3 ♊ Take your dark days

[iitrebel]

Who: Artolo Apemis and any Pride who will put up with him for an extended period of time
What: Art is going lion shopping. This is not slang of any sort. You've been invited.
When: Throughout the day of February 11th
Where: Roman's Animal Sanctuary
Warnings: None planned. Feel free to treat this as a mingle log

For there to be any extended space in Vista City, things tend to be... crowded. It's the obvious solution when a city gets big enough. Roman's Animal Sanctuary has the delightful honor of having established a space the size of a baseball field some time before the city swallowed it up. The problem became when they needed to expand, but simply couldn't.

The solution: Get with the times and build upwards.

With high ceilings on all floors meant to cycle through different times of day in accordance with actual daytime, enormous windows, and certain measures taken to mimic appropriate weather, Roman's is half a zoo (to help fund its upkeep) besides just being an animal sanctuary for various abused or abandoned animals of the more exotic sort.

This includes lions.

Coincidentally, lions are why you're here.

Somehow, one Artolo Apemis has invited you to go what he called "lion shopping" and that, as it turns out, is not slang even remotely. Roman's been alerted of this high profile visit from a bunch of Pride jackasses, and is more than happy to allow the musicians to check out some of the staff areas behind the scenes instead of just being stuck in the public areas. Yes, you can feed the publicly approved llamas and goats plus large animals with sharp teeth. Under strict supervision, of course.

Comments

Artolo Apemis - ota

[iitrebel]

Penthouse - closed to bandmates

[When Artolo wakes up that morning with the morning light being somehow more painful than usual, he initially just stuffs his head beneath his pillow and groans. He gets fucked up- regularly, even. It's his hangover. There's no better explanation. After a stunningly result-less encounter with some weirdo in a helmet, he'd gone to get hammered because there'd still been no solution to fixing Tooru's leg, and...]

[Being reminded of every shitty thing that's happened lately, with his side still giving pangs of pain, Artolo finally gets up with a hiss and heads right for the bathroom. Bending over, he starts up the sink... And jerks up so fast he think he nearly loses his brain through his nostrils.]

[His eyes are changed. Completely opaque, no pupils, no whatever the shit the white bit is called. One is completely red. The other, blue.]

[Artolo stares. And, with a lot more calm than he thinks his brain is really capable of, he raises his voice.]

I NEED AN ADULT.

Pride HQ

[Just when he thinks the day can't get any more surreal, it does. Repeatedly.]

[The first is, not too long after he had donned a pair of incredibly blocky and impossibly dark shades- not an uncommon site considering how often he gets hangovers and hates sunlight, thank fuck- is that An is happy to see him. That already means hell is frozen over. An is never happy to see him. At best, she seems to tolerate his existence and, lately, has not looked like she was contemplating murder on his person.]

[But no, she'd been beaming and proud and hadn't even spent a literal hour (at minimum) gussying him up. The reason had become obvious when she'd shoved him outside the penthouse and he'd come face to face with Surreal Bullshit #2. That had been one Lesedi Santiago standing there.]

[Thank god the others don't know she's here was the first thing to flicker through his mind, rapid and panicked.]

[The third... He now has a land, on the outskirts of Vista City, that has plenty of square feet and a house to it. He also now has permission to keep a lion there.]

[Which brings him to the now.]

[Everyone he knows in Pride- along with those he's dubbing as part of "Ghost Clusterfuck 2056" who'd been there with Tooru and Mai- will get a text.]

gettiing a lion. want 2 come?

[And for those who happen to be wandering in Pride HQ... They will find the miscreant in question lazily rolling along with an entire shopping cart full of milk bread. Said miscreant will glance at them and, out of nowhere, offer- ]

Want to get a lion with me?

Roman's Animal Sanctuary

[The deal is- he'll give Roman's a regular donation, and, in the event that he dies or something happens, the land he's just bought will be donated to them. (With the clause that, at any time, the following parties can stay there: his immediate family/descendents. Tooru Oikawa, Tamara Seward, Mai Valentine, Wolfram von Bielefeld, and- because sure, fuck it- Kiernan MacLeod. And their immediate family/descendents.) ]

[In return, he gets a couple of lions. ]

[That's the main reason he's here, and also why he's currently in a small bit of space surrounded by lion cubs. There are even ligers.]

