Scene #8392: Is It Wrong To Miss Her?

Owner	Pose
Rita Ma	A picnic! With friends! Doesn't that sound wonderful? Doesn't that sound fun? Doesn't that sound like an opportunity for unhealthy coping mechanisms? Tellus Station's botanical gardens are, like a lot of places Rita prefers, technically a public space, but realistically one without bystanders. It's a weekday, and most people with regular jobs won't be about, and people don't really go to space-malls just to hang out anymore, and the gardens are nestled into a little corner of the station like someone's secret passion project. But it's nice. The wooden picnic tables, with just enough room to seat a dozen, are surrounded by alien and terrestrial greenery on all sides. The butterfly area isn't far, so every now and then a gorgeous one with metallic-blue or amber-brown wings flits through and perches on something. The tables are piled high with three full baskets, and Rita's hard at work laying the dishes out when the first arrivals find her. It's an excess of food. Really, genuinely, an excess. Mostly it's Korean seafood, as expected- close analogues to sashimi, soy-brined raw crab in spicy red sauce, hearty fish-and-seaweed stew- but there's an efflorescence of more 'experimental' things, too, from (normal) burgers to delicate pastries. Could one person have really made all this? Rita doesn't look frazzled, but she is, in ways that only those familiar with her can tell. Her eyes are a little distant. Her smile looks like a lot of smiles she's smiled before. She's fallen back on her standard outfit for the third outing in a row, which for her is practically like showing up in a baggy shirt and sweatpants. But she puts on the sunniness anyway, leaning up onto her tiptoes and waving enthusiastically after setting down a plate of deviled eggs. "Oh! You made it! Sorry if it was hard getting here. I know the directions I gave weren't all that good, but I've only been here one time before." "Do you want something to drink? I made green tea, brown tea, coffee, there's some ice water too, and I tried the thing with the lemons..."
Remee Halcyon	Foooooood. "A little hard. I'm still kinda getting used to space things," says Remee. "But being able to follow my nose for the last bit helps~" "And tea, please." She goes to go grab a seat, and impatiently waits to not be the first one to eat, mostly in order to seem like she's not solely here for the food. As she waits, a butterfly lands on her muzzle. She stares cross-eyed at it, and tries to look like she's not considering what it tastes like.
AME	AME arrives dressed as colorfully as the butterflies (or arguably more), and on arrival she flashes her usual signature double wave. She doesn't seem to remotely catch just how off Rita (or anyone else) seems to be, with the way she's acting and speaking- as she sits down, she sets a box of that PWR Game energy drink she seems so fond of down onto the table. "I, ah, brought drinks, if that's not weird. I kind of have a lot of these, and, um." She giggles quietly. How many of these people has she actually met in person? Does it matter?
Liza Grier	Liza in casual clothes is always a little bit of a trip, simultaneously jarring for being inserted into a void of any idea of what they should be, and yet also fitting just because she's old enough to dress herself. Her hair is barely any less messy than freshly after taking the helmet off, but the vaguely trendy jacket with the cuffs and close waist plus the fitted tee and boot-cut distressed black jeans all in muted colours (with, of course, at least one bright red stripe) just seem to kind of work, in a flattering but vaguely apathetic way. Obviously she'd come with Rita in the first place. Until someone arrives, she's busy staring at a butterfly that has chosen to land on her forearm, strangely still and electrically ready even at rest. When people show, she looks up so smoothly it doesn't disturb the little bug. "I can have the minibar out in two minutes if you want something harder." she, of course, must contribute. The cuffs are probably to hide the bulk of her pda. "The burgers are fine." Liza adds, without elaborating on why she has to say that.
Karlan Nobles	Pramanix and SilverAsh don't know a thing about unhealthy coping mechanisms (clearly). Unlike normal people with day jobs, these two also get to dictate their own hours (sort of)! Under normal circumstances, they'd be going through their own irregular routines, but today's different. This is an invitation from Rita, after all, and there's no way in hell they're going to leave her hanging. After issuing a statement about important saintly duties and leaving an even shadier bastard in charge, respectively, both siblings from the snowy mountains arrive at the botanical gardens in a fresh new set of clothes! Pramanix has a light and just barely-pink sweater on with a ~~grandma~~ long royal blue skirt, and SilverAsh has a tastefully (?) tacky white and pink Hawaiian shirt on with gray chinos. "Rita! No, no, the trip over wasn't hard at all. It gave us a chance to see things on the way." "Hello, Rita. You're well, I hope? I'll try that 'thing with the lemons', if you please." "Oh! I'll have some brown tea, then." They both consider Liza's offer of the hard stuff, but they won't say it even if their glances over at her at the same time make it pretty obvious. They'll just need to remember that for later.
Charlotte Newman	"I managed, it's alright." Charlotte hoists a cooler onto one of the table benches, placing her hands on it as she looks over the spread, "Gosh... Was this all you or was this actually a potluck?" The girl's eyes skim over other arrivals, unable to really discern anyone else who'd clearly been in the garden for very long. Giving up on that, Charlotte closes her eyes with a little smile, "It felt weird to just come, so I brought some drinks too." She hauls back the lid. Packed in the ice, in fancifully decorated aluminum cans, are various flavors of CREATURE energy drinks. Strewn across the top are various flavors like Count Drinkula, Melonsquatch, Cotton Candy Cryptid, and Grapenstein. There's exactly one can of Sour Applecabra but it is buried way in the bottom, like Charlotte didn't want anyone to find it. She closes her eyes after a moment, "Ah, hey, sure, I'll try your lemonade, miss Rita. You sure picked a nice spot."
Hibiki Tachibana	Wow! Unhealthy coping mechanisms! Nobody here engages in anything of the sort. Entirely unrelatedly, it's probably zero surprise at all that Hibiki is joining in. She asked a certain someone if they wanted to come too - but for whatever reason, said certain someone just gave her one of those unwavering smiles and said it's best if she doesn't impose on Rita's kindness this time around. Which she thought was a little weird at first. But on arrival, wearing her usual with her hands shoved in her pockets, there are other things eating up her attention. One is that her last visit to a (not space) mall didn't go as well as she wanted. The other is the utterly massive spread that's been laid out before them. "...Just tea is fine for me," she offhandedly mentions to Rita and Liza at the same time, not especially looking at the latter. Hibiki looks as if she might be prepared to fall down into a seat, but stops and glances up to their host going back and forth with the food before actually doing so. Her staring lasts a split second longer than it should before she actually speaks up. "Um--do you want any help setting things up, Rita? You sure made a lot...and even things I didn't know you could make."
Father Berislav	"Green tea would be wonderful. Thank you, Rita." Father Berislav beams at her, the light of the station briefly glinting from his reading glasses as he removes them. There is no cassock today, for today isn't a sacred matter. Instead, he wears a short-sleeve, blue and white paisley button-up, neatly tucked into pressed grey slacks. The shirt is unbuttoned to emphasize his neckline, and the turquoise choker at his neck. "Don't worry about the directions," he smiles with a carefree wave of his hand. His dark blue, hi-top canvas sneakers complete the ensemble, highlighted when he takes a seat at the nearest table and crosses one leg over the other. Turning to face Rita, he asks, "Did you put all of this together yourself? That must have been a lot of work." After a pause, he adds, "If you'd like any help cleaning up when we're finished, I'd be happy to lend a hand."
