interstellar5555 | This sudden burst of sunlight

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This sudden burst of sunlight

Who: Namine and anyone who wants to visit her.
What: A Nobody pretends to be a Somebody until she can rescue her friends.
When: Early Feb
Where: Rockwell's Art Supply
Warnings: IDEK. It's Namine Like. Really. It's entirely on whatever characters are visiting, really.

A

Nora Whitney is a lovely girl if you ask Mr. Rockwell or any of the people who work at Rockwell's, for that matter. There are only a few people on staff, Nora being the newest. She's always willing to help, and she's often found drawing on her breaks, or when there isn't anyone at the register.

When asked she'll say that she likes drawing things she sees, the pictures seeming to be of the city or of the many stars that are in the papers and the tabloids. She smiles kindly and tells them she likes music. It's not a lie. But it isn't the entire truth either.

She's quite good at that, by now.

She tends to take the register nearer to closing, beforehand it's easier to find her roaming the store, restocking or cleaning.

B

On her way to and from work, Nora tends to take all sorts of different paths. She leaves early from home to find new ones, and returns home late to keep looking some days, though she often shows up at any of her 'family's' workplaces to walk home with them, even if it's rather far away, and there is no real way she could've gotten there from her own work quite so quickly.

She sometimes stops to draw, but mostly just seems to be wandering, wearing her patchwork leather bag and seeming to just take in everything she can see.

Acting like a regular person is very new to her, afterall.

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During one of her trips home, if she takes extra notice, she'll spot a familiar someone through the "window shopping" glass at a musical instrument store. These stores, surprise surprise, are a plenty here, but this particular one features a large assortment of drum supplies. So, being the drummer for Nuclear Parliament, he's here testing out things and picking up enhancements for his kit that can add different sounds or skew effects to his liking. She may not recognize him at first, being in a collared black shirt and jeans, but that hair and face are definitely him, no changes to that.

At the moment he'll be staring intently at a set of small of tambourine jingles, wondering if he should fiddle with the rivets on the cymbals by replacing them with these. It would make an interesting sound..

She notices him immediately. How would she not? She and Roxas are interlinked in such a way that it's impossible to miss him. She stands outside the window for a very long moment watching him. So he looks a little different, dressed strangely and his baring is a little off from what she expects but she sees him and if she had a heart, she would think this was her heart filling with a little more joy than she started with.

She pauses, and then looks around before stepping into the music shop. She has no idea what she's planning, but she knows she wants to at least get the chance to stay a little longer near him, make sure he's alright.

Namine already got the chance with Sora, she wants this chance too.

She, honestly is not entirely subtle, but she does start fussing with chimes as she watches causing tinkling sounds to reverberate throughout the store.

Reverberate those sounds do, effectively catching his attention. There are definitely many noises going on throughout this place that would arouse suspicion to the unfamiliar, but knowing well enough the kind of beats and chords that drum playing has to offer, there wouldn't be much to arouse interest other than something out of tune or a serious indication of danger.

The sound of those chimes rattling together as they do is just enough to have him turn around and see where that sound is coming from. It doesn't sound planned, so maybe it's a newcomer he can get to know and impart advice onto.. woah.

Instead of what he expected, here we have a girl going through metal chimes hitting each other in a pattern uncharacteristic of any tune, but the look of her makes it so these things don't matter.

There's a girl here? More so, she's in the drum section of a music store like this? How stupid would Roxas have to be to not approach, introduce himself, and/or offer help? Very. So that's exactly what he does. That face of hers, when he finally has a full on view glimpse of it standing in front of her like he ends up doing, is odd, pleasant even, familiar. Like the sound of waves lapping at the shore, birds complaining in the distance of not having enough food, everything about her feels so... right at first glance.

The hell?

Ignoring this best he can, when Roxas is composed enough after approaching her (probably should have done that the other way around) he garners enough about him to speak to her. "Hey. So.. looking for bar chimes?"

Namine was keeping something of an eye on Roxas as he moved in her direction, trying to think of some reason to speak to him or what to do when he seemed to do it first.

