2025-11-16: An E-asy Climb
- Log: An E-asy Climb
- Cast: Isabeau Fontaine, Vivienne Sournois
- Where: Kagurazaka - Le Cinéma du Monde
- OOC Date: 2025-11-16
- IC Date: Sat, Aug 11 2012
- Summary: Isabeau does some precarious parkouring to fix the sign on Vivienne's cinema, and the two of them get to bonding over their mutual love for climbing up into things they're not supposed to be in. Just remember: ghosts are real, but thieves totally aren't.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Between her gruelling tennis schedule, voice coaching lessons, summer homework, and exploring abandoned warehouses, Isabeau also makes time to help her teammates.
Today, that means... fixing her sign. See, the 'e' is currently tilted at a downright precarious angle where it advertises LE CINÉMA DU MONDE; Summer means storms, and storms mean lightning, and lightning just happened to strike here to devastate poor Vivienne's first impressions.
It seemed like she was going to need to hire a crew to get up there and fix it with the proper lifting equipment, but Isabeau took one look at it, and said, in much more casual French,
"`Nah. I'll do it.`"
So anyway, that's why Isabeau is presently stories high, climbing up the front of the cinema in a way which feels deeply impossible, having apparently magicked footholds out of nothing half the way up. Having reached the sign, Isabeau grabs a spanner from the tool belt slung around her large waist, and then jams her foot right in on the edge of the railing holding the letters up.
This allows her to just kind of JAM the 'E' back into place, before she leans back over it to tighten the fixtures which ought to keep it there.
Mind you, it's a long way down if she falls. And she definitely didn't bring a hoist.
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
Sometimes, nature decides to punish the most undeserving. Really, what has Vivienne Sournois done to warrant this kind of inconvenience?
Don't look at the secret life of crime. It's assuredly irrelevant.
She was starting to go through the steps to get the sign taken care of when Isabeau happened to spot it, and volunteered to take care.
A Responsible adult would have said no thank you, absolutely not.
Vivienne Sournois, however, is not a Responsible adult.
And so, she stands underneath the sign a safe distance away as Isabeau, perching atop the sign, gets to work.
"Do mind the wiring, Isabeau, darling! That'll give you more than a hearty zap, you know!" Vivienne calls up from below. "...But, my, I didn't realise you were so handy! Wherever did you learn such a thing?"
She's Supervising, which of course means this is all definitely safe now.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"`It's cool, I see the cables! I think I can secure the connection again...`" Luckily, Vivienne's thought to shut the lighting for the sign off before Isabeau hopped up here, because she's definitely screwing that tight again.
And the fact that she is not blown several metres away and sharply down means that she did not, in fact, touch the mains power with that extremely metal spanner.
"`It's useful to get into old buildings and stuff!`" Isabeau calls back down. "`Besides, this is all common sense!`" It most certainly is not, but luckily for Isabeau, the damage up here is pretty simple, so her mind can conquer it all without feeling totally lost.
Dunning-Kruger? More like cunning manoeuvre.
Wrench, wrench, wrench...
With the 'E' back in its proper place, and all the bits in the back end looking roughly where they ought to be, Isabeau grabs onto the trailing end of the letter as she lowers herself down to an uneven brick. Her other hand finds another brick edge; then that first hand finds the railing which is nominally holding the sign up...
It's really pretty uncanny, seeing her just kind of shimmy down the front of the theatre at such a pace; as if one's brain expects her to hesitate and wail at every foothold instead of smoothly moving from one to the next, or at least certainly expects her to not be able to make half those things into footholds to begin with.
"`Aaaand... done!`" Isabeau declares, as she hops down the last few feet rather than bother climbing all of them, her knees bending and body rocking forward to absorb the weight -- though she doesn't need to roll properly with it, it's only a little jump.
"`Go on, turn it on, you'll see!`" Isabeau declares, bravely.
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
"Ah, good, good!" Fortunately, Vivienne was at least somewhat considerate of safety. ...Not enough to stop a teenage from climbing up that high without safety equipment, but at least enough to make sure she doesn't get herself zapped. It seems like she connected it just fine, too...
She listens, then, as Isabeau replies.
