Scene #8077: Everyone Asks What Is Cantio Doing, But Never How Is Cantio...

Owner	Pose
Xion	The Scorched Wood, the scouring of the old growth, has smouldered and burned for years now. Great trees reduced to charred-black flinders, and the flinders burned to white ash, and the ash rising in rain, and then rain falling in thick, dark sheets. It has been some time since this land was cracked open and cooked. Deeper than the green borders, on what was once a long greatroad that cut from Njorun to outlying cities of the great forest, a lone Xion works with a shovel and watering can, breaking ash-capped ground and turning over the layer-cake of black and grey with an edge of steel silver. In sooted blue jeans and red-dark-grey plaid shirt over a black t-shirt, Xion wipes her forehead, and thinks to pull out her charm-dangling phone. > Cantio > How are you doing? > I was doing some gardening, and wondered how you were recovering. Forwarding her location along with her last message, she half-returns to messing with the ground, split between phone and shovel.
Cantio	Another day in town, another series of tests. One failure, but twelve successes so far. A personal best! Cantio's not quite in her element when the weather's too hot, but being able to retreat into air-conditioned rooms is always a blessing. Noticing the buzz from her watch, she fiddles with the touch screen with a few idle curses at missing the tiny numbers several times before finally seeing what that's all about. A moment later, she waves down someone starting to float away, then starts tapping away on her own pink and purple phone. > Hi xion! > I'm doing great, thanks! No problems here, still chugging away in Arfica :hot_face: > along? away? > what kind of gardening? do you need a hand or six? > do clamps count as hands It's a good time for a break, anyway. She leaves some notes and drones behind, and then it's off to the Scorched Wood! It doesn't take too long for her to arrive, at least, and she even arrives wearing regular working pants and boots for once. Her jacket is tied around her waist, leaving her in a tank top covered in, unsurprisingly, pink and white stripes. She really needs to update her wardrobe. At least she's brought drinks. Canned bubble tea!
Xion	> Arfica? > :dog: :dog_face: :africa_continent: :larxenedogstep: The last one appears to be an extremely advanced reference to someone with a dog nose and floppy ears on, from a private server-chat. Cantio can imagine as she likes. > The kind that's never over. As Cantio arrives, Xion leans forearms and chin atop the D-gripped top of her shovel, fond-positive and tired. Xion is rarely, if ever, weary-looking. Cantio is, truly, one of the few-numbered people outside of the strange Organization XIII that has ever seen what Xion's tired looks like. And, numbered 'The Organization' and 'Cantio', what it means to her from repeated use and long explanation. 'Putting her life on the line'. "You didn't need to dress up for work-work, this is... A hobby!" Xion laughs, pushing down on her shovel with arms and chin to plant it, walking forward to accept a canned tea. "I don't know, even if I had forever, if I could make this place better, and maybe, I shouldn't. Worrying at every scar just because it's healed over isn't right on bodies, is it?" She metal-tinks her can to Cantio's before working the pull tab and lifting to drink.
Cantio	> Right? I barely saw any dogs there! She totally did that on purpose. Absolutely. Maybe she'll believe it herself if she tells her that enough times. Xion's tired-look is certainly new, but Cantio takes it in stride nonetheless as she hands over that can. "Yeah, but I didn't want to get my good stuff too dirty. That should be saved for fights against people, or else I wouldn't be able to look cool doing it." She replies with a giggle, inspecting Xion's shovel for a moment before bringing out one of her own. Naturally, it's a high-tech one, and it's very likely it's actually just her sword rearranging itself into the shape of a long handle and spade. It even has the greeble hole in the back! "You're still trying, though, right? That's what really matters. I mean... It's like you said. Hobby, not work-work. And it's not like you're just trying the same thing over and over without changing things up." She taps her can with Xion's, and then it's time to drink! A moment later, and she squints at her own can. "... I forgot to shake it." Cantio shrugs, then sips some more anyway. "Sometimes... The scars can linger, yeah. Fixing them is a lot harder than just covering them up, but it's not a bad thing to trying as long you still think it's worth trying." She stares at the ground, then at the shovel shaped sword, then at Xion's shovel. This is the part where Cantio realizes she's never really used a shovel before.
