#wanderingwhiimsy

[forte-days-and-knights]

Blankets for Babs || Forte & Popuri

@wanderingwhiimsy

As the seasons turned, and the weather chilled, Forte’s thoughts settled on those less fortunate than her. Particularly, those youngsters caught up in unfortunate enough circumstances to have landed in an orphanage. She didn’t go back often, in fact, she hadn’t really been back since she moved to Arcadia, but she knew this time of year could be especially tough for some children. Having some time off she decided to head over to the orphanage on Leuda, also hoping doing something good for the children might ease the ache in her own heart.

Loading up some extra blankets into a large sack, she prepared for the brisk ferry ride to the other island. It was an uneventful trip, affording her time to reflect on her past at the children’s home. Her memories there weren’t great, though that had more to do with her stubbornness and age at the time. The caretakers there had always been kind and helpful, and she did meet some people at the orphanage that made her time there less awful.

Hesitation stopped her at the front door. It really had been a long time since she had been there. Thinking she would simply leave it behind, she hadn’t bothered to even check in on how anyone was doing. Though really, she tried to convince herself she was simply too busy. Not today though, today she had just enough time for this.

With a heavy sigh, an attempt to release some tension, she pushed through the front door and into the hallway, “Hello? Is anyone here?”

She suddenly found herself wondering if it was okay to just come in. Sure, prospective parents just came in, and she used to come and go as she pleased, much the chagrin of her caretakers, but things were different now.

[neildownpeasant]

@wanderingwhiimsy | @sdv-shane

Word count: 3,068

[muscadelle-blog1]

Birthday Scavenger Hunt || Popuri & Marlin

@wanderingwhiimsy

The bouquet is delivered to Popuri’s apartment early on her birthday morning by a courier - four pink cats, four pink begonias, and four red roses - with a small card attached detailing their meanings - pink cats for beauty and happiness, pink begonias for individuality and uniqueness, and red roses for passionate romantic love.

It’s the letter that the courier also hands over that’s a bit more important, written in Marlin’s thick penmanship.

“Hello, sweetheart. Are you ready for an adventure to celebrate your 24th birthday in style? I’ll be waiting for you at the end for a long weekend away - but you’ll have to catch me first. To kick things off, it is your civic duty to dance your way to where, no matter how many bands played that day, the symphony of your feelings was the only song that I took home with me.”

(he rather hoped, as he wrote it, that she didn’t take dance your way literally. Her poor calves)

[chickenshxtboy-blog]

Tentative Truce || Rick & Popuri

@wanderingwhiimsy

He’d...missed Popuri. More than he’d ever thought possible, really. After their tumultuous fight that had ended in shouting and tears, he’d thought their entire relationship might’ve been utterly burned to the ground, but the voyage had given him hope. They’d gone from an almost cold silence at the beginning to helping keep each other alive by the end - and, for once, Rick hadn’t felt the need to win.

Was that what growing up was really like? He wasn’t sure. Either way, he wasn’t willing to let lingering coldness stand if there was anything he could do to change it. Not when he’d almost watched her be pummeled by a crazed man and had barely been able to stop it.

After the Arms Tournament had ended, even with the ache deep in his heart over worry about Sabrina, he’d lingered on the island, waiting to catch a glimpse of Popuri - and then he saw a flash of pink hair fluttering by, attached to a very determined face, and Rick didn’t let himself hesitate before he hurried over to her.

“Hey.” He touched her shoulder to catch her attention, then faltered. There were too many things that he wanted to say, and for a long moment he couldn’t decide which one to start with.

[drink-up-motherfuckers-blog]

A Successful Raid || Karen & Popuri

@wanderingwhiimsy

It wasn’t the first time that Karen had staged a raid on the Arcadian Guild. After five years, she’d formed a decent enough reputation - the sight of the Cataclysm’s flag alone as the ship cresting into the harbor was enough to stir up a few additional defenses along the deck. But what could they do? Warrants came out after a raid, then people got paid off, and suddenly the Cataclysm was cutting through the waters without anyone so much as sparing it a second glance.

It was the way of the pirate world, and Karen was damn good at it.

She’d heard that the Guild had a new person at its helm - some innocent looking little thing - and she was certainly curious how their new defenses would stand up to her crew waltzing through their doors, guns and blades at the ready, well-versed in the halls and stairways of the guild at large.

They did well. Just not well enough.

“C’mon, pack it up, let’s go!” Karen barked at her crew as they gathered together the funds they’d stolen from the vault. “Got police on the way! Let’s move, ladies!” She stepped over the bound guards and cowering personnel and shouldered open the door, her pistol held cocked and ready as she peered around the corner.

