(Day 0) (Open) Kino and Hermes stretch their legs (and tires)

[kinos_journal]

Who: Kino, Hermes, and Dark link (so far)
Where: Arcadia main square, after a bit of riding around.
What: They did the drive around the city and see... nothing bit. Now the two need to talk to people!
Rating: G
Warnings: Hermes is a smart ass. XD And this should probably assume everyone's disembarked/gone through customs so there isn't a line or

Comments

[reflected_hero]

While the sky may have looked grey and lifeless to some, it was ablaze with sutble colour, huge and just so different to another person.

Said other person - still as of yet unnamed, though some people had their own names for him, it was all but sure - had been walking through the City, but the walk was broken while he stopped and stared at things - buildings, the dirt, the way the dirt changed from dry, powdery and grey to wet, gloopy and brown when water hit it, tiny lichens on the walls - or even just feelings: the wind on his face, the chance to stretch his legs, the sweetness of fresh air.

It was a place of wonders to most, but for one who had never truly seen something like this - at least in himself - it was almost sensory overload.

He was staring at the sky, where pale whites met greys, tinted lightly with blue and purple, and it was while he was doing that that he heard the whirring of some kind of - animal? Contraption? Thing? He wasn't sure, and he did what he normally did when faced with something he didn't know - and that was, obviously, look. If it seemed a threat, then the obvious thing to do would be to be a bigger threat to it.

Despite the recent influx of people (and one who looked so much like him, but not him, was he?) he was surprised to see a person on the animal-thing, small and slight (therefore probably not such a great threat to him, unless there was a kind of special threat there) and since there was nothing obvious to suggest otherwise, it was also a boy.

He stared at him, eyes narrowed slightly, wanting to look about, to see, touch, smell, hear, maybe even taste, but reluctant to initiate contact.

[kinos_journal]

Kino saw the older boy approach but didn't look at him too closely until she'd settled Hermes' properly, making sure he was properly cooling. When she did turn her attention to the newcomer, she blinked in surprise. He looked very much like pointy- Link had, but was definitely different. For one thing, his eyes were red and his hair black. For another, he looked ill. "Hello" She greeted him, bowing shortly with her hands still on Hermes' handlebars. "I'm Kino."

She didn't mention Hermes and for the moment, at least, the bike was silent. They'd learned to wait, at least until first impressions were made (most of the time) and this country they'd been 'rescued' to was especially strange.

[reflected_hero]

The voice was not a male's voice, but when he looked at her, he supposed that he hadn't fully grown up yet, or something like that. It reminded him of when he was whole, and a child, and that his voice had been higher than he remembered it, when he fought with himself in the Water Temple. So he had met a young boy. The first since comming here? Yes, he thought so.

"Kino." He repeated, his voice not nearly as sore as it had been the first time he had spoken. There was still a roughened edge to it, and there was something slightly strained about it. That part wasn't obvious to him, but when the last noise he had made before his light had peirced him through with a sword had been a long, screeching shreik, then obviously his vocal chords would be a little wasted after that. Especially when the lack of a body made it hard to heal.

He smiled at her, slightly. It was a mirthless thing, but he remembered that smiles were meant to put people at ease. Remembered it through his whole self.

"I'm..." He searched, but didn't know how to answer that, and then shrugged. "Here." He supplied, because it was very true indeed.

[kinos_journal]

"Nice to meet you Here" Kino bobbed her head, smiling back in return. His smile wasn't very good, but it looked more like he'd hadn't any practice in a long time, instead of wanting to hurt her. She'd seen those smiles often enough to tell the difference. "Are you new to this country too, or do you live here?"

She needed directions, at some point. But questions and answers were good too, even if he looked a little confused. Riding was fun, but she really couldn't just play all day.

[reflected_hero]

"Yes." He said, looking up at the slate grey sky again, smiling. "It is very nice here." He looked bakc at the yooung boy and made a gesture. "Where I came from. Before. It was... one small... a, thing?" He looked at him for assitance with the word, but then shrugged, "Like a place, but not in the place it's meant to be. And there was only me, a tree and water there. That was all. But out here, here there's earth, and there's wind, and there's people too."

He stopped as his voice cracked. It was the longest speech he had made yet, or one of them at least. His hand went to his throat in a bit of confusion, but he swallowed, worked his throat and then spoke again. The pause had given her enough time to ask her question, which he had already answered.

"New. New to everywhere."

[kinos_journal]

"That's a pretty small country" Hermes mused from Kino's side. "It sounds boring."

Kino kicked the bike obliquely. "That's Hermes, don't mind him." Her head tilted to look at the boy a little closer. "You look a lot like someone who was on our ship. His name was Link, but I didn't get a chance to ask him about his world."

"He called it High Rule." Hermes supplied happily.

"You look like you could use a drink" Kino decided, and unhooked her water bottle from Herme's chassis. Thankfully she'd already found the fountain and refilled, because she'd been out from her stay on the ship. She uncapped it and held it out to the boy expectantly.

