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Foundation Scions     It's a crucial, and internally somewhat-infamous, part of every fledgling Field Investigator Trainee to demonstrate at least baseline competence in emergency survival circumstances, as part of certification- who knows when a mission gone awry might leave you stranded without support and supply? (Matilda might know, she's a diviner! Too bad she's not even an Investigator trainee yet.)

    Matilda Bouanich, Glorified Teacher's Assistant, is paradoxically outdoorsy-enough and sheltered-enough, to feel she has to put in early practice runs at this, and would want to do so. But not alone! That'd be sad, and probably dangerous, and lonely, and embarrassing- so she's invited along a group to join along, and (optionally) take part in the same practice-program she's concocted for herself (which involves making emergency shelters, fire-starting, ration-cooking, smoke beacons-), or just watch her scamper about the wilderness trying to study.

    She's excitedly informed participants of the excellent location she's learned of, besides the banks of a small river, high in the Colorado Rockies of another Earth's American West- a strange choice for wilderness survival, at this time of year, where it certainly will be at least somewhat cold. A modern-enough Earth, it's simple to go from the traversable warp-gate of a quaint bus-stop along a windy mountainside road (complete with cracked weedy concrete, a bench to sit at, and no timetable,) just above the town she mentioned, down towards the valley floor, where somewhere, this evening, a fretful French girl can be found.

    Matilda's instructions for actually getting to the camp site, beyond this general locality, are vague and erratic- she obviously hasn't been there yet, in her explanations, and she's not utilizing something convenient like a satellite map- it's all 'Once close, a path awaits between two fallen trees, to turn down,' and 'Turn towards the riverbank by the moment the sun rests between the two mountain peaks,' guidance obviously stemming from her own divinations. Good luck. 'It will look to be a spot perfect for gem-seeking,' is her own addition, an indicator that somewhere, there'll be pebbly stone-pockets in the ground.

    An additional planning-caution: Matilda has asked people to provide for their own food and water for the evening; the Foundation refused most rudely to provide her with more ration-kits than the ones she argued to obtain for herself, on this excursion.

    The weather is brisk, but less-so than this high elevation can be, hovering a decent ways above freezing (in the sun, at least) and only risking a shallow dip below in the midst of the night. The sky is clear, golden-lit in the late-afternoon, and steep rock-tumble slopes fade to rounded hills, along the blurble of a stone-filled river. The 'excellent location' is actually quite cute- a small meadow, wildflower-filled, on the edge of red-barked conifer forests, with the occasional weathered mossy boulder jutting out of the ground, and driftood logs stacked onto the pebble beach riverbank.

    Anyone can tell it's the right spot, because Matilda is here! She's left two quaint olive-fabric duffel bags atop one of the boulders, a propped-open guidebook besides them, and at the base of the boulder, through uncertain quantities of toil, a stack of twig-laden branches, pine boughs, and river-rocks has grown.

    Dressed warmer, Matilda still has not abandoned her love of skorts- with a knit scarf (pinned by her Foundation emblem pin, this is dubiously official!) and a grey-blue wool coat, double-breasted but not long, one might expect heavy-duty, warm trousers, or a long, heavy skirt, but no! Matilda has to Move! At least she's wearing very thick tall socks, and the vaguely-outdoorsy flats she favors on any Adventure. And mittens, complete with cute tassel-bobbles on strings!
Foundation Scions     Caught at first with a bundle of twigs in her arms, Matilda unceremoniously drops them to wave others over as they first come into sight- "Bonjour à tous! You all made it! I, have prior prepped hot cocoa with peppermint, in thermoses!" Matilda points to the boulder, surely it's packed away in the duffels, and then claps mittened hands together, to blow warmer. How long has she been here?

    With a strangely pleading expression, "Please, help yourselves! Unless- unless anyone is planning to, similarly, participate in wilderness training! Then, there is a strict curriculum, and allowance only of standardized ration-supplies, or, things similar!" No cocoa for Matilda!? Terrible! Hellish! She's being so brave!
Riku Asakura Riku has come prepared for the camping slash survival trip.  He's dressed up in warmer clothes, which consist of a windbreaker that looks rather warm (and slightly puffy), hiking boots, and jeans.  He's also got a backpack on filled with various survival things like rations, emergency blankets, and whatever the guy at the hiking store told him to pack away.  This includes a large water bottle attached to the backpack.  He's also got a nice pair of leather gloves.

Finding the spot was a bit tricky because it was like being given vague directions from Google Maps and then trying to find his way based on the directions given by Matilda.  However, with only one slight hang-up where he confused one fallen tree instead of half fallen over, he makes it to see Matilda waiting with cocoa and peppermint!

Riku greets her with a wave and a smile, "Hey Matilda!  I'm here!  Also, nice hot chocolate is already set up!  You sure think of everything!"  With that, he takes a cup of the hot chocolate and looks at her funny when she doesn't pour any for herself.  "I think you can be allowed one cup.  It'd be harsh to bring it and not enjoy it.  I won't tell," he says, giving her a sly smile and a wink.  "I mean, I am here for the training but..."
Regulus REVERSE 1999 TIP: In a pinch, APPLe can serve as emergency supplies!

Regulus and APPLe have taken the opportunity to join this camping adventure. Regulus, of course, has no interest in passing some sort of wilderness survival training--she's frankly had enough 'survival training', in her opinion, to last a lifetime. She just likes Matilda and wants have a fun time out camping. She is carrying a particularly heavy looking backpack on her back, however, that is filled with her portable record player (never leave home without it) and a level of snackage that Regulus hopes will keep her going for at least a full week. Is this event planned to be a whole week? No, but Regulus is a little paranoid after her last ''survival'' adventure. Among the items she's brought along include graham crackers, chocolate, and s'mores beause she understands that to be CAMPING TRADITION and has gathered up some sticks she has found along the path to the meetup location.

APPLe is floating along and has subtly taken the role of navigator lest it take Regulus an Odyssey amount of time to make it to the campsite by getting distracted and going in the wrong direction repeatedly spurned on by her sense of adventure.

APPLe is carrying a small cooler of waterbottles. No sodas because APPLe has through some effort convinced Regulus this would be more authentic and there'd be plenty of Dr. Pepper when they made it through. Regulus is going to try so hard.

''It will look to be a spot perfect for gem-seeking.''

Regulus is more interested in gem-seeking than she is in gems but eventually the two of them manage to arrive in short order.
Hersmongst the items Regulus has brought along, she has a sleeping bag and a set of 'evening clothes' packed away. But she's still in her miniskirt for now.

"Looks like I didn't need to gather all these sticks myself, Matilda love." Regulus says, but still carefully sets them down in a pile. "I brought s'mores! It's an official campout treat!"

''Anyone is planning to, similarly, participate in wilderness training!''

"Hm? Is that allowed?" APPLe asks. "We're not Foundation, of course but I'd be happy to participate in the exercise with you."

"Woah?? Are you sure, APPLe?" Regulus asks.

"It would be my honor to be a companion in Matilda's exercise." He has the sense that Matilda doesn't want to suffer alone.

"...U...um..." And Regulus is feeling a little guilty. "How long is the, er, curriculum? How long until you can eat what you'd like again?"

Of course it's not like they couldn't tell if Matilda cheats right? But she has a feeling that Matilda wouldn't like it if she brought that point up.
Lissandra      Lissandra was quite pleased to have the opportunity to just hang out in the wilderness, renewing some old skills she's rarely used recently and getting a chance to poke at Matilda a little more leisurely. Unfortunately, the cold is... Not as friendly to her as it was before she owned a home. Oh well, no backing out now, and it's not *that* bad. Nobody can fault her for showing up to the campsite looking like a bit of a marshmallow anyway, with a thick fleece jacket and a raincoat, plus some thick baggy pants with the legs tucked into her hiking boots.

     When she does arrive, it's by broomflight; her staff has the archetypical broom-bristles screwed onto the end this time, and she seems to have gotten fed up with following Matilda's vague instructions and instead got 'close enough' before lifting off and simply hunting her down from a bird's eye view. She drifts lazily down from above with a relieved sigh, glad to have spared herself quite as much navigational labor while the nippy mountain air keeps making her want to lay down and take a nap.

     "Oh, this actually is quite a nice spot." she acknowledges first, though clearly the thought didn't strike her right then so much as she had to hold it to share after she finished landing; she had a very good view from above after all. "Cocoa? Oh, sweetheart. Well, as tempting as that is I did actually plan on joining your training-game you know? It has been some time since I've *needed* these skills, but I could stand to brush up." That, and it'd feel a little mean to sit and sip a nice sweet drink and just *watch* Matilda. That's still kind of lonely, isn't it?

     Without much of a second thought, she reaches to her hip and hooks her pinky around the base of her holstered wand after lifting the edge of her coat a bit to access it, sliding the magic tool up halfway and then flipping it out into her palm upright, giving it a little three-stroke flick. There's a faint increase in pressure for a moment like folks are changing altitude, but it fades almost instantly as the twigs Matilda dropped gather themselves back up and start floating along in a bundle. "Where did you want these, Matilda? Oh... Or is this a non-magical practice? I might have assumed a little."
Petra Soroka     With Qetra's assistance, Petra never really has to 'backpack' anywhere, since basically anything she could want is already stored in her mirror. This, however, is not in the spirit of a survival camping training mission-- something she has no need at all for, but will participate in anyways. Her rules today are to extradimensionally pack nothing, and do everything by hand the old-fashioned way, to really live rough for the first time in a while.

    For Matilda, this is very serious Investigator business. For Petra, she's only here to hang out with Lilian and play outside while watching whatever antics Matilda gets up to, so she's taking this whole adventure casually. Her outfit consists of a flannel and a t-shirt that reads I'M WITH STUPID with an arrow pointing down at the waistband of her thermal leggings. She's got a beanie on, sunglasses tucked into the collar of her shirt along with her pendant, and is weighed down by both a hiking backpack on her shoulders, and a zip-up guitar case that she's lugging around by hand.

    Not that all of this weight does anything to slow down her excitement for being out here. Going down the mountainside path with Lilian, her energy is irrepressible, bouncing around and balancing to walk along fallen trees, barely catching herself when the extra weight of the guitar causes her to almost topple over. She babbles the entire walk, about things she's reading, music she's listening to, talk about Lilian's research or her thoughts on the future of the country house, or anything else that comes to mind.

    When reaching the clearing where Matilda is, Petra zips past her, shucking off her backpack and guitar case mid-motion to scamper over to the riverside. Standing on top of the biggest rock in the river, Petra stretches her arms upwards and gets on her tippy-toes, rotating around to examine the campsite from the vantage point with a satisfied 'fwah!'. From there, she points accusatorially down at Riku.

"I think you can be allowed one cup. It'd be harsh to bring it and not enjoy it."

    "Nope! You're encouraging her to be weak! Emotionally undermining her is just adding to the many obstacles Matilda will have to face over this grueling trial! Failure on any of them is unacceptable!"

    Petra hops down and rejoins Matilda, scooping up a thermos for herself like a baseball player swiping a ground ball. Unscrewing it, "I'll do all the little curriculum tests, but the Foundation can't tell me what to eat. *Real* wilderness survival doesn't guarantee you'll only have a ration." She takes a sip. "What if you're stranded and your only calories are from hot cocoa?"

    "Anyways, hey Matildork. What's the schedule look like? Wanna build a fire?"
Lilian Rook     Lilian could only scarcely give less of a shit if Matilda is ready for the wilderness training portion of an Investigator job she'll dubiously even be considered for, she still feels vaguely positive towards her (despite her behaviour at the Shadowed Tabernacle), and, more importantly, this sounds like the cutest, silliest, most adorably outdoorsy thing ever. Lilian has been thinking about doing something like this ever since Nika suddenly got really into fishing and managed to spread a little secondhand excitement to her, so she figures that Matilda wanting help (an audience) with something like this is a Sign.

    So she brought Petra along, because Petra is the other person on Earth who feels roughly positive towards Matilda in a similar way as her, and because Petra is Nika's fishing buddy. Woe to thee.

    Though she seldom has any reason to wear it around the SPDM gang, Lilian does do 'outdoorsy' pretty often. Considering the quaint and casual nature of the outing, she hasn't dressed up much more than she would to roam the rural woods near her family estate in cold weather, wearing comfortable wool-lined chestnut leather boots up to the knee, slim-cut black trousers and inner fleece, a fitted merino wine red fisherman's sweater, two sets of gloves and folded sunglasses in her pocket, and only a second, somewhat more rugged-looking crossbody bag to go with her usual, a few more odds and ends inserted into the slutty little fashionable belt she wears on St. Pavlov/LSCC campus grounds. Of course she'd never be without her ridiculously expensive hairpin, but it's being used to fasten the celtic knot she's tied to keep her hair above her shoulders in back.

    She is completely confident in just that amount of packing because Lilian has already gone through survival training. Yearly, in fact, as part of the Immunes corps. Because you don't get to carry around a big backpack on field operations there, and you'll be lucky enough to find grass, much less edible berries on her Earth, she has been actively taught to rely on her magic as well. Which Lilian certainly hasn't remembered to tell Matilda at any point. Oops.

    She thinks Matilda's directions suck, but forgets to even say so by the time she gets there, guiding Petra partly by her own precognition as well, and ending up getting so caught in talking about what someone called 'Ash' said about something being 'backwards' and how it's applying 'oddly well' to the 'arcanist bloodborne symbiote' that all the disapproval has left her body by the time she makes it to the clearing.

    "Oh my god you chose the cutest spot I've ever seen . . ." Lilian says, hands clapped together, and momentarily breathless at the sight of wildflowers. She clears her throat a second later, obviously just to regain composure. "Well, we all have to start somewhere." comes next.

    'Please, help yourselves! Unless- unless anyone is planning to, similarly, participate in wilderness training!'

    "Oh I'm still deciding." says Lilian, already grabbing a thermos of her own, drinking by the time she gets to the pish-posh-don't-worry gesture with her free hand. Breaking off after a few swallows to air her mouth out from the heat, then making an approving noise, Lilian happily declares "I'll have fully decided once I've finished this."
Foundation Scions     Matilda so rarely sees anyone actually fly on a broom- in her time at the SPDM, she's seen Zeno Arms Academy cadets soaring on theirs, she's seen video-depictions, and, of course, knows of the practice- but it has her excited-waving Lissandra down, like an airport ground-controller, doing actual jumping jacks in the process. Lissandra doesn't get off that easily, not without a "Where did you learn to fly such!"

'Oh my god you chose the cutest spot I've ever seen . . .'

    Matilda quite nearly hops into a silly pose, to look around at the meadow site she's been hard at work in, already- "It is most excellently pleasant, no? I am, of course, an expert diviner, so, there was no chance it would be anything but the best, that I chose- but are the early-spring blossoms not so pleasant, and, the high-above snowmelt, so striking!? C'est merveilleux! Look closely at the pebbles, and you will find polished quartzes, or, tumbled-down gorgeous amazonite, the teal stones!"

