Scene #8621: Wonderworld Lobby Interlude

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Continuing in the Balan Theatre . . . Smoke curls up from Petra's cigarette, smothering the previously inviting scent of popcorn and theater carpets. She cocks her head sideways slightly, nonverbally acknowledging that she noticed Kale's insistence on saying 'actually', but just sighs out smoke and sags her shoulders, not bothering to address it. "I think I was like that once?" Petra's eyes slide over to look at Kale for the first time since entering the lobby, and she stares at him with loose apathy, bloodshot from her earlier tears. She lingers like that for a few drawn out moments, thinking about something, then shifts back towards looking at the popcorn machine, and mutters, "Yeah." "Maybe you don't care about it as much, but I did think he was being a bit too grand about what's supposed to be an apology." "Of course he is. Right? The whole concept is fucked from the start." Faint exclamations of excitement, or at least engagement, of the others interacting with the Wonderworld filter down the hallway, and Petra bunches up her shoulders, automatically listening for one voice in the babble. She doesn't hear it. "The reason I don't care is because it was all worthless before I even saw what it was about. There wasn't anything he'd do, with this setup, that would make it okay." "... I'm not the kind of person this place is for." It sounds like saying that takes physical effort from Petra, and she's drained after the sentence leaves her mouth. She stays quiet for a few beats, staring down at the smoldering stub of the cigarette dangling between her fingers, then flicks it with her thumb, surprisingly hard. It sails across the room, landing in the carpet somewhere, and Petra tracks its arc with her eyes. "It's a totally different kind of person, who gets anything out of-- of being put in a box and told to fix their problems. Mine aren't... shallow enough to do that. You saw-- on the Train. It's just, not something that's possible. For me. Whatever form the box is." Oh, there's very clearly something big and metaphorically adjacent that Petra's actually referring to, with that. It's absolutely approaching a touchy subject. Petra tilts her chin down, shrinking into her bomber jacket a bit, and with her hands now unoccupied, she shoves them into her pockets. "So I just hate this whole thing. Anyone who thinks it's worth anything. Anyone who thinks their problems can be fixed by just a little more fucking introspection."
Kale Hearthward	Kale's eyes watch the cigarette fly too, with only slightly hidden relief that it's out of his airspace now. He finds a bit of wall to lean against, but remains mostly standing up while Petra's gradually shrinking down. > "... I'm not the kind of person this place is for." Kale nods, but doesn't verbally comment as Petra continues talking. > "Anyone who thinks their problems can be fixed by just a little more fucking introspection." "If that worked, we'd be getting prescriptions to run off to a monastery, take a vow of silence and keep all your thoughts to yourself for forty years. Or something like that. No." "If we want to chart all the changes in my life, it's been people giving me encouragement, direction, in good and bad ways. Not... forced puzzle therapy. Not magical wonderlands, or whatever he's got going on in there." "... Is... that what Lilian is to you?" He glances over. "What this thing, what the train, is trying and failing to be? A change?"
Petra Soroka	"Or something like that." "Or, you know, telling them to go sit in a room with someone they don't know, whose literal only purpose is to 'fix' them, to get talked at until they stop being a problem for other people." Petra shrugs, and tries to readjust to kick her foot up against the wall as a support, but the spear strapped to her back scrapes along it instead and stops her. "It's not even the fucking puzzles or monsters or whatever that annoy me. It's the fucking-- the fucking constant idea that the expectation is 'being fixed'. That it just magically happens, and that, like...." Petra's voice takes on an edge of bitter irritation, slightly rushing and stumbling over her words, like she's on the brink of a meltdown again. "That--! Like that! Like encouragement is what fucking matters. Like it matters more to talk and apologize and jack each other off about how hard you're trying to understand and fucking grow." "That's what I always mean, about how people are-- people are fucking incapable of changing. It's always, like, sitting in a fucking imaginary room, all talking and consoling each other about how you're learning, because you all treat your personal arcs like fucking currency. And the moment-- the moment someone-- the moment I leave, and actually do something, it's all fucking-- getting left behind!" Petra stomps on the carpet, looking away from Kale, clearly a bit embarrassed about how open she's being, but she can't stop herself from hissing out the rest, voice cracked and choked up. "Fucking Tachibana! How fucking dare she! Saying she fucking understands that creep!" Petra clenches her fists in her pockets, arms tensing up to the point that her biceps visibly tremble. "Lilian is-- Lilian is the vision of 'being better' that I chose. She's what I know is right, what I know is good. It's not like... I guess it's a little like that."
