dualislogs | they show you how to swim

they show you how to swim

WHO: All Dualizens, old and new
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Dualis Oasis
WHEN: Nov. 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

The weather outside may be taking a turn toward chilly, but you can still get your swim on during this month’s NAPs, held at the Dualis Oasis, an indoor temperature-controlled aquatic amusement park with giant slides, swimming pools, and lazy winding float rivers. Appropriate swimming gear is required for entry to this part of the park, but there are a number of shops just outside that will gladly sell you swimwear and accessories.

For those of you who wish to avoid a humid environment or just hate fun, a dehumidified lounge and restaurant offer quieter, dryer spaces for chatting and snacking. The actual speed-friending itself is in progress here, but you’re welcome to stick around and continue conversations with your new friends.

So c’mon, what are you waiting for? Just dive right in for fun and friendship - the water’s fine, fine, fine, just like everything else in this fair city. But hey, remember to play safe. No running!

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A. Necessary Shopping - Closed to Yuna

Arriving in a strange world was... half-better than the alternative that Aerith faced back on Gaia. However, some things were just too much, even for a girl who could hear the voices of those dead long before her. When she'd somehow found herself alive and breathing on a different world, it had taken her a few moments to really put it together that she was in fact alive and not on Gaia. She listened to the spiel given by those in charge and got her room assignment and the like.

However, she wasn't alone.

No, there was another brunette, standing not that far from where she herself stood. The other girl was wearing nothing but a bathing suit while the flower girl was wearing her ruined dress, jacket and boots.

"You know, I guess I'm glad that they're thought through all the necessities like living arrangements, but, um, new clothes or a map to where we can get more would be nice, right?"

B. Apartments - Room 604

Now that she's got a few more things to wear, aside from the clothes she died it, Aerith heads to her own room. She's supposed to have a roommate, but she's not aware of the name of the other person.

While the house she lived in with Elmyra Gainsborough was tiny, she'd still managed to have her own room in the little cabin. However, when she opens the door to her new apartment, she's a bit taken back by the size of the space. And, well, the other woman standing in the middle of the room.

"Um, hello? I suppose I'm your new roommate. Are you..." She checks her PHS for the information again. "Domino?"

C. Poolside

How can she say no to an indoor amusement park? The fact that this is a water park versus the indoor wonderland that is the Gold Saucer doesn't matter. Aerith is up for some fun and ready to enjoy her time here. She'd been looking forward to these meet and greets since she'd heard about it, and the fact that it's poolside this time is definitely a point in its favor.

Unlike the rest of her friends, she'd never really had much of a chance to enjoy the beauty that was Costa del Sol. She's sure that the group would go back to the beautiful beach town and spend more time in the sun. So, she's going to use this opportunity to enjoy as much of life as she can.

As such, she can be found lying by the pool on a towel, soaking up as much of the artificial rays as she can. And loving everything about her new bikini.

"Can you put some suntan lotion on my back?"

D. Lounge

Once she's done with the water, Aerith is ready to meet more new people. She puts on a wrap over her swim suit and heads inside the pool's lounge. She grabs a drink and sits a table to write down some good questions to ask anyone who comes up so that she can get to know them.

1. What do you do for work? And did you do it before you came here?

2. What is one thing about yourself that you're the most proud of?

3. What do you do for fun?

4. Do you believe in love at first sight?

5. What makes you laugh/cry?

As the person takes a spot across from her, she slides the list over and gives a beaming smile. "Hello, my name is Aerith Gainsborough. How are you today?"

Edited 2019-11-10 04:16 (UTC)

Could be worse. Dom has lived in worse places anyway. Still a little bit on the creepy side that they had a room all ready for her, but at least the company doesn't look like she'll kill her in her sleep? Definitely a plus there.

She beams a huge smile at the other woman with a nod. She can be polite when she wants to be.

"That's me. Bit of a surprise, huh?"

This place is much cleaner than the slums where she lived a great portion of her life. And while the room lacks any sort of personality, it makes up for in relative safety.

Her new companion reminds Aerith so much of Tifa that she has to smile in return. "A bit, yes. I'm Aerith."

She looks around again and shrugs. "This reminds me of a few inns I've stayed in."

"Nice to meet you." She really has no room to comment on how weird that name is, so she doesn't. Besides, it's a bad idea to start off the whole roommate situation by making her newly-forced living partner angry. That wouldn't go well for anybody.

"At least it's clean?"

"And you." Elmyra stressed good manners, after all.

"Clean is good." She lets out a soft chuckle. "I'll try not to let my hair get in the way of everything."

It's a thing, when your hair reaches down to your knees.

"Are you also new here?"

"No worries, hair isn't exactly high on my list of things to get angry about." Random kidnappings, things blowing up, those are a little more important. Not that anything had yet (that she's seen), but it's pretty much always a possibility.

"Yeah, I guess so. I mean I wasn't here yesterday, so I guess that counts."

Never before in his life had Zack ever thought he might have a heart attack. But when he'd come to the pool and seen her, his heart had tried VERY heart to stop on the spot. His heart would have ached anyway to see her, like it always did. Thoughts of her had helped him survive. But this?

