wizardmanor | Floor 2, Room 3

[ Ah - and yet Ginger seemed startled, though he’d offered Day the same treatment once. It’s a strange thing to care and be cared for, when he doesn’t really care himself to notice the little things about his health. ]

I’m fine. [ Still, he protests lightly even as he sits. ] I’m not human, remember?

Yet you're still sick when most celestials I know can't be that 'less it's somethin' real weird. [ Read: Please accept the fussing. ] You want some tea?

Anyone who works in the bureaucracy can get sick.

[ But meekly he says: ]

Yes, please. Sweet.

I don't normally get sick. [ As if it proves a point, given he's just a mortal with extras tacked on. ]

...But I'll be right back. Don't worry too much about bein' too loud, testin' out a soundproofin' seal on my room door. [ And he'll duck out real quick to make a trip to the kitchen, coming back maybe 5 or so minutes later with a pot of tea and some cups. ]

Okay, show off. Shoo -

[ So he waits in Day's bed, in his room. He looks around - it's the same, he thinks. This warm room is the same, but what's not the same is the list of names Ginger has come to find important to him in some way or other. He recites them into the air, into the silence. In no particular order, but ends on: ]

... Yamato. Solomon. Mika. Mikaela. Day. Joyous Day.

[ And he punctuates the list with a sigh. What is he doing to do about this place - about the moon? ]

[ It's the same, mostly, minus a vase that was lost that night when Akira shot through the floor. But that's probably not Ginger's point.

Once Day returns, there's the clinking of a tray on the tea table, from beyond the folding screen Day uses to separate his bed space from the rest of the room. He pours two cups of tea, then after a moment conjures up some wizard sugar. He comes over to the bed with both cups, and one of them has a couple of sapphire blue star-like sugar floating in it, which is the one he hands over to Ginger. ]

Oh, and Ginger, can you open your mouth a bit? [ Day, what the hell. ]

...?

[ He blinks as he takes the tea, but opens his mouth?? Because he's stupid and easy like that. God forbid someone has poison handy. ]

[ Oh, Ginger. Day hopes to the heavens you wouldn't do this if just anyone asked; he assumes Ginger's willing to do it because it's him asking.

But with that, he'll pop one of the wizard sugars he's made into Ginger's mouth. Is this his petty payback for Ginger doing this to him weeks ago when he visited Ginger's room the first time? Yes.]

Mm -! [ Somehow still surprised. ] What was that?

Sugar I made, so hopefully you'll get over that cold faster.

[ This is also one of the reasons why he did that. ]

Feelin' a little better?

[ Does he feel better? He needs a moment to figure that out. In the meantime, he lets the sugar melt on his tongue as he asks: ]

Oh... it helps? I didn't know that. Does it help with... all sorts of sickness?

It seems to help with injuries and normal sickness, up to a point. [ From what he's observed so far. ] But if you mean somethin' caused by the moon— [ He points up to the ceiling. ] I ain't so sure.

It might help a little, but I don't think it'd do much except provide some relief.

[ Which is one of the things that's been so frustrating about understanding the moon. They can purify those rocks, and maybe it's because those are just a small portion of whatever power the moon has. But when he thinks about Kurapika's curse and the farmer with the withered leg, it seems that whatever those rocks cause can't be so easily addressed with magic. ]

I see...

[ Well, he'll try to remember that for the next time someone gets sick. There's still the North to explore - and the West. ]

Day... [ He runs a finger along the rim of his cup, pensive. ] I think the moon affects us differently than they do humans.

[ Kind of late in the game to deny being a wizard, so he just rolls with it. ]

[ ... ]

I think I know what you mean. [ Again, thinking of Kurapika here. ] Ain't sure if the mortals can even feel the—dread these rocks radiate. [ But that they all seem able to, as wizards. ]

...You said the moon used love? Why's that? [ He still remembers what Ginger said when he came back. ]

I know… you said the humans were getting sick and dying, but I think… beings touched by magic, we begin to love the moon if the radiation - if it’s magic touches us back.

[ The automatons powered by meteorite shards from the moon… ]

That’s what happened to Mika. I think - I’m not sure, but when we got back he said something so strange. “Maybe the moon is made of love.”

[ Bitter are the words. ]

And he’s never slept so deeply before. He usually doesn’t sleep at all.

