34 - Love is in the Air

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: An enterprising pair of shinki is trying to spread love throughout the Far Shore with exciting blind dates.
When: February 14
Where: Hot romantic spots throughout Tokyo
Summary: Blind dates on Valentine's Day? Sounds like fun (or possibly a disaster, but everyone needs some good disaster stories.) That's not all that's going on, though. Ayakashi are looking to chow down on the negative emotions that a romantic holiday can generate, and those who aren't busy with their own dates might be sucked into helping out followers who need help to make the day go well.






The Dates

Blind Date Matchups

Those who have signed up -- or whose friends and colleagues have signed them up -- for dates will get cards with specified times and meeting places inside for the big event. The cards don't list their dates' names, but instead have a matching symbol to allow everyone to find their proper partner. If anyone tries to stand up their date, they can expect a small and angry owl to harass them until they give in.


• Date One: The Romantic Brunch.
  Couples will find themselves with reservations (and pre-paid coupons for the prix fixe menu) at a swanky French restaurant with a wide balcony overlooking the lake in a central Tokyo park. They can dine on dainty pastries, sweet milk coffees, bowls of grapes and hothouse strawberries, and a selection of fancy chocolates and petit-fours-- plus, some of the trees in the park are blooming in holiday-appropriate red and white!



• Date Two: The Aquarium.
  Couples scheduled for this date have tickets to a rooftop aquarium in Ikebukuro: brightly colored fish, animals including penguins, seals and pelicans, a small petting zoo and plenty of shadowy, secluded nooks to cuddle in make for a fun lunchtime date. The tickets even include admission to the one o'clock penguin and seal show!



• Date Three: The Amusement Park.
  This date sends couples to spend the evening enjoying themselves at a seaside amusement park. Ride the roller coasters! Take selfies with the costumed attendants! Share an overpriced ice cream cone while you watch the fireworks after sunset, then wind up the night with a ride on the colorfully lit Ferris wheel with a romantic view of the Tokyo skyline.

Ayakashi Menace

There's more than just romantic couples out to enjoy themselves today. Romantic holidays can be tough for those whose love lives aren't so rosy, and as always, those negative feelings draw in ayakashi who are ready to ruin everybody's day.

All across the city, besides the usual ayakashi, characters might encounter the following:

Flocks of dove ayakashi whose mournful call induces self-doubt, suspicion and paranoia in everyone who hears it. Are your friends really your friends? Is your lover betraying you? Shouldn't you hurry up and stab them in the back before they can do it to you? These ayakashi are small and agile, difficult to catch but easy to destroy once they're caught... if you can overcome the urge to turn on your allies first.

Long-fingered shadow ayakashi, large and powerful, and capable of sneaking around by blending into genuine shadows. These ayakashi draw those who are alone into their clutches, filling them with resentment and despair. Anyone battling them needs to watch out for the humans they might already have influenced, who may become unpredictable and violent as the ayakashi influencing them grows more desperate.

Cute teddy bear ayakashi, that influence anyone they cling to into greedy obsession: they need attention, affection and gifts, and they can never have enough. When attacked, the teddy bears turn out to fight a little more like a grizzly bear than a stuffed toy, so gods and shinki beware!

Praying for Love

Those who aren't busy with their own dates might find themselves busy taking care of other people's instead. On a day like this one, everyone's praying that things turn out perfectly! Prayers gods might hear include:

"He's just got to ask me out! I made him the biggest box of chocolates... please, let senpai notice me!"

"Does she really like me? Please, give me a sign."

"I got concert tickets for our date, but it's supposed to rain. Please let me find a way to make this work out anyway!"

"The restaurant I wanted to take him to isn't taking any more reservations for tonight. What can I do? I can't cook!"

Wild Card -- players are free to make up their own romance-adjacent prayers for their characters to fulfill.

In Summary:

• Enjoy your dates
• Fight some ayakashi
• Make sure to answer prayers for a good Valentine's Day
• Have fun~

Comments

[letteropener]

What do you think?

[Celestia likely knows the answer, being no fool... and being with no subtle partner at the moment. So she asks to make a little bit of a point, rather than out of curiosity.]

[Good luck telling that.]

[priforprince]

[ Oh. Hibiki clears her throat. Breathes. ]

....As expected of the finest selection. The true "luxury" portion of de luxe escapes it, but it's hardly inedible.

[letteropener]

Take it from a very old pony and don't worry too much about etymology. Words change with time, and fighting it is like swimming against the tide -- it only exhausts you.

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki does not reply. Somehow, her mouth has ended up full again!

How mysterious. ]

[letteropener]

[Hibiki has the right idea, and Celestia turns her full attention to the funnel cake. It really is very very good, and if Hibiki isn't careful Celestia may end up getting a little more than half!]

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki will gladly yield the lion's (pony's?) share to the Princess. Her physical appetite is nowhere near as strong as her appetite for elegance, grace, opulence, and hatewatching abysmal television.

Still, she's having to clean her lips of chocolate by the end. Until a spygoat rolls up carrying a golden alarm clock, which chimes once and then falls silent. ]

...It's time.

