[She really should have done this earlier, but at some point Konoha will run into Jing looking for her while holding a gift-wrapped box and a neatly penned note of thanks.]
Oh! Miss Konoha, yes? [She says it in such a pleasant way that it sounds like a natural inquiry rather than a comment on how Konoha is rather recognizable.] I was looking for your room, but I wasn't sure where you had settled.
[Konoha, on her way back to the Temple from the forest, a basket in her hands full of foraged vegetation, mushrooms, flowers, and the like, is a bit surprised to be hailed, turning with a soft clatter of hooves. Oh, it's-]
Miss... Jing? Er- Jing-jie?
[That was the honorific that Nihuang had asked for, so she thinks it might work here? They hadn't spoken so much before, but she recognizes her as the festival organizer from before and shifts the basket in her hands to allow for a small bow, centaur-style.]
[Her smile widens slightly in amusement as she dips a curtsy of her own in return, the shallower gesture appropriate for an older lady greeting someone younger than herself.]
Are you heading back to the Temple with your things? [She nods at the basket she's holding, turning slightly so they can walk in the same direction.] I was looking for you, yes, but it can wait until you get back?
[It occurs belatedly to her that the human woman was holding a fancy looking box, but it doesn't actually register that it could be for her. (After all, why would anyone?) She must have caught her on the way to something.]
Anytime is fine with me.
[Apparently she wasn't going home. Or anywhere else, until that witch decided.]
Would you mind some company, then? [She doesn't bring any additional attention to the box she's holding at all, just waits for Konoha's assent.]
I'm a little curious about what you'll make out of what you found in the forest. [She'd had some specific things in mind when she'd last ventured out and been mostly unsuccessful.]
[If she wanted to see, it certainly wasn't something private... her mother's recipe, sure, but not a secret. So she straightens back up (to a somewhat towering near-seven feet, considering her human half begins where a horse's neck began) and resumes walking towards the Temple kitchens, shifting her basket back in front of her.]
I'm pretty handy with cooking, and my uh, "magic" helps, too.
Oh, really? Is that an ability that you gained when you arrived here or one you've always had? [She does have to move rather quickly to keep up with Konoha, so luckily it isn't too far a walk.]
[Konoha, too. She felt like she hadn't understood a single thing about Struxta. About robots, and why what they did had helped contain the Storm... She still didn't get it. Maybe didn't even want to.]
I can "make"... um, "summon"? Food.
[Which, honestly, was the best she could hope for as a power when she had two stomachs and a near half ton body to keep fed, but.]
Just raw things though, it doesn't just appear cooked...
Sort of... I'm still getting the hang of it, so. I ate a lot of that awful grey porridge, too...
[Two stomachs to fill, after all.
Just the memory of the taste and texture made her nose wrinkle a bit in distaste, but... at least it was behind them. At least the whole world and it's unbelievable metal things was.]
Not until I arrived here. Lady Astoria apparently decided to gift me with a new ability as well.
It's... [Kinda weird and hard to explain. Only one person had recognized it immediately upon arriving, and she hadn't shown it to a lot of people.] It's a way to carry things without their being seen.
Konoha puzzles over the idea in her head, but eventually has to ask, even as she ducks down low to get inside the Temple's kitchen past the lower door frame.]
[She follows after Konoha is safely through, making sure she has plenty of space.]
It might be easier to demonstrate. Would you mind lending me your basket for a moment, Konoha?
[When Konoha turns around, she may note that the colorfully wrapped package Jing had been holding earlier when they first met has disappeared, apparently into thin air.]
[Pretty much, yes, that is exactly what happened.]
Thank you. [She nods and takes the basket that Konoha hands over. She makes a motion like she's tracing and opening an invisible door in the air, and then the basket disappears entirely from sight.]
It's something like that. But I can also... [She holds her hand out for Konoha's, smiling gentle encouragement and asking permission at the same time.]
Konoha practically jumps out of her skin even though she had been told something like that was going to happen, all four hooves actually leave the ground for a moment, eyes wide, but she tries to not freak out like she had when she realized she could... make food appear. Be cool, Konoha, be cool-]
A- Ah...
[Her ingredients...
But. She could bring it back, right, so... She shakily gives her hand.]
I promise not to, Miss Konoha. [She says with a small smile.
When she takes Konoha's hand, there is a brief, strange sensation, as if there were another smooth surface between them. But even when she pulls her hand away, Konoha should still be able to note an invisible curved wall in the air close at hand, that stays just out of reach unless she's otherwise thinking about it.]
Try opening it again. [Cryptic instructions, Jing...]
The hairs are standing up on the back of her neck but Konoha does her best not to panic or look too scared, concentrating fiercely. There... feels like there's something there, just out of reach, but...]
Opening it...
[YEAH THAT IS REAL CRYPTIC, JING. ... But Konoha tries.]
You just need to think about your basket again. [Jing attempts, smiling in what is hopefully an encouraging way.] I promise it's still there, and you can pull it back out when you need it.
And that's...more or less my power from Astoria. [Yeah, she hasn't actually figured out an elevator pitch for this. Though at least in Struxta she'd been introduced to elevators.]
[She really shouldn't be shocked by any of these seeming miracles, considering, but she blinks slow surprise anyway before plucking the apple from Konoha's hand and inspecting it herself.]
Does this work on anything you can think of? You said it only works on raw foods, but is that limited by fruit or vegetable or meat or anything like that?
Does it have to be something that you already know about yourself? [What if they accidentally summon the meat of some kind of creature from another world? Or a plant that was edible for some, but poisonous to others?]
There was a spiced bread at the inn in El Minha, the world Lady Astoria sent us to before Struxta. It was made out of a grain I've never heard of before, on waist-high stalks with maybe a handful of seeds that could be ground down into flour. I wonder...[Well, she can't recall the name of the plant at the moment. Maybe they should save the experiment for later.]
[She'd had those a few times, so she's confident she could imagine all the ingredients that went into them. Red beans... sugar... buckwheat... white wheat... rice...]
I could get the ingredients for those... Do the same ones make bread?
I'm a little more curious about what you might be planning on making. [She confesses with a smile.] But perhaps we could experiment together some other time?
[That seemed much easier than trying to summon ingredients for a food she's not sure of exactly. Not that she isn't willing to try, but she'd hate to get it wrong and disappoint. Setting down her retrieved basket, Konoha starts sorting out the mushrooms and putting them in a small pile, chatting while she worked.]
It's nice to be back here, isn't it? I mean, it would be nicer to be back home, but compared to that Struxta place...
[She feels like she's forgetting something... what was it...]
Really? Thanks- If you could cut these into more bite size pieces...
[Konoha reaches for the knife in her tool belt, pulling it out and setting it on the counter before she gathers and lifts a bunch of leafy mountain vegetables from the basket and sets them down in front of Jing before she goes back to sorting mushrooms, investigating for and rubbing off dirty bits.]
You're the one who organized the festival before, right? Is there going to be another one? Like for the Bon festival or something?
[Very prepared. She approves. She takes up the knife to examine it for a moment, but she handles it with ease, very used to preparing vegetables for consumption.]
Ah, yes, though I had a lot of help with that. I was...considering it, but after our last journey, I don't know how much energy everyone will have to participate.
[Every country girl needs a good tool belt. Knife, hammer, hoof file, rope, flint and tinder...]
Ah...yeah. I guess you're right.
[Her cheery demeanor slips just slightly at the recollection. The Storm she still never did understand how it had happened or how they'd actually stopped it, the cuts on her rump stitched up, the way the poor metal androids had fared... How foreign it all had been.]
I guess the Bon dance would be kind of useless in a place like this anyway...
[No use trying to welcome ancestors home when you're... not home.]
Still- I really liked the last one. It helped me meet a lot of people.
[Her thoughts were trending along the same lines, but there was no point in indulging in melancholy.]
I wouldn't say that. I would hope that our ancestors would still appreciate the gesture, no matter where we - and they - are.
[She finishes cutting the vegetables and puts the knife down. Thoughtfully:] We might not be able to have a full festival, but a small gathering for everyone to meet would still be a good idea, don't you think?
[She has to believe so, because so much of her family had been deprived of their rightful resting places for years, something which had only recently been resolved...]
I do believe that our feelings and thoughtfulness in the offerings can still reach them, somehow.
[Welp.] Anything else I can do to help with the cooking, Miss Konoha?
[It was a good thought. A hopeful thought. Konoha wishes it was true, even if she doesn't know if she believes. Wishes her parents could know that she missed them, that she was alive and not dead in the mountains somewhere. Wishes her birth parents could know that even though they'd been taken by war that she was happy.
But that's a melancholy thought and Konoha smiles instead of letting herself dip down to those thoughts.]
Only if you want to! Didn't you have a package to deliver?
[That had... disappeared into the void???? Geez, magic was still so weird- but she doesn't want to keep the older woman if she had other errands to run.]
[Konoha examines her counter set up for a second, then nods to herself.]
In that case...
[It's time to cook! Konoha has a variety of tasks to assign, a few more foods to magic into existence, but in the end it seems what is happening must be some kind of stew.]
[Jing more or less follows along with Konoha's instructions, watching with fascinated bemusement as she summons extra ingredients seemingly out of nowhere. It was an interesting change to not be leading the cooking, but a nice one, mostly. She feels as though she's learning a lot about what kind of cuisine Konoha is used to.]
That smells delicious. [She notes, as they put the last of the ingredients into the stew.]
[Her food is simple at the core, nothing complex... but it's hearty and healthy, full of a variety of mountain vegetables, forest mushrooms, and boar meat, the stew thickened with rice. The food of a peasant, but at least one with access to a variety of ingredients.]
Right?
[Konoha wipes her hands in a satisfied manner, smiling as she looks down at the bubbling pot.]
Everyone seemed to like the hot pot I brought to the festival before, so I figured I'd try and do some more cooking. Homecooked meals are always better, no doubt about it.
I think so too. [In the Imperial palace in Jinling, Jing had - at least more recently - been privileged to partake in some truly impressive delicacies, courtesy of the veritable army of chefs who served Da Liang's Emperor. But her favorite thing to do was to cook in her own small space for her son and other loved ones, and it had been so long since she'd had a stew like this.]
This is a lot of stew, so hopefully you can find some more people to help eat it.
[She pets her side once more before she moves to wipe her hands one last time on a dish rag tucked into her belt wrap, not too embarrassed about her appetite since... hey. Two stomachs, that's not her fault!]
[In the same smooth motion she'd used before, she pulls out the colorfully wrapped package she had been holding earlier and offers it to Konoha with a smile.]
I was looking for you earlier to give you this. It's just a small token of appreciation for all your help with the festival last month.
[Rather than paper, the small box is wrapped in a daintily embroidered cloth with a simple flower design, knotted at the corners to hold the box, and inside are a few sweet mochi desserts stuffed with red bean paste.]
Konoha is visibly taken aback not only at the reappearing package, even though she'd just had the magic explained to her, but mostly at the fact that... it's for her?]
What- for me? You shouldn't have...
[She takes it gratefully, admiring the cloth for a bit longer than perhaps necessary (she wasn't so good at that delicate work herself), before she checks inside.]
It's really nothing big. [Of course, she's used to making do with what resources she does have, considering the environment of the palace where every gift was scrutinized for hidden meaning, some unspoken mark of status.]
[See, at least Konoha has manners that Jing recognizes! She's more than a little touched by how pleased Konoha seems to be at what a small gesture, but resolves to keep that in mind for the future.]
Well, they were meant as a gift for you... [Ask her again...]
[So maybe he shouldn’t have assumed that Konoha would’ve gotten used to the watch by now.
But to be fair, his first assumption is that maybe something is wrong. These texts are indecipherable, and while he can assume it’s due to technical difficulties alone, it’s often better safe than sorry. Better to maybe check up on her, make sure that nothing is amiss, and maybe help her figure out the watch. Note to self: avoid text messages with Konoha for a while.
And then suddenly his watch is a video feed, and Konoha is screaming at him.]
She's... had people try to explain how this works to her before, and she knows now that... there's a list of people in it, and a strange thing that has all sorts of... "posts"?
But it's all so much, and the watch just... has mostly lived in her tool belt. Until it rang just now. Besides, she sticks out like a sore thumb, who needs to call her when they can just tap her on the chocolate brown rump?
There's a long moment with some sort of shuffling (maybe hooves?), and her fingers running over the microphone by accident, then, kind of like... whispering...]
[There are rustling noises, and the sound of a microphone protesting the way it does when someone’s not using it the proper way. And he can’t make out anything that looks like her face, only blurry images of what he thought might’ve been hooves a second ago, but at least there’s progress in that she’s no longer yelling at him.
