blessingone | [ action / voice ] backdated to Tuesday because I was too tired to post it then

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[ action / voice ] backdated to Tuesday because I was too tired to post it then

[ So, Fenimore had spent the last event as

bittyblessing. That had been fine at the time, but, now that the event was over, it had its own issues.

One of them was clothes. Another was pretty much everything else she owned.

Some of her belongings had stayed in the house -- Stella had rescued and retained some outfits, for example -- but, as they lay unclaimed during the event, many eventually disappeared (Shuri and the trash can are particularly suspect in this matter). She had made a brief effort to find particularly important effects, like the locket Shirley had given her -- that disappearance had sent her into a panic until she found it again. But, for the most part, she was too busy sulking to go out into the general social sphere.

Until, well, she woke up one morning to realize that she was down to one clean outfit. One...embarrassing outfit from when she had spent an experiment trying to be a magical girl. (Top and right, respectively, but with added stockings and arm warmers. After all, it was winter at that time.)

Unable to avoid the chore any longer, she can be found in or on her way to either the clothing or item shops, attempting to pretend that there's nothing wrong with this outfit.

She can also be found partway there under a tree, in the same outfit, seemingly attempting to reason with a strange bird sitting on a high branch. It seems that, sometime between her kidnapping and her return after the event, the peepit chick she got for Christmas escaped and has been living the wild life. ] Look, I said I was sorry. Now would you -- ?

[ The bird squawks and turns its back on her. Fenimore huffs as though she suspects the bird to be intelligent enough to understand an apology and reject it, opening her journal, transmitting a request as Voice. ]

Does anyone here speak bird? [Her intended request was for someone who was good at catching birds, but, annoyed, it came out as a more sarcastic one.]

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[Her heart's not entirely in it, but she manages to force a corner of her mouth up, resting her chin on her hand.]

You're not bad. [Even though she does actually think he's one of the more reliable people she knows (in three completely different ways thanks Malnosso). She looks back towards the river again, her voice quieter.] ...But I appreciate it.

[It's not hard to tell it's forced and it's met with a small nod before he turns to the river himself. He's quiet for a moment before he decides to fess up something he's been keeping to himself.]

... is that how you got those scars?

[She stiffens visibly at his words. Her scars were, arguably, an even more closely guarded secret than her species, as she tried to keep it even from people like Stella and Shirley. And, while she would never admit it even to herself, that part of her that still held his opinion on her apperance in higher regard than she really ought to since the February event is particularly unhappy that it's Sokka who knows about it.

A little of the tension leaks out as she smiles without any humour or happiness associated with it.] So, you saw it, too, huh? [She's quiet as she thinks about how much she wants to tell him in answer, smile fading, when another thought strikes her. She glances in his direction with her eyes, barely moving her head.] Unless you were talking to Suki about it.

[She doubts it, though -- if Suki had told him about what they were talking about, he wouldn't need to ask.]

[... he hadn't realized Suki had seen it. Of course now it's obvious. They were in that room for so long talking, that Sokka had wandered off to find Toph. That must have been what that was all about. He's not surprised Suki didn't mention it. Hell, he didn't say anything to her about it, after all. They had invaded Fen's privacy enough.]

I... didn't realize she knew.

...I guess she wouldn't have told you. [She is glad that she had kept it secret, but it does make things a little harder now. She has to explain all over again.

She doesn't answer right away, trying to sort through her thoughts, her head lowered almost to the point of looking at her arms folded on the rail rather than the river. When she speaks, her voice is angry.] That dream I had.... [She's referring to the one that had sent her running to Sokka and Suki's bed, the last day of the previous experiment. As a scared child, she wouldn't have given many details, but, amongst her babbling, there may have been enough to form a picture of soldiers in red attacking a village.] That was the first time I had ever seen an -- a human. They're the ones who gave them to me.

[... so he guessed right. One of those moments where it really, really sucks to be right. He remembers just smiling and reassuring that little girl that it was just a dream and that it didn't mean anything. It makes him feel sick.]

... I'm sorry. That's... hard. [The words feels empty. But words don't make scars go away.]

I know it's hard! I was the one who had to live through it! [She also knows that snapping at Sokka isn't going to help anything. She knows that he meant it as a comfort. And if she thought about it, she'd even realize that, were their situations reversed, she would probably have said about the same to him.

But she doesn't feel like bothering to be particularly rational, either. So, while she might take a moment to collect herself a little and keep from snapping at him again, she doesn't apologize for it. The anger doesn't fully leave her voice, either.] ...It hasn't even been two years. The -- the scars, the ones on my back...I've only had most of them for a month before I came here. I still hated humans then. -- I don't now, of course, but.... [She struggles to find the right words before, sighing, she takes them from Sokka.] It's hard.

