Scene #9072: Hearth and Home

Owner	Pose
Angela	Cinder wants to visit her family in the Outskirts and show them that she's doing well. She has talked about this before, off and on, particularly about how they didn't take her back after she was forcefully adopted by a wealthy couple that more or less wanted her as an accessory. Of course her own awkward, anxious way of approaching the topic may have given off some strange impressions. Normally something like this would be nearly impossible to do without running afoul of City authorities. You're not supposed to leave or enter the City without certain degrees of paperwork relative to your station in the City. Cinder, before joining LobCorp, could just leverage familial power but now that she works for Lobotomy Corp, she would need permission from the L-Corp government and at this stage of the game, even if Angela could handle that entirely on her own--she'd be loathe to take any extra risks at this stage of the Seed of Light project. But fortunately... Cinder has found a Warpgate that leads directly to the Outskirts that the City does not know about yet. Going alone would be suicide, but the strongest and toughest and coolest person she knows... Perhaps the two of them could make it work. Besides, it's not as if Cinder isn't well acquainted with how the Outskirts works. The Warpgate leads to a city or, rather, the remains of one. The buildings are tall but decrepit and bombed out. Any windows or doorways have long been eradicated from the structures and many have large chunks of themselves ripped right off of them. The sky is far clearer than in most places Petra's been in the city but the air is hot and dry. And aside from Cinder and Petra, there is little sign of life. Not even grass. There's certainly no other humans. "We have to go further out if we want to find the village." Cinder says. "There's no long term communities here because the machines patrol this close to the City but we'll still want to dodge them further out. Some of the monsters further out aren't hostile, but they're like Abnormalities--you don't really know what they'll do. If there's any unusual lights--well you'll probably be fine, but if I start staring at one--well don't let me stare at anything that glows." She couldn't exactly take her EGO Gear out for a 'date day' without triggering some alarms so she's wearing a light pink skirt and tanktop combo and is carrying one of the pistols Hod has added to the training regimen to use in a hip holster. "This pistol won't be much use in a fight but we can use it as a lure or signal..." Cinder murmurs. SHe has an arm satchel with food and water. "Thanks again for agreeing to this."
Petra Soroka	Petra is absolutely delighted at the opportunity to break some rules. As much as she likes Angela, and as few problems she has with Lobotomy Corporation as a company, it's just lame to always ask permission and get it and do everything by the books. Petra loathes corporations as a rule, and if L-Corp wasn't fully characterized by bloodshed and horror, then Petra wouldn't have lasted a week at this job. And fuck the City too! Petra is feeling an especially intense streak of rebellious energy, probably for no reason at all. PHONE: Ash \| you're actually super brittle and pathetic arent you lmfao PHONE: Ash \| grr stop coping! stop saving face! look at the bad thing i did! look im being so bad! lmaoooo Bolstered by deviant fervor, Petra excitedly builds on Cinder's plan to sneak out, by first throwing off the trail by diverting their path through Hydrochoeria, so the records of their warpgate travel won't be accessible to L-Corp. Planted ratbots forge a false digital trail of their whereabouts to back up their story if Binah or Malkuth insist-- not that Binah could be bothered-- and Petra makes sure to sneak out in her work clothes as if she was just commuting home as normal, so that anyone who spotted her wouldn't be able to tell anything was different. Deceiving Angela is a bit of a fruitless game, in the end. If Angela pressured Petra at all, she'd end up telling the truth of their escapade in a moment. But the charade of wrongdoing feels important to keep up, and being given permission would frankly make Petra angry today. "We have to go further out if we want to find the village." Petra steps out into the Outskirts with a wince at the heat, changed into a combination of date-and-combat-wear in her castle before coming here. Figuring that it'd be dangerous enough that she couldn't just skip around in a blouse and jewelry, Petra opted to wear a long sleeve shirt with sewed-on elbow pads, beneath a baggy t-shirt to add a contrasting pop. For tumbling purposes, Petra decided to wear jeans, but between that and her sleeves, the wasteland heat is overwhelming immediately upon hopping into the Outskirts. "Ugh. God. Why the fuck is it this bad even in October?" Petra kicks the toes of her boot against the ground, dislodging some of the accumulating red dust. "Do you know where we are? Like, relatively?" "Thanks again for agreeing to this." Petra bounces a bit on the balls of her feet, and then bumps Cinder with her shoulder while marching ahead into the wastes, hand absentmindedly drifting to doublecheck the presence of the gun on her hip. "Come onnnnn, don't be so grim. You've got me! If it's just monsters and robots and a long walk and stuff, then we'll be alright. I'll keep you safe and you'll say where to go." Petra lifts up Twopence on her palm, holding him up so he lifts off and floats into the sky. As the ratbot flies up and angles its camera down, Petra pulls out her tablet to show Cinder the scrolling image of the landscape with a bit of smug pride at problem-solving so well. "Oh, and, since it's just us out here," Petra turns her face ahead, walking without looking directly at Cinder. "So, like, what're you hoping to, you know, accomplish, by talking to them? What do you want to do? I sort of want to, make sure it happens today, because...."
