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Owner Pose
Lilian Rook HAZEL: You're not.
HAZEL: You're sorry you got yelled at.
HAZEL: But I don't want you to be sorry.
HAZEL: I'm fine. It doesn't bother me if you yell.

    Elsewhere, Lilian, non-privy to the Nintendo DS, stares back at Arthur. "Did you just realize that women exist or something?" she asks, half-paying attention. "This is what video games do to you."

    Oreshnika has already vanished into the dark and dusty guts of the comms post. If one were to examine it in a detached and rational way, the space given over to fifty military personnel, even on a part time basis, is way too much for one girl. Experiencing it in the moment though, it somehow feels cramped.

    There are wrappers, bags, trays, bottles, and boxes, of unpacked milsurp absolutely everywhere. Rolling chairs are scattered randomly in your way, knocked over as foot hazards, or occasionally clustered into corners with a blanket thrown over them. Most of the bunks, lounges, bathrooms, and meeting rooms, when you see a door ajar here and there, are only packed full of plastic reflec-coated crates, still sealed and belted together. Hitting a lightswitch on the way in activates nothing. The fans and heating are cold. The electricity hasn't worked in a very long time.

    You have to chase Oreshnika a little, through cramped little prefab hallways full of garbage that she has memorized and you have not. The dust and stagnant air are a little much, but you quickly notice that you don't smell anything chemical or rotted, and you haven't seen a single stain or mold. She keeps going all the way until she hits what must be the second lounge.

    There, you find her again, curled up in a particularly exaggerated dent in a cheap afterthought of a sofa, right underneath a window simply filled from the bottom to the top of the wall intentation with small boxes and random clutter. An entire second sofa is covered in faded plush toys. A card table is cluttered with obsolete video game refuse. Dusty old board games and books sit stacked up in a micro wine closet for officers. A stack of clothes that clearly haven't been worn in years upon years is folded up in a corner. The old remains of an MRE dated 'OCT 2048' are scattered across a relocated endtable and pushed to one side, away from a blank paper and an enormous stack of pencil crayons.

    Dreamcatchers(?) and dried vegetables(?) hang from the dark ceiling. An entire untouched sewing kit sits in an armchair, along with a heap of blankets over the back, and a stack of books underneath the chair. A woven rug, and the blanket Oreshnika herself has curled up in, seem handmade, not milsurp. Yet, despite absolutely screaming haunted from every angle, a pervading sense of safety exudes from the dusty surfaces. It feels like you could trip and slam your head on a table corner and be just fine somehow.

    Oreshnika, despite having just spoken, is already furiously typing over a glowing smartphone. The ghastly glow of text app whitespace just makes her half-uncovered face look even paler, but at least she doesn't look particularly unhealthy (vitamin D notwithstanding). The low quality freemium text to speech belts out:

    "It doesn't have internet." That must be to Bond. "The internet is gone. Before I was born. I got bored one day, and set it up, in case someone in the village kept one. That way we could talk." Trudy can see her eyes glance up at her. "Yeah. Please don't complain. I know it's not fair, that I get all these things that others don't. But I can't change it, okay? So don't be mean." She seems to have no comment on the last five minutes of Tamamo setting up an entire kitchen, but otherwise says, "See? I'm fine. Everything is okay here. Please tell me what you need help with. You can rely on me."

    But then her gaze wanders sideways at Petra. Her finger visibly hesitates, then rapidly types out "You know my name. I heard you all speaking. They all know. So why did you call me that?"
Ishirou Ishirou before entering gets a set of pots from Tamamo, who he carries off to fetch water.  Somehow, Arthur hears a side quest music chime, with the quest being 'Talk with Petra.'  A bit later, Ishirou and Petra will come back carrying water.  In fact, POD is even helping out with carrying the water by holding a large pot.  

Ishirou sets these down near Tamamo, "Anything else I can help you with, Ms. Tamamo?" he asks, upbeat.  He doesn't worry about Petra, because the talk will likely help her communicate.  He hopes anyway!  

When Oreshnika asks for details, he takes a moment to try and connect to her phone with his hacking.  It'll be easier to try and share the data this way than try to explain every detail.  She'll get a picture of the various Nazca agents they fought.  This as well as the Russian forces gathering, as well as all of the efforts they're taking, and anything he got on their magic societies.  

"I am thinking the Russians want to unify the land under themselves, and want to try and bring you and yours in by force...the Nazca people want you and will do anything /and everything/ to get you.  We want to protect you and your people.  We want to make sure Nazca is completely stopped because their methods are..."

"Honestly worse than the monsters."
James Bond      Bond follows, though hardly in spirited fashion. It's hard to say why--maybe he doesn't want to startle Hazel, but it's equally likely that he's concerned about stepping on some precious item mixed in with the trash. The clutter is navigated with a stone-faced expression.

     "Gone, is it?" He sounds almost relieved. Bond turns a knocked-over swivel chair right side up, dusts off the seat, and sits down. "It makes sense. Probably for the better. If it comes back in your lifetime, you ought to try and keep a tighter hold on it than the people that came before you." He crosses one leg over the other and casts an eye towards the completely blocked-off window, looking around the room.

     Ishirou's assertion draws him back into the conversation, his brow furrowed as he nods his agreement. "They don't have the element of surprise as long as you're around, which is good. But just 'keeping them out' isn't enough to stop them. These sorts of people love passive resistance. It gives them all the time they need to figure out where and when you'll be at your weakest." There is a hint of something dark in his voice, and his eyes can't stay focused on her when he makes that utterance.

     "Can you see them right now?" He asks. "Could you tell me how many there are, where they're gathering and what they're doing this very moment?"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Did you just realize that women exist or something?

    Arthur regards Lilian Rook anxiously, and takes a deep breath. "Complicated." He says, vaguely. But he chooses not to hold things back from her. He pulls to the back of the procession in the halls of the comms post, so that Lilian can see the illustration without showing it to everyone else. He gestures carefully, tapping on the one with the red halo...

>Arthur: Damn bitch you live like this?

    "Man, shut the hell up for real. I'm not gonna criticize this girl for existing in a stressful world at a stressful time with a stressful life, and then, somehow, feeling some goddamn stress. Fuck off with that." Arthur mutters to someone, in a dismissive tone.

    Then, he shakes his head and focuses on talking to Oreshnika. "I got *one* objective." He explains. "I'm out here to keep all four Blooms safe, and get the big cosmic biz done quick, clean, and happy as it can be done. You motherfuckers got hella destiny, and every asshole with an agency wants in on it. So," He gestures, open palmed, in a wide half-shrug.

    "Help me get this, help me understand. Help me get shit done for the Blooms like you. Help me figure out who all is trying to fuck with it, so I can break a lot of noses, jaws, and knees. That'll help me help my number-one priority on this world, and that means I'll owe you a hell of a lot."

    He doesn't find any place to sit. He just sort of drifts in a sitting position, arms laced behind his head, keeping it casual, keeping it non-judgmental.

    He's an adult unmarried man, he's not living in conditions that are much better than this. What are you expecting, hypocrisy?
Petra Soroka     Petra trudges back up to the outpost alongside Ishirou, carrying two full pots of water. She insisted on carrying them, even if POD was capable of holding them all, and now her arms burn with exertion and her flushed face is beaded with sweat. When she reaches the plateau, her steps slow to a halt, and her face starts flipping through a slideshow of complicated expressions at the prospect of facing everyone, and Oreshnika, after her outburst.

    She finally settles on looking defeated, and lays a pot on the ground before entering the building, flipping open her DS to check if Oreshnika responded. As she reads it, her lips press into a line. Guilt is the hardest emotion to confront head on, and the fact that Oreshnika's words don't manage to stir any anger in Petra forces her to experience that guilt raw and unfiltered.

    And it sucks! Only one thing to do about it, though. Petra sighs and slumps her shoulders, leaning down to retrieve the pot.

    She tries to keep her footsteps completely silent as she traverses the cluttered hallway, careful not to disturb a single piece of trash on the ground. Following the sound of everyone's voices, she eventually rejoins, awkwardly setting the pots down in Tamamo's kitchen. Her face is only red because she was carrying those heavy containers, of course.

    Eyes turned towards the floor, Petra mutters a quiet "Hey, everyone." and filters towards the back of the group, flickering her gaze up to Oreshnika.

    When she addresses Petra with that surrogate voice, she flinches, then looks at Oreshnika--or at least, the couch she's laying on--in surprise.

