[The audio feed comes on first, catching the sound of violent shuffling before there's the sound of the PDA clattering to the floor with the video turning on as it lands
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(OOC: No, I've only just finished high school; lack of sleep is from a cold, birds squawking at 3am and my cat meowing at my window just after that. x( And that's definitely true for me.)
[The young woman watched as Grimmer sat down in front of her, taking note of his limp-most likely from the explosion. At his question she gave him a half-hearted shrug, before shaking her head slightly and then just gave a sigh as she ran her hands through her hair in agitation. She gave him an annoyed look at the emphasis on “fake” although she nodded her head; she knew they weren't real, they were dead.
She should know, she killed them after all…
Vera trembled violently as the feeling of nausea rose up, clamping a hand over her mouth on instinct. She forced herself to think of something else, anything to make the slowly rising whispers go away and the small bloody shadow to disappear out of the comer of her eye. But she could already feel the panic and fear and guilt begin to overwhelm her again, she needed to find something to focus on or she would just revert back into that state as the accusing whispers got louder and the child-like shadows became more visible and she would hurt, kill Grimmer-
Her other hand rose up to grasp onto Grimmer’s arm; a silent plea for help, as her whole body began to tremble violently as she hunched over, trying to hide how she was beginning to struggle with the murderous part of her, with the urge to just kill and drown everything out. Vera knew that it would show on her face, and she didn't want Grimmer to see that.]
[OOC: Sorry for the lateness! My town’s entire internet went down for most of yesterday and today. My town is fairly small, so that occasionally happens once or twice every year.]
[Grimmer was doing a relatively good job ignoring the young boy standing to the side of the Vera, holding a gasoline tank in his hand. He just made himself focus on talking to Vera; an action that let Grimmer put a bit less attention on the teenage boy now dumping gasoline on himself, muttering about how he had become an empty monster.
However, Grimmer's eyebrows twitched as the boy began to whisper questions. Why were those schools allowed to be created? Why didn't anyone speak up? Why didn't anyone say anything to prevent all of this?
'I'm sorry. I tried my hardest.' Grimmer thought towards the boy, and instantly flinched away. It's fake, it's fake, it's a nightmare. Don't speak to him. Ignore him.
As the boy lifted a lighter out of his pocket, Grimmer was strangely thankful for the distraction that Vera provided when she covered her mouth, struggling to fight back her nausea. He could focus on this, and attempt to ignore the burning, laughing and screaming youth in the corner of his vision.]
Hey, calm down now. Calm down~ [Grimmer placed one hand on her shoulder, squeezing it strongly, in hopes of creating some kind of distraction from whatever she was now seeing. At the same time though he was ready to stand up and grab something in case she did get sick. He could understand what she was feeling; he had become quite nauseous from the images earlier as well. And the smell of burning flesh reaching his nose really was not helping Grimmer’s situation at the moment.
However, Grimmer’s eyes widened when Vera began to violently tremble and grabbed his arm.] C-Calm down! It’s fake-whatever it is, it’s trying to draw this reaction out of you! [He swallowed, watching as Vera drew into herself. He was not doing so good at all. He felt somewhat helpless at this, especially when he believed he was going to go borderline insane in a moment as well. But there was no way he was going to leave her alone, when she was this scared and panicked.]
When you were at home… What did you like? When I was in Germany, I liked fishing, and picnics, and really good food! [ He continued speaking, refusing to let even a moment of silence exist. He wanted to create something, anything that might distract her.]
After the city I lived in, East Berlin, was opened up to the world 9 years ago, you wouldn’t believe how quickly things changed! Before hand there was barely anything interesting on the streets, but within a year there were artists and musicians and puppeteers and-oh, did I mention that some of the best restaurants had opened up? My favorite was this small little café- it wasn’t as fancy as some of the other places, but really, where else could you go when you are an unsuccessful journalist? And I think the food there was just as create as some of the five star places, definitely! The people who owned the place were so nice and they always remembered you; they just made the food taste good, you know? Were there any places like that? Did you know anybody who could do the same?
[Vera could hear them whispering, the accusations of them dying because of her; she could have saved them, she was meant to save them it was her duty, but she left them to die at the hands of some sick bastard and she could hear them screaming and she could smell the blood and-Oh god, I’m so sorry…
Yet the moment Grimmer started speaking, it seemed to partially snap her out of the psychosis. Not enough so that the whispers and blood vanished but enough so that the soldier could try to focus on what he was saying. She focused all of her attention on Grimmer’s words, and did not allow it to waver. Her loosening grip on his arm signified that his distraction was slowly working.
Her trembling soon began to subside as she listened to Grimmer; Vera made sure to nod every so often to show him that she was listening. At his questions, her thoughts went to the small town in Halier which the war never touched; where there was the woman who fussed over her squad and Vera when they visited along with her two children, with the friendly old couple just down the street, and the man with the wooden leg who always insisted that they eat at his café before they left. They all lived in the town that Penumbra protected, the she protected…
And she couldn’t protect anything acting like this.
