godbent | 41st: The Beans of Haruhi Suzumiya

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41st: The Beans of Haruhi Suzumiya

[Voice]

You know, we're coming up on February. [...] I guess the obvious thing is Valentines, given the weird fetish that the Organization has for it, but there's also Setsubun. People from Japan know about that, right? The SOS-Brigade's never really done something for it, but we should this year.

[That said, her voice doesn't have a ton of gusto in it. It's sort of dulled, just... stating things matter-of-factly, almost bored. She's still upset about Minato and various other problems associated with that. She still wants to be alone, but being alone isn't going to help anyone else. She's not quite altruistic enough to care about everyone, but there's a few people...]

I guess the lunar new year would be around now too, wouldn't it? But it's hard to call that unless anyone's been charting the moon too carefully here. And Foundation Day and we missed Coming of Age Day, but who cares about both of those?

[...Though, there's also that thing with Richard and Isamu. Nope, don't care.]

Whatever. Haruhi Suzumya, over and out.

[And if you want action, she is at the Brigade's HQ. Sort of wanting and sort of not wanting people to step in]

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[ she busies her fingers with the unrolling of two pastel-pink yoga mats. ]

Nice call on the locale, y'know. I never would have thought to go spring-wards.

Well it's a hot spring, there's no way that it wouldn't be relaxing. It's pretty much what they're meant for.

[She says this with a little glance at the water proper and a sigh as she looks back at Buffy - and those mats]

Have a seat?

[ she offers -- gesturing easily with one hand. but not before taking a seat of her own. she'd set the mats up so that they faced each other. ]

[She nods, and adjusting herself a bit, she takes the seat]

Do try and be just a little patient, by the way -- [ buffy fishes out a little cloth bag. its contents tinkle and click and clatter, though muffled by the fabric. ] Crystal meditation can kinda be a personal thing, and what works for me might not work for you. In which case? Today's about feeling out the configuration that fits.

[ she shakes a collection of opaque, off-white crystals into her palm. ]

Alright, I understand. [But she sounds brusque in spite of herself and she knows it. she exhales and tries to calm her nerves a little more]

[ her mouth twitches into what might have been almost a smile, and buffy starts stacking the crystals. it's a simple formation -- nothing quite so complex as the personalized structures she and giles had the chance to work out before he'd left luceti. the slayer hopes that the lowest common denominator of crystal structures will tap into something. ]

Not that I'd hold impatience against you, y'know -- if you did start feeling antsy. [ carefully, she stacks another crystal. ] I had no time and barely inclination for this part of my training, when I was your age.

That makes you sound old, you know. [She could make a quip about how she's not all that young... but that would be pointless

So instead, she just relaxes some to watch Buffy stack.]

Truth be told, I'm starting to feel old.

[ she nudges the final crystal into place, before leaning back and crossing her legs. ] But we're not here to discuss my age, I guess.

Close your eyes.

Mmm. [No use arguing anything. She closes her eyes, obediently. She's not sure how this is supposed to happen of course but no doubt Buffy will clarify]

[ she shuts her own eyes, settling loose fists of fingers against her own knees. dropping her shoulders. ] Relax. [ breathe in; breathe out. ]

[ buffy's voice softens. although it isn't objectively kind, it's still stripped of all that attitude she wears daily in almost every social encounter she enters. but tonight, it's turned coaxing; convincing; welcoming. ]

Deep breaths, Haruhi. There is nothing but you.

[ she hopes the girl concentrates. she hopes the girl is even ready for this sort of invitation. hell, she hopes she herself can remember giles's words with confidence. ]

[Okay, definitely not seiza for this. she shifts her sitting position to be cross-legged. She rests her hands around her feet, considering. She can still hear Buffy, she can still smell the hot springs, feel the heat... but no, this is something she is pretty sure she can do. she's done meditation before, after all (not super successfully, but). She tries to match her breathing to what Buffy's doing and makes a noise of agreement]

Keep on relaxing. Then -- when you think you're ready -- I want you to open your eyes once again. Y'know, in your own time. And when you do? I want you to look straight into the crystals between us.

Alright, I get it. [that probably sounded too terse. Hell, it felt too terse. She exhales deeply again, before inhaling. She's meditated before, she knows she can do this! ...But focusing on that would be counter-productive, wouldn't it? so instead, she just tries to empty her mind. It's hard to empty one's mind, but...]

