(Untitled)

[a_elric]

Who; Rozalin gunsnrozy & Alphonse Elric a_elric
What; Searching for new clothes and supplies.
Where; Starting in the theater.
When; The day after their last log.
Warnings; Will be added if necessary.

Comments

[gunsnrozy]

"Alphonse?" came the reply. Rozalin was, evidently, already awake. She hadn't slept well to begin with; Zenon's past pervaded her dreams now. At times she was curious about the history of this person who was in a very real sense her... but its content was anything but restful.

And besides, pride insisted, she could do with less sleep than a human required.

[a_elric]

"Yeah, it's me," he confirmed. "Good morning. I know you said you wanted to get an early start, so I thought I'd come see if you were awake." He'd wait outside the door until she asked him to do otherwise; she deserved her privacy, after all. If she thought it was too early to begin getting ready he was sure he could find other ways to distract himself for a few hours.

[gunsnrozy]

"Wait a second," she ordered. She'd managed to get the door to stay closed basically by wedging it into the jamb at an off-angle, and it wouldn't be easily opened

[a_elric]

Al had thought to help her with the door, but he had only begun to hesitantly reach for it when her pulling broke it down completely. Caught off guard by the noise of the sudden crash, he stumbled back a few steps with a cry of surprise. Instinctively, he looked over his shoulder to see if their problems had caught the attention of anyone else in the building. It was likely the sound was enough to wake up anyone who had still been sleeping.

"Are you okay?!" he asked, hurrying into the room, face red and eyes firmly focused on the floor. It was nearly impossible to tell if she'd been hurt without looking at her, but he was already embarrassed enough from his poor reaction.

He had no idea how she expected him to 'close the door', but trying would be a welcome distraction from the awkwardness. He struggled to right it more than he would have liked--since when had things been so heavy? After a few disastrous attempts that nearly resulted in the door falling on his head, the best solution he could think of was to prop it up

[gunsnrozy]

Having let her guard down she wasn't in a frame of mind to criticize his solution with the door.

"I'm fine," she responded, trying to maintain her usual haughty tone but only partially succeeding. Things were going the opposite of the way they were supposed to; she was catching his embarrassment at the whole situation. Reminding herself that she was a demon and ought to be inspiring lust in the hearts of men was didn't help at all. This was all her fake father's fault, of course. A sheltered upbringing to keep her from any stimulus that might stir Zenon, life lived purely in the abstract through books...

She shifted slightly whenever he moved, keeping her wings carefully between them. They covered her easily enough, but only from one direction and as part of her they didn't make her feel any less naked.

[a_elric]

Once he saw that the door would remain standing for the time being, Al turned back to Rozalin. Immediately, his gaze dropped back to the floor and he didn't dare take a step closer. He knew he should be doing something instead of just standing there uselessly, but what? This wasn't the sort of thing he'd ever had to worry about before, and the scientific curiosity he had for Rozalin's wings didn't make avoiding her any easier.

"Oh, um... that's good," he managed, his voice strained.

Clearly, this wasn't getting them anywhere. Still not looking away from the ground, Al slowly began walking towards the bed, holding his hands out in a gesture to show that he didn't mean any harm. He lifted the blanket and held it out to her, eyes closed and head turned in the opposite direction.

[gunsnrozy]

Rozalin considered him harmless to begin with, but his caution was probably a smart move anyway. She was not always... equitable in her responses during times of emotional turmoil.

She took the blanket and with some difficulty found a way to wear it that both kept it in one place and left her wings free. The same wings that had made all this necessary in the first place... but she didn't think of things that way. As she'd told him the day before, they were quite important to her.

"You can turn around now," she said, some measure of composure regained.

[a_elric]

"Okay," he said, though he was slow to action. Since he was already near the bed he took a seat on the edge of it; making himself look as small as possible seemed like the best thing to do. "Sorry."

He wasn't sure what he was apologizing for, perhaps for the whole unfortunate situation in general. Either way, it was something he felt he should say.

Eager to change to the topic to just about anything, he smiled up at her and hoped she wouldn't notice the fact that he was still blushing. "Did you sleep well?"

[gunsnrozy]

She did notice, but at this point she didn't really care. The whole situation had devolved to about that level (whatever she meant by that), including her own reactions, so wasn't going to get on his case about it.

"Not as well as I could have," she semi-admitted, sitting next to him carefully. The topic change was probably a good idea. He needed to calm down. This was going to take time out of the schedule, but then... it seemed like time was something she'd just gained a lot of.