[He seems pretty pleased.]

[cleartranquil]

is this a literal or metaphorical lion

y r u getting a lion

[iitrebel]

literal

bc ii can and no one is stoppiing me

Pride

[twoscompany]

[Garnet was...planning. Thinking. Wanderind down the halls, trying to calculate things, using her vision to help her. The possibilities are...not great. Not really. But they could be worse, much worse. They seem to slowly get better, save for a few of them, but she can't get her mind of off it, and she's not sure how to alleviate her nervousness about her idea.

Then there's some of the weird possibilities. Like Artolo. He asks for a smoke. A beer. A lion. A spaceship. A marriage proposal, complete with setting the hall on fire with fireworks he's shooting off, because he needs to cover the fact his true love is the individual from Virgo named--

So don't mind her walking five steps, stopping, then walking backwards three steps, before turning her head to look at him.

He...said lion, right? She did just hear him correctly, didn't she?]

...

Yes.

[Its better than the marriage proposal. Much, much better]

[scalpedsociety]

Penthouse

The screaming is enough to summon Tamara out of her own bed, and she walks toward him about to scream at him to shut the fuck up but she stands here with her mouth hanging open.

"Your eyes..."

She's never seen this before.

Sanctuary

These couple of weeks have been strange as hell. There were the ghosts, the weird conversation she had with Artolo about her name which still freaks her out, then two of her bandmates getting hurt or traumatized because they dared to help them out, Artolo's eyes got weird as hell... Throughout all this, she got a raise, but not like Artolo did. His own land and he wanted actual lions. Was this a distraction from how obviously cruel Pride was, her real name, and matter of Artolo's eyes? Possibly.

Still, it's hard to think about sobering things like that when there's lion and liger cubs, adorable furry oversized kittens. She thought the cat apartment was adorable. Surely enough she has one affectionate little one in her arms, snuggling it.

Sanctuary

[sailorlaughter]

Pinkie feels bad about leaving before they're even out of Pride HQ. But she's barely left the penthouse since Tiger came back and Kido left, and she can't stay inside anymore - she just can't.

She's pretty quiet during the trip, and once they're arrived she doesn't seem particularly interested in the lions and tigers that were the actual object of the trip. Instead she wanders off towards another part of the shelter. She can be found in a pen with a few ponies, kneeling down with her arms wrapped around the neck of a particularly calm gray mare. It's not an excited hug. She just seems to be holding onto the pony and talking quietly to it.

[cleartranquil]

omg

let me get my shoes

dont leave without me

Penthouse.

[worthlesspride]

Technically you are one, Double A.

Why do you need one?

[And then...eyes.]

Holy shit.

Sancutary

[worthlesspride]

[Tooru is a wheelchair, one that lifts up his right leg up to help with the swelling. He's hanging back because a) pushing himself in a wheelchair is hard, b) he's not in that good a mood. He's doing ... better.

He didn't want to leave Pride HQ, but he had been bribed with milkbread, which he was now eating.

And there were some birds eying him.]

Someone get those motherfuckers away from my milkbread.

[cleartranquil]

[ Yuffie is laying back in the grass with her hands behind her head. ]

You're paaaaaranoid.

[ Yuffie singsongs, never actually opening her eyes. She's fairly sure that the birds are not actually willing to go after his food. She's very likely to be proven wrong, but Yuffie is comfy. ]

They're not gonna do anything.

[iitrebel]

[As if some sort of reward, he flings a small pack of milk bread at her.]

Good choice. Want to invite anyone?

[iitrebel]

[Like the stellar best friend he is, Artolo suddenly dives at the nearest flock of birds with the kind of shriek that people from over in Virgo HQ could probably hear. Alarmed, the birds flap a good distance away, and he promptly straightens up with a smug grin.]

Did the thing.

[iitrebel]

Rather promptly, he reaches over to tug her inside and kicks the door shut. That latter action is done perhaps a bit more violently than is exactly necessary.

"Hello! Yes! They're a thing!" And he doesn't know why they're a thing, which is freaking him out more than their actual existence.

[iitrebel]

"Hey."