[ and it would be even harder, buffy knows, to empty a mind when someone else is chattering. and so she lapses into silence, hoping her own anxiety doesn't bleed through. sharing the exercise with anyone who isn't giles is a frightfully new experience; however, it seems just a little fitting. giles had taken to haruhi, in his own way.

and in spite of all else, she does want to help... ]

[The mood here's a little awkward, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Even so, awkward moods aren't anything new and she knows it. She tries initially to not focus on it, but then, with her eyes still closed, she opens and closes the fingers on her hand, wondering why this is awkward? Which is easy, because she's with Buffy. But there's really no more reason for Buffy to feel awkward to her...

Once she's concluded that, it's not like it magically becomes easier, but she finishes one train of thought and as such she doesn't immediately have a new one due to her trying to focus on, well, nothing. So, she's feeling a little more confident. She opens her eyes and focuses on the crystals]

[ something has changed. nothing dire; nothing serious. but it's enough to alert the slayer into opening her own eyes. one might go so far as to say the crystals themselves seems to be humming.

she resists the urge to smile. ]

Look into them. They're not perfect; they have flaws deep in the stone. Search those out, and let everything else sorta...drift.

No stone's perfect- [Says the more rational part of her mind. But okay, she'll look for them. The first one she finds hits her immediately, perhaps because of some intuition or maybe it's just super obvious. The difficulty becomes looking for another one when he eyes keep drifting back to that first one she found. Still, her focus on the whole process is pretty notable]

[ no stone's perfect. she doesn't respond except with a ghost of a smile. and a little bit of sadness. the old flaw-in-the-stone method left a few bitter feelings in her heart, but years later she could understand how it could nevertheless be used for good. for relaxation. for peace.

buffy allows two or three minutes to pass before whispering: ] Keep on drifting, Haruhi. You're doing great. Focus inward and let the world fall away. Fall away. Fall away...

[ and with a steady hand, buffy makes the bold attempt to gently reconfigure the crystals' structure. if done correctly -- with haruhi focused and herself cautious -- it should be as if inviting the younger woman into a deeper state of meditation.

if even a single error flickers through the procedure, though...? well -- it would feel a little bit like having your soul dunked into an ice water bath. ]

[She mutters something like "isn't that contradictory?" to herself, but tries to keep up with the focus. Inner focus? She isn't sure she knows how to focus inward, so she just keeps up with the flaw search, allowing that to be a focal point as she zones out everything except the crystals and Buffy. She assumes that the point of the focus would be to get her to go inward anyway, so it's not like she's doing it wrong. At least, she assumes]

[ silence grows and time passes. seconds, slipping by. and buffy tries to tamp down on her feelings of success and accomplishment, because those self-indulgent sentiments shouldn't be allowed to taint an attempt at finding solitude.

growing every confident by the moment, she nudges the last crystal into place.

and she exhales. by all accounts, perhaps the experiment is a success; perhaps there's a future to be found in future meditation meetings, each one complicating the structure and exercises. for a moment, she imagines a future where she can go so far as to lead haruhi through the tai-chi-like acrobatic movements that pair so well with the crystals. ]

[Oh crystals oh.

Haruhi's thought process - mostly because of how it is supposed to be now, honestly - is much more simple. She's just focused. Empty. Meditative. The crystal's shift felt interesting. That was weird]

[ an approximate twenty-some minutes winds down before buffy ever-so-gently reaches across the crystals in order to touch haruhi's shoulder. a light nudge -- that's all.

just to draw her her out and touch base now that the preliminary attempt has been made. ]

[Haruhi doesn't blink back to recognition or anything, but she does flutter a little before before she focuses on Buffy's face, tilting her head somewhat. Curiously. Is there something up?]

...You're doing great. [ she's not sure haruhi herself realizes just how much time has passed. ] Frankly, I wasn't sure whether you and these would even be compatible.

[ she hasn't lifted her fingers from the girl's shoulder. ] I know I didn't bring you down into much more than a trance, but even that's encouraging.

[ she's never spoken so...gently with haruhi, before now. speaking to her almost as though she were one of her girls. ]

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