There at the end of the hall, blocking the only way to the front door, stood some kind of an angel.

Karen quirked her brow as she came through the door and squared her shoulders, flicking her gaze over the pink-haired woman who seemed to be standing there waiting for her. She kept her gun pointed to the floor, finger off the trigger, as she studied her, curious what she could read at first glance. “Well well well,” she murmured, a slow grin spreading across her lips. “Who might you be?”

+10,000G (from the Arcadia Guild’s funds)

NEW TOTAL: 15,000G

[dirkonthego-blog]

Flower Girl { Dirk/Popuri }

@wanderingwhiimsy

     During the entirety of the flower festival, Dirk noticed a particular woman of long, fluffy pink hair had been giving around flowers to both strangers and people she knew. Friendly people really did exist, but Dirk couldn’t help but think that was too tiring to do. When he passes her by for the nth time in one of his deliveries, Dirk couldn’t help but stop in his tracks to strike up a conversation.

     “You’ve been running around with flowers all day, Miss. Aren’t ya tired?” He gestured towards a cap he’d been wearing that bore the Pelago Express logo, hinting that he worked there. “You’ll put me out of a job in no time, ha ha!”

[muscadelle-blog1]

[bttp] An Act of Kindness || Marlin & Popuri

@wanderingwhiimsy

Years of laying low still hadn’t destroyed all of Marlin’s instincts. Sometimes he thought that he wanted them gone - being a simple farmer wasn’t a bad thing, and some nights he even dreamed of the possibility of owning his own farm, or perhaps a vineyard. Other times he woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, feeling the exact moment the bullet struck him pairing somehow with the second his knife split through her skin, and he never wanted to take the chance that he’d be caught unaware.

On a night like tonight, his skin bristled while he was turning the lights off in the hall. It was late. The farmer he worked for had already gone to bed with his wife, and their children had been sleeping for a few hours already. Marlin had simply gone through the house to make sure the lights were turned off before he would finish washing dishes from dinner, would lock up, would make his way to his own bedroom at the other end of the house...

But then something tickled over his skin. An instinct. An idea. And with his senses on high alert, he caught the barest sound of something clattering.

Something on the other side of the house, say, near his bedroom.

His heart beat just a touch faster as he moved, sweeping a hand across the kitchen counter as he walked through it. The wooden handle of a kitchen knife made for slicing through raw chicken meat found his palm, and he held it with familiarity as he carefully kept to the parts of the wooden floor that didn’t creak - he’d memorized them within his first twelve hours in the house.

Silently he crept to his bedroom, where the door was cracked and the low gas lamp flickering. He nudged the door open just slightly, prepared to see someone he’d worked with and forgotten to kill years ago.

Instead, he saw a head of pink hair, long and soft and feminine.

Years of laying low made him wrinkle his brow and push the door further open so it creaked.

[chickenshxtboy-blog]

Collision || Rick & Popuri

@wanderingwhiimsy

One day, Rick would learn that it was very rare that big, starbursting events took place in his life. It was far more likely that the butterfly effect would occur. Somewhere, a small insect would beat their wings, and many miles away many weeks later, a hurricane spurred by that one little wing flap would sweep through.

Mary would like this, Rick thought one day when he was finally accepting the fact that he would have to unpack...many things. That he couldn’t keep living out of his suitcase. That he’d been here nearly a month, and that he was no closer to his goal of finding Popuri than he had been at the start of his journey. So as he unpacked the few books he owned, he found one that he’d mistakenly packed - an old romance novel, one of the many that his mother read and then had no use for once she’d bought a new one. The library rarely took books as well-loved as this back home, but...perhaps Mary would enjoy reading it. Rick certainly had no use for it.

Rick barely thought of much else as he wandered toward Mary’s apartment, adjusting his glasses. The sun shone vividly overhead, and for the first time, he really imagined a world where...where he could stay here. Where he could learn to find his place on two islands such as these. But he just as quickly discarded the notion. He had a mission here, and once it was finished, he was going home - with or without Popuri.

It’s nice to dream, though, he thought with a deep sigh as he knocked on the front door of Mary’s apartment. Having the ability to make a choice about his future, that had never been an option. He would take over their poultry farm upon his mother passing away - which might be sooner than expected, he thought grimly, with the stress of having both of her children as well as her husband away - and he would never leave that small town ever again. He’d remember these islands in his dreams. He’d feel a deep, desperate yearning, and then he’d wake and do away with it - just like he had every other dream that came to mind during his entire life.

The door opened, and he looked up with a smile, then felt his heart stop dead in his chest. He dropped the book as the ground crumbled beneath him, tile by tile. And as he drank in the first sight of his sister in two years, everything else fell away.

“...you?”