[open] just flippin'

[blitzcheer]

Who: Tidus & You! (and some closed starters)
What: Messing around, being a doofus. Being bored in the coach.
Where: The gyms, coach, w/e.
When: Throughout Fiddlesticks
Warnings: balls (none)

training gym

Oh, Tidus is here for climbing on things like a monkey, which he does on absolutely everything: pulling out the balancing beams, the giant cubes, all positioned to be accessible from one to another. He's dressed as appropriately as he can get in a polo shirt and pants, a water bottle and towel left by the wall for when he needs them.

But just walking along everything isn't enough, oh no--that is, not with his feet.

He balances by his hands on the beams, 'walking' with his legs held up above. When one beam meets another, he might consider righting himself, flexing at his elbows in preparation for a jump of irregular height; landing on the next one with a wobble now and then and arms coming out to help catch his balance. Usually, a fun laugh to go with it.

Other times, he puts two together to test his backflips on the narrow structure. Sometimes succeeding, and other times--

"Wh-whoa!"

--his foot catching on the edge, causing him to tumble off, knocking into one of the cubes set aside that he hadn't decided what to do with.

Catch him either with some pride, or in his embarrassment. Or even hanging from the climbing apparatus, where if he sees anyone come in with flipped facing out, he'll give a "Hi!", before jumping to catch hold onto the bar.

training gym: magic training

But other than stretching one's limbs, Tidus has plenty of good reasons to keep up his training. But for the times he doesn't have a partner, he has certain other skills he's trying to get better at.

With either his blade in one hand or put away, his left hand is free, balled into a fist and glowing, causing small swirls of lights that shimmer with the same colours of an aurora borealis. They come, then cut short--sometimes a brief golden flicker surrounding Tidus before cutting short, or from his hand, a small burst of energy that gets even Tidus to snap his hand back and wave it when it catches him, a small swear escaping under his breath.

The same glowing effect may also be attempted on his blade, a fist still held first to help concentration before it shimmers. Dusting the rust off a few spells, though doing this without any real stimulation does get him to sigh to himself, say to no one in particular:

"Sure wish we had some fiends to fight."

Man, never thought he'd be wishing for that.

gymnasium: BALLS

But the gymnasium doesn't get forgotten by Tidus just because there's a massively awesome new car to love.

After all, you can't take the ball games out of the sports guy. He's taken to putting the basketball hoops in use with a football/soccer ball (as you do), or whatever ball he gets his hands on first. It works though, seeing as he's only using it to throw into the hoop, testing his throw at different distances: in front of the goal, but also moving slightly farther and farther back when he wants to increase the challenge.

The more basketball-minded people can come and correct him if they so please. ...but it may be beyond this guywho at other times, when rather innocuously balancing a ball from the end of his foot, kicking it up and sometimes swapping feet...

Will kick it either close up or at a distance, with the sole intention of shooting a goal by the use of his feet.

Sometimes, he gets it--most times, he doesn't. A few of the times, the ball smacks the wall and goes flying--hopefully, not towards you!

standard coach

But he can't be training all the time. Now and then, he needs to just flop, which usually means disappearing into the standard coach and taking up one of the tables. Watching the kaleidoscope of colours out of the window with his head resting against a fist, until the fragmented hues get too hypnotic, and he has to break himself out of it with a shake, blinking away the hues clinging to his eyes.

Other times, he pretends to read, though the glazed half-lidded expression usually gives him away. A game of solitaire keeps his attention better, but otherwise most of the time, he's got his head propped on folded arms, looking close to drifting asleep. Now and then, holding the necklace he usually wears around his neck, thumbing the edges.

Maybe it's boredom.

wildcard

Feel free to mix up any of the above prompts a bit, to pick what your character witnesses or to have Tidus come in on your character doing things! He'll be happy to engage with people he's never met before or take an interest. For anything training related, he'll practice sword fighting with others, but also someone who can do with help with hand to hand or even leg work--guy has no experience and has been trying to get better on the train.

If you'd like to thread with Tidus but none of the above click with you, feel free to send me a PM or reach me over on blitzoff!

Comments

[longforgottenpromise]

"They are. They are a rodent but they move like kangaroos. Um... sorry do you have kangaroos in your world?"

He held the jerboa out slightly. It was a timid creature but it didn't mind gentle contact at all.

[blitzcheer]

Tidus shakes his head. "Nope. They move funny?"