[ "Maybe the moon is made of love." And a part of Day thinks back to all the stories of Luna back home. Luna of Many Faces—fierce but kind, mercurial but wise; they who would love the ones who slip through the cracks, who don't fit in any one category, who get left behind.

He told Phil before that maybe if you believe the moon is capricious, it wouldn't seem so surprising that something so beautiful keeps trying to end the world, every year. Funny how it suddenly feels relevant. ]

...One of the Central Wizards told me he ended up touchin' the rock 'fore they managed to purify it. No protection spells. [ Sounds great, doesn't it? ] Said that when he touched it, it felt like somethin' in him broke. A ton of pain, and then it just stopped like nothing happened. Now he's cursed.

[ Which, he doesn't mean to alarm Ginger, but he's trying to make a point that perhaps the moon isn't exactly trying to make them love it back. Instead—]

So maybe...what the moon does is—distort things. Like twistin' fate out of shape. And maybe 'cause we're wizards, that includes our feelings. [ They are, after all, beings who especially run off emotion now. ] If he didn't touch the rock, then I think there's still hope that he'll get out the other end without... [ And he knows Ginger doesn't like this word, "change", so he opts to say this instead: ] Awful side-effects. And he's basically runnin' an ungodly fever right now, so we can't say he's thinkin' straight right now either way.

[ Basically: the biggest worry will be if he's still like this once the fever's been ridden out, which is Day trying to tell Ginger to take this one step at a time. ]

...Though I do kinda wonder if, maybe, the moon can feel something like love.

Edited (Hours later: wait I forgot) 2024-05-27 12:51 (UTC)

I... don't think I care if it does or not.

[ The moon can feel like love all it wants. He just doesn't want Mika to love it more than... Well. ]

But it would make more sense than whatever twisted thing this calamity is supposed to be. In most stories, in most worlds, the moon has watched the Earth for countless millennia - and the Earth and its residents have watched it back. When you're with something for that long, isn't it natural to love?

[ Or hate. Ginger wonders... who calls the moon a calamity? The humans - or the wizards? Who started this? ]

... Which Central wizard was that?

[ Hm. Day quietly sips his tea, thoughtful. ]

Maybe it's because the moon loves this world that it keeps tryin' to come down every year. But the moon ain't ever supposed to come this close to what's beneath heaven, so it can only be a calamity. [ He voices it more like an idle thought, however, rather than something he particularly believes in. ]

It's Kurapika. He's got it handled, but it's pretty inconvenient when it kicks in.

... We'll have to see how it effects Mika, if there's any change.

[ He's so stupid. He should have gotten them all out of there sooner. Or applied the protection spell sooner - just... anything sooner. Anything useful, instead of what ended up happening. ]

Why can't the moon come down? We say it's not supposed to - but where did we get that idea from?

...If anythin' looks like it's turnin' for the worse, you can grab me or any of the other Souths. Or even Tatara, if you're willin'. [ Though he knows quite a few people find Tatara to be kind of unreliable, so he won't push it. ]

Well, mainly for the material fact that I'm pretty sure if one celestial body came too down close to all beneath heaven, it ain't different from a giant rock 'bout to smack into the earth now, would it? [ The literal answer, which is apparently somewhat relevant in this world, if Day hasn't misunderstood things. ]

But also...at least for me, where I'm from, the moon is also a goddess, and when the gods meddle with the world directly, what follows usually ain't good for anyone. [ The direct rule of the mortal realm by gods is forbidden for good reason. ] Any reason why you're askin', Ginger?

I’m grabbing all of them, clearly. But maybe… [ And he mutters the rest: ] …maybe Tatara first.

[ He sounds reluctant now, but in an emergency, he wouldn’t hesitate. Not if it meant saving Day. Or Mika. Or… ]

I guess I just… don’t understand the fear of it. An unlikely planetary collision aside, I feel like there’s something big we don’t know yet.

Edited (forgot words oops ) 2024-05-30 03:38 (UTC)

[ There's a small smile, since he caught that mutter. But he wisely decides not to comment on it, knowing Ginger. ]

I think...considerin' what we've seen just chunks of the moon do—rot limbs, stir up ghosts, animate dolls and make them murderous—can you imagine what kinda nonsense the moon itself would do? And the people here have to deal with that every year. Kinda hard to blame bein' afraid of it, yeah?

Floor 2, Room 3

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