Roleplaying League: Uta vs Haru

There has not been a lot of communication with Haru and Uta for weeks. Months at this point. The last real occurance was during the Dragon's Eye clearing. People drift apart and for people like Haru, it comes more easily than others to look at 'things' to do instead of build and maintain connections. Check a box habitually. Learn a thing. Carry on. Like a weightless rock in the void of space that rotates slowly on its axis. So the morning chims that go out are almost formality for those that show up on his friend's list within the proximity. 'If you are stopping by Shibuya today, Atelier Nox is having a special on necklaces.' He doesn't even think about who he is sending it to, almost as if he hacked the soundbyte to repeat over his chims.

Haru isn't even working this morning. He is sitting outside and next door at Pela's cafe. A cafe table is situated to enjoy the weather with an umbrella to block the sun as the Artificer enjoys a cup of coffee. The empty plate is only crumbs now, hinting at a breakfast meal and a sweet snack. It looks as if ice cream is a new thing there, judging by the signs, but Haru doesn't appear to notice. His blue eye is cast down the promenade, as glassy and vacant as the amethyst lens over his other eye. Sip. "Are you done?" asks one of the blunter Pela maids. Haru responds in the generalities, "Never." What? She points to the empty plate, "Are you done... with this plate?" Haru turns his head towards the maid, "Yes. Thank you." The maid absconds with the dish.

If there is one thing more easily identifiable than the white traveller's wagon that is approaching is perhaps the larger-than-average Grunty pulling it. Yup, Gwenty is here, this time decked in form-fitting armor, the vibe resonating somewhere between the fantasy and mecha genres. Faux wings, green, and purple wig? Can't be missing.

Then there is the issue of how many Musical Kung-Fu Nurses are there in Elder Tale Online, a question which has not yet been addressed properly. To those who wish for an answer, we can confidently say-

"Hi, brother!", Uta waves, energetically, from the barrel as she yanks on the reins, to pull into the designated parking spot. "Pelapuff Cafe? I see that some things never change."

"Uta," Haru replies with the energy of a sunset. He watches the Grunty-Truck-Barrel-Cosplay vehicle make its way to the storefront. It causes Eve, the black shadow cat, to jump from her concealed corner and run down the street to behind Pela's where it remains as a pair of red eyes in the darkness. "Indeed. Some things do not change," the silver haired young man agrees. A proper improv would be to provide an 'and'. Good ole Yes, And. However Haru doesn't appear to be mentally present. Aloof, like his cat. Which isn't a cat and never will be. It is a Dark Sprite. Any behavior is merely an impression of his will and psyche upon the canvas of element that the sprite forms as.

Haru sips on his coffee again. And by the self same habits, his conversation skills start in on autopilot, "What brings you to Shibuya today?" The series of 'A Day in <x>' continues, starring Uta and Haru in 'A Day in Shibuya'.

"The special on necklaces", is Uta's reply to the question about what brings her here. A rope ladder is unfurled, and she climbs down from the driver's seat. "Unless it's code for something else, which I don't believe it is, it's probably hinting at something else."

Uta stops, frowns, reconsiders her words. Her finger swipes left, then makes little hopping motions, like those little jumping balls hopping across lyrics for sing-alongs, while she silently mouths what she's just said. "...I mean-"

There is a moment of silence. A the faintest sigh of resignation, and a slow walks towards the table. "I've been in the Palace Lands," Uta reprises. There is a vibe going on here, and one does not work the wood against the vibe, the Spriggan thinks to herself. At least, so she believes, suddenly doubting herself due to the lack of Woodworking skills.

"Things have happened. You may have read my reports. I hope my reports have found you well."

Wait, no, no, Uta, what are you doing? You were so concerned with the vibe that you forgot to answer the question!

"We haven't spent much time together in a while," She finally says, "and.... well..." Her hand rotates in the air, casually as if she was trying to come up with more words.

"Innuendo," Haru says stoically as he raises the cup to his lips. He sips, lowering it in regal composure. "No, I let that whole double entendre facade go after an experiment with a Sylph that produced the results that were," the hand lowers and he places the cup onto the saucer with a ceramic 'clink', "impolite to discuss, I suppose." His head drifts to the left, words slow and wispy. He counts the people who walk by. A couple walking a dog. Two children playing tag that causes the dog to bark as they run by. An old Lander on a bench, feeding birds scraps of bread.

"I have read the reports," the Artificer says, slowly turning his blue eye to Uta, "Goddess' bless you on your fortune to be at their time and pace. I thought for a while that only Proph had a knack for that sort of thing. That the rest of us had to find our answers through blood over blessing." A finger taps on the table, making the sound of judge's gavel. "How easily blessings are favored over blood. Of course, I'm not one to tell people how they should view it. I recall once that this startup that got lucky during the economic bubble? They built their brand around 'grass roots'. Once they had a taste of fortune though? Just as entitled as the old money that used the 'I earned this' as a shield for what it really was: fortune."