Connor pinches his brows together, squinting down at his watch as if he could puzzle out just what’s happening. He can, in a way.]
I can hear you. Can you tilt the screen towards your face?
[Good enough for government work, or so the saying goes. However, Connor is of a mind that Konoha learning how to properly use the watch will only be beneficial for her in the end, and so, as helpfully as possible:]
I suppose that it is, technically. But Astoria’s the one who’s provided it to us, and it has an increasingly impressive lifespan for running on a single charge.
[Does it even need charging? Connor is starting to doubt it at this rate.]
I used it frequently during our time in Struxta. It still shows no sign of depleting energy.
[She can definitely see the use if she was separated from everyone, or lost... At least? But that reminds her-]
Also, uh- What did you send, before? The writing one.
[She might have been bluffing when she had him write her Tanabata wish by making it more about her handwriting than... actual writing... and reading...]
[His LED is flickering with mild confusion, but... all right. He has no reason to doubt that she was just checking, especially given her inability to work her watch properly, and so:]
I had asked how you were doing, after we've returned from Struxta. The last mission wasn't very kind to many of us, so I felt obligated to check on you.
[SURELY PEOPLE HERE WOULDN'T BE SO FOOLISH AS TO DO THAT... right, Connor???]
It was planning to try and plow a field to plant some vegetables, but... since the plants are wilting, it doesn't seem like a good idea anyway, so. No strain from that, I guess. ... Though I'm worried about the plants.
Actually, her mentioning the plants wilting leads in nicely to another point he was trying to make.]
Yes. I noticed how quickly they're starting to die. They look sickly where they didn't before.
...You don't really view the network, do you? There was a message put out not that long ago. It had to do with something "dark" lingering around the temple.
[He shakes his head.] Don't apologize. I'm here to inform you now, and that's all that matters.
[Ever willing to be the helpful sort.]
I mean something more malicious than that. Astoria was the one who felt as if there was something now in the temple, like it was brought back with us. And there are some who have felt very mildly sick in the Circle, only fairly recently.
You're not feeling that way, are you? Consider closely how your body has been in the past few days, just to be sure.
I think it might be better for me to teach you how to properly use the watch, when given the opportunity. That way you don't always have to rely on me, Konoha.
[But he shakes his head.]
I can’t be sure, but maybe more like a disease. We did come from a world that used to be stricken with illness. And as far as what I could gather from the post, it’s only been humans so far. But that doesn't mean you shouldn’t be cautious and aware in the meanwhile.
Even so. I think being familiar with it will help you in the long run. If something happens to me and I’m unable to contact you, you need to be able to utilize the watch on your own.
[He’s gonna teach you, Konoha, whether you like it or not.]
Caution can aid in stemming disease — stay away from those who are sick, and make certain your own personal hygiene adheres to a strict routine. Every little bit helps.
Though I'm glad to hear that jinba are resistant to human disease. I'll take this into account.
Yeah, I've never gotten sick even when my parents did. My human parents, I mean. So, I should be fine. I could probably help out if anyone needs anything.
I’ll let you know if anything new develops, then. In the meanwhile, let me know whenever would be a good time for me to teach you how to use your watch. I have plenty of free time to do so.
[Connor is a very patient sort. It's exceedingly hard for him to be exasperated with someone who is actually trying their best, so Konoha will probably be safe in that respect.]
[ that cough incites concern — his voice softens. ]
Take it easy, okay?
[ and lo and behold, he goes through with his word; in 5 minutes or so, he slowly enters her room, crouching down to offer her a glass of water and plate's worth of sliced apples.
[He's too nice, really. She's pretty sure stink isn't cute at all.]
I am... Promise.
[She can't really do anything but, actually.
This time when he comes in she's upright. Still on the floor, legs weak, but she's on her belly properly instead of her sides or back, a much more comfortable position that puts less stress on her body, her human half leaning against the bed in the room, pillowing her face on the mattress.]
Hi, Nier...
[Again. But in person this time.]
Wow, they really do look like flowers...
[And she's hungry, and also hoping to keep a meal down this time as she leans forward obediently to offer her still rather warm forehead.]
[She wasn't so foolish (now that she isn't consumed by a higher fever) to push herself before she's ready, so she doesn't complain, even though two more days of this sounds... awful. But- She'd get better, right? ... She should be grateful, not everyone did.
So she takes the apple, chewing weakly.]
She sounds really sweet. Your sister.
[And he talked about her so much... It was nice. She'd never had siblings. Her adopted parents' natural children had all died in the wars... and she didn't even know if she'd had brothers or sisters. Before.
But if she'd had... that kind of relationship must be nice.]
You must be good with a knife, too... I can whittle a little, but maybe not this good.
[It's hard to imagine someone kinder than Nier right now, with her cheeks full of apple and him coming to care for her while she was so sick. The cool touch on her forehead she vaguely recalls from before, in the haze of worse fever than the heat still lingering in her now.
But she can't say it at first, because she's chewing slowly, deliberately, trying to will herself not to feel anything like nausea. Even with the apple still in her mouth, though, she finally speaks, mumbling around her food.]
I'm not skilled at fighting at all... I've never had to do anything like that...
[Or did he mean making apple flowers? Okay, so maybe the fever is still making it a bit difficult for her to follow conversations properly.]
[ he pats her head gently — before gesturing a glass of water towards her. ]
Back home, we were always wartorn. It only got worse as I grew older, so I was always fighting. This place is safe, though...peaceful. It's a little strange.
[ his katana is latched onto his back; instinctively, he reaches his hand back to delicately graze his fingers against the sheath for a fleeting moment. ]
I'll be here to protect you if anything happens, so you don't need to worry about that. And apple flowers sound nicer than a fight, don't they?
He pats, and she awkwardly swallows the last mouthful of apple before reaching out tremulously for the water, cupping it carefully in two hands and trying to take little sips.]
Mmmhm.
[Making apple flowers sounds much nicer, it's true.]
My world used to be like that... before. There was all sorts of fighting, and humans used jinba like- Like horses.
[Not like... people. She's heard the stories. From her parents, just a little, when they talked about their real children, who they'd lost. From Mikuni, and Gonta... who had suffered through that time when they were children, and old enough for it to affect them, like she hadn't been.]
[ she really is like a kid sometimes, he thinks. he cants his head, watching her sip. his eyes soften. gently does he speak— ]
They fought for a future that could keep someone like you safe. It's an honorable history.
[ the plate is nearly wiped clean at this point. a soft sigh escapes nier. ]
I think knowing that they've paved the pathway for the kind and bright Jinba of the future would make them happy. The ones like you. It's something to take pride in.
[She doesn't really know. Her parents told her that her birth parents had been killed, but that was all. She could assume... how. But she thinks about Gonta, and how tortured he had seemed by the memories of that time... and her expression drops a bit.
... She'd probably never see Gonta again, would she?]
Some jinba still hate humans... but if they just knew there were nice humans out there... like my parents, or like Nier... maybe they could live together...
[She tries to smile, though. It's just Konoha, being a hopeful idiot.]
they didn't anymore, really. he killed every last one of them. he wasn't even truly human himself. he does not allow that to show as he meets her gaze. instead, he reaches forward to a place a hand on her shoulder, eyes softening with assurance. ]
I think that future is possible. No matter what, don't lose sight of that dream.
[ he smiles. ]
You'll see them again one day, Konoha. I know you will.
[Konoha was sure. Nier was a nice human. Her parents were nice humans. Some of the men she worked with, they were nice people. The woman who sold firewood in the village... The man who made fireworks for the festivals...
There were nice people out there. Both jinba and humans.]
You always say such weird things, Nier.
[She just smiles, shifting to roll her weight about on her belly in an attempt to prevent the discomfort she'd fallen into before, curling her legs tighter.]
But I like them. Thank you.
[He said them so confidently, she could almost believe them. That she'd get home soon, and everything would be fine.]
[Konoha most definitely is not ready for a very excited metal thing to barge into her room shouting. She's not ready for anyone to come into the room, laying on the edge of the bed with her forelegs hanging over the side and her kimono top spread over them, a needle and thread in hand and a rip half-repaired.
She's still mostly decent, she wears an underlayer, but.
She almost falls off the bed in shock when someone bursts in, pulling her sewing up to her chest in alarm. She's seen this metal thing before, she knows he's not an enemy, but.]
Eeep! [ this is not the room he's looking for! repeat: this is not the room he's looking for!
daylight immediately ducks down and pulls the sheet that he's wearing around him over his helm, covering his optics in an attempt to give the poor lady some sense of privacy. so panicky and flustered he is, daylight make the immediate notice of her forelegs or give much thought to said forelegs let. maybe he will in a bit. maybe.
right now? he's too busy apologising in one breathless gasp: ] OhmygoshmissI'msosorryIdidn'tmeantocrashinhereandandand-
The metal person's panicked response only makes her panic more in turn for a moment, flustered as she hurriedly shakes out her kimono and begins trying to put it on. Shit, no, that's the wrong sleeve-]
[ the fact this is a game that daylight knows all too well is something.
daylight's winglets flare out even as he tries to huddle up in a little ball, a subconscious attempt to make himself bigger in the face of whatever is spooking him. the fact its covered up by a collection of blankets sewn together is killing the attempt to scare away the source of his spooking. ]
Daylight! [ he totally didn't squeak that answer out. nope. ] Daylight vis Lornlit, the Sunsung. Kindled of Radiance vis Noxolarium, the Sundered Star and Kindled from Lorem Laurel!
[ ohhh. the actual full name of his. he really is flustered for flustering the poor lady here. ]
[ he's keeping the blanket over his helm, just in case, while he continues to speak. ] It's at the start of the name and everything. Daylight or Day or Sunny or Sunshine.
I'm used to 'Day' the most since 'Daylight' and 'daylight' can get confusing sometimes.
[ is he for real. that's what he thinks is confusing? ]
[In way too much time, Konoha finally gets herself more decent and has the time to actually examine this intruder more closely, her tail swishing anxiously beneath the cloth she wears on her rear for modesty.
He's... really weirdly shaped and not quite like the other ones, but.]
... Are you one of the metal people? An android?
[One apparently actually named Daylight? Her own name meant "leaves in the forest" but it just meant that, it wasn't actually Leaves, okay...]
Mechanoid! [ because of course that's the first thing he focuses on. ] it's We're called 'mecahnoids' where we're from but android is okay too. Long as you don't shorten it to 'droid or stuff because-
Anyways! Yeah! I'm one of the metal people. [ like the others. his winglets wiggle from glee as he thinks over the words again. like the others!
he's so happy that there are 'others' even if the majority of them can pass for humanoids or can interact normally with humanoids. better than being the only metal individual, that's for sure. ] Like I said, I'm Daylight! And sorry for scaring you again, miss. I'm looking for a buddy of mine.
[Mechanoid... okay. It's one more weird word to remember but she can handle one more. She's got this. Android. Mechanoid. Metal people works best for her understanding but. Mechanoid.
She almost asks "see what?" as if she'd already totally forgotten how he entered her room, but finally Konoha blinks and realizes he's still covering his eyes.]
Oh- ! Sorry, sorry, you can look now, I'm dressed!
It's fine! My fault for not, um, knocking and stuff. [ he's got to ask his friends where their rooms are in the temple, he reminds himself. this is getting kind of ridiculous.
but! focus, day!
he now pulls the sheet off of him, revealing big blue optics blinking up at her. ]
Hi! [ his winglets wiggle, still feeling a little shy. ] Er, I hope I didn't spook you too much earlier, miss.
Um, you kind of did, but... if it was an accident then it's fine...
[Something on his back is... wriggling... and she can't not stare as much as she tries. She's still on the bed as best she could manage seeing as beds weren't really made for centaurs, forelegs hanging off the bed and hooves curled up a bit yet in surprise.]
Um! Alright! Not 'miss' then. [ in return, daylight tries not to stare at her legs, knowing better than to ask anything possibly sensitive so early in an interaction.
but oh how he wants to ask all sorts of things but - he bites down on his tongue, proverbially, and reminds himself of the (very, very) hard lesson he learned from nightbreak. his struts still ache in phantom pain whenever he recalls their first encounter. ]
Okay, um, what would you prefer then, mi- [ he stops himself. then he tries again- ] What do you prefer?
[ daylight giggles, his optics bright and his winglets fluttering under the sheet again. ]
I can tell! [ there are usually tells to someone being mechanoid in nature, from daylight's experience now that he's been exposed to more species since boarding the lornful light. the tells won't always apply, but he feels like this is a good time to apply them here.
it definitely looks like she's humanoid in appearance and nature, he thinks. better safe than sorry and assume she is? that sounds like a good plan. ] It's nice to meet you, Konoha! Um- You're one of the new faces, right? I don't think we've met before.
