[center][h1][color=gold]Aerith Hastings[/color][/h1][/center]

[i][center][h2]-Main Road, Intersection between Docks/Suttling's Basin/Golden Quarter-[/h2]

[s]The Big Reuinion[/s][/center]

Resets: 5

Deaths: 4[/i]

[hr]

Aerith found a small smile coming to her face as she looked over at who was tugging on her cloak, having drowned out the shouting prior to guide her cart through the street proper. However, she couldn't not recognize that familiar floofy head of pink hair and happy smiling face. It was a brief distraction from her more somber train of thought, but the dark-haired girl frankly welcomed it a little bit. She had a moment to spare, perhaps, in...whatever the hell she was trying to do at least. What with being caught between the rock that was a witch cult army in the woods, and the expectations of her boobs by a madman to find the location of a witch's hidden body before they would attack the city. 

[color=gold][i]'So she's a street performer, eh? Heh...never though to ask, i guess, between all the dying and-...ah.'[/i][/color]

That was right, she had no idea how the dying situation would go about now, if at all anymore. Would she die permanently this time around, as by all accounts she had the feeling she shouldn't expect Joy to just save her all the time now, or would she and the others return back if one of them died? In fact, who among the group was even still alive at this point? Hiro? Chieko? Ashton? Alistair? She truly had no idea when it came down to it, which scared her quite a bit regardless. 

Aerith mentally furrowed her brows and grimaced at the thoughts, but shook them off as she outwardly gave a genuinely happy smile to Aki and a nod of her head. She reached out her right hand, gently ruffling the other girl's hair before putting her hand back by her own side. 

[color=gold]"I'll try to be there for your show, Aki, and...maybe with a friend if i can find her,"[/color] Aerith said, the words rolling off of her lips without much thinking after she got off her cart briefly to get a better look at the other girl.

She managed to barely catch herself, however, from adding "before it's too late" at the end of that sentence. She couldn't just cause a panic, or they'd all die to this...this mess sooner than later perhaps. That was all she could do, perhaps. 

After all, what was one person to stop an army in its tracks? She had one trick that was useless against the laughing madman, and it wasn't like she could take on an army by any means. 

But if she could at least find the others, maybe they could survive. It was a rather selfish thought, though, perhaps in that sense she was already like the forces who had been meddling with their lives as part of Talus' game. 

[quote][color=D2691E]"Aerith!"[/color][/quote]

[b]That voice[/b].

The tone of that voice was very familiar to Aerith's ears, calling out her name as clear as daylight and causing the girl's heart to skip a beat. 

She rapidly turned her head to the side, eyes widening in surprise and shock as she watched Chieko run up in front of her. The other girl seemed to be wearing her hair differently...no, perhaps it was the energy she could feel from her? And was that a uniform, and a sword by her side? What had happened to this place in the last...week? Maybe a week. 

Aerith felt tears come into her eyes, and found herself moving forward without thinking as she embraced Chieko in her two arms. The dark-haired girl felt herself crying just a little bit, audibly, into Chieko's shoulder for a minute or two. A wave of relief and joy washed over her body as her shoulder shuddered, just seeing that Chieko was [b]actually alive[/b] and not killed by the bandits! She wanted to hold onto the moment forever...after all, that time with Joy hadn't been without her worries about the others strewn amidst things. 

[color=gold]"You're alive!"[/color] Aerith seemed to echo back to Chieko, finally pulling back to look the other girl in the face with her own now-tear-stained one, a smile on her face, [color=gold]"I...I was such an idiot...and where I was I didn't know if....i'm just happy to see you alive here!!!"[/color]

But then her prior train of thought began to trickle back in, bit by bit like the flow of a small creek. Then it began to rush back in faster and faster, pushing aside her overwhelming joy and feelings of elation like a tidal wave in the end. Aerith's face fell from a look of happy and sincere joy, fading into a look of something that was unmistakably an 'oh shit' moment of the highest caliber. Like she had just remembered she came to a new world and left the stove on when everyone was out of the house. 

[color=gold]"...Oh no. No no no,"[/color] the girl said, her panic rising a bit, though she weas visibly holding herself basck down to earth some as she looked Chieko in the eyes and put her hands on the other girl's shoulders, and then spoke in as somber and clear a manner as she could deliver where only Chieko could hear her over the roar of city activity: 

[color=gold]"Chieko, i don't know what's been happening over the last while...but i don't think we have time right now. 

The entire city is in danger. 

Long story short, i've been forcibly recruited by an army of cultists who are in the forest just outside the city right now. Their madman leader wants me to find the body of a witch hidden in this city before they attack, but even if i don't find it they are going to eventually attack soon despite that. 

And all i have are some more spells, and this cart with a lot of clothes."[/color]

Now was perhaps a good time to smartly drop the bombshell. As much as she'd like to catch up with Chieko right now, there was nothing short of annihilation waiting just beyond the walls. 

[@BrokenPromise][@Rune_Alchemist][@liferusher]