1/11 training and breakfast

[citta]

[ As last minute prep for the dungeon, everybody has been called to get together for a training session during midnight at Lockdown, with promise of a light breakfast at the clubhouse afterwards and the suggestion that people take it easy during the day before they split up into their respective teams and head to the castle and the mountains.

Training is largely done in the school shrine, on the second floor where there's wide empty space without the maze to account for, where you can practice tactics together, or take on the Minato challenge where he has Messiah blast you apart in half a second and then immediately heals you and asks if you want to go again.

Breakfast at the clubhouse is split between western and traditional styles, whether you crave fluffy pancakes, or are more of a miso soup and grilled fish on rice sort of person. If you want anything in particular for lunch, Kido is on lunch duty and promises to make whatever you want, so long as you go out to the store and bring the ingredients back.

Thanks to everybody's efforts so far during the month, whether it's interacting with the townspeople or talking with the mayor or donating gemstones to the mountain shrine, the effects can already be seen around town, with the townspeople less wary of the Persona users, allowing them to purchase what they want in the stores if they want to have their own supplies to take into the dungeon later.

Now go out there and get along and learn to work together or is2g ]

Comments

[parhellia]

i.
[ Ala is in the dungeon for training, but less for training as she is for gathering up all the little gemstones that drop to the ground when somebody kills a Shadow. She does her part by charming the Chimeras into attacking the other Shadows and doing the work for her, so they can clear out the entire floor first to make sure there'd ample space for sessions with the Attendants, but if you kill a Shadow right in front of her? There she goes, swooping right in to nab up that stone. ]

Number 426~!

ii.
[ A whole day of rest and relaxation... sounds fake... Once they're all back inside the clubhouse, Ala takes residence at the kotatsu, which is her favorite place in either house and she really hopes they'll leave them up even when winter comes to an end and it starts to get warmer. They can have the air conditioning running, and also the kotatsu! Kotatsus are the best.

Whether you brought breakfast over to eat here, or are just resting somewhere that'll keep your toes toasty warm, Ala's claiming more than half the table space, holding a set of tarot cards in her hand that she received from Akira for Christmas. ]

Do you want to play tarot? Ask me a question, and let's play~

wc.
[ bangs table ]

ii

[flowerclips]

[ The kotatsu is also Rei's favourite place so she will claim the lesser-than-half side, which is covered completely with plates of breakfast. She will take both traditional and western breakfasts :9 ]

Umm, will I ever get taller?

[ Spoilers: no ]

[parhellia]

[ Rei eats so much, but she never gets taller because she's dead... Ala shuffles her cards and considers the question while she spreads them out face down on the table. It's not a typical tarot spread— she just spreads them out so they're a complete mess at all different angles. ]

Do you want to be taller, Rei? I think you're small and cute like this!

[ Which is fine when you're a kid, but, yeah. Kano also desperately wanted to be taller, so Ala knows the struggle, even if she doesn't fully get it. ]

[flowerclips]

Ehehe, thank you, Ala-chan.

[ She's gotten better at handling compliments. She used to get all flustered, but she can now take it like a champ. ]

I don't want to be a lot taller, but it'd be nice if I could kiss Tokidoki without having him to always bend down for me.

[parhellia]

[ The demon in her wanted to say something terrible, but she likes Toki so I'm not going to write it. ]

There's lots of other ways to get taller! You can pad your shoes, like Shuuya does, or walk around on stilts!

[flowerclips]

[ Write it, Card, tell me. Was it to cut off Toki's legs ]

You can pad your shoes?

[ She understands what stilts are, but padding shoes? Like... sticking napkins in there so you're a bit taller?? ]

[parhellia]

[ ASDLFKJH YES you already knew so I didn't need to write it ]

Mmhm! You can stick lots of napkins in there so you're a bit taller!

