Scene #8172: Bikki's Rook Loredump

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	The restaurant--if that word even applies--that Petra invites you to, Hibiki, is a rustic-looking wooden building on the side of a highway, nestled into the trees in their various stages of preparation for the winter. The restaurant, called the Hayloft Tavern, seems out of place all the way out here, until you see the furtive dirt road trailing off the highway towards a hunting lodge. The air is cold and the sky is heavy and grey, casting the tables outside in a light that could be read as moody or contemplative; or just refreshing, if you think all that heavy stuff is for nerds. Petra's sitting at one of the farther out tables, away from the handful of hunters who are eating and chatting in low tones. She's bundled up for the weather, grey turtleneck wrapped in her oversized jacket, head hunched into her shoulders to block the occasional wind. She doesn't have any food yet, she needs to go up to the register to order to do that, but instead all she's doing is standing up, pacing briefly around her table, then sitting back down. Impatient and awkward, even from a distance; fiddling with something small in her hands.
Hibiki Tachibana	Luckily, Hibiki is a veteran of many varied eating establishments, so barely-qualifying-as-a-restaurant isn't a bother at all. One day, she might even revisit the legendary CHUCK'S CHOPHOUSE BURGER AND FRIES - but that's another day, and this is today. The overcast atmosphere isn't exactly unfitting for things either, and it's not all that long that Petra is left waiting before the tavern's exterior is encroached upon by one (1) girl pretty out of place compared to the resident hunters. When she's not all transformed and armored, she's pretty...scruffy-looking, all things considered. Sort of kind of like a permanent state of just having gotten out of bed. Or maybe that's just a combo of today's grey-ish vibe and some of the recent going-ons. Big jacket zipped all the way up, hands in her pockets, and collar drawn up over part of her face until she purposefully pulls it down a bit on her way towards the pacing Petra. "...Can't sit still, huh?" That looks to be her idea of announcing her presence once she's stepped close enough, Hibiki glancing over her once, then down towards whatever might be in her hands, before she goes to slide in and take a seat. The lack of food already there doesn't seem to be something she points out. "Guess that makes two of us, kind of. It's been kinda messy lately...I dunno where to even start."
Petra Soroka	Petra jumps at Hibiki's approach, not noticing her until she got close, a combination of being lost in thought and simply not seeing an untransformed Hibiki before. She's startled at the most inopportune time possible, right as she's sitting down, and her sudden jump back up to standing slams her shins into the bench. She hisses in pain, and the momentary wince slows her similarly abrupt, almost shameful, motion of shoving her hand into her jacket pocket just enough that Hibiki can glimpse the (unlit) cigarette she was toying with. Petra composes herself, smiles, and stiffly waves her other hand at Hibiki, sitting back down next to her at a normal speed. She looks down at the table, her hair up in a loose bun, a few stray strands sticking onto her cheeks. "I guess I can't sit still, sorry. It's just been..." She nods, "Messy." Petra runs a hand over top her hair, and turns her face up at Hibiki with a smile again. "How about we start with getting food, actually? I'm starving, I haven't eaten anything." She pushes herself to standing, her other hand now empty, and walks over to the register to order, scanning the mostly barbecue-based options before settling on one.
Candy	The tenor buzz of an early motorcycle engine gradually grows nearer. Candy pulls up on a bike that looks like the great grandfather of the ones that use the nearby highway, with the biggest differences being the seating (looking more like a bicycle), the narrow tires and the short handlebars. He comes to a stop and kills the engine beside the place. Candy is dressed for cold in a beige long coat, a thick black work shirt and a red scarf. "Colder than a well-digger's ass out here!" He nevertheless remarks, adjusting the motorist's cap on his head and pulling off his goggles to stick them in a coat pocket. It isn't the first time he's seen Petra, and far from the first time he's seen Hibiki. "I know where to start. What do they got for beer here, ah?" He grins at Hibiki--then nods towards Petra, specifically at what she's holding. "What's that?" he asks, tucking a dark lock of hair behind one ear.
