goneawayworld | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Tio and Setsuna
What: Just gals becoming pals.
Where: Infirmary.
When: After this!
Warnings/Notes: Nothing yet, will update.

[ Tio hates hospitals.

They're sterile, uncomfortable places that stir up memories she'd rather not give the time of day to - but, as such, she has plenty of sympathy for anyone who's stuck in them, and she figures she and Setsuna could both use a distraction from the non-apologies Aiden Price is fanning around the network.

Setsuna seems like she could make even a hospital feel like a happier place, anyway.

So here she is, peeking in the door, with her communicator and a small bag she stopped to get from her room first, containing a couple of snacks she discreetly scavenged from the last donut social and was saving for a rainy day. This qualifies, she thinks. ]

Hello.

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[When she enters, Setsuna's still frowning at her communicator - fussing about some reply from Price, no doubt, or more accurately the lack of one.]

[There ... isn't much to look at, in Setsuna's room. Though it's slightly bigger than one's expectation for a hospital might expect, and slightly more technologically advanced than Setsuna expected given the sorry hardware elsewhere in the Rig (meaning electronic displays on the end of her bed and along one wall where one would otherwise expect charts or x-rays to be hung, both currently in sleep mode and displaying one of those '90s-style endless pipe-growing screensavers), one sterile and emptily-colored hospital room is the same as the next. A (helpfully sealed shut) window looks outside the room, letting in faint natural light, though between the half-shut blinds the truth's rather given away by the realization that all the scenery to greet anyone that bothers to look is the pipes and scaffolding that make up just another interior wall of the Rig. Someone gave an effort, though, at least.]

[The only other touch of personality to the room is a small, squat vase, looking like it's not been watered in a day or so, full of slightly wan flowers. There isn't even a TV hanging on the wall; probably a precaution in case someone's been compromised by Stuff, but for that matter what would anyone be watching in the Gone-Away World, anyway? Setsuna has no idea, and she's certainly had enough time to ponder the conundrum in recent days.]

[Everything else, from the IV stand to the remote-controllable bed, is exactly the same as any other room just like it in any other hospital.]

[At the sound of Tio's entry, Setsuna sets her phone facedown on the bed beside herself and looks up, breaking into a smile. She scoots her legs up and pushes herself back against her pillow, to sit herself up straighter against the raised bed.]

Hello. Um, it's ... Tio, right?

Right. It's nice to meet you...Setsuna, yes?

[ She grabs the nearby chair and turns it to a better angle, before settling herself on the end with the kind of posture that says she's not quite managing "relaxed" at the moment. ]

Yes, that's me. It's nice to meet you face to face.

[A flicker of disquiet crosses her face for a moment, as the thought that just occurred to her also reminds her of the circumstances under which it likely happened. She huffs, self-chidingly, and shifts uneasily in her bed.]

I suppose you must have arrived while I was ... still asleep, huh?

Yes. One of the first things I was told when I got here was to avoid being alone anywhere on the Rig. It seems to me that you were hit worst than most, but...

[ But wow, a lot of people got their asses kicked by the time everyone managed to pull together and deal with that nastiness. ]

[Setsuna's face twists in a rare moment of bitter self-deprecating irony.]

That's certainly good advice. It wouldn't have helped me, though ... I ... [She pauses, trailing off, as she absentmindedly runs her hands over parts of her wrists, where only the faintest hints of where a long, jagged rip of scar tissue could've been, once, can be seen, if at all.] I'm pretty sure she ... hurt me because if I hadn't been there, she'd have had been able to get Tenten alone, too, instead.

[Setsuna shuts her eyes, and forces herself to relax into the raised bed behind her.] At least I managed to spare Tenten the worst of it, I hope ... [She shrugs, keeping her eyes closed, putting on a weary smile that's only a little bit forced, swinging her head away, before opening them as she looks back at Tio again, then away, nervously jittering her glances away from fully making eye contact.]

I mean, they told me she'd already recovered a while ago, so I'm not, uhm, still worried, or anything. Or about ... whoever she was. They told me that, too. That the rest of you took care of her ...

[She pulls herself upright as the words start tumbling out of her, shoulders tensing, almost as if she's ready to fling herself out of the bed. Whether out of post-traumatic anxiety or out of embarrassment about being anxious or embarrassment at having been so useless to everyone during the whole incident, or, as the truth of the matter has it, a good strong dose of all three, the stress in her starts coiling up like a spring, pulling in on itself, tighter and denser and tighter -]

[Until she sighs, deflating, shoulders slumping in a silent augh.] Well, this is a happy subject for a first meeting, isn't it? I didn't mean to bring down the mood like this, I apologize. Making a new friend ought to be a happy memory.

[ It feels like A Lot, not the subject matter so much as Setsuna's easy emoting and the way it just seems to actually come out of her naturally, and not like it had to be extracted with pliers. Was I ever like that? flits through Tio's thoughts for a moment, and leaves just as quickly, because she's long ago decided that thinking too much about who she was before Gnosis goes nowhere productive, and instead she shakes her head. ]

Don't apologize. I'm...not terribly good at social situations, so I can hardly judge.

[ But it seems like a good moment for a mood lifter, and she opens up the bag she brought with her. ]

I brought donuts, though.

[Setsuna smiles reassuringly at Tio, a gesture that could easily come off condescending but instead looks ... a bit melancholy. She looks down at her phone; cute, personalized, and very pink. A nostalgic glimmer brightens her eyes.]

