Floor 2, Room 3

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JOYOUS DAY

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[ "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.

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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?

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[ 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.

[lustro]

... 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?

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...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?

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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.

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[ 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?