Hibiki Tachibana	An unlit cigarette, huh? The moment she notices, Hibiki lets out a contemplative sound, but doesn't point it out as she pushes back up to follow behind Petra - not even after a certain mutual friend makes an unignorable entrance on his ride and comes in to pop the question himself. That'll be on Petra. "Nice to see you too, Candy," she says back towards him while cracking the tiniest of smiles. That breaks up the dreary atmosphere a bit. "Came out all this way just for little old us?" When it comes to ordering, she decides to go for something in the same vein as Petra - though in double the serving. Skipped breakfast, maybe. Possibly. And of course, she's going to insist on paying for herself. After she's gotten that all sorted out, she nods towards Petra without actually looking in her direction, half-thinking on something from the looks of it. "...You guys were getting along a little better yesterday, huh." It's an observation, not a question.
Candy	"Well," the farmer jokes to Hibiki, "Who better to tell Petra here about Lilian than two people who hated her fucking guts, ah?" Candy goes with a brisket sandwich, not out of any familiarity but moreso a desire to get out of the front of house's hair as quickly as possible. Back at his seat, he crosses his legs. He'd joked about beer, and he'd ordered food, and both of those are decent places to start. But where to Start, capital S, is something else. "Guess maybe the best way to kick it off is..." He drums his fingers on the table. "How do you see Lilian, Petra? Right now, off the cuff."
Petra Soroka	Petra watches Candy's approach for an inordinately long time before seeming to recognize that she needs to interact with him. "Ah, um, hey there Candy, I wouldn't know what--" She cuts herself off at his second question, and shakes her head. "What's what?" Her body language is clearly uncoordinated with her words. She ends up ordering an alarmingly full plate of barbecue pork sandwiches, comically large for her small frame. There's a hesitation, a look back towards Hibiki and Candy, an awkward shuffle of her feet, before digging in her jacket pocket to pull out crumpled bills to pay with. Taking her platter back to the table, she neutrally responds to Hibiki, "I guess we were. A little." It's hard to get too much response out of her. The mention of hating Lilian does turn her head, though.
Petra Soroka	"...How I see her, now?" She looks towards the trees, turning away from Candy. "I think my answer to that doesn't matter much when she's not around. It won't mean anything. She just makes me..." Her fist clenches around the hem of her jacket, "Angry, I guess."
Hibiki Tachibana	Barbecue pork sandwiches are on the menu, and Hibiki (equally no better off when it comes to the food-to-frame ratio) unflinchingly hauls her share of food back towards the table, still without pointing out Petra's...well, current Petra-ness. For her sake, really. "Well, you got that right," she says off-handedly towards Candy while slowly setting everything down. "That's kind of why I wanted to do this, even. Part of why I'm gonna be taking on that guy real soon. Not sure if it's 'cause I wanna help them or if it's me being a little selfish..." Leaving whatever she meant by that in the air, the magical girl hefts herself down into her seat with a sigh, glancing down at all the food for a moment before looking back to Petra, eyes on the clenched fist rather than her face. "'Course it matters. And...yeah. I get why." Then they close, and she folds her arms across her chest while furrowing her brow, silent for a long moment. "...Way back then. I felt really conflicted about her, inside. Frustrated that she always treated me like a kid who couldn't do anything without her. Angry that she constantly talked down to me. Upset how she treated certain people...mad that not everything she said was wrong, no matter how much I wanted it to be. And at the same time, I still wanted her to acknowledge me. Part of me thought, if I could at least get that much, or somehow be stronger than her, then..." She trails off.
Petra Soroka	Petra whirls back around to face Hibiki, hand skimming across the top of the table and spasming with the restraint of not grabbing, or possibly hitting, something. Her eyes meet Hibiki's with a frantic look, and a pleading note enters her voice. "Isn't that just it though? How she always sounds like she's so right, all the time, even when saying that I'm some worthless kid who shouldn't have bothered fighting in the first place because I would just fuck it up that bad! I don't care what she knows," She takes a deep breath and blinks hard, "It's impossible to listen to her. Because of how she says things. I want her to just be a bad person with bad ideas who's wrong about everything."
