lifeaftr | Chocobo Chaos!

Entry tags:

Chocobo Chaos!

Who: The Chocobros and You!
What: The long awaited hatching of a pair of chocobo eggs and the chaos it causes.
When: The week of 7/20
Where: In and around Cottage 2, Islet 1
Warnings: Cuteness and the guys being the biggest, dorkiest, pet parents?

After Gladio's arrival, the last thing anyone could say about the activity level around the chocobros cottage was that it was low. The renovations were good, the occasional dramatic flare-ups not so good, but both were better than the absolute stillness that settled over the cottage while the three boys--once more minus their king--were off spending more time than probably advisable exploring Umui. Not long after their return, though, the activity picks up again. There is a different feeling to it now, a sense of expectation, of preparing--not for the worst like findings on Umui suggest they should prepare for--but for something eagerly awaited.

Of course, who wouldn't be excited about the hatching of two new chocobos? For Gladio, it's bringing new life to a species lost during the darkness; for Ignis it's seeing the full potential of the heartwarming gift he was given come to life; for Prompto, well, everyone knows his view on chocobos.

The eggs hatch on the 20th, and after that anyone who comes near the cottage risks getting caught up in the excitement and chaos the two new chocobo chicks cause. Of course, there are much worse ways to spend than afternoon than cuddling a cute little chocobo chick.

At some point after the hatching, a certain hobo will find a small bowl of sweets and a note left outside his shack's door. The short message is as neat as the writer could make it, but Ardyn will know well why 'as neat as' is still pretty messy. The note simply says:

Please come meet Hresvelgr's new siblings.

(OOC: This is basically set up like a mingle. All the boys will be tagging around, so if you want a specific boy, please say so in your header! If you prefer surprises, just leave it blank! :-) )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Of all the things Gladio tries to do himself the one thing he's given up on it hauling fresh water to the islets. It's a pain in the ass and so time consuming for such tedious work. If everyone brought a jug home with them every evening they'd probably be fine but he didn't have that many jugs made.

Maybe he should see about getting some barrels?]

No debt incurred, I promise. These beds do have some work involved though. The mattresses are just ticking bags. They've gotta be stuffed and refreshed on the regular and we don't have straw here.

[Between the beds and bedding for the chicks he's actually starting to worry about having enough leaves drying at any given time.]

The girls might give us enough feathers for a couple pillows over time at least.

A little set-up is fine. Someone around here has chickens, though I'm not sure how handy those would be for bedding.

[He knows that someone has chickens because Upsy was spewing chickens not a few weeks ago, and he figured that they had to belong to somebody.]

Guess growing straw is a little ambitious for beds.

Bludrocs, not chickens. Close, though. We've got a few out around back for eggs.

[In case there weren't already enough birds.]

Got too much jungle to push back for that and I don't know that the soil is right for it.

Hm.

[He won't pretend he knows a damn thing about farming. He's better at surviving in a warzone than he is on a deserted island.]

Well, I can help you haul water if you don't mind helping get a few beds for C.T. and I.

Yeah, of course.

[And then he seems to brighten up a bit.]

Hey you know CT? Shit I should've recognized the gear.

We're from the same world.

[Because to hint otherwise would surpass the bounds of plausible deniability. They are, after all, fairly distinctive from their armor.]

You know C.T.?

Yeah, I mean not, super well. Neither of us have been here all that long. She was struggling a bit when she first got here. She's good, though.

[A soft, fond smile. Yeah C's a good.]

Struggling how?

[Granted, he knows some of why she was struggling, but...if there's something else that she hasn't mentioned, it'd probably be good to know.]

[Or to ask her himself. Or to know? Or just to know, yeah.]

Missin her boy, mostly.

We've all got people we're missing.

Yeah. I guess we do.

[Not surprising. He'd known, he's known for a while, it's just that he - can't really do much about it. The nights that are worse for her are oftentimes worse for him as well, and they've more or less simply elected to pretend that they can't hear the other choking it all back in the corner of their shared shack.]

There's just no real way to fix that.

