2025-09-03: Threading the Needle

• Log: Threading the Needle
• Cast: Hazuki Nakao, Roger, Pernelle
• Where: Taro Nakata's Atelier
• OOC Date: September 03, 2025
• IC Date: July 05, 2012
• Summary: Hazuki bribes Pernelle to take her back to the Atelier. Getting intel from Roger, she learns how to get the 'thread' to the 'eye'.

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<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.

THEN:

Hazuki Nakao has finally had the time and energy to get to work on helping Taro. She needs to find the thread and the eye... and the only source she can go to is Peacock Silk, at this time.

When she arrives at their shop, everyone's busy... except for Pernelle.

Hazuki came prepared with tribute. A large box of fresh donuts from Shibuya, rushed over here warm, in a variety of flavors. She doesn't know what peacocks eat but he talks so it's fine, even if the donuts were OSTENSIBLY for Yanagi and Saika and even Tsumugi.

"I need you to take me back to that Atelier we met in."

NOW:

Hazuki Nakao has a box of donuts under her arm, occasionally handing one to Pernelle. The strange, hard underfooting of the Atelier still bothers her, but she's looking for someone in specific for information. She could have stayed and asked Pernelle questions...

But the real reason she's here is to check on Roger.

"Mister Pig! Roger! Where are you?" Hazuki cautiously calls out near the front gate, trying to make sure he's even still alive... no, don't think thoughts like that. He's okay.

She's clad in the same white dress and wing armor as before, orange and ash grey hair and golden eyes shining outward. She's ready to fight if she has to, though she's hoping she doesn't.

She didn't bring her bat, because she had to carry donuts, so it BETTER be okay!

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

        "It's you agaiiin...!" That's 'Roger,' which is the now agreed-upon name among those who were present of the bizarre pig-like entity who presented as - and acted as, and may very well be - a friend. He has a pronounced bump on his noggin with a crossed-over pair of bandages on top, and one of his tusks has been tied together by a cloth. He has exaggerated hatch mark bruises, like someone put them on there with a pencil, and a few large suspended balls of water hanging precariously underneath his eyes. (We would call them 'tears,' normally, but this is very silly.)

        "Eeee," he wheezes a squeal, "if I must be humble, it's not been very terrific... radiant's the last thing I'd call what's been happening since you've left...!"

        ...He perks up immediately, coming up from a pathetic heap to being all smiles while balancing on those unnervingly thin legs he has.

        "But now we can play together again! We're safe here for now... the Melanc Humors haven't been sending the Coleric Humors out this far!" He stops and tilts his upper body to the side inquisitively... and pensively. "That... probably means things are getting even worse..."

        ...

        He brightens up again. "But I'm glad you're here...!"

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

From on high, there was Pernelle, gazing and awaiting the chance to pass judgment on those who would enter his domain. But his beak shuts as soon as it opens, for what do his eyes behold? Donuts.

A request is made, and a contract is sealed.

So it is that he struts along with Hazuki to help get her into the Atelier she so seeks, babbling on in his verbose and purple way. "Now, we must mind ourselves, for even with the powers that have woven themselves around you, there are still -- omnomnomnomnom -- ahem, what was it I was saying? Yes, of course, in the event that we are accosted by humors most foul, you may position yourself behind me to witness -- chompchompchomp --"

Is it really this easy to get the peacock to do whatever you want...?!

But as Hazuki begins calling for Roger, Pernelle exhales, giving a solemn bow of his head.

"Ah, that brave boar. The bravest boar, sacrificing himself for the sake of your escape. I knew him for but the slightest brush in our time's infinite weave, but I shall remember him always, and -- Oh, disregard. There he is."

Pernelle's dramatics cut short as he hops circles around Roger to inspect him.

"Well, well, well, that IS a lump. You look positively pummeled. Let us see to it, then! Anqa!" Pernelle's eyes are bright and clear, and he opens his jaws wide as light, like a butterfly, drifts past. He chomps his beak up it and swallows.

