[open] why is it you use those tragic methods

[yesdoubt]

Who: Momo and you! (and 4th wallers also welcome)
When: Second half of Maiuril
Where: Around, but mostly the Haven and the Wilde Hunt area
What: "Stage Hands Wanted" quest shenanigans, a network call for people to help him practice counterspells and healing, magic practice of the "using dance to cast" variety, and considerably more terrible magic practice once the whole magic surge business starts getting to him properly.
Warnings: None yet.

[a: stage handy]

[With theatre just recently getting the unbanning treatment, Momo is practically crawling all over the preparations for new shows. He's even joined one or two of them as an actor, and it's possible to catch him out practicing roles with some of the groups (apparently, his character type is villains and he's better at it than one might expect considering his usual manner), but outside of that, he's more than happy to join up with anyone who's helping with the sets and props and what have you.

His usual energy is as intact as ever as he weaves through locals and Mirrorbound both who might be helping with the stage needs, poking his head over shoulders or tapping people on them with a lurid pink nail.]

Need a hand with that? There's some pretty big projects the backstage people are working on here.

--

[b: text, un: momo-chan~♥, around the 15th*]

Hi everyone~~!!
I've been studying abjuration recently and I think I'm starting to get some of the techniques down enough to progress ╭( ･ㅂ･)و
But it's kind of hard to actually practice healing magic or counterspells properly without anyone to heal or counter...
So if anyone has any little injuries they'd like to get rid of, or wants to practice some offensive magic I can try to block, let me know here!!
I'm available pretty often so I'm sure we can work something out quickly o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

[[*Alternately, feel free to handwave your character responding to this message and jump straight to action - Momo would likely direct them to his cottage in the Haven, which can be identified by the pair of petalwolves hanging around outside, one peach and one snowdrop.]]

--

[c: practice makes perfect?]
(a. before/after the 21st-22nd, haven)

[Surrounding the new moon, while Momo is worse affected in the lead-up than most considering his lack of a true bond, he manages to mostly keep a lid on it until the new moon is almost on top of him. Besides his requests for people to practice abjuration against, he's also trying an alternate casting style for some of his illusions, since he's more familiar with them and figures it'll probably be easier to change his focus when he's not also still figuring out the magic itself.

So he can be found just outside his cottage, his two petalwolves looking at him somewhat quizzically as he dances around the two of them, a fast-paced little thing with a lot of flourish in the arms, but clearly meant to be a reasonably quick cast despite the nature of the casting method. Once he completes a circle around them, when his foot lands back where he started, he and the two wolves disappear completely, and there's no sound or even impression of someone being there...

...until Momo's head appears, seemingly disembodied, crossing over the circle his dancing had drawn. He sticks an arm out a moment later, too, so he can cheerfully wave down anyone who might've been close enough to see his shenanigans.]

Hey, you got a minute? I need a second head to make sure this worked.

(b. 21st-22nd, wilde hunt range)

[Of course, when he's lacking a true bond, he can only deal with his rising magic for so long. His familiars certainly help, but it seems to be too much to even flow through them as naturally as it usually does. So while he's been out in the hunt area here and there at other times of the month to practice barriers against actual enemies like the Shades, now he's just here to burn off as much magic as possible.

Which is how people in the hunt area who stray too close to the trees may find themselves rather suddenly confronted with what looks like a large dinosaur straight out of the Jurassic Park book of what dinosaurs look like in popular media. It's huge, it roars loudly enough to feel like it's shaking the trees - but the observant might notice that there's a high outstretched branch that's simply passing through its body as if it wasn't there. If one chooses to get any closer, the dinosaur will bend down to roar right in their face, and while the feeling of breath and the sound it makes are realistic, it won't chase anyone who runs from it, and reaching a hand out to it will pass straight through, as will any attacks. That, and anyone who looks like they might be hanging around long enough to figure it out will be treated to the sight of the dinosaur seeming to rapidly begin developing a Cwyld infection that it definitely didn't have a moment ago and is conveniently focused on whatever part of the creature's body is closest to the person. Because that's definitely how actual Cwyld works.