Oh.

Oh dear.

Now that it had happened, Namine wasn't sure what to do. She looks up at him and a smile breaks across her face in spite of herself, it's shy and small but it lights up her face and her eyes.

"I..." She pauses, and then looks down at the chimes and back. "I work down the street. At Rockwell's. I've never been here before. I got done early."

"I'm...I'm Nora." She says, after a moment, because all of that came out in one terrible rush and she thinks it might be as bad a lie as her lies usually are.

Edited 2016-03-06 07:12 (UTC)

If it's a bad lie, Roxas can't tell. Until she gives him a reason, he'll believe her. Even his time here hasn't made him skeptical enough, apparently. Since no one is immune to curiosity it's likely she just wandered in here, no goal intended. "Nice to meet you, Nora." Leaning against some equipment, really should've checked what first, "I'm Roxas--"

Crash. A stand of chimes and cymbals knock over, not nearly strong enough to support the weight of a teenage boy, making the obnoxious sound such instruments would be expected to make when falling to the ground. And drawing all attention in the store to Roxas.

Great, what a first impression. Nervously, "That.. usually doesn't happen.." Please believe him. He'll try to save what's left of his pride by picking up the stand and setting it upright, making even more noise doing so. Damn you, chimes!

"Um.. so, you new around here? I'm here quite a bit," usually not knocking things over, "Haven't seen you in the area before."

Frisk enjoys drawing, when they've got the time to sit and do something quiet for a while. They're not sure they'd call themself an artist, but since they arrived here they've had a lot more time than normal. There's no monster community to look after and no ambassadorial duties to attend to. They work, they walk around the city, they go home. They've already filled one notebook up with drawings, even though that was supposed to be for writing messages if they needed.

So they stop by an art store on their way home from work. A place like this should have more notebooks, right? Or maybe a sketchbook just for drawing, so they don't do the same thing again. They didn't actually know Namine worked here, but they brighten when they see her, smiling and waving.

Namine is walking through the shelves with a stack of leather notebooks in her hands when she sees them. Immediately Namine walks over, her heels clicking on the tile as she walks and smiling kindly.

"Hello, Frisk."

She pauses and then looks up and around the store.

"Are you looking for something? Can I help?"

Sure, she can help. Frisk takes their notebook out of their bag to show her, flipping through the pages. It's obviously full; some of the pages have writing, one side of old conversations, but a lot of them just have drawings of skeletons and various strange monsters, or else flowers and stalagmites. Or are they stalactites?

This place has a lot of fancy art stuff. They might like to look at it, were this home. But they're on a mission, money's a bit short, and you can get pens and pencils most anywhere.

"Oh!"

That part is particularly easy. She can help them find the books.

"I have to go that way anyway." She shifts the books in her hands to make her point and gestures with her head. "Follow me."

"Do you know what kind of book you want?" She asks as she turns down the aisle they're on and begins to put the leather books away as she talks.

Frisk shrugs. Are there different kinds of notebooks? They always just figured one was like another. As long as it has paper in it and they can carry it around - tiny ones might seem a little more practical to keep on their person, but it's a real pain when messages stretch across multiple pages.

What kinds are there? they text.

"Lots of kinds." She slides some of the leather books back, and then takes a step or two down the row.

"There are ones with lines, or ones without. There are big ones." Namine points to the top shelf where there is one that opens like a book and is nearly as big as her torso. "Or smaller ones." She points to another that folds overtop and has spirals.

"There are some that run longways." She points to a thin one that seems to mostly be unwieldy.

"And I have one like this now." Namine points to a tan one that opens like a book without lines on the pages. It's not as big as the ones that were on the top shelf, and it fits in her bag.

Frisk follows each gesture politely. They've never really thought this much about notebooks before. The longways one is obviously out; they need to be able to carry it around easily, and that's gonna fit weird in any bag they have. The big ones, too, though the idea of those is kinda attractive.

