rosavelle | 03:00 🎨 open

[It feels strange to stay up until midnight to watch the... well, there's no ball dropping here. Instead there's a meteor shower tonight. Ichika would love it, but she's not here either, and Ena doesn't have a working phone to take a picture - and she's got a job to do tonight, so she doesn't really have time to sketch a picture, as much as she might like to. It'd be a wonderful memory, but alas! She has something more important to capture: a bit of a meteor, in the jar she's procured, complete with cork. So, now she needs only three things: a partner, because like most traditions in this country she's probably not going to get anything if she tries it alone, a warm drink, and a good spot. She presently has just one of those, a mug of spiced cider in her hand not holding the jar, warm scarf that might look familiar to about half a dozen people pulled down to expose her mouth so she can drink it. It's a little late for a snack, so that's all she's got with her besides the jar and her sketchbook, though.

Even as she sips, she'll be keeping her eyes out for someone that seems like they're not paired up already. And if she sees such a convenient someone-]

Hey! Still looking for someone to go star-catching with?

[-she'll call out. Should it get very late and she fails to find anyone, though, she'll eventually give up and just take to a high balcony, sketching the scene after all, colored pencils in hand and satisfied expression on her face. If she manages to secure a star, she'll do that anyway. It's a fair way to ring in the new year and Fallow besides, and her first 25:00 in a couple weeks since her little crashout.]

Oh, hey, Ena!

[A week out from his own embarrassing late-Wilting breakdown, Yoojin still looks a little worn around the edges. Could just be from staying up late in the cold. He brightens on seeing her, at least--one of the kids in his care here.

He loosens the unwieldy loops of his own stupidly long, hot pink scarf so he's not speaking through five hundred pounds of wool.]

I was just planning to watch, but if you need an extra pair of hands, you're free to borrow mine. How can I help?

[Ena hears the call and opens her mouth to invite Yoojin to join her for star-catching - but she pauses, taking in how he looks, which is about how she feels. And she thinks better of it. And she shakes her head.]

Nah, I may hold off and just watch for a bit too. Or sketch - I know a few people at home that would really love to see this. And if I can't shoot a video to show them, I can do the next best thing, right?

[...it's not an entirely smooth evasion, but it is what she was planning on doing if she wasn't catching a star, so.]

Eh? [Huh? But she called him over for it?] Well, if you're sure.

[Teenage girls behave in mysterious ways sometimes. Yoojin still goes to join her, because Ena's clearly on her own tonight, too, and this is the sort of special thing best experienced with a friend. If she's bringing the memory back to her friends, he'd rather it be a less lonely one.

He tilts his head up. Nothing yet, and this may not be the best spot, anyway. Yoojin glances around for a better, higher vantage point.]

The timing's unreal, isn't it? How often do you think the end of a season coincides with an event like a meteor shower?

Maybe later. But... it's been a long week or two. And I might be happier with relaxing now with a friend than with pushing myself for a little good luck in the coming season.

[It's... a little guarded as an excuse, but she's trying. She sees him looking around, and glances herself; there's a lot of open space in Primavain, and she's not above parking on the roof of a shop or something if she has to, even if it's a little inelegant. And probably not comfy to sit and sketch on.]

Honami-chan says they're not that uncommon, but... the good ones don't come around very often, and they don't last very long. It's why we name them. So having one now, at the end of the season? [She smiles softly.] It's a minor miracle.

[Maybe it's a little pathetic when she's a teenager and he's thirty entire years old (mentally), but Yoojin genuinely feels his heart grow fuller when Ena calls him a friend. To be fair, winning teens over isn't necessarily easy. The fact that she's comfortable calling him that is a balm on the aching bruise of loneliness.]

Wow. A miracle, huh? Then we've definitely got to find a good spot to watch it from. Oh! It looks open up there!

[He points to a balcony table that is somehow yet to be claimed. Or maybe a fussy child needed their family to take them home early.]

What do you think? A relaxing enough setting?

[Hey, he's been working hard. But more importantly... he's trying. She's a teenager, but she tries very, very hard not to be a bitch. Not on purpose, at least.]

That'll be perfect. Somewhere to hang out and that I can set a sketchbook on. C'mon, let's grab it before someone else does.

[Not wasting any time, she starts walking toward it, still talking as she goes.]