The bikini had been enough, leaving his mouth dry.

Lotion on her back?

"Seriously, you better have a fucking phoenix down if you're going to say stuff like that," he grumbles as he takes the bottle from her.

She is enjoying the way that Zack has been staring at her as if he is a starving man and she's a sudden buffet laid out before him. It's really fucking satisfying to know that he finds her desirable.

Not that she isn't enjoying also all of his muscles on display for her. She's always known that he is well-developed. She'd have to be blind to have missed that fact. Actually seeing him without a shirt on is a whole other fantasy fulfilled from her girlhood.

A part of her is conscientious that she's not that same girl though, not with the obvious scars that cross her body, one starting between her shoulder blades and another below her sternum and breasts from the same fatal strike. However, that's something that they can both ignore when he's staring at her like that. "All I asked was that you would help me, Zack. It's not such a bad thing, is it?"

Edited 2019-11-13 04:49 (UTC)

Of course he finds her desirable, because Aerith is beautiful. And even if she wasn't he'd desire her. It's her heart he fell for after all. But he definitely has a lot of question about those scars. Especially the one. He's too scared to ask, though. He... he knows sword wounds when he sees them. But he's pretending it's monster stuff. Please.

"I mean, I feel like I'd have ungentlemanly thoughts," Zack admits as he takes the bottle. Like he wants someone ELSE putting sunscreen on his girlfriend. Soon he's got some on his hands and he starts on her shoulders.

"Sorry I didn't wear pink in my swim trunks. But these are the ones I had back in Costa when I had that forced vacation. I told you about them, figured you should see them."

Out of all the people in her world, out of all of the ones Tifa could have run into whose faces she knew without a second's hesitation, somehow Aerith's was last on the list she expected to see. Or even thought she would see. It isn't that she never wanted to see Aerith again. That isn't it at all. Aerith was a treasured friend - someone whose worth to the group, to the whole world, and even to Cloud - was beyond measure. Beyond everything, beyond knowing that Cloud doesn't have the same memories that she does or that Vincent remembers years into their future, beyond seeing Zack for the first time in four years or finding out that Sephiroth doesn't even remember Nibelheim... having someone come back from the dead was not what Tifa ever would have expected.

At first, she thinks that voice must have been summoned from her subconscious mind, from the memories she's been trying to suppress since her first talk with Cloud here. It hurts, to once again thing that she won't ever see Aerith again, that none of them could protect her or help her or even save her from Sephiroth. But then she turns and -

The hair is painfully similar. Too similar. For a few seconds, Tifa's voice jams in her throat and she can't even force out a simple "Hello." For a few seconds, it's like she's right back in the City of the Ancients, gazing across at Aerith seconds before Sephiroth's blade pierces her body. She hopes, desperately hopes, that Cloud isn't anywhere nearby because she doesn't think she'll be able to hold herself together.

"A-aerith?" she gasps, her voice cracking with emotion as she slowly steps closer. "Is it really you?"

It's a dumb, cliched reaction, but it's all she's got right now. Please be real. She doesn't know if she'll be able to handle it otherwise.

Aerith's face lights up the second she recognizes the other girl. It doesn't even take her a second to jump up and launch herself at Tifa in a big hug.

"Of course, silly. Who else would it be?"

It's not at all surprising that her friend is confused, considering she's pretty sure that Tifa was there while she was bleeding out, but it doesn't take a lot of time to see that she has some rather suspicious scars. That she's not bothering to hide.

There'd be no point.

"Zack said you were here, but I wasn't sure that you'd... be ready to see me yet."

Even though it hasn't been that long since Tifa last saw Aerith, it feels like years. Ages, a lifetime or ten. Surprise colors Tifa's face as Aerith launches herself at her friend and only a second passes before Tifa's arms wrap tightly around Aerith in turn. This has to be real. It has to be. Tifa doesn't know how, just that it is, the person in her arms is real and solid and breathing despite any scars that may or may not be visible, and Tifa is so, so grateful.

In all honesty, Tifa hadn't known Aerith was here. She'd known about Zack, even though they haven't had much of a chance to talk yet with everything going on. If she'd had some kind of warning about Aerith... well, no, she probably wouldn't be any more likely to handle it than she is. And despite being a strong woman, both physically and emotionally, despite not being prone to tears, Aerith's appearance has brought forth a few big tears that drip down Tifa's cheeks. Thank goodness she can hide them in her hair and the fact that she's already a bit water-logged.

There are so many things she wants to say, so many apologies that just feel flat against the back of her throat. "How could I not?" she manages to force out after a few long, hard seconds of just breathing so she won't burst into tears like she had at the City of the Ancients. And Aerith's words do at least confirm a few things for Tifa, letting them at least keep some honesty between them. "I've missed you. We all have, but..."

It was different between them. The only other woman in their group was Yuffie and for all that she was useful and had a good heart underneath all the materia kleptomania, Yuffie wasn't the same. She didn't have that bond that Tifa had shared with Aerith.

