2019-07-08: Unfair to Compare
- Log: Unfair to Compare
- Cast: Seraph Amaranth, Seraph Ragnell
- Where: The Moonflow
- Date: 8th July 2019
- Summary: Ragnell visits Amaranth for the first time after the events at the Forgotten Sanctuary. Ammy takes it... about as well as you'd expect.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
The Festina Lente usually self-advertises itself wherever it goes -- a mysterious shop of wonders where one can achieve their hopes and dreams in the form of fancy clothing, if they can perceive it. In Spira's case, this turns out to be a LOT of people, actually, so Ammy's had a lot of work...
... but she's not opening the shop as often as she usually is.
The spirits of the house, as a manifestation of Ammy, seems damper than usual. There's a grave mood that hangs about it... it's hard to place...
Maybe it's the way the house kinda droops and the chimney is sagging, and the two windows that kinda serve as eyes are filled up with tears.
And the blankie wrapped around it.
...
Ok it's not very hard to place at all. Normal people go for mood lighting. Ammy goes for mood housing.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell, for her part, has purchased a goodly number of ingredients from a wily merchant--who nonetheless gave her some /fairly/ decent prices due to her helping him out with some grass he was looking for before--and is looking for a good spot to set up a campfire and cook when...
Well.
The Festina Lente is not hard to spot, especially when Amaranth's set up her mood housing.
She stops as she walks along the Moonflow. She looks up. She looks it over. She nods to herself once. She lets herself in.
"Hey sis! Jus' droppin' by! You don't mind if I use your kitchen, right? Cool, thanks!" Ragnell yells to whomever or whatever greets her as she strides right in, as if she hadn't fallen into the Leyline, gone missing, and been presumed dead for the past several months. That would create a scenario that's way too sentimental for her liking. Instead, she simply barges in and heads on over to the kitchen.
And if Amaranth is bummed out over something else, well, hopefully the juxtaposition of the situation will help give her a HAPPY BOOST!, as she might say.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
RAGNELL busts into the Festina Lente!!
She gets a view of what her sister's been doing to cope, which is to say--
Amaranth is in a comfortable pair of dove-print jam-jams with a nightcap and a chiro pair of slippers and is hugging a bomb. Or rather, no, that's a bomb plant. It's Queen Anastasia. Wow, that's kind of morbid, isn't it?
She takes about five seconds of staring before the circuits in her brain start up again.
...
...
She plucks the bomb from Queen Anastasia's bushel and lifts it up over her head, as if ready to throw.
uh oh??
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"--okaygreatseein'yaloveyatoosisbye!!" Ragnell concludes as Amaranth raises that bomb, taking this opportunity to speed the heck up and get into the kitchen before that bomb can be properly thrown.
She did get a peek at Amaranth's state of, uh, being as she passed by. She's in full Comfort Mode, completely with her pet... bomb plant...?? (Ragnell never did quite 'get' Queen Anastasia, but hey, whatever makes Ammy happy), which is fine, but combined with the gloomy exterior is somewhat worrying. She wonders if something bad happened recently.
(she thought you were dead ragnell, that's what happened recently)
"By the way! You want somethin' sweet, Amms? I got ingredients for cookies!" she calls towards the living room once she's safely out of the projectile's path. "I can make ya dinner too if you want somethin' heartier!"
...maybe this might be taken for an 'I'm sorry I let you think I was dead for a few months'?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Ammy pauses as Ragnell just ashes straight on through to her kitchen and she pauses for a moment longer. Queen Anastasia being who she is, she operates on Zelda rules so the bomb starts to hiss and turn red.
Ammy blinks and looks up before she even realises what she's done. "Oh, um."
She turns around to a random door and tosses it into it.
Pause.
-POMF- The door concaves as the bomb explodes... somewhere. Probably not important. Don't worry about it. No person or animal or Fiend was harmed in the making of this gag.
"I--" Ammy flabbergastedly tries to catch up to her sister. "Ragnell. Rags..."
She wraps her arms around herself. She bites her lip.
Then she hurries to her sister's side to give her a big hug.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
-BAMF-, goes the explosion. Ragnell doesn't care. It's over in some other room, and Amaranth is no one's dummy, so it's probably fine. At worst she might have some cartoonish blast marks that she'll shake off a moment later. For the moment, she takes off her gloves and starts unloading the heaping bag of groceries she's been carrying.
