logsinthenight | we jumpin! we poppin! we joppin!

Entry tags:

we jumpin! we poppin! we joppin!

characters: Sora, Mewtwo, Link, Carmilla, and you!
location: Various locations around Beacon and the Landmark hotel!
date/time: January 10, then 13-20-ish! Activity for the end of the blizzard, the yarn bomb, and a tiiiny bit through the Lights Off event (Sora will NOT be affected by the lantern effects in this post unless specifically requested! It's going to be one day of the illusion of normalcy :))
content: Sora continues to make friends! Get his hands dirty! Settle in at the Landmark! Stay busy so he doesn't think about things! (Will match tag format!)
warnings: Moderately low self-esteem and identity stuff, but nothing above a pg-13 rating!

[ A ]: Armory; Closed to Mewtwo

The soldier told him to leave the giant psychic cat alone, so he's going to! Seriously! He doesn't want to infringe on their space, especially if it's been through the same kind of life that the soldier has, so he's been dutifully going to the armory, going right down the steps, moving through the knife forms that the soldier had taught him followed by some unaided magic practice (because there's no telling if his cybernetics will always be there to help him aim), then leaving again without searching too much of the area. The routine has been good for him, helped him keep his mind off things.

But. He does hang back every so often to see if a giant fluffy tail suddenly whisks out of view. Or if an ear pops out from behind a display. Okay, so he doesn't want to disturb the cat, but he does still want to see if it would be open to being friends. He and the soldier started clicking pretty quickly, after all. He doesn't see why or how being a cat in a similar situation would make much of a difference.

So there he is, in the basement of the armory, going through the motions of the knife forms slowly, then quickly. He keeps messing it up, having to go back to the beginning of the drill. It's a bit annoying how he can't pick up things as easily as... others can, but he's doing his best. He's also not paying much attention to whoever might be around him, large cat or otherwise.

[ B ]: Miner's Castle #3, Bathroom; Closed to Link

After the meal on the 10th, he excuses himself to go use the bathroom. (Seriously, the soldier gets the bathroom all to themselves? To be honest, he has half a mind to make them share with him if only so their karma balances itself out.)

He opens up the bathroom door, all ready to go, when he stops dead. Uh. Those are certainly a lot of blankets in the tub. Did they adopt a pet? Wait, there aren't any animals in Beacon, are there? Is there someone else camping out here, besides Duster on the couch? Man, they really have a thing for strays, don't they?

Sora will furtively move forward, not wanting to disturb what's in the tub. Or who's in the tub. His bladder is forgotten by now; he just wants to know who this is.

[ C ]: Moving between Beacon's public library and the Landmark; Open

The walk between Beacon and the Landmark takes a few hours, but he figures that he's gotta walk it sometime if he's going to get moved into his new digs. So that's what he's doing! This is one of two trips he's taking between the two locations; on one, he's carrying a cot over his shoulder and a backpack, and during the second he's carrying just a backpack. Not much to carry if he's only been here a couple of weeks or so.

He already thinks he might regret the distance from so many of his new friends - the separation from Hana, the Librarian, and the inhabitants of Miner's Castle #3 is going to be the worst, he can already tell - but the promise of being able to become neighbors with some new friends, Rhys and Carmilla included, isn't a terrible exchange. You can't be too far from your friends if they're always in your heart, after all.

One will notice that he's not taking a bike during either of his trips. This is because he does not know that they exist. Oops.

It's a pretty long walk. It might be better with some company? Or at the very least, if there are two people on the road at the same time, it's kind of awkward to not at least say hello. Sora, at least, is very good at saying hello.

[ D ]: The Landmark; Closed to Carmilla, somewhat open

He wasn't sure who is living in the penthouse suite, but they went gone ahead and ordered chintzy decorations for their door - little balloons twisted into bats hovering over the copious lack of a welcome mat. He isn't really sure if they're supposed to like, have an aesthetic? But after he figures out that Carmilla's living there, he's decided that they're cute, no matter what their intended aesthetic was supposed to be.