Nephra Tangent	'It's worth it for free food' is not, actually, that good of a motivator for Nephra to forget that the mall said food is at is far from being firmly planted on solid ground. But even if that's the excuse she'd give to anyone asking, it's not the real reason anyone's here, is it? Haha. When Nephra does show up, slightly lost, the twin economy-sized bags of brightly colored lollipops and other sweet and sour hard candies in her arms gives away that she mistook this to be a potluck. Awkwardly, she sticks the bags at the foot end of one table, and too-quickly shuffles off to an empty seat as far from the candies as she can. It may be bad table manners, but she's already scooped up a handful of pastries, biting into them before the questions on drinks are raised, and answering with a crumb-muffled "..I'm curioush about what that mysterioush lemon thing is, Mish Rita." A pause to swallow, and nervous glances around the growing group. "Um. If that's alright. Haha."
Rita Ma	"Tea! Okay," Rita says, with a tone that might almost be 'relieved'. Serving everyone their drinks is a rhythm that's easy to fall into. She gets so into the rhythm, in fact, that she pours a couple of extra coffees with nobody to drink them, and then hastily pours them back into the thermos when she realizes her mistake. She manages to look only mildly put out at AME's, Nephra's, and Charlotte's offerings before her smile refreshes. "No, of course! Just leave those out. If anybody wants them, they can have them." Not that anybody was asking her permission. Maybe that has to do with why, a moment later, she shakes her head firmly at Hibiki's and Berislav's offers while laying out the bowls. "No thank you. I mean, I invited you out here as my treat, so it'd just be rude to spring that on you, right? Besides, doing the work on my own is nice." Her eyes do seem a little less distant when she focuses on the food prep. With a little flash of guilt, she admits: "Oh, sorry, I don't have lemonade. I just meant the fancy thing that restaurants do with the water. You know?" One of the baskets has a fresh lemon in it; everyone who wanted water gets a slice on the rim. Her knife scores the wooden table in the process of slicing it. Father Berislav catches her while she's working, and that seems to lower her guard. "At first, I wanted to make some food for Ms. Petra in prison. You know? But then... I couldn't do that. And I still felt the need to make my friends happy. So I did all this. We've all been through a lot lately, haven't we?" When she's finally done setting everything up and getting everyone their drinks, she finally sits down at her own place, with only a glass of lemon-free water and a surprisingly small serving of sashimi for herself. "Oh, could you please get me my usual, Ms. Grier?" A drink sounds nice about now. But even this much seems to be more than her appetite can handle. She just stares at the fish for about thirty seconds, poking it with her metal chopsticks, before awkwardly looking around. "Um, did anyone need refills?" They almost certainly do not.
Remee Halcyon	The butterfly flies away from Remee's nose before she can give into the temptation. Only then does she look around at everyone else arriving. Oh, other people are bringing things. Should Remee have brought something? There wasn't a note on the invite... Then she catches Rita's momentary expression. No, she should not have brought something. Good. Let's see - "Hey, Charlotte. Mr. Bersilav. Hi, Miss Grier, Hibiki. Hey, AME." "Everyone doing alright? Nothing major happening since-" Remee catches herself. She's not going to be the first person to bring her up. Think of something else to use as a milestone. "Since... Veleres, I mean?" Oh, wait, would that be inappropriate too? Liza did lose a sister. Well, she can't unsay it. "Things have been kinda quiet for me, fortunately."
AME	Read the crowd- and the focal point of the crowd. Rita has poured AME a glass of water, when... well. Rita is certainly out of it. AME vaguely recalls that something had gone wrong with Petra. A second focal point of the matters at hand. Her own attempts at Petra... she tried the same methods and didn't remotely get the intended results. And here, the primary method- gifts of food- is once again not cutting it. She will have to make up for that loss. What's another way to get to Rita, while she's down? Try the angle of leaning into gushing about her hosting the event, in a way that doesn't draw Rita's attention to her mistake. Ah. Venue, not menu. AME does that thing she's seen people who can drink drinks (the normal way) do, where they huddle over the drink, holding it in both hands while it rests on the table. Making sure the direction of her head is visibly tracking the path of a butterfly's flight, she says to Rita, "This sure is such a nice place to choose for an event like this! Everything is so pretty here... I'm glad you picked here."
Karlan Nobles	It doesn't take much for Pramanix and SilverAsh to notice that something's a little off about Rita today. The same outfit thing doesn't get their attention due to not seeing her in a while, but throwing herself into all that work along with that too-normal smile while only taking such a small dish of food certainly does. Also, it reminds them to snag some food for themselves. Pramanix goes for the very normal burger and raw crab, and SilverAsh goes for the stew and pastries. "Are you-" "-alright,-" "Rita?" They ask in unison, exchanging brief glances at that mirrored sound before starting to open their mouths, pausing to let the other speak, and then Pramanix just barrels on while SilverAsh samples that stew. "Have you been sleeping alright? A place like this can be great for catching up on that, you know." She suggests, smiling softly at Rita before taking a nibble of the burger, and then a bigger bite two seconds later. "Catching up on rest, or catching up on each other's comings and goings... Either works, depending on what you want. Have you..." SilverAsh pauses to stare right at Rita, then strokes his chin. "Grown taller since we last met?"
Charlotte Newman	The look on Rita's face is subtle, but it's enough for Charlotte to catch. She quite suddenly feels very out of place, looking down at the cooler she'd carried out. After a moment, she closes the lid again, "Sorry, I should've asked first. Where I'm from, it's more of a-- a communal thing. I didn't mean to, uh.. be rude." The girl chews at her lower lip until a drink is offered, "--Oh, oh right." Not lemonade. It's that thing restaurants do. She helps herself to some of the deviled eggs as a snack, intent on getting something heavier later, and takes a seat for herself. "I've had a few things happen," she speaks up when Remee asks, "I'd rather not get into it right now though." Closing her eyes, she forces a smile, "It's a great day in a great park with great company and miss Rita's great food."
Nephra Tangent	Rita's slight annoyance at the brought-along snacks doesn't go unnoticed, and Nephra responds to her reluctant acceptance of them with a faint nervous chuckle. Eager for a slight distraction, Nephra picks up the lemon slice from the rim of her glass, icy water darkening the coarse fabric of her gloves, and bites it like an orange. "...Can't gift it to her, because prisons usually do the 'slice everything up to prevent contraband' thing, or something? Or..." She trails off, drumming against the table. "Haha." Why even bring that up. She doesn't touch any more of the food, yet. It's starting to feel less and less like it'd be okay to. "...The weather's nice." She giggles, like it's a joke. Indoors and out in space, of course it would be. The lemon rind, still in her hand, gets squeezed until it tears at the crease.
