Something Blue

    There are times when even a Priestess and Baroness can feel stranded. The world pressing in at all sides, limiting their choices and options, and then their one escape is cut off. So it is now with Elly, as she stands under one of the arches of the Arcade of Eas and the rain pours. This is no light spring rain, but a dedicated effort to fill the lake to bursting.

    She is not alone. A few lander children are playing in the area. They seem untroubled by the rain, however, racing out into it and making a great show of splashing in front of the statue of the Beautiful One. Their antics bring a smile to Elly's lips, even as she sighs over being rather caught in place.

    "This is somehow familiar, isn't it?" calls out a familiar voice.

    "I think it was.. raining the morning after we met, wasn't it?"

    "All day. As I recall I was wearing white and you had to give me a coat when I managed to get soaked through," replies Tae.

    A laugh and Elly turns to scoop up and embrace her fiance. "You know, you are wearing white again, aren't you?"

    "I never learn, do I?" replies Tae, laughing.

    The sound of pounding feet draws attention back to the world outside the sanctuary of the arches. The lander children are playing tag in the rain. They have enhanced their sport with two-footed leaping into the largest puddles they can find. They are quite good at splashing. While some might wonder if such behavior is appropriate in front of the statue of the Goddess, Elly smiles at it approvingly.

    "You know, Elly, I think you are falling back into a problem that I helped you with when we first met."

    "What problem is that?" she replies, her tone growing more concerned. Those were, after all, difficult times.

    Tae steps out into the rain, spinning on a heel to face her fiance. She smiles warmly as she's immediately soaked. "You are watching life instead of joining the fun!" She punctuates this with a remarkable splash of her own. Which probably used wave artes, honestly. It soaks the Baroness thoroughly.

    Like an arrow from the string, Elly races out at Tae, who bounds away in a fit of giggles. She is certainly fast. Elly shows no signs of gaining on her as they sprint through the ongoing game of tag.

    The spectacle of priestess chasing fiancee through the area draws the attention of the lander kids. They handle it the only way children possibly can.

    "The Priestess is it!"

    The children scatter in response, racing away from each other to evade the new, challenging player in their game. They have no way to match the speed of adults, much less adventurers, of course, but they seem delighted at the way this game is playing out.

    While Elly doesn't immediately change her targets, she does embrace the new game. She abruptly switches direction and speeds towards a young girl. The response is something of a screech in panic, followed by wild racing for cover.

    Elly does not go full-speed on the child. That would hardly be fair! But she does make a show of pursuing her. She lets her speed eventually flag and pretends to be tired out by the whole matter. Which only draws playful teasing from one of the boys, who gets pursued rather more seriously. At least until he's struggling to stay ahead.

A short melody vocalized by the crystalline voice of a Sage of Song. The shimmer of a gem. An explosive updraft of Air magic.

"Wheee!", exclaims the Lander Sylph boy which is shot aloft by the gust. "That's great," exclaims Uta from below, holding onto her staff and gesticulating. "Now spread your wings!"

The child's expression resolves in that intensity of determination and devotion to the task only children seem to be able to manage; tiny fists are clenched, and minute wings spread. The fall is slowed!

"That's it! Bravo!", rejoices Uta, shaking her fists upwards in celebration. "Woo-hoo! You did it! Way to go!"

A second kid leaps up and down right next to the Spriggan, "Me too! Me too! It's my turn now!" Uta glances down. And bursts into laughter. "You are human, you can't feather fall naturally! That's just for races with wings."

The little girl stops, freezes, her features starting a turn for the worse. Her breathing threatens to have a start.

As soon as Uta has caught the feather-falling Sylph, she glances down, notices the incoming crisis, and gently places the first kid down. She drops to squat, looks at the little girl eye to eye, the incipient tears in those young blue eyes meeting the amber-gold of the Spriggan.

"You are a human," she states, dead serious. "You don't do the hard work. You're the boss. You survey your domain from your castle, and -tell the winged races- where to fly, what to get you, and when."

The little girl's inchoate despair swerves sideway to confusion, concentration, lights up into a dawn of understanding.

