Mixing Drinks and Changing Lives

Julianne Stingray of VA-11 Hall A. To be affiliated with Isola Radiale. Housing: Jill's Apartment [Fibonacci] Rank: Subgiant

[karmotrinelifesaver]

cosmooze​:

“And the most fun, right?! I guess the maze could  have been good too but I’m not really a big riddle person.” A thoughtful look crossed her face as she looked at the shoes. “Can you run in those?”

“That footwear seems suited for little, least of all moving quickly or quietly. That is, beyond offering some height but at this point it seems too little too late.”

“Don’t be rude, Handy! I’m sure it’ll be fine. Rerouting is a piece of cake, and steam? Could have been worse!” 

“That depends. Do you find puzzles fun? I just find them less challenging than close quarters combat or going on a city-wide trek. Neither of which I am very suited for.”

“And yes, I can run in these heels. I’ve been wearing heels near daily for several years. You adapt to them. The question is, can you—or your snippy robot there—handle high temperature steam? Because I can’t, and I wouldn’t expect slime to be able to either.”

She crossed her arms, but not before doing a small hand-wavey gesture towards the door of the manufactory. “After you, unless—” What did she call it? “—unless Handy wants to go first on her own.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

cosmooze​:

@karmotrinelifesaver​

Not only had she been in the area, but she had bumped into someone she didn’t actually know that well but had shared a body with, and that’s got to count for something right? And this little game, challenge, quest; whatever you want to call it sounded like fun!

“Lucky us, right! Close to the fun one and here together.”

“Seems pretty simple! Turn the right valves in order, don’t get spotted. How sneaky are you?”

This encounter was already a thousand times better than the last one she had with Emere on account of having her own body back. Turns out, it’s easier to be more relaxed around someone, even a near stranger, when you’re not body swapped. Who’da thought?

“This seemed like the easiest one for me to do, so I went for it, but I think I didn’t read the fine print well enough.” Or the normal print.

“I can be quiet, but I don’t know about sneaky. I...” she trailed off a bit, looking down at her shoes. “... guess I shouldn’t have worn heels...”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

“I don’t do magic, Jill… Magic is boring.”

But she didn’t do anything else. The explicit instruction of “do nothing” was one she could follow, as long as the one giving the instruction didn’t leave immediately after. 

She raised an eyebrow slightly when she grabbed her arm, but didn’t resist as it was moved next to the mirror. The wheels were turning…

“You’re trying to get a mirror that matches me?”

“Right... just stuff that looks and sounds exactly like magic. Got it. My mistake.” A mistake she’s made before, and one she will make again, because Okuu did magic.

Credit where it’s due, Okuu wasn’t actually a total idiot, Jill did know that, so she wasn’t surprised when Okuu figured out that particular little thing. “Yeah, I am. Should I not?”

“Stop me if I get too sappy, but I like having things that remind me of my friends. Especially when they aren’t always here.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

“You can look in three directions at once? No you can’t.” It was a statement of fact which she supported by shaking her head. She would not be fooled so easily. 

Okuu just liked holding hands. Jill’s hand in particular because she liked Jill, pretty simple really. Any hand squeezes were returned. Gently, because she was a soft human after all. 

She looked between the mirrors and then nodded; they were indeed gold and silver respectively. 

“Here? Okay… But if you want anything else it probably won’t end well.”

In a flash the rod was summoned, the octagonal rod covering her forearm. “You have to reach forward to touch it, yeah. You’re allowed. It’s my arm you probably don’t wanna touch, right after I take it off that is.”

“Please do not do anything else with your arm after you take it out. I just want to see it. No magic. No explosions. Nothing else.” She wanted to make that super clear. She did not want to be responsible for a city-wide incident. And she would consider herself responsible.

After a moment of visible hesitation, she reached forward and grabbed Okuu’s covered arm now. She moved the arm—and Okuu with it—towards the golden border, comparing the two colours. They were pretty close, next to one another like this...

“I think I like the gold better, actually.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

“How can you look at a mirror if there’s someone standing in front of you?” It didn’t makes sense at all, but she felt like it was easier not to say that. In fact she said nothing and just nodded slowly. 

Thankful for any distraction and not opposed to some handholding, she followed eagerly enough as they manoeuvred through the store. 