For a brief moment, above him appears a beautiful golden bird doll, stitched by rainbow seems. Her wings spread, and the curative light of a Dia spell wraps around Roger to attempt to mend his wounds.

<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.

As Hazuki reaches Roger, she sighs a breath of relief. "I'm glad you're okay, Roger."

Pernelle is fed donuts up until they're out. Once she is, she gives him an apologetic glance, but one that also says 'please don't ditch me'.

Roger's bumps and bruises... "I hope they didn't hurt you too badly..."

Once Pernelle heals him after dramatically declaring his death, she sighs in relief. "Thank you, Pernelle... so do people have different abilities...? I don't think Janus can do that."

But then Roger mentions things are getting even worse. Hazuki sighs once, before rubbing her brow.

"...I need to ask you about some stuff before we can really play. I couldn't... I couldn't figure out what you meant by the thread and the eye, so the people I've gathered to come help you and Nakata-kun can't get in here..."

She seems pretty down about all of this. If it's getting worse... will they make it in time?

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

        "Eh? I don't play dead. Playing dead is boaring..." Roger mumbles in humorous aside, but through Pernelle's Persona in Anqa, Dia works its magic and visibly lightens the strangely friendly Shadow's injuries. Offensive magic obviously works against them, stands to reason that healing does too - and it works!

        "Oh, thank you very much!" Roger positively beams, standing on one leg and being all smiles for the moment. "They've been playing real rough... but I haven't given up the game yet...!" Even if he seems to lack any, and all, of the tools necessary to actually fight it now.

 5tHazuki asks for clarification, and Roger's posture softens as he listens to his new friend, and...

        "What?! Really? I didn't speak in Pig Latin or anything," he starts pressing fingers together, "that seemed crystal clear to me! You came here by threading through the Eye of a needle for Nakata..."

        "And you two just did it again, so, umm... ummmmmm.... uh, well..." He snorts, looking downcast with drooping ears. "I, um..."

        He trails off to confused, panicked grunting.

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Pernelle, when he realizes there is naught but a single donut left, looks at Hazuki with increasingly enlarging eyes as if this would manifest them from the ether to fill the bottomless void of his stomach. But all it takes is the next order of business to appear, and it seems he has forgotten all about it.

He is still here, Hazuki unditched! So, there is that.

With his healing complete, he nods to Hazuki. "Just so. Persona rise from the depths of the self, and we are different beasts upon this world, each carrying a different dream in our heart! But we are not immutable! There is always more to discover of oneself."

Pernelle dismisses his Persona and takes to idly preening. "Hmm. Yes. I should think it a complication that you and they have disparate rules concerning your recreational pursuits. But thankfully you look a sort that can endure a bit of rowdying about."

At the mention of the thread and eye, Pernelle's head cranes to look at Hazuki. Double mascot stares. "As he says! Have you sewn before? There is this instrument called a needle: a long thin piece of metal with a little loop called an 'eye' at the top. A thread goes through it -- difficult, delicate work, mind -- so that it can be woven into... well, fabric, I suppose! Or flesh. Sutures, they call it."

He is explaining the wrong part of this metaphor...

<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.

"We won't let them continue to hurt you for much longer..." Hazuki tells Roger as she paces around him, saddened by Pernelle's widened eyes... she wishes she had more donuts.

Before stopping in front when he starts panicking, trying to figure out how to explain it.

Hazuki's mouth droops into a gloomy frown, before Pernelle tries to explain. Hazuki's eyes show her confusion...

"Woah, woah, calm down, Roger, it's okay! I just meant, I didn't understand *your* meaning. I just wanted a way to better, uh, explain it for the others!" she lies, unwilling to continue bothering Roger by saying she doesn't know at all. "And, uh, Pernelle... does that mean they have to do something weird to Nakata-kun...?" she stage whispers.

She doesn't want to sew something into his skin...

"Just... act like I don't know anything, Roger!"

