dualislogs | kitty at my foot and i wanna touch it.

kitty at my foot and i wanna touch it.

WHO: Open to all residents
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: The RoCocoa Cat Cafe
WHEN: Aug. 10-14
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, 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?!

This month’s event is held at the brand new RoCocoa Cat Cafe, a sparkly new establishment that caters to children and the young at heart with iced and hot cocoa drinks of all kinds, delicious pastries, age-appropriate live music, and of course many friendly kitties who love to lounge in laps. The cats are of all shapes, sizes, and colors, including some who may look a little different from what you expect, or may look like an ordinary cat but are actually anything but ordinary underneath that adorable fur coat. All cats in the cafe are adoptable, too, if you meet a new furry friend and just can’t bear to go home without them!

So pull up a chair, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a sugary treat or two with the resident furbabies. You might just meet your new two- or four-legged best friend!

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What, you've never heard of the Candy Kingdom?

[ Dang, he must be really far away from home. ]

The whole kingdom is made out of candy. All the people are candy too.

Yeah, a little.

[ He shrugs. He's gotten so used to his robot arm that he hardly remembers it isn't real half the time. ]

It's like a really thick callus, almost. PB did a really good job on it.

[Aleifr just ... sort of stares at Finn for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly as he tries to figure out whether or not the boy is fucking with him. When he concludes that the boy is speaking honestly ... he just sort of leans back in his chair.]

What the hell sort of place do you come from?

Who could say? Things had spiraled out of control far too quickly for either of them to predict what might have happened otherwise. Perhaps nothing could have happened differently if their world were to survive.

Seifer finds himself thinking about things along those lines a lot. Tends to keep him up at night.

One of those nonchalant, dismissive gestures of his. "Ain't like I'm hard to find." If she wants to talk she can always hit him up. Though he expects she'll be quite busy with Squall. Maybe there's a bit of jealousy left there.

Rinoa will be surprised to know he's quite willing to give her as much chance as she wants. They already made a lot of progress once, why couldn't they do it a second time? Only time could tell.

"A lifetime?" Rinoa asks. The humour's lost on her, but as she really gives it thought, Time Compression felt like that, too. But that's the thing. The word 'time' gets involved and things get a little fuzzy for her. Between sorceress possession and the whole thing with Ultimecia... Rinoa really has no idea just how much time elapsed during all of that. She doubts anyone else she knows could give her much of an answer.

"Well, you're here now, right? So it's the here and the now that matters!" After a pause, she adds with a smile, "And the future, of course. Did any of your friends come with you here, or is it just you?" She hopes it's not another Heather situation, honestly. Rinoa's not sure how much her heart can take.

There are sobering words there. Reality's not that pretty. Rinoa knows he's right, but saying that is hard. Of course she wants to believe things are and were better than the truth of the situation. Is that adamant optimism or just plain foolishness? Quite possibly a bit of both, actually. She won't be admitting it aloud anytime soon, but... She can at least concede on the inside that Squall's brutal way of looking at the world isn't necessarily an inaccurate one. It just seems so much worse to perceive it that way.

She nods slowly, turning his words over in his head. And when he makes mention of his own reckless demeanour, she can't help but smile. That's true. He's definitely done some dangerous things. To get to her. To help her. To save her. A lot of things that have been less about logic and reasoning, and more about feelings. Rinoa eyes him with a quiet and transparent appreciation. Maybe it's never really dawned on her how much he's done for her. Maybe she should be more thankful for that.

"That's not untrue. Might be a bad habit to pick up, though," she jokes gently. "The world can barely handle one Rinoa. What do you think they'd do with two?"

She just shrugs. It was a private joke, really. She can never resist poking fun at her own death.

"A few. Apparently it's a popular choice."

The Candy Kingdom, I just said. [ Really it's not that complicated. ]

Well, technically. Jake and I live in the grasslands, but it's part of the kingdom's holdings.