Well, that's fine. I've had years of practice, myself, and I'm still not sure I am, either. I had a strange ... childhood, I guess. I didn't really learn how to, well ... how to have feelings, at all, until my mom and dad adopted me.

[And then her head whips up, lightning fast, eyes locked on the bag in Tio's hands, a fragile hope dawning cautiously all across her face. You can almost see the light sparkle in her eyes, like little stars.]

Did ... did you say donuts?! Where did you get them?

[Oh please let them be good donuts. She's been so deprived for so long.]

I wouldn't have guessed. [ And Tio means that. ] You seem...comfortable, with feelings.

[ Having them, showing them. Talking about them, if her attempts to get through to Price are any indication.

Maybe that's something else they have in common, at least in a way - having to learn or relearn how to be a person again. Even Renne, the only other survivor of the cult's experiments that Tio knows of, didn't really seem like she disconnected the same way Tio did; instead of giving up emotions, Renne just made herself at home with the bad ones. Even KeA, an artificial being made for a simple purpose and kept in a test tube for centuries, settled right into emotions as soon as they found her, threw herself into simply living like there was nothing better in the world.

It's strangely comforting to finally meet someone else who had to work at it, from the sound of things - and perhaps more than that, someone who seems to be succeeding.

Maybe Tio will be able to put words to that, eventually. But for now: donuts. She reaches into the bag and takes one for herself, then passes the bag over to Setsuna. ]

I don't think we were supposed to take them away from the meeting. But I don't represent the law here.

Well ... I suppose I am. Thank you. [She beams at Tio, a genuinely open smile.] I had a lot of help. If you ever want to, um - [she hesitates, awkward, embarrassed for being so forward] - compare notes, I'd be happy to do that. I don't know if this is strange or rude to say, but ... I'm used to it?

[zomg donuts. Setsuna holds the bag in both hands, gingerly, like it's a priceless artifact.]

From the meeting ... these donuts came from Jorgmund? And they're good donuts?

[How can this be possible.]

I don't find it rude at all. [ Tio's smile is much softer and smaller, but it's equally genuine. ] I have people who have been very supportive, back home, but...nobody who's done it.

[ Having someone else who's actually been there is...kind of great! ]

I think they must save the good food for when they're trying to pull one over on us, or distract us from bad news. These have been an outlier in what I've eaten here.

Then I'd very much like to help, if I can.

[Setsuna full-on beams in delight at her. She made a friend! Who she can help! This is good!]

I'd love to thank whoever was responsible ... nobody who appreciates the importance of a good donut can be all that bad.

[Setsuna says this with all the firmness and certainty that would accompany the restatement of an immutable law of the universe. Which it is, in her opinion.]

[ Setsuna is very much starting to make Tio think of an older KeA, and the fastest way to the heart of any member of the SSS is to remind them of KeA. ]

It's not quite up to what I used to get from Morges, but it's objectively good. I'm not sure I've said that about anything else on the Rig.

Mm! [Setsuna is polite and does not talk with her mouth full of donut. And her mouth has not been without a bite of donut in it since the bag was offered to her. Setsuna loves donuts.]

No, you're right. I've definitely had better donuts, but these are good donuts. That's incredible. No, that doesn't quite describe it - that's miraculous.

Back home, I was trying to get better at making sweets. I always got more practice with proper meals, since we had a chore rotation, but every now and then, when I had time...

[ So, on the occasional day off, when she wasn't busy with network troubleshooting or engrossed in video games or putting Jona in his place (sometimes with aforementioned video games)...and when they weren't dealing with sudden metaphysical weirdness or mercenaries bombing the International Bank of Crossbell.

Yeah. That free time.

...it's been a struggle. ]

Luckily, we have quite a lot of free time on our hands here, between missions. I'm no sweets expert, but I'm a fast learner in my own right, and everything's easier to learn when you've got good help.

[She finishes off her (most recent) donut and lets her hands flop to her sides, sighing.]

Good ingredients might be harder to come by, on the other hand ...

I think getting in the kitchen staff's good graces might help with that.

[ Maybe Tio needs to work on being "cute." Although her deadpan nature does seem to work pretty well on some people... ]

A lot of the ingredients are pretty similar to home, but I haven't found anything that's quite like a bellberry yet.

It might help with other things, too, like ... the rest of what they serve, maybe.

[Setsuna has been at their tender gastronomic mercies ever since actually being allowed out of her medically-induced coma, she would absolutely jump at the chance to spare anyone else this horrible fate.]

[She tilts her head, though, at that.]

A bellberry? What's it look like?

[ I don't recall canon having a single thing on that, so BS POWERS ARE GO...

Tio holds her hands up to indicate a size that's just under a fist. ]

Round and bright blue. The "blueberries" here don't look terribly different, but they're so much smaller.

Hmmm ... if the Stuff weren't so terribly unreliable and dangerous, I'd almost wonder if they'd contemplate letting us thinking things like that into this world, instead ...

[Setsuna shakes her head, glancing down with a quick moue of displeasure.]

Ah, but that's really too risky, as nice as it'd be to be able to make everything around here less strange and off-putting to some of us like that. [She looks back up, to offer Tio an apologetic smile.] It's a shame, your bellberries really do sound delicious!

Reality warping is very dangerous.

[ The voice of experience, even if it did save their lives that one time... ]

They were delicious, though. There was a girl who ran an ice cream stand in the entertainment district back home, and that was one of her best flavors.

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