thespherelogs | May Log

Entry tags:

May Log

Who: Everyone!
Where: Anywhere
What: May mod log!
When: The First two weeks of May.
Warnings: Use your best discretion.

May Open log

First of May, First of May

So apparently the open festive mood on the locals hasn’t stopped so May opens with a tradition that happens within it. It’s May Day, or Beltane if you’re feeling formal and it doesn’t just last for the day. Instead it lasts for two weeks, because why do in one day what you can party for multiple days over?

There are the traditional May Day things of course. There’s the May pole stretching upwards with its brightly colored ribbons welcoming people to do it either together or separately. The colors are explained of course, purple for a good year, pink for fertility, green for fiscal gain, blue for calmness. Each ribbon wrapped around the ancient poll is a wish, an old woman tells you. So you should take it seriously. But if you do is up to you.

Ringing outside of the giant circle in the recreation dome are large bonfires. People are writing down their wishes for the year and burning them into the universe. Some more… adventurous people are hopping over the fire in order to increase the effectiveness of the wishes. In case you were wondering, John is standing ready with a med kit and a judgmental look on her face.

There are small picnics set up around rather than tables, and spring foods are placed on it. Strawberries, oat cakes, chocolate, and things like real food are scattered on them, letting people pick and share the platters around them equally. Wine flows freely, of course. Wine made here in the Sphere that comes in a variety of fruited flavors.

Traditional things such as three legged races and general races are occurring, people grouping those with powers together in order to make it fair. Other games are happening. Including Max in the dunk tank for a few minutes, so you may wanna get that in.

There are of course things that are non-traditional as well. After all, this is the Sphere. A series of bouncy castles is set up, as is an inflatable obstacle course. One of the larger castles is even set aside for the adults because well, why not.

Several large ball pits are set up and people are bringing drinks to them. There’s no way that can go wrong. It’s adults only because sometimes everyone just needs a ball pit.

Fireworks happen every night. Or at least something that looks like fireworks, minus the fire and the noise. But they fill the sky above the Sphere, making it seem as if they are under a real sky.

painting the roses red.

After celebrating the spring in April, May brings with it the work of what spring actually entails. What it entails especially after the loss of the person in charge (rip Annie) is doing the sort of normal planting in the fields. There are people around to supervise and to hand out seeds and the other things that one needs to successfully plant fields and all of that.

There are other fields and vegetable patches to be weeded and harvested, because the agriculture dome tends to always be in a state of flux depending on how many people are currently living in the sphere at the time.

But it wouldn’t be a community event if food wasn’t provided, so there’s a sort of barbecue going on. It definitely smells like barbecue that’s for sure, and there are people tending long pits of things that look like meat but that definitely aren’t. Still it tastes like good old bbq and that’s really what matters isn’t it?

Of course it wouldn’t be bbq without beer, so there’s a lot of it. It’s free-flowing (a little too free-flowing actually) and some of the teenagers have gotten their hands on it. On way too much of it as a matter of fact. Which is why it seemed like a good idea to them to show up at the work picnic with squirt guns full of washable paint.

If it’s washable and non-toxic, one argues, then it’s not as if anyone can be really angry.

But honestly it’s a paint fight. Join in or be an innocent victim there are definitely squirt guns a plenty around.

Everyone loves bathtime, right?

Well, people requested baths, so the staff at the pools in the Rec dome have tried to accommodate them! While normally, the events at the pools go something like this: The largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is Olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the divided changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks.

The Sphere has increased it towards bathing though, through the use of temporary means. There’s a large bamboo building near it, and inside are various sets of hot and cool pools, sauna and steam pools, a masseuse and other spa treatments and the like. There’s three options for these times. 1.Strictly bathing suits, 2, strictly mixed nudity/ bathing suits and 3. Strictly separated nudity. No one below the age of eighteen is getting naked in the baths, sorry kids.

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There are good things to be had of baths, and Rhy's more used to this public form of it than he is used to any other form of bathing. He was even used to strangers as well as people he knows entering them when he's bathing, because that was just what the palace bathhouse was like.

What he was not used to was someone he saw as an instructor entering. Well, Tieren didn't count. So when he sees Angel walk in, bare as the day she was born, Rhy did something weird.

He blushed and turned his gaze away.

"Lady Angel," he greets.

Inesa's back straightened to attention when she heard her name drift through the humid air of the bath. She took trips to the baths fairly often but it wasn't often that she ran into someone she knew. It didn't bother her but it did surprise her.

"Rhy. It's a pleasure to see you here. Are you enjoying the baths?"

She stepped towards the pool after setting her towel down on the side of bath and slowly sank within its warm embrace. It likely didn't help that she was still naked but she was technically covered by the murky water.

"Are you alright? Your face is a little red." She assumed that it was the water since she's never seen Rhy blush before.

"Oh quite so, Inesa. Where I come from these 'shower' contraptions are not common, so this feels more like home."

The water most definitely assisted, and Rhy breathed a sigh of relief, letting his eyes find her face again.

"It is the heat of the water, nothing to be concerned over."

"I have a shower in my apartment but I prefer the baths. There is something magical about being beneath the water... more so than we are, to feel it on our skin." She smiles as she pools some water in the center of her palms. "Don't you think so?"

Inesa glances up and looks absolutely entranced with the water.