If they were gonna use it for writing only, a lined one would make sense. But the last notebook has kinda proved that they won't. And people don't really need lines to read words. Frisk picks up one of the ones like Namine owns herself and flips through it.

And here comes a familiar face breezing by? It's remarkable how fast Minako can run when she's in a hurry, her braid whipping behind her as she runs to...ah, wait, that's right, she switched! She's not working for a few hours yet. She skids to a stop, shakes her head, then turns to see a housemate walking the other way.

"N---Nora! Hey, anything weird going on tonight?"

Namine stops, and then pauses, as if it takes her a moment to process that Nora is being asked for, and that the name attaches to her.

Oh. Yes. That.

She turns on her heel and smiles at Minako once she realizes who called for her. Her 'cousin' is quite kind after all and Namine is already very fond of her.

"Not as far as I know. Are you alright, Diana? You look surprised."

"Please, just Di's fine! I like playing it casual with everybody these days," she smiles, finally moving down the winding path.

"And I'm fine, I was just worried about you, y'know? Nothing like a big city to worry a girl."

"Di." She says and then nods, walking to catch up and meet her.

"It's not that big, really. I think. Well. It's the most people." Namine's been across worlds, travels though dark gates....but really this is the biggest place she's ever been with people in it. Other places had fewer, even if they had larger buildings or more space. "Is this place big to you?"

"A little. It's bigger and brighter than Tokyo---my hometown was full of light! Everywhere you looked, people were busy, and there were lots of idols..."

She glanced at a poster in a nearby window and shook her head. "I don't think the business was like this, though."

Riku entered the shop around one in the afternoon. Thankfully the sub shop is only a few doors down so he can visit Namine for lunch.

He greets the person at register and goes to look for Namine. "Hey," he said when he found her, holding up a bag with two subs, one for him, one for Namine. "You good to break for lunch?"

She's puzzling over several tubes of yellow paint that were not properly in the right order when Riku gets there. She's fussing, honestly. There isn't much she can do at the moment until her break so it's almost a relief when Riku joins her.

She's not very good at taking up time that doesn't have a very specific job when she's at work. She's begun to learn this about herself.

Or about Nora.

Both?

Either way, Namine smiles and nods.

"Yes. I think I have a half an hour before Rachel needs to leave." The girl at the front desk has to leave for some appointment. Something painfully normal. Namine said she would watch the register for her.

Riku was reluctant to say it, but he hopes that when all is said and done, he hopes Roxas and Namine get to stay out of Sora and Kairi and get to be their own people. And the others in Sora too.

A little bit of good that the two morons caused in their hubris.

"Awesome. Out back again?"

He watched her for a moment. It was interesting, working with her again, seeing her become her own person.

"Sounds good." Namine leads the way, waving to Rachel at the register to let her know she's taking a break, Rachel gives a sort of half wave and goes back to reading her tabloid.

"Rachel said I could have some of her old magazines." She says as she leads him out the door to the back. "She's a fan of a lot of different music. I thought they might help."

She's been talking about all sorts of things, like how the musicians are dressed or who they date. It all seems very personal to her, but then she's never really dealt with any of this before.

As much as she's begun to like the people she works with, she feels much calmer around Riku or the other rescuers. There is less pretending. She's still not sure she's very good at it, really.

"Good, we can learn more about what Sora's been up to."

He followed Namine to the back and took out her sandwich and handed to her. "Your usual. I'm trying out the meatball today."

He opened his sub and took a bite. "Have you heard anything interesting? Most of the guys I work with like Junkyard Carnival and have crushes on Yuffie." He pauses.

"Speaking of Yuffie, there's a Cloud here too. You think they're ours, or another version?" As far as he knew Namine had never met either, but she had seen them in Sora's memories. This whole another version of people was confusing, in addition to the people pulled out of the past like Reborn's Luce.

This whole thing was a mess.

She takes the sandwich and takes a very long time to unfold the paper, she is very oddly meticulous about it. She takes a while to start eating, it's always a process for her, and she takes a lot longer than most people to do so, picking at it with her fingers and eating it in small bites.

