marisa kirisame ╰☆╮ 霧雨魔理沙 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lovecolored) wrote2018-07-07 06:40 pm
lovecolored) wrote2018-07-07 06:40 pm
( camp ) post-execution rumba
[ Marisa goes off to find Lenka a little later in the evening, after she's done crying and being hypnotized by trees. Got that squared away. When she spots him, she approaches on foot, a little wobbly. ]
...hey. Got time to talk?
...hey. Got time to talk?
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[And sometimes, that's needed. All of them licking their wounds, talking in hushed voices and recovering from all the raised voices and confrontations of the trial; some of it is probably just that no one has the energy any longer to challenge each other. Despite some of them giving it the good old try in the past, sometimes. It's been less and less.
Less and less of them, the silence louder and louder. It makes the night darker in turn. He shakes his head.]
But I don't mind talking.
[There's something a little reassuring about the fact that Marisa's recovered enough to chatter a little bit, after yesterday.]
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[ she pauses ]
My fingers are itchin'. Not just 'cause of the what ifs. [ If she went with Usagi to the shack. If she could have saved her. If she'd gotten to know Boa better. ] I feel like I gotta get back to work, since that usually makes me feel better if I had a shit day, but...
[ Her shoulders drop, and she makes a brief motion with her hands to the environment before them. The Camp. Everything about it. ]
--what do you do when you wanna distract yerself?
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[And boy does he ever know.
His time is limited; it's always been limited, even back in the days when his God Arc wasn't doing what it does to him, because the lifespan of God Eaters is like that -- it's why so many of them are reckless hooligans who live fast and hard. He's used to the fast-paced and the terrible, but this is intense even for him; and more so because it feels like he's twiddling his thumbs, unable to take up arms when he wants to defend anyone, everyone.
There's constant tension and restless crawling through him, low and unrelenting even when it's crushed under other weight.]
I'm used to being able to fight. Do something about things with my Arc. So I -- train. But it's not enough. [he can never do enough, and it's still impossible to accept even now] ... What do you work on? Is it potions?
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Sometimes that. Sometimes new spells. Sometimes I fly into the Village and see if anyone's hirin'. I take jobs here and there.
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Lenka's been guilty of this too. Fighting and defending is what he knows. This... All of this camp, is nothing like that. He doesn't know where to turn.]
What kinds of jobs are at the village...?
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[Relatable, even if Aragami probably qualify for the quality or breadth of hassling that something like youkai would. Even in a time when gods have gained names and faces and a lot more teeth than usual, they still have enough folklore left to remember the other spirits.
Of course, much like magic, youkai have very little meaning in the sci-fi genre.]
They need your spellcards?
[The attack was pretty incredible, so he can't really imagine the types of battles that would go on.]
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[ she rolls her eyes, like killing youkai is just a nuisance rather than an intense battle against a powerful folklore monster....at this point, it kind of is. She's been doing this since she was about 10. ]
No. You can kill a youkai with anythin', provided you're good enough to actually do the killin'. The spellcards are just to make the fights fair for both parties. Helped me out when I was younger...I challenged a few youkai way above my pay grade and woulda gotten killed, but they had to use spellcards, too.
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[She looks human, but that's never really meant anything around here, and he doesn't usually think to check on things like that but -- she's talking so very casually about taking out things that live for centuries and are probably virtually indestructible. Granted, it's not a foreign concept to him either; but it's debatable whether he can claim full humanity at this point himself.
It's a curious thing.]
So the spellcards are like... a tool for duels... [not like he's ever seen a real duel, but that seems to be the concept here] How did you get one? Did you make it?
[She does seem terribly competent at making all kinds of things, after all.]
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[ a tired wink. ]
They aren't actual cards. You just kinda...design the pattern in your head and practice it, and then give it a name.
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[He's not getting whatever she's trying to say there, with either the mysterious implication or the wink. So he's just going to ask about it straight up.]
--Oh. So the spellcards, that's what you mean when you say you work on new spells.
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[ There's a long pause. She can appreciate bluntness but Lenka, really... ]
...some magicians eventually become youkai themselves. Supposedly the ultimate goal of any magician is to learn how to transcend their humanity. You learn how to slow your agin' down, then halt it entirely. Then you learn how to live without food, and water.
By that time, you ain't human anymore. My friend who makes dolls, Alice, she became a youkai magician a while ago that way.
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He'll... duck his head a little, abashed because he'd sort of asked without thinking. His tact may have taken a long walk off the short pier of Saturday trials. And he'd... assumed, honestly, that she was a little like him in the sense that the camp might be suppressing whatever she really is. In retrospect, it's both too accurate and a bad analogy to have gone with.]
Oh. I'm sorry. I... [he hesitates a little, but it's not like it isn't an open secret at this point in the week, literally] I'll become an Aragami myself. Eventually. But I guess becoming a youkai isn't exactly like that...
[It sounds like it might have room for a little more nuance than voracious horrormonsters.]
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Why're you apologizin'? [ knocking his shoulder with hers ] I've been lookin' for ways to live longer, anyway. The only part I'd be sore about is not bein' the underdog anymore.
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Because I just... asked without thinking. I didn't know if it was something you wanted to talk about. [but since it seems to be more or less okay now, he doesn't apologize again, just thinking it over] So you could be thousands of years old...
