[WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

[spellbindmods]

Who: Participating coven members
Where: The Palai marketplace
When: Day 49
Open/Closed: OTA

[ Any and all who are in the marketplace will find that there is suddenly a mysterious barrier around the marketplace (that may be eerily familiar to some) -- specifically one large portion of the marketplace with a large number of tables and chairs, perhaps purposefully set out for nefarious reasons.

A few Palai are ushering coven members to chairs, and everything seems about normal. As normal as the Palai can be when they're putting on a show anyway. It's not until a sizable portion of the coven members are seated (and also supplied with breadsticks and small shrimp), that things get a bit more bizarre.

Thanks to the power of the Eltos, a small band of energy keeps coven members stuck to the chair (magic can interfere, of course), but that's not the end of it. On each table, next to those delicious smelling breadsticks and shrimp, is a bowl of scraps of papers. Every five minutes, a strip of paper will pop out from the bowl.

If you ask the Palai, they'll be inclined to explain speed dating to you. Asking questions, getting to know a person, then being shimmied off to the next potential mate -- this is made possible by Elto magic yet again, through flying chairs that transport their holder to a new table at standard intervals.

The Palai are extremely invested in this exercise? Will you let them down? ]

[ OOC: In the spirit of speed dating, each character will have a top level. All who want to respond to this top level can with questions from this post, but the threads have to end at 10 comments from each character. After this last tag, the characters can be assumed to have been whisked to a different potential match. You're free to have characters make up their own questions, interact with Palai serving food, etc. ]

Comments

[soulcomet]

You've never seen the ocean before? [Madoka hails from Japan, so the idea is really hard for her to fathom.]

What sort of things did you have to eat back home?

[mech_and_mutt]

Not the ocean. Y'know, the one made of water, down on the ground-- [And he was realizing how weird it was that he even had to specify that. He gestured upwards with the half-eaten breadstick.]] --we were too high up for it. Everywhere you went, it was kinda like that island that's way up above this place, except we couldn't see past the clouds.

[Another bite served to punctuate the pause before his reply came out to Madoka's next question.]

Y'know, the usual. Sandwiches, vegetables... uh... cake?

[...wait a minute. A glance at the spread in front of them has a few gears starting to turn.]

...Come to think of it, ain't it kinda weird that even these other worlds have so much of the same food?

[soulcomet]

[she was about to ask more questions about living in the sky, but is completely thrown off by his question.]

I ... you're right. I mean, the seafood makes sense, but where exactly are they getting everything else? [like the tea. if it fell from the sky, how did it fall through the ocean intact?]

[mech_and_mutt]

EXACTLY! And it even looks and tastes the same!... mostly the same. Does every world use the same cookbook?!

[...Wait a minute.]

...D'ya think the island's got somethin' to do with it?

[soulcomet]

I ... I don't know. It seems like every time we learn something new about it, something happens to make it even more confusing.

[mech_and_mutt]

No wonder that witch is so interested in it. Wish I could just fly up there and be done with it but without my mecha, I'm reduced to flappin' my arms.

[soulcomet]

— You had a mecha? [Red is sounding, to her, more like an anime character by the minute.]

1/2

[mech_and_mutt]

[WELL LOOK WHO WENT STRAIGHT TO HAPPY]

Yup! Good ol' DAHAK-AZI03. It could lift, it could fly, and it could pluck missiles straight outta the air and return 'em to sender.

2/2

[mech_and_mutt]

[The happy doesn't last.]

...Guess what Qri decided to take.

[soulcomet]

[one would think that Madoka would have noticed if someone had brought a mecha with them, but she looks surprised all the same.]

[... actually, it isn't about the mecha.]

Oh — I ... I still have no idea what she took from me.

[mech_and_mutt]

Really? Well, maybe it's just a little easier to miss than a mecha. Didja check your pockets?

[...Wait, no, she probably thought of that.]

...Or maybe you just feel like somethin's missing?

[soulcomet]

[unfortunately, knowing what it is that's she's missing (a notebook) would mean acknowledging its significance, and realizing that the life she remembers now isn't the life she's actually leading — or rather, Madoka would remember that she doesn't have a life to lead at all.]

[it's complicated.]

I couldn't begin to imagine what I might be missing ... I guess whatever it is, it isn't all that important.

[mech_and_mutt]

[What's so complicated about an unstable time loop creating a fatalistic confluence centered around her being that enabled her to retrocausally rewrite the methodology of a deceptively-cute otherworldly being's attempts at delaying the universe's inevitable thermodynamic heat death?]

Well, you're lucky if that's the case. Better than wishin' you still had it half the time. [And, in his case, not being able to shut up about it.

He gives another glance at the conversational cue card.]

How's that new magic treatin' you, by the way? Ever wish you had somethin' else?

[soulcomet]

[YES. EXACTLY. it's simple???]

I really like having healing magic! Though, if I could change one thing about it ... I wish I could use it more often.

What about your magic?

[mech_and_mutt]

I dunno. I haven't really been usin' it that much... or at least I haven't been tryin' to. Guess it just kinda comes naturally. [Or maybe he just has been lax in actually practicing its use.]

What I'd want is my mecha, but I don't think Qri allows takebacks...

[soulcomet]

Well, you never know! Maybe one day she'll be feeling generous.

— I'd really like to find out what I'm missing, too.

[mech_and_mutt]

Well, there'd better not be a scratch on it when she does. Takin' it away is one thing, takin' it for a joyride is just--

[He stiffens as the chair is raised off the ground. Ugh, here we go again. He manages one last nod to Madoka before he's whisked off.]

--hey, hang in there, okay? Night's almost over!

[Or at least he hopes so. He's had as much 'speed dating' as he can stomach- even with the free food.]

[soulcomet]

Ah — you, too! I'll talk to you later.

[may the next person they both meet be just as friendly!]