Angela	It is just lame to always ask permission! Cinder agrees with this and she also likes Angela. Admittedly, the reason she likes Angela is certainly influenced by Petra caring about Angela even if isn't a LIE. She just probably wouldn't have thought to actually put the effort in considering she's her boss and all. She was barely putting effort in herself. But she feels alive now. She honestly wasn't sure if Petra WOULD agree to go with her on this journey because going to the Outskirts is tough for even capable Fixers on their own and even a Color would avoid some places out here altogether. Usually Associations are sent out to the Outskirts or other organizations more closely tied to the Nests but of course--there isn't like a giant wall around the whole of the City. Sometimes the Outskirts leaches in. That's why Ruin delving is so important, she's told. Cinder in the Outskirts is like another person entirely. She is more seriousminded and Petra seems to notice it. Cinder smiles, "Heh...yeah I'm not too worried. If I didn't have you I wouldn't even be thinking about it. I doubt that there's anything out here the two of us can't handle but--" ''I sort of want to, make sure it happens today, because...'' "Yeah it'd slow us down at least but so long as we don't dick around or if they haven't moved too far--It shouldn't be more than six hours if we're lucky, eight if we're not. Depends on how it goes over there too, you know? But at, um, at this point I wouldn't want to dally too much." She hesitates. "Why do you want to make sure it happens today?" Cinder doesn't have an answer as to why it's hot in October but she does have an answer for Petra's burning question at the very least. "I didn't want to live in The City, you know? I wanted to lived out here. Despite what the City says about this place, not everybody out here actually even wants to be in The City. They say it's more dangerous but..." She laughs. "Sorry you didn't come with me to hear me rant. I want to show them that I'm okay. That I have a bigger world than ever before. The last time I visited them we had a big fight so... I'm not, uh, moving back in or anything. Miss Angela needs our help still and ...I don't know. It doesn't really feel as limitless now that I've been to whole 'other worlds." ''Do you know where we are? Like, relatively?'' "Heh!" Cinder adopts a smug expression. "Yeah I charted our position when I first checked the Warpgate out. Once I found out it wasn't too far from the village--I had to check it out." CInder would feel a little better if she had Fourth Match Flame but she doesn't so she is really relying on Petra here. Except in the respect of knowing how to avoid Clockwork Patrols and other monsters. Periodically, Cinder crouches down to examine tracks but soon the broken buildings give way to large trees that intertwine with one another and have grown unimpeded to enormous heights. There's some light approaching from the distance. Like a flashlight. Cinder ducks behind a tree, intending to wait until it passes. "Robot." She murmurs. "If it spots us it'll alert others." Twopence is able to fly above and get some feeds of the area. Staying out of sight, it gets a good look of a squad of mechanical entities with clockwork arms extending out into spikes, single red eyes serving as the source of that 'flashlight'. Decrepit remains of clothes hang off their bodies that look like they may have been falling apart for ages upon ages. They sort of look like the Ordeal of Green. This is what the fear and doubt is sourced from. They're approaching. Petra could use this knowledge to try and ambush them or to help Cinder avoid them but it doesn't seem like Cinder's strategy of trying to wait them out is too likely to work out. Twopence also detects some faint traces of rising smoke further along.
Petra Soroka	"Sorry you didn't come with me to hear me rant." "I literally did. I mean, fucking, I'm not here because I'm just really excited to meet your family and wish you didn't come along." Petra huffs and glances back at Cinder, dropping some of her sarcasm for tonally hand-wringing softness. "That's easy, at least. Just showing them instead of, like, expecting anything from them in return. Means there's no way to leave disappointed. Which is, like...." Petra sighs and comes to a stop, hand pressed up against a tree. Her head droops down, finally circling back around to the question she'd avoided earlier. "I guess, like, it's just important for it to happen today, because... after this, um...." Petra trails off and then quietly snorts. "God. I fucking sound like such a melodramatic loser. Like I'm some fucking tragic heroine going off to war." "Just, uh, I've been talking with Ash. You know, Ash?" Petra drops that question as if it's rhetorically obvious that she means the pilot of the mech that nearly killed the both of them, rather than that being a completely insane thing to say. "And there's, like, a pretty good chance that I, uh, get assassinated, or just blown up, or whatever. Soon." "And I, um, didn't tell you last time, with Liza, so.... Maybe this is better?" Petra tilts her chin up, meeting Cinder's gaze, and then quickly breaks eye contact to look away. "I don't actually know. And, I mean, I'm not planning on dying, but, uh.... I mean, who knows what I can do about it, really." "So anyways!" Petra claps her hands together, pulling out her tablet and tapping a fingernail on the robot. "I mean, these guys look, what, TETH level? Let's not-- not waste daylight, haha. We're not helpless out here. We can just cut right through and stop them from sending out an alarm with the bots." Jittery anxiety and an enhanced need to show off and reassure Cinder through violence encourages Petra to hoist up her transteam gun and screw on the rifle attachment, dropping it across her shoulder. In her tactical planning, crouched behind the rock with Cinder, Petra needlessly babbles to herself to fill the air after her worrying confession. "See, look, if you're right that they're going to go along this curve here, then dropping a boulder from Twopence right at this incline will cut the group in half by squishing the middle one. Then, it's just Ordeal cleanup stuff, and I've done that a thousand times. Easy-peasy. Just blow up a few robots and there we go, nothing to it. Then we're off to see your family."