Candy	"Yeah, Hibiki's right," Candy frowns. "Not just about Lilian, neither. That's how it is with people in general. I didn't need her to be around me to know I wanted to blow her house up." "And then," he says, motioning with his sandwich to Petra, "I get there, and everyone else is there, and there's people there--like Xion--who woulda stopped me. So I think, 'fuck it,' ah?" He continues, his sandwich-gesturing almost causing him to lose a precious piece of brisket. "I'll just snoop around, dig up some dirt, and then not only do I blow up the house after everyone has left, but then I have some shit to be right about." He sips a draft beer and breathes deep, in-out, sighing through his nose. "I wanted what you wanted, you know. To find shit that just proves she's bad and wrong and she ain't getting better. But," he says, "Then I start finding shit. And that's not the kind of shit I find at all. I remember what I thought, back then, clear as crystal. 'That's not fair.'" He laughs quietly. "Not fair that somebody who talks that much shit, who said the worst thing to me a person could say, doing all the shit I hate the most, could be a person with feelings and loves and regrets and hurts."
Petra Soroka	Petra grits her teeth loudly enough that it's audible. "She insults me, calls me a fraud, a child, a danger, an 'imbecile'-- who even talks like that? She pushes me around, mocks me at every opportunity, and each time she pretends to forget my name." Her gaze has slowly slid down from Hibiki's face, but it doesn't seem like she's actually processing that she's looking directly at Hibiki's chest. The angle of her face casts the dark shadows under her eyes into sharp relief. As the list goes on, she talks faster and faster, like she's spitting up bile. "She uses all these big, grand ideas and philosophy to make me look stupid and there's nothing at all I can do about it. If I defend myself she says I'm throwing a tantrum, if I ignore it then she looks right, if I try to do the same back then I fumble over my words and she just keeps going." Her voice cracks, "She said I was ugly, multiple times! And I know, that's just a small thing, but it's... cruel for the sake of being cruel." She whips over to glare at Candy. "Why the fuck do you think that would make it better. She doesn't get to be a person with all the stuff that comes with it, not if I don't. Why would her story matter so much more than mine?" She shudders, pulling herself back from the brink of tears. "It's not fair, you're right. So I won't let it be unfair. I won't let the bare minimum realization that she's a human make me not hate her. I know that already."
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki's eyes open up again, just to lock them with Petra and match that frantic look with one that's...well, there's a lot in it, to the point it's hard to narrow down exactly what she's thinking. At least some part of it seems like it might be a certain kind of anxiousness, like she's figuring out what to say. Another moment of quiet passes, and she shuffles a tiny bit where she's sitting. She doesn't break the eye contact though, not until Petra takes a moment to recollect herself. "...It'd be way easier, huh? If she was just the villain. Even if you don't want to be the 'hero', you want her to be wrong that badly. And it's even more frustrating 'cause it's impossible to argue with her." Said just a little bit wistfully, she faces back forward, glancing briefly towards Candy before shifting her focus down towards the table surface. She lets him finish everything he has to say before she continues herself. "...Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I don't think she could treat you way better. All this stuff going on? It's not like none of it is her fault. She's not perfect, even if she jokes around like she is." Her right hand comes up in front of her, and she moves her staring towards her palm. "She knows that better than anyone. Lilian is...someone who has to 'try extremely hard to be good'." Hibiki says that in the tone of repeating someone else's phrasing. "...Before we went to her house, she came to mine, you know? Right when I hated her the most. That stuff she said the other day, about how dangerous it can be for things to just...happen to you, when you let your guard down. That's when that sorta thing really hit for me." "We fought. And I lost. She took away something really important to me." Her hand clenches, and her eyes close again. "...But it's only because that happened that I learned she was more than just...this total bitch who always had my number, who I could just hate without feeling bad about it." There's a grimace on her face, listening to Petra. But it's not because of her. "I'm not gonna say...you shouldn't hate her, just because I stopped. But there's reasons she acts, and talks the way she does. And it's not because she hates you."
