Colour Printer's blag blog

Tag: Freeboot

  • Guinevere “Gwen” Colour

    • Age: 19
    • Gender: Demigirl (She/They)? (May be gender fluid between Demigirl/Demiboy, could have trouble with binding? Need to think more about this, not going to just slap a label on a character and call it a day)
    • Race: Magic blood human (father’s side) with cybernetic prosthetic
    • Eyes: Deep pink
      • Inspiration: Her father’s eyes
    • Hair: Upper back length, black with rainbow tips
      • Inspiration: Natural black hair like her mother, rainbow tip inspired by original version of character that had rainbow hair
    • Cybernetics: 27th gen (at the time of story, this is the current mass market gen) standard right foot, software modified to remove unneeded software and harden security by family member
      • The cybernetic is heavy but designed to allow Gwen’s usual fast moment, if it is depowered, she is completely unable to move the attached leg
    • Class: Fighter
    • Stance system: Can change stance when needed but needs a few seconds between changes, each stance having strengths and weaknesses. Stances can develop with training
      • Imagined: Standard stance, good all round stance, uses light punches/kicks to make openings for a heavy cyber foot attack. Only stance she starts with
        • Trainer: Wendy Colour (Aunt)
        • Training focus: Natural type offence
        • Strengths: An all around style that can take down most foes, can use flow to combo attacks and dodge more effectively
        • Weaknesses: Requires her to commit to heavy attacks which are more easily countered. Focused on dealing damage more than avoiding it herself
        • Inspiration: Tiger style from Judgement, Brawler style from Yakuza 0 (in terms of being a good first stance)
      • Flow: An evasive style that focuses on dodging and rapid light attacks
        • Trainer: ??? (Local record shop owner)
        • Training focus: Natural type flow and dodging
        • Strengths: The light attack and dodge structure dramatically increase survivability, flow allows effortless fast combos and dodges
        • Weaknesses: Terrible against armour, without a flow state, this stance suffers from slow speed and lackluster impact without a flow state
        • Inspiration: Rush style from Yakuza 0 (including bad combo speed without requirements), Hi-Fi Rush dodge/parry mechanic, Breaker style from Yakuza 0 (in style more than how it’s used)
      • Freefoot: Backup style, if cybernetic foot has been disabled, it can be detached with a backup powerless stand being dropped from the foot connector on her leg, the stance does what it can to protect the weaker leg
        • Trainer: Luna Raven (Friend met at a protest)
        • Training focus: Natural type stability/damage recovery
        • Strengths: Removes the need for working cybernetics, defensive stance, focusing on body blocks and small evasive movements, quickly reattach foot to change stance
        • Weaknesses: Unable to use cybernetic foot, slower movement due to change of balance, foot replacement fragile
      • Enviro: Use the environment to attack and defend, rocks, ground dust, and office equipment, none of it is off limits!
        • Trainer: Fiona Colour (Older sister)
        • Training focus: Armed type attack speed, weapon equip/pickup speed, status duration
        • Strengths: This stance features sweeping attacks and all kinds of status effects. Allows for feats like jumping off walls and gambits to lore opponents rather than head on assaults. Allows for extremely basic use of all weapon types (imagine smacking someone with the side of a katana)
        • Weaknesses: … If you’re in the right environment for the right opponent (Throwing a bomb is going to be more effective against a mech than a knife)
        • Inspiration: Beast style from Yakuza 0, environmental pick up system from LaD: Infinite Wealth
      • Wield style: Batter up! All manner of weapons are available in this stance as long as you know how to use them! Gwen won’t even use weapons she doesn’t understand at a basic level in this stance, that’s more Enviro’s thing
        • Trainer: Haloes (Melee) & Leia (Ranged) Colour (Aunt/Uncle)
        • Training focus: Armed type, skilled weapon usage, weapon type specific abilities
        • Strengths: Good for any situation, added range to attacks so the fleshy and blood don’t get hurt as easily, allows her to use her arms to deal heavier damage than unarmed strikes
        • Weaknesses: Weapons and break or run out of ammo, keeping care of both the weapons and training to use new ones is required. Need to train in each weapon before use
        • Inspiration: LaD: Ishin’s styles, Shinada from Yakuza 5
    • Fighting style: Strikes like lightning, using fists to disorientate/distract and cybernetic foot to deal heavier damage, later learning to mix things up to catch opponents off guard, other stances add new options as she trains
      • Inspiration: Yagami from Judgement, mainly Lost Judgement where style switching is a core mechanic to get the most out of his move set
    • Flow state:
      • Primary: Flow source
        • A flow source is needed to keep flow, without it, Gwen’s movements will become clumsy and her stances less coordinated. This is on or off, no partial states here
