rekindleme | [open] a helping hand

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[open] a helping hand

Who: Kanonno and anyone who's feeling sick from lack of contact
Where: Anywhere
When: 13th of June (alternatively, forward date to the 18th for stage 2)
Summary: It's a week since everyone arrived in Saeng Seong-- Kanonno's worried about anyone who's too stubborn to believe in the whole hugging thing.
Warnings: Invading your personal space if necessary--

[Today is the one week mark since everyone's arrival in Saeng Seong. Kanonno understands that there's truth to the whole touch system detailed in their letters, but she hasn't been actively trying to reach her quota due to the awkwardness of how to approach it. So far, touching happens to her naturally enough that she's been scraping by: bumping into people in crowded areas, touching hands when returning something someone dropped, trying to help out other people who believe in the energy system... things like that. But if she's having this hard of a time adjusting, she can't help but worry about people averse to physical contact or are just plain stubborn about being told what to do.

That's why today she's being extra vigilant about people feeling unwell, and approaching anyone that looks like they need some help:]

"Excuse me... are you okay?"

[EDIT- ooc: Guess who forgot to reread the game mechanics before posting this? If you want to be accurate, destabilizing starts today, but no one starts to feel ill until about the 18th, so feel free to forward date this/come by next week if you want. Just imagine her doing a daily patrol or something along those lines. ]

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[Kariya hadn't ignored what Saeng Seong's newcomers had been told about the need for physical contact. Not exactly.

It was just that since then, stranded in a city full of strangers, he hadn't wanted to touch anyone. Even back home, all that talk about getting touchy-feely would've been weird, but here -- he doesn't know any of these people! So, almost without noticing, he'd passed most of the last week by his lonesome, usually heading down to the riverside to kick around the ball he bought soon after arrival.

Today, he meant to do so again, but everything is just...off. He can't put his finger on it. Pulling out his Hunter's Net is suddenly a trial today, and the rest of him feels drained somehow. Not quite sick, but definitely too lethargic to bother with soccer.

And thus he's trudging back to the guest residences, ball slung under one arm, when some pink-haired girl show up beside him.]

Huh?

[He doesn't realize what a zombie look he's carrying around as he turns to eye her and rubs one hand across his face.]

Oh...yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, thanks.

Are you sure? You don't look so good...

[The boy looks really out of it, so she's hesitant to just leave him be. Out of habit from her days as a babysitter, she puts the back of her hand to his forehead without asking.]

Really!

[Kariya tenses some at the sudden contact, fidgeting back ever so slightly. It's not like he has a fever anyway, but the attention out of the blue is surprising.]

...I'm just tired today. It's not anything to worry about.

[He forces a smile in hopes of looking a little less dead on his feet. Today, however, it's more strained and half-hearted than what he could normally fake.]

[Yup. No fever. Kanonno removes her hand, unfazed by the fidgeting.]

If you say so...

[She glances back at the housing dorms. They're not that far, so if he's really just tired like he says he is, it should be okay. She's not trying to forcibly help anyone, just kind of check up on people and see if they want help.]

Be sure to rest properly, and um... be careful about the whole touch energy thing if you aren't already. As silly as it sounds, there's some truth to it.

Right, sure.

[Kariya stretches his smile into what's almost a reassuring grin for a second, but then it wilts at that last piece of advice. The whole "touch energy thing" is just dumb! He doesn't even want to consider it.

But he also can't think of another reason why using his hissatsu would be so difficult today. Frustration flickers across his face, before he suddenly asks:]

Hey - are you from here to start with? Or did you get dragged here too?

[Kanonno would be lying if she said she wasn't expecting this reaction, but she takes it as a sign to back down a little.]

No, I'm an outsider too.

How do you know the thing about touching is serious, then? Just because that's what they told us when we got here...

[He's not snapping at her. If anything, Kariya's tone sounds so curious and unassuming that it gets an edge just from being over-the-top. Like he's (very thinly) play-acting at not being annoyed.]

We don't really know why they'd say that yet.

I don't know for sure, but I do know the part about hanging around the closed areas draining your energy is true. I like exploring and tried to go by one anyway, but I got dizzy just hanging around the warning sign.

[Upon closer inspection, she does seem a little weary herself, but she hides it well under her cheery disposition.]

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but if one part's true, I don't see why they'd lie about the rest of it.

[Asuka's feeling a little under the weather, but she waves you off all the same]

I'm fine.

[This person doesn't look as bad as the last person she came across, so Kanonno's okay with just giving some words of caution.]

That's good. You look a little unwell though, so be careful and take care of yourself.

[it's as much a tolerance thing as anything else]

We need to know what happens if you go too long anyway. [which is why she's avoided people] But thanks for the concern.

[Kanonno nods in understanding-- she doesn't want people getting sick, but she acknowledges it's something that needs to be found out to satisfy everyone's incredulity about the whole system.]

If finding out how long it takes is part of your experiment, try to avoid the closed off areas like the letter said. It'll throw off your calculations.

