UN: ScielCandide | Video

[cache_coeur]

[The camera is fixed on a table, upon which sits a neat stack of cards –– black with gold foil in the shape of a sun and moon bisecting each other. The user’s hands pass over the deck and spreads it wide into an arc. Her hands are tanned, with two rings on her ring finger and one on her index finger, and she has so many colourful braided bracelets that some wind around her palm.

Her voice is pleasant, playful, French, a little theatrical:]

Bonsoir, mes amies!

Tonight and tonight only, I will tell your fortune with a single card. Tell me your name, and if you would like to hear about love, money, health or the soul.

If it moves you, you must repay me with an amusing anecdote about yourself.

Ready to play?

Comments

[welcome_summer]

[There is a deep "hmmm as Mayuko considers that.]

Oh, yeah, that old tendency cropping up again. Especially after this mission. No wonder I've been feeling tired.

[cache_coeur]

Are you more comfortable here, at least? We should have some stability until the next mission, I hope. Plenty of opportunity to rest and remind yourself of what gives you fulfilment.

[welcome_summer]

Mmm, I have my comforting creatures, and enough creature comforts to last a few days, by way of the convenience store. By the end of that, I should be fit for company again.

[She knocks on the wood of the cabin deck--one can only hope the off-month is quiet.]

I've been here half a year; that seems to be the rhythm of Etraya. Unless Aurora wakes up in a bad mood, I suppose.

[cache_coeur]

Half a year isn’t so bad. Long enough to feel some sort of familiarity. What sort of creatures do you have?

[welcome_summer]

[It only takes a moment to reverse the camera, displaying the woods around the campground. A mature green chocobo and small brown chocobo doze under the trees, while a second brown warks at the camera--the nosy one from before, it seems.]

That's three out of four birds. And then there's----

[Mayuko pans the camera smoothly around to a nearby cabin, where a fluffy white-and-orange cat perches loafed on the rail.]

The little prince himself. Plus I have a familiar around... Somewhere.

[cache_coeur]

Oh, how sweet.

[Those are the biggest birds she’s ever seen. What are they? Chickens? Raptors? She cannot pretend to know much about animals, beyond what it takes to hunt them.]

Can’t say I’ve ever heard of a Familiar.

[welcome_summer]

No? Familiars are just animal companions but... enhanced. They're associated with witches and wizards.

[Mayuko hums thoughtfully.]

One of the testing grounds for potential Etrayans was a magic library managed by wizards. Not part of an ongoing mission, just here in Etraya. Those wizards gave the newcomers a familiar to help them navigate the library.

Granted, the existing residents had gotten pets the previous month for the year-end holiday. From a person, as far as I know, not a being like Aurora. So maybe they didn't want the newcomers to feel left out.

[cache_coeur]

[Oh, Lune will love that library. Maybe not so much the magic part of it, but any library is good for someone like her.

Sciel considers this, though.]

Sounds like a tremendous number of creatures to keep for… mostly the fun of it, it sounds?

[welcome_summer]

It kind of cascaded from just the cat, to be honest. But they are keeping me busy!

[A pause, then:]

I suppose if you're looking for an anecdote, I've got one in mind?

[cache_coeur]

Plenty of time to fill here, anyway. And yes, absolutely –– I’d love to hear.

[welcome_summer]

Wonderful. Well, I have to preface by saying, this isn't the first place that's snatched me from home. One of the tricks this other place pulled was turning people into animals. POOF, all of a sudden. You went to bed a human, woke up as something else. Now, can you guess what I got turned into?

[cache_coeur]

Not a clue, but given your little menagerie, I’m guessing some sort of cat or bird!

Was the other place like this one?

[Is it possible to have to win your world back twice?]

[welcome_summer]

Oh, no, those would have been fun, but it was a lot bigger than that. A lot bigger!

It was similar in that we couldn't leave without the Director's say-so, but there weren't missions. There were about three times as many people as in Etraya, and not so much acreage.