And those with particularly strong hearing or who are just good at picking up things out of place might hear quick, agitated breaths from inside the dinosaur, or feel the unpleasant energy of exactly how much magic is going into this construct. So, as it looses another powerful roar and brings its sharp teeth to snap feet away from your face...

...do you run, or do you try to find out what's really going on?]

--

[d: wildcard]

[[Feel free to hit me up at reviseleviathan or by PM to plot other stuff! I'm up for the Counting Sheep quest if anyone's interested, but because of Momo's circumstances this month I'd need to plan it out a bit first, hence the lack of an open prompt for it.]]

Comments

un: icelander | text

[braidmage]

I've been studying abjuration, too! But I think you're probably way ahead of me if you're already figuring out healing stuff.

... so ANY little injuries would be helpful for practice?

[yesdoubt]

yep! anything helps because then i know for sure what this form of healing works on ( ﾉ^ω^)ﾉﾟ
since abjuration healing is supposedly for minor stuff and major stuff needs another type of magic
i've been doing it for a few months, but you can only go so far without trying it out on a person, right~?

[He's encountered a few stray animals, particularly in the Outer City, that he's been able to help out with it, but people are the logical next step up.]

[braidmage]

Okay.

I have another question, and I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but it's only because I don't know you.

Can I count on you to be discreet even if, hypothetically, this minor injury you'd be practicing on is kind of an embarrassing one?

Just hypothetically.

[yesdoubt]

If I didn't already know it was for you, I'd ask if you were "asking for a friend" ( ´艸｀)
But Momo-chan knows how to keep a secret~
Even if it's a funny one (｡￫∀￩｡)
So don't worry about that part

[No guarantees he won't be lightly roasted while Momo's healing him, though.]

c-a, after the 22nd

[piromare]

( at first, lio's unsure about what he's seeing. is that momo's head, just hovering in mid air? and then it's just his arm and the harpy takes a step back in surprise. he's already coming to the conclusion that it must be some kind of magic, something that he can't completely fathom--- but lio can certainly frown and shake his head. )

You need a second head? ( it sounds pretty gruesome, and there's a sharpness to his tone that emphasizes his general agitation toward that idea. how dare he ask for his head... he needs it to live, hello. both of his wings flutter in discomfort; they are rather new, having pushed through his back earlier in the month as the moons came and left. )

You're going to have to explain further.

( magic or not, he glowers. )

[yesdoubt]

[Momo's always been quite good at reading the mood, and the sharpness of Lio's tone pings him immediately that something's off about the other man. So he steps out of his circle for a moment, revealing himself fully to hopefully lessen the need for suspicion, one hand on his hip and a slightly concerned look on his face.]

I meant in the "two heads are better than one" sense. I'm trying to create a space where nobody can see or hear what's going on inside, and I can't really tell that myself without help - I need someone outside to tell me, or someone who can go in and do some stuff so I can see if it hides them properly.

[Though now that he thinks about it, he could've worded it better, but it's a bit late for that now.] Are you okay? You seem kinda on-edge.

[He knows how monsters can get when they're unbonded for a time, but he's never actually seen it in person.]

[piromare]

( being confronted... a part of him wants to snap back, but the more reasonable side of him wins this time. it's been more and more difficult to fight some of those urges, tension building inside of him like an old rubber band ready to snap after being time after time. he shakes his head once he understands what momo was going for; it makes much more sense now, but maybe he would've gotten it if he hadn't been so quick to go on the offense. )

Oh. ( taking a breath, lio tries to get his blood to stop boiling. ) And yeah, I'm fine. ( he's not fine. ) I thought talking a walk and catching some fresh air would be good for me.