Amaranth slips in a moment later and gives her a bear hug. Ragnell laughs like it's Tuesday and slips an arm around her, while still using the other arm to unpack. "Nice seein' you too, Amms! But you didn't answer my question. Well, most o' this is goin' into somethin' else anyway, so if you're not hungry, that's fine, but I figure I might as well make you *something* while I'm bummin' your kitchen. How's Talia, by the way? Met her brother, Ivan. Boy, is *he* a disaster," she adds with not a trace of irony. "You two gotten acquainted yet?"
...Yup, looks like she's going to insist on just. Being like this. But then, she's /usually/ like this, so. At least Amaranth can be reassured that it really is her??
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
"... I--I do want sweets. And dinner," Amaranth makes the noise she does when she's caught entirely off guard. "The pantry's stocked. Spira's a bit different. ... but we have ..."
She lowers her head. "We can make chocolate rusks. Like we used to."
Aww. Someone's just as fond of them, at least. A pause as she lets go and starts picking away at her hair. "Talia? She's doing great. And well-- yes, there's Ivan, I did meet him. He actually told me you were still... still alive. I should've-- I tried to-- look for you, but..."
She lowers her head.
"... but..."
She places a hand at her neck. It's one of her usual anxious tics.
"I'm in real trouble this time, sis."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell's smile gentles as her red eyes soften. Chocolate rusks, huh... "That *does* sound good," she agrees. Then she reaches out and taps Amaranth on the nose. "But you look like you could use somethin' creamy an' decadent! How 'bout I make you some cheesecake? I been makin' that lately--then I cut it up into these little bite-sized squares so I can eat 'em on the go in dungeons an' the like. Usually make it plain, but if you want chocolate, I can make it with chocolate easy."
Though if Amaranth insists on chocolate rusks, Ragnell certainly won't complain. They're good for having with tea or hot chocolate or coffee--best with coffee, in Ragnell's opinion. You get the best mix of flavors that way.
"Good t' hear," she says of Talia, now opening up the pantry to check what's available. It sounds like she *has* met Ivan, too--and he passed on that she's alive, did he? Good on him. She might actually owe him one, in that case. "It's fine that you didn't," she replies, calm and soothing. "You know me. I can take care o' myself."
--but--
The gravity of her deliverance makes Ragnell turn around, concern shooting up. "Why? What's wrong? What happened?" she asks in rapid sequence, as if *she's* the big sister ready to come swooping to the rescue.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Amaranth considers the merits of chocolate rusks and cheesecake, and some part of her does admit that she would like something creamy and decadent. But maybe it's because it was the first recipe she learnt with Ragnell, perhaps it's because it's extra nostalgic right now...
"... a hot cocoa with rusks sounds really good right now," she admits.
Ammy's pantry is just about as stocked as it always is -- she's not one for adventure, so the Festina Lente is a cut above a Drifter's lodgings and more like a proper home. Spiran ingredients and supplies are a tad different, though.
"I know. I know you can take care of yourself. But I just..."
She lowers her head.
"When Talia came back with your hat, I really thought--"
But Ragnell speaks of what's wrong, and she pauses and just admits it:
"... the Shadow Dragon Cult found me."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Will do, then," Ragnell replies, fetching and bringing out a whole lotta chocolate, along with bread and milk. ...a whole lot of milk too, honestly. She fetches several pots to serve as a pair of double boilers for melting the chocolate and heating the milk, then puts them on low heat to melt the chocolate and warm and hot-cocoa milk as she starts slicing up the bread with expert ease.
"Ah, so Talia's got my hat? Great news! I was worried it was lost for good," Ragnell says cheerfully. "I really liked that hat, too. K.K. gave it to me, you know, after I sacrificed the first hat I got when I came to Filgaia, so it means a lot to me an' I didn't want to have t' replace it if I didn't--"
'The Shadow Dragon Cult found me.'
Ragnell's hands still. She stands up straight. Her cheer vaporizes. She sets the knife, and she faces her sister.
"Tell me everything," she says, as serious as Amaranth has ever seen her.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Amaranth watches Ragnell prepare some bread and milk and chocolate, looking over the banne-marie. It's nostalgic to see Ragnell cooking, perhaps harkening back to times like...
