we're all tired souls [open]

[breakingvoice]

WHO: Lina Geteilt and you!
WHERE: In the city
WHEN: Through the 16th, then to be updated when part two happens
WHAT: August catch-all
WARNINGS: None yet!

a. it's taking me away to another place

One second Lina's biking down the streets of Tisse on her way back from work with black pants cuffed around her ankles and a Big Bang Burger vest and visor on, and the next, the world around her shifts. The buildings become less modern, archways appear over the road ahead of her, and at the end, directly in front of her, is a massive cathedral. One she remembers from her dreams, from the fight she had with Eren and the dragon that nearly killed them both. But she's... she's absolutely awake right now, isn't she?

In another wave of whatever is causing this, armored soldiers appear and line the pathway to the cathedral, some with massive shields forming a clear blockade directly in front of it. They do not seem willing to attack Lina, nor do they seem especially willing to move, so if she doesn't stop, she's going to crash right into them.

If it were possible to do the extremely anime bike skid on an acoustic bicycle, she'd be doing it, but right now she's content with just slowing to a stop and kicking the stand down. "What the hell?" she says to herself as the head of one of the armored soldiers jerks to attention. She hears him say, quite clearly, "Lady Two!", and the blockade in front of her... separates. The path to the cathedral is clear. But Lina is more concerned with looking around, trying to see if anybody else got sucked into this waking dream with her, because there's... there's no way she goes into the cathedral. She's not that stupid.

b. a presence lingering, watching [for Satsuki, weekend of the 4th]

No, Lina hasn't been out on the town like this in a while. But she'd been gifted a ticket to her first event to make her a real live wrestlegirl, and it's to watch a girl who's honestly pretty cute kick some ass from the front row. She doubted she'd be able to hang out with the talent before the show, so she filed to her seat and mostly just messed around on her phone (discreetly looking up wrestling terms) until the actual show started.

Lina felt... comfortable there, she realized as everything sort of happened in front of her. When her benefactor walked out, she and the rest of the audience sang along wordlessly with her theme music, and she did the foot-stomping and raised her voice when Satsuki prepared for that elbow drop, and... well, okay, for wrestlers that weren't Satsuki she kind of just went with how the people around her reacted, but the point was that she was enjoying herself. A lot.

After the show is over, she's hanging out just outside the auditorium, again messing around on her phone but this time killing time with gacha, now that her AP is back. She didn't make any signs for the show, though she definitely considered it, but she's chilling in a loose-fitting tank top and a blue plaid button-down that's hanging open, the back of it reaching about halfway down her cutoff shorts. Satsuki was right about the crowd here, but she knows what Lina looks like. Shouldn't be too hard to spot her.

c. the dreams and memories are never buried [???]

((hit me up at roseward if you want to do any threads in particular!!))

Comments

for Jen

[breakingvoice]

d. the raven is calling, sowing the seeds Ugh. Why is it so early. Lina's eyes open to the sound of what she recognizes as Jen's alarm only because she's lived with her for so long, but it's just. It's way louder than it needs to be? What the hell. She doesn't remember going into Jen's room last night and falling asleep with her. That's not even a thing that's happened more than once. Lina reaches over with her right arm to shut off the alarm, since it doesn't look like Jen is here, and—it's still going. Wait. She tries again. Is her arm... asleep? She wasn't sleeping on it, but it's like she can't even feel it right n— Jen's voice comes out of her mouth in a wordless yelp that could very well have been a scream if she hadn't seen this happen once before. But her brain hasn't woken up enough yet, and she ends up calling out for Jen as her legs kick off the sheets and she tries to push herself out of bed. It doesn't work, and she takes another second to force herself to use her left arm instead, and finally she at least manages to turn off the alarm. Now she just has to go into her own room and hope to god that Jen is the one inside her body. She hasn't even processed what Jen had even gone to sleep in or how her hair is getting in Lina's face or how every single thing she tries to do with her hands, her brain needs to second-guess because there just isn't an arm there.

