For destruction, ice is also great [Noelle November Catch-All]

[holidaygirl1225]

Who: Noelle & A.B.A, Umemiya, Bigby, Parvati
What: Quests, recovering from her crashout
Where: Heavy Downmoor, the Coast, and the Spire's low-tier housing
When: Throughout November
Warnings: Pokemon battling (violence/injury), flooding, themes of unreality and death/murder, others TBA

Comments

It's Not The Best Choice (Parvati)

[holidaygirl1225]

[A part of Noelle thought she'd never leave the clinic. She would just sit there, forever, rotting away.

But life marches on. She's declared to have made a near miraculous recovery in record time, and soon, she's back in the Spire. The sleigh style bed she received as a quest reward has been left alone in her absence, to her surprise.

Also while she's been gone, a big part of the Spire has turned into a construction site with a new face as the project lead. Pokémon are walking all through the tunnels with loads of building materials, including a startling amount of Corviknight bones and feathers.

Noelle doesn't know if she's feeling up to helping, but she can at least keep them company. She doesn't want to go back to sleep, anyway.]

Sorry, I've been away, um... what's being built here?

it's spacer's choi-- *i am taken out by an auntie cleo's sniper*

[edgewater]

[ parvati's been hard at work with the project of hers -- grateful it got approved, and more grateful that so many pokemon were eager to help. she's been back and forth doing a fair bit of it herself, but the sheer scale of it requires far more hands.

she's honestly not used to a team this big, not after so many jobs were kind of just her. she's been wondering how junlei manages it all back on the groundbreaker.

a fair bit of the tunnels have been cordoned off entirely, but parvati's done her best to ensure that as much of the low-tier rooms are still accessible as she can. she feels bad for the people she's had to ask to move in the meantime, but most of them were more than happy to if it meant they didn't have to deal with being flooded before anyone else.

parvati's in the middle of giving a gurrdurr and a trubbish instructions on where to put the materials they're transporting when noelle comes over. ]

So if you just put it over by the-- yeah, that. Should be good. [ a glance behind her at the deerling when the two walk off. ]

Oh, hi! [ she gives a small wave with her free hand, her hammer ominously looming above her on her other shoulder. ] It's a water pumping system, to stop the flooding. People's rooms shouldn't be getting all wet once we're done. Your room isn't over yonder, is it?

[holidaygirl1225]

[Hammer. Bludgeoning. Crushing. Could break her bones with a good swing.]

Oh, yeah, it is, fahaha! But that's okay! I'm not in a hurry to go back there. Not having to worry about flooding will be great! [Escape routes: down the hall, around the corner. Parvati's weak spot: maybe her exposed stomach. Possible easy targets: Trubbish, some of the materials stacked unsafely atop each other.

It feels weird to have a 'normal' conversation while her mind keeps racing with these awful thoughts. She isn't sure she'll ever be 'normal' again. She seems nervous, but gives off no other indication she's thinking these violent things-- and the nervousness could easily be explained as her usual awkwardness.]

You must be like the guild's new engineer or something! I'm, um... [Well, here goes nothing. Parvati may have heard of all the trouble she's caused recently.] ... Noelle. Noelle Holiday, haha.

[edgewater]

[ parvati's looking between noelle and over her shoulder at the construction that's happening. everything looks fine, but she can't help but worry in case something were to go wrong. gurrdurr is pulling multiple materials out of trubbish's... hands? and placing them down on the pile.

she can sense noelle's nerves, her expression softening when she turns back to her again. ]

Aw, I'm sorry. Tried to let everyone know before we started. [ a roll of the shoulder. ] I'm Parvati, it's nice to meet you. Are you the one everyone's been real worried about?

[ she's heard noelle's name thrown around -- comes with being friends with similar people, she supposes -- and has spent a lot of her time hoping she's been okay. ] I'm glad you're back on your feet.

sorry for my lateness :[

[holidaygirl1225]

[Wow, Parvati is sort of direct, Noelle thinks. She stares down at her hooves at the idea that she's made everyone worry.]

I... I guess? Sorry. I shouldn't have made a fuss. [She didn't expect so many people to want to save her.] I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble.

no worries :]

[edgewater]

Couldn't have been trouble if you had that many people who cared about you wanting to help. [ well, maybe a little. but that's not for her to say, because she's been here. she also genuinely has no context for what happened at all. ]

I'm sure you don't wanna talk about all that, though. It is real nice to finally meet you. [ parvati glances over her shoulder again at the construction site. ] Should hopefully be outta here by the end of the month, at least.

