[Open Mingle] Remember Me For Centuries

[achievementhunter]

Who: Chara, The Knight, Ginko, Hinata, Chip, Seto, Muffet, Ren, Xion- and anyone else who'd like to jump in!
What: Some exploration occurs, blood is spilled-- everyone has a picnic. In that order.
When: 4/20 BLAZE IT
Where: Ziziphus : C5 and D5 closed prompts, B5 for picnicking!
Warnings: Please post your warnings in comment headers!


CLOSED C5 - You're a cherry blossom

CLOSED D5 - You're about to bloom

OPEN B5 - You look so pretty but you're gone so soon

OPEN B5 - ???

Comments

CLOSED | C5 | The World Wide Web

[achievementhunter]

Ziziphus is pleasant, in a natural kind of way. Personally, it's preferential after the disaster of dealing with people- as always, human beings never fail to disappoint.

They've had about enough of that. Somewhere at the front of the party, Chara seems relaxed enough, one hand staying close to the hilt of the knife at their hip, but otherwise far more interested in looking at the newer scenery as they start to approach the treeline.

"Please keep in mind that we've found various types of poisonous flowers on the island. If you wish to touch something, ask, first."


[[Results of this search can be seen here!]]

CLOSED | D5 | Deeper and Deeper We Go

[achievementhunter]

Thankfully, at least one person in their party has come across the foolsblossoms before. When Xion points them out, movement becomes much...slower. Amidst the fallen leaves and shrubbery are seemingly innocent petals- some harder to make out than others, but all attached, at some point, to a fernlike jaw.

No one seems keen to experience what happens when they get to close. It's for this purpose that the group has ceased to spread out, staying in loose, single file as they head deeper and deeper into the jungle.

For Chara, at least, the result is being more concerned with whoever's walking behind them than whatever it might be...moving ahead.

[[Results of this search can be found here!]]

OPEN MINGLE | B5 | And Now, We Feast

[achievementhunter]

B5 is, by far, much more appealing than anywhere the group has ventured today. It's late afternoon by the time they're ready to set up, backpacks dropped down and blankets pulled out- a delightful spread of fresh pastries, fruit, dried fish-- and whatever else Chara and others scrounged up that was child-friendly.



Looking for the weed and booze? You're on the wrong island, friend. Amidst the sweeping bluffs and fields of flower-speckled green and gold, you'll find nothing but eating, flower crown creating, and other fun games to while away the hours.

Or maybe your character has an even better idea.

the drifter | ota | i'll match your format!

[hyperlit]

[It's all well and good and for the best that the Drifter is not getting stoned out of their mind - they're fairly certain such is not acceptable behavior for a warrior such as they to display, and so they steer clear of that field of indulgences entirely. Here they have a much better and more preferable field of grass and of friends.]

[They've gotten better at making chains with flowers, and their fingers work nimbly in creating great long streamers of multicolored blooms. They've not any particular plans for what to do with them just yet, though if you're in need of a crown or two, they won't complain if you pick from their rapidly growing supply.]

[But that's not all. Eventually, they'll take something from their pack and start to kick it about in the grass - a slightly worn but nonetheless quite charming ball.]

[If you've never played a game of soccer, now might be the time to learn.]

[flyfisher]

[Myia can't tell what type of person this is, but they certainly look more normal than most of the weirdos populating these islands.

But they're playing a kid's game. Myia never got to join in with the other freshly pupated kids playing with balls, so she doesn't recognize the game and mostly just marvels at the stranger as they kick around the ball.

She doesn't get what the point of this is, but... it seems fun. She simply watches, compound eyes following the ball closely.]

[hyperlit]

[Myia, likewise, is more on par with the sorts that frequent Buried Time. She lacks the lizardlike scales or the feathers or fur, but the insectoid appearance is at least more recognizable than the bald skin of various gradations that so many humans here seem to boast.]

[The Drifter halts after a few moments, tipping their head to one side to regard Myia curiously, before issuing a text-based query.]

know how to play?

[catpiper]

[They catch her attention somewhere between shoving food into her mouth and into her pocket and while she fancies herself to be quite the connoisseur of games and game related nonsense, that ball is larger than a normal baseball and that puts her at an immediate loss. What.

Crumbs still on her face, she ambles over to them and asks-]

Are you pitching with your feet?

[hyperlit]

it's soccer
you kick

[To be fair, the Drifter's notion of what is involved in soccer is...perhaps not the most accurate, considering that they've done a fair amount of whacking the ball with their sword and being thrown onto their front with the force of the ball being launched at their abdomen by an exceedingly talented, seemingly unbeatable child of a soccer player.]

[They demonstrate by nudging the ball with one of their feet, watching it roll amiably in the grass.]