Candy	Candy looks over one shoulder, then the other. Then, he makes a show of standing up, shading his eyes and looking over Petra, as if trying to search someone out. "Who said it mattered more than you?" "If you didn't matter, would I have driven all the way out here in this cocksucking cold just for yankee food, ah? Fuck that." Sitting back down, "All I'm saying is that she's not the devil. Her not being the devil don't make you a nobody. Lilian talks a lot of shit, but when it's time to get serious, she does, and believe it or not, beneath all of that shit there's a lady with a very big heart who's only just learned to use it with people." He pauses to listen to Hibiki, then nods in agreement. "And besides... You don't gotta take everything everybody says as 100% serious and pointed at you, all of the time. Especially not on that dumbass radio."
Petra Soroka	Petra reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a metal bottle, taking a long drink while avoiding letting the others see her face. How big are those pockets? After they've said their pieces, she slowly screws the cap on and puts it back, still not facing back towards them. She looks out of the side of her eye at Hibiki, and sounds... disdainful. Or at least disbelieving. Her voice is neutral in a purposeful way, words measured out with deliberation. "So all you've told me is that she went to your house, when you hated her. And she attacked you. And you lost. And now you don't hate her anymore." Her lips twist into a scowl, or a pout, depending on how Hibiki interprets her tone. "I don't get it at all." Her reaction to Candy is less ambiguous. "Yeah, I'm sure she's very competent. But her 'getting serious', from that fight with Hiromi, still includes mocking me, attacking me, even. You get it?!" Petra wraps her arms around herself, squeezes, then releases, pushing her hands into her lap and leaning forwards towards Candy. "I'm not the one starting this! Ever! She can't stand acting civilly around me, and firing back in kind gets me taken out for a talking to! Sure you're not directly saying that she matters more than me, but the way her 'big heart', her 'trying hard to be good', excuses all the shit she does. The way it's everyone else's job to learn how to deal with her, not hers to change. The way knowing her fucking lore apparently sways you to being her lapdog and defender immediately. That's what I mean!"
Candy	"I've been trying to be her lapdog for a fucking long time," Candy jokes with a salacious grin and a raucous laugh. "She said the petting hand was full up. Even after I sent her some, ah, how do you call it... art! Ain't that a shame?" Not content to let the teasing end there, he then removes his motorist's cap and sets it in an empty seat. Leaning across the table to flip his hair and bat his eyes at her, "What's the matter? You want me to be yours instead? Hahaha." "Look, Petra," he says, more seriously, sitting back down like a normal person. "This ain't a 'talking to.' You're not somebody's kid in trouble, alright? I can't make you do nothing. That's kinda the way our whole deal works in the Watch, you know? Nobody can make anybody do nothing, and that's the way we like it." "I came out here because I don't like it when people cry, and every time you two get in the weeds that I've seen, it ends with you crying." Candy looks her in the eye. "If you know that you're not everything that she says you are, why do you fight so hard to make her the wrong one? If I told you the moon was fucking orange, all you gotta do is look up to see I'm full of shit. But you stake your whole ass on it being... moon-colored instead, then all that's gonna do is make you pissed off, and all the shit that I'm saying is that much easier for me to defend because I don't give half as much of a shit. You understand?" He chuckles. "You don't gotta like her. But you'll probably like her a lot better once you stop fighting so hard over shit that only you have a say in."
