[open] I'm in love with a shooting star

[pinwheels]

Who: Rinoa Heartilly + you?
What: catch-all for January!
Where: different places around the Void
When: during January
Content Warnings: n/a! will update if anything comes up


I ☆ ❝We promise to see shooting stars together.❞

[ It's easy to miss the changes that happen to the world when you've spent most of the last however-long indoors. In the end, her time in the nightmare that was Mementos hurt Rinoa somewhere deep, bringing with it a heavy feeling in her heart that took time alone to process. It was a little while after the clocks started to work that she emerged again, and she wasn't surprised to find that her processing time had brought with it further changes to the rest of the world.

The sky was one such thing, dark where it had been a light near-nothingness before, complete with auroras and stars that aren't from home, but could be. Since finding it for the first time, seeing the lights dancing across the darkness of the endless abyss, Rinoa's found herself spending a lot of time outside, amongst the ever-cycling purple scenery of the lake, looking up through the canopy and watching the stars. Sometimes, Angelo and Felix come with her; sometimes, like now, she's alone, her companions resting back in their apartment.

Every time a star falls from the sky, it brings with it a mixed feeling. There's a sense of its beauty, an absent-minded smile on her lips as she watches its path across the sky. But with it comes the hollow sense of homesickness that has haunted her ever since she got here, worsened by the fake Squall in the nightmare, strengthened even further by the taste of her magic, pulled abruptly away upon waking.

It's a feeling still trying to burrow itself into the pit of her stomach when she realizes that the star she's watching is getting remarkably close. But where most might try to move away, Rinoa moves toward it, black boots hurrying over the withering grass, and it's with pursed lips, a curious expression on her face, that she gathers the small glowing rock into her hands. ]

Wow...

II ☆ ❝I can be fearless, too.❞

[ When she's not watching the night sky, the next best thing is training. Rinoa's never been good at fighting alone; even here, she's proved that she needs people around her if she wants to stand even the slightest of chances against a foe. But she's already seen how people tend to wink in and out of existence around here, which brings with it a special kind of fear unique to her existence in the Void.

It's not the same terror that woke her from nightmares back at home, or the pain of the reality she's living now - no one can be as precious to her as Squall; there's no one she can fear losing as much as she fears being without him - but she does have friends here, people she trusts and has come to rely on. If something happens, and if they disappear too... what then?

She can't fight alone.

But maybe she can learn.

Without the power of her magic, Rinoa is left to the blaster edge perpetually strapped to her arm, and it's with that that she makes her way from place to place, setting up targets of whatever she can find and obliterating them before starting over. Today, she's in one of the many caverns within the mountain. If you find her here, feel free to join her; perhaps you can even teach her how to use something new! ]

III ☆ ❝Cool 'em down, Shiva! Freeze them to the core.❞

[ It's not like snow is a new thing in the Void; it was part of Rinoa's arrival on the top of Mt. Silver, a constantly-falling cold in a place that otherwise seems to not know how temperature works outside of "mild". She's even experienced the sudden storms before, the way the snow sometimes just tends to just dump itself out of the sky into whatever is underneath it, only to disappear moments later.

She's never tried to actually build a snowman, though.

This particular snowfall has been going for quite some time now, and the rocky ground underneath it is covered in a blanket of crunchy white. Rinoa's clothes don't offer much in the way of warmth, but that doesn't stop her from stomping into it, gathering handfuls of the stuff and piling them into rough spheres in order to try and create a figure.

Whatever she does make, well... it's not very good.

If you try to tell her as much, though, you're liable to get a snowball to the face! ]

IV ☆ Wildcard

( something else in mind? hit her with something random, or hit me up if you want to request something specific! ♥ )

Comments

[halloflamer]

[From the whine and anxious patter, Arcanine is used to his trainer's moping about anyway, so he follows after Rinoa as she goes to comfort his trainer. Blue's in the midst of packing another snowball when Rinoa's hand falls to his, making him jolt a little under her touch.]

[He's totally just red from the cold, right? Right.]

