2019-07-23: Be Kidnapped on ze Shoopuf

From Dream Chasers
Jump to navigation Jump to search


<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

After their harrowing escape from Luca -- in which Riesenlied took an arrow to the arm and has been struggling with that wound, amongst other things -- it was finally time for the two Hyadeans to make the commitment to go north. ... buuuut ... no one said it had to be a particularly arduous or lengthy journey--

And so, before things really got difficult, Riesenlied is fulfilling a promise she had to her family.

To go on the Shoopuf together and have a fun outing before they inevitably had to stray farther than the Fereshte, bound to the ocean as it currently is, can go.

It's a crystal-clear day on the Moonflow as the Shoopuf ambles along the waters at a relaxed pace; there's a giggle from Mikaia as she holds up a carob nut to one of the chocobo chicks that've decided to follow them, and Janey's basically daring fate trying to hang over the railing.

Riesenlied has her wheelchair folded beside the comfortable couch of pillows and blankets, no doubt in cuddle formation with Noeline already. "Shall we have lunch? I packed..."

A pause, as she looks around and blinks and starts looking around further in panic.

"O-oh no. Oh no! Where'd the picnic basket go? Did I forget it...??"

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

This is the sort of day that Noeline can get behind. Leaving the Fereshte behind does leave her a lot more unsteady than she ever would have expected of herself - it turns out she /can/ be something of a homebody, if she tries - but the ride on the shoopuf is both relaxing and peaceful, and reminds her a little of when she set off on her own journeys so long ago. Having Riesenlied and the children at her side just makes it sweeter.

"I've said it before," she wonders as she looks out over the Moonflow, one arm tucked around Riese and her other hand on the edge of the basket, close enough to grab Janey if she starts to pitch over. She's kind of a bad influence, because she already had her share of craning over the side. "But Spira certainly hammers home 'this is a different world' so much more effectively than Meribia and Vane ever could."

"That sounds good--" she starts to say, before Riesenlied's fluster starts to build; she blinks for a moment before changing tack, softening into a quiet chuckle as she takes her partner's hand to soothe her. "I didn't notice either... well. It's alright, isn't it? We'll just have to go a little hungry until we can reach the next Waystation, but that's all."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

EARLIER.

About halfway through the planning meeting, Elly put her foot down. Not her foot, her hand. She did it hard enough for the little pinky cover to pop off and bonk Brother in the forehead.

"I'm sorry to raise my voice," says Elly in a slightly-above-typical-volume voice, "But I took a seminar in this topic and I'm not going to let you take this same risk again." Her lips purse then, as the forsaken child in the full head mask translates what she said. As there is dispute in the idea of a 'seminar,' Elly picks up a grease pencil and starts drawing on the map...

NOW.

There is boat traffic on the Moonflow... mostly shallow-draft canoes and barges. One such shallow-draft canoe is being rowed (not paddled, rowed! it's a real #lifehack!) towards the Shoopuf with a number of people in it dressed in drab clothing. One of them is Elly van Houten, who is standing in the prow with her foot on the fo'c'sle, staying steady. It's very imposing.

The rower, Brother, mutters to himself, "I still don't understand what this seminar is. Or what a Jugend is. Is there some paper I should read? Is the other world full of loud women with red hair?"

The forsaken child in the full head cowling answers him in the common language. "You're just salty. Keep rowing."

They get closer. Closer. Elly is the first to go - she hurls up a rope on a long rising arc... which sweeps forwards, over the shoopuf's forward reaches, sweeping back down and skip-splashing off the Moonflow's surface. Elly catches it and hooks on, looking at the others to do the same. Then she scrambles up the rope--

Does a little flip to land on the front of the Shoopuf...

And looks dead ahead, blinking several times.

"Oh!!"

Elly makes extremely vigorous gestures with her right hand towards the rest of the group on the canoe. These gestures indicate 'abort abort' and 'bring lunch, bring lunch.'

"Riesenlied! What a wonderful surprise! Hold on, everyone will be up in a moment..."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

VERY PREDICTABLY

The moment the rope is thrown and Elly does a powerful flip to land on the Shoopuf, Riesenlied's reaction is to cling onto Noeline with a timid yelp as her horns shoot straight up. "Eeeek!!"

Her senses catch up to her a moment later.

"E-Elly???"

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

The goal was, get their hands on Yuna. Without hurting her, or her guardians. There were a number of reasons for why it had to be done /this/ way, as she and Leon had explained it, but in the end, for Josie, the most important one is that they're getting paid properly for it.

