|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 3:53 pm
Quote: Nature’s Boon (10) : Flowers are blooming at an incredible place across the city and sometimes barren patches of grass can be overrun with flowers overnight. There have been heavy showers and a high pollen count but there doesn’t appear to be any other explanation. It is not uncommon to find trees with nearly double the leaves they usually have, with vines twisting up houses, flowers covering the front yard, or local fruits to have doubled in size. This isn't the first time Destiny City has seen such oddities, and there doesn’t seem to be any negative effects to this; scientists are questioning climate change. Or is it radiation??
Either way, he supposed it didn’t entirely matter tonight. Whyever Reiki knew his way around the park, he could still very easily recognize that something wasn’t right. Not something that might have jumped out at anybody who wasn’t up on the magical nonsense of Destiny City, Reiki thought. Really, to most people, the oak tree’s branches seeming so laden down with such brilliantly green leaves probably seemed like little more than a sign that summer had arrived, and more so, a sign that maybe, the world was not simply hopeless bullshit. Part of Reiki didn’t even want to argue with that idea, as he looked around at all the flowers blossoming around North End Park, carrying with him a sweet tea with strawberries for Kerberos and an unsweetened strawberry iced tea for himself. Part of him wanted to feel happy about the community garden that seemed to be coming out in full effect. Part of him desperately wanted to leave well enough alone and just let this Be A Nice Thing.
Except Reiki kept thinking about the Blight from last summer, and how it had killed everything off when it got somewhere. And he kept wondering if the opposite sort of issue might be a problem. Worst of all, he kept thinking about the decay and ruin that he’d seen in that puddle where he’d run into Acubens, how those buildings had been overrun with plants that had teemed with decay and a feeling of unlife.
No, he decided, making his way to Kerberos’s bench. No, Reiki could not simply leave well enough alone tonight. Under a lot of other circumstances, maybe Reiki could have allowed himself to go along with that idea. But he couldn’t settle his nerves about this idea and no, he simply could not let it go.
“Blossom,” Reiki said as he rocked up and held out Kerberos’s drink, “if I said that the sheer voluminity and ostensible, unnatural vivaciousness of the plants was creeping me out and making me feel concerned, would you think I’m out of my mind? Or would you consider coming with me to investigate just to make sure this park doesn’t go all Little Shop of Horrors on everybody?”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2023 1:17 am
It was a rather quiet night in the park. No one had swung by to visit his bench for conversation, but that was true of most nights--people found him or didn't, wanted his help or didn't. Didn't, more often than did, truth be told. But that was all well.
Anyway, he had his regular visitors. Like Murikabushi, who tonight arrived with tea, and Kerberos smiled as he sat up to greet him.
"Hey," he greeted, taking the drink. Murikabushi's question made him pause, though, and wrinkle his nose. Hm. That was...not actually something Kerberos was familiar with, and he stood up, as he thought about it.
"I would definitely not think you're out of your mind," Kerberos said. "Any change in the environment is...suspicious, to say the least." He shook his head. "Show me? Might not be able to find an answer, but we can at least take a look."
Better than leaving it to fester, at least.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2023 8:04 pm
“Appreciate the vote of confidence under the weird circumstances,” Reiki said sincerely, pausing for three things: 1. to give Kerberos a minute to stand and make sure he wasn’t tangled up or anything (for one thing, all the flowy bits on his outfit seemed liable to get very tangled, very easily, and for another thing, his hair); 2. a sip of his own drink (cool, refreshing, perfect for a warm night like tonight); and 3. to crouch down quickly and pick up the pretty pink star-charm that he noticed on the ground (Reiki liked collecting the pretty shinies that came with the Star Festival every year, okay? Sue him).
Once they were both settled, though, he started into the park, trying not to go too fast, so they could really appreciate what they were seeing with all the plant life. None of it had any strange auras, as far as Reiki could tell, but……in fairness, the Blight hadn’t done that, either. “Under normal circumstances, I don’t think I would’ve paid that much attention,” he admitted, “but the other day? I was out and some of the puddles were being, uh. Distinctly creepy? Like, nothing too far outside the usual Destiny City weirdness, I don’t think? But they didn’t show reflections of anything so much as visions of the city completely overrun by plants that looked……”
Reiki made a dithering sound as he considered how to phrase this. “Well. Kinda dead? But also more undead than anything? Maybe that was just me and my take on things, but they looked a lot like all of this, just overrunning everything, but with this decaying, unnatural sort of life that had no business existing. So……I guess it’s still got me on edge instead of capable of enjoying all the flowers looking so lovely.”
And maybe decaying, unnatural life that had no business existing……hit closer to home than Reiki entirely wanted to admit right now. Except maybe to Kerberos. Maybe to Monoceros. Frankly, maybe to Faustite, considering his thoughts on Mirrorspace, but……of the three of them, Kerberos was the currently available one, and……also the one who Reiki felt most likely to get the most constructive answer out of. Monoceros might let him vent but generally didn’t challenge him too much on Mirror senshi things, out of not knowing very much on the subject. Faustite gave Reiki pushback when he disagreed, and he could be constructive, but talking about Mirror senshi things with him could also feel like a lot of venting, because both of them had grievances with the Mirrorspace, and the Court, and so many related things, but mostly, it built up to Reiki feeling, more intensely than usual, that Faustite desperately needed more kindness in his life.