        • Common sources are the music she plays herself, the sounds of the city in the background and the sound of cybernetics moving. If her current flow source is stopped (i.e. her headphones are broken), she will need to take a second to select a new source, this changes the rhythm of the fight and the BPM she flows with
      • Secondary: Flow movement
        • When the sounds are flowing, all Gwen has to do is move to the flow! She typically finds this easy enough, but missing flow timings can weaken her current combo making it come out slower and with less force than intended
        • Flow movement can be interrupted by anything that disorientates, something like a flashbangs would cause a might higher rate of flow misses
    • ‘Verse: FutureBoot time crash (Time skip future of TreBoot/FreeBoot set 20 years after FreeBoot’s ending)
    • Occupation: Low level solo merc for hire
    • Hobbies:
      • Keeping up with fashion
        • Constantly changes outfits, usually wears casualwear, something that lets the body move
      • Reading the latest on strange goings on, strange magical creatures, cryptids, and any stories that stick out as odd
        • While keeping herself to the most human and tech focused part of the world, the world surrounding it still fascinates her
        • She can’t help trying to learn new things, she’s just scholarly by nature
        • Inspiration: My own father who used to read the Fourteen Times magazine, thought it’d work well for her given her father is scholarly as well
      • Part of the largest anti-corpo movement that’s sweeping the youth
        • She’ll take corpo jobs but isn’t happy about it, usually charging more or requesting an extra incentive (extra resources she can keep after the job and the like)
        • Given that a corpo tried to steal some tech a family member made then beat said family member into a coma, she gets no pushback about this from her folks
      • Loves some good music, typically uses headphones and moves to the beat (yes including when fighting)
        • The beat helps with her flow, fighting ability suffers when not in the flow
        • Music pumping into her ears isn’t the only way of getting flow, the world around her can in inspiration, music is just a quick and easy shortcut
        • Inspiration for music theme: Hi-Fi Rush and Dead as Disco, both use rhythm based mechanics and music based fighting as a plot point
        • Inspiration for getting flow in the world around her: JoJo Steel Ball Run, Gyro uses nature to find the golden ratio, focusing on the environment to get what’s needed more than the perfection behind the ratio
    • Background: Heroic family
      • Her family stopped genocides and fought gods, coming out on top
      • She has no problem with this but does want to make her own path, heroic or not
      • 4 of her family members were involved in stopping the city being wiped off the map, while it’s not the most common knowledge within the city, her name does carry some weight, not that she would name drop unless there was a very good reason
    • Strengths:
      • Lightning fast with reaction speed to match
      • Able to look over a scene and quickly get her bearings
      • All round well educated, able to take on any task with a manual and a bit of reading time
      • Has the spirit to see anything through
      • Stance system allows for fighting in any situation
    • Weaknesses:
      • Light as a feather, outside of the cyber foot, there’s not much weight behind her attacks though the foot weighs her down enough to stop her from being easily launched
      • Raised in a mostly safe, fantasy environment, the current home she has is taking time to adjust to
      • Learned to fight hand to hand, not great against armour or cybernetics
      • Despite having magic blood, appears to be unable to use it (note, her aunt had the same issue but the magic surfaced when she was older than this)
      • Being hit by lightning causes her foot to overload, causing it to reset which leaves her unable to move that leg for a short time as without power, the foot is an extreme amount of dead weight to her body (power allows it to move like it’s her own foot, it’s still very weighty though)
        • This only seems to happen with her and her aunt, likely an interaction with the magic blood that baseline humans don’t have?
      • Not too physically strong, having to rely on being more of a trickster in fights drawing her to fight more like her older sister (similar situation) than her father (high level sorcerer, he can just wipe you off the map with a thought)
    • Notable life events:
      • Highly educated from childhood with a focus on adventuring and heroics
      • Learned to fight from childhood, focusing on hand to hand and close-up combat
      • At age 18, involved in a crash that took her left foot, replaced with a 27th gen cybernetic foot
        • She had the option to have it magically healed (aunt is a cleric with that focus) but got the cybernetic to be a reminder, like a scar
      • At age 18, heavily retooled her fighting style to focus on kicks and foot focus defence, putting her cybernetic foot out front and using her fists to create openings rather than the fist first approach the learned with
      • At age 19 moved away from parents home to live in the sprawling cyber city

