[Tsuna is quiet for a moment, considering. It's hard to say what express style means, but hopefully it's an alternative to running down snowmen in the streets.
Of course he has to remember where home is in relation to where they are as well. ]
[Asahi's lips twitch into a Fandaniel's cruel smirk.]
Oh, not very many. A dozen or so. Mostly in my halcyon mortal days.
[He withdraws his hand from Viktor's chin and allows his wrist to hang loosely in the other man's grip.]
I forget what I was hoping to accomplish... Hm. Something to do with placing dragon eyes in my sockets I'm sure. I could have turned the tide of the war with such power.
[Not a greater wyrm's eyes, no. Not one of the First Brood. But a drake's? That could have been doable.]
[ Gilgamesh won't abolished Mintato's attitude. The boy had a certain right since the grater wasn't working. It was all about trial and error. ]
Should I axe...ah but you do need your arm. Hmm...what a pity. I wanted shaved ice.
[ Gilgamesh put the golden grater down on the side table before reaching into his Gate to pull out a blowtorch. He wasn't going to give up so easily. ]
I shall thaw the ice enough to grate.
[ In the end, Gilgamesh just really wants shaved ice. ]
[Havemercy shrugs with a vague eyebrow raise of his own; technically, a librarian should be familiar with catalog organization and the like before reading every book ever, in his opinion, and also in his opinion, reading a book about space travel is only a drop in the bucket anyway, but whatever. Same for magic. The important thing - that he got to career-drop his brother for a second, hurrah - is out there.]
You speak as if space travel and magic are the only things worth knowing about in the whole universe.
[A STEM snob, if he had to guess... not unlike his kid brother, so, that's fine.]
Unfortunately, it would seem, most of my education focused on local religion. And some botany. And some politics.
[It's less jarring to visit the "café this time around, though she's still slow to adjust to all the noise. She watches a few people line up and make orders before stepping forward herself to do so, though her brow furrows when payment is requested until Pod bobs over to work all of that out. Eventually they settle on handing over two of the smaller machine parts she'd scavenged from a battle: a pair of glittering screws made out of a metal compound that didn't exist in modern-day Earth. They shimmer when the light hits them.
A2 doesn't find it especially odd that this is accepted as currency, only vaguely understanding the idea of commerce itself, but she wonders what the owner is going to get out of them.
She guides Czeslaw to the same seating Heimerdinger had guided her to not long ago, and sets a mug of hot chocolate in front of him.]
[A2 keeps her gaze stubbornly turned away, her hard stare pointed at a nearby wall. His remark, given without presumptuousness, makes her sigh in one short, tight breath. It's clear she doesn't want to have a discussion surrounding her obvious damage.
... Eventually, though, her shoulders slump. Some of the ramrod tightness of her posture relaxes. She closes in on herself in subtle ways, keeping her eyes focused on anything but Ekko. Her fingers tap in a tuneless pattern against the arm of the couch.
["You put dead people in them," the boy tells her, and she looks again at the coffins. For a moment she is still and quiet, like she's waiting for something. A hand hovers near the blade floating at her back: a pristine white katana.
Then the moment passes. Her hand eventually lowers. She relaxes.]
Hm.
That's morbid.
[Is she joking? Hard to say.] Shitty way to bring someone somewhere.
[...Visas hadn't even considered that there might be a planet so primitive that it had no contact with the wider galaxy. The Galactic Republic has existed for tens of thousands of years; it's hard for her to conceive of a place that is so truly isolated that their only option is to rebuild the world that they themselves destroyed rather than fleeing into the stars.]
...They must have predicted the problem with your life-eating machines.
It is brave, to take such a desperate chance, when there was so little chance of success.
[Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. His brain skips a step as the implications hit him, mouth left half open for a moment before he snaps out of it. Sorry, Echo, he's having a moment with this, helping you has been put on hold.]
"The previous world you found yourself in." You've had an experience like this before?
[She'd been prepared for a reprimand. Though her time under the yoke of military service had been but a brief string of nothingness in a long war that had meant nothing, to her, it had been the whole of her life. And the lessons too, in spite of her "desertion." Emotions are prohibited. Units assigned to a mission must not abandon their mission, even at threat of death. Personal names are prohibited. The salute to humankind is to be done at all dismissals and briefings. Uniform modifications are subject to disciplinary action. Machinekind is unable to feel or process emotions. They merely repeat phrases mindlessly. Units are instructed to ignore and proceed with outlined mission. Over and over again.
