Prompt 3 (Flurries and Flowers): Strange snow flurries have been blowing through town, frosting entire buildings. Sometimes they come out of nowhere--overnight, or in the timespan of just a few short hours. Sometimes, only minutes. Snow falls rapidly and ice coats doors and windows, sealing them shut. These snow flurries are knocking out power, and worse--trapping people in buildings and cars. Sheets of frosty ice build up quickly and have caused major inconveniences. But, it’s not all bad, if you can find a way to appreciate the small things. After these flurries, in addition to the fresh snow and ice, beautiful flowers in the shape of snowflakes have sprouted up, too. They grow in small patches and permeate a pleasant, sweet fragrance. They can grow on any surface, as long as it is covered in snow or ice. If the flowers are not kept in freezing temperatures, they melt, but for the duration of their lifespan they are beautiful, fragile things.
The weather was acting up again, but Celadon pretended to not notice it. What looked like a sunny day would suddenly be overcome by a big flurry of snow, leaving behind little snow drifts before the sun returned. She'd noticed this twice now, and if she let herself think about it, she was certain to fall into an unanswerable spiral of questions that would put her in a bad mood.
Sometimes, after Celadon emerged from her temporary shelter and the flurries had cleared, she would find the strangest looking flowers uncovered by the snow. They didn't have anything like them where she was from, or on any of the worlds she visited (which was a wild thing to admit to herself). They were pretty, but she had somewhere to be.
After the events at the therapy clinic, she had meant to meet up with Erytheia and pick his brain about being a Knight, but plans fell through when she had to go to the hospital afterward. Then they were all transported to Hy-Brasil rather abruptly, asked to fight Sidhe, and the mental toll that took had left her in a dolorous disposition for at least a solid week afterward. She felt terrible that it had to be delayed for so long, but at least now they had a chance to talk. All it took was arranging to give themselves time to chat while they were both still up on Hy-Brasil.
The spot she'd suggested was part of a park that had been somewhat left in disrepair. It was clear that the agency in charge of keeping the park clean and clear had diverted those resources elsewhere and only committed as much time and money to keeping up the park as was absolutely required of them. Thus, it was less popular to the people who wanted to go on hikes, or play sports in the park, or enjoy playing with their dogs, but Celadon planned to do none of these things. She had one goal, and where they went after that goal was up to them.
She waited against a tree further in, just past an old sign that pointed to a trailhead that no longer existed. She was easy to see for the people entering the park, but not so easily spotted from the road. While she waited, she read a long-kept book that she hadn't finished before.
meighei
Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:00 am
It had been a quite the time for Erytheia since the events on the Earth knight’s wonder and the Sidhe.
He has spiraled into a depression just as deep as the winter snow drifts that came this time of year, thick and sudden. He was no stranger to such feelings. Yet these were hard to shake off. Perhaps because he hadn’t been getting sleep before, now it seemed all he could do was sleep.
Ptolemy had left the window open on purpose. And he groaned as the sunlight hit his face, still in bed. How nice to not know what depression was? He swore that girl wouldn’t know how to feel bad even if the world was ending.
He had to get out of the apartment anyway. He had someone to meet.
As Erytheia, it didn’t take him long to get to the old park. It seemed a bit overgrown and unkempt. But perhaps that was just his mood talking. He tried to perk up, but the smile was forced.
There he was — he was hard to miss in the park, framed as he was in so many whites and golds. Really, she thought, it was the golds and his blonde hair that helped him to stand out so much. The whites of his uniform matched the snow.
"Good," she answered with a nod. Rising from her position against the tree, she shut her book and let it hang at her side. "I'm alive and the sky hasn't fallen. That's all I need."
Maybe it wasn't now, but it used to be. She decided she'd rather like to get back to that sort of hardiness, where just waking up every day was enough for her to call it a good day. Maybe all it took to get there was to fake it a little while, then it would come back to her. Either way, she had hope that this part of her nature would return to her, if not naturally on its own, then perhaps after she'd put to rest all her lingering doubts about her best friend's death.
"How are you? You've got —" She couldn't remember the name for them, so she pointed to the lacrimal duct of her right eye and made a scraping motion. Maybe he'd just gotten up.