Unlike the usual rating arrogance he displays... just about anytime, anywhere, including the ride here, Artolo's own tone is pretty subdued when he finally figures out where Pinkie is. He's still wearing is thick sunglasses, which hide even his eyebrows, but he's frowning a bit.

"You alright over there?"

[twoscompany]

[She catches it with one hand. Milk bread, huh?]

A few of my friends are...under the weather, unfortunately.

...

Well, you could invite Koumei and Nariko, if you haven't yet. And Sabo. I'm sure they'd love to come. Pinkie and Trucy, maybe, also.

Re: Sanctuary

[twoscompany]

Garnet's own feelings about Steven are raw, hard, making her think and talk crazy about things she knows, deep down, she's potentially endangering herself with. Yet at the same time, she can't help but feel for Pinkie. She had Steven, and Kido, and she was taking care of them as well. It wasn't easy with one; with two, it's like being a pinball.

Garnet finds her in the pony pen, and when she gets to her, she bends down and brings a hand towards her shoulder.

"Hey there. You hanging in there?"

Sanctuary

[cleartranquil]

A
[ Yuffie had been literally obnoxious to be around pretty much this entire day, flitting around and following everyone like the problem child she is.

At the moment, Yuffie seems almost hellbent, trying to get one of the ostriches to notice her. She's sitting up on one of the fences after having been told to let them be three or four times. But Yuffie is determined.]

Heeeeey there. Heeey. [Someone might want to stop her from trying to sneak back into the pen.


B

[ Once she's finally been convinced to leave the birds alone, she actually goes to visit the lions. Yuffie ends up sitting with one, playing with it, and laughing at it's antics before she ends up putting her face against it's fur and-

She grips him around the neck tight enough to get her point across.

"Hey it hurts!"

"Geostigma hurts even more!"

"Yeah."

She lets go, but still remains draped over his back as he walks. His fur's coarse and smells like fire and dust and ---'s cigarette smoke from being with him, but she buries her face in it anyway. He doesn't seem to mind too much.

Yuffie's face is doing something horribly complicated when the green fades from behind her eyes, and Yuffie hugs the cub again, hiding her face in it's fur to try and pretend like she's not teared up.

Of all the people in the world to forget, she forgot Red.]

[iitrebel]

we'll waiit until you're right out the door and then take off

[He promises he's not serious.]

[cleartranquil]

dont you dare

i will totally get you back if you do

never anger a Carnie ;3

C U IN A SEC

A

[traumatizing]

[Terry's only here because Yuffie described this trip as "stealing a lion" and if he can't talk her out of it, he should at least try to make sure she doesn't die.]

[(He's kind of disappointed they're not actually stealing a lion now he's here.)]

[But Yuffie's still a problem child who clearly needs supervision at all times, and Terry is frowning as he looks up at her on the fence with all the big brotherliness he's got in him.]

What are you doing?

[cleartranquil]

I want to ride it.

[As if this is not the most absurd thing she's said all week. And she's said a lot of ridiculous things this week.]

Coooome on little guy.

[She says this to a bird who literally is taller than her and probably wants to just be left alone. Yuffie seems to have absolutely no idea that this is a terrible idea.]

[traumatizing]

Yuffie, that thing's gonna kick you to death.

[He walks up closer to the fence, somehow frowning even more deeply.] I'm not having that conversation with Luci. She'll kick me to death.

[iitrebel]

[The second Tooru is in the house, Artolo kicks the bathroom door shut. An can go fuck herself.]

So I'm not tripping here?

[cleartranquil]

It's not gonna kick me to death.

[She never takes her eye off of it, and finally hops off onto the other side of the low fence into the pen. She wanders up to the closest one, and the look on her face is far too calm for someone ridiculously close to a giant bird that has very good leg strength.]

Are you, girl. You're not gonna do a thing, huh? Isn't that right?

[Her voice is level and calm as she talks to the bird. For all that Yuffie's a ball of energy she seems to be containing it for the moment to not make the bird too jumpy.]

[iitrebel]

Yeah, I already invited Pinkie. She, uh, hauled ass in eagerness.

[Sure, let's call it that.]

But Nariko, good call! I don't know whoever the hell else you're talking about, 'tho.