    "Oh. Um. Sorry, it was--it was your name, in the thing. If you just want to be called Oreshnika, I'll do that. So--" Petra cuts off, remembering the messages. Her eyebrows are drawn together in confusion, or maybe focus, like she's directing all her mental energy towards not fucking this up.
Cantio Following Oreshnika isn't particularly difficult for Cantio despite the relatively low light conditions. It probably helps that she's not moving all that quickly, but she actually seems to be in her element stepping over and around so much stuff strewn about without disturbing any of it. She's also peeking around a lot, too, trying to commit most of this layout to memory even with as large as this place is.

That much, at least, doesn't get any easier, and Cantio's soon giving up on that in favor of just following Oreshnika's trail. There's the occasional 'huh' and 'ooh' on the way, but the bulk of those curious noises are saved for when she's done maneuvering through all those weirdly non-smelly hallways into the second lounge.

The sounds of Oreshnika's text to speech snap Cantio back to reality, and she opens her mouth before shutting it quickly. Instead of talking to Oreshnika, she instead brings out her own phone as she approaches her. Cantio squats nearby-ish, staying just far enough out of Oreshnika's personal space that she can't get kicked in the face without some effort to reach her.

"Do you know of any holes in their defenses? Our first encounter with them was pretty rough, so having a better idea of how to approach them going forward would be a huge help." Instead of speaking, Cantio's phone starts speaking with it's own text-to-speech program, although it sounds less like regular (bad) machine inflection and more like someone pretending to talk like a robot with a shitty filter. She peers at her screen for several moments, then taps on it again.

"Or... Would you be able to create openings? Something that might give the other bases like this one a better chance at resisting NAZCA if they were to show up. We can't be everywhere at once, so I'd like them to have a better chance at surviving when we aren't there."
Rita Ma      Rita peers over Arthur's shoulder as best she can. When she glimpses the portrayal of herself with those blue butterfly wings, she sucks in a tense little breath. Her hands ball up with the discomfort of being Seen. There's gratitude, buried beneath it, for the apparent censorship.

     But even the censorship dredges up unpleasant memories.

     When permitted entry, Rita slips in without meeting Oreshnika's eyes. The nervous energy in her demands some release. She finds it by cleaning. She doesn't ask, and she isn't asked, but she starts to right the chairs and tuck them away where they seem to belong, stack up the lunch boxes, and pack the bottles and MRE bags away for later disposal.

     Most of the conversation passes her by in that quiet work. But she does pipe up, eventually, without turning around.

     "You said you weren't hurt as bad as the people outside, Ms. Oreshnika. But that still means you were hurt. It seems like they've healed really well. That's thanks to you, isn't it?"

     "Do you think you've had a chance to heal from whatever happened, too?"
Trudy Grimm     Trudy Grimm knows a thing or two about picking her way through a home cluttered with odds and ends. One can easily imagine the fur-clad girl covered in beads and charms would have a similar living arrangement, just more . . . spooky. And by the look on her face, likely less dusty and more prone to windows. But she does manage her way through without knocking things over or tripping more than once.

    Though she had initially started collecting discarded wrappers and trash in assistance to Tamamo's endeavors, the TTS voice directed at her along with that look prompts her to stop. Those vaguely luminous green eyes close, "My apologies. I wasn't trying to be mean. It just kind of... came out."

    She makes a show of being satisfied with her tidying up (she very much isn't, but is starting to realize it's Kind Of Rude). She dusts her hands on the hem of her skirt, eyes still closed, "I met someone who seemed to be quite fond of you before I came here. You probably saw it, even."

    "Mister Ai-Mökö called you the Autumnal Angel. It seems he's quite right to do so."
Tamamo     Tamamo accepts the supplies of water with a, "Thank you, Ishirou. And thank you, Ms. Soroka. It is a simple task that remain, and so, you may leave it to me, have no worries. I would not wish to distract you."

    And it is simple. She's 'just' making stew. It doesn't have to involve much more than mixing ingredients, adding them to boiling water at different times, with more water set aside for cleaning afterward, or adjustments. Intending something 'hearty,' she's already browning the meat by the time Ishirou and Petra are back with the water, and chopping most everything else.

    "It would be better if we could leave this to simmer for some time, but... oh, I wonder if you might help with that, Lilian? Only if it is no trouble, of course." Though she can't quite call good food a trivial matter, so she doesn't.

    'You can rely on me.'

    "Though you says so," Tamamo says, once she has the ability to speak directly and without being relayed, "even so, I am hesitant to place overly much upon you. Are there not matters that would be too much of an imposition? Is there nought beyond your capability? I would not wish to ask of you things that cannot be done."

    It's a shift in tone and perspective from the first moment, and that's intentional. If Oreshnika wants to help, not to be helped, nor to trade, Tamamo has no issue with rephrasing her desires in those terms, though the topic remains the same.

    "If it is not too much... ah, but this is a new matter that must be explained, is it not? I suppose that it may be difficult to believe, if one cannot view the whole, and see from where it begins, and glimpse the shape of the ending. It has become known to us that there are four individuals known as 'blooms,' and by searching for one of these, we did find you, and so, we know you to be among that number. These are the people who are not alike, but have received a similar judgment of being unlike others. Is this easy enough to follow?"

    Hopefully, it is, leaving Tamamo to clap her hands together (knives set aside for the moment) and deliver her request. "And so, this is the point upon which I most fervently wish for your aid. Would you be a friend to the other three of the four? Ah, if that is too much, then just the one with us now, or the two, including she who told me of you? I beg you, out of love, that you provide your friendship. Certainly, in the whole of the world, there can be no one else like you, and so, there is no one else but you who can fulfill this wish of mine."
Lilian Rook     When Ishirou goes to hack the phone, he gets as far as finding it's registered with the self-contact 'Ekaterina' on 2012 from an overseas provider, the card expired an eternity ago, and the battery is reading a perpetual 5%. The instant he tries to work with the scratched electronics any further, Oreshnika bolts upright in her seat, and the word "Stop!" comes from her throat in a strained, panicked whine.

    An arc of static(?) electricity jumps from the phone's transceiver and smacks Ishirou in the head. Intense enough to be visible, but not strong enough to do much more than make him fall out of his chair and need a second to regain the sense of vision. When the room flickers, the fact that the covers have fallen off her head briefly reveals blonde curls, a round face, and a terrified expression, before she successfully, pulls the sheets back up again. Tik tap tap tak. "I'm sorry. Please just speak normally. I'll understand."

    A list of reasonable questions. "What is nazka? Why are you fighting humans? What is a bloom? Shouldn't you help them? What cosmic blitz? What destiny?" Then "You don't owe me anything. I owe you. I should have tea or coffee. I forgot. I'm sorry. You need help and I forgot. Please, just tell me what you need and I'll give it to you. I don't get any of this." Unfortunately, it seems that this child is not as mysteriously in the know about everything as Sakura. She knows as much as Lilian did, three or four years ago.

    She stares at Petra. The blankets lower from her face a little bit, but it looks like . . . defiance? She's frowning, with those dark-bleached little lips. "Not that. That's how mother taught me my name in English. The other thing." Tap tap tap tap taptaptap. "I'm Oreshnika. Hazel is okay too. I'm not a 'they'. Don't call me 'them'. It's like you're saying 'that thing'. Why would you do that? I haven't done anything to you."
Lilian Rook     Paying a bit more attention to bond, she says "The men? I know about them. But it's not like I see them with my eyes. I just ask if they're there. The stars are the best to ask. We're friends. But if they're in the bad places, then even the stars won't know, and I don't like making them feel bad by asking questions they can't answer." He can hear a shuddery breath. "Don't worry though. There are no bad places around here. Everyone in the village got rid of them long ago. They burned them. Mother helped. So it's fine."

    A lingering pause. "Defenses? You want to keep fighting them? Why?" She looks over. "You keep saying that someone is going to get hurt, or taken, or killed, but you can't decide. You all keep saying different things. You don't know, do you? You don't really know what's going to happen. You should just let me talk to them."

    A longer pause. "You should let me talk to them. Some of their friends died. They must be hurt too. They must be angry and sad and frustrated and lonely too."

    Oreshnika cannot hide the recognition in her eyes when Trudy says that name. Unlike Lilian or Sakura, it seems she has no practice. "I forgive you. I understand." she types, first. Then, "I'm not an angel. The people here are mostly from the east anyways. The angel was just 'supposed to happen', so it's me. But they really believe in it, and I don't want to make them disappointed." Tap tap. Tap. "I'm sad about him. He is engaged. I'm scared of telling his fiancé."

    When Rita hurries in and starts cleaning, this, of all things, is enough to cause Oreshnika to abandon her blanket fortress, and jump out of her chair. She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again, instead putting her phone down and squeezing Rita's shoulders, with exactly the strength a girl her size actually should have, looking pleadingly into her eyes. She whispers, low and strained, in a tongue Rita had heard at the G.D.F base, but not here, "Please, don't. I don't want you to. I'll do it myself. I can do it by myself. I'm sorry it's messy. I sorry I upset you. But don't . . . do things for me."