Xion	Xion takes a long draw of the milk tea, thirsty first and revived by the power of sugar and cream secondarily. Then, after the first gulp, the elements of sweet and rich overtake her, and she tips forward to sip more lingering-shallow. Cantio's high-tech swordvel might develop a greeble based on a dumptruck game! Action 52! Blast Corps! There's possibilities. (But maybe not Blast Corps in the Scorched Wood.) "You always look right for the spot, like all your outfits have a purpose. It's pretty cute. I just wear what's comfortable, now. I used to get an outfit every time I went places, would grow ears and sprout big floppy hats every time I went through a warpgate. Well, maybe not ears every time. Only for animal-people places." Disappearing her CANNED TEA (5/8th) into inventory, Xion picks back up her shovel. "So what we're doing is breaking up the top layer of ash-pack. It can be a pretty thick in places, but you want to turn it over until you find something green coming out from underneath." Xion first scrapes with the top of her shovel to expose a hardened black ash-cake patch near the path and where she had been digging before. Then, lifting her foot, she steps on the blade of the shovel and drives it earthward, cracking the cake and wedging her shovel in flush. Hand on haft and in the ringed back, she works the cake-cap up, where it crumbles into charcoal chunks of fist-size. Underneath is an ash-peat loam of moist brown from captured rain and fresh black dirt. Little shoots and roots are visible, from seeds that had lain dormant or only just started to rise underneath a doomed cap. "Like that. If you do it enough, the plants can start to do the rest. It gets easier, the longer you work at it, So, sometimes, when I want to do something relaxing, I make a little difference and listen to the sounds of the forest." Should Cantio go at the cake-cap with her own sword, there's only one difference: the digital edge flips over harvestable <Charcoal> which she can use for minecrafting.
Cantio	One day, Battle Construction Robots will be a reality. Cantio will need to develop a terrible British accent before that fateful day. For now, fashion. "You think so? I've been trying to diversify more, but sometimes I just... Get lazy and go with the comfortable usual, you know?" Cantio laughs, then raises an eyebrow when Xion mentions her own shifting wardrobe and ear quantity. "We should go to one of those places someday." She replies with an odd smile crossing her face, sounding fiercely determined as though something's awakened inside of her after hearing those words and being given such a floppy mental image. Thankfully, she's also easy enough to get back on track with DIRECTIONS and practical demonstrations. Lifting her swordvel a whole ten inches off the grand, she tries to absorb Xion's directions as best she can before even attempting to thrust her tool into the dirt. "Push it in, pry it out, look for green stuff... It sounds simple enough in theory." She certainly has the physical strength to break through the surface, at least, although the follow-up steps of actually trying to keep it wedged in instead of just accidentally wriggling the tool out of place... That'll take her a couple of tries before it starts making sense. "I can see why it's so tiring now... But it's kind of therapeutic. Just turning everything off, working out..." She trails off briefly to look over at what Xion's already dug up, squatting by it to eye those little shoots and roots. "Seeing a difference right away... And if you got a bigger shovel, or if you had something that could turn itself in the ground before...!" Cantio's stuff-designing impulses kick in briefly, and then she shuts herself down just as fast. "Oh! sorry. This is supposed to be a hobby, not a... Not an efficiency.. Thing." She giggles awkwardly after that, then gets back to her own swordvel. "How long have you been doing this?" As she asks that, she squints as she finally succeeds at flipping a segment over, but the transformation into those black briquettes has Cantio looking on in utter confusion. "... Is that supposed to happen?"
Xion	Cantio's dreams of greatness get several responses in order, Xion returning to leaning on her shovel, forearms and chin. "People will see me as they think they see me, most times. I could be naked, and some people would see me with a hood and coat and gloves." Xion shrugs. "Other times, I'm a doormouse detective. Big, round ears." She lifts her arms to sign about her head with her cupped palms and a drooping smile. "Kale's world is like that, but I wouldn't want to remind him about it. He'll get stuffy and start looking down at me." She grouses lightly, dropping her hands. "When Larxene, Luxord, and I went to this casino place once I had these floppy bunny ears, black and magenta. Larxene got cats with her outfit, but I think she prepared hers ahead of time." Cantio strikes the earth, and even if she's not used to a shovel, she's using a technomagical artifact, and has done the whole Secundus Thing twice now. It works more than it doesn't, but technique brings the charcoal result. "It's fine to want to help more, Cantio. There's as many little projects as there are scars to pick at on the world. I think, maybe, accepting a scar is a scar can be healthy, but there's no reason to let yourself become completely covered in them. One or two are the marks of an interesting life. Dozens are the marks of a lack of self-love." "I've been doing this for a few months, so I've only gotten a little stretch along the path here. If you wanted to clear the whole area, it'd be a big project, but even a little is a lot more progress than none. You can always go faster, that's fine." "I'm saying that it's important to start." She grins, shrugging and summoning her tea to turn it into a CANNED TEA (1/2) with a sip. "Do you always do something, and then look about and wonder if it is supposed to happen? Maybe that's a little lack of self-love too."