Angela	''I literally did.'' Cinder covers her mouth because laughhing out loud like that is not the best. "You're really amazing, Petra. I guess the danger out here feels more fair than the danger in there." She struggles with clarifying that what she means. Does she want anything in return? ... Not anymore, she thinks. She got what she wanted from other places. ''Just, uh, I've been talkign with Ash. You know, Ash?'' "I remember the missiles they shot me with." Cinder says. "You know, with names like ours you'd think we'd get along better but--" She blinks and gives Petra a strange look when she says ''she'' is likely to be...uh...murdered? ... And she didn't mention...Liza. And... "You make this sound like a walk in the park, and this other thing like it's inevitable. ... Well, I know how scary they can be. But, uh, don't get mad but--it's kind of hard to imagine you getting killed like that. I always sort of imagined if you died... It wouldn't ''just'' happen like that? And it'd be on your terms a bit more--" They do like TETH level. Cinder is confident Petra can handle these guys. Normally she'd call someone offering to do this sort of thing insane but Petra makes surviving--living--seem easy. "They'd never expected something like Twopence..." She says. "Alright--Let's do it." It turns out that Petra's right on the money. They're actually tougher than the Ordeal itself... but Ordeals usually also involve a lot of other problems happening at th same time. And this time, she's getting the drop on them rather than them appearing in them middle of the city while Big and Will Be Bad Wolf is trying to eat Mikey. The trick with Twopence really is the clincher, though, crushing half the robots and while the remaining clockwork are distracted, Petra can ambush and finish them off with Silver or any other weapon to get it done. They don't explode, though, they just...shudder and collapse into junk on the spot before the red light in their eyes go dim. "...Whew... Twopence i real good at this." Cinder says before they move on towards the source of the smoke. It is, indeed, a small village. Several of the outer buildings are blasted apart from some unknkown armament. Cinder says, "Oh no..I knew it was possible but..." Cinder looks to Petra. "This is my home. Fire Village. Lots of Outskirts civilizations have simple names like that--They may've been wiped out..." "Not wiped out... But not what we once were..." An older looking woman in her fifties steps out from behind one of the ruined houses, pointing a crossbow towards Petra. "You brought an Agent of the City... And you said you wouldn't ever acclimate..." She is wearing a light armored coat and a bandana around her forehead. Numerous scars cross her face including one over her eye in a manner not so unlike Gebura. Her gear look considerably more patchwork than anything you'd find in the city but it does provide some protection. "H--hey put that down... She's not actually from The City. She's an Outsider from..." She trails off because she has no idea if this person even knows the multiverse "Um, Petra--this is Granny Char. She's our Hunter--What happened here?" "We had to move. I was tracking a group of Clockwork." Cinder can't help but snigger and give a warm look Petra's way.
Petra Soroka	"But, uh, don't get mad but--it's kind of hard to imagine you getting killed like that." Uhh, mhm...")] Petra nods, a bit absentmindedly, while pinched-in and scrolling through Twopence's aerial view for a suitably-sized rock. "Well. I mean, you were there. That was less than half of them. And they've been doing all this studying and planning on how to kill each of us specifically-- like, they've got piles and piles of documents and shit." "Ash is basically Lilian's level, if not..." Petra even admitting to that comparison is so wildly unprecedented that even her waffling can't undermine its severity. "And any one of those NAZCA guys could probably get me without breaking a sweat, and there'll be more of them than there are of us. Like," Petra clenches her fist, staring down at the tablet in her lap with her shoulders bunched up. "Obviously it feels bad to, like, just throw my hands up and go 'well, what can you do'. I won't do that. And being all fucking, defeatist about it, is lame. But-- isn't it just rational? I'm literally just a girl, whatever the fuck else I've done; I'm not some fucked up cybernetic sociopathic killing machine, and I'm not a soldier, and-- I just, thought, that you should know. I'm not saying it's certain, or anything. But-- but. I'm at least thinking about it. As a, maybe." "They'd never expected something like Twopence..." Considerable application of robot-destroying violence does a lot to repair Petra's confidence, for today, at least. The ratbot sinks down into her waiting palm, and she fondly strokes her fingers across its back, smugly praising her destructive little toy. "That's because no one's ever done it like me. These are my perfect creations and no lesser robot could ever stand in their way. Go forth and slake your thirst for their inferior blood, Twopence."
