fandomtownies | Turtle & Canary; Wednesday [01/08].

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Turtle & Canary; Wednesday [01/08].

Shunsui did feel like he had to hand it to Fandom; unlike the Soul Society, when things went down here and got all terrible and life-threatening, they handled it quickly, instead of dragging it out over weeks or months or ~~millions and millions of chapters~~ years or decades or centuries...

Still, it was over, thing could go back to normal, and Shunsui could go back to napping often and forgetting that he was supposed to be writing a book and maybe working on some lesson plans or ordering things, but mostly just napping and forgetting he was supposed to be writing a book.

And listening to Apu-san complain about how he was kidnapped, too, but no one seemed to care or even notice that he was gone, and debating whether or not he should point out to Apu-san that the cheese panda accidentally locking him in the storage cooler for a few days did not count as being kidnapped.

And this was exactly why Shunsui would be calling Summer-chan later, now that she was back, because he absolutely needed a mediator for these sorts of situations. Or at least someone who was much better at pretending to actually care and be willing to do something about it.

Today's Squishy Flavors
English Toffee
Totally Not Stale Christmas Cookies, Honest!
Red

Turtle & Canary is open!

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The afternoon was well underway by the time Octavia made it into the store. The last few days had taken a lot out of her, but maybe that meant she deserved to pick up something nice from the grocery store?

Or maybe that was just a convenient excuse to get back in the swing of this Wednesday habit.

Either way, there she was. A little tired and worn down, somehow, but - there she was. "Hey."

The universe did seem pretty set on mucking up things with Wednesday habits lately, didn't it?

And that tiredness coming off of Octavia as she came in was palpable to Shunsui, practically a reiastu of exhaustion, and not just physical, so Shunsui met it with a soft smile, already pouring.

"Konnichiwa, Octavia-chan," he said gently, holding out the first cup. "Sake ♥?"

"Sure," Octavia said as she came up to the counter. She was grateful for the offer, because somehow the utter familiarity of it felt like it grounded her into the moment. Not that she'd realized she perhaps hadn't been. "Thank you."

The brush of her fingers against his hand as she took the cup seemed to linger particularly long, today.

Her fingers were welcome to linger there for however long they needed to, but that was hardly unique to just that day.

"Yokatta~~ &hearts." He dragged it out just a little in the intonation, though it remained a bit softer than it usually might have been. "And how are you on this nice, quiet, uneventful day, hato?"

Quiet, anyway, as long as you just ignored Apu.

Which Shunsui was very good at.

'Tired' was what Octavia wanted to say. But maybe that was evident enough without her saying it, and if it wasn't, well, she didn't want to call attention to it.

"Fine," was what she actually said, before she brought the cup to her lips and took a little sip. She savored it for a moment before continuing. "Wouldn't mind it staying quiet and uneventful for a while."

"It usually does, after these things ♥," Shunsui noted, pouring his own cup now, but, then again, he had the distinct privileged of having missed this last Summer of Wonder. "Though even if it isn't, then that's all the more reason to appreciate and savor today for what it is, neh ♥?"

With that, he lifted his cup to toast to that very thought. He tilted his grin, as well as a wink, toward Octavia, and then tilted back his drink.

Octavia managed a tiny smile that was faint even by her standards, but still, at least it was there.

"And how are you today, Shunsui?" she asked, after lifting her cup just a little in vague answering toast. "Business as usual?"

"We~ell~~ ♥," said Shunsui, slightly sing-song to go along with his oh-so-put-upon sigh and a shake of his head. "Apparently, the cheese panda locked Apu-san in the storage cooler for a few days and Apu-san is terribly upset because no one noticed, thanks to all the other people who went missing. So, yes, I'd say, just about business as usual. And I'm a little disappointed, actually, that I didn't get to have my first class, either! The first class is always the best ♥."

Because it usually involved a beautifully dramatic entrance. There were going to be flower petals!

"Although it should be interesting, going into the next class after all this, where the solution seems to have flown right in the face of the very thing I aim to teach."

"And what's that?" Octavia prompted him. She hadn't even known he was teaching again - they really hadn't spent a lot of time actually talking since his return, had they? - but she let that go without comment.

Mostly, she just wanted to listen to him.

And part of that may have been by design; there hadn't really been much Shunsui had wanted to talk about since his return.

But this, he was more than willing to go into, if the brightness of his grin was any indication.

"Oh, you'd love it, Octavia-chan ♥," he said eagerly. "It's the Art..."

Pause for dramatic effect, a showman's wave of his hand, and the big reveal...

"...of Pascifism ♥."

Right up her alley!