So when the rumor had come up...

Low risk is her kind of risk. (So is high risk, honestly)

"OK, kid," she says to the young man doing the bulk (all of?) the rowing work, "bring us in low and slow." She does not speak Al Bhed. Not even a little bit.

"There she is. OK. Get ready--"

Josie leaps for it, landing on the Shoopuf mere moments after Elly does.

There is a familiar scream.

"--Sunshine?!"

Josie backpedals in the next moment and drops into the drink with a splash.

Penelope, incongruously, arrives moments later. She alights on the Shoopuf's head as if nothing at all untoward is happening.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"They really teach all sorts of stuff at school these days," Fei says, impossibly casual about it all.

NOW

He sits behind Elly, fidgeting a bit because he feels like he should be rowing too but, alas, only one paddle! He seems to be pretty relaxed, possibly having chilled out a bit after finally venting his frustrations earlier. He has always been a passionate sort when it come to the plight of those caught between varying avenues for violence but he usually calms down after pontificating for a while. "I hope we don't worry the shoopuf too much." Fei says. "I have a great deal of respect for the shoopufs."

Elly is the first to go but Fei arrives not long after her, intending to support her to the best of her ability. He doesn't see the hand gestures as he leaps on top of the shoopuf and shouts, "You have been /summoned/, Yuna--!"

He pauses for a moment, blinking a few times. Then he looks to Elly. "This isn't Yuna."

He then looks towards Riesenlied.

He hangs his head. "I spent all day working on that."

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

For all that she briefly jolted at the sight of the redhead, Noeline manages to just about keep her cool, her eyebrows slooowly rising. "... ... it's alright. We understand, given Fei's day job as an artist," she deadpans after a moment's pause. "But if you needed some money for the fare, you only had to ask and we'd help."

Noeline does her best to maintain that flat expression when Josie launches herself upwards and onto the shoopuf - but when she staggers back and pitches over the side there's a rather unladylike snort that dissolves into an outright snigger.

At least she does take it somewhat seriously; she's alert enough to glance past the edge of the basket, then crane her head to check behind her, nodding in satisfaction at the rope dangling down into the water - more secure in the knowledge that Josie has something to hang onto should she need it.

Clearing her throat, she just grins at the martial artist, already expecting him to follow given Elly's presence. "To be fair, it really is quite good. Snappy and to the point." She's probably teasing - but the mischievous, amused light in her eyes could have pretty much come from anything in the last two minutes.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied next spots Josephine, of all people, crying out at her, and then /Fei/ declaring loudly about Yuna and everything is going at about a million miles a minute and the only thing preventing her from just melting down into a nervous wreck of a puddle is Josephine taking a backstep too far and rolling off the side of the Shoopuf.

"J-Josie?!"

Janey, on the other hand, appears to have a /completely/ different take on it.

"..... that's /RAD/," assesses the Lord of Calamity on the impact of all three of their landings and declarations as if she's about to unlock a new Style. "What're you all playing at?! I want in too! I want in!"

Mikaia fidgets with a frown at the back as the chocobo chick starts to nervously look around at the presence of A Certain Pigeon. "H-hey, it's okay... these're mom's friends..."

She thinks. One can't be too careful around Penelope.

The poor Hypello driver looks a lot more alarmed as he stammers, "Iz everyone ze okay??"

Janey waves him off and goes, "False alarm! False alarm. These're our friends, uh..." She looks to the boat for a moment.

Riesenlied quietly hands Janey some gil for the trip fare. She's just about a weeping puddle at this point.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Noeline picks up on the situation quickly, helping Riesenlied hand the money over - and keeping an arm in contact around her, knowing that things might have just happened a little too fast for the Hyadean to process given her other worries.

"It's alright," she assures the driver with a lopsided smile. "They'd been running late, but it seems they managed to catch up. I hope they brought the picnic basket we forgot," she adds, more as an excuse for the long-suffering Hypello to digest rather than an actual expectation.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly is, frankly, kind of relieved, because it would feel like one mother-hell of a betrayal if she used that momentary emotional bonding she had felt with the hard-working, suffering Yuna to stuff her in a burlap bag. (Elly suspects she could, if it were just Yuna. The problem is... it's not just Yuna.)

But it's a moot point! Elly beams at Riesenlied. She beams so hard that her face, which tends to an earnest expression, strains a little. "What a wonderful surprise! Oh! But I heard that you, ah, needed food?"