    She wants to go prospecting so badly. Maybe that's what she's planning to do in her time tomorrow?

'You sure think of everything!'

    Arms-crossed proud, "Hm! Of course I do! You are welcome." If Matilda can't have hot cocoa, at least she'll feast on bits of praise! She needs that so much more, anyways.

' I won't tell,'

    Pride falls into grevious wounding sad-glare, though- "Non, certainement pas-! It is not a matter of 'telling', this, this is meant to be practice! One does not study for a test by solving only easier problems! Of course not..." Each word in that sounds less convinced than the last, trending towards misery-squeaky, but she still shakes her head. "Please enjoy it in my stead! Then there will be none at all left and it will be easy and simple to think nothing-more about! I, later, will be starting a fire, so, so! Surely field rations will have something similar, regardless!"

'Failure on any of them is unacceptable!'

    Matilda nods at this, emphatic agreement- "Exactement! Not that I am in any way at-risk of being swayed otherwise," She says, like she's at risk of being swayed otherwise, "This is a serious matter!"

'I'll have fully decided once I've finished this.'

    "Ah! Quelle intelligence! That, is, a clever means to find loop-holes..." Then, actually shaking her head, to push the idea of declaring she herself has yet to actually start the self-testing trial, Matilda sighs. "If only I had not-already begun..."

'We're not Foundation, of course but I'd be happy to participate in the exercise with you.'

    "You will get no credit for the accomplishments of any tasks herewithin, unless you and your captain finally (rightfully) decide to register with the St. Pavlov Foundation." Matilda 'Hmphs'- of course... no one is getting any credit, actually. This isn't official. Matilda is just practicing for something, later, (if she's even allowed,) and has utterly no authority to check APPLe or Regulus off on the completion of any task. "However, let this demonstrate the level of responsibility and competence the Foundation espouses, and, let it also convince you to join!"

'How long is the, er, curriculum? How long until you can eat what you'd like again?'

    "Hein? It is the whole length of time of this excursion! It involves, of course, the establishment of sufficient emergency shelter to sleep soundly within, the building and setting of a camp-fire, to maintain heat, cook, and use for rescue-signaling, and- to actually last the night without giving up!"
Foundation Scions     At Lissandra's magicking-up of the dropped twigs, Matilda lets out a little sigh, "Ah-hah! Merci beucoup- er, please, there is a growing stack alongside the quite-central boulder! Soon, these are to be parts either of a shelter, or, if better-suited, fire fuel."

'Where did you want these, Matilda? Oh... Or is this a non-magical practice?'

    Matilda seems to remember, with a little breathed-out 'Merde!', the answer to that only as Lissandra asks- "A-ah, erm, yes, the instruction is quite clear that arcanum is not to be utilized for any part of the curriculum. Not even for the lighting of campfires..." Soggy Matilda hours- the breeze blows, and she lets out a little shiver, before clapping her face with her mittens, steeling herself.

    "Well! Every Investigator must pass this program, so, obviously, it will be simple for me to accomplish! I know how to use a flint and steel! And, the guide-book, it is quite informative as to the architecture of proper, wind-resistant campfires!"

'Anyways, hey Matildork. What's the schedule look like? Wanna build a fire?'

    "Yes-! I, should quickly start on it, so there remains light in order to build proper insulated shelter! Er, but as to anyone who does not plan to construct their own shelter, do hurry in the establishment of tents! The mountains, they will be ensuring that night falls quickly. I, also, encourage others to gather wood and start their own fires- or just watch me, and learn, of course!"

    Shadows are, already, long- but the sun's still hovering right there, limning high-up rock like it's ablaze. On that matter, Matilda, fretful murmuring, snatches her guidebook up from the rock, and gets to placing river-rocks into a quaint fire ring, heel-scuffing dirt and dry grasses out of the way, and begins to stack wood into proper fire-shape, simultaneously, to make a little pile of grass and pine-needle tinder, to actually start anything up. In the interim time, afterwards, that she takes to find her packed flint and steel, the tinder blows off in the breeze, and she has to start that step of it again.

    "Allez-tu, Mathilde," She murmurs, struggling, struggling, and finally succeeding to spark up her little fire, and quickly set the larger structure ablaze with the tinder and kindling. "Ah-hah! That is step one, complete!"
Lilian Rook     'Cocoa? Oh, sweetheart. Well, as tempting as that is I did actually plan on joining your training-game you know?'

    "Oh then I won't mind taking yours. So that it won't go to waste, you know." Lilian says, and then only after, "Doctor Lissandra. A pleasure to see you."

    She continues watching, with visible interest, through the process of Wand Deployment, but less so the Log Telekinesis. Finding her place on a mossy boulder, Lilian sits down, sips her cocoa, and sighs, "Ahh, that's nostalgic~ Well, all of this is, really, but I haven't used a wand in years."

    'Nope! You're encouraging her to be weak!'

    Yep. This is what we're doing now. "No one will be there in a real survival scenario to tell you that it's okay to take just a little break. No one but the little voice in the back of your head that wants you to be lazy and die, of course."

    '*Real* wilderness survival doesn't guarantee you'll only have a ration.'

    "It did occur to me." Lilian blinks contemplatively. "It seems rather soft of them to give you so much food. Shouldn't you be forced to hunt and forage? There have to be deer, right? Or at least rabbits and squirrels."

    'How long is the, er, curriculum? How long until you can eat what you'd like again?'

    "Oh goodness. Please don't push yourself." says Lilian, already waving Regulus away. "You? I think you might perish for lack of soft drinks." This is how you get Regulus to take it easy! Clearly!

    Then Lilian quietly double takes at Riku, squinting back and forth between him and Matilda. "Did you not . . . ?" she begins, then after trying to imagine how she even communicates this to Matilda Bouanich, gives up. "Never mind. Good luck, Asakura."
Riku Asakura When Lissandra flies down on her broom, Riku looks impressed and wowed by her skill.  "That's amazing.  I can only fly when I'm an Ultraman.  It's so cool you can do it with just a broom!" he says to her, likewise similarly impressed like Matilda is.  

'You're encouraging her to be weak!'
'It is not a matter of 'telling', this, this is meant to be practice!'

Riku holds his hands up, waiving them back and forth in defeat.  "Alright, alright.  I get it, no hot chocolate for Matilda.  I'll drink it for her!" he says and starts sipping it.  He'll have to enjoy it in her stead, which makes him a little sad.  Things like this are meant to be shared!  Still, it was important to Matilda to get this survival training done the right way.

When Lilian arrives, he gives her a wave, "Hey, Ms. Rook.  I hope you join us tonight, it's going to be exciting!" he says with an upbeat attitude.  He also looks at Apple and then Regulus.  "Wow, you're going to join in too?  That's nice of you.  I guess I shouldn't drink the cocoa and instead try it out too..." he says and makes a pained expression when he dumps the cocoa out.  

'Did you not . . . ?'

"Did I not what?"  Riku looks confused, but when Lilian wishes him luck, he smiles.  "Thank you!"

"Alright, standing around doing nothing won't solve anything.  "Let's look for rocks to set up camp!" he says and starts on his own campfire.  He does this mostly by watching Matilda first, and then copying the steps she takes.  "Okay, flint and steel..."
Lilian Rook     'but are the early-spring blossoms not so pleasant, and, the high-above snowmelt, so striking!?'

    Lilian puts on a weird smile. Her eyes roam out into the field. "It seems I happen to have a fondness for spring blooms after all." she says, impenetrable.

    'Ah! Quelle intelligence! That, is, a clever means to find loop-holes...'

    Then Lilian snickers. "Right, right, I keep forgetting you're brighter than you look." she says. "Then watch and learn because if you want to make it in an organization like the Saint Pavlov Foundation, knowing exactly where your obligations begin and end is a critical skill. Trust me honey." Mmmm, cocoa. Lilian kicks her feet up a little at the next gulp.

    'Hein? It is the whole length of time of this excursion! It involves, of course, the establishment of sufficient emergency shelter to sleep soundly within, the building and setting of a camp-fire, to maintain heat, cook, and use for rescue-signaling, and- to actually last the night without giving up!'

    "Oh marvelous! Then I'm in~!" says Lilian. The thermos spin-rattles and settles where she'd somehow set it down in a hurry. She needed both hands free to press together at the fingertips and tilt to one side like she's thirty. "I assume we're each building our own shelters, aren't we? Well, that might be unfair to APPLe, so perhaps two to a tent?"

    A-ah, erm, yes, the instruction is quite clear that arcanum is not to be utilized for any part of the curriculum. Not even for the lighting of campfires...'

    Lilian frowns. "That's so stupid. It's not as if you're going to refuse to use them in the field if you're actually stranded. If the humans can't keep up, that's their own problem."
Petra Soroka     Added to the meandering stream of conversation topics while Petra and Lilian walk together is one that Petra doesn't quite know how to directly address, but is *vibratingly* preoccupied by in her thoughts. Vague comments about how Lilian's dressed warmly eventually wiggle closer around the point until she gets all the way to gesticulating and exclaiming, in complicated but breathlessly positive tones, "Pants!"

"Look closely at the pebbles, and you will find polished quartzes, or, tumbled-down gorgeous amazonite, the teal stones!"

    "Is that what you divined for?"

    The campground *is* so pretty. If there's any environment in America that Petra is deeply fond of-- well, it's probably the Canadian boreal forests, but the Rocky Mountains would be a close contender. She's spent more nights outside in woods like these than she can count, making it, rather than remarkable, comfortable and familiar.

    "Oh, is that how your divination guides you? Was your 'best camping spot' that you looked for, subconsciously one with lots of pretty rocks?" She pauses, and then raises up one finger with her eyes closed, lecturingly wise. "Or, maybe they're *useful* rocks. If you really were stranded in a survival situation, you'd *have* to gather stones for your divinations, wouldn't you?"

"This is a serious matter!"

    Petra, despite going a bit more rugged for this camping trip, does plan on using it as an opportunity to relax. This *cannot* be allowed for Matilda. She's the entertainment for the evening! So Petra has to keep pressuring her into committing harder and harder.

    "Right, this will be a matter of life and death if you ever actually make it as an Investigator. Though, I don't know how anyone could ever be at risk of 'giving up' on something like this."

    Petra takes another sip from her thermos, and then screws it shut again so the heat doesn't escape, breathing out to make a little fog cloud on purpose. "I mean, I sleep outside basically like this half of the time on my own. I used to live like this until I got an apartment. It's really casual for something called 'survival training', but I guess the Foundation doesn't expect you to ever get stuck somewhere *really* difficult."
Petra Soroka "Shouldn't you be forced to hunt and forage?"

    "Right, right!" Petra never really hunts for her food, but she pretends that this is what she meant in order to double up with Lilian's bullying. "If I was an instructor for this, I'd let her get all set up one night, and then blow away her shelter and all her rations overnight, so she has to survive the next few days and find her way back just based on the land."

"I, also, encourage others to gather wood and start their own fires- or just watch me, and learn, of course!"

    "Oh! Oh!" Petra looks over at Lilian, bouncily excited about this. "You know, I was just gonna mooch off of yours, Matildork, but that wouldn't be in the spirit of things, right? So I've gotta. I'll be back!"

    It only takes about ten minutes in the woods before Petra's back with a Silver bucketload of twigs and leaves, with broken branches tucked under her arm. A short distance away from Matilda's fire, Petra digs out a little ditch of her own, and sets up her own log cabin style campfire, using the Silver as a pocketknife to carve out notches that make friction-lighting much easier.

    While spinning her sticks, kneeling beside her guitar case, "Back then," Meaning when she was in the Watch, "I got so tired of making a fire to cook every day that I ended up using the Kana's engine as a stove instead. Worked *horribly*, but it boiled water at least. If I could get cancer then inhaling all of that probably woulda done it all on its own though."
Regulus His name is APPLe, not Apple! An Apple is an Apple but APPLe is APPLe.

"Oh that's alright." APPLe says to Matilda. How DOES he eat anyway? Nobody knows. "It'll still come in handy to be able to do it."

''What if you're stranded and your only calories are hot cocoa.''

"That's a really good point...!" Regulus gasps, thus undermining Petra's point a little. Then she doubletakes at Petra whom she last saw during a mech battle. Oh no, if it comes up, Matilda will be disappointed. So disappointed, they won't be the best of mates anymore. She'll be like 'Regulus, I thought you were cool, but not only did you DISGRACE turnips, you even fought a mecha battle with Petra for no good reason! We are no longer pals!'

That's scary!

''He makes a pained expression when he dumps the cocoa out.''

"You didn't have to go that far..." Regulus manages weakly.

''Oh goodness. Please don't push yourself.''

Regulus starts to relax.

''You? I think you might perish for lack of soft drinks.''

This is honestly a pretty fair thing to say after the last time Regulus was trapped for a while without constant sugary drinks in her inventory but her shoulders shoot up thanks to a pirate's pride. "I... I can do it! It's only a day! I survived a week in Flamel's world with---perfectly wonderful turnips and... perfectly unwonderful cold temperatures. And barely any soda at all!"

r''I got so tired of making a fire to cook every day...''

"Huh... That sounds rough." She admits to Petra. "Wait what do you mean by 'If you COULD get cancer then?'"

"It does feel a little ... wrong to not use arcanum. I guess in some situations you might need to save your energy but.." She glances to Lilian. While she totally agrees with her, that feels like such a Manus Vindictae way of saying it. But she doesn't think she should bring THAT up either.
Lissandra      Lissandra seems amused as ever by the open enthusiasm Matilda has for the novelties that Lissandra might normally be quite used to. "I taught myself, of course. There isn't anywhere to learn such a thing; those rare few who can fly typically do so through their own natural magic, and that's not common either." After a pause to let her broom-staff slide into her magic bag, while she holds the flap open with her hand, she elaborates slightly more. "Originally, I was simply learning to grant movement to objects during animation, but... After seeing them catch falling objects, I tried standing on one where it floated, and experimented a bit more with the lift strength, and you can likely see how it came to be from there." Riku's similar enthusiasm does provoke a mock-chiding comment, "Now now, don't be too humble. Not all of us can become giants at all; that's actually quite a rare talent by my own understanding."

Pretending to stop there, Lissandra glances away, then back at Matilda with a sort of smug smile. "I *could* give you a try at it; I can pass the controls over to others now. But another time, as I wouldn't want to distract from your very important training, of course."

     While clearly hoping that this throws Matilda into a fuss, Lissandra moves on to other topics while slotting her wand firmly back into its holster and tucking her coat back down over it, patting out the wrinkles with her palm. "Flower viewing really is a pleasant boon to an outing like this. And even cute little stones? My, nobody could fault you for your taste in a get-away. I might collect a couple of souvenirs." As for the cocoa, Lissandra tries to reassure, "It's a lovely gesture you made, and you can enjoy as much of it as you want as a reward after your practice is complete, can't you? Something to look forward to."