Petra Soroka	"This is my home. Fire Village." "Oh, really.... Are we thinking, like, bad monster luck is what did it? That's usually it, right?" Petra quickly recontextualizes her feelings about Cinder's name in her head, while taking in the ruined buildings. She puts her hand on her hip, mentally cursing her temptation of fate for finding the one way that this trip could end up a disappointment for Cinder, and she's about to figure out some way to do a search party for survivors when they're interrupted. "Not wiped out... But not what we once were..." "Ahh--! Old woman!" Petra flinches at the sound of an unfamiliar voice and instantly draws her gun, mirroring pointing it at Char. When Cinder introduces her-- even before that, as Petra processes how terrible she is at interacting with the family of her romantic interests-- she slowly lowers her gun, slipping it back into its holster on her hip and reassuringly raising her hands to show that they're empty. "Uh, hey, Mrs. Char. I'm Petra. I'm not from the City, I'm from--" A thousand options course through Petra's head in an instant. The reason for Cinder's hesitation is immediately obvious to Petra, but she has no good solution for it either, so she just fumbles her way into saying the answer that feels least-wrong. "... Io? The moon?" Petra awkwardly shuffles closer with her hands still held in the air, like she's trying to approach a skittish feral cat that's also pointing a crossbow at her. She carefully lowers one of the hands to offer a handshake once she's in reach. "Nice to meet you. I'm Cinder's, um--" Several thoughts pass through Petra's head. Cinder's unawareness of homophobia is a significant factor in judging that these people are probably going to be fine with it, but how comfortable is Petra with saying it? Pretty fucking comfortable at this point, right? She's been saying it to Ash plenty, and she might just die pretty soon, and it's just Cinder's family anyways, and she admitted to worse to Lilian's family. "--Uh, girlfriend. I killed some robots on the way here? Those guys?"
Angela	She WAS there. But it is, of course, Petra saying that Ash is on Lilian's level that gives Cinder pause--Sure, she figured SHE was an easy target for the NAZCA folks but she--and pretty much every agent in the facility--think of Lilian as on her own level. Saying someone is on Lilian's level is essentially saying they are on Gebura's and Cinder goes from thinking--there's no way that Petra would get taken out to seriously worrying about it. She bites at her lip. "...I get it. You never know. It's easy to feel invincible until you're, um, not. Or even someone else is." Yeah, she thinks. The outskirts feels more fair. If you're clever and tough and you can work with others, you can survive. The machines might swarm your town like clockwork but there isn't anybody like the NAZCA out here. "But um. You're --not, though. Maybe they're on her level but the Dame Commander thinks this stuff through. And is a way better planner than anyone. It'll be--it'll be fine. Once she has a plan we just have to listen to her." That might as well be the facility's anthem but Cinder doesn't like to imagine Petra exploding to bits any more than Petra likes to imagine the alternative. Before she can add anything like 'Besides I'm the weakest link, they'd go after me first right?' the robots are destroyed and that drags her morale and confidence back from the brink. Maybe Ash is smarter and stronger than all of 'em, but they've got guts and craftiness and pigheadedness. And Twopence. Nobody expects the ratbot! ''ARe we thinking, like, bad monster luck is what did it?'' "That would be my first guess." Cinder says though she isn't quite hopeless yet-- Fortunately. OLD WOMAN! Granny Char lowers her crossbow. Perhaps it's Petra yelling 'Old woman!' that did it, or maybe it's because she said she's from the moon. She gives Cinder a long look after she says she's from the moon. And it lingers when Petra says she's a girlfriend from the moon. "From the ... moon." Granny Char says. "A girlfriend from the moon. Guess you don't mind City life after all. What're you doing back here for? We're not going to let you move back in. You ought to be set for life unless you stupidly threw away everything to go on little adventures like this." ''I killed some robots on the way here? Those guys?'' Granny Char's eyebrows raise slightly. "Huh. Well you're capable at least. Guess I can head back early." She turns and starts walking away. Cinder waits a moment to see if she's going to be invited to follow along but that doesn't happen so she swears under her breath and follows after her. "What happened to Soot, Ember--uh.. ... Ash?" Yeah they had an Ash of their own apparently. "Soot became a Hunter. Followed in ol Granny's footsteps. Ember had a kid. Named her after you. Ash just walked off one day. Hasn't come back. We lost Coal and Slag when the Clockwork attacked. Powder, Scoria, and Spark are all fine." Cinder looks to Petra. "Um as you might've imagined--Fire Village has a sort of naming philosophy for everyone born there. Not every village is like that though. Or so I heard from like the one visitor from outside we had."