[That's kind of a weird thought in a camp like this, where everyone is ostensibly in the same tiny age bracket.]
--You like being an underdog?
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If I get real good at keepin' myself alive, maybe.
[ In more ways than one. Staying alive in this place is getting harder and harder. ]
Sure! It's an accomplishment when ya live in the kinda place I do--plenty'a people are born with some kinda destiny to fulfill, or a legendary power they gotta keep a leash on just to coexist. They don't have to put effort into what they do to make themselves successful.
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[He looks away again, a little embarrassed about being called out on calling himself out on common courtesy. Despite the fact that he's a little rough around the edges from a lifetime of living out in the sticks, his parents did try to raise him right! So he tries to stick to that as best he can, in his own way.]
And you've been pretty good at staying alive. [a little softer, because the fact that she's still here -- the fact that enough of their cabin is here despite everything -- he's grateful for that at the very least] Is that because you're, uh, a self-made magician?
[That's sort of what he's getting from all that stuff about destiny and legend.]
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[ A slight pause. She doesn't like telling people about her origins if only because the thought of being pitied pissed her off. But she's pretty sure Lenka wouldn't do that. ]
Yeah. My parents don't even like magic. Started to study it from scratch when I was seven.
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[It puts him a little more at ease, really.
Not all of them seem to have that attitude about dying (or being turned to rock, since apparently there's the distinct and terrible possibility now of having it happen while you're still alive, and he's not thinking too hard about that, hasn't been all this week), but as long as enough of them have it then it'll help carry the rest until they can get to their feet, or until it's no longer a threat.
That's what he wants to believe, anyway.]
Hmm. So does that mean you learned magic by yourself? Or did you have a teacher?
[It's the different worlds schtick here; he's still busy being impressed about the magic in the first place. Humble origins are pretty much the norm where he comes from, come to think of it.]
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Her smile fades at his questions, though. ]
...I had a teacher for a while, yeah.
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Oh. So... [should he obliquely try and make this better?] What was your favorite subject to study?
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The combat. It was the most fun and the most necessary at the same time, so I learned that first.
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Yeah. It sounds like you would have gotten a lot more use out of the combat back home.
[A good amount of them come from combat-oriented backgrounds, but at the same time... this isn't a place that really allows them to use them. They're back at the source of the restlessness prompting the meandering conversation into all kinds of darker corners. Even now, with the tiredness from the high-octane trial settling in and the whole week of hallucinations settling on their shoulders... It's hard to relax at all.]
I'd like to see some more spellcards, sometime.
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Sure. I've got a lot more up my sleeves, ze.
[ and then a pause ]
What about you, then?
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Her question, though -- that gets a confused look.]
Me? I already explained everything I can do to you...
[He's assuming she's asking about battle prowess, honestly.]
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[He sounds a little embarrassed about it, because he really is a terminal workaholic and doesn't so much have hobbies as he has activities and ideas he's occasionally borrowed from other people. Even the flowers he's raising, quietly and diligently on their cabin porch, belong in spirit to someone else entirely. There never seems to be time or attention to spare for him to build something of his own.
Apart from one thing. Something other than family, something equally as important to him now. Because it's kept him going for most of the past year.]
... I guess, I could tell you about my team.
[His voice is softer, comes a little easier. Soma was here, and she already knows about him. He really hasn't spent a lot of time dwelling on the others; it's easier that way. But he doesn't mind talking about them.]
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If you wanna. I ain't gonna make ya talk about somethin' that's still hard to think about. But if you do, I'd like to hear about 'em.
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[A few weeks, since he's seen them or talked about them, and it feels like months or years because this is the second time he's been uprooted completely -- everything that made him who he was torn away, except the clothes on his back and the Arc he can't let go of.
There's an irrational feeling, low-key and lingering, that if he doesn't talk about them now he'll forget, or lose them for good. He's not sure how equivalent the two are, but they feel the same somehow.
Still, there's something careful about the way he goes on, like he's checking over the memories for cracks before taking them out, dusting them off a little.]
There are five of us. I... was just promoted to captain, before I came here. Sakuya-san is our vice-captain. She's good at taking care of people, but not always as good at taking care of herself. [she's also at least 6 years his senior, but he talks about her like a sister, somehow] Alisa is the newest member, I think. She can be stubborn, and hard to get along with, but she's strong. She wiped the floor with me.
[There's something dry about the way he says it, but there's no bitterness there; it's not a bad memory, the first time they met and worked as a team despite everything about them clashing. It's a little bit like here -- you never know where you're going to find someone who will have your back for a long time to come.
And it's obvious, in the way he talks, the fondness and the pride: these people were everything to him.]
Kouta. My best friend. He always tried to keep a smile on his face, and on everyone else's. He was our recon expert, but he dressed in orange and yellow. We always said the Aragami were finding him instead.
[And he misses the hell out of him, the way he could brighten everything effortlessly in places that were bleak. It's a skill that Lenka completely lacks, will probably always lack, which might be why he gravitates towards people with sunnier dispositions.
He slows to a stop, after that. One more member. This one feels like a goodbye, if he says it out loud, so he has to think it over.]
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It does make her smile, not just thinking about home, but being the nosy person she is, it's interesting to hear about everyone's homes.
(And the look on his face is kind of cute right now, that's a bonus.) ]
...and Soma, right?