Lost

[misono_soup]

"Genuemon?" Misono poked around on deck, looking for her family. She found him chatting animatedly with strangers in a language she didn't know. She looked down at the picnic basket in her hands. She'd snuck in to the kitchens and charmed the cooks into giving her a lunch for two...but she knew her family and she knew he wouldn't want to leave

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[misono_soup]

"Yes, but I still made you do it. It's not like you'd have had a picnic if I hadn't made you come out." But she smiled. She was really good at stuff like that. "We can watch the clouds if you want or look over the front edge of the ship to see if we can see dolphins." She settled the string, finally, and held it up. "But I don't really like looking down at the water for too long. It's all churn-y and whirl-y at the front, without the foam and bubbles like the back."

She smiled up at him, looking away from the string and blinked. "Your hair is completely really red." She remarked. It startled her and she wondered how long it would take to get used to. It, unlike his name, could not be changed so very easily. She wondered idly if it matched his wings and then widened her eyes. "Hey, hey, you know you don't have to keep your wings all closed up out here. Nobody will see!" Well. "Except me! I'd see. I might even stare." She'd really only seen the shape of them, the suggestion of the colors.

Ahhh, but she was kind of pushy. "You don't have to have them all out, either," she added. "I think it's mostly that I'm jealous and I have never met anybody with wings like yours before. Also, I just plain think they should be out. I'd have mine out all over the place."

[faysounds]

Misono was right - she had made him come out for a picnic. Not that he couldn't have stayed hidden, Kazunari supposed, but she seemed like she'd have been very persistent. He'd have likely given in no matter what. So Kazunari wasn't going to argue the point.

"I don't like water much at all," Kazunari said, "I don't like being wet. It's too heavy and I can't move my wings."

It was like being trapped when his wings were weighed down. He hated that feeling most of all.

Kazunari reached up automatically to pull on a braid. His hair was very red. It had been mostly normal for a long time. Not that red hair was everywhere, but he'd lived among enough people who had it that it hadn't stood out. Then Marie had liked it even though it wasn't a normal color for Austrians or French, so he'd kept it.

He tilted his head a little. It was true that he didn't have to have his wings closed up. He didn't have to have them out, either, but it would be nicer than having them shoved under his shirt. Kazunari shrugged his shoulders and worked them out of the sleeves. He didn't take his shirt off - that would be too rude even between them - but left it to hang over his front while he stretched his wings to their full breadth. He let them settle loosely and sighed.

"I haven't stretched them much lately."

[misono_soup]

Misono loved water. She didn't mind being wet. But if she had wings, she reasoned, she'd probably feel the same way. Butterflies hid from the rain, even if it meant under the shelter of Misono's hands. She nodded absently, wiggling at the string, pinching and tugging.

She watched Kazunari from the corner of her eye. She hoped she hadn't made him too self conscious about his hair. It was just. It wasn't black or brown but red. With bits of orange-y parts and even something that might have been like gold. She was fascinated by it. AND by his wings as he stretched them.

He was like a butterfly newly out, moving his wings slowly. She forgot all about the string in her hands to beam at him. "That's better, right?" She nodded authoritatively even before he could say anything. "They look like they were made from the sunshine, you know, so it's better." And she should stop staring. She lifted her hands to offer him the string.

"Oh. See, I said I'd mess up first!" She offered him the tangle. "Want to help me un-knot it?" She started picking at the ends. She wanted to ask him all sorts of impertinent questions about his wings and flying and all kinds of stuff. "Ninomiya Kazunari," she said softly. She just liked his name. It suited the person he felt like, to her. But that was silly, to say his name just to say it. "We should ayatori the ropes around the ship, just for fun one day!" she suggested rashly.

[faysounds]

It was better. Keeping his wings free was always better than confining them. Wings weren't meant to be confined - it defeated their purpose entirely. But it wasn't so forgiving, this world, not like it used to be. Whereas once they'd accepted it as fact, nowadays humans didn't seem to like reminders that they weren't completely in control.

Kazunari chuckled lowly, nodded, and reached out to help Misono pick at the knot. He could loosen it with magic, but it was better to keep it a two-person effort.