    Possible routes to grow:

    • Train with her sister, Fiona, to learn about using the environment to fight with (i.e. using tables and chairs in an office for both offence and defence), adding tricks and more dirty fighting plays to her skillset
    • Train with her aunt for more hand to hand and fighting with a cybernetic to get more in tune with using her flesh and blood and the metal as well as more knowledge of how the cyber city works
    • Train with her friend, Luna Raven, to get more attuned with changing balance and a defensive stance for when Gwen’s foot is disabled and she has to use the backup leg stand. Started helping when she was complaining about an incident with a stun gun taking her leg out of action. Luna teaches balance, how to adjust it and how to keep herself up, she does this in exchange for field testing her teachings
    • Train with her uncle to get a grip on some form of armed combat, from as simple as a pole on the street to actual ranged combat allowing for much greater use of weapons than just throwing herself at them and hoping that smacking hard enough will work
    • The owner of the local record shop notes that she always has a movement to her that matches the music he plays in the store, offers to help her hone the flow in exchange for one of his best customers not dying, man’s gotta keep in business! At this point in the world, CDs have been mass developed so a record enjoyed so young is extremely rare. He mainly invites her to train to see how she can move and to see how good she is at picking up on the world around her, her first lesson being listening for the sounds of his cybernetic arm before he punches in a musicless back room which unlocks flow and Gwen’s ability to find it in the world and use it in combat

    Character notes that don’t belong above:

    • Moving to the cyber city is partly inspired by her aunt who did the same thing and partly because she doesn’t like being magicless in a magic world, the cyber city is mostly without magic so she’s just one of a crowd here
    • She is one of 2 alternate counterparts to the previous character Fiona Colour, the other being this story’s Fiona Colour
      • This story’s Fiona Colour is a “What if?” Where she has to make herself from nothing, having the identity of the alt Fiona but not the background (she straight up looks like Fiona). Gwen on the other hand has Fiona’s background but her identity is much more strongly tied to the world she’s in (She looks nothing like Fiona but has similar parents)
      • Gwen fights bad corps like her original counterpart
      • Gwen has a cheerful spirit that does have limits, just doing her best to do good like her original counterpart
      • And much like her original counterpart, she’s inspired by the life her family has led, wanting to make a path to help those and continue on their footsteps
    • The stances have 2 sets, Inspired, Flow, and Freefoot are natural stances, using her own body as the focus for attacks. Enviro and Wield are armed stances, using weapons and items to take out enemies. Training a natural or armed stance can improve both stances (i.e. learning to wield a long 2 handed staff for Wield stance allows her to apply this to a long metal pipe in Enviro stance) and some skills may just apply across stances
      • Natural is focused on Gwen’s body, the stances being able to be used in any situation, all skill on her part
      • Armed is focused on equipment and the environment around Gwen, it’s purely situational but when the conditions are right, these stances can deal with a lot more, a lot more effectively
    • In a world of magic and monsters, Gwen is a human look at life, it’s all too easy for her to think that she doesn’t have to be careful because she has the contacts to just have her body put back together if she dies with a touch of magic. She aims to make the most of her life and while understanding that magic monsters are probably more scary than a guy with a sword but she doesn’t want to act like dying is a regular thing for her
      • Inspiration: Conner Colour from my original story, much like Gwen here, he was a young Colour family member that wanted to improve things in a cyber world. Much like Gwen, he rejected something that would have his life easier, in his case it was the shapeshifting he was able to use due to being a part human hybrid, it would have made his life easier but he wanted to take on the world as a human. Note that the only times he does shapeshift, it’s completely unclear if there is any higher brain function or if his body is acting on instinct
        • Also note that being a different gender than given at birth (Gwen being demi) matches up with Conner being similar (cis male, where his nonhuman/shapeshifter side are all either agender or genderfluid)

  • LGBT+ Within My Characters

    Now, lets just get this straight, I’m non-binary (agender, they/them please) and some kind of asexual (current thoughts on the subject are ace-flux between straight up repulsed and extremely bi) and 100% aromantic (neutral on the matter, love it in fiction but I can promise I’ve tried IRL, I got love but I just can’t feel that romance). Outside of that, I’m the diversity quiz equivlant of plain bread, white, British…. I am left handed, is that neat?