[Asuka laughs, waving her off]

I know, I know!

Hopefully someone else will be brave enough to give that a shot!

[Kanonno finally lets up on the worrying and laughs with her, glad at least one piece of advice will go heeded.]

Unfortunately, I'm not brave enough for that, but I'm trying to help out with what I can.

There's been a redhead making rounds of the city from what looks (at a distance) like a yellow dish of light; getting closer to it, it actually resembles a sunflower. Flying a dozen feet off the ground, she's enjoying the feeling of the wind in her hair again, and she's trying to keep an eye on things... but surveillance is lonely work, and while she's been social, she's kinda forgotten the whole touchy-feely aspect. So it's a big surprise to her when her shield flickers for a moment. Glancing down at it, she throws power at it to stabilize it, and keeps going.

A few seconds later, the thing dims before disappearing entirely, and with an expression of surprise fading to horror, Sora is now falling on a ballistic arc to the rather hard ground under her. She's pushing a hand out under her to try and get another Aegis online, but with a visible sigh as nothing happens, she shifts her stance... is she going to try and roll? From this height?

Woah woah woah Kanonno's been trained to handle a lot of situations, but people falling out of the sky is not one of them-- especially not at that speed or height. If anything, she'd try to get Arche on the scene, but none of her fellow guild members are here, so that's not an option.

She runs over to the approximate landing zone and frantically looks around for something that can be used as a cushion or a landing pad. Or does she just need more clearance? The falling girl looks like she has a plan, but Kanonno can't tell what it is. There might not be enough time for this, but she takes a gamble by calling out:

"Is there anything I can do to help from down here?!"

"Get out of the way, or you're going to get hurt!"

Sora is well past the point of being able to abort, and even if she could, Kanonno probably can't get anything productive under her in time. So as she starts to touch the ground, she tucks her legs in and translates the momentum sideways. Unfortunately, she still rolls a good dozen feet plus, coming to rest some distance away. Unless, of course, Kanonno didn't move from behind the flight path, in which case she's going to find her feet swept from under her via Sora's tumble.

That she can do. Kanonno simply nods before jumping back and using the momentum to swing behind whatever cover's out of Sora's projected landing path.

She can only watch the whole ordeal in a mix of shock and awe-- anyone could tell it's was going to be a hard landing, but that was more than she was expecting. Once it's clear, she runs over, first aid supplies already in her hands.

"Are you okay?"

"Mm-hmm... Everything's kinda a dull ache, which is fine, but I don't actually hurt anywhere. Which, come to think, is a problem."

Pushing up her sleeves as she sits up slowly, there's a significant scrape on one hand, and a bruise starting to blossom on an arm. Sora pokes at it and doesn't react automatically, frowning when she realizes it.

"Damn. That was something I was hoping not to do." She looks over at the girl that she'd almost landed on top of, smiling slightly. "Sorry I snapped, I didn't want to fall on you. That would have hurt both of us a fair bit more."

"It's fine! Sometimes shouting is the only way to get the point across in time."

Kanonno waves off the apology with a small giggle. When things get serious, there's not always time to be polite. She knows that from her various guild jobs.

She squats down to meet the girl at eye level, double-checking for any injuries despite the girl's assurance that she was fine. Nothing hospital-worthy, good. That scrape looks pretty bad though.

"Want me to patch that up for you?"

"Mm. That's a lesson I learned a long time ago..." She sighs, wanting to check her back but lacking a mirror (not to mention the lack of modesty needed to disrobe in front of another girl in the middle of the street!).

Submitting to Kanonno's visual inspection, she nods when the girl proposes a quick fix. "That's probably a good idea. The last thing I need is to make my body worse than it already is." Looking at her hands, she continues, "And that's before I get to my magic not working. Which doesn't happen. I wonder if something's wrong...?"

"This might sting, sorry." Kanonno apologizes before disinfecting the wound, then gets to dressing it. She ponders the question while doing so, not coming up with an answer until she's about halfway done:

"I wonder if that's the city's doing. The letter said we'd get ill, but it also said something about an energy drain... maybe it means magical energy too?"

"I'm used to it by now. If I can get through a battle with just this much damage, I'm doing pretty well." Like the time she exploded herself, or the time she almost burned in her own cockpit, or the time she made it back with half a mecha, or...

"That's a possibility too," she agreed. "But... I don't feel any different. Well, aside from feeling like one big bruise, which doesn't really count."

Kanonno isn't convinced the two things are related, and asks to make sure. "Is that normally something you would notice before it happened? It could be that the drain isn't physically noticeable until a certain point."

"Oh, yeah. I'd know if I were running on empty. This doesn't normally happen. Ever." A long moment as Sora considers her fall. "And it's not that I'm tired. It's more like... nothing's working right."

To illustrate, she raises her uninjured hand to conjure a ball of light. And as she watches, it starts to... deform, and shrink, before stabilizing (for the moment) at about half the size.

"If this is what happens from lack of energy... I think it's more than enough of a motivator for me."

