WEEK 03

[modmachine]

Preparation for the holidays continues at a steady - if slow - pace. Almost all traces of Halloween are gone by now, except for a few rotting pumpkins shoved into compost heaps, but with over a month until Christmas and the Day of Lights, nobody is yet in a hurry. Still, a few early holiday shoppers are out and about, usually in pairs if they aren't families with children, happily chattering about gift plans.

Weather forecast: The rain has passed, and days grow clear again for this week. Hex’s weather has been getting colder, and people are bundling up a bit more - even those who don’t need to, just in an effort to fit in. Hats and gloves are being prominently displayed in stores, even if they’re not strictly needed yet.

Moon phase: The moon is full on Monday the fourteenth, reaching peak fullness over the city at about 2AM. Afterwards, it begins to wane.

More employment: More decorations for the Day of Lights are going up, with some stronger-backed labor being recruited for the stockrooms in preparation for the incoming holiday rush. No one seems concerned about work history, a boon for people without a human paper trail. The park lights aren't finished yet, either, though things are on schedule to open next week.

Hitting the books: To prepare for the holidays, and raise funds for their community party, the library near the university is selling some of its used books. Most of them are fine, if an odd selection - you might find a cookbook, or you might find a book of poetry. There’s something weird about the books, though - a few of them smell faintly of mint. Watching over all of this is a sharp-eyed librarian. Don’t take a book without paying, or she’ll get up from her desk and try to block the door. She keeps having to chase away teenagers with dirty hands, too.

Bake sale: Some of the local schools are starting to take up donations for their holiday parties. One in particular in the residential district is holding a bake sale in front of the elementary school for an hour each day after classes let out. If you can fight through the sea of small children hoping someone will buy them something, you’ll find a variety of brownies, cookies, and tiny cakes. Many of them are lopsided, but a few look put together by expert hands. They cost more, of course, but it’s all for a good cause. A grouchy mother can be found near the cash box at all times, making sure no one steals the money.

Whoo are you?: Malin will notice that owls seem to be happening at her; they're hard to see, just shapes against the lesser-dark of the night sky, but they definitely seem to be watching her. They particularly seem to gather when she feeds. If she doesn't confront them, this will increase slowly but measurably throughout the week.

Time waits for no one: An old clock tower in the part of downtown leading into the Sixth has been restored to functionality... Mostly. The belltower stands empty, though there's a visible place where a bell should be hung, several stories above the floor. Ryoji might find the scene familiar. On Wednesday evening, there is some kind of reopening gathering at the church below it; the brief service and meet-and-greet is not particularly unusual, save that the young Acolyte handing out papers in the entry won't step into the congregation hall itself.

Like a dog with a bad...: In the Sixth, the construction is ongoing, still with the same handful of men, who rotate through almost like randomly generated NPCs. Lurking around outside is a thickly built man, who watches the whole goings-on with suspicion; strangely, he seems to be watching it mostly through the camera on his phone. On Friday morning, though it shouldn't be cold enough for frost, three of the strangely similar men slip on patches of ice and fall behind a half-finished wall... Where they vanish completely. They reappear after lunch, if it's even the same men, with no signs of injury. That afternoon, the man with his phone looks smug.

A touch of the season: And speaking of ice, passage into many of the city's Avernian Gates is blocked this week by a thick frost that seals the entries shut. An Unsettling Youth and his girlfriend can occasionally be seen investigating them; though they're constantly together, they don't seem much inclined to talk to each other. Occasionally, she'll drape her arm over his shoulders and giggle, while he looks confused; other times, she seems almost to shy away from him.

Comments

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou laughs and allows the kitten to catch his hand. She's so cute! "Ah! You got me!"

[runs]

For a moment, she just dangles there, before deciding to scramble up until she stands on his arm and can stare at him from up close.

Her ears twitch and she suddenly looks very concentrates as she assesses him, trying to get a better idea of what he could be. AND JUMPS RIGHT OFF HIS HAND BECAUSE HOLY FUCK DUDE.

YOU WEREN'T LYING ABOUT THAT WEIRD MISH MASH THING.