Angela	"We use the destroyed houses as camoflauge." Granny Char explains. "The clockwork don't patrol places they think are clear so often but we get the occassional monster attack. Can't hide the smell." Indeed it isn't much walking before a small slew of armor plated houses come into view along with other people. Most of them are wearing rather simple functional clothes, most of which is pretty light since it's warm out today. A young woman, not much older than Cinder, is holding onto a baby. Must be Ember. She sees Cinder and Petra and her eyes widen. "Visitors?" Ember asks Granny Char. "Should I put some stew on?" "You wanna stay for stew?" Granny Char is looking more towards Petra when she asks.
Petra Soroka	"From the ... moon." "Not the moon." Petra reflexively corrects, with years of practice of saying the same. "Not Luna, or Afterus. Io, around Jupiter-4621. I've only been in the City for, like, a year." "We're not going to let you move back in." Petra glances to the side at Cinder to gauge her reaction. Not-so-subtly, Petra sticks her thumb out at Char and grimaces at Cinder, implicitly saying 'What's with this asshole?' before sliding her hands halfway into her pockets after the awkward handshake. She wears her first-impression distaste nakedly on her face as she follows Char into the town, slowing to be shoulder-to-shoulder with Cinder to lower her voice. "Hey, these guys fucking suck. You know I've got, like, the tiniest fuse for this sort of thing so, um-- like, how're we feeling on bragging to make them feel like they missed out hard by losing you? If you don't want me to get mad then, uh-- say so fast, hah." "What happened to Soot, Ember--uh.. ... Ash?" Petra perks up at the name, but then just mumbles 'oh, that makes sense,' afterwards, putting the pieces together in her head. There are many types of ash. Even she has an Ash! "Ember had a kid. Named her after you." That, of all things, gives Petra pause. The idea of someone, anyone, having a kid in this environment instantly makes the scene feel more barbaric and unwholesome, especially someone who she immediately assumes-- and is soon confirmed-- is close to her own age. Sure, there's 23 year olds on Instagram having kids all the time-- and that doesn't feel any less disturbing to Petra than this does. Petra decides this has nothing to do with her own complicated feelings about motherhood, and instead assigns it to the imagined tribal prostitution that Cinder would've been subjected to if she'd stayed. How brutish! "Is Ember-- was Ember a friend of yours?" She mostly directs the question to Cinder, but she's got an eye on Char for how she'll react to the implication. "Visitors?" "Yo," Petra raises a hand up in a casual wave, seeming laid-back while intently scanning the crowd for people that register as 'important to Cinder'. Noticing that she's the one being asked if she wants to stay, and intuitively understanding all the passive-aggressive communication of that look, Petra makes her first, but surely not last, overly hostile decision of the evening. "I think we'd love to stay for dinner, actually." Petra crosses her arms, meeting Char's eyes steadily. "I'd hate to miss the chance to get to know the people who ended up making someone as cool as Cinder."
Angela	''Around Jupiter-4621. I've only been in the City for, like, a year.'' Granny Char frowns. "So they accept aliens before Outsiders huh." Granny Char says. Outskirts people using the term 'Outsiders' for themselves suggests something about how the City--how the facility--uses the term 'Outsiders' for multiversals. Cinder starts to say that Petra ISN'T an alien, but then she wonders if that's actually true because she IS from space. Can non-aliens be in space? If you're from space does that automatically make you an alien? Cinder's gaze goes distant as she confronts the ramifications of what may or may not constitutee an alien. If someone went from The City to space and decided to live there, would they become an alien? She has so many thoughts about this that she had never thought before because people living on the moon or any moon is not exactly something she had to think about before. She thinks about being in space for that one moment, at Sapient Heurestics, and seeing the stars like they were right in front of her and she could practically reach out and touch one--that's what it felt like, if only she could reach through the glass. Is SHE an alien now? She's feeling a bit alien. She seems... frustrated to hear those words. 'We're not going to let you move back in'. She doesn't intend to actually move back in, but she's still upset to hear it. Maybe she's MORE upset to hear it especially BECAUSE she doesn't intend to move back in. She takes Petra jerking a thumb at this old woman as encouragement. She mumbles. "You all think Th City is so great just because it keeps people like us out. But it turns out that doesn't make it good. I... I've been to space before." "You been to her moon?" Granny Char asks. "Wh--I'm not... It wasn't her moon. Or a moon. Our world's been connected to a whole bunch of others. If you hate living here so much I can just lead you all to a gate and you can all fuck off to any fancy city of you choice." "Mm." Granny Char does not give a satisfying response.