    But one thing I’ve always added a dash to in my characters is a dash of me, even if it’s completely unintentional 😀

    So, from humble beginnings to the gosh darn woke central, I just wanna look at my characters, see if there’s anything fun with them and I hope that someone can see themselves in whatever combo of labels end up below (and tell me, I’ll make more stuff of them because that’s cool as heck and I’m eating well on the character I feel reprisented by so might as well pass that on ^-^)

    And if you’re thinking, “Hey, turn those darn like 2010 emojis off!” No can do, buddy, this stuff is totally fixed in me now >:3

    Without further ado, enjoy the silly little list of silly little characters, seperated by the world and then time setting they appear in! (Common characters at the top, if any one version is different, they will be put under that world)

    Please note: Some details may not be shown as the characters are not open about these things while others will be (characters that are implied but never stated to be trans for example). I also do not exprience all of these myself so if you have any advice or want to clarify something, please, feel free to contact, I want to do my best here.

    Common

    • Haloes “Colour Cube” Colour
      • Gender: Gender Neutral (Any/All)
      • Presentation: Masculine (No transition)
      • Sexuality: Demi/Aro (Romance neutral)
    • Wendy “Colour Wing” Colour
      • Gender: Female (She/Her)
      • Presentation: Fem leaning
      • Sexuality: Bisexual
    • Chi Colour
      • Gender: Genderfluid (Changes between He/Him and She/Her, will accept They/Them but not like totally jazzed about it)
      • Presentation: Masc/Fem leaning, transitioned to be more androgynous
      • Sexuality: Bisexual
    • Sofia “Colour Splatter” Colour
      • Gender: Female (She/Her)
      • Presentation: Feminine
      • Sexuality: Bisexual (fem leaning)
    • Fiona “Colour Imagination” Colour
      • Gender: Female (She/Her)
      • Presentation: Feminine
      • Sexuality: Pansexual
    • Arthur Lowlight
      • Gender: Male (He/Him)
      • Presentation: Fluid (note: shapeshifter)
      • Sexuality: Pansexual

    Zeta Universes (PunkPunk/Reignboot)

    Contemporary (ProtoPunk/Reignboot)

    • Reign
      • Gender: Agender (They/Them)
      • Presentation: Androgynous (Baggy clothes and hoodie, literally cannot see a body shape)
      • Sexuality: Aro/Ace (Repulsed)
    • Brodee
      • Gender: Male (He/Him)
      • Presentation: Masculine
      • Sexuality: Gay
    • “Del” (Reignboot)
      • Gender: Female (She/Her)
      • Presentation: Feminine
      • Sexuality: Aro/Ace (Neutral)
    • Del Colour (PunkPunk)
      • Gender: Female (She/Her)
      • Presentation: Feminine
      • Sexuality: Bi
    • Riley Colour
      • Gender: Female (She/Her)
      • Presentation: Feminine
      • Sexuality: Bi

    Cyber Future (FuturePunk/ReignPunk)

    • Conner Colour
      • Gender: Male (He/Him)
      • Presentation: Masculine (Note, he is a shape shifter but is very firm on this, he is very much a minority in this regard)
      • Sexuality: Aro/Ace (Repulsed/Neutral)
    • Maria Colour
      • Gender: Female (She/Her)
      • Presentation: Androgynous
      • Sexuality: Bisexual
      • Extra notes: Mute

    Fantasy Time Crash (Treboot)

