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yumemigaoka2023-07-06 05:20 pm
beautifuldreamermods) wrote in yumemigaoka2023-07-06 05:20 pm
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Event #3: Shooting Star Wishes
YUMEMIGAOKA
As it is every year, Yumemigaoka's annual Tanabata festival is held at the street just outside of the Hikawa Shrine. The street and the shrine itself have been closed off during the day beforehand, save for the volunteers running back and forth in the miserable weather to set things up and decorate every inch of the festival space. And all their efforts do pay off - by the time the festival starts at seven in the evening, the street has been transformed into a lovely spectacle; hanging lanterns twinkle with raindrops and cast a warm glow over the street, paper stars are fluttering gently down from strings strung between lampposts and stalls line the full length of the street with food offerings, festival games and just about everything in between. Unfortunately, the month's poor weather hasn't let up yet so the festivities are a little dampened by persistent drizzle, though it seems like everyone's absolutely determined not to let that ruin the festival atmosphere!
For folks looking for games, they can enjoy:
- ⧖ The most popular stalls, the shooting games! Using a gun loaded with paper bullets (so, you know, mostly harmless) the aim of the game is to get a clean hit on one of the prizes along the back of the booth and knock it down! The prizes are mostly candy, snacks or kids' toys but they're deceptively hard to get a good shot at...
⧖ Goldfish scooping, a summertime classic! Using a scooper with a thin sheet of paper for the net, try your best to catch as many goldfish swimming around the water below. Do well enough and you'll win a prize and you might even be able to take your goldfish home - make sure to take good care of it!
⧖ Senbonbiki is basically pure luck - bundles of prizes, usually candies and small toys, are strung up along the top of the stall and you just have to give the corresponding other end of the string a tug. Whichever bundle of snacks comes down is yours! Of course, if you're particularly unlucky then you might get a dud or penalty prize... but surely nobody's luck is THAT bad, right?
⧖ Ring toss! Throw rings onto targets marked "1" through "10", each worth different amounts depending on where they land. Beat the high score and you'll win a prize! Though do you really want to walk around the whole festival with a giant plushie under your arm all night...?
There's also a ton of options for Japanese street food; some traditional, others more modern takes. There's fried stuff, grilled skewers, rice balls, all manner of delicious noodle dishes and mountains of sweets too; taiyaki, chocolate covered bananas, shaved ice, cotton candy, and just about everything and anything else you'd want to spend an evening stuffing your belly with. And naturally there are plenty of drinks available including freshly squeezed fruit juice and tea and some booze for those who feel like playing with fire.
Aside from the rest of the festivities, the main event is really the hanging of wishes - it is Tanabata, after all. A few tables at the top of bottom of the street have been set up to carefully shelter them from the rain and have a whole rainbow of tanzaku for people to write and hang their wishes on the bamboo trees both in the street and in the shrine down below. You can hang as many wishes as you like, if you're feeling particularly greedy, but...
The festival doesn't really reach its peak until darkness falls and, undeterred by the continued drizzle, the Hikawa Shrine lights up the sky with its famous annual fireworks show - it's always pretty spectacular but perhaps out of spite for the nasty weather, it looks even more fantastic than usual this year.
With the fireworks done, the festival begins wrapping up and it's time to head home. But as you settle into bed for the night and drift off, it becomes apparent that the night's festivities have only just begun...
THE DREAM SPHERE
It's happened almost every night for a week now - when you drift away to sleep, your regular dreams are slowly, gently interrupted by a strangely vivid image, an enormous bamboo tree with a wide canopy of leaves under a dazzling night sky. It's maybe not a surprise, given the upcoming festival, but as the nights go by it just gets more and more intense... until the night of the Tanabata festival itself and suddenly everything changes. As you settle down to sleep for the night, whether you went to the festival or not, the moment you close your eyes and drift off... you find yourself distinctly Somewhere Else.
The dream – and surely, it must be a dream – unfolds as an expansive open field, drenched in the silvery light of a magnificently star-spangled sky above and cut through with a river of flowing water that reflects the sky so clearly, it looks to be filled with stars of its own. A fine, steady rain falls and fills the field with a soft mist and the fragrance of the hundreds of tiny, bell-shaped flowers swaying lazily in the grass. And at the center of the field is a familiar sight – that bamboo tree from your dreams, somehow huger and with branches even more widely spread than before. This time they hang low enough for you to reach out and touch and you'll realize as you draw close that the tree is weighed down with tanzaku strips, all glowing softly as if illuminated from within by the wishes upon them.
It's then that you also realize that you're not alone here. And that you're here at all – in the Dream Sphere. Slipping over to the other side isn't uncommon for Dreamers, but... hold on a second! Aren't some of the people here just regular people too? Whatever this strange dream is doesn't seem to have discriminated between Dreamers and the regular folks – maybe it's thanks to the magic of those two starcrossed lovers but somehow, the lowercase-d dreamers of Yumemigaoka have also crossed into the Dream Sphere tonight! The effect will only last until morning, at which point the dream will unravel, so you might as well enjoy it while you're here. Many of the mundane dreamers will find they're able to move differently in the Dream Sphere, running faster and jumping impossibly high and long distances with nary a scratch to show for it; no magic of their own yet, but at least enough to have a little fun while they're here.
There's a little bit of natural magic at play here in the environment, too. If you approach the tree with a wish in mind, there's no need to write it down; it'll appear in pretty, sparkly ink on an appropriately colored tanzaku strip, already tied to the tree. Or if you go to peer at your reflection in the river, you might see it take on a shape that reflects the wish you're carrying in your heart.