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki doesn't mind having the offer to help politely declined. Knowing Rita, it's honestly expected. It's the fact that it comes after she's poured more drinks than they have participants, and had that shift of her expression at the drinks brought along. She only notices to the extent she does because she's been looking at the other girl the entire time. "...Okay," she answers quietly and simply while slowly taking her seat, eyes tracing the knife's blade missing its mark once. "...And um. Hey, Remee." And she remains silent even up to when the reasoning behind the picnic is given - other than a dry swallow that's only audible if you're seated right next to her. When Rita is finally seated herself and her own cup is finally put down in front of her, Hibiki rests both hands around it, glancing down at the murky surface. Rather than being entirely still, it's rippling just a bit. ...My stomach feels like it's going to turn over. I'm seriously going to be sick. When she realizes it's because her hands are shaking a little, both of them fall away, just to ball up on the table's surface as she purses her lips and looks up in their host's direction again. "...Rita. This isn't..." Her own face scrunches up as she trails off.
Father Berislav	Since Veleres. Berislav rests his back against the edge of the table, pondering Remee's question. "Yes," he says, with certainty. "I'm alright." He may regret the outcome of the events there, but he doesn't for a moment doubt the necessity thereof. "To 'spring it on us...'," says Berislav, to Rita, with a gentle shake of his head. "I'd never see it that way. But I do take your meaning," he nevertheless adds, placing his hands in his lap, fingers lightly pressed together. He considers her question. "We have," admits the priest. "There will be other moments like this, and sometimes we don't know that we're in difficult times until they show up on our doorstep." "I'm not pleased at their arrival," says Berislav of difficult times, "Nor the circumstances of their stay. I do take some comfort in knowing that even during the worst of it, there are people like you, helping, healing." "Hello, Nephra." Warm, reassuring. Both a way to say 'hello' and a way to say 'please, be welcome.' It's her that he greets first, perhaps because he picked up on the awkwardness of her strafe around the table. "AME," he then adds, with a slight turn of the head and a polite nod. "It's good to see you again." A note of relief is present in his voice. Maybe he's still thinking about the close call on the mission with DRYCLEAN. His silver eyebrows raise in mild surprise, at Liza's suggestion. "Harder?" he says, before smiling in a decidedly mischievous way, and going so far as to place a palm over his chest in facetious, affected shock. "Isn't it a little early in the day for that?"
Liza Grier	Liza takes one look at Charlotte's energy drinks. It's hard to tell what she wants, because she always looks slightly tired, and yet always looks alert and charged. After a second, she drones an apathetic "Thanks." and picks up a can, possibly to be polite. She picks the red one out of a matter of habit. Of course it's the red one. Turning it over in her hands, she spots the Halloween pun, half-smiles at the stupid mascot like it's a challenge, flips the can sideways and bites the side like a frat beer. It concerningly doesn't really crumple. Twenty seconds pass of chugging the most heinous caffeine concoction currently within thousands of light years. Liza tilts her head all the way back, leaning her chair, to get at the dregs. A rivulet of crimson taurine-water runs from the corner of her mouth and down her neck. Then she settles back down level, crushes the can one-handed, and first-try lobs it into a recycling bin. "You drink this shit?" she says, unflinchingly. A few seconds later, the folding space grade minibar is set up adjacent to the table. Liza only bothers to half-stock it, seeing as half the gathering is going to say no. A blur of fizzing, swishing, clattering, shaking stirring, and pouring passes by, and white russians are slid out to the Karlans without a word, and the faintly pulsing red demon's blood in a glass is placed out in front of Rita. 'We've all been through a lot lately, haven't we?' "Yeah." says Liza. "I told you." follows, without a tone of accusation. "I'm sorry, how you had to find out for yourself." A beat goes by. "You're an adult, yand sometimes figuring this kind of thing out first hand is the only way you get it. It matters, to be the kind of person who'd try, and not make an exception. But I can still feel a little shitty I let it happen."
Liza Grier	Liza spares just a moment to offhandedly, even automatically, hit Berislav with the attack of opportunity and counter. "We're in space you idiot. There's no day or night. Dipshit."
Rita Ma	"It's okay, Ms. Charlotte! You haven't been rude. You're trying to be generous, aren't you?" She tries her best to sound like she really means that. To Nephra: "I just don't know where she is. And Ms. Rook wouldn't relay anything for me. Otherwise, I'd..." Try to break in, probably. Rita, with innocent and slightly disappointed surprise, looks up and blinks at Remee. "'Nothing major' has happened for you since Veleres, Ms. Remee?" Oh. Right. That was before... "Thanks, Ms. AME," she adds while tapping at her plate with the chopsticks. It makes a pleasant noise, and it lets her pretend she's eating. Eventually, reluctantly, she puts a piece of fish in her mouth. "Mmmm. I took... a good friend, here, once. I don't really like the butterflies, but everything else is great, right?" Liza's words deflate her until she's resting her cheeks in both hands, chin barely above her plate. "Yeah. You did tell me. And I still don't regret trying. You didn't 'let it happen', though. Didn't you say you'd..." Rita bubbles over into a little despondent giggle. "... well, it doesn't matter now. Thanks for trying to look out to me, Ms. Grier." Rita's "usual" looks positively unwholesome. But she sips it with a little cheery kick of her legs, and it puts a small smile back on her face right away, like it's unspeakably sweet. It smells a tiny bit like iron though. "I should be sleeping more," she admits shyly to Pramanix, between sips. "But it's hard. When things are hard, I get really restless. It feels like... I ought to be doing something, but I'm never really sure what. Do you get that, too?" Silverash banishes the hesitation from her face, though. She sits up straighter and smiles. It's the most genuine her smile has looked all day. "Yeah! I'm up to 158 centimeters, now! Ms. Grier's taking such good care of me, I guess." ... But isn't she, like, six years too old to still be growing? Rita doesn't seem to know that. Then she quiets a little, and her eyes settle on Hibiki next. Hibiki, and her trembling drink. "It isn't what?"
Liza Grier	'Didn't you say you'd...' "Yeah. I said I'd take her out back myself." Liza says with a sigh, settling back into her seat with a car bomb (drink). "You cared about her more than I cared about doing it, and I care more about you than I care about taking care of you." She just kind of expects that to make sense. "Nobody likes being told it's normal that it hurts, and it'll be better some time in the future. There's not really a lot you can do about it, so you just have to keep going anyways." Her glass clinks in little circles. A long swallow follows. "Just like I'm wishing I stopped it. And how I know there's no changing it now, so that's pointless. I want to see you better, but at some point I just have to get through now and wait." "Is that really it? You want to do more? Because I can find us things to do. But it's gotta be 'more' and not 'something'."
AME	AME waves her little wave at Berislav at being greeted, flashing that little heart-shaped pawpad at him. For that matter, she probably waved in the same way at Remee earlier. She spends more than a few moments watching Liza gloss over her own brought drinks right for Charlotte's. Wondering if she's already messed this one up. Running the numbers (maybe Liza is more familiar with that brand?). To everyone else, it just looks like she's staring at Liza for having bitten into the can. Which, to be fair, she's also doing. "Mhm," she says to Rita, "It's really quite pretty. It reminds me of, some things they do back home. Conservation domes in space..." But the mood is a little too grim to carry on on that. She leaves off, since hoarding all of Rita's conversational attention just wouldn't look good.
