they show you how to swim

[headandhand]

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!

Comments

[hellofishies]

She frowns. "It's good they're gone now then!" What a sad life to lead to never have a strawberry. But the question he asks gives her pause. Time has never been Arkady's friend.

"A month." She looks away and then shakes her head. "No. A few months?" She sounds a little more uncertain of that. "Yes. I think a few months only!" That sounds right. She hopes. She shrugs a shoulder causing the tassels to jingle. "Too long but not long. How long have you been here?"

[skyward_eyes]

"Since June. Supposedly I'm almost halfway done with my sentence here."

That they haven't spoken isn't really that surprising. This place has so many people in it that they don't really have a given probability of meeting people that are new here. How they keep running into the same people sometimes really is a wonder.

[hellofishies]

"If they really just let us go." Which she wasn't 100% sure if she actually believes. It's probably not a good idea to say that out loud at an event organized by them though, so she quickly moves on to a different topic.

"What's your home like?" That seems like a better topic. Hopefully.

[skyward_eyes]

They won't be let go. Nida's almost certain of it after that robot thing. And it makes him sick. Makes him pray that those people he knew were here and aren't now managed to find a way to escape this cycle of fear.

"My home? I technically grew up in a more or less military academy. A structure in the middle of plains, with a forest nearby, mountains to the north, and the sea a short drive away. It was always warm and pleasant."

[hellofishies]

"Oh! There's someone else from a military academy! His wasn't pleasant." Or maybe he just didn't have a pleasant opinion of it. The one that Nida was describing sounds much more pleasant, aside from the military part. Arkady's not too fond of that. "Did your parents send you there?"

[skyward_eyes]

"Seifer," Nida guesses, and he sighs, shaking his head. "My brother wasn't exactly the best sometimes. I'm sorry about that. And no. I'm an orphan."

So yeah, family wasn't really something he did much of.

[hellofishies]

"Oh, yes! I think that was him. It's nice there are people from the same places here with each other," she replies with a just a hint of a smile. It makes her wonder how the Head chooses people to bring in. Some have people from their home and others are alone. Maybe it's just random.

"Don't be sorry, I liked him! Even if he seems a bit sad." Or maybe bitter would be a better choice in words. She frowns. "I'm sorry."

[skyward_eyes]

Perhaps there is a degree of randomness. But the Head sure seems to have chosen a lot of people who won't put up with this shit. Why? Why choose them?

"Sad..." Nida muses. Yeah, that really explains Seifer. And he sighs, shaking his head. There isn't much he can do about that.

"I'm more than used to it. They've been gone for more than they were around."

[hellofishies]

"About a lot of things. But I think a lot of people here are sad." It seems like a lot of people here have stories that are pretty negative.

"I guess that's good then. To be used to it. I don't really have my parents anymore either." But that never really mattered much to her. There was a time she had been bitter about it but there were plenty of other things to be bitter about now.

[skyward_eyes]

"We've been taken from our homes and the people we love. Of course we're sad," Nida shrugs. That's why he's sad, after all. This place would be amazing if it wasn't evil, if it hadn't stolen from him. But he's moving on. This was why he'd avoided getting caught up in emotions. They were destructive.

"I've been an orphan since just before my eighth birthday. I don't even remember their faces."

What a lie. He carries the memory he saw in the late place with him everywhere.

[hellofishies]

"Oh, I meant we were sad before here." But she shrugs and starts to play with the little tassels on her bathing suit. There's a brief frown on her face that she tries to push away as quickly as it comes. "It is lonely here." At least she feels lonely. It's so strange being without the others.

"Maybe it's better to not remember?" She's not really sure if that's the case or not, but she tries to offer the more optimistic viewpoint there.

[skyward_eyes]

And some of them were sadder for being here. Nida's definitely brushing the line between the two. But maybe she isn't wrong. There are so many people in the city, and so many of them that can't just be trusted. So sure, he's a bit lonely, trying to find people he can interact with.

"I think I'd rather know them. To see the faces that loved me as I was before I was a weapon."