Maybe it's unhelpful how Lissandra keeps treating Matilda like she's like, 14, but at least she's being nice about it?

     Lilian's 'loophole' prompts the sort of side-eyed smile that might come with an 'oh, you!' in a sitcom, just a brief acknowledgement in good humor, and she waves her hand around at the wrist when her own share of cocoa is so ruthlessly claimed. "Oh very well you sweets-bandit, I'm getting accustomed to my things being stolen of late anyway. Good to see you in fine spirits, Lilian." She does laugh a little at the reminiscing tone that follows though. "Really? Any particular reason you've stopped using one? I know a few people that only prefer their attributed magic or a full-length staff."

     Hearing confirmation that magic isn't permitted, Lissandra very briefly faux-pouts, though her wand is already slotted away and presumably she had guessed the answer before. "Well, it does make sense for the purpose of the training." The bundle of sticks finishes dropping itself off in a neat stack by the rest of the pile, and the animating spell disperses. "Well, you're right. Best get to work. I'm a little too comfort-poisoned to resort to sleeping in a hole like I sometimes used to, but..." Out from the magic bag, she draws what must be a very compact tent kit, bundled together with the pitons and poles inside, the fabric wrapped around and tightly bound with cord. She's quick to tug apart a couple of small knots and then flip the entire roll open, letting the metal parts pile while she begins spreading and unfolding the tentcloth itself. She'll want a fire of her own later, but with Matilda working on one already she might as well prioritize the shelter.
Lissandra      She seems comfortable enough with the idea of withholding magic for a day, at least barring any exigencies. "I'm well-enough practiced at solving problems with a bit of wandwork, it really can't hurt to brush up on the basics now and then. If a bear decides to get fussy around camp, maybe I'll shoo it off with my voice, but that doesn't count." Of course, she means her *magic* voice, so of course it counts.
Petra Soroka "I survived a week in Flamel's world with---perfectly wonderful turnips and... perfectly unwonderful cold temperatures."

    "It was a week. And you looked like a POW staggering home after twenty years of being starved in a camp in North Korea. And that's in the *Motherlobe*." Petra falls silent, tongue sticking out, when she sees smoke start rising from her spinning stick. It catches and she immediately squats down close, blowing on the spark to get it to ignite the torn up leaves in the pile.

    She blows slowly, holding her hair back with one hand, then breathes in again to continue. "I've *been* to the Motherlobe. It's more of a luxury hotel than an office. I bet you literally were dying from soft drink deficiency."

    And in that state, what did Petra do to Regulus? That's right, NOTHING! She helped her! Sure, she kidnapped her, but she gave her a burger and didn't even torture her any more than minimally! And how did Regulus repay her? Petra side-eyes her maliciously, considering whether it would be worse for Petra or Regulus if she brought up the mech attack.

"Wait what do you mean by 'If you COULD get cancer then?'"

    "That's a fun Petra fact. Can't get cancer. Something 'bout how my psionics work. Never thought it'd be relevant, but now, I guess, who knows?" That seemingly unrelated thought is accompanied by a look back over her shoulder at Lilian, and then nodding that redoubles in intensity at Lilian's unexplained fondness for spring blooms.

"Well, that might be unfair to APPLe, so perhaps two to a tent?"

    "Yup-!"

    Petra leaps to her feet so quickly that it's possible that she reflexively teleported. With her fire stable and catching on to the bigger branches, she laces her fingers together and streeeetches in front of her, cracking her knuckles. "Should I make one? Oh, I mean, on my own, I'd just sleep in the Beauty of Ash, but that's not the exercise for today! It's sort of like a game-- well, it literally is a game! I did bring a tent, though, Lilian."
Petra Soroka "If a bear decides to get fussy around camp, maybe I'll shoo it off with my voice, but that doesn't count."

    "Bears are nice, though," Petra adds, though from the tone of her voice she's not really disagreeing with Lissandra. "It's more likely to get all your stuff stolen if you're sleeping outside in a city than in the forest. And in the forest, all the animals at least have predictable reasons to do it, so it's easy to avoid even getting into that situation."

    Petra scampers over to her backpack and pulls out a length of nylon rope, holding it upwards like a mythical treasure she's uncovered. "We can hang food up like this! Then bears can't get to it."
Lissandra      "I did only say 'shoo', not berate!" Lissandra calls, only raising her voice for clarity while she's hunched over facing away from Petra working on her tent. "It's good to put the supplies up high though. I've seen some very determined bears before, but it does take a very bad day for one to truly want to start trouble. Usually I would just erase the scent, tell them a spot they can find food, and send them on their way."
Foundation Scions 'It seems I happen to have a fondness for spring blooms after all.'

    Matilda, who does not understands, gives Lilian a big nod, "I would hope very-much so! This vista is like having stepped-foot into a post card, no? And, the air is fresh..." Matilda happy-sighs, so very pleased with her choice of site.

'Is that what you divined for?'

    "I, pre-emptively decided, that the location I picked must, in fact, be in the Colorado mountainsides- er, because, in part, it is an environment I have never myself been particularly familiar with, and, it is most-famed for the presence of crystal formations in surface rocks. So, any 'best' camping spot, certainly, would have the suitable presence of gemstones, no? "

    Combined quantities of embarrassed and pleased, Matilda continues, a little quieter, like she's keeping it a surprise for others but Petra, "Er, but, I did not ask my crystal ball for guidance to a spot perfect for survival camping, but instead, to show me somewhere amenable for a camping-spot with excellent view of the night sky. You will see! Night is hours-away, only!"

'I might collect a couple of souvenirs.'

    "Do so! I surely hav- will, once the training cirriculum practice has been thoroughly exhausted, and no sooner!"

    On the topic of hot cocoa, "Le sirop de menthe, I, hand-made it myself, from an excess of fresh peppermint that refused to dry properly to be more useful in rituals! It is just as mon grand-père would make!" She seems pleased, and sad, that she's convinced herself not to touch the cocoa.

'I *could* give you a try at it;'

    Matilda lights up like a bulb- "Yes! Is it at all like riding a bicycle? I, rode one of them once! I was, of course, a natural genius at the skill." ONCE? Sighing, that it can't be right now at this very moment, "Ah- yes, correct, distractions must be avoided at all costs!"

'Though, I don't know how anyone could ever be at risk of 'giving up' on something like this.'

    "It may get quite cold," Matilda adds, but mostly, she nods in agreement, because clearly she has this in the bag! It'll be fine! "Sometimes, investigator applicants may not be quite tough and diligent, at the very start of their careers, to handle-well even that! Not me, of course! I will have no issue at all constructing a warm and impressive shelter, with space enough for comfort!" Matilda isn't, yet, actually even approved to start basic certification for being an Investigator. She's really being hasty about this all.

'It seems rather soft of them to give you so much food.'

    A little embarrassed by this notion, Matilda half-squeaks, "It, is meant to be a demonstration of emergency short-term survival techniques, to await rescue- Grade One Investigator is expected first to be able to safely stay-put when stranded and signal for assistance, with fires, and mobile communications devices. Of course, there are more advanced programs, that include longer-term regimens, to forage and gather and orient oneself to rendezvous locations! Surely I will excel at those, one day."
Foundation Scions 'Right, right, I keep forgetting you're brighter than you look.'

    Matilda has a specific immunity to backhanded-ish compliments- the most one would ever incur is a 'Hey!!', so Matilda simply preens at this- "Of course I am bright! I, know well-enough how to spot such!" Well, too far down that topic pathway, and Matilda might accidentally start making faux-confident claims as to organizational misconduct being a good thing, so, a little dizzy, she stops, and just nods.

'Oh marvelous! Then I'm in~!'

    "Hm! I am very glad everyone has decided, at least in part, to practice these important skills alongside myself!"

. . .

    It takes Matilda a while of tongue-out-the-corner-of-her-mouth effort to get her fire lit, but once it's burning away, and not at risk of sputtering out if she turns to other tasks, with the sky dimming and the sun dipping just under the edge of mountain ridges, it's time for Matilda to make her shelter- "I, encourage every-one to practice the gathering and construction of personal shelters, but... er, it would be unfair for Mr. APPLe to have to sleep alone. He is so small! I, of course, must sleep in the shelter I build- and, surely, no tent would be more comfortable and warm than that," A confident little laugh-note, "But anyone ought to do as they wish!"

    Matilda, mostly, is sympathetic that not everyone else might want to sleep in the dirt and twigs and thus get dirt and twigs on them and in hair and everywhere- augh, she kinda doesn't want to sleep in all of that, even if she does love the outdoors. Good luck, Matilda.

    As it grows darker and darker, and her (and eventually the others') fires burn little sparks up into the chillier and chillier sky, Matilda is hard at work using the gathered-up needle-laden branches to concoct a little leaning shelter, right up against the boulder. It's a good trick, actually- the boulder has been in the sun all day, it's quite warm, still. Pine needles on the ground, loose dust and dirt cleared away till it's hard-packed, she's working at it well into when anyone could say it is, genuinely, dark out-

    And occasionally, frantic, without a flashlight, bumbling off to the woodline to grab more material and rush back.

    Eventually, it's done, enough- literally nothing fancy to it at all, but with the circumstance, and the construction, it's technically serviceable. The amount she's gone to check and double-check her guidebook, in the dim firelight, is somewhat extreme, for it being something she won't even have during her certification.

    Clapping dust and pine needles off her hands- "Ah-hah! Now, the hard work is done-"

'If a bear decides to get fussy around camp, maybe I'll shoo it off with my voice,'

    "Ah-! Bear-bags! I, will have to string one up after meal-time is complete, as to not risk any encounters! Zut! I forgot that such things exist in the Americas! I would hate for important practice to be interrupted such!" Well, actually, stringing a bear-bag up is part of wilderness survival training, in a way? Matilda's thinking along this as far too much of a test (and who can blame her! She's doing it to get the sign-off, someday, more than for any actual preparation!)
Foundation Scions     Matilda's divination was correct, however- as the light fades and vanishes, even the fire-glow isn't enough to hide that the brisk, ice-clear sky above, is quickly filling with the pinpricks of stars and constellations, far enough from much of any light pollution, no-doubt only to grow further more-so grand as the night progresses. Matilda has tasks to do, to stop her from sitting and staring- but what a sight it is, nonetheless.
Lilian Rook     'Pants!)'

    Weirdly enough, that specific exclamation eventually takes Lilian off guard. Despite the utter inanity of the exclamation, she shuffles her weight side to side, and turns just a tiny bit pink. "It's not a big deal. I just got a work text from the Paladins one day that, you know, for the anniversary, and it was very kind and sensitive of course, but it got me thinking about how little it really mattered. You know? After all this time. And . . . well." She shrugs, as if the rest were presumably obvious, instead of completely unintelligible.

    'I don't know how anyone could ever be at risk of 'giving up' on something like this.'

    "You'd honestly be shocked."

    'I mean, I sleep outside basically like this half of the time on my own.'

    Lilian isn't even intending to flex on Matilda right this second. She is in a general sense, but Petra talking like that gets her to smile out of nothing but nostalgic fondness. "The sheer number of times I went wandering off into the woods and tried my absolute damndest to stay the night . . . Looking back on it, it just seems sort of silly. Obviously I'd have to come back eventually, no matter how good at it I got, nor how many days I managed in a row; it wasn't as if it was ever going to change anything. I wonder why it seemed so important at the time?"

    'If I was an instructor for this, I'd let her get all set up one night, and then blow away her shelter and all her rations overnight'

    Now is time for bullying Matilda. Albeit, by telling the truth. Lilian looks somewhat serious as she scrunches her eyebrows, holds her fingers to her lips, and stares down at the grass. "True. Gerart would absolutely do something like that."

    '... I can do it! It's only a day! I survived a week in Flamel's world with---perfectly wonderful turnips and... perfectly unwonderful cold temperatures. And barely any soda at all!'

    "My condolences." says Lilian, barely paying any attention. "It must have been so difficult for you, what with the bowling alley and climbing wall and such."

    'I guess in some situations you might need to save your energy but..'

    "But for the most part, if your arcane skills make you better adapted to surviving in the wilderness, then you're just better suited to being an Investigator, right." Lilian says, 'agreeing' with what she thinks Regulus is going to say. She even folds her arms and sniffs about it. "Nobody holds basketball tryouts where you have to crouch so that you're under six foot, nor does the army attach training weights to anyone who seems particularly strong before putting them through boot. The policy is ridiculous."

    . . . . . . . .

    If Petra is going to gallavant off and start a fire though, Lilian is going to as well. Not only is it in the spirit of the exercise, but it helps her chase the nostalgia high she's getting from first year basic to do so as well. Of course it'd be completely trivial with magic, but since Matilda used a flinter and tinder for this, Lilian has to cheerily one-up her now. She pulls on her gloves, trots off into the woods, and returns in under five minutes after, laying out the hard, dry wood carried underarm into alternating quad-stack and propping the lighter twigs overtop while she talks.
Lilian Rook     'I got so tired of making a fire to cook every day that I ended up using the Kana's engine as a stove instead. Worked *horribly*, but it boiled water at least.'

    "Good god. And here I thought that was just self-punishment." Lilian sighs, adding dry leaf litter into the squared compartment, then wringing a piece of greenwood with her hands to squeeze resin out of it, like a freak. "No wonder you were willing to tolerate Halcyon after that."

    'Originally, I was simply learning to grant movement to objects during animation, but...'

    "Oh? That's fascinating, actually." Lilian remarks in the midst of looping string around the length of a hard twig, round and around and around. "There are all sorts of flying Traditions in my world, but they aren't exactly evenly spread. I only learned anything to do with flight after enrolling in the corps; they automatically fail you if you don't have it down by the end of the first year, by the way. I suppose it's just something so advantageous it'd be utterly ridiculous if they didn't ensure you could. For some reason, I never tried thinking of riding a broomstick as 'moving the broom while you're coincidentally on it'. I'd assumed it must be more complicated, somehow."

    'Really? Any particular reason you've stopped using one?'

    "They're most useful for increasing precision and efficiency. Some of that comes down to the craftsmanship, but some is just due to the fact that the human brain is better at directing a simple object in deliberate ways than its own body, because we move the latter in a lot of habitual, unthinking ways. Everyone used them in school, especially for complicated arrays and the sort." Lilian's thoughts drift to her year-skipping exam, causing her to smile. "But it turns out I have exceptionally high kinesthetic control, so I can manage about seventy to eighty percent as well bare-handed. And when you're weighing that last twenty-five-ish percent against needing to carry and maintain more kit . . ."

