rosavelle | yayoi december catchall

[Yayoi is... well, a physical person. She doesn't do normal 'exercise', per se, but she's usually out there moving, running, not holding still for an instant. So, if she's going to be running, she needs lots of... well, support.

The problem is, her experience in bra shopping has been "go find a sports bra at the store that looks right, grab it, and steal it". To actually get what she needs here is... a much bigger problem. And considering on top of that, she needs to make sure it's got the right Bloomcraft enchantment to let her move freely... This whole thing is a headache. She's not used to having to talk to others about it...

How can she ask, anyway? What if they see her and realize what she is? She's learned there's others like her, that she has community, but that's among other people the Princess brought. Will the other people of this world be so accepting? What if they just laugh her out of the store? What if they see her and can tell- She's a freak, she's not normal, they won't help her? What should she do? Wouldn't they be able to tell anyway? Someone her age should know how to do this by now, right?

It's easy to go in to prepare for a fight. But asking someone for help... That's so much harder. That vulnerability, that need for acceptance. And now that she knows a little more about that side of herself... It's vulnerable. She still believes, on some level, that if she goes in and asks, the shopkeepers will know. She's not a "real" girl. And they'll call her a pervert and kick her out. Then those shopkeeps would tell others... What happens then? Her life in Rosavelle ends as quickly as it began, because she tried to get support instead of wearing the same outfit she came in with for a month.

If you're out looking at the various boutiques and tailors around Rosavelle, you're likely to find Yayoi hovering around outside one, trying to figure out how to go in and broach the topic. She's got anxiety all over her face, but... for someone with her normal bluster, she seems downright scared of the door.

If you watch her for too long, even... You might see her get too scared, and turn around. She'll leave, and try the next boutique, again and again, until something breaks this pattern.]

[Primavain is the district where people make things, as far as Yayoi knows. So when she hears that someone needs help with the fountain, she assumes she can't help. Her skills are, of course, limited mostly to violence. But once someone clarifies the problem isn't mechanical, but that the water's frozen... That should be easy, right?

So, needless to say, Yayoi has borrowed a hammer from somewhere or another, and is at the frozen fountain, using the hammer to simply smash through the ice. Unfortunately, she clears the fountain pretty easily... but no water is coming out.]

... Ice is broken. You can turn the water back on now?

[She doesn't know how pipes work.]

[ venus isn't a physical person. like, literally, yes, but also in general? she doesn't need a bra, per se. she only just started estrogen within the last month. but also, she did tear off her old body like a discarded eggshell and molt into something new, which means it probably wouldn't hurt to get fit.

the problem is... you know. finding someone to do it with. yoojin is basically her new mom, except a guy, so he's not a great choice. astarion is right fucking out. march... march would be able to help her a LOT with her choice of underwear. provided she could make it in and out of the store without activating her cuteness aggression response.

so by this point, venus has resigned herself to just... giving up. going in herself, stumbling over her words, and trying to explain "yes, i was a boy three weeks ago, it's complicated" in as many words. who cares if she's never been in a bra store! who cares if she looks like some weirdo pervert who is also the devil! she's the devil and she does what she wants, or what she needs, and sometimes that's-

wait scratch that she knows this person ]

Yayoi! [ she lifts off the ground without thinking, gliding over and hovering a few feet away. she's... back to wearing clothes, impressively enough, shorts and a shirt beneath a long cloak. (she shines through the fabric just a bit. it's... probably fine?) ] Oh, thank God. Satan? Uh, don't thank God, just- I'm so relieved. I thought I was going to have to do this alone.

[ she doesn't notice yayoi's hesitation. she hasn't even stuck around long enough to notice the problem. she just grabs yayoi's hand in hers- (-light, gentle, like summer air in the breeze-) -and walks inside without hesitation. ]

Okay. I'll just, um. Follow your lead. Okay?

[Oh. Ah, fuck. Oh, shit. The hand... feels like a warm evening. A friendly one. Days spent in the ramen shop as the sun set.

But that's not the problem. The problem is she's being pulled inside. Without having any time to fret or any time to realize what's happening, they're already inside. And.]

W- Wait a minute! My lead?!

[... She can already feel the eyes of the tailors on them.]

Pipes are probably frozen solid too. Can’t get water through them with the ice in the way. But with the ice in the way gone…

[It’s the woman from the festival. The one who talked about the food being “vaguely european…” and who healed Yayoi, or rather Night Wild, with an invocation to a goddess even as she heard her out about the Grand Brawl.]

I think I want to try a stupid magic trick. Elementalism of a sort. Think I should give it a shot?

Oh, you're...

[The computer game lady. Right.

She stares at her, then looks down.]

... I could hit the pipes with the hammer, too?

