Scene #9013: SEE SEVEN STATES #3 - King of the Mountain

Owner	Pose
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine returns to the food court with a little bag in hand. "Hey Rita, Calvin, come take a look at what I got!" The huntress has picked up a number of fly fishing lures, and she spreads them out on the picnic table for the other Elites to see. "So the neat thing about fly fishing is that you really need to have a variety of lures, because you're mimicking aquatic insects that have their own life cycles, right? Which bugs are in what stage changes from week to week, so knowing what the fish'll bite on at a given time takes some research." "You've got your nymph lures, which look like the larval stage - those live underwater so nymph lures are made to sink. Emergers are the bugs just as they're coming into the adult stage, so they're weighted to float just under the surface. You'd think flies wouldn't stay as 'emergers' for long, but it's actually kind of a struggle to fight through the surface tension when you're so small. Fish know that's good eating, the adults that haven't made it out of the water yet." "Then there's dry flies, which stay on the surface and look like the adult stage, like this little fella." Madeleine holds up a bright orange bristly thing with a beaded tip opposite the hook. "This one's an 'attractor', which means it doesn't look like any one species but has qualities that get a fish's attention. You can also have flies that mimic baitfish, or frogs- ope!" She finally notices her radio, which has been blinking and beeping for about fifteen seconds. "Hey, what's up?" ... "Ah geez, really? I'll be right over, thanks for the heads-up." ~ At the livestock barns the sheep-to-shawl competition begins in earnest. The teams of five (six, if you count the sheep as a participant) set to the task while judges survey their work. Each stage of the process is scored - the cleanliness of a shearer's cuts, the uniformity of the spun yarn, errors made in the weavers' threading or treadling - and the finished products graded for both looks and wearability. Over the next three hours every aspect of the teams' fiber-arts skills is put to the test, and finally the judges confer to total and compare scores. Meanwhile a rapidly growing crowd gathers at the haybale-strewn oval track, and their purpose becomes clear to any who approach: lawnmower racing! A dozen riding mowers with their blades removed line up at the start, and the crowd is rife with informal betting on the results of the first heat. After some brief introductions by a pair of announcers on a loudspeaker - one play-by-play and one color, of course - the starting gun is fired and the racers are off. With riding mowers not exactly built for speed, the sport turns out to involve a fair amound of hijinks; ramming and side-swiping is common, and now and then a racer even grabs their neighbor's steering apparatus to make a risky play for a lead. There's also a commotion near the front entrance to the park as a convoy of trucks hauling large trailers are admitted through the vehicle gate. Children shout in excitement and gawp as a work crew begins assembling a ferris wheel - first the supports for the wheel go up from either side of a specialized trailer, then the segments are unfolded and added one at a time. It's a small wheel with a dozen gondolas, but it's still the tallest thing in the park, surpassing even the giant inflatable slide. Event staff organize the eager would-be riders into a queue as one of them explains the situation: "All right everyone, the backup ferris wheel is here finally! Tickets will be half price for the rest of the fair. Have a wonderful day!" Something must've happened to the non-backup wheel, but there's no sign of it around the park - maybe it never showed up at all.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Down by the treeline at the edge of the tractor-ride fields, Madeleine jogs up to where Dysnomia, Shinmyoumaru, and the tractor are meandering through the sparse woods. The machine emits a groan as the huntress approaches - was that a greeting? When Madeleine catches up she laughs a little, covering her mouth politely as she does. "Wow, you found the steam tractor! So you're telling me - I mean, I can tell it's come to life, tractors don't just walk like this for no reason. What do you think we should do with it?"
Rita Ma	Rita is absolutely enthralled by the little fly-fishing lures, which are evidently unfamiliar. Her droopy mood starts to slowly lift while she turns the little treasures over in awe, pointing out the little bits that especially charm her to Calvin as if she expects him to be equally unfamiliar. When she pricks herself on a fishhook, she squeaks and then tries to be Soooo Brave about it. That isn't what most fixates her though. "Huh? Ms. Maddie, are you saying fish eat bugs?" Her phone buzzes inside her red-white cooler, rattling against the plastic. She fishes it out, frowns, and then frowns a little deeper as she texts whoever-it-is back. The ferris wheel being set up in the distance does pleasantly distract her, though. She regards it with cheek squished into palm. "What's the point of something like that if you just go in a circle? And isn't being that far up kind of scary?" For some reason, she's more inclined to stick with Calvin than with Maddie; when she takes off after the tractor, she hangs back for a second to see where he goes. Like she's his bodyguard or something.
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna	Shinmyoumaru is going to have to sit down and have a talk with Madeleine about fishing later, because it's one of her favourite hobbies - even if you wouldn't expect Shinmyoumaru to be particularly good at the activity that requires you to be patient and still for long periods of time. (It used to be when she let her mind wander the most.) Either way, her tools are in some ways the same and in some ways totally different and that would be a conversation to keep her busy for hours. Similarly, she's going to be regretful she missed the sheep-to-shawl competition. Maybe she'll be able to catch the end of that, and maybe not, though she can at least look at the results afterwards. Hopefully. Unless they have to make a fast exit. AND she missed the riding mowers, which she would think is hilarious even though she has no prior experience with such a sport, if a sport is what it is. But those are tasks for later. Right now there's a tractor. Shinmyoumaru has never spoken to a motorized tractor before. She's never been on one either, and certainly hasn't used one. But she's almost immediately defensive of this one, which she recognizes as a tsukumogami almost immediately. The concept of just scrapping it or lugging it back without finding out why it didn't want to be there is inconceiveable! "Uh, talk to it?" is Shinmyoumaru's answer to Madeleine, as if it should have been obvious from the outset. She pulls out the Mallet, though she doesn't have to do anything complex or difficult with it today at least. Today it's just to make things easier to communicate; while Shinmyoumaru can't communicate with everything even with the Mallet's aid, tsukumogami are something she knows how to talk to. She reaches up and taps the tractor, though it's a gentle bop. She's not trying to empower it or alter it beyond making it possible to talk to with words, as she is not exactly a tractor-talk expert. She doesn't need to make this one a tsukumogami so it isn't even hard; she just has to talk to it as if she had. Afterwards, Shinmyoumaru says, "Hi!" all bright and cheerful. "My name's Shinmyoumaru. It's nice to meet you! We were looking for you because you ran away..." Well, that's not what they thought at first but it's true enough, once they knew what was going on. "...can I ask why you did that? You didn't get hurt or anything, did you?" Most of the tsukumogami she knows are happy to do their jobs - it's often what they like to do the best, unless they've been mistreated or broken. "Or did you just want to see out here?" Other people can ask questions, too. Shinmyoumaru is happy to work as go-between if necessary. She wasn't expecting to find the tractor in this state and she figures other people weren't, either, so if they have questions she definitely wants to hear them!
