☈ strike #17 (action / video)

[thestormishere]

Action; House 41; morning and onwards of the 22nd.

[ The calendar used in Luceti might be noticeably different than that of Cocoon's, but the way Lightning-- or rather, her friends seem to figure, since her previous birthday was roughly a month before her arrival last November... a Saturday in 'October' seems about as good a time as any to acknowledge somehow making it to twenty-two years of age.

She's really not looking for an outright party or anything, but after some stubbornness-filled discussion, the woman's reluctantly agreed to... well, what she'd likely do anyway: focusing on just having a relatively good day in general. That may or may not include humoring her housemates by dragging them around town to just Do Stuff too, though. Maybe indulge in just a little bit of the sort of food she tends to refrain from? Who knows.

After rolling out of bed and showering, it doesn't take her long to gather up Baldr and start looking into obtaining breakfast, studiously trying to put herself in a good mood. In other words, not thinking about how awful a year before now (and the events directly following it) turned out to be...

Of course, the problem is... coincidence is a tricky thing in a place like Luceti. Is she ever allowed to forget about anything for very long here? ]

Video/Action; plaza center/fountain; late afternoon of the 23rd.

Your moon... looks strange today.

[ Your moon because it's certainly not her moon, a sentiment that's quite obvious from the odd, tense quality to the woman's tone of voice. All things considered, with her homeworld's unknown status, her floating land's distinctly moonlike appearance as it hangs over the planet below, and most importantly, since it's pretty damn hard to forget the day after her twenty-first birthday being the one where she lost her sister and became 'fated' to tear Cocoon down out of the sky... she's understandably pretty tuned into any celestial objects' condition. Especially since it's currently the day following the one that, as a l'Cie, she never expected to reach.

As such, there's a looong pause, apparently thoughtful as she looks up at the sky. And then, randomly: ]

... How are you supposed to 'get over' something in the past, when it's still tainting what's supposed to be good?

[ -- Wait, no no no, asking that kind of thing? Not something she normally does at all, particularly over the journal or in front of strangers. Naturally, now it's too late, however. She aims a frowning Look towards her journal, then at anyone who might have heard from where she's sitting on the fountain. Her voice turns quiet and dry as she shakes her head, a hint of dark sarcasm sneaking in. ]

Why do I get the feeling something bad's about to happen anyway?

Comments

bbbiiirthday

[gardenerofgaia.livejournal.com]

I need clothes for cold weather. And yooouuuu should get something very pretty. One of the best pick-me-ups there is.

[thestormishere]

'Pretty?'

[ Lightning raises her eyebrows, a smirk tugging at her lips as she leans over to pull on Baldr's ears a moment. There's a slight hint of awkwardness in her too, though, considering Things and... the fact Aerith's disability in sensing temperature makes finding clothing a little more complicated now, doesn't it...? ]

It is getting colder again...

[gardenerofgaia.livejournal.com]

To match you, silly.

[ Awkwardness needs to be thrown away. It's a birthday!! ...Well, as they decided. ]

Mm. I remember when I got here, it was so-o-o cold! ...The sundress didn't help. I have a coat from last year, but I never did find a scarf cute enough.

[ Stop insisting that everything be cute, Aerith. She looks down at her boots, rocking on her feet. Strangely enough, she's practical with her footwear at least--and she wears the heck out of them. It's showing a bit. ] Besides, these guys are starting to be squeakers. So we really do have to go!

[thestormishere]

[ Psh! Lightning scoffs quietly as she straightens and her pup shakes his head vigorously, pawing at his face after her tousling. Her hand finds her hip as she considers the problem of insufficient New Feather dress herself and then her own wardrobe left over from last year, but... well, safe to say that even someone like her cycles through clothing pretty quickly, being from somewhere as generally privileged like Cocoon.

At least by now she pretty much has kind of a mental filter for conversations with Aerith, so all the cute this and cute that doesn't really faze her. The boots do get a small, thoughtful frown. ]

Won't do you much good if they don't fit very well any more.

[ Aaaand she steps back towards her room, though the way she keeps looking over her shoulder's probably enough to indicate she's alright with being followed for the moment. ]

[ video ]

[lunas]

The moon does look a little bit weird, huh..?

[ Understatement, but either way - Usagi (being Sailor Moon and all) is pretty closely related to the moon, so she's pretty interested in all of this. ]

[ video ]

[thestormishere]

Just a little.

[ Her own understatement has plenty of dryness to mark it- she's not exactly worried about anything yet, but... still. It's difficult to keep her mind from wandering after noticing a change to that of all things. ]

I'm going to hazard a guess that that isn't normal.

[ video ]

[lunas]

It isn't! At least, I thought the moon here looked more normal before I saw it weird like this today all of a sudden.. The moon back home doesn't look like that either, so it's a little surprising!

[ She doesn't really sound concerned either, more just.. well, surprised, maybe. Or interested. ]

action;

[mistyarc.livejournal.com]

[ Hubert isn't too far from the fountain, having been passing by, when he catches some of Lightning's words. Stopping a short distance away from her, he crosses his arms and looks up at the faint moon.

The likelihood of something bad happening is high. That's the hunch he also gets. ]

. . . It's possible, given the subtle changes since yesterday evening.

action;

[thestormishere]

[ Oh, it's that guy with the ~secret weapon~ from the other day, isn't it? The memory is enough to cause her pause, following that comment that was pretty off-handed anyway regardless of how accurate the party members tend to be whenever they say something like that in-game. ]

... What do you mean?

action;

[mistyarc.livejournal.com]

[ Fixing his spectacles, he turns his gaze to Lightning. She seems like a sharp woman, which should make this easier to reason. ]

There's been a shift in the moon since then. You must have noticed.