    "You're hurt a lot worse than I am too, arent' you?"
Ishirou Ishirou was caught off guard by this and shocked out of his chair.  It takes some time for his vision to come back as he's trying to recover from the sense of disorientation.  Rubbing his head he's constantly saying "Ow ow ow.." for a few moments before he recovers and his vision unblurs.  "Sorry, sorry...but that is every bit as normal for me as speaking out loud.  In fact, I want to say slightly more normal.  I used to be an android...robot person.  I'm less than these days, but I have electronic bits in my body still that help me operate as I did before."

"I was simply trying to show you what I know in a way I thought was preferred to speech...ugh.." he says, still nursing the headache.  "Nazca is an organization from America that is trying to kidnap people with special powers.  Like yours.  The Bloom thing can be explained by someone else better than I can.."

"They've done horrible things, including damning an entire town to the Man in the Moon," Ishirou explains, "And they want to kidnap you for some reason we haven't been able to figure out."

But Oreshnika is determined to think they can be reasoned with.  He looks to POD.  "POD...projector."

So Ishirou will play the entire memory.  The entire thing for Oreshnika.  When he tried to convince them that they weren't enemies.  Trying to broker peace.  What they did to him, what they tried to do to Lilian.  From his point of view it radiants a sense of desperation and pain that was hard to feel over the radio that night.
Rita Ma      "You shouldn't talk to them, I think. They wanted bad things with Ms. Rook. They want-"

     Rita starts when Oreshnika grips her shoulders, and a wooden lunchbox clatters to the floor. Her eyes are wide when they meet Oreshnika's for the first time. Her arms hang limply.

     "Please, don't. I don't want you to. I'll do it myself. I can do it by myself."

     Shock fades, replaced by recognition. Awful, awful recognition. That's a lie- the kind of lie Rita would tell. If Oreshnika 'could' do it, things wouldn't be like this, would they?

     "This is just something I like to do to calm myself, Ms. Oreshnika. It's not a favor to you." A lie for a lie. "But you can help if you really want to."

     "You're hurt a lot worse than I am too, aren't you?"

     Rita's hand gently cups Oreshnika's on her shoulder, and she forces a peaceful smile onto her face. But her eyes aren't smiling.

     "No," Rita says. "I'm not."
Trudy Grimm     Trudy closes her eyes again, folding her hands behind her back. Like this, she leans against the doorframe, out of the way enough that others can use it. Though Tamamo encouraged her to resume the tidying efforts, seeing Oreshnika get more and more uncomfortable has convinced her to stop for real.

    "To some, an angel can just... be a very nice person. Nothing spiritual or magical. Someone kind, who thinks about others before she thinks about herself." An eye opens, "In that sense, I'm a little devil. Especially by contrast. I've always been a dweller in other peoples' shadows, after all."

    On the subject of the mountain man, the witch bobs her head from side to side, "I get the feeling that you don't like it when people do things for you, or on your behalf. I understand that, I really do. Independence is very important." She stops moving, eyes opening, "But I feel like I should be the one to tell his loved ones. I was the last person to speak with him, after all. You probably saw that, too. My... ~unique~ talents when it comes to the Deceased."

    She unfolds a hand, waving it back and forth dismissively, "Now, I want to make it clear that he's not bound to me. I let him go after he was done helping us repair the Archer. He lived a hard life, he's earned the rest."

    She re-folds that hand, again, "If you want to accompany me to tell his fiance, I'm OK with that. But I wouldn't want you to do that all by yourself."
Lilian Rook     Lilian enters in with Tamamo. Existing inside someone's home, she finally allows the armour to scatter off of her, in the absence of tension and will. Motes of black metal and golden embers drift away, and reveal the thick coat she was wearing before-- realistically a little too large to have ever actually fit beneath it. "Better that we have it now, before getting to heavy subjects." she says, in dull agreement. Where water is boiled and ingredients are added, Lilian kneels herself by the pot (habitually, in Japanese style now, after so many of these), holds her hands out to either side of the vessel, and very slowly turns them, as if adjusting an invisible dial. The bubbling becomes a hiss, then a steady hum.

    She looks over the top, and she and Oreshnika make eye contact. Oreshnika retrieves her phone, to say "You look a lot different." Lilian blinks slowly, and replies "You look . . . well?" Then "Apologies. I was rather stunned for a moment. I know someone like you, but it turns out that you're both complete opposite." Oreshnika climbs back into her couch dent, and types "I told you. No one is like me." Then, after a pause. "Sorry. It's my fault for not understanding you. All of you. You all have so much, have been through so much, I can't even imagine. I'll never get it on my own. I always have to ask. I know people hate that."

    She looks at Tamamo, and half-lowers the phone. She types more slowly, with a fingernail. "There are lots of things I can't do. Most things. I'm pretty useless. But I can always ask someone to help you. They're always glad to help. Especially when people usually don't know how to talk to them. It helps if you're clear. I'm sure someone can help you. I don't mind relying on them, if it's for someone else's sake."

    Tamamo is actually answering one of her questions, and so Oreshnika watches attentively, in ghostly silence, lit by her phone screen and the boiler flames. "Oh. You mean other people who also can't understand everyone else. I get it. Mother said something about that." Then, she nearly drops the phone, but for her white knuckled grip. She fixes her eyes on the screen far more than she needs to type. "You really came out here just to make a friend? I'm really really sorry. I should have cleaned up. I should have got dressed. You're working so hard. Trying so hard. You crossed the world and climbed the mountains just to ask me to be your friend, and I was just here in my pajamas."

    "I'm really really sorry. I'm not like you at all. I can't do things like that. You went through so much trouble. That's just normal to you, right? You just do things that are really hard and scary because you're used to it. Please don't think I was looking down on you or being lazy. I don't understand what it's like to do that. I've never done anything hard and scary, so I can't imagine it." An audible sigh punctuates silent typing and tinny TTS. "Of course I'll try. I owe you that. You went through so much, and I didn't have to do anything. I'd be awful, to say we can't be friends." She then looks around the room blankly, and says "Where are they?"
James Bond      It is Bond's turn to react out of fear, when she mentions talking to the men. Alarm and concern overtake him, have him rising from his seat as if someone were storming the door. "No!" He all but shouts it--the first time he has raised his voice in the presence of anyone here, much less in front of Oreshnika. "...I'm sorry. I've been through a lot, yes. But I shouldn't have shouted." He waits for Ishirou's memory to finish playing, to compose himself, before continuing.

     "Those men..." Bond's face contorts with concern and fatigue, a hand tracing up to run across it in exasperation. "Those men are very bad. NAZCA is the name of the organization they work for." He sighs. "I'll do my best to explain it." Bond stops himself from reaching for a cigarette, and takes to pacing, instead--back and forth, through what limited free space there is in the clutter.

     After a moment's thought, he speaks up again, stopping in his tracks, forcing himself to look her way. "A long time before the monsters from outside found this world, before there was an Internet, before there was even electricity, humans made their own monsters."

     "Ideas that spread, that took on lives of their own, that grew and grew and pulled in more people to justify their existence." He frowns.

     "The most dangerous thing about those old ideas is that they can hide what they really are. Make themselves seem anything but monstrous. And once that happens, *people* become the teeth and claws and eyes and hands of the monster. It doesn't matter if not everyone does--only that the right people do, over years and years."

     Bond manages to untense just enough that he can convince himself into sitting down again. Hands clasped and hanging below his knees, he continues grimly.

     "NAZCA is a limb of a monster like that; those men are the claws. The monster they belong to isn't as old as some, but it's especially ferocious and ruthless. You're right that we don't know exactly what they intend to do with you. If you think they know, maybe you ought to ask the stars. But in the end, I can say with absolute certainty that whatever they want is bad for you and for those people outside."

     "Those men are so much a part of that monster that they'll hurt anyone they're told to hurt, for any reason. Even the people they're supposed to be protecting, if the right person gives the order." His eyes flick anxiously to the blocked-off window, as if those very men were outside this instant.

     "That's especially true of the people who give them orders. When someone becomes part of the monster's eyes, they can't see other human beings as anything but food or potential threats."

     Where are they? Bond sighs through his nose, leaning back in the chair. "It's entirely likely they're in one of the bad places. That's something of a strategy of theirs--hiding where the other monsters are."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Hand off the DS!

    Arthur hands the DS off to Tamamo to try something out. It'll be less patronizing from her because of her fascinations and curiosities and such, surely.

