Feyblue

Shoujo⁴: Hatsukoi Reunion

Sorry for the radio silence on my end. I've been suffering from a mix of general busyness, COVID, and burnout for the past week or two and haven't really had much mental energy to push RPs forward. I am still interested in continuing this, though. Will prolly try and throw together another Suzupost over the next day or two.

Wardens of the Glade: A Light Fantasy RP

---

There were fewer eyes on me after my little display than I had initially feared -- a realization that brought me both relief and some degree of irritation, as it took very little of my genius intellect to deduce the focus of the crowd's attention. Upon one end of the field, that braggart noble had unleashed several arrows sheathed in lightning, before boasting in an even louder voice than he'd used to make his initial introduction of his own self-perceived perfections.

Idiots that they were, the spectators ate it up and never thought to question the truth behind his little display.

Though I had seldom received the opportunity to speak with the spirits of lightning, I knew full well their tendency to move and act as one. When enough of them gather on the ground to meet their kindred in the sky, their true power is unleashed and a bridge forms from heaven to earth. Though even my own Elvish eyes were not quick enough to follow the movements of the lightning he birthed, I had no doubt that the manner of their flight must surely have been the same.

It was indeed a feat of surpassing skill for an archer to strike the same spot four times, unaided. One might even call it a miracle. But when each arrow drew in and guided the one that followed after, it was nothing more impressive than a single bullseye -- and a miracle, thus explained, seemed positively boring to one wise enough to grasp the trick behind it.

My attention thus just as quickly left the arrogant charlatan behind me, and turned to the opposite end of the field, where a significantly more authentic display had likewise drawn something of an audience. A clash between two initiates unfolded in short order, one wielding a spear and the other a heavy mace. Of the two, the latter seemed the more skilled, readily controlling the flow of the fight from beginning to end. Yet his opponent caught my eye all the more, as despite his slighter stature and his opponent's magic, he charged bravely forward again and again, not shrinking or recoiling when he was struck, nor hesitating even when his adversary entrapped his weapon. Martial prowess was rare, yes, but such resolve was rarer still -- and even in defeat he earned a certain degree of respect I would have been reluctant to give to his betters.

No. Perhaps "respect" was the wrong word. Rather, what I felt soon became clearer to me as I heard the words of "consolation" heaped upon him by the first person to approach him afterward. The girl's tone was cheerful and innocent, yet the words that escaped her mouth found nothing but fault. "You tried your best, though!" indeed. If there was naught to find praiseworthy in his "best," what were those pretty words but a polite way to express one's own condescension while playing dumb?

It seemed even among humans rather than my own kind, some things never changed. It was hardly any of my business, but something, whether sympathy for one or contempt for the other, moved me to approach regardless of my intentions to remain aloof and impartial. Perhaps it was simple boredom, even.

"To retreat before a magus is to invite ruin. What good would a longer reach do against an adversary free to fling spells with impunity?" I interrupted casually, flicking my hair back with a gauntleted hand and craning my neck in an attempt to stand at least a little taller. I had long since accepted the shortcomings of my stature, but at the very least I did not want to be looked down upon by someone so diminutive. Turning my attention to the dark-skinned man who had just exited the sparring ring, I acknowledged his efforts with a curt but respectful nod. "It seems you are aware of the disadvantage you faced, yet that does not seem to have stayed your hand in the slightest. A fine display of valor."

Shoujo⁴: Hatsukoi Reunion

Yeah, I have every intention of continuing this. Think we're waiting on Yankee and Olive right now, though?

Wardens of the Glade: A Light Fantasy RP

---

Noise. Damned, interminable noise. It came from every quarter, every angle, every person from every walk of life. The crowd and its unbearable din were more than thrice that of the summer festival at the foot of the Great Tree -- where even the drunkest and most lowly of elves, I might add, still exhibited more dignity and decorum than this deplorable pack of barbarians.

The aspirants among whose ranks I myself was most shamefully counted each seemed determined to draw more attention than the last, by whatever means and in whatever manner was most available to them. Some challenged one another to practice bouts, determined to elevate themselves by preemptively disgracing their competition. Others satisfied themselves with quietly practicing their strokes against the various dummy targets dotting the opposite end of the field -- though not, I might note, without subtly glancing back to see how many eyes were on them as they did so.

