kaisou | 🌵💐First Bloom (A Very Awkward Arrival)

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🌵💐First Bloom (A Very Awkward Arrival)

WHO: Isabela and YOU
WHERE: Labyrinth and the streets of Kaisou
WHEN: 9/25-9/26
WHAT: Isa arrives via a suspiciously curated flower labyrinth and she is very disoriented and very scared
WARNINGS: Implied anxiety attacks and possible mentions of trans-generational traumas; Will update this if something else comes up

I. Disorienting Flower Labyrinth
(Things have gotten very weird for Isabela today. Just some time ago, she was pretty busy preparing a community garden for the town. It has been in her plans for quite a while now since finally getting to be herself and she is so happy to share it with her town mates. But as soon as she is about to bring out the gardening tools, she blacks out. It happened so suddenly that she didn’t have time to react or call for help.

Eventually after some time has passed, Isa wakes up to find an awfully terrifying sight: a perfectly manicured flower maze. Oh good heavens, she is not too happy to see something that would remind her of what she was pretending to be for most of her life. It looks too perfect for her own taste, the colors are too much of a color wheel match, and there is not a single cactus or anything that looks less than pretty to be found. This place might as well make her feel like suffocating for air. Plus there is no sighting of the gardening tools she was supposed to be carrying.

What is even more annoying is when she tries to use her gift to mess around with this utopian garden maze, she is horrified to discover that the thriving ability she has just awakened some time ago has been reduced to be the boring and basic version she had from before. Honestly, she doesn’t know which one is worse: her gift being laughably cut down in strength or being stuck in this sickeningly perfect looking maze?

Panic is slowly building up inside her as she desperately tries to find an exit out of this maze. There is no point of trying to hide her scared state of mind and she is not feeling fine.)

II. A Walk Around the City
(Eventually Isabela did found her way out of that ‘horrific’ labyrinth and into the streets of a big modern city after who knows how long it took her to leave: looking very tired but still very much alive. Looking at the modern buildings and billboards she is surrounded by, this is clearly not the town she has been living for her entire life, so Isabela is understandably in shock of seeing all the modern things she has never seen before.

As she tries to get a grip on this new reality, she feels her foot stepping on something sturdy, crouching down to find a instruction book and a strange rectangle device she has never seen before beside it. Now who would leave these behind? Wouldn’t they be vulnerable to stealing? Whoever left them here though, it seems to look like they are hers to keep now.

But the smartphone doesn’t seem to be within her priority right now as she has no clue on how to use one before she just simply wanders around the streets of Kaisou, hoping to find some answers and praying that someone can explain to her about why she has landed in here and why she is far away from home.)

Wildcard
(Want throw something else at me? Send them at me in the comments below. You can find me at

mariscorner or on Discord at Mariposa21 #4257. I can match your tagging style, brackets or prose.)

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Yeah, it takes a while sometimes. Did you have anyone help you through it? That- that sometimes helps.

[No one wants that, no sir!]

Hmm, a whole other world. I don't really understand it- there's smarter people than me around here who really get it. But yeah, there's...some of us. Also Casita. Somehow.

Oh gee, everything went by within a flash, so my memory of it can be a bite of scattered as I try to remember everything. I actually spent most of the time on my own, trying to navigate the maze and it was disorienting with many dead ends. But I was able to get some help in the end, I think it might have been Luisa or a kind stranger who came in to help me get out of there.

(OOC: There is an ongoing thread with Luisa at the labyrinth at the moment.)

Oh thank goodness. I was worried that I would show up in the city on my own when I arrived but at least there is some of us in here. Wait, Casita found its way here? Did it just appeared out of the blue?

Well, that's good, right? I mean, at least you're out now.

[He smiles, nodding.]

Yuuuup. One day it wasn't here and the next, blam, there it was. It's weird. [He gestures with his hand.] Uh, c'mon. I'll show you where it's at.

(So Casita just appeared in Kaisou one day? That is something interesting. That leaves her a possible thought: if Casita had popped into the city, does this mean other things could show up at random too? She will need to ask more if the city has a thing for things randomly appearing but right now, getting back to Casita is the main priority.

And besides, that escape from the maze and all the walking in town have been very exhausting on her now.)

Oh sure thing, Tío Bruno. Lead the way, I’ve already gotten lost trying to walk around for a long while.

[Bruno tries not to think about it too hard. Magic is just super weird here. So any questions Isabela might have will end in a tragically unimpressive "I dunno". He starts his little ambling walk towards the area of the city Casita wound up in.]

Oh yeah, that...yeah, I still get lost but I don't go out a lot. [Wow, shock, surprise. ] The phone thing you got? The...little box? That has a map on it!

