Entry tags:
[OPEN] FLOWER FESTIVAL
Who: Open Log (All)
Where: Point-à-Tarte
Summary: A festival of flowers.
Warnings: N/A

At Point-à-Tarte, at the edge of the largest park in Eddan, booths that have been worked on for the past week are finally being opened to the public. Colorful banners decorate every single tree and and even the dullest of areas are covered up in the most creative of ways.
The booths themselves have everything one could hope in a flower festival, from mountains of flower crowns and necklaces being given to every resident of Eddan for free to the flower-shaped candy to the city-approved businesses touting the latest and greatest of the upcoming flower technology. New flowers, some supposedly glowing under UV light and others made to look like galaxies, are being sold at eye-popping prices.
The food, as always, is delicious and fresh, with early spring greens and even flowers themselves being added to salads. The only negative to the entire festival (if one can call it that) are the giant counters displaying the remaining time before sunset that serve as a reminder of Eddan's strange nature.

Sunday's opening sees the release of over ten thousand 'floating' seeds into the wind, a promise from the city to continue to make Eddan the greenest city in the entire world. Each person coming to the festival is given tulip bulbs in a variety of colors to be taken home.
The mayor takes time to speak about the recent string of murders and assures the people that they city shall continue to be vigilant to make sure that its citizens are kept safe. This is greeted with cheers from most of the population. Even the rainy weather doesn't keep such a happy day down!
An hour before sunset, the opening ceremonies close with a fireworks show. Due to the fact that they must be released only during the day, the explosive components have been changed as to give the night varieties a run for their money.
As the bright lights fill the sky, those soon-to-be-Awakened may have a flash of a memory from their past lives, such as a happy moment they spent with someone close to them or a moment of glory. This will soon be drowned out by ringing in their ears. For a few, brief seconds, they may notice figures close by glow oddly, their forms becoming distorted, but before they realize what has happened, blinking returns their vision to normal.
The headache, however, lingers until bedtime.

Royal Mount opens its WonderWorld Park to the public on Monday. For its opening week during the festival, the rides are all free.
Green Valley Organizes a flower judging contest for the various schools on Wednesday. Students are asked to present their most beautiful and unique flowers. Flower arrangements are also judged and with prizes evaluated at over 20 000 Macca, the stakes are high!
Eastmount offers rides in flower-shaped carriages driven by mechanical horses that could almost pass off as the real thing. (Though it is only the latest technology, thus keeping the entire thing animal cruelty free!)
The Giant Float Parade on Friday afternoon travels around the vast forest of Point-à-Tarte. Each school has been encouraged to enter its cheerleaders and theater productions into the parade. The Flower King and Queen greet visitors at the very end, throwing little presents for the children.
The festival continues until Saturday Nightfall. The schools visit the festival in turn, sometimes for education courses about the various flowers and trees that dot Eddan's landscape, sometimes to show off flower and plant-based sculptures that the various clubs have worked hard on.
Where: Point-à-Tarte
Summary: A festival of flowers.
Warnings: N/A
" Ah... the Festival of Flowers while a dreadful deadline looms! Enjoy what normal life you may have left...soon you may long for the return of these simpler times..."
A week of celebration (General Prompt)

At Point-à-Tarte, at the edge of the largest park in Eddan, booths that have been worked on for the past week are finally being opened to the public. Colorful banners decorate every single tree and and even the dullest of areas are covered up in the most creative of ways.
The booths themselves have everything one could hope in a flower festival, from mountains of flower crowns and necklaces being given to every resident of Eddan for free to the flower-shaped candy to the city-approved businesses touting the latest and greatest of the upcoming flower technology. New flowers, some supposedly glowing under UV light and others made to look like galaxies, are being sold at eye-popping prices.
The food, as always, is delicious and fresh, with early spring greens and even flowers themselves being added to salads. The only negative to the entire festival (if one can call it that) are the giant counters displaying the remaining time before sunset that serve as a reminder of Eddan's strange nature.
Opening Ceremonies (Special Prompt)

Sunday's opening sees the release of over ten thousand 'floating' seeds into the wind, a promise from the city to continue to make Eddan the greenest city in the entire world. Each person coming to the festival is given tulip bulbs in a variety of colors to be taken home.
The mayor takes time to speak about the recent string of murders and assures the people that they city shall continue to be vigilant to make sure that its citizens are kept safe. This is greeted with cheers from most of the population. Even the rainy weather doesn't keep such a happy day down!
An hour before sunset, the opening ceremonies close with a fireworks show. Due to the fact that they must be released only during the day, the explosive components have been changed as to give the night varieties a run for their money.
As the bright lights fill the sky, those soon-to-be-Awakened may have a flash of a memory from their past lives, such as a happy moment they spent with someone close to them or a moment of glory. This will soon be drowned out by ringing in their ears. For a few, brief seconds, they may notice figures close by glow oddly, their forms becoming distorted, but before they realize what has happened, blinking returns their vision to normal.
The headache, however, lingers until bedtime.
Weekly contest (week prompts)

