June I Event Log

[nashiramods]

Who: Everyone! (That's right, even you)
What: The Nova Knights race against the enemy to locate and capture the loose Constellation first, while Maya and Hope find their way out of the Abyss.
When: June 8 - June 14
Where: Chalra City


🎶 Recommended Listening: You're Not Alone! - BanG Dream! 〈lyrics〉 ♪
june i event log
EPISODE 3: Shall We Dance? A Starlit Step in 3/4 Time!
June 8 - June 14
TIMELINE
6/8-6/12 Dowsing Machines+
6/8-6/14 Library: Shelving Project
6/10 Signal Boost
6/10 Escape: Pandora & Glimmer
6/11 Investigate: Flash Mobs
6/13 Capture: The Dancer

Nautis upgraded everyone's dowsing machines to track Constellation activity, although to mixed results so far. The Nova Knights made a lot of progress on the Library reshelving project, though, so three cheers for literacy!

On the 10th, Kalim and Natalia help Nautis send a signal through the Abyss, and while it takes everything they've got, it succeeds: thanks to the falling star pointing them home, Maya and Hope successfully escape the Abyss that night. They finally reunite with the other Nova Knights, and meet the two newly awakened Knights, the upbeat go-getter Nova Valorous and the somewhat contentious Nova Pastos.

Hope and Maya also have critical information to share on their return: they know for a fact that the art teacher Shelley Lustre is Prince Shellustria himself. They'll have to figure out what exactly to do with that information since they can't risk jeopardizing their own secret identities, but it's an important first step to learning more about the Harbingers.

On the the 11th, Cynthia and Jamil make contact with the loose Constellation via one of the many flash mobs in a park and get caught up in an ensemble show tunes-style number, confirming it is the Dancer. Thanks to their ability to absolutely Get Down, they learn exactly what they need in order to tame the Dancer and capture it so that they can return it to the Star Map.

Mutsumi and Dirk encounter the Dancer themselves on the 13th, and using what Jamil and Cynthia learned from their own encounter with the Constellation, they're able to successfully capture the Dancer after letting it play out its impulse. This takes the form of a simple waltz, for which music seems to simply manifest around them. Once one of them is fully in sync with the Dancer, the other Knight successfully captures it — and the confused crowd around them kind of just wanders off with only a vague impression of what just happened.

So not only did the Nova Knights save Niangniang last month, they've also succeeded in preventing a Constellation from falling into enemy hands and reuniting with two of their captive comrades. And they're just a little bit closer to a way to defeat the Abyss. Things are starting to look up for the Nova Knights.

The Nova Knights have also gained access to the Aquarium in the hideout, a spacious room mostly surrounded by a massive water tank, including from above. It's clear this was a place of importance on the ship, based on the small signs of ancient wear and tear, but at the moment the Aquarium's waters are empty of any fish. Perhaps that's to be expected when it's been buried underground for centuries.

The full mission results can be found here.

Comments

[string_instrument]

It's a good thing that Cal is covered by the magic of Nova Pastos' Supernova transformation. True, his transformation is a lot less spectacularly all-encompassing than Dirk's. On the flip side, it's a lot less humiliating: a long, Nova Pastos-pink tunic donned over his classically eponymous tee. In addition to conveniently covering up his name, the tunic bears the same design as Nova Pastos' own transformation charm: proudly and plainly announcing the relationship between the two. Puppet and puppeteer.

Anyway, while the onus of the externally-enforced buddy system (besides the buddy he's already bringing in Lil Cal) isn't something he loves, it could be a lot worse. As it is, he's only slightly irritated that Lil Cal doesn't count as his partner for that purpose. Teamwork isn't the problem. The problem is that Dirk is supremely confident in his competence and purpose, and he wants the same thing out of someone he's expected to work with. Which is a tall order when he doesn't know any of them.

The possibility that Dirk isn't as confident in his ability to support or otherwise take care of another person shall go unexamined.

Of the potential matchups, Nova Mortis is one of the more welcome possibilities.

She has no clue, of course--but Nova Pastos' opinion of her is actually rather higher than it is of some of his other teammates.

Maybe he's taking this too seriously. Or maybe they're not taking it seriously enough. Maybe this mission will provide the answer.

Her attention is on the dowsing rod, so his attention is on their environment. When the beeping starts to gain some urgency, she looks up at him, though--and he finally looks at her. Impassive. But he looks at her. And nods, once.

Game on.

[avemortis]

Game on indeed. 

A crowd seems to form on its own around the fountain, like birds coming silently into some designated formation. This time, someone seems to have manifested an electronic keyboard, and people are dancing in a much more organized and graceful manner than the flash mobs from earlier in the month — ballroom dancing in the park, one might say. 

The chirping dowsing machine is unmistakable: the Dancer is here somewhere, imbuing others with its desire. They just have to find some way to draw it out. Nautis said they had to let the spirit of the Dancer inhabit them...but she hadn't specified anything beyond that.

