[OPEN] Valentine's Mingle

[passingmod]

Who: Everyone! Open to All
What: Valentine's Day mingle logs
When: any time generally around the holiday
Where: awkward cupid / conversation hearts / repay the gesture

Love is in the air, from chocolated Japan to cherubic America, from Victorian times to the far-off future. There are dreams of romance, candy, timid (and bold!) love confessions, and hearts everywhere.

(ooc: This is a post to keep threads together for Valentine's Day. Separate posts or additional subthreads are also fine, and this one is optional. Since some of the affects have potential to force a character's reactions icly, it may be best to discuss between the players or note your preferences/anything you'd rather avoid.)

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[one_one_se7en]

His visor slowly moves back to the river. Even without Ami's knowledge of it, for him, it turns too obvious.

She was.

"Kanda said the same."

The memory of Mercury appearing in the chaos of the UNSC Infinity, between humans and fanatical aliens staring in awe for almost a minute, unable to understand what they were seeing -what they would be up against-. All the way, until defying the Didact, and putting a point clear towards him: He was facing the two strongest warriors of their universes, and he would not win.

"And we found eachother. Didn't we?"

She will find him. He knows she will find him.

[waterfell]

She lowers her head as she confesses, "I knew he would say that." He'd said it to her, once. She finds a way to look at John as she explains, "That's why I want to try, too. I want to try to find a way for us to meet."

John is right about their own impossible meetings - more than once. She still isn't sure she believes it can end that happily, but she does want to try. She has regrets born of refusing; she wants to put her regrets to rest, quicker this time.

It still doesn't answer whether she loves the person she's thinking of. Whether this will last or whether it's another inevitable end. Whether it's enough. Whether wanting to be with him and wanting to work to make a way means love, or whether love is something more tender, less grasping.

"I wonder, what if it ends," she finally says.

[one_one_se7en]

What if it ends. John wonders what may she have meant: Whenever if she meant whatever she felt for Kanda, or the inevitable immortality that separated her from them. For either case, he thinks he knows the answer.

"It can end." He cannot lie to her. He learned from his world that nothing is invincible. Nothing is infinite. Nothing is eternal. "But ask yourself, if you wouldn't want to try."

A heart materializes around his fingers, as it moves around them. He holds it in a fist, but not enough to damage it.

[waterfell]

She'd meant either. Both. It can end. Some day, it would end. But the way it would scare her was the first way: If so-called 'love' played a trick again and simply disappeared one day, overnight, like one more threadbare dream.

Ask yourself, if you wouldn't want to try. A year ago, even, she'd have said it wasn't worth the bother. It was a distraction - from career, duty, and the battlefield. There was no sense chasing something that didn't exist.

Now, she'd tasted those moments of peace, too rare to give up. But did I seem in love? Did it have a chance at all, from the beginning?

"So you're saying I did?" That she did want to try, that she did seem to look like someone in love; it didn't much matter which he believed she meant.

[one_one_se7en]

The tiny heart is then held between his index finger and his thumb. He stays silent for a moment as he mentally compares. He and Cortana had a connection - even others in his universe noticed it.

His visor looks to his side. When he came to think about it -and about Kanda-, the answer became too clear for his liking.

"Looks like."

He wanted her to be happy. And yet it bothers him a little that she would move on before he is gone.

[waterfell]

She manages to stay blind to John's slight reluctance. She has no intention of moving on from the people she feels close to, any of them. (She'd do well to recognize that other people can have several loved ones, too; but she doesn't think of that.) Instead, she feels a small flicker of relief, if John's quick enough to catch it, because there's something more at stake here than her feelings for Kanda.

It's her ability to feel at all. John is saying that even she can be capable of loving someone.

"I was hoping you'd say that," she says.

[one_one_se7en]

The ability to feel was something many questioned from Spartans, and he knew he was a different case. Ami...? It confused him that she wouldn't know. He looks at her, not understanding the relaxation upon giving his answer.

They wanted to be together. What else was there to it?

"Why?"

[waterfell]

"Why?" Why did she want to hear it? (Because as always, she was running to someone else for her answers; as always, she wasn't sure of herself and who she was and her own wishes; as always, she needed it reflected in someone else.)

"Because I can trust your answer." She claims it's as simple as that, as knowing John is good and say what he sees as the truth. That he won't mislead or hide.

[one_one_se7en]

He remains puzzled. He lowers his head, understanding the need for his word -- he needed it from Halsey, from Mendez, and from Cortana before his journeys. John seeks to remake his question.

"You trust eachother." And motioned to themselves in ways not unlike himself and Cortana. "That answered your question." Better than what he could have given, John feels.

[waterfell]

Does she trust Kanda? She thinks, after this long, that he isn't deceiving her. He's sincere. But that doesn't mean it can work, that doesn't mean they can find each other, that doesn't mean love will stay forever.

But he's said that they can - more, he's said that he's utterly determined to do it. That's what she trusts: a strong will. Kanda has a strong will, so she wants to believe what he says can come true.

"I trust him," she decides. "That's also why I want to try to believe."

[one_one_se7en]

Trust. That's what it's all about. For him, that should have been the telltale sign.

He opens his palm to see what was he holding... and lets out a silent chuckle to himself, noticeable in his armor. He softly holds Ami's palm out, and leaves a heart of his own.

After a moment of silence, he speaks.

"Think it's a sign?"

[waterfell]

Her head comes up sharply at the single word, or perhaps simply at the touch.

"Believe." She echoes it, and finds herself glancing away, downward again, in quiet thought.

"I don't put my trust in signs," she says in the end. But her hand curls around the heart, and she keeps it. A reminder that maybe it's time to try - just a little bit.

[one_one_se7en]

And he does spot it, but says nothing. John saw things a little different: He learned to trust signs throughout the multiverse, as they tended to be warnings of things to come.

"Still worth a try."

Referring to her wish to come to Kanda.

[waterfell]

He's echoing her thoughts again, and it makes Ami both more decisive, and more hesitant, at once, two contradictory currents.

This time, she chooses the side of the smallest bit of faith. "I'll search for him. I've decided on that."

And she gives John, who has seen the results of her searching before now, another look. "Like with you, too."