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(no subject)

Who: YOU
What: KISSLETOES
When: December 14th - January 1st
Where: Everywhere
Warnings: Sloppy makeouts.

SUDDENLY, AND WITHOUT WARNING...

title or description

The entire school has become covered in mistletoe over night. It grows out of the walls! The ceilings! Everywhere you least expect it? HOW CAN THIS BE??

It's probably best not to think about it. Attempts to uproot the plants or burn them away only makes the plants grow back faster. For the time being, it seems the school is stuck with them.

[OOC INSTRUCTIONS:
+ Post dudes, get kisses!
+ Some (NOT ALL) plants are cursed. If you manage to step under a cursed plant, you are glued to the spot until you receive a kiss.
+ That's it.]

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You can only catch Ulki from the night of the 17th and onward. WHO IS THIS MYSTERIOUS GUY, ANYWAY? Have you ever seen him before? HMM.

Well, he looked vaguely familiar anyway... Maybe Gold had seen him around before. Either way, he was getting kissed.

"You're under mistletoe! That means you have to kiss me!" Gold informed the mysterious dude.

Ulki blinked.

"...That is... the custom, yes," he pronounced, staring at the student with an expression that was as close to bewilderment as a generally grumpy-looking dude could manage.

Ulki's expression didn't seem to faze the trainer in the slightest.

"So do it already!" Gold ordered, placing both hands on his hips.

"..."

UH...

Ulki stared at him funny, but didn't move an inch. Just... stared.

"Wow, come on. It's just a quick kiss!"

Gold takes a few steps closer to Ulki, still holding his hands on his hips. He's not leaving until he gets a kiss...!

Ulki was about to point out that it was he who was asking for the kiss, and that it should be his responsibility to do it himself if he were so insistent. But then he considered their height difference.

Ffffine. Oh well.

He bent down swiftly, his arms stiff at his side, and gave Gold a kiss on... the top of his head. It could hardly be considered a kiss. But Ulki didn't seem to care whether it came across as adequate or not.

IT WAS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE...

How was Rhys supposed to know Ulki had just dropped in? He wasn't anticipating it, wasn't suspecting it, wasn't even thinking about the prospect until... until he caught a glimpse of umber brown wings phase out across the passage in front of him.

At first, he swore it off as his imagination playing tricks on him. Maybe it was high time for bedtime? His yawns were getting frequent this time of night...

...

He bolted that direction.

The corner he swerved around just then unraveled his mind completely. An unsuppressed shriek of joy filled the corridors as Rhys kept his mini marathon strong and dashed toward his friend whose company he missed often, even after a year's passing.

"Ulki! It's you! It's really you!" It didn't matter how Ulki reacted or didn't react; the priest's arms were flung around him during his crash landing straight into him.

Ulki expected it fully. He'd managed to turn to Rhys to confirm his suspicions, and even cracked a smile at his untamed excitement. It was oddly heart-warming to be missed like that, and to finally see someone you similarly missed...

The laguz caught his friend's hug with ease. At first, his arms were suspended uselessly above Rhys's embrace, but he warmed up to the idea of returning the gesture quickly and responded by letting his arms wrap around him. "It is, yes," he responded, his tone as controlled as ever, but there was a hint of warmth there.

"I can't believe my eyes! Ohhh, I missed you so much, you have no idea..." The priest would just keep going on and on at this rate. The hug wasn't going to end for a while, made apparent by the way he clung tight as though the act of letting go would lose sight of him for untold stretches of time. "It's so good to have you around, it really is."

He didn't mind. It was just in Rhys's nature to keep talking and gushing like that and he wasn't about to stop him. If he wanted to, he could keep holding on to him for the time being.

The only difficult bit was not having a thing to say in response. It was true, Ulki missed him and wondered what had happened to the school while he returned to Tellius, but he was relieved enough to be back and know that he was okay. In fact, Ulki was certain that Rhys was doing this school some good while he was away. He was always doing someone some sort of good. At least Rhys looked well. ...Ulki just couldn't think of something to say that would be enough to summarize his thoughts, so he opted to stay silent.

Rhys did not notice any lack of conversational input from the hawk laguz. No only was it normal for Ulki, but Rhys was so absorbed in his ecstasy that he was incapable of monitoring such niceties. Not that he ever minded Ulki's long periods of silence. He latched on for a few more moments before unhitching himself from the other man with a loud sigh. Standing his own ground again without relying on Ulki's weight, he made a new smile and just took a moment to look at his good friend again.

"How long has it been? It has to have been more than a year."

"Not quite," Ulki corrected, letting Rhys guide their conversation. "I have been home for about ten months. It is almost winter in Tellius, as it is here."

"Is that so?" He clasped his hands together and looked on with shining eyes. "Ooh, you must tell me how things are. Did you return to Serenes?"

"Yes, I did." His eyes drifted from side to side, trying to figure out what to say. "Things are... good. And getting better. Otherwise... I can't think of anything in particular to report."

"Your report was good enough for me." At the rate he kept on smiling, Rhys could outshine the sun. "It really lifts my spirits every time I hear how things are improving at home. I often wonder when I should come back. Every day, I long for the company of my good friends back in Tellius... I have been here for three years now..."

