Scene #8547: Trying Out Being Half-Normal

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	PHONE: Cinder says, "Well... Would you like to go on a date sometime?" PHONE: Phoning Cinder, Petra Soroka makes a strangled noise, and says with a vibrating-nasally anxious voice, "Weh. U-um. E-eh. I-I-I-I'll-- I'll get right back to y-you. I'll be right back." PHONE: Cinder says, "Oh... Uh..." with maximum awkward. "O-okay! Sure. Uh. Take your time." PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says with an uncharacteristically nervous voice, restrained into a strange sounding choked vibration, "Lilian?" . . . PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "... Yeah. Thanks, Lilian, I'll-- get back to her, now." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "You left her on hold this entire time?" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "W-well, I-- I mean, I needed to-- y-yeah." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Good god you're hopeless." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Perhaps I'll do her a favour." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, changing tones very, very intentionally, "Petra~" PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Show her a good time, okay~? I'll expect a full report after. And if it sounds like you were a mediocre date, I'll have to start seriously reconsidering my future plans involving you." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "If you can pull it off, I'll have something waiting for you~" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, her voice shooting up half an octave, "Y-yes! I'll do my best!" PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Good girl." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Ah, and if she gets any more than handhold-y, make sure to take off that scarf and let her know what she's getting into, alright?" The circumstances surrounding what is, by technicality, Petra's first intentional date with a woman that is explicitly described as such, are a little unusual. A lot unusual, actually-- to the point that anyone, possibly including Cinder and certainly including Petra from half a year ago, would be repulsed if they were privy to all of it. The situation is deeply, unsettlingly, weird, a total inversion of Petra's stated values from all that time before, the kind of thing that no group larger than four would ever tolerate. But today, that society-spurning queer revelry averages out with the pull of gravity that still has its grip on Petra. She puts on an outfit half assembled from clothes Lilian got her in prison and half from clothes she bought with her little pool of funds, then she heads out from her normal, cozy apartment in an alien hellscape of a City, to go meet up for a casual date with a coworker who happens to be a girl.
Petra Soroka	The fair that Petra invites Cinder to is worlds away from what either of them are familiar with. A mostly-typical county fair in structure-- though that alone might be wildly unfamiliar to Cinder-- the stark difference to Petra, at least, comes from how the stalls and rides and even a large tent dominating the far side of the fair, are all made of some plantlike biological lattice, connected, presumably by roots, to a giant flower blooming on the ground in the center, petals each as large as a person. Petra is standing outside by the ticket booth waiting for Cinder, with both tickets already purchased and in hand. She's wearing a more casual outfit than Cinder's ever seen her in, though it'd probably be more suited to autumn than the still-warm late summer. Wearing soft brown booties rather than her typical combat boots, jeans, a thin white striped sweater that mostly conceals the still-present gauze around her arms, capped off by a sunhat and her glittering-green triangle scarf around her neck, Petra looks... comfortable. When Cinder arrives, Petra gives her a little wave, and if Cinder is particularly perceptive, she might notice that all of Petra's mannerisms are just slightly more stiff and reserved than usual. This is because-- Oh my god what the fuck do I do on a date?? With Cinder??? Why did I choose such a public place where everyone can fucking see me and see me with her and see her and see us and see what I do and walking with her? But I can't fuck up or Lilian will get upset and Cinder would be unhappy too and everyone would see me but oh my god I don't even know how I'm supposed to act what do people even-- "Cinder! Don't worry, I wasn't waiting long, so..." Petra gestures with the tickets, which look like a cluster of petals attached to a length of braided stem. "These are what let us go in and out and get us onto rides, and stuff. Are you, like-- good with rides? You bounce around all the time with your EGO, so I wouldn't-- I-I-I mean, I wouldn't think you get, like, s-sick, but I don't know, maybe? Thought I should ask." "You put them on like this, the guy showed me." Petra holds her ticket to her wrist after handing the other to Cinder, and like a slap bracelet from the 90s, the stem tropically twists and curls around her wrist, attaching in a loop to form a biological wristband.