"It's so wonderful." She doesn't seem to be focused on his flustered appearance.

Entranced by water. What a thing to be. For a moment he wishes he were a water magician, just to show her how beautiful and playful water could be, but instead...

"Water... feels like home for me. In a very strange way I suppose. My mother is a water magician. While there are others who are stronger, or flashier with it her powers are... so minutely controlled. So finely tuned. Water always makes me think of her. The way she let the troubles flow around her. The way she could be stolid and unyielding like ice."

ANd so brutally cold to his brother as well.

"Oh?" She gently placed the water back into the warm pool and then looked up to meet Rhy's gaze. She knew a little bit about him but he has yet to mention his parents to her. It wasn't a topic that Inesa usually spoke about since she didn't technically have parents of her own.

"I would love to see that. I have a friend who has a connection with water. Perhaps... he will come out to say hello." She looked down at her chest and rested her palm over her heart. After a short pause there was a little blue glow of light between her fingers as the water spirit living within her body appeared before her. It's form was small and glowing a soft shifting blue as it danced happily over the water.

"This is my friend."

It could be hard for him to talk about his family, though. Especially given the fact that they were no longer with him, in any sense.

When her hand moves to her chest his eyes flit away quickly, not willing to follow the path. Sometimes even he has restraint. But when she spoke the light caught his attention and he watched it, shock and a touch of awe in his eyes.

“What is it?”

"I am not sure but he is my friend. I think he is a spirit." The blue light flickers happily, as if confirming Inesa's guess. "He's been with me since I was a child. No matter what happened, I have never been truly alone."

The blue sprite flickers and circles around Rhy's head before lightly resting on his shoulder. It flickered and buzzed slightly, and if he can sense magic, he might get the subtle shifting and feel of water as the spirit bounds happily around.

"He is very sweet but gets scared and hides within me."

Sadly, Rhy's ability to sense magic was more non-existent than his ability to use it, so all he could see was the way the spirit danced.

"And yet he trusts your trust of me enough to do this?"

"Yes. He's always been there for me and he knows that I won't let him get hurt." The spirit thrills and comes to float near the surface of the water. As it moves around, it begins to manipulate the water as if to make it dance with him.

"I think he likes it in here too!"

"I'm glad he is pleased. So far as I know, there is nothing like that in existence on my world."

Then again, he did no truly know all of his world.

Inesa held out her hands and the water sprite rested on her outstretched fingers. "I haven't seen anything like him either. I think that's why he chooses to stay with me. I hope one day he can find his friends or family but I am happy to have him close. I am never truly alone."

The spirit flutters and then slowly drifts back into her chest, done with his playing today.

To not be alone. It's something Rhy wishes for. His hand goes to the scarring on his chest. AS much as he did not approve of his brother's choices in some ways, there was no denying the way that it had made it so he wasn't alone. And now he was. Alone.

"Well, I'm glad you don't have to be alone."

Inesa slid closer, headless of the fact that she was naked. "You aren't alone either Rhy. I know it's only while we are here but I am with you." She reached for his hand with a warm smile. "I am so happy when you are around."

Both at the shop and in times like this.

There is nowhere he can go to put more space between them. Please, Inesa, have mercy on his racing heart. But with the hand offered, he takes it. That’s something.

“Now now, my dear, if you speak like that, you might make a man think you were fond of him beyond him being your pupil in the lessons of fashion.”

She smiled in return, her cheeks rosy with delight. "I am fond of you. We're friends." It was an innocent comment and one that she didn't realize could be taken incorrectly though Rhy has been around her enough to realize how innocent Inesa could be from time to time.

Oh thank goodness. They ARE friends. Rhy is relieved.

"Indeed we are, and you give me things to enjoy. I thank you for that."

"Oh! I meant to ask. Your brother said that you didn't like learning from him. Do you enjoy when I teach you about sewing?" She was curious.

What a question. It earns an openly distasteful look from Rhy. Because that wasn't even remotely the way it worked.

"It wasn't that I didn't wish to learn. Let us go with a metaphor. My brother's power and magic is like the ocean. The waters are nearly limitless, as well as brutal and not always refined. Myself? I'm a thimble that is half full of water. I haven't power enough to teach."

"Ah. So it was a bit difficult." She smiled. "I understand. I just wanted to say, that I am flattered to be able to teach you and I think you're a wonderful student." He wasn't particularly deft with a needle just yet but he did a good job and took the instruction well.

"I just wanted to let you know."

No one called him a good student save for his language and culture instructors. Which was complicated.

"Teaching me magic was like trying to get water from a rock. Which is a silly comparison because with his power and enough focus, he can turn a rock into water."

Inesa giggled. "I would love to see that." It sounded so strange to her. You don't get water from rocks.

"Perhaps you can ask Kell. His magic should be able to do it here, provided it hasn't been weakened."

And he's heard his brother did practice routines of passing an item through all of the elements and back.

"I will make sure to do that. I had offered him a free outfit since you've been so good to help out." She also assumed that he'd want more than one, if he was anything like his brother.

[ooc: want to wrap it up here?]

Free? Rhy was surprised that his brother accepted such a thing. It wasn't like Kell. But he can accept it anyway.

"He'll ask for one coat and never wear anything else. I'll see if I can practice drawing designs for you."

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May Log

Bathtime

Bathtime

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yes that works