hugtopia_logs | Affurgato Mingle: July edition

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Affurgato Mingle: July edition

♥ Who: Open to all
♥ Where: Affurgato
♥ When: This week
♥ What: An open mingle at the restaurant which is... mysteriously celebratory!
♥ Rating: who knows, probably PG/13ish?

Regulars of Affurgato might notice things have spiced up a little bit in the last several days; the decor is a little brighter, the staff more upbeat, and the food, while tasty as ever, is a little different. The restaurant is advertising a summer menu of slow-cooked BBQ sliders, sweet potato fries with honey butter dip, grilled pineapple and watermelon slices, and warm peach cobbler with ice cream. The prices are slightly more premium than usual, but ooh, doesn't it all smell worth it? Newcomers might even get a discount, if the right elf twin gets their bill. But how do you know which one's the right twin? ...Yeah, good luck with that.

For this week, the menu will include two curious additions as well: a Thanksgiving-esque meal including fresh slabs of turkey and stuffing, flavoured with bacon grease, and a slice of rainbow layer cake. The cats are very attentive, especially to recognizably good tippers, and there's a display sign outside the door with a doodle of a binicorn in flashy sunglasses shouting the words "ONE YEAR MORE, NERDS", which might be weird to those who know that Affurgato opened about six months ago. Ah, well.

Also noteworthy is the fact that an actual, tangible magical bicicorn will be running around for the first 45 minutes of every daily shift that the restaurant is open, trying to scoop people up onto his back and deposit them in front of the shop. You're here now, so you might as well get a meal, right? Don't question it.

Come one, come all! Enjoy some good food and the company of your neighbours, maybe visit the elves and see what's up.

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[ A little more personal-- and she doesn't elaborate. Mysterious! ]

Something between you and your family?

It's more their celebration than my own.

[ She doesn't elaborate because she doesn't tend to feel that it's her place to, especially since they kept it vague themselves, but even in her cryptic way of speaking she thinks the intent is clear enough. ]

But they deserve to be celebrated, and I have no intention to... slack off, on that.

[ Then, that's that.

Her smile becomes fonder. How she wishes she could take Honerva aside from her job and catch up. It's been so long, and it seems that most of Pyra's own reservations in seeing her again were-- just that. Just worries, baseless, in the face of the bond they have. Something like relief washes through her.

....And so, Pyra stands and steps towards her. ] In that case... we should celebrate you on a different day. Maybe your birthday?

[ It's good to see Pyra relaxed, though her statement, of course, gets a shake of her head. ]

No... there is certainly no reason to celebrate me, and it is not as if I know when it was at all. Besides, I am content enough to celebrate the others in my life, when those occasions occur for it.

[ Honerva should know by now that's not an answer that's going to satisfy Pyra. ]

How about picking your own birthday?

... My own?

[ Strangely enough, this is not quite the first time the consideration of her own birthday had come into question, though the first person to mention it to her casually had not been an appropriate person to pursue the topic with further from her own perspective, though perhaps Pyra may fare better. Although it had made her more invested in finding out Lup's, instead. And the twins had decided on this, for themselves. ]

There has been no reason to do that before.

No-- reason? You've never celebrated your own birthday?!

[ --In her recent memory, anyway.

Pyra says this, having never celebrated her own birthday. Even still, she knows birthdays are important. ]

... You are aware of my situation, Pyra. Is that truly so surprising?

[ That she doesn't remember? That she would have not have otherwise had a need for such a date in the state she had long been in? In her mind what she has stated before still applies; she prefers celebrating her appreciation of others now that she is aware of how to do so. ]

[ The look on her face says-- yes. Yes, it is surprising! She's been here about a year, and perhaps longer in another world, and all that time she's never had a birthday!

This is an outrage.

She even looks grumpy about it. ] Honerva.

[ Very serious. She's very serious now, and she's serious enough to reach out and place a hand upon her shoulder and look her straight in the eyes. ]

Having no birthdays changes...today!

[ What is this expression on Pyra's face... for such a subject that might seem whimsical, she doesn't seem to be taking it that way at all, and that... is strange. ]

This is a sudden tone from you, Pyra...

[ She just wants to be able to celebrate Honerva too! ]

It's about time we showed appreciation for you, don't you think?

... No, I don't think so.

[ Sorry Pyra, she's a tough sell in this department. ]

It's enough for me to be able to grasp that others can and should be celebrated, and to favor them accordingly for it. Although I appreciate that someone would be kind enough to... make that consideration for someone like myself.

[ She tilts her head at her. ]

Besides, were I to say the same to you, I feel that you would claim you have none yourself, or want of such a thing.

[ She only smiles. ]

...Then, let me inform you that I do have a birthday. That we just picked!

So, it can be done, and you can do it, too.

That you have only just picked? I would be curious to know how that came about.

[ Because she hadn't expected that comeback. ]

Noct— [ She mentions his name fondly. ] suggested it.

[ There, explanation done! Moving on: ] And I think it’s a good idea... You can pick whatever day you wish for your own.

Is that so? I would not even know where to begin.