Angela	PREVIOUSLY Cinder had to ask for time off to go on this venture because typically outside excursions are a part of work and not exactly allowed so readily otherwise. This means going to Angela. "--And she said yes!" Cinder says, still over the moon. "I see. And you wish for me to approve the time off." Angela is considering this, frowning thoughtfully. "Y.yeah.. I mean. I'm going to go. Even if you don't..." Cinder says, largely trying to be brave about it. "Mm." Angela closes her eyes for a long moment. "No. You will go. And I expect you to show Petra a wonderful time." "Y..yes ma'am." Cinder says, wondering why she is a little uneasy about being told to do precisely what she intended to do. Cinder isn't the most experienced dater either. She has been on ''arranged'' dates before--put into place with her adopted parents. She dressed up. She puts on some casual fair and pulls her hair back in a ponytail with a hairtie that has a little plastic duck decoration on the top. When she arrives at the fair, she is wearing beige shorts and a light pink sleeveless blouse that ends in ruffles at about the shoulders. She has brought along a backpack where she has stashed somed bottled water and of course a phone just in case something happens--but she has it stashed inside the bag rather than in her hands. Her shoes are light red slipons, not unlike the deadly shoes in Lobotomy Corp. It's the extra pair that she had though after experiencing the weird Shoe Abnormalities, they aren't her favorite pair anymore but they are her nicer shoes--though not so nice that they wouldn't work for an outside trip to a fair. She marvels at the strange (to her) ginormous flower and the unusual plant-based structures about. When she spots Petra, she smiles brightly and waves to her excitedly. She's really excited. And nervous! But she's trying to focus more on the excitement. It's strange to see someone as HEROIC as Petra be stiff but--it's normal to be a little nervous on a first date right? Cinder is. Though this is the first date she cared about. "You weren't kidding about the multiverse being out there and beautiful, I don't think I've ever seen a place like this before. It's like we walked into a storybook." Is she good with..rides? "Oh! Yeah, of course. If I didn't like rides I p-probably would've said something about going to a fair?" She takes a ticket and after some fumbling puts on the slap bracelet. The bracelet seems to try to help her by pulling itself around her arm. "Oh!...Haha." Cinder laughs, stepping in close. "Thank you for inviting me."
Petra Soroka	Petra probably should've thought to mention it to Angela herself. Even though Petra works part-time hours, she's fully aware that Cinder lives in the dorms, and that conditions are far stricter for City residents. Her reasoning for not doing so, unconscious and otherwise, is twofold. Primarily, Petra doesn't really see Angela as strict. Despite her insistence otherwise, she's very happy to treat Angela as a friend rather than a boss, and comfortably trusts that Angela would make an exception to the rules for her and Cinder. There is, however, a conscious acknowledgement inside Petra's mind that Angela is their boss, particularly Cinder's. Going to Angela to announce their date would feel like asking for her blessing, and that's far too forwards for Petra to manage. Oh, she's cute. The thought comes so easily to Petra's mind when Cinder shows up that Petra freezes on a brief delay, mouth hanging open. Both the thought and the following anxiety are, unbeknownst to Petra, entirely normal things for a first date, but to her, they feel like a dual set of swords of Damocles, sinking closer towards her head and burrowing up from the Earth, trapping her between. Petra's mind, overheating as it is, unconsciously moves her hand to where her jacket pocket would be, fumbling at air. Then she blinks and presses her hand to her jeans pocket, feeling around each of them. Fuck. Shit. Did I leave my cigarettes in my jacket? Petra swallows and runs a hand through her hair, twisting a strand around her finger. Then Cinder starts talking, and everything becomes easier for a brief little bit. "I've never seen anything like this either! I think I could travel to a different world every day for the rest of my life and not ever see one percent of all the weird stuff out here." Petra has never initiated holding hands with any woman besides Lilian, and today probably isn't the day she'll start, but she does make sure to keep Cinder close to her while leading the wandering path through the fair. "See, like, look. At the food court area? All those pillars, that look like they're made of wood? That's actually bark, and the sun shade on top is like, a weird kind of leaf canopy. It's really cool, I heard about it a bit before you got here." Petra ambles to a slow stop once they get into the thick of the fair, standing off to the side of the main path so that people can stream by the pair. "There's... um. There's games we could do, or rides, or we could eat-- um, though, that's probably better later..." Petra starts floundering a little, her gaze flitting around less to consider the various fair activities, and more at the heads of all the people enjoying the festival, automatically scanning to see if anyone's looking at them. "Um... there's also the rodeo that should be starting soon? I could-- I wouldn't mind-- do you h-have a--" Petra stammers, grey blush rising in her cheeks, and then she cuts off with her eyes wide as a realization sparks between two of her fried neurons. "I could go win you a prize. Would you want that? I want to do that."