The young woman removed her hand from Grimmer’s arm as she sat up, having finally snapped out of the psychosis. Vera gave Grimmer a look of gratitude as she released the breath that she had been holding in now that the nausea had passed and pushed away some of the hair that had fallen in front of her face.
She made sure to mentally punch herself; she was a soldier for fucks sake and, nightmares or not, she had better start acting like one.]
[The East German's shoulders dropped in relief when Vera's shivering started to subside, and his tired smile became bigger when she looked up at him as he spoke. While Grimmer was completely unaware of it, there was a level of fondness to his smile that he had not, and could not ever have, calculated into it. It was as though the disconnected section of him was trying to show that it existed; mildly, weakly, and smothered, but still alive.
Even though Vera was much stronger than Grimmer, and seemed to be missing apart of her psychology as well, Grimmer still saw her as just a normal human child. Furthermore, if the scars and her rank, as well as her home worlds political situation were any indication, than other than being very intelligent and strong, she also had probably lead a very sad childhood. Grimmer respected her a lot, and her ability to hold onto her humanity despite being a child that had gone through so much violence made the journalist want to help her as much as he could.
When she stood up, Grimmer quickly analyzed her expression to check whether she was back to normal, or about to attack either him or some nightmare-ish phantom. Once he was convinced it was the former, his body completely relaxed, and he scratched his hair as he let out a sigh of relief.] Welcome back!
[As soon as he said that, Grimmer suddenly noticed that the horrific smell was no longer there. Good, so he was back to normal as well. Grimmer carefully un-crossed his legs and began to stand up. He wasn't sure about Vera, but after all of those images he was feeling rather claustrophobic inside of the apartments. With the risk of Steiner eventually appearing, Grimmer had planned on leaving and isolating himself from the others until these hallucinations disappeared, but he was certain that he could hold it off for awhile longer.]
[When she heard Grimmer, Vera honestly couldn’t stop herself from smiling at him; it was small and fleeting but it was still there. It was odd, but she couldn’t help herself from liking the older man, even in most cases someone with such a cheery demeanour would piss her off. Maybe it’s was because all he’s done since she got here was help her, even when she did bitch at him at first, and she had the feeling that she could trust him. Either way, she felt that she didn’t need to act as a soldier and keep her guard up around him.
Which is why when she helped Grimmer back up onto his feet her expression, while back in it’s usually neutral look, was less guarded and hard than before, making her look her age for once. Once Grimmer was on his feet, she leaned back against the apartment’s wall behind her and listened to the thunder and rain outside. Right now, she wanted to leave the apartments and do something outside, just so she could have something to focus on; after her two freak-outs she was starting to feel trapped inside the apartment and she knew sitting here twiddling her thumbs would do nothing to help her. But she didn’t want to run the risk of getting sick, even if her immune system was stronger than average.
Vera glanced towards Grimmer, her expression a questioning one; what was he going to do?]
T-Thanks! [Grimmer nodded towards Vera as she helped him up. Even though Grimmer had the...almost secondary ability of being very skilled at analyzing traits about people and getting an understanding of them, such as their job, personalities, or whether or not they were wrongly accused of being mass murderers; he still struggled with pinpointing and truly understanding a lot of traits and thought processes about people. Nonetheless, he did notice that Vera's expression became a lot more suitable for her age, and he automatically grinned more strongly towards her.]
I don't know about you, but I really don't want to spend alot of time inside today. But...[He frowned as he heard the rain and thunder from outside. Not only was this going to cut down on his original "hide out" scouting plans, but this would also make any attempts to deal with his newly formed claustrophobia a bit more difficult.]
Why don't we focus on studying languages until...this entire thing passes? I think it would be good way to keep our minds from getting caught on these nightmares. The language they speak in the surrounding area is called Russian, and I can speak it fluently. As for the language that most of the others seem to speak here, it's called...Japanese in my world. Some of them seem to come from an area other than the island Japan though. But I can speak a moderate amount of that!
[When the weather was better, Grimmer hoped that maybe they could either go to the library and track down some language books, or failing that, at least use the PDA's language translation options to teach themselves a moderate amount of Japanese. It would be a good and very helpful strategy to pass the time until the images stopped.]
[It seemed that Grimmer’s grin was infectious as Vera returned it, although to a smaller and less visible degree as she gave him a nod at his thanks.
The young woman blinked curiously at Grimmer’s suggestion of learning languages, although it was a logical one since she had no idea what “Russian” was and it would be beneficial to know some of it if she ever encountered the natives, plus it would take her mind off the nightmares. And she wouldn’t mind learning more about this “Japanese” and Japan which she had heard about before and she was curious to see if she could find out more about his world. She cocked her head to the side as she thought about it, almost making her appear like a child, before nodding in agreement to his suggestion.
She picked up her coat and PDA off the floor before slinging her coat over one of the chairs by the table while keeping her PDA out; it would be her only way to communicate with Grimmer and it seemed to have a translation feature which would be helpful. She typed out a message before showing it to the older man- “Do you have anything that we can use besides the PDA’s? I haven’t got any writing equipment here if you need that.”]
