queenoflogs | Well, the weather outside is frightful

Entry tags:

Well, the weather outside is frightful

Characters: Everyone!
Date: Midnight the 16th of December
Summary: The inhabitants of the Garden get their reward for making out beneath the mistletoe, in the form of a lights show in the sky.
Warnings: N/A

In the dead of night, the Garden is dead silent. Without the sound of the city or urban life, only the noises of nature pervade the air. Crickets. Rustling leaves. The occasional footsteps of an animal.

However, tonight, at midnight, the silence is broken by a loud pealing of bells, rousing the people of the garden from their sleep. The bells continue ringing for nearly half a minute before falling silent. For a moment, the peacefulness of night returns to the Gardens.

Then the enormous mistletoe plant begins glowing, with a brilliant white light bright enough to be seen from all corners of the Garden. It fizzes, shooting off heatless sparks, and then bursts, shooting up into the sky and breaking into pieces of glowing light, forming various shapes. Above the Orchard, a series of hearts form, burst like fireworks, and reform. Over the Necessities, nymphs made of sparkling light kiss and dance through the sky, winking down at the people below. Over the ruins, flowers of multicolored light pop into existence and disperse. And above the Viridian Pavilion, fiery red phoenixes swoop through the air, burn out dramatically, and are reborn in a new cascade of light.

The show will continue until morning. Fortunately, now that the mistletoe's light has dispersed, it's not so bright that it should keep people awake.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'd very much like to!" Ryoko beamed, clasping her fingertips together. "I'm just not sure how, unfortunately..." but already she was trying to analyze the data of the stranger's perch. The technology was unfamiliar to her. How delightfully novel!

Technology, yes, but mostly magic. ~~And if there is some kind of post that has to be filled out regarding this, please say so!~~

She nods. "Don't worry, I'll take care of that." Subaru hops to her feet and the motors on her skate rumble to life as the ribbon of light extends in front of her and then banks and corkscrews until it touches the ground near the stranger. Subaru glides down the track with ease, her glove fingers hovering near the edges when the turns are tight.

She nails the landing and stands there, coat whipping lightly in the breeze, and grins as she holds her arms out. "Ready?"

~~it's coo', just canon-blind!~~

Her eyes widened and she almost reflexively took a step back as the path of light spiraled down near her. However, the other girl did make quite the flashy landing, and Ryoko clapped her hands together, suitably surprised and delighted. It was rather impressive. Perhaps she had some low-level data manipulation abilities?

"I am! But I really have to ask, how does this work? It's a very pretty... track, shall I say?"

[ ooc: In that case, I'll just point out she's dressed but not for the cold (http://i.imgur.com/Lu8Be.jpg) and minus the gauntlets. ]

"Track works, but I call it 'Wing Road'," and though she could explain it in more detail, they shouldn't waste more time on the ground. So, with a grin, all she clarifies it as is: "It's a magic trick. It's completely safe as long as I'm around."

The young woman steps forward and to the side, crouching toward the girl just a bit. "Now, if you'll just excuse me..." Hope she doesn't mind being picked up bridal style (because how else was she going to get her up there?). That is, if she'll be allowed to.

[ ohh, thanks! 8D ]

"I'll hold you to that, then!" it was relatively easy to adopt the stern tone of her class president persona. And it wasn't as if she was worried, anyway--if she fell, it wasn't as if the injuries on her interface would be a source of concern, even if she couldn't contact the Entity.

However, it was a little less easy for her to stop a little gasp of surprise as Subaru picked her up. She wasn't expecting that. But she calibrated her responses: allowed herself to relax a little and laugh, clasped her hands together like a blushing schoolgirl. "My! Well, I suppose I don't mind this."

A little laugh. "Sorry, sorry, but I'll be careful, I promise." The existing ribbons fades from view and she looks up, another road sprouting from just beneath her feet up and back to the same height as before, but this time using a much more gradual arc, and no fancy turns.

She skates on up that way, her feet steady even as the wheels grip the Road and propel them upward at a decent pace (too slow and they'd probably just backslide). Once there, she carefully sets the girl down, but keeps her hands close in case of any unsteadiness. "See? No problem at all!"

"Ah! I'm Subaru, by the way. Aheh, I guess I should have said that before I picked you up." Whoops.

Even if the ascent wasn't particularly steep or fast, Ryoko couldn't help but grasp Subaru's shoulders a little. She'd never quite entrusted her interface like this before, and being in an area with unknown data... she supposed she had to act carefully. So she let herself down gingerly upon the Wing Road and glance around, touching the light with only half-disguised fascination, glancing up when the other girl introduced herself.

"Subaru-san, then? It's fine, I probably should have introduced myself, too," she smiled, only with a hint of embarrassment. "I'm Ryoko Asakura. It's a pleasure! I really appreciate the lift, it was a very smooth ride."

"Nice to meet you, too, Asakura." She says with a chuckle. "We did what we could to make it smooth. I'm pretty used to bringing passengers along." Lights in the distance distracted her, and she turned her head away.

"Whoa! They must have stocked a lot of fireworks for this. I wonder if there's going to be a big finale..."

She'd liked to have investigated this solid light data further, but perhaps she could also get some information about the other lights in the sky. "I'd have to wonder what kind of finale can outdo this. It's all very impressive already! I take it that fireworks like these doesn't happen too often here, right?"

