welcome home

[outofoffice]

Who: Venti, Yuri, Saya, Lumine, and Kantera
What: A moment of respite
When: March 4th
Where: A house at the far edge of Blossomcrown
Warnings: Probably mentions of previous game trauma/violence


[ Venti has always been the type who wanders to the beat of his own drum, dipping in and out of people's lives as easily as the blowing wind. But Tokyo-F . . . changed things, somewhat.

Though his initial instinct had been to sleep under a tree and call it "home," an invitation to live with old friends put a halt to those plans. For starters, it would be protection from the unpredictable weather in the segments. For another, maybe he did get used to having a bed and a room to call "home," in no small part because of the teammates and friends who inhabited it with him. Now that solitary tree feels . . . lonely, in a way it didn't before.

And so here he is, standing at the threshold of a house full of people he loves and trusts, who asked him to stay . . . it makes him feel his age, but not in a bad way, for once. Nor does he feel that nagging urge to disappear into the wind.

Should he catch anyone watching him, the pensive expression dissolves into a smile. ]

Hehe, is this the part where we fight over bedrooms?

Comments

[essenceborn]

[ Sleep never happens before midnight!! But. after that. It won't take long ]

I'm excited. I've never seen the stars before--and don't offer! I am saving my stars for Yuuto.

[sangreine]

[ Never seen the stars before ]

[ Saya's hand stops moving. The smell of roses is everywhere, and she's running, her hand gripping the cool iron of an ornate key. A stone corridor flashes as she runs past sunlit windows, then runs on in the darkness as she leaves the windows behind. And she knows what she's about to see. ]

[ Instead, she shakes her head hard. She's not ready. ]

N-no, I wasn't going to. It sounds like a very nice plan.

[essenceborn]

[ Nen feels the way Saya seems to freeze up. The way she seems to be looking at something far away. The impulse to reach up and touch her face is so powerful that Nen doesn't even try to fight it, fingertips primed to brush her cheek...right as Saya shakes her head. Nen's hand retreats. ]

...Are you okay?

[sangreine]

Yeah. [ Sort of. ] It goes along with not having all my memories. Sometimes I get flashes.

[ The trouble with having some of her memories intact is that it turns the ones that ordinarily wouldn't make sense sharp enough to cut. ]

Sorry if I shook you.

[essenceborn]

No, it's okay.

[ Nen rolls onto their stomach so they can push themself up a bit and look down at Saya, unable to shake the need to give her a quick once-over. Just in case. ]

What did you remember?

[sangreine]

A hallway. Roses.

[ Entirely the truth, and yet it isn't because she knows what's at the end of that corridor. Mainly she hopes the roses will be comforting enough for Nen to drop the subject. ]

[essenceborn]

[ ...Well, if there's one thing Aaya has, it's Nen's number. The roses absolutely distract them. ]

That sounds nice. I like roses.

[sangreine]

[ It was not nice at all, but that's not the roses' fault. In any case, subject change accomplished. ]

I guess so. It's inconvenient to get pieces of memories like this, but I guess it's how things work with me.

Sorry if I jostled you.

[essenceborn]

It's okay. [ Nen's quick to assure her of that. ] Do your memories happen at random like that a lot? Or does something make you think of them...?

[ If it's the latter, maybe they could find some way to help Saya trigger her memories after she loses them (if they can't fix that issue, that is). ]

[sangreine]

Usually something triggers it. It's not very much fun.

[ Her memories are consistently awful. Even the "good" ones, she knows they end badly thanks to the memories she bought in Tokyo-F. ]

[essenceborn]

Oh...

[ Nen lifts their head a little, just enough to be able to gauge where Saya's head is in relation to their hand, which they lift up to place atop Saya's head.

Pat, pat. ]

Feel better?

[sangreine]

I'm fine, Nenonen. It's something I've learned to live with.

...Thank you, though.

Anyway, tell me more about your plans to see the stars. Are you having a picnic? [ Of course she thinks of food. ]

[essenceborn]

[ Cute... Nen's going to start bringing her snacks every time they decide to meet up. ]

I don't think so... But we are going to the grocery store first because it closes before the stars come out. We are going to go to an observable place and watch them. I am bringing a warm coat.

[sangreine]

[ Nen does not have to bring snacks but like........ Saya will accept them happily ]

If you want to, while you're at the grocery store you can get something to eat. Picnics under the stars are wonderful. And romantic.

[essenceborn]

"Romantic"?

[ 100% accepted, there will be snacks every time from now on. ]

What's that?

[sangreine]

[ That sure is a question but okay we're trying it. You'd think being married would help with this but it's just something she knows, not something she's ever defined in words. ]

Romance is also called being in love with someone. Or multiple someones. [ Just tossing that in there for nonmonogamy reasons. ] It's when you feel differently about them than you do your friends. For me it's like a little flutter of excitement that I don't have with others. I want to spend time with them even more than everyone else I like. All my friends are special to me, but romance makes things another kind of special. Everything's... magnified.

For me it's also different when I touch or kiss them. I do those things with friends all the time, but when there's romance I look forward to it more and it feels... warm, I guess? Just different. My heart beats faster, sometimes I feel all tingly. [ Not in a gutterbrain way necessarily! Just that Saya has a tendency to touch and jump into bed with people so she frames things that way. ]

...Does that help at all? It's kind of hard to define. It's one of those things you just know when it happens, maybe.

[essenceborn]

[ Between Saya, Oryou, Venti and Yuuto, I swear.... Nen's never going to have the correct idea about anything. Spending time with friends sound like dating, kisses always include tongue, boys cast high-level magic to turn their faces red...and when your body gets warm and tingly, that's Love^TM.

Nenonen spends a long moment mulling over what Saya's said. ]

Being in love...

[ They make a thoughtful sound.]

I think you're right. It sounds difficult... I don't think I've been in love yet.

[ However: ]

You must be full of love though, Saya. You're very warm.

[sangreine]

[ Look she tried her best and also she said a lot of things other than warm tinglies, but like hey it's not wrong in her eyes. Saya's mating instincts are hella strong. ]

My species has very strong emotions. I'm married now, and the last person I loved we were together 200 years before he died.

[essenceborn]

[ Saya is the trueet queen. Her mating queenliness knows no bounds... ]

Two hundred years... That's even longer than the time I've lived through. Wow.

[ Nenonen is genuinely impressed?? Time already seemed to go on forever in their world, so the thought of anyone living past that is mind-boggling. ]

[sangreine]

[ Not what she expected to hear. ]

...How long have you lived?

[essenceborn]

I have experienced 188 years of time.

[ "Experienced" being the key word here, because Nen had only been alive for seventeen biological years before time started repeating itself. They're not sure if they can count all that reset time as a real age if nothing about them changed, the time never moved forward. ]

[sangreine]

[ ..."Experienced" ]

[ Saya draws a breath, this is not the moment to ask about it, and she doesn't really need to know ever if it would mean pushing Nenonen. ]

It depends on how you count with me. My hibernations mess with things.

[essenceborn]

Because you were asleep? I think if time was still moving...that it counts. Right?

[ That's the default for gauging how old one is, isn't it? How much time you've experienced in your life.

Even if someone were to slip into a coma or hibernation, it's not like the world stopped with them. ]

[sangreine]

I never really thought about it. I don't know when I first hatched, so I assumed the age range I was given had to do with removing time that I was sleeping.

[essenceborn]

Oh... That is a good point. Hmm.

[ Nen didn't consider that. ]

Could your age then be delineated into two values? One for total cumulative time lived, and another solely for the time you experience while awake?