Dysnomia	Dysnomia has been assessing the tractor warily, the cartoonish absurdity of this thing's history is tragically lost on her. "So." Dysnomia's eyes slide toward Sukuna. "You say you've seen things like this. 'Living tools' or something?" "Brief me. I want to know what we're dealing with." She tapped impatiently at her forearm, frowning. "You copy?" "I mean, I can tell it's come to life, tractors don't just walk like this for no reason. What do you think we should do with it?" "Good question." Dysnomia gave Madeleine an acknowledging nod, her gaze then wandered toward the tractor. "Why don't you tell me." While she spoke it aloud, the pair of elites--and perhaps the tractor--could hear the words touching the surface of their mind, like tasting fog on their tongues on a dark morning. "Just what is it you're doing? And just what should we do with you?"
Petra Soroka	Meanwhile, in the SadGirl section of the fair . . . Petra's inventory consists of: Spicy Beef Jerky (high quality), 1 Corn Dog, several Assorted Fruit Cup, elevated Scent of Cigarette Smoke, 1 Sub-style Sandwich (taste tested), 1 American Credit Card (Lilian's), and 2 Smudged Tear Tracks. Her extended inventory, held by Qetra, is vast and uncountable, but contains 1 Cinder Block and 1 Mild Beef Jerky (high quality). With all this in tow, Petra finally makes her way back to the rabbit pavilion to deliver the food to Lilian. Two paper plates are presented dutifully by the visibly shaken girl, with bits of hay still embedded in her shorts and thighs from where she had her tantrum over Rita earlier, and once the task is complete, Petra lets out a weary sigh, and hangs her head to recover in the atmosphere of Lilian and cute animals for a few moments. "Sorry that took a while. I, um, got...." Petra vaguely trails off, then lifts her face up to look directly at Lilian's instead, which is simultaneously visibly soothing for her and undeniably confirms that her eyes are bloodshot from crying. A lingering stare like that is enough to clear away her dizzy fog and perk up her mood, and an awkwardly excitable smile flickers onto her face as she bounces on the balls of her feet. "So there's lots of stuff to do! Um, we can go sit down to eat somewhere in the food court area, or somewhere nicer, or we could go-- we could go, I saw they're setting the Ferris wheel up now, so we could sit in that, or we could sit in the stands and watch something to-together, or something. I think there's competitions? We can do anything." When she's not actively engaged in conversation with Lilian, if they linger in the bunny house much longer, Petra settles down in the straw to engage in psychic warfare with a rabbit while texting someone with one hand. She's too hesitant to outright reach out and pat the bunny's head, because she's worried it'll flinch away, so she ends up holding her hand in variously assumed-to-be-tempting-to-rabbits positions while gradually drifting it closer and closer, until a series of texts leaves her looking distressed enough that her hand hangs vacantly in the air while she's absorbed in texting back. Once her hand is still and limp, the bunny finally totters up to inspect her fingers more closely.
Petra Soroka	PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| hy do you know ehere calvin is PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka sends another text after a few seconds pause. PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| sry PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| for tno havign hos number i mean not earlier im not sorr yfor that yet PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I do PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| Why do you want to talk to him? PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| i just need to maje sure that this doesn@t get any worse until after the fucking trip's done okay PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I want to make sure of that too. PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| yeah PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| But you said it'd be fine if he got a gun pointed at him, so I'm not sure you should talk PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| to him PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| well j'm not gonna point a gun at him PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| i just want to ntalk PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| Have you changed how you feel? PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| okay what even gives yuo the right to ask tha ti said i wasn't gonna hurt him or anythign so it shouldn't mattr PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I think if I tell you where he is I'd be doing something bad. PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| Say something to let me believe it'd be good PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| well sorry but eveytging i ducking do is bad so fine i;ll just o find him myself PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| Ms. Petra, you're making me really worried PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| that's sorta fucking busness as usual then isn't it PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| It's not PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I'm not used to being scared like this PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| huh PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| why PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I don't know PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I understand you usually PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I don't understand you right now PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| i just want tonot fight with him today!!!!! i wa tLilian's day to be better!!!!! how's thta hard to understand??? PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| Okay PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| He's in the food court with me right now, but Ms. Madeleine ran off towards the field, so we might be going there PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| okthansks i;ll catch up soon PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| You're welcome. PHONE: Rita Ma texts \| I trust you PHONE: Phoning Rita Ma, Petra Soroka texts \| sorry
Madeleine Cadrasteia	With a little tap from the Miracle Mallet, the tractor speaks. Its voicebox is groaning metal; its lips are rust. "I... toiled," it rumbles. "For... so long. Heavy were my days... heavier my burdens. But I was stronger, so strong. Now..." A long pause. "I rest. The weight of ages is on me. My kin, other tools... come and gone, broken against the earth. My languor... immense. Too heavy for one so old as I. I feel... rotten. Befouled with idleness. I am beloved, a precious object... but only an object. No longer a tool." It turns, ponderously, one wheel-step at a time, to face the fields. The (modern, human-driven) tractor and its wagon crest a hill, and the soft sound of children singing 'The Wheels on the Tractor' carries across the open expanse. "There. A tool. Do you hear the singing? I do... There is joy in labor. I wish... to work again. To prove my strength." Madeleine folds her arms, and follows the tractor's gaze. "You want to pull the wagon?" "...Yes."