“Gold, or silver…”

There was several long seconds. Long seconds.

“Definitely not wood. Silver? I guess it depends which is brightest.”

“This may shock you, but I can look left and right as well as forward. At the same time, even.” Of all the parts of that she expected Okuu to not understand... it was not that one.

Okuu was one of the few people that Jill was comfortable with handholding with. People came and went, Okuu included, but she’s still known Okuu the longest out of anyone here. Idiot as she may be, Okuu was special to her, even if she didn’t admit it with anything more than a hand squeeze.

“Well, this one’s gold, and this one’s silver,” she said, nodding to each one respectively. They were about the same brightness.

“Hmm... can you take out your arm... rod.... thing real quick, actually? Also, am I allowed to touch your arm rod thing? Or is that too forward.” She just wants to know if it’ll kill her with radioactivity or something.

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

She would not fill in those blanks. In fact she had already forgot about them, and the entire sentence. “Yeah.” Was her answer. Help was easy enough, Jill would just remind her about it when it was time to do it, whatever it was. That’s how it usually went with help.

“Wait.” 

“Big enough for me? But not you? But I’m bigger than you?” This store was proving more difficult than she’d been lead to believe. “Yeah? Doesn’t everyone only look at themselves in the mirror? That’s you that’s looking back you know, not someone else…”

“Unlike you, I look at other people in the mirror sometimes, if there are other people standing in front of the mirror. But there can’t be other people standing in front of the mirror if the mirror is not big enough for someone else to stand in front of it. Does that make sense?”

Jill knew it did, but she needed to know if it made sense to Okuu. Few things did, it seemed. Jill was tempted to ask how she could be sure it was her looking back, but decided she’d been mentally tormented enough. Instead, she started walking through an aisle of more mirrors, taking Okuu by the hand to follow.

“Do you prefer a gold frame, or silver? Or wood, I guess...”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

Okuu frowned. Then she tilted her head and scratched briefly at the back of it. “Can’t be sure about what? It’s a mirror… That’s… What it looks like..?” Normally she might ruffle her wings here, but what brainpower she had was currently all spoken for. 

“Y..es..?” She was confused and Jill just said a lot of stuff, but at least one of those sentences started with ‘do you want’ and ended with a question so she felt like Jill wanted her to say yes. 

“Okay… What happened to your old mirror?”

Jill only nodded again, leaving Okuu to fill in the rest of the blanks of that particular segment of the mirror conversation herself. Jill had full confidence that she absolutely could not do it.

“Thanks for volunteering, I knew you’d help me out here.” Aka thanks for not arguing when you were voluntold.

“Nothing happened to my old mirror. It’s still there. Just not big enough. Big enough for you, but not for me. Because I know you’d only look at yourself in the mirror no matter how big it was, so you can have the smaller one. Yeah?”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

“I don’t think you need a big mirror.” It wasn’t really a guess, but it was her response.

“I… What..?” This was the mirror she thought she remembered? The mirror that wasn’t this one was the one she thought she-… She shook her head. 

Only to be greeted by another question that didn’t make sense. Without comparing it to another mirror? “It looks like… That.” She gestured at the exact same mirror. “What else would it look like? It’s… A mirror.”

“No, see, you did it again. This is what I mean. You can’t be sure with mirrors.” Maybe this was too mean?

Then again... Jill was pretty sure Okuu was making a joke about her small size a second ago. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke and she was serious. In which case, even worse. So maybe this isn’t too mean.

“Do you want me to give you my mirror or not? You know, just in case you forget. And as thanks for helping me get my new mirror back home, which I just decided you will be doing.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

After a moment more of incredibly important scanning the wares, or ware available she turned back to Jill, finally. “Someone else your size? Why?”

But Jill’s question gave her some serious pause and a quite clear look of confusion. 

“Huh?”

After a moment of vague, meaningless gesturing, she pointed directly at the nearest, largest mirror. Right at her own reflection. “Like… That? That’s a pretty dumb question, Jill.”

“Give you one guess.” was all the answer she was gonna give for that one.

But there it was, that look of tangible confusion. Jill couldn’t help but crack a smile at the hopeless and vague gesturing at the mirror, before shaking her head. “No, that’s not a good answer. Because how do you know the mirror you think you remember is not actually just this mirror?”