"Wouldn't those be very heavy? We'd have to do it at night so they found them in the morning. We probably couldn't get very far."

But it would be fun. There was no denying that.

[misono_soup]

"They would be heavy and it would be hard and we probably really couldn't do them all in one night but I like to aim high," Misono said sensibly, slipping a knot free. "And to have options." Humming under her breath, she wiggled another knot loose.

"So, if you want, we can do that one night. How much sleep do you need?" she asked curiously. "Because I can be up all night and be mostly okay--I like sleeping like people but I don't need to all the time." Switching families meant really needing sleep and really, really feeling sleepy. But ordinary days, she didn't always need it. "But if you need sleeping, we can do other things. We can move all the maps around in the steering-wheel room." She'd peeked in there. "Because I can be not-here and you can be not-seen and we could fold the maps like origami if we wanted." They could do anything.

"Ah! But today is your day to pick everything! Even planning things, if you want!"

[faysounds]

Kazunari tugged the string some more, loosening a bit here and straightening a bit there.

"I don't really need to sleep, either," he said. "Maybe once a month. Mostly I just doze, because it's nice to do that in the sun."

He also needed sleep more often when he was encased in iron, like he'd been for weeks now. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. At least he assumed it'd been weeks.

"I think for tonight I'd like to try sleeping. Maybe up on a roof."

Anything to be out of the way of humans and not back in the hull.

[misono_soup]

On the ROOF? "On the roof?" she asked, jaw dropping. "But--but!" Misono had had to sleep outside before while travelling. She had some hazy, blank-ish memories from before first Mama in the garden that had been outside (she thought)--she couldn't imagine wanting to sleep outside. "Maybe there's an open room?"

She could find out. She could wheedle it out of the Quartermaster with sweet smiles and her messed up English. "Because I like the moon and the stars as much as anybody but you can't just...sleep outside! That's scandalous!" she decided in the heat of the moment. "Also, there aren't pillows on the roof."

Pillows were important. She tugged and the last knot came loose. She handed the string to Kazunari to set up. She'd see his patterns now.

[faysounds]

Kazunari took the string and twined it absently around his fingers. He cocked his head thoughtfully. Why would anybody not like sleeping outside? Unless it was raining or cold, sleeping outside was the best! He preferred a good tree to a roof, but when one had no trees...

"We used to sleep outside a lot. The really old humans did. Especially in summer. There was almost no air inside if you had the whole family under one roof. Only grandma and grandpa got the bed."

Or sometimes sons, if grandma and grandpa weren't there, or dad if there wasn't a son. Where had those rules come from? Kazunari couldn't remember exactly. They hadn't been important enough for him to care.

"I guess if there's an open room I could try it there."

Kazunari held out the string.

[misono_soup]

Obviously, this was a cultural difference like the ones Genuemon had told her about. Kazunari quite obviously saw nothing wrong with sleeping outside and Misono couldn't equate 'sleeping outside of the house without reason' with something she'd want to do. Even with crowding.

"Sometimes we'd sleep outside in summer but mostly everybody slept in all together." She cocked her head and took the string, moving easily in the early stages. "I don't like being outside. That's too much like--" and she could recall what it was or what she'd been before her mama had found her in the garden. "It's too much like being homeless-child," she finished.

But that was her feeling. Not Kazunari-kun's. "But if you like it outside, that's okay. It's supposed to be a clear night. We can find you a good place. Maybe in a life boat!" Misono really, really wanted to go in the lifeboats. Maybe down into the water in the lifeboat. Like an adventure. "And I can find you an open room for when it's not a good night." It was dangerous to sleep in the rain. Misono didn't care what Kazunari was. No rain.

[faysounds]

A life boat... Right - those were the things on the side of the big boat. He'd heard mothers pointing them out to their kids before he'd hidden himself away. Sleeping in one of them might not be so bad. They seemed secure enough and they probably wouldn't wobble any more than the actual boat did.