[shineinside]

[At some point, Yuka quietly joined in with making flower crowns. She has no idea how to do this, but it's not especially hard, so it's not long before she gets the hang of it.

Yuka likes the Drifter. She doesn't know much about them, but she doesn't feel obliged to keep finding things to talk about with them. It's nice to know someone who you can just be comfortably silent around.

Just gotta figure out how to tie off the end of the chain to make it into a crown...]

[hyperlit]

[Ren had taught them this; not merely the ways in which one threads flowers together, carefully, making sure not to knot the stalks too tightly and split open the green and threaten the integrity of the entire chain, but also the way one can sit like this, for hours, and simply allow themself to do nothing. The Drifter is no stranger to meditative stillness and rest, to needing to be still, but this, this is stillness of a different sort. Wanting to hold their position, and not merely out of necessity because of injury or fatigue.]

[Their eyes pinch into dark half-moons when she joins them, though eventually her struggle draws their gaze.]

done this before?

[demonpuppy]

[Chip has been watching for a while from a distance, unsure if they would be a welcome intrusion. It's one thing to be working as part of a search party, but asking to join a game...kind of assumes the other person even wants to bother with you. And everything they'd seen of Drifter so far has been utterly capable, not the type of person that would put up with a nuisance like them.]

[But...they haven't played a proper game like soccer in ages.]

[Finally Chip gets up from their spot at the picnic and wanders over, glancing away and back to them a few times before piping up:]

Can I play?

[hyperlit]

[Another child in the vicinity isn't a surprise any longer - these islands are crawling with too many children, and too many of them know the unforgiving nature of this world and infinite others, and not enough of them know the idle ease and bliss of a game of soccer, the way a solitary drive and unilateral need to complete an objective can burn away like mist in the sun, beneath an unfamiliar roar of spiking adrenaline and a competitive streak they didn't realize they had.]

[Children here don't do many things they should. Children here do not play soccer, because they are too busy learning to fight with knives and teaching themselves to set buildings on fire.]

[The Drifter stops batting the ball between their toes and stops to nod, a swift dip of the head that might almost be construed as eager.]

know how?

[mamaterasu]

[The bouncing of a ball - big or small, certainly catches the attention of a curious pup wandering through the area. Ammy certainly has enjoyed this island, despite its many dangers - both in monstrous form and ways of deadly, poisonous flowers, so her wanderings have taken her to many places. She's a bit dusty, covered in probably a heap of pollen and a few dandelion seeds, so hopefully they don't aggravate the poor Drifter when she approaches, tilting her head and pawing slightly at their ball.

This ball is far too big to throw...but she's sure she could catch it either way. And she's very determined to try and fit it into her mouth as well. So...hrm. Are they going to throw it? She plants her bottom on the grass and looks almost expectantly from the ball, to the Drifter, and back again.]

[hyperlit]

[Dogs like to play with soccer balls and tennis balls and all sorts of spherical objects besides, and what is a wolf god but a sort of dog, in many respects? She certainly behaves like one at times - such as now.]

[Hm. Plainly she does want the ball, but it wouldn't be as simple as kicking it to her. That does not sound particularly fun for a quadruped, after all.]

[So the Drifter draws their blade, igniting the blaze of cerluean, and winds back with the flat of it, aiming carefully - ]




[befoRE STRAIGHT UP WHACKING IT RIGHT AT HER]


[FORE]

[exbarathris]

[The Liberator has never played a game, period. She, and everyone else, were always spending too much time just trying to survive. Spotting a familiar face, however, she makes her way over; despite running into vicious plant monsters on another island, everything here seems so much more idyllic, relaxed. Something about that fuzzy dream with Lup and the ball the Drifter has reminds her...

She offers the mental image of a volleyball net, questioningly. Not that she really understands quite what Lup was trying to get at, but something involving people and balls and nets, anyway.]

[hyperlit]

[The surprise that she'd know what "volleyball" is, is...well, it's not precisely what they would have expected from her, but it's possible she may have picked it up from someone else.]

[A sequence of images strung together forms a thought, and a loose fragment of narrative - two silhouettes battering a ball back and forth between two goals, intending to lob it in between two markers for points.]

[tenthstreetbred]

[Shepard isn't the most... comfortable around recreational drugs. Which is a surprise for anyone who knows her, seeing as she grew up surrounded by them, but it is precisely that reason as to why she is wary. So this picnic is more navigable territory for her. Her initial plan was just to be present, passively enjoy everything, then head back home- but seeing the Drifter, a person she hasn't talked to much since they both arrived, with what looks like a soccer ball catches her interest.]

Hey there. Looking for people to play with?

myia ( ota ) will match format

[flyfisher]

[The people here are so dumb. They're just giving away food now? Out in the open? Myia shoves some of the fresh pastries and fruit into her backpack, in broad daylight and with no apparent knowledge that she can clearly be seen.