[holidaygirl1225]

[Parvati is right-- that she doesn't want to talk about it, that is. She's eager to jump on the subject change.]

I wish I could do something to help... the doctor told me to take it easy this month, faha. Um, maybe... do you like cookies? I might bake some later if I can get everything together. Gingerbread ones. It's never too early for Christmas cookies!

[edgewater]

[ that's a few words she doesn't know all in one sentence. ]

Gingerbread? Not sure that's a thing where I'm from. Or Christmas. [ thank the architect she's at least vaguely familiar with cookies as a concept. ] Awful sweet of you to ask, though.

[ noelle really is as nice as they say, it seems. ]

[holidaygirl1225]

[How do people keep coming from worlds without Christmas???] Really? Gosh, that's... I don't even know! [She realizes halfway through it would be mean to call it 'sad'.] That just means I'll have to make some for you to try! And we can all celebrate together!

[Now she's curious, though.] Didn't they have any holidays where you come from? Especially ones where you give gifts and stuff?

[edgewater]

Nope.

[ parvati at least fully expects a reaction of shock and awe at this point. ]

What exactly is it meant to celebrate? [ free stuff is worth celebrating on its own in halcyon, since things scarcely come without cost in the capitalist torment nexus. is that it? ] Like, are you celebrating the fact that you're getting gifts, or?

[holidaygirl1225]

[No holidays at all?!?!?!?

Noelle freezes like she's a computer that just crashed. Then she blinks, getting her bearings.]

Wow, umm. I'm sorry, I had no idea! [Where does she even start?] So, we can start at the basics. Holidays are like... The word comes from 'holy days'. They're days where something notable happened, maybe something religious, and you usually celebrate in some way. Maybe you take the day off work, or have a big feast, or give gifts to each other, or something like that. It depends based on the occasion.

[She pauses to give Parvati a moment to process this.]

[edgewater]

[ with all the love in the world to noelle, this explanation is a few random mathematical terms away from sounding like one of max's long tangents. parvati nods along anyway. ]

Yeah, getting time off work wasn't really. A thing. Back home. [ well. it was going to be before she woke up here, and nyoka got weekends! parvati wanted to spend her weekends with junlei... and now she's just homesick again. ]

[holidaygirl1225]

... No time off at all? What about weekends? [The horror is beginning to sink in.]

[edgewater]

Didn't get 'em till I quit my job and ran off with my Captain, but even then. The adventuring lifestyle is still restless. And my friend Nyoka kind of had to tell me what those were...

[ she glances away awkwardly. ]

You're not the first person to find that weird. I still haven't worked out what to do with all my free time here.

[holidaygirl1225]

It's not weird! [She lies, badly.] I mean, um... okay, maybe it's weird, but it's not your fault. Sounds like you didn't have any, like, work-life balance! [That's probably a term Parvati has never heard.] I'm glad you got out of there and got to be an... adventurer? Is that right? It sounds really cool!

[edgewater]

Well, technically the term is "freelancer", but that's just what we call anyone who doesn't work for one specific corporation. I was under Spacer's Choice, working as the chief engineer of a cannery, but before I woke up here was the engineer on our ship. She's a real... [ calling the unreliable a piece of crap feels mean to her. that's her hard work as much as it is anyone else's, too! ] ...fixer-upper.

[ the thought of what "work-life balance" could possibly mean is running through the back of her mind in the meantime. ]

[holidaygirl1225]

[Noelle nods, barely hiding her interest. That sounds so cool... like an epic space soap opera! Some people come from the coolest worlds.]

... well, if you've never celebrated Christmas before, I want to make this one special! I mean, if you want to try celebrating, faha... I promise it would be fun!

[edgewater]

Can't say no if you're asking so nicely, can I? [ parvati gives her a reassuring smile ^w^ ]

Hopefully this should all be done soon-ish, anyway. I think. [ she's looking back at the construction site again. ]

[holidaygirl1225]

Okay!! I'm really looking forward to it! [She smiles back. It will be nice to have something to focus on besides the incident.]

I'll get out of your way, I guess. I've got Christmas preparations to get to...! [Noelle, sweetie, it's November.]

[edgewater]

[ it's okay it's not like parvati knows that! ]

All right. It was lovely to meet you, Noelle.