MAY MINGLE

[etrayamods]

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: May 17th-31st
WHERE: On Etraya
WHAT: A mingle log!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A, please note any needed warnings in threads.

⏵ a hero's return ⏴ As champions exit the Labyrinth, they’ll find that their environment has gone through some fairly drastic changes. Where there used to be larger bodies of water is now thinner rivers going through land; the amount of bridges connecting landmasses has decreased, given what had been individual islands are now much more connected. In addition, Etraya is significantly more green; flowers bloom, birds chirp cheerfully, and there are numerous additional species of insects, mammals, and aquatic creatures throughout the lands. Baby foxes roam through forested areas, bees pollinate the flowers to spread them more thoroughly around the inhabited areas, and it feels brighter. Or perhaps that’s just in comparison to how the Labyrinth had been. There are more areas to explore, new facilities, animals, and Etraya feels significantly more settled than it had before. Aurora’s promise of renovations had been true. And if one looks up, they may notice a city bubble visible on the closest planet that hadn't been visible before. ⏵ coffee break ⏴ After hearing Clarke’s suggestion, Aurora sets up a new cafe close to the apartment complex, and sends out notices to individuals with mandatory coffee hour times listed for them to come to Corrine's Cafe and make a few friends. While the note does state that it is mandatory, there will be no follow-up from Aurora nor the companion bots to ensure those who receive notes do show. Given this is Aurora trying to take suggestions in mind and see how successful they are among the citizens of Etraya, however, following directives may not be a terrible idea. It's up like a modern-day, smaller cafe. One walks in through the front door, and is greeted by a companion bot behind the counter who offers a wave of their hand and a friendly “Welcome! Let me know when you’re ready to order”. The menu offers lattes, mochas, espresso, black coffee, several different kinds of teas, and a few drinks that are a little odd to find in a cafe; ale, canned sodas and coffees, numerous bottles of wine, but only pinot noir. Soft music plays in the background, impossible to place but it sounds as if it may be based on tracks that were popular in the early 90s. Tables and booths are set up to seat two to four, with packets of sugar and small containers of creamer set out towards the middle. There are charging stations set up at every table, which may seem strange considering phones and laptops aren’t widely available, but Aurora’s doing her best. There are also a few bookshelves full of the classics, a few historical fiction, and several written by H.P. Lovecraft. Each seat has a placard in front of it, with a name, and a ‘fun fact’. One might say “Hello! My name is Joe, and I like to paint!” Another may say “Hi, I’m Jill! My sister died tragically in front of me and I’ve never gotten over it.” ⏵ new horizons ⏴ Several of the new bridges found in Etraya now have signs posted just outside of them, and on those signs is a QR code that the earpiece’s HUD can scan. Scanning this with the HUD will bring up a scavenger hunt, listing several items and circling areas where they can be found. Some of these objects will be obvious: find Corrine at Corrine’s Cafe - the companion bot who runs the counter, find a delicious meal at Bangsan Market, break into S.T.A.R Labs, or find room 87 at Point Blanc Academy. Some will be less obvious, like locating a bat, becoming friends with an archer, find a pink shirt, open bagged milk without making a mess, or get a drink at the mutant-friendly pub. Please feel free to make up your own items to find around Etraya! ⏵ NOTES ⏴ Welcome to our mid-month mingle! Please feel free to use this to explore Etraya, put up wildcard prompts (you don't need to use the above!), or use the open prompts to assist in jumpstarting cr. This mingle covers the period from May 17th to May 31st. Our next mission (and next mod log) will not go up until June 7th. ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

coffee break.

[riskfalling]

I know a secret, too.

[ Dick's placard, as he drops down into the seat across from her, says: Hi, my name is Dick Grayson, and I used to have a mullet.

He's brandishing a little bouquet of flowers, that he holds out to her, accompanied by a smile that admits: yes, he's an idiot, yes, he's grounded, no, he's not going anywhere. ]

Sometimes, you like flowers.

[her_own_rules]

[ There is a moment before Babara puts out a hand to take the flowers. It's not like he wasn't there this morning, or last night, or any of either in the last few days. Anyone else, and she'd call it emotional and monetary bribing. With Bruce, by which she means Alfred, she'd be half tempted to drop them in a fit of pique. But Dick isn't like that, and she's not mad at him (even though she is).

She doesn't like to feel ... fragile.

She doesn't like to feel it looking at him. Ever. She definitely doesn't like it at both ends of the spectrum of inside her and outside of her at once. She doesn't like having to face both at once and knowing there's only one choice. There will never be more than one choice. For him. For both of them. She lets her gaze drop to the flowers. She thinks about how that secret isn't a lie either, and so few people actually know that, as she ducks her head to smell one of the flowers.