So. He can fly, and he can jump up really high and float where he's hovering, and the concierge very kindly let him borrow a permanent marker as long as he promises to give it back (he will!). So there he is, hovering by the door of the penthouse suite, drawing a little fangy smile onto each and every balloon. Is this sabotage? Vandalism? Defacement of private property? Yes. Sora is living life on the edge.

[ E ]: The Invincible's Tavern; Open

Sora's got two things lined up in front of him as he sits at the bar at the tavern, ocarina up to his mouth as he busts out those spirit-communication blues; one is a line of orange slices on a plate with a few whole oranges sitting next to them for good measure, and the other is his tablet, open to the spirit communication guide Daylight posted a week ago.

He seems to be wanting to communicate something specific, in the spirits' language, to them, but every time he tries he gets the equivalent of sniffed at and ignored. After a moment, he puts down the ocarina and puts his chin down on the counter. He sighs deeply. He is SO put out.

"C'mon. It was one glass." Ignored. The spirits go on doing what they do; mixing drinks for other people. Mixing drinks for the people around him, actually. He turns to the nearest person in the room, looking distraught. "Am I doing something wrong? I don't know if it's the ocarina or if it's me."

[ F ]: The Invincible's kitchen; Open

This one's a pretty simple task, but there are a looot of moving parts to cabbage rolls, apparently, and Sora would like to get all of them right. He might be taking up an appreciable amount of kitchen space as he boils heads of cabbage and combines the filling. (The recipe is kosher! Always thinking of you, Midge Maisel.)

He either needs to get past you for something in the pantry - that is a whole seven or eight spices on this recipe, he's forgotten one for sure - or he is very, very obviously struggling with the "rolling up the rolls" step of the instructions. He's made twice as many leaves as the recipe requires because he knew that this step would be, hm, difficult! But he's bombed three of them so far and he's starting to look a bit frustrated. He thought he knew his own strength, but apparently not!

"Hey, are you any good at like..." He scrunches up his nose and makes a rolling gesture with his hands. "Rolling? Things? Can you help me?" Please tell him you have sushi roll experience or something. He is bamboozled.

[ G ]: Yarn Bombed locations; Open

Sora's been out all day, dashing around here and there to look for something extremely specific! He's been up trees and on top of buildings, basically a cartoon as he crawls all over the yarnbombed place to look for something, uh, extremely specific? He's already got a couple of things under his elbows - a few scarves, a hat, and a sweater - but there is one last thing that he needs. One last thing!

If you're here just to spectate, spectate away, If it's the end of the day, though, apparently you have it. Whatever it is is pink and blue, and Sora needs it. Sora will come up, full of hope, and say, without any preamble, "Hi! So, is there any way I could trade you for that?"

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"No legs." The Soldier looks at Sora sidelong, skeptical. "Your world is weird." Not that they suppose theirs is a lot better, but. No legs. Seriously? What is that even supposed to mean? They aren't familiar enough with mythology, as they are now, to remember what mermaids are-- if they even knew, Before-- so the only option they can think of is random amputation. Or maybe being a ghost?

Sora shakes his head. "Must have been a transformation thing. My friend, Donald - Sora's friend - used to make us, uh, look different if we needed disguises on different worlds." Sora frowns. "At least, I hope that's what that was." He is in full agreement, man. His world - the one in his memories, anyway - was definitely weird. Feels like home, though,

That sounds harrowing. The Soldier has been many things, many of them horrible, but at least their body has always been theirs, not something unfamiliar. (Metal arm, pal. Oh. I. Guess that was kind of unfamiliar, for you. That's an understatement. I wonder if there was a time we had to be. Trained with it.) The Sergeant apparently doesn't want to think about it, and so says nothing more.

"Did you travel a lot?" they ask instead, moving on to something less uncomfortable. "If you needed disguises."

Sora... doesn't really know how to respond to this in a way that takes what he's learned about himself into account, but he's going to try!

"Yeah! I mean, on maybe half the worlds I remember, we were fine to just walk around, but on the other half Donald had to change us to look like we fit there. He's a magician, like, probably one of the best in the entire universe, so it wasn't hard. Just surprising sometimes. He'd never warn us." He sighs. "There was... a spaceship. I remember the spaceship. It was made of something that let us travel to worlds that shouldn't be connected to each other, but were. We were trying to stop the Heartless from taking over... or something."