[Action] | If this is okay? <3

[capuchinja.livejournal.com]

[Audubon has not had an easy time of it, in Luceti. Even if he's been told by this point exactly what's going on, it's difficult to push aside the twenty or more years of ninja training, the twenty or more years that say he needs to hide because if anybody sees him he will be killed.

So he's still skulking, albeit somewhat more obviously than he usually would, his five limbs at the ready for any threat.

And then he hears Lightning's voice, from the fountain. It's enough to draw his attention, which in turn might draw hers'. After all, a giant half-monkey-looking-person tends to draw attention, especially when he looks like he expects to be attacked any minute. And he might bear some obvious resemblance to that one Robert Hastings...]

[Action]

[thestormishere]

[ There isn't really anything remarkable about Robert's appearance from Lightning's point of view, so she definitely doesn't recognize him right off. However, she does look in his direction, over the journal laid across her lap, mismatched wings twitching slightly in agitation.

Her gaze and body language seem to speak for themselves- What? ]

[Action]

[capuchinja.livejournal.com]

[Audubon still can't read gaze and body language properly - he's better than Robert is, simply because he has to be, but he's not great at it.

So he doesn't approach, yet, just levels his gaze at Lightning. Pink fur...? He can't say he's ever seen that before.]

Another human...? [It's almost to himself. But at this point, seeing all these humans is starting to get less and less alarming. He's letting himself slip...]

[Voice]

[beardpuddle.livejournal.com]

It is not our moon, but it certainly is behaving unusually.

[Voice]

[thestormishere]

Yeah. Are you sure it's not just something this moon does?

[ Not that she's seen anything like it in the almost-year she's been around, but... it's starting to ping her concern harder and harder the longer someone doesn't just go and answer in the affirmative to the above question. More than most weird things that happen in Luceti, for unspoken but obvious-to-her reasons. ]

[Voice]

[beardpuddle.livejournal.com]

This occurrence is new to all the residents, and I have been told that some have been here for some time. Still, I cannot claim to know all there is about this world.

video/filtered

[stilldontgotit.livejournal.com]

[He'd make some kind of comment about the moon, but... hah, that second bit catches his attention more than anything else.]

Sometimes moving on is the hardest part. It's easy to look back on what happened and feel some kind of regret-- maybe even fear.

You just have to take it slow. Move forward bit by bit.

video/filtered

[thestormishere]

Right, right...

[ 'Easier said than done.' Judging strictly from the tone of her voice, she doesn't sound all that convinced... although the fact that she hadn't really been prepared to spill some sentiment all over the journal in the first place doesn't really help matters. ]

video/filtered

[stilldontgotit.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing you didn't mean to say that, though.

[It explains the abrupt segue and her brevity here. Plus, Riku knows how hard it is to ask that kinda thing.]

10/22 | {action}

[contempsi.livejournal.com]

[Hope is glad that Lightning had decided to drag random housemates around to... well, Do Stuff, as it's mentioned. Because once she and Aerith are out of the house? (Well, and hopefully Zack too...) – He'll be getting down to business! Which is... making the biggest cake he can find a pan for.

He's not even sure if Lightning likes white or chocolate cake... so he decides to do a layer of each. Chocolate on top, white on the bottom. This also means that the bottom layer is frosted in chocolate, and the top in buttercream. In essence, it would be like an abstractly yin-yang cake, if he even knew what a yin-yang was...

It might sound awesome in retrospect, but Hope's never made a cake entirely on his own before. He had to find and follow a recipe to the best of his ability. So that means... well, the layers are a little lopsided, the frosting thicker in some places than in others... a gunblade drawn on top that looks more like a sad scrawny narwhal...

Okay, so it's not the most aesthetically pleasing pastry in the end. It basically looks like something a fifteen-year-old boy would make. But hopefully it'll be the thought (and the flavour) that counts?]

[thestormishere]

[ It occurs to Lightning while she's still out that leaving a baking-inexperienced teenager alone with the oven might not be such a good idea, but fortunately the house doesn't seem to be burned down or anything when she returns, so... so that's definitely a plus?

Yeah, she's not so surprised he decided to mirror her in undertaking the creation of birthday baked goods, but she is surprised when she finally gets a glimpse of the final product. THAT'S QUITE A CAKE, LIL BRO. ]

-- Oh. [ Wide-eyed blinking! ] Did you...?

[contempsi.livejournal.com]

Um...

[He's just finished sticking the candles in when Lightning arrives. Hope didn't think he could arrange twenty-two of them very artistically, and he didn't want to mess up the gunblade he worked so hard on. So there's just a few of them scattered tastefully over the top of the cake.]

Yeah, I did. Happy birthday, Light...!

[A bit of a shy smile here.] Well, it didn't fall apart, at least. I, um... I don't know how it tastes either but I followed a recipe, so... [More nervous shuffling!]

[audio]

[fierybluebird]

Tainting?

I don't think you can get over something like that. At least not while it's still tainting things.

[audio]

[thestormishere]

. . . .

[ Sorry Marco, you get nothing more than silence in response - despite all her dodging around with anyone else responding to that particular bit, that's really not something she wants to hear... and now she's thinking way too much about it. ]

[audio]

[fierybluebird]

Maybe you can remove the taint, but not on the past. The past never changes.