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[ Ori closes her eyes, and thinks on all of the times she’s faced down noctasers and noctaere and the other nightmarish creatures of this world. Healing Diluc after he had gotten injured fighting with someone going noctaere shortly after they arrived to this realm. Facing one within a dreamscape - and meeting Beatrix because of it. Losing track of Diluc and Thoma in another one, and facing a rather unsettling-looking noctaere after what had up until that point been a wonderful evening. The noctasers on the moon…

The night that she and Thoma nearly lost Diluc.

At length, she draws in a deep, deep breath, exhales, and then swallows thickly; when she next opens her eyes, her gaze falls and stays fixed on a vase filled with yellow and red ranunculus and gladiolus flowers, along with a few lilacs. A bit of a strange color combination, to be sure - but they’re all flowers that remind her of what she has, here - of Thoma and Diluc, even when one of them is gone. ]

Usually, when we face noctaere or similar creatures in dreamscapes and such, they’re… exactly that - creatures. I had never encountered someone turning into one, even though I knew it could happen. But Diluc—

He almost turned, a few months ago. We were barely able to stop him - Thoma and I, I mean. He was our boyfriend. He’s gone from this place now, but… I don’t know if I would have been able to keep Diluc from turning that night without him.

[ Guilt tugs at her once more. ]

Sorry, I don’t mean to keep talking about myself like this… But I guess considering that two of us had a hard time keeping the nightmare energy at bay, it makes sense that so many of us had so much trouble turning someone back who had already turned.

[ In her life, she feels she has been privy to a great deal of deeply personal moments in people's lives. Not by virtue of being there, but by listening to them share their lives with her. She's always been happy to listen, to learn, to support, to feel the bond between her and another person tighten. Ori speaks with gravity in her voice and Aerith is hanging onto her every word, the story and images she weaves like a tapestry bearing her truth. It isn't in the words themselves but the implications of them. He was, for example. No longer. He's gone from this place now. Lost to time and life, the ever-moving ocean that it is, or has something happened to him? Ori doesn't say. Aerith holds her tongue to say a prayer in the hopes it is not the latter. ]

I'm sorry to hear that, Ori.

[ As much as she's noting it down to ask about as soon as their conversation lightens up, Aerith knows it isn't time for her to ask about having two boyfriends. ]

How do we prevent it, then? The nightmare energy getting that bad?

[ She's already thinking of preparations, what to do. Codes to call out, ways to signal to one another. They'll need it. Perhaps this had been, like, a friend accident? But there's no point to taking chances. ]

[ Though she doesn’t suspect that two boyfriends will become the topic of this conversation (at least, for now), somewhere in the back of her mind, she’s thankful that Aerith doesn’t pick that particular detail to hone in on. Instead, she asks a question that has Ori glancing over at her as she hums contemplatively for a few moments. ]

… I’m not sure. I can’t help but wonder about those flowers that Susato brought with her… If they would be effective over time. Maybe there’s something there. But otherwise…

[ Her gaze drifts downward and finds Thoma’s omamori at her hip again, as she looks back on what led them to Diluc’s own near-noctaere experience, and what little she knows of what led up to Eustace’s turning. ]

We have to be more open with each other. There’s so many of us here who do things like lock things up inside, never talk about our feelings, until it becomes a burden that’s too great and too large for any one, or even two people to bear by themselves. We’re all in this together, so why not rely on each other a little more…?

[ It’s not a concrete idea, by any means, but the sentiment is there. And as she looks at Aerith, she thinks with a small smile about how they’ll all be okay, in time, because of people like Aerith who show up with little gestures of kindness, who sits at the table of a near-stranger and listens to her talk on end. ]

Sooo… Therapy.

[ She’s not going to beat around the bush. It makes sense, though, but it drags a question to the forefront of her mind. Has anyone asked the pair of lovebirds about what happened? How things got so twisted? Eustace is so strong and pragmatic, Aerith thinks, and Tifa had been mortally wounded… Something had gone horribly awry, she thinks. No point lying to themselves about the whole ordeal now. They’ve got the battle scars and nightmares to prove it. ]

The dawn flowers, right? Some people are… stubborn. We’ll have to be more forthcoming with them, however... these potions of your’s… think we might be able to make something with the dawn flowers with them? Might be able to stretch the flowers, then.

[ Of course, she could just ask the flowers.

But that would be cheating. ]

[ Aerith’s initial remark draws a somewhat curious look from the tiefling; she knows of healers at home who focus on wounds of the mind and soul rather than the physical, perhaps that’s what she’s referring to… That look brightens, however, in recognition of Aerith’s brilliant idea. ]

That’s… We should give that a try! I wonder if anyone’s tried anything like that before… Maybe they would know, too. The flowers, I mean. Though I can’t say I’ve ever tried to ask a plant if they would be useful in brewing… That would be a little weird, wouldn’t it?

