raisetheearth | Echo Incursion 01 - Jurassic Gateway (August 10th, 2016)

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Echo Incursion 01 - Jurassic Gateway (August 10th, 2016)

It's a particularly hot day in the Gateway City zoo. What else could you expect? It's not like it's not to be expected, it is the middle of August, after all. But there's plenty of things to see here at the zoo, and the visitors' center is air conditioned well enough.

Just a normal summer day in a typical summer vacation spot. Right?

Well, that's when things change. Those in the visitor's center would find the building changing around them. There's suddenly a dinosaur skeleton in the middle of the place, with the banner "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" hanging from the ceiling.

That's not all. The animal enclosures are now different. What used to be a pen for the african elephants now has very large, very long necked reptiles in it. A gigantic, meat-eating dinosaur just tromped its way out of the lion habitat it's too much too large for, and unfortunately for the people around it, its vision is based on movement. The monkey house? Well, those are velociraptors breaking out of it. The aviary? Now filled with particular aggressive flying pterosaurs.

These are just some of the creatures making their sudden emergence, and it's not long until they spill out of the zoo and into the city proper. Dinosaurs are now walking the streets of Gateway City.

Yes, indeed. Just a normal summer day.

[OOC: The new event is live! Please see this post for npc information and just what characters will have to deal with.]

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"What's that supposed to mean?" She doesn't get the non-sequitur, shaking her head after a second. "Never mind. We've got work to do - are you ready?"

As that comes out of her mouth, though, she considers her partner again. Lily is... not quite in the groove yet. Her own automatic response to something like this was that they had people to save and heads to knock around, but Lily hasn't followed suit, and she's a little worried at the moment. "Lily? Honey? You with me?"

It means they're scientifically inaccurate, Winter, and that's a very important point! Or at least it might be later on, when Lily has a better grasp of everything that's going on. Or when she's had time to relax. Or when they haven't been eaten by said scientifically inaccurate dinosaurs.

She doesn't even notice her pause until Winter brings it to her attention. Here they are, about to plunge head long into danger, again. It's what they have to do, it's what they need to do. Lily is proud of who and what she is, and the duty handed down to her by her past self as a Precure.

Winter is as Winter ever is, and yet it strikes Lily in that moment this all seems too normal for her significant other. While the world at large had pressed issues upon them, they'd not needed to deal with this sort of thing for over a year. A year. Lily hadn't so much as thrown a punch since they left the invasion behind them.

Suddenly, all of her worries about something new beginning come rushing to the forefront, and faced with the moment she finds herself having a harder time switching gears. But she can't be having a crisis of faith in her power now, not when people's lives hang on the line. Right?

"I'm- I'm fine," she lies, instantly regretting it because she's pretty well sure it won't hold. "This is just..."

She shakes her head. "I'll be fine." Because she needs to be. "I'm just... a little shaken, here."

I'm fine. That tells her more or less what she needs to know, and she shifts gears. Protecting the city is important, but... not more important than Lily. She'd been so ready for everything, so prepared to start going to town at the drop of a hat, that she'd forgotten her partner wasn't as ever-ready as she is. Reaching for Lily's hand, she smiles up at her. "It's okay," she assures. "We don't have all day, but there's time enough to get your bearings. I know it's been a while since we had to do something like this."

Understanding and supportive. It was Rikka's role to Mana, and whatever else happens, it's her role for her own precious person. "We'll work out what this means for us later. Right now, there are people in front of us that need us. When you're ready, we'll start there. Everything else can wait."

Lily shouldn't be terribly surprised that Winter turns on a dime to focus her attention like that. After all, hadn't Lily herself just been preaching what they'd both signed up for with regards to each other? Still, it causes her to falter a little bit, and she blinks, looking back at the park, then to her again. She sighs, squeezing her hand back and nods.

"People do need us, and... my own little issues are what needs to wait, because of that. I just..." Another heavy breath, and her grip tightens considerably. "It feels like we're diving off onto some long path again head first, and I... It's been a year. More than that. I thought it was all behind us, and... it feels like I'm throwing something away."

Winter can't help but sigh softly, pulling Lily close. "Our world is changing again. We fought so hard, and yet... here we are. It does feel like something new is starting. But I'm not worried. After everything, I've learned a lot about myself. There are things I can only learn when I'm fighting for my life, with important things on the line. Important people." She grins as she thinks about it. There were certain things she'd discovered that only came when she fought for them. Fought for herself, for her friends, for her city, for her world... for her most important person.