( though frankly, being on the ground is also part of the problem. his wings feel cramped, just like the rest of his body, and he sighs gently before matching momo's eyes with a more composed energy. )

Well, whatever you've done seems to work. I only saw parts of you.

[yesdoubt]

[Momo's still frowning a bit concernedly for a few moments, though he does know the feeling in terms of using exercise and fresh air to try and squash bad feelings. It doesn't always work for him, but he might need a minute to think of some other options to help Lio out.

So for the moment, he nods slightly, glancing back to where the circle was.] So the visual part works...I can't see Haku and Sen either, and I did the circle around them. Could you hang out here for a second while I go back in and shout something? I'm trying to make sure I covered my bases on volume.

[And didn't somehow accidentally work a spell that only conceals whispering or something equally not that useful.]

un: cherrypit

[polterguide]

how minor of an injury do you mean? like a paper cut or is something a bit bigger than that ok

unfortunately can't do much help with offensive magic but i scraped up my hands and knees pretty badly

[adjusting to hooves is hard :c]

[yesdoubt]

scrapes are fine! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
by "minor" i mostly meant like...don't come to me with a broken limb because i probably won't be able to do anything about it ＼(;´□｀)/
since minor and major healing are in different magic classes...

[He'll probably get on major healing one day once he gets minor healing down, but today is not that day.]

[polterguide]

i feel like a broken limb is too much of an emergency to go to a person who's just practicing... but i get it

is there anything i should do?

[They believe in you, Momo. They don't know you, but they believe in you.]

[yesdoubt]

So do I, but then you get stuff like the other day when someone was asking for a maiming fix on the watches ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don't think you need to prepare! If you want to be really safe maybe just make sure your scrapes are clean but I can do that here if I have to anyway~~

[recklessbelief]

[Akko is the sort of person who is always willing to help if it's within her power to do so. She simply has far too much goodwill towards others to not want to help as much as she's possibly able.]

[But it's a little hard to tap into that altruistic nature of hers when a seemingly disembodied head suddenly appears and starts talking, the waving of Momo's arm not doing much to slow her down from first calmly walking and then second shrieking loud enough that it could probably wake the dead. Throwing Puca instincts into it doesn't really help either because Akko is now squarely frozen to the spot even once she stops screaming.]

[Momo, bro, you gotta warn a girl before you do something like this.]

[yesdoubt]

[Momo's weirdness filter has eroded so much since arriving here that he maybe perhaps definitely did not think this through in terms of how creepy it might look to someone else. But the screaming is definitely a cue that he might want to change his approach.

Expression landing somewhere between shocked and apologetic, he steps entirely out of the circle, revealing himself fully and waving his arms with a bit of a frantic "please calm down" motion.]

Sorry, sorry! Look, I'm fine, it was just an illusion thing, please don't be scared!

[He sounds incredibly embarrassed about having startled her like that, but hindsight is always 20/20, especially when it comes alongside absolutely freaking the hell out of someone.]

[recklessbelief]

[It takes a second after Momo reveals that he is, in fact, still in one piece. He is also not a ghost. He's just doing magic. And then the second (or two) pass and Akko lets out a very heavy, heavy exhale as though she'd been holding her breath, shoulders slumping a little as some of the tension starts to let go.]

You gotta be more careful popping out at a Puca like that! We scare real easy, you know! [He is sorry though and he genuinely didn't mean it, so Akko can let it go pretty quickly. She rubs at her face, sighing again now that her heart rate is starting to come back down.] What exactly are you trying to do?

[yesdoubt]

I'm sorry, I didn't know... [He's only met a couple of pucas and one of them was someone who's pretty resilient to typical scary stuff anyway, so that's something he'll have to note for next time. But once she lets it go and asks what he's doing, he shakes his head a bit as if composing himself and makes a somewhat dramatic gesture towards where he made the circle.