"I don't know. They're not...It feels like their hearts are linked up, but all of the musicians are." They're all connected by what's been done to them. Some of them are so interconnected you would never know they hadn't been born in the same world, or of the same heart. It's all very sloppy. And distracting. And likely quite painful.

"I'd have to see them to know."

"Rachel likes VIP. She says they're very...odd? But like that's a good thing." She pauses, and then smiles. "She showed me videos of Flashstep performing on her phone.

"Next time there's a Junkyard Carnival or Hue and Cry concert we'll go then," Riku said before taking another bite.

"It's probably Blanche's and Santiago's influence. You know how memories are. Better than most, change one thing it causes changes all down the chain."

He took another bite. "I still can't believe he's a famous rockstar in this world. Sora's such a dork." Though he's smiling when he says this.

Namine nods, pleased. She'd very much like to see them all in action, though it's hard to watch all of the people who've been taken, the music is very interesting. It wraps you up. She never much got to listen before this to much of anything. She thinks she might like it.

"They're all so wrapped up. Every single one of them." She pauses, and then smiles, a little. "I think it might make them easier to untangle, in the end."

She has a theory, that if they're all linked up, you can pull on one and they will all feel it. She has no idea if that's real, but she wants to try. There has to be some good she can do.

She laughs behind her hand and Riku's comment.

"He's a very good dancer, at least here, he is. Very....Energetic." Namine is fairly sure that's a compliment. She's not very good at giving them.

Riku frowns thoughtfully, on the same wave length as Namine. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't want to get his own hopes up.

"Sora's... you know, I never paid attention to how well he dances," Riku said with a sheepish grin. "But he's always been energetic. Even as toddlers he wore me out." He takes another bite, finishing his sandwich. He's always been a fast eater. Even as a kid he had other things to do then eat. His parents once told they would shove food in his mouth as he ran by during dinner.

"You got a band you like?" he asked. "I'm digging Cosmic Indulgence."

It's not too long before closing time that Luce suddenly bustles inside the small store, aggravated but hiding it well save for the occasionally jerkiness to otherwise smooth movements.

She's not an artist. It's simply not a title that's ever really applied to her. Besides the musical variety, of course, and a part of her is wondering how much that title belongs to her too lately. Yet anytime she's not doing work for the band, she's suddenly but often being pulled aside by someone. Usually it's just some secretary to another Virgo Veteran, giving her a task to do. Oh no, Luce isn't allowed downtime. At least, besides a scarce few hours to sleep.

Luce knows why they're doing it, of course. A half of her- the half she knows is manufactured and a damned liar- says she's brought it on herself. The other half just bares teeth in shimmering rage.

The end result, the visible one, is that she looks faintly ill from overwork as she bustles through the aisles before giving up. Spotting the girl at the register, Luce waves her hand. "Ah, excuse me?"

Namine has been watching the woman wandering through the store, absently drawing link after link on her page. All of those who were stolen have a particular feeling about them, to her. She'd call it wrong, but it's not that.

Either way it means that she's already watching the woman as she comes up to her and Namine smiles kindly.

"Can I help you?" She'd like to be able to help better than just whatever she came to the store for. She doesn't look particularly well, and if Namine's right and she's one of the people who'd been taken, people miss her. And she likely misses herself and so many other things. You can't quite erase people, not even if you try your hardest.

"I hope so!" She tries to laugh it off a bit, to seem not as tired as she is, but Luce isn't sure it's working. At least, working as well as she'd like it to. "I was- I need to get some paintbrushes for someone, but I didn't realize there would be so many types. Do you know much about the differences between them?"

"I think it mostly depends on what paint you're trying to use?" She steps around the corner, shoes clicking on the tile and putting her apron back on from where it was hanging on the back of her chair while she was at the counter.

Her name tag says Nora in bright blue bubbly letters, and she gestures for her to follow. Namine can see the counter from the paints and it's not that far, really. Besides, people don't tend to come in this late in the day unless they're art students and they all know the store by heart and will ring the bell for someone.