I-it's.... I mean, yeah, [He can't help decompressing in a little sigh as he settles again.] But I've kinda decided to try moving on from it, if I can.

After all, there's all you guys here, too. I guess I gotta make do with what's here, right? [He tries to put on a cocky smile, and pokes a couple eye-holes in the large snowball he's formed.] I should be used to this, after all. Meeting new people in new places...

[pinwheels]

[ If she notices his reaction when her hand falls to his - and she does - she doesn't comment on it, instead just offering him another gentle smile, waiting for him to relax before a brief pat of her hand precedes it pulling away from him a moment later. Honestly, from the way he talks, it sounds to her like they've traced over a lot of the same steps in their own minds, right down to the determined self-reassurance.

She shoots a look at Arcanine, as if to ask Is he always like this? ]

I get it, you know? There's a lot of people here, and some of them are gonna become important to you too, if they haven't already. But that doesn't mean you stop missing the people from home. And that's okay too!

[halloflamer]

[Arcanine, to his credit, manages to return a look torn somewhere between YES, ALWAYS and reluctance- the fluffy canine has seen his trainer's journey from tumultuous childhood to steadying adulthood, and it's only in an Arcanine's nature to steadfastly remain his support...]

[Blue hesitates, pausing in his manipulation of snow, but his shoulders give a little shrug that seems partially to shake out the tension within them and he manages to keep up the grin with only a little falter.]

Yeah. [There's an awkward pause as his bravado falters again.] --I mean, anyway, I doubt we're all gonna be stuck in this place for a long time, right? Who knows how long it's really been.

I don't know if it's better that it's just me. No one is exactly happier here, right?

[He unsurely meets Rinoa's eyes- he can't imagine anyone would be, but it almost feels as if he's more vying for her to confirm his own biases.]

[pinwheels]

[ She offers Arcanine a knowing smile in response, and then reaches up to idly pat Eevee as she turns her attention fully back to Blue, nodding. It's a thought she's had more than once, too: isn't it better that no one else from home is stuck here, no matter how much she might want them to be? Squall would be going insane trying to tear the place open, she's sure.

And yet... ]

I can think of a couple of people who might actually be happier here. [ Actually, she can only think of one. But she's not intending on naming names, or making it so obvious that he instantly knows. It's not her place to tell, right? ] I think... you and I are lucky that we come from worlds where there are people we wanna see, places we wanna be. But not everyone is like that, you know? I guess for them, somewhere like this is better, kinda.

[halloflamer]

[Hesitating at her answer, in truth, Blue has a feeling that he too could think of someone if he put some uncomfortable thought into it. As much as he's been trying to avoid thinking of the less happy circumstances of some of the people he's met, he'd probably learned too much from some of them already.]

I get the sense that where I come from things are a little nicer than a lot of places, [Maybe it was a little arrogant to put it that way.... But Blue had also gotten sort of a bad taste in his mouth from the way some people here had reacted to the creatures that inhabited this place- with fear and in some cases, disgust. Not to mention how quick some people were to jump to violence!] I mean, I don't think it's any less dangerous here.

Back home, you have Pokémon to protect you, but I guess it's not that way for everyone, huh? How about you?

[pinwheels]

[ Rinoa nods. Her home isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than some of the places she's heard about since being here. And surely there are places better than her world, too. If Arcanine and Eevee both come from the same world as Blue, she can't help but think it must be a place that's largely peaceful, what with how friendly they are even to strangers like her. Yet he says they're used for protection?

Ruffling Arcanine's mane, she tilts her head, a thoughtful smile on her lips. ]

Back home... I— [ How does she explain it? ] My powers mean that I both need protection, and that people have to be prepared to protect people from me, if it came to it. [ ...Maybe not like that? ] It's not that I'm planning to hurt anyone, or that I'd want to, but... I'm a Sorceress, and we're not exactly trusted.

[ She offers Blue a brief, embarrassed smile. ]

I miss home, but I guess there are some things about my life that it's kind of useful to not have following me here.