That's right. It seemed as though Rhys was the only member of the Greil Mercenaries left at the academy, with Shinon gone. Nephenee, too, had departed, and while Ulki wasn't horribly familiar with the shy halberdier, he knew her from Tellius at least. That left Rhys all alone with the school.

"Many people... have come and gone, it seems," Ulki mused. He could no longer detect any audible clues that indicated the presence of people he knew (Zapdos especially), but there were some familiar noises. To think, Rhys had been here without the company of his close companions for three years... And Ulki had left him all alone for such a long time. He felt bad for that.

It was sunset for Rhys's smile now. "It's true. Shinon comes and goes all the time, and so do you, my friend. Nephenee was here, and now she is not. Oscar came here a while ago but was gone in a flash, which was too bad. I was so glad he had come, even if it was just for a month or so. Oh! And Mia. Mia came and left almost as fast as Oscar had..."

How amazing it was that arrivals and departures even happened at all. This school had seemed so obscure to him at first, and now, Rhys understood the possibility for just about any of his old friends to show up. He'd been so consistent and wondered why he remained the only one so steadfast. Shouldn't he be faltering by now? He missed home so much that it only seemed natural for him to give in.

"And I can't forget Queen Nailah and Prince Rafiel. They came here together; do you remember that?"

"Mmm," replied Ulki, with a short nod.

Oddly enough, Ulki shared much of Rhys's stream of consciousness: How odd it was that of all people, it would be Rhys to be the one to remain at the school. On one hand, it appeared as though he was doing well, and he didn't show any signs of being ill. That was good; maybe this environment did him well. On the other, Ulki had expected Rhys to miss his comrades so much that he might get homesick and collapse under those feelings. It was true that Rhys was allowed to miss the mercenaries without being dragged back home, but in a way, the laguz didn't expect such resilience out of him.

If only he'd been able to come back and visit more often rather than leave for an extended amount of time like this. It wasn't his intention... but how was he to explain that to Rhys?

"And Prince Rafiel managed to heal the forest here after a wildfire scourged the woodlands..." Rhys looked as though he were being swept off his feet by these recollections. "It reminded me of the time Prince Reyson and Princess Leanne sang for Serenes several years ago. I'll never forget a heron's song as long as I live! Even if I undergo a spell of amnesia, it is just that unforgettable! Ahh..."

"...Yes. I was there." Pardon Ulki for being so frank, but Rhys was giving him a good recount of things he'd been there for in the first place. It was hard to forget something like that indeed. Maybe it was time to redirect the conversation.

"What has happened over the past year?" He was genuinely curious; the city appeared a bit different, as did the school. Almost as though it had been remodeled... And he couldn't hear any of it. How strange.

"Well..." His inability to look Ulki directly anymore might be an indication that whatever he was thinking about made him uncomfortable. And it did. The first memory he uncovered pertained to the Love Hotel and the undercover shady business with drugs and crime lords that bothered him even months after the fact. That also carried with it memories of that creepy hotel room and and his inability to be of much help besides healing people... as well as the great flood that nearly drowned him.

Rhys sucked in a lungful of air. "Oh, quite a bit, I think. It's hard to speak of everything when it's such a blur, but... We experienced a massive flood this summer, for one. Along with that came a peculiar hotel we needed to stay in while renovations were being done, with strange costumes and rooms everywhere you looked... Said renovations turned out to be an attempt to turn all the students and staff into test subjects. Oh, and earlier this year... You remember Eggman, right? Well, he tried to take over with a theme park plot of some kind. The details aren't very clear to me, even now."

That sure was a lot of things. Test subjects, love hotels, flooding, evil theme parks... Ulki expected only the weirdest to come of this school, but it always seemed to surprise him each and every time. The flooding was the cause of these renovations, said Rhys, so that solved that mystery.

All of these things should have been audible to him as it once was, but that wasn't the case this time. The laguz found that odd.

"Hmm," he replied, marking that he was listening and interested even though he had little to say on the matter. Was there more to each of these stories? It's a good thing Rhys seems to remember much of the past events, for he could always ask him for clarification. "Is there anything else of note?" That would do for now.

"Well, that's all I can think of, unless you're interested in hearing about the cursed mistletoe being hung up again." Rhys showed a joking smile. He didn't find them particularly amusing, but there was something satisfying about making light of unfortunate situations. He had a feeling Ulki might not laugh.

~~Ulki chortled heartily. It was very funny. He then fluffed his feathers and looked off into the distance with a sharp twist of his neck, regretting this reaction.~~

"I'm familiar with these circumstances," said Ulki, indicating that he was not so interested in the overabundance of mistletoe plants. At least, he hoped that would be apparent enough.

Well. He would let it go. There was time to talk with him about the developments at Smash Academy, and surely many others to ask as well. "Have you been well?"

Re: BIRD DUDE

gentlesaint - 2013-01-17 05:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: BIRD DUDE

hawkhearsyou - 2013-01-17 06:54 (UTC) - Expand

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