31st Combo - Searching for people who need hugs

[redcladidealist]

Who: Lloyd Irving and anyone
Where: All over!
Style: Either
Status: Open

[Lloyd's on a mission. He has no doubt it'll probably be awkward at some points, but it's an important one nonetheless. The nurse told him that people need hugs to keep warm, but not everyone would know that. Who knew who might be freezing to death because they didn't know what they needed to cure it?

Not that hugs fix the problem completely. The effect of the last hug Lloyd had gotten is already starting to wear off. Still, once people know, it'll be easier for them to make sure they get enough physical contact to keep them warm.

So here he is, searching for anyone who looks like they need a hug.]

Comments

[honeyflaaash]

[Honey won't be objecting to the hug just yet. Her extremities still feel a little numb and if she's going to be in the embrace of an unfamiliar boy, she may as well make the most of it.]

Mmh... For five months now, I suppose. I can't believe how fast time's gone by. ...How about you?

[redcladidealist]

[Lloyd's in slightly better condition, since he's hugged a few people already during this curse, but he'd be lying if he said he was going to complain about the warmth sinking into his bones.]

About a year and a half, I guess. It's... weird. Sometimes it feels like this place is my home, as much as my world is. Is that... Is that bad?

[honeyflaaash]

I don't think so... If you've been living somewhere for over a year and you've made a lot of friends, it's only natural to get attached to that place.

[Not that Honey can relate. She's still incredibly homesick from time to time. Vatheon doesn't feel like home to her at all.]

[redcladidealist]

Yeah... I mean, I miss my friends there, and there's stuff I need to do, but I've made friends here, too, and I don't want to leave them. I wish there was a way to have both.

[It's something he tries not to dwell on too much, since it's not something he can do anything about right now, but it's still there, still bugging him under the surface of his thoughts. There ought to be a way to keep them connected so they don't have to give anyone up.]

[honeyflaaash]

Hm... Maybe there is a way. Maybe if we figure out how exactly we all got here in the first place, we can make it so we can go back and forth between worlds all the time.

[Wouldn't that be something? She could go home and bring her classmates here for a visit. It'd be like a field trip.]

[redcladidealist]

I already have an idea about that, actually. See, I got here when I went through a Gate that was supposed to connect my world and the one I was in. Something just got messed up and I ended up here instead, but I think there's got to be Gates like that in every world. I just don't know how to make them open up.

[honeyflaaash]

A gate that connects worlds? Really? [She's never heard of anything like that. But, hey, she'd never heard of universal matter transformation devices before her sixteenth birthday either.]

It'd be amazing if that were true.

[redcladidealist]

Really! Why would I lie about something like that?

[He can't think of any reason he would, even beyond the fact that he generally tries not to tell lies.]

Besides, it makes sense. How else would we all get here in the first place if there wasn't something to connect all our worlds? We just have to figure out where they are and how they work. I just, you know, hope it's something we can still use once we get back to our own worlds.

[honeyflaaash]

I hope so too! [What Lloyd's saying makes sense and sounds ideal, so if it's true, everyone will benefit from it.]

How did you find the gate in your world?

[redcladidealist]

We heard a rumor about it when we were passing through a city. My Professor decided to check it out and the rest of us went to find her. That Gate opens during the full moon, and it was a full moon when we got there, so it opened up just a few minutes later. We were pretty lucky. We got attacked and that's how we escaped. I just ended up here by mistake. I'm pretty sure everyone else made it through.

[honeyflaaash]

I see... [So it opens during a full moon... Would it be the same here in Vatheon? What if there's such a thing as timezones between worlds? Hmm...]

What did the gate look like? If we have a good description, we can start looking for it.

[redcladidealist]

Well, in Tethe'alla there were these three huge rocks sticking out of the ground with things carved into them. When the light from the full moon hit them, all the carvings lit up and this... kind of a pool of light showed up on the ground. That's what we stepped on to go through the Gate.

I don't know what it looked like on the other side, though. Like I said, I didn't make it through to Sylvarant, and all I saw here when I showed up was the coral.

[He hasn't seen anything like the Otherworldly Gate here, either, even though he's definitely looked.]

...does that help?

[honeyflaaash]

[Honey's barely aware they're still sort of hugging by this point. She's getting a little too distracted by the conversation they're having.]

It does help. If we can find three rocks like that here, we'll know we're in the right spot. But... What if those rocks were taken away by someone? Or what if they were destroyed long ago? [What if... it's a one-way street?]

[redcladidealist]

[Given what they're talking about, it's pretty easy to understand why they're both getting wrapped up in it. Lloyd's definitely not paying attention to his arm around her now, thoughts focusing on ideas that are whirling through his head.]

Hmm, if they're gone, maybe we could build them ourselves. I think I could remember some of the carvings on the rocks. It'd just be hard to move rocks that big.