Oh, the phone thing with me? I haven’t used it since I got here just yet, but maybe using the map in it can help out.

(As soon as Isabela gets the phone open and arrives at the map app, she begins to type down Casita on the search bar. And lo and behold, there is a spot denoting where Casita is at.)

Oh hey, Casita is apparently located at the Midtown area of the city. That is where everyone else is living at, right?

[He gives her a little encouraging thumbs-up. She's picked it up a lot faster than he did, but he's also a man who lived in the walls with rats for a decade so that's not exactly hard.]

That's the one! Your Mamí has a restaurant nearby, too. She's pretty proud of it.

Wait, Mamá has a restaurant in the city too? That is really even more amazing! I should give it a visit real soon, that would be a great idea to drop by and say hello to her.

She sure does- it's pretty popular, too. She's done well for herself,f I'm really proud of her.

[The unspoken delight here being that Julieta is doing this for herself and not out of some need to heal people or please Alma. ]

That is really great to hear, Tío Bruno. I can’t wait to see it for myself eventually and I am also so happy for her too. Oh, I just wish that I had gotten the chance to get the chance to witness its opening day too.

Well, that's okay. You're- you're here now. That's what matters?

[Should he tell her she's been here before? NOPE, that's a Julieta Conversation, thanks. He is fully aware he can't talk about that without fumbling the entire thing. ]

Oh here we go- Casita's just on the other side of this hill.

I think that you’re right on that one, Tío Bruno.

Oh, there it is! I can see from over here. We should get over there, I have a feeling that Casita will be happy to see me.

Better not to keep Casita waiting, huh? You know how antsy it gets.

[Like another matriarchal family member, fussing over them all. As they get there, the house shutters do start fapping excitedly as Isabela gets closer. Bruno smiles faintly. ]

I think Casita missed you.

Okay then, better get to it real quickly then.

(As soon as they get closer to Casita’s location in the Midtown area, she is happy to see the sentient house’s shutters flapping in excitement of her arrival. This motion is giving her a relieved smile in her face as she waves back at it, forgetting about the maze trials she had to deal with some time ago.)

Hola Casita! I’m very happy to see you again too.

[He grins as they step in. Casita really has a way of making the troubles outside...fade away.]

I think Casita missed you. You're lucky, it wasn't here when I first showed up. I was living in this dingy apartment. Which honestly was probably worse than the walls.

You initially stayed at an apartment upon arriving here? Oh gee, I guess that I got lucky in avoiding being cramped inside something similar to that. Can’t imagine living inside one to begin with.

So, Tío, I wonder how bad it was living in that apartment for a couple of weeks before Casita showed up.

Yup. It was just me, by myself. It took about two months before Casita just...appeared. Dunno how. Magic, mostly.

And it was...well, a place to live, but also pretty cold and miserable. And, again, being alone til Mira showed up.

[His smile fades a little at that- Mira was gone now and the loss is still pretty fresh.]

Oh, that is just really sad, Tío Bruno. It sounds like whoever is running the apartment doesn’t seem to do a good job of keeping it well maintained.

Wait, Mira’s also in here too? Is she doing well or at home now?

It's Zodiac, you kinda get what you get with them. It's usually a crapshoot.

[He doesn't sound that bothered by it- you get used to it after a while.]

No...she's- she left. Just a couple of weeks ago.

Wait what, Mira, she has just left the city? And just weeks before I came here? Oh no, that is just terrible. Is she going to be alright at home while we’re still here?

Yeah, there's... a few of us were here who left. Camilo, too. And Dolores.

[Though luck would have it that Dolores shows up pretty soon after this!]

I've um... I looked and she was fine. But then I looked for you too and I saw you back home and now you're here so jury's out on how much of a bum vision that was.

[Comforting!]

So this city has a tendency to pull people in and bring them back to where they are originally from and then bring them back here? Or was it the maze thing I was in doing all the work?

(Honestly, she doesn’t know what to get mad at: the city itself or the Spirit Realm. Either way, she really hates to see another family member go faster before she could get to say hello and she is just as heartbroken for her disappearance as everyone else.)

Either way, I just hope that Mira is going to be alright at home. We can hope for the best.

I don't know, normally people just...go and they never come back. You- uh- you're one of the first people I've seen come back.

[He's really not used to people showing back here after they left.]

Yeah...yeah, me too.

So normally people from other worlds come and go and don’t usually come back? I guess that my return is something different. Maybe more people might come back to the city someday eventually, but who knows what the city could be throwing at us next.

I mean, no? Not- not normally. And maybe? I've not even been here a year yet but yeah, it's uh...not normal.

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senorita_perfecta - 2022-10-12 22:54 (UTC) - Expand

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