No... there isn't. Just gotta deal with it.

[A sigh and he glances back over his shoulder towards the house, the room they're using for the chicks now. Noctis' room.]

Never stops sucking though

[He's missing someone too. That much is painfully evident.]

I'd say that maybe they could come back, but I'm not sure this place is an improvement over everything else.

Depends on where you're coming from.

[After ten years in darkness, losing hope and watching the stragglers of humanity starve to death.... Island life is treating him pretty well.]

Was it one for you?

[He might as well ask. He's...unfortunately, still the kind of cryptic, terminally suspicious motherfucker who sees how much information he can glean from any given conversation.]

Yeah... it was.

Fucking hate to admit it. I've got duties back home but.... this is a nice break at least.

[And he has Iggy here. Which is why he glances back at the house and then down at the chocobo chick in his arms. It says a lot about how long he intends to be here that he has a baby bird with him.]

Allegedly time stands still while you're here. I guess responsibility is an easy thing to dodge.

[Sounds a little too easy, as far as Wash is concerned. But what's he know?]

Ignis has experienced it.

[Wow, oh that is hitting below the belt Wash. Gladio drops his gaze, not even looking at Tiana but off to the side. That hurts. He's never been that person. He's devoted his entire life to this cause, he's not trying to dodge responsibility. But Noct has told him he will not fulfil his duty, he will not be able to die in his King's stead. He doesn't know how to live like that... so he's slowly trying to learn how to here.]

[For what it's worth, Wash isn't in any position to judge - a fact of which he's fully aware. He doesn't linger in the painful shadow of what he just implied; he merely tips his head to one side, interest piqued.]

He went home?

Yeah, for a little while. Says he didn't remember any of this place while he was back in Altissia. But when he went back he just... dropped right back into the "story" where he'd left off.

I guess the Storyteller was telling the truth after all.

[He says it aloud, but quietly - more musing aloud than anything else.]

That's why they bring us back when we die, isn't it?

You guess?

[WHY DOES NO ONE TRUST TORY!?]

Yeah they were telling the truth. And I think there's more to it than that.

What do you mean by that?

[Terminally suspicious motherfucker are keywords where Wash is concerned. It's not that he doesn't trust the Storyteller; is that he doesn't trust anyone, on principle, if he can help it. Makes things, on the whole, easier to bear.]

It's mutually beneficial for them to bring people back when they die, sure but...

I just don't think they want to lose more people. I mean no one wants people to die. If you had the power to bring people back, wouldn't you?

That's a funny question.

[He wouldn't, but he's not he's not he's not he's not Church and he never clawed her from his head in a splitting finger of binary A.I. his own digital soul glistening in a dark blot of shadow because I couldn't get you out of my head and he kept trying he kept trying to get her right and it's been years since he thought of either of them it's what he tells himself but it's a lie because he's never stopped thinking about them because there's no way to stop thinking when their memories live in the beds of his brain.]

[Inhale.]

[Exhale.]

[He releases his grip, his hands balled into Kevlared fists at his sides. When did that happen?]

I don't make a habit of it.

[It's hard to tell because Wash is carefully contained in this suit of armor that protects him more from the people around him than any outside dangers he'd find on these islands. Gladio has plenty of experience with the strange places the mind goes during conversations when loss and battle are all you've known. He suspects but there's no way to follow expression behind the glossy visor of that helmet, his body language stifled by the weight of the armor.

But he stays quiet, watches his hands curl into fists, waits for him to come back to the present, shushes Leopold when he gets up and paces restlessly over to him. This very same behavior is something he's been teaching Leo to interrupt in himself and Ignis both.]

Fair enough... plenty of ways for it to go wrong, I guess. [No judgment, quietly agreeing with him. It's fine... He doesn't want to push but once Wash seems like he's back to himself a little he takes the hand off Leo's ruff and lets the tigerlily sidle over to rub against Wash's legs. It's not going to help the way it does for Ignis but it might remind him a little bit of where he is, even without the sensory input of fur and purring.]

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ugh I love the way you write dissociative moments. such beautiful PTSD