Haru looks down at his cup. There is a bit of coffee left there. Black. No cream or sugar. A starless sky in a cup. "You do not need to finish that statement, Uta. You are you. You pursue what you pursue. Spend your time the way you spend your time. Gardens die without water, sunlight, and soil. Without shelter from storm, disease, and bugs. But the gardener is free to be more than a gardener." He holds up the cup, swirling it around, "Even when their fields wither away. They send a clear message that the crops were not worth it anyway, and life is far too short to think about the paths we did not take. Best to think about the roads we did so we can feel good about ourselves instead of burdened by the infinite we did not."

Uta goes serious, at first. Chin tilted downwards, slightly, slowly scratched by her index finger. After a bit of reflection, however, her chin tilts up again, and her gaze defocuses in the distance.

Thinking continues.

"Perhaps it is not a matter of the crops not being worth it. Perhaps the gardener is just not that good at gardening. Not yet, at least." A glance sideways, towards the interior of the cafe. "If this were a literal garden, perhaps Pela could have helped, but I fear that the green thumb needed here is more of the metaphorical persuasion."

"Chaos having a bigger say than personal skill in what one becomes is... something I have experienced." Uta eventually reprises. "And I have to agree with you there, so many events are not really due to skill or anything. Fate or the Goddesses or Whatever You Want to Call It, there's more Playing Dice With The Universe involved in so many things, especially recent, than raw skill on my part. Whether someone so powerful exists to be able to load the dice, that is a wholly different discussion."

She looks up and away. More people pass along the street. Gwenty looks up from quietly chewing the grass, and her eyes glint as she eyes a clothesline full of garments pinned there to dry.

"Well, okay, to be fair, we get to load our own dice, even if just a little bit at times. I suppose I'm bad at time management. In the past, when dice started rolling, they were done by lunchtime. There was no need to set an alarm or anything. But lately they started rolling, and kept rolling for weeks on end, until the grunty came home. And when the last grunty was in the stable, one would stare at the clock and go, 'Aaaaaah! How'd it get that late?!'. And that's where one learns the hard way that the crops, in the meantime, suffered. And one could have loaded the dice by setting a timer."

She rubs her forehead on one side, and with a hint of worry, she adds, "I hope it's not too late to do something about the crops?"

The blue eyes closes as Haru relaxes back against his cafe chair. A western wind gives the thinker a carefree look as it tussles his silvery hair. "In that metaphor, wouldn't Elly be the Pela here? The wordplay helps us step back from what is and look at it in a new lens. The paths are often repeated across the different scenarios. The energy source of a MagiTek engine is similar to anything else that replaces combustion or steam technology. It only needs to find its family within the metaphorical."

On the topic of 'Fate', Haru opens his eye once more, squinting as a beam of light peaks through the cloud to shine on his face. The perils of outdoor activities: Light. "They are real. We are little more than their pets. Some care for us, yes, and just as many of them do not. Or they have bad days, bad months, like the gardener once did, and the sum of those periods is not what defines them. Nor what they do next. Who they favor next. What they want their little pets to be jumping at like scraps at a table," he says with neutrality in his voice. "We have little to say in what morsels we get, only in how loudly we bark," he quickly takes back the rest of his coffee. "So I go down a different path. Even if there is no food beyond the comfort of the Mistress' hearth, I'd rather hunt it out than be beholden to them. I do not want to sound ungrateful to their blessings, but if they saw us as children and not as pets, then they would want us less dependant on their whims. Yet," a complex enchantment of a stained glass cathedral is constructed between his eyes, "how many of us can advance our skills without them? Without us barking at the moonlight?"

"I blame people for things, Uta," Haru explains, "I am critical of their character. This, too, is the dark side of Hope. To believe in what could be, not what ~is~, and forge with fire as hot as hell to make it real. There are only a few who I can say that I accept for what they were, will be, and are. I call them family. And for family I leave guilds and Alliances to be closer to them. Prioritize what we need over what others need. And wield that much hated part of Hope to forge us stronger than any goddess could hope to be." The young man pushes his chair out and stands. Tall hooman. "So as many chances as you need to take at gardening, dear sister, so long as you do not abandon your family. Family forgives. It is their power, together."

Uta processes everything in silence. "I had already been thinking of consulting our Metaphorical Pela in this matter," is the first thing she offers. "And I agree, there is so much we do not know about about the Powers that Be in this world. Perhaps... perhaps they are actually more similar to us than we think. But that is another personal quest of mine, and this is probably neither the time nor place for discussing it."

"We hunt fo our food..." A nearby clothesline is now a maid uniform short, and Gwenty, now suspiciously sporting a maid uniform, has returned to quietly chewing on the grass. "...or we cultivate it. The crops are supposed to yield grains, grains one should not work the wood against."

Uta stands shortly after Haru does. "Family forgives," Uta repeats, with a bow. It is polite to take leave, but Haru likely wants some time alone at this point. "I think I'll go to visit the Metaphorical Pelapuff Cafe," she says, as a matter of taking leave. "Take care, until then."

He shall not be followed. Not yet. Uta may not know much about Herbology or Farming, but she does know about Pharmacy, and about how dangerous it is to overnourish a patient who's been starving. Crops are likely the same. Baby steps. Small morsels, properly spaced. Properly timed.

Properly spacetimed.

She will sit back down. Wait for a maid, ask for a menu, and enjoy some time.

Perhaps swing by Atelier Nox when Yumi that is tending to it, to purchase a present for Wake.

Uta has heard they have a special on necklaces.