[He says that, but! 9S and 2B were metal people and they looked like humans except for their weird hair... and Connor looked human except for that weird light on his head... and A2 looked human except for those weird lines- so anyway!!!]
Me, oh, no- Or... maybe? It depends on how you mean by "new"...
[Konoha starts counting on her fingers, lips pursed.]
[ her answer definitely surprises day: his winglets flare out in shock, moving the sheet enough that it falls off him and reveals the pair of gold-coloured winglets. ]
Three months with the Circle! Oh wow— I can't believe we haven’t met. [ if meddy was here, they’d point out it’s not too much of a surprise given how much time they spent in struxta and how big the circle has been getting over time.
but they aren’t here and so daylight is very surprised but determined to fix this mistake. he extends a hand out for her to take, big grin on his face ]. Put it there!
[ … oh. right. ]
If you want to, of course. I totally get it if you don't want to.
[Konoha smiles a bit self-consciously, foreleg knees rubbing together a bit in a small squirm.]
I was, uh... a little confused for a while, so maybe that's why.
[At first she'd been afraid. Spent a lot of time in the forest. Spent a lot of Struxta hiding in the rooms.
She's learned how to shake hands, but-]
Ah, hold on-
[With a bit of maneuvering she wriggles backwards on the mattress until she can get her rear legs off it and back on the floor, backing up and straightening until she's half mounted that dang thing and is able to step down proper, clopping back around to the right side of the bed to... cautiously take his hand, a bit embarrassed by how awkward her movements had been.]
[ yeaaaaaaah - it's pretty obvious by now that he's trying not to stare, keeping his optics glued on her face while, perhaps, literally vibrating from sheer curiosity and excitement. he knows better than to just blurt out questions for now, wanting to keep this encounter from turning too awkward.
he tries to be polite and, at the very least, it seems he's genuinely excited to meet her now that (most of) the awkwardness has passed. ]
It's a pleasure to meet you! I'm glad you're, like, not immediately kicking me out and stuff. Ummm- I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask you but- [ he takes a deep breath, and then asks: ] Do you happen to know someone named Kou? He's got brown hair, bright coloured optics, and is this- [ he measures the space besides him ] -high in height. A bit shorter than me, though.
[ daylight. everyone is shorter than him when you're ten feet and counting. ]
[It's actually... pretty novel for Konoha to have someone who isn't a male jinba taller than her. Even if it is... a weird metal man... which means she's staring a bit, too.]
[ siiiigh. daylight's winglets lower in sadness, wishing he had gotten around to making a map of the temple. marking friends' rooms, places of interest. thing like that.
he smiles and tries to cheerfully wave a servo of his while he speaks, knowing there's nothing to gain from pouting. despite how tempting it maybe. ]
It's fine. I was just hoping I could tell him a joke I had thought of earlier and-
Oh. [ oh! ] Oh! Hey- Do you want to hear it? The joke?
Awesome! [ daylight's winglets flutter in excitement, happy that he's getting a chance to tell his super funny joke. ] I promise you- It'll knock your socks off!
[ ... does she wear socks? can she wear socks? maybe he can ask if the joke is impressive enough. ] Okay- Knock knock!
since daylight has no idea that she doesn't know how this works, so he'll be standing there and trying his best to be patient. just... stay where he is, a big grin on his face while waiting for the other show to drop though he doesn't know it'll never come.
see- this is why meddy needs to be with day at all times. it prevents accidental staring contests from happening. ]
Konoha mouths of soundlessly, blinking still, before she finally shakes her head.]
I don't think we do?
[She's not even really familiar with formulaic jokes at all, her people are still in "tell funny stories" level of humor. But now that it's clear what she's supposed to do...]
[ huh! no knock knock where she’s from. that's an interesting thing for him to learn. guess this must be one of those ‘differences’ that taxon talked a lot when describing intradimensional travel.
well— he can roll with this, he tells himself with his usual optimism. it’s all about the delivery when it comes to a joke! (that, and making sure the audience gets the joke.) ]
Okay! Knock knock! [ he raises his servos up. ] Just— Trust me on this? I promise, it'll be funny when we get to the punchline.
[It's a good thing he's caught on to the fact that she needs guidance through this, because... she's still waiting for it to make sense, staring up at him like...
[a piece of paper is slipped under Konoha's door - on it is a drawing of a strange, fluffy creature in a small cape. on the back in careful handwriting is a title.
And what a fluffy, cute animal? Konoha doesn't think she has ever seen an animal that fuzzy looking in real life before, but... oh! She definitely did talk to someone recently about white fluffy animals, hadn't she???
[he usually doesn't wear the watch - instead, he keeps it in his pocket, another item in there to be taken out when he chooses. but today, it seems he has a message - so he pulls it out, opens it, and decides to record his reply.]
[Her voice perks up at confirmation that she was using the device right and he could hear her clearly, also he remembered her!, hooves a soft sound in the background.]
This might be a weird question, but... did you draw me a picture?
It's a white, fluffy animal! It has something written on it but I can't read it, so I don't know if it's the title or the artist... but it made me think of the animal we talked about before so I thought it might be you?
This seems to be more reliable. I hope you are somewhere warmer and more inviting; it is quite cold where I am, and it seems this may affect the rest of the sea negatively. I am keeping well though, so don't worry too much about me. I hope we can all reunite soon.
[She breathes a sigh of relief that at least not everyone had ended up in as cold and dark a place as she had, though at least the native inhabitants were no worse than elsewhere. Konoha's disjointed messages give her pause, though.]
[Some part of her has been nervous about this, somewhere beneath the indifference she's shielded herself with in the aftermath of Akvos. Not just the thought that Konoha might be gone, but that the experience would have changed her for the worst.
That's the way things always were. Still, A2 is no coward, often at her detriment, and some time after she's dried herself out and gotten all the seawater out of her body, she sends a tentative voice message.]
[Konoha has been trying, but she's still not very good at texting. She feels like she's learned more words, but voice and video was still better.
When you weren't wrapped in blankets in your room crying. So a moment later... it's text that comes back. A2... She probably wouldn't want to see tears, right... They all-]
[Just forget about it, she wants to say. Clear it out of your mind, you'll feel better. But she knows that it was never this easy, never worked this way.]
Hm...
Where are you, anyway? You aren't using the voice function.
[Hm. Not a lot to go on, but lucky for her, she has...]
Pod.
Affirmative. Setting approximate location on mapping system.
[With that done, it doesn't take her long to find her. She hesitates at the door when she gets there, frowning, but then she forces her face to smooth out, and knocks politely.]
It’s not like she thought A2 would lie or anything, but... she’s still somehow taken off guard. It takes her a moment to get to the door, to open it and reveal... well, it’s just her. Red eyed from crying but she’s wiped the tears away at least, managing a small, tremulous smile.]
Hey, A2... come in...
[It feels awful here too, not just in the dreamscape. A2. It’s not a name.]
Konoha’s gaze drops to the floor between them, lips pursing as she swallows her instinctual answer. She needed a lot of things. Or maybe it was just “wanted a lot of things”. She wants to feel the strange, buoyant weight of the children of Akvos in her arms again. She wants to go back, to never go there in the first place. She wants to forget what she saw in that Rift. She wants to go home.
But what comes out in the end is a straw that she grasps for the purpose of just... having A2 stay, of hanging on to company in her misery.]
Can you... help me with my hooves? I have a file...
[It had been the wrong thing to ask, she thinks, a second later, feeling awkward and out of place. She had felt helpless there in Akvos, too outside of her designated purpose to be of any use, she'd thought.
This too, is outside of her experience. But Konoha looks so diminished, and so sad, that she can't simply detach herself from it either.]
Alright. Just tell me what to do.
[A pause. She appears to debate something.] After...maybe you could, uh.
[Maybe it’s stupid, to do something like that now, like this, but. Konoha seizes on it just as fiercely as one would seize a life raft, moving aside to let A2 in before she goes for her harness pouch and begins to rummage around in it. The sheets of her bed are all piled in a bundle beside the mattress, it’s easier for her to sleep standing or on the floor, and more and more keepsakes and mementos have found places in the simple room.
Like the seashell hair ornament she holds for too long in her hand before she forces herself to place it back and pluck out the metal file underneath instead.]
I didn’t have to walk in Akvos so it didn’t really bother me, but now my hooves have grown out a bit too much...
[And much like human nails... they needed a decent sanding every now and then, and simple anatomy meant that while she could reach her own back hooves... it was much easier to ask someone else.]
[A2 is careful not to be obtrusive, so much so that she seems uncomfortable in Konoha's space, as if waiting for a cue to relax.
She notes how Konoha seems to hover over her belongings for a few moments and keeps her gaze averted. Whatever it was, it was nothing she needed to know, she's decided.
To be of some use seems to calm her; she takes the file when it's offered and holds it for a few seconds, brow furrowed. She doesn't really have a frame of reference for this, but she wants to help.]
[She realizes now she’s never really had to explain it before. Just like so many things she was familiar with from her world, she’s used to people just... knowing. How to farm, how to cook, how to sew. How to file hooves. But she’s had people manage to explain how to use text messaging and emoticons on the “watch” to her, so... this can’t be that hard.
And it’s something that isn’t crying.]
Here, just like with the nails on your hand, you just sort of...
[Carefully she lays warm hands on A2, never shy with personal space, particularly with other women. She moves the file and A2’s hands gently to show how to grip the file, placing it against the point of nail and miming the action of shaving off the ends, rounding it.]
Like this... Until they look about this long.
[“This long” being apparently as long as her two front hooves are if the way she lifts one already-filed hoof for inspection is any indication.]
You can sit so you won’t be uncomfortable...
[To facilitate, she places her hands on the wall of the room for balance before picking up a rear leg, proffering a long hoof at what would be about lap height for someone sitting on the bed.]
[She almost says she's never had any need to trim her nails, but instead listens to the explanation, very serious and focused, trying not to jump when Konoha makes physical contact, as skittish as a wild animal.]
...Okay.
[She settles on the bed, feeling it sink beneath her weight, and is careful as she takes one of Konoha's hooves, moving the file the way she'd been shown.
This goes on in silence for a while. Finally though, she mutters out:]
[It will occur later to Konoha that androids might not... grow nails. Or hair. Or teeth. Or skin. But like always... she forgets to treat A2 like anything but a human.
She settles softly, quietly, into the motion, careful about setting her hoof in A2's hand. Her parents used to help her file her back hooves. She remembers, eyes closing a moment, being smaller, long, spindly limbs splayed over the dirt floor of their home, burying her face in her father's side while her mother carefully filed away at the hooves she chipped in the rough play of children. Remembers the days before heading off to work when she'd pause at the doorframe, lean against it and chat as her father bent his aging spine to chuckle and drag the file along.
It's a calming sound. A little bit of a painful sound.
When A2's voice ripples out over it, Konoha takes a moment to respond. Longer than she thought she'd need.]
... Thank you.
[But,]
... I wanted to say something, too. About the dream place... I didn't mean to intrude.
[A2 works in silence for a few moments longer, thinking. The dreamscape had been intrusive, people had learned things that she would have never told them otherwise. But she can't blame Konoha for this.]
It's fine.
[She says, after a moment. It comes out a little gruff, so she amends, after a pause.] Not like you did it on purpose.
[She’s heard a little from A2 about her world, of course, saw that vision from Pod of the robots, but. Seeing it for herself was a different matter. But more than that...]
It just... I felt sorry, when I thought you were dead, that I hadn’t helped you pick a name and it was just “A2”-
[Her soft murmur trails off, staring down at her hands, wringing together... until she straightens up with a snap and somewhat frantically looks over her shoulder, quick to try and correct a potentially disastrous turn of phrase.]
I mean- I was mostly sorry cause I thought you were dead, of course- !
[Though Konoha hesitates a moment, wondering if she's pushing things or being too nosy, but in the end... her hoof twitches a bit in A2's lap, and she says it anyway.]
I guess no one needs a name, but.
[She has trouble imagining someone not wanting one.]
I know it's not my place, sorry. It just seemed- I don't know. If I was in trouble and my friend was calling for me... I'd want them to call "Konoha", not "jinba".
[A2, already quiet, seems to grow so much so that she sucks all the noise out of the room. The repetitive, soothing motion of her hand working the file along Konoha's hoof slows some.
She considers her answer. Nothing seems sufficient, but this time she is honest.]
I've never thought I deserved one.
[It's said without much inflection. She pauses, then resumes her work.]
[Konoha waits. This isn't a silence she likes, one you can relax and be at peace in... it eats at her, at A2, and she wants to break it... but she doesn't. A2 needs to be the one to do that.
And when she does... Konoha waits just a moment, just to let the words settle but not long enough to imply any sort of doubt.]
... You do deserve one.