Aerith's hug isn't quite as strong as Tifa's—how could it be?—but it's as strong as she can manage. She'd wanted to apologize every step of the way towards the Forgotten Capital of the Cetra, to turn around and tell the rest of the group just what she was doing and to let them help her.

However, she'd known that if she did that, she would have been too frightened or they would have tried to stop her. Or, even worse, things still would have happened the way they did and it would do nothing but cause her friends to feel guilty about something that Aerith always knew was a possibility. That's something she never wanted to ever happen. Ever.

"Well..." Her voice is light as she pulls back from the hug with a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes as she attempts to bring Tifa away from the self-recrimination she might be feeling. "I know that I'm pretty amazing, but I did leave you all and didn't tell you where I was going. You could've needed time to adjust to that."

It's half the truth and half teasing because that's what she does. The mention of missing her hurts Aerith and her smile slips before she shakes her head and replaces her smile. "We're both here now, so that's all that matters, right? And Cloud and Zack are here as well. I could think of a million worse things than that."

A pause.

"Like being kidnapped by Don Corneo again."

Tifa can't put her finger on just what does it, what part of this situation and the words Aerith says that pops the balloon of guilt and grief that had welled up in her chest from the moment she spotted her friend. Maybe it's just hearing Aerith be the one to comfort Tifa. Maybe it's Aerith's confidence, something a part of Tifa has always admired. Or maybe it's just thinking about Don Corneo and everything that had happened just during that particular incident.

Whatever it is, Tifa manages a watery smile and an equally watery laugh, reaching up to brush away the tears that keep finding their way out of her eyes. Aerith's right, though. They have time to figure all of this out and Tifa has to be a better friend this time around.

"Oh please no," she says, still smiling. "I don't want to go through that again."

No one wants to go through that again and honestly, part of the reason Tifa wants to fight Shinra now is to shut down horrible people like him. She had known what she was getting into that day, but some young girls don't and no one, no one, deserves to go through that.

But speaking of Cloud and Zack...

"Has anyone told you about our memories yet?" she asks, thinking that this is the single most important thing she can tell her friend. Undoubtedly, Aerith has gone through the general welcoming speech and probably gotten a lot of world info from Cloud and Zack. But Tifa feels obligated to warn her about the rest. "Some of our memories don't match up with each other. Mine and Cloud's, for instance. He doesn't remember anything after the Temple of the Ancients. Vincent remembers years after Meteorfall. And Sephiroth doesn't even know about Nibelheim. He doesn't remember what he did then. Everything's so jumbled. I just... thought you should know."

All of these mixed up and missing memories are doing nothing to bolster Tifa's conviction about her own memories. She has a hard enough time reconciling Cloud's memories of the Nibelheim incident with her own. All of this just makes that a thousand times worse.

South had planned on staying planted in her seat and either hanging out alone with her drinks, or let people bumble their way to her. She also had planned to only spend a little bit of time in the lounge before popping back out to the water again. Instead, she's nursing yet another drink as restlessness takes over and sends her off to find something to do in the lounge.

She spots a table with some chick sitting alone, the empty chair calling to her until she wonders on over to plop down. She's still wearing her bikini, though she did go ahead and put on some matching board shorts while in the lounge. Mostly because her exposed skin on the chairs is fucking uncomfortable, modesty isn't a thought in her mind with it.

"That's a mouthful of a name." She comments as she eyes the list with a curiously raised eyebrow, setting her drink down before picking it up and looking it over, "Not bad, I guess. Tossed a rando unsuspecting guy in the pool, fell asleep on a tube at the fake river thing, been getting as many refills of this thing as I can. Hanging out in here a bit before heading back out, so, pretty alright overall."

Yea, she's putting this list back down without comment, shrugging a little as she resumes working on her drink.

Yuna had mixed feelings about her arrival. It couldn't have been at a better time; Spira was at peace and it finally had leaders that were willing to put there differences aside and work together. That didn't mean she wanted to be here. It only meant that she could take her time figuring everything out.

The first place to start was getting something to wear. She didn't like not having her garment grid but it also meant that she didn't have anything to wear. She had arrived in her bathing suit and nothing else.

She glanced over at the other woman as she left the Head and the Hand's presence. She also looked to be having a similar issue only that her clothes had a rather obvious hole in the front.

"It would. Maybe we can go look together? I'm sure someone will be willing to point us in the right direction."

"Hm." Aerith looked around at where they were, taking in lots of governmental-type buildings. "We might want to head to where we can start seeing shops? I know it's not ideal, but I'm not seeing a lot of people around here either."

She considers giving the other woman her jacket, but it wouldn't really cover much more than what the bikini she's wearing does.

"I'm Aerith, by the way."

"I'm Yuna." She smiled. "It's nice to meet you Aerith." Even if she wasn't wearing enough clothes and had been transported to a strange city.

She nodded her head in answer to the suggestion. She wasn't used to big cities and didn't really know where to go. It was better to trust Aerith, even if she was a stranger.

"I was told that there was a park. Maybe there are shops near that?" That seemed likely.

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they show you how to swim

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