Josie arrives. So does Penelope, who no doubt has a better strategic plan than all of them. Elly then takes Fei's hand and squeezes it for a moment in lieu of the tragic discovery he has made, that his sick line he workshopped has fallen flat for now...

Noeline is papering things over. "Oh, yes, we're all fine," Elly tells the Hypello; "everyone's fine here... how are you?"

(From the canoe, Brother calls up, "Is this what they teach you to do in a Jugend?" The mysterious child, who may later move on to found an electric power company, kicks him.)

Elly then looks towards -- a dotted outline that used to contain Josie. "Oh no," she says. (The mysterious child throws Josie a rope with a cork float on the end and tells her, "Can you take the food up? If this isn't 'her', then we probably ought to get back to what we were doing... you know?")

Elly smiles at Janey and Mikaia, even as she steps closer - tentatively. "Is it alright if we sit...? I don't know if you're travelling or just promenading for fun... I'm sure Josie will be back up in a moment, too."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Josie surfaces a moment later, treading water. "Gah... no one told me those things were so slippery," she complains, keeping her head above water. With her one good hand, she reaches for a rope, or well, for both of them, looping the one with the cork about her less-good-arm and doing her best with the part that requires tying a knot--

if that can be called a knot, anyway, it looks like the devil's own business

--and then grabbing onto the other that Noeline has dropped. Josie lingers like that a moment.

Then:

"...A little help, Sugar? Not all of us can fly, you know."

Penelope, as if on cue, takes the moment to eye Mikaia and Janey with eyes that glitter dully. She does not otherwise move, but remains where she did there land.

A sentinel...

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei feels better. Having people who support you is great. He squeezes Elly's hand back and then shifts his gaze back down to towards the canoe. "You know--" He says to Brother, "--I don't know the language but I can still tell you're sassing her."

He doesn't sound angry. He just sounds... SNIFF...hurt that his dear Bart--I mean Brother--I mean person Fei has decided would be his Bart on Spira to make him miss the real one less...the point is, he knows Elly went a little hard on Brother but he'd like it if the two could get along.

He looks back to Riesenlied. "Well--this works out I guess." He smiles at riesenlied. "far be it for me to complain that instead of a job, we got lunch!"

He heads over to the edge of shoopuf (tm) and tries to look for a Josie. "Josie are you okay over there?"

He reaches a hand out--

--a hand that could easily be used to pull Fei INTO the water if so desired. Since a rope is down he can try to help get it within josie grabbing distance too. He just works here.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied lifts her teary eyes up again for Elly as she heaves a very tired breath out, placing a hand to her heart where she can still feel it beating. Or perhaps it's the Medium of Life? She can't tell anymore, sometimes, some days, where the palpitations are coming from. Maybe that's a bad sign. Maybe that isn't. She's very much still leaning against Noeline as she looks to Fei with a quiet nod.

"Oh... um," she stammers to Elly, "We did forget our picnic basket somewhere... maybe I did not pick it up from the waystation when we got onboard. Oh dear..."

Janey grins, in turn, however, to go, "Yeah! Sit wherever you'd like, Shoopuf's open!" A pause as she clambers in with Noeline and starts lifting the rope to lift Josephine out of the water.

Riesenlied's got a pile of towels ready, because of course she does. This is something a basic Mom, even without a multi-target two-hit attack, prepares for.

The choco chick buncles up as it cowers in Mikaia's hands, like it's getting ready for an all-out war of some kind...! Mikaia smiles as she similarly papers over her unease as she looks to the others, then says, "Lunch with everyone'd be great..."

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

With a toothy sort of grin, Noeline nods Elly towards one of the cushions, near to where Mikaia is cuddling onto their chocobo chick. "It's alright. I think we should be able to make space," she adds as she crosses to the rope; that smile is directed downwards towards the water as she checks Josie's sufficiently secured, then she's putting her brute strength to use in hauling the other Wolf up to the basket.

"They like to flick water on their back as they walk, I've noticed," she hums once Josie's high enough to hear her, alternating the loud with Janey as the two of them work together. "Combine that with the sheer speed with which you all popped in, and there you have it."

There's only so long she can dance around the shoopuf in the room, though, and her curiosity is riding high as she helps Josie step back into the basket into Riesenlied's waiting pile of towels. "Dare I ask exactly what sort of job involves an entrance like this?" she comments towards Fei.