Hibiki Tachibana	'So all you've told me is... ... ...I don't get it at all.' Petra's less than favorable response actually gets Hibiki to side-glance away for a moment, shoulders slumping down a little bit in silence. Between that and her lips wavering a little bit, there's the impression that she might have lost some of her nerve after the rebuke, compared to Candy's good-natured laughing it off. She's certainly silent the whole way through her much more animated response back to Candy, her head only tilting a bit further down in the process. Trying to think about how best to respond to that, probably. Or maybe realizing that this 'mentoring' thing is harder than she was hoping it would be. Maybe both. There's a natural urge to shrink a bit that she has to resist. But she does manage it, with a sharp inhale and a slow exhale. "...She took away my hand. And my friend," she murmurs quietly, when she does speak up again. "...And I'm not saying that to try to get pity or anything. Just...after that. I thought I'd hate her even more than before. But I just ended up feeling--...kind of empty inside. Wondering where everything got so messed up. Where all that hate came from on both ends. Why she was...like that. I wanted to figure her out. After that was us going to her house, and...a lot more." There's another shaky breath, and she makes to sit back up a bit. "...Though telling you about all of that won't matter if you're set on feeling that way about it. I'm not gonna say it's right that she talks to you like that. It's not. But I want you to at least...try to get this." There's a moment of hesitation before Hibiki goes to look her in the eye again. "...Understanding someone else goes both ways. We're...I'm not trying to tell you that everything is on you and she doesn't have to do anything. If you wanna hate her, then hate her. If you don't like her, then don't like her. But if you don't /want/ to hate her, if you want things to get better between you two...you need to give her a reason to try. Not just...argue almost every time you talk to each other. Like we did." Her head tilts back down, and away. "...I'm sure you both can do it, if you try. And I don't think she /wants/ to hate you either. I think she probably...cares more than you realize."
Petra Soroka	Petra's cold grey eyes glare at Candy throughout his teasing performance, unwavering. The flirt is met with a withering scoff, utterly unamused. "So you're both like that with her. Is everyone?" Her gaze finally breaks when he mentions her crying after every encounter with Lilian, and she looks down at her plate, refusing to meet his eyes. Her voice is nasally, whiny, as she toys with a fry, "The color of the moon, that doesn't matter. Of course I need to care about defending myself when she calls me completely worthless. I won't stand for that." When Hibiki starts talking again, Petra turns to her, eyes widening. The palpable sense of melancholy, the way Hibiki seems genuinely shook but determined, strikes Petra with an emotion she can't really describe. Or admit. Guilt, that her words hurt her? Pride, for that same reason? Whichever it is, Petra listens intently to Hibiki, for now. "You've... both mentioned her house a lot. Something big must have happened there, and... I don't think I want to hear about it. I don't want to know." She lapses into a thought, or a memory, quiet for a moment. "I don't want to be forced to have sympathy for her. But, you're right, I don't want to hate her." She fidgets under both of their stares, and puts the fry she was playing with into her mouth, the first food she's eaten. It's cold, and sucks the moisture out of her mouth so her voice creaks when she talks. "You both," She flushes red, swallows, clears her throat, continues, with her voice noticeably higher pitch than normal, and strained. "What you both said, basically boils down to "You should care less". And I get that, I do, but... when she attacks me like that, every time we talk? And everyone stands by and watches, and they definitely all believe her than me?" She stops and waves her hands at both of them, preempting a retort, "I appreciate you guys doing something other than that. I do. I know there's no reason for you to do this other than wanting to help me. But I absolutely, no matter what, more than anything else in the world, cannot stand letting her walk all over me. Not caring so much just means not doing anything about it."
Candy	"You're not worthless, goddamn it," says Candy, slamming back the rest of his beer and rapping the empty bottle upon the table in a fit of frustration. "'Worthless' is something you gotta work at. You gotta stop arguing against it when she says that shit, because that's what makes people think it's true--somebody shouting about how much it ain't. People aren't quiet because they believe any of the shit she says, they're quiet because when she's talking it, they know it's shooting the shit for her even if it's life and death for the other guy." "And besides that," he says, maintaining his sudden vehemence, "They're quiet 'cause they know she was brought up in a limey house, and those sons of bitches have all kinds of excuses for why this person or that person is 'worthless.' She hasn't cleaned all the limey moneybag bullshit off yet, and that's her problem, not ours." He pauses. "Ms. Tamamo is doing a pretty good job, though." He sighs, and finishes up his last few bites with a thoughtful expression. "I can understand the last part, at least." He leans back in his seat. "I'm a do-things person, too. Even if it means doing them without nobody else. I get pissed off at some kind of problem and I gotta think of a way to fix it. The trouble with being that way is that you get in such a hurry to do something that's not nothing, that you didn't think about all the other ways you might have done it. I think it's fine for you not to like the way she talks about you, but you gotta understand you got more options than just shouting matches and doing nothing. Make jokes about it instead of going after it when she dangles that carrot at you. Or hit on her. That usually gets her to roll her eyes at least, and sometimes it even gets her really mad!" He throws his head back and laughs another raucous laugh. "Shit," he says, reaching over bold as brass to snag a portion from the overloaded plate, "You could even blow smoke up your own ass the next time she tries to cut you down, instead. Just don't get in the ring with her, 'cause those limey families do that to each other for fun. You wouldn't try and win at history book learning bullshit against a professor, would you?"