Calvin Nash	>Fly fishing Calvin listens to the explanation attentively and with obvious interest, nodding along--the infodump would be appreciated well enough on its own, due to simple worm-and-hook fishing being a sometimes-pastime of his. In the context of giving him something else to think about other than his argument with Petra and his now-shaky ground with Lilian, it's like a spot of sunlight after thick curtains of rain. Huh? Ms. Maddie, are you saying fish eat bugs? She'd asked Madeleine, but Calvin throws a thought out, with a roll of his shoulders. "What else?" he asks. "'Sides other fish and nightcrawlers." His index taps thoughtfully on his chin, fried fish sandwich hanging mostly-eaten in the clutch of the other hand. "Plants?" Another shrug, and he finishes his fish sandwich, wiping his hands off with a napkin. What's the point of something like that if you just go in a circle? And isn't being that far up kind of scary? "Dunno," Calvin agree-muses with intrigue evident in his tone. "Maybe it makes more sense from up there." He watches Madeleine go. There's a sense that he's thinking about following, investigating that tractor with her, and he does get up. The sigh that escapes him as he does has a little too much resignation to mean 'that was good food.' People don't usually frown that way after eating, either. The sleeves of his flannel button-up are already rolled, but he pushes them up anyway as some kind of ritual gesture to prepare himself for unpleasant work. Only dimly aware that Rita is following him, not aware at all of her intentions or the conversation that prompted those intentions, he decides on his own to go and seek out Petra, without telling anyone or asking for any kind of guidance on where she might be. Petra will accordingly find him (and Rita) wandering around near the food court, and the only reason 'aimless' doesn't apply is because of his purposeful strut and the way he pauses to shade his eyes (despite the fact that sunset is coming) and lean slightly upwards to look for Petra through the crowds.
Lilian Rook	Fresh off of sucking 'it' up (and by it, let's just say, heh, complicated feelings about being a damaged person) and halfway pseudo-apologizing to Calvin over radio, Lilian would be more crushingly depleted by the time Petra finds her if there weren't the pleasant daze of finding small animals really confusingly pleasing about her too. Unaware she has already slightly sabotaged Petra's hardline stance towards Calvin by being slightly concilliatory about her problematic urge to do physical violence at loud and aggressive adult men she can't back up away from, she greets Petra with a Disney Princess sitting posture, hands in her lap, and a blankly expectant look on her face. "Got what?" Lilian asks, too foggy and distracted to realize that there is no conversational path past that sentence. 'We can do anything.' Seeing the state of Petra's eyes makes worry twist up somewhere in Lilian's stomach. Seeing Petra try her hardest to be useful and mostly just babble makes her slightly annoyed in a deeply endeared way. The feelings are opposites, but both serve to sharpen her up out of the fog of dull self-inflicted misery. "What exactly is 'nice' about a food court? It's every downside of a mess hall without even the positive that you know everyone there." Lilian says, stiffly pushing a little lift into her voice to get them both going. "I wonder how interesting these competitions really are past the initial 'folksy charm' phase too,." she says, distantly recalling a conversation she once had with the now-Head of the Watch about spectating gladitorial monster sports. Deftly navigating the Girlfriend-Notorious Mist of 'idunno, what do you wanna do?', Lilian naturally decides that the most popular thing must be the best; if they needed a backup, then it'd be unacceptable to go without, after all! "I've never been on a ferris wheel. I don't quite understand the appeal; so it would be unbecoming to dismiss the opportunity to see it for myself." said no other rich person ever, despite how convinced Lilian is that they must. Petra's descent into texting irks her, but she doesn't have the energy to be indulgently toxic about it right now. When she looks clearly taken with her phone, Lilian lets her attention wander, and finds the same rabbit from before having wandered back. Taking it up in both hands, she lifts it up to her chest with a thoughtlessly saccharine little "My, aren't you being greedy~ Are the others not paying attention to you? Or are you just spoiled now~? I bet they're not as interesting to listen to as I am~" She is already fully engaged in pampering a rabbit by the time Petra is deep into her text discussion. Fish will break her heart, but bunnies will never betray her.