Once everyone's inside and settles, she gently nudges Riesenlied back to the cushions, feeling her distress over their link; it turns her cautious pretty quickly, and she takes care to rest Riese back against her in comfort.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"Oh, is he?" Elly says when Fei tells Brother that he can tell he's bein' a sassmouth.

FLASHBACK

Elly enters a conference room with those five goobers who were her immediate subordinates. "... what are you doing?"

"Oh! Ha ha! He cleaned up a Drive injector - it's just syrup for the refreshment," Renk says quickly. "He likes it sweet."

"Yeah," Vance says. It's not syrup.

HERE NOW

"I couldn't tell..."

She does approach the others even as she says, "It's alright. That's... what we were doing; we thought we'd try out a new business model, where we'd delight and... surprise people with a delivery of lunches." ("I hear chocobo droppings being shovelled!")

She moves to set herself down near the edge currently facing the canoe and, indirectly, Josie - in case she needs to give a hand up. She extends one leg so she can plant that super-slipproof sandal sole on the side of the shoopuf, suggesting scandalous security against slips and splashes.

Elly then does a double take. "Is that -- a baby chocobo...??"

(The two Al Bhed in the canoe move to help Josie out too. This includes the young child moving to put the lunch bag's strap around Josie's neck, in case she's going to be hauled, bodily, to the Shoopufside Layer. Efficient!)

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

"Could be better! Could be a lot worse too!" Josie calls back, still treading water. She'll take that hand up when it comes -- however it comes. Probably some lifting is involved first. At least she's not Emeralda.

"Whew! That was a bit of a trip," the archaeologist comments, dripping once she's free of the Moonflow. "I was planning on taking a look around, but I didn't expect it quite like /this/," she says to Fei, before handing over the thing that the small future-electrical-company-founder handed her. "...Don't think I can get the rope off, though." This is truly a most Gordian knot she's tied. "There's a knife in my belt. Use that. My knots always turn out like this," Josie mock-laments.

She, no doubt, finds herself soon bundled into a towel or two. She protests, at least for the appearance of things, but honestly, she's not going to reject a towel at a time like this. "Whew. Nice set up you kids got here," she says, apparently purely on reflex, since there's no way that Riesenlied and Noeline are /kids/, strictly speaking.

She looks over at Elly. She looks over at Elly...

Josie manages to keep a straight face!

"Yeah. It's a good way to make a few gil," she says, with a firm nod.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei flinches, briefly mistaking the bird for a cucco, the species that still gives Fei nightmares sometimes after they descended upon Adlehyde in droves and nearly destroyed the city well before the Metal Demons got it, but it's just instinctive. He realizes what's up an instant after.

"Oh sure thing." Fei says, reaching for the knife. If not stopped he'll go ahead and use THAT to free Josie. Nobody else is planning on taking a spill after all.

He didn't get thrown in the water!

He knew Josie was trustworthy apparently????

"You really do just bring joy wherever you go, huh Riese?" Fei says, smiling before looking to Noeline, looking briefly confused before. "oh! Yeah. I guess you weren't there. Uh....You see we were kid--"

Elly says this is all about lunch delivevry.

"--ding around." Fei says, managing a straight face. He's not sure why this is going on but he's going with it.

"If we make enough gil we get to eat lunches too." Fei says as his stomach grumbles, on command.

Well no it's just well timed coincidence. He's a hungry guy.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

... ... ... well, with the comments Fei made before about Yuna, it's probably not terribly hard to put two and two together because if there's something a Shoopuf cabin is made for other than rest and relaxation and the most wonderful romantic outing of your life, it's probably ambushes.

Not that Riesenlied's particularly ready to speak up about it, though the extremely distressed response from their Rings of Promise certainly tell quite the story about it.

... maybe she also doesn't want to say in front of Janey and Mikaia. That too.

(Janey'd get too excited.)

That said, Riesenlied definitely is working to wick excess moisture out from Josephine with her towels as she blinks at the comment of the rope, but looks about as she says, "Have you not tried a ride on the Shoopuf before...? It's really nice..."

She reclines gently against Noeline as she coaxes her backwards, rubbing at her eyes to wick the tears away.

She looks like she's still jumping at shadows a little. It's kind of /incredibly/ unspoken, but maybe she still has fresh memories of the time /Alhazred/ kidnapped her, as far as kidnappings go.

Elly speaks of the baby chocobo, who is wonderfully bby and hopping up and down at her presence. She tiny-flies over from Mikaia's hand onto Elly's lap. "Kweh?"

Janey's looming over the picnic basket, gesturing at Fei. "C'mon! Let's dig in!"