It's not entirely evasive when she says into them. ]

The mullet really was a choice.

[riskfalling]

It was period-appropriate.

[ She tips her face down, breathing in the scent of the flowers he brought, and he's knocked sideways all over again by the reality of her. Picking and choosing her words, mere days, hours, from having learned she might have needed to grieve him all over again.

She's amazing. Thank god she's here with him; thank god. Thank god he didn't leave her again. ]

How's your back feeling?

[her_own_rules]

You just keep telling yourself that.

[ She lays the flowers on her lap, given the arms of the chair, and the flat plain of her raised legs, help balance it in a way her empty lap wouldn't entirely. And maybe she doesn't quite want to let go of them. Of some subtle, physical act of Dick Grayson's effusive, sometimes messy, but always loyal heart. Of his loving her. Of it mattering. That he is truly sorry, even about things they can't take back and would do again.

She loves him. She always has.
Every bit of the good man he is.

And sometimes, briefly, the world reminds her why that's terrifying, too.

The question makes her wrinkle her nose, and she lets her whole face scrunch up semi-exaggeratedly with it. Topic #2 she doesn't really want to talk about, but she'd rather do that one, and he's going to continue asking. It's been a very long time since anything this big ricochetted into their lives, without breaks or beds amid prolonged fighting. So he'll keep asking, and Cass n' Steph will keep bouncing in with reasonable and transparently obvious excuses. She doesn't ]

Like a rude coworker who won't get out of my office no matter how nice I ask.

[ A returning volley. ]

How are you feeling?

[riskfalling]

[ He gives her a small, wry smile; it's his turn and he knows it. ]

I feel fine, mostly.

[ Despite the use of that word — fine — he's not trying to evade, exactly, and his gaze turns inward and speculative as he turns his coffee mug around and around on the table in an idle, thoughtless motion. She'll give him the space he needs to find the words; she always does. ]

I can't put my finger on it, but something does feel... a little off. Like when your keys aren't in the last place you remember seeing them.

[ Unconsciously, his hand lifts, fingertips rubbing at the line of scar tissue just over his left temple. It's hidden by his hair now, but it's still there, arcing over his ear, the spot where skin and skull both had to be pieced back together after KGBeast's bullet shattered his head, his life, his memories. ]

But I don't know what it is.

[her_own_rules]

[ He knows the question isn't petty. Well. At least not more than 2-3% petty. Not maliciously petty. It's more affectionately petty but transparent about it, which is in itself a commentary on Dick. And letting him in so much more than most. It's easier to want to gloss around so much of both of these, but there are still sharp and jagged edges that can't be.

Not when he startles awake from his sleep. In a too familiar way.

The ways she has. And he has. Since Ric, and the Court of Owls, and the Joker.
(She doesn't miss that tic, but she also refuses to let her gaze fix on it.)

Not when she sometimes falls asleep or wakes up, tucked under his arm, with her hand on the middle of his chest—

not a new thing by any stretch,
but there's a difference to it, too.

To the beat of his heart under her palm.
To light scarring under the calluses on her fingertips.
To the fragility of the bones in his chest and the acknowledgment again
that they are not superpowered like more than half the people they know.

She won't trivialize his words. The analogy there. The feeling of loss.
It could be as simple as not feeling he fits into his skin.
Or who knows what else in this place.

Instead, she's methodical. ]

Does it come and go?

[riskfalling]

No.

[ He shakes his head at her, his hand falling away from his temple. It's relaxed; this is another problem to work through. They'll work through it. Just by mentioning it, he's given Barbara a bone he knows she won't drop until they've found the answer.

He hasn't missed the way she's been watching him, since they reunited and he told her what happened. He's felt the weight of her concern like he's felt her fingertips running over his chest, even when she's not looking directly at him. It's part of the atmosphere in the apartment; here, too. ]

It's constant. But whatever it is, it's not restricting me. Physically, mentally, I feel as good as ever.

[her_own_rules]

Just the nagging constancy of an undefinable something.

[ That's not the greatest, and Barbara already has an idea hatching he might not like, but then she's not asking about it. It's a butterfly alight on the head of a pin, deciding whether to stay or be waved away. She can toy with it later. Decided on which way the wind is blowing and then whether she's asking permission or forgiveness.

(Okay. Maybe that ending thought is a touch more petty.
But Barbara doesn't own qualms when it comes to keeping her loved ones alive.) ]

We still know so little about how this place does that.

[riskfalling]

Yeah.