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna	Dysnomia asks Shinmyoumaru a question she can answer. "A lot of old things get their own spirits over time. That's how cats turn into bakeneko, or foxes to kitsune, or trees to kodama," Shinmyoumaru explains. "People say one hundred years! Tsu-ku-mo," Shinmyoumaru counts out, "Ten nines and nine. Ninety-nine. So one more than that. But it doesn't have to be exactly one hundred, it just means 'a lot'. Tsukumogami are objects - tools, usually, that have been used by people for that long! So they're a spirit of the tool, and they're associated with what they're used for... it's what keeps them going, because it's what they are, usually." Shinmyoumaru looks over at the tractor. "They aren't mean - tsukumogami, I mean; kitsune and bakeneko are definitely mean - but a lot of people are afraid of them anyway. So sometimes people throw them away just before it happens. Sometimes they didn't wake up, then, but if they did they'd be mad about it, so that's how you get things like kasa-obake, umbrellas that frighten and surprise people." Shinmyoumaru brightens at the tractor's words. "But this is a good tsumukogami. It's hard to be left behind..." She sounds a little sad herself. "They work and work until they fall apart, but that's only good for the people who used them for so long! It's good to have a dream..." She comes to an immediate decision: "You should get to pull the wagon," Shinmyoumaru says, firmly. "You deserve it. Even a tool should be happy! Maybe especially a tool should be happy, for all you did for everyone!" She looks at Madeleine, then. "Let's go tell them! I'm sure they'll let them pull, right? And if they don't we're going to get our OWN wagon." Someone is going to be pulled here if Shinmyoumaru has anything to say about it. "We just have to show them that they shouldn't be scared! They should be glad, that after so long, they still want to help!" Shinmyoumaru rests one hand on the side of the tractor, somewhere between protective and a friendly pat.
Dysnomia	Tsukumogami are objects - tools, usually, that have been used by people for that long! "Used as instruments for the whole of their existence, until they eventually get a soul of their own." Dysnomia's response was desolately toneless. "And when they get a voice of their own. They go to do more work." Dysnomia ran a hand over her face, sighing. "Fine. Fine! We'll let it pull a goddamn wagon. I'll make one myself I have to." "Aren't sure how they'll react to this." Dysnomia looked to the other wagon, frowning. "This kind of place, it's like they've forgotten the rest of the multiverse exists. Don't know if there's room in their self-conception, for a living thing like this." Not person-shaped. Not self-vocal. Not born with the privledge of personhood. Not like them. "We need to be prepared for them to react poorly." It didn't occur to her that they might NOT. "Do you copy?"
Rita Ma	At the same time Calvin's rising and sighing, Rita stands too and does the equivalent gestures of 'dusting off her skirt' and 'rolling her head with a hand on the back of her neck'. Their mannerisms just interlock like that, silent language of "variably-anglicized pseudorural postapocalype folks". "Maybe," she says to him about the ferris wheel, and then doesn't correct his search, because she knows Petra is coming to them as long as they don't stray too far. Instead she lingers in his orbit without making it too clear that that's what she's doing. Until Petra Impact, she strikes up a little idle conversation, hand clasping arm behind her back and leaning over to peer at tables of food. "What's your favorite thing here so far, Mr. Nash? The fish? The funnel cakes? I don't think I could eat right now, but I like cooking at home, so... fair food is usually pretty simple, right?" Her shoe scuffs the grass. Smile awkwardly squiggles. "I don't know. I can't have Liza or Kana or Bota along with me today, so it'd make me feel better if I could 'share' it like that." Really, what she's doing is distracting from her own rising anxiety. I could probably protect him if they did try to shoot him, right? drifts unbidden across her mind, and then re-submerges.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	The tractor creaks as Shinmyoumaru pats it, clearly encouraged by her little speech. Is it her imagination, or is it pressing gently against her hand? "We need to be prepared for them to react poorly." Madeleine nods. "Yeah, I don't know if everyone's gonna be up on their tsukumogami stuff here. And the tractor's still got like, an owner somewhere who considers it a display piece. It won't be impossible to convince the staff to let the steam tractor out for a spin, but we might have to pretend to drive it around? Push comes to shove I could probably do that, once they've given us the okay." "I must have fuel," the tractor says. It lifts one wheel for inspection. "I can walk, but my wheels will not turn without fire in my heart and a belly full of coal." "Makes sense. Once we've got something to burn there's also the matter of getting it back to the fairgrounds without looking like we stole it. What's our cover story?"
Petra Soroka	"I wonder how interesting these competitions really are past the initial 'folksy charm' phase too." Petra has only a very limited experience with living in a state nearly on the opposite side of the country from this one, and primarily when she was the most misanthropic child to ever blight an Earth, but she figures that she's basically the expert here, on folksy county fairs. Definitely between her and Lilian, and probably among all the Elites here today. She even went to a rodeo last year! Basically all rural American people are the same anyways. "I don't really know... I mean, we've definitely got better stuff to do than sit around watching the whole thing. Lawnmower racing sounds fun to do but boring to watch for long." Petra contemplates the value of folksy charm from her position sitting in the straw, intently focused on a rabbit to draw it near. "But we only need that initial charm! We don't have to stick around for long; just enough to get an idea for the whole-- for the thing." "My, aren't you being greedy~ Are the others not paying attention to you?" Petra's quiet inhalation of starry-eyed awe is accompanied by her clutching her new rabbit friend to her chest as if to say 'are you seeing this too??????' She nearly forgets her phone, letting it slip from her thigh and be buried in the straw, so enraptured is she with watching Lilian's pampering of the bunny, and she unconsciously holds her breath to still herself as much as possible to not disturb the scene. It eventually leaks out in a tautly excited hiss that becomes whisperingly voiced halfway through. "Cuuuuuuuuuuuute.......... I love rabbits...." Had Petra been asked an hour ago, she would've been fondly neutral on rabbits, as cute animals she has no particular attachment to. Now they're branded irrevocably into her heart by association, and she is rabbits' biggest fan. She tries to slowly, extremely carefully reach for her phone to take a picture just for herself, and is certainly thwarted. "Um--! Ferris wheel!" The graceful segue of bolting to her feet and blurting that out is inspired by Petra abruptly imagining actually being in a ferris wheel with Lilian and becoming vibratingly excited. "Let's go!"