He shakes his head. "We were doing a lot, but I don't remember the order well."

Oh, that's not fair. The Soldier wants to see a spaceship. (I want to see a spaceship!) They glance over at Sora with an expression of clear interest, rather than an expression of subtle interest like usual. "What was that like? The spaceship."

Sora's trying! He tries as hard as he can! But eventually, he sighs. "I remember sitting in the driver's seat a few times? It was pretty small. I think I might have been the captain, too. We were just floating around. And I've seen it from the outside once - it was really colorful."

He scratches his head. "We... must have been a mechanic or something, because I don't think I knew how to take care of a spaceship, but I don't know who it was. And I can't remember us actually flying anywhere? I remember us crash landing a couple of times, which is how I know we always flew places, but I don't remember what things were like on the way." He sighs. "Space is really beautiful, though. Lots of stars."

Aw man, now they're really jealous. That sounds amazing. The Soldier wants a spaceship, however improbably that's going to be, given they're dead and probably going to vanish into nothing even if they do solve this World Eater problem.

But space. That would be so fucking keen. "I. Used to love science fiction novels," they realize suddenly. "Read 'em all the time."

Sora whirls on him, eyes alight. "Hey! Hey, that's something! Do you remember which ones? What you liked about them?" Hm. Pause! "Does the sergeant remember things the same way you do? What does he think about them?"

Sora is making some plans, baybee. They mostly involve him pulling some strings with the Librarian.

"The first thing I remember the Sergeant ever saying was how neat aliens are," the Soldier says, more absently than directly, distracted by trying to remember. There's the sensation of sprawling on a chair, musty and threadbare, in a tiny apartment. They recognize that apartment, from the memory on the fire escape with Steve. A book in their hands-- his hands?-- while Steve works on a drawing for an ad.

"There was a book. About a black alien monster? That ate astronauts? Fuck, I don't remember anything else about it." But they don't sound disappointed. It's a new memory, and it's a happy memory, and it's from Before HYDRA. Like the pinky promise with the little girl. No, they're not disappointed, they're smiling.

Sounds like an adventure. If Sora were ever to actually read a book that wasn't either nonfiction or something the Librarian suggested, that sounds like that could be pretty fun. Maybe in very small doses? Whoever they were before HYDRA, they sound like fun.

Sora likes that. He wants whoever the soldier is in the future to be fun. Or, like, happy, at least.

"I don't think I've ever read a book like that, but I'll help you find it. Maybe if I remember more space stuff, we'll find something else there." He hooks his fingers behind his head again as he walks. "I did a lot of stuff before - or, Sora did. Even if I never went to your world or met you, I'm sure there's something i did that must have been close to whatever you were up to before." They should keep sharing, is the implication here.

"Trying to find it would probably be impossible," they say, shaking their head. It's a nice thought, but not worth the effort. "The library only has so many books, and most of them aren't even from my world. Or yours." In other words, please don't waste time on it, Sora. You have plenty of more important things to do than track down an old sci fi pulp from the 30s. "And remember that if I'm trying to find a memory, it doesn't work. It has to just happen. Like this."

Sora's entire face softens. He smiles, then swings his backpack around to his front, unzipping pockets until he finds his tablet. He'll wake it up and start swiping through his photo gallery with a finger, moving back to about a week before this walk.

"I think it's fine that it has to be random, but, like... My dad always said to check the ceiling first if you ever lose anything? Which was his way of saying that you need to look in the last place you'd expect to find it first, and then check everywhere else." Sora pauses, slowing down in his picture finding. He's getting down to a bunch of photos of book pages - these seem to be ones from some sort of Thai cookbook.

"I mean, I think it's fine to just relax and let whatever happens, happen! I kind of like that. But I also get really, uh, impatient whenever things don't go my way. Finding things to do that only sort of help still fills time for me." And the space in his heart that won't let him stand by and do nothing, of course.

