diadem ; feb & mar open

[searingbond]

Who: sciel and YOU!
Where: various, click in for prompts
When: throughout february & march
What: a big ol' catchall for a new arrival

Warnings: will be marked in subject lines. co33 spoilers will also be marked if they come up.


feel free to hit up any of the open prompts below or plot with me via pm or at kairaptor!
and of course, pre-existing CR is always welcome to drop a message in her inbox.

Comments

☾ bistro

[searingbond]

[ Since learning that her friends — the two other people from home who're in the city — had been hired to play music in one of the local bistros, Sciel has been like a dog with a bone. The contact list in her phone isn't particularly lengthy (yet), but that doesn't stop her from blasting out a message to everyone in it relaying the when and where of Lune and Verso's first show. However long their tenure at this location ends up being, it almost doesn't matter: she was never going to pass on any opportunity to hype up her fellow Expeditioners, particularly with how musically-inclined they both are.

So: those Sciel has met and exchanged numbers with will receive a message as soon as she herself gets word that the show is on, to the effect of:

hi, it's sciel!
two of my good friends are going to be performing tonight.
music, specifically. i assume it'll be piano and guitar.
it's tonight at odd duck bistro. the one across the street from the gas station that's always got a loud buzzing coming from it?
i'll be there to support them, and i'd love for their first show to be a big success!
so it'd be great to see you there. we'll say drinks are on me.
merci!
- sciel

That evening, as promised, she's taken up residence in the corner of the bistro in question, elbows propped up on the table as she listens to the performance, drink forgotten at her side.

Those who received her message can grab a seat next to her, and those who just happen to be there at the time of the show are also welcome to strike up conversation with the woman who either definitely knows the musicians, or is otherwise just their number one fan.

(Hint: she's both.) ]

☼ the "park"

[searingbond]

[ Back in Lumière, they'd had some fairly nice green spaces. No sprawling, perfectly-curated gardens or anything, but passable stretches of grass and trees that received care from whatever citizen had time and energy to spare on their upkeep. The result had been surprisingly good, offering pockets of green around the small and fractured city for those in need of it.

This...isn't really like that. The 'parks' of Panorama generally seem to be much more overgrown and clearly underutilized with weeds reaching as high as your knees in places. None of that has stopped Sciel from making use of them, though; she's come across a few in her travels and has gone as far as to lie in the grass (where it's not uncomfortable to do so) to try and catch sight of the sky above.

Today, having woken up on the earlier side, she slips out of the residence she now shares with Lune and wanders the streets in large circles around their flat. Along that path she finds one of these overgrown spaces, and one that, while still in a state of relative disrepair, has at least most of the ground visible (and a swing set, which catches her eye). The real point of coming out on this particular morning, though, had been to do some stretches in a place that at least feels like fresh air, and so she begins to do exactly that. Sciel finds some space in the middle of the grassy square where she won't hit any rusty equipment, draws a deep breath (it still smells mostly like gasoline), and then falls into a simple, but thorough, routine. Neck and shoulder rolls, forward fold, hamstring stretch...

It's not so bad, really. Nicer place to loosen up than anywhere else she's found in the area, at least so far. ]

☾ bar

[searingbond]

[ Working as a taxi driver — er, taxi cyclist — has been fun. Helpful in meeting some of the other newbies, or those who pass for locals, and for keeping herself fed and housed (more or less) in the first month of her residency. But as time stretches on and it seems she isn't going back to the Continent anytime soon, Sciel decides that the time had come to find something else to do to earn her keep.

(She doesn't tear down any of the taxi flyers, though, so when those calls come in, she does still answer.)

The Well is a pretty unpleasant dive bar not far from where she's living, now that she's moved out of the motel. It's dark, dingy, and uncomfortably sticky in places, which is probably why they'd had room on their staff to hire a new arrival. And while Sciel hasn't officially bartended anywhere before, she'd only stretched the truth somewhat in the brief conversation that served as her 'interview,' relying mainly on her personality and enthusiasm for drinking to get her in the door. It'd apparently worked, as she can be found there during all of the worst shifts, such as just shy of midnight on a Tuesday, or before noon on Sundays.

But...a job's a job. So she stands behind the bar making easy conversation with the sparse clientele that find their way in, and otherwise busies herself with learning how to make the drinks that are requested, given she's never heard of most of them... ]

☼ the fringes

[searingbond]

[ Among the myriad things she's been working to learn since her arrival, figuring out how to drive — and drive the motorcycle specifically — is very high on the list. Practice makes perfect, the say, but this vehicle is a fickle beast. It'd started spewing acrid smoke before she'd even made it to Panorama the first time, after all, and she shudders to think what might've happened had Cloud not flagged her down and suggested she get the piston rings replaced. Even with that taken care of, the bike has proven more finicky than she (a completely inexperienced driver) could have guessed.

As such, most of her time on or around the thing so far has been devoted to making sure it's safe to ride at all, considering her main source of income had been shuttling people around on it. There hasn't been quite as much time available to refining her driving, as has been pointed out by friends and paying customers alike. ]

Okay. [ But, finally, the stars have begun to align, providing her with both time to practise and a bike that seems like it's actually, finally, in decent shape. So she's ridden it out of the city and onto the surrounding roads in the Fringes, experimenting a bit with speed and sharp turns, when there's nobody around to put at risk. ] Steady...

[ It doesn't go badly. She's far from an expert, but there's an undeniable exhilaration to riding a motorbike that solidifies she'd made the right choice in vehicles for herself (since she'd been unsure of that for a while after). So she spends a happy few hours tearing down the long stretch of road she'd first come down after waking up near the Scrapyard, occasionally whooping gleefully, occasionally also making too sharp a turn or going a little too fast and correcting herself...eventually. ]