Then again, I say it's a miracle, but for all I know the Everbloom's magic can reach the stars themselves. [Ena glances back up.] If you could see a meteor shower at the end of every season instead of a couple times a decade, does it make them less special?

[He trots along after her, hands in his coat pockets to keep them warm.]

Hmmm, less special? Maybe... But not less breathtaking to watch.

[If there were thousands of S-ranks instead of dozens, would that make them any less powerful? Not at all. It'd just mean the world collectively had more people able to put a fight up against its end. So too with star showers. Some things are amazing no matter what.]

It's kind of like New Year's or a birthday. We mark a few times a year as special, but time's always passing, and always precious. If we always had meteor showers, maybe society would only single out some of them to watch together... but our nights would be prettier overall.

Mm, well said. I know I'd probably end up working through most of them, prettier nights or not. And even if we've got this extra precious time from Their Highness, I don't... want to waste it, if I can help it, you know? This year they've given us will go by in the blink of an eye. But-

[She lets her guard down, a little, as she looks back at him with that same easy smile; did she always look this tired, though?]

-it's nice to get a chance to take a break every so often, too. To stop and appreciate the little things between one crazy day and the next. Rosavelle... really is magical, huh?

It really is. Even coming from a magical world myself, this kingdom's special. In a whole lot of ways.

[He lets that thought trail off, then continues gently:]

So, what's been going on? You mentioned you had a rough couple of weeks.

[Well, Ena said a long couple of weeks, but Yoojin can read between the lines.]

[She had been heading to the hot springs to take a dip and relax after her stressful last week or two; the bag with a change of clothes and a tower would suggest as much, anyway, and for once she's not carrying a sketchbook. But Ena doesn't get very far into Marelys, paying only limited attention and somewhat lost in her own head, before something goes horribly, horribly wrong, as she hears a series of clicking and clacking sounds coming closer and closer-

and then a sudden weight on her arm and a yanking on her wrist, and then an odd lightness, and the clacking begins to retreat into the distance. She only briefly has time to notice little ugly things retreating with the sound - and a glint of white, purple, brown, and pink, before it too rounds a corner. Shouting, she gives chase, but when she rounds the corner, there's only ocean and plank; the crabs are gone. And so is her charm bracelet. For a long moment, she can only stop and stare dumbly at the spot, her bag dropping to the ground from limp fingers.]

No. No, hold on- wait. What- what the fuck-

[She sees red. That's important to her, and she's not letting it go! It takes only a few minutes of asking around to figure out she's not the only one missing stuff, and while they're organizing a search group to look for things, and they've already started to find items - not hers yet, but some things - she doesn't have the patience to wait. She takes off at a rapid jog back into the streets, and while she'd been assured the crabs weren't dangerous and asked not to harm them, boy, she's really not in a good mood. But if she doesn't get herself under control, she's going to actually hurt someone or something... hmm. A compromise, then. She'll just advertise she's pissed off to all and sundry, not wanting to let fully loose but wanting something a little unpleasant and that catches some of her feelings, letting her Meramancy wash over the people she passes and hoping they stay the hell out of her way-]

♫ What is it that's not good enough about our lives?
Where's the right answer? Look for it, look for it! ♫

[The expression on Ena's face is purposeful, approaching dangerous as she moves through the streets. She moves with an odd combination of grace instilled by a good teacher who would not be happy with the way she's acting right now, rage that keeps threatening to overwhelm her, and occasional confusion when the two war within her; usually the former wins, but every once in a while - especially when she sees a crab - she bolts, and then stops for a second when it disappears or she can't catch it. Eventually, she realizes she has one other option, and reaching for her magic again, not trying to mix the two but keeping the streams separate, feeling this is the limit of her control and she's only managing this much because anger is pushing her, she grabs one she hasn't used yet and rips at it. Instantly, separate from the heat around her neck from Corrin's gift, heat comes to her hand as a tiny flame manifests... and floats just above it, casting a tiny orange light on her torso.]

♫ The recipe for my heart is flavored with attention-seeking; I'm a nirvana junkie
I pretend more and more to be strong and end up face-down in the mud ♫

[Can she throw this? Should she try? Will she set something on fire, least of all herself? Does she care? That's her bracelet, that's like the third most important thing she owns in this place, she will get it back if it's the last thing she does, Nadeshiko's wrath be damned-]

((Feel free to run into her, catch up with her, be sent to join/stop her, or what have you; she'll stop singing and talk, but she's in a bad mood and be unlikely to be calmed down without a good argument, and her music won't stop. If you're also missing something, you're welcome to come along, but don't get in the way or you'll get burned. Maybe literally.))