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

        A confused, even frustrated Roger crouches down as Pernelle explains the idea while he draws his fingers into the ground in nonsensical shapes like he's rooting into it (and/or playing tic-tac-toe with himself as the opponent, which would be on-brand for him). His lack of affirmation for Pernelle's expanded upon explanation can probably be taken as also in error.

        "Hrrrrrrrrm," he grunts, "I'm trying, I'm trying...! It's..."

        He stands up again. "So! You thread through the Eye, of a needle," he holds up one hand appropriately for each. This is the exact same explanation as before." He tilts his head, inquisitively again, and...

        "Oh! Maybe he's right!" He lights up. "'Fabric' is something you really, really like, right? Something very important to make! Um, so. If it's made out of 'threads,' thennnn...!"

        Roger's eyes light up as he hops. "That's it! The 'Thread' must be something very, very important to who this Atelier belongs to! Like...." This is a Sanguin Humor, whom professes to be a part of this Atelier, and instinctively on some level he should have some idea. He trails off. "Um. Whatever Nakata must have seen as very, very important to them! It could be anything! Or... anyone?"

        It feels like he's grasping at straws too, as he starts to pace about.

        "And then you take that thread through the Eye, which," the exact words make sense to him, but how does it make sense to his friends and present and future playmates coming to help with the Homonculus? He roots around in the depths of whatever passes for a Shadow's mind.

        "A place? You'd have to take this thread to that place, somewhere that Nakata must feel is 'theirs,' or important enough to feel like 'theirs,' to come to a place like this, so... both times you've been here, you must have already done that!" Roger surmises as he claps his hands. "So it has to be something like that!"

        "...But the needle part of the 'Eye,' it might be even more specific... like some place they can be alone... together with others?" He visibly blinks, as if words exist but not so much the hows or whys they have been spooled from the threads of rhyme or reason alike.

        "...Does that make sense now?" Beat. "If it does it makes more sense to you than me..."

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Such is the dangerous power of Pernelle! Hazuki is already caught in his adorable web! But that is a problem for another time.

"Hm? No weirder than usual, I would assume."

what does that even mean

But Hazuki has the wisest wisdom, which is: let's all start from zero wisdom, and add wisdom until understanding is achieved. And Roger proves to be a boar of many wisdoms to add to zero.

Pernelle nods along sagaciously, as if he is actually providing any material improvement to this situation, which he isn't.

"Very good, very good my most perspicacious piglet. A finer explanation I have not heard! The eye: a door. The thread: a key. The fabric: a clue to the key. Mm... pretend the last one was a little punchier. Regardless! We all understand perfectly. Do we not?"

He looks up at Hazuki expectantly with an idle ruffle of his train feathers to smooth them out.

<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.

As Roger explains, Hazuki draws her phone and opens a notepad (she has no wifi). She starts typing into it, throwing the info he gives directly together.

Pernelle asks her if she understands. She considers.

"So... let's say I took Nakata-kun's lucky bracelet or something, anything he had that mattered, hypothetically." A pause. "Then, I took it to... his favorite place. Like..." she thinks, what had he mentioned before? What did she know?

"...there's a little nook near the arcade, a few shops down, nestled in an alleyway. He told me he likes to sit there and think sometimes..."

Maybe they were friends. But Hazuki knows she must have hurt him, right...? How else did he become a Homunculus?

"That'd... hm." How does that work, though? She considers, and then her brain pieces it together. She might not be book smart... but she's game smart.

"Oh! It's like scripting. By taking it there, a new event unlocks. Then, to get the needle in there, and into the Atelier..."

Where does Hazuki be 'alone' with others?

"...when I want to be alone but talk to people, I play video games, or go on my computer, or browse my phone from my room. I don't think that'd work, though... I guess there's net cafes, but I've never been, so I don't know if they count." She glances to Pernelle.

"You think there's anyone we can ask about that part, if Roger doesn't know?"

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

If only Pernelle knew terms like 'event flags', this might've been easier to explain! But he doesn't even know about attack buffering.