Cantio	"That's convenient then... Well, for hot weather. You still probably want pockets, though, but if you don't have to worry about what you're actually wearing..." Cantio considers the real meaning of what Xion's saying as she promptly stares right at her, giggling after another moment when she does that thing with her palms. She's probably imagining her in a fluffy mouse costume right around now. "Good and bad, then. If you're somewhere people would get stuffy and... Yeah." She gives Xion one of those understanding grimace-nods, then snaps her fingers. "Oh! I know those casino outfits. They're..." A beat. "... Was Larxene trying to impress someone?" After fishing for a little more gossip, Cantio picks up some of that <Charcoal> and spitballs the weight in her hand. "Not too much, but... Hm. This place might have some useful medical applications for someone way more informed about that stuff." She comments with a light chuckle, sitting back against her swordvel after wedging it back into the ground and letting her weight push it down a little more. "A /lack/ of self-love... Huh. I guess that's why she was so hesitant to show anyone for so long." Cantio frowns for a moment, then claps her hands together to try and liven the mood a bit more. "Well! It's a good thing I'm digital in part, then. The rough edges are a little easier to hide than for regular people." Cantio finishes her first can, and then she starts the arduous process of trying to shake tapioca bubbles out of the bottom so they don't go to waste. "I'll see if I can't come up with something that'll make the process easier, then. It's a good project you've got here, and..." She inhales awkwardly through her teeth at that last question, not answering right away while rubbing her arm. "Mm... Y-yeah, constantly. I've gotten better at pushing those thoughts away, though. It's like... They're this constant nagging voice in the back of my head, wondering about how badly things could go if just this changed, or that went off course. Even my work in Arfi-" She coughs. "Africa is... I mean, that's what the security features are for, right? Cover my bases, but don't stop doing more because of fear."
Xion	"I think Larxene got convinced to do it, but she had on this long black dress with gold chains and patterning, and looked great, so maybe she was really actually excited to be there. Luxord wanted to do some scheme with the place, and wanted me specifically to... carry some things and bags, and then mostly I just hung out and wandered the floor until Larxene grabbed me and got me to open up some doors and a safe. I wasn't really paying attention, I was kind of overwhelmed!" Luxord wanted to play cards, and Larxene thought it was a casino job until she made it one. By rubbing Xion on all the locks and then teleporting out. Xion was just happy to be involved. "If you wanted to start clearing this place for new growth and could use the stuff here for a good purpose, why not? If you don't have all your other projects." Xion suggests, stepping up to the path and leaving her shovel stuck in the ground. On a clearer bit of ground, she paces while stretching and sipping from the tea, taking a proper break. "It's okay to help a little, or help a lot, but don't help just because you think you've gotta-gotta, like, nobody's forcing you. Do what your insides tell you, if you can listen to them. Remember--" Xion turns, in a bobbing step, hanging and grinning with her face framed by quirked can and a fingergunning point. It's quite a pose. "Feeling bad doesn't always mean you need to stop. Sometimes feeling bad is hungry, and you feed hungry." She stops on that, lingering and staring in her pose. "You were thinking about me naked, weren't you?" She accuses with a smirk. "I like wearing clothes, so it was just a metaphor." ... "Pockets aren't a problem for me, though." She shakes the can.
Cantio	"That definitely sounds like what someone that's excited would do. Getting a full outfit together, coordinating it with the locale, preparing some kind of plan for their friends... They sound like good people." Cantio is surely a good judge of character. She's never made mistakes in trusting them in her life. "I wouldn't know what to do with all that charcoal, honestly. I'm more of a designer or engineer than a doctor, so the best I could mange is just... Pass it off to actual doctors or scientists, I guess." She laughs again at the mention of her other projects. "That, too! I've got two of them kind of mingled together now, and that's going alright, but... Yeah, the insides are still fretting over all sorts of stuff." Cantio bites back another laugh at the goofy pose, then pushes off her shovel to start turning over the cake-cap in a more focused way. She's paying attention to the angles, how much force she needs to put in, all sorts of stuff that'll be vital if she ever decides to invent something novel to dig it all up like a portable or even a regular-sized excavator (but more purple and white). "I've... Yeah, I think I've gotten better at just listening to my gut more. At least compared to how... Well. You remember /that/ time." Another laugh that's slightly more awkward, but still genuine. "Thanks for that, by the way. Really. It... Helped a lot." Of course, Xion has to talk about nudity, and that gets a flustered (and too hasty) rebuttal from Cantio. "N-no I wasn't! I was thinking about you in a mouse costume! I-I mean, now I am, but... Gh!" She promptly unties her jacket from her waist just to cover her head with it. It'll help her cool off, anyway.