>Arthur: Talk with Petra

    "Hey." He leans over into her dialogue window for a moment, obnoxiously planting an arm on her shoulder. "No speedruns, let her take shit at her own pace. Ask her to do some link-cable shit later, not right now. Share some of that ramen. Sound good?"

>Arthur: A poster, denied her posts. Level with her, but don't patronize

    "Alright, look, you're in the kindness biz, the helping-people biz. Here's the deal." Arthur's drifting seat takes him towards Oreshnika, and he brings up his quest log. "Put this in your eyeballs for a hot minute."

--------------------------------------
| QUEST LOG                            |
| - The Tree in London                 |
|  <+> Discover the truth of the Rivet |
|  <x> REACH OUT AND UNDERSTAND        |
|  <+> Identify the First Bloom        |
|   <?> Become buds with Lilian Rook.  |
|   < > Aid Lilian Rook in her quest.  |
|  <+> Identify the Second Bloom       |
|   <+> Become Sakura's pal            |
|   <+> Aid Sakura in her quest        |
|  <+> Identify the Third Bloom        |
|   < > Become Oreshnika's new friend. |
|   < > Help Oreshnika with her quest. |
|  < > Identify the Fourth Bloom       |
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Tamamo     It's with Lilian's help that an hour of simmering becomes something more like a minute of very careful attention. Tamamo watches the pot with the eyes of a hunter, waiting for the signs and smells, and then places her hand over Lilian's with a smile, satisfied with the result. Letting the flavors permeate and ingredients soften required care and time.

    "And now, might someone assist me with serving? Ah, how many bowls should I... two, four, six... is it ten?"

    She looks just a bit distracted when Ishirou says 'mrs.', giving a not-quite-smooth correction. "Ah, I am not married yet." The subject of pictochat provides a welcome, if momentary, distraction. There did always seem something missing from the offering of things like 'emoticons.' Better to create her own art, she's sure.

    When Arthur does her the favor of lending the DS, Tamamo says, "Oh, my, thank you." She can only use it when she's not either ladling or eating stew, but she'll get to it, presently.

    The stew is fairly good, because of course it is. It radiates with warmth, fatty nutrients, and normalcy. It fills the belly and wards from chill. It's not magical and it doesn't need to be. There are enough bowls for everyone.
Cantio Cantio watches Hazel at first as she addresses everyone's questions and requests, and it takes a while for something to finally click in her head. Once it does, largely thanks to so much of it being spelled out on the radio, she slips the phone back into her pocket before standing back up to face her properly.

"Sorry about that. Anyway... Um. Yeah! Well, no, I'd rather not fight them again if there's nothing to gain from it, but it's still a possibility unless something decisive happens." She pauses briefly, weighing whether or not to actually tell her more for a moment before opting to just go with the upfront option. "We already know they're capable and willing to kill us, and they've killed at least one of the people in the lighthouses before."

Cantio waits until Hazel steps away from Rita to go back to her couch, using that time to  mouth something silently to herself several times. Eventually, she speaks up again, apparently practicing the pronunciation in her head. "Ai-Moko. I'd like to believe they're willing to agree to a ceasefire, but I'm not willing to put anyone else at risk over that hope." She nods at James' assessment of NAZCA and their role as limbs of the Letter Agency, then takes her phone back out to swipe through the recordings she has before stopping on one in particular.

"If you can speak to them remotely without tipping them off as to where you are, that's fine. I just... I can't trust people like that so easily, and I don't think they'd trust people like us, either." Cantio tries to chuckle, but it comes out as an awkward cough. She taps on the recording, then holds her phone out to Hazel as the recording plays out.

It's a recording Cantio took of Trudy summoning Ai-Moko's ghost, and of the discussion they had with him. It's an incredibly steady recording, and the audio quality is immaculate! Whether the tech is capable of recording ghost sightings, though, remains to be seen.
Arthur Lowell >==>

    He scrolls through this extensively. "So, I'm not gonna ask you to handle a bunch of shit you can't handle. But Timtam there is right, friendship is what I'm figuring out here. Here's what I know. In London, there's a tree, and that tree is like the definition of existence, somehow. You don't have to understand that, just tell me if it sounds familiar when I talk about forgetting old things, learning new things, new senses, new ways of being. Turning what feels right into new skin, turning inside out, disappearing and never needing to understand another human again. Sounding familiar? Being something all unto yourself, self-proving, unshaped by other souls, that kind of thing. What I know is, there's four of you, four with a big cosmic destiny, and it's got to do with a wish, maybe a wish you made."

    "Someone thinks the world will end and leave only you four, something about what the Antegent are going to do. So I want to get you together, get you all linked, get you the friends you need. And, honestly, I wanna wing it from there, I'll just trust that's a good step towards making sure the whole world don't end. So that's the task, the big one."

    And so he gestures to Lilian. "First Bloom. See her, over there? Second couldn't make it, she's holed up on Fuck-Off High-Up Mountain on account of swords conspiracies. What about *your* bud? The one you were talking about relying on? Who's that?"
Lilian Rook     Oreshnika glares sheepishly at Ishirou. "I'm sorry. I understand what it's like to struggle to talk to people. I just got worried. This phone is important." When she hears him mention that particular Antegent, rather than recoiling like he'd said an especially abhorrent slur (even Lilian winces slightly), she stares at him innocently, and types "I really don't like him. He's so mean and selfish. I can't talk to him about anything. He just ignores me and says it's really really important to make everyone look at him. He says he has to save them. That's stupid. I'm saving them. So I just ignore him."

    Ishirou gets sixty seconds into a live footage of a hideously violent firefight, before the sound of Oreshnika hyperventilating under the covers becomes loud enough to hear over the audio. "Stop . . . please, turn it off . . ." she whimpers, sinking into the sofa, screwing her eyes shut. "I told you. I don't ¶practise suffering/know the taste of death/understand my own fear¶ ! I'm not like you . . . ! I don't have ¶intense gravity/solidity and reality/truth and validity/stories worth sharing¶ like you!"

    Some of her words slide right past the ear and buzz around in the skull. A different dialect, from speaking to the stars.

    She flinches, when Bond of all people yells. Not as if it shocks her, but as if it doesn't. Oreshnika is curled up into as small of a ball as she can get, when Bond works himself back down, watching his face rather than her phone. The way she carefully studies his expression is uncomfortable. Not like a normal person would, trying to read truthfulness and intent. Not like Lilian would, as if trying not to remind herself his expressions exist. As if she is memorizing each fraction of a frown or a sigh and referencing it against something she has memorized.

    "Mother was around then." she says, simply assuming Bond will know what she means by 'then. "She told me about it lots. How people's hopes went really wrong, when bad people got to be in charge of everything. How not all of our people were good, and not all of their people were bad. I kind of figured out that she was dumbing it down, when I got older. But I never asked for more. It sounded like a sensitive subject. She ran away, back then." Tap. Taptap. Pause. Tap tap. "She said that when you trick someone for a very, very long time, it stops being a trick. It becomes true. It becomes who they are. You mean they're like that?" It's hard to deal with her long pauses for thought, when her conversing speed is already so slow. "I can ask for them to tell me when the men come up again. Then we'll know."
Ishirou Ishirou stops it when she asks him to, especially when Bond takes over.  It was important to get the message across, not traumatize her.  He sighs and sinks a little.  "It's fine," he says about the phone, "I could instead offer you something I own to help make it easier.  I can speak, it's just sometimes I have a harder time communicating more complex concepts without the ability to show instead of speak."

"Or that language isn't big enough to contain everything I want to communicate?  It's something like that, I think," though he pauses, "I can't believe you can speak to him..."

"Sorry, but I couldn't think of any other way to get this message across than to express it through my own point of view.  He took advantage of me and nearly killed me so callously.  I put...many people at risk because of it.  I don't want to hurt people either, I don't want to cause suffering...I guess sort of like you."

He listens to the story she tells of her mother to Bond, deciding to back off for now.  Maybe Bond had a better idea of how to communicate.  It was just so natural for him to drop all he knows at people because that's how he rather communicate.  He felt it was...honest/more true/better.  Though realizing that it could also cause harm if not monitored right he is questioning how to better communicate ideas like these, especially important ones...ones that also had the capacity to cause suffering.

"How about this...ask me what I can answer for you within what I know, and I'll do my best to share what I can?  It's hard to know your limits, as we just met, right?  I don't want to hurt or make you uncomfortable...just the opposite.  I would also like to know how you communicate with the stars because that sounds so neat!"
Lilian Rook     Oreshnika fully retreats to sulking in her burrowed-in couch corner, chewing on Rita's reassurance. "I'm sorry for scaring you, then." She seems to be willing to relent on that point. Or maybe she just believes it at face value. The first, clearest answer, seems to be all she really cares about. But then there's a long gap. "You are. It's okay. Most people are."