Angela	Just as Cinder is wondering if maybe she imagined this community being different from what she remembers, Petra leans in and murmurs with a beautiful ingenious idea, summarized as 'let's be smug as all hell'. Cinder realizes at this point, that kinda IS what she wants. She wants them to regret pushing her away. "Yeah," She murmurs, "Let's do it." ''Is Ember--was Ember a friend of yours?'' Cinder notices the eye on Char. And she gets the implication. She understands completely what Petra wants and tries to mentally signal to Granny Char to call her by a slur without Petra noticing which is difficult when Petra's actually directly asking her. "Well--I was pretty young, but yeah, we were playmates. I was totally inconsolable about losing her but, i mean, she's not as cool as you are." Ember, who is still within hearing range, laughs--it's a bit more easygoing. "Well I've never been to the moon. I don't like how everything went either but I'm glad you found some love in your life. You should tell us about some of your adventures." She can't wave--she's holding a baby!!!--but she does dip her head a little to try and be polite. "Let me hand Cin-...duhh...um. Let me hand the litle one over to Soot real quick haha...! And then I can check on the stew!" She slips inside. Now distracted by Ember, Cinder makes another jerk of her head to try and indicate to Granny Char she should insult her on the basis of her sexual preference but Granny doesn't seem to get it. How terrible! ''I think we'd love to stay for dinner, actually.'' Feeling like having dinner here with Petra and staying a bit later than expected means that maybe she won't get assassinated or exploded, Cinder is weirdly relieved by Petra making that offer. "Yeah, you're no the boss of us anymore, so you can't stop us from eating dinner. We're TOO STRONG." Granny stares at Cinder. "Arright." And she just steps in after Ember. "We eat together." "As a village,")] Cinder murmurs to Petra. "Hey out of all the adventures we've been on--what's your favorite actually?"
Petra Soroka	"So they accept aliens before Outsiders huh." Petra doesn't weigh in on Cinder's intense string of thoughts, or provide any particularly satisfying response. She just looks away and lets out a quietly derisive 'puh' of air, not interested in giving Char an answer one way or another. Really, Petra has plenty of feelings about whether she's an alien too. The contextual nature of the word is never more apparent than with Petra's cosmic homelessness, where two people in the same room could equally view her as an invader from Earth or some freak alien degenerate, and both be as right as the other. Her endless grind to get weirder has only made her more like an alien to everyone instead, without loosening the claws of her planetary origin from their hold on her flesh-- so, really, all Petra can do is sigh and end the conversational thread there. "Let's do it." "Got it," Petra discreetly fistbumps Cinder with her voice down low, sounding relieved. If she was asked to be on her best behavior, then someone might've ended up dead by the time dinner was over. "I was totally inconsolable about losing her but, i mean, she's not as cool as you are." Awkwardly hanging back from the rest of the village group, thumbs sticking out of her pockets and almost totally enveloped by her baggy sleeves, Petra's eyes widen imperceptibly at that phrase. Not because it really comes as a surprise-- it's nice to hear, but she considers herself cooler than any of the villagers here by default-- but because the comparison suddenly puts a massive amount of pressure on her that she hadn't anticipated. This is, somehow, the most normal family introduction she's ever had, and now she has a reputation and a hierarchy to match up to. "Uh-- I-I mean, I'm not that--" Petra remembers that she's actually supposed to be cool today, and that modesty is a weapon wielded by losers to enforce a tight band of mediocrity from those around them. She pulls her hand out of her pocket and gives Ember a light little fist bump on her elbow to not disturb the baby. When she gets that close to her, Petra's eyes fall onto the baby Cinder and linger there for a second, entranced in a way she can't describe that isn't wholly positive. "Okay, well, honestly it's not a fair competition. Sorry. But I bet you'd put up a good fight." Before Ember slips away and hands off the baby, Petra gives her a little finger-waggle wave meant only for the baby, and quietly murmurs, "Hey there, little baby Cinder."