[ She’s certainly talked to trees about this, but it’s different because she’s not taking the entire tree for a potion! ]

But that’s a really, really good idea, Aerith.

[ A little weird, she says, and Aerith notes that she disagrees in her mind. Despite this, the words never come. It’s overcome by something else, a bubbling, churning notion of surprise— she knows there’s no way, simply put, that Oriphi could be like her. She knows, just like she knows with Trahearne, that it’s impossible. This, however, is a little much for her.

Her hand raises to her chest, and she smiles in a way that is at once both sympathetic and curious. Does she dare? She’s spent much of her life dancing with loneliness, the sense of emptiness that can only come from being the very last. Isolated, afraid… ]

That so? You won’t mind if I ask for you then, now, would you?

[ Perhaps Ori will think nothing of it. Perhaps it is just that— nothing. To Aerith, however, it means the world. ]

[ For a few moments, Ori simply blinks at Aerith silently though she remains smiling at the other woman. It’s taking her a moment, it seems, to truly realize what it is that Aerith has just asked.

Although the tiefling has never experienced the kind of loneliness that comes with being the last of any kind… She’s grappled with a different sort of loneliness throughout her life. And here, where she sees many fellow dreamwalkers meet friends of theirs from the same world. She even fell in love with two men who hailed from the same place… But she’s never met someone that she was sure came from her world, too. A different sort of loneliness, to be sure, and Ori would never pretend to know how any one person feels completely, but she can empathize; she is no stranger to that feeling of longing and wanting to belong.

Naturally, she knows based on what she’s seen of Aerith’s magic, that they’re not from the same place. But even if their magic is inherently different, perhaps there are more similarities in what they can do beyond the healing effects of their spells. ]

I… Of course I won’t mind. You can speak with plants, too, Aerith?

[ It may take a moment for her to parse, but Ori hits the nail on the head. Aerith has no way of knowing what’s truly going on in her head, but she gets the inkling that there is a moment of understanding that passes between them, born of something unsaid but known in equal measures. She looks at Ori, tilts her head, and smiles like it’s nothing. It’s the sort of smile that doesn’t match the eyes, the kind that lies.

After a pause, she looks away, to the ground. The smile lingers, though not for long. ]

Would you believe me if I said yes?

[ After all, she doesn’t have horns! ]

[ There’s something wholly indiscernible about the way Aerith looks at her in that moment. It’s the sort of look that Ori has been on the receiving end of many, many times, and although she can’t know the exact nature of that which lies beneath that smile, she can at least tell that there’s something there. Like the kind of smile that someone gives when they say “they’re fine,” though there’s something on their mind.

Though she looks away, Ori keeps her gaze on Aerith all the while, steadfast and reassuring despite not knowing what’s going through Aerith’s mind. Whatever it is, Ori is there to talk her through it. After all, that’s what they’ve just decided to do for the others, isn’t it? ]

I would believe you. Definitely.

[ After a beat, she chooses to go on, to elaborate. ]

Where I’m from, people have all sorts of different ways to draw on and use magic. My friend, Dae, uses all sorts of equations and calculations to cast spells. We call folks like that a wizard. And another friend of mine calls on the divine power of his deity. For me, it’s nature. And a connection to it. People like me are called druids.

Maybe you aren’t a druid in the same way that I am, because we don’t come from the same place, but… If you can talk to plants, and use nature’s power to heal and bright light… Then to me, that’s enough to say that you’re one, too.

[ Listening to Ori is terribly easy. She’s bright in that same way a constellation can be; Aerith may not have seen them many times in her life, but the opening of her church offered a look into the free sky and there is something so wholly bright about her in the same way the north star could take you home. So Aerith listens, expression curious but not quite honest, because even as Ori tells her tale, there is no intention on the florist’s part to share her sordid story.

It helps, though, that she leads with a firm state of belief, wearing a smile that could lead you home. ]

Druids…

[ The world is alien on her tongue, completely new to her— still, it’s somehow reassuring. That Ori’s abilities are something associated with people like her; like them. The idea tickles a part of her brain, dormant but lonely-soaked all the same. She feels more and more in Reverein. How could you not, when people seem to be surrounded by loved ones and those like themselves again and again, more and more?

Though Ori calls it nature, Aerith would call it the Lifestream. Perhaps it isn’t so different. Life flows through all of nature, after all: Aren’t they part of it, too? ]

That’s wonderful. Everyone always gave me such weird looks about it! But here you are, telling me a whole lot of people could do it…

[ Funny, right? ]

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