About 2:30PM in the afternoon, two girls were seen walking on Ninjago South East-Boulevard. One was blonde and the other had short curly black hair.
"Why do you think the directors called us so early, usually we start about thirty minutes earlier." The latter pointed out whilst unbuttoning her leather jacket.
The two girls had a pretty carefree expression on their faces as they were approaching a rather large building in the distance.
It was what people familiar with the "Reconciled Hearts" series called "Borg tower". Except if wasn't much of a tower. In fact a rather short one, about 4 stories tall. The secret with it however, is that for each floor, the cast changed up the decorations. There was no such thing as an eight and ninth floor.
"I haven't read the script for episode 62 yet. I don't know, must be a really exciting recording session today." exclaimed the blonde who was accompanying her friend.
Now this was Harumi Jade, the real deal. Yes, the main heroine of the series along with a supporting character: Vivianne Violet, the one who plays the role of Ultra.
Violet pulled the door opened for Rumi and the two women walked inside to be greeted by a few cast members. There was Nya, Lloyd and of course, someone that Harumi and Violet weren't too familiar with but knew exactly what role they were going to play. Snickering and hanging her coat against a chair, Harumi bent down and smiled at the overjoyed puppy.
"Heya Alpine! How are you doing?" Rumi giggled as the puppy ran circles around her. Violet took a seat next to Nya and Lloyd on the couches and happily watched as the blonde played around with the new recruit. This was Alpine the Pomeranian, she's still technically a puppy but the directors thought that she'd fit the role perfectly as: "Cloud".
"Aren't you excited? We'll finally play around on set, just me and you! You're coming in the next two episodes!" Harumi playfully grabbed Alpine's paws and shook them gently. The puppy barked and rolled onto her stomach, it was clear that Harumi and Alpine had a pretty good bond out of set, which was certainly a good thing for the directors!
"Slow down, Rumi. You might get called soon," Lloyd chuckled, standing up the couch and lowered himself at knee-level. He wrapped his arms from her back, intending to hug her—only to make Harumi chuckle and roll her eyes teasingly. Interactions like these were normal between the two, hence why Harumi was so calm about it.
Truth be told, Nya and the other cast members suspects that there's an interest picking up between the two actors. Again, no one confirmed anything.
"Ah right, that is true!" She pauses apologetically to the excited puppy.
Harumi stood you from the ground and walked over to Nya, who suggested that she helps her with her wig. "I'm sorry Alpine, we'll play again next week." She called out, thus making a promise between the two. Afterwards, the actress fled out of the entrance room into her personal dressing room.
Now, Harumi has had several struggles with her wig because of the amount of hair stands in it. It is quite unique in its own ways and Harumi personally enjoys wearing it—thus giving her a different look...more like different aura. Unfortunately, the previous wig she used from the beginning of the series had been burned by accident when getting too close to Kai's props.
But the directors managed to find the exact model by the same company, no one has noticed any difference ever since!
The white haired girl sat down on a high chair, glancing from the clock to the mirror in front of her. Nya grabbed the prized wig and walked towards the girl.
She lifted a brow as she noticed the current hairstyle applied to it. "A bun again?" She questioned, starting to place the wig onto Rumi's head then pushed her actual hair's strands inside. Like said before, the wig acted as what it was supposed to be. Sometimes it would be down hence that's the same wig Rumi used during chapters 1-8 of Reconciled Hearts.
"Guess so, I didn't read the script yet." She reminded the girl again as she had told Violet. Nya's fingers pressed against the bun, adding a little more puff into it before stepping away from the actress.
"You haven't? You should go ahead and do so before actually going on set." She advised quietly. Well it was true, the scripts were her reliable source on what her job consisted off.
As she stood up from the chair to grab the papers on her vanity, her dresser's door opened abruptly. "Harumi? Directors want you on the fourth floor." It was the sound of Lloyd, calm and composed as ever. Her lips curled into a smile as she quickly snatched her lines from the vanity, gave an appreciative nod to Nya and headed out. "Okay,"
Now the fourth floor was the last floor of the so called studio. There's a massive skylight as the ceiling so the directors often used it to record scenes on the 'rooftop'. Again, there's no so called rooftop In Reconciled Hearts. They used a slightly elevated concrete platform as the ground and added makeshift railings to make it seem like an actual rooftop.
Arriving on scene, Harumi looked around, astonished with the blue lights everywhere. The team was very reliable on spotlights and effects for different scenes in the series, she had realized that much. However, to fit the right effect for this one scene that they'd record right now, it is the first time she believes that they used ceiling lights. Would it mess up with a certain effect from the camera if they didn't use them?