Uta takes this moment to lean forward, abruptly, and whisper, "You're the boss!" And still balanced precariously in the squatting position, one hand sweeps in the direction of the main group of kids playing tag at some distance, and locks onto Wake's majestic figure emerging from them "Just like the Baroness. See?"

The little girl stares for a few seconds, then her chest puffs up. "Send him to fly over there!", she exclaims, indicating a random point in the sky.

"Consider it done, Tiny Lady Bombast!", Uta replies, standing up abruptly, with a salute. "Wait, what?", exclaims the Sylph boy, confused. "You've heard the Miniature Baroness. You have work to do!"

A crystalline melody is intoned, and a confused Sylph boy is shot up in the sky by a burst of colorful air magic, to exactly that point in the sky that was graced by the noble-in-traininig's indication.

Luckily, the confusion lasts but a moment. "Wheeeeeeee!", goes the boy, after the initial confusion has passed. He's really mastered his feather fall! Tiny clapping can be heard from below.

    Right now, the Baroness is not looking much like a boss. She is more like a woman who forgot her umbrella in a monsoon. But it matters not at all! She has bigger issues. Something pressing. Something that must be addressed to set the world right.

    She is /it/. She must not be /it/ anymore!

    The boy is tagged. He now has the burden of being it. But.. he is not alone.

    "We are both it, now!" Elly cries out. Which of course frees her to focus back on Tae, who has made a show of sitting down and doing her nails.

    It is less like tag and more like a duel between them now. Without dangerous attacks, certainly, but with a lot of flashy magic, laughter, and splashing. Seeing Elly is about to catch her, Tae does exactly what any wise woman would in this situation.

    "Uta! Help me!"

Uta's pointy eyes perk up. She has been summoned! "Utachu, I choose you!", "Help me, Uta Wan Kenuta, you're my only hope!", something like that.

"I must go. My people need me!", she says, as she puts down the little boy and salutes. She darts off into the distance, then returns at a rushing pace again. "Be a responsible and compassionate leader," she tells the little girl. "And if in doubt on how it's done, ask the Baroness."

That said, she darts back to Tae. The little jingle from before is weaved into a far more intricate melody, and Uta's staff reacts correspondingly, with twisting helical tendrils of light and magic spinning dancing around it. "I shall not allow you to confer the status of 'it' on Tae! Because-" Silence, concentration. "-well, she asked so politely- actually, no, she kind of called out. In need. In need, yes!"

The chant is over, and a polychrome blast is shot at Wake. It's just a bunch of blobs of light, the rough color and shape of a Tae-like figure, but enough to confuse a pursuer at high speed.

"And don't make up rules!", Uta adds. "You can't have multiple 'it's. That's actually called a 'them'!"

    "That is cheating, Uta! I am in the pursuit of justice!"

    Well, really she just wants to catch Tae and tickle her senseless. Which is arguably the best form of justice ever invented. Tae, however, is hiding behing Uta's protective cover. Which seems to be working.

    "You would have been amazing at my concerts. What a light show!" Tae's impressed, it seems. She is also totally using Uta as a shield. Which, while not necessarily cheating, is certainly dirty play.

    Elly does recover, but by that point, she's had to slow down. Not that Tae is running anymore. She's just being a good friend and using Uta as cover.

    "Come out, lovely maiden! You must face your accuser!" Elly is definitely hamming this up for the audience. The children are not even pretending to play tag anymore. They simply watch the exchange.

    "Do you think the Baroness will catch her?" asks one little boy of his older sister.

    "Well she has to at some point, they are together every night, silly!"

Uta's tenure as a shield is a meteoric rise and fall, the cautionary tale of a one-hit-wonder, and just barely adequate for that maneuver. "In the real world? I would have sucked at your concerts," Uta snorts. "Unless you wanted a college dropout to hold a college level lecture on the semiotics of European Renaissance literature. I doubt your managers would have approved of that as an opening act."

Now that the chase has moved on, Uta stands in the downpour; her waterproof hooded mantle, done billowing due to a particularly powerful gust of wind, deflates. "I was nowhere as interesting in the real world, and I joined this game right in time for the Apocalypse, so..."

    "Uta, that sounds pretty interesting to me," Tae assures. "My managers didn't let me do much of anything. I couldn't even go out without a schedule and planned media time. That's why I retired." She laughs softly, shaking off those memories.

