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.]

[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.]

[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.]

[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.

[hellpyre]

Come in~

[Rin's call is far more cheerful than she's been sounding lately. Maybe she won't be so angry today?]

[unwrittenformula]

[Oh it's a game now! Who can catch it first? Zoroark lets out a rumbling, playful noise as he tries to go after it again.]

[unwrittenformula]

[Zoroark doesn't notice right off, leaping and jumping at the butterfly as he was. He doesn't want to hurt it, really, especially since there seem to be so few of them in this place, but he still wants to play.

Eventually he lands near the other wolf in a crouch, and he stops to stare at it with a curious head tilt.]

[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...

[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.

[croceamors]

There is a distillery nearby if it interests you. I'm not interested in getting intoxicated, however.

[Mostly because he can barely remember a thing from the night when he did get ridiculously drunk. It was a good reminder of why he doesn't let Axel choose things.]

It turns out that here, different spirits have different effects on you. This is... [A brief glance at the bottle.] Cinderbrick Stout. I was told it makes you somewhat faster in certain situations.

[freedom_engineer]

[He can hope, right? He'll step in.]

Thanks.

So... uh... I need to apologize. Again. ... Only, and I don't mean this meanly... I don't know what I said last time. I set you off, and I don't know why.

[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.]

[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.]

[hellpyre]

[Oh. It's him.

Amazingly Rin doesn't scowl upon his entering, but any of her cheerfulness does fade rather quickly. She was in the middle of cutting some vegetables, so her motions didn't stop until she was actually finished with the batch on the wooden cutting board. She pushed them off with the knife in to the cooking pot she had set next to it before finally turning, cleaning the knife off on her apron.]

... thank you. And... I'm sorry, too. I was upset and took it out on you.

[She turned her eyes down to the knife, rubbing at a single spot for several seconds longer than was needed.]

I think I took what you said wrong.

[hellpyre]

[Sorry, Roxas. She hasn't noticed you yet. Tail swaying, humming to herself as she works, she's a bit wrapped up in what she's doing and a small noise like that isn't going to get her attention.]

[freedom_engineer]

Can I ask what you thought I said?

I've been replaying the conversation several times, and, well... I'm not the most observant in social situations. Which does not help me in new situations, I realize.

[He'll keep his distance for the moment. No need to crowd her. Especially not with his track record.]

[hellpyre]

[Rin was never good at admitting when she was wrong. She was terribly stubborn like that, and with a sister like Yuki who was always right even stupid mistakes like that were hard to backpedal on.

But bless her, she's trying.]

... when you said 'I've taken worse' I thought you meant--

[Really trying.]

It sounded like you were tryin' to say you've had it harder than me.

[freedom_engineer]

Oh... OH!

Oh heavens, no wonder!

[That gets a loud laugh out of Colin]

No, no, I was trying to tell you that your... Wait, no, I'm saying this wrong.

[He gets a look of momentary frustration and huffs, lifting his hand to tap his chin briefly]

I mean... Lemme try this. I spend more time on the hypernet dealing with tough guys, trolls, and self-important blowhards than I spend working every day. I've got a thick skin. You can insult me all you want, and it'll roll off me like water off of a swan.

Does that make sense? I just meant that I can take it.

[coolerthansora]

Um... Hello?

[Roxas steps into the kitchen now, puzzling over whether to just say hi or... The tail, the cooking, he just has to ask.]

This might sound weird, but- are you related to someone named Rin?

[Maybe he has a sister he never mentioned.]

[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.

[dontyoujustwish]

Are you telling me it's a non-alcoholic stout, or are you only planning to get a little intoxicated? Maybe it only makes you perceive yourself as faster.

[croceamors]

I wouldn't be surprised if that's all it did. Honestly, I am hoping for the first result. I don't... handle alcohol well. Apparently.

[Yeaaaaaah.]

[dontyoujustwish]

Some people don't handle sobriety well either.

You just have to learn your limits.