"Ah, Rumi, hello there." a familiar voice greeted her from the front. The actress snapped out of her thoughts to be met with a four-armed man; Garmadon the oni lord. She had noticed that his costume was already worn and his face paint was applied along with his devilish red contacts. She smiled a little, "Truth be told, I haven't read my lines." She admitted to the older actor.
Garmadon patted her on the shoulder and snickered. "As expected, luckily we'll only do a practice round for today. The team didn't receive the correct props for this scene so we'll need to wait a while longer." He explained more in a tone to reassure her. She raised a brow and her eyes widened slightly. "What do you mean the correct props?"
In Winter Arriving, there would be a scene where Garmadon and Harumi played in the snow on the rooftop. Because it was technically autumn as this was being recorded, there was no such thing as snow, then again, the directors weren't foolish enough to bring in actual snow in here. Therefore, they relied on fake snow.
"They said it's fine if you mess up your lines for today, now come on, they want us up." Garmadon gently pulled her by the arm and brought them both over to the front of the platform where minimal effort was used to climb on top of it. Harumi, who shook a little when standing on the platform, let out a low gasp.
"Woah, this thing got shaky, I don't know if I'll be confident enough to run on this thing!" She admitted, merely joking around. Each step she took meant the platform would tremble a little, it scared her a bit but Garmadon laughed alongside her. "Hey, you're moving too much!" He called out. Truly, even if they weren't related, he did a good job on giving out a "fatherly" impression. Both Lloyd and Harumi could count on him as the "father" of the group.
"We'll get it fixed when the actual fake snow comes in." called one of the camera men from a distance away. Harumi and Garmadon blinked, looking forward and waiting for their action from the script to be called out. "Alright, now lay down, let's try some snow angels. Drop in the cotton balls."
Harumi's eyes widened a little bit as she processed what those words meant.
"Wait cotton balls?" She asked, a bit nervously. Would they really use cotton balls as a makeshift of fake snow? How would that work out? Her train of thoughts were interrupted by a small tap on her shoulder by Garmadon. She turned over to the taller and older man as he pointed above them both.
"Look above you." He advised. The actress did just that and she couldn't help but step away a bit.
There was a net filled with massive cotton balls waiting to be dropped above the two actors. "Oh, you've really done it this time! How did you even afford all of these?!" The white haired actress screeched and waited for the both of them to be crushed in cotton balls.
~~~~~~~~~
With cheater 62's practice shot being recorded and editors working already on fixing any mistakes or changing up any scenes, Harumi was called in the office by one of the directors.
She sat down and was looking through a few storyboards along with a very undetailed excuse of a draft for chapter 70's script. "Save the last battle to me, what kind of name is that?" The white haired girl flipped through the storyboard's pages, observing the badly sketched out drawings on the pieces of paper.
One of the directors shrugged and a faint blush formed on their cheeks. "Ooh, okay, I just thought it was iconic, alright? Plus it's from another book I'm reading so-" they cut themselves short, not wanting to explain any further. Point of today, was that the directors were showing the heroine what was up ahead for her and her stunt-works.
Harumi flipped to the last page and spotted a scene where it seems to be her with a sword and on the rooftop's zip line.
Her eyes slightly widened once more and she put away the paper back on the top of the desk. "You want me to cut the rope, but what if I actually fall?" She questioned.
One of the two directors reassured her that it'll be alright, they'll find a way to perform the scene better for her. Perhaps by placing a mattress below them as her and Alpine fell away from Garmadon's grasp? "Seriously though, and I get turned into a baby, Harumi needs a break." Rumi started to chuckle.
One of the directors stood up from the chair and shook their heads. "Oh but you shouldn't say too much, you're being filmed." They informed her unfortunately.
Harumi gasped and she turned around from her chair. "I'm being wha-?!"
The sound of a camera shutting off could be heard as the screen goes black.
~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Hiya, Lilla here and this is just an extra non canonical chapter for Reconciled Hearts that me and Jdizzle agreed to do for today! I really hope you enjoyed the small skit, haha!
I am also officially 15! It still feels weird though for some reason because I get the thought sometimes: "Hey, what if the readers are actually older than me, then what?" haha! But quite honestly, the support you guys have given the both of us has been surreal for the past year and we thank you all so much from the bottom of our hearts!
Anyways, that is my author's note finished, I'll see you all in the next chapter, cya!^^