    Her gaze wanders between Rita and Trudy. The typing goes slow. "I'm sick of people doing things for me. Ever since I was born. Not just doing things to be nice. Not just mother, because that's normal; mothers are supposed to do that. " Reluctant. Fumbling for the right words. "When people are around me, they all want to do things they shouldn't have to. When I was little, it made sense. They told me it was because they were used to doing those things. That they hurt, they were hard, they were scary, I was too young, I didn't know how. They said it was my job to grow up strong and happy first."

    The calm that comes over her is almost as if the fumbling itself brings her some measure of peace. As if she's happy to not be able to explain well. "But then I did start growing up. And they still did things for me. I wasn't allowed to do them. The reasons changed. Even though I was supposed to be getting stronger, even though I was supposed to be learning, everyone still did everything hard. Just now they said it was because I was 'pure'. I was special. Beautiful. If I did anything they did, knew anything they knew, it'd hurt me even more now, than if I was little. They changed it, to 'you shouldn't have to', and 'we don't wish it on you', and 'you don't deserve that'. They all told me I was too special. And the more I wasn't allowed to do things, the more special I was, and the more afraid of hurting me they got."

    "It's not like I'm ungrateful. I know they were trying to be nice. But even when I was a lot younger, I could tell. The older I got, the less and less I understood them. Everyone else understands each other because they got hurt so much. They did the hard things together. They know things you can only find out by doing and getting hurt. About themselves. About each other. When they talk, when they look each other in the eyes, it's like they're in a different world. They were in a different world from mother, who was in a different world from me. I don't get it. And now I really think that maybe I can't do those things at all. It's probably too late."

    "So please don't take those little things away from me, okay?"
Petra Soroka     Petra flinches and looks away from Oreshnika's glare, apparently cowed by this delicate little girl. "R-right. You're right. You haven't done anything wrong. And really, you've been generous already, letting us come here and offer to help you. I'm not going to yell again, or--yeah, you don't deserve that. I'm really sorry."

    Petra's face slowly twists into a frown as Oreshnika continues, and her eyes narrow in near-teary acknowledgement of her words. Still lingering on her conversation with Ishirou, the fact that snippets of Oreshnika's words feel familiar to Petra only burrows a deeper pit in her stomach, when the rest is so, overwhelmingly, helplessly sympathetic. If that's how she feels, though....

    Petra silently exhales through her teeth. The way Oreshnika looked at her earlier was the most lively she's seemed, so maybe it'd be good for her to view Petra without that lens of respect that seems to overwhelm her with the others. Petra gets a nagging sensation of dread, but opens her mouth anyways.

    Arthur lays an arm on her shoulder, and she jolts, having completely zoned out of everything other than Oreshnika. She doesn't pull away from him, though, like she usually does when someone touches her. "Share... ramen? But Tamamo's already cooking.... Would that help?"

    Petra nods at him. "I-I'll be patient. I want to help her. I do."

    Petra similarly freezes up at the video of the NAZCA fight, putting her hands on her ears and looking away. It's a stupid move, of course, but is Petra really in a position to be scolding Ishirou for doing something stupid? One particular overlapping line of Oreshnika's panicked shout stands out to Petra, words she said less than an hour before.

    I don't have stories worth sharing like you!"

    Petra steps forwards and starts talking, before even considering whether she should again. "U-um. Oreshnika. I won't say that we're similar, you've said that no one's like you and I can't really prove otherwise right now. But. I do understand, some."

    Petra glances sideways at Lilian, for some reason. It feels like lying, claiming that she's similar to Oreshnika, no matter how much her words resonate with what Petra's said before. Maybe it is lying, to take these words at face value, rather than looking past them to read the hurt underneath. "It's really so hard to talk to people who've been through a lot more than you have, right? It's like you need to be guilty for being less than perfect, for adding even a little bit more trouble to their lives. I know that feeling. Really well."

    "You, um. You don't need to feel like that with me. I kind of--kind of haven't done anything. Like at all. Nothing important, and nothing difficult, or scary. I don't have any stories to tell, either. We can be equals, like that."

    Petra's cheeks are bright red, like she admitted something embarrassing, and she looks down at the ground.
Trudy Grimm     The witch hums faintly, bobbing her head from side to side again as she patiently waits for Oreshnika to TTS her thoughts. It feels strange, when she's right there-- but Trudy reasons inwardly that this must be what she's comfortable with, even if it's harder to do.

    She quietly accepts stew from Tamamo, between Bond's explanation, Ishirou's video, and Oreshnika's painstakingly tapped out thoughts. Her eyes open again when Petra steps up to share her solidarity in... unremarkability.

    Trudy lets out a defeated little sigh, then, "Okay, I understand where you're coming from a little better now. It certainly would be an important experience to have, especially if things are going to grow more grim with time."

    She spares a glance towards Cantio's phone, leaning a bit for a better angle on the screen, "--Oh, you recorded that? I can't say that's my good side, but I think you captured him in spirit."
Tamamo     'I always have to ask. I know people hate that.'

    "Do they?" Tamamo asks. "I suppose that some do dislike being questioned. Being strangers that we had been, it is only natural to question. One cannot know another in full immediately, is it not so? One must have time to even think of the right questions."

    But now she has a DS. Tamamo kneels down, places the DS in front of her, removes the stylus, and begins to write--

    --or not, she's just drawing a smiling face, and then continually embellishing it. It takes a while before she's satisfied enough to hit 'send,' at which point there are not only tall, triangular ears filled with fluff, but also the impression of two-tone tail-tips at the edge of the space. The face is looking up and to the side, rather than directly at the viewer. A crook at the edge of the mouth suggests a single fang. There are glittering stars in the background, except where they're cleared for a large THANK YOU to occupy that space. Of course, it's sent under the name profoundBadness.

    She doesn't keep communicating through the DS, though she does work on a second picture while she talks. This one seems to involve little hills with little houses, and curving, flowering forms that must be trees. The trees form a barrier around the hilly little village.

    "We did go through much to meet you, and I could not pretend otherwise. Ah, though I truly wonder, when you say that you have done nothing difficult... is it not difficult to have so many guests as we? To be a host is also an important thing. Fewer are the things that are both important and easy. Have you not done much, as others could not, for the people below? Is it not ever scary to meet with those you do not yet know? Oh, but please do forgive me for prying. You need not take such wonderings too seriously."

    When Oreshnika retreats from Ishirou's footage, her hand stops, a look of worry passing over her, and lingering at the reaction to Bond's shout. Golden eyes watch from across the room. "I see... it is true, that mothers are meant to do such things, and to cease when children are grown. It is for those who are grown to care for those too young and too old, is it not so? Many have said this, and little cause have I to doubt."

    She's quiet for a little while, until she sends her second picture. The prancing little figures are probably the normal type and size of fox, running in the foreground. profoundBadness continues to be credited for her work.

    "The relationship for which I wish is one of sharing, though it is the case that I am sometimes selfish, and so, I may ask for more than is right to give me. When another is being selfish, it is your own choice whether to indulge such a thing. Foremost, however, friendship is a thing shared, rather than taken or given, and it must be such. You need not worry that I shall take your responsibilities from you. Rather, it may be that I shall add to them."

    A particular question was asked. "There is a hidden place, the Dragon's Garden, in which you may meet with the second Bloom of our knowledge. There is the one who is called 'Sakura,' at such times as she may meet. It is a place I have prepared, and I would be pleased were you to visit, and tell me your impressions of my efforts."

    There are still bowls. "I would be pleased, as well, were you to give your impression of my cooking. I have been practicing, you see. Should you not be hungry, I suppose it cannot be helped." Though the idea audibly disappoints her.
James Bond      Bond sighs again, this time with something like relief. "Yes," he says softly, nodding. "Your mother was very smart, to put it that way. One of the worst tricks those bad people ever did was to humiliate language," he says with a thoughtful frown, as he rises to go get a bowl from Tamamo.

     She gets a quiet, thankful bow of the head. "To make it so that it was much harder to describe the way the world is, using language. Words for 'the way things are' get buried. Or stolen." He contemplates the hearty, nonmagical stew, twirling his spoon around it as if it might suddenly have some revelation for him.

     After a spoonful, he looks her way again, unbothered by her staring at his expressions. "Those men are... 'like that,' yes. The 'trick' is who they are, and all they know. I know, because I've spent a very long time around people who are 'like that.' A long time almost past the point of no return, before some very kind people pulled me all the way out."