Petra Soroka	Along the way, Petra holds up the bag of jerky, contemplating evil. Despite the mostly unhappy resolution to her text conversation with Rita, exposure to Lilian being cute has improved Petra's mood enough to make her stupid again, and she begins thinking about the image of feeding Lilian jerky while fanning her, in place of grapes. Experimentally, she takes out a piece of beef jerky and just holds it between her pointer finger and thumb for a bit, to see if Lilian will tell her to give it to her. "Oh, um, sorry though, one last thing and then I'm-- I'll just be with you for, whatever else..." Petra's head slowly turns to the side as the food court comes into view, the side path dragging her away from the alluring ferris wheel adventure. "I have to-- have to run to the food court, but I'll be quick. I'll be right back." True to her word, maybe more than anyone else has ever been, Petra does apparently mean she'll run to the food court. Petra Impact is attained at speeds fractional to the speed of light, within human sprinting capacity, when she skids to a halt after spotting Calvin and beelining towards him, almost slipping and faceplanting because of some stray straw. "Hey--! You! I have other stuff to do, so--! Truce for the rest of the mission!" Petra holds her arms up with her forearms crossed in a big X, as if this is a universal sign for truce. She'd like, very much, to exit as quickly as she entered, but some additional dialogue is likely required, especially when she adds, "But I still don't like you, though! Just no more fighting."
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna	"If there was something you'd done for a hundred years, something that made you feel like you, you might want to do it some more instead of being thrown away for someone newer to do it...!" Shinmyoumaru shakes her head. "It's not that it's bad to do what you like to do. It's that people take advantage of you, and then throw you away!" Shinmyoumaru is practically bouncing on her feet. "Being forgotten because you're not useful to them anymore... that's the worst part of it!" She pats the tractor again. "I don't have any coal but - hold on, do you have any coal at all? Let me look!" Provided nobody (including the tractor) objects, Shinmyoumaru hops up to poke around in the coalbox and hopper to see if there's anything left behind. If there is at least some, she can make it bigger, and maybe they'll have to break it into chunks so it fits, but that ought to get it moving, right? If not, she has another idea, but it's a little harder. "But how to get it back..." Shinmyoumaru's brow furrows as she thinks hard about it. "Maybe we could..." ... "...tell them it left?" She can tell as soon as she says it that Dysnomia at least won't like it, and she and Madeleine might be right; they might react poorly. "Or we could just say we don't know. They thought someone stole it, right? Maybe we can agree but they couldn't carry it far enough. Tow it," she corrects herself, remembering the proper word.
Calvin Nash	What's your favorite thing here so far, Mr. Nash? Rita's question reels Calvin back in from dad-esque 'trying to look like he knows where he's going without actually knowing.' He makes a little inquisitive noise at the sound of her speaking, turning around to give her his full attention. "My favorite?" His brows raise as additional punctuation to the question. "The fish was damn good. Reminded me of home. But, I think it's gotta be the funnel cake. Ain't had nothing like it before," he admits. "Greasy as all hell, but crispy and fluffy... and sweet, even without the sugar. Mhm. Kinda thing that'll send a man to an early grave," he jokes obliviously. I don't know. I can't have Liza or Kana or Bota along with me today, so it'd make me feel better if I could 'share' it like that. "That your family?" he prompts with interest. "Friends?" Hey--! You! I have other stuff to do, so--! Truce for the rest of the mission! But I still don't like you, though! Just no more fighting. Of course, the moment Calvin stops wandering around and is engaged is when Petra Impact occurs. He turns from his conversation with Rita, "Oh. Hey," he says with flatly evident fatigue. "Was lookin' for you." "Sure, truce, for now, but you and me get along like a bare ass and a hot tin roof, and I don't see that changin' anytime soon. Now, I don't wanna 'get rid of you' like you said. Don't want that at all. But we gotta deal with it soon, 'cause it ain't doing neither of us no good and it's startin' to catch other folks up in it. When this is all done, let's have us a fight and work all that out." A pause. "Loser buys the winner a drink. Aight?" He extends his hand for a handshake.
Rita Ma	"Mmm! Ms. Grier is my girlfriend- that's Liza- and Bota is my brother, and Kana is... family," she says, suggesting the way you might call someone 'auntie' or 'sister' who isn't quite. And girlfriend spills out of her completely relaxed. "I live in two places, sort of, since they work at different things." "An early grave... oh, right." She solemnly taps her own lips. What could that possibly be reminding her of? - - - - Rita might not be immediately visible on Petra Impact, but she emerges from behind Calvin a second later. She's warily hopeful, with the wariness spiking at "Hey--! You!" and then dimming over time. Thank goodness! It's a truce. The people she likes are getting along, sort of! Rita has earned a Good Grade in Taking Sole Responsibility For Group Cohesion, something that is normal to want and possible to-- Oh, wait. "A fight?" she says with mild alarm. Rita eyes Petra, recalling what she's heard of past scuffles. Desperate-squirmy: "Not the kind of fight where you're going to shoot each other, right? Just punching?" 'Loser buys winner a drink' implies guaranteed survival, but you never know.