[Even if it's not her opinion that matters. Even if A2 didn't believe it.
[In the months before, this conversation would not have even been considered. She would have dismissed it outright as worthless sentiment, pointless and unwanted. Today though, she has come to comfort Konoha of her own accord. Today, she was listening to her friend.
Her brow furrows. Often sadness takes its time to reach her: it's always easier to be angry, to feel nothing. Right now it lurks in the impassive flatness of her tone as she responds.]
For a moment, Konoha doesn't know which one she should say. This feels so important, it feels like if she says it wrong she might ruin things forever, and that's a heavy burden when you cared as much as she did about the result. About making it clear to A2 that she deserved so much more than what she thought she did.]
Everyone deserves a name...
[But it isn't just that, and her expressions twists somewhat painfully, so anxious to get across her meaning in a way that might resonate, that A2 might believe, that she almost seems on the verge of tears.]
Even if you hadn't been so kind to me, or helped people in this group... But you have, and you do. I know you said you're an android, but. You deserve everything a human person does. Everything a jinba does.
[There's a million things she can think to say to that. That she was designed to serve. That soon, inevitably, she would leave this place and be dropped back into her ruined Earth, and either the machines would kill her or 9S would.
It was easier, when she belonged nowhere, and nothing belonged to her. Existing was easier.
She doesn't say anything for a while. Eventually though... ]
You're not the one who gets to decide that other people's love is wasted on you.
[She doesn't know what this oath is, only has the nightmares of the void to give her hints of what A2's world must be like, but.
Her fingers tighen in an anxious knot, hearts swelling fit to burst with a sudden, strong affirmation. Wasted... Konoha was the one who got to decide if her time, effort, and affection were wasted on someone.
They weren't wasted now. She's sure of it.]
And I'm sorry, but-
[Not wanting to be remembered...]
I can't forget you. Even if you don't have a name.
[For Konoha's sake, A2 wishes she could forget her. It was always the remembering, that was hardest. It settled like stones on your chest. A2 had tried to destroy herself rather than experience it for longer than she had to.
She doesn't really know what to say. She wasn't meant to know this, to hear these things, to have someone care about whether she lived or died.]
...
[She sighs.]
No matter what I say, you're gonna think that, huh.
[For a second Konoha fears an argument, fears the rejection of what to her is simply the truth...
But in the end, A2’s answer has her visibly relieved, quickly wiping at any moisture threatening to spill from her eyes and nodding along, a smile beginning to break back upon her features. Anything less than that kind of answer... and it wouldn’t be very like A2, now would it?]
[ The android has rarely been present since their return, having spent nearly a week in her room while giving others space after their mission's failure. But she can hardly stay cooped up forever. She takes to venturing around the temple to stretch her legs, checking on others that she comes across or while passing the doors of their rooms. It's in the gardens that A4 finds Konoha.
A4's wearing a bit of color today, surprisingly— a navy-colored dress. Her clothing during the mission was ruined, so her Astoria magic once again came in handy.
A familiar seashell hair accessory shines in her hair, having taken the place of her usual black ribbon— one of the few mementos she has left of the merchildren in Akvos. ]
...Konoha? Hey. [ She waves a hand, smiling. Though it's not in her usual vigor. ] How're you holding up?
[Though Konoha has hidden in her room to cry on the occasions she wasn’t able to help herself, unable to keep up the strong and cheeeful outlook she preferred, she’s mostly been out. Keeping busy, keeping herself moving so that she won’t remember the strange, buoyant weight of the babes she had held in her arms, won’t remember the chaos and blood and shadow.
A4’s voice pulls her from her focus, fingers covered in dirt that she accidentally transfers to her cheek when she rubs it just in case there were any tears there, turning with a smile from where she was weeding in a corner of one of the gardens.]
Oh, A4-
[“A4”. Just like “A2”... it wasn’t a real name, and her smile wavers half a moment when she remembers how awful it had felt in the dreamscape, calling out that “name” in panic, thinking she was dead and having only that to call.]
[ One metal hand raised, wiggling her mechanical fingers. It's her only hand missing artificial skin at the moment, but it's still somewhat functional. She doesn't know who to go to for some cosmetic maintenance.
Though A4's putting on a smile now, she hasn't forgotten. Especially the children that she didn't expect herself to grow attached to. Non-human children, surprisingly. She'd seen for herself too how attached Konoha was to the children. She can't imagine how hard it must've been on her.
She bounds over to join jinba's side, even adding a few skips in her steps. But she's careful enough to avoid trampling any budding plants. ]
Soooo, what're you up to? Are you planning to plant fruits? Or flowers, maybe?
[Healthy. Functional. But neither of them are “fine” or “good”. How could they be... after all that?]
Still she tries to smile, inadvertently getting a bit more dirt on her face as she wipes her brow and brushes her heavy bangs out of the way, leaning back where she lays beside the planting bed so that A4 can get a better look.]
Vegetables, actually... it’s a good time for radish and turnips... At least, I guess it is.
[It was getting colder in the Temple. Even though she didn’t know if it really had seasons or not, her coat was still coming in thicker all the same, lending a more fluffy look to her lower body.
But despite her efforts she can’t help but be drawn to look at A4’s hand now that it’s so close, a bit perturbed despite herself of what lay beneath the skin. “Skin”?]
[ Curiously, she crouches next to the planting bed. Just looking. She's not entirely sure of the planting process anyway to make any remarks. ]
Are radish and turnips sweet?
[ She's unaware of how silly that question might sound. Despite how many times she's seen fruits and vegetables around the Temple, her knowledge is still severely lacking. Most fruit names she'd learn from Konoha, so far. ]
Hurt? No, I'm good. This is nothing.
[ She merely smiles, flexing her metallic fingers. At a glance, it's difficult to discern any weakness. The programming in her hand needs some adjustments. The pain was much worse on her sensors when the damage was fresh, but she's learnt to deal with it. She wouldn't admit to any pain to Konoha or most anyone. ]
[Though she’d express shock if almost anyone else asked her that question, after her experiences with A4 and dried fruits Konoha had a better idea of androids from her world and their knowledge of foods... so instead she just shakes her head.
No. Not sweet.
But a further explanation doesn’t come, distracted by the way the light gleams on A4’s exposed metal, the similar look it had to parts of A2. Parts she’d always assumed were just how metal people looked... but. They were injuries, then. Right?]
... Can I see?
[Brow furrowing in thought, Konoha holds out her hand, gesturing towards A4’s own.]
[ Standing, she straightens herself up. She moves to rest her left hand in Konoha's own outstretched hand. The texture is as smooth as expected from a metal surface, but not without a few nicks here and there from combat. The missing skin appears to extend much further than her wrist. Her dress sleeve helps to cover the rest of the damage over her arm.
Her little smile doesn't fade. She doesn't want to cause any worry. ]
I got into some scuffles back in Akvos. But I assure you, I'm fine.
[Even though she knows that they're probably more sturdy than anyone, Konoha takes A4's hand as if it's the most delicate thing in the world. Carefully, she rubs her thumb over the smooth metal, her expression turning down slightly in worry, even though A4 is still smiling.]
All of you are like this underneath? 9S, 2B... A2... ?
[ Metal, as well as a bunch of other components. Her right hand still retains the artificial skin. Probably a strange sight when compared to her damaged hand.
A moment's hesitation before she answers Konoha's first question. She doesn't want to wrongly inform her that they're entirely immune to pain. Getting knocked around in Akvos was pretty painful, though she didn't sustain any heavy injuries. ]
It... hurt much more when the injury was fresh. Not so much right now though. Something like this is not that big of a deal.
Because of how completely foreign the very idea of androids and robots was to her and her world view, Konoha very rarely remembered to treat them as anything but human- both mentally and how she interacted with them physically. Like this... it was such a stark reminder.
How did pain work when you were metal? One of them had tried to explain it to her before, but...
Her hands remain clasped on A4's, gentle, ready to pull away at any indication of wince or whimper.]
And... "A4". You all have names like that? Names that aren't really names?
[ Number 4 was her original "name", having only picked up "A4" only when she was summoned to the circle. It was more up-to-date with A2. Still, it wasn't what you would call a proper name. Names went against protocol, for YoRHa androids specifically.
Her hand doesn't budge, remaining limp in Konoha's grasp. She blinks though, somewhat surprised this question is coming up now. ]
That's right. But that's for only us YoRHa types.
[ For a moment her expression falters, losing its vigor, recalling the brief time she was on Earth. Her smile becomes more fond, yet sad. Rose promised them real names back then. ]
There are other androids where we're from. Not like us. Captain Rose and her squad had really pretty flower names. Lily, Daisy, Anemone... names like that.
["Only for us YoRHa types", she says, but... That's so many of the very few androids Konoha knows. The only ones she's ever known. There's... Cayde-6, he was metal, there was Connor, so was he, and perhaps Simon fell somewhere along those lines, but...
9S, 2B, A4, and-]
A2 told me about them. And the flower names.
[Unbidden, her clasp on A4's hand gets a bit firmer, her lips pursing as her gaze remains wavering on the places where her artificial skin was gone.]
Do you- Do you Want a name like that?
[A real name to call, when they were in trouble. When someone was worried about them. When they were confided in. Not a number.]
[ She stifles a smile, one that appears less forced, seemingly elated by the question. Without having to say it out loud, her expression is telling enough it is what she wants.
When Rose first offered to name her squad, she was excited, to the point of making pleading motions to her captain that made herself look ridiculous.
Her fingers lightly curl around Konoha's hand. It doesn't hurt, but her grip's a bit on the weak side. Normally, she'd jump at the chance for this, immediately answer with an eager acceptance. ]
Aw, Konoha... were you thinking of naming us? [ She lets out a small laugh. ] Well, I do— as long as Number 2 gets a name too. It wouldn't be fair.
I mean... I know it's not my place to just. Give you names.
[She isn't their mother, isn't this... Rose person, who she could tell had meant a lot to them, somehow. But... her emotions are as easily read as always, sincere in her desire.]
But in the Rift, I saw A2 in trouble... And it just felt so wrong to call "A2" like that, now that I know it's just some... some designation and model number.
[Frowning just a bit in worry, in desire to help she isn't sure is proper, Konoha rubs her thumb along the side of A4's metal-exposed hand.]
I told A2 before that... that I'd be thinking of names so she could ask me for one when she was ready, but.
[He wasn’t wrong. This is the thrd time she’s passed through this area, looking progressively more concerned each time, brows knitting, teeth nipping into bottom lip, tail swishing anxiously beneath her skirt as her hooves echo oddly on the metal floors. She’s been looking all over, and yet-]
I was just looking for Arenvald and Connor... have you seen them?
[And they weren’t even the only ones she hasn’t heard from in a weirdly long time. A4, too, hadn’t seemed to be around when she usually would pop by the kitchens... and as new as she was to space, as eerie as some of the doors in this place seemed...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[Some nebulous date soon after their return to the Temple from Struxta] - Action
Oh! Miss Konoha, yes? [She says it in such a pleasant way that it sounds like a natural inquiry rather than a comment on how Konoha is rather recognizable.] I was looking for your room, but I wasn't sure where you had settled.
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Miss... Jing? Er- Jing-jie?
[That was the honorific that Nihuang had asked for, so she thinks it might work here? They hadn't spoken so much before, but she recognizes her as the festival organizer from before and shifts the basket in her hands to allow for a small bow, centaur-style.]
You were looking for me?
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Are you heading back to the Temple with your things? [She nods at the basket she's holding, turning slightly so they can walk in the same direction.] I was looking for you, yes, but it can wait until you get back?
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[It occurs belatedly to her that the human woman was holding a fancy looking box, but it doesn't actually register that it could be for her. (After all, why would anyone?) She must have caught her on the way to something.]
Anytime is fine with me.
[Apparently she wasn't going home. Or anywhere else, until that witch decided.]
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I'm a little curious about what you'll make out of what you found in the forest. [She'd had some specific things in mind when she'd last ventured out and been mostly unsuccessful.]
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[If she wanted to see, it certainly wasn't something private... her mother's recipe, sure, but not a secret. So she straightens back up (to a somewhat towering near-seven feet, considering her human half begins where a horse's neck began) and resumes walking towards the Temple kitchens, shifting her basket back in front of her.]
I'm pretty handy with cooking, and my uh, "magic" helps, too.
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I'm definitely not supposed to have magic! It showed up here. Honestly, it still feels like a weird dream-
[At least she's used to working aside humans, so she does at least pull her pace back so as not to strain shorter human legs.]
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I feel the same way. Not least because in addition to the magic it seems I'm often out of place in time as well.
[Particularly in Struxta. Oh well. She shrugs a bit as the stone buildings that housed the kitchen and the courtyard come into view.]