Aaand done. Kanonno lets go of Sora's hand-- oh, that counts as touching, right?

"You already have a headstart from me fixing up your hand, why not test it out and see if your magic starts working better tomorrow?"

Sora appraises her hand for a moment, nodding once; it was solid work. "Thank you... I'll have to check for more damage later, but this'll keep me for now. I'm not good at the whole 'medic' thing.

"And I'll try my magic tomorrow, but... I get the sense it might take more than this to keep it stable. If this were enough, they wouldn't need so many of us, right? A few people could snuggle on a couch for a few days straight and that'd be the end of it." There's no way it could be that easy... right?

Edited 2013-06-18 14:23 (UTC)

No, it's never that easy. Kanonno's just trying to be optimistic. "I don't think so either, but every little bit helps, right?"

"And even if it was that easy, we're generating power for an entire city full of people who don't have the ability to do so for themselves, and more. I can't imagine just how much they need."

"Right. We're already here, and the government is so graciously putting us up, and all we have to do in exchange is hug each other for a few minutes a day? Works for me. And if we have to be here for a while to work off their 'debt'... I can live with that. Probably," she amends. She would like to go home at some point.

"As long as we get to go home when we're done, I don't mind helping out either. They didn't want to bring us all here, but they had no other choice, and they're doing what they can to make us comfortable.... I can sympathize with that." There's a bit of an awkward pause after that, as she looks down at the ground with a complicated expression.

When she looks up again, she smiles with her hand extended for a handshake. "I'm Kanonno, by the way."

[Bai is curled up on a park bench, dead asleep. She had miscalculated badly when she last used her power, and she wasn't able to get home before paying her Renumeration. Her face looks drawn, deep shadows under her eyes.]

[Kanonno approaches the bench cautiously, wondering why this girl is sleeping on a bench instead of at home. A nap? She doesn't look that comfortable though, and upon closer inspection, she doesn't seem to be well either.

She crouches down by the bench and speaks softly not to startle her:]

Um... excuse me?

[If this were a true sleep, Bai would have wakened immediately. But from this nap she can't be wakened until her Renumeration is complete. Her breathing is shallow.]

[If she wasn't already worried earlier, Kanonno's starting to now. While she wants to wake the girl up or check if she's okay, Kanonno doesn't want to startle her-- so she pokes the girl on the arm as one more check.]

You should really sleep in your bed. It's too hot out here.

[Sorry, Kanonno, Bai has another five, ten minutes of "sleep" before her debt is paid and she can wake up. If only she had a sign saying "Passed out; don't worry, I'll wake back up at ____". But unfortunately, she doesn't, nor does she have her brother here to keep her safe and/or make sure strangers don't fuss needlessly. Because she kind of looks like death warmed over. Oops.]

[Ten minutes is a long time when Kanonno can't tell if the person in front of her is sick or in need of help or just a really deep sleeper. She gets a little more invasive with her fussing now: checking for a pulse, a temperature, a small shake.

No fever but her breathing's shallow and she's not responding to anything... if Kanonno knew that 911 was a thing, that's what she'd be doing. But since she doesn't, she apologizes to the sleeping girl before leaving her to figure out directions to the hospital.

Hopefully by the time she's back that'll be enough time for Bai to finish up her obeisance.]

[Bai comes awake in stages. The first stage is a vague anger at herself for calculating so poorly. Paying her Renumeration in public like this is ridiculously dangerous. If the wrong people caught her, she'd be helpless in their hands.

She pushes herself up and stretches, forcing herself to appear laid back and relaxed.]

[Oh good. The hospital isn't that far. Now that she has her bearings, Kanonno hurries back to the bench--]

Oh, you're awake!

[She slows her stride, relieved the girl doesn't seem to be dying, but still very much concerned.]

Are you okay?

Hmm? [Crap, she had been seen. Bai fakes a smile.]

I'm fine. [with a tone of Why wouldn't I be?]

Are you sure? [Kanonno hovers around the girl worriedly-- Bai's doing a good job of looking better, it's just--]

It's just... when you were sleeping earlier you didn't look too well.

I'm sure.

[A sudden wave of dizziness gives lie to her words.]

[Kanonno just continues to stare worriedly, and maybe flail a little when that dizzy spell hits-- she's not convinced at all, sorry.]

Maybe some water would help?

[She holds up a brand new water bottle she bought when she went to get directions. In case it was heatstroke or something.]

Thank you.

[She takes the bottle and chugs half of it down in a single gulp, but her head still feels wrong. Because she hasn't touched anyone in days?]

[Kanonno did poke about Bai was asleep to check if she was okay... but that probably didn't amount to much.]

If you don't mind me asking, why were you taking a nap outside?

[Seeing how variants of "are you okay" don't seem to work, she tries asking a different question.]

[This girl is so nosy! Bai's energy, despite the nap, is rapidly dwindling, and pretty facades aren't the highest priority. She tries to smile, but it's hard.]

I felt like it.

[It's a weak lie.]

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[open] a helping hand

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dated 16th

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