There is much more information buried here, and she'll sort through it in a moment, but - as she whirls around to try and get in a position where she can pretend that her jump never happened, her eyes graze the fruit and ...that's magical too? So they do have awakened plants here. She'd started to think that there were none.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Huh?" Nitou has no idea what the problem is--everything going on here is perfectly normal for him. "Something wrong?"

[runs]

She just stares at him for a long, long moment, and then moves forward to bat at the place where she just saw majestic lion fur.

It should feel like lion fur, if she saw through it. But she should still be able to see through it, if she saw through it once. How...?

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou just laughs, because he thinks the kitten is just easily distracted and prone to batting at nothing, as kittens are. How cute!

[runs]

Now that she is this close by and also paying attention and sorting through things, she has to wonder about something else, too.

It's autumn. Why do you smell like spring?

[infinitemayonnaise]

That gets a laugh out of Nitou. "Well, 'cause it's my favorite season! You could say it's sorta rubbed off on me."

[runs]

It's better than winter and summer.

She'll grant him that. Autumn is pretty good too, but summer and winter are either too hot or too cold and have the smog hanging over the city even more stifling than under normal circumstances.

But this... she's never smelt something like that.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Better than autumn, too." But he's biased. "Spring's the best! All that energy and new life, the weather's just right...you can't beat it."

[runs]

Autumn has colourful leaves and storms that carry away the smog, and the weather is a lot less unpredictable than in spring, and there is no salt on the streets.

The last one is a huge factor when you sometimes walk around without any protection against the shit that people put on the ground to deal with snow and ice.

[infinitemayonnaise]

But the unpredictability is part of what makes spring the best! Just adds to its sense of adventure! Nitou grimaces. I hear you on the salt on the streets, that stuff's hell on the paws.

[runs]

There's adventure in storms too, but it is much more powerful.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Yeah, but the spring storms are better than the autumn ones, Nitou says sagely, because they've got...like...the promise of new life and that stuff. Not everything shutting down before winter comes.

[runs]

Nothing shuts down when winter comes, except for ice cream parlors, and people put up other shops in their stead.

And then in winter things even pick up and get more hectic. Things slow down for the summer, not for the winter.

[infinitemayonnaise]

But if you look at nature, Nitou says with a laugh, all the plants and most of the animals kind of shut down. You ever hibernate? It's a pretty nice nap.

[runs]

I was born in the city and grew up there and I still live in the city. We don't do that in cities, and there's not very much nature to pay attention to.

Not Hex, not until a few weeks ago, but she doesn't need to point that out.

[infinitemayonnaise]

There's nature in the city, too! You just gotta look harder for it. Nitou laughs. That's why I'm out in a park! It's one of the few places you can find it.

[runs]

There's a lot of it here, yeah. And it looks so... healthy, and like there isn't much tampering with it. Though she can't be sure.

She wanders back to his bag and peers at the strange awakened fruit.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Ooh, careful with that. Nitou's tone takes on that of an adult afraid a kid's going to get into something dangerous, and he scoops the fruit a little deeper into the bag. You don't want to mess with that stuff.

[runs]

Why not?

Nitou's tone, most of all, reinforces that this fruit is interesting and bears closer inspection.

[infinitemayonnaise]

'Cause it could make you sick if you ate it without knowing what you were getting into, Nitou says simply. There's so much more to it than that, but this seems to be an age-appropriate explanation for a kitten.

[runs]

You shouldn't let things lie around that will make people sick.

This is totally a time to sound offended. Dude, that's dangerous to leave your food out in the open like that if it could make people sick. Out in the open in his bag in his tent.

[infinitemayonnaise]

It's in here with me, I'm not just leaving it lying around! He warned her! That counts for something! This is all perfectly safe and controlled!

[runs]

Well, I could just have tried to eat it while you were sleeping.

Clearly that means that it wasn't tucked away well enough.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Well, you would have learned a bit of a lesson there... Nitou winces. It's a good thing you didn't. Don't go eating strange fruit! Kittens don't need fruit, anyways!