But this is, for once, an area in which she thinks she has something to contribute: her guitar. She's not very good at communicating, but the way she looks at her guitar, then up at Nova Pastos and Cal, and back at her guitar says, Look, I'll help.

And slowly and simply at first, Nova Mortis starts picking out a soft melody in counterpoint to the song everyone has begun a ballroom waltz to as they approach. She's not sure how, but...maybe reaching out through music could be their first step.

[string_instrument]

This is all well and good for Nova Mortis, but it doesn't really clarify to Nova Pastos what he's supposed to do. Like, at all. His style--a lyrical game that is profoundly non instrumental, and definitely not tonally compatible with this soft, stately, and melodic scene--is clearly not going to fly.

So what the fuck is he supposed to do?

He stands, uncertain, in the crowd--an island of a man standing immobile in a sea of swaying, circling dancers. Waiting for clarity--for inspiration, an idea, anything except well, now fucking what?

He stands there in his above-the-knee shorts and high socks and dainty crown, watching the precise steps of the swirling civilians around him. His jaw presses tight and tense, his brow (in contrast) peculiarly uncreased. It's there that it starts to creep in.

Less an idea of the mind, and more one of the body. Seeping into him through his electrical impulses and nerve endings and sinking deeper through his anticipatory energy and restlessness of an uncertain next move. Like a reflex, or an impulse. An instinct. The sensation of a choice already made--he feels it in his body and glances askance--not at Nova Mortis, but at his other partner. His real partner.

Intense and vivid orange meets uncannily bright blue.

His chest feels tight, his heart and its pulse seemingly beating counterpoint to the 3/4 time of Nova Mortis' guitar playing. His blood is hot under his skin, and Cal's weight on his shoulders feels less right suddenly--like there's a place he belongs more. Slowly--purposefully, but nonetheless slowwly--Dirk slides his long-limbed puppet bro down his arm to cradle him in the crook of his elbow, one soft plush hand held lightly in Dirk's palm. Like a beau. Like a dance partner.

His awareness of the music soaks him suddenly like a wave, and Dirk turns, once. A sweeping single step, rotating himself and his beloved doll in place. His eyes locked on Cal's, and Cal's on his. The very first movement of a strange and intimate dance.

[avemortis]

Oh, wow...that took them almost no time at all. Mutsumi's music never wavers, but her eyes widen and her lips part behind her mask as Dirk and Cal begin to dance. She can't quite see it, not with the naked eye, but she's sure she can feel it — the spirit of the Dancer is here, and it is within Dirk.

Watching in awe, Nova Mortis keeps playing, adding ornamentation and even richer harmony, until her guitar seems inseparable from the rest of the music. In a magical sense, it is; not only is it what the Dancer is moving to, but it surrounds the Dancer now, too, drawing in closer. Not quite a net, but a gentle embrace closing in around it, guiding it, encouraging it to keep dancing and to feel safe. She's not sure when, exactly, she's supposed to do the capturing part, but she thinks the music might tell her.

[string_instrument]

Dirk is not really sure why he's allowing this.

No, that's a lie. He is perfectly aware of why he's allowing this, and what it is he's allowing. It's just so against his grain to do so, and the fact that he's still doing it is viscerally uncomfortable, a sensation felt both low in his gut and creeping around the edges of his brain.

But maybe it's not the possession that's getting to him--maybe it's the intimacy, the racing of his heart and the unique kind of elation as he takes Cal for another neat spin, his feet placed perfectly and with precision, his movements graceful in a way that wears strangely on his intense hard-guy blade-wielding persona. (Although maybe not so strangly for his costume...)

It would be easier if he could lose himself in it, but he can't. He's all too aware of himself and of what isn't himself, too aware of the bodies and the music, too aware of the pull. He wants, instinctively, to resist it. To be, once again, a solitary island standing alone and immovable amidst the flow.

But every time he starts to pull away from it, Lil Cal pulls him back.

So he keeps his eyes locked on Cal's. Even though he can't ignore the sense of something real in his muscles and nerves, something separate but alive, to make eye contact with Lil Cal--his lifelong partner, guardian, and guide--is to feel something else, something much brighter and more honest, something pure and real that's his. Even if he can't shake the alien feeling inhabiting him, with a little work, he can carve a place in himself where his own stubborn will and that sensation can meet, and that... that might just be enough.

[avemortis]

Nova Mortis has never quite felt this before, but it's semi-familiar, almost like playing in a band. She's never played accompaniment for a dancer before, only been the dancer to someone else's music in ballet class, but she finds herself just as drawn in by a pulling, by some invisible swelling.

She can feel her dowsing machine getting hot in her pocket. It's working — something is working, anyway. She keeps playing, and the magic of each note becomes gradually more visible. Not the lace-patterned smoke of her sleep spell, but a gentle pink and white glimmering, a beckoning call. Whatever Dirk and Cal are doing is resonating with the Dancer, she can tell. They just have to keep it up a little longer...

