[ what I do today will resonate ] - OPEN.
Characters: Ran/Gert (nobodysheroine), Dino/Chase (fistyguns), Vanilla/Eve (1artificialgirl) & OPEN TO SPECTATORS.
Date/Time: Sunday, Oct 26th - mid-morning, approx 11 AM.
Location: The bookstore, the Marketplace
Rating: R for violence.
Summary: Ran stumbles across something which makes the tree very unhappy. Notes to participants inside the cut to prevent spoilers.
If Ran were to stop and think about it, she would realize she wasn’t quite sure why she was reading the book that she was. It was dull and tedious and about nothing she found particularly interesting - which was in and of itself a bit of a feat, considering the fact that travel and wandering and, well, running seemed to be things that interested her immensely. But the writing was flat and the personal insights that author was making about the revelatory power of sunsets over unexplored lands were enough to make Ran’s mouth twitch downwards into a little scowl as she read. It’d been the title that had peaked her interest at first. “The Travelers” sat stamped proudly along the red leather spine of the book, and there was something about that thought - that sentiment - that had sent a tiny echo through Ran. A ping or something very close to it, though the meaning was unclear and lost - it was enough to get her to hook her index finger along its edge and pull it from the bookstore shelf to look at. She was hoping that maybe, in reading it, in pouring over its pages, there’d be more pings - the clarification of this tiny twinge of anger, or what it regret, that she felt ghost across her emotions.
That, however, was a good thirty minutes ago, and Ran’s patience was beginning to wear thin in places. There was a restless energy in her suddenly which, when met with how quiet business was and now much Dino was insisting on being Dino this morning, quickly bubbled over into mild irritation with nothing in particular. She crinkled her nose as she absently, glasses slipping down past the bridge to the tip as she did so, and leaned against one of the shelves in the back as her fingers began to absently flip back and forth - skipping over passages and whole chapters - to see if the book had anything to offer further on. It was in doing this that the book fell open to one section in the back, two particular pages pushed apart by something wedged in between them. Ran noted rather absently, as she pulled the object out from inside the book, that the section was marked “Destination Weddings: How to Truly Escape to Another World”.
Oh irony, she noted and gave a tiny snicker as she turned the object over in her hands to study it. It was a photograph, but not just any photograph. A wedding photograph, but not a typical one. Sure, there was a bridge and a groom, a white wedding dress, a suit, bouquets. Only this time around the bride was wearing the suit - sharp and classic and well tailored - with her hair a crazy insane mix and match of every color conceived by man and smiling a smile that was bright and wide and maybe even slightly mental, but in a good way. The groom - white frills, princess puffed sleeves and even elbow-length opera gloves to match - wasn’t nearly as amused, at least not on the surface. He had a face that seemed to scream why me, and it had as much to do with the wedding dress as it did with the on-lookers who seemed more preoccupied with beating one another over the head with bouquets to pay attention. Beneath that though, something in his eyes, told Ran that, despite all this, he was pleased - which seemed appropriate enough, because - well - wedding.
Laughing quietly, she turned her attention to the faded blue post-it note stuck to the bottom that read, in neat cursive handwriting: “Sorry you couldn't come. (But you did tear up the invitation yourself, right?)”
“Hey,” she said to Dino and Vanilla, who sat scattered in the tiny shop. She gave the photograph a tiny wiggle in her hands as she pulled the post-it note from it, her expression vaguely amused. “You’ll never guess what I found stuck inside this book. Totally random, check it ou-“
What happened next, Ran wasn’t quite sure, only that there was the sudden sound of alarm coming from outside in the Marketplace, quickly followed by the nearby crash of glass and then Ran was opening her mouth to say something when-
Pain.
But not just any pain. Sharp and pointed and focused right in the very center of her torso - pain that started at the skin and burned down deep below the surface, almost through to the other side. It was a pain that Ran was surprised to suddenly realize she knew quite well - from before. She looked down, her eyebrows raised, her face not exactly caught with to what the rest of her body was already understanding; her head bobbed lightly with a sudden floaty feeling, like all of the blood had suddenly emptied out of her brain in a single, unexpected rush.