Angela	Cinder doesn't feel particularly great about having to do that, but she is literally the first Agent from within the facility to go outside for a date yet. Or to date someone in the grander multiverse. Cinder doesn't draw out a cigarette for herself yet (she might be worried about the flammability of the grounds. Everything DOES seem plant based). "Yeah, traveling around the multiverse sounds like fun. It's nice to have places to go back to but staying in one place the whole time... Maybe once the work with L Corp is over, I'll be able to explore a little more. Reminds me of the Outskirts--not, like, directly but it's... If you go out far enough it gets pretty strange there too, more... real, I guess?" She's not sure if she's got it right, looking towards the locals to get a feel for them. She's a bit startruck by the fiar. 'She seems a little nervous', Cinder thinks to herself. 'She ... almost certainly didn't screw it up already did she? Petra's probably had all SORTS of real dates.' Cinder says, "It's really pretty. I know I'm... I mean with my name and everything, but nature's pretty cool and that they kind of incorporated the natural world in this..." She doesn't nee to point out there's nothing like it in the City. 'Petra's actually really nervous!' Cinder starts to worry maybe it's a coworker issue? She doesn't really know anybody outside of work, like, Petra is the closest thing. As she thinks abuot what to do-- ''I want to do that'' That makes it easy. Cinder says, "Sure...! I'm curious at how they do the games in a place like this, with everything plantbased. I bet whatever it is doesn't stand a chance against you." She grins, trying to be encouraging.
Petra Soroka	"... More real. Yeah. I know what you mean." Petra looks out over the carnival, eyes shifting down from people's heads to their hands. "L-Corp is kind of weird, about that. It doesn't feel... fake, exactly, but it's sort of dreamlike." Petra tilts her head, slowing down while walking to think about something. "Well... you know, I could help you explore a little bit more. There's no way you'd be allowed out that often for leisure things, but if I make it about work..." Petra doesn't elaborate on what that means. But what she's thinking is, I need to find a pretty place to terrorize for Eggman. It's not like every part of the carnival is made of plant matter, as is easily apparent from looking at anything besides the large structures. Plastic and metal are as prevalent here as anywhere, with signs hung up on the woody-vine constructed stalls, and plastic cups full of brightly colored sweet drinks, and as the pair approach the corridor of carnival game stands, present in most of their operations. "Mmm? Your name?" Petra thinks about that for a moment, while looking around for a gap in the crowd to slip through to get to a stall. "Well, I mean, it's actually natural for fires to happen in nature pretty regularly. It's like, a part of the natural cycle, burning away brush that would choke out smaller plants and turning all the ash into a place for new growth." Petra means to convey that as nothing but a fun fact, but given the connection to Cinder's name, it could very easily come across as poetic. Finally, Petra slips through, grabbing onto Cinder's wrist for a short moment to pull her through the press of people along with her. The moment they're not at risk of being separated, Petra lets go again, of course, but her attention is focused on the carnival game stand now. Similarly to any balloon popping game, the counter at the front of the stall has trays of darts for each player to throw, delivered to them for an exorbitantly high price from the tired looking teenage attendant. Rather than balloons on the far end, though, there's thick cords of vines, with brightly-colored pustules sprouting out of them, with new ones occasionally swelling into existence. Petra frowns at them, but if she squints a little bit, they basically just look like rubber. The spread of prizes is made up of various stuffed animals, as usual. Many of them have been claimed, this late in the day, with the mid-ranges of size mostly cleared out. There is one, sitting high up in an enshrined position above the rest, that has not. A person-sized stuffed representation of a dinosaur-like animal, its neck and head ringed with simplified mushroom growths that seem to be incorporated into its body, it has to be some local fauna. But it's the largest thing there, so Petra points at it, looks at Cinder, and firmly says, "I'm going to get you that one." Withdrawing a few credit bills from her pocket, Petra determinedly shoulders past the people who had been trying to slowly edge her out of the line, and presses the bills on the counter. "I'm going for that one." "You and everyone else." The teenager apathetically lays out a few darts across the tray, despite the sullen remark. "Five yellow pops and it's yours." Five yellow pustules popped with five darts later, and Petra triumphantly hoists the mushroom dinosaur over her head, beaming at Cinder. "What's next! What do you want to do? One of the games, or what?"
