fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

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!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

Whatever aspect of the island made sure the weather was nice on picnic day didn't seem to be able to control the temperature. It wasn't freezing, but it would definitely more comfortable out on the lawn with a coat on. Thankfully, the conditions were just right for a bonfire in the center of the lawn, so people could gather and stay warm once they'd made their introductions.

Once the tables and chairs were set up and everything was properly glittered, all that was needed were people!

[OCD is up! This is part one of the picnic, specifically for meeting siblings, roommates, and teachers. The rest of the picnic is happening here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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"There's food." That was close enough to a 'yes', by Octavia's standards. "Haven't been to one of these since..."

She trailed off.

"In a while."

Shunsui's shoulders shrugged a little, his hand drifted in a dismissive gesture as his head tilted to join in with the general acknowledgement that time always was a bit of a funny thing, anyway, wasn't it?

"I don't suppose you'd like some sake to go along with that food ♥?" he offered. "Perhaps to help celebrate your return into the welcome picnic fray? Or even a slighty belated toast to the New Year? It feels its been a while since you and I have shared a proper toast, Octavia-chan ♥."

"It has." A long while, even. Because time was a funny thing.

Octavia's head tilted, just a little. One of those micro-gestures to go with her micro-expressions. "Wasn't there almost like a ritual, with three cups?"

She'd only celebrated New Year's twice in her entire life. Of course she remembered, even if the memory was a little faint and vague.

Shunsui hadn't really expected that Octavia would have remembered--in general, he didn't expect much out of anyone at all, especially not with...well, everything--so the fact that she had shifted his smile to that much softer one where nothing exactly seemed to change much, but they certainly did.

His own little micro-micro-expressions.

Then he nodded his head, slightly. "O-toso," he informed her. "Sake to wash away the maladies of the previous year and look forward to the prosperity of the new one ♥. I don't have the proper cups, but I do have enough, if you'd be willing to do me the honors, Octavia-chan, and we shall just hope the fates don't smite us for tardiness. I never have been great about being on time for most things, anyway ♥."

"If I believed in the fates, I'd already be used to them smiting me, anyway," Octavia rasped, although there was a gentle quality to it. "We should make the toast."

"We should ♥," Shunsui agreed and, perhaps with a little bit more of a flounce to his robes than strictly necessary, he tilted his head toward the nearest table that they could use and turned to make his way over, to better set out the three cups, all distinctly uniform this time rather than gradually getting larger. And once they were set out, he carefully filled them, considering with the first one to merely fill it less as if it were a smaller cup, but clearly deciding agaisnt that idea and filling them all uniformly...and well.

He settled the jug back on his sash at his hip and gestured invitingly as his attentioned turn back to Octavia.

"Youth and beauty partakes first, of course ♥," he said, as if a soft reminder.

Considering Octavia felt about a hundred years old more often than not, he and Lucifer were probably the only ones who could get away with saying that, still.

She reached for the first cup, then looked up at him.

"You're going to have to remind me how this goes."

Having a few millenia under his sash certainly did come with its benefits, then.

"Oh, it's very simple, Octavia-chan ♥," Shunsui said, smiling with soft encouragement. "You take the cup, make a toast, enjoy a sip, then pass the cup along. I'll take the cup, make my own toast and have my own sip, and then we move onto the next. By the time we've finished, we'll have washed away the last year and have more than enough to look forward to for the next ♥."

Octavia didn't say anything about how it'd take a little more to wash away her past year, if they went by Fandom's calendar. Maybe that went without saying, anyway.

She held the cup up. Paused for a second, and then said, simply, "To a new year."

She took a sip, then carefully held the cup out for him.

Well, there were many reasons why Shunsui made sure to always have a jug..

Shunsui nodded in deference to their simple and humble beginning with that first toast, and when he took the cup from Octavia, he of course did it with all the expected care and lingering, brushing fingers that one might expect with these exchanges, though his attention was mostly in considering his own toast.

Not that you could necessarily tell by the simplicity of what he did propose.

"May it be filled," he declared with a grin, once the cup was now entirely in his own hand, and he lifted it as he spoke, "with many more cups of sake ♥."

Then he sipped, tilting the cup back a little more to empty it, before setting it back on the table beside the others. Another smile, and a gesture of his hand toward the next.

Octavia picked up the second cup. This time, she was silent for a long moment. Taking this seriously - probably too seriously. But that was the only way she knew how to be.

Her voice was quieter and softer, this time.

"To healing."

Sip. Then she handed it over, without looking up.

And all the while she was quiet, Shunsui was quiet, too, watching her thoughtfully and finding it all too easy to forget, at least in that moment, that they were in the middle of anything else but this.

