Another Date? [Event: Leo and Alicia]

Here in a park in the beautiful and romantic Rose Garden, where people with a lovely relationship with one another, commonly of the romantic couple kind, are walking together and enjoying the various activities organized by a company born of Fiore. This so called Loveland Park was not in the taste of one of its guests who stands in front of an entrance from which a sign that says there is a laser tag game through the arch. However Leo, the guest in question, still had his reasons for being at the venue. Over the several months he had developed a growing fondness for a particular woman whose appearance and most especially, attitude and demeanor simply cannot leave his mind. That perhaps he was interested in the white haired prim and proper lady known as Alicia. But how can he convey these feelings to his daughter? Lina had only known Leo to have loved her and her mother, and while Lina is a very intelligent and mature for her age, Leo cannot predict what her reaction will be towards her father loving another.

Yes, as Leo gazed down at a heirloom left by Lina's mother, he wonders how can he justify loving her and loving another. Granted she is long gone, moving on has been difficult. It also doesn't help that Alicia and Lina's mother bare some similarities. Indeed, Leo had to make sure that he loves Alicia for Alicia, and by love he meant like. Which is why he had asked her out to another date and fortunately, given the perfectly splendid time they had last Christmas, Lina was alright with her father hanging out with a friend. Granted he was vague about the nature of the event they were going to only because he believed it unnecessary and quite frankly, early to be telling Lina about these things. Perhaps when she's older? And given how her mind develops, that's not as far from now as anyone might think.

Putting the heirloom back in Leo's pocket dimension, where most of Leo's prized possessions were, he then took out two tickets which would let them in the laser tag arena. Because of the few things that Leo knew about the young lady was her fondness of ranged weaponry was one of them, which certainly makes this one of the perfect events to take her out to. The stage was certainly set for another meeting with Alicia, and though he wouldn't go as far as to call it dating, others certainly see it that way and for being the gentleman that Leo was, he wanted to his and Alicia's privacy to be respected. In which case, in an attempt to curb any further potential rumors of their involvement circulating, apart from generally not telling a single soul about this, even his own surrogate son Mura, Leo also dressed in a way he usually does apart from the slacks instead of his combat pants for a more comfortable feel so as to reduce the impact of awkwardness. By his side was a leather-bound book he had picked up from a local book store that focused on botany. The numerous entries regarding flowers in the book was quite interesting which he also found apt given that the place was called Rose Garden after all. And upon concluding his thoughts on what this day means to Leo, he had placed the tickets back to his coat pocket and picked up the book once more for another few pages of pleasurable reading while waiting excitedly for the lady he was about to see today in this lovely day... one would say that... it's almost as lovely as Alicia was, a thought that made a smile creep on Leo's face as he continued reading.

WC: 628
Leo: 628
@Ryuusei

"Ms. Alicia your date with Mr. Dragonbane is in half an hour, are you ready?" An electronic voice called out to Alicia. She was gazing outside a porthole of the secret space station/ship. A home away from home, Alicia's secret fortress she often would run away too. A place where she could hide, a place where she didn't need to be strong... a place where she could be weak...

The Edelweiss, was a hidden space ship built by Alicia's late fiancée... upon following the trail left by her late lover, Alicia had slowly begun to unwrap the mystery of the untimely death of her childhood lover... the secret base was filled with cutting edge technology and magical devices... the perfect marriage of science and the arcane... The Edelweiss functioned also as the spatial anchor for Alicia's pocket dimension, her own personal armory filled with weapons and armor hand crafted by her best friend and lover.

Alicia found it funny how "he" named many of the ships essential functions and protocols after books and poems the two shared. Alicia would often find herself smiling when every she would stumble upon hidden easter eggs left behind by her late lover. Truly the Edelweiss was a secret project that no one knew about except for Alicia.... and Alicia made sure to keep it that way... she hadn't even told her sister about the Edelweiss... Although she trusted Seri, Alicia did not want to take any chances... The last thing Alicia wanted was for someone to use the Edelweiss for selfish and destructive purposes...

Alicia held up a necklace with a broken silver key on it... one of the many shards of the Edelweiss' master key... She gazed at the beautiful starling silver as it starlight reflected off of it....

"Alicia... He wouldn't want you to sit here and sulk... Master Welkin wants you to move one... he wants you to be happy... and from my calculations based on your behavioral patterns.... Mr. Dragonbane  makes you happy..." The electronic voice called out to Alicia once more, despite being an artificial intelligent operating system, E.V.A spoke with concern for her new master.