What does your new magic do? Is it something to do with cooking?
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[Konoha, too. She felt like she hadn't understood a single thing about Struxta. About robots, and why what they did had helped contain the Storm... She still didn't get it. Maybe didn't even want to.]
I can "make"... um, "summon"? Food.
[Which, honestly, was the best she could hope for as a power when she had two stomachs and a near half ton body to keep fed, but.]
Just raw things though, it doesn't just appear cooked...
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[She'd packed lunches, but the food at the last world had been...considerably lacking.]
I suppose when there's such a large universe to draw from, the difference between the two can be very difficult to pinpoint...
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[Two stomachs to fill, after all.
Just the memory of the taste and texture made her nose wrinkle a bit in distaste, but... at least it was behind them. At least the whole world and it's unbelievable metal things was.]
You also have "magic"?
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It's... [Kinda weird and hard to explain. Only one person had recognized it immediately upon arriving, and she hadn't shown it to a lot of people.] It's a way to carry things without their being seen.
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Konoha puzzles over the idea in her head, but eventually has to ask, even as she ducks down low to get inside the Temple's kitchen past the lower door frame.]
Like... the things in your hand become invisible?
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It might be easier to demonstrate. Would you mind lending me your basket for a moment, Konoha?
[When Konoha turns around, she may note that the colorfully wrapped package Jing had been holding earlier when they first met has disappeared, apparently into thin air.]
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Completely oblivious, still having trouble believing in magic even as she talks about it, Konoha offers the shallow basket over.]
Sure.
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Thank you. [She nods and takes the basket that Konoha hands over. She makes a motion like she's tracing and opening an invisible door in the air, and then the basket disappears entirely from sight.]
It's something like that. But I can also... [She holds her hand out for Konoha's, smiling gentle encouragement and asking permission at the same time.]
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Konoha practically jumps out of her skin even though she had been told something like that was going to happen, all four hooves actually leave the ground for a moment, eyes wide, but she tries to not freak out like she had when she realized she could... make food appear. Be cool, Konoha, be cool-]
A- Ah...
[Her ingredients...
But. She could bring it back, right, so... She shakily gives her hand.]
Please don't vanish my hand, though...
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When she takes Konoha's hand, there is a brief, strange sensation, as if there were another smooth surface between them. But even when she pulls her hand away, Konoha should still be able to note an invisible curved wall in the air close at hand, that stays just out of reach unless she's otherwise thinking about it.]
Try opening it again. [Cryptic instructions, Jing...]
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The hairs are standing up on the back of her neck but Konoha does her best not to panic or look too scared, concentrating fiercely. There... feels like there's something there, just out of reach, but...]
Opening it...
[YEAH THAT IS REAL CRYPTIC, JING. ... But Konoha tries.]
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Konoha tries to... invision??? her basket and its contents. Wild mushrooms. Gathered nuts. A few wild root vegetables and stalks.
Wait, was that it?
WAIT, WAS THAT THE BASKET BACK IN HER HANDS???]
A- Ah... there it is...
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And that's...more or less my power from Astoria. [Yeah, she hasn't actually figured out an elevator pitch for this. Though at least in Struxta she'd been introduced to elevators.]
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Still, she can't help but examine the basket and the forage just to be sure before she finishes clopping over to the kitchen counter to set it down.
As weird as she found it still... she supposed it was her turn??? And she'd been planning to do it anyway, so-]
Mine is... uh,
[She frowns in concentration, cupping her hands together flat on the countertop, thinking of apples...
Until one is between her hands, and she holds it up for inspection.]
This.
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Does this work on anything you can think of? You said it only works on raw foods, but is that limited by fruit or vegetable or meat or anything like that?
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[As shocked as she'd been when she first realized she had a power, she had tried to experiment a little since...]
Do you want something in particular? I can try.
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[That's a good question...]
I've only tried with food I've eaten before.
[Mainly because she could picture it pretty well... maybe she could picture something if someone described it?]
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There was a spiced bread at the inn in El Minha, the world Lady Astoria sent us to before Struxta. It was made out of a grain I've never heard of before, on waist-high stalks with maybe a handful of seeds that could be ground down into flour. I wonder...[Well, she can't recall the name of the plant at the moment. Maybe they should save the experiment for later.]
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What's bread?
[... Actually, if she doesn't even know that maybe it's a lost cause.]
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The mun is just making stuff up at this point.Jing is briefly taken aback...]Have you ever had a steamed bun? Mantou? It's a little bit like that.
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The... ones with red bean in them? Like rice cakes but you use buckwheat?
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[She'd had those a few times, so she's confident she could imagine all the ingredients that went into them. Red beans... sugar... buckwheat... white wheat... rice...]
I could get the ingredients for those... Do the same ones make bread?
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[Hmmm...]
Did you want to make "bread"? I was going to make rice balls, but I could get those ingredients, too, if you want.
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[That seemed much easier than trying to summon ingredients for a food she's not sure of exactly. Not that she isn't willing to try, but she'd hate to get it wrong and disappoint. Setting down her retrieved basket, Konoha starts sorting out the mushrooms and putting them in a small pile, chatting while she worked.]
It's nice to be back here, isn't it? I mean, it would be nicer to be back home, but compared to that Struxta place...
[She feels like she's forgetting something... what was it...]
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[She watches Konoha's preparations with interest.] Anything I can help with?
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[Konoha reaches for the knife in her tool belt, pulling it out and setting it on the counter before she gathers and lifts a bunch of leafy mountain vegetables from the basket and sets them down in front of Jing before she goes back to sorting mushrooms, investigating for and rubbing off dirty bits.]
You're the one who organized the festival before, right? Is there going to be another one? Like for the Bon festival or something?
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Ah, yes, though I had a lot of help with that. I was...considering it, but after our last journey, I don't know how much energy everyone will have to participate.
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Ah...yeah. I guess you're right.
[Her cheery demeanor slips just slightly at the recollection. The Storm she still never did understand how it had happened or how they'd actually stopped it, the cuts on her rump stitched up, the way the poor metal androids had fared... How foreign it all had been.]
I guess the Bon dance would be kind of useless in a place like this anyway...
[No use trying to welcome ancestors home when you're... not home.]
Still- I really liked the last one. It helped me meet a lot of people.
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I wouldn't say that. I would hope that our ancestors would still appreciate the gesture, no matter where we - and they - are.
[She finishes cutting the vegetables and puts the knife down. Thoughtfully:] We might not be able to have a full festival, but a small gathering for everyone to meet would still be a good idea, don't you think?
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[Konoha has always associated the bon festival so tightly with home, with her family's graves, that she hadn't really considered anything else.]
I guess making offerings at least...
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I do believe that our feelings and thoughtfulness in the offerings can still reach them, somehow.
[Welp.] Anything else I can do to help with the cooking, Miss Konoha?
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[It was a good thought. A hopeful thought. Konoha wishes it was true, even if she doesn't know if she believes. Wishes her parents could know that she missed them, that she was alive and not dead in the mountains somewhere. Wishes her birth parents could know that even though they'd been taken by war that she was happy.
But that's a melancholy thought and Konoha smiles instead of letting herself dip down to those thoughts.]
Only if you want to! Didn't you have a package to deliver?
[That had... disappeared into the void???? Geez, magic was still so weird- but she doesn't want to keep the older woman if she had other errands to run.]
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[Konoha examines her counter set up for a second, then nods to herself.]
In that case...
[It's time to cook! Konoha has a variety of tasks to assign, a few more foods to magic into existence, but in the end it seems what is happening must be some kind of stew.]
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That smells delicious. [She notes, as they put the last of the ingredients into the stew.]
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Right?
[Konoha wipes her hands in a satisfied manner, smiling as she looks down at the bubbling pot.]
Everyone seemed to like the hot pot I brought to the festival before, so I figured I'd try and do some more cooking. Homecooked meals are always better, no doubt about it.
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This is a lot of stew, so hopefully you can find some more people to help eat it.
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[Konoha smiles a bit wryly, twisting a bit at the waist to pat her equine side.]
I can tuck a lot of it away by myself, so...
[Two stomachs and a near half ton body weight required a lot of calories.]
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[Actually now seems like a good time...] Are you sure you have finished cooking for now?
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[She pets her side once more before she moves to wipe her hands one last time on a dish rag tucked into her belt wrap, not too embarrassed about her appetite since... hey. Two stomachs, that's not her fault!]
Until this finishes boiling, yeah. Why?
[/oblivious]
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I was looking for you earlier to give you this. It's just a small token of appreciation for all your help with the festival last month.
[Rather than paper, the small box is wrapped in a daintily embroidered cloth with a simple flower design, knotted at the corners to hold the box, and inside are a few sweet mochi desserts stuffed with red bean paste.]
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Konoha is visibly taken aback not only at the reappearing package, even though she'd just had the magic explained to her, but mostly at the fact that... it's for her?]
What- for me? You shouldn't have...
[She takes it gratefully, admiring the cloth for a bit longer than perhaps necessary (she wasn't so good at that delicate work herself), before she checks inside.]
Mochi- ! It looks so good!
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I hope they are to your taste.
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[By all appearances delighted and pleasantly shocked to have been given anything at all, Konoha clutches the box to her chest, smiling brightly.]
Shall we eat them together after the soup is done?
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that Jing recognizes! She's more than a little touched by how pleased Konoha seems to be at what a small gesture, but resolves to keep that in mind for the future.]Well, they were meant as a gift for you... [Ask her again...]
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I couldn't eat them all alone, though! Are you sure?
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Cute, she's too cute...] After all, you already made the soup.no subject
[And as far as Konoha is concerned, it's settled! Dinner and dessert, coming up.]
text;
How have you been doing after our return?
[Hi, this is an obligatory text to check up on a friend, especially after Akira's rather ominous network post.]
1/?? text;
text;
cdnkwl yorf sew tios?
text;
!wekln!!!!!?
video;
call; (END)
-ELLO?
CONNOR, IS THAT YOU IN THERE? CAN YOU HEAR ME?
1/2
But to be fair, his first assumption is that maybe something is wrong. These texts are indecipherable, and while he can assume it’s due to technical difficulties alone, it’s often better safe than sorry. Better to maybe check up on her, make sure that nothing is amiss, and maybe help her figure out the watch. Note to self: avoid text messages with Konoha for a while.
And then suddenly his watch is a video feed, and Konoha is screaming at him.]
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[oh my god she’s loud.]
Konoha, it’s me. You don’t have to speak so loudly into your watch.
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She's... had people try to explain how this works to her before, and she knows now that... there's a list of people in it, and a strange thing that has all sorts of... "posts"?
But it's all so much, and the watch just... has mostly lived in her tool belt. Until it rang just now. Besides, she sticks out like a sore thumb, who needs to call her when they can just tap her on the chocolate brown rump?
There's a long moment with some sort of shuffling (maybe hooves?), and her fingers running over the microphone by accident, then, kind of like... whispering...]
... Can you hear me now?
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Connor pinches his brows together, squinting down at his watch as if he could puzzle out just what’s happening. He can, in a way.]
I can hear you. Can you tilt the screen towards your face?
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... But she kind of thought that it was tilted towards her face?]
Is it- Oh.
[There's her hooves again, but this time it pans up... to the lower half of her face.]
How about now?
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Tilt it up just a little further, please.
[They're making progress.]
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Okay, but she does it- and now it's... pretty good???]
Now?
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[He offers her a little smile, shown on said screen, to validate this.]
I see you're still not very used to using your watch.
[Just politely calling her out on that.]
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Oblivious to being called out, Konoha just smiles blithely, nodding as if completely accepting of her inexperience.]
Haha, no... It's kind of weird, isn't it? Magic to talk to people when I can just go talk to them in person? I don't want to waste it.
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[He tilts his head just a little down at his own watch.]
Besides that, there isn’t any of it to “waste”.
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[Nevermind the alarming fact that she conflates electricity and magic with each other...]
I heard that runs out.
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[Does it even need charging? Connor is starting to doubt it at this rate.]
I used it frequently during our time in Struxta. It still shows no sign of depleting energy.
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[She can definitely see the use if she was separated from everyone, or lost... At least? But that reminds her-]
Also, uh- What did you send, before? The writing one.
[She might have been bluffing when she had him write her Tanabata wish by making it more about her handwriting than... actual writing... and reading...]
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[Asked innocently enough. He hopes there aren't actual hardware issues with either one of their watches.]
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I mean... I think it did? I just wanted to make sure...
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I had asked how you were doing, after we've returned from Struxta. The last mission wasn't very kind to many of us, so I felt obligated to check on you.
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[As if she hadn't been confused at all, she just goes right back to smiling.]
I'm alright. I mean- as alright as I can be! Nihuang-jie stitched me up, and she said it probably wouldn't even scar.