Which, by its nature, looks like there's nothing there, so it's not that dramatic of a reveal.] I'm trying to make a private space, something someone couldn't see into or hear anything out of. I've been doing illusion stuff for a while, so I thought it might be something that could come in handy sometime. But it's also hard to test it on my own.

[Can't tell if nobody's hearing you from outside if there's nobody outside to confirm.]

practice makes perfect

[stopfen]

[Would that even work on a fae and their immunity to illusions?

Either way she had just been passing through. Taking a shortcut that went a little closer to the house than the normal path, but it was a bit quicker. She wasn't really in a hurry. But why go the long way around?

It's the rapid movement that makes her pause. She wasn't sure if she'd always been interested in some things and had just never had time, or the knowledge to pursue them. But dancing was one of them. Along with sport. Mikasa couldn't be sure if it was her wanting to keep moving, keep in shape in a more lighthearted way that didn't involve fighting for her life.

She didn't know any proper dances. Momo seemed to, so she'd watch and maybe learn. Maybe?]

[yesdoubt]

[Likely not the visual part, at least, but compound eyes might not do as much for the hearing part.

As it stands, Momo still only puts his head and arm out of the circle when he notices Mikasa, so there might be some impression of difference in how those parts of him look compared to what's in the circle. He poses a different question to what he'd be giving most people, though, since Mikasa looks like she's kind of focused on something.]

Is something up? I usually have to do a little more dancing than that to get an audience.

[Or at least, he does here, as opposed to back in his world where just going around unmasked was enough to get him one.]

[stopfen]

[She blinks, tilting her head at him. Then looking down at the confused petalwolves, still huddled together, then Momo again. Giving him a shake of the head.]

That was dancing? ...You were moving like someone set your feet on fire. [It wasn't meant as an insult. But she really hadn't seen someone moving around like that. Not that she'd had a chance for dancing, not enough to know proper names and movements.]

closed to lavi, eggsitting

[yesdoubt]

[Momo goes out to Dorchacht reasonably often when he gets the time - he prefers the structure of the city and the fact that they actually have things like fields and places he can do sport without having to stray too far out of the city proper. And with part of the suitable space close to Aefenglom taken up by the Wilde Hunt this month, it's all the more reason to be elsewhere for a bit.

He's...not exactly expecting what he gets landed with when he decides to check out the Dorchacht Coven, though. He calls himself a mother a lot, but raising an egg is considerably outside his realm of experience, and he's looking a little stumped as to what to even do with the thing when he returns to Aefenglom's Coven.

He was told he needs to find someone to hatch it with, though, and he's not quite sure his housemate this month is going to want to deal with that, so his method turns to the time-honoured solution of...picking the first person he sees and recognises in the Haven. Which happens to be a certain lucky guy who Momo figures he could use more bonding time with anyway, because why not.

So Lavi's getting flagged down with one hand, while Momo holds this chunky egg under the other like it's a ball of some kind.] Hey, weird question, do you have any experience hatching eggs?

[A normal conversation starter that normal people use.]

[lostinshadows]

[Lavi just kind of stares, his floppy ears twitching a bit.

He isn't sure if he wants to be the lucky guy or not.

On the other hand--]

Not really. Only from what I've read in books.

[Wait.]

Why do you even have an egg?

[yesdoubt]

[Lavi's probably going to be voluntold into this, honestly, because Momo doesn't drop an idea like this easily once he's got it, and Lavi's here now and could clearly use some extra cute in his life. Assuming whatever comes out of the egg is going to be cute.

The question gets a somewhat sheepish laugh, like he isn't sure how to explain.] Picked a bad time to visit the Dorchacht Coven? Or a good time, I guess it depends on what's in the egg. But they wanted people to help hatch these eggs for them, and was too curious about what was gonna be in it to say no.

[Ignoring the fact that he knows nothing about eggs or how to hatch them other than "protect and keep warm until something happens".] Anyway, if we both know nothing about eggs then we can both figure it out as we go along, right?

