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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He's going to pretend he's not jealous that Nida found her first. That is an absolutely ridiculous thing to be jealous over. He's definitely not entertaining this random piece of emotion. He also probably should have warned her way earlier about Seifer being here. Oh well.

He's frowning again, more confused than upset.

"I think so." A pause. There's a sense of disbelief as he says. "He cooks dinner for us." Then he shakes his head. "I think we're trying to be friends but it doesn't change what happened in the war."

He means what he himself has not done for Seifer rather than what Seifer's done to him. But of course he doesn't clarify that.

At first, Squall's response doesn't sound particularly promising, but then he continues and Rinoa simply stares at him blankly. "...He cooks?" She can't remember him ever cooking for her. Maybe he cooked for the Other Rinoa.

Still, his words continue and she folds her hands together thoughtfully. "To be expected. None of this is going to get fixed quickly, if at all. If it makes you feel any better, he was tense with me as well. But... we'll work on it."

And she knows Squall and Seifer are just too stubborn to not work on it, too.

Squall shrugs or tries to. He forgot he's still hand-napped by the cat.

"He's... good at it. He'll probably invite you too. He's still a jerk but he keeps trying to take care of us anyway."

He frowns again as she continues and nods in response.

"I know. I think I want to..." He should probably try to resolve that last near-argument he and Seifer had now that this is brought up. He sighs and leans the side of his face against his hand, grumpy. That same crease between his eyebrows she sometimes pokes fun at him for deepening. Why do feelings have to be so difficult? Ugh.

She's seen that look on his face many, many times since they've met. Rinoa eyes him, a bit apologetic. There's a lot to unpack there. Seifer and Squall knew one another as children and while Rinoa knows that bare minimum, she understands there's some things that she can't help either of them with. Squall and Seifer's relationship has to be something she's kept separate from. She understands there's complexities at work there that don't involve her. In the same way that complexities between her and Seifer don't involve Squall.

When she starts thinking about the three of them as people, she comes to realise just how complicated they all really are. And they all have a plethora of emotional baggage, evidently. Rinoa's not exactly proud of that.

"Try not to worry about it too much," she reassures Mr. Grump, doing her best Squall impression, hand pressed against her temple to mirror him. "Give him time. Sounds like you've already started, so it's just one small step after another, right? If he's cooking for you, that's a good direction to be in. If you guys can learn to rely on one another in dire straits, then there's potential for something more." Which is more than she can say in her own situation. She's no combatant. At least, not a very good one. And as long as she can't control her abilities, Seifer has no reason to ever rely on her. She understands she's a liability more than she's an asset.

He's indicated as much that he's not concerned by Rinoa and Seifer's past relationship. How much of that stays true now that Seifer is around them remains to be seen. Things are complicated. There's a lot they're learning about one another. A lot of the past to unravel.

Squall thinks Rinoa has been keeping up just fine. She's not a trained mercenary like they are which just makes it more impressive that she's managed to hold her own. There's room for improvement of course. Squall can rattle off a list of critical improvements she can make.

He blinks when he realizes what she's doing. Confusion turning into more grump as he looks at the wall with a huff. He looks at her out of the corner of his eyes, almost sulky. Almost.

"We'll be fine in a combat situation. It's everything else." He missed out on all the prime socializing stages of his life. It's a lot to learn again. "I don't know how you do it. Talk to people."

His reaction only makes her grin all the more. She loves pushing his buttons. She just can't help it. Somehow she suspects that he'll forgive her. If not within minutes, then surely within days when he finds something else to be sulky and moody over. But that's just the way he is and honestly, for as much as Squall can sometimes irritate her, she's not sure she'd like him if he was anyone other than himself. In those slivers of darkness, she finds a brilliant light.

Maybe he just doesn't always recognise that it's there.

As he continues, she stops mimicking him and simply sits on his words. He thinks she's good with people, hm...? That's a high compliment and she's not sure she agrees. "Mmmwelllll, I just kind of open my mouth and words come out." Smiling again, she clarifies, so he knows she's taking him seriously. "I don't always have a plan. In fact, I never do. I just kind of rattle off whatever's first to come on out. But this also means I... definitely say some wrong things at the very wrong times. Unfortunately." He should know. He's been on the receiving end of that.

Actually, they both have foot-in-mouth syndrome, don't they?