His head tilted a little, almost as if to follow her downcast eyes, while softly taking the cup from her hand.

He didn't need long at all to know what his next one would be.

"And that our wounds," he said, "only make us stronger."

The cup wasn't bigger than the first and there was no difference in the amount of sake it held, but Shunsui did take a little more time to drink what remained than he had the first, before lightly setting it down to join the other, and leave the last remaining one.

Ritual spaces were like that. Didn't always need to be a physical space.

Okay, last one. Octavia didn't remember she'd done this same thing last time, so maybe the switch to Trig just seemed like the most natural thing, after she'd picked up the last cup.

"Gon deimeika, gon..." She trailed off a little, hesitating. Then decided. "Gon skaifaya."

A little on the nose, but it would do.

She drew in a breath, closed her eyes. "En gon natshana."

And with that, the ritual space got smaller still, small enough that even Shunsui felt that he was intruding in on it now. But he was more than willing to let her have it. To have all the space she'd ever need. Which was really no different than usual.

And giving her that space also allowed him to attempt to decide if the mystery of Octavia's last toast should be reflected in his own.

Octavia kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, holding the cup in her hand.

(Half-empty, half-full.)

Even when her eyes opened, she didn't look up this time, either. Just held it out for him on her open palm, for one last exchange.

(But when he reached for it, she was going to mutter, only half out loud, "Omon gon oson." Almost involuntarily.)

And even if she did not look up to see it, Shunsui's head bowed again in deference as he lightly took the cup from her hand. And he doubted she would be terribly surprised by the soft, rumbling "Arigatō gozaimashu" that slipped out of him when he did.

Nor by the Japanese that responded to her Trig in kind, after a long, long thoughtful moment.

"Otte," he murmured, "iru taka kara nigeru...furueru hato no tame ni."

And he paused again with a faint smile before he drank the last of what remained of their o-toso, reverently setting down the third and emptied cup on the table to join the others.

Another moment of silence went by before Octavia finally looked up, and nodded.

"Thank you for that," she said, softly. For the ritual, for the space that went with it, for all of it.

And yes, she'd caught the hato in the middle of the syllables she couldn't decipher.

It...had been a while since that word passed his lips...

The next duck of Shunsui's head came in response to hers, and added a small tilt of his hat. "Tondemonai, Octavia-chan," he said. "And thank you. You know I always enjoy sharing sake with you, and who could ever begrudge o-toso with a beautiful woman to begin their year? If it goes downhill from here, I have only myself to blame, for setting the standard much too high at the beginning ♥."

Octavia gave that a faint huff. Amused, maybe, probably.

It was a very Shunsui thing to say, either way.

Another pause, and then, "I haven't been visiting." It wasn't an apology, but acknowledgment. Followed up with an explanation of a sort. "We took a trip, for about a week."

Well, she certainly didn't need to tell him about not visiting. He knew he did a wonderful job of appearing aloof and disengaged, but he actually had noticed, if you'd believe it.

What he didn't know, for the most part, was whether or not it mattered.

At this moment, it didn't seem too terribly important, and he found his jug again to refill two of the cups.

Just because they'd finished their o-toso, that didn't mean they couldn't still enjoy themselves, neh?

"Oh?" he prompted as he poured. "How did it go?"

One of Octavia's shoulders lifted up into a vague shrug. "Well," she said. "I guess, for the most part. Beginning was kind of a mess."

But most things were, lately.

"A rocky start," Shunsui offered, picking up one of the cups he'd poured as he did, "does not mean the path won't smooth out as you go along. I'd rather begin with a mess that gets sorted out than be faced with one at the end of an otherwise lovely time..."

Octavia reached for the other cup.

"I think that's about what we did," she admitted. "We had a... thing, that we had to sort through before everyone could actually relax a little."

"Clear the air, as it were?" Shunsui guessed, with a small tilt of his head. "A small price to pay, if it meant being able to relax and enjoy the rest of the trip, even if just a little ♥. Certainly does it more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise, neh?"

With little details to go off of (though he certainly could make assumptions), Shunsui found himself mostly just thinking of surviving through Captains' meetings before getting to run off with various lieutenants...

Because Captains' meetings truly were the worst.

"Yeah," Octavia said, before falling quiet for a little moment, taking a sip. Maybe deciding whether she wanted to provide the context she knew was lacking from all of this.

"It was a trip with Duke." That much was probably obvious. Or easy to guess. "And, Lucifer."

Re: Meet Your Teachers [Spring 2021]

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Re: Meet Your Teachers [Spring 2021]

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