[string_instrument]

Keeping it up is the hard part. Nova Pastos is in a weird limbo--pun unintended--wherein he has to do things while not thinking too hard about them. This is quite possibly the most agonising and impossible thing anyone could have ever asked of him.

Whether or not he realises it (and don't worry, he does), Nova Pastos is a thinker. He's self-aware to a fault. Excruciatingly, endlessly, all-too-consciously and tortuously aware. Of himself. Of what he's doing, and thinking, and being.

His waltz is balanced precariously on a razor of knowledge: that he is waltzing, that he needs to continue walzting, and most crucially of all, that he doesn't know how to waltz.

He can't simply lose himself in Lil Cal's lovingly glassy stare forever. He has to do something--mentally, in order to keep himself from fucking this up, he has to immerse himself. He can't think about the feeling or he'll lose it. Even this thinking is starting to make the sensation fray from his nerves, his brain overtaking the impulses that started this dance.

So he thinks about dancing--but not the fact that he is dancing. He thinks about movement, but not about moving. He starts memorising, instead--learning the waltz by doing it. It's a clear rhythm, a pace and process like a ritual. The winsome sway of Cal's limbs as he turns with his beloved puppet in his arms earns a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

More pinks begin to trail from his own feet and in the wake of his lanky and plush forever friend--darker pinks, richer hues that echo the mildly absurd colours of his magical costume. One, two, three. One, two, three.

If nothing else, by the time this is all over, Nova Pastos--and Dirk Strider--will forever remember how to dance the waltz.

[avemortis]

The effort Nova Pastos is putting in is worth it — it's working. Nova Mortis can feel the swell in the magic, in the feeling and she knows, on some intuitive magical level, that that is the spirit of the Dancer resonating. Just by letting himself learn, Nova Pastos is doing it.

She doesn't dare let her fingers stop now, her guitar encouraging the Dancer to stay with Nova Pastos and Cal, but she starts to worry about how she'll capture it. Should they have had a third person here? Should Nautis have assigned some other, more capable Knight to assist?

But no...before she can let her mind dwell on that thought, the warmth in her pocket grows hotter, then she feels it move. The dowsing machine, apparently acting on its own initiative, floats out of her pocket and into position in front of her. Eyes wide, Nova Mortis keeps playing, somehow intuiting a key change just as it happens, but her focus seems to be focusing the dowsing machine, too. With a start, she realizes she's controlling the little device with her guitar.

It's time.

The screen on the dowsing machine goes blank, then suddenly it bathes Dirk and Cal in brilliant blue light, a beckoning call to the Dancer — come home.

Don't tell him this is technically a feat of pantomime

[string_instrument]

As Pastos' confidence with the steps he's learning--or learned, now--grows, he gets an idea. It's a small seed at first, but as his body moves with his will as much as the Dancers' that seed begins to thread tiny roots--not in soil, but into the machine of his body.

His pulse is hot under his skin, his thoughts quickening as the idea takes shape.

It takes some planning. Some mental rehearsing. He repeats it in his head, over and over until he's ready--building his confidence, yes, but also imbuing each repetition of the dance's steps with purpose, teaching his muscles and memory what to do, and mirroring that process in his mind until he is absolutely, one-hundred-percent certain of his success (no rounding allowed.)

He thought simply keeping the dancer with him was stressful... this is somehow both easier (through self-determination) and yet more harrowing by far. He focuses on breathing, and planning.

Jesus, he can feel his heart pounding.

The reality of this process is measured in seconds--at most perhaps minutes--but the magnitude of effort is disproportionately felt, artificially lengthening and intensifying the sensation of time itself. It is a precious balancing act of anticipation, intent, and restraint.

And so, as he steps, turns, twirls, and dips his way towards Mortis, as the brilliant, warming pink of his magic grows and spreads, as Mortis's dowsing device beguins to stir--

He reverses. Twirling after the dip, his feet change places, he sweeps Cal's arms over his own, he steps back instead of forwards. Suddenly, Pastos is not waltzing with Cal--Cal is waltzing with him. No longer is Pastos the lead, but instead the led.

And as the dowsing machine beams brilliant blue over his own stunning pink--

A moment of passion, of sincerity and art. The result not only of many, many years of self-led training, but of illusions acted out in the solitude of his apartment, bestowing Cal with life.

He tilts back, balancing on one leg, the other extended almost gracefully as Cal's arms seem to support him mid-air. He does not waver. Does not fall. He maintains that perfect, precious state of balance-in-motion.

And then he's on his feet again, and the glow of pink and blue twirls together as Cal twirls him. A beautiful vortex of magicks--with a k--that for the Knight(s?) within it turns briefly blinding.

But only briefly. Up, up it spins, leaving him and Cal behind.

Still twirling, so Dancer-like, overhead.

Then, slowly and elegantly in denouement, it descends upon Mortis and her device.