estoria | [ 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

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."

"Just like the start! It's only the middle part that's all..." She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand, slowing seeing a sense of shadows against darker shadows, blocky shapes fixed in her field of vision.

"Well, the end's supposed to be the best part, right? When everything they've got left goes off?"

It's going to be very loud, and the shockwaves are really going to get to him, but he thinks he can stick it out just this once.

All these thoughts occur to her too. Chihiro's quiet, considering her water bottle in her hands. She can barely see it; more an outline of lighter shadows against darker ones.

"I think so..." She brings one hand to cover her mouth, stifling a not actually faked yawn. "Though I'm feeling kind of tired..."

He can't help but laugh at that. "Looks like you wore yourself out planning all this."

And of course, that's when he yawns too.

It's the perfect moment in her mind.

The perfect moment to get him away, and not have him feel bad for it, she hopes. She's seen firework finales before. She might not have her full vision back in time to see this one. So... it feels like the better thing to do, to look after a friend who's looked after her.

"Mmhmm... Eiji-san? Would you mind walking me home?"

He doesn't think too much about it, after the way they both yawned. Probably a good idea to go to bed, right?

"Of course."

He reaches down for her hand.

"You did a great job with all of this. Thanks."

Evil mastermind plan achieved as she lets him take her hand, still not seeing enough to be sure she'd grab it on her own properly. The compliment makes her smile, eyes downcast as a small flush of pleasure highlights her cheeks more than usual. "Thank you."

It's nice of him to say, and him taking her home is also nice. Letting her other hand, the one holding the water bottle, fall to her side, she opens her eyes and sees what sense of shadows-against-shadows allows her to see. Right now, it's still not enough detail to be sure of where she's walking. It'll get better as they go, though.

"Thanks for coming, too."

"Thanks for inviting me. Sorry if I made anything awkward, though."

He really did have fun, up until the fireworks panic.

She shakes her head, walking along with a little less exaggerated care than earlier.

"Mm, you don't need to apologise. What's more important is that you had fun." Before the fireworks set him off.

"That's probably right. I think everybody's going to need moments like this, the more things go on."

"Yeah... what do you feel's going to happen from here on out?" She finds herself almost frowning, thinking about that nebulous future when things have been steadily breaking down all around them. The light moments are all the more important, she thinks, just to drive back the darker ones in memories.

"We can't trust CERES anymore. Not that they were ever really that trustworthy, but..."

He sighs. The information he and the others uncovered wasn't good.

"I'm worried, with all of the different factions we ended up in the middle of, that it's going to turn into war between them. I don't want us to have to fight in it, but I think no matter who wins, we're going to end up as someone's pawn and the promise of our worlds coming back is still going to be used against us."

"We're kind of already fighting in this war, aren't we? Even if it's not like the ones I know from television and history." She'd talked about this before more or less with Kashuu. That particular conversation had involved acknowledging the casualties likely to happen in any conflict, open or covert, as it has been.

"CERES making themselves hard to find isn't them leaving. Tellus, CERES, the Flamines... it's been moving all this time. We've probably been caught up in it before we were even made here."

"I know. But I don't want anyone to get used again. If I have to fight, I'd rather fight to protect us."

He hates this "us and them" mentality, and he'd tried to fight against it in Inugami. But here, it's an unfortunate reality.

"I feel like most of us want that," she says, agreeing with the idea that they need to protect each other. "I don't know who else we'll have to work with... but we've got to look out for each other. We're the only ones who can."

She gives a squeeze of his hand, absolutely certain that they'll manage it as well as they can. What she won't voice, or spend time thinking over, is how they might be the only ones who wanted to keep the code-born safe... especially with Mosley out of the picture and the Elemental Gods having given up on them before.

"So we will."

He smiles at the squeeze to his hand. It helped having someone to put things in perspective.

"Right. And maybe if we're lucky, we'll figure out a way to solve this without having to fight anyone."

She nods, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. "I'd like that best." Not needing to fight, being able to solve things in words or with kindness or understanding? She'd prefer to do that, always.

Yet she'll fight for who and what she believes in. It just won't be so remarkably effective if it's supposed to be brawling.

[ open ] 'cause baby you're a firework

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