They were like the children at Master Ailin's lectures -- too eager to be noticed, and too stupid to realize that one proves more with silence and consistency than with boasts and showmanship.

Not that they had to make much of an effort to please the crowd in the first place. The townsfolk seemed intent on oohing and aahing over even the most mediocre displays imaginable. While I might not have been an expert in the art of swordplay, as such warlike things were scarcely taught under the peaceful boughs of the Viridian Sea, I nevertheless had at least enough experience to recognize when it was done well, and to notice the flaws when it was performed poorly.

Some among the assembled youths had such a tenuous grasp upon their arms that they seemed more likely to fall upon their own swords than strike their opponents with them. Others overcompensated in the other direction, hammering away with exaggerated strikes that nearly carried them to the ground themselves, and, in one notable case, shattered one of the practice targets like dead branch in a hurricane. I clicked my tongue in disgust at the man's carelessness -- it was disrespectful enough to the ancients to desecrate their corporeal remains for such a disgraceful purpose, but to destroy them so wantonly just to showcase one's own ape-like strength was more disgusting still.

At least one of these vainglorious humans had the presence of mind to restrain herself, turning her strikes away from the dummy of her choosing rather than engaging in any self-aggrandizing displays of pointless savagery. The speed and dexterity with which she applied her twin blades was neither exaggerated, nor did it seem anything more than effortless. Routine steps, repeated faster and faster, the preparation for each blow warding her body while the one before it struck home. It was graceless, but the art of killing did not require grace. More importantly, it was efficient, and it was controlled. I would have applauded her discipline, had she been able to maintain it for longer than a few moments before immediately lapsing into some form of frolicsome celebration.

...Wait, that red hair -- the same as from before. Perhaps rather than "celebration," "appetite" would be a more accurate descriptor of her motivations. Either way, her flippant demeanor concerned me none. She was perhaps of passing skill -- moreso than I could ascribe to any of the other candidates I had seen thus far -- but that was all.

At least she made no pretensions of being any more than what she was, unlike some people. The most disgusting display of all was not, it would seem, the brute, nor the airhead, but rather a certain foppish man draped in robes more gaudy and ostentatious than even my own entirely ceremonial armor. The gilded engravings upon his bow brought no honor to the legacy of the wood with which it was carved, nor did the manner in which he bore it. His every action reeked of excess -- the flourish with which he produced the arrow from his quiver, the grandiloquent tone in which he proclaimed his intent, the almost ceremonial reverence with which he raised the weapon above his head before he oh-so-slowly lowered it and drew back the string, and, most damning of all, the long stillness with which he contemplated his target before firing. His hands were not shaking, nor were his arms that held the bowstring. Had he so brazenly announced himself only to have no faith in the surety of his aim? Or was this, too, meant to be nothing more than a display of strength?

Pointless extravagance. Puerile self-infatuation. A "true archer," as he so naively styled himself, would have struck him dead before he had even finished withdrawing an arrow from his gaudy quiver. If this was what passed for the art of archery among the Menfolk, then even I, lacking any training in the art, would surely seem a prodigy.

But I had no more time to admire this man's monumental ignorance. It would seem the crowd ahead of me had thinned out, and my own turn to approach the stage of this grand farce had finally come. I took a deep breath, clearing my mind of the acerbic spite that had begun to take hold of my thoughts, and making an effort to curtail my knowledge of my own superiority for this one moment alone. It would not do to look down upon my peers for their ego only to allow the same haughtiness and lust for acclaim creep into my own swordplay.

I stepped forward, making no attempt to decipher the whispers of those behind me, no matter what their expectations of an elf might have been. I sized up the target -- little more than a bag of straw mounted around a crude wooden cross, bearing only the vaguest semblance of a mortal's shape. That, I would strike. The frame suspending it, I would leave unscathed -- it had already been desecrated more than enough by those who had come before me.

I withdrew from my sash the as-yet unfamiliar weight of my precious Manablade. I felt within the crystallized sap the still-beating pulse of the world, heard within it the echo of the chiming bells of my homeland, far away. The selfsame wind that rocked those bows spread to this place also, fluttering the gaudy pennants of the practice ground and rocking the sparse branches of the trees that made up this so-called Glade. It was fainter here, to be sure -- but that mattered little. The dust of the earth would answer my call all the same. The light of the sun would answer. And the wind, that noble wind, would answer. My lips moved, my voice came forth in a whisper barely audible even to my own ears, as I recalled the days of my youth, so familiar yet so distant, spent in contemplation of Master Ailin's instruction. What emerged from my own mouth, from the whirling eddies of thought and memory, were the opening words of an old poem, half-remembered yet unforgotten.