Xion	Xion considers for a moment, can rolling across her bottom lip, held by thumb, forefinger, and middle. "There's been a few times." The noirette decides, and grins. "You're welcome. If it was the most recent, then, I hope you've felt better. I would... regret, if it left a scar." She explains quietly. Lifting from poses and bouncing, she drains the can and drops it down where it disappears (<EMPTY CAN x1>) into her inventory. She approaches the Drive Candidate, left hand about right wrist, while the flustering begins, though Cantio can't see her after her jacket comes up. "Cantio, may I ask you to do something? I won't force you, but I think you can improve yourself greatly if you just stop..." "Lying?" "To yourself, others, the world. It's okay." Over her covered head, Cantio receives a pat-pat. "There there. It really is fine, even if blurting it out might not be the -best- plan. Deception is too much work. It's a mask you have to manage, a kind of self that starts hollow on the inside and can fill in, sticky, tarry, until you're glued in there." A smoshing slow-wave of hand over jacket-top rubs the crown of Cantio's head. "And it'd be terrible if you could never take this jacket off, right?"
Cantio	"There... Have been, yeah. It felt... I mean, it sucked at the time, but it really helped put me back in the right direction. If not for that, I'd probably still be spinning my wheels and just..." Imagining what could have been still kind of sucks, and Cantio quickly turns her attention to more immediate things like getting wrist-grabbed. She looks up instinctively, but mostly just sees the ground where her jacket just flaps forward a bit while the rest of her eyesight is covered. "Wha..?" There's pats. She doesn't answer Xion's question right away, instead just letting her head hang forward a bit while letting the real weight of all that sit in her gut for several moments. Eventually, she just lets her head droop forward into Xion's hands, both to let all that tension go and from realizing all that tension is there in the first place. "... I want to. I really want to. I've been trying to be more upfront about what I'm doing, but it doesn't feel like it's enough even when it's true. It just... Sucks, trying to always be responsible at home and reliable everywhere else. If I don't keep the mask on, how can I get anyone to even count on me when it really matters?" She sounds like she should be shaking, but that hand movement on her head is really doing wonders for keeping her calm. "And... Would anyone really trust me to still do things the right way, if they knew this much?"
Xion	"You'd be a less Cantio, Cantio. Only being one thing can hurt a lot, if you're really a whole bunch of things. If you're a whole constellation of things, you need to build your image as 'all those things, arranged'." Xion holds besides the Drive Candidate, standing there with her arms about the hanging jacket, and sighs, swaying. Tension falling back, Xion draws still. "If it sucks, hit the bricks." Xion advises gently. "That's the wrong reason to do anything. You can't be your whole self if you define it -entirely- by other people's experience of it. Past the wall, it's who you are, constantly, consistently, that makes the difference. It's not a dozen, or a hundred voices all talking over each other, not the powers I've borrowed and learned and made my own." "It's me. They shouldn't have to trust you to do the right thing. You, yourself, should try to do better, and be better for the people and things you care about. Improving yourself, as a person." "They'll trust you to be you. So be you, and then all the trust issues will evaporate." Xion grins, tugging back the jacket to replace her hair-ruffling hand atop Cantio's bared head. "It's fine for people to disagree. Disagreeing with you helped you grow." "Even a little progress is progress. But you've actually gotta make it, drive the shovel down and break up the ash yourself."
Cantio	"Less me, huh? That's... Ngh. I mean, I know what I want to do, and a lot of it coincides with what I have to do, but... No, that's not it." Cantio lets out another frustrated little grunt as she tries to figure out how to best word things, and that's when some of it starts clicking for her. "I... Do want to do better. Not just for everyone else, but for me, too. I want to be... Uh. Not stronger, but more decisive." There's a pause, and then she nods. "Yeah... I want to be decisive. Even if there's something that doesn't make sense, I want to be someone that can just skip getting bogged down by constant uncertainty. I want to trust myself more so.. Like you said. I want to trust that I can just do things right instead of being bogged down by uncertainty." She sounds like she's figuring it out a little more, at least, even if it might also mean just barreling her way through and into terrible decisions. By the time Xion tugs that jacket down, Cantio's grinning in return, although still a little flushed in the face from having her head hidden in that jacket for so long. Also, remembering that one thing Xion said to get her to hide her face in the first place. "You're right, Xion. Other people can disagree with me plenty. I just need to stop disagreeing with myself, huh?" She raises her foot briefly, then just sort of steps in place once awkwardly. Unfortunately, her swordvel wasn't in the right spot for her to stomp dramatically on it to punctuate that statement.