Petra Soroka	"Hey out of all the adventures we've been on--what's your favorite actually?" Inside the smoky, stew-scented building, Petra crosses her arms and fidgets with the end of her sleeve, pinched between her fingers. With an eye to the fact that the question has an audience, Petra takes a minute to think before answering. "God... we've been to, like, at least a dozen different worlds together, huh? Let me see, um..." Petra counts on her fingers to organize her thoughts, even though there's nothing really to count. "Even though I had that whole weird electricity sickness thing, I thought the Pokemon world was really nice. I kind of, um, liked being on the opposite end of things for once, with sending you off with supplies so you could go stop that mountain from collapsing and save the world." "Though, um, like, not to be sappy, but-- I kind of think that festival we went to, that first time, was one of the prettiest places I've ever been. With that huge flower in the center and all the glowing pollen, and..." Shit! Neither of those are cool! Petra realizes that she's undermined her own tactic of being smug, and accidentally ended up being romantically sincere and nostalgic on reflecting on what may end up being her last date with Cinder, so she hastily adds at the end; "Derailing that evil fucking magic train together was cool too." After, once the meal is served, Petra moves on to phase two of her passive-aggressive smugness to Cinder's former family. "So, yeah. I guess you're probably wondering how we met, sort of? I only got to the City a bit over a year ago, when Cinder and I started working together, and I'm only around for a really specific reason. There's one person I have to save, in that awful shithole of a city, and then we're out of here." Her eyes dart to the side to glance at Cinder, before flicking back to keep challenging the village. "And that's coming up pretty soon. So probably this time next year, at the latest, we'll be traveling around worlds, or something."
Angela	Cinder returns any and all fistbumps. It's really important to bump fists with comrades, people you love, and close friends. She doesn't want this return to be a mistake or, at least, not be a mistake she can't appreciate. She feels ... weird looking at Baby Cinder. And Baby Cinder tries to inflict critical damage to Petra by reaching out with a little baby hand but Petra is too far and Baby Cinder is a baby. Petra gives a little wave to baby Cinder and even calls her Baby Cinder which is another slew of complicated feelngs. It's kinda cute to see her doing that but she does feel weird that there's a life named after her--and that the reason a life is named after her is because she was taken from this place without her consent. "Aw I think she likes you." Ember says before slipping inside. INSIDE CInder smiles immediately at being reminded of the Pokemon World. It was so charming it overpowers any kind of native stressors. "Oh yeah we really helped out there. Miss Angela too." "Mm. Miss Angela?" Granny Char, sitting down in a chair across a table that looks handmade. Actually the chairs look handmade too. Some of them are dubious looking. "Mutual friend of ours." Cinder hurriedly answers, not wanting to explain that Angela is either her boss or a robot to the people who are frequently attacked by robots. "Gosh Spinda's so cute. I hope they're doing okay." "Who's Spinda? Pokemon? They aliens too?" Granny Char is trying to keep up but not really with full effort. "Another mutual friend!" Cinder says, accidentally putting Angela in the same position as a swirly-eyed panda pokemon. She doesn't know if she considers Pokemon aliens though. "They're like ... cute goofy really friendly creatures. Even the ones being mean are kind of cute about it. Gosh they're hard to explain." She eases into a blushing smile when Petra brings up the first date. Being romantically sincere also debilitates Cinder in being cool because she's just being gushy happy about it. A few other villagers are making their way in which might be, actually, the whole village. Soot, a long haired man with red hair and wearing a similar garb as to Granny Char, but considerably less scarred up, is sitting next to Ember and Baby Cinder is in between them. At least in the outskirts, babies do exist.
Angela	"Glad to see you landed on your feet." Soot says though his expression remains serious and tough to read. "Mhm mhm! She is dating a space alien from the--sorry--''a'' moon and they're saving worlds together! And going on romantic dates--we could be doing more romantic dates ourselves, Soot...! Normally in a Project Moon plot, this is the point where Ember would reveal some secret envy that dooms the entire town and possibly Cinder but that doesn't seem to be happening here. She seems ... relieved and her smiles seem genuine. But when Petra reveals they're just leaving for good after saving one of their mutual friends her smile falters. And the phrase 'awful shithole of a city' seems to stick with her too. "...Was it really that bad, Cinder? Everyone said you'd be happier there..." Cinder falters a little and looks down at her little bowl of stew. It's spread out amongst the many here. "...I almost died a couple years ago but Petra saved me. Maybe moving there--I got lucky and met people who helped me live the kind of life I dreamed of. But most of them weren't from The City. It isn't thanks to anyone here." Ember stares at Cinder for a moment and then says, "Oh... I see. And you'll never visit again?" Cinder glances to Petra, fists tightening on her lap. The decision is easier than she thought it'd be. Indeed, it feels like the only answer she could possibly give. "No. I'll tell you where the Warpgate is, though, it's unguarded. So you can come visit, though. It's up to you. I won't chase after you anymore." Soot glances to Ember and makes an effort. "So is that how you met? You saved her? ... Thank you for that." "...Yeah..." Ember agrees honestly, but she's glowering at Granny Char right now who is just eating her stew.
