moonstrualcycle | no running in the halls!

[Isa's heart isn't sure what to make of this, so she files it away for later, tearing her gaze away from the kids and lengthening her stride to catch up with Lea.]

We're in a park, where is there food around here?

I thought I was the impatient one.

[ If they keep walking down the path it turns into a hall again, cement walkway turning into hardwood floor, with bricks and wood placed in ways that eventually form into walls. Doors start to appear, and they're all identical. Lea stops in between them, and it's obvious she can't remember which is which. ]

You are, I'm just wondering.

[Lea, this... this is...]

We've walked onto the set of a horror movie.

Nah, that's just how it is. I think it's this— oh...

[ She had been reaching for a doorknob but stops, eying the pink sludge seeping out from beneath it. ]

Look, you jinxed it.

I can't wait to find out what kind of amazing food is at the end of this trip.

[Isa's just gonna pick another door and see what's behind it, fuck it. what's in this one? the lost souls door from beetlejuice? the "not scary at all" door from IT (2017)? Boo's room from Monsters Inc?]

Same here.

[ Please make it that sandy area in Beetlejuice.

Lea forgoes the oozing door in favor of another one. This is not the food room, and while it's not visible from Isa's location it smells strongly of gasoline and popcorn. Lea shut the door and moves over to Door #4. Wait— ]

Found it.

[hmm, nope, not opening that one ever again, that looked terrible, like a fuckin daytime version of Halloween Town.]

How do you know until you open it?

Most places stick in the same spot. Usually.

[ Fuck if she can remember the exact one most of the time, though. Sometimes she's just like "oh hey I remember that door as cool/weird/unique, why is that?" and she opens it and it's just a huge room with a vintage cymbal monkey toy or something.

Lea waves at her to follow and heads into the door. When Isa's ready to look inside she'll see... a perfectly normal, outdoor buffet. Or is it? There are a lot of low of the ground tables covered by huge, wide wooden bowls. The tables are covered in foods organized not by cuisine or origin but by ingredients, so there are meat tables with tonkatsu and pork chops, raw and also cooked vegetable tables, chocolate tables, and so on.

So far the weird thing seems to be that everything is so large and huge, and that all of the furniture and utensils seem to be natural, like wooden tables and spoons. It's like a fairy designed the place, and this may or may not be some kind of celestial offering. ]

...okay, you have my interest so far.

[hopefully Lea remembers Isa-ese enough to know that that means she's actually pretty hype about this, it looks amazing so far.]

See? Sometimes I have great ideas.

[ Presumably Isa knows how to get what she wants because Lea's not gonna tell her and is in fact going straight for the tables. There are large stepping stones to and winding around the tables, and she's grabbing one of the large, curving leaves from a tree to pile food into. ]

[the leaf is a little unorthodox for someone not from Destiny Islands, and also seems potentially unsanitary to just take one off a tree like that, but Isa can adapt. she's gravitating towards the meat table, surprising no one; gotta keep those muscles supplied with protein, after all.]

And sometimes you have really terrible ones, but this is a great one.

[ She could just take one of the entire meat bowls if the leaf is too much. Lea is not at all surprised by the meat intake, and piles rice onto her leaf bowl from another table before following Isa. She will just move right up against her to reach for a gigantic turkey leg. ]

I have plenty of really terrible ones.

Do you learn from them any better than you used to?

[you know, like the lesson to be learned from earlier, which is don't call Isa out on her blushing. Isa basically did the romance version of talk shit, get hit, is the lesson. she doesn't react to the proximity, except to get a turkey leg for herself because that shit is delicious.]

I like to think I wouldn't be here if I hadn't.

[ Cheese breads of various kinds are available on the bread table and they're going on the stack of rice along with a croissant and a full bunch of green grapes. ]

[hopefully there's something resembling the cheesy biscuits they have at Red Lobster, those things are amazing. she'll get some fruit too, to go around the edges of all the meat. where do we sit in this place?]

I suppose that's true. Although I seem to recall you saying something about people not always staying dead here.

[ There definitely is. Lea seems to be taking a seat on the pile of boulders some distance behind the tables, but there are also downed trees available.

Picnic time! ]

Sometimes people don't come back, but no one knows if it's because they stayed dead or because they went home. A lot of times people come back months later, talking about how they went home and time passed.

[ She takes a big bite of croissant, but looks at Isa seriously. ]

Riku's died a few times, even.

[she follows Lea over, and parks herself on the grass with her back to a fallen tree so she has something to lean against, and looks perturbed as she starts on some bit of her own food.]

That sounds rough for friends and family here, not knowing.

Yeah. But it might be better than knowing you'll never see them again. Guess in the long run it's just bad.

[ Imagine holding on to that hope forever, and that person never coming back? ]

It's weird how so many of them have adapted to it. Some of the kids from the future — that's just how their world is.

From the- the future here? Oh. Is that where the older Riku with the kid came from?

[this place is confusing, but then again that's not much weirder than time travel clones of Xehanort.]

Yeah, exactly. There's a reality where a bunch of people never leave, and they're here like fifteen years later. Probably longer now. Riku bangs the zombie guy and they have a half-zombie.

[ She doesn't actually know what Red is, but it's just easier to call him a zombie. ]

Hm. I mean, that makes as much sense as anything else, I guess.

[Isa's eating something with meat, that's all that matters right now. it's delicious.]

[ You know what? We're gonna say there's no dessert table, for mysterious reasons. The chocolate table can stay but nothing else. ]

The kid is creepy though! Like I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have nightmares.

[that's probably just as well, if there were cheesecake here that would be it for both of these ladies. chocolate is acceptable though.]

So stay away from him then, jeez. If you didn't follow Rikus around it wouldn't be an issue.

[ Oh, there are desserts. Just not on the table. Isa might notice that the tree she's up against smells very sweet. ]

Hey, I only follow one Riku around. I'd show you her place but she probably wouldn't appreciate it.

[ Through a mouthful of turkey: ]

Guess I'll have to explain all of that.

Which part, that you wanted to show me where she lives like she's some kind of celebrity?

[no, she knows what Lea means. and she'll be putting a stop to any eating of the environment before it even begins; she remembers the reports from Wonderland.]

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