Charlotte Newman	Charlotte holds off on closing the cooler when Liza expresses interest in its contents, only closing it once the spacer's made her choice. She's in the middle of returning her attention to Berislav when she hears more than sees the sound of Liza biting the can, shooting a look back towards the woman and just-- staring through the entire thing. "Buh--" the girl sputters a bit when questioned, thoroughly off-guard. Eventually she gets out, "Y-yes. It's pretty terrible, isn't it?" Lowering her gaze to the cooler, "Even so, I like the pink ones." After a moment, she adds, "Nice throw." Liza Grier might be terrifying, Charlotte notes inwardly. She spares a glance towards the minibar and its Concoctions, but doesn't comment. She glances back towards Liza for a second, then shifts back to the others while popping the tab on a Creature she'd pulled at some point. Noticing that she'd done so prompts a pause, then a little sigh. She sets the opened can to one side to enjoy the healthier lemon water Rita had poured, first. "Still getting taller?" she comments in Rita's direction. Shifting her eyes up she does some arithmetic, then nods once, "That's pretty cool."
Nephra Tangent	A short, two-fingered wave across the table gets directed Father Berislav's way, when Nephra hears his direct acknowledgement. "...Howdy-hi, Mister Berislav. Haha." A loud sip of water prevents her having to give a more substantial reply to him, until his comedic comment on drinking. "..A priest who's not okay with wine in the mornings. Haha. That's funny." Nephra's nose wrinkles a moment, at the faint smell of iron- not out of any bit of suspicion, however. She bends to look down at her torso, half-wincing in the process, in a futile attempt to ascertain whether any of her still-healing wounds had cracked open again. But her raincoat's color, transparent as it is, would hide it well, if that had in fact been the source. "Haha. Still growin' even if you're not gettin' a lot of sleep, miss? Ever wonder if you'd shoot up like a weed if you did?" She looks away, from Rita, immediately after asking. It's not a very purposeful question, but she's mostly thinking out loud. As if something's caught in her eye, she blink-winks at the table planks a few times instead of looking at anyone else's face.
Karlan Nobles	It'd be harder for them not to notice that discomfort radiating off of Rita and Hibiki, but there's so much missing information that neither of the siblings can dig too deep at first. Instead, they latch onto what they can, with Pramanix chuckling softly at Rita's admission and SilverAsh actually smiling a little more genuinely than his usual smile. Only a little, just in case there is actually someone watching them from off-screen. "You should! Ah, I remember those days, but I've gotten into good habits of getting enough and just turning my mind off to recharge. It helps to unwind from.. Well, exactly from things getting harder. It'll help you focus your mind on what you need to do better." "Really now? Quite the accomplishment, then. If you keep growing at this rate, I wonder if you might even be taller than me some day." Hibiki's discomfort is rather hard to miss for the siblings, though, and it takes only a glance between them to know what they need to do. They stand with their food and drinks, and then Pramanix goes to sit closer to Hibiki while offering an arm to drape around her shoulder while SilverAsh does... Not quite the same, but does at least sit closer and offer a solid body nearby. "This is about more than Veleres, isn't it?" SilverAsh takes a cue from Remee bringing that name up, and Pramanix gathers some more context clues from prison suddenly being brought up. "Do you want to talk about whatever's bothering you? Or would you rather- "-take your minds off all of that today?" They exchange brief glances again at that last bit.
Father Berislav	Berislav is amused enough to fire back at Liza. "I stand corrected, come to think of it," he says. "But not because there's no day or night in space." With a glance towards Nephra, he clarifies: "In fact, it's perfectly alright, you see, because the stars are out and it's dark outside, which means it's night." He sips his tea, then helps himself to a plate. One normal burger, brined crab, and a little guljeon. "I should say so," he agrees with Rita, turning so that he can properly eat, once he's got his plate loaded up. Given to a more thoughtful tone, "I think it's also true that you've been taking good care of her," says the priest between bites, with a small smile. Maybe it isn't normal that she's still growing--but how, and why, would he even bring that up? He's at least less normal than the burgers, himself, for one. And, to say nothing of the topic, the atmosphere is all wrong anyway.
Hibiki Tachibana	Liza unflinchingly going on about the thing on their minds might be something Rita can make herself laugh off, but it's different in Hibiki's case. It's not even possible for her to ignore, even if she wants to. It matters, to be the kind of person who'd try. I can still feel a little shitty I let it happen. ...ought to be doing something, but I'm never really sure what. All at once, she bites into her lower lip and brings her hands down onto the table, using it to push to a stand with her head hanging down. "This isn't /okay/! I hate being like this! And even more, I hate having to see /you/ like this! All this...all of this! Going on and pretending it's fine because what's done is done, when it feels like you're going to be wrenched inside out if one more wrong thing happens!" Unlike her last outburst, she doesn't realize what she's doing to the atmosphere a second later and storm off - her fingers dig down and scratch at the table's surface, bangs draping over her eyes. "And it's exactly like you said! Feeling like you should do something, but you don't know what! How can anyone just...stay /feeling that way/!? You can't! But you don't know what to do about /that/ either!"
Father Berislav	"That wine is the blood of Christ, Nephra," says Berislav with a little smirk. "It's a little different than stopping by the liquor store bright and early." He chuckles. "I don't actually care that much, as you might have gathered. It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles us, but what comes out." Liza wishes that she'd acted sooner. "You're not alone in that wish," he says to Liza, after a moment of eating in silence. "Even if my idea of 'stopping it' is different from yours. I would very much like for things to be alright," he continues, then pausing to take a sip of green tea. "To be sitting here, surrounded by smiling faces and joyous hearts." His fork patiently spears one of the little fried oyster cakes, but he hesitates before lifting it up. "What has happened is regrettable, truly," admits the priest. "But it doesn't need to define us, or to hang over our every attempt to help, 'here' or 'somewhere else' like a dark cloud." 'Here' means 'where Petra is concerned.'