Where the blood had gone became rather evident, as her fingers lost their grip on the post-it - it fluttering down to the ground at her feet - as she reached up and touched her chest, her fingers becoming wet and warm and slightly sticky. It was a branch - or a root, or something - part of the tree that had somehow come crashing through the bookstore window like a long, wooden tendril sharpened to a very sharp point. Whether it had been intended for her or for the photograph that now remained pinned to her chest, the image run-through and destroyed, it wasn’t clear. All Ran knew was the photo was ruined and she was ruined and, for some reason, that didn’t frighten her.
You’ve done this before, she thought to herself absently. That’s what she meant - the you from your dream. That’s what you’re not scared.
“Oh,” Ran said out loud rather quietly, her hand falling away from her body limply as she felt her knees give out. Instead of dropping to the ground, she remained suspended for a moment, held up by nothing but the branch that had speared her through. It then withdrew quickly, recoiling with a disgusting sucking sound, pulling Ran forward for a moment before she collapsed - crumpled and bleeding - to the floor.
Deep in the back of her brain she could feel pain, more pain, beyond her own. It was Chase’s pain, and no doubt Dino’s, who she suddenly felt a deep panic for. And suddenly, her own suffering was insignificant, all that mattered was theirs and making it stop. So closing her eyes, one hand pressed tightly to the hole in her gut, trying desperately to keep whatever was trying to get out to just stay in - just a while longer, just so that I can do this - she focused on that connection she felt, the one that kept her and Chase bound together, the one that somehow also managed to tie Dino to her too. Concentrating on it, she pictured it as a physical thing in her mind - like a set of strings or a length of rope, clutched tightly in her hand. At one end was her, and on the other end was them, and taking one long, last look at the both of them, trying to feel out one last time just how it felt to be connected to them, opened her hand in her mind’s eye and just - let them go.
“Dino?” she said weakly. “…V?”
...
[note: The way I see this working, given the amount of volunteers to spectate is that Ran is physically in the bookstore with Dino and Vanilla when the attack takes place, and that there'll be at least a quick exchange between Dino and Ran, but that's it. Everybody else can either be passing by or, as in Shiro's case, actually about to enter the bookstore when the tree branch actually makes with the stabbity through the glass window in the front of the bookstore. Feel free to start a thread indicating where your character is in relation to the event, and other characters can join in to react with you or start their own, if only to have free-standing reactions to what's happened, etc. In the aftermath, the post-it is still legible, but the photograph -- at least all of the highly important information -- has been destroyed.]
Date/Time: Sunday, Oct 26th - mid-morning, approx 11 AM.
Location: The bookstore, the Marketplace
Rating: R for violence.
Summary: Ran stumbles across something which makes the tree very unhappy. Notes to participants inside the cut to prevent spoilers.
If Ran were to stop and think about it, she would realize she wasn’t quite sure why she was reading the book that she was. It was dull and tedious and about nothing she found particularly interesting - which was in and of itself a bit of a feat, considering the fact that travel and wandering and, well, running seemed to be things that interested her immensely. But the writing was flat and the personal insights that author was making about the revelatory power of sunsets over unexplored lands were enough to make Ran’s mouth twitch downwards into a little scowl as she read. It’d been the title that had peaked her interest at first. “The Travelers” sat stamped proudly along the red leather spine of the book, and there was something about that thought - that sentiment - that had sent a tiny echo through Ran. A ping or something very close to it, though the meaning was unclear and lost - it was enough to get her to hook her index finger along its edge and pull it from the bookstore shelf to look at. She was hoping that maybe, in reading it, in pouring over its pages, there’d be more pings - the clarification of this tiny twinge of anger, or what it regret, that she felt ghost across her emotions.
That, however, was a good thirty minutes ago, and Ran’s patience was beginning to wear thin in places. There was a restless energy in her suddenly which, when met with how quiet business was and now much Dino was insisting on being Dino this morning, quickly bubbled over into mild irritation with nothing in particular. She crinkled her nose as she absently, glasses slipping down past the bridge to the tip as she did so, and leaned against one of the shelves in the back as her fingers began to absently flip back and forth - skipping over passages and whole chapters - to see if the book had anything to offer further on. It was in doing this that the book fell open to one section in the back, two particular pages pushed apart by something wedged in between them. Ran noted rather absently, as she pulled the object out from inside the book, that the section was marked “Destination Weddings: How to Truly Escape to Another World”.