"I know it's hard, to go back to it after we'd set it aside for so long. But it doesn't change who we are, right? We'll be a little more careful, and everything will be okay." She doesn't know how to express everything she's feeling, but she has to try, right?

Lily lets out a breath she suddenly realizes she's holding all the while Winter speaks. The closer she gets, the more she just sort of wants to wrap her arms around her, but... no, that'd have to wait for the night. When this is done. Just...

"For some reason, this seems a lot scarier than even what we faced before," she murmurs. "It's... we lost so many things then, Winter. We nearly died so many times... I need to do this, but I don't know how to just turn it on like everyone else seems to. I just... don't want to lose what we got out of everything."

She pauses a bit, before focusing her eyes on Winter's. "Just... promise me you will be careful."

There's a certain tension that Winter can detect even at a distance, but... she can't really help with that. Almost anyone else, sure. But not her.

"I don't think it's that this is scarier, but..." She frowns. "The rules have changed. We've changed. Everything's... mmn." All she can manage is a deep sigh, thinking on all this. "I don't know how to turn it off. Things happen, and I just... whenever something happens, I just have this burning need to do something, every time. That's the only reason I've been so hard to work with lately - I can't stop."

For a second, she can't look at Lily. "That's why... even if I make that promise, it might be hard for me to keep. I want to, I really do. But-" She cuts off; she doesn't like to make excuses to Lily, and that's all she's doing now.

A part of her was hoping she could just say something simple, and that would be that. They could go to do what they need to do, but... It really isn't that simple, is it? Instead, Lily's worry only seems to be ratcheting up and try as she might, she can't keep it out of her face.

"Winter, you..."

She sighs, looking down at her feet. "You need to learn. Not just for me. But for everyone. You mean so much to so many people, even if you don't care about what happens to yourself, you need to... you have to think about how that impacts the rest of us... That's always scared me, but I always thought I could keep you safe. But we barely made it out of last year with our heads attached to our bodies, and now to just go rushing back into that as if it was nothing...!"

She tries to take a break, realizes it comes out as a sniffle, and curses her own weakness. This is not what they need right now. She knows that, but much like Winter, she can't stop that. "Saving people is what we do, and I'm your partner in that. In everything. But dammit, Winter. There's being selfless, and then there's not realizing how going too far in that can hurt everyone else if you can't even say you'll be careful..."

"I know that!" It comes out sharply, before she can stop herself, and it hangs for a second. She takes a tiny step back afterward, muttering an apology. "S-sorry. I..." She feels so small right now, putting Lily through this, especially at a time like this where they need it least. "I'm trying. But after everything before, I just... we lost so much already. I don't want to lose anything else. Nobody else needs to get hurt, not when we've come so far already. I also-"

Isn't that at least part of the problem, considering how she was before? "I don't want to put myself in harm's way, either. I know better now. Even if it took much too long for me to get the message. But still... nothing will get better if we don't find a way." It's a problem she doesn't really know how to fix, but it's one she has to fix. Is this why books are so hard to actually make good?

"I'm trying, Lily. I don't want to worry you, and I don't want to let myself get hurt. But the realist in me knows that we get banged up every time something happens. I'm going to do my best to stay safe, and I'm going to try to rein myself in. I just... know how I get."

Lily looks more than a little startled when Winter first snaps, and her stomach twists as she starts to step back. She listens, looking a bit shocked the whole time, before she swallows and steps after her, reaching hands out to place on her shoulders.

"Nobody else needs to get hurt, no. That just... I want to make sure you know that includes you, Winter. I'm not talking about us getting banged up and tossed around. I'm talking... things we can't come back from because we were careless, because we treated ourselves like we were invincible. We've both nearly been torn in half before, Winter. We both know better, and I just..."

She closes her eyes, sighing. "This is something I wanted to say for a long time, but I thought it was behind us. I know how you get, and that's why I'm worried. Just... please, Winter. If not for yourself, as selfish as it sounds, you need to be careful for the rest of us. For me. If you don't come home, not because of something we couldn't foresee but because you didn't watch out for yourself, then you're just trading someone else's pain for ours. That... sort of trade isn't acceptable, especially when there'll then so many more people who will suffer because you weren't there to help them."

