( OPEN ) all the feelings that broke through that door

[damasks]

WHO: Lucy Steel & OPEN
WHERE: De Chima and Heropa, but you are welcome to yolo a prompt and find her wherever.
WHEN: The last week of September.
WHAT: Lucy does her civic duty, cleans the kitchen, takes notes, and almost drowns.
WARNINGS: None so far!

i. the yard is nothing but a fence ( de chima | posters )

[Honestly, half the time Lucy doesn't understand what goes on around here. She's standing at a bulletin board, hands on her hips and an I'm Not Mad, Just Disappointed look on her face as she regards . . . this poster. Where did it come from? What does it mean? Does it mean anything?]

[These are all important questions. On the other hand, Lucy doesn't really care about the answers enough to go looking for them. The main issue here is that this poster is ugly and weird and she hates it. Which is why she rips it off the bulletin board, crumples it into a ball, and tosses it neatly into the nearest garbage can.]

[Throughout the rest of the afternoon, she can be found taking down more posters across De Chima. If she has to, she'll go at them with her fingernails. That's how serious this is. She is an anti-weird-poster vigilante.]

ii. the sun just hurts my eyes somewhere ( de chima | #005 )

[More or less by force, Lucy has maneuvered her way into being in charge of cooking and cleaning in De Chima #005. This means that whenever she's home, she can be found aggressively bustling. Either she's in the kitchen with an apron on and her hair firmly secured in a handkerchief, or she's scrubbing something. Sometimes both.]

[This evening it's both. The smell of something roasting--chicken, maybe?--emanates from the kitchen, while she goes from window to window, scrubbing them clean one by one. Or at least trying to. The resident Venusaur is toddling after her, helpfully licking each window as soon as she finishes cleaning it.]

[She looks at him wearily.]

That isn't as helpful as you think it is.

iii. it must be time for penitence ( heropa | library )

[Thanks to some unlikely encouragement, Lucy has found herself a brand-new goal: to own and manage a business in one of the imPort cities by the one-year anniversary of her arrival. It's a lofty goal and almost definitely an impossible one, but that doesn't really matter to her. She's in a position of some power here, as precarious as it is, and she's never one to let that pass by.]

[So she spends many afternoons in the Heropa library, which is her favorite in all of the cities. Camped out at a table towards the back, she piles her table high with books on property ownership, business law, and economic reports from the last ten years. Most of them are stacked neatly, but there are always a couple open at any one time for her to refer to. The notebook in front of her fills up quickly, her cramped penmanship scrawling notes in shorthand.]

[There's one page in particular that she keeps flipping back to. It seems to be a brainstorming page. The list contains items like:]

- bakery
- bookstore ?
- practical skills classes ????
- horseback riding too expensive/maintain

iv. gardening at night, it's never worked ( heropa | beach )

[Lucy has spent much of the last month or so studiously ignoring her file. Oh, sure, she read it once on that very first day, but after that she slammed it shut and buried it in one of her drawers and tried to pretend it didn't exist. She doesn't want a "superpower". She already had one, and it was terrible, thanks so much.]

[Except this one doesn't seem any easier to ignore than Ticket to Ride. She stubbed her toe the other day, and her skin from toe to knee immediately turned gray as steel and just as tough. The other thing--that's happened a couple of times, too. But it's worse, and stranger, and she'll put dealing with that off for a little while yet.]

[For today, she's bitten the bullet and gone down to the beach to do some experimentation. It's late in the day; it's just rained, and there are still clouds drifting across the sky as the sun begins to set. Lucy sits under the pier on the sand, her dress billowing around her, and, with a look of utmost determination on her face . . . bangs a big flat rock down on her other hand.]

[Nothing much seems to be happening. Oh, sure, there's a flicker of protective gray, but it's not as strong as what happened the other day. It's just not working right. Glumly, she tosses the rock aside and examines her slightly-abraded hand.]

Well, now what?

[Sadly, her hand does not respond.]

v. the neighbors go to bed at 10 ( wildcard )

[Want to find Lucy in another city, or somewhere else in De Chima or Heropa? Go wild! Time and space are merely constructs, probably.]