"Ah, here..." Amaranth walks towards her room and takes out that hat -- it's probably seen better days, but it's clear that Ammy's cleaned and taken good care of it like the seamstress she is.
She lowers her head as Ragnell's countenance changes.
"I got trapped in that incident in Luca -- the fiend attack," Amaranth answers. "I had to use... the arte to save myself and others."
She lowers her head.
"More than a week ago, a masked woman approached and attacked me. I recognised her arte for what it is -- the Shadow Dragon's style. She was a senior, too... at least by my own experience, she is far more skilled than an apprentice."
She shivers in recollection of that.
"I couldn't get a name or a face. But I have a feeling she may be hiding in the Guard. There may be others, too."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
HAT! Hat hat HAT hat HAT hat HAT. Ragnell sparkles like a bishounen in a room full of admirers as she accepts her feathered cowboy hat from Amaranth. Maybe it's seen better days, but it's seen far, far worse ones, too. Ragnell raises it and reverently sets it back upon her head.
she looks so ~happy~
Alas, the glow doesn't last. The fiend incident. Ragnell nods. She remembers that. So Amaranth used some of those techniques, and wouldn't it just so happen, one of the Shadow Dragons spotted it--and her... She frowns, folding her arms, and taps a finger on her bicep. "Ivan's in the Guard. You try askin' him anything about it?" she wonders. He's also an assassin, which can't hurt. That being said, if this is an advanced practitioner, chances are bad that anyone even knows they exist, at least as what they truly are.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Amaranth sags quietly.
"His first offer was to ask if I wanted anyone killed."
A hesitation later, and Amaranth allows herself to at least momentarily be distracted by Ragnell's charming reaction to her hat being reunited with her as she scratches her cheek.
"I-- um, well, I convinced him out of it. But..." she closes her eyes. "As far as I understand it, there's only two groups of people who came to Spira -- the Drifters and other people who were teleported from the Blue Star and... the Guard."
She tilts her head with a frown.
"I suppose I cannot exclude the possibility that there is an assassin posing as a Drifter, but... I'd long suspected the Cult has a presence hidden in the Guard. I feel that is probably more likely. But I do not know how far up the chain it goes..."
She shakes her head.
"Even in Meribia, I couldn't uncover much of their activities on my own..."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell massages the bridge of her nose. "Of course it was. Why would it be anything different?" she mumbles. She shakes her head, then focuses back on Amaranth. She raises a good point about the folks who were transported to Spira. The Shadow Dragon Cult member is /fairly/ unlikely to be a Filgaian, ergo they must be in the Guard. That's solid reasoning. And, true, maybe they're posing as a Lunarian Drifter, but...
"They've already had an assassin or two in their number. It really would make more sense if there's an overall assassin presence in the Guard to make the existence of kids like Ivan run more smoothly for the organization," Ragnell replies. "I couldn't even field a guess on how deep the roots're planted, though. We need more information."
She rests a hand on her chin in thought. "...D'you know many Guards in general, Amms? I have one in mind I should be able to ask to covertly look into things for you."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
"... you're right on that front. From what Talia told me, I couldn't piece together a connection between her father Lubov and the Shadow Dragon Cult, but I would honestly not be surprised if fellow assassin guilds lived in the roost..." Amaranth muses.
But Ragnell asks if she knows of any Guards.
"To be honest... no. And even if I did before -- I would be doubly uncertain now with what just happened in Luca with the invasion," Amaranth admits. "It rather sounded like they were on the warpath. I am sure everyone's tensions must be riding high."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It would be /hilariously/ awkward if there were a connection, but Ragnell keeps that thought to herself. She checks on the milk and chocolate, stirring as necessary--the rusk mixture will need more chocolate, and the hot chocolate will need more milk--while still paying attention to her sister.
"Mmm. That's true, too," Ragnell admits. "Well, I *do* know someone. I'll ask 'em to keep an eye out." She crooks a smile. It's got a fondness to it that Amaranth may not have seen on Ragnell in a long while... "She's uptight in some ways, but she's a good person. Better'n most. I'm sure she'll be able to help out. Her name's Liath--she's a Seraph." She nods to the Dark Seraph. "I think... you'll wanna meet her, if you can. If you haven't already."