[ Yeah! Or buy actual boots that do the same thing, like Kano does, or Naoto. ]

You want something soft and squishy so your feet don't hurt, but you can add that sorta stuff inside your shoes, and you can also make the bottom thicker underneath too!

[flowerclips]

[ LMAO goddammit. Go ahead and do it, Ala, chop off his legs. ]

Oh, I see! I'll have to try that then!

[ It won't make a difference at all. ]

Then I'll ask a different question. Ummm, will Tokidoki and I be always together?

[parhellia]

[ I need to figure out where Minato's axe is first, I can't remember if Terry or Sasuke has it or if it's lost somewhere else.

It's another yes or no question, but it's a relationship question and that's what these cards are best for. ]

"How do we keep Toki and Rei together forever?" Okay! [ just subtly changes the question so it's less yes/no ] First, I need you to choose three cards, but don't flip them over yet! Just point to them. The first card represents the past, the second is the present, and the third is the future~

ii

[yokeye]

[Toki prefers the kotatsu to a lot of places as well, and he'll catch Ala there at some point.]

Tarot? Like fortune telling!? Okay!

[He laughs, because it's a future he once envisioned for himself, though not in a good way. A professor had mentioned astrology, and Toki assumed his fate would be reading cards and crystal balls at a wobbly table under a neon "PSYCHIC" sign.]

Now, a question~! Hmm...

[His smile fades a little, and he knows, logically, this is just a game to pass time, but... There is something he wants to know.]

Will I... get sick again, like before?

[There's no other details provided. The less information Ala has, the more Toki will believe in the cards knowing what he means.]

[parhellia]

[ Like fortune telling! May Toki's sight be restored so he can achieve this dream of being a quack psychic, like Ala's a quack psychic who purses her lips a little when she hears the question. Kano never did tell her the full details of everything that went on for Toki- she never asked, and he didn't believe it was his place to gossip about Toki when the guy's just fine and he'll be fine here.

But she's gotten a sense of it, and she's met him before he knew it was her, too. ]

I wonder... The cards are all spread out on the table. Can you feel them?

[ She takes his right hand, and moves it to run the tips of his fingers over the cards laid flat on the table, to know how wide spread they are and where he can choose from. ]

I'm gonna need you to pick three of them, and then I can do the reading!

[yokeye]

[He's getting better at feeling and registering subtle differences in things. The texture of cards is one of those things. He would have always described them as flat and smooth, but they're not. The card stock has a very slight roughness to it.

Toki picks one card from the right, one from the left, and one near the top.]

Predict my future, great Ala~!

[parhellia]

'kay~ The first card represents the past, things that are good to reflect on, or keep in mind. For you, it's...

[ After setting all the other cards aside, she flips over the first card Toki chose: ]

The upright Devil. [ Which is hilariously fitting, even if Ala never learned about the whole demon contract thing. ] This card is about vices, about doing things that are easy and indulging yourself in material goods and promiscuity and stuff. Back then, was it like this? Losing yourself in a world where you just do what feels good without caring about anything else?

[yokeye]

[The Devil! But when she explains it, it makes sense. A figurative devil.]

Yes! I like went out to bars and slept with a lot of women and got drunk a lot and just did whatever I felt like instead of going to class and I bought Kuroko so many things when I was feeling sad or afraid because they were cute and it made me feel better!

[Losing himself in a that world, and he'd gone too far with it.]

[parhellia]

Hehe, you're so weird, Toki~

[ Who goes on a shopping spree for their cat when they're down? Toki's funny like that. ]

There's nothing wrong with having fun and enjoying life, but it becomes a problem when you get stuck and you can't move on from it. [ She flips the next card, seeing if she can tie it into the same line of thought. ]

Right now, your present card is the Reversed Priestess, the subconscious. You're worried about getting sick again, and this card is that voice voicing your doubts. Are you indulging right now, Toki? The Reversed Priestess suggests there's something you're hiding— a thought, or a goal, that's different than what you tell people. I dunno if it's about you being sick or not, but it's good to listen to that voice and consider what it's saying.