She opens her eyes then, trying to keep a stern expression even as tears try to dance in her eyes. "I know I worry a lot, sometimes too much. I'm reminded sometimes of the feelings I can remember from Yuri, and I feel like those are there to keep me- to keep the people close to me from going down the same path. It's not just us; we have friends. We have a team. When you talk like that it sounds like you're already shouldering a burden that should be spread across all of us on your own. It's not about what you can do to help others - it's about what all of us can."

Winter shivers when Lily starts to speak again, enough that she knows her partner will feel it. She doesn't really care. "I know. I've... learned that lesson, already. I vividly remember how it felt." Her scar twinges, and a hand goes to her side, but she powers through. "I know now, that I can't just take all of that onto myself and hope for the best. It's... not okay if I'm the only one that doesn't make it out." It's progress; when they'd had this talk previously, Lily hadn't been able to pry that out of her. Slowly but surely, she's getting better about things.

"I don't want to leave you alone, or anyone else. Even as overprotective as I get, though, I know that I have another duty, too. Honestly, we get dealt a lot of bullshit sometimes, but- well. I'm getting used to it. I let Summer get under my skin sometimes, and I see red if something happens to you, but beyond that, I'm putting myself... maybe not first, but it's up there." She knows she's rambling a little, but she doesn't want to give herself time to be pretty about it. She'll use that as an excuse to leave things out, to weasel out of things. And Lily doesn't deserve that.

When she hears the reminder that they're on a team, though, she stills again. "I think some part of me hasn't really... acknowledged that, still. Intellectually, you're there, Jasmine is there, Rakka and Raye and Marina are there, and everyone else. But I don't really process it as a team. It's... I trust you with my life, Precure or not. That was true even before we were, well, us. Jasmine's a good friend that has my back. Before there was a team, it was just me, and sometimes Toushirou, or Bakura, or whoever else we had." It's been a long list, since then. People that fought the darkness, whenever it came to call. It always felt like it happened too often, as far as she's concerned.

"I talk like that because I have a responsibility to myself to take those burdens on, beyond everything else. But I also know that my precious friends will help me shoulder them, whatever happens. If I've got too much, someone will grab what I can't handle, and we'll make things happen together. We're a team on paper, but in my heart, the people around me are more than that. That's why I take things onto myself so often - I can share them, and everything works out."

She can't resist any longer, taking that half-step closer and wrapping her arms around Lily. She knows she's hard to live with, sometimes, but she wants to be someone that can be counted on, and if that means she has to work a little harder than is perhaps sane, so be it. She knows she has a safe place to land, and that gives her the strength to keep going.

"I'm sorry, Lily. I know how I can be, but I'm trying hard to change. I don't want to worry you or anyone else, and I sure as hell don't want to be in the hospital again. So... I'll keep working on it, and until I'm confident I can promise you that and mean it, I'm going to do my best to make it happen anyway." Pulling back a tiny bit, she reaches up to wipe tears away, smiling slightly. "So... please, don't cry? I'm not going anywhere. That, I can promise."

Having let all of that out, Lily is - momentarily - a bit fearful. It's all a bit... sharp, and to the point. They're worries she's had but pushed aside, which she now realizes is a discredit to all involved - surely, she could have brought it up when they're not about to charge into battle. Still, she listens, holding everything in. She wants to give Winter her due, and see what she says...

She absorbs it all, and Winter keeps on talking through everything. A number of Lily's fears over blurting all that out dwindle off, left only with the core fear of Winter taking care of herself. As the hug comes, she lets herself relax. Her hands slip around the young woman's neck, and she pulls her even closer.

"...thank you, Winter," she breathes finally, and it feels like she hadn't done as such for several minutes, even if she knows better. She sucks up her tears, reaching to grab Winter's hand and hold it to her face. "I'm sorry, I know I'm not exactly perfect either, so I'm not always in a position to criticize... I let all this worry bottle up over time, and... mm... Just. So long as you can hold to that last part, so long as you don't leave us behind, and remember we're always there for everything..."

The emphasis lies there, because even as she doesn't want to bring it up, the incident with the apparitions in Shephard's Haven are still fresh in her memory, too. How Winter didn't want to say anything then, didn't want to burden Lily with her fears...

"So long as we go forward together... I may not be able to switch back into all of this as quickly as you, or maybe not as much as anyone else, but... I know I can take on anything, then. That we can, and we will."

She doesn't want to part from Winter, but does step back a hair. She smiles, at last. "So... let's do what we came here for."

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Echo Incursion 01 - Jurassic Gateway (August 10th, 2016)

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