Royal Mount opens its WonderWorld Park to the public on Monday. For its opening week during the festival, the rides are all free.
Green Valley Organizes a flower judging contest for the various schools on Wednesday. Students are asked to present their most beautiful and unique flowers. Flower arrangements are also judged and with prizes evaluated at over 20 000 Macca, the stakes are high!
Eastmount offers rides in flower-shaped carriages driven by mechanical horses that could almost pass off as the real thing. (Though it is only the latest technology, thus keeping the entire thing animal cruelty free!)
The Giant Float Parade on Friday afternoon travels around the vast forest of Point-à-Tarte. Each school has been encouraged to enter its cheerleaders and theater productions into the parade. The Flower King and Queen greet visitors at the very end, throwing little presents for the children.
The festival continues until Saturday Nightfall. The schools visit the festival in turn, sometimes for education courses about the various flowers and trees that dot Eddan's landscape, sometimes to show off flower and plant-based sculptures that the various clubs have worked hard on.
Michi Yamashita | OTA
Usually Michi loves celebrations and festivals. There's always something new and interesting to look at; there's absolutely no telling what will happen. He sweeps through initially with his usual enthusiasm, peering through displays of improbable flowers and squinting both at the flowers and the people trying to sell them - 'are you sure these are real? They don't look real.' - to meandering over to investigate the food. This whirlwind stops abruptly as he catches sight of one of the countdown timers.
Something in his mind immediately flashes back to another countdown that's burned into his mind at this point. There's only 13 days left now until the awakening... He freezes entirely, eyes wide as if he's never seen those timers before in his life. Michi's a short kid; 14 and generously described as 5 feet tall; the crowd swirls around him as if he wasn't even there. But in this lively place, he's reverted to a statue, mind a million miles away.
Please don't run into him. Or do.
2.
Michi was late to the ceremony; there's just too many distractions around, and he made it his personal mission to visit every last thing while he still could. This turned out to be a mistake, since he ends up wedged in the middle trending towards the back right behind some people far too tall for him to see around. He ends up standing up to try anyway, figuring he'll look for another place to relocate. Where's a good option...? He'll just start moving before the fireworks start. Everyone will be looking up, so it's his best bet to be unobtrusive-
Even before he notices anything else, he notices that again, his vision is limited.
He's wearing blinders of some kind for the third time in a row, and Michi instantly knows what this has to be.
A giant winged fireball - a phoenix? - rises high above the field. The whole field watches; his whole body aches with bruises that he's barely even feeling at the time. All of his focus is right on the ball as it's carried on wings of flame to slam into the opposing goalkeeper. He stands his ground for a few seconds, but on seeing the massive wall of firebird approaching, ducks to the side for cover at the last second.
"Score reversal!" the announcer screams jubilantly. "Raimon has finally taken the lead!"
And just as the score is announced, the whistle blows.
"And that's the end of the match! The Football Frontier finals goes to Raimon with a dramatic turntable score!"
They all stare at the scoreboard, in shock. It seems impossible. First half ended with a score of 0-3; there had been no way they could possibly fight. But they endured, lead by their captain. And now... the second half ends with a score of 4-0. By one point in an unimaginable turnaround, they had actually won. The shock begins to bleed away into a fierce, jubilant pride. That feeling of victory is overwhelming. It ripples like a shockwave through the whole team as looks of disbelief turn to ones of joy. All around him, his teammates scream as one -
But he can't make out what it was. He can only hear the whole thing fade out into a fierce ringing noise that takes over his whole mind. The world seems strange, for a moment; as if people look wrong, somehow...
But that, too is gone. And Michi realizes belatedly that he's stumbled when the memory took him, having stumbled to the side and ending up on top of someone trying to watch the fireworks.
Week Prompts
Wonderworld park had Michi's full attention at 'free rides'. That's where he spends as much of Saturday as possible (any other days, unfortunately, aren't really viable), trying out literally everything he can. It feels like it's going to take him far longer than he has to manage this, given the unending lines. After standing around staring forward, then fiddling with his phone, looking up occasionally to see if anyone's looking at him, then staring at the sky looking immensely bored. Yes, he is fourteen. Yes, he is unsupervised. Yes, this is a thing that's happening. He finally speaks up, asking no one in particular - "Is it just me, or is the whole population of Eddan here?"
Wildcard
[I will follow whatever style you want to post in, so if you prefer action that's completely fine. Want something else, or another prompt? Hit me up and we'll make it happen!]
2
"Oh, sorry --"
He blinks, reaching forward to support the stranger, and then realizes as he's apologizing just who it is that ran into him.