[It might not cross his mind, but, in case it might, she told him once about one other thing from only a month before her arrival in Luceti -- how long she'd known Shirley.]

[In spite of wincing at the comeback, he resists the urge to snap back. Having a sister like Katara makes that a little easier. It's mostly the realization of how recent this had all been that makes him think. So, she arrived in Luceti, fearing everyone. He knows that fear. Living amongst 'enemies', fearing being spotted. He did that for nearly two months in the Fire Nation, but he had a plan and powerful friends. And he wasn't defenseless himself.

However, something else occurs to him as well.] That's how you met Shirley, isn't it?

[She looks at him, surprised for a moment as she puts together how he would have deduced it.] Yeah. When they captured Shirley, they put her in the cell next to mine. I didn't get to talk to her very long before... [She doesn't entirely turn to the river again, but she does glance away.] I guess they just wanted to get rid of me before they took Shirley away, since I was the only one left. But there was a man who kept me alive -- at least, that's what Shirley said. So they took me with her.

[She hesitates and lowers her head so that her eyes are hidden behind her hair. She's not proud of what came next.] ...I didn't treat her very well. But, when Senel came to rescue her, she still gave herself up to be captured again to let me escape.

... it was a bad situation. We're not always at our best at times like that. [It's not much for consolation though and he knows it, so he just gloomily watches the water. It's hard to even apply this to his own experiences. He's had his own share of tragedies, but he's never suffered like that.]

I'm sure she understood that.

[She sighs.] If anything, she was too understanding. She was -- she's always been too forgiving for her own good. [Urk, she nearly used past tense to describe Shirley's personality. It's not like she's dead or anything, even if she's not in Luceti anymore.

...She probably shouldn't leave him on a cliffhanger about the narrative.] She was rescued again, after a week.

[He noticed that slip, but there's no point in calling her on it. He does the same thing sometimes. It an easy habit to slip into.]

... well good. I'm glad. [He'd hate to think Shirley just went home... to be imprisoned.]

Mm. It wasn't long after that when we became friends. [Her expression at that is more pleasant than it has been for nearly the entire conversation.]

[But that soon sours as she continues.] And not long after that that we were attacked again. If Shirley wasn't from farther ahead than me, I would have thought -- [It had only been a moment, but she had seen Shirley throw herself in the way of the knight captain's sword to save another. There had been movement and then...she had found herself in the closet of Charlotte's apartment of the time.]

[She shakes her head.] Things will be better back home, soon. [After all, Shirley had become the Merines. Clearly only good things could happen from that.] But that hasn't happened here.

Yeah, I know they will. If there's one thing I learned about this place? The Malnosso don't recruit losers. All of us always come through or already have.

[And Sokka is glad to be in the latter category. It's really nice not to have the fate of the world resting on his mind.]

[After a moment, she gives him a small lopsided grin.]

If you're trying to say everyone in Luceti is some kind of hero, I'm flattered, but you're a little off base.

Well, not exactly. But you're on the side of, you know, hero-type people, right? Same basic idea. [It works okay.]

I think you're still stretching it a little. [She shakes her head as if to clear away the darker thoughts -- not entirely successful, but somewhat.] It would explain all of the weapons, though.

Well it's true, right? Heroes need weapons. They're very practical when fighting the not-so-much-heroic types. Especially since they tend to like weapons even more. [And Sokka is the distributor of weapons. It's like he OWNS Luceti.]

I guess you'd know that better than I would.

Offer's still open, you know. I mean, if you want some fighting tips. [Well okay maybe he's never offered directly, but he's always made himself open to it? Kind of?]

...I didn't know you wanted to be a teacher. [She had interpreted it as a suggestion that she should think about learning self-defence, not that he'd necessarily be the one to teach her. And it hadn't seemed worth the effort of finding a teacher. So she had never really come to a conclusion about that -- thus, delay tactics.

Though, now that he was bringing it up, it was bringing back memories of the experiment, where her seven-year-old self had learned from both Sokka and Suki.]

[He hadn't really though of himself as one either. But like her, the experience of being a dad had an impact. Though he's not sure he could be that kind of teacher again. Suki was way better at than than him.]

Well... I don't know. I'm not sure I'd be a good one. Suki is way better at that than me.

[Since it was only a ten day period where they were quite busy anyway, she can't remember enough to be able to compare them. ...And, besides, she had been seven years old and idolizing her parents. Pretty big bias.]

I don't think I'd get far enough that it would be a big difference. [But rather than dwell on that -- it sounds too much like a "well, it doesn't matter if you suck" to be polite -- she admits:] I haven't really thought about it enough. I'm...not as against it as I used to be, but I don't know if it's worth the time for me.

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