    Lilian pulls the string all at once. The sharp motion causes the stick to spin so fast it emits a buzzing sound, practically levitating on its point for the two seconds it gushes smoke, then catches flame, tumbling onto its side in the midst of the burning kindling. She waits until the flare-up dies down, wafting smoke out of her eyes. "More items like wands means more of a perceivable magic signature, which makes it harder to lie low and move covertly. It's more weight, more things to carry, more maintenance, more things that can be damaged in the field; I suppose someone in your profession has the benefit of proudly carrying around as many arcane implements as they like, but in my line of work, it's not always feasible to have a wand strapped to you somewhere, and it's not uncommon to lose or break equipment, so I've adjusted to do without."

    'It was a week. And you looked like a POW staggering home after twenty years of being starved in a camp in North Korea.'

    "Oh my god. Your stupid robot actually got her?!" Lilian gasps, elated. Her eyes absolutely sparkle at the thought. "With the predictive algorithm and everything?! No way!"
Riku Asakura 'His name is APPLe, not Apple! An Apple is an Apple but APPLe is APPLe.'

Oh, sorry, APPLe then!

'You didn't have to go that far...'

"Sorry, but we have to show comodery with Matilda.  That means living it rough for today!" He says to Regulus with a big smile, trying to comfort her while watching the dumping of the cocoa.  "It'll be alright!"

'Now now, don't be too humble.'

"Haha, I guess it's a rare thing to become a giant and fly.  I don't know anyone else who can become as big as I do..." he says, scratching the back of his head and grinning towards Lissandra.  "Thank you for saying so, Ms. Lissandra!"

'That's a fun Petra fact. Can't get cancer.'

"Oh wow, that's so cool.  You can't get cancer!  I bet a lot of people wish they could have that kinda power..." he thinks about the poor cancer victims and survivors.  

'If the humans can't keep up, that's their own problem.'

This makes Riku uncomfortable.  It's a bit close to how the Manus think and how the Concord think.  Though he does agree with not using your powers being a bit lame for passing the course.  "I guess I should learn without resorting to my Ultraman powers, because they're on such a limited time..."

'Bears...'

"I have never seen a bear up close and personal before.  I've heard they can be very unfriendly... but I suppose that might be a rumor without substance.  I didn't get a bag, but I do have rope..." he says to both Lissandra and Petra.  

Riku manages to get his fire going and is quick to throw more sticks into it to get it into a roaring fire.  When he's done with that he goes to gather sticks for both extra firewood and for building a survival home for the night.  He's unsure on this part, but he's seen a show where a guy made a hut out of sticks and dirt.  

So he digs a small hole, enough to fit himself under, lying flat, and strings up a bunch of sticks above it.  Then he gets some spare cloth to cover the small holes that will form from the sticks and covers it with dirt.  He fits this in the hole he dug out, and it's like a small den.  He fits his sleeping bag inside, and the whole thing is close to the fire.  

It looks like a royal mess, but it's functional.  

He stops to take a look at the night sky.  "Wow, the stars look so pretty.  I wish it were warmer so we could just lie on the ground and look up all night long."
Regulus She can't get cancer, Regulus thinks. And she's like the Kamen Rider for Lilian Rook, right? Does that mean she can't get Cancer because of Lilian? She seems to be in some sort of biological superscience. Did Lilian gift Petra her psychic powers AND immunity to Cancer?? Can Lilian CURE CANCER?? Regulus studies Lilian's expression in search of a clue. Is she withholding the cure for cancer in order to protect the timeline from the scientific advancements made from her sci fi future??

She assumes it's sci fi anyway, because she's so FAR ahead in the future it's crazy. She's sure that there are future worlds out there that even have the flying cars from The Jetsons. After what she's seen Petra build, she's SURE it's possible. She just has no idea how. Gosh, maybe if you can have a flying car you can even have a flying boat?? Is she willing to sail the seven skies???

rRegulus shakes her head quickly to clear out the fantasies piling up.

She sets down her bag and glances back over, wincing. The mech attack, of course, wasn't out of revenge for that but out of revenge for an even earlier activity, but it DID actually feel a little bad to do that after Petra was, well, pretty reasonable after her kidnapping.

...Wait does that make sense, Regulus wonders, most people don't like being kidnapped at all even if the kidnapper is being otherwise pretty reasonable about it? Well, she does feel a little awkward about it.

She visibly flincehs at the look and wonders if Petra is going to spill the beans or simply get revenge for the revenge in some sort of prank sort of way. It's a camping trip, Regulus fears, if Petra is going to prank her it's the perfect time. Well have at, Petra, she is ready for any prank! She might cry a little though!! Regulus puffs out her cheeks toughly with little tears in her eyes as prepares herself.

''I did not ask my crystall ball for guidance to a spot perfect for survival camping.''

"I guess it probably isn't against the rules to divine ahead of time, though it does seem to defeat the spirit of the rules. But for the best view, that's probably fair..." Regulus mulls aloud. Not that she really cares much about whether Matilda follows the letter of the law or the spirit of the law all that much. Frankly, if Matilda is being clever that's kind of awesome and if she's sticking to the rules that also feels very Matildaesque.

"Glad we're in good hands," Regulus says. It's fine. She can, like, use an oven later to make her s'mores or something.

''It would be unfair for Mr. APPLe to have to sleep alone.''

"Don't worry, we already room together." Regulus nods along. "We're a package deal!" APPLe is probably not as stubborn as Regulus.

It does feel a little weird to have 'do the training or not whatever' from the teacher's assistant, but honestly--that attitude suits her just fine. She'd probably be more stubborn about all this if Matilda said she HAD to do it after all.

Regulus takes a moment, as night progresses, to watch the stars and perform some astronomical calculations in her head, using them to idly keep track of their present location.

''It must have been so difficult for you.''

"It was!" Regulus assures Lilian. "Because it was so cold!" Thanks to the turnip war armistice treaty she is not allowed to bring that up. "And there were all these apparitions and all the Psychonauts were going absolutely nutters."

''Your stupid robot actually got her?!''

"I had to stop Flamel's dumb plan! I was tired!" Regulus grumbles. "It was following me all week!"
Lissandra      Lissandra likes making use of things that might otherwise go to waste, so Matilda repurposing her peppermint for today wins a small pleasant hum. "That's lovely, really." As for Matilda talking about bicycles, Lissandra ends up having to admit "Well I've never ridden one myself, so I couldn't say for certain how it compares. But just from watching others ride, I would have to assume it's quite different; perhaps a little more like riding a very tame horse? At least via my method. I doubt your Zeno pilots use object animation as the basis of their own brooms. Well, in any case, some other time. I'd meant to pick your brains a little about your divinations, since I only know one other, and her... Style, is quite different."

     Lilian's input about flight has Lissandra briefly humming again, like she's pretending to think harder than she is. "Well, part of the advantage of my method is that I can ride just about anything, so long as it can support my weight and has the right lift. If not a magic tool like my staff, the object has to be relatively large... More surface area means more control of how the lifting force emits, and all. But I've always seen it as somewhat deficient compared to the flight that certain specialists manage; I have to prepare a number of other minor spells to shield myself against wind resistance, for one. It certainly is valuable though; I have no doubt that if it were more reproducible it would be incredibly popular." As for wands, Lissandra nods along for a little while without looking back. "See, that interests me. You present one's own body as a potential obstacle to the intended result, which seems to imply the specific motion matters quite a lot. I am more familiar with... Well, let's put it this way. If a wand for your magical system helps by standing in for the hand and controlling motions more tightly, most of the people I know to use them instead consider them an augment to one's own magical channels. The implement converts attributes with some amount of loss between types, and then distributes it in a way that can be consistently reproduced by those without an intuitive understanding of the attribute they wish to use. Well, assuming they learn how. So, those motions are usually only rigidly necessary while using a magical tool." With a shrug, she concludes, "Carrying more equipment is always a risk though. I've had to have several more wands made than I have staves, after trying to circumvent metal reinforcement previously. It's unbelievably flustering to break one by falling on your side while it's holstered." She sighs at the memory. "I am fond of my backups, at this point. And at least mine don't give off a distinct arcane signature of their own, as long as I purge residue from them after use. Like blowing the lingering water out of a straw."
Lissandra      Regarding the rations and such, Lissandra does let a small almost-worried hum leak out, after she's sprawled her tentcloth out and begun setting up the poles. "Well you know, foraging can make one's supplies go much further. It would be good to pick up a travel guide for any region where you might purchase one; if nothing else, to know how to recognize poison."

     Later on, it doesn't seem as though Lissandra struggles with her own preparations. It took her a couple of minutes to remember how to put the tent up without a spell, but she's a smart cookie, and the job is done in time for her to head off at just before sunset for some starter tinder for her own little mini-fire. She wants to be extra toasty while she can, so she's positioned herself wisely such that she's within range of both her own and Matilda's fires! It helps shake off some of the brainfog that sets in as temperatures drop, though she still ends up tucking her arms inside her sleeves now and then to turtle up inside her double-layered coat. "Well, my tent is fairly small. If the gentlemanly apple is in need, there may be space for him, but I'm not certain anyone else could fit without us becoming far more familiar quite quickly." In other words, it's cuddling room only in there, and it's not something she looks enthusiastic to offer.

     "The stars really are lovely, when you have the time to watch. I might not have an endless appetite for it, but a night now and then..."
Lilian Rook     'That's a fun Petra fact. Can't get cancer. Something 'bout how my psionics work.'

    "Oh, really? I thought it was just because the Silver would have flushed it out back then." says Lilian, as if cancer were a type of sinus infection.

    'Bears are nice, though'
    'Usually I would just erase the scent, tell them a spot they can find food, and send them on their way.'
    'Ah-! Bear-bags!'

    "Now I'm thinking about that bitch Yardena in first year." Lilian grumbles, chin in hand and elbow on knee. "I was young and gullible enough to be frightened all of the first night after she told me that silly old story about bears coming after you know what." she sighs. "When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I thought was 'But there aren't any bears though?' and I felt like a total imbecile all day." She finally hauls herself up off the rock.

    'Zut! I forgot that such things exist in the Americas!'

    "Tsk tsk. You should really research the location before you head out you know."


'I did bring a tent, though, Lilian.'

    "Hm? The water is running." Lilian says in the midst of dropping her second, bigger crossbody, and unzipping it. She doesn't elaborate more, annoyingly. "Well, since the tent is against program, I suppose setting it up with magic doesn't matter. Let's have that up and running and a hand-made shelter just to prove a point.

    She waits until the others are deep enough into their preparations to be individually focused on something else before accessing Petra's tent kit. Once she's laid it out long enough to take a good look at the parts and get the general idea, Lilian rests her cheek in her hand while she thinks up how she wants to make this look, and then snaps her fingers on "Ansin." then "Nóiméad ansin!" then "Ach ansin arís~"

    Tent poles 'magically' stake the ground; even the pitons are pre-hammered. The tarp is 'teleported' overtop after she tests the joins by pressing them with her palm, and then the mat is 'teleported' beneath, along with bedding, sleeping bags, and the sub-compartments of her pack, still individually zipped up. Satisfied with the assemblage done in the space of 36 seconds (21 minutes), Lilian doesn't mention the part where she secretly went off into the woods to gather most of what she'd need to pass a test close, depositing it in neat little piles by the edge of the trees that form one side of the campground.

    So it looks so annoyingly easy once she unrolls and ties up a three-point hammock between trees, threading the rope herself, lays out the insulated survival tarp she personally brought, hangs space for her gear to go with extraneous nylon cable rigging, carves notches into perfectly shaped branches for interlocking roof cover on three sides, slanted down to guide smoke away, and goes to and from the river a few times for impromptu clay spackling before filling it out with leaf cover.
Lilian Rook     'Le sirop de menthe, I, hand-made it myself, from an excess of fresh peppermint that refused to dry properly to be more useful in rituals! It is just as mon grand-père would make!'

    "Ritual peppermint? I don't believe I've ever used it before, come to think of it." Lilian muses as she goes. "Come to think of it, I haven't the foggiest clue how well versed you are in herbalism. Your familiarity with crystals and minerals seems to go without saying, but my imagination draws a blank when it comes to organized work outside of divination." she says. "It's not often that it comes up in the field, but I always make certain to carry the bare necessities with me just in case of needing to perform some impromptu arcane project; herbs and oils are a little over half of my 'standard loadout' if you will. Don't you just use that crystal ball for everything?"

    After a quick inspection, satisfied with the final results of her handiwork, Lilian claps the dust off her gloves with both palms, peels them off again, and then goes right for the tent anyways, leaving a perfectly good setup just, there. That should be a four hour job! Not fair! Why did she do that?! The trees and the boulder are even breaking the wind on the last side!

    "And for your information, Regulus, I don't do cancer treatment. My sister is the doctor, not me." Whoa! Spooky! How did she know?! Besides the obvious staring! "Which isn't nearly the hurdle it used to be, by the way. Unless you're already far along the death spiral, pretty much every sort of cancer is treatable by modern medical science. Using magic is practically overkill." Thinking about Sakura for a minute, Lilian's expression darkens, then clears by act of will. "You'd better have a very good reason to go chasing down an arcane remedy when a doctor will do."

    'I had to stop Flamel's dumb plan! I was tired! It was following me all week!'

    "I had a cold! My controller wasn't plugged in!" Lilian snickers.
Lilian Rook     'I have to prepare a number of other minor spells to shield myself against wind resistance, for one.'

    "There's a reason I hate breaking one-fifty if I can help it." Lilian mutters. "After that, wind protection starts sharply dropping." She sighs the commiserative sigh of someone who knows what it's like to be fucking freezing and have your hair all messed up and your eyes watering.

    'You present one's own body as a potential obstacle to the intended result, which seems to imply the specific motion matters quite a lot.'

    "Well, your body matters quite a lot for being able to use magic in the first place, doesn't it?" she says. Crouching down by her bag, where she's moved a rather hefty rock to use as a makeshift stool, Lilian systematically dismantles her packing until she can get at her change of clothes, wrapped inside her staggeringly tightly-rolled sleeping bag (GDF white-grey-red) in one, and water purification tablets plus accumulator flashlight and stove coil with utensils in another. The only thing she handles like an old friend is the survival knife. "Motions, or in many Traditions, vocalizations, are stand-in means to replicate and invoke the celestial designs which all magic is dependant upon resonation with. Just about anyone can pull something off if they offload all the work to a sufficiently large, complicated, and expensively produced array or ritual, and next to nobody can do something terribly impactful with just the flick of a wrist."

    Even if she appears busy re-stoking her fire and tossing ceramic 'coals' into a tiny pan, Lilian is in-fact intently listening to Lissandra's explanation. "Using the wand as something inherently magic, 'to be more magic', is an interesting take on the principle of extension. I suppose with spontaneous and unpredictably specific incidences of magical compatibility within the population, breadth of fundamental compatibility would be something much more in demand than verticality; precision and finesse and efficiency and all that, when what you need is stability and reproducibility." She giggles at the thought of snapping a wand by falling over, then says, "Well, a sword will bruise your leg pretty badly, so . . ." Lilian side-wobbles her hand.

