Day 39: Sun Room

[thatdamnedninja]

That really hadn't been the breakfast she'd been expecting, but Yuffie couldn't bring herself to complain. The kid made for good company, and was, if nothing else, pretty entertaining. She could've just done without the whole choking thing. That… That had been embarrassing. A bit. Okay, a lot. Yuffie was starting to get a feeling that this day was

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[piggy_king]

Things were looking up for Porky. After all, he had not only had his first meal in thousands of years, and an all-pork meal, at that, but Porky had also been reunited with his most powerful servant! If this meant anything, it meant that Landel was far less intelligent than Porky had initially thought. If he didn't see the risk in joining together Porky and his right-hand man, then he was a fool! All that was left to do for Porky now was to wait while the Commander recruited new members of the Pigmask club. With the Commander doing all the work (which was often the case), Porky could finally relax.

He sat down on one of the chairs in the Sun Room and watched the other patients amble about. Now was a good time for Porky to be scoping out the other patients. Just because the Commander would be doing most of the work didn't mean that Porky couldn't do his part of the process, especially if it meant Porky would just be lounging about.

[free]

[oldest_man]

[all right?]

There were far too many teenagers about, Methos had decided. Better than half the people he'd encountered during the past several days would have been too young to so much as buy a drink in a number of nations. It was disturbing, certainly, but it was frustrating as well. There was only so much to be said to people not yet out of adolescence. And so, in subconscious defiance, he found himself gravitating toward what looked like the oldest person in the room.

"Would you mind?" he asked politely, using his closed journal to gesture to the chair across from the one Porky had claimed.

[piggy_king]

"No, no! Not at all!" Porky said happily, "Feel free to sit there!"

And with that, Porky began his careful analysis of what would surely be the next member of the Pigmask Army. He was young-looking, but not too young. Tall, but not too tall. Not muscular, but not fat either...He was rather boring looking, wasn't he? Well, to a normal person, anyway. Porky was used to the fantastic, so an average person like Methos was anything but average to Porky. It had been ages since he had seen someone like Methos. In the Pigmask Army, there were two types of people: frighteningly obese or freakishly muscular. Someone like Methos simply didn't exist in the Pigmask Army. At least, if you didn't count the Commander as a person and Porky never did.

"So..." Porky said slowly, thinking of a question that Porky could use to scope out Methos' intelligence, "What's in that journal of yours?"

[oldest_man]

"Thank you," Methos replied, smiling in Pierson's pleasant, inoffensive manner. He took a seat on the edge of the chair, resting his weight forward instead of back, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely around the journal in front of him. The posture gave him an air of casual interest, unselfconsciousness to offset the politeness a little. He studied Porky curiously. The man seemed good-natured enough, which seemed like a bit of an anomaly, given their surroundings. Still, it was refreshing in comparison to the more prickly demeanors he'd encountered.

"Besides the obvious?" he asked, tapping the cover of the journal with one long finger. "Notes, mostly. I'm afraid I'm terrible with names." Which was an outright lie, but would serve to explain why he'd made a habit of keeping track of the people he'd met, if anyone were to look in the journal. He shrugged, looking a little sheepish. "If I don't write them down, I can't keep track."

[hangenki]

"DIBS!" Kaoru shouted at nobody, dropping himself into the wheelchair so quickly that it scooted back and almost tipped over. This was so cool. Like, seriously cool. He was glad he didn't NEED one, sure, but...oh man, where the hell was his brother, they had to play!

He put his hands on the inner wheel and pushed himself forward, making a happy sound. Awesome. So awesome. It moved! He experimented with a turn, laughing to himself, before he looked up at the owner.

"Er...sorry. You don't mind do you? I won't break it, I swear!"

[hangenki]

Kaoru made it go backwards. Backwards. And he squeed. This was so easy! He never thought wheelchair maneuverability would be so damn easy. If Tamaki's clinic got a wheelchair, Kaoru was so stealing it.

Hikaru! Where are you?!