Nohr tends towards more extremes of heat than it does cold, and while Corrin can usually withstand it pretty well, even she has her limits. The solution to this problem is a nice long soak in the Marelys hot springs, and that's where she's on her way towards when someone pushes past her headed in the other direction, and it takes a second for Corrin to realize she knows who that angry-looking young lady was.

"...Ena?" She can hear the song she's singing, and it's a far cry from their meeting in the castle grounds. She breaks into a jog after Ena, the hot springs forgotten for now.

"Ena! Wait a moment!" Corrin catches up to her and lightly puts a hand to Ena's arm. "Hey, are you all right?"

Corrin's jog is probably faster than Ena's, so even with the head start it won't take her long to catch up. But that's plenty of time for Ena to chase the crab that she thought she just saw in front of her-

"Flirtiness, loneliness, poison flowing continuously," she lilts, sweetness and danger mixing in her tone in a way that can't have been in the original vocals, "c'mon, give me more love-"

She wheels at the end of the last line as she hears clacking coming up beside her and a soft touch on her arm, eyes flashing - as loud and as worked up as she is, she can't hear Corrin calling her - and flinches at the last second as she registers a friend and not another thrice-damned crab, closing her hand to abort the attempt to throw the fire in it, yelping as the tiny flame burns her palm; she'd been so focused on not hitting Corrin, she hadn't thought to turn off her Elementalism, she just snuffed out the fire.

"Corrin-?! You scared me! Where the hell did you even come from?" Ena babbles, confused; the crab she was chasing gets away, unimportant in this moment. Almost shooting a friend is way more important right now.

Corrin flinches as Ena whirls on her, realizing too late that going for the arm touch might have been a bad idea, especially when she sees the spark of flame in Ena's hand a second before she snuffs it out (and yelps in pain for her trouble).

"I was...heading for the hot springs in Marelys when you pushed right past me." Corrin begins after a moment. "You looked so angry I wanted to see if you were okay. How's your hand? I'm so, so sorry, I shouldn't have put my hand on you like that." She scoops up a bit of snow and kneads it into a ball. "Here, open your hand. Ice would be better, but this can help with your burn."

Seeing that flinch on the other end makes Ena feel like even more of a heel, and she... doesn't quite relent, but something in her body language seems to loosen, still clearly worked up but not actively angry; to accompany that, the music behind her ducks, but doesn't fade out.

"That's where I was heading too, but one of these damn crabs ran off with my charm bracelet! And I got so mad, I just- I wasn't thinking straight. Don't apologize to me. I shouldn't have gone off the handle, and you were trying to help," she admits, a little sullenly. Obediently, when Corrin asks her to open her hand, she does; given she's literally never called up Elementalism before now and was reaching way beyond her limits, the burn isn't bad - certainly not nothing, but she won't need immediate medical attention... probably. She hisses when the snow hits the burn, but sighs a moment later. "Dammit. It could be anywhere by now."

"I'm sorry about your charm bracelet." Corrin says gently as she applies the snow to Ena's burn. It doesn't look too bad, at least. Thankfully it wasn't a very strong flame Ena conjured up.

"It can't have gotten too far. I'll help you look for it. What does the bracelet look like?" The hot springs can wait, if Ena's lost something precious to her then Corrin will glady help her try to get it back.

Everyone in this damn kingdom is too nice to her, Ena thinks for... not the first time, and not entirely unkindly. She fights the urge to turtle into her scarf as Corrin fusses. "Thank you," she manages aloud after a second. "I'm... it'll turn up eventually-"

-is what she starts to say, but then Corrin offers to help search, and she clams up. Now she feels even worse. "You- you don't have to do that. Not after I almost-" She flinches, not wanting to finish the sentence. Yelling at people... she does that. She feels bad about it later, but she does that. If she'd hurt Corrin in her rampage? And now she's offering to help?

Venom, still running quietly behind her, starts to crackle and skip, like music over a Bluetooth speaker in interference. Startled, Ena tries to refocus on it, but realizes the problem a moment later, and... doesn't drop it, but doesn't try to fix it, shaking her head. "Are you sure? I'm... not the best company right now," she finishes lamely, more as a warning than anything else.