"It is, at that, isn't it?" Vivienne agrees brightly. Common sense... that gets a chuckle out of her. "For you and I, perhaps, but the average individual has to go to school for this. Months, if not years of schooling, just to get certified."
It's notable that she includes herself in this.
Isabeau finishes up her work, and then shimmies down. ...Even Vivienne finds herself raising an eyebrow as she descends without any halting or hesitation. Even she would take a moment to assess her footing.
Is it recklessness, or overconfidence? ...Or perhaps something else entirely?
"Of course. Let us bask in the glow of your handiwork!" Vivienne replies. She ducks into the theater for a brief moment to turn the lights back on - and steps back out, to observe what she's done.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"`I could do that if I wanted to,`" Isabeau sniffs, haughtily. She's very good at putting her nose up in the air when she's up there with that sign, because she's already head and shoulders above everyone else.
(Though once she lands back down, catlike, and straightens up -- she's still an inch shorter than Vivienne.)
Isabeau remains outside, as she beholds...!!
LIGHTS! CAMERAS! (Isabeau lifts her phone up to snap an 'after' photo; that's where those come in.) ACTION--!!
Now, this might be where one would expect the sign to explode, except -- there's no action. The display lights up, cheerfully, as if it were never struck.
Today... Isabeau got away with it.
... there's no accounting for tomorrow, but never mind that.
"`There! You see? Crisis averted, and all is well!`" Isabeau turns to Vivienne, slipping her phone back in her pocket so she can plant her hands on her hips. "`Pretty cool, huh?`" She asks, chest all puffed out. "`I bet you didn't think I could climb up there!!`"
Isabeau is surprisingly gifted at getting up to places she shouldn't be in...
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
"I'm sure, but you may need to get older, yet. I'm unsure what the minimum age for trade school is here..." Vivienne replies diplomatically.
The lights are turned on...! And nothing explodes! Vivienne 'hm's thoughtfully to herself, as she turns to look it over. Nothing looks out of place - indeed, it looks just as it did before the storm. She nods approvingly.
"Indeed it is. Excellent work, Isabeau, darling. You've saved me quite the headache - and a mountain of repair bills." Vivienne repies gratefully... and then chuckles, as Isabeau preens herself. "No, I didn't. It was a pleasant surprise."
It should be concerning - but Vivienne was the same way when she was young, so perhaps she realises there's no point in trying to stop it.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Isabeau doesn't know what the minimum age for trade school is, because she's going to attend the Sorbonne, she decided. She has also decided that getting into Sorbonne University will be easy for her.
But how can she not have an ego when she's this good?!
"`The problem is,`" Isabeau insists, "`they all want those machines to lift them up, when it's perfectly possible to get up there without it!`" They want these things because of workplace health and safety, Isabeau. You could have broken your neck. "`So they end up charging mountains more than it costs... just because they're all cowards!`"
She jabs a thumb at her chest, as she insist, "`I'm no coward. I've been climbing up things since I was a kid! And if you want to get into an abandoned house, you can't be scared about it! Especially if you want to get your gear in there, too!!`" Her ghost hunting gear, she means; evidently, she doesn't usually bring it all with her in a suitcase.
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
Isabeau informs her of what the problem is. They need machines, because they're cowards. ...Vivienne chuckles, at that.
"Yes. Imagine, grown men afraid of a debilitating fall." She replies, and it's difficult to tell just how serious she is. "Should it happen again, I know who I must call. ...Though if it's all the same, I'd rather it not. Next time, it may be more than a single letter."
Just think, it might be the É next time, rather than the E.
Isabeau declares that she's been climbing things since she was a kid.
"I had it easy, I suppose. My own exploits didn't require any more gear than I hide in my sleeve." Vivienne remarks. "Do you bring your equipment with you often?"
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Most people are debilitated by falls because they don't know how to fall right," Isabeau sniffs, turning her nose up, again. "As if they've never learned how to work with their momentum instead of fighting against it! But don't worry, Vivienne," they're on the same team, so she uses her first name, even though she's an adult, "There's no way lightning would strike this place twice!"
Would lightning do that? Just go and strike her down twice where she stood? It would? Yeah, well, God can suck a --
(Isabeau thoughtfully truncates that thought around adult company.)