Hibiki Tachibana	"...Yeah. I don't want to /make/ you have sympathy," Hibiki quietly agrees, in the iterim while Petra eats her cold fry. She hasn't actually touched her foot at all either, yet. She seems like she's recollected herself enough too, listening silently to Petra explaining herself with her hands clasped together just a little bit tightly at her lap. It's probably good a response was pre-empted, knowing her, and some of the tension visible in the way she's sitting slowly seeps out as the other girl makes her declaration. It's not something one can easily argue with. Candy might be able to, but not her. Can she, of all people, really tell Petra to just take all that sort of stuff without complaining? No. She can't. So Hibiki gives a steady nod. "...Yeah. I figured you'd feel that way. And I'm not gonna blame you for it, either. I don't wanna tell you to care less..." One hand comes up to rub at the back of her own neck, in that kind-of-awkward, buying time to think of what to say next sort of way. "It's never really as easy as that, y'know? ...I know that pretty well." There's a dry, very short chuckle. Or maybe it's more like a scoff. At herself, probably. "But...when you're talking with her, just remember all of this stuff." A moment passes. Then she shakes her head. "...No, that doesn't really help at all or say anything Candy didn't, huh? Okay. If that's how you feel..." There's another deep and bracing inhale. And when she lets it out, she settles her eyes back on Petra, looking resolved enough that it'd be easy to forget she was just shaken a few moments ago. And her voice is a lot more clear with it. "If you really, seriously don't want to hate her, then just do what your gut tells you when it comes to her. What your heart tells you. I know that sounds like some dumb, vague advice," she says, even though she hasn't changed expression at all. "...But if that's genuinely what you want, even if you do end up doing some stupid things, I don't think it'll steer your wrong. Whether it's arguing with her, or anything else...make sure it's /that/ feeling talking, and not just how angry you are."
Petra Soroka	Petra flinches at Candy's intensity. She tenses up, like a prey animal, softening slowly as he keeps talking. "I get that," She finally murmurs, after he's done, "I get that, it's something she's good at, talking like that, and I'm not good at it. I'm just... envious, I guess." The word 'envious' is breathy, almost not vocalized, though her lips move obviously enough that it's readable regardless. "I want to be able to talk and have people listen, like that. That's why I don't like the idea of doing any other option." She scoffs. "Especially not 'hitting on' her." Petra reaches her hand up to brush her left shoulder, seemingly unconsciously. "I know about that kind of rich person, too. That's what you meant, right, her family's rich? I should know that too, I should understand that too, but I can't stand how growing up around that made her so... eloquent, but not me." She shrugs, and bitterly adds, "Maybe I didn't have it directed at me often enough." Petra finds it much easier to meet Hibiki's eyes. She's drawn in by them, by the strength in her voice, not looking away until Hibiki finishes talking. "What my heart tells me to do... I don't think that's vague. I have a lot of practice listening to my heart, or something like that. I--" She doesn't stop talking so much as she falls behind the tempo, eyes flickering to meet Hibiki's in a clear admission of this isn't true, and continues, "don't know what it's saying about her. Lilian. I'll think about that, thanks." Petra's stomach growls, loudly. Her cold platter is a mournful sight, suddenly, food she definitely really wanted made inedible for just too long. She blushes, and says, "Um. The Kana is parked just over there," She gestures towards the woods, "And I've got a microwave in it, so I'll probably go use that. Thank you Candy, and Hibiki. For the advice, and for showing that you care, and for... not telling me to stop hating her." It's a dismissal, but she looks at Hibiki again, a wordless request.