don't you ever consider giving up [March, catchall, open]

[ruinsprofessor]

Characters: Raine Sage and open!
Date: Most of March, primarily after the 11th
Location: Healers' Guild, Earth sector apartment, assorted others
Situation: Many, lots. Most post-fourth-wall.
Warnings/Rating: just going to go ahead and warn for suicide themes and discussion with Kratos. Dammit, Kratos.


A | Healers' Guild | open

While Raine's largely absent for the first third of the month, spending as much time with her husband as she can before he's inevitably drawn out of Keeliai, she's doubly present for the latter parts of March, throwing herself into work. She always has her hands in something, whether it's healing or herbs or simply scheduling the next days or weeks, and as a result she will need to be interrupted if someone wants any part of her time.

It's entirely possible to get one of her apprentices to interrupt her for you, fortunately, and she doesn't snap at interruptions anyway, only glances up with distracted eyes, slowly focusing. "What do you need?"

B | Healers' Guild | Miles

She wasn't entirely expecting to see Miles again without some grievous injury, but it's not a bad thing; simply a matter for curiosity. Raine lifts her head from the dried herbs she's disentangling and tilts her head at Miles. "It seems you're doing well. What brings you here?"

C | Midnight Hotel | Fai

Eventually, citing time concerns, Raine had had to let Fai go the previous time they'd met, and there wasn't nearly enough opportunity to speak of all the magical and linguistic things she'd wanted to. So she'd arranged with him to meet for lunch, or an equivalent meal at the time of day that worked, and now that's the reason she's at the Hotel, looking for Fai with a pair of notebooks and a slate tucked under one arm. "There you are. I'm glad we were able to sort out a time."

She doesn't look quite as cheerful as she did the last time Fai saw her, but her interest in the matter at hand is undisguisable.

D | Sky Sector, Pepper's home | Pepper

Raine calls ahead, just to be sure; but early in the month, she stops by while Pepper's in and both Gene and Tony are out. "I'm not here for very long," she says, apologetically, "but I needed to discuss something with you in person. I take it you heard I accomplished something with Bakura?"

E | Water Sector, a tea house near the Healers' Guild | Kratos

It's one of their weekly teas, and they've spent what Raine judges is an appropriate amount of time on small talk and catching up socially. Eventually she sets her tea down, arranges her hands delicately around the base of the cup. "I heard," she says, "that Lloyd was here for some little while, these past few weeks."

Comments

D

[lasergrenades]

Pepper's been spending more time at home because her dad is still here, and she has no idea when he'll be leaving. At the moment, he's gone out with Howard to explore a little, leaving her alone.

"Oh, yeah. Nothing big happens in the Shadow Realm around here without Vee letting me know," Pepper confirms, opening the door to let Raine in. "Want anything to drink while we chat?"

After the door closes, making a decent stab at sounding neutral: "And is there something wrong?"

E

[simulsimul]

[Not that 'small talk' and 'catching up socially' is much other than Raine prodding Kratos about what he's done in the past week which will meet with her approval. He's slower in drinking the tea, keeps forgetting it's there while he watches the people outside. Raine's comment make his gaze slant toward her, though Kratos's head doesn't move.]

So he was.

A

[ninjainviolet]

Sheena had kept as much distance as she could from Raine and Solomon, giving them the privacy they needed and deserved during the first part of the month. And then after... She had still maintained a respectful distance from her friend, allowing her to adjust to the dip in this roller-coaster ride of emotions Raine was going through.

Until today.

Today, she's armed with a picnic basket filled with food and drink, and with the help of Raine's assistant, merely walks into the mage's office, answering her question with one word.

"You."

It's kidnapping time.

C

[flowrite]

Lunch service is in full swing, but the food is already prepared and there are other warm bodies to help move it from here to there. Knowing that he's going to be meeting up with Raine, Fai's made arrangements to slip off to a table in the corner of the dining room without being bothered. The table is already set with a little bit of everything from lunch and Fai is seated, though he smiles and waves to catch Raine's attention when he spots her entering the room.

It's easy to tell that Raine is perhaps not in the best of moods, but Fai doesn't know her well enough to comment on that just yet. The blond man has his own reasons to be unhappy--just as quickly as she'd appeared, Mokona is gone again. Fai just smiles through it. Smiles are lies, and Fai is a very accomplished liar. It's like slipping back into a comfortable, well-worn pair of shoes.

He rises from his seat as Raine nears the table. "Ah, yes! I've been looking forward to it. Have a seat! I wasn't sure what you'd want to eat, so I grabbed a bit of everything. I hope that's alright?"

A

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis knew that Solomon had vanished again, but she hadn't come to the healers guild to console Raine. She didn't have that right after avoiding the woman for the duration of her annoying husband's stint back in Keeliai. She might not have even come now, but for the persistent, reoccurring dream that had been plaguing her the last two weeks. It wasn't an unpleasant dream and it wasn't a nightmare either. It was a dream and that wasn't supposed to happen.

She knew exactly where to go, but, sure enough, the healer was so involved in her work that she didn't even notice her walk into the office.

"Raine?" She asked, "There's something wrong."