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 Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2023 5:18 pm
She had mostly gotten used to this whole being stronger, but Mechelen made sure to keep her cell phone away from her today when she powered up and wrote a quick message to Celadon, just for fun.
Quote: Celadon, Hey! I went to my Wonder! And I miss you! And I got stronger! And I miss you! We should hang out if you have the time? I’m patrolling right now, going to send you a text just in case you aren’t, and I have my phone with me as Mechelen…but…if we do end up hanging out, please remind me to not go back to me without it…that…wouldn't be great. I hope to see you soon! I’m right by where we first me!
<3 Mechelen
There! That was good enough for a quick letter, and it obviously expressed her feelings so…Celadon couldn’t be upset by it!
Folding the paper and scribbling the Page’s name onto it, Mechelen stamped her ring down and watched as the paper vanished…
Okay, so that was just neat.
Withdrawing her phone, she sent “Kat! I’m out and about and sent you a letter! Back where we first met! <3 Tilly”
There! Easy enough, cryptic enough!
…Hopefully her friend would send her a reply! Or show up! Either way, she would be content.
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2023 5:32 pm
Kaðlín needed to clear her head. She needed to get away from her thoughts for a while, and the perfect circumstance to do just that cropped up on her phone minutes later. She searched around for the buzzing thing before finding it buried beneath a stack of printouts that she had just screened earlier. Earnestly, she typed out a response.
Hi Mechelen! I can pop out and check where we first met! Or we can meet there in a few minutes?
Those minutes were a matter of making sure she had her keys and shoved her cell phone wallet into her back pocket. She wanted to make sure she took a couple of bottles of water from the fridge, too, and the unopened box of Belvita cranberry orange biscuits in case they went to Mechelen and got deep enough into exploring that they needed a break. She thought she could've taken more, but she knew nothing about what to expect in space. And she rather hoped that simply being Celadon was all she needed.
It wasn't much longer before she was out the door. The park they'd met at wasn't far, a few minutes at most, and she could step into the staircase to nowhere by the abandoned remains of a Japanese import store to become Celadon. She'd just popped into the alley and exchanged her clothes for a long dress when a letter suddenly fell into her hands. She scrunched her eyebrows at it, simultaneously affronted that Destiny City didn't have such an efficient postal system and genuinely surprised that Mechelen's letter turned out that way. It looked like it had a unicorn headband with ears on it?
Celadon opened it as she stepped out of the stairway to nowhere. She read the contents while she walked, and finished by the time she reached the outer edges of the park.
It was like using WhatsApp without the hassle. Huh.
Celadon had no way of replying, so she made her way back to the bench they had met at instead. Sure enough, she spotted Mechelen, though she looked different from before. She waved, then asked, "How'd you send that?
"You look different now, too. You're a…" She didn't have a name for it. "Whatever's between Page and Knight now, right?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2023 6:54 pm
“Yeah!” Mechelen hesitated for a moment and then flung herself at the older Page, grinning before holding up the ring that sat on her hand. “I was told about it first off, it’s up on your Wonder, or, it should be. Mine was! It’s amazing isn’t it? Pulling away from the hug, she did a slight twirl, still grinning. “It’s magical letters, and I’m glad that it worked, it was why I sent the text too, just in case you weren’t powered up…and yeah! I got stronger, that was…kind of awesome. There’s this other guy I train with? And I hope it makes him jealous!”
If it did, great! If not, she would find another way. Halle would have to be impressed. She really wanted that to be the case, at least.
“How have you been? What’s been going on? It’s been too long and that is absolutely my fault…have you made it up to your Wonder or space at all yet?”
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2023 7:41 pm
Celadon made a small gasp when Mechelen hugged her. She'd hugged someone not that long ago, but the last time she'd been hugged was long enough that she couldn't remember. It was over before she remembered what to do with herself.
A ring that lets people send letters magically, and one was up on her Wonder? She guessed that must have been something any knight could expect if Celadon could find one. As far as she knew, she hadn't done anything that warranted special treatment. Mechelen had found hers, and Celadon assumed that she did so very recently. Otherwise, she probably wouldn't have been so excited to use it and uncertain of if it would succeed at getting a letter to her.
"It's very nice," she complimented when she caught her breath. "And congratulations on getting stronger." Celadon had no idea how that worked, but it was worth congratulating, even if the reason for its occurrence was as mundane as a certain amount of time elapsing. Any growth, any gain, was worth celebrating.
Celadon didn't think she knew any guys outside of meeting Erytheia. But Erytheia was a Knight, so he was likely not who she was referencing. She didn't fully grasp the spirit of competition herself, but she tried to support it whenever she spotted it. It didn't seem like it was negatively affecting Mechelen, at least — as long as she wasn't rushing headlong into danger in hopes of outdoing the guy with whom she trained.
"You'll have to work harder to stay ahead of him." Celadon rested a fist against her belt. "And I'll have to catch up to you, too. Do you think you could beat us both?"
She could absolutely beat Celadon. Day in and day out. Celadon didn't have the faintest idea how to gain more power in the first place, nor was she in a particular rush to get her hands on more power than she could wield responsibly.
Celadon was glad for the rush of questions, though. It let her choose which ones to answer. "Most recently, I was on Hy-Brasil's Wonder, helping her push something called a Sidhe back to the ocean. She's an Earth Knight, and she started glowing after she did it? It was breathtaking." Certainly more breathtaking than her Wonder, she'd discovered.
"And I did visit my Wonder. It's…" She cocked her head as she tried to decide how to describe it. "A valley, with a river that cuts through between a pair of mountains. But it looks like it burned down, so there isn't much left of it."