Rita Ma	"You cared about her more than I cared about doing it, and I care more about you than I care about taking care of you." Rita nods along like that makes perfect sense. Their emotional context is thick enough she can just grasp the shape of it. "'More'," she repeats, and stretches her fingers while imagining the feeling of blood beneath her nails. "Yeah. I think 'more' would help, Ms. Grier. I know you like to keep work and home separate, and I know you don't like worrying about me, but I've liked the times we worked together. It feels nice." 'Conservation domes', oddly, don't seem to be a grim topic for her. Actually, AME manages to refresh Rita's smile. "Oh, really? They have those where I'm from too! With a glass roof so the salt can't get in, and plants of all kinds, and beehives... real nature is a lot different from something arranged on purpose, isn't it? But they're pretty in different ways." "I think it's also true that you've been taking good care of her." Rita laughs a little and cups her face with her hand, eyes-closed and adorably sunny. "Mmmm! I don't think Ms. Grier needs to be taken care of. But I do my best, anyway. Do you think I've been doing a good job taking care of you, Ms. Grier?" "Mmm!" The ongoing talk about her height perks her up even further, even though her smile turns a little bittersweet. "I don't think I'm ready to be as tall as my brother yet. Giving up being small and cute is hard, even if I know I have to someday. But even a year ago, this would have felt 'too tall'. I think I'll be ready for it exactly when I get there. Does that make sense?" Then, for a dangerous moment, she blinks in innocent curiosity and looks at Charlotte. "Hey, what do you mean, 'still'?" Fortunately, or terribly unfortunately, Hibiki's outburst distracts her from that. Rita tenses up at first, her metal chopsticks acquiring little finger-shaped dents, but then she slumps. It's true. She knows it's true. "Hibiki..." She makes like she's going to push herself up from the table. It'd be so easy to go over there and comfort Hibiki, to turn this into yet more 'taking care of other people', smoothly deflect it into another chance to cope. But she doesn't jump at the chance. Rita wavers, and then collapses back into her seat, slouched miserably. "... You're right. It's not okay. I don't know how I can stand it. But I have to, right? I mean... what else can I do? Don't we have to pretend?" "I miss her. But I'm not even sure I believe she deserves to be out."
AME	Rita's accepting of a diversion from the atmosphere. How will that translate to the crowd generating it? AME doesn't know, but she hazards a try- there's things she can do, in the end, if this ends up looking a little bit much. She nods slowly and thoughtfully, and says, a little quietly, "Mhm. A few planets, back home... they had some environmental issues. Teceti's heat, and Egys's pollution... there are a lot of environmental spheres like this in Teceti's ring." She looks down at her drink. "We need to do what we can to preserve it, even if it's not one hundred percent the same, you know?" Now to wait and see if that carries, even now that the tension has snapped.
Charlotte Newman	'Aren't you in your twenties?' Charlotte wants to ask in response to Rita's question. It never comes out, derailed by Hibiki's frustrated outburst. Her gaze shoots towards the magical girl, then slowly lowers it to rest her own hands. Her shoulders sag, staring into the contents of her cup, "...You're right. Ignoring it won't do any good. Moving on like...like nothing happened. That'll just make sure we never really move past it, right?" "I tried to reach out to her, too," Charlotte fixates on her own reflection in the drink in front of her, "Seeing how everything played out, I can't even tell if I helped at all or...just made it worse."
Nephra Tangent	"...Felt too tall. Haha. Gotta be a glad thing it's not last year still then, right?" An awkward laugh in reply to Rita, as she shifts her shoulders and slumps her neck ever so slightly forwards, glad to be sitting and not standing. She stays quiet, though, when Hibiki abruptly stands up and speaks out. Her eyes fix on her, while she knows her gaze is preoccupied, and Nephra's teeth clench tight enough to grind. "Haha. Deserves to be out." Nephra parrots Rita's last comment, tone flat and smile tight. "...Why's 'deserve' got anythin' to do with it? Haha. Girl was loading herself into a circus cannon and aiming herself at other's swords, shouting 'cowabunga' all the while. If she's really not already in a bodybag, isn't it kind of nice that maybe she'll stay that way? Haha. Nobody dead from it, not really. Probably. Haha. Couldn't it have all been so, so much worse?" Nephra's fingers tap erratically against the side of her glass, hands trembling obviously despite her thick workgloves. She wishes it'd crack and crumble in her grip, even while she doesn't try to squeeze. She wants to get up and leave, but a soft hum, just barely loud enough to mistake for cicadas, keeps her locked to her seat.
Father Berislav	Berislav's silver eyes twinkle with fond regard for Rita, as he smilingly disagrees with her. "On the contrary," he says, after a bite of guljeon, "In a certain sense, everyone needs care, every now and then. Learning to do without doesn't remove the need--it only makes the pangs of absence easier to ignore, in the moment." >I'm not even sure I believe she deserves to be out. "She does," Berislav says simply, his fork clinking against his plate. "And so does everyone else in that facility, wherever it may be, unless it's one of the vanishingly rare prisons more concerned with rehabilitation than punishment and cheap labor." "Be that as it may, it doesn't absolve her of wrongdoing. And there is, of course, the question of what she'd do with her freedom, which, thus far, has been 'sprinting away from what she needs the most as if it were a deadly animal in pursuit.'"
Karlan Nobles	"No? You've certainly grown enough as a person to justify it, little as it may mean coming from someone like myself." SilverAsh replies to Rita with a slow nod, furrowing his brow briefly while considering her reply to Hibiki. He stays quiet for a while, then reaches over to pat her shoulder lightly. The movement is a little stiff, maybe a little too formal at first. "It's a complex matter, certainly, especially in light of her... Behavior, but if anyone deserves to be taller if they want it, it would be you." "Well said. And some people less deserving of it are even taller than that." Pramanix adds with a playful smirk, gesturing at SilverAsh with her head while he conveniently looks away. Her smile does waver a bit, though, as she looks from Rita to Hibiki. "Sometimes, getting through hard times really does need... A bit of pretending, doesn't it? To let us feel better for a little while, even if it's just holding things back until things can get sorted out." Pramanix doesn't sound fully convinced herself of that last part, but continues anyway while looking over at Hibiki and offering a hand to try and gently take her hand off the table. "Do you not know what to do because you don't see any answer, or is it because there's no clean answer that would make everyone happy?"
Hibiki Tachibana	Something, somewhere in Hibiki feels awful for seeing Rita slump down like that. Even if it hurts on the inside, it's a lot easier to just say 'it's fine, I'm fine' and try not to think about it. She knows that. She knows it really well. The other part honestly believes she'll throw up before she's touched a piece of food if she goes through this entire picnic pretending it's taking her mind off of anything, having to watch Rita work to keep it together the whole time too. "We shouldn't have to pretend! Not when we're not happy with it at all! Everything's all messed up and confusing, nobody came out for it any better...!" A fist comes up just to batter back down into the table surface, precariously upsetting the stability of her drink. It thankfully doesn't fall, although whether it did or not probably wouldn't change the fact frustrated tears are starting to build up at the corners of her eyes. "'It could have been even worse' doesn't stop it from hurting! ...This shouldn't have ever happened," Hibiki forces back towards Nephra, more aware than she wants to be of her unsteadiness. "She shouldn't be where she is now...Lilian shouldn't have had to go through any of that..." She's biting her lip hard enough to start drawing a tiny trickle of blood. "...It's easy to say it doesn't have to hang over us," she mutters back towards Berislav, entirely tensed up. "...But someone running away from help that much needs it even more. And we...I..."
