Tanabata

[leekspin]

Who: Open to EVERYONE!
What: It's time for a festival! Enjoy yourselves... WHILE YOU STILL CAN!
Where: Eastern District
When: August 7th - All Day
Warnings: Who knows?
Notes: There will be a separate thread labeled for 'WISHES', just to keep track of who wishes for what. No need to pose anything fancy, just what your character writes down. Also

Comments

actiony prose (why decide?) also tl; dr

[roninknight]

Like, Drift presumed, many others, he'd gotten sucked into the wake of Orihime's perkiness and somehow found himself in the Eastern District helping set up this...whatever it was. He'd assigned himself to set up the booths, once he saw how fragile the paper lanterns were. He didn't quite trust himself not to damage them.

Who makes things out of paper anyway? Fragile, ephemeral. Time and weather would fade them, tear them, melt them down.

...Maybe that was the point. That they wouldn't last long. That they were here today, bright, colorful, but that the moment would pass all too quickly.

He noted Six, at one point, slipping through the crowd, but he couldn't track where the human was going, or had come from. He wished he could be half so inconspicuous. Here he was a giant, white, obviously clueless thing. He had no idea what to make of this--even more than Nautilus itself this was beyond his experience. Thanks to Dai Atlas' restriction to keep him away from 'contaminating' Crystal City, Drift hadn't seen that much of it.

So this, he guessed, leaning against a building, the Great Sword pressing against his back struts, is peace.

((ooc: dorky and entirely conspicuous giant white robot is watching you like ceiling cat, only angstier. feel free to poke))

[leekspin]

"GARBAGE DAY!"

"Ta-na-BA-ta Day!"

"Ta...bage..."

"Tanabata Day!"

"Ta..."

"Tanabata!"

"GARBAGE DAY!"

Orihime busted into peals of laughter. The garbage cans in this district were SO AWESOME. "Ah ha ha ha ha, that's close enough!" She wiped the tears from her eyes, and glanced up, spotting the top of Drift's head peeking out from above a nearby building. She crossed the street, a stick of odango held lightly in her fingers, and cheerfully saluted the metal giant.

"Happy Tanabata, Drift-san!"

"GARBAGE DAY!"

[roninknight]

One day Drift was going to discover the source of Orihime's endless energy and perkiness. And then, probably, back away slowly.

"Uh, sure." She was going to make him ask, wasn't she? He sighed. "So what's this whole Tanabata thing?"

[leekspin]

It was no great secret. Orihime just happened to hold a sense of humor in extremely high regard, and treasured anything that was funny. And since there were a lot of funny things to be found in the city, that was all there was to it.

"Well, it's based on a legend--hold on, I'm going to give you a crick in the neck like this, ha ha!"

VOIP! She appeared a couple of inches above the nearest rooftop, stumbling as she dropped with a clatter of her wooden geta on the roughly-paved surface.

"There, that's better. Anyway, Tanabata was based on an old legend where I come from, of a heavenly king whose daughter could weave the most beautiful cloth in the universe, but because she was so busy, she couldn't fall in love so she was sad. The king felt sorry for her and let her go to earth, where she met a cowherd and fell in love with him. They were very happy, but they were so absorbed in one another that they began to neglect their work. As punishment, they were separated by a wide river in the stars. But the birds took pity on the couple, and one night out of every year, they would form a bridge, allowing the two to reunite. And that's what gets celebrated, the reunion of the two lovers!"

Drift: BUZZKILL

[roninknight]

Drift was only a little startled by the teleportation. Just another Orihime thing. One day she'd spontaneously explode from all that energy, he suspected.

He reached out a hand--purely on reflex--to steady her as she stumbled, then froze, a bit awkwardly. Yeah she...didn't need your help, Drift.

"So," he said, after a long, long pause, letting the story sink in. "In your world, people are punished if they're too happy." He frowned. "Seems even worse than not being happy at all to have it taken away from you."

There there. <3

[leekspin]

His reflex spurred on Orihime's, as she was very much accustomed to accepting assistance from a big metal hand or finger. It got her stabilized on her feet at least, and she nodded up at him in thanks.

"Nope!" Orihime brought up her arms into an 'x', signifying that his conclusion was incorrect. "After all, it's not a world law, it's a folk tale. And more importantly, they were punished for neglecting their duties to others. The cowherder's cows would have been lost, or sick, or hungry if he wasn't taking proper care of them, and he kind of wasn't. So that's why they had to be separated."

[roninknight]

Well, all right, so, that was apparently wrong. Really wrong.

"Still seems a bit...excessive to make them suffer like that." He frowned. "Suppose it'd be better to see someone once a year than never know at all, though." He sighed, thinking of the other Autobots.