"Boughs that embrace the heavens, sway and ring."

The same wind that sounded the bell my mother's hands had hung lifetimes ago in a land half a world away now rested in the palm of my hand. I, too, was a proof of her existence, just as the blade I held would serve as proof of my own. I needed no announcement nor celebration -- my sword would speak for me all that was required of myself.

I raised it upright before myself in a fencer's stance, my feet shifting beneath me as though to begin one of the artful dances to which I was accustomed. But it was not an honorable spectacle which I wished to perform -- rather, a simple, decisive motion. With a flick of my wrist, I brought the shimmering, phantasmal sword down, carving its tip from the top of the straw target to its bottom. My grip was languid, my arm loose as I drew it gently back, the blade flowing accordingly like water, carving out the target's bottom and wrapping around it like the coiling of a serpent. Then, like the cresting of a wave, I raised it again, spiraling inward like a whirlwind upon all sides of the target, and sending a shower of straw and dust cascading into the air. With one final motion, I brought the weapon out and swept it horizontally before my body, its blade drawing back as I shook it free from the detritus it had accumulated along its course.

Its threads meticulously severed by almost a dozen near-simultaneous cuts, the straw bag that made up the target's form rapidly deflated, its contents spilling onto the ground, leaving a ragged and pathetic patchwork of mangled and empty sackcloth hanging from the still-pristine wooden framework like a funeral shroud.

In the same instant, the blade in my hand dissipated back into the dust from which it had been formed, and I calmly returned it to its holster by my side, and moved to return to my place on the far edge of the crowd in silence. If these menfolk wanted to gawk at my performance, they were free to do so -- but I would neither demand such fawning nor expect it. Either way, now that I had reminded myself of the sensations needed to activate the Manablade, I was confident in my ability to dexterously employ it when the time came for a real test. This pointless display, then, had at least sufficed as a warm-up.

Shoujo⁴: Hatsukoi Reunion

Sorry it took so long to get a post up. Been a really busy week and I got distracted. It's a bit of a short one, but hopefully that'll give people at least something to work with.

Shoujo⁴: Hatsukoi Reunion

O S A N A I S U Z U K A
O S A N A I S U Z U K A

---

Just as one clamor ended, another began. Suzuka could not initially make out the speaker who had so suddenly quieted the classroom with her unexpected entrance, but as the crowd encircling her began to open their ranks and part in the face of the chastising words of the new arrival, Suzuka at last managed to find an opening to look between them, and, in so doing, to find herself face to face with...

...Huh. A third-year's ribbon-tie. That was odd, though. She had expected to see a face. Realizing her mistake, she turned her gaze upward, above the heads of her other classmates, to size up the upperclassman who had broken the circle surrounding her. It was only then that she realized the degree to which the second-year students crowded around her desk -- even the boys -- were overshadowed by the giantess of a woman now gazing down at her.

She blinked, and thought about the words she had just heard spoken. The tone of voice, the location they came from, the reaction of the bystanders all made it plain and clear that this upperclassman was the one who had uttered them. But the phrasing... Her body screamed "athlete," but the propriety of her speech took that impression and catapulted it back several centuries. So, when she went to express her gratitude for clearing her path, the first thing that came to mind was...

"Thanks for the assist, Samurai-senpai!" She mustered her frozen facial muscles for her best attempt at a grin, adding a thumbs-up as she took this chance to begin to hastily extricate herself from her seat. Turning to her confounded classmates, she gave a slight apologetic nod. "Sorry, but I gotta hurry if I want to get to the cafeteria before there's a big line... probably." It was a convenient excuse to extricate herself from having to answer way too many questions at once. But, before she could finish standing up, someone else addressed her, offering an alternative solution to her present predicament.

"Eh? Mika-chan? Can I really?" Suzuka's eyes lit up in an instant, darting back and forth between her old friend and the bento box set down before her. If she had an extra lunch, then that meant she could stay here to eat and maybe even catch up with Mika-chan and Ei-kun some more. But... wait, there wasn't a box on Mika's desk anymore. "Wait," She said, curbing her enthusiasm as her features quickly returned to their usual frown. "This is your lunch, though. If I take this then you'd have to buy something instead."