Angela	"Yeah..." Cinder says softly. "Working at L-Corp, it's... strange." She frowns. "...Sometimes it feels like I've been working there forever but I actually haven't been there that long in the grand scheme of things. Dreamlike feels...right." "Oh--really?" Cinder asks. "--Yeah, that sounds great." She has no idea what she agreed to there. Though she does think about the birthday for a moment--it seemed to go so horribly but why did she go in there of her own will? To make Lilian happy? It's a difficult knot for her to untie and she doesn't want to ruin the day by dwelling on it. She thinks of why she took the name Cinder. It feels like so long ago now but she wanted to light a fire within the Nests, burn them down so they'd have to face a real life--but that kind of dream was far beyond the reach of someone like her Instead, she gave up and thought she'd burn up in the end. But once she saw what someone from the outside could be--she decided to try and be strong too. Cinder starts to reach for Petra's hand as she puts a new poetic spin on her hand--but Petra grabs her her wrist before she catches Petra's hand and is pulled along--for a moment. Petra lets go of her wrist after. She brings her other hand to quietly touch that wrist a moment later. she was so close! The day's still young! The teenager doubts! But Cinder doesn't. To her, she's as much the hero of L-Corp as Gebura is. Her faith is rewarded when Petra downs five pustules with five darts. "Shouldn't have doubted her!" Cinder grins. "Hm... I want to try and win you something too! Let's see..." She curls her fingers in for a moment and then reaches to take Petra's hand. "Mm.... Let's see...Oh! That one looks cute...!" She points to it and makes her way over to it. This time there's a chirpy teenager who is hoping to make sub-manager in charge. It looks a bit like a highstriker game but with a closed up flower at the top of thick cylinder-shaped heavily coiled vines--looks like it might be a sunflower? This time Cinder points towards another stuffed animal. "There..." She murmurs. It looks like a bird that wears a little eggplant cap. She hands some of her own credits over and-- Cinder takes a breath and then swings the hammer at the trigger, causing a bright green light to pulse through the flower and it opens up brightly, the white petals spreading open like it's yawning. "I wonder what good names for these two would be." Cinder asides to Petra.
Petra Soroka	Both of Petra's hands are utilized by holding the enormous dinosaur plushie over her head, preventing Cinder from reaching for them. Whether this is convenient or unfortunate depends on whether Petra would've flinched away from Cinder's attempt, something that Petra herself isn't sure of either way. She does stay close to Cinder anyways, though, using the dinosaur above her head as an excuse to shoulder away any part of the crowd that gets too close and threatens to split them up. "Oh, that really is cute. I kind of like the plant stuff more than a normal fair, even though it's not as brightly colored. Feels more... real, yeah." As they're crossing through the streams of people to get to the game Cinder pointed out, Petra lets a drop of morphmetal run down her upraised arm, slipping out of the leg of her jeans. It scurries across the ground, darting between moving feet, to intercept someone headed to the same game, tugging on his shoelace. When he veers off the path to kneel down and retie it, Cinder gets to the game without any line in front of her. Just a little, inconsequential thing, obviously, but Petra promised it'd be better than mediocre. "Oh, shit, wow. Nice hit." Petra doesn't really have any context for how strong Cinder is in a normal human sense. Losing herself as a comparison point because of the Silver makes it a lot harder to distinguish between more average levels, so Petra lets out an impressed whistle when Cinder nails the highstriker. "Hmmm... names. I mean, do you think they're, like, actual species that exist on this planet? I honestly have no idea if they're themed or, like, real." Petra fits the two hind legs of the enormous dinosaur plushie around her neck like a pillow, letting its tail flop down her back while its head points into the sky. With her slightly freer hands, she takes the eggplant bird so Cinder isn't forced to carry it. "I could look it up, but maybe it doesn't really matter anyways. Mmmm, I'm not good with names, I'll need to think about it." Instead, as the pair wanders over to the cluster of disparate food stalls, Petra thinks about how she only has one weapon that's named, and it's the one that came with a predetermined title. That's kind of pathetic, right? For how much her identity is lensed through them as tools, it's strange that she can't think of anything to call them, besides "the gunblade" or "the revolver". Pillar of Creation, despite having it for so much less time, and despite its name being chosen for her, feels so much more personal than either of those. "I was thinking we'd grab some food and then... go see the rodeo? We could also go do rides, but then we'd have to wait before eating, and..." Petra sticks her tongue out slightly, pure silver sheen sparkling with infinitely small details in the light. "I'm hungry."