    Elly has closed in now, and she has come to a halt, looking past at Uta and Tae with an imperious arch of her left eyebrow. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. It is up to you."

    Tae, gathering every ounce of her dignity, looks around Uta and sticks out of her tongue at Elly. Some of the landers look suprised at this offense, but most of them laugh at the ridiculous scene.

    "Oh that is it!" Elly is not going to take that lying down. Or standing around, either, for that matter. In older times, she would do her little shadow jump thing, but instead she blasts the area with a shocking blast of light from her shackles.

    "Gah! That's not fair!"

    A moment later, and Elly makes her move, rushing over to scoop up Tae and cast her over a shoulder. Tae, embracing her role, kicks and complains at the indignity of this treatment.

    "Oh fine! I give up!" she declares at last, growing still. If a bit grumpy and sulky about the whole thing.

    "Oh, how are you doing today, Uta? Are you enjoying the rain?" Tae does really change the topic that fast. Sure, she can't really /see/ Uta at the moment, but she knows that she's within earshot.

"What? Oh? Uh? Oh, yes, doing fine," Uta replies, snapping back to reality from one of her spells. A hand is flicked to Tae in dismissal. "Yes, pretty much what it sounds like. The music industry, as the name says, it's an industry, and I lacked the professional qualifications for manufacturing the product." And then she frowns. She spends some time in concentration, as if for pondering a philosophical, existential question of the utmost significance.

"Yes. Yes, I think I like the rain," she replies, somber, serious. Her raincoat flutters in the wind over the roaring of the weather, then she continues, "It's a bit annoying but I think I have grown to like it."

Not bad for one who, months before, would complain 'Water! Why does it ALWAYS have to be water?!' every time there was anything remotely humid in a quest.

"Lady Bombast? Is she bothering you?", asks Uta, with concern, holding her hands together like a pangolin. "Because if she is, I'm going to tell her to continue."

    "Oh my beloved never bothers me, Uta," replies Elly cheerfully. Sure, she looks rather awful, with her hair lank due to the rain. And her clothes are soaked through. She turns to consider Tae's.. well, her back, really. She can't exactly look her in the eye. Hm. That is not right.

    The baroness sets Tae down for a moment, then scoops her up in a proper 'princess' carry instead.

    "This is more like it," Tae says, settling in. Yes, they are still soaked, but at least now she has her dignity! Mostly.

    "Rain is wonderful!" says Elly. "It is one of my favorite of Tae's songs. Truly a lovely song." That earns a smile and some laughter.

    "Can we get somewhere dry, though? It's not exactly balmy out here, you know? Oh, and please keep up the compliments."

"We can probably fix that!", Uta says, walking towards the duo. Her singing resumes, and this time, the magic resonates stronger than ever; the Heart of the Maiden, the gem forming the focus of Uta's staff, shows a special attunement to the element of Water (not surprising, given how, as Uta has probably told Wake, it's actually the crystallized heart of a Siren). The staff is waved around the soaked duo, and blobs of water flow out from Tae and Wake, orbiting the magital focus in sync with the song.

It's not a complete drying, there's no time, and too much water still falling, but Uta flicks away what she's collected up to now, and says, "C'mon, we'll get you dried properly in there," she smiles, as she flicks away what she's collected.

"Oh, love that song!", Uta exclaims in agreement to Wake. "I always liked it when it came up on the radio. It- wait." Silence. Realization. "...I've never asked for your autograph, Tae! We should fix that!"

    The mention of an autograph gets Tae and Elly to share a look, then Tae bursts into a positive fit of giggles. She is delighted, considering her smile, but it is funny. Not only in her current position but also in the whole context of asking for an autograph in a game.

    "We will see to it, I promise," says Tae seriously. Mostly seriously. "Now get me somewhere dry and warm NOW!" she demands of Elly. "Or you'll find out how icy your bed can be."

    Elly does not need a threat, really. She's already on the way. And wasting little time. One of the perks of supernatural agility is that she can race on and not jostle her fiancee at all!

    "Have no fear, my sweet. I will keep you warm," she teases gently. And off they go...