    • Mapel
      • Gender: Female (She/Her) (previous data lost)
      • Presentation: Feminine
      • Sexuality: Aro/Ace (Neutral/Neutral)
    • Lote David
      • Gender: Demigirl (They/Her)
      • Presentation: Androgynous
      • Sexuality: Demi/Aro (Positive/Neutral)
    • Aaron Fleetfoot
      • Gender: Male (He/Him)
      • Presentation: Masculine
      • Sexuality: Gay
      • Extra notes: Comes out and transitions throughout story
    • Cal
      • Gender: Demiboy (He/It)
      • Presentation: Androgynous
      • Sexuality: Ace/Biromantic (Neutral)
      • Extra notes: He’s a calico cat fur, if you know anything about calico cats, it’s safe to assume it’s trans

  • [Draft] A Lote of questions

    [Draft] A Lote of questions

    A FreeBoot (Treboot Universe) story

    CW: This story contains language that can be seen as bigoted/transphobic, used to show a character’s ignorance and is to show them not understanding rather than being hateful

    Leia more info

    Currently without their main soul, Leia is on an adventure to find the soul that’s meant to be in their body, tagging along with Lote and Mapel to get the help of the new land of the unicorns

    While the duo look into eachother’s eyes, getting completely lost in the future they could share, walking side by side, throwing silly comments, and more formal and less silly comments back and forth… not too different from the present, something stirs from the nearby bushes, a violet aura surrounding a beaten and bloody body that has just collapsed in full view of the not lovers.

    “Leia?!” Mapel is first to get up, running towards the brunette with multiple large scratches through the back of her leather armour and flesh. Mapel looks her over, rapid blood loss, must have been attacked by multiple large animals or something the group does not want to cross again.

    A golden aura surrounds Mapel, a spell crossing her lips as a matching aura surrounds Leia. The wounds quickly close, the blood loss stops, Leia jumps back to life and onto her feet. “Good news, I’m alive and with intel. Bad news, there’s a LOT a bears around and they do not like humans putting up campsites” Leia pauses to take a breath, “I swear there were something like 8 bears trying to take chunks out of me, I’m good but I’ve got limits!”

    Lote takes a look at the healing handy work, a small smile on their face, “Have you considered that they simply don’t care for a quarter of the nonbinary flag that you constantly emit?” they wave their hand in Leia’s aura, disrupting it as the hand moves through it, if only for a moment. Mapel gives a little giggle at the rather deadpan joke.

    Leia looks between them, looking for some glimmer of an inside joke but sees nothing of the sort, they’re fully expecting her to get it, but instead of that, she tries to make some kind of joke back, “I’m plenty binary, I was a robot brain in a past life” she’s either way too proud of that or simply deflecting not understanding… again.

    Mapel sighs with a facepalm, full slap of hand to forehead, it probably hurt, “You go by she/they, how do you not know what non-binary is? I thought you spent years travelling someone that goes by it” both her and Lote give a look, the old look of that weird woman is speaking nonsense again

    Leia gives a dismissive “Pssh” as she quickly thinks up a reply, “Well I guess the obvious is that the they is from me and Haloes being kinda…” She punches her fists together a couple of times, “together in one body, literally two of us so yeah. As for my fur friend, I thought it was because he like is completely out of place here? Like there’s no other furs that look like him at all, are we sure it didn’t skip through some weird crack in reality like I did?” She finally takes a glance towards the rather horrified looks of the rest of the group, “Wait wait wait, you don’t see it? Like if I appeared with my old body, I’d totally think the same way about myself, designed outside of the sight of that God Above All you liked to like. Like seriously, it looks nothing like any other fur I’ve seen1, less towards the human of humanoid than even it’s bestie” she gives a quick nervous chuckle, “Seriously, I can’t be the only one seeing this, I’m not thinking this to other it! It’s like when we found that sign about nonexistent mobile phones, just really out of place and I can’t explain why… Not like I can ask about it’s history, guy probably thinks it’s only lived in this world” her eyes grow more tired as she looks towards the floor, her tone losing its usual energy, “Hard to find someone that understands, ya know?” Her eyes dart up to look between the duo, “You both look like you know, I assume the chat went well”

    Lote offers a soft chuckle, “Let’s not start changing the subject here, but yes, just so you do know, the chat did go well, thank you for taking over tent duty” they look to Mapel, a gentle smile on their face, before it suddenly drops and the attention is back on Leia, “As a quick summery, a non binary person is someone that does not identify with a binary gender so male or female. It covers many identities, for reference, I’d refer to myself as a demiwoman, I don’t feel discomfort being a woman but I don’t feel like I connect with it at all. Jeder ist anders2, so how I feel may not apply to your fur friend and, as far as I am aware, does not apply to yourself” they hold a teacher like composure during the explanation with Mapel nodding and thumbs upping along with it.

