull out his Conveniently Crafted Excuse (tm): ]

I bear a curse that will have repercussions on my home. To be away from it annuls the danger to them. [ But not to himself, apparently.

He's usually not a good liar but this is a rehearsed half-truth so he can pull it off. What might give Okuni a clue however is telepathy - there's a wisp of static coming from his vague direction, faint but perceptible. ]

Edited 2018-01-10 07:24 (UTC)

[Watching Jusis do battle with a feather is the thanks Okuni gets, but doesn't deserve, honestly.]

How unkind! Even though I've been doing my best to help you all this time.

[Okuni replies, COMPLETE WITH CHEEKY GRIN. Anyway, one cat toy is boring, so Okuni pulls out another??? from her sleeve to join in the Sudden Accosting. (why didn't she just fork these over in the first place) To the kitten,]

He can smile, but he's bad at saying thanks, huh?

[U GET IT, RIGHT KITTY]

[ Personal space rules are the least of his worries, really - so he'll not have any objections to that and hand his over. ]

It's like horoscopes. They seem to be mostly random, designed for harmless fun.

[ He doesn't mind it but doesn't believe in it, either. ]

[ He gets weirder, but that's a discovery for another day. At the guy's reaction, he can't help but feel a bit bad. He did have a snack earlier at work, so he isn't all /that/ hungry, but he also doesn't want to leave someone who might be genuinely hungry waiting for long.

Especially if he's not imagining those tummy sounds, so he chuckles, before giving him a thumbs-up. ]

Then it might be your lucky day, Mr. Awesome Hair. I'm dining alone and could use a buddy, since my own is actually working for once. How about it? You'll just have to do one tiny little thing.

[ He holds up his camera. ]

Let me take a picture of that 'do! It's awesome!! I've never seen anything like it!

Hm. [He takes the card back from the stranger, holding it up to the handful of flowers he had been given.] Probably. Guess I'm not as used to the whole notion.

[They'd never been allotted time or opportunity for harmless fun. The closest they had gotten had maybe been mobile worker training with paint ammunition, but even that had been a process to teach children to kill without thought, without concern. Probably the very definition of harmful fun.

Tekkadan had offered them more time for quiet, for joyful moments to themselves. Orga had had a few, but as they grew more renowned, more of his time was dedicated to the dreadfully boring: the politicking, the deliberations.

The card blinks with the answer to his own floral horoscope, and he gives a single laugh. Well, maybe it was more of a grunt of acknowledgement - there wasn't much mirth to the sound. ZINNIA - THOUGHTS OF ABSENT FRIENDS, it read.]

Cute.

[The flat tone of voice implies something different, though.]

[He'd be no strategist worth a damn if he didn't want to know everything about whatever scenario he'd been dropped into the middle of, with little more than a single piece of paper explaining what the hell was going on.

But... damn. Sounds familiar. And here he thought he'd get some rest for a change.

Something about the news has changed something about his mien; it's fairly subtle, but there's less casual ease to him now, supplanted by the faintest sharpened edge.] Assuming bombing this city isn't part of what is on our to-do list.

[He seems to consider it a little further.] Do we have any leads on it? Got a bad feeling doing the police's work for them is going to be the best way to get 'em off our backs.

(ooc: MY REACTION TO THIS TAG)

[...Okay, so yeah, he's already regretting that "blessing."]

Yeah, that's me. The lucky one.

[There's enough sarcasm in his tone to knock out a horse, though perhaps it's not the most incorrect statement. Luck had certainly played no small role in him still standing here, rather than being some smoking crater somewhere, or lost among debris floating in the depths of space.

And then she just had to keep going on. And did she - what did she just say about him?

For a half-second, surprise stalls him long enough for him to get slightly red before he goes immediately onto the defensive.]

Oi, hold on a second, [his brow furrows and maybe he can hide the flush to his face as some feigned anger, though it's pretty clear from his tone that's not what the case here is,] why the hell would you say something like that?

[WHY... DOES HE GIVE OFF THIS IMPRESSION... SHOULD HE BE OFFENDED...]

[He probably should have figured that Mika had roommates.

But somehow it didn't pass through his mind at all until he was quietly exiting Mika's room rather early in the morning, clothing slightly bedraggled, hair faintly mussed from its usual (inexplicable) state.

He doesn't think about it until he sees Camilla. Then he stops dead, mid-movement, eyes wide, going full-on deer in headlights.

Uhh.

Faintly:] Oh.

[ That makes the two of them, then. Given reminders of what they might have otherwise chosen to forget, yet could not. Two soldiers with death that they could not let go of.

Julius closes his eyes, replying with a message in two parts. ]

Let's go for a walk. Are you with us, by the way?

[ Perhaps a little startling to ask a stranger, but Orga is free to refuse. On the off chance that they're both from the coven, he could turn it into something tactical. ]

[Never one to be kept cooped up at home, Orga spent some time wandering around the premises and then made his way outside. Seeing the city with eyes fresh from some rest was certainly a welcome experience after wandering around and trying to get his bearings over the last few days, but his attention was also steadily drawn to the job board. He knew they had money, and he knew from common sense he'd have to keep that shored up if any of this was going to work out.