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Somehow, Noeline manages to keep a straight face at Elly's description of their new role, though she does huff out a breath in sheer surprise. "I see," she hums as she pats Riesenlied's hand gently in her own. "It certainly sounds like a... transformative business model, I suppose. Bringing people lunches /for their own good/, I hope?"

She finds herself having to glance at Josie and Fei as well, because aside from her amusement there's also a fair amount of honest disbelief and surprise, especially given what she knows of the political landscape.

... on the other hand, Noeline has a pretty solid capacity for trust in her fellow Wolves at this point, and a working idea of how (overly) devoted to her pilgrimage Yuna might be, and how much the Guard would probably want to get their hands on her. She'd certainly expect Fei and Elly to keep her safe, and that Josie would merrily shoot anyone that got in the way of that. There are worse ways to bundle a summoner off to safety, she supposes.

"In any case, to answer your previous question - we have left the Fereshte for a while," she finally decides to slide off the topic, letting Riesenlied settle into something more familiar. "All indications suggest we should probably follow after the pilgrimage, and I dare say that 'away from the Guard' would probably be for the best right now. But that means going overland, rather than by sea. Flying the Fereshte does not exactly seem like a good idea, here on Spira."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"A knife is always a friend." This is Brother's wisdom as he assists Josie. Soon enough she comes up, bearing the payload, and Elly moves to collect it, holding the canvas-wrapped package on her knees even as the Al Bhed withdraw coolly, the rowing of the canoe almost comically fast now that most of the weight has left it. PENELOPE. (We are suggesting the bird is Portly.)

"I haven't really had the chance to ride the shoopuf, no... do you think you could fish from the top of it?" asks Elly, curiously, before she is abruptly gifted with the chocobo-- "Ah!!"

She gathers the precious, fluttering life in her hands, feeling soft yellow feathers. Soon, she thinks, you'll be huge, big enough to ride, even as she gazes warmly at the chocobo...

FOOD TIME!

In addition to a wide range of pita breads, the spread includes:

  • A bunch of shaved cold roast meat! (Those who were hanging out with Brother and co. just now would recognize this as leftovers from yesterday, where they were given the gift of gyro. It seems to be mostly spiced ground goat.)
  • A well marinated chopped salad with cucumber, onion and tomato, along with some cilantro
  • A cooked pasta dish with a creamy, peppery dressing and more chopped cold vegetable, packed inside of a hollowed-out gourd.
  • A carved-out apple used as a container for something quite like tzatiki sauce...

"It's flight capable, though?" Elly asks as she holds a stuffed pita bread. (The chicobo, next to her, is eating the end piece of a cucumber and lookin' glad about it)

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Josie simply looks over at Brother and smiles blithely. "I have no idea what you said, kid, but I'm sure it was profound."

It's a shame, since it's the sort of sentiment she could be on board with. Just about. Just change it from knife to gun, and she's in business...

But after her little trip into the Moonflow -- current weather or not -- she's more than willing to get bundled off into the Shoopuf cabin-ette.

She greets Noeline with the sort of grin to which the appelation 'shit-eating' is often applied. "Something like that," she answers, settling back with a towel around her neck.

A lady never kisses and tells. Until she decides she's good and ready, anyway.

"Nope. Well, not leisurely-like. I /did/ cross the river a few times," is her answer about the Shoopuf. "Come to think of it, some of this /does/ look familiar. Guess you were right on about it, Junior." She crosses her legs, grimaces, then sets about undoing her boots. Yeah. That was an unpleasant 'squish' just then. She is not a heathen, so she doesn't dump river water out of them in /here/.

"Seems wise," she answers Noeline at last. "The people around here really don't like anything more complicated than a hammer, and even that gets a suspicious glance. ...I ended up hiding the Nostos near the Thunder Plains. One of these days I'll want to move it on north, but that's gonna be a pain in the ass and a half. Fengalon's fangs, indeed." She sighs, leaning back in her seat.

"Well, maybe I'll make the best of it and go swimming or something later, eh? Figure out what that recording was about while I'm..." she pauses. "...between deliveries.

Penelope shuffles atop the Shoopuf's head. She could possibly stand to lose a few grams.

"So, Red, what's in the box?"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"I have great respect for the shoopuf. They are a noble creature." Fei says seriously. He crouches downa bit on sai shoopuf to eat which he does, managing to stay on the edge of politeness despite his hunger. You wouldn't like him when he's hangry so it's for the best. He eagily points out how incredible the salad is but he seems to stick a bit more to the meat dishes so as to not deprive the vegetarians in the group.