She appreciated the gesture, she really did -- but she'd only just gotten back. She couldn't be mooching off of friends she hadn't seen in years on her very first day, just because of her own mistake. That would be pathetic of her.

Wardens of the Glade: A Light Fantasy RP

Shoujo⁴: Hatsukoi Reunion

So I saw a status post from Nani saying they'd be gone a while, but how's everyone else doing? Haven't heard from anybody so thought I'd just drop in to check. If nobody else is up to post right now I can keep things moving instead, but I just wanna be sure I'm not skipping over anybody.

Shoujo⁴: Hatsukoi Reunion

Alright, post is up. I skipped ahead to lunch, but left Suzuka in the classroom in case Olive or Lems want to try and approach her. Gives everyone else time to catch their characters up to lunch time and potentially bump into each other as we're leaving class or the like.

Shoujo⁴: Hatsukoi Reunion

O S A N A I S U Z U K A
O S A N A I S U Z U K A

---

Morning homeroom came and went, followed by a parade of teachers reintroducing themselves to the class. Courses were summarized, initial reading assignments were given out, and in-between, the students caught up with one another after being apart for spring break. But to Suzuka, it was little more than a blur, and it was only with great force of will that she managed to take any notes at all between all the times her gaze wandered first to the seat beside her -- then quickly toward any other point in the room the moment that seat's occupant seemed inclined to notice her staring.

Somehow, she survived until lunch. Today was only a half-day of academics, meant to give the second-years who already should have been members of clubs or sports teams time to attend their first meeting of the new school year and plan for welcoming incoming first-years into their ranks. What was more, the physical assessment for P.E. was postponed on account of the lingering mud from last night's rainfall. What that meant for Suzuka was that once lunch was over, all she had to do was report to the faculty office to turn in a waiver from her aunt vouching for her part-time job at the cafe, and then she'd be free to go.

Not that she didn't have a busy day ahead of her as it was. She still had a lot of essentials she needed to buy to make her apartment livable. Come to think of it, she had remembered to bring her shopping list, hadn't she? She quickly checked her bag, and found to her relief and mild annoyance that she had, in fact, remembered the list. The convenience store bento she had bought the night before specifically so that she wouldn't have to worry about lunch today, on the other hand, was a different story.

She closed her bag. Then she opened it again. She reached inside and fished around. Yup. Still no bento. She sighed. She supposed she'd have to buy something at the cafeteria instead -- a realization which disappointed her all the more when she realized there was no way Ei-kun's mom would have sent him off for his first day back at school without packing him lunch. She peeked over once again towards his desk to try and confirm her suspicions, only to realize to her surprise that she couldn't see him.

Rather, at some point while she'd been contemplating the tragic emptiness of her school bag, she appeared to have been surrounded by several of her classmates -- a couple of girls and most of the boys in the entire class -- all of whom began speaking at once, unleashing an almost unintelligible barrage of questions, and suddenly reminding Suzuka exactly what it was she'd been worrying about for the past week or so.

From one side, a chorus of male voices.

"Hey, Osanai-san, you said you were from Hokkaido, right?"

"What's it like up there?"

"Did you live on a farm?"

"What kind of sports do you like?"

"Can I have your LINE?" "Oi, the hell you asking for right off the bat, idiot?"

From the other, a select few female voices asking rather pointed questions.

"Hey, how do you know our Fuji-kun?"

"What the heck kind of nickname is 'Suzucchiko'? Sounds like some kind of mascot from a kids' show, lol~."

The main problem with transferring into a new school in the second year was that everyone already knew each other. But the second problem was that that meant meeting everyone all at once.

Suzuka's face totally froze. Her brain was spinning like the loading icon of a broken webpage. The gears in her mind turned, but somehow the only thing she could think to say was...

"So noisy. Wouldja mind going one at a time? Y'all are makin' my head hurt."

...Well, at least the questions stopped after that. But suddenly, everyone was giving her very strange looks instead, almost like they were shocked or something. Had she perhaps said something wrong? It seemed like common sense to her. If everybody talked over each other, there was no way she'd be able to answer them all.