Don't worry, I have a lot of writing materials! My job as journalist made me have to. I needed to take notes and write out rough drafts somehow! [He nodded to himself, his expression overly proud for simply stating that he carried pens and paper with him.]
So, that means you think it is a good idea? I'll go get the papers then. [Even though he was limping lightly, it didn't take long for Grimmer to go get a notebook and some pens, and arrive back at Vera's apartment. Grimmer hoped they could just work in her apartment, since his could be considered a half disaster. Not only did he put off cleaning it, but now that he had such a huge amount of papers without a bag to carry them in, his miniature kitchen/living area had stacks of paper covering pretty much all the surfaces except for what was essential to prepare food with. Grimmer didn't care himself, but it was really rather ridiculous.]
The language your speaking, what is it called anyhow? Do you come from an island? [Grimmer asked as he ripped some papers out of his notebook and handed them to Vera, along with a pen. Did Vera come from another version of England? Or was it an entirely other world altogether, and her country somehow...of all the slim possibilities, ended up sharing the same language as what was in Earth? Grimmer found all of these "other world" business really rather fascinating.]
[Vera looked at Grimmer in amusement as he seemed to state the fact that he had paper and pens was something to be proud of and watched as he limped to his room. Since he didn’t ask her to go with him, they were probably going to work in her apartment. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, but there was the small wooden table with chairs that they could work at.
So when Grimmer came back and gave her some paper and a pen she motioned from him to sit at the table while she sat across from him. His first question prompted a slightly irritated look from Vera; she knew that when people asked questions like that they automatically said “speak” but the use of the word annoyed her for obvious reasons. Still she considered Grimmer’s question’s before writing down her answer.]
“It’s called Vintian in my world; it’s one of the primary languages there.” [The young woman wrote before she thought about his second question, an island? That’s a rather odd assumption; did the language she use originate from an island in his world? Most likely since he asked her that.] “No, I’m from a continent called Kriafor which is part of a larger landmass called Krizanis. The country that I’m from is called Rhomya.” [Although it was faint, there was a look of anger on her face as she wrote down her home country; thinking about that place only brought up negative feelings and bad memories before she squashed them and her face was calm again.
Once she had done writing, she handed the piece of paper to Grimmer while looking at him expectantly; he got information about her world, so she wanted some on his, besides what he already told her.]
[Grimmer watched as Vera wrote down the message, and was able to read abit of it upside down. As such, he noticed her angry look over the country before she had even passed the paper back over to him. He titled his head to the side curiously, a sort of clueless smile on his face.
When Vera handed the paper back to him he took it, and read it over it quickly, since he'd sort of already read it upside down.] So...even though there's some cultural and language similarities, your world really does sound geographically completely different from mine. I'd like to see a map of the world we are in right now, to be honest.
[He nodded to himself, making a mental note to try to get a hold of one later.] Oh, but the world I'm in...well it's called Earth- [He grinned up at her in amusement, realizing that most likely, she also called her world Earth.] I come from a region called Europe; which is very small compared to the rest of the world, but contains a huge number of different languages and countries inside of it. [Well, if one included Russia into the picture than suddenly Europe became huge, but he knew that explaining that part would probably just make it overly confusing for her.] The place I come from is called East Germany. There used to be one Germany, but after a huge war overtook Europe about 50 years ago, a portion of Germany, East Germany, got claimed by a country called the USSR. The USSR took over many other Eastern European countries, and had a political system which caused it to isolate and cut itself off from the rest of the world. East Germany developed into it's own state, and the rights of pretty much everyone in all of these USSR countries were completely trampled.
Most USSR citizens weren't able to easily leave their home country, but I was able to leave East Germany and travel across the world. East Germany had the best intelligence network in the world, and I worked as a spy disguised as a international journalist.
[Grimmer paused, as though he had suddenly remembered something.] Oh, but today it's not like that! The USSR had a terrible economic system, and it collapsed on itself about 9 years ago. All of the Eastern European countries suddenly became free, and East Germany became free and reunified with West Germany in what became known as the "fall of the Berlin Wall". And so, for the past 9 years I've been working as a real journalist, traveling across former USSR states and investigating into human rights abuse that occurred both during and after the USSR's reign.
[Once he was done speaking, Grimmer seemed to take a deep breath, as though he had run out of oxygen from that mini rant. He had focused so much on Europe though, and it seemed that alot of the people here from Earth came from everywhere but Europe. Grimmer wasn't even sure how to begin on that.]
[Vera raised an eyebrow when he stated that the world he was from was called Earth, he didn’t need to tell her that as that is what her world was called as well. And he seemed to realize this if the look of amusement was any indication. However she did listen attentively to his explanation and is showed at how she kept her focus on him and folded her arms and the table to lean forward slightly. There wasn’t much change on her expression as he described his home, other than raising her eyebrows at the mention that he was a spy. It was hard to imagine someone like him being a spy, but Vera knew better than to judge a book by its cover.
