Don't Skip Your Flu Shot

[purrtagonist]

Who: Everyone! It's a mingle post for the first week of Struxta sickness!!
Where: All around the temple
When: During the first week of the sickness
Rating PG?? At most??
What: Curry, blankets and pillow forts, and other assorted sick things

[With the Struxta illness sweeping through the temple like a wildfire, and with so many new arrivals trying to get adjusted to temple living, it's probably no surprise that things around the Astoria's little pocket of space have gotten a little hectic. Feeling under the weather? Looking for something warm to soothe that scratchy throat? Just want to curl up underneath a pile of blankets and not move for like, seven hours or so? Never fear! A Mysterious Helper (TM) has you covered]

A. Curry in the Kitchen

[The kitchen smells extremely nice during lunchtime this week, the only meal of the day that isn't pre-prepared by the misty servants. Like the scent of coffee intermingled with complementary spices. Those who take the initiative to investigate will find something pleasant waiting for them. A few pots of fresh made curry and steamed rice; a few pots of miso soup (a. . . little on the salty side, sorry); and some freshly brewed coffee already poured into individual mugs, along with cream and sugar and whatever additives your heart desires. It's all strewn out across the counter tops with a handwritten note pinned against the wall above the stove:]

Help yourself, and get well soon.

[There isn't any sign of the mysterious chef when you enter the kitchen, and if you arrive near the end of lunch hour, some of the food and coffee miiiiight be a bit cold. But hey! This might be a good chance to mingle with some of your new coworkers who are also seeking out a warm meal to help quell some of their cold symptoms. Just please don't sneeze into the curry pot, thanks. . .]

[Lunch will be laid out in the kitchen every day at lunchtime for the entire first week of the sickness. Help yourselves!]

B. The Temple Hallways

[THERE ARE BLANKETS AND PILLOWS EVERYWHERE]

[. . . no, seriously. For some reason, it's like you can't even walk down a hallway without tripping over a bundled up blanket or a pillow. What's up with that! For the most part, they're normal bedtime accessories, although you may find a bundle of pillows and blankets stacked up into an ENTIRE PILLOW FORT if you're lucky.]

[Pinned to the walls of the hallways (not every hallway, but enough of them that it should be easy to find one of the signs without wandering for too long) are more handwritten signs:]

Whoever can build the tallest pillow fort will receive one (1) high five as a grand prize. Good luck. Blanket provider is not responsible for anyone accidentally falling asleep in the hallways and blocking your route back to your bedroom.

[Hm. Well, that's weird. Anyway! You can build a pillow fort if you want, grab some blankets to take back to your room, or. . . nap in the hallways. Or do whatever! They're all free for the taking. Maybe you could even team up with another Circle member to try and win that extremely coveted high five??]

C. Wildcard

[Don't feel like interacting with any of the above? That's okay! Make your own prompt based on the event stuff over here, or just use this post for. . . whatever you want! It's totally and completely open for mingling for new and old characters alike, so. HAVE FUN ♥]

Comments

[hatamon]

pillowfort

[No one said not to use magic when building these things, right? (Besides, he needs the practice.)

After piling together what pillows he can, Takeru summons up what appears to be a solid block of light under the whole thing, raising it higher and higher...

...until he coughs, the magic disipates, and Pillow Mountain comes tumbling down around anyone unfortunate enough to be close by.]

Sorry! [That smile says he isn't actually sorry at all.]

kitchen

[Really, the way Takeru sees it, he's got new powers, no partner, and everything to prove. If the Circle really is supposed to be his team in the same way the Chosen Children were, the last kind of first impression he wants to leave on them is that of someone useless enough to immediately get sick. So when he feels the illness that's going around begin to set in, he quickly decides the best course of action is to isolate himself in one of the empty rooms and wait for the fever to pass. The only problem with this master plan? He does, eventually, have to eat.

That's why Takeru can be found skulking around the kitchen at some godawful hour of the night, blanket draped across his shoulders and hat pulled down over his eyes like he thinks he's evading the paparazzi. Despite his best efforts, fumbling through unfamiliar territory with shaky hands does end up making a lot of noise. Catch him off guard and that bowl of leftover curry he's holding is going all over the floor.]

kitchen

[parttimes]

[It's going to be even worse than expected, honestly.

Kou's got a very loose grasp of his powers right now; he can't help it, because when his head is this out of it, they're even harder to control. So it is that he wakes up from a dead sleep by sneezing, and ends up teleporting to the first person awake at this hour who needs help.

Which is... poor Takeru, who is trying to get some food, and definitely qualifies.

Sorry, Takeru.

A random guy is just appearing out of nowhere in the kitchen right next to you, and then staggering and clutching at a countertop to stop himself from falling.]

[hatamon]

[Forget the floor. That bowl's flying out of his hands so that cold curry can splatter all over both of them. Good job, team!

Takeru doesn't manage much more than an undignified squawk before he takes a step back, trying to figure out what the hell even just happened. He's definitely not sick enough to be hallucinating.]

Um. [When in doubt, try to have a sense of humor? A little weakly:] You could warn a guy.

[parttimes]

S...sorry.

[That's grumbled out as Kou slowly pushes himself to his feet and opens his eyes properly and... looks at the mess of curry they've kind of...simultaneously both made.]

Oh.

[Oh.]

Dang, seriously, sorry about that. Let me help you clean it up.

[hatamon]

It's okay. [Never let your guard down in Magic Town, lesson learned.

Takeru puts the empty bowl back down on the counter and shrugs off the blanket. Since it's already experienced the wrath of curry, he figures he'd might as well use it to mop up the worst of the mess. (Well, that and he can't be bothered to go searching through the temple at this time of night.)]

