mistleglow: a winter kiss meme

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mistleglow: a winter kiss meme.

The month of December has been a cold one in Anchor, with the bots working hard to bring a little winter joy to the city. This year, there's a little extra surprise - the bots welcome the participation of the nanites, who are able to join in with the winter holiday protocols for the first time in a long time following their long imprisonment.

And what are the nanites doing? Well...this winter wonderland has been missing a conspicuous offender: the mistletoe. That's where the nanites come in...

▶ The nanites will be floating around in little swarms, lit up bright with various colors, and when they run into any sentient creature, they will enclose them in a harmless invisible shield with a radius of approximately three feet by three feet. Once the characters are entrapped, they'll be stuck for exactly one hour...unless they kiss!

▶ There is no compulsion to kiss, and characters are welcome to just wait out the hour and hope they're stuck with a good conversationalist, but if they want to get on their way, they'll have to kiss their fellow captive, in a specific way depending on the color of the nanite swarm that's trapped them.

▶ The bots will be helping by helpfully informing any trapped characters they need to kiss as they pass by. They won't say what kind of kiss because that would make it too easy. But at least now you know, right?

▶ This meme can be counted as game canon and used for AC if threads continue into January (don't forget: December is check-in only) if both parties wish. Characters who are not in the game are welcome, and threads from this meme can also count for application samples! Come join us!

▶ How to Participate: Just post a top-level detailing the types of kisses you're interested in, and then tag around to other people's top-levels.

▶ Kiss Type Legend:

RED: MOUTH ● ORANGE: NECK ● YELLOW: CHEEK
GREEN: FOREHEAD ● BLUE: HAND ● VIOLET: BUTTERFLY

Navigation.

Comments

Green. Here we go.

[scowlish]

It's a confluence of chance and circumstance and routine, really. Both he and Cho tend to frequent the dining hall and kitchens, they both frequent the agricultural levels. They were bound to pass each other in the hallways at some point - in the late morning, Onni still half-asleep but going to get breakfast for himself and lunch for everyone else, at a disadvantage because she's as energetic a morning person as ever.

It's just his luck that while he's passing her in the hallway, studiously avoiding her gaze, the nanites catch them, glowing a faint green above their heads. Onni knows what this means, and he immediately slumps backward against the invisible barrier, arms crossed, blinking owlishly.

"Mm."

He keeps his eyes down, frowning at his own feet, refusing to look at her.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho has been giving Onni a respectful distance. In fact, she's gone to great pains to ensure they don't end up occupying the same space, wanting to honour his last sentiment, that he had nothing to say to her. Not to mention, it's far easier to avoid someone she'd thought of as a friend, the sting of rejection and of being presnted as a kidnapper still fairly fresh, than to deal with it directly. She can't exactly fault him for the feeling - no way to turn off your emotions. It hurts, that he didn't trust her, that he thought she would hurt his cousin, but when it comes right down to it, he doesn't know her all that well. Cho forms bonds quickly, though she's aware that most people don't. It rarely comes to a head the way it did for them, but she's not at all surprised to be the focus of the anger. It has to go somewhere. She's been trying to avoid thinking about any of it, actually. It hasn't been entirely successful, but she's trying. Talking to Lalli and Cole helps, but there's no way to truly lessen the pain of lost friendship other than time.

She's so focused on trying to get past him quickly, go as unnoticed as is possible, that she doesn't even see the glow. Not until she runs right into the barrier, the invisible wall knocking her back a step, startling her. She raises her hand, presses against it, slides her palm up and down, then from side to side. It's when she looks directly above her that she catches the faint green tint to their little prison.

Well, that's new and troubling.

[scowlish]

Lifting his gaze just enough to see her slide her hands against the invisible wall of the little cocoon they're stuck in, Onni sighs deeply. Lifting his head, he presses the back of it against the wall he's leaning on, his eyes sinking shut, mouth set in a straight line. She doesn't seem to know what's going on with these weird glowing particles and their invisible barriers and the kissing in different forms, and he tries very hard to convince himself to not care about her confusion and distress at all.

He wants to be angry enough to let her suffer while he knows what's going on and she doesn't, but he can't bring himself to do it.

Another sigh, and he keeps his eyes closed even while he talks, "It won't do any good. They won't let go unless we kiss, or wait an hour. One or the other. So get comfortable."

After all, he's not intending to even talk to her, let alone actually kiss her.

[tenuefarfalla]

Trapped trapped trapped trapped trapped, it's running through her mind on frantic repeat. She doesn't think Onni would physically harm her, but she's still trapped. She can't even wonder at the machine logic in trying to get two people to kiss one another through confinement. An hour, though - she can handle that, right? An hour is nothing. Sixty minutes. Three thousand six hundred seconds. Right. She'll be fine.

She turns, leans her back against the wall, subtly pushing with all her weight. Nope, not even the slightest give. Not that she really expected it. She tips her head back, leaning it against the barrier, and lets out a shaky breath through her mouth. One hour.

Al least she's dressed for the temperature change, which means dressed for warmth, which involves both jeans and her warmest boots. Far better than a skirt, and it makes sinking down until she's sitting on the floor with her knees hugged to her chest a non-issue, modesty wise.

Get comfortable. Easier said than done. She thinks she can parse the rest of the intention, though - he still wants nothing to do with her. Unfortunate, given the small perimeter of their temporary prison, but all she has to do is sit still and silent for an hour. Child's play. Literally, in her case. She can do this.