[ It's honest. A day for herself feels wrong, in the scheme of things. She hadn't had such a day or a consideration in thousands of years and why should she allow herself one now, when she could never do so for her son.

Better to focus on those around her. ]

[ Workshop time!

Pyra pats the seat next to her. ]

Let’s start with.... a season. Do you have one in particular that you like?

... Hm.

[ She sits down next to her. While she's not convinced in the necessity of this, she'll go along with it as a thought exercise, in any case, since... she can't be certain why Pyra is so earnest or insistent about it, unless...

... she's thinking of it as a way to make up for what had happened? No, that would be silly. But perhaps it's not fair to dismiss... ]

It has been some time since I experienced the different seasons like this on any world. The spring and autumn appear to represent transition, while summer and winter are more... static. Perhaps transition is more preferable, though it is easier to associate myself with the... fall of things.

[ Which doesn't necessarily make it better, since it's not supposed to be... a punishment. But she might just be thinking aloud, here, instead of committing to what she might prefer. As she does. ]

[ She listens attentively, a bit surprised at how much thought Honerva puts into her answer. Perhaps she has never thought about naming a season as a favorite before? ]

The fall is beautiful! All of those colors, and the harvests, the way so many animals and plants prepare for the coming winter...

I do see what you’re saying about transition! [ In the traditional sense, at least. For Pyra, the summer and winter are always in transition themselves. Time is arbitrary. ] That, too, is a beautiful way to put it...

[ She giggles softly. Leave it to Honerva to find a deeper meaning in the seasons. Here, Pyra had thought winter because her hair color is snowy, and that’s about as deep as she had predicted. She likes Honerva’s idea far better. ]

[ Honerva can't help it; it was the sort of thing she hadn't a reason or opportunity to give much thought to before, because to people used to experiencing them, seasons could easily be taken for granted. Much like having a preference for food, or anything else. Even her first full year away from her previous universe had been in space, and the planets had varied, and calendars had not mattered.

Stranger to be planet bound and to grasp a concept for the seasons, even if in this particular bubble the weather patterns weren't particularly stable, either. And it was fair, for summer and winter to also be transitions of a sort, though theirs were less apparent, times of relative stability at the extreme end, the prosperity and the deprivation. The boundless harvests that give way to nothing.

She had been something of a reaper of those things, hadn't she. Her gaze grows pensive as she considers it further. Pyra, of course, would see the beauty in such things. Honerva was grasping for associations, and did not know what more to compare it to, when all this she could not have appreciated before. ]

Perhaps... though I wonder if there is something more to be said for the way the winter gives to spring. It seems strange to say it... that a time so distinctly barren would give way to a new beginning. To be caught betwixt an end and a beginning... perhaps that is where hope rests.

[ She's enjoying how much thought Honerva is putting into the symbolism and meaning behind a birthday season. ] O-oh...!
That's a good argument that the spring would suit you better. [ Because she's transitioning, she supposes, and that she is not who she once was... and that she's becoming better than who she was.

But just a moment ago, she had posed a good argument to pick the autumn! It's possible, Pyra thinks, that Honerva is insightful enough that she could make a decent argument for any season... In which case, it stills boils down to preference.

... ] A-...and... there are flowers. [ Flowers most closely relate to spring. ]

[ And flowers, which seemed a point opposite all she had said. ]

... I admit that it is difficult to decide which is more suitable over a phenomenon that I have only experienced once. All might contain the same reasons that they are not suitable at all. Then again, one does not often get faced with such an odd decision either.

You've made it sound like a birth date can have meaning...

[ Her expression falls. Honerva seems like she's second-guessing herself. Perhaps she had said the wrong thing, in regards to flowers. ] I-- I like that. [ Finding meaning in something that, at one point in her existence, she as a crystal would not have given second thought to. And now that she thinks of it, there are more concepts Honerva might consider, if she is to look into the meaning behind a date: horoscopes, the year in which she might have been born, the position of the stars... All tradition, but holding meaning to cultures across the universes. Perhaps there is something like that in her own world--

Yet, that wouldn't be something Honerva herself would remember, would it? Pyra reconsiders. Such things are imagined; who is to say that Honerva cannot ascribe her own meaning to the date she chooses? ]

What date appeals to you most... with the meaning it has. Is that what you are trying to find in-- [ She gestures towards her chest. ] here?

... One doesn't choose the circumstances for their own birth. It could be any day, during any season, with timing either unremarkable or auspicious, or that coincides with powerful portents, but it would remain the occasion that should be honored.

[ Or so she's come to understand. For her personally, that had not mattered, and who could track individual dates within years when those were thousands upon thousands. Even tribute for the Empire was based upon those seeking to gain favor than honoring them with any sentimental reasoning behind it. Here it was different. A different set of concepts and ideals that she did not even have more than fragments to compare it to beyond knowing when customary gestures were required or not. ]

Not so much, for a situation like... mine. To have the... imagined luxury of a choice in it, were it to matter at all. There is little that feels appropriate in such a whimsical proposition, though it would still be for others, not for myself.

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