    Leia thinks for a moment, full hand to chin, looking to the sky, “I think I get it? Like you don’t feel much of connection to being a woman but don’t feel like a guy, like just neither” her tone completely lacking confidence but a nod from Lote seems to help a bit, “I mean, I really only use they because there’s usually a guy here too, dunno if that counts if I myself uses she… I mean, I guess that’s my choice” she simply sighs and gives an over the top shrug, “Come on you two… Whatever your relationship is now, we should probably reclaim our camp site and supplies, you might wanna explain that too so I don’t mess anything up”

    Mapel whips out her electro pistol, “For the record, we’re together, we still gotta figure out what that really means, you know what I’m like” the pistol buzzes with a sharp buzz. Lote rolls their eyes, pulling pulling duel knives from their leather armour, “Yes, we will need to find out what that means, do not worry about being das fünfte Rad am Wagen3, we are always great together” they flash a casual smile, twirling the knives before walking into the bush. The rest of the group follow along, ready to fight for their tents!

    1. The character referred to here was not created by me and 100% doesn’t look like my fur characters ↩︎
    2. This (should) mean “Each to their own” ↩︎
    3. This (should) mean “Be the fifth wheel on the wagon” ↩︎
  • [Draft] A Lote to work with

    [Draft] A Lote to work with

    A Freeboot (Treboot universe) story
    Mapel more info

    Mapel is a cleric that turned against her god to help Lote and develop a plan to rid the world of gods and fix some outstanding issues she noticed over the past 7 years. In this new world, she travels with Lote, enjoying a casual time while it lasts

    Lote more info

    Lote has succeeded in her mission to rid the world of gods and has offered to take Mapel to their homeland, currently travelling to a newly created land which has the best port to depart from. They owe Mapel a great deal as her assistance on guiding the changes to the world have made things a lot better than if she was to go it alone.

    The Sun slowly decended below the rainbow filled sea, Unicornucopia marking the land’s edge before reaching a port to new lands unknown. It’s a day’s travel at this point, not too far but it will be a long day to get there and hope there’s a people sized bed, how big are the unicorns or equine or whatever creatures live there? That’s the problem with casually reality warping a new territory into existance, no one knows what to expect!

    A tall figure sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking everything, cozy green jumper keeping her warm, though a bit tattered from bandit encounters and just falling on her face when her legs decide they hate her. Her brunette flowing hair catching the breeze as her eyes scanned the scene in front of her, something new, something different, something she’s never seen before. She sat, hunched up with her head reading on her pulled in knees, enjoying the calm and the wind. She isn’t truly alone, her companions are simply preparing a camp for the night, not her area of things to do, she knows her pals can handle putting up a few tents.

    From the nearby bushes, a shorter figure appears, “Mapel, you doing alright?” the voice is lightly gruff and raspy, a voice Mapel knows very well. The smaller figure wore light roguewear, simple leather armour with underclothes, not much for fighting but they make do, their expression typically extremely chilled out has a twinge of nerviousness to it. The larger figure looks over, offering a soft smile and a nod, patting the space next to her. The smaller figure gives her own smile and puts their butt on the previously patted ground.

    Mapel looks out to the sea below, the waves crashing with colours below, “You sure you can leave Leia alone with the tents? She might try stabbing them into place” her tone is playful and teasing, as if messing with a sibling. The smaller figure offers a soft chuckle, “She was insistant that I go and relax with you, she was like ‘You better have a nice relaxing time while I beat up these tents!’ and I’m not going to argue with that, she’s a lot you know” they sit with their legs hanging off the edge, swinging their stick legs above the sea below. Mapel giggles, “I thought you were a Lote” Lote’s face changes to one trying to fight bursting out loud and wanting to sigh so loud she’d alert every animal nearby to their location.