Yet here is is, nodding more and more as Hazuki summarizes things in her own way. "Just so, just so," he says, then pauses, head tilting to one side to the next. "That is, I cannot confirm anything of lucky bracelets and lonely little nooks! But hypothetically."

As Roger struggles with the next bit, Pernelle steps forward with a flourished fan of his wings. "That, my friends, is a strange secret of humanity. A an esoteric creation! One built of great dreams to be masked without a mask, all together, yet entirely isolated --" He pauses, blinking a few times. "Oh, yes. A net cafe."

Pernelle is silent a moment, perhaps awkwardly, looking over one of his foot talons before looking back up at the two of them.

"... Just so!"

He smooths his wings back against his body. So much for a dramatic build up and reveal!

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

        Together, the trio figure out a clearer way to describe - and codify - how one even gets into an Atelier at all, as he listens to Hazuki make sense of his attempts to make sense. Roger's features light up more at the greater comprehension!

        "Hooray! Yes!"

        "I'm from here - an Atelier - and not out there where you're from! So what that all is... you're better suited to know than I am!" Roger says, of musings of bracelets and 'net cafes' and what have you. "...Now if I could just get the Coleric Humors to back off and let you come kick the Homonculus out!!" He snorts angrily, fists raised... and slowly deflates.

        "Whatever this 'net cafe' place is... please bring your friends there as soon as you can! I'd like to meet them! Play with them! Games better than what that Homonculus is trying to do!"

        "Because... I don't know how much longer this Atelier has," Roger looks down, "because as soon as the Homonculus fully wins... then nobody here will be playing any more. Not even the Melanc Humors that the Homonculus turned into their teammates will be spared..."

<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.

Hazuki gets affirmations that she got it right... net cafe, huh?

"I'll ask some people for more information. Then I'll get this info out to the world, I think. If there's a big community like Myunghon told me..."

They need to be able to help. They're all in this together, right?

"Thank you, Roger! I'll definitely be back soon. And thank you, Pernelle! I'll give you some cash when we part so you can get more snacks."

She's not aware he might just eat the cash.

Though, Roger says they need to be quick... "...yeah. Don't worry, Roger, I've got a plan brewing..."

She needs to talk to Nakata. But how...?

<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.

Pernelle gasps in theatrical horror. "An end to games! This is an end to FUN!" He looks to Hazuki, pointing with a pinion. "You and yours cannot abide by the destruction of FUN ITSELF! But now you are armed with knowledge! And a baseball bat. Let it not go understated how important that last bit is."

Pernelle clears his throat.

"All this being said, I would be remiss not to remind you of Peacock Silk's services. Humors and Homonculi both leave exceptional treasures posthumously, but these are merely trinkets and knickknacks in unknowing hands! My dearest comrades can fashion something truly amazing from them. So whoever might come along, do be sure to let them know this."

He turns and begins to hop back down the way they came, but pauses at the mention of cash.

"Cash! The fake number! Yes quite a delicious commodity. Quite, quite..."

He's definitely going to eat it...

<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.

        Roger looks deflated at the prospect that time may be running out. For those Humors that grasp at some greater awareness of their circumstances relative to the Atelier that houses them, what must it be like to find oneself on the cusp of the Atelier upended beyond repair, the owner's Shadow fully consumed and replaced by the abomination usurping it?

        "I'm really counting on you, Hazuki-chan~...! I'll hold out as long as I can! I gotta!" ...To whatever extent he can meaningfully resist when he has been overruled and overpowered by the Homonculus-hijacked denizens of the Atelier.

        "Eh?! Exceptional treasures..." Roger snorts, and then a brief panicked squeal. "Ahh! I'm a Humor! Don't poach me! I need my exceptional treasures!" Beat. "What are my exceptional treasures? I would surely be more fun to play with than any exceptional treasures I have..."

        ...

        "...But what good could come from taking anything from a Homonculus? They're bad news..."

        Whether he's capable of thinking that deeply about it, he turns over to Hazuki and the vague direction of a stage-exiting Pernelle.

        "Still... thank you! Come back to play soon, okay? Sooner is better...!"