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(no subject)

Characters: Eiji, OTA
Date: Feb 22 - 24
Location: Around Aifaran and the Dreaming Bridge
Situation: Friendship knots, sensory loss, and talents
Warnings/Rating: None yet

1 - Arts 5

Eiji's spent quite a bit of time learning the different knots from the Tifaut's booths around the city, and he's gotten good enough that a couple of people around have commissioned him to make some--partly because it's more personal than buying them at a stall, and partly because he can't bring himself to charge very much other than what someone wants to donate.

Come to pick one up? Come to help and make some money yourself? Or just want to talk? He's mostly at the beach.

2 - Vision

It happens as he walks back to the Dreaming Bridge--his eyes suddenly turn purple, and as he looks ahead at the city, he can barely make it out. Everything has lost its detail, like he's getting poor TV reception, and the colors he's picking up are distorted.

"Not again," he whispers, stumbling backwards in fear. There's no way he can find his way back on his own.

3 - Talent: Restoration

The moments of vision loss have gone away for now, but nothing's changed about Eiji's sense of taste being gone. Still, he tries to help out in the Dreaming Bridge's kitchen, and even if he can't taste anything that's being made, he can at least sort out the vegetables that are starting to go bad.

He sniffs some kind of milk-like liquid and makes a face.

"Okay, I think that's starting to go."

Except...no, it's not, all of a sudden. He feels some kind of weird sensation, and he thinks he's about to have another bout of sensory loss, but...no. The milk, or whatever it is, suddenly seems to smell right.

He looks over to someone else there.

"Uh, can you smell this for me? I thought it might be going bad, but now I'm not sure."

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"Oh, no, it's okay!"

Eiji sighs and rubs at the back of his neck.

"To tell the truth, I once tried to run a much bigger charity, about a year ago. I was raising money for a school, but...it went bad, and the money was funneled into an ongoing conflict. So I'm kind of scared of trying to do something that big again."

Eiji nods, though a little hesitantly, as he follows.

"I guess. What kind of thing are you missing? Is it something one of us might have?"

Eiji, of course, misses that change of expression. But he starts getting a little less comfortable with this line of questioning.

"It...it's hard to go into."

[Just a quick head's up about his permissions! Probably not going to be too much trouble, since they're from the same franchise, but I don't want to assume anything for anyone]

"I don't think so, since it's to do with how my people look," Padparadscha explains, circling a finger around their own exposed torso under their open shirt. There are a few glittering gems inserted into the area, a clear contrast against the white surrounding them. "My whole body looks like this red gem usually. The only thing that covers it is a white powder we use at home, and resin to protect it from water. But I don't have either of those here, so I've had to be very careful about protecting it from wear."

That'll make it harder to come up with something, but Chase has seen firsthand how mental injury can cause someone to act. Forcing the issue wouldn't do any good.

"I will not force you."

As someone who wasn't programmed for certain things, though—if the parameter of "lack of desire" can't be addressed, then it'll just have to be worked around.

"What makes it worse?" Maybe removing that would slow it down. "...You can still see?"

Eiji can just make out a difference in the color--something that was hard to notice until it was pointed out to him.

"What kind of powder is it?"

"I don't know. Everyone said if I could just figure out what I wanted, that should probably fix everything, but I don't know where to start."

He shrugs. "A little? I can't make out details or color very well, and I don't have much depth perception."

"It's made out of a flower that we call powder-flower, but even if that existed here, I don't think it would have the same name. Sometimes we have limited supply, because the flowers don't always bloom well in the harsher seasons."

Padparadscha has a somewhat musing tone to their voice, as if reminiscing about something. It's been a very long time since they've been awake to see a rough winter.

Eiji nods.

"So not just any powder will do, right?"

"That sounds pretty rough."

He'd say something encouraging about not giving up, but that...can backfire. And from that story, Eiji probably knows more than he wants to about things backfiring, unfortunately.

"Sometimes, things just don't work, huh."

It'd been a hard lesson for him to learn, himself.