[reflected_hero]

The shadow jumped at the sound of the voice, baring his teeth and a low growl emitting from his throat as he searched for the intruder. He disliked not knowing where things were around him, especially since he looked at the place quite thouroughly before entering into it. However, the boy kicked the... thing he had been on, and the shadow assumed that it must have came from it.

He walked a little closer, peering at the odd contraption. Nothing like it was in his memory as a whole being, and even the the slightly shared memories of the light one was there nothing of that sort. He wanted to reach out and touch it, find out hwo it worked and moved and spoke, but he kept his hands at his sides, content to just look, as he had done with the boy.

"It was." He said, eventually. "I starved and I thirsted and I tried to kill myself, but I couldn't do it. And then one day I found the other me again, or he found me, not sure, and -" His voice cracked again, and he finsihed with an indefinable gesture, accepting the water without a thanks, because he did not know that one should be given.

[kinos_journal]

"That's a really confusing story." Hermes complained. "And you don't have to growl at me, I'm nice I promise!"

Kino just nodded, watching the boy drink. He seemed a little odd, even compared to the people she'd met on her travels (And she'd met some very strange people) but he was nice enough. She paid attention to his words - his story strange -

And he didn't seem too clear on how a water bottle worked, as he growled at the hard plastic ineffectively.

"You have to squeeze it, to get the-

The boy squeezed, too hard, sending a steady stream of cold water all over his pale face. The look of utter shock was too much for Kino, who laughed helplessly, holding onto Hermes to stay upright and trying to apologize for laughing at all in between gasps for air.

[reflected_hero]

The water bottle had indeed given the shadow some trouble. And it had indeed splashed him on the face. He blinked in surprise, used to being wet (or rather, damp, because after a few failed attempts, he stopped putting his head under the water), but not used to the way the water shot out in a jet, nor the force at which it did it. Granted, the force was mostly because he didn't know how to use the plastic bottles. It had always been glass or his hands before.

Plastic was new to him anyway, and while the boy laughed, he turned the bottle over in his hands, licking away at the droplets of water that dripped into the corner of his mouth. He sniffed at it (fresh water shooting up his nose and making him cough) and poked at it, and then turned it upside down and watched the water trickle out, fanscinated by the way that the light caught each droplet and turned it into a diamond for a breif moment.

The boy, however, was still laughing, and he, not quite sure why it was so hard for him to breathe.

"Are you ill?"

[kinos_journal]

"I'm sorry!" Kino tried to get herself under control (Cooped up in a ship for a month with only Hermes for company leaves one a touch addled, it can be said) and with effort she straightened up and managed to get her face under control. "Ah sorry, sorry it was just- you looked very silly."

She took the water bottle back and shook her head at his wonder. "There's a fountain just over there- I should fill this up again" she rattled the now empty container. "How long have you been in this country? The pamphlet said we could live anywhere we wanted in any of the buildings, but that seems strange to me."

"Plus we need one I can get into."

"I mean, who put all these houses here first, if there's no one living in them?"

[reflected_hero]

He didn't know what to make of the comment about looking silly, and just shrugged it off. He hadn't ever been told how he looked - except maybe by the Black King, when his fingers carressed his cheek as a child and told him he looked like the young Hero - and so the feeling was odd. Was he meant to tell him how he looked? Was that what people did?

"Thank you. You look... small."

He stood, a little straighter than before, and looked around the empty buildings. Well, some of them must be inhabited now, because there were people, and none of them were milling about this place, or he and the boy - Kino? - would have seen them.

"Maybe they're still living there?" He hazarded. In his memory, people tended to have houses. Even people cursed to look like spiders. "And Hermas can get into one on the ground, right?" He was unaware that he had gotten the name wrong.

[arcadia_central]

Central eavesdropped quietly, following their conversation with curiosity. Not being nosy per se, but it was certainly easier sometimes to get much-needed information this way. It supposed that talking to a unmanned Supervisory Universal Computer could be rather intimidating, what with its massive wealth of information and abilities and it's unfathomable intelligence.

Or maybe it was just a little awkward for some newcomers to talk to a square. One or the other.

'Here', hmm? Here would be a sufficient entry for the nameless fellow until he found something more satisfactory - if he did. However, their conversation was starting to take a path that, uSUC decided, they didn't need to be considering at this point. It would learn no more from their speculation, so perhaps it was time to start teaching instead.

The face emerged from the dark, de-idled and cheerful.

Paf. Paf. One for each - it did owe the first fellow a streamerfest from earlier, after all. "Welcome to Arcadia! You must be from the new ships. Kino, correct? The goodship Siren? Excellent! Please make yourself at home. Would you like some liquid refreshment? I can do orange juice." It beamed. "With extra pulp. Also, should you need anything done for you, do not hesitate to ask me or my husband Raidou. And--" It paused. Read Kino again. "Is Customs malfunctioning? You appear to be carrying a weapon."

[kinos_journal]

Kino raised hands that tangled with bright streamers that now covered her head and shoulders, and Hermes' seat. "Ah-" Well, a talking computer she'd dealt with before. And excitable robots. But never an excitable computer.