[ He's toying with his coffee again, idle, looking for something to do with his hands. Juggling might be frowned upon, in the middle of a busy café. ]

Not that I'm not grateful for it, but I wish we had a better idea of the mechanics. All I know is it felt like waking up here the first time, just with this feeling like I left the stove on.

[her_own_rules]

[ It'd be entertaining at least.
Though Barbara would stop him.
And his sublimation. ]

And you're sure—you saw nothing—

[ between? after you—? when you—?;

she settles for oblique again.
She still doesn't want the word in her mouth. ]

—before you woke up again?

[ It's childish. She's thought it too much in the past. She will daily for a good while. (About everyone in their family.) She could shout it if she had to. But. She can't outrace every single perfect preserved second of each day of months of memory of what it felt like to live with it, when she thought it was real and it would never stop being a hole in her until she died, potentially several decades later. ]

[riskfalling]

[ He watches her for a long moment without saying anything, but silence between them has always been as eloquent as any words, and it is now, too, both in this moment and in the breath she took earlier, the pause that might as well have lasted for a lifetime. The look in his eyes is all sympathy and understanding; he'd been out for all of it, thankfully, once the blackness had swept in.

Just like he had the times before. He wasn't the one who had to deal with the sudden calculus of loss. ]

Nothing.

[ He tries to live in the moment, to keep from wondering too much about the things he can't control and can't answer, like: is there an afterlife?

But it's troubling him, too. It's there in the faint ruckle of his brow, the somberness that's overtaken his usual cheery warmth. Nothing. That's what they can expect, here, before waking up to find themselves not... quite... like they remember being before. ]

[her_own_rules]

[ Even at odds with everything—her body and this topic, that she can't outrun either—she wants to reach over and smooth the tension from his forehead. The seriousness in his eyes. But there's the chair, the table, and the fact that she probably wouldn't even if the first weren't true right now. That's more private, the same as most of what goes with this topic. Her heart aches, even as her mind facets to the single word he said. The answer never wavering.

It's not that Dick's never lied to her, but he isn't right now. Hasn't about this.
Not since everyone was spat out of the labyrinth without any balls of yarn. ]

Have you thought about comparing notes with Clarke?

[ But also. ] I can discreetly if you'd rather not.

[riskfalling]

Who?

[ No, he has no idea Clarke and porkchop girl are one and the same. It doesn't matter, though; he lifts a hand to wave the idea off, shaking his head. ]

No. The last thing I want to do is make anyone else relive it happening to them. Besides, I have the sneaking suspicion that we'll find out whatever it all means sooner or later.

[ Whether they like the answers or not is a wholly different question. For now, he picks up his coffee and smiles at her over it. ]

Besides, why ruin a perfectly nice mandatory coffee date?

[her_own_rules]

[ It doesn't mean she won't; only that she'll take it under advisement he'd rather she didn't. But Barbara's not about to turn down avenues she needs to know about for the man across the table from her. (Nor from the foolhardy self-preservation lacking members of her family only too glad to dive on a grenade now and then without the ticket back.) Still, that doesn't linger in her expression. It doesn't need to. When he's smiling, it makes Barbara's mouth automatically try to pull a whisper of the same from him.

(Damnably infectious, his smile is. Has been.
For longer than she's considered fighting it.
She hates it. Definitely the right word.)

Instead, she lifts her coffee, saying over her cup: ] God forbid we act against orders.

[ She almost takes a sip, but then her gaze flits back to him. There's a coolness there that so few people ever realize isn't at all. But it's been a very long time, if there ever was a time, when he was one of them. ] It might be the only chance in two universes we can ever make it through one.

[riskfalling]

Yeah, that's never been your style, [ and now he's actively teasing her, because there's the faintest unfurling at the corner of her mouth and he'd much prefer to chase her smile than talk anymore about what happened, what it means, whether there are repercussions still rippling out from it.

They're here, now, and they're together, and that's what he wants to focus on, so he does, cheerfully sipping at his coffee. ]

Then we better make it count, don't you think? At least until a decent Italian place finds its way here. Don't think I don't know you'd be all over some linguine in clam sauce.

[her_own_rules]

[ It's easier to slide toward it, a back and forth just a little faster, a little wittier. The knowledge of neither of those topics is truly going anywhere. But they don't have to have fingers pressed down on them any longer than necessary. Especially in the middle of this place, with a wealth of unknowns abounding.

(And maybe he's not entirely wrong.) ]

Maybe if you ask oh so nicely,
they'll consider throwing one in.
Or a pizza place. Just for you.

[ She leans back, with a raise of eyebrows. ]

But if you really want to show a girl a good time,
I need at least 7-8 more high-rises not spread a half mile apart.