[not entirely wrong.]

A light tap to break up the ice might help.

The thought was most of my magic is sunlight oriented, so I could put a broad patch over it to melt things instead of the weaponized form.

Uh, right. Sure? If you want to try.

[She just sort of. Hops off the fountain and gestures.]

[After a nod of acknowledgement, one had goes to her solar cross, and the other reaches out, stiffened palm pointing down at the still-frozen pipe.]

Aurora, Mother of Dawn, heed my call and mark well my vow. The waterways of these innocents are blocked by ice, frozen in the cold; I would call upon the warmth of thy light to melt the ice and bring water back to this fountain. Grant me this and I will honor you with a bonfire or else no less than ten candles in the darkness of winter for the coming Yulehearth day, may it be so.

[she opens her eyes and winks at Yayoi.]

Gotta be real specific when you ask a goddess for favors. She knows I’m good for it.

[And then a beam of sunlight springs from her palm, downward along her fingers, as if reflected from a mirror hidden in her palm and onto the pipe.]

[Yayoi stares, squinting. She watches this whole thing, completely ignoring the wink, just... watching.]

... Hey, you're from Earth, right? You know about computers and stuff.

[That earns a bitter, bitter laugh.]

"From," originally, yes.

[At least there is a small trickle of water coming from the pipe, as well as a long thin tube of ice.]

Break that off with the hammer once in a while, while I work?

Edited 2025-12-12 23:18 (UTC)

[She nods, then just. Taps the ice to knock off the icicles as it comes out.]

Then why do you talk like that?

Learned how from where I was when I got the letter from Callie. Notice I don't usually talk like that.

I was very, very far from home.

Edited 2025-12-12 23:25 (UTC)

And now you're praying to gods that aren't here?

Ones who I owe big time back there. I wear her token still.

[She... winces at that, honestly. There's something to it.]

...probably don't need the whole ceremony to it, for working with power she gave me and isn't taking back. My 'can I call a friend' spells won't work here because time is frozen back home.

But I'm used to using the template for bigger favors. And Yulehearth is just Mundane Christmas anyway, and I've gotten real good at using candles instead of electric lights on the tree. She'll get her lights for the holidays. I owe her that much for helping out someone lost and scared in helping others even more lost and more scared.

Edited 2025-12-12 23:34 (UTC)

[She shakes her head. This is still weird.]

I don't get it. Why are you doing big prayers and making those weird promises so loudly if it's for someone who can't even hear? Just shoot the sun laser.

...Habit, at this point. Maybe a bad one.

[The water, and ice chunks, are flowing faster. Her trick is working.]

Didn't even grow up an Auroran. I'm supposed to be a Christian, a Baptist. Maybe she was filling in for the Holy Spirit on Mundus, but why should that matter here?

[This is actually, sincerely troubling her, it seems.]

Except...

Edited 2025-12-12 23:43 (UTC)

Except?

[Nope, she doesn't get it. Isn't Christian that thing that's hurting Venus so much?]

[And they shouldn't have and she is so fucking pissed on Venus' behalf about fellow Christians prioritizing faith over love.]

...except She always answered my prayers when She had the ability to hear them. Not always in the way I wanted. But always, and to my benefit.

And that's why I keep making prayers to Aurora, even here where She can't hear them, I guess.

... Gods have a range of activity, you know. There's no point in praying. We had to expand our goddess' range before. Or tried.

Here, if you want to pray, you should ask the Everbloom.

[She has. No idea how Christianity works. sorry.]

[There is a long, long moment of silence where Alesha just.

Looks at Yayoi.

The girl who unselfconsicously spoke candidly about being a middle school dropout who went through major food security issues, talking about actively working to 'expand her Goddesses range.'

Perhaps somewhat hypocritically, her first thought is 'cult.']

...you didn't mention you were religious before. Not in my earshot, anyway.

I'm not. Not anymore, anyway.

I helped kill our Goddess, after all.

[She continues to tap at the ice like she didn't just say one of the weirdest things imaginable.]

[...you know, strangely, that makes Alesha feel a lot better about Yayoi's situation, fresh from a world where incredible violence is an accepted solution to the problem of evil as she is.]

Ah. One of those kinds of Gods, then.

[She so wants to mention Venus, but that's Venus' story to tell.]

Too many folk here who've been burned by something supposed to be sacred, but I'm glad you got out of that scene, at least.

... Not really. I dunno what you mean by 'those kinds', but...

[Burned? The fire she was burned in helped her.]

It was more complicated than that.

...You're right. I don't understand. But if you ever want to tell that story I'm willing to hear you out.

yayoi december catchall

Clothes shopping (cw: internalized transphobia)

frozen fountain quest

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