cast the boat, take a ride

[tattoosandropes]

Characters: Miku Hinasaki and OPEN!
Setting/Location: Caravan, Level 1, Lobby B
Date & Time: Day 1, morning
Warnings: Beware of angst, for Miku is chock-full of it.
Summary: Miku thinks about her dreams in one of the Caravan's lobbies, and it's a perfect opportunity for anyone else to come make conversation with her.

Comments

[kickasspacifist]

Contrary to popular (or perhaps just uninformed) belief, reploids did dream -- and not just of electric sheep. Whether it was simply echoes of previously collected data manifesting during sleep cycles (as skeptics liked to claim), or solid proof that reploids were capable of all of the same mental functions as humans (X liked this explanation much better), it happened, and it was something that X had long ago gotten used to -- because he dreamed a lot. Maybe it was because he was considered to have the most complex processing of any existing member of his race. Maybe it was just because he'd been around for nearly sixty years, and had plenty to dream about.

Either way, he did feel reasonably well rested, if a bit uneasy. His dreams had been fairly pleasant ones, of places he'd visited before the earliest Maverick Uprisings; he suspected the hours he'd spent admiring Willaknapp's landscape were to blame for that. But the places he'd dreamed of had long since been ruined in the wars, and waking to that thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

X had always been a morning person, though, and he'd long since learned that the best way to stop dwelling on his dreams was to get up and start the day with gusto. So there was a spring in his step as he headed out into the lobby -- unarmored, finally, as he didn't think clanking around at his usual volume would go over well at this hour -- and spotted the girl sitting there.

"Good morning," he said, taking a seat across from her. "Are you feeling okay? You look a little under the weather."

[tattoosandropes]

It took Miku a moment to realize that she was being spoken to, but when she did, she looked up with a tired gaze. She managed a smile--there was no use being impolite to this stranger, especially given that they were expressing concern.

"I'm just a bit tired," she said, and for the most part it was the truth. It wasn't like she could talk about the curse anyway, not that she wanted to do so in the first place. She paused, unsure what to say next. Conversation would be a good distraction from the things plaguing her mind, wouldn't it?

"...How are you?"

[kickasspacifist]

"I'm about as well as can be expected, given the circumstances." Even that much depended on one's perspective, X supposed, but from where he was sitting, the potential consequences of their unexpected vacation could be dire. There was too much happening back home -- there was always too much happening back home. It was hard not to worry about it.

But things could still be much worse. They had a way back, potentially. They were all in one piece, and the caravan seemed about as safe as they could hope for anything to be while they were here. As long as that held, they were okay, he figured. Look to the future, and keep on moving. What else is there to be done, really?

Her voice was familiar, though, and after a moment he was able to place it. "I think we've spoken on the Junogam already. Miku, right?"

[tattoosandropes]

"Yes, that's me." Now it was up to her to remember who he was...

"And, hm... you're X?" It was clear she wasn't sure if she'd gotten his name right--she'd spoken to a quite a few people.

She had to wonder if Mafuyu would have been proud of her for reaching out and contacting the other newcomers in Sleepywoods and the Caravan. Would he have been happy that she wasn't quite as withdrawn as she used to be? She hoped so.

[kickasspacifist]

He nodded. "Got it in one. It's a pleasure to talk to you in person."

She hadn't seemed like she wanted to elaborate much on how she was feeling, so he opted to steer the conversation towards less personal grounds. His gaze traveled across the room, past all of the (very comfortable!) chairs. "I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the accommodations so far."

...well, the shower situation seemed to be causing some problems, but X wasn't really bothered by it. It wasn't as if he was planning on looking.

[tattoosandropes]

"It's good to talk to you in person too." And it was, really! Before arriving here, it had been a while since she'd spoken to someone other than Rei, or to other people for something that didn't involve research. Smalltalk had never been her specialty, but X seemed nice enough, so she'd put in effort. Besides, she needed to stay awake--needed a distraction.

"I am too. The Caravan is a nice place. It's... not home, but it works." Then again, as long as a place wasn't run-down and haunted, Miku could be considerably content with it.

[kickasspacifist]

"Nothing can replace home. But I have to admit...eager as I am to get back there, part of me doesn't find it entirely unwelcome to be pulled out for a breather here, either." Even when Maverick activity was at a low ebb and Hunter HQ was at Condition Green, home was never really calm. A good day at Hunter HQ was one in which nobody was dispatched, but even in the best of times, good days weren't terribly common. The peace of the caravan was a welcome contrast.

[tattoosandropes]

Miku nodded, and only wished she could empathize. The curse was still affecting her, thus she wasn't really free of anything. In fact, she might have been even worse off. After all, if Miku was here, that meant Rei was alone back home, and that wasn't good, and it worried her. But who knew--maybe they'd meet in their dreams.

"Was your home a busy place?"

[kickasspacifist]

"I work for a military organization, so even on off days, we're never what I'd call quiet." That might've been an understatement; X always kept at least part of his unit on call, even when the current condition and orders didn't require him to. "I could get used to the lack of klaxons."

[tattoosandropes]

"It must be very demanding," she said sympathetically. "I know I'd be grateful for the break if I were you, too..."

[kickasspacifist]

"It needs to be done," he said simply. For all the problems inherent in his job, X knew that he was good at it, and he'd already seen how bad things could get when he tried to leave it behind. It wasn't in his character to stand back and leave things when he knew he could make them better.

But it wasn't like he meant to keep going on about himself. "Have you been settling in okay?"

[tattoosandropes]

"Some things... no matter how difficult, have to be done," she agreed. No matter how frightening, no matter how stressful, some things were necessary. Like that time in the Mansion.

"It's all a bit much to get used to," she admitted.

[kickasspacifist]

"It's a little far out of the realm of common experience for most of us, from what I've gathered." Understatement, again; X tended to be good at those. If anyone had told him beforehand that he'd be waking up in a place that looked like a fairy tale illustration and hopping on board an ogre rickshaw, it would only have been sheer politeness that stopped him from laughing them out of the room.

And yet here they were.

"I'm not sure whether I find the sheer number of us to be more or less worrisome. It's nice to not be alone in all this, but it makes you wonder what would even be capable of doing something so big."

[tattoosandropes]

"There are lots of strange forces in the world..." Miku murmured.

If Reika had the power to curse all who mourned their lost loved ones, it didn't surprise her that much that something, someone, could be capable of causing all this. Maybe not one person--this was rather large scale, even for Reika's powers (not that they involved trapping people in a fairytale-land), so she had to wonder if it was multiple people that had done this.

...Perhaps it was the work of ghosts, after all. The Mansion and Manor had been full of them--if enough spirits worked hard enough, could they do something like this? Was it possible?

[kickasspacifist]

"I don't have experience with much that can't be explained through technology," X admitted.

Then again, there were plenty of others here who would've found that to be strange enough in itself. X was willing to accept that there were things that couldn't be boiled down to algorithms and hard data; even if his own somewhat miraculous recovery at the end of the Fifth Uprising hadn't been enough to convince him, the simple fact that he was sitting here now was proof enough that things could happen. (And the proof he'd seen from Diana certainly didn't hurt, either.)

But accepting that it was possible didn't actually answer any questions. There was something in Miku's tone, though -- "You sound as if you're speaking from personal experience."

[tattoosandropes]

Ghosts were probably the last thing that could have been explained through technology.

"...I'm sorry, it's not something I...like to talk about," she said quietly, eyes downcast.

But that in itself was an affirmation that she did have personal experience with the 'strange forces in the world' that she spoke of.