Countless. Endless.
When she looks up at last, her expression is confused. Lost. But Pod knows what to say.]
It was still from some part of you. And don't make it sound like something lewd.
[The offered hand is pulled back without touching as he leans back on his hunches. If they're good enough to make jokes like that, they should be fine. Not like there had been much brain to lose anyway.]
Kiss yourself if you're that desperate for it. I already told you that there won't be any 'us'.
[Some of the toads make disappointed noises at that, with some particularly brave ones also trying to stealthily take aim once more.]
[As Jinx cloaks both of them in the blanket instead of hiding only herself a sense of happiness welled up inside him despite their current circumstances, harboring enough trust in him to see her in such a vulnerable state of affairs. Although he couldn't remember their spent together here in Aldrip this wasn't the first time even for him seeing her like this after their distraught reunion upon returning to their proper timeline. While it pains Ekko to see her like this he knew how to carefully navigate things around her with enthusiastic reinforcement and while the welcoming embrace was a new edition it seems to working wonders.
A hand snakes upwards to thread through the untamed blue locks at the back of her head, fingertips gently massaging her scalp as the boy sighed somberly. With a soften spoken voice Ekko shakes his head a bit to himself.]
They can't harm you...Just focus on the sound of my voice and the feel of my comforting embrace.
[Eventually the hand moved to tip her chin to force her gaze upon, hot breath cascading against her lips mere inches away.]
I won't let anything hurt you while I'm here, alright?
[Bravely leaning forward to place a chaste kiss to her lips again hoping to wash away the fear of the hallucinations which plagued her dreaded thoughts.]
[Ah. There it is again. All it takes is that name and people show him that annoying little grin as if they've figured things out just from knowing a name. If he were still young he'd get angry or defensive about it, but he has dealt with this sort of situation far too often already. 'We know his name and we know the myths, so we also know who you are.' No shit, you don't.]
Which one did you hear tales of?
[His voice is smooth and calm as usual, sounding somehow both masculine and ethereal. Polite and unconcerned. As if they weren't talking about him or somebody he knows at all.]
Who knows? All I can tell you for sure is that he lived and died as a human in the eyes of those who counted, yet he was also the most inhuman thing I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. I don't think that he ever knew the difference between a kid, a pet and a toy.
Lament the fact that we have been randomly picked to be tortured?
[ The less helpful answer, though this time truly unhelpful, unlike her true-but-contextless answer from a moment ago.
Ange shrugs. ]
In all actuality, you should probably go see if there are other people here from the same place you come from. In my experience either you are the only one here from your world, or there are tons of people you recognize. There's few cases in between those two extremes. [ She seems to think for a moment, maybe wondering if everyone looks like Heimerdinger where he comes from? In that case she should probably add, just to not get his hopes up: ] I don't think I've seen anyone who looks similar to you though.
At least those words seem to connect the final dots in Ange's mind. It gives her a realization that ought to give her some relief, but somehow it only seems to make the girl look frustrates. She raises a hand up to her face, pinching the bridge of her nose as she turns her face away from Echo and the journal Echo is holding. ]
I can't believe it.
[ She even sounds exasperated, unlike Ange's usual default relatively emotionless tone. ]
They made you forget this place again. You can't even be a different version of Echo if you do remember me from that other place you were in before. [ How come people keep showing up without their memories lately? It's so super frustrating, having to get to know people all over again. The beings in charge of this place must really dislike her, Ange thinks. ]
[he hesitates here for just a couple of seconds. should he give a fake name?...ultimately he decides to throw caution to the wind and give his real name. the odds of the man before him being immortal, or immortal with the same rules and limitations that czes lives with, seems low.]
I'm Czeslaw. I don't guess there's something like a record of people who get brought here, is there?
[czeslaw watches the exchange in silence, suddenly feeling out of his depth. he doesn't think he's ever been to a cafe or other similar establishment where you could just...pay with anything. as old as he is, the barter system is way before his time.
he sniffs at the contents of the mug, and apparently finds them acceptable, as he takes a long sip before he speaks again.]
So what makes this place different compared to what you're used to? I think it looks pretty average for a cafe.
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expiationlogs2024-12-09 08:17 am
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