     The discussion of being 'pure, special, beautiful' seems to cause him some kind of discomfort, as it's only then that he looks away. Part of him half-remembers a quote he'd read, waiting for a train in another Russia. Something about one man being a soldier that his son might be an engineer; his son being an engineer that *his* son might be a poet. It dances at the edge of his mind, while the forefront is occupied by a conversation he'd had scarcely days prior, with a GDF soldier on 'goat duty.'

You and I are a dying breed, friend. We believe in adults taking care of things so children can grow up. If they fight our old battles, they'll only turn out like us.

     "There's a middle road, somewhere," he says, softly. "At least, I hope very much that there is. One where you can be your own person without having to put up with exactly the same things as those people out there. For my part, I'll do my best to make sure you have that chance."
Lilian Rook     Arthur brings a quest log up. Oreshnika stares at it hesitantly. The blanket pile falls away a second time. He sees her eyes light up. Not so much in excitement, but something he recognizes just as well: seeing everything laid out in a familiar and comprehensible way. A videogame quest log, probably out of the games she has in those consoles, somehow seems to have broken down the wall twice as hard as patient explanation had.

    She crawls on her hands to get closer to it. "I want that too. It looks so ¶clarity of thought and action / compassionate guidance / a world that cares about me specifically¶ to have. How did you get it?" The words swirl around his brain three or four times and impart different meanings, like seeing light through different facets of the same gemstone.

    When he starts talking about the tree-- no, she doesn't react to the tree itself, but the longer he keeps talking about what Lilian had described to him, she starts to tense and withdraw into herself. Picking up her phone again, she stiffly types "Is it different? Not wanting to understand people, but wanting people to understand me? Wanting everything to know what I meant? The way you sound is the way I used to sound. It made mother upset, so I stopped. People say it's about connecting with other humans, but I think there are lots of things besides humans." She types half a sentence, and it hangs for a while before she finishes it.

    "You don't need to understand people to care about them. You don't have to be like them to think they're worth something. You don't have to empathize to get along. I don't believe in that kind of thing. Even if everybody says so. The insides of people are filled with all kinds of things they don't want to show. They're filled with fear and hurt and bad experiences and bad thoughts. I don't want to understand all those things. I just want to matter to those people. Is that so bad?"

    She stares at him uncomprehendingly when he starts talking about the world ending, then decides on "We'll be okay here. I'll take care of everyone." Then, "But if you want us to be friends, we can all look after each other." a little more decisively. She puts the phone down for a second. He points at Lilian, who is currently preoccupied helping Tamamo serve piping hot stew now, but no doubt listening all the same. She stares, silently up until the point where she bowls out Oreshnika's portion, and then whispers out loud.

"You're ¶like-unlike¶ me?"
"Allegedly. You're still in the dark about a great many things I only just learned about."
"How old are you?"
"You can't just-- ugh. Twenty-four."
"You a few years older than me."
"So you do know how to neatly non-specify."
"You can't be ¶like-unlike¶ me though."
"Why not?"
"You're just . . . so ¶finely crafted / repeatedly and artfully broken / all parts present and accounted for¶?"
"I think you just admitted to being outside my strike zone, so I'll gracefully ignore that."

    She looks to Tamamo. "Tim-tam--" "Tamamo.". Oreshnika hastily pauses the playback and makes some quick edits. "Why do you want us to be friends? You aren't 'a bloom', right? Then you'll be left out." She glances down at the ping on her DS, and smiles (then immediately covers her mouth) at the little fox drawings. For some baffling reason, those put her at ease, too. Screens and pictures, quests and checkboxes.
Lilian Rook     "I don't know. When ask questions, people don't like it." she begins, then starts typing anew. "I didn't even host you right. I've done things I thought were hard, but it's really nothing. Everyone here used to be in the army. They all got stuck here, a long time ago. Lots of people died. Only mother could use magic. They all had to live out here, back when it was cold and there were monsters everywhere, for years and years and years, before I was even born. They tell stories sometimes. They tell a lot more when they think I can't hear. Mother tried to teach me magic too, so I could help, but then I asked the sun nicely, and told her why it was important to make this place warm, and then she stopped."

    "I get along better with the world than people. The stars, the wind, the mountains, they all really like it, appreciate it, when they can understand what you want; they're happy to help, if you can just say it in a way they can get it. We're alike."

    Long pondering on the rest, and the last drawing, results in Lilian coughing very loudly to draw her attention to stew. Oreshnika gingerly picks it up, and half-mouths a "Thank you . . ." out of ostensible pure habit. She stares at it in her lap as if pondering the morality of committing a heinous crime. Her phone distracts her. "I'd like to go. But I can't leave here. There's not much I can do here, but I still have to pay everyone back. I have to give them what they deserve." Her frown tightens. "I already ran away once, to the city to the west. I have to make it up to them for that. I can't abandon them again. They deserve better"

    She whimpers, pathetically, in Cantio's direction, at the talk of combat. "You're right. I can't let anyone else get hurt because I wasn't brave enough. I'm sorry. I'll try. But if they want me to go with them, then we can't agree on that. Do you know if I can give them something else? What else do they want?" She winces. "The mirrors are . . . those are mine. Please take care of them." She shakes her head sheepishly at Ishirou. "Thank you, but I don't need anything more. Everything I have here is fine. I have more than most of the people in the village do. I can ask for sun and water and for the rocks to make the metals and fuels they tell me about, but not for more games and phones. I got a lot of presents when I was little, so I'd feel guilty getting more."

    She lowers her head sullenly. "I know they're bad. I'm not a child. I don't know a lot about the world, or other people, and I don't know fancy words, but I know there are bad people, and they hurt and kill each other. I understand, that you're afraid of getting other people hurt because you didn't try hard enough, and sometimes the problem is other people. I can normally convince anyone. But you're saying they're different, right?"

    Only to look up and stare at him dumbly, and then accidentally(?) say out loud. "I don't know how you can't. I just ¶questioned the veracity of natural law / reconsidered the views of my youth / devised my own philosophy¶ a long time ago, and realized that it's kind of stupid that people and stars can't talk. Isn't it? We both ¶exist / are verified¶ at the same time, and we can see each other. Who says that ¶all that is not human¶ can't understand you? There's no rule. ¶It was never prohibited / no one wrote it down / it is merely assumed¶."
Ishirou Ishirou listens, though is a bit sad to hear she doesn't want to know more things.  "Well, that's your right...I just love sharing knowledge though.  It's...something I think that everyone should be able to do, and willing to do.  Concepts that are lost...information buried away...I think it's sad when such things are gone forever.  Though I'll have to settle for trying to befriend first, right?"

He sighs, "I'm sorry, it's a bad habit of mine.  When I feel I can't get myself across well, I try to break down the concept...or use other means of communication to get things across.  I guess it does sound like I'm belittling you, and that's...it isn't what I'm trying to do, I promise.  I just want to make myself understood.  I feel that something I need to communicate needs to be understood so there aren't any misunderstandings."

"And...I suppose that is itself a way for misunderstandings to happen.  I mean, I know you're not a child...compared to me I'm the kid here," he says with a smile.  "Yes, I am.  I am saying exactly that.  I...guess I'm also feeling guilty about almost getting people hurt.  Guilty that I can't...make myself feel like hurting them is okay, even when they want to destroy everything I love and hold dear."

"It's hard to be brave like that..." he admits.  "But...well, you're here and being very brave so I have to try harder too, right?  I can't be afraid of making mistakes, but rather trying to learn from them and be better...though between us that's sometimes very scary to do."

Though as she describes her power, and her ability to communicate...

Ishirou pauses.  It's not that she's bad at communicating, but that she's so good at it.  She's losing touch on the concept of just human communication, but at the same time gaining much more.  "I think I understand.  I think it's hard for people to move their understanding like that, but I do know someone who's trying to make it so others can do that..."

He pauses considering something, "If you're willing to teach, I'm willing to learn.  It isn't just with others I want to learn to speak with better, but...I guess to know things it's easier to speak in their language too.  Even if you can't actually teach me to do it, I think I can understand the philosophy you have here and it'll help me in something I'm working on."
Cantio "Hehe. Yeah, I had a feeling it'd c-" Cantio stops, then turns her head away from Trudy while biting her lower lip to refrain from snickering too loudly. She coughs a few times, then manages a slow nod and quiet 'mhm's even with her mouth shut.

There's a brief hitch in Cantio's breathing when Oreshnika starts to withdraw from seeing Ishirou's personal footage, and she holds a hand out reflexively before withdrawing her hand to not invade the girl's space more than she already is just by being here. Instead, Cantio starts to pace around the lounge slowly, both to give her some more space while also collecting her own thoughts further.