Angela	Both hands...UNAVAILABLE. Cinder's objective remains at 0/1 for now. She is not really paying to Petra's (sneaky?) manipulation of events that Cinder doesn't have to wait in line (Cinder probably wouldn't mind waiting in line but, well). Of course she may have misunderstood how this might get in the way of her hand-holding objective since now there are two (2) stuffed animals interfering with the process. She is happy to give the eggplant bird to Petra--in her head, it's a gift. "Are you okay with holding both?" She asks. The eggplant bird isn't exactly huge despite being the evolutionary followup from the dinoshroom. Cinder thinks adding plantbits to the animalbits just sort of expresses a harmony with nature that is kind of extradorable compared to anything she could find in a city. The Abnormalities can be a lure for a reason, when the stable existence is so horrid isn't it natural to consider something distorted? "Eheh... I'll say that Agent work has definitely helped with my workout." Largely by making it pretty clear what skipping leg day may do to her. Cinder mulls on naming conventions quietly before admitting, "I did sort of think maybe they were real based on how everything is plant themed here... How did you learn about this place, Petra? Have you been here before?" Cinder reaches into her purse, drawing out a frog themed wallet (the frog has an eyepatch). "I'm really curious about this rodeo. That sounds like a plan!" She'll make her way to a stall and look back to Petra, "Anything you like here?" She asks, thinking baout buying some kind of veggie shiskebob for herself (even the skewer is edible!).
Petra Soroka	Holding the eggplant bird on one shoulder to try to keep both it and the mushroom dinosaur steady with one hand, Petra nods. Of course she's fine carrying both, this is normal. "Though... maybe we should've brought a bag, or..." "Oh, wait, I can just--" Petra snaps her fingers, looking excited at having figured out a solution. She shakes her arm out, and a few droplets of morphmetal drip onto the ground, then stretch upwards into a razor thin reflective plane. Right in the middle of the fair, Petra touches her hand to the mirror, drawing Qetra out, to a few gasps from the surrounding crowd. "Cinder~ Hi~ You know, you being able to hit the highstriker like that is really h--" "Hey, hold these." "--Huh?" "Okay, thanks, back in you go." "Nooooo~" Petra drops the plushies into Qetra's arms, then firmly pushes her back into the mirror, absorbing the metal into her arm a second later. She looks very proud of herself for that solution, turning to Cinder with a smile. "Okay! Hands free!" Immediately after, the attention that she attracted with the stunt registers to her, and she shrivels up a bit. "Nah, I've never been here before. Most of the places I've been aren't that interesting." Petra keeps her shoulders slightly hunched as they walk to the food stalls, even though the crowds forgot about her only a minute later. "I just, you know, have friends online who travel a lot. Like, for fun. So I... y-you know. W-wanted to find a good place. So I-I asked people who'd know." When Cinder withdraws her wallet, Petra gasps quietly, hand to her mouth. "A frog wallet... that's so cute.... Once I've saved up enough for a bed, I should get a cute wallet and purse too. Well, maybe I could get them from CasGil... Tamamo did get me a gift card." Petra buys a foil tray of rice and chicken, and then walks along with Cinder to the huge circus tent made of plant matter. Inside, bioluminescent bulbs dangle from the green canvas, and pitcher-plant outgrowths on the walls serve as trash cans, dissolving waste. The show recently started, so Petra stops chattering and slides into one of the bleacher benches around the center ring. The rodeo is, maybe surprisingly, completely normal. The horses aren't made of plants, the hurdles aren't, the cowboys-- and girls-- are, also, not made of plants. This doesn't dim Petra's mood at all, though, and she's excited all throughout the acts. Hurdle jumping, bull riding, barrel racing, Petra oohs and ahhs at all the appropriate times, gasping when the bull rider is thrown off and nearly stepped on. Balancing her rice tray on her lap while she claps, Petra sits close enough to Cinder that she can feel the champagne-bubble sensation of radiant heat off her skin, prickling like a synthetic alternative to sympathetic nerve activity at near-contact. "I used to ride horses, too. When I was a kid. I haven't for a while, though."