    "I suppose I can't say I totally eschew the things on principle anyways. Winter Crow-- ah, that is my sidearm-- I had that commissioned for the especial purpose of converting alchemical charge into appropriate combat magic. They taught me the basics in the corps as well, but the speed of my fighting style long-ago outstripped how fast I can cast general purpose magic, so the ammunition limit is a worthwhile trade-off."
Petra Soroka "You know? After all this time. And . . . well."

    Throughout Lilian's completely nonspecific but incredibly weighty explanation, Petra draws both her fists up to her mouth with her elbows tucked close to her chest. She wiggles restlessly, like someone is flicking a control stick for her all around while her feet are glues in place, overjoyed to the point of being teary-eyed. She's only barely holding herself back from wrapping Lilian in a hug, and when she speaks her voice is whispery but thick with happiness. "Mhm! Yeah!"

"You will see! Night is hours-away, only!"

    Petra claps her hands together. She can be nice to Matilda, for this. Matilda's basically doing her a favor without knowing it! "Oh, good! That'll be so so pretty. You're really sweet, Matilda."

    The time comes for the sun to set and the stars to come out, and Petra is *inordinately* happy about her little campfire. Half of the fun of something like this is treating the campfire as a little pet, an urge she has no other entity to direct towards because Norton was left with Nika for the night after her last visit to the Dragon's Garden. So Petra sits by her fire, right in the center of all the campground moving and practicing, feeding little sticks into it and watching the stars come out.

    Things quiet down a bit, and Petra picks up a rock from nearby the river, dropping it by her fire to use as a stool. She bends over and unzips her guitar case, bringing it out onto her lap. While talking, she goes through the process of retuning all the strings, having loosened them to avoid damage while hiking.

"The sheer number of times I went wandering off into the woods and tried my absolute damndest to stay the night . . ."

    "Yeah! I mean, well, the context for me was different, but..." The Instrumentality Foundation and Lilian's childhood circumstances couldn't be any more different, but Petra was just indirectly praised for solving Lilian's, so she can push through without taking damage.

    "There was so much less, like, vegetation on the moon back then, so it was actually so much harder than you'd expect. Not that there was anything really dangerous, or that it ever got colder than freezing really, but there were only so many places to run off to that had enough plants that they weren't just in plain view of the complex."

"I wonder why it seemed so important at the time?"

    "Girls love to be in the woods," Petra states, solemnly. "And, I mean, it was at least a choice to be out there."

"Nobody holds basketball tryouts where you have to crouch so that you're under six foot, nor does the army attach training weights to anyone who seems particularly strong before putting them through boot."

    "Shoulda called that shit the Harrison Bergeron Foundation. What's Pavlov even got to do with it?"

"No wonder you were willing to tolerate Halcyon after that."

    Petra's eyes slant away, embarrassed. "Yeah, well. That was a little bit of self-punishment too. Ended up back in the woods anyways, soon enough."

"Oh my god. Your stupid robot actually got her?!"

    "Yup. And then I took pity on her and gave her a burger, because she was soooo pathetic, and *then*-!!" Petra points accusingly at Regulus. "Then she brought a whole mech to my college campus and attacked me with it!"

    "And now eeeeeeveryone's talking about that! Everyone's got their little cellphone videos and everyone's *gossiping* about it! It's even more popular than the-- other thing. So everyone's got *questions* now."
Petra Soroka     Petra strums her guitar, and the chord comes out properly in-tune finally. She hums to herself, basking in the starlight and the warmth from the fire and the good vibes, watching the constellations up overhead. She pauses and purses her lips, pausing her guitar playing for a moment to stand up. Carrying her guitar by the neck, she takes the few steps needed to get her boots in the edge of the river, then bends down to study her reflection in the water.

    Her hand goes out and grabs at the river surface, pulling out the wrist of another girl who looks nearly identical. Qetra is hoisted onto the riverbank, and Petra pat-pats her hair to shake the water out of it.

"Mmmm?~ Good morning, ajoeto?"
"No, look, it's night. It's pretty, right?"
"Oh? Oh! We're camping! Yippee!"

    Qetra comes prancing over to where Lilian's set up her hammock, sprawling herself across the ground near Lilian's feet so that she can look up at the stars and bask more unabashedly than even Petra ("Hiii!"). Petra, meanwhile, goes back to her makeshift stool nearby, fiddling with her guitar more. Qetra doesn't bother to lift her head up to look at anyone else, instead lazily talking to Petra while watching the stars.

"This is pretty~ who else is here, even besides Lilian?"
"Matilda, Regulus, APPLe, this Paladin you haven't met named Lissandra, and, um, Riku."
"Ohh... have I...?"
"You've seen Regulus and Matilda before, yeah."

"I thought it was just because the Silver would have flushed it out back then."

    "Nope! Far as I know, I should be immune, or at least that's what I remember the researchers saying all the way back then. Which is good, 'cause who knows what kinds of cancer I'd get from the weird shit my body's exposed to all the time otherwise."

    Petra blinks, and the tent's set up right in front of her. She opens her mouth to protest that she could've done it and saved Lilian the work, but Lilian did choose to do it, which means there must be a reason. Therefore, instead, "See, Matilda? That's what you've gotta compete with. Work hard, okay?"

    "Hm, hm... campfire music...." Petra mumbles to herself before eventually settling on something. Silver coils around the fretboard, acting as a makeshift capo as she starts singing.

    "Now that she's back in the atmosphere, with drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey-eyy-ey-ey... // She acts like summer and walks like rain, reminds me that there's a time to change, hey-eyy-ey-ey..."
Regulus ''Oh, really? I thought it was just because the Silver would have flushed it out back then.''

Oh, Regulus thinks, maybe Lilian didn't cure cancer? She looks at Lissandra. Did SHE cure cancer?

''And for your information, Regulus, I don't do cancer treatment.''

Regulus practically jumps in the air like a cartoon character, only looking like a half centimeter from doing just that. How DID Lilian know? Of course, the idea that Lilian read it out of the look on her face is much more readily believable to Regulus than mind reading--but this isn't the first time this happened, even... Maybe if she avoids staring at Lilian when she starts thinking about ridiculous things Lilian may or may not have done.

"So your sister cured cancer?" She blurts out instead. That could explain why Lilian didn't know how Petra got immune to cancer.

''I had a cold! My controller wasn't plugged in!''

"My controller ''wasn't'' plugged in!" Regulus instinctively agrees before adding, "Huh? What? I mean it's a very persistent rat...block!"

''Then she brought a whole mech to my college campus and attacked me with it!''

"You attacked me with a whole mech first!" Regulus counters. "And it was all exercise based assault, it's totally fair--" Her cheeks pinken though from embarrassment. "I already decided to because of the first time you attacked me with a robot." Though the reason Regulus was really upset about that had less to do with the robot attack itself and more the sort of vibe that they were kind of having a real cool roadtrip where everybody was bonding together and they were getting along so well (well for the most part) and THEN the robot attack.

''Than the-- other thing.''

"So the 'other thing'," Regulus says 'other thing' like the way everbody was saying 'little thing'. "Got pushed out of the rumor mill, huh?" She pauses. "Uh well next time I'll call ahead and we can find a quiet place or something." She quirks her head with a frown. "Though I don't have a reason to throw another one at you."

She waves a hand to Qetra. "Oh uh--hey." She barely remembers Qetra herself. Did Qetra cure Petra's cancer?
Lilian Rook     Lilian throws a few more chunks of wood onto her (personal) fire, right in front of the unoccupied hammock, a short distance ahead of the tent, in order to stoke it higher. She takes a quick break to ferry water from the river a few times in her equally travel (military) sized pot, cracking the tablets between her fingernails to dissolve smaller quantities at once. It gives her a little time to cool down from Petra's teary-eyed, unspoken praise.

    'Girls love to be in the woods'

    "True." Lilian nods as if this were profound wisdom. "Girls love to seize back control in its pettiest form from the pan-cultural gestalt."

    'Shoulda called that shit the Harrison Bergeron Foundation. What's Pavlov even got to do with it?'

    Lilian snorts, in that specific pressed-down through-her-nose laughing way. She covers her mouth a second later, but she totally just got that one more than she intended to admit. "Fuck me. I forgot you read books." Lilian sigh-laughs. She considered running it back, but since this is Petra Time, she's already given up. "Every time I ever reference literature or politics it somehow bounces off of everyone involved." Tossing another stick into the fire, she glances at Matilda, then returns her attention to Petra. "You would not believe how bad even the Paladins radio is! I made the funniest called shot with Brave New World at Mesmer's eugenecist bullshit and it was just wasted! Her, Nash, Emiya, Grimm-- Lissandra isn't from Earth, so I get it, but nobody got it!"

    'Yup. And then I took pity on her and gave her a burger, because she was soooo pathetic, and *then*-!!'

    "Soft. I'd have put her in the blender." No, Lilian, you'd be way more soft than Petra. You'd just look disdainful and uncomfortable about it the whole time.

    'Then she brought a whole mech to my college campus and attacked me with it!'

    Lilian stares at Petra for a while, reminiscing on the time she electrocuted Petra after catching her on academy grounds, in the process of attempting to alter her academic records right before graduation. Then she decides on "God. What's your problem Regulus?" and places her hands on her hips. She must be joking a little bit, right?

    'So your sister cured cancer?'

    "What?" Lilian squints at Regulus, wonders where to start, then picks the wrong place. "Cancer isn't a virus. It's not one specific thing you can just 'cure' with a vaccine. You have to treat all the different varieties separately." Unsure of where to leave that, Lilian makes certain to add, "And she is incredibly talented you know. Instead of running a practice, she travels all over the world on all sorts of adventures to help people in crisis-stricken places."

    'Oh? Oh! We're camping! Yippee!'

    Lilian smiles at Qetra in that wordlessly fond way people use for exceptionally happy dogs. "Hello Qetra. Fancy meeting you here." is delivered as a doting formality; Lilian's attention is first on Petra retrieving her guitar, then her steadily boiling water.

    "If we're already at entertainment, then why don't we discuss dining?" says Lilian. "We've been up here, what, three and a half hours? I'm starving." The look she gives Matilda is especially expectant. "The rest of us don't have Saint Pavlov Foundation approved 'rations', you know. Are we to eat whatever we happened to bring? Ah, and if that's forbidden, would the 'animal empathetic' amongst us find it terribly offensive if I catch something?" she says, a little too casually. "I bet Matilda doesn't even know how to prepare a fish, much less wild game."
Foundation Scions 'Oh, good! That'll be so so pretty. You're really sweet, Matilda.'

    Matilda beams, as she continues about her Many Tasks, "Of course I am, and, of course it will be!" Matilda sweep! She did a thing that resulted in positive praise! Wahoo! Everyone can go home now she's already won!

    Lilian's display in 'magically' setting up her tent is met with wide-eyed excitement from Matilda, at how utterly convenient and stylish that is, and Matilda is a normal amount of jealous not just of the trick, but of having a tent, too, and how comfortable that will certainly be compared to having itchy twigs and grass and dirt and pine needles. "Ah-hah! How long did that take to learn..? It is quite flashy!"

'See, Matilda? That's what you've gotta compete with. Work hard, okay?'

    "Ah-! Well, I'll have you know, that Matilda Bouanich is exceptionally fast at the completion of menial tasks, such as setting-up a camping tent!" Conveniently, Matilda does not have a tent with her, so she can be confident in not having to prove a complete lie. "Were the nature of this expedition other than what it is, I would surely demonstrate, and excel, in that matter!"

    Then, Matilda looks back to the growing skeleton of her shelter, lit-up by the tended-to campfire, and lets out a low little whiny sigh. Throwing pine boughs to and fro for insulation, padding, and cover from potential-rain (not that her prediction say that is likely! It's a qualifier for the certification.) It's not a quick construction from her, nor particularly tidy, but at least she hasn't gotten creative for what her guide-book says it ought to look or be structured.

    Brushing some final bits of it a bit-less dirty, just to have some sort of 'final touches' to end on, Matilda sighs out a '"Voilà," and looks around to see the approval that others definitely totally have on her construction- then, in a panic, she takes a couple little crystal-charms from pouches in her jacket, held clumsily through her mittens, and tries to string them around jutting twigs of the shelter, as little warding baubles to finish it off as a home- they're decorative, from her dormitory, the same sort present both in the mansion decor for Vertin's halloween party, and how Matilda has constructed divinatory ritual-room ambience. You can't let bad luck into an emergency shelter!

    After that's done, louder, comes another "Voilà!" Matilda can't ever get enough attention or praise.

'I might not have an endless appetite for it, but a night now and then...'

    In the breather after finishing her shelter, "Whether by availability, or, the weather, to see stars only on-occasion, that brings out a specific fondness slightly different than to see them every-night, no? To look up and be reminded of all that is there, shining-down too! I think that little surprise is pleasant, though, if I could maintain the weather of the skies, then surely no night would hide them at all!" Sighing, "Sometimes, it takes a so long an amount of effort to go to where they are this visible! But, at least this is surely to be a memorable view!" Matilda, sitting cross-legged on the ground, fiddles with a loose quartz charm that she didn't manage to attach to her shelter, twisting it back and forth such that it twinkles in firelight-glow, like a little fragment of the sky.
Foundation Scions 'Ritual peppermint? I don't believe I've ever used it before, come to think of it.'

    Matilda gives Lilian a not-quite-getting-it expression. "It is peppermint I grow by the windowsill! It is useful on-occasion to burn, as a contribution to divinations. I most frequently use incenses, burnt herbs, and scented-oil candles for my works, in addition to the many parts played by the right present crystals! Herbalism is of import to the cirriculum of the SPDM, to understand how other incantations may themselves be constructed- but, er, some of it, it just makes sense!"

    "The clear quartz of my orbuculum, it is all that is necessary for my incantations, but, without amenable circumstances of the overhead celestial bodies, or an ordered ritual-chamber, it is far more tiring to call-forth anything!" She can't say it's also less-accurate, for her divinations, because Matilda Bouanich is Perfect and Never Incorrect in her readings; but it's also less-accurate. "It is easy to get very tired!"

'The rest of us don't have Saint Pavlov Foundation approved 'rations', you know. Are we to eat whatever we happened to bring?'

    "Er- yes! Yes, this is certainly now the appropriate time for that! Ach, où l'ai-je mis..." Matilda scrambled up from sitting by the fire and taking a break to warm-up, to go and scrounge through her lugged-here duffels, for a ration kit of a few white-labelled cans, for herself, to struggle at opening for a moment and then place besides her fire. "Erm, you should indeed prepare what it is that you have brought, and, if, there is to be food hunted-for and fished, please only do so if you posess an approved hunting and fishing license! I am fairly sure those are required!"