What caught her attention was that he now investigating into human rights abuse, something fairly common in her world, was that what all those papers and books were about? But it wasn’t that surprising, given how he seemed to always want to help people which made her slightly hesitant to describe the current on goings in her own world; specifically the use of child soldiers and genetic experimentation. But still, he told her so much about his home, so she may as well tell him about hers and she could always leave out certain facts. Which is why when he was done, she waved her hand to say that it was enough before writing on another piece of paper.]
“On my Earth, Rhomya is engaged in a war with the three neighbouring countries in Kriafor; Halier and Autioe. One main factor about the war is that it has been going on for decades and no one knows the cause behind this war. Because of this, the other countries that were once a part of Kriafor have separated and joined the other continent, Rezanis and a treaty was formed so that as long as Rezanis doesn’t became involved in the war, it would be kept within Kriafor. However, this has been questioned as Rezanis has enough military power to easily quell the war but no-one except the leaders would know the actual reason behind the treaty. And other regions refuse to get involved as it is not affecting them. [She stopped as she considered as how to word what she would write next, she would leave out the fact that she was an experiment for now, as the idea of child soldiers may shock him enough.]
“I was once a soldier of Rhomya for many years although I defected not long ago due to”, [Her hand stilled as she thought about what happened to the old woman she thought as her mother, a look a great pain flashing across her face for a second before she looked calm again and continued writing, although her grip on the pen had visibly tightened.] “An incident a few years back that made me question them, although I didn’t dare to defect back then. I was approached by a group that was devoted to finding the reason behind the war, Penumbra, and I accepted their offer to join them. And I became the commander of the foot soldier squad, Basilisk, a few months ago.”
[Once Vera was done, she handed the paper to Grimmer and leaned back in her chair, releasing her grip on the pen, waiting to see what his thoughts were.]
[Since it was a lot of writing, Grimmer waited for her silence, a polite smile on his face. Once he got the paper, his face showed little emotion, except for the occasional nod here and there. Once he was done reading though, he seemed to have a barrage of questions for her.]
How old were you when you joined the military?...When did you become the commander?
[Her world was even more messed up than Grimmer had thought it was. He'd fortunately grown up in an era where no fighting of this magnitude had occurred; of course his earlier generation could remember World War II and the Russian invasion of East Berlin clearly, but he was free of that. He had his own concerns, and even though he wasn't really able to attach meanings to things in the first place, he still felt fortunate to not worry about those kinds of memories and experiences. Which it appears that Vera faced consistently.]
[Vera had a feeling that Grimmer was going to ask her about when she joined the military and had more or less thought out her answer so she knew what to write down. It was as truthful as possible without mentioning how she was basically made in a lab for the military.]
“When I was about four years old.” [Which was true in a sense, since that was when the practical training usually started although lessons started a couple of years before.] “I became commander of Basilisk about five months after joining Penumbra.”
[When she was done she handed the paper to Grimmer and leaned back slightly while crossing her arms. While she didn’t see anything odd about being trained to fight at such a young age, especially since that was what she was made to do and had grown up thinking that it was normal, others were usually shocked or horrified when they found out. Which was why she kept her focus on Grimmer, to see how he would react to it.]
[It didn't take Grimmer very long to react to her letter. As soon as the East German read the first sentence, his eyes widened in angry shock.]
Y-You were forced into the military at such a young age?! So...you didn't get a family at all?
[It really wasn't much different than Grimmer's past; starting at...probably age 6 his life became completely and rigidly controlled, with no choice or control at all and no childhood or memories except for a cartoon that he allowed himself to become unusually obsessed with. Even so, this was the kind of stuff that he was desperately trying to prevent from happening. He also thought that her becoming a major commander of the army was impressive, but his mind was far, far more focused on the first part of her message.]
I-I'm sorry that happened to you. Something somewhat similar happened to me, but, even so... and your society doesn't even see what's wrong with it at all?
[His reaction wasn't that much of a surprise for Vera, which was why she kept her face completely neutral. Although the mention of family caused her to wince as though in pain. When she wrote down her answer, her hand was shaking slightly.]
"I met a woman that I thought as my mother when I was about 11, she-"[The young woman stopped when she saw something wet drip onto the paper. Her hand released the pen and immediately flew to her eye to feel something wet gathering there. "Am I fucking crying?!" She brought a hand up to her cover eyes as if to hid the fact and to try to force the tears back, this is why she never liked talking about Rhoda; she always ended up bawling like some fucking child and the hallucinations before made her feel more vulnerable and emotional.
Once she was sure she wouldn't lose control, she returned her attention to Grimmer and frowned at him curiously, when he said he went through something similar; how the hell was he so cheerful all the time? Anybody she knew who went through something like that ended up either like a mindless soldier or with something psychologically wrong with them. And at his question on if her society thought it was wrong, her shoulders shook slightly in silent laughter before she wrote down her answer; the society were the ones supporting it.]
“No, as long as it helps to put the war in their countries favour, nobody cares. And those who do protest and are found out are usually dubbed as ‘traitors’ and are then killed. Penumbra is the only active group who have gotten away with protesting against this.”
[The young woman handed Grimmer the paper and frowned to herself, at this point she really wasn’t in the mood to give out any more personal information, and she didn’t want him prying when she felt like she was going to break down, even if he did mean well. She again wrote something down.]