But... fuck, everything in this city works weird. This wasn't something like a bunch of help wanted ads stuck to a bulletin board - the screen updated in real time, listings and requests moving and disappearing in a way that was hard to track.

He's thinking something along the same lines when the man a short distance away speaks up. He glances over, then giving a sigh.] Not the most user-friendly thing I've ever seen, no.

[When he glances back to the man, he catches something odd over his shoulder - two people standing on a corner, looking at them sharply, then away when they caught him staring back.

Stranger and stranger, still. For now, he doesn't mention it.]

[Typically, it's a machine that vends things.

But Orga shouldn't be snide about such things. There's no such thing as magic where he's from, so he's still struggling to get used to that whole "voices in your head" and "weird senses of things you could do but previously couldn't" sort of thing.

The first problem he sees when he steps into the lobby and finds the young woman standing in front of the vending machine is the sword. He's already approaching, feeling he might need to intervene before she decided to go full Luddite on the thing, but thankfully she finds the control panel.

And just starts... pressing all the buttons.

Orga is semi-hovering nearby at this point, and he decides to take another step closer, peering at the machine with one hand to his chin as she tapped at the number-pad.

Close, but no cigar.]

Mmm... maybe it needs something in exchange.

[We'll climb this mountain together, Celica. Or, well. He'll at the very least act the Sherpa.]

[ Outwardly on the streets of Shehui, there aren't that many changes in effect in accordance with what happened during the Sunsu festival - people are still going to work and to school, spending their days as normal as they always have - but the questions and the curious staring gaze is more obvious now, enough that even Mika feels it . Even in a place like this, as carefree as it was, there are invisible lines drawn across that cannot be crossed. Here, still, they are strangers yet again.

Their stay here is only but temporary, that much Mika understands - the island that he was briefly introduced to before is the origin for Qri and her servants, their home, but it's nothing more than a brief, hazy series of images and half-memories. That's not their home either. What they are seeking is somewhere ahead of them, just out of reach, or maybe they just need to trace their steps backward to those crooked dirty streets. Simple human warmth, maybe, an idea that it could be something more.

The earth is warm too as Mika carefully works the spade into it, concentrating on digging up the flowering plant without damaging it so that he can transfer it into the pot sitting nearby. The weird atmosphere of the city doesn't deter him from going to his assigned detail, and maybe it's some kind of dedication but also it's partially out of rare, personal interest. Ever since Geir introduced him to this particular garden, he hasn't missed a day once - and Orga being here now doesn't necessarily mean that he would stop now, unless the other boy said differently.

The ground is soft enough for his knees to sink in where he's kneeling down, different from the hard, downtrodden ground of Mars - it's a stark contrast to the dusty soils that he's used to back home.

Finally, the transferring done and the peony bush settled securely into the pot, Mika straightens up and tilts his head to glance sidelong to where Orga is, presumably waiting. ]

Orga, are you bored?

[Once his eyes had been opened to it, he saw the lines of tension that ran invisible beneath the seemingly-benign surface of the streets of Shehui. It was a subtle thing, a kind of nervous energy, like how one subconsciously holds a breath before they fear something surprising was about to happen. He read the cultural anxiety in this, in the way people's eyes swept with concern and suspicion over those leaving their building. That their eyes kept pointedly falling on strangers' throats. Upon seeing this, he had quickly made the strategic purchase of another scarf, thinking it best to remain incognito - or as much as he could be, sticking out as a newcomer as much as he did.

Orga remains without a work detail, though he'd set a deadline to find something to do by the end of the week. The credits he'd been given would last until then, fairly easily... and it freed him up to tag along with Mika to see what he was up to during his work days.

It'd been a good decision.

With Mika preoccupied by the careful work in the garden, Orga's free to beam at him with a look of obvious warmth and pride, something so bright and fervent it might've been visible from several dozen paces. He caught himself like this a few times back home, too, from the few times he caught Mika working on Sakura's farm or on his own projects, trying to get something other than corn to grow in the arid Mars soil.

It is just... nice to see him show interest in something that didn't involve mortal danger. Orga was under no illusions - he knew that Mika was integral to Tekkadan, their strongest weapon against those who would do ill to them or for their own goals, but... he's also a boy he'd known since childhood, one he wants to see happy in other things, as well.

He reigns himself in by the time Mika looks over to him; his gaze is still warm but maybe a little less sappy.]

Mm? [He seems almost surprised by the question, cracking a smile.] Nah. Having a blast.

[His tone is lightly joking, but he's not lying.

He leans forward, away from the wall he'd been leaning on, taking a few long strides over to where Mika was crouched. He looks closer at the plant he'd just transferred from the plot to the pot, curious.] What's this one called? Do you know?

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[JANUARY INTRO LOG | WORLD TWO]

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I KNOW ... he's such a pure boy deep down

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im so glad okuni has been blessed

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seeing apollo is making me miss playing klavier aaaa

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j... eheheh

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c!

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(wildcards in here)

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