estoria | [ open ] 'cause baby you're a firework

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[ open ] 'cause baby you're a firework

Who: Open mingle for any interested Cerealians! Or those who come by the park coincidentally.
When: ICly whatever Friday is happening during Event 33.
Where: The Park in the Residential District.
What: In an effort led by a ten year old and a sword that is not ten years old, Post-Robocolypse Cerealia gets a fireworks, watermelon, bottled water, and BYOB (bring your own blanket/beer/barbecue) late-summer early-fall afternoon celebration. That ends with the fireworks. Nothing can go wrong! (Anything you so desire can go wrong.)
Rating/Warning: There's watermelon to be cut and fireworks to be set off, so potential injury and fire involved.

There's very little formality to the whole of the affair. Anyone who wants can wander into the park, a few tables set up to hold water bottles, the area clear of debris and former robotic gardeners. Any dangerous areas of vegetation have been carefully marked with CAUTION — POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape. There are several watermelons carefully corralled together on the ground, paper plates, and a bag for trash tied to one of the tables.

Nearby, there's also a whole table of fireworks, from the handheld to the relatively safe to set off to the this probably should only be handled by a professional, but no lighters; all of those are kept over with the water bottles. Safety First!

The later afternoon is for slicing and serving watermelon and water (or any of the foods that people may choose to bring), with Chihiro at least fully encouraging people to use weapons to cut the watermelon (...) and turn it into a kind of impromptu show. Once the skies are dark enough, the fireworks will begin. Anyone willing to help out will be generally welcome, and sparklers and the smallest fireworks are around for anyone to grab hold of and have fun. The truly big fireworks are going to be set off at the far end of the park by a few brave, intrepid souls. (Unless someone keeps Chihiro away, that includes one ten year old.)

Pray they don't like themselves on fire or explode themselves, especially as almost every person at the party is probably guaranteed to not be fully functional. What can go wrong? Let's have a watermelon and fireworks show!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is generally a bad idea. Eiji doesn't like explosions enough when he's fighting, but in normal human form, the sound and shockwaves are bad enough he's shaking.

He's ready to go home when he sees Chihiro lying way too close to the fireworks.

"Chihiro, move!"

It should be enough just to warn her it's not safe there, maybe go over to help, but he's not thinking that clearly. Thus, screaming and running over at full speed.

Sorry about making you panic too now.

Chihiro jolts up, hearing Eiji call out and not hearing or feeling anything immediately off. Then again, she hears the whine and screech of fireworks heading skyward, the boom that echoes back down once they explode, and it doesn't sound threatening so much as happening.

Yet she can't see, and so she rolls over and pushes up to her feet, arms out at her sides for balance as she whips her head this way, then the other way, trying to hear what Eiji has seen. Darting around without knowing where is liable to get her into trouble all on its own.

"Which way?!"

She calls back in turn, heart beating frantically against the confines of her chest.

That's no good--she's going even closer now.

"No, not that way!"

He closes the distance, determined not to let her get too far away--he absolutely can't let himself fail another little girl. He can feel ash falling down on him, but the blast pressure from the close explosions is what worries him--they're too close, and she's going to get hurt.

"Over here, follow my voice!"

She hesitates, lurching backward and stumbling. She doesn't run, because a blind run when she doesn't remember what her surroundings look like feels like a bad idea. Which is how Eiji now has Chihiro trying to keep very calm and walking with big lifts of her feet toward where she thinks he's calling out from. Her arms are held out to her sides so she can keep her balance, brow furrowed as she concentrates on the way her feet feel as they touch ground and she hopes there's nothing planted right in her way.

Honestly, with all the smells and sounds, she can't tell if something really is burning too close to her, or if this might be part of what Eiji had mentioned before about not being okay with fireworks. She's also not trying to figure that out yet, instead steadily trudging forward.

It is, admittedly, mostly him not being okay with fireworks. And he'll admit it when he finally gets out of panic mode. But he's not even close to that until she's close enough that he can try to take her hand.

"I'm going to try to lead you farther away. Where it's safer."

She tenses and jumps when he takes her hand, because without visual aids, it's a surprise (albeit a warm one). She relaxes as he's speaking, changing her gait so that she's keeping her feet low and skimming over the ground to bump into any obstacles or inform herself on changes in the ground before she steps down hard and injures herself.

"Are you okay, Eiji-san?" Either way, she nods, allowing him to lead her where he will.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

His voice says he's anything but, and Chihiro might notice his hand is trembling.

"It's another step up here. Better view, but not as close."