Hearing about her mother and her upbringing as someone that was protected and kept out of the loop of so many things, though, has Cantio slowing to a stop again. "We won't take anything away from you, don't worry. There's enough hard things to do to go around, and more help getting them done would be more than welcome." She smiles finally, even giggling for a moment before reaching over to Petra to give her a light pat on the shoulder.

"You've kept up well. And without the Kana, just getting here would have been harder than it already was."  With that attempt at reassurance given, Cantio turns back to Oreshnika again and furrows her brow in thought. "Frankly? I don't think they'd care much about any of the stuff here. I don't know how much they know about you, or if they'd even want to bring you in alive. They're still a bit of an enigma, but depending on how much they know, I wouldn't put it past them to use extreme measures to..."

She pauses briefly, clearly hesitating about saying anything further. With Oreshnika mentioning being kept in the dark for so long, though, Cantio eventually sighs before continuing. "Sorry. It's... If they already know what you can do and they're able to capture you, I imagine they'd spare no expense in trying to harness those powers for themselves instead of just killing you outright. If they could control the Antegent and direct them against their enemies, for example, or bend the stars and the wind and everything in nature to their will, I wouldn't..."

Another pause. "I'd be surprised if they wouldn't draw the line at torture just to figure it out." Cantio fidgets uncomfortably, trying to distance herself from such thoughts and suppress the idea that she might go down such a path herself one day. "Th... That's the worst case scenario, probably. That's also why I think we shouldn't write off the possibility of having to..."

Again, Cantio tries to think of a better way to put it, then just goes for it. "... Kill them all, if they can't be convinced." She clears her throat awkwardly, then manages to catch a break when actual TECH and GAMES are brought up. "... Hm? Oh, have you ever thought about making stuff? You know, like machines, music, computers, that sort of stuff?"

Cantio's eyes seem to be lighting up a bit as she asks that last part.
Rita Ma      Rita, at first, looks prepared to reluctantly reject Tamamo's soup. Then she remembers something, and happily accepts it with a thank-you. Before she takes her first bite, though: "Ms. Rook? Could you please do that magic you did with the tea again?"

     It's a trick to cheat her diet, you see.

     She sits down with the bowl a few feet away from Oreshnika's little burrow. "You can talk to the monsters too, then, Ms. Oreshnika." It's not a question. "But if most of the things you do are because of talking and asking things outside yourself, then... it doesn't really feel like that belongs to you, does it? Is that part of it?"

     Rita's eyes drift off to the side, towards the wooden lunchbox she'd dropped a moment earlier. It bugs her. She'll probably get back to the cleaning soon. But something else bugs her more.

     "We're not exactly alike. I know that. But I spent a long time feeling smothered like that, too. Being surrounded by people who were braver than me, more experienced than me, who wanted to take care of me, and feeling..."

     A pause. She looks down at the soup. It's good soup. "Resentful, I guess. Only I didn't resent being cared for. I resented that they felt like they had to. And that they were right. And that I didn't have a choice."

     Rita stirs the broth aimlessly. "I felt like I was going somewhere with this. I don't remember where." Another beat passes.

     "Maybe I was going to say, it's okay to not be pure anymore. It's okay to go out and start doing things and become a different kind of person, if you want to. It's not too late to start. The people who were protecting me still love me. And I still love them, too. The good things mostly didn't change."
Trudy Grimm     Trudy's face lights up with recognition as Oreshnika drops more clues about her relationship with the world around her. She glances down, pulling the Grimoire from the folds of her coat. She stares at the tome for a moment, as it shudders uneasily against the strap binding it shut. Thinking better of it, she tucks the sinister artifact out of sight again, closing her eyes.

    "I've heard of geomantic sages, people who listened to the will of the elements around them, who heard the words of the earth and sky, but I think this is the first time I've met one in the flesh," The witch's lips part in a wide, sincere (shark-toothed) grin, "In that regard, it's nice to meet you! I do so love to make friends with users of magics different from mine."

    Trudy leans forward where she stands, "The stars, sun, and mountains are your friends, and everyone in between. I'm a little envious. I'd like to meet your cute friends sometime." Her head tilts just a bit, that smile never wavering, "And I'll introduce you to mine, too!"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Share this with Oreshnika

    Arthur sadly can't share the shape of his own existence with Oreshnika. She is what she is, unique and individual. "God do I wish this was as good as it looked, and I wish I could give it to ya even when it isn't. I'm working on that, though, with my Secundus project I'm doing my best with it. You know? That's all I can do."

>Arthur: Well, share what you can with her

    Arthur rubs his face and then shrugs. "Look, our Venn Diagrams got zero crossover and I'm not about to sit here and tell you I get you or try to make you get me. I'm not gonna sit here at all, no sitting space, that's beside the point. The point being, my gut says that if you hang out with the blooms and we engage with this cosmic fuckup, we're gonna get traction. No more spinning wheels in the dark, we're gonna figure out the gnawing questions and the mysteries. So I'm gonna be your new friend. And you know what that means?!"

    He stands up suddenly, as if he's about to grab her hand and take her out into the sun. As if he's gonna foist new foods and drinks on her and throw a party in her little comms base. As if he's going to do *anything* like that. But instead he plants his hands on his waist and nods in a sagely, noble way. "It *means* I'm gonna get you some damn videogames. I'm gonna lug an alchemiter into the freest room you got and we're gonna get you some of the real extreme nintendo shit. And then I'm gonna sit on the other side of the room, I'm gonna shut the hell up, and we're gonna play some shit on wi-fi, hella quiet, until my dumb ass stays up to four AM. *Then*," He points his finger dramatically at her. "When we're both seeing the cosmos between microsleep, I'm gonna get us four Monster 'Glandfucker Extreme' Flavor Gamer Fuels and we're going to figure out what the world you're talking to can tell us about how to deal with NAZCA and keep all this stuff safe."

    "Does *that* sound like the familiar stuff?"
James Bond      "Yes," concludes Bond. "They're different. I wish they weren't, but they are. Thank you for understanding."

     Bond glances towards Tamamo, then back to Oreshnika. Half-done with his food, he lets the bowl rest in his lap. Maybe he wants to hear the answer to that question, too. About being 'left out.' Certainly, he's known her to have a way with words and to be deeply thoughtful in their use.

     Only once Tamamo has given her answer does he chime in. "She won't be left out," he says, with the first shred of some emotion other than fear or sadness since he came in. Certainty--and warmth, maybe. "When you love someone like she does, there's not much that can come between you."
Lilian Rook     Oreshnika stares with intense wariness at Petra. Perhaps worse than with Bond. As if the girl's refusal to refer to her like a person had hit her worse than a grown and grizzled military man jumping up and suddenly bellowing. Her eyes are completely locked on hers with pinpoint precision. It feels like she's waiting for something. Something to appear or reveal itself. She looks a little surprised, but cautiously reassured when Petra's face turns red instead.

    "You haven't done anything for now." she types. "But you just did this, so you're trying, right?" She pulls her knees up to her chest. "Then we're not really alike. You're trying more to be like everyone else. You want to get hurt enough to understand them. I can't do that. People have died just so I wouldn't get hurt. I wouldn't reject their wishes like that. I don't want to do that. I hate getting hurt. It's awful. It doesn't make you a better person; it just breaks you down and makes things hard; you just see good people who are hurt a lot because good people always get hurt."

    "People with long and hard pasts are always so strong, but it's just because all the weaker people who went through the same thing are dead. I don't want to struggle to be good and strong in spite of being hurt. I don't want to feel the terrible, painful things in other people's hearts. It's good enough to know that they're in pain. I just want to get along. I want them to explain things to me in a way I can understand, and then I want them to understand me and let me help them."

    She smiles at Trudy, hesitant and trembling as it is. "Thank you." chimes the crappy little phone from decades ago. "If we can relay his last words, that would be wonderful. You're really nice." She then finally takes a bite of stew. The dumb little squeal and the silly heel kick she does rather answers Tamamo in terms of her opinion of real cooking. Her face flushes red.
Tamamo     'Then you'll be left out.'

    "Oreshnika... ah, might you like the sound of 'Nika?' I heard this name, as well." Tamamo gives her a smile colored over with a distant sadness. "Were the four of you to leave me behind, it might be so. I know not where 'that side' is, but I know that there is a place to which you may go, and to which I would not follow. It would hurt my heart, to be left alone. It is my hope to chart a path to a happier future. It can be a difficult thing, for some fates to change, but it is by doing that ought can be accomplished... and, yes, by asking."

    Her next picture is a bit different. She tries her best to draw Oreshnika herself, with her blonde curls, pulling something -- a cloak, or perhaps a blanket -- around herself. She's in the center-right of the picture. To her left is, more clearly, Lilian, with her sword. To the far left is a smaller girl, like a Japanese princess. This, for all its detail and voluminous clothing, Tamamo is able to draw quickly. To the far right is a smoky suggestion of person.

