Day 57: Cafeteria

[gald_digger]

Edgar's charming company had raised Anise's spirits enough that not even the Head Doctor's voice could bring them back down. Besides, she was feeling pretty sure that Landel wasn't actually around. To begin with, it wouldn't make sense, and secondly, his announcements sounded suspiciously like ones she'd already heard before. While Anise wasn't

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[thestormishere]

Well, if that wasn't an enormous waste of time, Lightning wasn't sure what was. Her mood was as terrible as ever during the little trip back downstairs following the dismissal from the 'chapel,' and like always she made no effort to hide it. Making her way through the food line, her body language was tense and demeanor obviously distracted; she continued to scan the people already there with narrowed eyes, looking for Hope and Snow.

... And yeah, though she caught the faces of those being served the tasteless gruel as well, interestingly enough, she couldn't say she really cared about what she assumed was supposed to be some sort of morale-downer to this place's natives. For her, even the strong scent of the 'regular' food was almost enough to make her feel queasy, and though she might have preferred something with flavor and a texture more appealing than cold baby food, she wasn't going to complain about it so long as it didn't actually make her sick somehow.

Hard to keep from wondering just what made it pink, though.

The young woman was restless but ravenous, so finding somewhere to sit and down the offering was something she was sure to do as soon as possible. However, like the time spent in that... weird room before this, she had no intention of remaining idle. She slid into a seat smoothly, only giving a short glance at the man across from her before turning her attention towards the doorway instead. Despite herself, she was starting to feel nervous for the welfare of her acutely-absent friends.

[immortale]

Firo hadn't really been expecting anyone to join him at the table, but he looked up when someone did: a young woman who looked like she was probably somewhere around his age. She sat down without a word and then looked away; Firo followed her gaze to the doorway.

It was probably none of his business, but he'd barely even considered that before his spoon halted in its path towards his mouth and he asked, "Are you looking for someone?"

Maybe 'waiting' would have been a better word, if it meant that the person she was looking for hadn't arrived at the cafeteria yet... But whether she was waiting for someone or looking for them, she was taking an active part in it-if that was even the case at all. He supposed she could also have been simply checking the exits of the room as well.

[thestormishere]

Lightning frowned. "Yes," came the short, uninterested answer at the question, and she turned her head back just enough to glance aside again at the... kid seated nearby. As always, her attention was appraising, if not quite as in-depth as it might have normally been when meeting someone else in this place. All she cared to notice was that he didn't seem all that old or very well suited to what she thought was some sort of grand experiment taking place here. Why did he care what she was doing?

However, acting aloof and spending the entire time staring towards the doorway with a gaze that could drop behemoths wasn't the sole reason she was there, and it was with begrudging slowness that she turned back to focus her energy instead on the bowl of strange porridge she'd been allotted.

She had to press down a sort of weird self-consciousness at letting anyone see her eat, but it was probably fairly obvious once she got started that her issues with the stuff was practically nonexistent-- even if she kept throwing glances back towards her primary center of attraction for the moment.

... And kept landing her eyes on the fake nurse-guards instead. What in the world did they think they were doing, anyway? They weren't fooling anyone with that stiff demeanor they were all displaying, that was for sure.

"Tch... their disguises are awful," she muttered quietly, eyes narrowed.

[immortale]

The woman's sharp, appraising gaze from the side was one of the few familiar things he'd seen around here. It seemed like so far, everyone he'd talked to was friendly and glad to help a fellow prisoner out, which was surprising, now that he thought about it. He thought it was rare for people to be so kind; this woman's indifferent attitude was much more likely. She'd answered the question asked with no elaboration-though that only made Firo feel more curious-and began to eat shortly afterwards.

Firo watched her for a moment before finally resuming his own meal. He looked up again when she muttered something-even with people in the cafeteria chatting with each other, with the silence between them it was easy to catch her soft words.

"Who, the guards?" he asked, glancing at one of the men and women in question. They were dressed differently than they had been the other day and their guns were nowhere to be seen, but there was something unmistakable about the way they carried themselves.

Firo almost left it at just the one question, but then his mind wandered back to the conversation he'd had with Battler, trying to figure out what was going on today. "They really are pretty bad at it," he added. He assumed they were trying to pretend to be nurses and doctors and the like, but he really didn't know much about asylums past or future. "Any idea why they're bothering?"