[scowlish]

Onni is dressed in his usual warm tunic and leggings with his thick hooded fur cloak, so he's not feeling the cold very much either. Keeping his arms crossed, he flicks his eyes open and watches her, can see the tension in her body as she pushes against the barrier and then exhales shakily. Nervous, maybe.

When she slides down and sits with her knees up, Onni feels awkward looming over her, so he does the same, leaning against the opposite side of the barrier from her with his knees up, his elbows rested on his knees, and his chin settled in his arms, staring straight ahead. It's still a closer proximity than he'd prefer with her, right now, but it's not as bad as it could be. Sighing deeply, he closes his eyes again, lips pursed behind his own hand.

There's a long period of quiet, where neither of them starts a conversation, which Onni is perfectly fine with. After a while, though, he realizes she's counting at a whisper, counting backward. For a few moments, he just listens to it, a bit confused about why she's doing it, until he realizes she's probably counting time.

"I can tell by the way the sun moves how long it's been." he says, after a moment, "You don't have to do that."

[tenuefarfalla]

His voice is a surprise to her, a tiny little jerk to attention when she hears it - not fear, exactly, but jitters for sure. After a moment, she pushes up the sleeve of her jacket and sweater to show him a thin and discreet watch.

She tries to swallow the slight tremor out of her voice, but it doesn't work entirely - lessens, does not remove. "I have this, it just-- the counting is... calming. It's something to focus on." She's really trying to hold on to some calm here. It's elusive. "I can see if counting in my head has the same effect, if it bothers you?"

[scowlish]

Again, when he speaks she jumps slightly, obviously a little on edge. It doesn't really register to him that he might be intimidating to her, he assumes it's either some kind of claustrophobia or plain discomfort at being closed into such a small place with someone she's not getting along with.

When she moves to expose the watch she's wearing, he makes a little 'hm' in his throat, and then listens to what she says about the counting. That it's calming, something to focus on, and asks if it bothers him. He shrugs.

"It doesn't particularly bother me."

Then, after a few seconds, his eyes still pointed straight ahead and not necessarily at her, "Are you claustrophobic?"

[tenuefarfalla]

"Claustrophobic? No. I do all right in small spaces. You know, for a lot of people with claustrophobia, it's the feeling of walls closing in on them. An illusion of open space can be enough to calm them. So I suppose I wouldn't necessarily know if I've developed it suddenly - it's been a while since I was in a visibly enclosed space. Maybe I should go sit in a cupboard later to check. This is a pretty convincing illusion of open space." She runs her hand along the wall as she says it, as though testing that she still can't push her fingers through it. Her fingertips go white with the effort. Still trapped.

He said before that he had nothing more to say to her, but now he's talking, so maybe it's all right if she responds, as long as he starts it? Is that why she's making it stretch for as long as she can? Because she is definitely rambling. Huh. "My housemate says he gets claustrophobic sometimes, like on airplanes, and that sitting near a window helps. Or maybe he just wants to make sure he always gets the window seat." A slight pause, a furrow of contemplation. "Do they still have airplanes?"

[scowlish]

While she talks, he turns his head slightly to look at her. She's talking a lot, still seems nervous as she tests the barrier again and babbles about what it means to be claustrophobic. Sighing, Onni rubs a thumb against his jaw and then rests the side of his head against a forearm, face turned toward her.

"Mhm. We still have planes, but just broken in the woods."

It isn't much, but Onni isn't much of a talker, even with people who he's not at odds with. Looking at her still hurts, he gets that feeling again, of being completely helpless with the last member of his family left kept from him, not sure if he's actually okay or not, of being 'allowed' access to him only at the allowance of a virtual stranger. Remembers breaking down in public on the network, begging her, and how that still stings both his pride and his heart. For a moment, his fingers tighten against his own forearms, and he furrows his brows a little.

"Did you really think Lalli wouldn't be safe with me?"

[tenuefarfalla]

Planes broken in the woods, perhaps with the trees and other plants growing around them, through them. Cho has seen pictures of pickups in certain areas of American left to rust in the wild, slowly reclaimed by the wilderness. She wonders if the planes look like that. It's a sad, but oddly beautiful thought. Mostly sad.

Lalli. Safe. She turns her eyes to look at Onni, to try and read his expression, but she honestly isn't sure what she's looking for. He's hurt, and she's hurt, and it sucks. "You mean did I think you would be a danger to him? That you would actually hurt him?" The question is not quite as simple as it seems. Cho thinks that anything that would have caused Lalli aggitation, for whatever reason, real or imagined, might have caused harm. But had she thought that Onni would intentionally harm his cousin? "No. Are you... sure you want to talk about this?" She's not sure how she feels about it, but she doesn't feel good about much lately. This is hardly the worst of it. But she wants to be sure that Onni wants these answers, that she's not somehow managing to misread the situation.

[scowlish]

When she asks for clarification, his eyes flick over to her face again, though he keeps his chin buried against his folded arms, and then flick away again when she says no and asks if he wants to talk about this.

"If I didn't want to, I wouldn't have brought it up."

His voice is steady and calm as he says it, and he means every word, that much is obvious, but after a moment he continues, his voice still calm and even-toned but firm.

"I don't make idle conversation, as a rule. And I don't lie."