Wordlessly, she gives his hand a squeeze. He'd said before he didn't handle fireworks well. It looks like that much was definitely holding true.

"Mm, okay." The view is irrelevant to her at the moment, but it matters to him, she guesses, and so she goes along. Getting away from the fireworks doesn't hurt her. It definitely seems to be helping him. "Let me know when we're there."

The squeeze helps reassure him and he takes a deep breath before leading her a few feet more.

"Okay, we're there."

Then, now that he's calming down, "Sorry if I freaked out on you back there. You were right there by the fireworks. If something went wrong..."

Although, now that he's able to see from a distance, maybe it wasn't as bad as he'd thought. Still close, but maybe not "right in the middle of an explosion" like he'd been thinking.

Well, now he feels incredibly stupid.

"Sorry."

She shakes her head, refusing the apology, or at least the intent behind it. "It's okay. I know you don't like the sounds of the fireworks, and I should have been further away." She's guessing. She hadn't been in the immediate danger zone that she knew of, but that didn't mean she was actually outside of it, in the end.

"Are you feeling better now?" More calm, more anything of the sort? She tilts her blind face his direction, her eyes failing to really focus on him. She's still trying. It feels like the natural thing to do, to try and look at his face. "Now that we're further away?"

"A little." Still super embarrassed, though, but he's thinking clearly again.

"Were you having a hard time seeing it? Is that why you moved closer?"

"Hm? No, I was helping set stuff up earlier. I can't see right now — that just happened a few minutes ago — so it doesn't matter how close or far I am to where they are for now."

Way to let someone know you're blind, child.

Eiji's eyes widen for a moment, but he tries to keep his voice sounding calm. He's probably scared her enough; he doesn't need to add to it.

"This is what you mentioned to me earlier, isn't it?"

She hesitates before nodding. Yes and no, but it's close enough that it makes sense to agree. "It's only happened a handful of times, but yeah. I go blind for a while every so often."

On the bright side, she doesn't operate heavy machinery, drive, or take part in dangerous sporting activities, so she has yet to be in the middle of anything she can't handle when her vision's gone dark.

"And it's been happening since our eyes...since I guess the implants stopped working, if that guy is right."

Now, he forces lightness into his voice.

"It should be okay, though. You're not the only one going through something like this."

Chihiro nods, offering him a small smile. "I know. Even if it were, it'd... I'd find a way for it to be okay. Me and my friends." She gives his hand another squeeze, if she still has a hold of it. "Everyone's been going through weird things together. If we don't rely on each other, then we're really only hurting ourselves. So... I'll be okay. Everyone's going to be okay. We just can't give up on figuring out what we can do to deal with everything that comes our way. And how to get home."

Home, after all, is someplace she wants to see again one day. Not someplace she wants to give up on yet.

"That was supposed to help comfort you, you know."

At least it's got him laughing a bit.

"I guess for right now, if there's anything you need, I'll help."

She laughs a little in return, getting it a little late. She's almost embarrassed... but not quite. "Oh! Well, thank you! For right now, I guess I'd mostly like to..."

Honestly, what did she want to do? Need had no real factor into things. She didn't need to do much of anything in the moment. "... water?" Listening to the fireworks didn't sound like a good idea when Eiji wasn't so fond of them in the first place. Finding another focus for them both seems better. "Are any of the water bottles from earlier left over?"

"Yeah, I think so. Let me check--I'll be right back."

It's a nicer change in focus, and he's able to find a couple of bottles.

"They're not cold, though. Is that okay? Otherwise, I can try to find some ice."

She shakes her head, offering him a smile. Her eyes don't quite manage to look at his face. "It's fine. They don't need to be cold or anything like that."

Chihiro holds out her hand for one of the water bottles.

He places it in her hand, making sure she's got a good grip on it.

"Sorry again, about freaking out like that. Despite that, it really was a good party."

Taking it in hand, Chihiro works on twisting off the cap. It's kind of satisfying to twist it right on off.

"I'm glad you think so. I was just hoping people would have fun." Good or not good, it's all a success to her as long as a few people found a reason to smile for a while.

"I think you definitely succeeded there."

After all, even if he didn't do so good, everyone else seemed to.

She takes a small sip of water. While placing the cap back on with care, she allows herself a small smile.

"Thank you." Blinking, she feels like she can sense some difference in the dark she sees. The kind that usually means her vision will start returning soon. "I think my vision's starting to come back now."

"Really? That's great!"

He breathes a sigh of relief.

"At least you'll be able to catch the end of it."

Fireworks

what a lovely evening in the park tbh

Re: what a lovely evening in the park tbh

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