[burndownforwhat]

[ meanwhile, Jen's body clock is suffering another malfunction. her mind is like "hey it's time, get up!" but her body just... doesn't want to. it's never not wanted to get up with such a ferocity in her entire life. this is different from recouping lost sleep due to night terrors or just being exhausted from the last day - pleasantly, or otherwise. the feeling was akin to being buried under a leaden blanket, even if she's somehow thrown off the sheets by now and just sort of haphazardly lay sprawled atop the mattress otherwise. her mind is at least vaguely aware of all the fuss and bother happening in the next room over. it awakened part of her senses in another attempt to rouse her from her slumber but all it does, in the end, is make her push off of the mattress to roll herself over. -huh. that was easier than it ... usually.... is... ] Rrrmnot again... [ is it sad that she's woken up enough times this month in another body that it was starting to feel normalized? Jen is just so tired, physically and mentally, of this happening, that she doesn't do anything but sit and stare at the hand - the right hand - laying down next to her on the pillow. she flexes the fingers in drowsy wonder until the door opens up. she squints in the pre-morning darkness, trying to make out the figure. trying to make out her surroundings, too. ] Who's... there? [ oh. she knows that voice. of course she's not using to hearing it being this close; not by degrees. ] Lina?

[breakingvoice]

[oh okay that's. that's her own voice, saying her name, which means whoever's in her room at least knows who she is. the easiest answer is to assume that it is Jen, and she might as well ask, right?] Jen? It's you, right? [she's super not about to turn her light on, though she knows exactly where it is because this is her room. it's way too early and she'll basically nuke both their retinas if she did that.] This was bound to fucking happen, wasn't it. [she tries rubbing at her eyes because of how tired she still is and nothing happens. which is cool and great. never mind, forget it.]

[burndownforwhat]

[ and that's her voice and body replying back to her. well. that was one less thing to worry about. besides the elephant in the room. which Jen was going to just walk headlong into. ] Oh, no. Lina! [ she bolts upright, feeling only a bit unsteady because wow Lina's so... light, by comparison? but agile, too, in that way. no matter, she's awake now, and alarmed now. ] Are you okay!?

[breakingvoice]

[yeah, turns out suddenly being without an arm is a pretty good way to wake the hell up, even if this is around the time Lina's gone to sleep on some of her worse nights. she's super not going back to bed anytime soon.] No? [she walks further in, keeping the door open to help with the ambient light situation, and sits down on the edge of her own bed in a body that's not hers and not right but there's a lot of stuff about Lina at the moment that isn't right and that's. kind of a big deal. does she still get to be freaked out by this? given their whole conversation?] You've been through this before. What the hell do we do to fix it?

a

[servileness]

[ It's by chance that Clover is nearby even though she's been thinking about reaching out to Lina more and more. Her conversation with Eren made her want to try. She's still afraid of what will happen, the dream gone wrong still lingering in the back of her mind, but today wasn't planned.

It is all too clear who's near, though, once the scenery shifts, and immediately, Clover becomes fifty times more uncomfortable. This environment that she, too, knows makes her skin crawl.

Her arms are crossed, her fingers curled tightly to form fists to hide her shaking hands. ]

Will you be Lady Two?

[breakingvoice]

[of course. of course this is what would happen. Lina is exhausted and she just wants to go home and she doesn't want to get in another fight with her so-called sister and maybe they'll both go easy on each other! maybe Lina won't have enough fight in her. even she recognizes by now that she was being... very, very cruel in that dream. to somebody who wasn't Clover.]

Depends.

[to somebody she watched die. she clenches her own fists and glares from under the brim of her hat. it's certainly a scene, isn't it? everything about to go down while Lina still smells of hot grease. but she's experienced this once before. in Bosuma. this is a bigger illusion, but it... could still be one. she has to know. that Clover isn't already attacking her is a good sign.]

Are you Lady Four right now? Or are you—[her fists tighten reflexively.]—Clover Jaeger?

[servileness]

[ The soldiers salute and name, "Lady Four!"

Clover, in return, doesn't look at them, doesn't acknowledge them. This isn't an identity she wants to assume. It's not a role she wants to play. It's not the person she wants to be. ]

I am someone who doesn't want to be in the Cathedral City. [ She looks at said cathedral. ] At least it's a time where we don't have to battle these soldiers. I'd hate for us to have to fight.

[breakingvoice]

[as though Lina does. as though Lina wants to be here, faced with nothing but grim reminders. of the person Retrospec says she will become; of the way she treated her sister in that dream; of how she spoke about Clover to her brother, claws and teeth and venom in every word.]

That makes two of us. [she's quiet, and Clover has all her attention.] We can agree that we're not going anywhere near that cathedral, right?

[she might as well try a dark joke. is that even what this is? what do you even say to the person you taunted past the point of sanity? because it wasn't just a dream. she knows that now.]

Nothing over there is worth it.

[servileness]

No... I'm sorry. I don't want to be part of this world, but I'm sure there are answers there.

