Love Springs Eternal (??)

[bright_and_blue]

Who: ERRYBODY
What: It's Valentine's Day, and there are matchmaking notices everywhere. Here's an open log for one and all to post their shenanigans, meet ups, freak outs, and whatever else they're going to do about this.
When: forward dated to Feb. 14
Where: All over Aqures Ixen
Warnings: Ridiculousness.

[Plastering the city are notices matching up all of the Heroes of Light with one another, both the best and the worst. Moogles are having a grand old time handing them out and hanging them up, and are encouraging Heroes to speak with their top matches.

Naturally, reactions to this are mixed. Some Heroes are intrigued, some annoyed, some offended. Despite their feelings or misgivings, the rest of the city is still celebrating Valentine's Day as well, and now the thoughts of love are everywhere.

OOC: This is an open log for everyone to use for Valentine's Day stuff! Feel free to make your own prompts.]

Comments

[chondriosome]

"I had a good thing going for me at the time, yeah. I was taking care of my little sister."

Granted, Eve was more of a daughter than her sister, being Aya's clone and all. That's similarly a long story, so she keeps it simple.

She waves a hand at him. "What about you? Got anybody back home, or in this place?"

[bloodynine]

"Well, I had my dozen. Let's see. Threetrees died, I killed Tul Duru Thunderhead, Forley got killed by Calder, Grim died during the big invasion, The Dogman is my man down south with the Union, and Black Dow... well, black Dow tried to kill me, and I had to jump out of a fortress into a river to get away. Guess he's the King now, up north. Ferro left me before I went North. I was, uh... well."

He trails off and scowls.

"So no, I guess I don't really have anyone anymore."

[chondriosome]

While Aya wasn't trying to judge, she wasn't expecting a particularly happy tale from a guy like Logen. But that doesn't stop her from feeling sympathetic towards his response.

"I'm sorry." She pauses, pretty sure that pity isn't what she's going for, though it might be heard that way. "Well, I hope you at least have something better going for you here... right?"

[bloodynine]

"Guess you could say that. Got Johnny. He's a good friend. Nobody's trying to kill me or take anything from me, except, well, the Empire, but it's just another war. It isn't personal."

He scratches the inside of his left hand with his right, quiet.

[chondriosome]

It's just another war. Aya doesn't like the sound of that, even if she isn't entirely unfamiliar with the prospect.

Still, she realizes the depressing implications of what Logen is stilling her, and she feels for the guy. Really.

"Sometimes, just one good friend makes all the difference in a place." God knows Aya is short on those, not having much of a private life outside of work. That is pretty damned depressing in itself. Even here, she can't say she's found anyone particularly close to her. Not yet, anyway.

[bloodynine]

"That's so true. I really should stop killing mine."

He scowls when he says that.


"Well, Johnny, at least, is still alive."

He looks up to meet Aya's eyes.

"How about you, you got any friends here yet?"

[chondriosome]

Aya's mouth tightens into a straight line at that response.

Yeah, you should probably not kill your friends if you can help it, she's about to say, but assumes that there's more to it than that and it's not good to judge.

She blinks at his question, looking away as soon as Logen meets her eyes. "Not really. I guess you could say I'm not really good at keeping friends, either. Not that they die, or anything, I just... I'm just not good with people."

[bloodynine]

"I reckon if you need one, i'm as good as any."

He says, rather offhandedly, noticing how she doesn't keep eye contact. He rubs the stump of his missing finger for a moment, a sort of reassuring gesture.

"Not many people are good with people, and the ones that are tend to be the ones to watch. They're the snakes, you see."

[chondriosome]

Rather than getting all serious, Aya manages a sight smirk when she turns her head back to Logen. "Oh, my God. Are you offering me pity friendship?"

She's joking, of course. She doesn't doubt for a second that it isn't pity he's offering her. But there is something sad about it, nevertheless.

"Ha, point taken. I've known my fair share of snakes."

[bloodynine]

He shrugs his shoulders. He hadn't considered it pity. "Oh? They stab you in the back, try to poison you, or do something worse?"

[chondriosome]

"Oh, no. Nothing like that." She shakes her head. "It's just that, in my line of work, I don't stay in one place for very long. It doesn't exactly accommodate a social life very much."

[bloodynine]

"That I can understand. Mine was much the same. Being a Named Man didn't lend itself to sitting around the house gathering a bunch of crops or the like."

He sighs. "I reckon farmer might have been a better life, but there wasn't really a choice after all. I wonder if there is here?"

[chondriosome]

"From the sound of it, I'd say so. Do you do anything around here?"

Aya had seen people take on farming work during her brief stay here thus far. If not for her experience in police work, she wonders what it'd be like to find a more settled down job like that.

[bloodynine]

"Odd jobs mostly. Not exactly a lot of work that'd be suitable for a former Named man and King, after all."

He smiles, "Job I have least problem with is working as a porter. Strong back, and all."

[chondriosome]

It doesn't go beyond Aya's notice how Logen is using that word, 'name', like it has some sort of special meaning to him. But it's what he says that has her blinking. "King...?"

He never mentioned anything like that. Unless that has a different meaning where he's from, as well.

"Sounds like it keeps you pretty busy, at least."

[bloodynine]

"It makes sure I eat and drink, and after all the things I've done elsewhere, it's about all I'm interested in now. Telling people what to do is tiring, and I don't fight until I have to anymore. I'm getting too old to just go out and start wars for myself or my chief."

[chondriosome]

"Yeah, I know the feeling," says the woman who doesn't look a day older than her mid-twenties. She seems a little too young to be sympathizing with such things, but there you have it. Despite being only a few years into her thirties, sometimes she does feel a few decades older than she actually is. And sometimes, that scares her. "Feels like I've done enough fighting to last me a whole lifetime." In more ways than one.