[hellofishies]

"Oh." Well, that got sad real fast and now she feels exceptionally bad for him. In her own point of view she would rather forget about her parents. There's just a bit too much anger and confusion at the fact that they decided to sell her off for money. It's not an aspect of her past that she likes to spend time on though, and so she doesn't offer anything up. Instead she just smiles.

"Maybe you can find new people though. People that love you now and see you for who you are now."

[skyward_eyes]

Probably best that he doesn't bum her out by pointing out that one of the most important people to him disappeared, and a second one isn't talking to him. Life just has weird ways of working out.

"My brother tends to call me an asshole sometimes. I think that's seeing me how I am. Of course he is, as you said, grouchy. Well, you said not pleasant, but really, I knew what you were getting at."

[hellofishies]

"See, you have a brother, that's something!" It's family in a way. At least, Arkady tends to look at it that way. After all, she really only has the other FreakAngels as family. Weird family, but that's about what they are.

She lets out a laugh at his description of Seifer and shakes her head. "You don't seem like an asshole. He's just blinded by grouch if he thinks so."

[skyward_eyes]

A brother in a sense that he doesn't actually have any siblings at all but he makes do with the one he has chosen. But some might say that found family matters a whole hell of a lot more. Which... Nida might agree with actually.

"Oh, you barely know me, Miss Arkady. I'm pretty horrible on some levels. I'm stubborn, for one thing. And self-destructive."

[hellofishies]

"Aren't we all sweets?" she giggles lightly and shakes her head. "You're polite though. And have been nice to me. Besides, self-destruction doesn't make someone bad." If it did then she must be pretty bad herself. She doesn't think she's good, not at all, but she would like to think she's not completely bad.

[skyward_eyes]

"Perhaps it doesn't. But it can shorten the life-span, and lead to rather foolish mistakes," Nida counters, but he does put a bit of a smile on for her.

"How about you tell me something about yourself in return for the admission that I clearly am too hard-headed for my own good? And polite, I'll accept that."

[hellofishies]

"Oh, I'll give you that. It leads to foolish mistakes. And shortened life span." A touch of regret creeps into her tone there, but she's still smiling despite it. Or perhaps because of it. Her own self-destruction led to a lot of mistakes and bad not quite endings. Endings that would have been endings for anyone else but her. Maybe she's lucky there. Maybe not.

She tilts her head and nods. "Okay!" But what to tell him? She doesn't hesitate before she just says the first thing that comes to her mind. "I used to be really wild a few years ago. Partied a little too much. Got a little too deep into that lifestyle." There's no embarrassment in the admission that she'd been a wild child. It's honestly one of the more tame things she can admit about herself.

[skyward_eyes]

Oh man, party scene. Nida groans and his head comes up to rub his temples just at the memory of it.

"I was a spy, back home. And my latest mission involved infiltrating a party culture to find this person and... Oh god, my pain at the memories of the hangovers and the rest of my head aches from it. I couldn't handle the lifestyle at all."

[hellofishies]

She giggles at his admission and puts her hands up to try to cover the laughter. "You get used to after a while. Or maybe we're just lucky. We can make the hangover go away." They're just lucky. The Freakangels power can sober them up in an instant and that makes hangovers almost a non-issue now that they've mastered that particular skill.

"If you don't have a hangover the rest is fun. Mostly. Sometimes you make big mistakes there though." Big drunk mistakes. The worst kind.

[skyward_eyes]

Make the hangover go away? Nida nods, because he'd had that himself.

"I had a spell that could do that for me, but I didn't really like using it, though, and I had to hide the use. It would have blown my cover."

But he hated the deceit of it all. And the ends.

[hellofishies]

"Why didn't you like having to use it?" Personally she couldn't imagine not using her abilities to clear things up sometimes. Sometimes it was nice to not clear things up though. That's something she wouldn't admit though, it gave just a bit too much away about her own problems.

[skyward_eyes]

"Because using it meant I drank too much. And it could have blown my cover. Not everyone can use magic," Nida shrugs. Even he couldn't normally. So it would have given him away in an instant to use the spells.

[hellofishies]

"I wish I could use magic." It sounds like it'd be nifty. Though it also sounds a bit like it's kinda what she can already do, just with a different name. But magic sounds so much cooler.