“Aren’t we supposed to be studying languages?” [Vera fixed Grimmer an irritated and tired look that clearly told him that she didn’t want to ‘talk’ about this subject anymore.]
[Rather than watching Vera, Grimmer had begun to look around the room, avoiding staring at her as she wrote the letter. It took him until his late teenage years to figure out that staring for awhile bothered people, so he decided to follow the 'social' rules that he'd picked up and look at other things. However, once his eyesight passed over Vera he paused, noticing that she had suddenly covered her eyes. At first he assumed that she just moved her arms in a pose that made it appear that she was crying, but then once she looked up at him, he realized that she was crying.
He blinked as his eyes immediately moved towards the letter, wondering what she wrote that made her so upset. Did one of his questions cause her to remember something that upset her? Understanding why and how people became upset over memories was such a foreign concept; Grimmer could remember the sight of his son, limb on the floor without feeling a single, even muffled emotion. He knew he was suppost to have a stronger, possibly more disturbed emotion to the memory, but nothing appeared, no matter how much he thought about it.
Despite what she had gone through, Vera could still cry; she could sill feel emotions. As much as Grimmer was worried about how to calm her down, in the very least she still had her humanity. In the end, Grimmer decided that the best way to calm Vera down was to pretend that nothing was wrong. If he did ask why she was crying, she'd probably become very defensive anyhow.
Once Vera was done writing the paper, Grimmer took it with a polite nod. He observed that she didn't bother to finish writing the sentence about the woman- most likely something bad had happened to her, if that was what made Vera become so upset. He doubted that simple homesickness would make Vera act like that.
Once he read the section about Penumbra, Grimmer grinned up at her enthusiastically.] It's very admirable that you became involved in a group like that! And had become its leader; I certainly wouldn't have the courage or intelligence to do either, really. [He laughed, almost naively as he scratched the side of his head. Once he was done laughing he realized that Vera had written another message, and scanned over it quickly.]
Oh right. Sorry, I guess we got a bit off topic...
Why don't we look at Russian first? I can speak it fluently!
[The young woman watched as Grimmer sat down in front of her, taking note of his limp-most likely from the explosion. At his question she gave him a half-hearted shrug, before shaking her head slightly and then just gave a sigh as she ran her hands through her hair in agitation. She gave him an annoyed look at the emphasis on “fake” although she nodded her head; she knew they weren't real, they were dead.
She should know, she killed them after all…
Vera trembled violently as the feeling of nausea rose up, clamping a hand over her mouth on instinct. She forced herself to think of something else, anything to make the slowly rising whispers go away and the small bloody shadow to disappear out of the comer of her eye. But she could already feel the panic and fear and guilt begin to overwhelm her again, she needed to find something to focus on or she would just revert back into that state as the accusing whispers got louder and the child-like shadows became more visible and she would hurt, kill Grimmer-
Her other hand rose up to grasp onto Grimmer’s arm; a silent plea for help, as her whole body began to tremble violently as she hunched over, trying to hide how she was beginning to struggle with the murderous part of her, with the urge to just kill and drown everything out. Vera knew that it would show on her face, and she didn't want Grimmer to see that.]
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[Grimmer was doing a relatively good job ignoring the young boy standing to the side of the Vera, holding a gasoline tank in his hand. He just made himself focus on talking to Vera; an action that let Grimmer put a bit less attention on the teenage boy now dumping gasoline on himself, muttering about how he had become an empty monster.
However, Grimmer's eyebrows twitched as the boy began to whisper questions. Why were those schools allowed to be created? Why didn't anyone speak up? Why didn't anyone say anything to prevent all of this?
'I'm sorry. I tried my hardest.' Grimmer thought towards the boy, and instantly flinched away. It's fake, it's fake, it's a nightmare. Don't speak to him. Ignore him.
As the boy lifted a lighter out of his pocket, Grimmer was strangely thankful for the distraction that Vera provided when she covered her mouth, struggling to fight back her nausea. He could focus on this, and attempt to ignore the burning, laughing and screaming youth in the corner of his vision.]
Hey, calm down now. Calm down~ [Grimmer placed one hand on her shoulder, squeezing it strongly, in hopes of creating some kind of distraction from whatever she was now seeing. At the same time though he was ready to stand up and grab something in case she did get sick. He could understand what she was feeling; he had become quite nauseous from the images earlier as well. And the smell of burning flesh reaching his nose really was not helping Grimmer’s situation at the moment.
However, Grimmer’s eyes widened when Vera began to violently tremble and grabbed his arm.] C-Calm down! It’s fake-whatever it is, it’s trying to draw this reaction out of you! [He swallowed, watching as Vera drew into herself. He was not doing so good at all. He felt somewhat helpless at this, especially when he believed he was going to go borderline insane in a moment as well. But there was no way he was going to leave her alone, when she was this scared and panicked.]
When you were at home… What did you like? When I was in Germany, I liked fishing, and picnics, and really good food! [ He continued speaking, refusing to let even a moment of silence exist. He wanted to create something, anything that might distract her.]