Xion	"Well, don't know if I am or not..." Xion giggles. "But it's what your heart wanted to hear, and it's what I wanted to say. Twisting yourself around into a new shape, every time, isn't necessary." Xion smiles at the jacket-lowered Cantio, and returns to her own shovel, while Cantio stamps in place. "Wanting to be stronger is normal when you get told 'no' by force. You've gotten stronger, and so far, it's been for what Xion would call the 'right reasons'. The Fifty-Two I gave you, and the purple Action X..." "You used them to help Lilian disagree with herself for growth, and become a more whole and truthful herself. That's 'right', I think. I agree with Cantio." Drawing her shovel from the earth, it disappears in a collapsing-twinkle, and Xion slides her empty hands into the pockets of her jeans, stopping to fold at her knuckles and bow her elbows, still smiling. "Stronger is a result. That's the real thing that gets people. Stronger is something that's decided after the fact, or relative to yourself. An accomplishment. You can be a better Cantio by doing lots of things. You've -grown- strong, Cantio. Power wise, with your upgraded fifty-two, I'm sure you could keep up with me going all out. So it's not... just being powerful at whacking people." "Just figure out what you like, and what you don't, what feels right, and then make that the best you can. Lying to yourself and saying 'this is fine' is the part that sucks."
Cantio	"That's good enough for me, then! Even if it's not actually right, coming from you... I want to believe it's right, and I trust you." Cantio declares with a firmer and confident tone, finally pulling the sword shovel in front of herself and... Well, the moment for stomping it dramatically is gone, but she can still thrust it in anyway. She's still here to help Xion with the flipping and the improvement, after all! It takes her a moment to adjust to Xion talking about both of them in the third person, but she actually manages a laugh afterwards before sighing dramatically and trying not to snicker afterwards. "Ah, what I'd give to make it easier to convince myself I'm right as it is to convince other people..." She turns another section of the surface into a pile of <Charcoal>, then squats in place to start digging her fingers into it directly. It's all part of The Process. "You mentioned that last time, too. About changing things if being strong enough isn't the problem? After everything that's happened in the past couple of months, it's pretty safe to say that strength isn't the problem. It's..." She raises her free hand to her chest first, stops, then taps on the side of her head. "All in here. I just need to..." That gets her thinking again. "I think I'm getting there, even if it's a little slower than expected. Not lying to myself is going to be a good start. And if doing something sucks, then I could just..." She pauses. "... Wait. Wouldn't pushing all that work off on someone else just make my like my sister?" A pause, and then she shakes her head. "That's not what you meant. Er. Right? I just need to make the most of it so it's still worth doing instead of... Forcing it."
Xion	Xion crouches down, knees together, bracing on her the toes of her work shoes. Her fingers remain in her pockets, giving her a perched quality. "Cantio - you're allowed to stop doing or change things you don't like. The work will be the work, sometimes. If you need to quit, for Cantio, then you should allow yourself to do it." Xion lifts her right hand out of her pocket, to waggle a finger at the digging Cantio. "You do plenty of work. Saying 'no' isn't bad, sometimes it's the truth." "Sometimes it's the truth that needs to be said with a little force, too."
Cantio	"No, you're right. I need to... I need to actually start putting my foot down about that. Once she's back home, I'll get right on that!" Cantio affirms with fire burning in her eyes. "Maybe I want to be able to take breaks from doing all that, too. It's not even that it's hard work, either, just tedious. And it'll be for her own good, so it works out for me and her!" Cantio punches a fist into her palm, grinning widely at Xion with her renewed conviction. "That's the plan, then! And... Um. There's no and, I guess. Now! What say we get some good work in, and then..." There's that glint in her eyes again. "I might be able to figure out a better tool for getting this work done."
Xion	Xion raises, hands up. "Firming up your boundaries and taking time off's great. Just be ready to modulate until you get to the level that's right. Send -and- receive." Then, standing, her hands tuck behind her back, and she nods. "Sure. If you want to knock out something to improve here, if that fires you up, then let's do it." Cantio will have to find something to do with... a LOT of charcoal in neat blockgame stacks. Eventually.