[ hearing there were open hot springs, haruhi absolutely decided checking those out was a good idea. getting refreshed during a vacation was important, even if she was by herself. so, she had a dip!

heading back, she got a glimpse of a group of crabs skittering by, something glimmering in their grasp. she'd heard about the crabs and planned on joining one of the groups to nab them, but that felt like a tomorrow decision.

but that thought doesn't stay long as a few minutes later she spots someone nearby, menacing, angry. someone who absolutely lost something important to them.

...shoot. ]

Hey!

[ she isn't sure where exactly the group she saw earlier went, but maybe they didn't get far? and so, she decides to gesture behind herself. ]

Keep checking that way, I'll check the other side!

[ she has no idea who this is, or really what she's looking for, but there's no reason for her to ignore this. ]

[In retrospect, Ena will later recognize that "run singing down the boardwalk and hope to repel people with your mind-bendy magic" was. Probably not a good plan. That would instead attract either helpful types or her friends. But right now she's running on anger, so she's got what she's got.]

♫ The highest we've scored in our lives is zero- huh?

[And indeed, someone calls out to her, and while her first hope is that she's got her bracelet, that's dashed instantly - but she's offering help, and that's almost as good, as she comes to a stop, breathing hard. Venom doesn't stop playing, but Ena stops singing to answer back, this apparent passing-by nice person offering to help. Not someone she knows, either, but. She's not searching her memory too hard right now.]

Got it, thanks. I'm looking for a metal charm bracelet. Multi-colored band, can't miss it. We'll meet up after. [Dryly:] Follow the pissed-off singing, you'll find me.

Sounds good. [ does it, though? ] See you in a bit!

[ folks don't often get that upset over losing just a little trinket. especially if they're singing really angrily about it, even with a backing track. she really wants to ask about that, but haruhi's grown up enough to realize that this isn't the time. instead, taking her time to keep the image of the bracelet in her head and start searching.

she's out for a while. ten, twenty, thirty minutes? unsure if the other girl is still out there, listening out for the music/pissed off singing to even verify that she didn't go too far.

finally, she has to give up the ghost.

haruhi sets in the direction of the singing, feeling a little defeated. looking to meet back up with ena, she trots up and when they meet again, she just shakes her head. damn it. ]

[Ena nods sharply with a murmur of agreement; it indeed doesn't sound good, but she's happy for the help. And... not in quite the right mood to express that now. So she takes off the the direction she was going, as Haruhi takes off in the other. Venom cuts back in as Ena goes-]

♫ Gulping down the poison, feeling pain, crying, there's no running away from this veno-venom- ♫

[And she rounds a corner at a jog; the music fades before her voice does, her Meramancy apparently having less range than her singing. They'll cross close enough for Ena to be heard a few more times: she apparently starts Venom again; then seems to lose a little heart and lets it guide her to something a little less angry but no less emotional; and after she finishes DSCF she's about ready to give up, starting back toward where she left the girl that had offered to help her, rapidly running out of energy to run, let alone sing. But sing she does, easing up on the pace and continuing to channel her Meramancy into something she knows by heart. The tone, however, isn't harsh enough to push people away - this time she just looks like she's having a bad day, and by the time she makes it back to where she started - and finds the girl again, shaking her head, as she approaches - she figures it's just her luck. She skips the lyrics, letting Charles fade out. Ena's voice is... a bit hoarse from twenty minutes of singing in the cold.]

Nothing, huh? Dammit. I... thank you for looking. Sorry, I was. Really angry when you found me, so I think I was a little short with you.

[ with a heavy sigh, haruhi shrugs her shoulders. ]

Don't worry about it. That bracelet was important, wasn't it? Makes sense that you'd be pissed off because of that.

[ haruhi steps off to the side, looking for a place to sit down before plopping down on the ground. ]

Hey... are you going to be okay? Running and singing like that's gotta take a ton out of you.

Sentimental value, at least. I can replace it... but it's what it means, you know?

[And her hands are cold now, which doesn't help. Following the other girl's lead, Ena moves off the main walking path, back sliding down the wall of a shop as she sits next to her, catching her breath.]

I... probably. I'll go get something to drink in a minute. Maybe hit the hot springs or something to warm up. I was just so pissed off, it didn't even matter to me until I was slowing down to meet you just now.

03:00 🎨 open

counting stars | Primavain, December 31st

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the recipe for my heart | Marelys wharf, January 5th

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