Liza Grier	'In fact, it's perfectly alright, you see, because the stars are out and it's dark outside, which means it's night.' "Nice. You got it." says Liza, halfway through her car bomb already. "What a perfect place we picked, right?" HersME is in luck by sheer accident when Liza grumbles "I don't have enough in me for this." reaches for another Creature, and then hesitates with a clear moment of 'do I really want to subject myself to that again?' Her hand swerves to the 'PWR' drinks, leaning across the table instead. This time she cracks the tab like a normal person, and prays it isn't also battery acid foul. There is no way she should be mixing those two with alcohol. 'Going on and pretending it's fine because what's done is done' Liza slams the can down on the table. The aluminium squashes at bottom, spare liquid squirting out like arterial spray. "Yeah. What's done is done." She stops and coughs, grinding the erratic hostility out of her voice before it starts. "You think this is still a question? Seriously? A work in progress? She burned her keys, cut her contacts, fucked off into the middle of nowhere and tried out suicide by cop. We've changed the locks after her. She's off the registrar. She doesn't work with us, she dropped all of you like flaming sacks of shit, and now there's nothing you can do, because she didn't want you to. Be glad she's fucking alive, if you care that much." The rest of the car bomb disappears angrily. "But if you really cared that much, one of you would have thrown yourselves on that grenade of a person already. Not stood back and let the shrapnel fan everyone in her radius." Stop. Cough. "Get it through your head. She dumped you. She didn't even want you in the first place. She spent her whole time fighting you off with a stick; you and everyone else here. She didn't even lead you on like she did with Rita, so what's your excuse for clinging to the girl who treated you like shit? You the battered wife type?" 'Even if my idea of 'stopping it' is different from yours.' Liza sighs at Berislav, rocking back in her chair. "My idea was just less optimistic than yours. It doesn't make me happy to be right; it'd have been better if you were instead." 'It feels nice.' Liza pauses for one and one half seconds. "Okay. I'll make room. Keeping busy will keep you from letting it rot. That's how it always is when you lose comrades." 'Do you think I've been doing a good job taking care of you, Ms. Grier?' A thin smile. "The ship's the cleanest it's ever been, and the kitchen smells the best it ever has. You're doing better than anyone else I ever had to share space with, that's for sure."
Hibiki Tachibana	With how on edge Hibiki is right that second, there's every possibility she'll try and break away from Pramanix's hand. She almost does. But she lets her own be slowly pulled away, where she closes her eyes entirely and lets the white-knuckled fist it's been balled into loosen up just a little. "I--I don't..." The magical girl visibly struggles with the question, before a sound of raw discontent escapes from her throat and she shakes her head. "...It's both! I don't know what to do at all! And anything I could do, it'd just end up hurting someone else! It's..." She dumped you. She didn't even want you in the first place. "It doesn't have anything to do with working with the Watch or anything else! We were /friends/!" She whirls on Liza, frustration openly turning into anger. "And I wanted to help her! That's all the excuse I needed! Even if--/because/ she was trying so hard to push everyone away!"
Liza Grier	'We were /friends/!' "Who are you trying to convince, Hibiki? Because it's not convincing me. And it barely sounds like it's convincing you." Liza slowly stands from her chair, and just the casual gesture somehow registers as an implied reminder that she has nearly a foot and sixty pounds on Hibiki. The indoors lights at her back cast her shadow over the girl in front of her. "If you were friends, she'd have listened to you at least once, she wouldn't have gone out of her way to hurt you, and she wouldn't have dumped you just like that. If you were friends, she wouldn't have run screaming away from you and right into a jail cell. Get it through your thick little skull that you were throwing that one-sided friendship into the void. You know as well as fucking I do, she only ever had eyes for someone else." Her reason for standing up is more innocuous, though, as she steps back behind the minibar and rummages around for something else. This level of chemical bath being injected into her body isn't safe, but it's normal. "Go back to caring about Miku, instead of pining over a girl who didn't even like you enough to keep your phone number."
Rita Ma	"Okay," Rita says to Berislav, with a depleted little laugh-sigh. She occupies herself with trying to surreptitiously straighten her bent steel chopsticks. "Everyone deserves to be out. That's true. But Ms. Nephra's right, too. The whole time she was out, she was just... getting worse and worse." A stray butterfly lands on the end of her chopsticks. She stares at it for a second, neutrally, then scares it off. "I hope she's getting better. Some things..." Her eyes slide to AME, and her feeble smile pulls into a knowing grimace. "Can only thrive under glass. Right?" It's a faint hope, but a hope anyway. "How are you going to give it to her, Hibiki?" Rita says, gently. "I tried my hardest. She still wouldn't take my help. And then she did those things she did. You can't pull her up..." Rita averts her face, realizing halfway through that what she's saying cuts both ways. But she doesn't cut herself off. "... if she won't take your hand. You know that, don't you." Liza's scary tone doesn't seem to jar her. Actually, it sets her more at ease- it's something that only Rita could find comforting and familiar. "Thanks, Ms. Grier," she says softly, leaning over to rest her head on Liza's arm. "Getting to help you always feels nice. And I know you'd do the same for me." It's utterly unclear if she's talking about the cooking and cleaning, or about the murders.
Father Berislav	Berislav sets the empty cup of tea gently down on the table, pushing it away as he takes a moment to compose himself. He has to, following Liza's angry response to Hibiki. "The answer, Hibiki," says the priest with a sad smile, "Is that it isn't fine, but it is done. I can tell, by those faded cuts on your hands, at your knuckles, that you're used to knowing the right answer and fighting for it." His own hands bear similar marks--the minute patchwork of a martial artist, there if you know what to look for. "But there isn't a mastermind in the shadows. Petra doesn't fight the way that you or Buttercup do. This is not a problem that's unique to Elites," he says. "This is the sort of problem that happens to countless people out there. The sort for which you can do everything right, and still fail." "I tried to 'jump on the grenade,' as Liza said. Perhaps I wasn't fast enough, or I didn't shield the rest of you as well as I could have. Of course it hurts. But if I give myself over to that kind of doubt and guilt, however, then it distracts me from other people, who need my help now, and have less hesitation in accepting it." "Do you understand?" Berislav frowns, glances down at his half-eaten burger, and sighs. "In time, it will hurt less. No matter how much it hurts, however, I will not allow my failure to make less of me."
AME	Rita's graceful about this- too graceful, maybe. It's worrying, actually. Is she playing the game on the same level, or is she really just that nice? It's something to look out for. AME doesn't let any outward signs of her worry show, though and instead just nods slowly. "I... tried to help Petra, too, even though we were never that close... when she wasn't doing very well, I tried to show her some kindness, to maybe give her something to hold on to, but... things still went the way they did." She sighs, with a slight synthesized tinge to it. More to the room, than just to Rita now, she adds, "Thriving under glass... regardless of if glass helps Petra or not, or if she ever gets better either way... hopefully things can pick up for you all, in spite of it. You know?" Idly, AME wonders if Petra is a similar kind of person to those... disruptive sorts online. If she is, she's never going to get better. But she'll never say that part out loud.
Charlotte Newman	Charlotte takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. Liza's comments aren't really meant for her, not directed to her, but she still listens. It still stings-- and it's still true. As frustrating as it is, it's something she realizes she has to come to terms with. That girl was-- a lost cause. Absently, she reaches for the Cotton Candy Cryptid she'd opened earlier, lifts, and drinks it. Not just a sip or anything, but a full head-back guzzle that only ends when the can slams into the wooden table, ringing empty, crumpling a little in her hand. "What the heck, why not," She's passed all her classes by a wide margin, the valedictorian was already declared. It's literally just coasting the last few weeks. She can stay up late and skip a day, who would honestly care? "Mister Berislav's right. The worst thing we could do is let this keep us down or take from us any more," She's already reaching for her purse, unclipping the clasp and rummaging for, most likely, her phone, " Maybe I can learn a new skill or something..."