Angela	Cinder's phone buzzes from within her bag (Yuri is asking for DATE DETAILS). Angela is apparently content to wait and will probably ask for a full report like it was an Abnormality Work. ''You being able to hit the highstriker like that is really h--'' "Oh hi Qetra and uh--oh. Bye Qetra!" She quietly salutes Qetra's brave (unwilling) sacrifice. She scootches closer to Petra an starts to-- --people were looking at that. She bites the interior of her lip. "Are you online a lot Petra?" Cinder isn't. She used to use it a little while she was in the Nest but ultimately she spends most of her day lately trying to change her life around. She has taken Petra saving her life as an excuse to basically revamp her own. She counts her calories, she actually uses Welfare's gym setup. She seeks opportunities to go outside as often as she can. She wants to one day be the rescuer rather than the rescuee. Yuri HAS pointed out to her that none of this is really going to help her work in L Corp much considering they can rely on EGO Gear and that's where most of the difference is going to be in an Abnormality fight but, well, it makes her feel like she has more of a hand in her own life. That's the real point of it all. That and winning carnival games apparently. "Oh that's sweet of them." Cinder says, still smiling broadly. "--Do you have a bedroll? Or an airmat?" Cinder can't afford a Bed herself which is one of the reasons why she signed up to work for HQ itself. "She did?" Cinder is surprised since she sort of thought Tamamo hated her guts. "I haven't checked it out, what sort of stuff is on CasGil?" Cinder munches on the plant skewer, even devournig the skewer along with it as she walks. She looks over to the trash can and marvels at it before following Petra into the rodeo. Cinder has never been to a rodeo. She honestly is surprised that there aren't like plant animals here either, at first, but her eyes sparkle as she watches hte events. Periodically, she asks what an event is actually about--barrel racing in particular, the bull rider seems ready to understand on its face. She's sitting so close... Cinder runs hot thanks to her attunement with the Fourth Match Flame but... Maybe she can--reach for the hand and-- Petra starts clapping. MISSION FAILED again! "Do you miss it?" She asks.
Petra Soroka	'But if she is akin to an 'Abnormality'...'' Tamamo takes a moment, at this, and then shakes her head. "No, I fear not. Petra Soroka is normal." "I-- I mean, I'm not, like, that online. I'm busy doing other stuff, like, most of the time." Petra displays the kind of defensiveness that only someone who's extremely online could have in response to to assumed implications of that question. "But I made a lot of friends there, before, you know, being an Elite." Petra does not, by technicality, need a bed. The hard floor isn't that uncomfortable for her, since the pressure against her body isn't nearly hard enough to hurt, and her joints can comfortably rest in any position. It is, however-- still lame and dirty. Petra opens her mouth to lie, and can't quite manage it before the thought of 'what if Cinder comes back to my apartment and sees I don't have one' pops into her head, which is immediately followed by 'wait why would she come back to my apartment' and then 'let her know what she's getting into'. Petra short-circuits, her mouth hanging slightly open, until Cinder moves on. "Um. Oh, CasGil is, uh, King Gilgamesh's clothing store. He's like, the richest guy in the multiverse, I think. So it's mostly designer stuff. I've been there once, for a... thing." Tamamo does, of course, hate Petra's guts, but Petra is doing her very best to not talk badly about her. Petra eagerly answers all of Cinder's questions, talking low beneath the announcer as the participants file out into the center. "So you see those barrels on the ground? They have to run in a pattern around each of them, like in loops, in the quickest time possible, so it's different from normal racing because of how tight each of the little loops are. It's like, exclusively a women's sport, but I don't know why." Either oblivious or consciously avoiding Cinder's attempts to hold her hand, Petra picks up her tray again after she's done clapping for the resolution of the rodeo. "I guess I miss the horses more than the riding? I don't really know what I'd do the riding for, honestly. But there's something really... majestic about horses, you know? Like, an animal that big feels more like us than unlike us." The sun set over the duration of the rodeo, so after they file out along with the rest of the crowd-- because Petra can't think of a way to subtly make them get out of their way-- the pair sees how the carnival changed upon nightfall. Glowing particles of pollen drift above their heads like fireflies, illuminating the fair in soft, patchy light. Denser towards the center of the fair and sparse on the outskirts, Petra feels drawn to the source like a moth, leading Cinder there along with her. In the open ring in the middle of everything, the enormous chrysanthemum centerpiece lays wide open, a dozen feet across, adding to the cloud of glowing dust spread out over it particle by particle. Here, in the center, the concentration of them is dense enough that they sink down to float around head height, brushing against loosely crowded faces in the clearing to gently tickle. Petra stares at all of it, enchanted, eyes wide open and reflecting the million pinpoints of light, pressed close to Cinder. Her hands, for once, are free.