Kale Hearthward	Kale provides no interruptions. He settles in a bit more, finding a more comfortable 'leaning against the wall' posture, when it becomes clear Petra's got things to say. He keeps his thoughts hidden behind the best poker face he can manage. Inwardly, he's got some mixed feelings - mixed because Petra's opening up to him. Actually talking to him, and they're not even trapped on a train to force it now. The exit door's right there, even! She could just leave. This is Progress. That's auxiliary, though. Kale's actually focused on what Petra's saying. He very solidly succeeds in not reacting or changing his facial expression at her outburst, and he gives the silence a moment to settle in when she's done talking. "Talking's easy. Apparently. I've always found it kinda hard. I guess if it's like you're saying, maybe I just haven't learned how to cheat like everyone else does." "Maybe they need it. Maybe they'll go insane, if they don't play their little games and go in circles endlessly. I could see it." "You're going to get there though, right?" Kale shifts position, putting his arms behind his head, and looking away from Petra - and arbitrarily towards the popcorn maker, just to pick a direction and something to focus on. "Getting better. Getting to be more like the Dame Commander, if that's your goal. Actually changing. Leaving behind the people going in circles." "... That, or killing Tachibana. You do have that nice set of dueling weapons now, I'll remind you. Assuming you aren't just going to ambush and stab her in the street."
Petra Soroka	Petra's equally surprised that she's opening up to Kale-- she knows, categorically, that he's never actually going to get what she's talking about, and he's just a nasty scumshit fuckmale who's fucking brainwashed into acting nice. He's someone who can, and will, through malice or apathy, end up hurting her eventually, and worse, could hurt Lilian through her. She could just leave. But, like it or not... it really was just them that were forced into this. She and Kale had a unique, shared perspective on something that was inflicted on them as a pair, and because of that, a sliver of shared perspective on each other. That's how it works, Petra's always said that. "Actually changing. Leaving behind the people going in circles." 'That's a worse reason than yours, isn't it? But I turned out better. There's literally only one reason for that. Seeing the people-- person, Lilian, obviously, that I know is better than me, and just... letting myself acknowledge that.' '... Want to be better. Yeah. I need to want to improve. Not as some intermediate step towards something I'm impatient to grasp, but as a goal.' "I have." Petra blurts it out, turning to look at Kale even while he's looking away. Her hand twitches halfway towards her neck, then changes course and goes for her hair instead, awkwardly fiddling with a tuft of it. "I have. And I will. Even if it fucking kills me. I don't understand how people don't." "How can-- how can someone fucking say, out loud, fucking admitting it, that they keep getting abandoned when their friends become better people without them, and not feel like the biggest fucking loser in the universe? Just fucking-- why is it so hard to just, let yourself follow, or kill yourself if you can't? What's even the point in staying still?" Petra makes an annoyed noise, groaning with frustration and kicking off the wall to take a few steps forwards towards the middle of the lobby, facing away from Kale. "God. You just had to say it, huh? That I'd just jump her in an alley like a fucking animal. I'm not fucking rabid." Petra snorts, and paces back and forth, evidently having regained a lot of her energy. "I did attack her! I did! Of course I did! And she's alive! So why am I still treated like a-- no, a loaded gun is predictable! That would be accurate! Like I'm a moment away from flying into a murderous fucking rage for no reason. How could you hear all that and think that I'm going to murder her in the streets!"
Kale Hearthward	Kale blinks, and watches her for a moment. "... Petra..." "... I was putting forth killing Tachibana as a solution. Not something I'd think you'd snap and go do. Don't put words in my mouth." "If a premediated assassination makes you rabid, then I suppose I'm full on frothing." He stands up straight. "If someone's refusing to change, like there's no possible way, if you've tried and tried and they're right back where you started with them... then there's really only one way they're going to make the world better, right? That's not a murderous fucking rage. That's just math." "And whatever school you went to did teach you subtraction, right?"
Petra Soroka	Kale saying that only seems to agitate Petra more, though she stops raving at him and pacing. She shoots a look at him, then huffs and swipes a box of movie theater Dots and rips it open. "Obviously it's a solution! Obviously I know that! It's one I've done before, in case you forgot!" Petra's frustrated and slightly teary fervor is starkly contrasted with the way she delicately reaches into the candy box to withdraw gummies one at a time with her fingertips, popping them into her mouth. "And I happen to remember you calling me a petulant little child for that one! Even though Ishirou is a million times less capable of changing or being fucking tolerable than Hibiki is. I should be killing him over and over until it fucking sticks." "So why are you saying I should murder her? Maybe I should. Maybe I should. But after what Lilian-- but really, it feels like you just want her dead yourself. You know? I'm the one always out here saying that I'll fucking bury people if they can't grow up. It sounds like you're just trying to push me into doing it by being shitty and condescending." The Dots go down shockingly quickly. Petra crumples up the box in her hand, glares at it for a moment, then tosses it on the ground, stomping over to another rack and grabbing a bag of M&Ms. "Can't I just fucking be mad at Hibiki without wanting to murder her immediately?! Like-- it's fucking hard enough already, thinking about any other solution, you know! I always think about that first! Ever since fucking Ishirou! Ever since that fucking, boy, the one who threatened to stalk me. God, no, fucking way before that. I don't need to be told about subtraction, Hearthward."
Kale Hearthward	"... No, I don't actually want Tachibana dead." Kale goes to lean back against the wall again. "I just am not going to shed too many tears for her." "And I'm not gonna tell you what to do about Ishirou, it isn't any easier being his ally." "Though, alright. You're right. I shouldn't have jumped straight to killing her. Or acted condescendingly. Or assumed you were asking for advice. I'm sorry." After a moment, he gets back up off the wall, after less than a minute of leaning against it, and heads over to the popcorn machine to fill up a bag. "Do you want my advice? At least about this..." He gestures over towards the theater proper. "... whole thing."
