Allura - Open Log Prompts For Mareuer

[quintessent]

Who: Allura and [OPEN]
When: Vague times around March
Where: Aefenglom and specifically Diplomatea for some options
What: Allura is getting settled into life here and also experiences her first rainy season
Warnings: None


A. Princess' First Job (At Diplomatea)
[Allura is thankful to Everett, for giving her a chance with his shop. The flowers and the scent of the tea was what drew her in in the first place – when she found herself without a coin to her name for the first time in her life, and the atmosphere had been warm and welcoming. He'd even been kind enough to give her some clothes (or, a uniform, as some put it. Allura thought it was quite cute.)

She's never had a proper job before but she's a hard worker and so far she's been met with nothing but patience. Putting together flowers is her favorite part, though the tea serving took some... learning.

Maybe she's not paying attention, or it's just a bad stroke of luck, but there's a clumsy moment where her knuckle brushes against the heated side of one of the tea kettles – just for a second but it's a second long enough for her to feel a sharp pain and she yanks her hand back with a startled yelp.]

Ah- [She winces, already hearing someone else hurrying over to her side – one of her fellow employees, or a guest perhaps.] I'm alright, just careless.


B. The vague open ended one (Diplomatea)
[It's late one evening, when the lights from the tea shop glowed warm against the cool night air, the business empty and Allura was sitting, enjoying her own cup of tea, her limbs heavy after a long, but good day of work. It was... nice. She still had thoughts of getting home that hung heavy over her, but days like this it was a little easier. To fall into a routine and feel a little more normal than she has since she arrived here.

The bells at the door pull her from her reverie and she looks up, setting the cup down,]

Can I assist you?


C. Rolling up her sleeves. (In town)
[Now that she has a little money to her name there's an item in town that she's been eying for some time – a simple, sturdy wooden trunk from a local carpenter's shop. It's nice and she's been wanting a safe place to put her belongings from her world until it's time to go home (and maybe a safe place to hide shiny valuables from her Merrow housemate.)

Coin exchanged and trunk at her feet, Allura only now realizes a big mistake: When she arrived in Aefenglom it was without any of her Altean-born powers. Which means no hoisting around heavy boxes like they weight nothing. But what to do with the trunk?

It's pure stubbornness that gets her as far as she gets, lifting and hefting and pushing until at some point down the road she has to stop, Panting as she leans to take a rest against the large trunk.]

Stars, how do humans live like this? They're made of gossamer compared to Alteans.

[Help a princess out?]


D. It's like rain
[Altea didn't have rain. Not in the same way that humans knew thanks a lot Voltron canon and certainly Allura has never experienced anything like the rainy season in Aefenglom. What is a normal, even annoying phenomenon for one has Allura looking up, shielding her eyes the moment rain starts to pitter-patter on the roofs of the buildings around her

It's not the first rain she's seen, and she's delighted, but delight quickly turns into distress as the gentle sprinkle turns into a real downpour. And she quickly jogs for shelter- but not before getting absolutely drenched in the meantime.]

Apologies- [Allura sputters, standing in the doorway of the first building she came upon with water absolutely coming down in rivulets from her hair and dress, in a puddle on the floor underneath her. She holds her hands out, a little at a loss of what to do with herself] That's- Is this a normal amount of rain?


E. Wildcard
[Feel free to throw anything at me, or my plotting post is over here if you'd like to talk something specific! I'll probably be adding some closed starters below as the month goes on as I make plans with people too!]

Comments

[quintessent]

[Narration would like to point out the hilarious mental image of Leslie vaulting the counter to go help.

Allura doesn't mind the breach into the employees-only area, the pain is still quite apparent, with the burn aching in time with her heartbeat as burns tend to do. Allura holds her wrist in one hand, and although it's unladylike, she sticks the burned knuckle in her mouth, wincing at the slight relief.]

It's only a burn. I swiped the kettle with my hand.

[foundfamilies]

[She wishes she could do that. She'd have to climb up on a stool, use the stool to climb onto the bar, crawl across it, and hop down. Not quite as cool as she'd like to be.

Leslie shakes her head, then looks if there is a sink nearby.]

The longer you take to treat a burn, the more likely it is to scar. You should run cool water over it right away.

[quintessent]

[It would still be somewhat cool!

Allura turns her head in kind, looking towards the sink that she knew was there. It's a larger basin - good for filling the various vases and watering cans that they used on the flowers, and she nods at Leslie's instruction, moving over to turn on the water with her good hand.]

It's embarrassing. I only just started and I'm already making mistakes. [She does sigh a bit in relief when the cool water touches the burn.]

I'm sorry you had to see this. I should be the one helping you.

[foundfamilies]

Isn't the start where you're more likely to make mistakes?

[Too bad Leslie only manages to be that logical when talking about other people's mistakes -- a common oversight.]

It's okay. I'm sort of an employee here, too, sometimes. When there are big events.

[This is...arguably true. She glances away as she says it, though, because it's also arguably not true. She advertised for a couple of special events in exchange for cookies and flowers. That's not really the same as being on the payroll.]

[quintessent]

That’s true, I suppose.

[Said with a sigh, like she’s deflating from all of the stress of holding herself to impossibly high standards. The water is helping though, and she offers a small smile when Leslie mentions that she sort of works here.]

Then we will see each other often. I’m grateful that Everett let me work in his shop. I’ve never held a job before.

[foundfamilies]

I haven't, either. I never even thought very much about how people earn money in the first place before I arrived here.

[She says it with completely sincerity as though a lack of job knowledge between a 12-year-old human and a young adult altean are completely equivalent.]