Ah well. First time for everything. And everything in order: "I'm fine, thank you very much. And no, he didn't malfunction. I'm currently carrying one firearm, and two knives. The rest of my weapons have been submitted. There seemed to be a bit of confusion over my weapons and what permits might allow, so Customs told me to find Central. Where might I find him?" She half bowed. "I dislike breaking laws in any new country I visit, but I don't travel unprotected."

When you're young and easy looking the roads are not forgiving places.

"Drink the orange juice" Hermes complained, loudly. "You haven't eaten properly in ages! We just fell out of the sky in a ship and you've drank nothing but water and ate a ration bar and you've done that the whole trip and now you're talking with strange screens and I am not having you pass out on me!" he seemed to get louder, headlights hitting Central's screen. "You, whatever you are, give her some orange juice with the pulp!" A pause "And maybe some for Here too. He looks like he's going to pass out!"

[reflected_hero]

((Apologies for how long this took. I've recently aqquired an ear infection and couldn't concentrate on anything ^^;; ))

He was still surprised over the spurting of the water, so when the streamers fell across his face, it was a shock to no one that he gave a harsh yelp and tried to pull them off, resulting in him getting only more tangled up in the things. And the tangling restricted movement. And restricted movement meant he was being trapped. And trapped meant a loss of brand new freedom.

Snarling, the shadow ripped at the streamers, tearing them as if they were some deeply offending item rather than brightly coloured... welcoming gifts. He was surprised at how easily they tore under his touch - he had been expecting something more like one of Morpha's gelatinous tentacles, or a tektite's hard exoskeleton. Those had been harder to rip than these... things.

The streamers now varying lengths of ripped tissue, the shadow looked up at the face, once again a small growl escaping from his lips. Did he attack it, for trying to trap him? Or did he take insult because it thought he was weak enough to get trappedd by that? Or was he considering trapping a bit too much, abd simply not understanding the situation?

He looked over at the strange contraption thaat the boy had brought with him. "What's orange juice?"

[arcadia_central]

Permit? ... Had Customs permitted Kino as a guardian for the city, one of Central's employees? So strange. It hadn't gotten any memos.

"I see. Well, you need not be concerned with needing such protection here. This is the safest planet in the universe! My name is uSUC, although you may call me Central if you wish." The face beamed brightly. "I protect this city and its inhabitants. I presently have one human employee - my hubby - and several robots, who are permitted their weaponry in order to keep the peace. Is that what Customs suggested to you?"

It paused for Hermes's passionate demands, squinting when the headlights passed over the screen. "Of course! Your readings are quite poor - though I couldn't honestly say whether or not Mr. Here's are. They're..."

It paused, watching the boy violently rip through the confetti like entrails. How cold! How cruel! It wibbled, let out a whimper. Never had Central felt so rejected! Not even when Raidou told Central they had to talk, or got angry at it for talking to him in the shower!

Thankfully, as a computer, it recovered rather fast.

"... Ahem. They're very strange readings for him. However!" Out popped two perfectly pulpy glasses of orange juice, with curly straws. "A little orange juice never hurt anyone."

The question threw it, and it blinked at the shadow in surprise. No orange juice? How did they survive on his planet?! Everyone needed oranges sometimes! "Orange juice? Orange juice is..." The face faded, and up came an orange in the middle of the screen. It was neatly sliced and the seeds removed; one half was taken and juiced, the results poured into a glass. The glass sparkled, and Central threw in some rainbows and stars. Rainbows implied deliciousness, and stars were just pretty.

Up came the face again. "You see? Try it!" The tray gently jiggled back and forth. "It's delicious, and full of vitamins! Very good for your skin."

[kinos_journal]

"I'm sorry" Kino apologized again, sounding truly regretful. "Customs suggested I work for you, but I think that would be a very silly idea when I don't know what you truly are, why we're here, whether your intentions are as good as you say they are, or who's behind your programming. That'll take time and research before I'd agree to help you do anything. If you had a library or museum, or information on your Country, that would be useful." She shook her head. "And I gave customs the Flute and the Canon and most of my knives, and carry my Woodsman unloaded by his- Custom's request. I'm not going to walk around your city unarmed, just because you tell me it's safe. Your book told me it was dangerous outside, and you keep it safe here? How? How will you protect us from all the newcomers you have brought here? What if the dangers from the outside attack us? Many people have promised to keep me safe. The only person who ever has is me and me alone. I'm sorry, Central." Kino bowed shortly to the screen "But if I die, you can't apologize to me for missing something, and you're only a computer."

Hermes hrumphed. "Kino, now that you're done talking to the stupid machine, can you PLEASE drink the juice it made! You still haven't- Oh! Wait-" A thought occurred to the machine, and his headlights lit frantically as it hurriedly spoke. "What if it's poisoned? Or drugged like the food on the ship? Or what if their orange juice is actually made out of orange bugs! Or if it isn't juice at all but some kind of-"

"Hermes!" Kino had to almost shout over the motorrad's enthusiastic theories "I think it's a good idea to show we trust Central at least a little bit, don't you?"

"But I don't trust him!" Hermes whined. It fell on deaf ears, as Kino sipped at the juice happily. "It's quite good" She told Here. "Try some- it's good for you, despite what Hermes thinks."