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[Smiling and nonchalant as she is about it, of course Connor's going to look a little concerned, mouth twisting downwards slightly.]
What happened?
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[And with all that debris whipped up by the Storm... The worse were on her rump, though, so she'd been able to hide it under her repaired skirt.]
I'm totally fine now, though! It doesn't even really hurt anymore. Promise.
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...And you also promise that you’ll continue to tend to them, until they’re fully healed?
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[SURELY PEOPLE HERE WOULDN'T BE SO FOOLISH AS TO DO THAT... right, Connor???]
It was planning to try and plow a field to plant some vegetables, but... since the plants are wilting, it doesn't seem like a good idea anyway, so. No strain from that, I guess. ... Though I'm worried about the plants.
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Actually, her mentioning the plants wilting leads in nicely to another point he was trying to make.]
Yes. I noticed how quickly they're starting to die. They look sickly where they didn't before.
...You don't really view the network, do you? There was a message put out not that long ago. It had to do with something "dark" lingering around the temple.
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[It... is worrying. She can "make" food now, but, not enough for everyone... So what do they do if more and more plants die?
But at his question, she has the wherewithal to at least look a little sheepish.]
... Ah, no. Sorry. I didn't realize.
[Mr. Watch and her tool belt pouch have been best friends.]
It's perfectly fine weather outside, though, so I don't think that has anything to do with it...
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[Ever willing to be the helpful sort.]
I mean something more malicious than that. Astoria was the one who felt as if there was something now in the temple, like it was brought back with us. And there are some who have felt very mildly sick in the Circle, only fairly recently.
You're not feeling that way, are you? Consider closely how your body has been in the past few days, just to be sure.
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[That's a great kind of helpful, but.]
Like... a vengeful spirit or something? The vengeful spirit of... a Struxta robot? Or the Storm?
I feel fine... I think. Are the people who are sick human? I should be fine if that's the case...
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[But he shakes his head.]
I can’t be sure, but maybe more like a disease. We did come from a world that used to be stricken with illness. And as far as what I could gather from the post, it’s only been humans so far. But that doesn't mean you shouldn’t be cautious and aware in the meanwhile.
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["Messages"? "Posts"? "Talky things"?]
I don't think caution can save you from disease, but it should be fine... Most human sicknesses don't affect jinba.
[As far as... She knows...]
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[He’s gonna teach you, Konoha, whether you like it or not.]
Caution can aid in stemming disease — stay away from those who are sick, and make certain your own personal hygiene adheres to a strict routine. Every little bit helps.
Though I'm glad to hear that jinba are resistant to human disease. I'll take this into account.
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[Here, have a dumb, dumb student.]
Yeah, I've never gotten sick even when my parents did. My human parents, I mean. So, I should be fine. I could probably help out if anyone needs anything.
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I’ll let you know if anything new develops, then. In the meanwhile, let me know whenever would be a good time for me to teach you how to use your watch. I have plenty of free time to do so.
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I have a lot of time too since I can't really garden, so- any time! You're the one going out of your way.
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All right. I'll let you know.
Thanks for letting me contact you for now.
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voice
[ you can practically hear him smiling. ]
How do you feel?
a... while after he sends this
[She's getting better at using this... ! Yay...
Cough.]
Maybe a little better... I'm not sure. Thanks for coming, before.
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[ a beat. ]
Has your fever gone down?
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[There's a rustling sound, her nuzzling into her pillow.]
The water helped a lot.
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[ a muffled, pleased noise escapes him. ]
Your body's fighting hard against your illness, so you have to keep it strong. Food and water are important, you know.
Do you need anything at all? I can cut you an apple and bring cool water. They might even be in the shape of flowers...
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[Or the bathhouse. Or anywhere she can just... feel lighter and cooler.]
Apples in the shape of flowers? That's cute...
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[ even though he knows that, uh.
carrying her is not as feasible as he once thought. ]
They suit you, then. I'll bring some over shortly. Are you in your room?
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[She tries to laugh a bit lightly, triggering another small cough. But hey- at least it means she's got enough energy to cough.]
Yeah, I'm still in my room.
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[ that cough incites concern — his voice softens. ]
Take it easy, okay?
[ and lo and behold, he goes through with his word; in 5 minutes or so, he slowly enters her room, crouching down to offer her a glass of water and plate's worth of sliced apples.
intricately cut just like flowers! wow, he must have been knife happy to have done that so quickly. ]
Hey. Lean forward for me so I can take your temperature.
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I am... Promise.
[She can't really do anything but, actually.
This time when he comes in she's upright. Still on the floor, legs weak, but she's on her belly properly instead of her sides or back, a much more comfortable position that puts less stress on her body, her human half leaning against the bed in the room, pillowing her face on the mattress.]
Hi, Nier...
[Again. But in person this time.]
Wow, they really do look like flowers...
[And she's hungry, and also hoping to keep a meal down this time as she leans forward obediently to offer her still rather warm forehead.]
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the back of his hand presses against her forehead. his brows knit together with concern. ]
Still warm...2 more days of bedrest should do the trick.
[ and then he motions one of the apples towards her mouth. ]
I used to cut them into shapes for Yonah. She was always sick, but fresh fruit is good on the tongue, especially when you have a fever.
[ softly, he smiles. ]
She liked the rabbits the most...but as she got older, she started asking things like "Doesn't it hurt the bunnies if I eat them?".
I carved them into flowers after that. I'm glad that you like them.
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[She wasn't so foolish (now that she isn't consumed by a higher fever) to push herself before she's ready, so she doesn't complain, even though two more days of this sounds... awful. But- She'd get better, right? ... She should be grateful, not everyone did.
So she takes the apple, chewing weakly.]
She sounds really sweet. Your sister.
[And he talked about her so much... It was nice. She'd never had siblings. Her adopted parents' natural children had all died in the wars... and she didn't even know if she'd had brothers or sisters. Before.
But if she'd had... that kind of relationship must be nice.]
You must be good with a knife, too... I can whittle a little, but maybe not this good.
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[ it was yonah who wanted to spare the shadowlord — the humans. not him. he was...
twisted by a life she knew nothing of. it was for the better that she didn't know who he was now.
maybe he didn't deserve that much to start with.
he feeds konoha another apple. ]
Ah, yeah. It's probably because I'm a swordsman. I still use knives sometimes...not just for fighting, but for crafting too.
[ maybe a little too good with a knife. ]
I can teach you one day. I bet you're skilled yourself.
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But she can't say it at first, because she's chewing slowly, deliberately, trying to will herself not to feel anything like nausea. Even with the apple still in her mouth, though, she finally speaks, mumbling around her food.]
I'm not skilled at fighting at all... I've never had to do anything like that...
[Or did he mean making apple flowers? Okay, so maybe the fever is still making it a bit difficult for her to follow conversations properly.]
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[ he pats her head gently — before gesturing a glass of water towards her. ]
Back home, we were always wartorn. It only got worse as I grew older, so I was always fighting. This place is safe, though...peaceful. It's a little strange.
[ his katana is latched onto his back; instinctively, he reaches his hand back to delicately graze his fingers against the sheath for a fleeting moment. ]
I'll be here to protect you if anything happens, so you don't need to worry about that. And apple flowers sound nicer than a fight, don't they?
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He pats, and she awkwardly swallows the last mouthful of apple before reaching out tremulously for the water, cupping it carefully in two hands and trying to take little sips.]
Mmmhm.
[Making apple flowers sounds much nicer, it's true.]
My world used to be like that... before. There was all sorts of fighting, and humans used jinba like- Like horses.
[Not like... people. She's heard the stories. From her parents, just a little, when they talked about their real children, who they'd lost. From Mikuni, and Gonta... who had suffered through that time when they were children, and old enough for it to affect them, like she hadn't been.]
... I don't really remember it.
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They fought for a future that could keep someone like you safe. It's an honorable history.
[ the plate is nearly wiped clean at this point. a soft sigh escapes nier. ]
I think knowing that they've paved the pathway for the kind and bright Jinba of the future would make them happy. The ones like you. It's something to take pride in.
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[She doesn't really know. Her parents told her that her birth parents had been killed, but that was all. She could assume... how. But she thinks about Gonta, and how tortured he had seemed by the memories of that time... and her expression drops a bit.
... She'd probably never see Gonta again, would she?]
Some jinba still hate humans... but if they just knew there were nice humans out there... like my parents, or like Nier... maybe they could live together...
[She tries to smile, though. It's just Konoha, being a hopeful idiot.]
Or something like that. Who knows.
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he wonders if those really exist.
they didn't anymore, really. he killed every last one of them. he wasn't even truly human himself. he does not allow that to show as he meets her gaze. instead, he reaches forward to a place a hand on her shoulder, eyes softening with assurance. ]
I think that future is possible. No matter what, don't lose sight of that dream.
[ he smiles. ]
You'll see them again one day, Konoha. I know you will.
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There were nice people out there. Both jinba and humans.]
You always say such weird things, Nier.
[She just smiles, shifting to roll her weight about on her belly in an attempt to prevent the discomfort she'd fallen into before, curling her legs tighter.]
But I like them. Thank you.
[He said them so confidently, she could almost believe them. That she'd get home soon, and everything would be fine.]
( accidental visit!! ; i am so sorry. )
[ WOULD YOU LIKE A VERY EXCITED DAY BARGING HIS HELM IN THROUGH THE DOOR OF YOU ROOM, SHOUTING OUT OF THE BLUE??
NO??? I'M SORRY THEN BUT IT'S ALREADY HAPPENING. ]
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She's still mostly decent, she wears an underlayer, but.
She almost falls off the bed in shock when someone bursts in, pulling her sewing up to her chest in alarm. She's seen this metal thing before, she knows he's not an enemy, but.]
What are you doing?!
( 1/2 ; gagtag. )
]
( 2/2 ; an actual tag. )
daylight immediately ducks down and pulls the sheet that he's wearing around him over his helm, covering his optics in an attempt to give the poor lady some sense of privacy. so panicky and flustered he is, daylight make the immediate notice of her forelegs or give much thought to said forelegs let. maybe he will in a bit. maybe.
right now? he's too busy apologising in one breathless gasp: ] OhmygoshmissI'msosorryIdidn'tmeantocrashinhereandandand-
Iwasn'tdoingittoberudeornaythingIswearIwaslookingforafriendbecauseIthoughtofajokeand-
[ okay.
day.
breathe.
he takes a deep vent, trying to calm his rattled systems and tries this again. ] ... Sorry. I'm really sorry, miss.
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The metal person's panicked response only makes her panic more in turn for a moment, flustered as she hurriedly shakes out her kimono and begins trying to put it on. Shit, no, that's the wrong sleeve-]
Who are you even?!
[At least he was covering his... "eyes"?]
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daylight's winglets flare out even as he tries to huddle up in a little ball, a subconscious attempt to make himself bigger in the face of whatever is spooking him. the fact its covered up by a collection of blankets sewn together is killing the attempt to scare away the source of his spooking. ]
Daylight! [ he totally didn't squeak that answer out. nope. ] Daylight vis Lornlit, the Sunsung. Kindled of Radiance vis Noxolarium, the Sundered Star and Kindled from Lorem Laurel!
[ ohhh. the actual full name of his. he really is flustered for flustering the poor lady here. ]
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That's so many names, which is your actual one???
[Cause it surely can't be "Daylight", that's a thing.]
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It's Daylight!
[ he's keeping the blanket over his helm, just in case, while he continues to speak. ] It's at the start of the name and everything. Daylight or Day or Sunny or Sunshine.
I'm used to 'Day' the most since 'Daylight' and 'daylight' can get confusing sometimes.
[ is he for real. that's what he thinks is confusing? ]
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He's... really weirdly shaped and not quite like the other ones, but.]
... Are you one of the metal people? An android?
[One apparently actually named Daylight? Her own name meant "leaves in the forest" but it just meant that, it wasn't actually Leaves, okay...]
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Anyways! Yeah! I'm one of the metal people. [ like the others. his winglets wiggle from glee as he thinks over the words again. like the others!
he's so happy that there are 'others' even if the majority of them can pass for humanoids or can interact normally with humanoids. better than being the only metal individual, that's for sure. ] Like I said, I'm Daylight! And sorry for scaring you again, miss. I'm looking for a buddy of mine.
Um... Can I see again? Please?
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She almost asks "see what?" as if she'd already totally forgotten how he entered her room, but finally Konoha blinks and realizes he's still covering his eyes.]
Oh- ! Sorry, sorry, you can look now, I'm dressed!
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but! focus, day!
he now pulls the sheet off of him, revealing big blue optics blinking up at her. ]
Hi! [ his winglets wiggle, still feeling a little shy. ] Er, I hope I didn't spook you too much earlier, miss.