[halloflamer]

Huh? A Sorceress?

Like you can cast magic spells or something? [It's not the strangest thing Blue's heard in this place by a longshot- he's met plenty of other people who've claimed they can use magic, and while he was certainly skeptical at first, seeing Aerith cast spells inside the Mementos tunnels certainly proved him wrong about that. Even if it was only a thing in books and fairy tales, where he came from...] That sounds pretty cool to me. How come...

[He wants to ask why people wouldn't trust her, but he remembers that there are some people who don't trust Psychics back home, either, and thinks better of it. Probably not something she wants to talk about.] --Well, you don't have to worry about it from me! I think magic is pretty frolickin' cool!

[He puffs his chest out, packing some snow slowly onto his snow...man(?) to add details to it. Ears...?] I get what you mean, though.

[pinwheels]

[ For her own part, Rinoa has completely given up on building a snowman, content to continue giving pats to both Arcanine and Eevee while watching Blue work. He's met with a smile in response to his words; she's still getting used to the fact that people don't judge her here, that the stigma of being a Sorceress disappeared as easily as the powers themselves did. ]

Yeah. Most humans from my world can use magic too, but it's a manmade type. A scientist created it based on what Sorceresses can do naturally. So it's, you know, a resource they can run out of. Plus, there are some kinds of magic that he couldn't figure out how to copy.

[ Blue's curiosity doesn't go unnoticed, but there's something he's said that gets her more immediate attention. If he wants to know more later, she'll tell him, but... ]

There's stuff you've been happy to leave behind too?

[halloflamer]

[Blue frowns as some of the snow crumbles off of the form he's trying to shape. Physics isn't working with him, here! He tries again, wondering if he can get the void to just.. make it work for him.]

Man-made magic is just science? Huh! Guess I'm a magician now, too! [Well that's just, like, your opinion, Blue. He hums curiously as he listens to her explain.] I wonder what the world would be like if people could harness the powers of Pokémon. Never really thought about that, before.

[He makes a sort of reluctant face to Rinoa's question, and hesitates. But after a moment, he grins.] Sometimes it's nice to not have any responsibilities, I guess, [He offers. No one recognizing, or expecting things of him....]

[Well. Mostly.] Honestly, though, I really prefer home. Pokémon back home are way cooler than here. Sorry, world!

Rinoa's last comment is making me laugh

[pinwheels]

[ Boy, does she ever get that. Along with the difficulties of being a Sorceress, there's the responsibilities of being one too, and of being the SeeD Commander's girlfriend... she can't deny it's kind of nice to get away from all that, even if she misses the Commander himself.

She grins at the magician comment, and nods. ] You would be, you know? If there were draw points here, anyone would be able to use them. You can only get a limited amount of uses from each but... it refills itself over time. [ It's probably something similar to the aether that runs through the ground here, if she thinks about it. She's no scientist though, so... ]

If there are creatures on your world like these guys, I don't blame you at all. They're adorable. [ Although she loves Felix for what he is, too. ] I know a lot of the creatures here at at least part Pokémon too, right? There must be a lot of types...

she dont KNOW

[halloflamer]

Draw points...? So like a natural resource?

Hmmm. As long as it's not hurting the environment or anything...

[Blue instead turns his attention to Eevee, who at Rinoa's praise has puffed himself up again with pride. Arcanine gives an ARK of agreement.] Yeah, there's lots! Hundreds of species, and over a dozen types. Eevee and Arc here are hardly a good sample, [Blue chuckles, and after a moment of thinking, he digs out his Pokédex. It wasn't working at the moment, since it'd been a while since he passed a lightning storm.] You should swing by Heavenly Blanc sometime, when I've got this baby fired up! This is Pokédex, an encyclopedia of all the Pokémon I've seen and caught. You could browse through for hours and barely see 'em all!

...You've got a Pidgey partner, right? He's a Flying type, like my Pidgeot. That's the evolved form. [Blue rubs his chin with his cold fingers.] ...Though I don't know if the forms in this place can evolve, too...