[OPEN] Well, that's a problem

[matchbreaker]

WHO: Elda Marker and YOU
WHERE: Garden Gate Farmer's Market, in and around the Marker manor, Towers (and most of Tisse by extension), the residential streets at night?
WHEN: Mid-June, as she gets a special gift
WHAT: Elda's received a new pair of eyes from Retrospec, and that's incredibly disturbing. Her various adventures in trying to get used to this and deal with the result of having red night-vision eyes.
WARNINGS: None worth noting, I think? Cranky 40 year old?

A) The Curious Incident of the Farmers Marker in the Morning

[ Our story begins one fateful day when, like any proper person who doesn't currently have a non-volunteer job but excess money, Elda Marker goes to the Farmers Market bright and early. Picking up a lot of fruits, some vegetables, hot peppers, and what else she can find (and what she can discern what with the lack of green here, it's kind of fucked up and she might be looking for some insights on that). She actually is getting a few flowers too! With two bags under her arms, the woman is humming a little as she's making her way back to the car to get back to the manor-

Until it happens.

Elda blinks, and once she opens her eyes again her previously dark brown eyes are now red. The burgandy orbs look widely around the area for a moment until - she shuts them as fast as possible and screams in pain. The light hurts? It's blinding, actually! The morning sun is- She drops all of her bags, and there's no way she's going to be able to drive. She's making a scene right now, her hands clutched over her face to try to block out the light - it's hurting even through her eyelids, causing her to tear up. ]

Arrgh... What the devil- Agh.

B) Home Is Where The ... Cats Are. Or something.

[ Somehow, someway, Elda will make it home even if she needed to walk there. It wasn't that far from the Farmers Marker to the manor. Once at her house, Elda... turns off all the lights. It's a bright summer day, and people who have known the woman knows that she lights to be outside on days like this but it's scaring her right now how much it hurts her eyes. Her house guests/son or anyone visiting the house will notice that the woman has turned off all the lights in the house and closed many of the curtains. The light even of the bulbs hurts her eyes a little... Man.

That said, later in the day you might find her outside of her house, on the front lawn. She is defiantly sunbathing in a light dress and wearing sunglasses and not a swimsuit (this is the front lawn, she's not a barbarian) but rather a loose summer dress. Her brown hair's tied back as well.

... Ugh, she should have gone on a run. This sucks, she feels so lazy. It's even hard to read. ]

C) Operation Classy Glassy

[ ... Also her only sunglasses are okay, but if they are going to be a regular fashion thing for her, as seems to be the case, she needs better ones. Or at least - no, actually definitely more than one pair. Still not trusting herself to drive on a Summers Day even with the sunglasses on, the woman instead calls a cab and takes it over to Tisse, where she's going to a variety of places to shop, but mostly focuses on the accessory section of Towers. Here, she's trying on all hella style. She's doing this and examining herself in the mirror, sometimes taking them off to lower the distortion, but wincing every time her new red eyes catch the light of the store. You know what, eventually she resorts to- ]

You there! I need some insight, come on over!

[ Conscripting outside help. ]

D) Gotta keep up the exercise somehow or another!

[ Something else Elda soon enough notices: ... She can see in the dark now. She has no idea how (it must be the eyes... did Retrospec give her night vision eyes or something?) and she has a great visual range than before, she's pretty sure. And you know what that means?

... It means that if she can't get her morning runs in, she's going to give herself some night runs.

Hopefully no one will find it strange to see a small 5' 40 year old woman jogging in the middle of the night, her red eyes wide to look around her. ... Hopefully none of you catch the moonlight or a street light reflecting off those eyes, it might look like the glow of a predator. But either way, she's sure.

Doing that. It's okay, she's learned a lot of self-defense. ]

[ Also if any of you want to do something else or a weirder prompt / have questions / just want to add me I guess feel free to talk to me at bigdamnhero. Yep! ]

Comments

A

[scarlet_devil]

[ Émilie is here, dressed more plainly than usual - for the simple reason people won't look twice at her while she's busy trying to get some nice fresh organic fruit. But who does she see but Elda... suddenly screaming in pain and clutching her face.

Causing a bit of a scene... enough so a crowd of concerned citizens begins to form, some getting phones out already. Émi is one of the first on the scene. ]

Elda...! What's wrong?

[matchbreaker]

[ Tears are streaming down her closed eyes. Some items have spilled out of her begs and rolling away. Others are clearly bruised enough to be rendered useless. But she doesn't care- her hands are over the things. They hurt a lot. ]

My eyes - what -- the devil--!

[scarlet_devil]

What's hurting them?

[ Well, she'd try to grab them if she wasn't a bit distracted... ]

C

[vitis]

[ congrats, elda, for mistakenly(?) hailing probably one of the least fashion-conscious people in the towers. john can't even place why he's here; he'd come by perhaps to window shop, only to become lost in the tower's innumerable, overpriced (subjectively, anyway) wares. at being presumably addressed, john glances over, his rich older lady!senses already firing off. ]

Me?

[ he points to himself, taking a tentative step in her direction. ]

... I don't work here, y'know. [ not that he's dressed in uniform, either... ]

[matchbreaker]

So what? You still have eyes, don't you?

[ She's wearing sunglasses now, and tilts them a little to try to look at him briefly without them. however, the moment she moves them a little - yes, her eyes still smart at the light here. She groans and puts them back up ]

How do these look?

[vitis]

[ john misconstrues the groan to be at him rather than the light. when he catches on, though... ]

Honestly, ma'am, none of 'em are gonna look bad on you...

[ seriously, some people just pull off sunglasses well. john glances from the one she places back on her face to the selection. he pulls the one on the bottom right from its holder as he is stupidly biased for flower life. ]

Try this one—? Maybe.