Because if something specific's being mentioned, it's got to be a reason like that, right? But near the same time, Tidus has taken note of the creature extended, eyes widening slightly with a glance back at Taiki to make sure it's okay before he takes out a hand. Carefully, bringing out a forefinger touching ever so gently the top of its head.

[longforgottenpromise]

He smiled encouraginly at Tidus reached out to pet the jerboa. Gyōkō wriggled, but didn't seem to mind the petting all that much.

"Yes. They jump... um kangaroo's are large. Bigger than a human. Jerboa are more... um like bouncing mice." He can only hope that Tidus' world has mice in it.

"They live in desert areas for the most part."

[blitzcheer]

The wriggling gets the tiniest of chuckles out of Tidus, who look between the pair.

"Is he from home? Where you're from?"

Some people got to bring their pets with them, didn't they? So it seemed, by the few he'd seen around the train.

[longforgottenpromise]

"They have them on earth, but not commonly in the country where I was. Lord Gyousou says that they have a similar species near the yellow sea in my world, but I'd never seen one before."

He smiled, "He actually belongs to Lord Gyousou but he asked me to look after him."

He knows that he was really a gift, but he is happy to go along with the excuse Lord Gyousou gave him.

[blitzcheer]

"Oh yeah?" Tidus smiles with a fond but knowing tone. He might not know Gyousou as well as Taiki, but he can easily comment, of him and the jerboa, "The two of you are pretty cosy around each other already."

But speaking of another cosy pair, Tidus withdrawing his arm to rest it back on the table, he doesn't think it too personal to ask, "What's the relationship between you and him anyway? Are you some kind of assistant?"

[longforgottenpromise]

Taiki smiled, stroking the jerboa's head gently. He was glad he had bounded with Gyōkō so quickly. Especially since they were quite timid in nature.

He looked up at the question and nodded slowly. "Sort of. I'm his kirn, I'm sworn to him. I serve as an adviser... But he knows a lot more than I do about everything."

He was pretty useless as an adviser, honestly he was pretty useless as a kirin completely. But he was the one Lord Gyousou had, unfortunately.

[blitzcheer]

He's somewhat reminded of Ignis being appointed as a child to another child prince, wondering if there's some similar situation here as with them (though, with Gyousou much older). Start Taiki off young so he grows into the role?

Whatever that is, which Tidus asks, to clarify, "Is a kirin a sort of adviser?"

Two words meaning the same thing?

[longforgottenpromise]

"Oh... No. Sorry. A kirin is a beast. Like a horse. With a horn on their head." He gestured to his head, as if Tidus wouldn't know what a head was...

But after his attempts at explaining to Inigo... It's hard to know what different people know as normal.

"A kirin is a creature of the gods, it is how they choose the king. Kirin's serve their king and help them stay on the way, the path that is best for the kingdom."

[blitzcheer]

Horse? ...horse...

The word vaguely familiar, Tidus's brow stitches tight--...though truthfully, less for trying to recall where he's heard about horses before and more for what that means in the case of Taiki.

"Sooo...it's a title?" he figures. "I mean, you look pretty human where I'm sitting!"

Says the dream. But still a human dream!

[longforgottenpromise]

"Oh... Sorry that's because we can change forms. A kirin has a beast form and a human form."

He pets Gyōkō again softly. "So I look human, but I'm not really."

[blitzcheer]

"Oh? Ohhh............oh?"

He's blinking slowly, slowly.....leaning in his head an inch and looking at Taiki's forehead like a horn might be hiding somewhere under his hair.




no dice.

"Is it comfortably being....like that?"

Tidus gestures at Taiki's person with like that?, but as soon as he's asked the question, he gets the abrupt thought and interrupts any answer that may be coming.

"--wait! Were you that big blue thing that helped on the beach?"

[longforgottenpromise]

Taiki sat very still, looking very much like a deer in headlights as Tidus stared at him intently. But then he slowly nodded at Tidus asked if he was comfortable. He was about to answer but then Tidus asked something else instead.

"Big blue thing? Um... sorry no. I don't know what you mean."

He guessed that Tidus was talking about the battle on the beach, he hadn't been there.

[blitzcheer]

"You didn't see it?" Not from the village? "It was when that last big fight was happenin' -- the monster that came out from the sea swung a giant fist, and then this giant...blue furry thing came outta nowhere and took the hit!"

Tidus hadn't stayed on the beach for the entire fight, but he remembers that! ...and maybe wants to share it just because.