    "And, I most certainly know how to prepare fish! I know quite-well how to cook notable, famous French delicacies, such as poisson à la bordelaise, or, à la meunière, or, other ways, too! It is quite simple!" Matilda thinks 'prepare' means cook. Matilda will cry if she has to filet a just-caught trout. "Ah, er, but, perhaps we lack the cooking-utensils required for something so nuanced and delicate as French cuisine..."

    With the stars coming out, shine-twinkling bright overtop the mountain peaks and the gently-waving conifers, not at all drowned out by the scattered campfires, ambiance shifted far-more cozy now that Petra has started playing her guitar, and- "Hey, wait- there are two of you again-!" Matilda stares at Qetra, a little too lost in the flurry of tasks, stirring at a slowly-warming Food Can, to remember having met her before. Cautiously, Matilda waves, still holding her stirring-spork.

'You'd better have a very good reason to go chasing down an arcane remedy when a doctor will do.'

    Matilda, overhearing, winces just a little bit at that- gentle reminding Teachers Assistant-tone, "Ms. Rook? Er, please remember that Regulus is herself an arcanist too, and that most-often the case will be that an arcane remedy is more effective for her, rather than alternatives! Of course it is important to not waste restorative concoctions, or a healer's time, but, a doctor of human medicine, that would just not do, for many matters."

'Then she brought a whole mech to my college campus and attacked me with it!'

    Matilda gasps, hearing that- turning towards the radio pirate, genuinely kind of worried-sounding, "Ms. Regulus! Please understand that your actions, they reflect badly onto your compatriots, when you do highly rude things like that! Surely, it is a frustration that Timekeeper Vertin will have to be faced with, any-time you so publically misbehave!" Telling her off in, still, Teachers Assistant-tone, really just makes Matilda sound worried.
Lissandra      Lissandra is listening to Lilian about as intently and with about as much visible investment, which is to say they're both kind of just talking to one-another without actively looking at each other as they get around to other things; Lissandra still has to finish setting up her fire after all. That, and not constantly looking over her shoulder helps her hide the little eye-rolls and mouth-scrunches she does over Lilian 'cheating' with magic.

Obviously it was a choice to participate or not, but she misses her own conveniences too! Darn this sense of fairness, she only ever seems to apply it when it's inconvenient...

     "You're right of course, the body *is* important. But, I moreso meant..?" She swirls her wrist around as if to gather her thoughts like cotton candy, but doesn't quite land on a useful analogy before she gives up in favor of the 'boring' version. "The motions themselves are a means of interacting with a well-made implement, within my home's system. It's a way of indicating intention in an objective way, to an object that is not truly connected to you. Most wands are effectively more like a filter, or an adapter, rather than a source of magic in themselves... Though staves afford the room for exceptions. While using one's own attribute, the mind handles many of the processes on an intuitive level; gestures aren't strictly necessary, though they do provide a way to stimulate one's reflex or help shape the desired result."

     She then snaps her fingers, remembering Matilda mentioning bicycles earlier. "Ah, there we go. You can ride a bicycle without using your hands to steer, but it's obviously more difficult and more prone to errors. A beginner attempting it would learn all the wrong lessons too, if not hurt themselves. So, the practical standard will always involve using as much of the body as can be efficiently managed." Now she seems rather pleased to have found an analogy for it after all. "This has also led to certain groups of people developing manifestation styles that use familiar forms of athleticism to channel their attribute into a specific application. It's relatively common to discover latent ability among hunters, for example. High-concentration tasks have a way of bringing it out by accident. Well, that, and it happens remotely enough from other people that they stand a chance of practicing and learning control without alarming others..."
Lissandra      But, it doesn't take her much longer to get the fire going, even if it's not as comically fast as Lilian's; she's done this before, even if she's used to her magical shortcuts by now. Maybe coming with a tent already packed was technically cheating too, but she has... Particular needs. Yes, that's good enough of an excuse. She's the medical professional here, so if she says it's a health thing, it's a health thing, and that's that. She does have at least enough courtesy to use the additional time she's been afforded by her preparation to stroll on over beside Matilda's shelter, gently advising, "That seems like it will do the job. You may want to shake out your clothes a bit in private before you lay down, though; to cut down on the itching, that is." Lissandra has experience. She'll at least do Matilda the small service of plucking out any pine needles she can already see in the younger girl's hair and fluffing it out after, so long as she isn't warded off.

     She seems content to confer with Matilda about the stargazing by then, producing a small cooking grate and setting a mug on it, pouring something lemony and floral-smelling in to heat up over her own fire, and then fishing out a meal replacement bar from her bag to lazily chew on for a while to come. "You're right. It's pleasant, to think of it as a... Deliberate sort of 'reset' to my pace. Not to be indulged always, but..." She trails off a bit, seated with her legs crossed on the ground, neck craned up with her half-unwrapped snack dangling from between her teeth loosely. "... It isn't so bad to have to chase the view, I think. It's an excuse to get out, and see somewhere new. The Yellow Witch- the other diviner I knew- actually did make a ward," she explains, gesturing around herself as if drawing a circle with her fingertip in the dirt, "To keep away the clouds and bare the sky. The area around her home is barren and dry, and I think if nobody ever visited her she might starve for lack of will to do anything but gaze upward. It's better to experience as complete a life as you can, if you don't want to become a 'weirdo'." She learned that word from someone else, of course.

     Later, she laughs a little dully at the idea of a hunting license, but speaks around her meal-bar, "If anyone is desperate, I can share a few things, but I'll expect you to fend for yourselves in the morning." She also looks over at Qetra, but lacking familiarity with the phenomena and only really knowing that Petra falls into the 'psychic' paradigm in some way, she can't make any better observation than one little tease. "Hmm. If you play guitar, does your sister play the drums? She seems supportive like that."
Riku Asakura 'Voilà!'

Riku looks up from his sticks, fabric, and fancy hole in the ground shelter near his fire to look at Matilda's makeshift shelter and claps excitedly for her.  "It looks great, Matilda!" he says, looking at his own and frowning. He needs to do better if he's to survive the night warm.  So he goes for pine needles and other underbrush to try to give his sticks and fabric shelter more insulation.  

Riku watches as Lilian assembles her tent magically.  He is wide-eyed about it, because it's amazing to watch something like this happen in real time.  "Wow, Ms. Rook, that's amazing.  I wish I could do stuff like that!  Just, wow..." he says, amazed at the job it's doing too.  Too bad he won't be sleeping in a tent tonight, once more looking at his fancy hole in the ground and feeling regret.

Riku doesn't know Qetra, so she gets a friendly wave.  "Hello, I don't think we've met before. I'm Riku Asakura." He says to her in a friendly way.  He also notices Petra playing the guitar and sits by her fire to listen.  "You're really skilled with that guitar, Petra!"

Riku spends a little more time looking up at the stars.  They really are pretty here.  He hopes nothing comes to ruin this night!  Though he looks at his makeshift shelter again and wonders if he's going to really get any sleep.  Haha... he's in trouble.
Regulus ''Cancer isn't a virus.''

"I'm not a cancer expert, but if someone can't get cancer, that sounds close enough to be cured. I guess it's more like a vaccine but like not specifically a vaccine. Preventative, I mean." Regulus may have lost the thread of this conversation.

''Please remember that Regulus is herself an arcanist too.''

"I don't think I'm sick." Regulus says. She looks to APPLe like he'd be the expert on her health and wellbeing.

''Please understand that your actions, they reflect badly onto your compatriots.''

"It really wasn't a big deal." Regulus says. "People are rude to me all the time who cares--"

''A frustration that Timekeeper will have to be faced with.''

"Erk...! Y-you think so? W-well, next time I'll misbehave privately then!" She promises. "That way it doesn't bother them at all." She signs a cross over her heart.
Lilian Rook     Lilian loves it when she gets to be stylish and flashy. Seeing Matilda go moon-eyed over her little performance makes her realize just how rare it is for anyone to appreciate the showmanship she puts on nearly everything, and that makes Lilian a tiny bit weird.

    'Ah-hah! How long did that take to learn..? It is quite flashy!'

    "Oh ages." she says, ten percent rattled and ninety percent warm-gloating smiles. "When it comes to this sort of thing, I'm the best in the family by miles. Distance, precision, angle and momentum, multiple things at once; I've been drilling it since I was much younger than you, and I still work on it every single day." Lilian puffs out her chest, very easy to mistake for pride.

    "It used to be that I could barely do anything without a little disaster. If you don't focus hard enough, or if your concentration lapses, you can end up sending tiny bits of yourself with it, or trying to send it into something else, which shoves it somewhere else and makes a lot of heat. I was practically always covered in bandages and burns growing up." Some of them were even related to the topic.

    "People are always thinking of powers as something that just comes to you naturally, or which you somehow just learn from a book and operate without thinking, like it's a bicycle or a phone or something. They never think of it as a skill you just get good at." After repeating the sentiment yet again, Lilian considers something in a passing moment of awareness. Even if she's lying, it's an honest form of lie. "I think I rather like the term 'arcane skills', actually."

    . . . . . . . .

    'Voilà!'

    Lilian ignores the first one, busy talking to Petra, then glances back at the second. Biting on her lip for a second, she manages to sound praising, without actually giving any praise, by saying "Congratulations." and nothing else.

    'Whether by availability, or, the weather, to see stars only on-occasion, that brings out a specific fondness slightly different than to see them every-night, no?'

    "I'll have to take your word for it." says Lilian, now interested because Lissandra is involved. "The family estate is out in the country, so you can always see them. Apple Tree Island and Sapient Heuristics aren't nearly big enough for light pollution." Pausing to contemplate the information that Lilian essentially only ever sleeps in places where the stars are visible, she says "Come to think of it, I might be a bit of a stars and night and space sort of person.", making her firmly the last person to notice. "I'm certain the view from up here will be just stellar though."

    'It is easy to get very tired!'

    Lilian, who appears to be keeping her thoughts to herself about the rest of that, cheek in palm and pensively looking up at the sky, glances back down just before replying. "Of course it is. Daily stamina training is something everyone should do." A sudden flashback to the road trip parking lot incident recaptures a particular feeling of annoyance. "I'll try not to wake anyone up."

    She resumes sky-staring, because this is the time at which those stars are starting to come out. Once she can see the first few of them, Lilian visibly steps down one more relaxation level from before. With Petra and Qetra playing music, even singing, she loosens her posture, softens her tone, and allows an extra fractional second of pause to play out before she says anything each time. The slide between one whole integer and the next, arbitrarily describing her mood, takes less than ten minutes, barely the space of two seconds, the latter of which she bobs one foot up and down to the beat to while seated.
Lilian Rook     'please only do so if you posess an approved hunting and fishing license! I am fairly sure those are required!'

    "Boo." Lilian sticks out the tip of her tongue. "Well I'm not going to go breaking the law now am I?" she says, being pretty sure that she's going to break some of the decrepit and unenforced ones anyways.

    'famous French delicacies, such as poisson à la bordelaise, or, à la meunière, or, other ways, too! It is quite simple!'

    Lilian laughs through her nose, and gently shuts her eyes. "Matilda. You're really funny." She isn't even being sarcastic. She genuinely thinks that was a joke. "You heard the lady, Petra. Once this number is over, you owe me dinner." Lilian smiles.

    'Hey, wait- there are two of you again-!'

    "Oh sometimes that happens." says Lilian, inattentively. "Hers is harmless though."

    'Ms. Rook? Er, please remember that Regulus is herself an arcanist too'

    "Hm?" Lilian opens her eyes to stare in Matilda's direction, then at Regulus, as if she were confirming this by looking it up on a wiki. "Well of course it is. Antibiotics are more effective than bedrest and hydration, but we can't always be using those for everything now can we?" she says. "Surely you don't mean to tell me that there's a booming arcanist medical industry on par with big pharmaceutical companies, do you? In terms of price and availability, I assumed that all arcanists learn to suck it up and make do at some point." She says 'all arcanists' as if she already has a control sample. "Frankly, that's what I should've done in Cadrasteia's car."

    'Wow, Ms. Rook, that's amazing. I wish I could do stuff like that! Just, wow...'

    "Hmmhmm~ Well I'm not trading~ Though god knows there are times I could do with turning giant and--" Hm. Don't finish that thought.

    'I'm not a cancer expert, but if someone can't get cancer, that sounds close enough to be cured.'

    "Whales can't get cancer. Does that mean they invented a cancer cure?" Lilian says. "Do you know anything about Peto's paradox?" Nerd shit. Nerd alert. Lilian always tries so hard to come off like she came into being fully formed because otherwise she starts talking biomed and finance.
Lilian Rook     'Most wands are effectively more like a filter, or an adapter, rather than a source of magic in themselves... Though staves afford the room for exceptions. While using one's own attribute, the mind handles many of the processes on an intuitive level'

    That and magic shop talk, which she gets to do so rarely that it's kind of a special treat. "Oh? That may accidentally be the best explanation of 'attribute' I've heard so far." says Lilian. "Not that you weren't thorough or concise before, mind you; it's only that several other things happen to 'click' now."

    'Ah, there we go. You can ride a bicycle without using your hands to steer, but it's obviously more difficult and more prone to errors.'

    Back to pleased eyes-closed nodding. "Have you considered teaching? Or delivering lectures?" Lilian says, smiling while privately imagining Lissandra in a Nova Heliosanctus uniform.

    'This has also led to certain groups of people developing manifestation styles that use familiar forms of athleticism to channel their attribute into a specific application. It's relatively common to discover latent ability among hunters, for example. High-concentration tasks have a way of bringing it out by accident.'

    Lilian pauses a little gasp halfway, sitting straight up. "Oh my goodness. Seriously?" she says, as if she almost doesn't believe her ears. "After ten thousand years!" Lilian paps her hands on her thighs and turns fully to face Lissandra. "Oh my goodness am I finally going to be able to talk about an Cleasanna?!" Oh she could sparkle like this.

    'It's better to experience as complete a life as you can, if you don't want to become a 'weirdo'.'

    "No no no, you have to become well-rounded to prevent becoming a loser." Lilian says, strangely emphatic, even shaking her head. "Being a freak about something is perfectly fine. Better than being boring by far."

    'If anyone is desperate, I can share a few things'

    Finally, she looks askance at the Fucking Meal Bar. More parking lot memories resurface. "Please tell me you'll have more than that." she says.
Petra Soroka "Fuck me. I forgot you read books."

    Making Lilian laugh is one of Petra's highest priorities at all times, so it hits like a drug when she manages. She kicks her feet happily, leaning backwards on her makeshift stool by the fire. "Yeah!! I mean, sure, maybe it makes sense that Elites don't usually have a *typical* education, but fuck, on average, I feel like they've got none at all. You know there were *math* cars in the Infinity Train? I feel like 'solve for X' is a concept out of way too many people's grasps, and I don't even *like* math."