"Michi?"
no subject
"Yoshio?! Sorry-" Michi rubs at his head, backing up as far as he can go without running into another chair. "I was, uh..."
He was completely out of his head for a second there, but there's no way he can say that without sounding insane. He may be going crazy thanks to that app, but it'd be nice if the whole school didn't know. "Fireworks."
Nice, Michi, what an excellent save.
no subject
"... Yeah," he says softly, after a moment. It's almost drowned out by the rumble of the crowd around them. "I think I know what you mean." Except he certainly can't blame everything going on with him just on the fireworks, can he?
"I don't know if they were particularly bright this time, or..." Or he's just having another weird hallucination, but he certainly can't share that part of this. Not with Michi, who can not be allowed to know about this weirdness going on with him. Yoshio Koutarou is completely normal. Of course he is.
Yes.
"... I'm going to find some water, if you want to come."
no subject
He's grateful for the excuse to be acting strange. Not having enough water can be really brutal, he's learned firsthand. That could completely explain his losing control of where he was going for a while if he's dehydrated or the like, couldn't it?
no subject
"There's someone nearby that sells water bottles. I'll show you."
no subject
It'll probably be the second one, but he's okay with that. If someone careened into him like that, he'd be really worried.
no subject
"Over here." Yoshio leads him quietly, his hands in his pockets. "Did you have a headache?"
1
"Hey- are you alright?"
no subject
Yeah, no. That's not an option. With one last lingering look back at the counter, he turns to completely face the person.
"Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine."
He sounds less convinced about that than he should, and the smile he flashes to try to sell it doesn't reach his eyes.
no subject
"Well, if you're fine, would you like to come try the GVGC's floral cafe?" He gestures behind him, where the cafe has been set up. "A good majority of our menu incorporates actual edible flowers into them." And it'll be a good way for him to sit down and catch his breath if he really is feeling sick but doesn't want to let anyone know about it. Ciro likes to think it's a decent excuse, anyway.
no subject
"There's edible flowers?"
It's true that he's curious, but mostly he's glad for the offer to be forced back out of his own thoughts again. It's proving harder do that more and more lately.
"Okay, that I've got to see."
no subject
"But some plants, like roses and lavender, can be used in recipes. We use them for our cold brews and lattes and, if you don't like coffee, we also have rose appleade. Our cakes come in rose and lavender flavors too."
1
Kyoko heaves out an exaggerated sigh when she sees Michi standing around, looking like he'd never seen a timer in his life. When her subtle hinting doesn't prove to be enough to catch his attention, she redoubles her efforts. She lets out another sigh, louder this time, and bumps his shoulder with her curled fist, using just enough force to get his attention.
"Oi! Earth to Michi! You in there?"
Despite acting in her typical loud and obnoxious manner, though, if he were to look Michi would see the worry written on her face. This isn't like him.
Re: 1
Michi jumps in a momentary surge of panic that's just as quickly replaced by embarrassment once his mind asserts who that is. He hadn't noticed her at all... which was weird. Usually Kyoko was loud enough to be pretty easy to find. He counted on that very fact sometimes.
It wasn't that often that she could completely sneak up on him. Then again, it wasn't that often he completely zoned out.
"Maybe, depends on who's calling." It's a lame joke meant to diffuse things before she asks questions, but something about that doesn't feel quite enough like a joke. He shoves that feeling aside and smiles as genuinely as he can manage. Hopefully that'll be enough... "...Hi. What's up?"
no subject
"I thought we could go see the festival together, but..." She cocks her head to one side, gingerly placing her hand on his arm, "Are you okay? You were pretty out of it just now."
no subject
He sighs, and nods.
"I'm okay. I'm just a little out of it. Probably need water or something." What else can he say? 'oh, this app has started to really get to me'? Even thinking about the words makes him feel uneasy; he's not about to risk it. Especially since, at the best possible outcome, she'd just be more worried for him. It's his job to worry about her; not the other way around. As much as he hates having to lie to Kyoko, he doesn't have any other choice. Hopefully she'll forgive him for it.
"But anyway, about the festival. I'd love to."
no subject
Naturally, her second thought is related to filling up her stomach.
"Ah! Great! There's a stall over here that has a bunch of flower candies and stuff." Kyoko grabs his hand without another word and starts tugging at him. "C'mon! I wanna try all of them! Ah, we have to check out WonderWorld Park too!"
no subject
The second tug is all it takes to get Michi following along at any speed she sets. "What if we save WonderWorld park for another day? It's free all week, isn't it? That way, we can focus on here for now and do more."
And what are the odds that they both are going to want to do everything there? They're high. As they near the stall, he changes gears.
"So are they candies shaped like flowers, or made of flowers?"