Do you always get around like that?

[It's a cool power, but dude. Seriously.]

[parttimes]

No... sorry. Again.

[He scrubs his face with a hand, and then meanders over to the cabinets to grab a towel to help out.]

I try to avoid it, usually, but I can't seem to control it as well now that I'm sick with space flu. It's a pain in the ass.

[hatamon]

[Takeru gives up on kneeling in favor of just outright sitting on the floor, sluggishly wiping away curry. It's probably a good thing Kou volunteered to help, because at the rate he's going this could take all night.]

So you could end up anywhere? [Yikes.] That's gotta be the worst symptom I've heard of yet.

[The prize no one wanted to win.]

[parttimes]

[Kou just flaps a hand at that as he crouches to help clean up that mess. Yikes... they got it everywhere.]

Technically, I can only teleport to where there are people who need a hand of some sort. But right now...

[They all need a hand, don't they? Everyone's a mess.]

Anyway--what're you doing out here so late?

[hatamon]

That sounds even worse.

[Just sayin'.]

Why? Is there a curfew I don't know about?

[parttimes]

Won't deny it.

[It still sucks.]

And nah, nothing like that. It's just kind of weird to be wandering this kitchen late. Did you not get enough food earlier?

[hatamon]

[Under normal circumstances he'd be a much smoother liar than this, but give him a break here, all this talking is tiring him out.]

Just avoiding the crowd. Who wants to be around a bunch of sick people? [He can't help sounding just a little irritated at being questioned.] Don't worry about it. If you think you can stay in one place for a while, you should go back to bed.

[parttimes]

... Huh.

[Prickly!! Not that Kou minds; he just shrugs.]

You're not wrong about that. I was just checking. Anyway, it's pretty smart to try to avoid the plague, so maybe there's some wisdom to midnight food runs.

pillowfort

[chromatized]

[ hmmmm, he recognizes that kind of smile. Ludger's used it quite a few times on Julius, and Elle used it on him. and every time, the one on the receiving end folded like a wet paper towel.

but, uh, more importantly- ]

You can use spirit artes?

[hatamon]

Uh, I don't think so?

[He looks at his hands. That didn't feel very spirit-y.]

But first I'd have to know what that is.

[chromatized]

It's, um. [ this is....... not his area of expertise....... and it's kind of outside his realm of basic knowledge too... ]

It's... what happens when you channel mana? And uh, shape it into a spell. Like your beam of light.

... Or so people have told me.

[hatamon]

I take it you're not volunteering to be my tutor.

[A shame.]

Whatever this is, it came from Astoria, so I haven't really figured it out yet. What'd you get?

[chromatized]

Yeah, I doubt you'd want a tutor who only learned the material by proxy.

[ uh, say what. ]

Even if Astoria... gave me something, I doubt it would work. I can't use spirit artes at all.

[ he is, quite possibly, operating under the (very mistaken) assumption that all magic = spirit artes. ]

[hatamon]

It's not like I could do this kinda thing back home either. C'mon, are you saying you haven't tried practicing at all?

[Coach mode: activated. He sidesteps the pillow pile on the floor to stand right beside Ludger.]

I'll help you!

[Run.]

[chromatized]

Practice what? [ beep boop, Elympian using spirit artes, does not compute. ]

What are you doing? [ he says, as he completely fails to run. ]

[hatamon]

Being your moral support! [Obviously!] I can't believe you're not more excited about having new powers.

Figuring it out is easy. You've just gotta focus. [He props up one of the pillows so that it's standing a little higher than the others.] Here, think of this as your target.

[chromatized]

Uh, well... last time that happened, it didn't go so well for me... [ it kicked off an Epic Quest full of friendship and trauma. also he got an eye impaled by magic gears or something??? though that bit is admittedly a little fuzzy. ]

Focus, huh? On what, exactly? [ that's the nice things of martial artes, you don't really have to think about them or chant or anything. you just do. ]

[hatamon]

That's just one more reason why it's a good thing to get the hang of what you can do early.

[Logical if you don't think about it too hard. He wants to see some cool magic!]

Hmm. [He brings a hand to his chin like he's giving Ludger a serious appraisal.] Could you do anything special at home? The first thing I'd try is tapping into that same feeling.

[chromatized]

[ but Takeru, he doesn't even know what he can do, how can he get the hang of an unknown. ]

... I was a good chef? Nothing that seems like it'd be relevant here.

[ judging by the way his eyes slide away, he's e-v-a-d-i-n-g. ]

Kitchen

[unrecovered]

[Sadly, "some godawful hour of the night" is usually when Wash is most active. The semi-usual bout of nightmares wakes him up, and while the robot plague hasn't gotten much worse than a head cold for him, head cold symptoms still make it difficult to go back to sleep.]

[So he's wandering the halls, checking in on rooms where he hears coughing to make sure everyone is as okay as they're able to be in the middle of a plague outbreak, and finally heads to the kitchen, where he finds someone else awake, rattling around.]

Hey. You doing okay?

[hatamon]

[That he doesn't notice anyone else is there until spoken to is probably an answer in itself. Luckily, Takeru doesn't let the bowl slip further than back down to the counter.

He should have expected that some of the others would still be up. There are so many people around that the temple always feels kind of crowded, and while numbers are good for the job Astoria is asking them to do, it also means getting time to sulk privately is almost impossible. Still, it's not like he has more right to the kitchen than anyone else. He doesn't turn around, but there's an effort to will some of the tension out of his voice before he speaks.]

Yeah. There's still some food left if you're hungry.