AERITH

[bookpapers]

I HOPE WE USE THIS PAST W2 ThIS TIME

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w0 friday

[bookpapers]

[HI AERITH. WHAT THE HELL. Lavi will make a beeline to her as he sees her,]

Hey, you okay?

[residentflorist]

[HELLO LAVI EVERYTHING SUCKS. anyway hi she's just apparently very smokey and full of smoke. yay.]

We're alright, but the swamp was on fire. [...] Someone was burned there last night.

[bookpapers]

[NOT HER SMOKEY SMOKE.

there's a brief beat of silence, and his mouth presses into a line.]

...Could you tell who it was? Or...

[were they extremely barbecued]

[residentflorist]

It was...really badly burnt. [extra crispy.] It was bigger than mine, but given who was hurt last night...doesn't mean much. Sorry.

[bookpapers]

[he shakes his head. CLOUD AND AERITH AND CAMILLE REALLY HAD TO FIND A HAND]

It has to be either Aventurine or Death's. Or maybe the cultist who was after 'em.

[residentflorist]

[IT'S A HAND, OTHER PEOPLE HAD TO FIND THE WHOLEASS BODIES?? well like. laudna's fine. but still.]

Yeah. It would likely be theirs, but without the bodies to compare will we know? [she shakes her head.] I don't think Death was here when the fog came...but we know the four of them wanted to help us. You think they tried to interfere with someone who wanted to kill Aventurine then?

[bookpapers]

[HANDS ARE JUST SO CREEPY]

It would make more sense than the two of them just dying separately in the same night.

[that's what it's gonna be though]

...But why Aventurine? What did he do to make someone wanna kill him?

[residentflorist]

[no that's fair, she's not going to tell lavi that she was more alarmed about finding a disembodied hand than if it had been the whole body because it means someone was possibly still alive when they lost it.]

Someone did use their power on him earlier this week. And he didn't look physically threatening at a glance. ...he'd said that it was possible he was painting an easy target on his back for someone else because of what happened, but why wait for him to be himself again if that were true?

[bookpapers]

[YEAH! SEE!!!

...at that, he looks troubled]

If it's easy targets, then we've got a few. [THEIR CHILDREN...

but more importantly...] You think one of us could have killed him?

[residentflorist]

Then we'll have to do better to make sure nothing happens to them. [WE HAVE. SO MANY TEENS. AND ALSO A DOG.



also she hates the question, thank you. she's quiet for a few minutes, as if really processing the possibility itself and trying to weigh the pros and cons of it.]

...what makes you ask that? [she's not saying yes or no. she wants to know what he's thinking.]

[bookpapers]

When you mentioned the power, I realized I didn't really consider our affinities. I don't know what Aventurine's opinion of it was -- but there are a few of us who aren't keen on tying our lives to someone else's. So maybe someone found out he was their match, and decided they didn't want to risk pairing up.

'Course, I don't know how they would have locked the rest of us in and summoned all the fog to do it. They could have just shoved him into a stream.

[IN A NORMAL WAY that's not normal WELL IT'S MORE nORMAL THAN THIS]

[residentflorist]

He didn't want to. [just quickly and certainly.] He said he couldn't be responsible for another life. It was too risky to put someone else on the line.

[...shoving people into a stream can in fact kill them, so fair. she's thinking about the first part again though.]

It would be a long shot to already know he was their partner and make sure he never had a chance to confirm it, but I suppose it's possible. [...] We couldn't find anything that started the fire when we looked. I was thinking that might have been someone's power, but I didn't...[like. she said it, but she hadn't straight up jumped to "maybe somebody actually murdered these people" but that was before they found out people died.]

[bookpapers]

[and now they're like 'wait hold on what if']

...Yeah, and that's a pretty different power compared to body swapping and crushes and turning hair different colors.

[anything fire is so destructive?]

Did you know Aventurine's power?

[residentflorist]

Oh, so that's what happened to you the other day. [just casually. but...she shakes her head.] I didn't get a chance to ask. I was going to wait a little since I already shared mine with a few people, but...

[well. now they can't because he's dead.]

There are plenty of monsters that have elemental attacks at home. Who says that wouldn't apply here, too? Or that last night's fog didn't change it somehow? Our affinities are a side-effect of being brought here in the first place.

[bookpapers]

[lavi like is aerith implying that i did that of my own free will but now he can't address it!! instead, he looks surprised,]

...I wasn't gonna mention it, but it does feel stranger today. Restless.

[their monstersonas....]

And everything that happened this morning too. [...] Things changes so easily here.

[residentflorist]

[yeah that's how she does things sorry lavi, they can talk about your blue curse later.]

You feel it too, then. [aerith is...by nature, really, someone who is very in-tune with how she feels and what might feel different when she's connected to something. she rarely mentions it here, but this morning's events really alerted her to the fact something was Happening.] And the air this morning was...stifling, almost. Like something was there that could drown us if we weren't careful.

[...]

I spoke to Pestilence earlier this week. And they said that the ritual to bring us here was something that might have had a few parts changed just to make it work even without all of the right tools and steps. But since it wasn't precise, there were things that could fluctuate. Our affinities existing at all for one, and even those words people have on their skin. This could be another one of those things.

[bookpapers]

[ty the way im reading my last tag like what the fck did i mean at the end WHY doesn't this sentence make sense. the 4 am hour really destroyed me.]

...Hell of a thing to fluctuate. [NOW THE CULTISTS LOST A SACRIFICE] So the bodies disappearing and everything going back to normal -- is that them trying to fix it?

[residentflorist]

[THE WAY I NEVER GOT THIS NOTIF AND JUST SAW THIS WHILE SCROLLING THE CATCHALL FOR THE OTHERS.]

Could be. It's one of the things we should probably ask them when we can actually talk to them again. I can't imagine it's something that can be easily done, so...it has to be on purpose.