Subaru shook her head. "It's the first time I've seen them like this since I arrived." Which hasn't been that long, but still. "I wonder what the special occasion is," she wondered aloud, as she missed the initial glowing from the mistletoe, and can't really put 2+2 together in this case.

"A holiday, maybe?" but now that she thought about it, Ryoko couldn't quite seem to recognize the constellations and figure out what date it was supposed to be. How long had it been since she was dismissed? Well, she supposed she could hazard a guess. She'd seen a few of the mistletoe plants, and it was already chilly enough to be winter.

Speaking of... "Are you cold? It's pretty late, isn't it?" not that Ryoko's cardigan was very warm, but she'd be willing to share.

"That's what I was thinking, but in the middle of the night, with no announcement? It's kind of odd." Regardless of the fact that there's no real telling how many of the familiar Earth holidays they celebrate here, it's too early for New Years.

"Hm? Oh, I'm fine. What about you?" Despite wearing shorts and having an exposed midriff, Subaru wasn't chilly or shivering at all. As a matter of fact, Ryoko might have noticed that her body was warmer to the touch than should be expected.

"How mysterious! Well, it can remain a perfectly inexplicable phenomenon for now. I suppose those still happen--we, as human beings, don't know everything, after all."

Though Ryoko didn't check the other girl's temperature, she did recall Subaru being quite warm as she carried her up the Wing road. Ryoko feigned a slight shiver and a shy laugh. "If you say so. And don't worry about me! You're quite a remarkable person, Subaru-san."

"Haha, that's true! And this place does have a lot of mystery to it, too." Which is equally interesting and frustrating.

A headtilt. "What makes you say that?" Because, to her, this situation wasn't all that abnormal.

"But that makes it exciting, doesn't it?" Ryoko gave the other girl an equally puzzled look. "For instance, I've never seen fireworks in the shapes of phoenixes and fairies, and I've never been able to fly on a Wing road made of light. Furthermore, it seems to be at least december, and you're able to stay out in the middle of the night at a height like this without a coat on. I doubt a normal person like me could do anything like that."

"Oh, aheh, well... when I heard the bells I thought something was wrong, so I rushed right out with my Barrier Jacket on. I think I'm still so worked up I didn't notice it was so cold!" Seems legit, right? She smiles oddly. "At least it's not snowing? That would be something I'd change for."

"Oh," Ryoko blinked, then gave an embarrassed laugh. "Well, if it's something like specialized clothing... I didn't consider that. I feel a little silly now. But in any case, flying is still impressive, isn't it? It's certainly my first time meeting a person who could do that."

She laughs a bit, waving her gloved hand. "It's okay! I should've just said so from the start. It protects me from a lot of things, so a little cold's not so bad."

Subaru gives up a thoughtful hum at that. "Well, it's not really flying. I'm one of the few in my unit that doesn't fly at all, so this is how Mach Caliber and I compensate for it."

"Unit? Mach Caliber?" Ryoko quirked an eyebrow. "This sounds like an interesting story already."

She glanced around again to inspect the Wing road. Well, it certainly seemed solid enough, and she could afford to put her interface in some risk. After a quick analysis, Ryoko carefully tried sitting down on the track, playfully kicking her legs over the side. It was a nice view, even if she still couldn't understand the aesthetics.

Ryoko will find it's very solid, and doesn't really glow so much for being what is effectively a ribbon of runed light. Subaru turns away from the display a bit to look at her. "Ah, maybe this will help."

She holds out her hand an, in it, a holographic display flickers to life which shows off her official ID badge (http://i.imgur.com/k3YeN.jpg). (Except her uniform is silver with blue shoulders, and the info reads "Sergeant Subaru Nakajima", Special Duty Section 6", "Rank AA" and her designation is "Swordfish" instead of StarS.)

"I'm with the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Have you heard of it?"

"I can't say I have. Is it a branch of the Japanese military?" Ryoko studied the card with curiosity. It certainly looked impressive, though she had no doubts that the Entity probably held greater knowledge of time-space data than this Bureau. What did humans know?... Well, she supposed she could just play dumb for now.

"No, actually. That's on Earth, but I'm from a planet called Mid-Childa," though she pauses. "I mean, that's not where I was before coming here, but that's where I was stationed. Eheh, things moved kind of quickly before I arrived in the Gardens."

"I've never heard of that planet before..." for once, Ryoko was a little genuinely surprised at the new data. Perhaps the Entity wasn't as all-knowing as it should be.

"Are you saying you're an extra-terrestrial? I never would've guessed!" Ryoko wondered if she was supposed to feel some kind of kinship at this, but she honestly couldn't be bothered with that kind of processing.

"I'm not surprised," she admits, even though she is always hopeful that eventually it will ring a bell with someone besides Vivio. At the other statement, she laughs a bit. "You could say that! I've visited Earth a few times before; Japan, specifically. It's not all that different from some parts of Mid-Childa, even if it's not developed on the same level." Which is said casually and without any hint of looking down on the fact.

"Where are you from, Asakura?"

"I'd love to have an exotic heritage like yours! But I suppose I'm not interesting enough to be an alien, so I'm still from Japan and little old planet earth for now. Perhaps my life story is much less exciting than yours, but if you ever need any help with any vague earth customs, I'll try to be of help!" she gave a light laugh at the irony.

"Development-wise, exactly how far behind are we compared to other planets out there?"

Well, the weather outside is frightful

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