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[Something on his back is... wriggling... and she can't not stare as much as she tries. She's still on the bed as best she could manage seeing as beds weren't really made for centaurs, forelegs hanging off the bed and hooves curled up a bit yet in surprise.]
But, um, you don't have to call me "miss"...
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but oh how he wants to ask all sorts of things but - he bites down on his tongue, proverbially, and reminds himself of the (very, very) hard lesson he learned from nightbreak. his struts still ache in phantom pain whenever he recalls their first encounter. ]
Okay, um, what would you prefer then, mi- [ he stops himself. then he tries again- ] What do you prefer?
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[A bit frazzled yet, she sets her hands on equine knees, dipping into a small bow from the waist.]
I'm Konoha.
[Nice to... meet him?]
I'm not made of metal- just. So you know.
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I can tell! [ there are usually tells to someone being mechanoid in nature, from daylight's experience now that he's been exposed to more species since boarding the lornful light. the tells won't always apply, but he feels like this is a good time to apply them here.
it definitely looks like she's humanoid in appearance and nature, he thinks. better safe than sorry and assume she is? that sounds like a good plan. ] It's nice to meet you, Konoha! Um- You're one of the new faces, right? I don't think we've met before.
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Me, oh, no- Or... maybe? It depends on how you mean by "new"...
[Konoha starts counting on her fingers, lips pursed.]
I've been here... three months nearly now?
[And still no closer to home...]
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Three months with the Circle! Oh wow— I can't believe we haven’t met. [ if meddy was here, they’d point out it’s not too much of a surprise given how much time they spent in struxta and how big the circle has been getting over time.
but they aren’t here and so daylight is very surprised but determined to fix this mistake. he extends a hand out for her to take, big grin on his face ]. Put it there!
[ … oh. right. ]
If you want to, of course. I totally get it if you don't want to.
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I was, uh... a little confused for a while, so maybe that's why.
[At first she'd been afraid. Spent a lot of time in the forest. Spent a lot of Struxta hiding in the rooms.
She's learned how to shake hands, but-]
Ah, hold on-
[With a bit of maneuvering she wriggles backwards on the mattress until she can get her rear legs off it and back on the floor, backing up and straightening until she's half mounted that dang thing and is able to step down proper, clopping back around to the right side of the bed to... cautiously take his hand, a bit embarrassed by how awkward her movements had been.]
Here.
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he tries to be polite and, at the very least, it seems he's genuinely excited to meet her now that (most of) the awkwardness has passed. ]
It's a pleasure to meet you! I'm glad you're, like, not immediately kicking me out and stuff. Ummm- I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask you but- [ he takes a deep breath, and then asks: ] Do you happen to know someone named Kou? He's got brown hair, bright coloured optics, and is this- [ he measures the space besides him ] -high in height. A bit shorter than me, though.
[ daylight. everyone is shorter than him when you're ten feet and counting. ]
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Um, no, sorry... I don't know this Kou person.
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he smiles and tries to cheerfully wave a servo of his while he speaks, knowing there's nothing to gain from pouting.
despite how tempting it maybe.]It's fine. I was just hoping I could tell him a joke I had thought of earlier and-
Oh. [ oh! ] Oh! Hey- Do you want to hear it? The joke?
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Ah... sure? What's the joke?
[He's way more... humor-minded than the other metal people, too...]
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[ ... does she wear socks? can she wear socks? maybe he can ask if the joke is impressive enough. ] Okay- Knock knock!
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Unfortunately, Konoha also... doesn't know this format of joke.
And just stands there, staring up at him in anticipation for the next line.
... Where's the next part of the joke?]
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this is going to be awkward. very awkward indeed.
since daylight has no idea that she doesn't know how this works, so he'll be standing there and trying his best to be patient. just... stay where he is, a big grin on his face while waiting for the other show to drop though he doesn't know it'll never come.
see- this is why meddy needs to be with day at all times. it prevents accidental staring contests from happening. ]
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She keeps staring.
He stares back.
Is this normal? Was this humor in his world? Gods, should she be laughing right now?
Finally, Konoha can't take it any longer, and, hoping it's not rude,]
... is that the joke?
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oh.
oh!
ohhhhh. ]
Oh no! You're supposed to say, 'Who's there?' to the 'knock knock' prompt.
[ he's about to add, 'everybody knows that!' but he manages to stop himself. instead, he asks, ] Are there no knock knock jokes where you're from?
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Konoha mouths of soundlessly, blinking still, before she finally shakes her head.]
I don't think we do?
[She's not even really familiar with formulaic jokes at all, her people are still in "tell funny stories" level of humor. But now that it's clear what she's supposed to do...]
Who's there?
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well— he can roll with this, he tells himself with his usual optimism. it’s all about the delivery when it comes to a joke! (that, and making sure the audience gets the joke.) ]
Okay! Knock knock! [ he raises his servos up. ] Just— Trust me on this? I promise, it'll be funny when we get to the punchline.
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She doesn't know, but-]
Who's... there?
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Okay! One last time! [ he wiggles his winglets, trying to show he means what he's saying. ]
Knock knock!
[ daylight p l e a s e... just... please show mercy on poor konoha. you sacred her already. ]
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Who's there?
[She really doesn't get it but with all this work then surely it's going to be gut bustingly funny, right? Right?{
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because, thankfully, daylight now goes: ]
Orange! [ he pauses, waiting for her reply.
then he remembers that knock knock jokes are not a thing where she is so- ] Now you ask, 'Orange who?'
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Well, exactly like he's a talking robot.]
Orange who?
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Orange you glad I didn't say, 'Knock knock?'
[ ...
....
.....
if konoha were to attempt to strangle daylight, there and then, a lot of people would understand her reasons for doing so.
(also... it would be very impressive if she did that at all.) ]
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She looks at his body, confused, trying to connect why the color "orange" was suddenly involved in this, speechless until...
She finally has to admit...]
I... don't get it... sorry...
sometime late september.
Cath Palug (Fou).
there is no name of the artist.]
Voice
And what a fluffy, cute animal? Konoha doesn't think she has ever seen an animal that fuzzy looking in real life before, but... oh! She definitely did talk to someone recently about white fluffy animals, hadn't she???
Ring, ring, ring...]
Hello? Is this Merlin? Can you hear me?
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Yes, this is Merlin. Is this Konoha?
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[Her voice perks up at confirmation that she was using the device right and he could hear her clearly, also he remembered her!, hooves a soft sound in the background.]
This might be a weird question, but... did you draw me a picture?
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[ah, so she'd found it. good.]
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It's a white, fluffy animal! It has something written on it but I can't read it, so I don't know if it's the title or the artist... but it made me think of the animal we talked about before so I thought it might be you?
Maybe?
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[he knows. he's just teasing her.]
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[SO IT WAS HIM???]
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[Konoha puts up with so much.]
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Thanks a lot- I didn't mean to make you waste paper on me like that.
[paper is so hard to make and it's so expensive???]
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[and he had materialized the paper anyway, in a burst of energy. not that she needed to know, anyway.]
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[But still!!]
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[messages from under the sea]
[Text]
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you read???
health good! happy
i health
where?
[Text]
you here as well?
if we can meet down here
stay warm and safe
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Cold?
Here warm
Color stone many dead stone place
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Dead?
How? Not what
Do you mean
fish?
Coral?
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color stone die place color turn white
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why
dying?
wrong in the water?
Not safe
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i try plant again new coral top dead coral
now new coral death white coral
magic?
sick?
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but if there is magic
I would not know
any help?
text
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ikuni?
[ behold as the word-eating powers of poor reception make their texting languages... the same
poignant ]
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I health!
Mikuni? Mikuni know?!
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I haven een him yet
Sorry. I meant to ask re together.
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you health???
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I’m sure he is too.
I’m fine.
[ those sent out of order but... whatever. Her texts are getting even more chewed up than his, as far as Simon can tell. ]
Where you
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i —lor s a r ck place!
“coral”?
text 1/2
Can you read this~?
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[ She wound up in one of the rare places with a pocket of air, so. Yes, it was still shockingly dry... ]
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A4?
I read! You read?
You health? You safe?
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A FEW HOURS LATER... ]
I read! ( ˶˙ᵕ˙˶ )
Safe and OK~! How are you, Konoha?
[ She fell into a hole and went to android baby jail with North. Konoha doesn't need to know that. ]
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i health!
in many color sea rocks small number dead rocks place!
where you?
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Dead rocks?
Tunnels and caverns here. Deep sinkhole.
Many dead fish.
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here dead rock plant
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Food supply endangered, maybe.
Dead rock plant, why?
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or
fish die no food fish woman die?
no knowledge
try plant new life plant, new life plant die soon
sick? magic?
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Keep trying?
Need more research.
Will try to find out more too.
[ once she's out of jail ]
Don't give up. (*´︶`*)ﾉ
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hey
rgfdgfgdfgd
you still breathing?
ksadsfdakjhdsf
damn stupid fucking machine
work
damn it, konoha.
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you re--? you hear?
greeting! greeti--!
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alive?
hurt?
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you h--lth?
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this is so --
bullshit.
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safe?
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safe -- annoyed weird spot.
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i color rock plant place
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understand.
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magic water? witch no power?
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stupid
water
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food enough?
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Kinda okay
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laugh
mistake
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communication
where?
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i color sea plant place! many fish many fish woman.
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cold. dead.
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fish no cold here
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fish
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dark area
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you go?
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Go
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danger
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all everyone
voice
That's the way things always were. Still, A2 is no coward, often at her detriment, and some time after she's dried herself out and gotten all the seawater out of her body, she sends a tentative voice message.]
Konoha.
What's your status?
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When you weren't wrapped in blankets in your room crying. So a moment later... it's text that comes back. A2... She probably wouldn't want to see tears, right... They all-]
i health
sad
you health? metal dry?
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A2 sighs some, on her end.]
I'm fine. Dry.
[Asking if she's okay is a stupid thing to do. But she's ill-equipped to deal with sadness either.
As a result, a delay follows.]
...It's...
It's over now. You're safe.
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safe yes
safe good.
[and as relieved as she is...]
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Hm...
Where are you, anyway? You aren't using the voice function.
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[but...
Gods how do you write “tears”?]
sad face water.
you no like yes?
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[...]
Oh.
You're crying?
[...] It's fine. Just give me a location.
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room
Long street right left end
voice, then action!
Pod.
Affirmative. Setting approximate location on mapping system.
[With that done, it doesn't take her long to find her. She hesitates at the door when she gets there, frowning, but then she forces her face to smooth out, and knocks politely.]
Konoha? You in there?
Re: voice, then action!
It’s not like she thought A2 would lie or anything, but... she’s still somehow taken off guard. It takes her a moment to get to the door, to open it and reveal... well, it’s just her. Red eyed from crying but she’s wiped the tears away at least, managing a small, tremulous smile.]
Hey, A2... come in...
[It feels awful here too, not just in the dreamscape. A2. It’s not a name.]
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She is not sure how to approach this.]
...
[She glances down, frowning.] ...
Do you need anything?
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Konoha’s gaze drops to the floor between them, lips pursing as she swallows her instinctual answer. She needed a lot of things. Or maybe it was just “wanted a lot of things”. She wants to feel the strange, buoyant weight of the children of Akvos in her arms again. She wants to go back, to never go there in the first place. She wants to forget what she saw in that Rift. She wants to go home.
But what comes out in the end is a straw that she grasps for the purpose of just... having A2 stay, of hanging on to company in her misery.]
Can you... help me with my hooves? I have a file...
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This too, is outside of her experience. But Konoha looks so diminished, and so sad, that she can't simply detach herself from it either.]
Alright. Just tell me what to do.
[A pause. She appears to debate something.] After...maybe you could, uh.
Help me with my hair. It's growing out.
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[Maybe it’s stupid, to do something like that now, like this, but. Konoha seizes on it just as fiercely as one would seize a life raft, moving aside to let A2 in before she goes for her harness pouch and begins to rummage around in it. The sheets of her bed are all piled in a bundle beside the mattress, it’s easier for her to sleep standing or on the floor, and more and more keepsakes and mementos have found places in the simple room.
Like the seashell hair ornament she holds for too long in her hand before she forces herself to place it back and pluck out the metal file underneath instead.]
I didn’t have to walk in Akvos so it didn’t really bother me, but now my hooves have grown out a bit too much...
[And much like human nails... they needed a decent sanding every now and then, and simple anatomy meant that while she could reach her own back hooves... it was much easier to ask someone else.]
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She notes how Konoha seems to hover over her belongings for a few moments and keeps her gaze averted. Whatever it was, it was nothing she needed to know, she's decided.