After the city I lived in, East Berlin, was opened up to the world 9 years ago, you wouldn’t believe how quickly things changed! Before hand there was barely anything interesting on the streets, but within a year there were artists and musicians and puppeteers and-oh, did I mention that some of the best restaurants had opened up? My favorite was this small little café- it wasn’t as fancy as some of the other places, but really, where else could you go when you are an unsuccessful journalist? And I think the food there was just as create as some of the five star places, definitely! The people who owned the place were so nice and they always remembered you; they just made the food taste good, you know? Were there any places like that? Did you know anybody who could do the same?
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[Vera could hear them whispering, the accusations of them dying because of her; she could have saved them, she was meant to save them it was her duty, but she left them to die at the hands of some sick bastard and she could hear them screaming and she could smell the blood and-Oh god, I’m so sorry…
Yet the moment Grimmer started speaking, it seemed to partially snap her out of the psychosis. Not enough so that the whispers and blood vanished but enough so that the soldier could try to focus on what he was saying. She focused all of her attention on Grimmer’s words, and did not allow it to waver. Her loosening grip on his arm signified that his distraction was slowly working.
Her trembling soon began to subside as she listened to Grimmer; Vera made sure to nod every so often to show him that she was listening. At his questions, her thoughts went to the small town in Halier which the war never touched; where there was the woman who fussed over her squad and Vera when they visited along with her two children, with the friendly old couple just down the street, and the man with the wooden leg who always insisted that they eat at his café before they left. They all lived in the town that Penumbra protected, the she protected…
And she couldn’t protect anything acting like this.
The young woman removed her hand from Grimmer’s arm as she sat up, having finally snapped out of the psychosis. Vera gave Grimmer a look of gratitude as she released the breath that she had been holding in now that the nausea had passed and pushed away some of the hair that had fallen in front of her face.
She made sure to mentally punch herself; she was a soldier for fucks sake and, nightmares or not, she had better start acting like one.]
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Even though Vera was much stronger than Grimmer, and seemed to be missing apart of her psychology as well, Grimmer still saw her as just a normal human child. Furthermore, if the scars and her rank, as well as her home worlds political situation were any indication, than other than being very intelligent and strong, she also had probably lead a very sad childhood. Grimmer respected her a lot, and her ability to hold onto her humanity despite being a child that had gone through so much violence made the journalist want to help her as much as he could.
When she stood up, Grimmer quickly analyzed her expression to check whether she was back to normal, or about to attack either him or some nightmare-ish phantom. Once he was convinced it was the former, his body completely relaxed, and he scratched his hair as he let out a sigh of relief.] Welcome back!
[As soon as he said that, Grimmer suddenly noticed that the horrific smell was no longer there. Good, so he was back to normal as well. Grimmer carefully un-crossed his legs and began to stand up. He wasn't sure about Vera, but after all of those images he was feeling rather claustrophobic inside of the apartments. With the risk of Steiner eventually appearing, Grimmer had planned on leaving and isolating himself from the others until these hallucinations disappeared, but he was certain that he could hold it off for awhile longer.]
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Which is why when she helped Grimmer back up onto his feet her expression, while back in it’s usually neutral look, was less guarded and hard than before, making her look her age for once. Once Grimmer was on his feet, she leaned back against the apartment’s wall behind her and listened to the thunder and rain outside. Right now, she wanted to leave the apartments and do something outside, just so she could have something to focus on; after her two freak-outs she was starting to feel trapped inside the apartment and she knew sitting here twiddling her thumbs would do nothing to help her. But she didn’t want to run the risk of getting sick, even if her immune system was stronger than average.
Vera glanced towards Grimmer, her expression a questioning one; what was he going to do?]
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I don't know about you, but I really don't want to spend alot of time inside today. But...[He frowned as he heard the rain and thunder from outside. Not only was this going to cut down on his original "hide out" scouting plans, but this would also make any attempts to deal with his newly formed claustrophobia a bit more difficult.]
Why don't we focus on studying languages until...this entire thing passes? I think it would be good way to keep our minds from getting caught on these nightmares. The language they speak in the surrounding area is called Russian, and I can speak it fluently. As for the language that most of the others seem to speak here, it's called...Japanese in my world. Some of them seem to come from an area other than the island Japan though. But I can speak a moderate amount of that!
[When the weather was better, Grimmer hoped that maybe they could either go to the library and track down some language books, or failing that, at least use the PDA's language translation options to teach themselves a moderate amount of Japanese. It would be a good and very helpful strategy to pass the time until the images stopped.]
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The young woman blinked curiously at Grimmer’s suggestion of learning languages, although it was a logical one since she had no idea what “Russian” was and it would be beneficial to know some of it if she ever encountered the natives, plus it would take her mind off the nightmares. And she wouldn’t mind learning more about this “Japanese” and Japan which she had heard about before and she was curious to see if she could find out more about his world. She cocked her head to the side as she thought about it, almost making her appear like a child, before nodding in agreement to his suggestion.