"Should be enough to know they're alive." He sounded disappointed in himself.

[leekspin]

Orihime tilted her head curiously. This wasn't the first time Drift started on one subject, before derailing to something else she hadn't quite connected with.

Maybe that was why he was called Drift?

"Who's they?" she asked, figuring it couldn't hurt to ask. If he hadn't wanted to talk about whoever 'they' were, then he wouldn't have mentioned them at all, right?

[roninknight]

Or maybe it's because Drift really is just this bad at conversation?

"They. The other person on the other side of the bridge." He frowned. He wasn't explaining this right. "How do you make it through the other days of the year without just...," he shrugged. Giving up. Curling up in pain and worry and frustration. "losing faith?"

[leekspin]

"Hmm..." Orihime gazed at the sky thoughtfully. "Well, I can't speak on the behalf of either of the legend's characters, but... If you really love somebody, then the wait is worth it." She smiled at Drift, clasping her hands together in front of her. "Working on other things can help make the time pass by faster...at least, I think so anyway. And then when that day comes, you make the most of it. Make every second count. Then you'll have those memories to carry you through the rest of the way, until the day comes when you meet again."

She shrugged, grinning sheepishly. "But I'm not really very wise about these sorts of things, so I can't really say I'm an expert or anything."

[roninknight]

Drift was, of course, applying this to his current situation. "Doesn't feel right to be happy when for all you know, the others are suffering." Or dead.

He shrugged. "Don't know anything about 'love' though. Maybe it's different."

He studied the bridge for a long moment, like there was something there he couldn't figure out. Who would he want to see on the other side? "Maybe it's just a human thing."

[leekspin]

"Well...if I were the real Orihime from the legend, and I woke up here, I suppose I'd take comfort in knowing that time isn't really going anywhere outside of Nautilus itself. And someday, the person I cared for would wake up here too."

It was actually sort of ironic in that sense. Ichigo had appeared almost a full year after Orihime had. Not that she likened herself to her namesake in any sense, particularly since Ichigo wasn't reciprocating her feelings, but even so...she'd found it kind of funny just the same.

She nodded, shrugging. "Could be! Even so, you should come see the festival for yourself. It only happens once a year, so you shouldn't miss out! I made the streets big enough for Cybertronians, so you wouldn't have to worry about stepping on anybody accidentally."

[roninknight]

"So you were named after this legend?" Seems she could have been given a...less distressing name. One that didn't seem to fate her to the same sort of loneliness. "Hope your life turns out better than the legend."

"I noticed." She'd put a lot of planning into this festival. "I'll be careful." He nodded her ahead of him. "What's your favorite part?"

[leekspin]

"I'm not really sure, to be honest!" Orihime beamed back at him, moving to the edge of the building and peeking over the edge before jumping down. Her flight was still a little unsteady, but she could control her descent easily enough. Her feet touched down on the ground. "I don't have any real memory of my parents. My brother raised me on his own when I was three. For all I know, he might have been the one that named me, ha ha!" She smiled at his kind words, and bowed lightly to show her gratitude. "And so far, it's turning out MUCH better. I'm here, ne?"

She walked at a quick pace so Drift wouldn't have to stroll too slowly for her sake, electing for the wider and less populated paths.

"That's a tough one. I pretty much like all of it! The decorations are especially nice to me, since there are a lot of them I can identify as being made by Arcee-san, or Wing-san, or a whole bunch of others. And naturally I really like the food. The games are fun too! There are probably a few you could play too. I'll just make them bigger with my Bending powers!"

I simply MUST poke.

[doc_holi]

Holiday was busy walking through the festival, appreciating all the work Orihime and others put into the decorations. She would mingle with people she, but other than that, she would make a point to keep clear of new people. The doctor highly doubted she would make a good first impression with everything that had happened during the storm.

But she couldn't help but stop at seeing the Cybertronian. She hadn't met him yet and since she was working to become the new Cybertronian physician, she should make a point to meet them all.

So, she walked over to him with a smile. "Hello. Don't believe I've seen you around."

Her orange yukata clung to her, peppered with green, yellow, and red leaves, with a lot more green on it. Orihime intended for it to coordinate with Six's. Whether anyone noticed that was left to them.

Yay; i've been agonizing over ways to get these two to meet.

[roninknight]

Well, Drift was no ninja, that was for sure. Being three times the height of most of the celebrants kind of worked against 'blending in.'

Still, he was a bit startled that anyone approached him. Well, other than Orihime.

"Kind of new." He managed a smile...kind of. "Drift."

And then the awkward silence of someone who fails, abjectly, at small talk.