Karlan Nobles	"Then... You've got a hard choice to make." Pramanix murmurs quietly to Hibiki, her tone carrying both resignation and hope as she tries to reassure her after Liza's comments. She clasps her hands over Hibiki's now, trying to give her some small measure of support there. "It's not going to be easy, not by a long shot. If the alternative is doing nothing and just... Letting things fall where they may as they are, would that feel better? Or would you feel better doing what you can, even if it means hurting those close to you?" She glances over at SilverAsh idly as she says that, then quickly looks back at Hibiki. Her expression looks just a bit more frustrated after that, although it's probably not at Hibiki. "That's... Up to you to figure out, with what you feel and with what's been said already. The risks, the upsides, the downsides, all of that." SilverAsh keeps his expression good and neutral throughout that, especially at that Liza's comment about the phone number. Instead, he looks between Rita and AME slowly, slowly gathering MORE CLUES and even more confusion at the matter. "Would a cage not be a more apt comparison than glass? Unless it really is something else she had found herself embroiled in... Hm. Whatever the case may be, though, do consider the costs of your actions as well. The glass may break easily enough with the power of your fists alone, but what of those it will fall upon in the process?"
Nephra Tangent	The conversation and growing pressures make Nephra itch to be anywhere else. Watching a fight is never quite as easy as being in one. Abandoning the glass she so desperately wants to crush until it breaks, she sticks her hands in the clear pockets of her coat, underneath the table. Getting up would make a scene, in the wrong way. So she sits, and watches the butterflies as they flit about. She almost winces- which does, in fact, lead to an actual wince when the originating soft inhale reminds her that some of her ribs are still broken- when she sees Rita scare the butterfly away, and goes on to track it as it flutters off. "....Haha. I kind of hope she doesn't ever show back up." She swallows at nothing, fingers fiddling inside her pockets.
Hibiki Tachibana	Liza cuts a frankly imposing silhouette when put face to face with Hibiki, and the lighting only adds to that. Even so, the smaller girl looks as if she's liable to throw a first punch up at her more and more with each passing moment. All her tension is coming back like a coiled spring. Go back to caring about Miku, instead of pining over a girl who didn't even like you enough to keep your phone number. "It /wasn't/ one-sided! What would you know!? And keep Miku's name out of your--!" Going to that probably says everything it has to, and even though Liza turns away, she's already giving off the impression she's going to stomp over to follow her. It's only Rita speaking up slowly off from the side that stops her in her tracks mid-step, making her blink and look her way. At first with wide-eyed surprise, like saying that entirely caught her off guard, and then with her face scrunching up in teary-eyed frustration again. "...I don't care--if that's true or not. I could have done more...I should have done more! If she wouldn't take mine back, I should have just worked harder and reached out further for hers! If I did, then she...Lilian...even Ishirou..." Six months. Berislav chimes in, and her shoulders sag. "...I know. I know all of that..." That maybe there never was a right answer. And that there's all sorts of people who do still need her help. But it still sounds like something impossible for her. Looking like the wind's been knocked out of her sails, she only barely manages to keep her own grip back on Pramanix's hand. There's no vocal response given to her question, and she grimaces as she looks off to the side. But it's plenty obvious it's weighing on her enough to make her want to fall back into her seat.
Liza Grier	'It /wasn't/ one-sided! What would you know!?' "I know that she ignored you, scrubbed your contact, and left you. We can all see it, Hibiki; there's no explanation for that where you were best friends and she just needed a little more help. Not for what she brought down on the Watch and not for what she did to you." 'I should have just worked harder and reached out further for hers!' New drink. Vodka base. Lean on the bar. A flash of a concealed holster under her jacket, fingers hovering carelessly yet purposefully close. "And you'd have been riddled with even more shards of her and bleeding even more than you are now. If you cared about those other people, you could have started with helping them, not chasing after the girl who hates them. But you didn't and now you can't and everyone you care about, everyone relying on you, has to share your reckless injuries, because while you're limping around and bleeding like this, you're letting them all down too." Half the vodka in one shot. New base. Mix it this time. Liza wipes her lips with the corner of her sleeve. "But you don't seem to care as much about that. Because they aren't that girl. She really got you good, didn't she?" Liza, returning to the table with her new drink, sits right beside Rita again. Of course. "I don't really deserve thanks. I'm helping patch it up after I let you get scraped. That's all. Learning experience or not, 'suffering builds character' is a load of shit." Despite the exasperated words, though, she moves her arm from under Rita's cheek to around her shoulders. "Maybe she's finally getting her shit figured out now that she has nothing but time. Maybe she's getting worse and we finally don't have to deal with it. Either way is marginally better than dead."
Father Berislav	"I don't," says Berislav to Nephra. "That is to say, I don't explicitly hope that she doesn't show up. I hope that, whether I see her tomorrow or never again, she's better." He quietly finishes his food, utensils placed with care on either side of his plate. Berislav politely dabs at his mouth with a napkin, before setting that down in the center. >'Suffering builds character' is a load of shit. >...Either way is marginally better than dead. "Yes," says Berislav to Liza. "It is."
Rita Ma	If AME's keeping very close eyes on Rita, she might notice a trend: Rita is more graceful the more stress she's under, save for the brief moments where it breaks through. When she's happy she gets lax, but when she's sad, she armors up with that smooth distance and demure smile. A performer would be more mindful. "Thanks," she says- first to AME, then more broadly- "for trying to care for her. Even if it didn't work out in the end, it makes me happy to know you're all so kind. Maybe it was a bad decision from the start, but... I think that being the sort of person who would try counts for something." Liza's arm around her shoulders soothes her. Rita hugs it, making sure it's drawn tighter, and relaxes by slow sincere degrees. "We have to move on somehow, don't we," she says, a little to Charlotte and a little to AME. Her smile is distant, and sad, but it's still a smile. "Being separated from someone you liked... I'm not sure the hole ever really gets filled up. But as you keep growing, it becomes a smaller part of you. Right?" "... Like getting taller, I'm not ready for her to come back. If she ever does, maybe I'll be ready then. But there isn't much point talking about it, I guess. As hard as it is not to." Rita sighs, softly, and shuts her eyes. Just being around friends is nice. Eventually, she disentangles herself from Liza, unfolds a little trash bag, and starts putting away the dishes that people are finished with. She didn't finish her own food, for the first time anyone's seen.
