Let's meet under the Northern Lights [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: June 30th 2018, in the evening
Characters: Everyone!

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It is a perfect Saturday evening after a almost unbearably hot summer's day: The sky is clear, the temperature only just begins to dip below twenty degrees at sundown with only a fresh breeze from across the Channel perhaps suggesting that a jacket should be brought along for later, and most residents of Mossgate and its surroundings are on their feet to come and see the annual fireworks above the ruins at the top of the Greens. The whole park is dotted with people on picnic blankets, but most attendees centre around the bottom near the bandstand, where an orchestra is setting up to play classical music to accompany the fireworks.

The fireworks are set to start at 10:30, once the sky has finally darkened enough and thus they do, a beautiful display lasting for over twenty minutes, accompanied by moving music, the wind from the seaside helpfully clearing the smoke away so they never get obscured by it.

But then, when the last firework has gone up and people are starting to turn their heads away, a shout goes up, those who were still hoping that the last of the fireworks might yet be before them calling everyone else to attention.

Something else can be seen in the sky, something that older residents or those who look at the nightly sky a lot might have seen before, but never at this time of the year:

Northern Lights.

They hang in the sky for almost half an hour before dissipating, and leave many a person in excited discussions with those around them about the odd timing of the sight.

Some of the residents of Mossgate and the surrounding area, however, will experience the occasion very differently. Because as the Northern Lights appear, they are overcome with a wave of absolute emptiness, with a feeling of being absolutely hollow inside, and a loud sound like a resounding heartbeat will drown out everything around them.

They'll be left feeling dizzy, and like they gained something - which they did. They're all in possession of one additional echo* now. And that number they could never forget? It's suddenly very present on their minds again.

And if they write it down, input it into a computer, say it out loud, or in any other way give form to it, they will realize that it does something now: It connects them with other people. The Network just went live.

[*This is a plot echo. Those characters whose First Echo the Northern Lights are will, of course, not get an additional echo, but everyone whose First Echo happened before the Northern Lights will gain another echo now. Please request all echoes over here and wait with playing out all echoes that aren't memory echoes until they have been approved.]

Comments

[runs]

For most of the evening, Kitty can be found wandering around the Greens, sitting down with people she knows to snatch some of the food they brought. ...Or stopping next to strangers who have interesting and tasty looking food with them and just asking them as innocently as she can manage: "Is that good?"

Later, she watches the fireworks with interest, but what arrests her attention and even manages to distract her from eating is what happens after. Kitty is standing under the Northern Lights with wide eyes, a hand with a donut halfway to her mouth.

"What is that?" she asks nobody in particular and everyone around.

Pre-Northern Lights!

[iamnotgod]

While not surprised to see her here, he also hadn't been paying full attention when she singled him out for snacks.

"Uh, yes?" he ended up saying - not realizing he was answering her question!

"What do you need?"

[runs]

"If it's so good, can I try some?"

A perfectly reasonable follow-up question! Not like she set herself up to ask this or anything!

[iamnotgod]

Walter looked back and forth rapidly between his plate and Kitty.

"I can share, yeah."

You're not getting the whole plate, though!

[runs]

"Cool, thanks!" She takes a seat next to Walter and casts an expert glance around the plate, hunting for the biggest piece. "Are you alone here?"

[iamnotgod]

At least she's not touching the food?

"Yeees," Walter says, drawing out the syllable in a way that almost made it a question.

"Only take the one piece, okay? I can get you a plate of your own if you really want."

At least, he's pretty sure that's allowed?

"But what about you? Are you out here alone, too?"

[runs]

She is an expert at telling what will and what won't help her get the most out of someone. Generally appearing somewhat well-behaved is a point in her favour, and touching food without it being offered isn't good behaviour.

As soon as it is offered she'll pick out the biggest, most delicious looking piece of food though and starts nomming on it.

"No, I'm here with the family. But they're all busy dealing with the new kid and don't move around at all, and just sitting still is boring."

[iamnotgod]

"I know how that is," Walter replies. Even now he's running one finger along the side of the plate, back and forth, while at the same time trying to not have that noticed.

"Sometimes just being in one place isn't enough. There's so much to do and see..."

And for a kid, in a festival like this? Well, that only became more true.

[runs]

She nods.

"And eat."

So many people that have brought way too big picnic baskets.

"There's a guy filming with a drone! And down there," she points, "there are some big kids doing a kind of throwing gymnastics. It looks really fun but they said they wouldn't throw me because I don't know how to land. And a guy over there is telling stories from the war, but not the usual boring ones. Did you know they used socks as payment when they didn't want to sleep alone and were too smelly for anyone to sleep next to them?" Someone overheard stories they probably shouldn't have heard but luckily can't fully interpret them yet.

Before

[tobodlygo]

"What? Are you kidding? Rolo's are the best!" He hands her the pack of the little chocolate caramel rounds that he's been munching on the past 10 minutes.