Angela	Cinder thinks about the cage for a moment but it sounds like something beyond her reach. Certainly not date talk. She focuses on asking about the activities. Maybe she...is being too...normal? "I wonder if it's tough to get the horses to make such tight turns." Cinder has never seen a horse in her life. Her hand lightly nudges the tray--not enough to tumble it or anything. She pulls her han back, face turning a bit red. On horses being majestic, she stammers out a, "Y-yeah... They're kind of beautiful, I haven't seen one up close like this before." Cinder follows after Petra, making her way along--following that drifting pollen and-- --one tickles her nose and she turns her head and sneezes, blowing the little point of light back up into the air. She looks down at her hands, following after Petra. At this point she's already finished the skewer. The games were fun, the rodeo was fascinating, but this actually feels... Her mouth hangs open for a moment. This is a faire so there is a kind of cultivation going on here, preparation, care--and this certainly isn't something that hits only Cinder, most Agents would see such a beautiful display of nature and be moved to tears in their first outings. Cinder, experienced through many excursions, is still struck silent by the experience. Even something cultivated like this can be so--astounding. She moves close to Petra, keeping her eyes on the spectacle before her and will now-- --for the first time off a mission really-- --take her hand and give it a squeeze. Her smile is as honest and real as any smile gets. She is alive, Cinder tells herself, she's really alive.
Petra Soroka	It's been a year since Petra first got the Kana-- almost exactly, give or take a few days. A year since she left Applied Ontology and dropped down to Earth to steal a steel plated killing machine, somehow more of a death sentence to herself than to other people. A year since she threw herself into the Elite radios as a stuttering idiot with a gun and even less emotional bandwidth to handle the social side of the profession as she had for the fighting aspect of it. Unlike Cinder, the threats on Petra's life have largely been self-inflicted. Suicide, overtly or not, has been her driving force ever since the day she last flew the Beauty of Ash out of the hangar on Io. The whole world has felt just a little bit less real ever since, dreamlike in how tenuous her hold has been on it, the awareness that she could close her eyes and make it vanish at any moment always simmering just beneath the surface. It's a grim topic to come Petra's mind, as the luminous granules of pollen float around her head. But as she holds it in her mental focus, cups it gently in her hands, she's able to consider it without any of that old hollow feeling swelling in her chest. Now, looking dazedly at the slightly-less-than-real image of the festival's flower, the intangibility of the world feels comforting, consequences and watching eyes blurring into the background. But it's not entirely internal-- it never is, with Petra. The slight reminders of Cinder's presence, the pressure of their shoulders touching, the heat radiating off of her skin, are what anchor Petra here, feeling more tangible than anything else. When Cinder's hand touches Petra's, Petra squeezes back, fingers laced together with a million points of champagne-bubble contact. They stand there together, hand in hand, absorbing the sight in silence, and then-- 'Then let yourself finally feel something fucking real.' Surrounded by a sea of stars on earth, Petra turns and presses her lips to Cinder's, not letting go of her hand.