[RIGHT???]

closed to julian, out of the city (medical aid)

[yesdoubt]

[There are certain kinds of magic it's really hard to practice without an actual practical application to throw them at, and right now, Momo is feeling like a solid chunk of those are in the Abjuration magic category. He's been studying a few techniques from that class over the last few months, and he's finally confident enough in his healing to start moving onto people and not just stuff like stray animals.

It's not his first rodeo out of the wall, even if he was entertaining last time he was out here, so he's decked himself out with a bit of extra coverage. He usually wears longer, loose clothes, but he's added some gloves and a turtleneck to everything today just to absolutely minimise the potential skin contact he could have with a Cwyld patient. He'd be less fussed about getting it himself, but he has someone he has to worry about not passing it on to this month.

He's also very much interested in seeing the specific form of magic they use to treat Cwyld and whether he can learn it, but before he even gets that far, as he's approaching the medical facilities set up out here, he spots a familiar face.

Well, he supposes the other man did mention he was a doctor. Momo offers a cheerful wave with one black-gloved hand.]

Feels like this is a whole lot more of a professional circumstance to be meeting under than that first night out, huh? [He offers a cheery wink, an indication that he's used enough to being out here to be more at ease with the risks.]

[rowdyraven]

[This kind of work; it's satisfying and frustrating, both. When he isn't drinking himself into sweet oblivion in the myriad dive bars the city has to offer, Julian has thrown himself into practical work and theoretical research with an almost feverish intensity. It seems more than a fantastical coincidence that he's found himself here; a doctor who once found a cure for a magical plague, thrown into a world beleaguered by another kind of magical plague. And if he's here to serve a purpose, to offer aid, then it only makes sense for him to dedicate himself to this purpose with unwavering dedication.

Though not for the first time, he finds himself cursing the loss of the healing power that he had - irony not lost on him - thought a curse itself for the longest, longest time. Now that it's gone he often feels like a child playing at being a doctor, reduced once again to the mundane realm of the physical, something he had once revelled in now seeming - frustratingly - not enough.

That doesn't mean he won't do everything within his abilities to aid those suffering from the Cwyld, that he won't push himself to learn more, to get better. To be better, if he can.

Still, the frustration at being so limited in what he can do remains.

The lines of his face are etched into something serious, then, when he hears a familiar voice call out to him. He looks up from the patient he'd been attending to; half his face obscured by a dark mask, hands gloved as always, though the grey glitter of his one visible eye and the curling red shock of hair - his towering height - make him easily discernible all the same.

On recognising Momo, he smiles. Realises too late that it's an expression that can't be seen, lifts a leather-clad hand in greeting instead.]

Work hard play hard, as they say. But um, but yes. Vastly different circumstances, eh? It's good to see you again, my dear.

[There's a sincerity in his voice that suggests he means it.]

[yesdoubt]

[The mask does make it difficult to tell Julian's actual mood about the situation, but Momo shifts to a more body language oriented eye instead. He's used to being the moodmaker, and just because he's doing something more serious doesn't mean he isn't going to try and keep things optimistic in a more toned-down way.

Thankfully, it seems like his presence isn't unwelcome, so he gives a grin that bares his pointed canines. He honestly could've brought a mask - he used to have to wear one back home as a public disguise - but he was thinking more about Cwyld specifically than any other sickness when he came out.]

Good to see you too. Since you've definitely got more experience with this sort of thing than me, do you need a hand giving out pills or anything? I picked up healing magic recently and was gonna ghost some of the Cwyld doctors to see if I can learn how they heal that, but if there's anyone with minor injuries I can help out with that too.

[To him, the immediate deference to Julian actually being a doctor is natural - he wants to help, and he feels he can best help by being ordered around by someone who has a better idea what they're doing in this specific environment. He's not clueless, but he'd rather be a scalpel than a bludgeon, so to speak.]