She picked up her coat and PDA off the floor before slinging her coat over one of the chairs by the table while keeping her PDA out; it would be her only way to communicate with Grimmer and it seemed to have a translation feature which would be helpful. She typed out a message before showing it to the older man- “Do you have anything that we can use besides the PDA’s? I haven’t got any writing equipment here if you need that.”]
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So, that means you think it is a good idea? I'll go get the papers then. [Even though he was limping lightly, it didn't take long for Grimmer to go get a notebook and some pens, and arrive back at Vera's apartment. Grimmer hoped they could just work in her apartment, since his could be considered a half disaster. Not only did he put off cleaning it, but now that he had such a huge amount of papers without a bag to carry them in, his miniature kitchen/living area had stacks of paper covering pretty much all the surfaces except for what was essential to prepare food with. Grimmer didn't care himself, but it was really rather ridiculous.]
The language your speaking, what is it called anyhow? Do you come from an island? [Grimmer asked as he ripped some papers out of his notebook and handed them to Vera, along with a pen. Did Vera come from another version of England? Or was it an entirely other world altogether, and her country somehow...of all the slim possibilities, ended up sharing the same language as what was in Earth? Grimmer found all of these "other world" business really rather fascinating.]
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So when Grimmer came back and gave her some paper and a pen she motioned from him to sit at the table while she sat across from him. His first question prompted a slightly irritated look from Vera; she knew that when people asked questions like that they automatically said “speak” but the use of the word annoyed her for obvious reasons. Still she considered Grimmer’s question’s before writing down her answer.]
“It’s called Vintian in my world; it’s one of the primary languages there.” [The young woman wrote before she thought about his second question, an island? That’s a rather odd assumption; did the language she use originate from an island in his world? Most likely since he asked her that.] “No, I’m from a continent called Kriafor which is part of a larger landmass called Krizanis. The country that I’m from is called Rhomya.” [Although it was faint, there was a look of anger on her face as she wrote down her home country; thinking about that place only brought up negative feelings and bad memories before she squashed them and her face was calm again.
Once she had done writing, she handed the piece of paper to Grimmer while looking at him expectantly; he got information about her world, so she wanted some on his, besides what he already told her.]
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When Vera handed the paper back to him he took it, and read it over it quickly, since he'd sort of already read it upside down.] So...even though there's some cultural and language similarities, your world really does sound geographically completely different from mine. I'd like to see a map of the world we are in right now, to be honest.
[He nodded to himself, making a mental note to try to get a hold of one later.] Oh, but the world I'm in...well it's called Earth- [He grinned up at her in amusement, realizing that most likely, she also called her world Earth.] I come from a region called Europe; which is very small compared to the rest of the world, but contains a huge number of different languages and countries inside of it. [Well, if one included Russia into the picture than suddenly Europe became huge, but he knew that explaining that part would probably just make it overly confusing for her.] The place I come from is called East Germany. There used to be one Germany, but after a huge war overtook Europe about 50 years ago, a portion of Germany, East Germany, got claimed by a country called the USSR. The USSR took over many other Eastern European countries, and had a political system which caused it to isolate and cut itself off from the rest of the world. East Germany developed into it's own state, and the rights of pretty much everyone in all of these USSR countries were completely trampled.
Most USSR citizens weren't able to easily leave their home country, but I was able to leave East Germany and travel across the world. East Germany had the best intelligence network in the world, and I worked as a spy disguised as a international journalist.
[Grimmer paused, as though he had suddenly remembered something.] Oh, but today it's not like that! The USSR had a terrible economic system, and it collapsed on itself about 9 years ago. All of the Eastern European countries suddenly became free, and East Germany became free and reunified with West Germany in what became known as the "fall of the Berlin Wall". And so, for the past 9 years I've been working as a real journalist, traveling across former USSR states and investigating into human rights abuse that occurred both during and after the USSR's reign.
[Once he was done speaking, Grimmer seemed to take a deep breath, as though he had run out of oxygen from that mini rant. He had focused so much on Europe though, and it seemed that alot of the people here from Earth came from everywhere but Europe. Grimmer wasn't even sure how to begin on that.]
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What caught her attention was that he now investigating into human rights abuse, something fairly common in her world, was that what all those papers and books were about? But it wasn’t that surprising, given how he seemed to always want to help people which made her slightly hesitant to describe the current on goings in her own world; specifically the use of child soldiers and genetic experimentation. But still, he told her so much about his home, so she may as well tell him about hers and she could always leave out certain facts. Which is why when he was done, she waved her hand to say that it was enough before writing on another piece of paper.]
“On my Earth, Rhomya is engaged in a war with the three neighbouring countries in Kriafor; Halier and Autioe. One main factor about the war is that it has been going on for decades and no one knows the cause behind this war. Because of this, the other countries that were once a part of Kriafor have separated and joined the other continent, Rezanis and a treaty was formed so that as long as Rezanis doesn’t became involved in the war, it would be kept within Kriafor. However, this has been questioned as Rezanis has enough military power to easily quell the war but no-one except the leaders would know the actual reason behind the treaty. And other regions refuse to get involved as it is not affecting them. [She stopped as she considered as how to word what she would write next, she would leave out the fact that she was an experiment for now, as the idea of child soldiers may shock him enough.]