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 7:39 pm
Mechelen’s eyes were wide as she listened to the description of Celadon’s Wonder, and honestly…she wanted to go there. Wanted to see what she could do to help it. “Well…if it burned down, then maybe the ash of the fire is going to just…make everything grow better in the future? I would love to visit it with you sometime, if you wouldn’t mind me hanging around? I’m planning to spend the night up on my Wonder soon with a friend of mine…and we’re going to see about cleaning some of the place up a bit…but um. If you’d like to do the same sometime, I’d love to have you up there!”
If she could start having sleepovers on her Wonder…it would be so much easier to get things done…and maybe…
“Do you know anything about like…furniture restoration? Or anything about castles or anything? Like, I was only there the one time but…it seemed like everything was broken. I’ll take a better look when i’m up there again…but…”
Mechelen hesitated. “Maybe you should take some tools up to yours and see if you can start like…helping the burned areas? I’m…like. A rake?”
That was the only thing she could think of. Raking the ash. Seeing what was under it…
It made a little sense. Kind of.
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Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2023 4:59 am
Mechelen speaking reminded Celadon that she really didn't know what it meant to have a wonder. She knew what it meant in terms of UNESCO world heritage sites, that it probably entailed preserving what was as best as possible to keep the designation, but when it came to space and magic? She had no clue. Celadon was just a place on Cybele that was assigned to her in some way, and it shared a name with her. It had something to do with the Code. What she could do with it, and what she was supposed to do with it, remained mysteries to her.
Mechelen thought it meant cleaning the place up. Maybe that's what it meant to most knights. If Mechelen had a castle, then it made sense that she needed to step in and keep the place from falling apart. Castles weren't living environments — they depended entirely on their own makers to keep them standing. And for one girl, taking care of a castle sounded like a monumental task.
"I don't," Celadon admitted regretfully. "I'm more of an outdoors type. If I had to look for myself, though, I would take some photos and try talking to an antiquarian about the furniture? And look at YouTube for how to do the actual restorations. I'm sorry I can't be of more help, though."
In truth, she wasn't decided, yet, on what to do with Celadon. "Thanks for the suggestion." It was heartening that someone felt that they could reach out to her with one. And it was something to keep in mind when she returned.
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Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 9:57 am
“I wouldn’t have even thought about taking a picture to someone…that’s a good idea, I was thinking a lot about the youtube…there’s people who do literally everything on there so I’m bound to find something or someone…”
Hesitating for a moment, Mechelen grinned. “You’re welcome. It’s like…I don’t know. I’ve seen videos of places after forest fires, and even this one facebook post about some guy making an above ground garden…I swear he said it like eight times, above ground garden box…so like, you couldn’t be confused but he added in ashes from his campfire? So I’m pretty sure that it must mean that ashes help things grow, and yeah…so…I’ll get myself a rake too! And if you ever want to go up to your Wonder and bring me, we can rake together so things can grow back and be more amazing than ever!”
She felt excited by the very idea, and gave a slight sigh. “...I love going up to Space. I just. Think it’s so neat. Promise we’ll see one another again soon, okay?”
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 1:28 pm
Celadon nodded. It was an easy thing to promise. They knew each other's numbers, and as long as nothing untoward happened to either of them, they had every reason to meet up again. Seeing Mechelen sounded like it would begin to open her eyes to how vastly different one planet could be from the next, for she had only seen a couple thus far.
And even knowing that hadn't lost its mystifying qualities — that she got to see other places like this, places that the rest of the world only saw in dreams and storybooks, was a treasure she would never leave behind.
Whatever was going on with Celadon-the-place, she wasn't overly concerned. She never got the feeling of malevolence from it, though it did surprise her to find how quiet it was. Still, it made sense; the birds and forest animals of Cybele had little reason to inhabit the space if there was nothing for them to forage. And Mechelen's idea couldn't hurt, either; Celadon didn't know how long it had sat in that state, but a little raking wouldn't hurt it or worsen anything. There was little else to do there if she wasn't willing to interfere in its rebound at least a little.
"If you want help, though, let me know. I've had to put together some Ikea furniture recently, not that it's the same, but maybe we can figure something out together." It was too easy to feel alone otherwise.
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 1:52 pm
“I would love to have your help! I’ll absolutely be in touch, I’m not sure that…”
Mechelen paused for a second and gave a soft noise as a thought came to her. “Ikea furniture is actually…a really good idea. We can bring it up in boxes and just get it done that way…it won’t be like…true to the…” She waved her hand vaguely. “Everything but it will do in a pinch!”
Her eyes were sparkling and she nodded, clearly planning something. A bed would be nice. A big one. One that would make it so that sleepovers didn’t have to be on the floor…
“It could work! I’m going to go make more plans, and I’ll be in touch, okay?”
Honestly, right now it felt as though there was nothing that she couldn’t do.
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 2:02 pm
Tradition was important to some people, Celadon understood, but she also didn't know anything about the tradition of somewhere like Mechelen. Mechelen must have, though, and been enamored enough with it that she wanted to keep it up. Celadon couldn't fault her for that, though it was undeniable that she would rather mold a place to her own liking, than that of people who were no longer there.
But that was a thought for another time, and Celadon could respect Mechelen's wishes. It sounded like she had an idea to act on now, after all, and Celadon didn't want to obstruct her from that mission.
"Okay," she conceded easily. "I'll talk to you soon. Don't throw your back out with those boxes, okay? That happened to my coworker and he's complained about it ever since." That was a bit of a stretch, but it felt like that man complained about his back at every opportunity. Luckily he worked in a department that Kaðlín seldom saw.
"Good luck out there." She wasn't sure if it helped, but being powered up in Destiny City felt like it relied a whole lot on luck.
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