"Huh. I always thought Chocobos were flightless birds? Since they're pulling wagons all the time." Fei rubs at his chin in deep thought before grimacing over to Noeline and Riesenlied. He can tell they're distressed. He doesn't want to bother them with the sketchy details they probably don't want to hear about anyway

"Yeah," Fei murmurs. "We need to come up with some kind of plan. I was Cecilia was around." He hasn't seen her and is assuming, for the moment, she wasn't ported along with everybody else.

Josie draws her attention to BOX and Fei iturns his own gaze back towards Elly.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Speaking of vegetarians.

Riesenlied does the dutiful and prepares a little pasta and cucumber for Mikaia, despite the girl grumping that she can get her own food (someday very soon she'll have to spoil her a lot less, but stressed out as she is, she can't help herself) and gets herself some of the salad as well. It looks really nice... and that apple too...

"Ah... thank you so much, Elly," Riesenlied expresses as the tension starts to bleed away from her shoulders. Noeline's comforting certainly helps just as much. And... well, Noeline is a spy and she knows she's put two and two together, but like her she's chosen to put faith in Leon and his motivation and that the Wolves won't tear off more than they can chew.

Which Fei is demonstrating, even! He's not about to anime-gag on his food and need water or anything.

She does pause a little as she leans over and waves bashfully to Brother. Since she doesn't know him or anything. "Rammu! Dryhg oui...! E fecr E fana y pek vmivvo pent...!" she's still trying her rather choppy Al Bhed out. (That's how you know it's choppy since it's written in cipher.)

And still really really loves that last phrase which she still hasn't figured out what it means still.

She looks at Noeline with a nod as she admits, "It'll be more difficult, but the Chocobos are there to help in a jam... t-though um. I think the Thunder Plains are going to be exceptionally hard for me," she answers Josephine as well. "Not looking forward to trying that on the chair..."

Janey's got her mouff full, ffy the ffay. Mikaia says, "It can kind of hover short distances... but it tires it out..." she explains on the Chocobo front. No, this isn't one of the dark feathered varieties that can bring you to magnetic caverns with music-hating elves, sadly.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly surrenders BOX into the care of Riesenlied to distribute. "Oh," she demurs, "it's alright."

"Same" answers the young stranger.

"Maybe they can't fly when they're all grown," Elly theorizes. "Like some insects back on Filgaia..."

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

"It might be a little tricky to fish from the top of this thing, if only because you'll be moving all the time," Noeline notes, though she's obviously not much of a fisher if she doesn't realize a moving lure is better than a stationary one. She seems content to leave the curious questioning alone for the time being, if only because this once Elly's business has clearly paid off: there is food.

"Uh-huh," she says instead to Josie, letting out an amused sigh. "In any case, we simply thought the trip across the Moonflow would make for a pleasant and relaxing time, at least right up until all of you abruptly dropped in on us. However, I think we can still go for 'pleasant', even if the relaxation is a little suspect right this moment," she chuckles.

She tilts her head lightly towards Fei; he doesn't say anything specific, but he is at least thinking about the wider picture still. "If nothing else, ARMS is probably a suitable place to start. They aren't Adlehyde, but they by and large appear to have their heads screwed on well enough," she suggests, inadvertently pitting one alt against another. "But," she adds, taking a bit of pity on the poor martial artist as she encourages: "That can wait until we reach the other side."

She's content to let Riese fuss over everyone, because she knows it'll be a source of comfort for her. She's there to help out, marshalling Janey back into their circle as she hums thoughtfully. "... you might be right. I understand the areas past it are wide and open, however - perhaps it might just be best to push through it as fast as we can, and then set up a camp on the Calm Lands."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"Mm, Ida joined up with ARMS." Fei says. "Just found out yesterday, actually." He wonders why he isn't so eager to join up himself come to think of it. Maybe it's too MUCH like Lee's past. He should have his own story right? Besides, while that ended as well as he could have hoped, it didn't exactly end WELL. He doesn't want to dramatically sacrifice himself after losing the person he cares most about. He wants more than a happy ending, but a happy life.

"Maybe I'll check with them, see what they've got to say. I know I want to talk to their boss at some point but I don't think he came over with 'em. So--honestly if I learned anything from what's going on now, you can't really tell what a group is like until their boss starts giving orders."

He smiles faintly. "Thanks for the advice, Noeline."