Day 123 [OPEN]

[bastionmods]

Who: Everyone
Open: Open
When: Day 123
Where: All over the Bastion
What: Obligatory "We just got more people/survived a hellish experience" mingle log!
Format: Your choice!
Warnings: Shouldn't be any?

[So the past few days in the Bastion have been very hectic and a little more than emotionally stressful for everyone. About two days have come and gone since the last very large batch of arrivals have come in to the Bastion, and thankfully since then it's been relatively quiet. It's a good time to compress, meet some new people and maybe have some good food at the distillery courtesy of Rin.]

Comments

[croceamors]

[Unlike many other arrivals to the Bastion, Saix seems to be taking this whole 'end of the world' business fairly calmly. The past couple of days, after making sure that Axel was set up and tended to, have been spent investigating everything and... asking (not interrogating, oh no) about the situation. By this point, he has a basic handle on it. Lately, he's been investigating the different buildings.]

[Right now, however? Well, anyone hustling about the Bastion might spot Saix outside the distillery, a bottle in his hand that he's staring very intently at. Oh dear. Someone's told him about Caelondian spirits.]

[dontyoujustwish]

[Anya may be taking the end-of-the-world thing fairly in stride herself, having both caused and averted a few like scenarios, but that doesn't mean she's happy about it. She nods appreciatively at what she seems to have found Saix doing.]

Booze. That's not a bad idea.

[hellpyre]

[Rin can usually be found one of three places - her apartment, the onsen or the Distillery. Today is no different, and she's back in her usual place in the kitchen. It is, of course, one of the few things that keeps her sane. When nothing else about life in the Bastion makes sense, working with food still does.

So if anyone needs her, or wants to ask about the food or just feels like talking to a half demon brat who just happens to know how to cook really damn well that would be the place to go.]

[freedom_engineer]

[Hey Rin, you've got a cautious engineer knocking on the doorframe of the kitchen. He's got a handful of shards, and he's smiling faintly.]

Hey, knock knock.

[coolerthansora]

[Roxas has spent most of his time thus far in Bastion hanging around the hospital keeping an eye on Axel, but a guy's gotta eat. And at some point maybe a guy gets curious about the cooking which actually seems sort of familiar.

He pokes his head into the kitchen and-- is familiar still the right word if one thing in particular is drastically different?]

Uh...

[unwrittenformula]

[One of the new arrivals was an awkward, lanky young man with a massive fluff of green hair and an almost constant serious expression. He's not out with the others currently, though, because his fellow human companion was hurt on their arrival, and he's been spending most of his time in the hospital with her.

But the odd bipedal fox that he arrived with is wandering out in the Bastion proper. He's tall, dark and a little scary looking. Or would be, if he wasn't... bouncing around chasing a butterfly. Like a big dopey puppy,.

Yup.

Anyone is free to approach him. He's actually very gentle and sweet, though if he gets startled expect to see a sudden illusion of yourself staring back at you.]

(ooc: Zoroark's main ability is Illusion which reflects the form of something else, usually something near by like a person or another creature. He can also be understood by anyone who has the ability to hear animals.)

[amnesiadragon]

[Ryu watches the little fox, and can't help but grin like a doof. He heads over and jumps up to try to catch the butterfly too.]

Hey!

[superdrowningskills]

[For all that he's half human, some days it's just much easier to assume a shape that he doesn't have to bother with any pretense of humanity. For a while, he can just pretend to be an intelligent beast instead of existing between humanity and the creatures the dwell in darkness, never quite fitting into either world. It's less difficult here in the Bastion, but it's always less difficult when there's not ingrained expectation that he will hold up his end of a conversation. He somewhat misses his bat shape, but wolf shape is far more practical during the day, for obvious reasons.

It seems an even better choice when he notices the odd fox creature. Hi Zoroark, hope you don't mind a wolf coming over to see what you are.]

[windgod]

[Regardless of the fact that only yesterday he had woken up from a 5 day coma, Ippo had decided that had been more than enough bed rest for him and was up and about the Bastion. He felt restless and while he couldn't go back to training just yet at the behest of Stein; he was definitely content to be outside again. Maybe he'd even run into some of the new arrivals if he wandered about enough; but either way he was just happy for some fresh air.]

[dissectionislove]

[...And Stein is more than happy to pollute said fresh air with the smoke from yet another cigarette. Contentedly leaned up against a wall on the outside of the Distillery, he throws up a hand when he sees the all-too-familiar face of a frequent patient wander by.]

Yo. [He remarks casually, though his voice is far from chipper.] Finally on your feet again, I see.