They do when Squall bothers to talk. He's starting to open up more nowadays and it's a strange process. He tries not to think too hard about it. Of course he gets irritated when Rinoa and the others make fun of him but this is how friendship had always worked out for him in his limited experience. Seifer picks on him, Quistis tries to poke him into opening up, Rinoa pressing his buttons, and so on.

He'd miss it if they suddenly stopped.

He turns his full attention to her, looking thoughtful (doesn't he always?) and nodding as she explains.

"No one's perfect." That's why he doesn't like to speak his mind. It's safer when no one knows him, but he can't learn if he doesn't make mistakes. Ugh. "It feels like you know exactly what to say sometimes." Or maybe he really is more predictable than he thinks. "I don't think anyone else has a plan either. Not even the adults."

"Depends on the adult," Rinoa replies almost immediately. Her expression darkens a shade, though not as much as it very well could before she continues. "My father, for example. I don't think he's ever not had a plan, you know? Everything to him has to be planned out." Except Julia's passing, probably, but Rinoa knows very well to stay away from that. Everything else, though.

"And you know Cid? He always seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders. I think he always has a plan too, even if he's not saying it. Maybe Esthar's president, too." She's being generous with that one, though. Possibly. The others saw something Rinoa didn't when it came to him and while she was curious, she knew very well she probably wasn't going to be able to properly understand it. She suspects Squall won't agree to saying nice things about the man.

"When it comes to me..." Her head tips and she buries her face in her cocoa cup. "...I'm impulsive. It's not always good to try and think things out. Sometimes you just have to go with whatever's right in front of you."

Squall's expression darkens almost similarly. He wonders about Caraway. After what NORG said about Galbadia Garden using them as scapegoats. But that still proves her point. He used the plan to throw them under the bus to his advantage.

He tilts his head and shakes it lightly. "Cid's only plan was finishing what Edea told him. I didn't get to tell her a lot." He'll commend Cid for Garden and SeeD turning out the way it did, but he remembers that man hiding in the infirmary, eyes red and puffy from panicked crying during NORG's takeover attempt. "I don't think he really knew what he was doing, but he loved matron enough to keep going." Until he could foist it all off on Squall.

He's seen the man at his weakest. It's hard to retain any respect he ever had for their headmaster. As for Laguna, he just presses his lips together in a hard expression. His... father. Yeah, that's another bridge he's not sure how to cross.

He relaxes slightly when she continues, huffing out an amused air.

"Yeah, you taught me that." He doesn't do it well most of the time. He has to think. It's how he works, but there's merit to being impulsive. There's a small smile. "I'll just have to keep up."

"Maybe that's what really mattered," Rinoa begins thoughtfully. "Loving someone enough to continue even when you aren't sure how to. Sounds like something out a book, though." And she's not fool enough to believe that books can really compare to reality. Her relationship with Squall is nothing like a book, though she'd never say as much to avoid getting the wrong idea. While it isn't a storybook romance, it's real and evidently to her that is far more important.

He finds his words again, though she doesn't miss the turn in his expression. As usual, Squall is not at all interested in discussing Laguna. Rinoa's information on the man isn't super knowledgeable. She knows he was a soldier, that he loved her mother, that she was almost his daughter, in fact, and that he was evidently a handsome man when he was younger. Truth be told, having seen him in Esthar, he's still a handsome man. Somehow she suspects it's better to keep that to herself. One day she'll ask if they really are father and son, because they couldn't be more opposite of one another.

Instead...

"You think it's a competition?" she asks him suddenly, her eyebrows raising. "You're kidding." He is, isn't he? Is he capable of jokes that aren't all sarcasm and dry, witty banter? "Just keep being you. Look, it's a good balance between us. I'm impulsive enough to make things happen when they need to. You're reasonable enough to keep me from doing something too stupid with my impulsiveness. We complement one another."

"Reality's not that pretty." Seifer proves that. And if Cid and Edea's relationship sounds like a storybook, then they probably prove it too.

"I just want to walk my own path." Not what someone else tells him. Not what 'fate' decided for him. Though with Nida from the future, he's not really sure that's possible.

He blinks at her reaction. He really meant for it to be a compliment, kind of. He's said some things that sounds a lot like how she'd say it. He's not too sure if that's her rubbing off him or just a part of his personality that he never allowed to come out.

He shrugs, his half-smile still there. He'll never admit when he's joking at least.

"Maybe. I've done a lot of reckless things since I met you."

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?"

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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

kitty at my foot and i wanna touch it.

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