"...E.V.A...I-It's not a date... I'm just going to meet up with a friend...." Alicia sighed as she put on the necklace around her neck, tucking it safely in her shirt. There was silence before the A.I spoke again to her master.

"Alicia... you can't hide in here forever... besides, the Edelweiss want's you to be happy as well.... there is someone out there waiting for you... you should make haste... you shouldn't keep them waiting..." E.V.A spoke in a tone similar to an older sibling. Alicia sighed and looked down at the face of her home planet, she looked down at the country of Fiore as if trying to see where Leonard was...

"Alright... prepare the long range transportation bea-" But before Alicia could finish her sentence her body began to glow as she looked down at her hands as it slowly became see through.

"Have fun with your date Alicia" E.V.A said happily before her master could interject.

"E.V.A!" Alicia called out and in a blink of an eye she found herself in front of a familiar face. An older gentleman reading a book, hair as snow white as Alicia's.

"L-Leonard! Ah!.... Hi! Hope I'm not late hahaha" Alicia sputtered her words, trying to regain her composure. She took a mental note that she would have a talk with E.V.A after this whole night. However, the frustration Alicia felt with her A.I. companion slowly vanished. A familiar feeling of warmth and nervousness took over Alicia's heart. She looked down and brushed her hair, she fidgeted and made sure her already on point outfit was in order.

"Ahem! Let uh get going.... we don't want to keep you out too late. Wouldn't want to break your curfew, or else Lina will get mad at me." Alicia smiled sweetly as she playfully joked. Her mind completely focused at the moment, her heart look forward to the evening.

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673 Words For This Post
TWC: 1,301 Words

@Sir Leonard

Such pleasure was evident on Leo's face by way of a smirk as he continued to read the book. Flowers represented such beauty and peace which were his hopes for this world. Coincidentally, flowers also would also remind Leo of Alicia. Like the colorful, historic rose. Perhaps a hopeful sunflower? Or maybe something to fit her royal demeanor such as the color of lavender, which also smells nice and has medicinal uses as Leo now found out. But during his pleasure reading, a familiar and enjoyable voice came through his immediate vicinity. Leo didn't even know how the beautiful woman who owns said voice even got to their location. Her presence came out of nowhere, not even from the edge of where he could feel magical presence. It was interesting to be sure, and perhaps one of the things her magic allowed, but nevertheless, she was there now and Leo felt more fine and happy than before.

The smirk on his face became a wider smile though while still reading a few more lines on the book, specifically on how to take care of flowers. Quite apt if Leo did think so himself, because now there was something he wanted to take care of. While Alicia stammered to explain herself, and still with quite the composure from what the old man could tell, he would look up to her slowly as he would close the book with a clamping motion with the one hand he had under it to hold it in place. But as soon as he lifted his head up to face Alicia and address how cute she looked all fidgety and such, a slight breeze blew over the area, and Leo could utter no word from his already open mouth. Indeed, he would be reminded of his long gone wife, that perhaps he had been thinking too much of Alicia and he knew he was guilty of it.

The open mouth transitioned to a sigh for it to close and turn into a smile. Quite the recovery, he thought to himself. "You're fine, my dear? Shall we?" he calmly said as he gestured the way to her. As she passed by him, she gave a rather good joke that made Leo giggle a bit as he followed behind. "Actually, I've been a good boy so mother is going to let me stay until bedtime." he replied to her joke.

Inside the laser tag arena, there were an assortment of weaponry and uniformed shapes of armor all lined up and neatly hung on a wall. Opposite that is the attendant who takes logs of who were playing in the arena. Leo approached to sign his name on a log sheet and was instructed to take a maximum of two weapons, body armor and a helmet then to proceed to a room which will be their starting position.

So as to conserve time in picking out a weapon, Leo took the armor first. While he was doing so, the attendant reminded them that the conditions for a kill were to hit the sensors all over the armor until the armor turns red, hitting the helmet makes the armor turn red faster. Then it came to choosing a weapon. Leo had minimal knowledge with guns and he actually took the time to stare at the variety of rifles, pistols, shotguns, HMGs and so on.

Discretely, Leo lifted up each one of the rifles, preferably something he could hold with one hand. He found one that resembled an old AR 15. It may not be the best in the selection, but it works Leo just fine. He then glimpsed over to Alicia to see she would prepare for this fun filled activity they were about to take.

WC: 626
Leo: 1,254
Total: 1,927
@Ryuusei