[ Maybe it's not about Toki going crazy again, but the fact that he's living a fantasy life and clinging to this long-deserved happiness, while there are still doubts in the back of his mind he keeps shoving away. ]

[yokeye]

I...

[Why are the cards so true? Is it safe to tell Ala? No. It's not safe to tell anyone his most hidden thoughts. Something closer to the surface that he's also been hiding, though. That, he can talk about.]

I don't want to leave Hirajiro. I was... I thought about sabotaging the door back somehow. I still do, but...

[This world he's building with Rei is what he wants, but it's also such a focus for him because he doesn't have to deal with everything else around them. It's an indulgence in an idea, a dream.]

[parhellia]

...But you don't think it's fair to sacrifice everybody else's happiness for your own?

[ It's not, and it's not a choice he should have the power to make, what happens to the door and whether people should go home. He knows it. Ala knows it. But just because you know and won't do it, doesn't mean the thought goes away.

She fiddles a bit with the very last card on the table, thumb lifting the corner and letting it fwip down to smack against the tabletop. ]

I don't want anybody to leave either. When everybody's gone, I'm gonna be all alone again, and I'm going to miss everybody here. But I don't want people to hate me either, so there's no way I can force them to stay, right? If I do that, nobody's happy! It's so tough, Toki.

II

[not_that_sasuke]

Oh- fortune telling?

[Hm.]

"Will we be able to defeat the Daitengu and Kotengu?"

[parhellia]

Hehe~ Is that something you have to ask the cards?

[ Ala laughs, shuffling her cards. Everybody's asking her yes or no questions like this is a magic 8 ball deal and not advice... but she can roll with it. ]

Whether the cards say yes or no, you should be fighting with all you have, right?

[ She spreads the cards out on the table, using both hands so none of the cards overlap and not bothering with a nice even organization. ]

Go on and pick three~

[not_that_sasuke]

I didn't know what else to ask.

[So he defaulted to the most obvious question. But he'll pick three cards, one from the leftish, one from the middle, and one from the rightish.]

[parhellia]

People usually ask something about themselves, for when they're struggling with something and need advice. For the Kotengu and Daitengu, the best advice there is is to be prepared and work together, right? The cards are gonna be useless with this sort of question, where you already know what to do.

[ But she takes the three cards and sets them in a row, taking the rest of them and neatly reforming the deck. ]

Do you still want to go with that question? Or is there anything else weighing on you? Like "I want to get stronger, but I dunno what to do to help us win"? or "I'm nervous about going into the dungeon tonight, what should I do?"

[not_that_sasuke]

[Ala, that's weirdly insightful and he's not sure what to make of it.]

...Maybe the first one? I don't know what the best way to help is.

[He just doesn't seem to have a very good skillset for dealing with... anything.]

[parhellia]

Hehe~ I have the same question, so we can ask them together~

[ She can be insightful sometimes, and this time it's because she's the same way. Yeah, she's a Persona, but without a host, she shifted from being able to fight using all sorts of elemental spells, to having a skillset that only serves to protect herself and herself only.

She's not too bothered, though, giving herself the time to figure it out. But Sasuke probably feels the pressure of time more than she does, so she flips over the first card he chose and looks down at it. ]

...The upright Tower! [ haha! ] It's the disaster card! One that says everything is a complete and utter mess, but as the first card, it represents the past. Asking how to get stronger, and feeling really lost, it's 'cause you're looking at how things were before and all you can see is disaster, right?

[not_that_sasuke]

[D-Disaster card... He's got a bad feeling about this, but he just nods.]

And the next one?

[parhellia]

[ Honestly, the Tower being the first part is good, because it can only go up from here. It's a much better fortune than having the Tower as the future card.

rng gives us the next card: ]

Reversed Death.

[ hm ]