Speaking of time, she wondered how long it was going to take him to notice her tail. And whether he had the superstitions necessary to link her nonhuman features to her knowledge of demons. She might have looked forward to scaring him a little yesterday but right now she preferred to avoid making things any more complicated.

[a_elric]

He frowned at her answer, but it was no surprise. Resting easy would be nearly impossible considering the circumstances.

"Are you sure you feel like going out today?" he asked, concerned. If it came down to it he was sure he could manage to find her some decent clothes on his own. After pausing for a moment he added, "I know it must be hard, being alone and away from your home like this."

The tail had actually escaped his notice until Rozalin sat down beside him and he felt it was okay to look at her again. Quickly, he tore his eyes away from it and stifled the urge to react. Things were finally settling back to normal between them and he was determined to keep it that way. Maybe later he could convince her to give him more information on both of her unusual features. In his mind, demons were horned, cartoonish creatures and he saw no reason to connect them with a sweet girl like Rozalin.

[gunsnrozy]

"Yes. I can't just sit in here the day through." Her old way of life, left to do absolutely nothing for herself, held less charms for her now that she knew the motivations behind its careful maintenance. She certainly still had an appreciation for luxury and ease, but it now took degree into account. To be totally dependent was not just weakness, it was an ill inflicted on a person...

At his follow-up she nodded, finally breaking her far-off stare to look at him. "But it's if I don't go that I'm alone, isn't it?" For now, she knew him best of the people here.

His reaction to her tail, seemingly on-cue, amused her, and not just for its timing. Mostly it was the thought that perhaps for him women and otherworldly creatures occupied about the same position.

[a_elric]

"That's true," he agreed with a smile. Perhaps after a few hours of exploring the city both of them would be worn out enough to sleep well that night. And being active could do wonders for one's mood; it certainly beat sitting around a gloomy place like this all day.

"I guess we should get started." He stood and looked to Rozalin for guidance on what to do next. Last night she'd mentioned needing his help to get dressed, but he didn't want to be too presumptuous after what had happened earlier. With a little luck, maybe she would just ask him to wait outside and watch the door.

[gunsnrozy]

Unfortunately, she meant that she needed his help to put on clothing, something she'd assumed he understood. She stood and motioned him over to her dress, the many component pieces of which she'd laid out in roughly the order they were put on, and began explaining how exactly it was put on.

And, likely to his dismay, what he would be doing at each stage of the process.

[a_elric]

Al tried not to look affected by anything she said, really, he did. But when you spend four years of your life as a suit of armor you tend to forget the subtle skills of masking your emotions.

Fortunately, he was intelligent enough to memorize the instructions through his discomfort and numbly set about his task. He did his best to be a gentleman about it; making Rozalin uncomfortable was what he feared most about this.

Really, it was no big deal. She was just a girl, after all, and he'd seen much worse than this in anatomy textbooks. To remind himself, he began to mentally recite the composition of the human body, mumbling some of the elements aloud under his breath without even realizing it. That was all this was, nothing more.

[gunsnrozy]

It was also good (from her perspective, at least) that while the beginning of the process necessarily involved him seeing quite a lot of her the vast majority of it was just tying bows to her satisfaction.

Though some vain part of her did protest that he could keep his mind so solidly on carbon in her presence. There was such a thing as being too dispassionate.

But the important thing was that he'd done a good enough job that she could go outside and get clothes that wouldn't require half an hour and a dexterous assistant to put on properly. Then she could get down to the real business of figuring out where she was going to live and what she was going to do here.

After a final check to make sure everything was in its place, she turned to Alphonse. "Are you ready?"

[a_elric]

He was a bit surprised that she was willing to go out dressed that way (surely it couldn't be comfortable and the dress would be torn and snagged by debris and broken buildings), but he wasn't going to protest. He didn't know if he could handle going through that again, at least not so soon.

Al nodded in response to her question. He had no real possessions here in Tano, so he was about as ready as he was ever going to be. He carefully moved the broken door out of the way, gently placing it back on the ground so there was no chance of an unsuspecting person wandering in and being hurt by it.

As he started to head outside, a thought struck him. "Do you have people to help you get dressed back at home too?" He couldn't imagine that she didn't if she wore such elaborate outfits all the time. He knew she'd mentioned being nobility, but it was only now that he realized how far that might really go.