She pauses for a moment, another question on her mind... but this one doesn't have anything to do with Amaranth's problems, and honestly, she's dealing with enough as it is. Ragnell tucks that one away. She's... already made her decision by now, anyway. At this point, it's all up to how *she* reacts.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
Awkward, perhaps, but Talia being an assassin was one of the things that primarily drew Amaranth to her in her desire to show that it was possible to leave such a life... so she may have been ready to cross that bridge if it did come to it.
"... a Seraph? Okay," Amaranth nods, sounding just a bit guarded, but... it relaxes when Ragnell says that this Liath can help out. She naturally still trusts -- and wants to continue to trust -- her sister, after all. "Speaking of which, um--"
She glances aside. "I met our old friend... I met Clarine. Did you... see her, by any chance?"
She doesn't know that Clarine and Ragnell have come to blows once, has she?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Hell, maybe I'll see if I can't drag her here sometime," Ragnell offers. She grins wolfishly. "I'd /love/ to see you work your seamstress magic on her. She's got this amazin' figure, an' these pretty golden eyes, an' she's got great stance an' posture, an'--"
Ragnell continues in this vein of lavishly complimenting Liath's physical appearance before Amaranth offers a topic change. Ragnell brightens. "Oh yeah, Clary an' I have hung out a bunch o' times lately!" she chirps. She sobers some. "She's... It looks like she's been through a lot since we parted ways, back in the day. She's still cute as a button, but... I dunno. There's somethin' about her that's more--timid, more withdrawn, now. I been meanin' to ask her what happened, but..."
... ..... .......looks like Ragnell's not going to mention that fight just yet, either.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
In truth, though Amaranth knows Ragnell to be a free spirit and a flirt, freely interested in the countenance and way people present themselves, something about the way she describes this woman with her golden eyes and figure and stance feels nostalgic. She doesn't quite know why.
She doesn't quite point it out.
"It's been a while since I've dressed a Seraph up," Amaranth admits. "And I'd be happy to freshen your look too, of course, sis."
A pause as she furrows her brow softly...
"I heard she was trapped within a lantern by some humans... but I believe she's travelling with some even now," Amaranth muses. She listens to Ragnell as she comments on that. "... I see it too. I cannot deny it. But... mm."
She lowers her head again.
"... it's nice, to see her again, still shining. She's much stronger than I am."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Nostalgic... That's certainly one way of putting it.
It's just as well that Amaranth doesn't call her on it. Ragnell wouldn't explain it anyway. Some things, you need to get to experience for yourself.
"My look is fine!" Ragnell protests. She pauses in consideration, stirring the two double boilers, and admits, "But with all this world-hoppin' we been doin', maybe a freshenin' up *wouldn't* be a bad idea. Spira's got a style all its own, compared to the rest o' Lunar." She grins. "An' I'd be delighted to see what you did with li'l ol' Li~."
Clarine, though... Trapped in a lantern. Ragnell nods slowly. "Yeah, she's hangin' out with a group called ARMS right now," she replies. "I told her to let me know if they give her any trouble, but I dunno that she'd come runnin' to me if there were any problems, all considered." A certain resignation, there. But--stronger than Amaranth? Ragnell pauses, glancing over at her. "You're not so weak, either," she murmurs--but maybe it's better to press that subject later. For right now, it's time for the next stage of rusk-baking.
So, she reaches over to turn on the oven for pre-heating, then takes the rusk chocolate mixture off heat. "Say, sis, you mind helpin' me dip these pieces o' bread in the chocolate?" she chirps. "It'll go faster with the two of us!"
And so it goes...
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.
There's a soft chuckle from Amaranth as she holds her hands up to say, "Only if you'd like. I know you really got into the Ignasian look a while back. Spira seems like it'd fit your wardrobe, though. People wear really bold styles here, and often asymmetric... even out on the streets you hardly find two people dressed the same way."
A pause, as she closes her eyes.
"... it might be unfair for me to compare myself to her. But after what happened with the assassin, I genuinely wanted to run away. Just like... last time. I didn't like that I considered it for too long, too hard, until Talia talked to me."
She shakes her head and breathes shakily. "That's not what a strong person does... now would it?" A frown. "No, I... I mean. I'm-- working on it. Sorry, sis." Fortunately, Ragnell's got the right idea to distract her-- and she smiles and says, "Right, sis!"
Making rusks with Ragnell... it definitely was what she needed right now.