But they're both here now. That's gotta count for something. "Good thing you were in here when you figured it out!"

Eiji shakes his head. It's not something he likes to have to think about, but it's always on his mind.

"Yeah, good point."

If 'everyone' is saying that, and they were from Eiji's homeworld, then stands to reason that they know better than Chase what is going on.

"Start with wanting your sight back."

...Which may be slightly literal. But sometimes unconventional things do work.

"No. It would need to match how resilient it is outside of water, be something that doesn't damage gems by being there for so long...there are a few conditions, I'm afraid."

It's not as difficult a solution as to a lot of problems humans seem to have, they think, but it's difficult enough for them to have considered it.

"It's not really that easy. There has to be a strong personal desire."

Which doesn't always make sense to him, but he's been figuring it out as he goes.

"Just this, or just wanting to be with my friends doesn't seem to do it."

"I hope they're able to figure it out."

"Well, I'd be hoping they can figure out your problem too, huh?" Padparadscha turns a corner onto the street the Dreaming Bridge is on. It's not too busy at this time of day, thankfully. "Not far now."

"You do not strongly desire your sight back?"

Because that seems like it would be one of those things that are extremely frustrating, especially given how Eiji had panicked, before. Chase has experienced a Complicated Emotion (tm), but only in regards to his purpose and split loyalties. Not having desire was not his problem; in fact, it's not a problem that he's seen, and so he can't quite connect to what Eiji's saying.

"...You have had strong personal desires before?"

Edited (whoops formatting) 2018-03-21 22:34 (UTC)

"It's not that. It's just..."

It's just that there's still some part of him that thinks he could live with the consequences, as long as it meant nobody else was hurt. That it's really, really hard to think about his own safety and comfort because other people always come to mind first.

He gets quiet and starts thinking.

"I think so. Well, I'm not sure how personal it was. But it was strong."

He nods. It's worth trying, he guesses.

"Thanks."

"None needed, little one."

It's still a little more of a walk, but eventually the street opens out to the area out the front of the Dreaming Bridge. "Can you find your way to your room on your own? Though if you live in Breakwater we'll be going the same way."

"I think so. Thanks."

He's in Quayside, so it'll be closer, and he can hopefully sleep off the vision problems. But it's probably a good idea, just in case, to make sure he knows how to find his way back to his room if this happens to him again.

"Sorry if I put you out of your way."

Padparadscha waves a hand. "I was heading this way anyway. With so much different about this world, it's good to spend a little of the day away reading, huh?"

Which they usually do in the Breakwater common room, so it requires coming back this way whenever they decide it's a good time for it.

That's a good idea, now that he thinks about it, and he nods.

"I should probably try that, when my eyes decide to work again."

Someone who doesn't seem to have noticed his own desires... Logically, that means to Chase that it couldn't have been that strong, if Eiji doesn't know how personal it was. But there's something else, something that he can't seem to pin down in words. Medic...had achieved her Super Evolution with her feelings that, as far as he is aware, were selfless by nature.

"You cannot force yourself to desire something." Which is as far as he can get to determining why the 'just desire something' method isn't going to work. Roidmudes didn't achieve their Super Evolutions by simply wanting it, after all. And as far as Shinnosuke and the others had told him, Chase had been given human emotions at a cost; being human is simply not possible for him. He'd come to accept it. But he also had not been losing his senses.

"If you could have figured it out by thinking, you would have done so...is that correct?" In other words, Chase...would only barely be helping. Maybe he'd even be actively detrimental by saying things that show how little he understands of the situation. He knows well that words can wound, regardless of intent—and he's known a contradictory person or two.

"Does talking it through...help?"

"I guess."

It actually makes more sense than anything else Eiji's heard. He's not really wanting anything for himself if he's taking on what everyone else wants for him. That was his problem from the start.

"I...I don't know. I really haven't talked about it all that much."

It had been uncomfortable, telling Hina what he'd been through. Enough that he'd left the room when he realized Date was going to go into it in more detail. But maybe he should have said it in the first place.

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