Petra Soroka	"Pokemon? They aliens too?" Apparently, Petra's role as a support-figure in the Pokemon world has some kind of lasting effect on her mind and her relationship to the adventure as a whole. Despite her bitching, discharging, and moaning during the dreamlike worldhopping, she slipped naturally into being a background quartermaster for the real heroes, so it's with a bit of enthusiasm that she launches into a prompted intellectual response to Char's question, like a tutorial NPC. Unfortunately, the language she speaks isn't actually comprehensible at all to someone who isn't a multiversal native. "Well, really, we were the ones going to their world every time. I still haven't even heard of a world like that Unifying. So if you think about it, we were the aliens to them. But, like, I think they'd be called nonhumanoid sapioids, if you're being a stuffy nerd about it, or just, like, sophonts, broadly. But there's really not much difference between saying that and 'human'." Petra takes a sip of her stew, eyes half-lowered to rest on a knot in the hewn table. "Besides what Cinder said, I mean. That they're friendly." "...Was it really that bad, Cinder? Everyone said you'd be happier there..." The pleasantry that Ember gives off doesn't register any differently to Petra from Char's prickly resentment. Looking around the room, at the glimpses of the village she can get through the windows, Petra tries to imagine a little Cinder running in that clearing there, stretching to reach that doorknob there, peeking around that fence over there-- and then all at once, everyone in this room but her feels suffocating. Every word out of Ember's mouth grates, every sideways glance from Char sparks anger so hot in Petra's chest that she digs her nails into her palm, Soot's stern expression feels like a heavy woolen blanket that she needs to claw her way out of. What was there to ever get out of visiting family besides the resolve to never see them again? "The City's miserable in some ways, I guess. It's fine in most ways. But who cares if she was happier. Why's that a justification for staying anywhere forever?" Petra, arms tense and voice edged with irritation, lounges her elbow back on the chair, meeting everyone's stares in turn with intense, omnidirectional defiance. "It's not good enough. Sitting around and letting the world shovel whatever mediocre pile of shit it deems fit for you into your mouth isn't good enough. There's better things to do, better places to be, people to fight for, than one city can ever offer, and if you don't decide to leave, then you're just rotting in place." "Honestly, I'm kind of grateful for the ways the City obviously sucks. If you couldn't point to the evil fucking corporations blending people up for whatever, or the monster attacks, or the way everyone is so pathetically, psychotically self-interested, then it'd be a lot harder to get the motivation to just fuck off out of there. There's nowhere-- almost nowhere-- that humanity isn't fucking poisoned like that, but the City makes it so obvious that you can't help but hate them."
Petra Soroka	"So is that how you met? You saved her? ... Thank you for that." "Yeah." Petra takes another long sip of stew, seemingly entirely comfortable in the precarious emotional position of radiating so much hatred at a family dinner. "But it's not like she's helpless, or anything. I just got there at the right time to stop some senseless random violence from killing her; she's plenty capable at fighting and we work as a team. If she'd needed to, she could've taken out all those robots herself too." The unspoken implication, that Petra falls silent to let hang in everyone's minds, is that 'Cinder is so far beyond all of you that the things that get you cowering in fear are less than routine to her'. The other part that she neither says nor implies is that the only reason Cinder's capable of that is because of special psychic armaments. Maybe it's a little presumptuous for Petra to drive ideological wedges between Cinder and her former family, but then again, what else do you date Petra for, besides yearning for that.
Angela	''Non-humanoid sapiods.'' "Monsters?" Char tenses. "Not like we get. They're just their own society. They were perfectly friendly. Friendlier than most." Cinder realizes, of course, they didn't exactly know they weren't fellow pokemon though but she pushes the thought out of her head because she doesn't like thinking like Granny Char, particularly right now. ''What was there to ever get out of visiting family besides the resolve to never see them again.'' Cinder places a hand on top of one of Petra's. She seems resolved. If they want to see her again, they won't know where to find her. If they really wanted to, they could show it. Actions over words. That seems to be her decision. ''Why's that a justification for staying anywhere forever?'' "I...guess it isn't..." Ember is considering something she never really thought too long about in a very long time. "You make the world sound bigger than I ever imagined it could be." She gives the Baby Cinder a small bounce to try and reassure the child despite the conversation being dire enough that the baby wouldn't necessarily need to understand--to understand. Cinder has some stew. She seems to be trying to get through it quickly. Petra has a way of making the world seem so clear and a way to push the fog away before she even realizes it's there. ''I just got there at the right time to stop some random senseless violence from killing her.'' Soot and Ember both open their mouths but it's Granny Char who speaks up first. "I suppose our priorities were never the same. It's true. Our little Cinder is free as a wildfire now. A mighty Huntress in her own right. I would not wish that life on anyone, but it is your choice to make." She stands up and leaves with her stew unfinished. Soot sighs but is silent. "I think..." Cinder murmurs. "I'm ready to go. Are you ready? I think I got what I needed." Resolve, apparently. "Um..." Ember says. "...Before you go can you tell us where the warpgate is? I can use the time to get some of your old things..." Cinder looks to Petra, apparently deciding it's up to her.