"Can you tell me what kind they use and then I can help?"

Relieved for the help, Luce follows after "Nora" with no problem. The sooner this little problem is solved, the sooner she can placate her dear seniors. "Oh, I believe... acrylic paints. There were a lot more brushes than I was expecting to find." She huffs out a laugh.

Sora likes to visit parks every now and then. To run sometimes, because it's good to try and keep in shape when you're a dancer, or sometimes he just misses being out in nature a little bit and finds a place to sit. Around the green, the trees and the grass, and the sun. He doesn't get a lot of time for this, considering the busy life of a musician. So he treasures it whenever he gets the chance.

He's back to doodling again this time, during one of "Nora's" trips to work, sitting on top of a picnic table with his hood pulled up over his hair in his usual lazy attempt to disguise himself enough to keep from being bombarded by fans or paparazzi.

The wind, however, catches not only his hood to pull it away from his head but also a page from his notebook. He gives a short yell and begins to run after it, only stopping to grab his notebook to carry with him.

While chasing down the stray drawing though, he collides, for the second time, with the girl he'd seen at the charity concert. This collision is a bit more forceful than the first, as his notebook gets knocked from his hand to the ground. He focuses on the girl he's just run into first though. Even if that means one of his drawings is getting away. They're just doodles, right? No big deal.

"Hey, sorry! Sorry, I was going too fast, are you okay?"

Namine was distracted as ever, humming to herself in a sort of tuneless warble that didn't actually have much to do with an actual song and more a way to keep herself occupied because she'd learned that walking with her head down and her attention on her book was a good way to end up going the wrong direction or even to nearly wander into a street. That had happened only once, but once was enough.

She's walking along when first, she notices a page drifting past her, catching it with her foot, confused, when suddenly she is barreled into. Namine manages to stop herself from falling by grabbing on to the person who ran into her, but when she does her mind lights up and it's Sora and she's smiling before she knows it. Even half hidden and disconnected, it's still Sora. And Sora shines so bright.

"It's alright." She's holding on to his sleeve for balance, and she uses that to reach down and pick up both the page and his book. She can't help herself, she peeks at the page she's holding, while she does. She's endlessly sketching herself and finds it interesting when other people are trapped in the same spiral she ends up in.

"I've dropped my pages before, too."

When he realizes she'd actually managed to catch the page for him, he feels relief wash over him, though he's not sure why. It's kind of silly how these not-at-all-talented drawings are becoming so important to him. Kind of like all the pictures on his phone. The one she picks up would, to any one else, look just like a cartoon he'd been practicing, a dog and a duck walking on two legs, dressed in clothes. To Namine, it's probably a lot more recognizable. Especially considering a few sketches of a shield and a wand are included.

"Oh, you caught it... Thanks." He takes both objects from her gratefully when they're handed to him, smiling. "Hey, you're... Did I run into you before?"

Namine smiles down at the page at the moment she sees it. There. She hadn't been able to hide his heart, and she, in her and probably Riku's, opinion was more talented at it. So, of course these kidnappers couldn't. They couldn't stop him, they could only delay him.

"You're welcome." She says, and turns her smile back to him. When he asks her, she wants to say yes and explain it all. There's a horrible part of her that just wants to say it all, spout every bit of it. But she doesn't. She, instead, just hands over the book and pages, resettles her own bag against her shoulders.

"I met you at the concert. The Charity." She remembers the word a the last moment. "I ran into you, last time."

She says it very matter of factly like this is a perfectly normal way to meet someone.

Sora slips the page back into his notebook, among the landscape drawings of the worlds he'd seen in dreams, and portraits of familiar faces he'd seen in those dreams too.

Speaking of familiar, even now that he recalls her face from the charity concert, she still feels familiar beyond that, and he remembers her face had shown up in a dream briefly too, before he'd even met her. Funny how that kept happening with people.

"Right, yeah." He laughs. "Well, I guess we're even then. I'm Sora, if I didn't say before. I'm glad you weren't hurt either time."

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This sudden burst of sunlight

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