Day 50: Arts & Crafts Room (4th Shift)
It barely felt like she'd been outside for any time at all when the intercom sounded and the nurse came to fetch her. "Can't I stay a little longer?" she asked, but the woman only clicked her tongue and frowned, reaching to feel her forehead as though testing for a fever. "The weather simply isn't good enough, Natalie dear," the nurse said, once
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The girl grinned when Natalia started asking questions. She sounded pretty happy to see her! But then again, who wouldn't be? "I'm doing good! Well, as good as you can get in a dump like this." It was hard to be completely satisfied when she was still technically a prisoner. "And I guess it's been... a little over three weeks now."
Anise may have appeared a bit distracted, turning her head to look over her shoulder at the shelves that lined the wall. "Oh! There's more of it over there." She stood and walked over to take a look, selecting several containers with lids of varying colors, then bringing an armful back to the table.
She picked one up and glanced over the small-print section of the label. So this was some kind of modeling clay...? Well, this was Arts and Crafts.
In that moment, the opportunity for mischief presented itself, and Anise couldn't bring herself to ignore it. "I bet these other colors are the different flavors! Maybe they're better than that one," she suggested, her grin widening.
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Of course, the curiosity of the dough (ought to have) paled before finding Anise. Of course she was happy to see her. Even in these wretched, bleak uniforms, Anise looked just the same. As Natalia had expected, the girl seemed little changed or defeated by her three week stay; she bore the same energy, the same mischief lit eyes, the same so casual as to be coarse way of speaking. To think, that a time would come when Natalia would find comfort in phrases like, in a dump like this.
"I am glad to hear it," Natalia smiled, though her eyes were briefly troubled. Three weeks for Anise. Communication could possibly be delayed by that much time, but given Anise's rising position within the Order of Lorelei, Natalia doubted it. Though she had accepted the discrepancies in time, she could little help first reacting to it by comparing it to what she knew in her world. It had only been just over a day since she had been in Baticul, after all.
She meant to ask at what time Anise had been taken, but found herself facing an empty seat as Anise sprung for more of the bizarre dough. Taken by both the question of time and the sudden influx of covers, Natalia failed to realize that Anise was reading the label; indeed, it never occurred to her to do likewise. So few things were packaged and labeled with ingredients and instructions; more often one received that information from the vendor, or the go-between, or even a maid.
Predictably, Natalia fell for it. Having still not learned to distrust that grin, her eyes widened. How could she help but be curious? It made a great deal of sense.
"Oh, that might be so! I do wonder what the purpose or appeal of the red one is," she remarked while reaching, drawn, to a blue-capped tube, "perhaps it's merely an ingredient in a larger product."
Natalia pried off the cap and took an experimental sniff. It smelled the same, which did seem to disprove Anise's theory, but there was only one way in which to truly put it to rest. Picking a small amount between her thumb and forefinger, she brought the dark blue dough to her lips, and in it went.
Years of training in etiquette and otherwise kept Natalia from pulling a most terrible face and spitting out the morsel. With great effort, she swallowed without a single change in expression, and firmly replace the lid.
"No, not only are they identical, but this was not better."
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Anise couldn't quite hold back her laughter, and a small giggle escaped her. To keep from looking suspicious, she immediately began talking again. "--Ehe! Well, since it's dough, maybe it won't taste right until someone bakes it." That was the best excuse she could make up on the spot. Hopefully Natalia wouldn't think to check the label and see that Anise was lying.
...Of course, if she did, the Guardian could probably still weasel her way out of getting blamed.
"Anyway, you haven't been here very long, right?" she went on to say, trying to change the subject before her trick could be discovered. "How much do you know about this place already? Maybe I can fill in a few blanks."
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"Perhaps," Natalia allowed, mostly dubious. Her lack of talent in the kitchen did go hand-in-hand with a certain inability with flavors and tastes, yet she was quite certain that she had tasted no spice or ingredient of any familiarity in the dough. In any case, she was more than willing to move on to the new, far more relevant subject. Even as she, idly while considering the query, turned the tube and finally noted the small-text.
Luckily for Anise, Natalia looked without reading.
"Allow me to think a moment," she requested. "I woke up yesterday, in the late morning. At that time, I believe every patient with whom I spoke had also arrived recently, though I was compelled to deduce, or hope, that I'd somehow been transported to a different world. It seems probable from the books in the library that we are on a planet called Earth, as I spoke with a girl who knew the titles. Our times are confused as well. At night, I was warned that there are monsters, though I encountered none last night--and Luke and Guy mentioned that you went home."
Natalia paused, tilting her head in reflection. She removed, again, the top from the tube, beginning to pick the mass of dough out of its container. "That may cover it. There is much to learn, I'm sure."
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"Sounds like you've got most of it figured out!" Anise commented in a chipper, encouraging tone. "But, yeah... there's a lot to swallow." Maybe Natalia was fortunate in that she didn't question a lot of the things she heard. It had taken Anise days to acknowledge several of the details that Natalia had already accepted in this short time. After all, if someone was told this was an alien planet and all their friends had traveled through time somehow, they'd normally think that was totally crazy, right?
Not Natalia.
"Um, as for other stuff you should know..." Anise leaned in a little closer, partially cupping her hand over her mouth to keep her voice from traveling far enough to be heard by unrelated parties. "Sometimes they take people from their rooms at night, and do really horrible stuff to them. Like, some people get brainwashed into attacking other people, and some people get experimented on..."
And now that the Head Doctor had announced 're-trials,' it sounded like nobody was safe. That was why it was extra important that Natalia knew about it.
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Instinctively, as Anise leaned, so did Natalia, tipping an ear toward the girl's hand. Her eyes widened at the information passed, her fingers pressing hard into the dough; blue got beneath her fingernails. As if monsters were not enough. As if kidnapping hundreds of innocents (so assumed), trapping them inside a prison, subjecting them to mental torture and a determination to wear them down was not enough! Brainwashing, experiments, turning friend against friend. Natalia's eyes watered, bright, with the vehemence of her reaction.
It was all she could do not to leap to her feet and make demands of the nearest nurse, insist that she be taken to see Landel himself. Clasping her hands tightly to her chest, Natalia focused on remaining seated, on keeping her voice low and composed, if reverberating with outrage.
"This is unacceptable," she managed, pushed out through her teeth. "This is completely, utterly, and--and absolutely unacceptable! I shall never rest until I have seen Landel properly handled, and the patients here freed! This..."
Natalia shook her head, overcome.
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