"I never saw them before then. I wonder if they're okay..."

[longforgottenpromise]

"I hope they are." He nodded, "It's strange though, you'd think someone like that would be very noticeable. So they must be able to change shape as well."

It would not be surprising if more people could do so. It was a fairly common thing in his own world and it seemed Inigo's world had people who were also dragons.

[blitzcheer]

"Now that you mention it...I think the guy who was in the same cabin as me who disappeared said he could turn to. Into...something? Maybe it was a horse."

Yeah, didn't horses come up with him? Huh. Now that's sidetracking Tidus from their original conversation with a new thought.

"Hey... do we know why people suddenly...go? Like I know I saw people walking off on the platform... but this guy, I remember he stopped showing up or being around before then. It was like he wasn't on the train anymore."

[longforgottenpromise]

"Sometimes people disappear and come back... And sometimes they disappear and then walk from the platform." There was so much they didn't know.

"I disappeared... We were on a mission and then the next thing I knew I was in the luggage carriage and Inigo told me I had been gone over a week... Sorry... I don't know where I was or why I was gone, but Lord Gyousou disappeared at the same time as me and didn't return until a week later..."

Time just gone. Or memories vanished.

[blitzcheer]

"Huh..."

A murmur of sound, and Tidus taps his fingers lightly against the surface of the table, brow drawn in a puzzlingly thought. One that had no clear answer or hint--and Tidus wonders, and he thinks, but what answer is there?--to a why.

"Nothing about this whole ride makes sense, huh? The way it takes people...and the way it sends them off. I know there's no point thinking about it," he acknowledges, despite the apparent few seconds he tried there, "but you can't help but wonder, right? Like...why you? That sort of thing."

It's a mystery. And maybe it's because of time and place he got taken from that makes him wonder so often, and with Yuna around.

[longforgottenpromise]

"Yes." He nodded. "It doesn't make sense and... maybe it is useless thinking about it but that doesn't mean we shouldn't... um... I mean."

He was silent for a moment as he thought about it.

"If we don't think about it then we are admitting that we give up. That we aren't going to try anymore..."

He doesn't think that's the right thing to do.

[blitzcheer]

Taiki pauses Tidus's thoughts for a second, but then that second breaks, and he smiles on a small huff of air, a nod following suit.

"Right! We're doing a good job for these other people, but you've gotta worry about the people being taken from their worlds, and what's going on back there. I wonder if there's something we could be doing, or asking for?"

This weird ride's been going on for five or however months now, but Tidus can't help but wonder if they're missing something.

[longforgottenpromise]

"Worlds don't pause so..." All the people who have left, at the very least they have people who will miss hem, families who will grieve, friends who will worry.

At worst they have people relying on them, people who will be hurt by them not being there.

He knows the only answer to save Tai, though he hasn't quite been able to bring himself to do it. But other people didn't have such answers.

"I don't know... whoever brought us here, they must know what they were taking us from."

[blitzcheer]

"It knows who they were taking too. There's the names on the tickets, but..."

He looks down at his hands, an instinctive look at his wrist and the SCA still kept on it, turning its face towards him. Just for a second, before he looks back at Taiki, a small meaningless sound murmured.

"--there's my new roommate too. Day she showed up, one of the beds got swapped for a bathtub! She's a small floating whale."

That counts, right?

[longforgottenpromise]

"A whale?" He blinked at her, "In a bathtub?"

That wasn't good. Alright so a bathtub could hold water. But without being able to swim. The whale would be completely trapped, not able to move anywhere but the room.

"Why would it bring a whale?"

[blitzcheer]

"She talks! And she uses magic, so I guess the same reason any of us get brought here," Tidus says with a shrug with raises his hands. It was a mystery.

A mystery that comes with a deep frown after as Tidus sits back in his seat.

"But it's seriously stupid. Every morning the place gets wet, and you look at that tub...knowing she's stuck with it, barely fitting! I already complained about it, but nothing's happened. So I'll complain some more," he decides right then almost petulantly, a task for later.

"That and the clocks!"

[longforgottenpromise]

"Oh... But if she still can't go anywhere."

The last mission had been in the sea, but that didn't mean others would be. The one before had been a city and the one before that had been in space.

He can't imagine a whale in space. It was very unfair on her, and a bathtub was indeed no place for a whale to sleep.

"We should all complain... It's not fair on her. But who do you complain to?"

Also what clocks? He hasn't seen any clocks.