"I wanted to say, I appreciate you coming out here to meet me still. Maybe it's normal? But for me, a lot's happened in a short time. My head's still reeling from it, a little. But, I was hoping you could answer some questions for me: about what it means to be a knight, and how it was for you when you were a Page."
meighei
Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 4:24 pm
I’m alive and the sky hasn’t fallen.
Well, he could say so himself, too. Long ago were the days when it wasn’t. But there had been those days. Many of them, too. Days before he had come to a better understanding of his duty as a knight. More of an agreement with it than anything. An acceptance.
Yet, he had never had that when he was a page.
“Not dead and with the fundamentals of the world still stable and recognizable is good.” He smiled, a much more genuine one than before. “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”
He joined her by the tree.
“It certainly isn’t normal.”
What it means to be a knight?
This was beginning to become the easier of the two questions to answer these days. Not that it was inherently easier. That it was not. It was just that he had been doing this for some time now. If he hadn’t answered it by now, he would have likely gone insane quite a long time ago.
“Protecting the people and places we love. That is what it means to be a knight. Although each individual allegiance has its specifics. For me, as a Cosmos knight, it is to protect starseeds. Erytheia, specifically, exists to provide rest and refuge for starseeds.”
What had it been like when he was a page?
This was one was the hardest to answer. Not because it was inherently difficult. Coming to an answer was not. One knew their own experience. It was how much of it to share. That one time he got knocked unconscious while protecting someone else’s world? Maybe not. That time he recognized a creature’s right to life but could do nothing to assure it but instead watched it die? No. The fact that you have literally no magic at this stage and… well, she didn’t need anyone to tell her that.
“Well, being a page is… a time of learning who you are.” He sighed. “But, if I’m honest. My experience was not always good. There’s a lot out there that wants you dead and not a lot of ways to deal with that without magic, as you know.”
"I'm sorry." He looked pretty rough; she rather wished he told her he didn't have it in him to come and had gotten more sleep if he was struggling with insomnia. It would've been kinder to him, and it wasn't like her questions were of the pressing variety. She wasn't losing any sleep for being in the dark.
She listened to his answer with ease. "That sounds a lot like medieval knights, right? Or what they were supposed to embody." She liked the idea that they were charged with protection of something like a kingdom. Granted, Cybele was more like an unrestricted forest, and Celadon was more like a piece of wildlife preserve, but maybe there were kingdoms in the past. Or maybe park rangers had more in common with knights of old than she would have expected.
But more curious to her was that Erytheia had a specific duty. One that was granted to Cosmos knights. She wondered, then — was she supposed to be doing something specific as a Cybele knight? And what was it about Cosmos knights that gave them that duty? She would wait on those questions for the moment.
"How do I find out what my allegiance is supposed to do?" Cybele wasn't aware, as far as she knew, or at least she didn't mention anything specific to her knights. Really, she seemed absolutely gobsmacked that Celadon existed. It was as if Cybele was no more aware of these things than herself, so it was a learning experience they would inevitably share.
She nodded again when he very politely navigated her second question. A time of learning was precisely what it was, and the lessons seemed to be harsh ones. But maybe that was for a purpose? Or it was no different than how people were born fragile and had to build themselves up over time, often surviving with the help of others. There wasn't any grand design behind it — that's just how life was in the early days. Babies didn't have the strength to hold their own heads up, so they were dependent on their mothers. Pages might not be that much different, but it was up to the Page to find that symbiotic relationship or otherwise survive long enough to get more power.
However that happened.
"I noticed that," she confirmed at last. "Seems like it helps to have more friends in higher places.
"How did you get stronger?"
meighei
Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2024 3:27 pm
“In a way, it is a bit like medieval knights.”
He wondered if medieval knights had gotten their ideals from stories of Earth knights or if they just were two separate things that developed similarly.
“Well, I found out about my allegiance from Yuki — he’s the previous knight of Erytheia. His spirit still resides on my wonder. But not everyone finds out in such a straightforward manner. It might come to you when you are on one your wonder. I know of knights that have had visions of their past lives where they have learned what their wonder was in the past.”
He smiled. Celadon seemed to understand much more than he had at this stage. Which was good because when he had awoken at eighteen he’d been more than a little lost. He’d practicably still been a kid!
“It’s best to have friends. Period. They help you get stronger. I would have never made it without others helping me. Many more times than I care to admit.”
Then he laughed. “But a few battles certainly help, too.”