“Furthermore, what does this mirror,” she said, gesturing to the one Okuu pointed out, “look like? Without comparing it to another mirror.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

“Not big enough…” She echoed almost entirely thoughtlessly. She had more important things to do than listen properly, she had to find the shiniest mirror, or the one with the best trim or the biggest one. 

“A mirror what? Also how big of a mirror do you need?”

“Haven’t I already got one? I’m pretty sure I already have one.”

Jill recognized that tone of voice. The tone that said she had no thoughts, her head was empty. No worthwhile thoughts, anyway. Jill tapped her on the shoulder, just to see if she’d respond to it, before immediately putting her attention on one of the mirrors, and trying to lift it a bit to see how heavy it was.

“Big enough for me and whoever else might be in my apartment at the same time. And if you’re so sure you have a mirror...”

“Then what does it look like?”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

solarsubterrestrial​:

She was not one to get stuck in pleasantries, the moment someone said “After you” you best believe she was already moving inside. And what an inside it was! So bright and shiny; the light bounced all around. Immediately she hopped about, eyes darting trying to take in as much as she could as fast as possible. 

“…”

“What happened to your old mirror?”

Jill followed in after her and looked around too, though not quite as excitedly. Some of these mirrors were... much larger than she expected, actually. How the hell do you get some of these back to the main city? Maybe you’re not supposed to? Who knows. She went back to watching Okuu, but through one of the mirrors reflections now.

“Not big enough. Needs to be wider. Maybe taller, too. Also maybe if I get a bunch of small ones I can make a cool mirror cube or something.” She’s seen those on the internet. She wanted one. Why? She didn’t know.

“I was going to give you my old one. I know you’ve always wanted a mirror.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

Starter | @solarsubterrestrial​

“After you,” she said, opening up the door to this place she’d brought the two of them in The City of Glass. The place seemed like a natural fit for Okuu (if Jill was there to keep her in check), so full of shiny things as it was.

This building, though? Jill just wanted to see what Okuu would be like in a building full of mirrors. This was a specialty mirror shop. This should be fun, she thought, and totally not a catastrophe waiting to happen.

“I’ve been meaning to get a new mirror.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

astralreflection​:

✧ “A… Are you implying I give the impression that I cannot afford my own food!?” Absolutely, that is the vibe you give off. “I can afford my own meals! Grains are cheap, and I know how to forage!” She doesn’t even realize she’s painting a worse picture. “And… I do not know what a chicken is. If it has wings, is it some kind of fowl?”

“I wasn’t implying it. I was inferring it. Right now, I am fully confident in the assumption that you can’t afford food. Where the hell are you going to forage?” Did wild fruits and veggies even grow here? That aside, Jill rooted around in her jacket pocket for a moment to pull out a business card and a pen, which she used to sign her name on the back.

“It’s... chicken. Fowl. Yeah. Take this and show it to the bartender and ask her for food. You can’t miss her, she’s... very noticeable.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

astralreflection​:

✧ “Well… People don’t just normally give food for free, and I end up buying everything else I need for myself.” Which was the entire reason she could never afford food. “I’ll eat anything. I’ve even eaten weeds before.”

“I think people are less inclined when the other person can clearly afford their own food. I own a bar in Fibonacci, do you like chicken wings? Those are popular. Got a lot of those.”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

WinterFes Starter | @greenishmoon​

Jill had just stepped back from her snowman she’d made next to Nya’s down in the Swirling Gulf. she used purple snow for hers just because she could and it was there, but didn’t know that at the end, the snowman would take an exaggerated form of whatever expression Jill herself was wearing.. which can only be described as the epitome of resting bitch face.

“...”

“Why does mine look so mad?”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

astralreflection​:

✧ “You… receive gifts for this ‘Christmas’? AHEM…”

“I was not going to participate, but if I might make a request? F-Food, please…”

“Pretty sure you shouldn’t have to ask for food for Christmas.”

“And I’m pretty sure I’d be pretty cruel to say no. What kind of food do you like?”

[karmotrinelifesaver]

"There’s only one pasta shape that matters anyway.”

“It’s whichever shape is in the cheapest box of pasta at the grocery market.”