He gestures around to the selection of food he's got with him on the side of the picnic blanket.

"I've got Cocktail sausages, uhhh - those lil' egg sausage ball things, I think I bought a trifle as well? I don't know - it was on sale." Anything in the reduction section is up for grabs. This is law.

[runs]

She eagerly takes the pack and starts to peel one of the caramels out of it to plop it into her mouth.

"That's a lot of food for one single person."

[tobodlygo]

"Oh, I know a challenge when I hear one!" A grin crosses his face, "But not to worry, this is definitely for sharing. Help yourself, kid."

[runs]

"Thanks!" She's not going to take her chances here and immediately reaches for another one.

"So why do you have so much food on you? Did your girlfriend ditch you?"

[tobodlygo]

He smiles at Kitty's enthusiasm for food, but it turns into mock hurt as he clutches his heart dramatically at her last comment.

"Oh! Wounded am I! For I had no girlfriend to ditch me in the first place!" He fake sobs into the crook of his arm.

Her full name is Eileen Dover. Kitty is too young to grasp the joke.

[runs]

"Well, if you can't get a girlfriend you should get a boyfriend. That's what Eileen says." She fills her mouth back up while nodding gravely, though she's clearly not serious either.

[tobodlygo]

"You know, that's some pretty good advice there," Jim smirks, not about to tell a young child that he's been there, done that.

"Anyway, I'm happy to fill the gaping void that being single gives me with snacks and sweets." He says, shoving a large handful of Malteasers in his gob at once.

[runs]

"Well, snacks and sweets are probably cheaper than going fancy places with a girlfriend. And they don't snore." Win-win situation, right there.

Late late late.... Hope this is alright

[warped_replica]

Given the position away from the main crowd yet still within sight of everyone, the ideal space under the tree on the quilt early in the evening is rather inviting. As such, it only makes sense she would drop by even with his great aunts currently mingling with their neighbors and friends. That, and he has sole watch over the basket filled with food and treats.

Girl has priorities.

Tapping the side button on his phone to turn off the screen, he shifts to prop up onto his elbows in a reclined position where he lies on the quilt. Offering a friendly smile, he greets the girl he’s gotten quite used to dropping by the house from time to time, “Hey Kitty.”

[runs]

"Hey!" She plops down next to him and immediately starts eyeing up the basket. "Where's the others?" She's just assuming that he's not alone here, and judging by the contents of the basket he's clearly here with his aunts.

[warped_replica]

He certainly would not have come if not for his great aunts.

Benjiro pushes up with one hand after she has sat down next to him, drawing back one foot to tuck under the other leg next to her. Glancing out across the growing crowd, he points off with two fingers towards the cluster into which he last saw his aunts join, “Mm...Aggie and Rose should be over there.” The short names were not how he would typically refer to them, but they insisted on the nicknames around Kitty.

His hand drops back to the quilt, and he looks curiously to Kitty, “Are you having fun?”

[runs]

She cranes her head to see them, fails to spot them, and thus just turns towards the conversation. They'll show up sooner or later, and the most important part is here. Not Benjiro, of course. The food.

"Yeah! There's lots of people who are in a good mood, and a guy let me fly his drone for a few seconds!"

[warped_replica]

“That sounds fun! Did you try anything fancy, or keep it flying steady?” he asks out of curiosity. Given the wide open space filling and the potential for recording in a scenic location, it makes sense a drone might be deployed until darkness falls. More importantly, Kitty had been interested in the device - even if only in passing.

For the moment, Benjiro is refraining from acknowledging he has the food basket within his reach.

[runs]

"I had to promise ahead of time that I wouldn't try to do anything but keep it flying steady with it." Which was disappointing, but better than not getting to fly it at all. "It's really easy! The people talking about it always make it sound way harder."

Now if she had anyone who would give her one as a gift... Sadly she can't think of anyone to pitch that birthday or Christmas wish to.

[warped_replica]

“I guess flying over a crowd would be the wrong time to try tricks, but it’s still a great way to get a new perspective.  Especially because it’s easy to control.”  The devices were quite simplified by the onboard computer that translates the pilot’s general commands along the dimensional axes into changes in the four rotors.  The physics of those rotors require proper balance to remain aloft while in motion, and early models were less intuitive in design.
 
Huh.  And here she’s talking to a tech geek.
 
“Have you played with other remote control toys before?”

[runs]

"Have you ever flown one before? ...Do you have one?" He voice is suddenly very interested at the last bit. That sounds like great fun, trying to fly one of those without stipulations of safety and all...

"And I've driven a remote control car before! The last family had one! ...Used to have one. It fell in the water.

But that wasn't me! The oldest kid they had drove it." They'd wanted to check if it could jump small distances and ...well. The answer was that there was a fairly short maximum distance to that.