It's a very thin line between pessimistic and realistic.

He huffs and ducks his head. Smiling? Definitely still smiling. He didn't have time to appreciate how much his feelings for Rinoa had grown. They had a little time after he recovered from time compression and at the party. But...

"I don't know but they won't be able to stop us."

Because he will cut down anyone who tries to take her this time, even if it means fighting Esthar.

There's something about him, then. Something that Rinoa can see, but can't fully understand. She's good with intuition a chunk of the time, but it isn't foolproof. When it comes to Squall, she's still figuring him out. What makes him tick. What drives him. What kind of individual he is. And what the real Squall is like underneath the past that caused him to close himself off to the rest of the world. It's going to be a long journey, but she suspects it will be worth every tooth-pulling effort.

After a moment, Rinoa grins. Grandly.

"Yeah. That's right. They won't stop us." She shakes her head, straightening her posture a bit, and admittedly feeling a bit more confidence fill her veins. "I won't let them." And then a moment later, and she softens ever in slight. "I'm so happy you're here." Not that he has to suffer, but she's thankful she has him. Others haven't been half as fortunate. She truly is blessed.

"...Wait, wait. Wait a moment," Rinoa cocks an eyebrow, unable to help the incredulous expression that begins to spread across her features. "You're telling me that people can volunteer to come here?"

She laughs and shakes her head, "No way. I didn't see anything about that being covered in the brochure." And the joke there is that Rinoa did not, in fact, get a brochure at all. To be fair, even if she had, she doubts it would have softened the discovery of any of this.

Her hands touches the table and Connor’s eyes follow it the entire way. For an absurd second, he thinks she wants to take his hand, but that isn’t it, she’s focusing on the table itself. A perfectly harmless table, but if she’s to be believed there’s something beyond that, which nobody can see because it doesn’t exist. Not here.

It sounds like nonsense. It sounds like something Connor back in Detroit would try to pick through for a metaphorical meaning, or anything he could discern about her psychology from the plainly impossible story she’s weaving. But within the past couple of days he’s had to start to accepting that nothing he knew to be true is fixed anymore. And that goes for things he would assume are false, too.

“And you’ve seen them,” he says quietly. It’s not a question.

"That was a joke," she points out sheepishly. She can be too dry for her own good sometimes... or maybe she's just not that funny. No one can say for sure.

"There's just a lot of us that know each other, you know? It's kinda freaky."

The grin makes something... light fill his chest. A warm sappy feeling he really isn't familiar with at all, a little scary but nice all the same. His smile is interrupted briefly when he remembers the cat is still on him and, instead of letting it have its way this time, he picks it up into his lap so he can lean forward easier. Reach out and... he hesitates, uncertain what to do before he carefully brushes her hair aside.

"Me too."

And he is. He really is. If the way he hugged her and wouldn't leave her side when she arrived is any indication. He's scared for her but Rinoa managed to keep up with trained mercenaries in their fight to save the world, even if she got into trouble a lot, needed Squall's help a lot. She's has the strength to have his back and, for once, he's willing to rely on that.

Nah. Steph's plenty funny. Rinoa just didn't get it, as is evident by the expression on her face. Or maybe after her conversation with Heather, being stuck in the city is quite possibly not very amusing. Might be different if she were the same Rinoa from the village in question.

"So you think it's... foul play maybe?" Rinoa taps at her chin with some consideration. "Intentional? Now that you're saying it... there's a few people here I know, too." But different timelines. Rinoa isn't certain that actually counts.

The way Heather speaks on these subjects is almost always purposefully vague, usually allowing the other person to take of it what they will. Not only is it easier to play off when they express doubt or fear but years of having to hide what she's seen and who she is and where she's from has made her protective of that knowledge, hesitant to share with just anyone.

That's changed some here but not much.