[ It's the area One rules over, and it has to be for a reason. Clover doesn't want to be an Intoner. Clover doesn't want to be Four. Clover doesn't want much from this world, but she does want to know the why of so many things here. There has to be something in that Cathedral. ]

It's the command center of this world, isn't it?

wildcard

[argone]

It's taken Kara quite a while, but after several hours of staring at herself in the mirror, puzzled and worried and generally trying to figure out how to cope with the loss of a limb and the sudden shift backwards in her senses she thinks she has enough of a handle on things to step outside Jen's bedroom. It helps that she's figured out how to put on the mechanical arm. Lina has probably heard her shuffling around for a while, uncharacteristically not bouncing off walls and being all chipper. Also not being an early riser. Shuffling out into the main apartment, Kara blinks, looking the place over... "...Nice..."

[breakingvoice]

Yeah, it's definitely taken Jen a little longer to get up and about than usual, but given everything else that's been going on, she's really not too surprised? As far as she knows, that Amelia person took her body for a joyride or something. If that's even what happened. She's still unclear on what exactly is happening with all of this Retrospec stuff lately.

But either way, Lina's decided to make some breakfast—closer to lunch at this point, but omelettes are an anytime food, and she's feeling awake enough not to worry too much about it.

"What's up, you sleepy bitch?" she asks from the stove, her hand on the pan as she prepares to slide Jen's omelette to her plate. She's smiling and her tone of voice couldn't be more pleasant—for her, at least.

[argone]

"Uh. Hey, ho." She waves somewhat awkwardly, studying Lina in a hopefully surreptitious manner. She's cute. Definitely cute, and omelettes. In that moment, she makes a conscious decision: she's going to play along with this. Just for a bit, maybe have a little fun at her expense. "I was just dead tired. Last night's workout really took it outta me. You?"

[breakingvoice]

Ho? Hah, okay, that's definitely not something Jen would call her unless something huge changed in their lives. Which means that yeah, there's probably some more Retrospec bullshit going on, but you know what, Lina's in a good enough mood that she's not gonna call Jen on it. This could be fun.

"Not much. Thought I'd treat my favorite roommate to some breakfast," she says as though this isn't the arrangement they'd figured out a while back. What was it Jen had called her? A personal chef? Not a bad job description, she thinks, plating up her own before shutting off the stove.

And, with a very slight change in tone, she adds, "Forget how to figure your arm out again?"

[argone]

Well it's a good thing that Jen had actually told Kara about that arrangement. It's fine and dandy, and she is hungry. Very hungry. Hungry enough that her stomach gurgles. "Thanks, Lina. It's like you know exactly what's on my mind. Didn't sleep too well last night on top of it and some of your fabulous cooking is exactly what I needed. Still...kinda groggy, to be honest." Which would hopefully excuse the arm, the comment...all that stuff. And she did know roommate gal's name, which was a plus. Taking a seat with Jen's usual gusto, she leans back to watch. Definitely cute. Definitely going to have to ding Jen for not telling her about that later, too. "You doing okay?"

c is for date

[me_matey]

[[ aka i'm just gonna put this here instead of its own log for ease ]]

-The match was pretty damn good, by Satsuki's standards. Of course she was going over at the champion, but it showed a clear difference how much she appreciated being able to actually plan out some spots vs calling everything on the fly like she did last month. And after several shows of being the hot tag girl in tag matches, it was nice to get a solo shine as the champ again, and in the main event, no less! Plus she definitely spotted Lina in the audience, giving her a point and a wink before she hit her top rope flying elbow finish to the match. All in all, a good night, and one that was far from over.

After most of the crowd had cleared out and Satsuki had a moment to get herself washed off and changed back into normal clothes (well, more normal, anyways. this was still a date night, so she wanted to look her best, so a nice cute punk-y style dress for her), she ran back out to the audience area to greet Lina with a huge wave.-

So, so, what'd you think? -She beamed, leaning against the railing but not hopping over it just yet.-

[breakingvoice]

[Lina is, of course, chilling on her phone as she usually does, filling her twitter with nothing but flattering words about how good of a wrestler Satsuki is. congrats, Lina's a mark. she's got her standard tank top and open blue plaid button down along with some cutoff shorts and she feels pumped as hell. Satsuki herself looks super cute, the kind of style that Jen dies over, the kind that makes any girl immediately twenty times cuter. she slips her phone into her pocket and smiles broadly up at Satsuki and she guesses part one of their date (???) went super well.]

Holy shit! That was incredible. Everything about that was so much fun. I need to start coming out to these more often if you're gonna kick that much ass every time you hit the ring.