[orzelbialy]

[For all of Frederic Francois Chopin's amazing talents, hard labor and other such things were not among the list. He was a composer, a dandy, a man of high class and such things were always left to other people who's hands remained calloused from the day they took up work to the day they died. It was a sad fact, but not one that could easily be helped in his time, and as much as he may have found sympathy for the poor he was only bothered by their plight so much.

After all, even a well off man was susceptible to the other ravages of human life, and he had spent so much of his own short time living in a state of illness.

He had been granted a second chance via admittedly selfish actions, but they were actions that also helped revive an entire world. A world he once considered to be his dream, but soon found to be more real and vibrant than anything he had ever encountered in France or even in Poland. He would always miss his home country, but he would be an ungrateful wretch if he didn't feel that he owed something incredible to that other world.

But now that world was gone, and his life went on in a new place that was at once halfway between heaven and hell, between life and death, on the edges of survival but being steadily pushed towards a proper, if not small civilization at the hands of those left behind to care for it.

And he could do absolutely nothing to help them.

It was immensely frustrating, to say the least.

Out on the Skyway he was a force to be reckoned with, and once the chance to venture out there again was provided to them he was more than happy to go along and provide the power needed to deal with the dangerous creatures out there, but within the Bastion proper there was just so little he felt he could do.

Eventually he settled on simply trying to compose to calm his thoughts and put them (in a rough sense) to paper as he often did when these moods took him. Finding a pen had been difficult, but the strange tailed girl who worked the Distillery in Mireille's absence provided him with an odd contraption she insisted was a pen along with some worn out parchment that was nearly fragile to the touch.

It worked for his purposes, though, and upon putting several crude staff lines across it without assistance from a straight edge, he took to sitting next to the river across from the area affectionately called the "Dragonfield" while attempting with some struggle to compose without the keys of a piano beneath his fingers.

All that said, this would be an excellent time to bother the previously reclusive composer.]

[wayofvoice]

[Affectionately but accurately called Dragonfield, it should be noted. The reason for this becomes apparent as a large shadow passes over Chopin and something very large and very scaley dives into the water.]

[Paarthurnax had noted the presence of paper, after all, and hadn't wanted to land in case the rush of air from his wingbeats blew it all away.]

[But he does reappear, his head surfacing somewhat along the river before rising a bit more so that he can see what the composer is doing. Water follows the paths of his scales and scars, dripping from his horns.]

Ah, a sonaan. I recall songs they have sung in Skyrim.

[thirdoutofthree]

[ Viola was pretty sure Frederic was ignoring her, but she couldn't figure out why. Not because it was unlike him, but because she could think of too many reasons he would be keeping to himself. He had a real flare for the dramatic sometimes. ]

[ But she couldn't give him too much grief for sulking more than usual. After everything they had been through, Viola couldn't expect Frederic to pick up and carry on so quickly. He and Polka were like that, apt to be pulled down by all the bad things that happened and unable to pick themselves up. ]

[ At first, Viola decided to give the two of them some space. Though she worried about her friends, she didn't want to crowd them and make things worse. Everyone grieved in their own way. But after her conversation at the Ranch with Rin and her renewed determination not to give up hope for their world, Viola felt that she should share that optimism with her friends. ]

[ Finding said friends, however, turned out to be a bit more challenging than she expected. Frederic, who usually seemed like the indoorsy sort of person, was not to be found inside any of the buildings Viola figured that he would frequent. In fact, she only came out to the Dragonfield to take a break. Who'd have thought she would find Frederic all the way out here? ]

So this is where you've been hiding. [ She remarked as she came up behind him, casting a shadow over his work. ]

[coolerthansora]

[Roxas has been spending most of his time with his friend in the hospital and not taken to exploring much yet or being very social. Finding out you're in the End of the Worlds is something to chew on, too. It's not an unfamiliar scenario, except that it wasn't caused by Heartless, so even as a keyblade master, he has no special ability to restore the fragmented worlds. And what about the worlds that the rest of his friends call home? It feels strange to be in this position, without Sora.

But in the meantime, he does have three young chocobos to take care of. For a time in the afternoon, he can be found with them in the field not far from the hospital, just sitting and thinking while they play nearby.]

[croceamors]

[Saix's footsteps are probably able to be heard before his words are.]

Is Axel recovering adequately then?

[aprettyred]

[ To say Anna was unhappy about being here would be an understatement. She keeps looking up at anyone with red hair, only to stare despondently at the ground after.

Of course it wouldn't be him. Mr Stein, even if he wasn't the same one, had said-

Never mind. She shouldn't think on that.

Anyone want to bother the clearly at least a little upset little girl who is sitting under a tree. ]

[unwrittenformula]

Anna.

[Sadly this person wouldn't have red hair, but his fluffy locks might be familiar to her. He did inhabit HOMRA back in Vatheon for a short time, after all.