She nods her head very slowly as if admitting it is a touch difficult. She's well-aware just how insane it sounds but what is it in comparison to what they're dealing with now? Or the stories others have told? Hers is just a drop in the bucket; nothing.

"I spent my life running from them, pretending I saw nothing, that they were just nightmares that leaked into my reality somehow," She hates it. She's glad to be away and then that guilt comes in and how dare she be glad. She shrugs her shoulders like it's nothing. No biggie,"It doesn't really matter here now, though."

She seems to realize what sorts of things she's given away, looking away,"It'd sound crazy, wouldn't it, if we all weren't currently here, huh?"

"It's definitely not fair play." She shrugs. She can't see any real reason for the city to want people from the same places, but she never did figure out how the mechanism worked.

"Who knows?"

Connor's expression is troubled as he looks at her, but not disbelieving.

"Yeah," he acknowledges, nodding. "It would. If I was at home, I'd think you were disturbed."

It's definitely disturbing enough. He's got protocols for this situation - a suspect showing signs of mental illness and not being fit for questioning or testimony. But protocols and standard programming and even a lot of the empirical data his senses are giving him... He can't trust any of it. He has to rely on feelings.

And those are pretty new to him as it is.

"But we're not there. I can't disbelieve anything. And I have to say, you seem pretty sane."

He glances down at the table again, then back up. "But you don't see anything like that here?"

Disturbed, huh? Heather doesn't think that's really too far from factual despite the fact that everything she's said has been the truth. Nobody lives through that kind of hell and comes out with all their marbles in the right place and Heather knows she hasn't. A trip to a psychiatrist would likely do her wonders, then again, they might just send her on a one-way trip to a nuthouse.

Is that something Dualis even has?

The fact Connor thinks she seems sane is oddly comforting. She's never felt sane and, as a social outcast, most people never saw her that way. At his question, she shakes her head,"Not really. In my dreams, sometimes, but not here."

"Not yet." These words are whispered, full of fear. Dread. As if it were some inevitable nightmare. It won't happen here, that's what she likes to tell herself, but that fear. That fear dominates her thoughts some days, like now. Because what will she do, then?

Rinoa cracks the hint of a curve in the mouth at her response. That's certainly one way of putting it.

"I guess that's just another unanswered question of mine to be added to the proverbial pile," she agrees with a subtle nod. "Seems like I've been finding a lot of those since I've arrived here. But what's that saying? Beggars can't be choosers, right? It's obvious which side of that we're all on."

Stretching an arm above her head, "Whatever the case is, they don't know who they're dealing with. I always get my way in some fashion." Which isn't really true, but like so many other times before, Rinoa must wear the face of optimism.

Steph grins widely, restraining a laugh.

"Do you? Good to know. Remind me to keep you on my good side."

If she's convincing, she'll consider that a 'win' in her book. She's not wholly certain of her own abilities, but she certainly tries to get what she wants. Usually for the right and proper reason, too.

She pauses a moment and flashes a smile in return. "Well, you seem great, and it's not easy to get on my bad side. You'll probably never see it."

She tries to recall if anyone ever has, really. Rinoa is almost positive that she has only shown slivers of displeasure. Never anything that's genuinely constituted as a bad side.

"Aww, thanks." She'll take the compliment, even if Rinoa has only just met her. Now, though, she glances at her watch.

"I'd better find a seat. I think they're gonna start soon."

It's only dawned on her that she hasn't been keeping track of time. Who knows how many people Rinoa has pulled aside thoughtlessly at this juncture. She pauses and after a moment, issues a laugh. "Sorry for keeping you. It's good to meet you. I'll have to catch you again and maybe you can tell me a little bit more about this Village you made mention of."

Because as ever, Rinoa remains on the hunt to learn more about the self she's unfamiliar with.

"No worries! I'll probably hang around after, too." Of course, Steph didn't know that other Rinoa very well, but she certainly has stories about the village.

She gives Rinoa one last parting wave before heading over to find a seat.

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