"Whenever I'm out hunting!" Isabeau says, cheerfully, before she appends: "Ghost hunting, I mean." Because now she does two kinds of hunting! And she needs different equipment for the other kind. (That kind of equipment she can find right here.) "Not every place I explore is going to be a good candidate for that... like, an abandoned office block probably doesn't have anything haunting it, right?"
Isabeau pauses, and puts a hand to her cheek. "Wait, right, salarymen... I forgot how they fling themselves out of windows in this country." Plenty of scorn on her emphasis, there; she doesn't make much of a secret of her dislike for Japan, particularly in French. "Well, anyway, most of the abandoned office blocks don't feel that haunted. But you can kinda tell when something is, right? Like there's something watching you, but it's never there when you turn around... just like that!!" She sure sounds like that's a legitimate phenomena which you can measure hauntedness through, anyway.
"Anyway," she goes on, talking a mile a minute now one of her favourite subjects has come up, "I kind of have to pick and choose what I bring, if I'm sneaking in the window... but so long as I don't break any locks or anything, I'm not breaking and entering, that's just entering! And no one can get mad at me for checking out a place they stopped caring about, anyway! I'm not taking anything but pictures!" Isabeau isn't a thief, she's just curious.
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
They don't know how to fall right, hm? Vivienne chuckles again.
"Most people don't need to. We're perhaps exceptional in that regard, given our line of work." Vivienne points out. She takes being called by her first name in stride - if anything, she prefers it. "...But, I shall rest easy with your expert assurance."
Isabeau says that she brings her equipment with her whenever she goes out hunting - ghost hunting, she clarifies - and Vivienne listens thoughtfully as she works her way through her explanation. She doesn't see any point in interjecting, when she's on such a good roll already.
"I suppose preparation is paramount, whichever kind of hunting you're involved in." Vivienne considers, and then brightens. "...But, it's true. To enter and exit without leaving a trace - that's a remarkable skill to cultivate. Be as the very ghosts you track, and they'll have nothing to use against you."
Vivienne, meanwhile, is a thief... but she is also prone to curiosity.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Most people should! Everyone's going to have a fall at some point. If they knew how to, you'd see a lot less broken bones," Isabeau huffs.
She brightens, though, when Vivienne declares that her skills are remarkable. "That's right! You need to be a ghost to catch a ghost!! I'm sure that's what they say." Well, they usually use a different descriptor in there, but why would thieves be relevant to this situation?
(Isabeau, a dumbass seventeen year old, does not pick up a SINGLE hint Vivienne's dropping here.)
"I just think of cities like... big concrete jungles, you know?" Isabeau says, instead, turning to a nearby high fence and gesturing to it. "Like, if you get up on that thing, you can jump up to grab the streetlamp, swing yourself up onto that, then you can climb up the electric pole and get on the awning up there... it's just one big puzzle! Right?" She adds, looking back to Vivienne.
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
"I don't disagree." Vivienne agrees - and seems pleased, when Isabeau agrees with her.
"Indeed, I believe it is." She says. That's definitely what they say. There's no need to investigate that further.
She follows Isabeau's gesture with interest, though, tracing the path with her eyes as she lists it out.
"My. Did you come up with that just now, or had you already been considering it?" Vivienne asks, thoughtfully. "But, you are correct. "There's always paths to be found for those with both the eyes and the cleverness to spot them, even - and perhaps especially - in a city like this."
She chuckles, then.
"...And, of course, the skill to traverse them." She adds - and, as if suddenly remembering that she should at least pretend to be responsible, adds, "I suppose this is the point where I should at least advise you to be careful."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Yup, everything checks out here. It's all ghosts, which are real and actually exist and can haunt you, and not thieves, which are a theoretical threat existing somewhere over there and probably a problem for poor people who don't have secure apartments to worry about.
(What? Thieves can target rich people? But their penthouse is all the way up there, and this discussion about scaling anything because it's there has no relevance to that at all.)