N wasn't the most social person, but Anna had become a friend of sorts back there, and he was worried about the girl not having her guardians.]

[dissectionislove]

[This is all that's left of the lives the survivors had once led - the people and things here are, sadly, all that remains. Stein knows that's not an easy thing to accept, and each and every individual has to come to grips with it in their own time. Children, he'd once thought, were more adaptable - more readily accepting of even the most dramatic, sweeping changes in their lives. But this one, it seems, is disproving that theory. He notices her subtle expressions; the desperation and disbelief in her eyes. Undoubtedly she knows they are gone, just as surely as he does.

True, he's not a father; not even a teacher so much anymore. All the same, he can still feel the sorrow in her soul as clearly as his own.

Slowly, he takes a seat on the grass beside her. Not a word is spoken between the two of them until he places a hand on her tiny shoulder.]

It'll be alright.

[notduchess]

[ So more people. Okay, Duke isn't terribly sure what to do about that.

Which is why the knight is doing pretty much what the knight always does. There are bundles of really crappy wood being tied up in vaguely torso-like shapes.

There's a couple thicker, nicer stakes of wood stuck into the ground on the apartments side of the river, next to stacks of torso like things.

Looks a bit like a ramshackle training yard. ]

[thirdoutofthree]

[ It was kind of difficult not to notice the oddly shaped bundles of wood near the apartments, even though Viola didn't usually spend much time there. As she approached them, she noticed that they looked a bit like... people? ]

[ She nudged one with the tip of her shoe to see how solid it was. If it could hold up, it might be good for sparring practice. ]

[heptagram]

[Patchouli hasn't really tied herself down to any specific place. She's just been wandering around the town on foot. She's generally not the sort to approach a stranger. So, if you want to talk to her, you're going to have to go up to her yourself.

Yeah, to be honest, she's kind of... boring that way.]

[amphibian]

[That's okay, because you know who likes people? Aoi likes people! So when she sees Patchouli wandering out and about on her own, Aoi waves and reroutes her afternoon jog to go alongside her. Does it still count as jogging if she's slow enough to match Patchouli's walking pace?]

Hi, Patchouli! What's up?

at the onsen

[thirdoutofthree]

[ After all of the activity of the past few days, Viola wanted nothing more than to relax. Her arrival, her friends' injuries, the arrivals of a bunch of other people-- it was all starting to take its toll on her. She was just starting to crave a dip in the lake back home when she heard some of the locals talking about a hot spring in the northern part of the Bastion. ]

[ And that's where Viola can be found at sunset, relaxing in the nice warm bath. She had let down her hair from the two buns she normally wore and wrapped it up in a towel. Her little squirrel companion, Arco, lay curled up in the basket containing Viola's clothes, showing no interest in getting his fur wet. ]

[croceamors]

[So after speaking with a few people and generally investigating the Bastion, Saix has finally made his way to wandering near the onsen. He's never actually been in a hot spring. Radiant Garden hadn't any, although perhaps Isa had simply not known of them, and his time in the Organization didn't often lend itself to vacation time. (Especially for him.)]

[So there's some vague almost obligatory interest in checking it out, along with a need to make sure he looks over everything in the Bastion. He steps outside into the bathing area and pauses when he sees someone is actually there. He's not in any towel himself, although he is still wearing a simple black set of clothes- his sleeveless shirt and pants.]

Excuse me. [It's stated fairly blandly. He doesn't seem too alarmed at seeing someone lacking pretty much most of their clothes. It'd be hard to say if that's because of his experiences in the bedroom by now, or because that's just the sort of person Saix is. Flesh is flesh, after all.]

[dissectionislove]

[Stein typically isn't the 'mingling' type, but hey... even mad scientists have to eat, right? Cigarettes didn't count as food, after all. Perhaps it's time the good doctor took a lunch break. Lured by the wafting scent of fresh cooking, he saunters over none-too-quickly.

By the time he enters, the Distillery is already crawling with faces - some new, some not. A couple catch his eye, but he makes no move to speak to them just yet. According to the multitude of noises coming from his abdomen, food is apparently priority one.]

After Anna's breakdown

[blackblooded]

[Paarthurnax had spoken with Crona, calmed the meister down until the worst of the shock passed, but Crona was still shaken, and Ragnarok too. Crona needs to find Stein right now, because Stein is the closest thing to home that Crona has here, and maybe just being near the professor will help dull the bone-deep loneliness and loss. Crona can't be alone right now.]