    Ultimately, no noise is made, much to Lote’s relief, they just smile in that casual cool way they always do, “I did have something, I wanted to ask you” their voice suddenly not as calm and casual as usual, a small tense pull on their words, “If that’s alright” they’re not sure why they would even say that, of course a question would be alright, a question is always alright, They really don’t know what is happening in their mind, is this an internal conflict of what to do next?

    Mapel’s eyes jump to look at her sitting partner, “Sure thing, of course!” she offers a soft and gentle smile, it’s been a good while since they got to know eachother, she outright betrayed her own god in the hope that Lote was true to their word, which turned out to be the right call in her eyes. So the long and short is there is a lot of trust between the two, would be kind of awkward if they hated eachother and sat like this.

    Lote’s eyes divert away to their destination in the distance, “We’ve known eachother for a while and it’s been great, I mean, you’re not a kissass like the followers were and you’re not… quite so gung ho like Leia is, you’re…” they pause, a rare struggle to find the wording, “…different, in a good way” she runs her hand through her hair, her bangs flopping back to join the rest of her hair. “I just think, and worry that, once this is all said and done and we have some fun in my homeland, we’d end up going our seperate ways”

    Mapel looks to them with a mix of concern and confusion, confusion…. those words are too easy to fuse together, even have the word fusion in there. Anyway, she lets out a small sigh, “I’m not going to say that hasn’t happened before” she fidgets her hands, aimlessly squishing them together, “But, that was a mutual split, the others had their lives to get back to and I had my work to do. Besides, until recently I would have called them family, we were that close and continued to be” her tone gave away that she was confused by the topic but her words are of reassurance.

    Lote’s expression changed, completely, their messed up hair mixed with a borderline distraught expression is a fresh look, not a good one, but a fresh look nontheless! “Well, I don’t want to be like family” is this how anxity feels? The hitched breath, the swear on their brow, the beating in their heart. For once, they aren’t sure of the outcome, not sure of what could come of what they want to say and the outcome really does matter. “Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright. Well now I’m sounding like you” she goes to give a chuckle but gives a short burst of laughter before cutting herself off, “I was thinking that maybe we could get together, like I don’t know about dating or anything like that I ju-” Mapel’s hand snuck up and landed on her shoulder with a shockingly firm grip.

    Mapel stares deep into Lote’s eyes, while the stare is firm, there is a small glint of reassurance, “Breath, focus on your breathing and take a second to get your thoughts together” she offers a soft smile, “And, if it helps, from what you’ve said so far, if it was a hard no in that direction at all, I would have said already, but I gotta hear the whole thing” she slowly removes her hand from Lote, like releasing a reset button and letting them start back up.

    Taking the friendly advice, they relax their breath and close their eyes, for a few moments, just existing. Their hair flops back down into bangs and the shakiness in their body starts to subside, not completely but the improvement is great. When they eventually open their eyes and lay their eyes upon their sitting partner, the shine of the setting sun on her face, the crashing rainbow waves as a backdrop, it’s now or never. “Mapel, I have loved travelling with you, you’ve been the best and I believe you will continue to be. I don’t believe I… can like people like other’s can, I don’t want to go on romantic dates, I don’t want to have big acts of love or anything of the sort. I’m happy as we are, I don’t want to have to see you go. Ich hab dich lieb1” she felt like she was going to die having it in the open, like her heart was going to explode.

    “I sure hope you didn’t just put a curse on me or something at the end there” Mapel giggles softly, “I think I understand how you feel about love and relationships, and I accept your feelings, I don’t want to flake on you, I want to be close to you. So of course, I wanna be with you, not like lovers but like… together” she gently takes one of Lote’s hands with both of hers, “I don’t know what we’d call this but I’m thankful for meeting you. And we can be… a bit closer than friends if you want, if only to save inn fees”

    The silly comments, always with the silly comments, Lote smiles warm, “Of course, I didn’t want to pull you into anything more than how we’ve been but being a bit closer sounds nice. I presume we will just see where we end up and how we express our relationship” they chuckle softly, “The worry feels silly now, I suppose you feel like this a lot, like a final trial to understand you better, I swear I’ll stop talking like you once I’ve calmed down”

    1. German is not a known language in lore, also I cannot speak it so I made sure to research to ensure the right phrasing is used, this is not meant to be a romantic romantic line but of love nonetheless ↩︎