( open ) may catchall

[memors]

WHO: ryoji + you!
WHAT: post-surgery wuh-ohs, ducks, and some gardening
WHERE: around base
WHEN: first couple weeks of may
WARNINGS: cw for discussion of surgery, needles, etc.


a. post-op glitches

[ So, as it turns out, the only thing worse than signing up for two enhancement procedures at once is dealing with the aftermath when your brain is fried.

No matter how approachable and grounded Ryoji is, even he can't escape from his hubris, and having never experienced significant pain in his human form, he didn’t…think it would be all that bad. Uncomfortable, maybe, inconvenient, yes…but he completely did not anticipate the way that the pain fully overrides any other cognitive thought in his brain. It hurts, to move, to think, to simply be conscious, and he has only stumbled out of the medbay for a few moments after being released that the impact of the double surgeries fully overloads him at once.

For a few long, untenable moments, it’s like he blacks out completely – and when he comes to again, staring at the hands that caught up, it’s like he doesn’t recognize them. Are they his own?

A simple question carrying a lot of weight, when he can’t remember anything about who he is or what he’s doing here. All he really seems to recall is that he was going somewhere, and given he just received a nice teleportation upgrade, well.

In attempting to find his destination by testing out this new power he can’t even remember how he got in the first place, he may just wind up in your room, looking half-dead (ha) and delirious. While he's usually in his human form, he may appear as a Shadow instead, without consciously making the effort to change. Whether you’re awake or asleep or even just heading back to your room yourself, he hardly seems to register another’s presence, instead muttering to himself: ]

No, this isn’t right…

[ He needs to go to…the top level of Tartarus, right? So why can't he remember how to get there? ]

b. duck tales

[ Well! Those were events that sure transpired, and while Ryoji is still feeling out some of his new abilities, he’s at least recovered enough from the surgeries that he’s back in his right mind and up and about again. Whether or not he should be, strictly speaking, remains to be seen! But whatever, it’s fine. Violet needs walkies.

Around the base, Ryoji can be encountered walking…a duck. A beautiful, newly acquired mandarin duck, wearing a jaunty little bow around her neck. Since Outsiders aren’t, you know, supposed to keep pets, strictly speaking, Ryoji has taken great care to plan routes for them that will hopefully avoid crossing paths with LILITH officers. However, Violet is as inquisitive and independent as her owner, and also a duck, so when she catches sight of your shoelaces or anything shiny you may have dropped on the ground, she waddles right over to pick at it with her beak, chirping with enthusiasm.

…Or that’s how it sounds to Ryoji, anyway. ]

Ah, hello there. I’d love to chat, but we have a schedule to keep…oh, but if you’d like to join us, you’d be more than welcome!

[ Who wouldn’t want to walk a duck?? And Ryoji is there, too, I guess. ]

c. flower gardening

[ At various points during the month, Ryoji can be found in the greenhouse, tending to some flowers. It’s a curious hobby that he’s picked up, one he didn’t expect to find himself so captivated by, and one that’s perhaps a bit ironic for him, all things considered – yet even given his proclivities, there’s something so captivating about the way life can bloom from a seed, with just a little sunlight and water, a little currency of time...

...and whatever mutant fertilizer they use in here, but that’s not important.

Whether you’re enjoying the plantlife independently or have approached to peek at the flowers that he tends to, Ryoji swiftly plucks one of the blossoms, sweeping down into a bow, and offers the flower to you with an outstretched hand. ]

Please, take this. You deserve it, as the only thing here that eclipses its beauty.

[ He’s feeling back to his usual self, it seems. ]

Comments

[elfsufficient]

[ Fern studies his expression carefully; what thoughts run through the mind of a being known as a "Shadow," anyhow? Given their few interactions thus far, she sincerely cannot even guess. He's much too foreign to her beyond the simple fact that they're of different worlds.

And yet... And yet, the way he speaks of magic and life doesn't feel so foreign. He almost sounds like a mage, himself, or at least like someone with time in abundance, to be able to ponder such notions as creation and life, and yet seemingly embrace every bout of whimsy that takes them, too.

(If only she knew.)

Without another word, Fern summons her staff into her hands and walks to a more spacious swath of grass. After only a moment taken to focus, a small patch of colorful wildflowers bursts into life around where she stands. ]

[memors]

[ If only she knew. Yet there is something eternal about his soul, for death has persisted as long as life, always its shadow, and so for all those musings feel new to him, they also...feel as old as time. It's a complex feeling, one that he cannot begin to unravel.

As is the one that swells within him at the sight of the wildflowers that bloom from her magic. With a soft gasp, she enraptures him, demonstrating creation with such ease that it takes his breath away. To create life as easily as he grants death should be no simple feat, and yet perhaps in the magic of her world, life is just unceasingly abundant. It's remarkable. ]

Fern-san...

[ He'd known she was powerful from their battle together, but this is something else entirely. Stepping nearer and crouching down, he pinches one of the wildflowers between his fingers, twirling its stem. ]

May I keep one of these? Will it wilt, once plucked?

[elfsufficient]

[ It isn't all too surprising that anyone might be enchanted by this display. Even she had been, too, when she first witnessed her teacher casting the spell. Ryoji's reaction is as expected, though Fern cannot even begin to imagine what all runs through his thoughts. As far as Fern is concerned, the spell is the marvel in and of itself; she needed only to learn it. ]

...It acts as any other real flower would. So, yes, it will wilt.

[ She blinks. ]

Do as you like. It's now part of this greenhouse that you've done as you wished in, isn't it?