Day 48: Courtyard
"I could tell you some stories," Yuffie suggested brightly, "of unquestionable legality." Illegality, that was. Petty little things like the law didn't usually mean very much to her, except for the times when she had to uphold it. Always fun for the breaking, though, the law, and messy for the clean-up. Just the way she liked it
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At the oddly placed pause, Yuffie shot John a curious look. It was tempting to dig, even if it was nothing, but then he was asking a question. She let it slide. "Song for the road," she said, followed by a couple more words in Wutain; the song's name. "Pathway After the Rain," she added. "That's the basic translation. Old favorite of mine from back home." There was a strange mix of fondness of exasperation that leaked, just a little, into that final word. Not nostalgia, but-no. It just was. As much as Wutai drove her batty, as much as her old man and his plethora of stuffy old traditions and archaic excuses made her want to facepalm her eyes out of the back of her head, that place was special.
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The Doctor repeated the foreign words carefully, looking to Yuffie to see if the pronunciation passed. "So that language the song was in: that's your native language?" he questioned, committing the words and the meaning to memory. He was curious, liked being curious, and he wanted to learn more. It was always nice to find another language to get under his belt.
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When John managed a passable imitation of her words, Yuffie's surprise showed. "Not bad," she said after a moment, before tacking on an answer to his question, "Yup, it is. Wutaian. I'm not," she somehow managed to spin around without breaking pace, gesturing vaguely, "from around here." Understatement. She didn't know where Gaia was in comparison to Earth, but it probably wasn't anywhere close.
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"That's a good idea," the Doctor said. "I haven't had much luck-well, maybe 'luck' isn't the right word- I haven't gotten much done most nights, and it may be due to slow starts." Getting distracted, waiting for people, somehow falling asleep... He'd had his share of bad starts, false starts, and non-starts.
He repeated the words Yuffie had said softly. Wutaian, was it? He hadn't heard of the language, nor the civilization that must have gone with it. "What name do you call your planet?"
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Running from a monster. Her. Yuffie Kisaragi of Wutai, of the Wusheng, of AVALANCHE. Her pride was clamouring its disapproval already, but prudence needed to have its say sometimes. A kick to her ego would be a price worth paying for progress, assuming she made any.
Her expression lightened again. "It's called Gaia," she said, looking to the sky. It was way too cloudy. "No idea where it is now, 'course. Hadn't even heard of Earth before getting dragged here-a whole new planet! It's awesome. Crappy digs and even worse timing, and I'm so not hanging around, but, y'know?" Who'd have ever thought? Oh, space travel was possible, but this was a different civilisation, completely unexplored!
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Of course, there were times to stand your ground, too, but that was after you knew what you were dealing with, or after you had a plan, or when you simply had no other choice. Sometimes running was the best course of action, and sometimes it was just the best way to stall. But no matter the case, he loved the running.
"'Gaia'. Rather uncreative name, isn't it?" he mused. "Not that 'Earth' is much better." It had interesting connections to Greek, however, in a world that might not have known Greek at all.... unless, of course, it was a colony world of one earth-originating human empire or the other. There wasn't one he knew of that had a 'Wutaian' language.
He smiled at Yuffie's obvious interest in being on a planet other than her home one; he liked that kind of enthusiasm. "It is," he agreed. "A new world to see, to explore."
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None of those nights had ended well for her, but none of 'em had ended terribly, either. Breaking even was hard to settle for, when you were used to clean-sweep successes, but Yuffie could deal. She'd always been able to deal.
"Hey, you don't know the half of it," Yuffie said, with another one of her aimless, just-for-the-movement gestures. "A lot of people just call Gaia 'The Planet'. Can't get much more uncreative than that. We've got a totes crappy record for naming conventions." If they weren't dull, they were weird. Most of the time, anyways. Even 'Yuffie' was oddball, next to the usual Wutaian style. Not that she was complaining; her name was awesome.
With cooking up example names bubbling away on the backburner, Yuffie returned John's smile with a grin. "How 'bout you?" Most people she'd met were from Earth; usually from a couple of specific countries. Maybe this time, she'd get lucky.
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"'The planet' is rather direct, at least." So was 'Gaia', though, and 'Earth', and 'New Earth', and a lot of other planet names. Then again, it probably beat calling a planet 'Bob' or 'Roger' or 'Smithy', but there were also names that were much more interesting, like Delphon or Metebelis III.
...Then again, that 'III' made it less creative.
"I'm from another planet myself," the Doctor freely admitted. "Though I'm quite familiar with Earth, as well. I make stops here a lot, and I generally like the people."
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Yuffie rolled her eyes, huffing out a dismissive little 'pfft'. "It's not direct, it's boring. I bet Gaia'd agree with me, too." If it wasn't in the middle of suicide attempt number ninety eight thousand billion, anyway. Granted, it was never really the planet's fault, but. Just once, once, it'd be nice to be thrown a bone. One that didn't involve a fifty-fifty (ish) chance of genocide.
The admittance immediately snagged her attention. Yuffie might've bounced, if she hadn't been jogging; as it was, she kind of… bounded. Once or twice. "You know what it's like, then. This place, and the whole-not being from it, thing."
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Donna had been bitten by one, but she hadn't said anything about a virus from it. If she'd caught something, he was sure he'd been the first to hear about it.
"I'm not exactly used to staying this long, but, well... Yes, I know what it's like," the Doctor answered, nodding. Had he really been here this long, and seemingly no closer to answers than he'd been on day one? It was like being stuck working for UNIT all over again, only less satisfying.
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She perked up again quickly enough. No point in dwelling on the things you couldn't change, least of all when they were in the past. "This is the longest I've stayed in one place since…" Yuffie thought for a moment, fingers flicking lightly as she ticked things off in her head. "Since I was nine. And-"
"-Hanna!"
It was Plucky; hands on her hips, long-suffering, I'm-glad-I-get-paid-for-this smile on her face, waiting just off to the side of her planned route. "Oh, great," Yuffie groaned. The interruption was irritating, but Yuffie shot a quick, bright grin at her jogging companion, lingering instead of jogging back to her nurse immediately. The company had been fun, and John wasn't half bad at keeping a steady pace… Ah, what the hell. Spontaneity was the spice of life! And she could always ditch him if it turned sour (or boring)! Perfect. "Hey, if you were thinkin' of going out anytime soon," she inclined her head towards the outer walls, a wicked glint in her eyes, "how about coming along with me?"
Not the smoothest invitation she'd ever given, but it wasn't like she had practice in this sort of thing.
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A corner or his lips quirked up at Yuffie's invitation. She'd been good company, obviously had guts and determination, and liked running... "I wouldn't mind the company at all," he concluded. "I'll see about finding you again some time."
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Invitation having been offered and (mostly?) accepted, she flipped a casual little wave and took off. From jog, to sprint, to purposeful almost collision-what better way to wind Plucky up? Other than a couple of cheeky barbs and a thinly veiled insult, and the stuffy old nurse was gonna be getting plenty of those on the way back to the cafeteria.
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