"I made the funniest called shot with Brave New World at Mesmer's eugenecist bullshit and it was just wasted!"

    "Yeah? Yeah?" She eagerly prompts for Lilian to repeat it, because then Lilian gets to feel proud of being funny and Petra gets unique praise and status! Yay! "I know the book, I do."

"You attacked me with a whole mech first!"

    "And *I* was doing it to destroy the United States of America, *Regulus*." Petra's huffing and puffing is mostly good natured, or at least, bratting without any venom behind it. "Are you avenging the honor of the United States? Is that why? Where's your national pride??"

"Surely, it is a frustration that Timekeeper Vertin will have to be faced with, any-time you so publically misbehave!"

    Petra points accusingly at Regulus, using Matilda like a fussy attack dog to gang up on her just for fun. "Right! Imagine how embarrassing it's gonna be to have to explain to Vertin that you got kidnapped and sent to an obstacle course *again*! That's what you get for perpetuating the cycle of violence!"

"So the 'other thing' got pushed out of the rumor mill, huh?"

    "Oh, god," Petra drops the previous bit immediately, slumping over the guitar in her lap with a groan. "I wish it got *pushed out*. But turns out, Concord staff means there's really no legal fuss at all if I incidentally get in a mech fight on campus as long as no one's hurt, so now everyone thinks I'm Saturday morning entertainment with a side of *gravure*."

    "That's what you get for being a whore~" "Hey-! Stop that! Don't say that!"

    Petra tries to whack Qetra on the head like a misbehaving dog, but she's kind of rooted to her stool, so Qetra just gets to duck away giggling.

"Voila!"

    The first 'voila' elicits a kind of 'oh, that's cute' from Petra, like seeing a funny little animal's den. The second one, much to Matilda's delight, gets her fawning a bit, like an especially *cute* little animal's den.

    "Oooooh, it's so *cute*! That actually does look cozy... hey, are the crystals for a ward or something? Is that part of the, like, outdoors training?"

    Experimentally curious, like the animal in question, Qetra rolls over and gets up to go investigate Matilda's shelter. She decides to simply invite herself into it, laying out on the ground and squirming to find a comfortable space, folding her hands under her cheek. "Mmmm~ it's alright? It's pretty, at least...."

"Ah, and if that's forbidden, would the 'animal empathetic' amongst us find it terribly offensive if I catch something?"

    Petra, as the one who regularly talks about Singer in the radio, must at least be one of the 'animal empathetic' along with Lissandra. She shakes her head, but adds, while providing steady background noise by lazily fidgeting with her guitar, "Oh, I brought sandwiches! And I've got some cans of stuff I could heat up over the fire. But, that's sort of boring, right? If you wanna catch something, I wouldn't say no."
Petra Soroka "And, I most certainly know how to prepare fish!"

    A fist-sized glob of Silver sails through the air, plopping down in front of Matilda and splitting into butchery tools. "You wanna? Go ahead, Matildork, show off and cook for us. I can give you the tools, and it'd be such a luxury to have *authentic French cuisine* while out camping, right?"

    Qetra, back on the ground nearby Lilian, looking up at the stars, burbles aimlessly, "Burger....")]

"... It isn't so bad to have to chase the view, I think."

    Petra sighs, suffused in campfire smoke, forest sounds, and starlight, tension leaving her shoulders fully. She tilts her head back, eyeing the sky, and watching the campfire smoke ascend until it vanishes.

    "Yeah, right? Anything to not just be stuck in the same place all the time. When I used to sleep outside all the time, I really never stayed in the same place more than a few weeks at a time, and sometimes I'd just never go back to the same place twice, since I only ever ended up anywhere by wandering. A routine is really only one bad day from becoming a rut."

"If you play guitar, does your sister play the drums?"

    "'Supportive'..." Petra repeats, narrowing her eyes at the purple-highlighted girl, who's currently wandered off to pick a variety of (all poisonous) berries and show them to Lilian for approval. She's not actually upset, even at being bullied a bit, since Qetra getting enrichment is why she brought her out at all. "No, she's kind of totally talentless. She can't even play the uke, even though I had that for ages before she started existing. Well-- no, she can sing, though."

    "Hey!" Petra pspspsps's like she's summoning a cat, which works because Qetra turns and looks. "C'mere. Campfire songs, right?"
Regulus "Petra," Regulus says confidently. "Is not a whale." She looks over to Petra as if to make sure she hasn't become a whale when she last looked.

''Do you know anything about Peto's paradox?''

"No?" Regulus looks over to Petra again as if Peto might be related due to a similar Pet origin. "Nooo of course not, I did it because it's awful to be attacked by a giant robot from someone you thought you were getting on with and having a good time with." She huffs.

''That you got kidnapped and sent ot an obstacle course *again*!''

"That doesn't seem to bother them that much." Regulus says glumly. "But it's ''fine'', I'm still at ''one'' obstacle course, not two."

''That's what you get for perpetuating the cycle of violence!''

"...Ehhnn..." Regulus doesn't seem to be buying that particular argument or suggestion.

"Honestly a bit more obstacle coursing would probably do the captain some good--" APPLe says.

"Hey I'd love to hear some campfire songs!"
Lilian Rook     'Yeah? Yeah? I know the book, I do.'

    "Okay well it wasn't that funny." Lilian says, completely insincere. "Nash was valiantly trying to explain to her that social structures can be hysterical and violent just like people, she was not having it. When I beat her to answering the current year with 'nineteen-eighty-four' out of sarcasm, he said she must have read it as a how-to guide, to which I said 'I thought that was Brave New World?' and got nothing!" She adjusts her posture for enthusiasm.

    "So! So, when she started blaming all of his examples of hysterical social structures, she blamed it on them being 'built illogically', and I thought I'd try again, and said 'Right. If they were logical, then we'd all roll off a Fort Motel T assembly line in little jars.' and I got asked 'why jars?'! And then she started talking about some sort of-- jar-obsessed serial killer? As a reason not to read the book, of course. And I said 'for being a childhood friend of Vertin's, you've picked up none of their good habits.', and she got so defensive and pissy and weird, and insisted up and down she wasn't their friend, like she'd got caught doing something obscene, and it was so embarrassing I just had to quote the 'Oh no no no! I don't want to play with the Beta children!' bit, and it was so perfectly timed, and still nothing!"

    "Nobody is even literate enough to grasp the easiest possible comparison to communicate why acting like that is reinforcing the hysterical social structure! So then--!" Okay well now she's worked up about it as well as enthused. "She starts pestering me about it! And at this point even Nash is starting to read her for filth! So I decide I should at least make an object lesson for the class and tell her that 'as an Alpha executive, it'd be so very illogical and disorderly for me to speak to an Omega like you' and that her trying to associate with me was only going to 'reintroduce pointless strife', which pissed her off about exactly as much as you'd expect." This is now less of 'a joke' and a retelling of an entire infuriating exchange, to the only girlbestie Lilian has who will doubtlessly have nuanced and supportive opinions about her gossipy ass spilling this tea.

    "And then after a few rounds of calling her an Omega double minus semi-moron, she finally engages Nash's point! Except to be as asinine as possible and dodge the whole thing by criticizing some totally irrelevant detail! Like as robotically literal as you can be! And I was stuck in gear and blurted out 'Oh my god you really were Decanted weren't you?' because it's so clear she has never once read a book, and she flipped out and started screaming about the jars again! She sat through the the whole beta alpha omega thing without catching a single clue and got chased off in the end by some fucking serial killer trivia! And everyone was just totally clueless and stunned and had no idea what was going on!"

    Lilian builds herself all the way up to repeatedly slapping her legs while bouncing up and down in second-hand antsy frustration. "Unbelievable! Like you'd think someone would get the idea from context right? You'd think 'alpha plus' across from 'omega minus' would at least convey social standing!"
Lilian Rook     'so now everyone thinks I'm Saturday morning entertainment with a side of *gravure*.'

    "Oh fuck you and your humblebragging." Lilian huffs. She kicks one leg up over the other again and folds her arms. "Meanwhile, everyone's just a weird leaky pervert about me in private. They're all trying to look cool by being unimpressed, so it's apathy to my face and a shrine in their closet!" She throws up her hands next. "Or just ordering it online literally right in front of my face! Buying swimsuit shots off the internet while I'm talking to them!"

    Still. Even if it's in reference to a real point of disgruntlement, Lilian is clearly having fun. She must be, because she gets distracted almost instantly by Qetra, and starts laughing for long enough to open up her bag and go looking for entertainment instead.

    'You wanna? Go ahead, Matildork, show off and cook for us. I can give you the tools, and it'd be such a luxury to have *authentic French cuisine* while out camping, right?'

    "Oh be nice." Lilian giggles. "She's already doing her best to work out the shelter part. She'll faint if she has to see blood and guts. Let her ease herself into it." She slips out a brand new paperback, just barely small enough to fit into her current packing arrangement, and thumbs over to a memorized page rather than a bookmark, pleasantly absorbing the conversation as she reads, all the while waiting for Petra to make her dinner instead of finding her own.

    When Qetra comes over with a double handful of berries, Lilian says "Did you do that on purpose?", considers the likelihood that Qetra of all people would actually try to poison her, laughs at herself for even entertaining the idea, and then double-takes to consider whether she's trying to make fun of her for Petra's totally made up assumption that Lilian will just take any drugs offered to her. "Oh wait. You don't even--" Know anything about berries. "You're really talented, you know?" Lilian says, semi-sarcastic fond.

    'Hey I'd love to hear some campfire songs!'

    "You're the musician, aren't you?" Lilian says, folding the book shut in her lap, bookmarked by her thumb. The title looks like surprisingly generic fantasy slop, written in quasi-cursive that makes 'the Oracle's Brightest Apprentice' kinda hard to read. It's part of a series, apparently. "Why don't you give it a shot?"
Petra Soroka "Hello, I don't think we've met before. I'm Riku Asakura."

    Qetra tilts her head at Riku when he addresses her, smiling vacantly. Up closer, there's really something unnerving about her-- she's identical to Petra, a perfect photocopy, but uncomfortably 'wiped clean' with details painted over. Her eyes are grey instead of Petra's gold, her skin doesn't have any of the scars on top of muscles underneath, and the focus of her stare slides over and through Riku's face with an expression that tugs at the part of his brain that evolved to distinguish a corpse from a person.

    "Huh? Okay." Entirely upbeat and unconcerned, she ambles past him to plop down beside Petra, staring into the fire without blinking.

"I'm not a cancer expert, but if someone can't get cancer, that sounds close enough to be cured."

    "Sure, if everyone in the world was a clone of me," Petra says, as if that idea is ridiculous, while sitting next to a clone of herself. "It's just a theoretical side effect of my psychic power. I don't know how being lucky makes cancer cured."

    "I think, if everyone was psychic, it'd be totally nonexistent, though. 'I want to live' is somewhere in everyone's mind, probably."

"Do you know anything about Peto's paradox?"

    Petra's hand shoots up into the air. "I don't!!! What is it?"

"Come to think of it, I might be a bit of a stars and night and space sort of person."

    This prompts Petra to start retuning her guitar for another song, while she says, sounding like she's agreeing with Lilian, "The City and Grand Dorado are too bright to see literally any at night. The top of the Library is high enough that you can, though. That's the roof of General Works."

    Qetra's interest in the little fire Petra made has grown into a fixation, and she's gone unusually silent while feeding twigs into it. When Petra looks up from her guitar, Qetra staring enrapturedly at a stick in her hand that's burnt all the way down to the point that the flames are burning her fist. Petra lunges forwards and grabs her wrist, shaking the stick out of her hand too late for her to not be burned by it, and then fussily pulls an icepack out of her Silver and pushes it into Qetra's hand.

"Come on, don't do that. You won't be able to hold your dinner."
"Oh nyooo... you'll have to feed me...."
"Not gonna."
"Then Lilian-!"
"I don't think so."

    Petra sighs, and plants a hand on Qetra's head. "Hey, don't be so restless, okay? Everything's fine right now. I wouldn't have brought you out if there was anything to worry about. So just relax." "Hmmm...~"

"Once this number is over, you owe me dinner."

    With Qetra now leaning with her back against the rock Petra's sitting on, Petra bobs her foot to find the tempo, eyes closing. She strums the opening chords to a song, and Qetra's head starts to wobble back and forth in time. "Yes ma'am. You've got it."

o/`"I'm lying on the moon // My dear, I'll be there soon. // It's a quiet, starry place, // time's we're swallowed up // in space we're here a million miles away."
"There's things I wish I knew // There's no thing I'd keep from you . . ."

    Petra's the only one capable of playing the guitar, but she was exaggerating a little bit. Qetra's able to sing almost seamlessly identical to Petra's voice, just a little softer and looser, and she whistles the melody in the interlude too; a slow, chill song to match the atmosphere of the campout.
Foundation Scions 'I was practically always covered in bandages and burns growing up.'

    "Ah! Well! I, for one, am glad you have gotten better!" 'Recovered' or 'gotten more skilled'? Matilda clumsywords through that, with a sympathetic little pout, "To send bits of yourself through, with teleportations, unintended... that is quite scary!"

'I think I rather like the term 'arcane skills', actually.'

    "Yes! I do, too; and, to praise a 'skill' sounds much-better than to praise a nature- er, that is not to say, of course, that I myself am not quite-naturally exceptionally talented, but! Je travaille dur!"

'That actually does look cozy... hey, are the crystals for a ward or something?'

    "I, have not worked an incantation into them, no, but, these, they are tiger's eye quartz, a stone of security-bringing in of itself!" So, mostly to comfort herself, "I especially do not wish any hungry bear nor meddlesome carbuncle to stray near to where I am sleeping!"

    Matilda doesn't object except to ever-so-slightly pout at having pine needles pulled out of her hair by Lissandra, something she quickly joins-in on extracting them as well, murmur-fussy. Through, also, having her hair re-fluffed, she continues her reply to Petra, "It is, not, a part of the survival training, but it surely could not hurt, and, regardless, any responsible Field Agent will have appropriate charms of luck-and-safety about their person, so, I am sure to earn extra-credit!"

    Immediately undercutting the possible warding-efforts of her little decorations, Matilda's eyes follow Qetra as she wanders in, with a little "Hey, hey!" A hmph, and, "Of course it is pretty! Er, do watch for the pine needles-" As Lissandra with her, Matilda just starts to remove the pine needles stuck to the reflection, and sighing a little bit at the strange behavior.

'It's an excuse to get out, and see somewhere new.'

    "There are so many excuses for such, but, the chances, they are fewer! So, were it more convenient, I would myself be very glad." A pouty sigh-huff, "Of course, the journey is pleasant, but, I have so very few days of vacation-leave!"