Oh irony, she noted and gave a tiny snicker as she turned the object over in her hands to study it. It was a photograph, but not just any photograph. A wedding photograph, but not a typical one. Sure, there was a bridge and a groom, a white wedding dress, a suit, bouquets. Only this time around the bride was wearing the suit - sharp and classic and well tailored - with her hair a crazy insane mix and match of every color conceived by man and smiling a smile that was bright and wide and maybe even slightly mental, but in a good way. The groom - white frills, princess puffed sleeves and even elbow-length opera gloves to match - wasn’t nearly as amused, at least not on the surface. He had a face that seemed to scream why me, and it had as much to do with the wedding dress as it did with the on-lookers who seemed more preoccupied with beating one another over the head with bouquets to pay attention. Beneath that though, something in his eyes, told Ran that, despite all this, he was pleased - which seemed appropriate enough, because - well - wedding.
Laughing quietly, she turned her attention to the faded blue post-it note stuck to the bottom that read, in neat cursive handwriting: “Sorry you couldn't come. (But you did tear up the invitation yourself, right?)”
“Hey,” she said to Dino and Vanilla, who sat scattered in the tiny shop. She gave the photograph a tiny wiggle in her hands as she pulled the post-it note from it, her expression vaguely amused. “You’ll never guess what I found stuck inside this book. Totally random, check it ou-“
What happened next, Ran wasn’t quite sure, only that there was the sudden sound of alarm coming from outside in the Marketplace, quickly followed by the nearby crash of glass and then Ran was opening her mouth to say something when-
Pain.
But not just any pain. Sharp and pointed and focused right in the very center of her torso - pain that started at the skin and burned down deep below the surface, almost through to the other side. It was a pain that Ran was surprised to suddenly realize she knew quite well - from before. She looked down, her eyebrows raised, her face not exactly caught with to what the rest of her body was already understanding; her head bobbed lightly with a sudden floaty feeling, like all of the blood had suddenly emptied out of her brain in a single, unexpected rush.
Where the blood had gone became rather evident, as her fingers lost their grip on the post-it - it fluttering down to the ground at her feet - as she reached up and touched her chest, her fingers becoming wet and warm and slightly sticky. It was a branch - or a root, or something - part of the tree that had somehow come crashing through the bookstore window like a long, wooden tendril sharpened to a very sharp point. Whether it had been intended for her or for the photograph that now remained pinned to her chest, the image run-through and destroyed, it wasn’t clear. All Ran knew was the photo was ruined and she was ruined and, for some reason, that didn’t frighten her.
You’ve done this before, she thought to herself absently. That’s what she meant - the you from your dream. That’s what you’re not scared.
“Oh,” Ran said out loud rather quietly, her hand falling away from her body limply as she felt her knees give out. Instead of dropping to the ground, she remained suspended for a moment, held up by nothing but the branch that had speared her through. It then withdrew quickly, recoiling with a disgusting sucking sound, pulling Ran forward for a moment before she collapsed - crumpled and bleeding - to the floor.
Deep in the back of her brain she could feel pain, more pain, beyond her own. It was Chase’s pain, and no doubt Dino’s, who she suddenly felt a deep panic for. And suddenly, her own suffering was insignificant, all that mattered was theirs and making it stop. So closing her eyes, one hand pressed tightly to the hole in her gut, trying desperately to keep whatever was trying to get out to just stay in - just a while longer, just so that I can do this - she focused on that connection she felt, the one that kept her and Chase bound together, the one that somehow also managed to tie Dino to her too. Concentrating on it, she pictured it as a physical thing in her mind - like a set of strings or a length of rope, clutched tightly in her hand. At one end was her, and on the other end was them, and taking one long, last look at the both of them, trying to feel out one last time just how it felt to be connected to them, opened her hand in her mind’s eye and just - let them go.
“Dino?” she said weakly. “…V?”
...
[note: The way I see this working, given the amount of volunteers to spectate is that Ran is physically in the bookstore with Dino and Vanilla when the attack takes place, and that there'll be at least a quick exchange between Dino and Ran, but that's it. Everybody else can either be passing by or, as in Shiro's case, actually about to enter the bookstore when the tree branch actually makes with the stabbity through the glass window in the front of the bookstore. Feel free to start a thread indicating where your character is in relation to the event, and other characters can join in to react with you or start their own, if only to have free-standing reactions to what's happened, etc. In the aftermath, the post-it is still legible, but the photograph -- at least all of the highly important information -- has been destroyed.]