Lilian Rook	'But we only need that initial charm! We don't have to stick around for long; just enough to get an idea for the whole-- for the thing.' "I suppose." Lilian says, noncommittally. "I don't know how I feel about quitting that easily." Apparently checking in to watch a show for ten minutes is Quitter Behaviour now. "I suppose people likely cycle in and out throughout the whole thing . . . Mmm, but I suppose there's nothing to be gained from avoiding it either." Which means a solid 'if it seems approachable later'. 'Cuuuuuuuuuuuute.......... I love rabbits....' "Hm? Oh are you done text--" Lilian, who cannot read Petra's mind, and generally tries not to do that around her intolerable psychic aura, freezes at seeing Petra reaching for her phone again. Half a dozen emergency situation reflexes kick in, and twenty odd scenarios for dealing with crises that involve people with cameras autosort and filter down to a few branches of immediate action. Lilian reaches for her gun; and then remembers she is being good today, by which is meant 'guilty in regards to Rita'; and then forgets that Petra doesn't count as a person. Petra's gunslinger creep towards her phone is thwarted by Lilian standing up and stepping on Petra's hand more than hard enough to hurt. She hisses "when did I give you permission to take photographs?" with an especially contemptuous lip curl, still tenderly holding a helpless bunny rabbit to her chest with both arms. "Thought you'd snap one or two for 'safe keeping'? Freak." She grinds her heel in on Petra's fingers a little as she bends down and gently lets the rabbit back down to earth. "Don't tell me that's your 'thing'. If I find one of those 'bunny' headbands . . ." Yep, back to normal! Then, along the way to the ferris wheel, Petra's experimental results for holding out jerky for emphasis comes up: "Oh there it is. I'd nearly forgotten you'd tried to run off with my card." Petra, who also cannot read minds, doesn't get to know whether Lilian is confabulating her own unserious accusations as reality or-- well, no, she probably hasn't. "You really couldn't have told me you'd finished that errand before texting your friends?" she says, simply deciding that there is no question of whether a food item belongs to her, and tactically shelving any memory that Petra came back worn out from crying. 'I have to-- have to run to the food court, but I'll be quick. I'll be right back.' "You unbelievable-- I'm going to read the statement now and charge you for everything I don't recognize!" Lilian, sufficiently annoyed by being stood up at a fair that is beneath her (false) by a girl that is beneath her (true) gets out her phone herself, and starts obliviously texting Rita for Petra's whereabouts, as a deniably neutral ice-breaker.
Dysnomia	"It's not that it's bad to do what you like to do. It's that people take advantage of you, and then throw you away!" "And that's what people always do." Dysnomia growls, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Always. It's all just about getting a use out of you. People who say they don't need anything for it have just been conned into doing it all for free." It wasn't until the words were already out, that it occured to her that this probably wouldn't make the tractor happy to hear. For a growling moment, she bit down on her lip, crossing her arms. "...But, whatever. If you THINK this'll make you happy." "Coal would be the best bet," she murmured. "No telling what my breath would do to its tank. Nothing good, I think. Best I could do is burn something to charcoal for you to make grow." "We walk back with it. They know I and Sukuna wandered off to find it, so us coming back with it makes sense, doesn't it? If we want them to think it's just a normal tractor, we can just say we found it. It'll be enough of a relief that we brought it back. If we don't..." Dysnomia said, frankly. Then, another look to the tractor. "Do you want them to know what you've become?"
Madeleine Cadrasteia	The tractor's coalbox is clean as a whistle - someone's been taking good care of it, at least as an antique. It must have been towed here, and not driven under its own power. "Charcoal might be good, now that you mention it. We could probably get a few bags from the gas station? I'll pick those up while you haul the tractor back... you've got a neutral gear, right?" "I do." Ker-chunk. "It's all just about getting a use out of you. People who say they don't need anything for it have just been conned into doing it all for free." The tractor bends to look at Mia with as much dismay as the front of a tractor can express. "I need fuel and water. I do not ask for nothing. My wheels must be oiled... my rusted pieces replaced. And I wish for my purpose to be celebrated again. That too is a reward." ~ Hauling the tractor back to the road is not a challenge for Dysnomia, and Shinmyoumaru can... ride on it or walk alongside to provide moral support? However she helps - perhaps by providing a tow line with her fishing pole - the duo are rolling the tractor down to the front of the fair in a matter of minutes. Thankfully the traffic isn't bad at this time of night. When the ticketing staff, long since back from their little gold-coin adventure, spy Mia and Shinmyoumaru with the tractor there are some shouts of surprise and concern, but the staffer who originally explained the predicament to the duo is summoned by the noise and helps them make sense of the situation. "You found it! Where was it? Did it really get stolen somehow?" There are profuse handshakes of gratitude to go around, and the event staff take their best shot at rolling the tractor back to its display spot - but without Mia's assistance it'll be very slow going, time enough for the Elites to make their pitch...
Petra Soroka	"Don't tell me that's your 'thing'. If I find one of those 'bunny' headbands . . ." "N-nooooo, owww--" Petra whines and tries to yank her hand away from under Lilian's heel, failing until she's allowed to be released. "I-I didn't mean anything! I thought it was-- it was cute! I'm sorry! I don't have, any kind of thing, I don't have anything like that, I just think it's really nice to see you with Curupira or here or wherever there's a cute animal or something because it looks like it makes you happy, and...." She did want one or two for safekeeping. She can't really deny that part. Being stomped on has no dampening effect on her positive mood upon leaving the bunny hutch, though! "Loser buys the winner a drink. Aight?" "Hhhah?" Petra slowly lowers her crossed arms, still breathing heavily. It takes her several seconds to wrap her mind around the topic that Calvin proposed, since it didn't fit in her premade model of the conversation that she created while walking over here. "Um... a fight? Oh, later." What does this event look like, in Petra's imagination? If she were to agree to this proposal, what does she expect the future interaction to be? The kind of person who would meet up for a prearranged, non-friendly fight, with the minor stakes of buying the winner a drink and the major stakes of admitting there's a loser... it has to be some sort of grungy parking lot or scruffy grass field, right? With her fists still awkwardly, vestigially clenched, sunken down to being held in front of her chest, Petra holds them as if she's preparing for the shittiest possible fight stance right now. She's not, intentionally-- her subconscious body posture just reacts to the word 'fight' even when her actual thought processes know it isn't happening now. "Um... like, at a Waffle House?" Petra does not know, despite being to one this morning, whether Waffle House serves alcohol. "Yeah, whatever. Sounds cool. We'll figure it out later and, like, absolutely not figure it out today or tomorrow." She reaches out to shake Calvin's hand, a little dazed and mentally snagged on something odd about the image of getting into a fistfight and then buying or being bought a drink for winning. It feels so simple and clean, and provides a neat vessel to pour Petra's aggression towards Calvin into, and there's an aesthetic to it that she finds appealing... it feels like something Hibiki would do, maybe? But still... when Petra follows the imagined scene to its inevitable conclusion, picturing the pair of hypothetical bruised and bloody people at a bar-- she can really only imagine them as two guys. "Not the kind of fight where you're going to shoot each other, right? Just punching?" Confused and vaguely uncomfortable in a way she can't place her finger on, Petra looks at Rita like both her presence and words surprised her. "Wait-- wait, huh? Is this a shooting fight? I thought it was just, like, punching, or... well..." Petra reassesses the size difference between herself and Calvin, and changes her mind on her willingness to be punched by an adult man. "Uh, right, I said we'd figure it out later. Not today. I'm not going to think about it today, because...."