He looked back at the guy he'd nicked it from, only apparently he was convinced it wasn't his. Kaoru was sure he'd seen him in it though. His legs looked fine, even though he'd limped a bit. But whatever.

"Can I keep it?" he asked. Maybe he could get to play on it all day. He'd give Hikaru turns of course.

"Kaoru," he said, distractedly, trying to spin on the chair. "You?"

[overdoingit]

So far, Cross was gaining very little ground over the crashing wave of confusion he'd been facing since the night before. Here, though, it looked as if he might be given a chance to simply sit and contemplate things for a while - perhaps watch some of the other occupants of this place.

...Or take a nap. The sofas were looking mighty comfortable, and sleeping in the midday was something that the angel excelled at. He picked one out at random, laying across it on his stomach with his head in folded arms. Maybe after he slept a bit he'd have a clearer head to face the rest of the day.

A small weight on the lower portion of his back brought to his attention the room's non-human occupants. One of the cats had decided to situate itself there, and he suffered through a few digs with its claws until it was laying how it wanted. He figured he should probably remove it, in the event that he rolled over, but decided not to. It wasn't as though he moved much in his sleep to begin with.

He'd nodded off within a matter of seconds.

[free]

[Here, can has roomie? :3 ]

[buteo_sapiens]

[Ack, hit post too early! Sorry!]

Tobias let himself be taken away from Dairine-- he didn't want to draw attention to himself by putting up a fuss-- and was taken into the previous room, looking around curiously.

There was a skylight, well above his head, and the room itself was fairly open-- aside from the crowdedness of having a heck of a lot of people.

A lot of which were... clustered around a bulletin board? He thought that was what it was, and for a moment thought about how, if he'd had his real eyes back (not these wimpy human things), he could have read it from over here...

No. He's told himself that he wouldn't think about that yet, and he wasn't going to-- breaking down in public was definitely attention-drawing. So, instead, he promised himself that he'd take a look later, glancing around for a quieter place to settle, away from all these peopleNo place was completely quiet, but there was a spot over there, where there was just some kid with (bleached?) white hair (actually, a lot of people had dyed hair, he realized,

[Roomie get! \o/]

[overdoingit]

It was quiet between the two of them for a while as Cross dozed. The presence of another registered in his subconscious, but there was no immediate threat so he took his time with peering one eye open at the unexpected company. He was greeted with the back of a blond head - someone around his age, perhaps a bit younger.

A few more moments were spent taking in the rest of the room and all the others that had arrived before he yawned a bit more loudly than necessary so that the boy would know he was awake. The cat hopped down off his back in annoyance as he sat up (and he supposed he would have been annoyed too if his bed had dumped him off while he was napping), but he snatched it up before it could run off and set it in his lap. It begrudgingly made itself comfortable again.

He didn't introduce himself right away. Just because the boy was here didn't mean he actually wanted company, and Cross was willing to respect that.

[*fails posting forever* ._. ]

[buteo_sapiens]

Tobias blinked at the loud yawn, craning his head around to look at the other boy with an unconsciously piercing stare. "Sorry, did I wake you up?" he asked, voice gentler by far than the stare. Man, this kid was seriously pretty-- like, on the Ax-in-human-morph level. It was kinda creepy.

[fencing_captain]

Lucky for the nurse, it was the Head Doctor's voice that woke Juri up. She threw her arm over her eyes, and tried to figure out why she was here in a strange bed again and not outside running as far away as possible. She was prepared to think about the puzzle for as long as necessary. What the man said didn't make any sense to her. Mental health? What was he going on about

[roseoverture]

After she had finished talking with Seiya at breakfast, Utena had spent the rest of breakfast going back and forth from the cafeteria to the bulletin board a few times, and once requested to go back to her room to retrieve the notebook in her drawer. When the nurses weren't watching, Utena had copied down as much of "M.E." and others' important information as quickly as she could

[fencing_captain]

Upon seeing Utena, something flattened in Juri's eyes. The strangeness here was starting to make more sense. Her hand went for the locket at her breast, before she realized that, of course, it wasn't there. She let it continue up to brush her hair back from her shoulders.