But……Blossom was different from both of them. Maybe Reiki could talk to him about it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2023 3:04 am
Kerberos stood up, and though he took sips of his drink as he walked--absolutely perfect, really, fruity teas were the best on a hot June evening--and taking in the flora around them. It did seem much more...vibrant, than usual, and that did feel worthy of concern.
Plus, what Reiki described made him shiver. "Ugh. Apocalyptic visions always make me nervous. Remind me to tell you about the nightmare future that me and a lot of other people saw, almost nine years ago now. It...was how I found Hvergelmir."
It was the first signpost on what turned out to be the road to him purifying out of the Negaverse.
"Not super relevant right now, and honestly, whatever we all saw, we fixed it. Stopped it. Whatever. But...yeah, no, I can see why that would make you feel a little worried about this much plant growth."
It was rare for too much life to feel like a problem, but then....
"I doubt this is Chaos. Chaos usually kills. Drains. Eats away. But it could be something else." Something just as strange and potentially dangerous.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 4:02 pm
“……Nightmare future?” Part of Reiki felt shocked by the very concept of some horrific nightmare future hallucination……thing? that had apparently pulled several people into it? On the other hand, though, a long sip off his drink and some quiet consideration brought Reiki around to thinking that, actually, that sounded perfectly reasonable for Destiny City. “Whatever all that was about? I’m glad you and whoever got involved managed to fix it. And I hope it never happens again. Have a distinct feeling that meeting any nightmare future version of myself would be an absolutely miserable experience.”
Maybe it wasn’t really the point of everything, but on the tentacle, magical nightmare futures fell much closer to one of Reiki’s formative influences—Star Trek, with its mirrorverse, which was not the exact same as a Bad Future but nevertheless had many similarities—and he found it ever so easy to slip into postulating about the what-ifs at play: “Sort of feel like my personal bad future would hinge a lot upon our mutual friend who’s rather a lot on fire.”
……Was ‘friend’ really the word to use here? Reiki didn’t really think so, at least not in his case specifically, but he had no idea where things stood or didn’t stand with Faustite and Kerberos.
“I mean, I can’t see him getting me into the Negaverse by any means except force, and based on the precedents I’m acquainted with? Feel pretty sure that would just break me. Like, Monoceros, Heliodor, all of the other people I’ve met who got dragged in there by force? They all have huge pieces of their lives from before that they just don’t remember. One of them—” As loath as Reiki was to talk about Valjean in neutral-arguably-positive terms, “—he even acted like it was a good thing that whoever he’d been before functionally didn’t exist anymore. So, I kinda can’t help but think that, if Faustite ever did that to me—which I assume he can, now, because it seems like the likeliest explanation for what he was trying to do to Cybele back during the dust-up at Augusta Bank—but if he ever did do that to me? And I guess this all raises questions like ‘Does a broken doll even know that it’s broken? If it doesn’t remember being anything but what it is right now—if it can’t conceptualize being anything other than broken—then can it honestly be sad about its current state?’”
Reiki swallowed thickly, glancing away and down at a thicket of roses. Would’ve been nice to find them comforting instead of feeling uncomfortably reminded of Mirrorspace, and the Mirrorscape, and how he didn’t see the point of doing anything with his heroin-colored baseball field when, honestly, the couple of things he had done had been completely and utterly underwhelming. The nightmares he’d had about Faustite recently felt significantly more alive, more vibrant, more real than anything that Mirrorspace had ever deigned to show him.
Not that this made the nightmares preferable. More like, both options felt like some kind of death. Faustite himself didn’t, but the threat of getting broken in the way that it would’ve taken to get Reiki into the Negaverse……that felt like a kind of death.
“Aaaaaaanyway,” Reiki sighed dramatically, as if overselling the drama of a certain moment would suitably distract from literally everything else he’d said. “Speaking of a significantly less grabby mutual friend……have you and Monoceros talked very much? Since he got out of the Negaverse?” Reiki sort of assumed that they had, since he and Monoceros had found time for each other despite having no means of cross-faction communication. Monoceros and Kerberos didn’t have to navigate around that. “He’s…… It sort of doesn’t feel like he’s found his footing outside the Negaverse, if that makes sense?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2023 3:05 pm
Kerberos nodded. "It was long enough ago that we've firmly averted it, but....the Negaverse won. I...." He exhaled. "Had what is probably the baddest ending possible for a Senshi, period. It's impossible now," he held up his arm, to show off his glowing tattoos, "but I still have nightmares about it, sometimes."
About being Ascended, cracked and empty. About crumbling under Hvergelmir's fingers as she desperately tried to save her own life. About all of it.
An unhappy breath.
"Yeah, force corrupts are never pretty. Having your memories wiped like that....it breaks something in you, I think." He thought of Chrysocolla, and how she had changed. Totally rewritten into a perfect little servant for Metallia. "I had to give some up, leaving, but at least it was my choice. I knew, and I was ready for it."
He shook his head. "I'd hope that our fiery mutual friend wouldn't want to do that to you, but the Negaverse...it changes the way people think. He might decide it's an acceptable sacrifice. So just...be careful."
Butt hat was grim, and Monoceros was a much more pleasant subject, even if not entirely so. "We have, yes. I've been doing my best to look after him, but it's an....adjustment. It took me a long time to get to where I am, and I hadn't even gone throguh what he did. So I'm hoping that time and support will help him adjust."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