Back home, food was scarce for people like her. You had to kill and eat to survive. In recent years, since becoming a fisher at Maahi, she's been well taken care of, but it's hard to shake that instinct, especially in a new place.

So after cramming as many sweet things into her knapsack as it can carry, she sits down and sort of marvels at the flowers. This place really is strange. There are plant people, sure, but they're monstrous, and things that should be people aren't.

Like dogs and flowers.

If she sees someone picking flowers to form into a crown, she may blurt out,] Ahhh! Flowers will bite back at you! They'll get angry!! Poke with spears!

[catpiper]

[Look, Ren's not gonna judge someone that's smart enough to realize they'll need food later. While she spares a few glances this new(??) person's way, she doesn't make a single comment. Go ahead and nab stuff, it's fine. That's what it's there for.

And at one point during Myia's Grand Theft Foodventure, Ren takes a strawberry out of her pocket, places it on the ground and rolls it towards her. Try that too? Can she even see it? It'd make things way easier if she had said something versus simply tossing food her way, but. Well. She's not sure what to make of this person and just sorta lowkey watches from her seated position a few feet away. ]

Chip Abaroa | OTA

[demonpuppy]

[Chip's bravery had, overall, been very sorely tested today. Ever since that encounter with the spindlank they'd kept mostly away from Ziziphus, fearful that the place would turn out to be even more like the Wilds and they would be trapped forever--or worse, turned into a plaything when the fae showed up. But people kept coming and going easily, and finally they'd worked up the courage to join this expedition.]

[And what they'd found had been...honestly no worse than things on Enso, really. Plant-like, certainly, but dryads exist, and now Chip is feeling pretty stupid for being so scared. With Sunny perched and preening on their backpack, they sit and munch on the pastries and other sweets. It's a shame they couldn't bring Snowball for this part, but a kitten doesn't belong on a trip like this.]

[By now they've relaxed enough to have gathered a few flowers, and...well, they're trying something, at least. Whatever they're making doesn't quite look like a flower chain, but it's hardly a bouquet either. If anything it looks like a weird, tangled mess that's trying to be a ball, and Chip shouts and throws the mass away in frustration.]

It didn't wanna make it anyway!!

[onegreeneye]

[Chip is one of the members of the expedition that Ginko has been keeping a particularly close eye on. They seem awfully young to be exploring a potentially dangerous place like this, though he supposes there isn't much to be done about that.

This particular challenge doesn't seem dangerous, exactly, but they don't seem too happy about it.]

Have you made these before?

[He doesn't move any closer, still just sitting several feet away. But he speaks up enough to make sure it's clear he's talking to them.]

Ginko | OTA

[onegreeneye]

Honestly, Ginko is happier now for the sun protection his hat and poncho provide than he can remember being in quite some time. It would kind of suck to miss something like this because of having to stay under shelter the whole time.

Or... you know, giving up on shelter and probably ending up collapsed on the ground from sun exhaustion. Either way would be pretty bad.

Of course, as glad as he is that there's something nice happening for once, most of it doesn't strike him as something he could really participate in. So he mostly sits off to the side, chewing on a piece of dried fish and watching the goings-on from under his hat.

...Even while being mostly covered, though, the sun does make him kind of tired. He adjusts to rest his chin in one hand, talking out loud to nobody in particular. "...Wonder what the chances are of something going horribly wrong the moment I try sleeping here."

OPEN | B5 | A Question of ???? Importance

[achievementhunter]

In the midst of the celebrations, Chara and Hinata may also be found, both sporting a few... dots of what appears to be bloods on their clothes. Whilst certain people (Ren) will be waved away with a smile, others may find queries of whether the two are okay met with a glance of apparently significant meaning, from Chara to Hinata.

"We believe we may have discovered something of import, regarding those vines Ignis has spoken of." Says the child.

[shatteredlenses]

Whenever there is a gathering in need of food, it's a fair bet Ignis will be there at least for a short time to supply said food. In this case, he's brought a variety of things with apricots in them. Look, he just found new fruit and it was begging to be experimented with. Hopefully, people here like apricots.

He lingers around after dropping off the food, chatting for a little while to see how the explorations went. While he can't see the blood on Chara and Hinata's clothing, he certainly does hear his own name mentioned along with the vines.

"So they finally showed up again? What have you found?"

[thisisourfuture]

"Before we talk about it. Can you remind us what you discovered? How the air smelled, what it sounded like? I think we might be able to find a link between these appearances." Hinata briefly covers his mouth, his green eyes narrowing a hair. It would be just like these islands to present more than one creature in the same way.

But he also wants to connect the events. If they can link them beyond the shadow of a doubt...there's a lot they might be able to discover about the murder of the Tigerlily and what might be ahead of them to deal with.