Finally, something they don't share. The Soldier really does not have that kind of drive and initiative. If things don't go their way, they roll with it, and don't try to change the situation-- not if it isn't endangering a friend, anyway. Something like seeking memories or dispelling boredom just isn't that important.

"Just don't want you to get discouraged," they say, "if nothing happens." They won't. The dreidel games taught them that much: no hoping for memories. Then it's just a pleasant surprise if it happens. (Or sometimes unpleasant. Well, yes. But that's not what we're thinking about right now.)

Honestly, Sora might be much better off if he let himself sit down and breathe every once in a while. It's not his M.O.! He's just not used to the idea of letting the world float by, even if he is perfectly aware that he's just a speck of dust in God's eye and all. That may be something he associates with his other, actually. Staying still.

"I guess... I'd be pretty sad in the moment? For you, anyway. I want you to get things back the way I do - like this!" Sora finally finds the photos he's looking for, turns the tablet to the soldier. It's pictures taken of a picture book by the light of Sora's lantern, the illustrations in gorgeous pastel. "The Librarian found it for me when I asked for anything about my island - it's a picture book! It's from there."

"Look," he says, swiping to the next photo, pointing excitedly, "that's the island we used to play on! That's the dock, and that's the spring, that's the bridge that connects the big island to the little island we used to go to if we wanted to be alone..." And he's just gonna excitedly point out landmarks he remembers in this children's book, which is both beautiful and apparently highly accurate.

That's actually really impressive. Sora found a book-- here, in Beacon, apparently!-- with pictures from his home world. The Soldier leans over a little to see, watching with a little smile as Sora flips through images. It looks like a nice place. Nice and warm.

"And it's all accurate? Nothing wrong, as if whoever drew those pictures had been there?" They recall a map that everyone had gotten excited over for a while, but which turned out to be from one of the previous residents' worlds instead of a map of anything on this world. If the kid can find this, maybe it could be possible to find something from Brooklyn before the war there... it's a thought, at least.

When Sora's done showing around the Soldier the best as he can, he'll look at the last picture they stopped on - which just happens to be the play island as seen from some side canopy - and he'll wrap his arms around his tablet in a very wiggly hug. "Yeah. I mean, I guess I only have memories, but if this is right, I could probably go back there and walk around with my eyes closed."

Sora pauses, then laughs under his breath at his own excitement. "If this is right. It could also be wrong, I guess. It's just memories, right? Sometimes I wake up, and like, you know, keep thinking in sleep logic? I wonder if I'm just having bizarre hallucinations about all this - like, all of it. It's not like I've ever been there before."

He snorts, though. "It's only for a few seconds before I remember I have a giant magic key and magic powers, though. Can't hallucinate that."

"For my first two months here," the Soldier says with a small smile, "I did keep thinking maybe it was a HYDRA simulation. A plot. Some new way to break me." As if that was even needed, really. (Maybe a little, after that last mission of yours.) The metal arm buzzes a little, but they don't reply to the Sergeant. "I'm pretty sure it's real now, though. Big magic key thing and voices in my head and all."

They look back ahead. They're well past the museum now, but the murk and the trees keep the buildings of Downtown from being visible. "I'm glad you found that book, though. You should have pictures, confirmation. To prove that was real, too."

"Me too, I figure it has to be real. At least some of it has to be, anyway. I'm not creative enough to make up half of what I remember." And even if it's made up, Sora's not too keen on the finer points of what's real and what isn't, anyway. After all, if he and the soldier are walking together, and it's cold, and he's sneaking one last glance at his pictures before putting his tablet away in his bag, and he's happy, and he's pretty sure the soldier's pretty okay with being here too, then he's not sure what being real has to do with it all, anyway. Being real has never been too important to him.

"Do you think that finding stuff like this would help you the same way?" Sora slings his backpack on, looking off into the dark where the solder watches the road ahead. He has completely lost all sense of location besides the path. It's a little disorienting, to be honest. "I mean... I guess you don't have to like it? Whatever you used to like back then doesn't have to be what you like now. But it might be nice to have something around that reminds you of a better time! That's why people keep things that they don't need around."