To be of some use seems to calm her; she takes the file when it's offered and holds it for a few seconds, brow furrowed. She doesn't really have a frame of reference for this, but she wants to help.]
How do I start?
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[She realizes now she’s never really had to explain it before. Just like so many things she was familiar with from her world, she’s used to people just... knowing. How to farm, how to cook, how to sew. How to file hooves. But she’s had people manage to explain how to use text messaging and emoticons on the “watch” to her, so... this can’t be that hard.
And it’s something that isn’t crying.]
Here, just like with the nails on your hand, you just sort of...
[Carefully she lays warm hands on A2, never shy with personal space, particularly with other women. She moves the file and A2’s hands gently to show how to grip the file, placing it against the point of nail and miming the action of shaving off the ends, rounding it.]
Like this... Until they look about this long.
[“This long” being apparently as long as her two front hooves are if the way she lifts one already-filed hoof for inspection is any indication.]
You can sit so you won’t be uncomfortable...
[To facilitate, she places her hands on the wall of the room for balance before picking up a rear leg, proffering a long hoof at what would be about lap height for someone sitting on the bed.]
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...Okay.
[She settles on the bed, feeling it sink beneath her weight, and is careful as she takes one of Konoha's hooves, moving the file the way she'd been shown.
This goes on in silence for a while. Finally though, she mutters out:]
Wanted to check up on you.
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She settles softly, quietly, into the motion, careful about setting her hoof in A2's hand. Her parents used to help her file her back hooves. She remembers, eyes closing a moment, being smaller, long, spindly limbs splayed over the dirt floor of their home, burying her face in her father's side while her mother carefully filed away at the hooves she chipped in the rough play of children. Remembers the days before heading off to work when she'd pause at the doorframe, lean against it and chat as her father bent his aging spine to chuckle and drag the file along.
It's a calming sound. A little bit of a painful sound.
When A2's voice ripples out over it, Konoha takes a moment to respond. Longer than she thought she'd need.]
... Thank you.
[But,]
... I wanted to say something, too. About the dream place... I didn't mean to intrude.
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It's fine.
[She says, after a moment. It comes out a little gruff, so she amends, after a pause.] Not like you did it on purpose.
[a longer pause.]
Sorry if it scared you.
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[She’s heard a little from A2 about her world, of course, saw that vision from Pod of the robots, but. Seeing it for herself was a different matter. But more than that...]
It just... I felt sorry, when I thought you were dead, that I hadn’t helped you pick a name and it was just “A2”-
[Her soft murmur trails off, staring down at her hands, wringing together... until she straightens up with a snap and somewhat frantically looks over her shoulder, quick to try and correct a potentially disastrous turn of phrase.]
I mean- I was mostly sorry cause I thought you were dead, of course- !
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She seems conflicted, rather than upset, which is something, at least.]
Hm.
It's alright. I don't need another name. You don't have to be sad.
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[Though Konoha hesitates a moment, wondering if she's pushing things or being too nosy, but in the end... her hoof twitches a bit in A2's lap, and she says it anyway.]
I guess no one needs a name, but.
[She has trouble imagining someone not wanting one.]
I know it's not my place, sorry. It just seemed- I don't know. If I was in trouble and my friend was calling for me... I'd want them to call "Konoha", not "jinba".
i lost this...i'm so sorry
She considers her answer. Nothing seems sufficient, but this time she is honest.]
I've never thought I deserved one.
[It's said without much inflection. She pauses, then resumes her work.]
R U THO
And when she does... Konoha waits just a moment, just to let the words settle but not long enough to imply any sort of doubt.]
... You do deserve one.
[Even if it's not her opinion that matters. Even if A2 didn't believe it.
She's being honest, too.]
i am!
Her brow furrows. Often sadness takes its time to reach her: it's always easier to be angry, to feel nothing. Right now it lurks in the impassive flatness of her tone as she responds.]
Why do you think that?
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For a moment, Konoha doesn't know which one she should say. This feels so important, it feels like if she says it wrong she might ruin things forever, and that's a heavy burden when you cared as much as she did about the result. About making it clear to A2 that she deserved so much more than what she thought she did.]
Everyone deserves a name...
[But it isn't just that, and her expressions twists somewhat painfully, so anxious to get across her meaning in a way that might resonate, that A2 might believe, that she almost seems on the verge of tears.]
Even if you hadn't been so kind to me, or helped people in this group... But you have, and you do. I know you said you're an android, but. You deserve everything a human person does. Everything a jinba does.
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It was easier, when she belonged nowhere, and nothing belonged to her. Existing was easier.
She doesn't say anything for a while. Eventually though... ]
It's wasted on me.
[She was afraid.]
When I get back home, I'll fulfill my oath.
[She doesn't want to say what it is.]
When you have a name...
You're remembered.
But I don't want to be remembered.
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[She doesn't know what this oath is, only has the nightmares of the void to give her hints of what A2's world must be like, but.
Her fingers tighen in an anxious knot, hearts swelling fit to burst with a sudden, strong affirmation. Wasted... Konoha was the one who got to decide if her time, effort, and affection were wasted on someone.
They weren't wasted now. She's sure of it.]
And I'm sorry, but-
[Not wanting to be remembered...]
I can't forget you. Even if you don't have a name.
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She doesn't really know what to say. She wasn't meant to know this, to hear these things, to have someone care about whether she lived or died.]
...
[She sighs.]
No matter what I say, you're gonna think that, huh.
[It's a concession, not an argument.]
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But in the end, A2’s answer has her visibly relieved, quickly wiping at any moisture threatening to spill from her eyes and nodding along, a smile beginning to break back upon her features. Anything less than that kind of answer... and it wouldn’t be very like A2, now would it?]
Yeah. ‘Cause that’s what friends do.
action
A4's wearing a bit of color today, surprisingly— a navy-colored dress. Her clothing during the mission was ruined, so her Astoria magic once again came in handy.
A familiar seashell hair accessory shines in her hair, having taken the place of her usual black ribbon— one of the few mementos she has left of the merchildren in Akvos. ]
...Konoha? Hey. [ She waves a hand, smiling. Though it's not in her usual vigor. ] How're you holding up?
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A4’s voice pulls her from her focus, fingers covered in dirt that she accidentally transfers to her cheek when she rubs it just in case there were any tears there, turning with a smile from where she was weeding in a corner of one of the gardens.]
Oh, A4-
[“A4”. Just like “A2”... it wasn’t a real name, and her smile wavers half a moment when she remembers how awful it had felt in the dreamscape, calling out that “name” in panic, thinking she was dead and having only that to call.]
I’m healthy... How about you?
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[ One metal hand raised, wiggling her mechanical fingers. It's her only hand missing artificial skin at the moment, but it's still somewhat functional. She doesn't know who to go to for some cosmetic maintenance.
Though A4's putting on a smile now, she hasn't forgotten. Especially the children that she didn't expect herself to grow attached to. Non-human children, surprisingly. She'd seen for herself too how attached Konoha was to the children. She can't imagine how hard it must've been on her.
She bounds over to join jinba's side, even adding a few skips in her steps. But she's careful enough to avoid trampling any budding plants. ]
Soooo, what're you up to? Are you planning to plant fruits? Or flowers, maybe?
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Still she tries to smile, inadvertently getting a bit more dirt on her face as she wipes her brow and brushes her heavy bangs out of the way, leaning back where she lays beside the planting bed so that A4 can get a better look.]
Vegetables, actually... it’s a good time for radish and turnips... At least, I guess it is.
[It was getting colder in the Temple. Even though she didn’t know if it really had seasons or not, her coat was still coming in thicker all the same, lending a more fluffy look to her lower body.
But despite her efforts she can’t help but be drawn to look at A4’s hand now that it’s so close, a bit perturbed despite herself of what lay beneath the skin. “Skin”?]
It doesn’t hurt... ? Your hand.
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Are radish and turnips sweet?
[ She's unaware of how silly that question might sound. Despite how many times she's seen fruits and vegetables around the Temple, her knowledge is still severely lacking. Most fruit names she'd learn from Konoha, so far. ]
Hurt? No, I'm good. This is nothing.
[ She merely smiles, flexing her metallic fingers. At a glance, it's difficult to discern any weakness. The programming in her hand needs some adjustments. The pain was much worse on her sensors when the damage was fresh, but she's learnt to deal with it. She wouldn't admit to any pain to Konoha or most anyone. ]
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No. Not sweet.
But a further explanation doesn’t come, distracted by the way the light gleams on A4’s exposed metal, the similar look it had to parts of A2. Parts she’d always assumed were just how metal people looked... but. They were injuries, then. Right?]
... Can I see?
[Brow furrowing in thought, Konoha holds out her hand, gesturing towards A4’s own.]
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Hm? Sure?
[ Standing, she straightens herself up. She moves to rest her left hand in Konoha's own outstretched hand. The texture is as smooth as expected from a metal surface, but not without a few nicks here and there from combat. The missing skin appears to extend much further than her wrist. Her dress sleeve helps to cover the rest of the damage over her arm.
Her little smile doesn't fade. She doesn't want to cause any worry. ]
I got into some scuffles back in Akvos. But I assure you, I'm fine.
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[Even though she knows that they're probably more sturdy than anyone, Konoha takes A4's hand as if it's the most delicate thing in the world. Carefully, she rubs her thumb over the smooth metal, her expression turning down slightly in worry, even though A4 is still smiling.]
All of you are like this underneath? 9S, 2B... A2... ?
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[ Metal, as well as a bunch of other components. Her right hand still retains the artificial skin. Probably a strange sight when compared to her damaged hand.
A moment's hesitation before she answers Konoha's first question. She doesn't want to wrongly inform her that they're entirely immune to pain. Getting knocked around in Akvos was pretty painful, though she didn't sustain any heavy injuries. ]
It... hurt much more when the injury was fresh. Not so much right now though. Something like this is not that big of a deal.
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Because of how completely foreign the very idea of androids and robots was to her and her world view, Konoha very rarely remembered to treat them as anything but human- both mentally and how she interacted with them physically. Like this... it was such a stark reminder.
How did pain work when you were metal? One of them had tried to explain it to her before, but...
Her hands remain clasped on A4's, gentle, ready to pull away at any indication of wince or whimper.]
And... "A4". You all have names like that? Names that aren't really names?
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Her hand doesn't budge, remaining limp in Konoha's grasp. She blinks though, somewhat surprised this question is coming up now. ]
That's right. But that's for only us YoRHa types.
[ For a moment her expression falters, losing its vigor, recalling the brief time she was on Earth. Her smile becomes more fond, yet sad. Rose promised them real names back then. ]
There are other androids where we're from. Not like us. Captain Rose and her squad had really pretty flower names. Lily, Daisy, Anemone... names like that.
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9S, 2B, A4, and-]
A2 told me about them. And the flower names.
[Unbidden, her clasp on A4's hand gets a bit firmer, her lips pursing as her gaze remains wavering on the places where her artificial skin was gone.]
Do you- Do you Want a name like that?
[A real name to call, when they were in trouble. When someone was worried about them. When they were confided in. Not a number.]
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When Rose first offered to name her squad, she was excited, to the point of making pleading motions to her captain that made herself look ridiculous.
Her fingers lightly curl around Konoha's hand. It doesn't hurt, but her grip's a bit on the weak side. Normally, she'd jump at the chance for this, immediately answer with an eager acceptance. ]
Aw, Konoha... were you thinking of naming us? [ She lets out a small laugh. ] Well, I do— as long as Number 2 gets a name too. It wouldn't be fair.
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[She isn't their mother, isn't this... Rose person, who she could tell had meant a lot to them, somehow. But... her emotions are as easily read as always, sincere in her desire.]
But in the Rift, I saw A2 in trouble... And it just felt so wrong to call "A2" like that, now that I know it's just some... some designation and model number.
[Frowning just a bit in worry, in desire to help she isn't sure is proper, Konoha rubs her thumb along the side of A4's metal-exposed hand.]
I told A2 before that... that I'd be thinking of names so she could ask me for one when she was ready, but.
[Would she ever be ready?]
I've come up with some I think you'd like...
action, 3/1
[ he gently grips her by the shoulder, brows knit. ]
Are you alright? You seem upset.
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[He wasn’t wrong. This is the thrd time she’s passed through this area, looking progressively more concerned each time, brows knitting, teeth nipping into bottom lip, tail swishing anxiously beneath her skirt as her hooves echo oddly on the metal floors. She’s been looking all over, and yet-]
I was just looking for Arenvald and Connor... have you seen them?
[And they weren’t even the only ones she hasn’t heard from in a weirdly long time. A4, too, hadn’t seemed to be around when she usually would pop by the kitchens... and as new as she was to space, as eerie as some of the doors in this place seemed...
What if something had happened to them?]