Charlotte Newman	After a moment, Charlotte produces her phone. She doesn't quite get her purse closed, stuck, staring at the screen for a moment. Slowly the girl takes in a breath, then releases it, her shoulders sagging again as she unlocks the screen. "I don't like giving up on people," she murmurs, "But there are times where that's the right thing to do. Being the correct choice... doesn't...make it any easier." The muted BGM of the Reversal game's home screen hums from her phone. She taps the screen, prompting an indiscernable female voice from the character set as part of the background. The office lady witch, Agatha Salem. A reminder of someone she stood by, back then. The noise of Rita getting a garbage bag out and ready pulls Charlotte's attention back to the Now, "--Oh." She re-locks her phone, drops it into her purse, and stands up, "Here, miss Rita, let me help out."
Nephra Tangent	Nephra almost groans, when Berislav responds. Half because she was hoping maybe, just maybe, nobody would acknowledge she was still even there. "...I hope she never shows her face here, because she coulda done so much better, still. Haha. Smaller and quieter. Maybe she can't anymore. But thats' the hope part, ain't it, Father? Haha." A soft bit of muttering comes from her, mostly nonsense, until the phrase "...Really pisses me off..." "Haha. Guess there really ain't much point in talking more 'bout it. Oh well." Nephra doesn't manage to stay seated for much long after, leaving her crumb-littered plate but once more, unconsciously, reaching out to grab the water cup. She barely avoids a tumble as she pulls her legs from where they'd been bent beneath the table, the faint hum once more ringing out into the station's air. "...Thanks for the food." She's mumbling. Only circling back to pick up one of the two candy bags she brought- a second faux pas, probably- she starts to walk off, towards the exit of the gardens. Not realizing she still had the emptied water glass in hand until well on the way out, she lets out a frustrated noise, hopefully inaudible with the small distance, and spikes the cup against the ground, hoping for it to stop existing, and grinding its remnants underfoot as she finally leaves.
Liza Grier	'I'm not sure the hole ever really gets filled up. But as you keep growing, it becomes a smaller part of you. Right?' "That's right." Liza repeats it with ease. "You meet more people and the ones missing are smaller gaps. If you get stuck on who you've lost then you just watch as everyone else slowly slips away, and you have no one left. You have to keep pushing forward, making more gains than your losses; it's relentless forward motion, like combat." "Then, when you get really far, and really good at it, you can start choosing who you won't lose. But not before then."
AME	AME is completely oblivious to the source of Rita's apparent social grace. Things like genuine social situations are an enigma to her. Utterly alien. Seeing a performance from Rita, AME can only fathom that she has similar reasons. It's not likely, but it's just a little bit possible. It's best, she reasons, to stay on the most neutral possible path here, keeping to generic assurances and meaningless sweetness. Gather more information about how Rita ticks. Individual people still mystify her, sure, but seeing how crowds translate into their individuals has been a new and necessary challenge of her new life. She stands up as Charlotte does, silently joining her offer of helping clean.
Karlan Nobles	"Don't blame yourself for what could've been done, Hibiki. Otherwise, you'll find no end of things to say that about." "She's right. If you must focus on the consequences, then concentrate instead on what good you've accomplished, that you've enabled. That's part of what's drawn so many towards you... No, the Watch overall, I'd wager." 'We have to move on somehow, don't we' 'Being separated from someone you liked... I'm not sure the hole ever really gets filled up. But as you keep growing, it becomes a smaller part of you. Right?' The snow leopard siblings nod slowly in response, although Pramanix's is more solemn while SilverAsh's almost looks more resigned. "That's part of aging, yes. It'll feel terrible now when it's fresh, but you'll know better for... Mmn. No, that doesn't sound all that good, does it?" "Not at all." "Hmph. Don't be afraid to count on us, too, alright? We might not know fully about all of this, but we're always around to lend an ear." They still find time to actually eat their stuff, too, although the mood does feel considerably more somber than before. SilverAsh is far more meticulous about cleaning off everything from his plate (or bowl because stew belongs in a bowl). They offer to aid in cleaning, too, but they probably don't know what they're doing.
Rita Ma	"No, Ms. Charlotte. It isn't easy. But even when the most horrible things happen, life keeps moving. Doesn't it? And like Ms. Grier says, we have to move with it." Rita sounds like she's talking herself through it. But it isn't the first time. These aren't the struggles of someone new to bereavement. Rita doesn't even look up from her cleaning work when help is offered, implicitly and explicitly. "Oh, don't worry about it! Like I told Father Berislav. I'd feel awful if..." 'You can't pull her up if she won't take your hand.' Rita's face scrunches up in a suppressed flinch, for no outwardly discernable reason. Her shoulders tense, followed by a defeated little sigh, and then a chagrined smile. "... Well, actually, sure. But only if you really want to. Don't feel like it's a responsibility, okay?" In the distance, Nephra shatters a glass. If Rita weren't controlling herself so tightly, she'd startle. But she does smile, just a tiny bit. Deep down, she wishes she could throw a glass too.
Hibiki Tachibana	If you cared about those other people-- But you didn't. And now you can't-- And everyone you care about-- Everyone relying on you-- ...But you don't seem to care as much about that. What Hibiki said to Rita before on the space station, about being sure she'll never be able to really get along with Liza Grier, feels like it holds more true than ever. She shouldn't have stopped because of Rita. She should have clocked her in the jaw, even with the height difference. Yet she can't find a single word in her that can actually argue it, no matter how much anger is still there. She already knew that, with Lilian. Failing her because she didn't want to hurt either of them and just ended up hurting both is half the reason it hurts so much. And she already knew it, with Ishirou. If she never let him go that far with things in the first place, there's at least a chance things could have gone differently. But seeing her and Rita now... ...Liza always was better at helping her than I ever was. Even here, I was just airing out my own problems. That, plus the weight of everything else that's come up recently - the proof that things are going to keep moving forward whether she likes it or not, making echoes of Berislav's and Pramanix's words ring out in her head - is the weight that brings her entirely slumping down back into her seat. "...I really am no good to anyone like this. The good I've accomplished, huh...?" Maybe that /is/ a big part of her. But it feels like it makes the holes that are there that much more obvious. Not the other way around.
Charlotte Newman	Closing her eyes, Charlotte offers a strained little smile of her own to Rita, "No, it's quite all right. I want to because I want to, not because I feel like I have to." The distant sound of glass shattering prompts the girl to flinch, then glance in the direction Nephra went. It's more than a little heavy, she thinks to herself. Everyone's having their own troubles. She glances down again, then nods once. Lifting her voice, she speaks up, "Once we're done here, Hibiki, can I take you home? I can show you the Reversal-- that's how I get around, um, it's really something special." The girl's already collecting cans and cleared plates, but a figurative reach-out she feels is better than staying silent.
Hibiki Tachibana	"--Huh?" It's Charlotte's voice that snaps Hibiki out of her own head, straightening up only enough to look her way. Despite all her outpouring of emotion before, she looks more tired than anything right now. For longer than she probably should, she's not sure what to say. ...Charlotte has had it really rough, too. She knows how much she's tried herself. And how much all of this has hurt her, too. Her head turns in the direction that Nephra left. There's a reality where she left the picnic exactly like that herself. Her expression falls a bit. "...Sure. Um. Thanks, Charlotte. Only if you don't really mind." She doesn't say it, but she thinks she'd hate taking the walk home alone.