Ironically enough, the Soldier has a whole (broken) chest full of odds and ends they've collected that remind them of good things, including a small candy-wrapper origami crane made by Eleven, their old destroyed tactical vest, and a shoe from Crowley that had once had candy in it. So they actually completely understand that. "This is a better time," they say after a moment. And it is, better than most of what they remember, at least on par with the happy memory about Steve and the fire escape.

On that note, though, they pause, and add, "But. Don't think I would mind seeing what Brooklyn actually looks like. Or looked like, before the war. Probably looks very different, now."

It is a good time. Sora bobs his head, turning back to the road. He suddenly wonders if there's a way to just... keep Beacon the way it is. Or make it so they don't die when all the lights turn back on. It's a better place for a lot of them. Sora... isn't even sure if he can stay, if it comes down to it, but he doesn't want the soldier to leave here if things will just be worse for them in life. Big thinks for another long walk, perhaps.

"You think you could fit in some time to visit the Librarian? They don't have everything - I asked for a bunch of things that they couldn't find - but they do their best." Beat. "They also do fistbumps. And they like food. Any food. They're cool."

Though they're still a little skeptical about reading for fun, not sure if their imagination is up to actually enjoying fictional universes anymore, reading for research isn't the same thing. Or just finding something with familiar pictures. Would familiar pictures actually trigger a memory? Or just an eerie sense of familiarity? Or worse, nothing at all?

"Maybe," they say after a moment, not quite wanting to commit, but it's not like they aren't usually on the lookout for things to do. Following the kid to the library would be something to do. It just also requires asking for something, which is still hard. "Later, though. Still gotta get you moved in."

"Okay. We're almost there." There are the looming shadows of Downtown... man, it's kinda dark over there, isn't it? He's going to have to fix that.

"I'm probably going to be back in town on Mondays. I wanna go see friends - you and Misty, Aziraphale and Crowley. The Librarian. The gacha machine." He hums. "I was also thinking about patrolling that path we were on? I know you do to. We should time patrols for the same time."

This is also very definitely an invitation to follow him around as he greets his various friends and runs errands... including whatever chores he does for the Librarian. Wink.

Yeah, they absolutely need to get some torches over here. At least two. Maybe a handful. The Soldier shifts their lantern around in front of their shoulder, opening another of the shutters, now that they're approaching the relative safety of the buildings. Since the parade hasn't made its way back this way again yet.

"We can coordinate," they say simply, not entirely picking up the hint. They're good at reading people… in most circumstances. When it comes to acting like a friend, or regarding their own time and abilities, they've got something of a blind spot. "And meet up at the cabin for dinner, when you visit. So you will be back in the village three days out of seven? Monday, Wednesday, and Friday?" The latter two days being class days, and all, and they fully expect to keep seeing Sora there.

Sora's actually actively thinking about setting up some torches on the path they were just on... you know, so the newbies can make their way to the Landmark from the harbor without getting scared off by how dark the forests are. He should talk about that with Rastus sometime.

"Yup! I might visit every other Thursday too. Depends on what Daylight's doing." He's going to have to ask him about that Spirit Day he's been doing... Sounds like fun, to be honest.

... The soldier didn't pick up on that hint, did they. Sora spots the bulky, solid shape of the Landmark off in the distance. Home sweet home. "If I go to the library on Mondays, sometime in the afternoon before dinner, can you meet me there?" Sora readjusts the backpack as the Landmark looms a little larger, a little closer. "I'll just be cleaning up and making sure the Librarian gets some company. You can help with that, if you want."

The Soldier may wind up finding himself playing guide to the Landmark, themselves, once the new crop arrives. They know the route, are comfortable with the route, and can protect anyone on the road. "Visiting his spirit friends with him?" they guess, about Thursday. "Good. I did that once. Mostly now it's just my own friend."

Trying to forge additional long-term connections among the spirits sounds... exhausting, honestly. They need to do so, probably, but beyond the locals in the kitchen and that annoying spiny child-sized one that keeps trying to steal their knives, it's mostly just been Owl Friend.

"So library, then the cabin for dinner, then I can walk you home as part of our patrol," they suggest.

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