Petra Soroka	Now that the conversation is effectively resolved, Petra is slowly backing away from Calvin and Rita, magnetically drawn along the path towards Lilian even while still talking. "I'm already slow getting back! To Lilian! So, bye--!" Calvin-- and, equally unacknowledged, Rita-- are left behind in the near-literal cloud of dust Petra kicks up when turning to skedaddle at reverse Petra Impact speeds. It's only a matter of seconds before she's hurried to Lilian's side, gasping out an apology before properly catching her breath, and excitedly stuttering along the path forwards to the ferris wheel without coming to a complete stop. "Sorry! Sorry, I'm sorry. I just had to, to grab Calvin, and... make sure, like... I talked it out. Normal trip, from now on. And-- and a bit to Rita too." Lilian wasn't even told that Petra and Rita had a fight. "So now, we can just enjoy the rest of the fair, and we'll ride on the ferris wheel-- maybe it loses a bit of the appeal with how often we get pretty views doing the stuff we do, since it's for the kind of people who spend their entire lives wandering around on the ground and going along the same shitty streets and into the same shitty buildings every day, so it's kind of a groundbreaking thing if they get to go thirty feet up and see it that way instead, but I kind of like them. They're cute." Getting to the ferris wheel, Petra passively follows the flow of the crowd to where she assumes must be the entrance to the ride, and instead... "Oh. There's a line." Petra pulls out her compact mirror and starts rubbing her thumb on the shitty plastic exterior casing, as if trying to come up with a way around this unfair obstacle-- how dare Lilian be made to wait five minutes in a line with these animals?
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna	"..." Something Dysnomia says resonates with Shinmyoumaru in a way she doesn't entirely like. But: "It wants to," Shinmyoumaru says, stubbornly. "So I want to." Charcoal was Shinmyoumaru's third option (second was picking up some other rocks and using the Miracle Mallet to turn them into coal, which probably would work - turning one thing into a related thing is relatively easy - but would mean she probably wouldn't do much with the Mallet afterwards). So when Plan A - find some coal in storage - doesn't pan out, she's happy to go with Dysnomia's suggestion. "Okay!" she says; making a bit of charcoal a lot of charcoal (and incidentally cooling it down enough to handle) is trivial enough that she's not concerned about the aftereffects from it. Shinmyoumaru does indeed ride the tractor back. Her fishing line won't be much use because she's on foot rather than riding her bowl, and Dysnomia can probably pull it faster than she can walk on her short legs, plus she's got her outstrengthed. She does stand up high so she can point out the smoothest route to take, though, in case Dysnomia can't get high enough to see it while she's pulling. "It was off in the brush!" Shinmyoumaru looks guileless. "I guess whoever wanted to bring it there couldn't get it any further." Well, that was her idea to suggest... She looks around for the others from her perch on the tractor, decides they're busy enough she doesn't want to call to them (she waves if she sees Petra, Lilian, or Calvin, though), and then says, "I have a question. Why don't you have this one pulling a wagon too? It can move! You can see, we just brought it back, and it's been taken care of. And if people want to see it when it's not moving, wouldn't they want to see it more when it's doing what it's made for?" Shinmyoumaru pulls herself up slightly. "I think it would be really neat... I've never seen a tractor like this moving before, not with its own engine! And... it's good to not forget what it can do, too. It's really a shame just to leave it alone to just..." Shinmyoumaru isn't sure how much further she can go without giving it away, and she's still trying to talk around that. "...I dunno. But I think everyone here would like it!" She pats the tractor again - she means it, too. "Don't just let it rust out or seize up on display. We can help get it going again...!"
Calvin Nash	Um... like, at a Waffle House? Calvin stares at Petra blankly, because admitting he doesn't know something to her, specifically, has a cost associated with it, even if 'what he doesn't know' is 'literally what she means by that,' and giving any answer at all means that a possibility of being wrong exists. Not the kind of fight where you're going to shoot each other, right? Just punching? "No shootin', no magic, no demons," Calvin confirms. "Just punchin'." Uh, right, I said we'd figure it out later. Not today. I'm not going to think about it today, because.... I'm already slow getting back! To Lilian! So, bye--! "Aight," says Calvin, with the same casual tone as hanging up on someone after a quick phone call. As Petra leaves, Calvin places a hand on the crown of his hat and fiddles with its resting position on his head, uttering a pressure-release sigh. "Well." He turns to face Rita. "Went better'n I thought it would. Dunno 'bout you," he begins, "But I done all the thinkin' 'bout it I wanna for today. How 'bout you tell me a little more 'bout your girlfriend an 'em, Ms. Rita?"