Sir Everett is a very generous person. I have been working at [give her a moment she knows this phrase] part time jobs at different places, but DiplomaTea seems like a really nice place to work a full time job.

[quintessent]

[Allura nods seriously, appreciative of the twelve-year-old’s understanding. It’s less that she has less life experience than others, it’s just that hers came in a very direction. Some young adults have held part time jobs, and some have flown space ships through wormholes.

Once the majority of the pain from the burn has ebbed, Allura turns off the cold water, holding her hand out as to not drip water all over the place while letting it air dry.]

You seem a little young for any kind of job. [She says, carefully. She’s already misspoken around Tataru about the Lalafell’s age.] But yes, he was very accommodating to me when I first arrived. I owe him a great deal of gratitude.

[foundfamilies]

[Leslie also actually looks younger than her actual age, but in her case, it's maybe two to three years. And while she protests being called a child, she acknowledges that she is young and there are some things she just can't do yet.]

Juza said something like that. That people usually don't start working jobs until they're sixteen or seventeen. But I don't want to be any more of a burden on the people who took me in than I am already. [She smiles, not seeing anything wrong with how she worded that.] It's a little like what you said. I owe them a great deal of gratitude.

[quintessent]

[She tilts her head. Making a few assumptions, tells her that her gut was right about Leslie's age and it's not a Lalafell situation. But the girl seems awfully intent on paying her keep. However that means to her.]

There's nothing wrong with letting people do kind things for you. [She says mildly, smiling,] But also there's nothing wrong with paying those people back with your own kindness.

[That's not really how jobs work, but it might make sense to a child. Moving on, she peers around at the shop.]

You said that you come here often, do you know much about plants?

[foundfamilies]

[There’s a brief flicker of “I've heard this before” on her face as Adora starts talking about letting people be kind to her, but she’s pleasantly surprised by the conclusion.]

Right? It’s not that I want to stop people from doing kind things for me. I’ve been very happy with how kind everyone here has been to me. Only, I want to be able to do things for them, too.

[This is not an entirely fair assessment of how Leslie acts, given there have been a number of times that she’s protested that she doesn’t need something, but it’s a case of her subjective view of herself. As for the plants, she fidgets a little.]

I’ve learned a lot more about plants than I ever knew before since I left my world, but I wouldn’t say that I know very much. The Coven is holding courses on gardening this month, though, so I might know more then.]

[quintessent]

[Let it never be said that Allura doesn't appreciate the value of hard work. Not that Leslie needs a job, but it's good to learn thankfulness and responsibility at a young age. Allura was certainly well into her studies to become future queen by then.

In any case, Allura nods a little at the statement about the plants,]

I'm doing the same. I only wonder because i've heard that some plants have soothing properties. Especially for things like burns.

[Sheepishly,] But I would only be guessing. I don't even know if we have any plants like that here.

[foundfamilies]

[She looks even more excited when it's time for her to nerd out about something she knows.]

Oh! I do know about that! I asked the lecturer about it.

[You know, just a random question.]

A plant that is good for treating burns is an aloe vera. [or whatever the equivalent might be called in this world] It's a little plant with a bunch of leaves sticking right out of the soil that have these little spikes around the edge, but they also have this sticky stuff inside them that is good for burns. And honey! Did you know that it comes from plants?

[Probably uncommon knowledge. She sure didn't know before a few days ago.]

[quintessent]

[It looks like she went to the right person!]

Aloe vera? [And immediately Allura is looking through the various plants they have on display. She's learned quite a few of their names already, but not all of them. She looks from pot to pot, looking for a tiny plant with a bunch of leaves. With spikes? Hm.]

Honey comes from plants? [She frowns, eyebrows arched high.] ...I didn't know that. I thought they came from bugs.

[Technically, all food comes from artificial means where she's from. One of the perks of living in an ultra advanced society. And then again, Leslie does come from a different world from her own.]

[foundfamilies]

[Leslie starts to look around herself, but she's almost immediately distracted by explaining her recently acquired knowledge.]

It's a little bit of both. There are these bugs named bees that spend a lot of time in flower gardens. They're about this big [holding her index fingers apart about bee size] and black and yellow and fuzzy. If you ever do any gardening, you shouldn't disturb them. They fight back, and also they do some really important things for having a healthy garden. They gather something called -- nectar from flowers, and they use that to make honey back in their homes!

[Thanks, whichever quick-witted prof or fellow gardener who saw the child about to shoo away a bee and turned it into a less painful lesson than getting stung.]

[quintessent]

[So much she's learning from a child! Being an alien is a heck of a lot of culture shock.]

A fuzzy yellow bug? [She smiles, the picture in her head probably much different from reality.] I think we have bugs like that back home, but the sound much less cute.

[But she files away the information about the bees for later. It sounds important, if she's going to be working in the flower shop.] Most food in my world is grown in labs. We travel all over the universe, so it's more economical to make things rather than keeping gardens in a space ship.

[foundfamilies]

[Leslie feels good that she has clearly explained about bees in a way that has had no misunderstanding from ambiguities! (This is how we know she's can't read minds.)]

You already have traveled from planet to planet even before you came here?! Is it always like how Aefenglom does it? And, um. [She looks a little embarrassed.] What's a lab?

[quintessent]

[She shakes her head,]

No, we would travel by space ship. [Ah, but she might not know what that is,] It's like... a boat that you would see on an ocean. But for space.

[That's the best way she's learned how to rationalize it, even though Allura's own knowledge of sea-faring vessels was pretty sparse.]

And a lab is, well, it can be a lot of things. But it is where scientists learn or create new things. In this case, they use science to replicate food!