PSYCHIC BREAKDOWN (ALSO K SPOILERS-) AND LOTS OF TEXT

[aprettyred]

[ OOC: TL:DR below, Anna's emotions have caused the second half of her powers to actually do things. She's broadcasting A all the pain and loss of losing 9 people (confirmed 9, if we want to get extra fancy its closer to 19, because she's guessing that her home world is gone as well.) over 5 years(so yes, this started when she was six). Then pick either B the feeling of drowning (suffocation, really. To the point where their body is literally unable to breath for a little bit), or C third degree burns (these will leave second/minor burns behind) THE CLOSER YOUR CHARACTER IS TO THE MONUMENT, OR THE WEAKER THEIR MENTAL DEFENSES, THE WORSE YOU CAN MAKE THIS FOR THEM. /thumbs up!

Anna is only running for perhaps half a minute once her powers start letting everything out. She takes in the world, hadn't Tatara said that once? Sometimes she can't keep everything in. That's what happens now - all the things she never lets see the light of day com pouring out.


Loss. So much of that recently. So much of that in the past five - is it nearly six years now?
Her parents - all her fault. They would have lived if she hadn't told them she was a Strain. If she hadn't told them that she wasn't sick, that she didn't have a brain illness, that the hospital wasn't a hospital, but a facility. They wouldn't have gone driving. She wouldn't have killed her parents, if she hadn't spoken.
Her aunt, Honami. Also her fault. If she hadn't gone and met the red clan, if she had managed to connect to the slate faster, just like Mizuchi had said, she could have protected her. If she had been stronger. She wouldn't have lost the aunt who tried so hard to make her days free of the facility like a day with a mother, if she had been stronger.
Tatara. If she hadn't kept the promise, if she had told Mikoto, if she had told Izumo, if she had told anyone, they wouldn't have let him go out alone. He wouldn't have died on that rooftop. She wouldn't have lost the man who made the bar a home, made the Red Clan, a clan of violent misfits, a family, if she had spoken.
Mikoto. If Tatara hadn't died, Mikoto wouldn't have gone for revenge. Mikoto wouldn't have killed another King, he wouldn't have nearly had a Damocles Down. She wouldn't have lost the man who made her monochrome world so pretty, with his beautiful red, who made her world so warm, if she had spoken.
Eric. Saburouta. The boy who joined, so lost, without his family and flinching at every kindness. The one who made the most noise when something so tiny was wrong, but would give his all to help everyone. Gone. With everyone who didn't make it to the Bastion with her. All the people of Vatheon she knew but didn't get terribly close to. Rin. Jade. Gamzee. Gone.

And those were just the ones she knew. What if her world was gone?
Izumo? The last of the core, the one to outlive them all. The one to keep them all in check, when he struggled almost as much as Mikoto to do so. Misaki, so loud because he hurt, so troubled with the loss of his friend that even the slighted joke reminded him of the lost, happy times. Shouhei, incredibly earnest. Masaomi, constantly overshadowed by his best friend, but still family with them all. You, so hurt he couldn't be serious. Kousuke, always bringing home strays despite Izumo's insistence otherwise. Rikio, oblivious to the irritation of his clansmen. Even Basashi, the horse Strain who the Blues took in properly the second time. Gone They could be gone. The whole Red Clan, not just HOMRA.

All the Blues, all the Silver, all the Green, all the Gold. The Rabbits. Mizuch-

As Anna crumples, unable to stay standing under her own psychic broadcast, she remembers that old pain. Her powers grow stronger with pain, and when a man has an ability with healing - with near regeneration of those he touches?

No one will know that he nearly drowned a seven year old. No one would know her arms were black and angry red from burns. With a touch of a hand...



It lasts maybe a half a minute, but anyone caught will likely think that it lasted longer. Anna falls unconscious, small and... well, perhaps not quite as alone as she feels.

Just A

[vinesinskin]

[He hadn't been all that close to the monument, but that wave of power still knocked him down, in the middle of pulling out a weed.

The flowers and vines on his arms changed colors quickly, all dark. It was like that time - how many years ago? Four? - The blue pox. All the loss; the patients he didn't know, Flick, Henna, the Temple folk, and then Rosethorn. Like his mother that he doesn't even really remember, just the smell of her perfume and how she'd got knifed in an alley. Like waking up here and being unable to tell where Evvy was, still not being able to tell (she can't be dead, she just can't). Like that time when they were around ten, and they thought they were going to die down there. The pirate attack, Rosethorn with the plants when they dumped blaze balm, Daj' on the boat and with the caravan a couple months later, Rosethorn screaming as those plants burned too....

It takes him a moment (how long? He's not sure) before he can send out a tentative message, apologizing to the plants and sitting up as he does. Coppercurls? You okay?

That must be why he felt it, right? From her. Outloud, in case anyone is nearby, he groans.]

What was that?