“I was once a soldier of Rhomya for many years although I defected not long ago due to”, [Her hand stilled as she thought about what happened to the old woman she thought as her mother, a look a great pain flashing across her face for a second before she looked calm again and continued writing, although her grip on the pen had visibly tightened.] “An incident a few years back that made me question them, although I didn’t dare to defect back then. I was approached by a group that was devoted to finding the reason behind the war, Penumbra, and I accepted their offer to join them. And I became the commander of the foot soldier squad, Basilisk, a few months ago.”
[Once Vera was done, she handed the paper to Grimmer and leaned back in her chair, releasing her grip on the pen, waiting to see what his thoughts were.]
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How old were you when you joined the military?...When did you become the commander?
[Her world was even more messed up than Grimmer had thought it was. He'd fortunately grown up in an era where no fighting of this magnitude had occurred; of course his earlier generation could remember World War II and the Russian invasion of East Berlin clearly, but he was free of that. He had his own concerns, and even though he wasn't really able to attach meanings to things in the first place, he still felt fortunate to not worry about those kinds of memories and experiences. Which it appears that Vera faced consistently.]
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“When I was about four years old.” [Which was true in a sense, since that was when the practical training usually started although lessons started a couple of years before.] “I became commander of Basilisk about five months after joining Penumbra.”
[When she was done she handed the paper to Grimmer and leaned back slightly while crossing her arms. While she didn’t see anything odd about being trained to fight at such a young age, especially since that was what she was made to do and had grown up thinking that it was normal, others were usually shocked or horrified when they found out. Which was why she kept her focus on Grimmer, to see how he would react to it.]
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Y-You were forced into the military at such a young age?! So...you didn't get a family at all?
[It really wasn't much different than Grimmer's past; starting at...probably age 6 his life became completely and rigidly controlled, with no choice or control at all and no childhood or memories except for a cartoon that he allowed himself to become unusually obsessed with. Even so, this was the kind of stuff that he was desperately trying to prevent from happening. He also thought that her becoming a major commander of the army was impressive, but his mind was far, far more focused on the first part of her message.]
I-I'm sorry that happened to you. Something somewhat similar happened to me, but, even so... and your society doesn't even see what's wrong with it at all?
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"I met a woman that I thought as my mother when I was about 11, she-"[The young woman stopped when she saw something wet drip onto the paper. Her hand released the pen and immediately flew to her eye to feel something wet gathering there. "Am I fucking crying?!" She brought a hand up to her cover eyes as if to hid the fact and to try to force the tears back, this is why she never liked talking about Rhoda; she always ended up bawling like some fucking child and the hallucinations before made her feel more vulnerable and emotional.
Once she was sure she wouldn't lose control, she returned her attention to Grimmer and frowned at him curiously, when he said he went through something similar; how the hell was he so cheerful all the time? Anybody she knew who went through something like that ended up either like a mindless soldier or with something psychologically wrong with them. And at his question on if her society thought it was wrong, her shoulders shook slightly in silent laughter before she wrote down her answer; the society were the ones supporting it.]
“No, as long as it helps to put the war in their countries favour, nobody cares. And those who do protest and are found out are usually dubbed as ‘traitors’ and are then killed. Penumbra is the only active group who have gotten away with protesting against this.”
[The young woman handed Grimmer the paper and frowned to herself, at this point she really wasn’t in the mood to give out any more personal information, and she didn’t want him prying when she felt like she was going to break down, even if he did mean well. She again wrote something down.]
“Aren’t we supposed to be studying languages?” [Vera fixed Grimmer an irritated and tired look that clearly told him that she didn’t want to ‘talk’ about this subject anymore.]
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He blinked as his eyes immediately moved towards the letter, wondering what she wrote that made her so upset. Did one of his questions cause her to remember something that upset her? Understanding why and how people became upset over memories was such a foreign concept; Grimmer could remember the sight of his son, limb on the floor without feeling a single, even muffled emotion. He knew he was suppost to have a stronger, possibly more disturbed emotion to the memory, but nothing appeared, no matter how much he thought about it.
Despite what she had gone through, Vera could still cry; she could sill feel emotions. As much as Grimmer was worried about how to calm her down, in the very least she still had her humanity. In the end, Grimmer decided that the best way to calm Vera down was to pretend that nothing was wrong. If he did ask why she was crying, she'd probably become very defensive anyhow.
Once Vera was done writing the paper, Grimmer took it with a polite nod. He observed that she didn't bother to finish writing the sentence about the woman- most likely something bad had happened to her, if that was what made Vera become so upset. He doubted that simple homesickness would make Vera act like that.
Once he read the section about Penumbra, Grimmer grinned up at her enthusiastically.] It's very admirable that you became involved in a group like that! And had become its leader; I certainly wouldn't have the courage or intelligence to do either, really. [He laughed, almost naively as he scratched the side of his head. Once he was done laughing he realized that Vera had written another message, and scanned over it quickly.]
Oh right. Sorry, I guess we got a bit off topic...
Why don't we look at Russian first? I can speak it fluently!
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