    "After all, I am that portion of the Sun that loves humanity. I can only remain wherein so does humanity."

    'I don't want to understand all those things. I just want to matter to those people. Is that so bad?'

    "Is it? I wonder. I wish to understand some things, and other things, I have decided, are not necessary to me. I have only my own two hands, and there is only so much I can hold within my grasp. I wish to know of love, most of all. You may choose those things that are important to you. To matter to others... it is similar, and yet, it is also different."

    The pictochat drawing becomes more elaborate. Behind each figure is a grand and mysterious door. Below each figure, below the line marking the ground, is a key. Though the doors all appear the same, each key is given its own flowing lines and jagged teeth. SEND

    "Sakura-chan... the people around her consider her very special, and wish to protect her. She is not permitted to leave, because of this, and so, it would be difficult to come here. Though it is different for you, in that you are staying to protect these people, rather than to be protected by them, is it truly the same in that you cannot leave, even for a little while?" Tamamo isn't quite begging, but clearly saddened by the thought.

    Her expression cheers again at the reaction to her food, smoothing out into a relaxed smile. "Yes, I see. Thank you."

    The next picture she sends includes a clay-brick style of rounded oven, but the apron on the baker has anachronistic suggestions of frills. Again, she takes a while to get the trio of two-tone tails to look just right before she can send it.
Petra Soroka     Petra flinches at Cantio's touch, reminded that everyone else could hear what she said too. "D-don't, it's okay. I don't need reassurance. I was being honest, not fishing for compliments."

    She barely notices Oreshnika's stare, her own gaze fixated on an empty corner. She shoves her hands in her jacket pockets, grimacing in reluctant agreement. Her whole body shudders with the effort of not retorting, going on the defensive, denying the things she'd said that sound even more pathetic when repeated by someone else, in front of an audience.

    "...I guess I forgot you could hear all that. But then, at least for now, we can still be a little alike, right? Enough to get along? I'll listen, the best that I can. And I'll try to explain things so you can understand. Though, it seems like you already understand pretty well." There might be a current of passive-aggressiveness in that last comment, but it's mostly genuine.

    The appeal of stew finally wins out, and Petra accepts a bowl. She sits down on the ground, folding her legs up to fit without disturbing anything, and rests the bowl in her lap to free up a hand. Fishing in her pocket, she retrieves her DS, and holds it up for Oreshnika to see. It's clearly old, covered in scraped up cutesy stickers of characters and animals.

    "I haven't actually been able to get any new games in so long, too. I've just been replaying all my old ones. If Arthur brings a game that's a gift for both of us, would that be better? Then we can all play together, and talk as much or as little as you want. It's a ritual, you know."
Trudy Grimm     "No," Trudy leans back from her leaned-forward posture, "You will relay his last words." Closing her eyes, she keeps that smile up, "I'll be there to support you, but like you said-- it's a valuable experience I shouldn't take away from you."

    "Supporting each other is what friends are for," she adds, "But you're right. I nor anyone else should do everything for you."
Lilian Rook     Oreshnika looks a little sadly at Ishirou. Her typing has a rueful quality to it, even if the computer lady voice is the same. "It's okay. I don't hold it against you. People have spent my whole life trying to explain things to me in different ways. I'm used to it. I'm sorry I'm not good with these things." When he asks to be taught, though, her face goes pale again.

    "I'm sorry. I can't even do that for you either. I can make you understand me, but whenever I did it for someone else, about this thing, they got really really hurt. Sometimes when I said other things too. I like Nintendo more. Talking with letters and pictures can't hurt anyone by accident."

    This is considerably more credible, and perhaps a little chilling, after electrocuting him by trying to impart how important it is that he stop hacking her mother's phone.

    Oreshnika makes a sound that seems like smothered relief when Trudy starts gushing. "They said it's like Zagovory, but mother said that it was different, and then told me to not tell anybody that. But I think you're different, so it's okay. They're not all my friends, but even though people talk about the world being cold and cruel and horrible, I think most things are just misunderstood. Humans are happy about the existence of nice humans because everything is. If you can make yourself understood, you'd find out that most of the world really likes you."

    She looks at Arthur again, apparently rolling around the question about 'her bud' a little more. "This sounds really important, so I'll talk to my" The playback ends. She opens her mouth, and hesitantly pronounces "My ¶shadow / reflection / pen-pal / childhood friend / bethrothed / salvation¶" She picks up the phone again, and points northward, out the blocked up window. "She lives over there, but we've never met. I think she might be from space, but when I asked if she was a meteor, she got very sad, so it seemed like a sensitive subject and I didn't ask more."

    Her smile gets wider, and less relieved, when Bond reaffirms her. "She was very, very smart. I wish she was here to talk to you all. She'd be better at it. And she could cook and make you tea and coffee." She listens with rapt attention to his description. For some reason 'humiliating language' and 'taking away words' seems to strike some chord with her. "I understand. This probably sounds weird, but just because I don't like blood and guts doesn't mean I don't understand that people kill people. When I ran away with mother, I found that out in the city too."

    When Cantio adds to it, she struggles in silence for a moment, then types slowly. "Hurting other people isn't the same as being hurt. Lashing out doesn't make you a victim. I know that too. Everyone wanted me to never have to fight, but fighting isn't the same as getting hurt either. I've made lots of monsters die. I've made some people die now too. Even if it's a favour, from the gravity of Earth or the sparks between atoms or the fuzzy cloud of mass, it's still my doing."
Lilian Rook     Lilian glances over from listening to Rita, and holds up a finger to signal a wait. She takes a couple of bites of the stew herself, tilts her head as if thinking, swallows, and says "By all means." She elaborates no further, but watches intensely, on more levels than either girl can really know, when Oreshnika groans, shuffles her feet together, curls up against the armrest, and then sighs, rapidly typing a response to Rita with an air of resignation.

    "Sometimes, people understand you, and they still hate you. They still call you a witch and want to hurt you. It's not that you said something wrong, it's just that you can't coexist. And it's not fair that you have to stay pure and happy while people get hurt, because they'd get hurt in a different way if you protected them."

    She keeps typing for a second, then lowers the phone in her lap, and tiredly whispers "No. Thank you. I . . . You're trying to give me ¶permission / closure / the next chapter¶ . . . aren't you? That's . . . sweet. I . . . appreciate it."

    She visibly jumps when Tamamo uses 'Nika'. "Um, mothe--" She gasps, then lunges for her DS again, diving face first on the couch with the red-faced hyperfocus of a kid who just called the teacher 'mom'.. "Nika is good too. People used to call me that often. I like it." She shuffles her electronics around to get a view of pictochat while typing, staring in rapt fascination at the image. "You want to be friends too?" Her head then perks up at the mention of 'love'. She looks sideways. She looks at Lilian. Lilian stares back. She glances nervously away. She looks at Lilian out of the corner of her eye. Seeing that she is still staring, Nika buries her pink face in her screens and blankets again.

    "Sorry. You want your Friend to have friends too. That's so nice." She must have done something to make the TTS pronounce 'friend' weird. "You have a sword? That's so cool. I should go get the staff and show you." she suddenly adds. The fumbling little attempt at finding something to connect over, through pictochat iconography, comes out stilted and rushed-sounding in TTS tones, but it's what she's got. "The--? No, actually, that sounds great. I'd like that. We have time. Let's get to know each other, okay?" Lilian gradually stands up, dusting off her coat. "I just need to do one thing quickly, okay? I'll be right back."
Lilian Rook     Nika looks more than a little bit stunned at Lilian's graceful acceptance of such a godawful icebreaker, never mind Arthur's sudden suggestion, never mind further Petra's ungraceful support. She looks at the picture of Tamamo's baking, and bites her lip. Oreshnika rolls over on the sofa, to face the back, away from everyone else, while she types.

    "Okay. I didn't host right, so you can stay. And I'll make tea and coffee, and we can clean up, and we can play all these games that have multiplayer." One gets the sense from her frantic tapping that if she were saying it out loud, she wouldn't have breathed between the sentences. Having a clear line of things to do is working wonders, apparently.

    "We can have the monster drinks and sleep over, and then we can talk about the bad guys. I'll ask my friends to keep watch, and you can enjoy yourselves. You climbed up the mountains, so you're supposed to relax and get warm and drink hot drinks." She glances over her shoulder at Rita. "I never got to before. And it does make me a little bit mad. You're right." Then Tamamo. "I don't know. I'd be afraid for them, if I didn't know they were safe." Then Petra. "Okay. We can be a little alike, for now."