"Well, at least you're not going to pretend you don't recognize me."

She wasn't sure at first what to say to the questions, especially whether or not to be honest in answering them. If Utena Tenjou was here, then this had something to do with the dueling game. She didn't relax. "I got out the front doors last night, but no further. What do you know about this?" She kept her voice hard, cold. If it crossed into hostile, it was more the fury that remained in her eyes than her tone.

[roseoverture]

Still as scary as ever, it seemed. She tried not to let Juri's coldness faze her as she answered. "Ah, farther than me, I guess. I got a few hallways out before running into Himemiya, and then we were forced back a hall by some kind of monster fight. She seemed different somehow, like she'd been here for a lot longer than us. I think someone's been hurting her. She didn't believe that I was me, either," she explained with worry in her voice. She glanced back over her shoulder at the board. No Himemiya yet

[secret_orchard]

Armand didn't mind missing breakfast all that much. They seldom had porridge for breakfast. He didn't dwell on regretting it, since lunch couldn't be that far away now. He left a few notes on the board, and skulked about the Sun Room until people started filtering in from the cafeteria. Last night had been frustrating, but he was going to get to talk to Alec, and hopefully Citan and TK would see his note by the end of the day. There was always another night.

To his tentative delight, Anthy had agreed to speak to him. He worried a little that it would go badly, but how much worse could it be than what she'd already said? At least, this way he'd get an explanation, and he'd be able to see her face as she said it. And perhaps, she'd see in his that he honestly just wanted to be a friend to her. Distrust was too much the currency of social intercourse here at Landel's Institute. Who better to try to mend that now than a man who couldn't lie?

[for Anthy]

[iamyourflower]

This morning's notes had been far too confusing for Anthy, and she still burned with embarassment at having mistaken the events of the night before. It seemed even more anticlimatic than she'd anticipated; not being devoured by the Utena image, and even more awkward by that Utena being possibly real, albeit wiped clean of memory. Perhaps she had assumed too much benevolence of this institutuion. It would have been merciful to torment and quickly kill Anthy, who had sinned- who had earned it. It was simply grotesque to drag in good hearted innocents like Utena and Armand and subject them to the same punishments. She hadn't the nerve to admit that the stress and despair of this frustratingly senseless prison had driven her to horrible thoughts; old habits of vindictive malevolence. A kind married man was far too easy to hurt; to drag down

[secret_orchard]

When he saw Anthy approaching through the crowd, Armand smiled at her, hoping to draw her into smiling back. The poor girl looked like she needed to smile. He suddenly was struck with the realization that his bad moods had probably prompted some of the same thoughts from Bridget. Well, like Bridget, he was determined to try to fix things.

"I'm relieved you agreed to speak to me. Please, sit down. You look very tired." He waved to a nearby chair. Armand looked for signs of pain in how she moved. Like so many confined here, gray simply wasn't her color. The uniforms were probably another calculated blow to their egos and selves from the Head Doctor. He tucked his hair behind his ears and kept smiling. At least he wasn't forced to show his worry.

[iamyourflower]

Her heart sank, seeing how gently he was treating her in spite of having seemed obviously hurt by her rejection. A small voice within her whispered cruelly, "Good men always fall."

She didn't want to manipulate him. Not even in the interest of saving him pain. Maybe it was just this way because he was the first real person she looked at and interacted with after abandoning the glasses she'd worn for so many years that dulled her sense of having had effect on others. She'd always known that the people she used were real, but at the same time, they still felt like toys.

His earnest smile and considerate words... he wasn't a toy. He was a human being. Still, that tiny, whispering need to crush him for the sake of it, for the sake of dragging him down... it terrified her.

It physically hurt her.

She had wanted to get better. Hadn't she? But in a world where even Utena was lost an growing backwards, it seemed hard to believe that it could happen