Petra Soroka	Petra levels a look at Kale, flat expressionlessness over an undercurrent of hostility. She pops an M&M into her mouth, and bites down. "It's a little easier being his ally. For you." The following deluge of backpedaling makes Petra drop the stone wall irritation, shrugging and rolling her eyes a bit. Still mind-controlled by Phony, of course. But at least he's saying it. And she does ease up, pacing around in a circle with her hands casually in her pockets, just to burn off that simmering frustration. She looks up at Kale when he starts filling up a popcorn bag, and that moment of distraction causes her to accidentally bump the bottom of Pillar of Creation's haft into a rack, knocking dozens of boxes of candy off. She stops and stares down at the mess, then back up at Kale. "Well. You know what. Sure, yeah."
Kale Hearthward	"Do it." "It isn't for you. It isn't for me. How much we're gonna get out of it is debatable, at best. And as the two people who actually had to endure the train, it's kinda a poor apology gift, if that's what this really is about." "Which - again, we're the people most affected, and for what's supposed to be an apology, it sure isn't something that's appealing to us." "But - the risk to us is... what? I've got mental shielding, you've got... whatever's protecting you. We're the safest people here. More so than the idiots who already ran in. Nothing's gonna happen, at least to us." Kale goes to raid the remains of the snack counter, pocketing a few things for later, along with his popcorn. "But you aren't going to get anything out of it, right? You're going to hate it. But that's... also a reason to go. To prove yourself right, right? It's like... hate-watching a movie." "And the bigger reason, Angela will want to know. She was already asking earlier about how things were going, right? So you go, you hate it, you have a story to tell Angela about how much this Wonderworld sucks, and how Balan gave us an 'apology' that's literally worse than nothing, and she'll hang onto your every word." Kale tucks his popcorn under one arm and grabs a drink as well. "Alternatively, the reason I'm going to go check this out is to see what ridiculous things people are doing with it. That squirrel has to have something utterly stupid and banal in there. It'll be worth a laugh."
Petra Soroka	"I mean... the risk is that we're stepping through some fucked up portal into a dimension that he created and could be hiding anything about." A little dumbfounded, Petra steps back away from the rack to give Kale access, leaving the spilled candy to its fate. "Like, I mean, he could just close the door, right? It'd be super embarrassing to have to call Lilian about being trapped somewhere like that a second time." Other people probably came to their rescue then too, right? Petra can't remember. "You're kind of taking him at his word, aren't you? That this is all there is to it. Sure, obviously, we'd be fine if he did the same trick that Lance did with that TV-- but isn't it more like we're stepping into the TV ourselves, and just, hoping that's fine?" Despite her protests, the subject of 'danger' is practically casual to Petra, compared to talking about Hibiki, or therapy. "'Hate-watching' kind of seems like a stupid reason, when put up against that. If I wanted to spend my evening doing something worthless that I hate, I'd just log in to the forums or something." Petra leans against the popcorn machine, turned towards the hallway to the theater. She idly lets her eyes roam across the room, reading each poster while Kale finishes talking. "There's not even much for me to get out of laughing at people there. I could make fun of Futaba, I guess." She pauses, then thoughtfully adds, "Or you." And then her tone lowers, and her eyes drift to a halt, vaguely looking at a corner of the room. "Well, it'll be more memorable, at least. And I don't mind if it goes wrong, as long as I end up earning more than I spend. I just..." Talking with Kale is a weird experience for Petra. It doesn't feel like she actually addressed any of the things she was upset about, it doesn't feel like anything was resolved. She felt belittled, irritated, and frustrated over the course of the conversation, and he didn't bring her any great insight. She has every internal reason to brush him off, and every external reason to find him unbearable. But instead, it just leaves her feeling... secure. Like there's no great reason to have a strong emotional response. He'll never be as incessantly unpleasant as Ishirou, or as fraught as Hibiki. He's just, sort of, a coworker, and that's fine. No-- not a coworker. I'm not a Paladin. A peer, I guess, though Lilian would complain about calling him that. "... Sure. Yeah. I've done stupider things." Petra pushes herself to standing, and starts walking towards the theater. Partway there, she pauses, looking back over her shoulder. "And don't talk about Angela like that. Like using her as a pawn in an argument, or-- or whatever. 'Hang on every word'. I don't like that phrasing, it feels rude. And you can't be rude to her."
Kale Hearthward	"Hmm? If there is a risk, I'm pretty sure I can deal with whatever he can do. If he tries to trap us, I can get out of it." The thought that this could be a trap he can't get out of, or some other hazard he can't deal with, doesn't seem to cross Kale's mind. He's being sincere. Sincerely overconfident to a dangerous degree, but still sincere. "If that's your ask, I won't be rude to her. Not like it costs me anything," he adds as he starts heading towards the back. "And you can try to make fun of it, but I don't have anything to make fun of." Whether this is true or not... well, that remains to be seen.