(Untitled)

[alwaysdolledup]

Who: Alice! And you! That is, very open. ♥
What: Her arrival and annoyance.
Where: The train station and beyond.
When: Afternoon-ish, I guess?

Comments

[invisible_fail]

Espio was, as per usual, on a random residential zone rooftop with one of his large improvised fishing nets, waiting for lunch to come somewhere near. The movement over the lake caught his attention - even though it was a bit too far for fishing, he couldn't help but look anyway, fully expecting to see nothing more than a fish or a zubat.

When he realised it was not a fish or a zubat but a newcomer, he turned back to what he was doing - waiting. That didn't last too long though, and curiosity won. "This is boring." Well, he had been at it for hours without a single fish so far!

Leaving the net on that rooftop, he leapt across two others to get a bit closer to the lake. He hadn't seen a human floating before, but that didn't really matter much - it was probably magic or superpowers, same as from his homeworld. Nothing too special. "Hey!" he shouted, trying to make sure his voice carried. "Are you just gonna float there or actually do something?"

[alwaysdolledup]

So there was life here after all. Life and sarcasm, apparently.

Alice flew closer to the native, eyeing him appraisingly. No type of youkai she recognized, which was not actually surprising between the sheer variety of things called youkai and the fact that she obviously wasn't in Gensokyo, or anywhere else she knew. In any case, he didn't seem especially hostile or especially -- well, no. She had realized by now that even standing around being a smartass didn't mean someone wasn't helpful, only that she wouldn't like the help. It wasn't much better for her current mood.

"Were you hoping for something in particular?" Alice asked drily once she was close enough; she had, however, stopped short of the rooftop. Her dolls took position around her again. "You'll understand if I didn't realize I'd be putting on a show today."

[invisible_fail]

"Well if you want to show off, be my guest," Espio answered. "A 'show' would probably do people a bit of good - a bit of fun and all. But see, just floating around isn't gonna accomplish anything. It's not like there's much to see."

She definitely seemed a bit different, but then the Void had several 'unique' captives. Those dolls were pretty interesting, too - he assumed it was whatever her power was that made them move like that, but couldn't help but wonder if they had special powers of their own.

"Not yet, anyway," he added, after a moment. "Just wait, we'll get something stupid happening again soon."

[alwaysdolledup]

"That's not what I meant." She sighed, pushing her annoyance down for the moment. This person certainly could have been less civil, at least, and, as Alice had to remind herself, speaking to someone who knew more about her current mess was in fact a good idea. "As far as I'm concerned, 'something stupid' is already happening, but I doubt that's what you have in mind. In the meantime, if you have any ideas that would accomplish something, I'm listening."

A little sharper, but almost as an afterthought, she added, "Like more about what's actually going on, for example."

[invisible_fail]

"Oh, you wait. It gets worse."

Espio shrugged - he wasn't too bothered about divulging information, having gone through this with 'newbies' several times before. It's not as though current circumstances were even remotely within the boundaries of common sense, so criticising them for not figuring it out would be stupid.

"As for what's going on, you're stuck here because a group of idiots screwed up. We don't know how we got in, don't know how to get out, and that lot haven't done much beyond telling us they can't afford to find out what the problem is. That's kind of all there is to it."

[alwaysdolledup]

The dolls exchanged worried looks at this news. Turning her gaze distantly to the surreal sky, Alice herself only muttered, "But you can't expect me to just accept that." It was half to herself, though; being petulant wouldn't help anything, and besides, her mind was elsewhere. Hopelessly, she even spared a fraction of a thought to whether there was any possibility this was simply a strange dream gone too far. But she had too much experience with dreams to fool herself.

Alice shook her head and returned to the person in front of her. "Then..." Just as she started to speak she made one more connection. "Wait, let me guess. You don't have anything to do yourself, do you?"

[invisible_fail]

Not really, if Espio was to be completely honest. There was never really much of anything to do in this place - he hated to admit it, but he was somewhat looking forward to whatever the next "random change" would be."

Still, he wasn't about to admit to being unconstructive.

"Well..." he said, turning to point at his abandoned net. It was a rather large piece of netting he'd found in one of the warehouses, with a piece of strong string looped through to pull it closed when he'd caught something. "I was fishing."

[alwaysdolledup]

"Don't tell me food is a problem?" she asked warily -- and a bit skeptically. It didn't precisely look like a dystopian realm of people struggling to survive, though if it somehow were, Alice had no need to worry for herself.

On the other hand, the notion that there were unwilling residents who'd been here long enough to not only give up trying to do anything about it, but get bored with the place, boded poorly for her own future prospects. In some ways, dystopia might be preferable.

[invisible_fail]

"Depends," Espio answered. "Do you like ramen? 'cause if you're not gonna forage or fish or hunt those big pig things, ramen's your only option. It used to be worse, but then when I got here..."

He swung his arms up behind his head and looked up at the sky as he tried to recall. "We didn't have any grass or plants and stuff. That forest wasn't there. The desert wasn't there. No animals other than fish. Oh, and that giant puddle wasn't there either."

[alwaysdolledup]

"That's..." Despite it all, part of her couldn't help but be intrigued; she looked to the sky again too, and around to the rest of the scenery. His story made more visceral sense, now, of what the voice when she'd arrived had told her. Already she was wondering whether there was a limit to what could manifest in this place -- or whether maybe its growth could be influenced -- or what had gone into it in the first place. Was it really the birth of a new world? Had some person made all this? Alice couldn't feel any magic she as she knew it, but that might not mean anything. "...interesting."

It was professional curiosity. Really. Though still something, in the end, she'd very much prefer to study from home.