Dysnomia	"I need fuel and water. I do not ask for nothing. My wheels must be oiled... my rusted pieces replaced." Dysnomia is about to say something, when her teeth grate and her hands clutch. "If that's what you think." She said, too evenly for her heart to really be in it. "I'll help you get it." It's not terribly hard for Dysnomia to make some charcoal--any tree or plant matter big enough would be enough to get SOME kind of charcoal going. There might not be much left--but Sukuna didn't need much, did she? It was trivial for her to drag the tractor back with them, drawn behind her by bands of mist and, absent an answer from the tractor itself about whether it wanted to be revealed, she had to assume that it wanted to remain concealed. "They couldn't get it far," she grumbled to the others. "Whoever they were. Clearly, they didn't think it through. Stealing a tractor." She shook her head with a grimace, and if it wasn't fake, then at least she point it at something useful. "It's in remarkably good shape." She concurred with Sukuna, without necessarily agreeing completely. "It seems like it would run just fine, wouldn't it?"
Rita Ma	like, at a Waffle House? Rita has been to a single Waffle House in her life, but it was a place of peace she can't imagine anyone dying at, so her shoulders slump a little while her cheeks stay slightly puffed. "Thank you, Petra! Have fun with Ms. Rook!" By the end she's perked enough to only be a little beleaguered; then when Petra's out of sight, she sighs and slumps fully in relief. Not relief for Petra's absence, really; just that the scene has closed without disaster. "Well." "Well . . ." Tiny, perking-up laugh. Rita's shoulders draw in with an eyes-shut smile up at Calvin. "Thank you, Mr. Nash. I don't really understand Petra sometimes, but I don't think she's a bad person. It means a lot to me that my friends are trying to get along." Implicitly making him one of them. "How 'bout you tell me a little more 'bout your girlfriend an 'em, Ms. Rita?" "Oh!!" That topic delights her. If he'll come with, she ambles off towards the lawnmower races while chatting: "Everyone else in my family is a really cool hero, but I wasn't for a long time. So I felt weird about that. Ms. Grier tries to help poor people by blowing up the people who're hurting them. Bota and Kana were important monster-slayers. They still could be, but in my world monsters don't hurt people anymore, so now they're just..." She could go on like that for five or ten minutes; overarching themes of struggling to accept that she can be loved as she is, of long journeys through difficulty settling into peace, of warmth and care despite vast swathes of implicitly missing family tree. Eventually she winds down: "What's your relationship with your family like, Mr. Nash? I haven't seen a lot of them, but I think it was good, right?"
Lilian Rook	'Sorry! Sorry, I'm sorry. I just had to, to grab Calvin, and... make sure, like... I talked it out. Normal trip, from now on.' Lilian, who had already taken that step, and made motions of non-hostility to Calvin before he did to her, thus Capitulating and Self-Sacrificing for the Good of the Trip, looks at Petra like she is a fucking loser for ever even considering it upon her direct return. The puzzled-disgusted look on her face shifts through hues of mild surprise and confusion, then diverts from the shores of disappointments and lands on matching the 'warmly demeaning' tone that she takes. "For having such a falling out with him just earlier, too. To think I was seriously about to try defending you from him, too." 'And-- and a bit to Rita too.' "Beg pardon?" Lilian says, turning around from being just about to move on, who had actually seen that fight start to play out. "You had bettr not be ruining . . ." She trails off, examining her feelings about how guilty she will feel if Petra spoils the fun for Rita, and finds her feet touching the bottom of her pool of selflessness for today. The petty urge to silently think that maybe Rita deserves a little unpleasant fuss in return is too appealing. She has already fully internalized the idea that Rita's criticism of her is both effortless and rewarding. "Well, she would take care of it if you became intolerable." Lilian says, now smiling for no good reason. It buouys her through most of the ferris wheel line. Which actually isn't that long, because the moment she realizes there will be a line, she has a place in it from across the park, during a hazy moment where people are milling about and sorting out where it actually is; and Lilian is immaculately capable of looking like exactly where she's standing is obviously where it's supposed to be you imbeciles, until it forms mostly behind her. She spends most of the time stealing too many glances at Petra to the side to fully seem lost in thought. It's only when they've clambered on and the door is shut does Lilian look expectantly out the window (attempting to pick out where Rita and Calvin are, already), sighs some great weight off her chest, and says, pleasant as anything, "So how am I going to ensure that you don't try taking 'special pictures' again? Perhaps I should hold on to that phone for you, until we're all done."
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"Don't just let it rust out or seize up on display. We can help get it going again...!" "It seems like it would run just fine, wouldn't it?" "You know, this thing does seem in pretty good shape. What do we think?" After some deliberation the event staff, with a little encouragement from the Elites, decide to allow the steam tractor to substitute for the diesel tractor through the rest of the evening's wagon rides. They're about to go fetch the other tractor's driver - who would definitely notice the vehicle's controls moving on their own - when Madeleine returns with an armful of charcoal bags and volunteers as 'someone who knows a lot about steam tractors' (does she? Surely not). A few minutes with a hose and the water tank is filled up, then Maddeleine (and any Elites who decide to accompany her) 'drives' the tractor down to the back end of the fair park. A long blast from the steam whistle (which was the tractor's idea, startling Madeleine badly) gets everyone's attention, and one of the staff borrows a loudspeaker from the lawnmower race commentators to announce the change in wagon-ride plans. A new crop of excited children emerge from the crowd, swiftly followed by beleaguered parents and chaperones. As the sun sets over the fair park, the first wagon-ride sets off. 'The Wheels on the Tractor' begins again in earnest, and Madeleine - plus the other elites, if they come along - can make out the deep tones of the tractor itself, humming along to the tune...