[me_matey]

-Satsuki flashed a million-dollar smile in response, her cheeks tinting despite some of the show make-up still being in place. She's used to praise, but there's an enthusiastic sincerity that Lina adds to it that gives it a whole new, flattering quality.-

Well hey, maybe I can just give you a hook-up on an all-time pass, if I'm gonna make a lifelong fan of you! -A small, nervous laugh.-

So! The other girls usually head to Felicia's bar after shows, but if you wanted to do something a little less rowdy, I'm down for it!

[breakingvoice]

Rowdy?

[she echoed the operative word there, ignoring the part about a free pass to see every one of Satsuki's shows for the moment. even if the idea was... a little appealing, to be honest. this was a lot of fun.]

I think I've had enough excitement for right now. Besides, you're the one who invited me, you know? You should pick where we go for drinks. [Satsuki was also the one who would be paying, after all.] If your job is this interesting, I can't imagine what the stuff you do after work is like.

[me_matey]

Eh, there's a lot of energy still after a night like this. Things get pretty wild. So, instead, I'll take you to a nicer place. Did you drive here or take a buss or an Uber or what? Because that might determine where I pick.

C

[nachetanya]

[ So Natalia is coming over to Lina's place so they can do drink. Admittedly, she actually brought more than just the wine coolers but she does feel a little bit self-conscious for it. It's mostly in a purse hanging off her left arm, and once she gets to the door she inhales, exhales, and then reaches out to ring the bell.

... She's actually dressed a little nicer than the meeting would imply she needs to. Well, "nicer" or perhaps just making an appeal for Linda. A red summer dress that flows off her towards the bottom but up top also highlights her chest (thus also exposing cleavage and therefore the Mark of Six Flowers on her chest). The cost to it is that it exposes her shoulders and thus the point on her left arm where it meets with her prothesis is fully exposed once she takes off her little jacket she has on and she's... less sure about that?

But.

Okay. She can do this. ]

[breakingvoice]

[lucky Natalia, that Lina is extremely comfortable with protheses now that she's on better terms with Jen. when she opens the door, she's dressed in a full t-shirt with no overshirt and only kind of a low neckline, which is at least a step up from her tank tops, and full, actual jeans instead of her cutoffs. this is what dressing nice is for her; it's all it really can be, without bombarding Nat with the smells of the Big Bang Burger kitchen from her work clothes.]

Hey Nat, you made it! [she's smiling, still kind of shaking off surprise at the idea that people actually want to spend time with her, and she only takes a quick, dignified, obvious moment to look her friend up and down before stepping out of her way to let her come in.]

You look incredible. [that's not much of a surprise. she gestures at the couch that's a little further into her apartment and facing a decently-sized TV with a small table between them.] Have you eaten anything yet? I can't make anything fresh but I can heat up some leftovers if you want.

[nachetanya]

I ate a little before now! I know how much of a hassle it can be to vegetarian on a budget, so... it's just more polite to eat beforehand. Right?

[ That's.

Probably saying too much, oops. Still, she shakes her head and laughs it off, stepping inside and offering the wine coolers (two of them) which she was holding in her right hand for Lina. The purse hanging off her left remains with her and she smiles at the other as she comes inside. ]

[breakingvoice]

Oh yeah, okay.

[oh, right, the vegetarian thing... well, she'd have to be a little more careful about eating that spaghetti and meatballs from last night around Nat, maybe, but she could also just eat afterwards because she made sure to get two days off in a row and it wouldn't matter how drunk she got tonight, even if it was just on—] Oh hey, wine coolers!

[she takes both of them to free Natalia's hand up and sets them down on the coffee table once they're both a little further inside.]

So I didn't actually have a lot planned for tonight outside of getting drunk. Did you want to... I don't know, find some shoujo stuff to watch on Netflix or something? [not that she knew Natalia liked that or anything.] You know, take our mind off stuff with some cool transformation sequences and cute dresses.

[nachetanya]

[ She knows that look - Natalia is quick to hold up her hands (both of them and laugh if off with, ] I won't hold your meat against you tonight if you want to eat, promise! I know ... I mean, I know that some people can be nags. I probably can sometimes.

[ She shakes her head and once inside more she is trying hard not to look around, to get a picture of everything in the apartment and make some sort of assessment about it. She could have - should have - just gone to the couch but she instead just sort of ghosts behind Lina the whole time.

At that suggestion she blinks once and- ] Oh I! ... I actually brought something to show you, honestly.