Celadon didn't see any spirits when she and Cybele visited her wonder. She didn't remember anything that seemed like it happened in times long past, either. But maybe that was something to come later, after she had visited the place enough times. Maybe the Wonder had to warm up to her before it started showing her things like what happened before. Or, maybe she had to go find her ancestor, if she had something like that.
It would take a while to figure it out, she supposed. That was fine, though. She had time.
"I didn't see anything like that when I went up the first time. Maybe I'll meet a spirit or have a vision later on?" She'd heard, distantly, of things like spirit walks. But those usually had some kind of drug involved, and she wasn't sure she would be having any sort of visions if they required something like that.
Nodding, Celadon braced the heels of her hands on her hips. "I haven't met a lot of people, but they've all seemed really helpful and devoted. Some of them seem like they've been in the war for so long that they might not remember what life was like without it." Maybe they didn't want to, though. The war could have been their calling, and she would be remiss to say anything otherwise about it.
"The problem I keep running into is that I don't really have a way to contact them. Exchanging cell phone numbers isn't going to work if someone has reason to keep their normal life private."
meighei
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2024 10:33 am
“It’s certainly possible. It may take many visits just to see all of it. Maybe something will strike you as you get closer to it.” Erytheia mused aloud.
There was still time, plenty of time. Even if she became a knight, there would be time. He had thought that, once he had become a knight, he certainly wouldn’t have any past life memories. Yuki’s starseed still hadn’t left and what could his past life had possibly hold, anyway? But then he had drank liquid from a strange golden vial and he had experienced his first past life memory. He knew who and where he had been in his prior life, though that was all he knew. Urania had filled him in on the rest.
It was still kind of weird to have someone alive now know a past version of you.
“Oh?” Erytheia said. Something in what Celadon said has him digging in his pockets — if he had pockets (it was hard to tell with all the flowing fabric). “Have you found a ring on your wonder yet? It should look something like this.”
He held out a golden ring that was quite delicate and old looking, but it had a face with a star in it that was engraved.
Celadon wasn't sure how she'd respond if she saw a ghost on her Wonder, but it was a thought to tuck in the back of her mind for later. It was, if nothing else, a heads-up that such a thing could happen. That was useful to her — a swift assurance that any ethereal dead people were business as usual.
She perked when Erytheia reached into his pocket for some kind of ring. Leaning forward, she peered at it thoughtfully. It wasn't like she needed to study it to know the answer to his question — she never saw a single ring on her wonder that wasn't part of a tree stump — but the ring itself was interesting. It looked like it would fetch a lot of money in a pawn shop, for one, and its style wasn't something she was familiar with. It didn't look like anything someone would make today and try to sell in a shop. And it had a symbol that was quite a lot like the ones on his uniform.
And apparently it was normal to find rings on her Wonder. Considering that was itself intimidating: her wonder was basically a forest nestled between mountains. There was a stream, too, though it looked pretty dammed up by all the fallen wreckage. If there was a ring, it could've been covered up by all the ash, or the leaves that drifted down from the mountain, or it could have been washed away in the stream. She doubted she'd be able to find something like that on her own, or even with a whole team of people helping her search.
"It's a pretty ring," she complimented a bit belatedly. Straightening up, she looked at Erytheia again. "But, if I'm being honest, I don't think I'll find any rings on my Wonder. It's like a wildlife preserve, almost? I haven't seen any old campsites or anything. I feel like I would have to search every square inch of it to try to find a ring."
Then an idea occurred to her. "Can I just buy a ring and have that be magical?" Hopefully not all things started out full of magic. She didn't.
meighei
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2024 10:29 am
Erytheia watched as Celadon examined the ring, hoping she had discovered one herself. It was clear she hadn’t, though.
“A wildlife preserve? Hrm. I found my ring under a tree. So finding it in nature is surely possible. Though I must admit that I didn’t really try to find mine. I stumbled upon it before I even knew its significance.”
The knight knew that information might not be helpful to Celadon. In fact, as far as he knew, there was no set way to find a signet ring. All he knew definitely was that pages did not start with them in their possession.
“I don’t think you can just create one from an ordinary ring or, at least, I don’t know of anyone that could. Perhaps a Mauvian might be able to figure it out, but they are more familiar with senshi phones than the knight way of communication because the ring allows you to send messages — in an entirely different way. These rings are only usable by the knight they were intended for so there is something about the magic that is specific to us.”