"I liked being outside. Being inside was too much like being caged until I got used to it," he said, slipping the string off Misono's fingers and back onto his own. "Now I'm okay with both. Being indoors is better sometimes."

He still liked outside better. But not in rain or snow. He'd not even known what rain or snow were until he'd come here. He hadn't liked them then and he didn't like them now.

[misono_soup]

"Caged?" Misono asked without thinking about it, feeling her eyes go wide. She suddenly had a whole bunch of new questions that she probably really shouldn't ask. But just the idea of Kazunari and his wings and a cage was enough to make her shiver inside.

So she shoved the thought and her questions aside and reached for the game. "The lifeboats have covers on them so I'm not sure how to get them off--we could find out and get them off and dump them into the ocean. I like dropping things off the side," she confided. "It's fun to watch them disappear. Do you think there are merfolk this deep out? Do you think they want a lifeboat cover?" She wasn't sure what she, herself, would do with one. Maybe she'd see what she could do with it? "I wonder if we could do something with it ourselves."

[faysounds]

Kazunari nodded, shrugging slightly. Caged. It had been once, and for a pretty short period of time, and a really long time ago. He was over it. He waited for Misono to take the game and looked reflexively over his shoulder. Merfolk?

It was possible. Stories said they liked warmer waters, though, but stories didn't know everything. Maybe there were some that liked colder ones. "If we called, do you think they'd come?" Merfolk were supposed to be curious about ships, weren't they? "Maybe we could make shapes out of a cover and give it to them? They could keep it for art."

[misono_soup]

"Maybe it folds like origami," Misono mused, getting the string set between her hands and holding it up. "That's kind of like art, yeah? And we could make them their own origami boat so that they don't drown us."

Maybe they DID come when called. Misono had only ever met kappa before, not merfolk. She'd seen some at a distance a very long time ago but not close. "I think--are we too high up to call them? We're very high up, you know, above the water." She wanted to go peek over the side now, despite the churn of the waves. "I'm not supposed to yell at things that can't yell back. Genuemon and everybody says that's weird."

Although... "You can yell at the water, if you want. Unless there's another way?"

[faysounds]

"I suppose we are," Kazunari agreed thoughtfully. He began to work the string around his fingers and took it off Misono's. "I used to hear all kinds of stories about merfolk, though, and how they liked to wait on rocks for boats to sink. I wonder if those were true. Though I suppose we're a little far away from any rocks, aren't we?"

He settled the string onto his fingers. "Let's try yelling tomorrow anyway." He nodded decisively. "I think I'm going to. Just to see what would happen. Maybe they'll come up to tell me to shut it."

[misono_soup]

"Tomorrow, we yell," Misono agreed. "And if they tell you to shut up, I will tell them to shut up too. I will tell them to shut up twice." Yeah! Twice! "And also, we are really, really far away from rocks so that they totally can't sink us. Genuemon says that any rocks out here would actually be islands, like home."

She tipped her head. "Japan rises up out of the sea in a string of little islands until you get to the main one, where I'm from, and the water and the wind break around it and keep it safe. So that's what would happen with islands out here. Plus, I'm here. Nothing bad will happen with me here."

Not unless there was some serious magic involved. "So we're totally the safest kind of safe. You and Genuemon most especially because I like you. Did you know you have warm fingers?" she asked as she took the string shape from him. "Because you do. They're warmer up here than they were down there."

[faysounds]

Kazunari giggled, forgetting for a moment that he was trying to stay quiet on the off chance that somebody should come by and hear them. He quickly smashed a hand over his mouth to cover it when he remembered. But the idea of yelling at merfolk - and then telling them to shut up if the merfolk came and yelled back! It sounded like something he might have proposed many years ago.

At least the merfolk wouldn't be able to sink them.

Kazunari lifted his wings absently and settled against the wall behind him. "No. Between you and me nothing bad will happen at all." Her luck bubbled with Good. It felt remarkably similar to his own, actually, now that he thought about it. Maybe that was why he'd let her draw him out without much resistance.

He looked at his fingers automatically and stretched them. "Are they?" He hadn't noticed. "Huh. I guess. People used to tell me I was a fire on cold nights."