... Except...
What sort of things are you really wishing for? The things you won't admit out loud to anyone, or even to yourself? The deepest wishes right in the darkest part of your heart that you want more than anything? Unfortunately for you, this tree seems to be of a mind to grant wishes and once it's gathered enough of everybody's tanzaku, there's a bright flash of light...
And suddenly everyone's secret wishes have been made manifest... though only in the Dream Sphere, of course. These can be anything from silly wishes to something more serious - the important part is that these secret dreams and wishes have been pulled out of your head and put on display for everyone here to see! How on earth are you going to deal with this gracefully?!
Regardless of what you choose to do, the apparitions only last for an hour or so before fading away and the sky lights up with a beautiful meteor shower that seems to go on forever. You're free to stay and watch the meteor shower and enjoy your last moments in the Dream Sphere for as long as you like but eventually, as you're watching the stars streak down from the sky, the dream around you begins to gradually fade away until you find yourself stirring in your own bed. Though it was an exceptionally busy dream, you find you're well rested and... okay, maybe a little embarrassed after all that.
Nobody will be able to return to that strange field or find the dream to stabilize it but... maybe that's fine. Aren't some things all the more special for only happening once a year?
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She holds it for a moment, and then releases it - almost sounding more like a sigh at that point.
Illya has to take in a second breath to speak up again to the other.
"But.. then.. what if something does come right at me here..?"
That's kind of why she was panicking, after all. Even if it was just about the sheer possibility of it, considering there doesn't seem to be anything actively dangerous around just yet.
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Her attempt at a deep breath almost makes Kozakura laugh, though.
"I assume you don't have any real practice in combat yet?" Not if she's asking like that. The obvious answer is 'beat it up'. "If so stick with someone who knows what they're doing."
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No way she'd be able to do that again. And when there's this many people around here now, who's to say how many Torments could suddenly appear..
"But, what--"
She stops, looking a little guilty for asking the other so many questions. Even though Kozakura is being kind enough to answer them so far.
She slowly pushes herself into speaking the question out loud.
"What if I don't.. really know many people like that?"
The woes of being a very, very new Dreamer, really. Not officially having joined the Dreamer Union means she doesn't even have a mentor yet whose help to default to. It makes her look a little ashamed and guilty all at once.
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The vibes here seem to be too good to lead to any disasters, for the moment.
"Then find me." She doesn't want to mentor the kid, she's tiny and not really much of a fighter herself, but when and if it gets down to it she can be a responsible adult. "I'm Dreamer Mind. I'll protect you so we can both protect other people."
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Rather than Illya questioning the other - please, she's not going to do that when she's already feeling so much like she's the one way out of her depth here - it's more like she's asking for confirmation. There's something a little hopeful growing in her gaze already, after all, like she's just relieved at the thought that she has an actual plan to fall back on now if something happens.
"Are you that strong..?"
(Though, honestly, Illya is so gullible she'll absolutely believe any answer the other gives her here. Especially when she has so little Dreamer experience herself.)
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"I've been around the block anyways," she says with a shrug. Not strong, no, but she's good at avoiding danger, and she knows how to get the attention of other experienced Dreamers to come back them up.
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With this being the prime example. Kozakura just has to nod to that question, and Illya instantly believes the other must truly be strong. After all, who would lie about such a thing? And with such confidence? Clearly you only have that kind of confidence if you are strong.
"W-Wow, I didn't know I was in the presence of someone that amazing.."
She sounds like she's marveling, but then Illya seems to remember manners enough to quickly bow for the other.
"Thank you so much for wanting to help out..! I.. um, I think I feel a little bit calmer already, knowing that there's someone so reliable around to fall back on if anything happens.."
A little calmer, though.
It's still super hard for her to shake off the new Dreamer jitters fully.
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"W-well, I don't know about amazing," she says; fluffing up proudly now that she's being praised. Even as someone who avoids actually throwing hands more than almost any adult Dreamer.
"But I can protect people, yeah." It's part of her job. Studying the Dream Sphere is numero uno still, though.
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"You're a Dreamer! That makes you amazing by default!" The irony in this statement, of course, is the fact that Illya is also very much a Dreamer - and very visibly one. And yet she's talking as if she's speaking about people other than herself entirely.
"It always seems like such a hard thing to do, protecting people.. Such a scary thing too. But you're offering to do so like it's nothing! That's amazing..!"
Sorry, Kozakura. Seems like you're stuck with a little admirer over here.
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"But, well, it's my job, so I do it right." She's not even good with kids, she just has a soft spot for protecting them.
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"Thank you very much!"
Vibrant and chipper indeed, especially with Illya bowing so energetically right after saying it before uprighting herself once more.
"In the future, if I somehow do end up becoming a great Dreamer, then.. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to repay your kind words!" And Kozakura promising to help out if things become dangerous here. Even if they might not end up being dangerous - Illya still won't forget the other's kindness, she tells herself.
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"Just pay it forward," she said mildly. "Help the next kid out." So Kozakura doesn't have to.
Look at how cute and stuff this kid is. Cripes.
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Yes, Kozakura. You're still getting all this cute energy just beamed over at you. Enjoy it.
"I mean, I don't know how much I can do just yet.." Especially since she's so new. Sure, Illya could help out people if it was in a more mundane way, but if she would suddenly have to protect someone as a Dreamer, she isn't too sure she could do it.. She still has so much to learn, after all. "B-But I'll do my best either way!"
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"Yeah, don't rush it. You'll get the hang of that too, eventually." Or not? Kozakura isn't sure that she's actually good at it, even if this girl is acting like she is.