ioduanlogs | (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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I don't think that's a coincidence!" Judai leans over to inspect the newly-fresh vegetables.

“What do you think the difference was? Were you thinking about how great it would be if something happened?”

(He's actually not kidding. Because Judai would totally be thinking how great it would be if food unspoiled itself! Ha.)

"Not really."

This time, Eiji sets the rotted food in a line, from decidedly rotten closest to the garbage, to anything that's gone bad within a day or two closer to the other end. Almost as soon as he sets them out, the "fresher" of the spoiled food proceeds to un-spoil itself, while the rest stays as it is.

"It looks like it's just whatever's newest."

Also, there seems to be a limit--the larger the item, the harder it is to completely restore it. All he can manage is about a cubic foot.

Judai leans his arms on the counter as he watches the process. That's a more methodical way of going about it than he'd ever dream of doing, himself!

"So I should come to you whenever I have food that can be saved, huh?"

He's joking. (Mostly.)

"How do you do it?" For Judai, his Talent was so instinctive that it practically feels like nothing, like it was always a part of him. He's...not sure that that's normal.

"Maybe?"

He can't help but laugh for a moment. It is giving him ideas, though. There have to be other people in the city who could use food, and if there's a possibility he could restore newly rotten food to freshness, that could mean...

Okay, he's getting ahead of himself. Especially because he has no idea how he did it.

"I really don't know. It just kinda...happened."

Hey, don't laugh at him, he was serious! ...Okay, he was joking. ...He was somewhere between the two.

"Well, now you just have to control it!" Maybe it was a good thing that Judai's was so instinctive, after all...yeah, that's a good way to think of it.

"It's not that much of a problem if it's automatic, though, seems like." He picks up one of the newly-freshened food and pops it into his mouth. "S'good."

"Do you feel tired now, by any chance?"

"I don't know yet."

He knows how stupid that sounds, but in his experience, getting tired from using his powers usually means he drops to the floor, passes out, and ends up in too much pain to move for the next few hours.

He hasn't reached that level yet.

"I'm not sure if there's a point where it'll...well, stop, if that makes any sense. Like I run out of stamina, I guess."

A small laughs escapes him. "That's why you should figure out how to control it, you know?"

He holds up his palm, where his Alteration mark is. "Mine's wind. It's less useful than yours, but it doesn't give me any trouble, either."

And it'd probably be really bad if Eiji got caught in an infinite loop where he had to re-freshen food just to eat it 'cuz he ran out of stamina...

"Try thinking about it!" Maybe it'll work! Maybe?

He shrugs. "Well, maybe, I guess..."

He's not sure how well concentrating will work, but at least this is something that doesn't seem like it'll cause a problem if he somehow loses control over it. It's just a matter of figuring out what to do with all of the food he restores.

"You know, I wonder...there have got to be other food programs around here, besides this."

Despite his eating, uh, hobby, Judai hasn't been searching them out himself, so he gives a helpless shrug. "Dunno!"

It's not that hard to catch onto what Eiji's suggesting, though. "Planning to start your own with your Talent?"

That's admirable! It really is, but— "I hope you're not planning to go too far with it." Considering Judai had just been thinking of endless loops, and all. "But I'll volunteer, if you like!"

"More like trying to donate."

The thought of starting a charity--any charity--again is overwhelming. It would probably be good for him, but he's not sure he can handle that kind of pressure or the fear of messing things up again.

"But there are probably a lot of stores and restaurants that have to throw away food. If I could convince them to donate it, I could use this to restore it, then anyone who needs it would have good, fresh food."

He smiles at Judai's offer. "That would be great, thanks."

"Oh, that's how it is. Sounds like you have a plan."

He plucks a leaf off one of a cabbage-looking thing and twirls it between his fingers. "Are you going to need a cook, or will you just be distributing them like this?"

...Look, he doesn't know how charities work... (He can't cook that well, anyway.) "We might need to recruit some more people." Also, a building, maybe. "Know anyone else who'd be interested?"

"I don't know."

That sounds a lot more complicated than he was ready for, and already, he's starting to feel anxious. How badly is he going to screw this up?

"I...I thought maybe just dropping them off at a soup kitchen. But I guess, over time, if we could put together the resources, a separate one might work..."

"Oh, I misunderstood you. My bad!"

Eiji's way is way less effort, which he can get behind. "I didn't know one already existed!" He doesn't normally think of that kind of thing, in his defense.

"I'm not much of a handling resources kind of guy," he adds somewhat sheepishly. "You've done this sort of thing before?"

"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."

"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."