C

[thesettingsun]

[Shuji has fashion sense! Or at the very least he has more than Steinbeck, though that's a low bar.

Anyway, when he's yelled at he turns away from the set of ties he was looking at to see that Elda's yelling at him. Oh, that's Silver's ex-foster-mom (ex-mom?), he's seen her before.

Not that he'd turn down a change to give fashion advice anyway, even to complete strangers. He heads over.]

Sunglasses today, Ms. Marker?

[matchbreaker]

[ who was this boy again...?

...

Ah well, doesn't matter. She tilts her sunglasses a little, pushing them up her nose and: ]

How do these look on me?

[thesettingsun]

No good.

[He doesn't mean it in a bad way! Though the speed at which he says that might suggest otherwise.]

You've got a triangular face, you don't want round frames. Rectangular frames are going to balance out your face way better.

D

[scythegun]

[Jaeger's just getting home from work when he spies Elda out running. That's... weird. Huh. He'll lock his car and then raise his voice to call out to her. Don't think he didn't notice you, Elda!!!]

Well, well, this is a surprise! Why are you out so late, Elda?

[matchbreaker]

[ Oh, it's him.

she pauses in her run to speak to him, though she's still running in place a little. She looks at him... with red eyes. Right, slightly reflective of the moonlight eyes. ]

I'm getting my run in!

[scythegun]

[. . .]

What in the world happened to your eyes?

[THAT'S A LITTLE CREEPY, ELDA]

B

[feistytrader]

[Silver shows up at home- at Elda's place, not at home- with every intention of scooting in and out in the next five minutes, to... Uh...

...]

Elda? Are you doing some kind of ritual sacrifice in here? Should I close the curtains?

[matchbreaker]

I'm blocking out the light! It's too bright!

[ As she's shutting one of the blinds here. The curtains would be smart too...

As she looks at him with red eyes ]

[feistytrader]

[...But it's not that... Oh holy shit, her eyes are fucking red because of course they are.]

Have you looked in a mirror lately?

[He's quick to shut all the blinds and curtains. Whatever happened with her eyes, it's probably the source of the problem, better to get it dimmer quickly.]

C

[chiseler]

[You know, he should probably ignore old ladies yelling at him (40 is not old, Luke) but his curiosity gets the better of him and he wanders that way even while wrapping the chain of a silver necklace he plans to purchase around his wrist.]

Insight on getting people's attention? 'Cause I think you're doing okay so far.

[matchbreaker]

No, on seeing if these look good on me or not? Don't be daft!

[ She laughs at the boy's (well, man's) misunderstanding, waving him over. she pushes the one she has on a bit up her nose. ]

[chiseler]

[There's a grin because he knows he's being a shit on purpose and doesn't seem to care, though he does take this into careful consideration for a moment, tilting his head this way and that to get a better view.]

Little big, don't ya think? But maybe that's the style for women at this point. Are you drawing to draw attention to your face or away from it?

B!

[toushiro]

[ toushiro's coming home from his part-time job as per usual, not expecting anything really eventful to happen. seems like mother always knows how to change his mind. ]

...

[ the house. it's as if it's completely locked up. and for whatever reason, elda's out on the front lawn getting some sun. which is...one thing, but the house? what?

wary, toushiro slowly approaches his mother, visibly suspicious. ]

Mother.

[matchbreaker]

... Oh! Dearie, you're back!

[ She bounces up from her chair, smiling and going to greet her boy. However, as she does the sunglasses slip from her face. This briefly reveals her red eyes, which sees her crying out in pain as the sun filters into them. She clutches over them, trying to force the glasses back on. ]

[toushiro]

[ he huffs as he sees elda rush towards him, ready to roll his eyes as usual; then her sunglasses fall off, and everything changes.

he sees red.

toushiro panics as elda cries out in pain, jolting from where he is to put his hands on her shoulders. he's not entirely sure what's going on, but whatever it is, he's actually afraid. ]

Mother? Hey--mother!

A

[huxceptional]

[...That's some reaction to looking at the sun.]

And I thought I detested the sun. [Hux looks at her with mild concern, despite his words. She really does seem to be in pain from it.]

[matchbreaker]

Good-- [ RRR- ] for you! Pick up my bags!

[ her hands are practically clawing into her eyes now, trying to block out the light, pained tears coming out. ]

D! i hope this is workable!

[lostapprentice]

[It's another restless night that finds Ren out walking in one of the nicer areas of town, and it's got him nostalgic in several different ways. But his brooding was only going to last so long before being interrupted by something, and when Elda comes into view, his attention is torn away from the houses he'll probably never be able to afford and drawn to the—

Okay, glowing eyes, because that's not creepy.

Ren tenses up and freezes where he's standing, but soon enough she passes him by with no damage done, and he's left in complete confusion. Not that this is the oddest thing that's happened to him lately, but.

He may... end up following her. He's got little else to do (except sleep, but eh), and he's driven by a combination of morbid curiosity and concern. Hopefully the slouching six-foot-three man following her isn't enough to incur her wrath. This is just odd enough that he wants to investigate, without being so odd that he wants to nope out immediately.

He's doing his best to not be immediately noticeable and is following several yards back, but given both his general inability to be subtle and her enhanced night vision, well. He's not too hard to spot after all.]

Seems legit to me nah!

[matchbreaker]

[ It really is hard to miss him. Elda might be off for a jog, and might even have some earbuds in, but she can feel someone in the corner of her vision, especially when she glances back. and then, well...

One she comes to the next corner, she's slowing as she turns it so that she can pull out her earbuds, turn to face him, and: ]

Why're you following me? I do know self defense.