"I came up with it just now!" Isabeau declares, puffing up once more. "Though, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how to climb up the Moonlight Bridge... you know, the one near Iwatodai? I never get the chance to climb up bridges, because everyone always calls the police and assumes I'm trying to do, you know, that." Isabeau wrinkles up her nose. "My mom always had to tell them I was just testing myself, and it was always this whole thing!! But it's there, and it's huge, and I'm going to figure out a way to get away with it."
That's either a declaration or a threat or a promise, depending on how you look at it, but she sure sounds sure of herself.
"But don't worry," Isabeau folds her arms across her blouse, with a firm nod. "I'm always careful! You need to be able to tell how much weight something can bear before you put yours on it, after all, and you need to know where you've moving to after you get there! Though if someone just started climbing something with no plan and no clue, I guess that would be concerning. I just happen to be better than that."
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
Just off the top of her head, hm? That is pretty impressive - split-second decision-making like that can be pretty vital... Vivienne listens with interest as Isabeau explains her current target - the Moonlight Bridge.
"I'm familiar, though I haven't had the occasion to visit, myself." Vivienne replies, and chuckles. "I can understand the concern... but that is quite the inconvenience."
Her mother always had to tell them she was just testing herself, hm...? It sounds like she understood it well. She has her own ideas on what Isabeau could do to get around that...
...but it's much more rewarding, she imagines, if she figures it out for herself.
"It is important to test yourself. It's quite the shame they can't understand that." She says. "Regardless... the view from up there must be remarkable. Do remember to take a picture to commemorate it, won't you?"
Vivienne certainly believes she's going to try. Why not encourage her to chase her dreams?
Isabeau assures her, though, that she's always careful. This, despite seeing the way she descended the theater front with zero hesitation...
"I'm glad to hear it. Still - don't forget that anything can happen. No matter how careful you believe yourself to be, there are always surprises. What may look sturdy may be anything but, once weight is put on it... and there may be watchful eyes in places you don't expect. Do make sure to be ready for anything." Vivienne advises.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"I get enough people saying 'what are you doing' when I'm going up the wrong side of a fire escape," Isabeau sniffs, increasing her haughtiness power even further. "As if they've never thought about it! They're just not brave enough to try."
She's practically beaming, though, when Vivienne encourages her to take a picture from between the beams. "Of course!" She declares, brightly. "So long as my camera's working, I totally will!!"
... which might suggest one solution she's thought of for how to get up there, at least.
Isabeau doesn't particularly see any conflicts between not hesitating and being careful; certainly, Isabeau thinks she's got it all figured out. (You know. It's all about those cunning manouvres! Pride never comes before a fall, everyone says that.) But Vivienne having something worth listening to doesn't necessarily conflict with Isabeau's arrogance, either; she's not competing with her, she's an adult, even Isabeau knows those are entirely different weight classes. "I guess so," she says, her hand dropping to her hip. "Anyone could be watching... or anything!"
She pauses, looking back to the theatre. "... but right now, we'd better be prepared to run The French Revolution: Years of Hope, right?" La Révolution française: les Années lumière, less the translation. It's the first part of two of a historical dramatic film which is considered notably accurate, for its fare. "Now the sign's fixed... we'd better get ready for it soon, it's long, isn't it?"
The entire thing runs for 360 minutes; so yeah, PRETTY long.
"Let's get started!" Isabeau declares, as she confidently heads inside...
... and to her credit, once they're ready to start, she'll sit through all of Years of Hope and Years of Rage and pay attention to the whole thing.
<Pose Tracker> Vivienne Sournois has posed.
Vivienne chuckles, at that.
"It's envy, I suppose - seeing someone do what they can't." She observes - and nods, as she confirms that she'll definitely take a picture if her camera is working. "Excellent."
But Isabeau seems to take her advice, at least, and Vivienne seems pleased enough.
"Quite right." She agrees. "But if you're ready for it, you can consider in advance how to respond."
...But indeed, as she says, another showing has creeped up on them.
"Yes, of course! The show must go on, as they say." Vivienne agrees. That's for stage theater, but she has plenty of experience with that, too.
"It's quite the pair of films - I've been eager to show them off..." Vivienne agrees enthusiastically, heading inside.
And she is quite pleased when Isabeau does, in fact, offer the movies her full attention.