"Same thing I taught when I first came here, actually... ♥."

It was, in fact, so much right up Octavia's alley that her first, immediate reaction was an incredulous huff of a breath.

"The Art of Pacifism," she repeated, with rather a mild eyebrow raise. "Really."

Maybe that last word should have been more of a question.

"It's a very underappreciated and terribly underutilized art, you know ♥," said Shunsui, his tone and his posture gaining a bit of a lofty quality, which might have been more effective without the unabashed, unashamed, and undeterred grin on his face. "And I am an expert ♥.

"Though I will admit," he added, with a light chuckle, "it's going to be a harder sell this time around coming right off of a situation where the attempt at a peaceful approach did the exact opposite of working..."

Maybe if they'd been more than a day out from where the peaceful attempt had so spectacularly failed, Octavia would probably have seen the worth a little more easily.

But it was hard to switch back from the battle mindset where her sword was a part of her.

"Is that really what the students even need?" she asked, in a dry rasp.

That dry tone earned Octavia a bit of an arched brow, though the rest of Shunsui's face remained pleasant and open.

"Any more than they need classes about watching television or bird haberdashery?" It wasn't pointed so much as it was a little pinch, before his expression softened into something almost a little sad, despite the smile.

"It's always important to know that a fight isn't necessarily the only option, Octavia-chan. Especially for those who can't fight. Or shouldn't. Or haven't ever known any other way. When we pick up a sword...most of us, anyway...we don't...usally...become experts right away. We have to practice, train, hone our skills and learn new ones. We have to be taught how to fight effectively. Why not the same with pacifism? Some people have to be taught how to not fight effectively. Some people don't even know that it can even be an option. So, yes, Octavia-chan. I believe it is something the students need."

"Maybe," Octavia allowed. Grudgingly, by the sound of it, even though she knew he had a point and she knew his explanation made sense.

She just wasn't managing to feel it. That much was probably obvious.

"But I don't feel bad you didn't get to tell them that this week." You know, apart from how she felt bad this week hadn't just been a normal week to begin with. "Sometimes the sword is the answer."

Grudgingly, maybe, but even grudging was more acceptance than Shunsui was used to getting, so he'd take it, with a pleased smile, and a bow of his head to cede Octavia's point to her as well.

"Hai ♥," he said, "and sometimes it isn't. And that's why I'm teaching this class."

That, and for the free school trips, but shhhhh.

He then finished up his sake so that he could make a show of pouring his next cup while I said the rest.

"But, tell me, Octavia-chan....do you think it would have made a difference, if I had had the chance to tell them this week or not? From what I could see, anyone charging into the fray hardly seemed the type to be convinced by one single lesson from a man who insisted on flower petals and spoke in lyrical prose over hot cocoa...."

And, having finished pouring, he then tilted the jug questioning her way.

Octavia responded to the questioning tilt with a tiny shrug and then holding out her cup for a refill. Today definitely seemed like at least a two-cup day. It was, after all, a small miracle that she and Duke had made it through last night without breaking out the booze at all.

"I don't know," she admitted, after a long silence that was mostly born out of an attempt to keep some of her more unhelpful instincts at bay. She sounded subdued. "Just don't like the idea of you telling anyone that right before we were at war again, I guess."

And Shunsui thought of many things he could possibly say to that...that there was hardly ever any shortage of people willing to fight on this island, for this island, that the threats were very rarely anything that couldn't be handled. That calling it a war seemed a bit of hyperbole, or if this war really had anything to do with it or if she just didn't like his saying it at all, or of what would happen if someone who wasn't ready to fight could not win their fight, but fought anyway because they didn't realize that not fighting was an option...

He considered these, and a few others, while pouring Octavia her second cup of sake, deciding that none of these were helpful, not with that long silence, not with that subdued tone.

He set the sake jug aside on the counter when he finished pouring.

"I don't like the idea of being at war again, and yet..." He trailed off a little, before going in to tilt the conversation a different direction. Away from himself, perhaps, because that was never a very good topic, anyway. "Are you doing alright, though? Now that it's done?"

All larger scale battles, all invasions... They all felt like war to Octavia. Her definition may have been (was) skewed by her experiences back on the ground, but it was all she had.

She wasn't going to cling to it as a topic, though.

"I guess," she said, as she picked the cup back up. "Just tired." There'd been no way she would've been able to sleep well after yesterday anyway, and then she'd kept waking up to Duke being awake and tense beside her. "Yesterday was a long day."

The last several days felt like they'd been a long month, and that was only half hyperbole.

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Turtle & Canary; Wednesday [01/08].

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