idolpro | Shrike's Heart (#4)

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!heart games

Shrike's Heart (#4)

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

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[Okay, he can still leave as if he were a cool guy. Gives her a casual salute as he heads back towards the house]

Keep on singin', Lark.

[Now, WHERE IS THIS GARDEN]

[ Well, heading back to the house, you find yourself passing through the yard. This is an area with the same practical aesthetics as the rest of this place; it's a large, paved square with a stone-paved path on either side, with some markings for boundaries or footwork in white paint, though a lot of it seems to have been worn down over time.

To one side, there's a rack of wooden swords sheltered by a waxed canvas cloth awning, and along one edge are a handful of training dummies, though they don't seem to have seen much use.

And this time since you're not just passing through looking for somewhere else, you notice that there is, somehow, a colorful garden improbably encroaching into the edge of the yard that borders some bushes. ]

[Huh! Wow dang he sure missed this on the way out. Griffin's going to head toward the garden, careful to watch where he steps so that he doesn't step on any young buds.

Maybe looking for a watering can or other supplies to help out with. He... kinda almost sorta remembers some stuff from helping in the community garden.]

[ The garden seems like it hasn’t been weeded for a little bit, only tended in fits and spurts, but the flowers are colorful if wilting slightly. In the center of the tiny garden is an empty patch of slightly loose earth, like someone turned it over recently.

There doesn't appear to be a watering can, there's a bucket for water sitting near the training swords, and you can hear the sound of water somewhere nearby—you saw some canals in your search for the meeting place, so it's probably one of those. Maybe on the other side of the bushes? ]

Edited 2020-02-29 06:03 (UTC)

[Well, before he sets off on a water-gathering venture, he's gonna do what he can to pull out the weeds. Griffin rolls up his sleeves and gets to work, though...

Who? Took something from the garden??? This, admittedly, worries him. Keeping it in mind, he pats down the dirt so there isn't just this hole, but. If he sees anyone, he makes a mental note to question then.]

[ When you pat the soil down, it actually feels... hard, like there's something underneath, but not buried very deeply? ]

[oh wait i interpreted wrong i thought there was a hole nvm

...Huh. Okay, curious, he sifts through the dirt to investigate what it could be. If it's part of the garden, and if Lark wanted him to check on it, it might be important?]

[ Your hand meets solid wood, and clearing some of the dirt away, you find a small wooden box made of mahogany. ]

[Gonna open the box!!!

But like, carefully and reverently. Y'know.]

[ Inside the box are—photographs, a whole stack of them. Some of them are candid photos of members of avante en garde, and a particularly large number of you, largely smiling widely; there’s a lot of photos of Sekhmet, too, cooking food, trying things at the café, resting post-workout. She even seems to have caught Persephone smiling once. There’s one of dancing with Cobalt, and of Wednesday showing her music; drinking with Cardigan and Amaranth.

There’s Harpy making breakfast, and Shishiou playing the piano; Gold making a baking abomination; Nitro and Nemesis cracking jokes together. Kaguya pouring two cups of tea. There’s even one of Kohime sitting on a branch.

Not a one of them seems creased or dirty; they all seem like they’ve been very well taken care of. ]

Edited 2020-02-29 06:36 (UTC)

[Oh.

He wasn't prepared to see Harpy and Nitro again.]

[He... slowly sits down, absorbing each photo one by one. Soaking in the memories of that time in their lives.

God. He missed them.]

[...Dammit. Griffin places the photo back in the box, and closes the lid. He will protect this box WITH HIS LIFE.

It seems like a shame up keep it hidden away, in the dirt. He takes it with him, along with a bucket to get some water.]

[ You tuck the box under your arm, fetch the bucket, and go poking around in search of the water. There's a slightly worn path through the bushes and grass, and it leads you to the edge of one of the canals, under a tall shade tree. The water flows slowly into the main trunk of the canal, with a gentle rushing sound; above, the sky is just slightly overcast, like it might rain later, and it makes the green of the plants look all the more vibrant.

It looks like someone has carved something into the trunk of the tree at some point, a long time ago.

At the bottom of the tree is a roughly rectangular oilcloth bundle. ]

[There's so many secret bundles?

Just gonna dip that bucket in for some water. This is so charming and peaceful that, like, it's easy to forget the miserable war that lay ahead of her life.

Anyway. Since he's here, might as well peek at the carving, and what's in the oilcloth.]

[ On closer inspection, some of the carvings seem to be scratches measuring two sets of heights over time, one of which gets way taller than the other; there’s also some that look like a character-based language. One is two sets of names carved; one name says “Lark” and the other... has been scratched out so aggressively that it’s illegible.

Inside the bundle is a stack of books; several seem to be poetry and one is on philosophy. Into one of the poetry books, someone has tucked a sheet of paper with some lines of self-written poetry, some scratched out or with numerous edits. ]

[Ohhhh my god he's gonna read the baby poetry]

[ there's a lot of half-baked attempts at metaphor, scribbles of bits of imagery for later use, that sort of thing.

"rain falls softly? softly-falling rain? rain = tears? washes away blood?"

"wisteria, purple blossoms, an eternal spring, gods he's probably poems from way better poets than me but I'm pretty sure anyone he's gotten poems from he actually hated. falling petals = season change. something something tending gardens together"

"sky blue, water blue, sapphire? blue like serenity, like joy. blue for love, promises, eternity."

"note: do research about lions? something about pride? you might see the beast at night as a monster, but it's majestic in the day I don't know where I'm going with this metaphor please help" ]

[ohhhhh my god

It is infinitely endearing to see someone else struggle with writing these metaphors because he's definitely got a notebook like this too

Let's see if he can carry the bundle, the mahogany box and the bucket of water back to the garden]

[ universal writing truth: words are real hard

the box isn't that large, and the bundle can helpfully be carried by the cloth, so it's not really very hard at all to carry it all back to the garden! ]

[Hooray! He feels like a big strong man who carried all the groceries from the van in one trip.

Time to water the plants~✿]

[ you sprinkle a bit of water on the plants such that the soil is nicely damp and will probably stay that way for a bit. between your earlier weeding and this, the flowers seem to be perking up a little bit! ]

[Nice! He's not as bad at this gardening thing as he thought.]

There ya go. That oughta keep you for a bit.

[Now, let's bring these little bundles inside, where they belong.]

[ add that to your resume

you head inside, to the sitting area you started out in, with the sword on the wall. there's a hallway both to the left and to the right. which way? ]

[Left I guess?]

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