[ There is a staple of amusement parks that is best enjoyed at the Perfect Time, you see. And the Perfect Time has just arrived! ]

[letteropener]

[Time? But it's earlier than the date should be over, so Celestia looks at Hibiki in calm confusion.]

[priforprince]

There's something I want to show you.

[ Slightly more casual, to match the Amusement Park Date motif. Ah, an actor contains multitudes.

Though if she wanted "casual" she probably shouldn't hold up her hand like she's asking Celestia for a dance, but. Prince must Prince. ]

You'll come, correct?

[letteropener]

[She very must much, and Celestia responds as she'd wish, placing her hand most gently and graciously in Hibiki's.]

I could not dream of doing otherwise.

[priforprince]

This way.

[ Hibiki's fingers curl gracefully around Celestia's. She walks with a measured, elegant, and sure pace

as the Ferris wheel begins to loom larger and larger above them. ]

[letteropener]

[Oh, of course! How could she not have guessed that? That IS thematically appropriate.]

Truly, the amusement park is the perfect place for an evening date.

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki nods. All in all, she's found the day's agenda acceptable. ]

The setting sun shall dye the event with the crimson of young lovers' beating hearts.

[ She herself is looking rather youthful right now, sincerely enjoying herself. That sun is setting right on time. This will be exquisite. ]

[letteropener]

I hope that still leaves room for me to enjoy.

['Young', after all, can't apply to her. Indeed, even now their apparent age gap is a bit awkward, though Celestia chooses to ignore such things for the sake of having fun.]

Someday I must take you to see fireworks from atop a cloud, I think.

[priforprince]

That would be splendid.

[ From the look on Hibiki's face, all lovers are young lovers, at heart.

Look at that. They even get a purple car on the Ferris wheel. Now that's genius. ]

[letteropener]

[Hibiki probably is more familiar with love than Celestia herself is, isn't she?]

[Goodness, that's depressing. But she doesn't allow that to alter her expression as she takes a seat in the car.]

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki sits across from Celestia, as is proper. A pair of arms will need to be here to cradle the Princess if the gondola rocks, after all.

Slowly, the wheel continues to turn. Hibiki props her head on one arm, completely at ease with the idea of being physically above everybody else. ]

Look to your left.

[ It's the best view of the way everyone else merely looks as dust, as well they should!!

....Er, the sunset. Also the sunset. ]

[letteropener]

[Celestia, perhaps shockingly, pays little attention to those on the ground. Her gaze is entirely for the sunset, a little, thoughtful smile on her face.]

It amazes me, I think, that this world -- with its sun and its moon that move all on their own, and the days and nights that come without anyone telling them to -- can produce such marvelous sunsets. Sunrises, as well.

[priforprince]

Do you prefer the sunrise?

[ Trying to find out which of these is Celestia's favorite, to plan something more? Who, her? ]

[letteropener]

That's a complicated question. For a thousand years, neither were happy. Now, here, I am uninvolved. [Even she can't quite parse her own feelings on the subject, confused and deep as they run. So much is tied together, where does one begin? Or end?] What I like is the company.

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki shifts to be directly opposite Celestia in the Ferris wheel. ] I would watch countless sunrises and sunsets with you.

[ And she would. Never underestimate the power of Shikyoin Hibiki realizing that some lofty personage is chafing under the solitude their position imposes.

Hibiki likes people who remind Hibiki of Hibiki. ]

[letteropener]

I'd like that.

[Sunrises and sunsets are indeed lonely times.]

[But then Celestia lifts a hand to her mouth, hiding a smile poorly.] But I will admit I've taken to staying up late and sleeping late here in the Far Shore. So perhaps sunsets are the best.

[priforprince]

So it sounds.

[ Will you have forgotten this conversation by the time Hibiki enters your temple through a second-story window to make good on this promise? Possibly wearing a cape? The door would never suffice, you see.

But that is for later consideration. Now, they have risen enough to watch the sunlight illuminate the contours of the buildings below them with a soft golden glow, and even Hibiki falls silent to watch.

....Celestia. To watch Celestia. But still. ]

[letteropener]

[Probably not. Celestia has a good memory. And she expects the extreme from Hibiki. Just don't go in Maris's window, all right?]

[But Celestia does indeed look the very picture of a monarch at this moment, in the fading sunlight, a smile on her face as she watches. ]

Simply magnificent.

[priforprince]

Indeed.

[ WATCH THE SUNSET, HIBIKI

She will, though. Eventually. She didn't time this perfectly only to not reap the benefits herself, as well. A calm and graceful event like this is a lovely capstone for a (mostly) lovely day. ]

[letteropener]

[For Celestia, this date has gone a long way towards redeeming the day -- considering her first 'date' had been with her shinki, and they'd abandoned that as quickly as they could, and her second date had never showed up.]

[But her third date... well, Hibiki has given her a wonderful time, even if she's also done a terrific job of driving home that at the end of the day, her romantic prospects are every bit as bleak as they started.]

For a moment, it feels like time has stopped, up here.