'I think if nobody ever visited her she might starve for lack of will to do anything but gaze upward.'

    Matilda lets out a quite-worried noise, "Ah-! That, sounds to be quite terribly lonely! Does she not even invite compatriots to spend-time in such a surely-pretty location..?"
Foundation Scions 'I'm certain the view from up here will be just stellar though.'

    Matilda breaks out into snickersome smiley laughter- "Ah-hah, Ms. Rook! That is an excellent pun! 'Stellar', because of the stars... Ah..."

'Matilda. You're really funny.'

    The expression on Matilda's face is, exactly, that of a dog who's had kind-tone attention thrown to them from across the room: confused, slightly alert, but excited. From having not at all intended that to be a joke, Matilda switches tracks, shamelessly, to "Of course I am! I, in fact, was well-known for being so, back in my schooling days!" Good luck Matilda.

'You wanna? Go ahead, Matildork, show off and cook for us.'

    UH-OH!

    "Hein? I, er- well, do you have the ingredients befitting such, as well? Properly-prepared buerre m'maître d'hôtel, ah, a well-seasoned cast iron pan..?" She's panic-scrambling. Was she joking, a moment prior? That's not a jokester's panic! Squeaky, miserably, "I would not be allowed by-rules of this exercise to taste it...")]

'Burger....'

    Immediate shift, "No, that is not French! That is American! You, are mistaken. Steak Frites, is much more elegant." That's a different thing! That's not a sandwich!

    "I, I can, of course, provide proper cuisine another time, but, this is neither the time nor place for it, no? And, there is none of the required wines to suit a meal of suitable elegance..." A lightbulb visibly blinks on above her head, as she frantically stirs at her Ration Food Can, heating something-up that's, probably, akin to a beef chili, and thus decent and quite fitting campout food, "I know! I, can assemble a proper dinner-party of the most-favorite dishes of France, some-time, to demonstrate my obvious talent for culinary arts!"

    Thinking about that makes, of course, sitting down to heat her ration-can particularly less appetizing, and, the idea morphs in her head from being purely-cope to only being mostly-cope, and a little bit nice-seeming, "It is still less common than I would prefer (which, is most-times,) that I get the opportunity to enjoy proper cooking, regardless," Sad-munch of Decent chili, "So!"

'Surely you don't mean to tell me that there's a booming arcanist medical industry on par with big pharmaceutical companies, do you?'

    A little less-happy now, "Well, no, there is, of course, nothing so wide-spread and available, but, institutes like the LRC, they ensure availability to such healing-types, so, there would be no lack at all for Regulus, especially if she were to sign-up with the St. Pavlov Foundation? Ah, and, local specialists..." A sigh, disappointed, quieter, "I must disagree in your asking of Regulus to make-do."

'Imagine how embarrassing it's gonna be to have to explain to Vertin that you got kidnapped and sent to an obstacle course *again*!'

    Matilda, actually, pouts a little bit at Petra's comment- but adds on, Regulus' way, "No, imagine how embarrassed Vertin must be in having to discuss with the Foundation that the arcanist she harbors is forming a reputation for troublesome behavior! She is so-often overworked!"

'Erk...! Y-you think so? W-well, next time I'll misbehave privately then!'

    "Yes! Exactly! Please do that next time instead, Regulus! It would be highly preferrable!" HUH?
Lissandra      Being praised over her teaching abilities of all things leaves Lissandra conspicuously stunned in that exact way someone might be if they were caught in the middle of stealing. It takes her a second or two to get her mouth working again, though she still has to lead with a thoughtless little "No no no," while she turns around more before shaking her head and trying to chuckle it off. "... No, I haven't." She's lying; on technicality she has obviously *considered* it plenty, whether she ruled it out or not. "You happen to be a grown woman with her own established understanding of magic, a framework to make inferences from, and the willingness to accept lean analogies. I think the... Experience, of teaching, would be fundamentally different with someone younger and less educated." It's probably more words than necessary, but she does have a somewhat complicated relationship with the very concept of 'being taught'. "... In any case, should my work reach fruition, I'll be publishing all manner of documentation for others to absorb. Hopefully by then, I'll have succeeded in making it understandable to as many people as possible."

It always feels strange to consider teaching, let alone taking an apprentice on, when she doesn't feel like she's completed her own education. Is it irresponsible to spend time on the next person after her, before she's spent everything she's worth? Is it cruel to expect someone to follow her footsteps, given what might be necessary? She doesn't think she'll ever really know for sure.

     Lissandra seems to realize she's gotten a little unsteady and defensive though, and tries to recenter herself and move on to things she's more self-assured in talking about. Lilian's excitement over what must be a rarely-explored topic for her does get a wry smile back onto Lissandra's face though. "Oh come now, surely it's not such a rare concept? The body and mind are so interlinked, and even in other worlds it seems as though the idea of self-refinement between the two is commonplace." She doesn't know what specific layer of specificity Lilian is on when she brings up the term, so the only thing really to do is keep baiting her into elaborating, between other topics.

     Like giving Lilian another cheeky eye-roll and gesturing at Matilda with her nutrient bar, after biting through the end of it. With that bit tucked in her cheek for a moment she simply emphasizes, "Do you really think she's at risk of becoming boring? I mean, just look." She then waves the foodbar vaguely at Petra, who was making adoring noises just moments ago over Matilda's Matildisms. "I think if anything, I'm only balancing the scales a little more toward the center. Not every poor girl with an interest needs to be a Witch..."

     As for said bar of food-adjacent matter, she looks it over in her hand, still only very slightly eaten. It looks like maybe it's a sort of home-made nutty granola bar? It smells more like honey than it does chocolate. "... Oh, pfha. By morning, of course I will. I packed plenty for a few days' breakfast, fresh vegetables too." Maybe she just eats lightly at night?
Lissandra      Petra's agreement prompts a few excessively sagely nods, like it's only obvious to agree with Lissandra. "I spent many, many years in the same home, after all. I might have preferred to keep well away from most people, but I still wanted to go out on little adventures. Sometimes you need to set yourself up for those things to happen *to* you. Or at least, not shut out the opportunity if it's already there. Granted, I still find myself trying to mix work and leisure where I can, since I do not afford myself the latter by itself very often." As for Qetra, Lissandra seems to notice the poisonous berries almost as soon as the copy-girl has begun walking up to Lilian, having a reaction somewhere between pitying and fretful; her mouth opens and closes a couple of times before finally just announcing, "... I wouldn't!" She only hesitates that much because, frankly, she expects Lilian to already know what's bad to eat. Thankfully, she's right, so she can move on. "... It has been some time since I played music, come to think. I used to use it as a way to practice with my attribute, but I ended up learning more from the multitasking than I did from trying to modify the sound itself. Goodness... I'm not sure I even have that old flute anymore, since I can recreate the songs I know without it now..."
Regulus ''Why don't you give it a shot?''

"Well I wouldn't want to muscle in right when Petra's about to." Apparently, assaulting Petra with a mech is not too rude for her but interfering with her music is against Regulus's code of honor. She pauses as she considers psychic cancer immunity and adds, "Does being psychic mean you can influence your own cells like that?" She feels a bit credulous for even asking this--known of the psychics she knows ever mentioned being immune to cancer before and, to be fair, she probably wouldn't be going around declaring it to the world either but it feels weird to be totally quiet about it.

"It sounds nice if true though."

Regulus thinks not being able to stargaze is one of the worst things ever. She didn't pick--er she wasn't named Regulus just because she was normal about the stars. She sighs a little, thinking about The people of The City and Grand Dorado. "Well, I'll play something once she's done if she doesn't mind me using her guitar." She brought her record player, she didn't bring her guitar. There's only so much one Regulus can carry while trudging through the forest! Even if she worked out more than one obstacle course per capture! Even if she did it twice!

''Please do that next time instead, Regulus! It would be highly preferable!''

HUH? It turns out that the HUH? there is appearing right on Regulus's face. She wasn't expecting that at all from Matilda. She thought Matilda was mostly a good girl and she, like, respects good girls for being good girls and all, people who are really devoted to doing things that way because they believe it rather than as a bland perpetuating of a ceaseless bureaucracy.

"Well...sure, Matilda." She says, more seriously. "You really worry over Vertin, huh?" She shifts to sitting crosslegged, looking right at her. "I'm not really used to my reputation really meaning anything for other people but I guess that's the case now, huh...."
Riku Asakura 'Hmmhmm~ Well I'm not trading~ Though god knows there are times I could do with turning giant and--'

Riku nods along with it, it IS a useful ability when dealing with certain problems!  It can also be incredibly cumbersome if used incorrectly.  Though he wonders what is at the end of that sentence, she cut off. He takes a moment to consider asking, but shakes his head.  "It's alright, I can be all the giant we need!" he says with a smile.  

'Qetra'

On examining Qetra a bit more internally, things don't add up that make his mind consider her strangely.  When she simply walks by without more than a simple 'Huh? Okay,' causes him to be relieved for some reason.  Something about her causes him to react strangely to her.  He just couldn't put his finger on it.

"Oh, okay then... nice to meet you..." he says somewhere between not meaning it and wanting to get out of that conversation.  Petra and her off-shoots sure are weird sometimes!

Riku goes back to tending to his fire so that it doesn't die out, making sure to have plenty of tinder and fuel to keep it going overnight.  He sure doesn't want to try and make another fire from scratch again, especially with it being this cold out!

This is about when Petra starts singing and strumming on her guitar.  Riku listens, toe tapping with the beat as she sings about the moon.  It's a song he's never heard before, so it's nice to get to hear new things.  "Can you play the guitar Regulus?"  It's not accusing, it's a simple question!
Lissandra      While Lissandra might live alone and claim not to have kept many social contacts until recently, she seems to treat small things like tidying Matilda's hair with a matter-of-fact sort of ease. It's just a small thing to do, with very small stakes, and perhaps it helps her feel like she's still doing her own work in some small way. She did say she doesn't afford herself much leisure. "I can only agree," she says regarding Lilian's improvement with magic, "After seeing what tends to happen to those who aren't able to practice their own skills. And she's clearly made good use of the experience; what was it I compared you to before, Lilian? A bomb, yes? So abrupt. I was quite nearly in the splatter zone." ... Is it appropriate for a doctor to make jokes like that?

     Focused back on Matilda, Lissandra makes a faint, sympathetic sort of hum while she's brushing her hands off following the hair-tidying. "I suppose I have yet to fully adjust to these later-Earth ideas of occupation. Do your friends bring back photos from their own trips, at least? A sample is better than nothing... And, hmm, I suppose if your divinations are quite draining, it must be hard to use them for your own interests and leisure between obligations... That sounds quite difficult." As for the Yellow Witch, Lissandra offers a sort of hapless shrug and frown. "There is a standing 'open invitation' to visit, but it isn't as if Stinne makes much time for others. Given how busy we each keep, and the distance she keeps, I doubt she recieves many visitors outside of the autumn when a few of us come to supply her for winter and check that she hasn't come down sick. Usually, that is the same time of year we pursue our own questions for her, and then it is back to our own territories. She divines upon the sun and wind, and devotes most of her days to... Whatever it is that she is trying to be mindful for. So, I would be happier to know that you weren't likely to dig yourself into that same hole, Matilda." She repeats, "Not everyone should be a Witch."

     From there, she settles down a bit to listen to Petra and Qetra's song, looking pleasantly surprised (isn't that kind of rude?) but relaxing into it easily. She reduces her volume to avoid being disruptive, and doubles back to something from before, noting "I hope that once I've become more familiar with arcanist needs, I can adapt medicines to their use in short order. I already have a few ideas for where to start, but there's an order to things after all. It's a good project to start on early, and I think that working with arcanists will help me build my footing in working with all manner of people of other worlds. The to-do list only grows longer..."
Lilian Rook     'Ah! Well! I, for one, am glad you have gotten better! To send bits of yourself through, with teleportations, unintended... that is quite scary!'

    "Well it's not as if it's whole sloppy chunks of your hands or anything." Lilian says, waving it off with a clearly inured level of casualness about the mental image. "It's, you know, scattered little itty bits. They heal just fine, but they're painful and they bleed and they really start to add up if you insist on forcing yourself to train as much as I did." She sighs, reminiscing. "Though I suppose I've been that way with everything since forever. Doing it until it hurts and then some."

    'Yes! I do, too; and, to praise a 'skill' sounds much-better than to praise a nature'

    "I think everyone shoud praise me for both." Lilian idly says. "That's the most trustworthy sort of person you know." Huh? "When they praise me specifically, of course." What?

    'Then Lilian-!'
    'I don't think so.'

    "How presumptuous. If anything, you should be feeding me." Don't encourage her!

    'Ah-hah, Ms. Rook! That is an excellent pun! 'Stellar', because of the stars... Ah...'

    Lilian considers deeply whether to clarify that she isn't lame enough to make puns on purpose, or let Matilda enjoy it. She settles on the side of that which arbitrarily raises Matilda's opinion of her one-sidedly.

    'It is still less common than I would prefer (which, is most-times,) that I get the opportunity to enjoy proper cooking'

    "What a shame." says Lilian. "I've been practising." She eyes the chili can, and decides no more needs to be said.

    'I don't!!! What is it?'

    "Well for one, it's not really a paradox;it's just named that way because statisticians are annoying. Especially British ones." Lilian says, in a British accent. "It's that, seeing as cancers emerge from cells having broken down in a specific way that causes them to wildly reproduce out of control, the more cells you have, the greater your cancer risk. We've observed it plenty in humans that the bigger you are, the more likely you are to develop cancers, and vice versa. Except once you begin comparing different species, that bafflingly ceases to correlate at all. Blue whales have unbelievably higher cell counts than we do, and yet essentially never seem to develop cancers. They've measured and tracked it across mammals of all different sizes, and for some reason, the correlation of size to cancer risk is only ever within the same species."

    'I must disagree in your asking of Regulus to make-do.'

    "I'm not asking her to do anything." Lilian sniffs, briefly irritated at what she needlessly perceives as a bossy harassment tone from Matilda. "And Regulus isn't with the Foundation. And she's broke anyways. And I'm fairly certain I clearly specified 'when a doctor will do'. If something won't work because she's an arcanist then by definition a doctor won't do." Nice reverse argument! Those goal posts whizzed by! "I've been sick and injured a million times more than the both of you put together."

    'You happen to be a grown woman with her own established understanding of magic, a framework to make inferences from, and the willingness to accept lean analogies.'

    "Well now you're just saying that you can't teach stupid people." Lilian friendly faux-scoffs. "Children are better at accepting things and making inferences than you'd otherwise give them credit for; though I suppose I can't argue the rest. It was only in good fun anyways."
Lilian Rook     Now she has Petra/Qetra background music, though! A duet! A cute little duet so sweetly adorable and disastrously hokey-fuckable that Lilian automatically sways from side to side while doing everything else, starting sentences in the line breaks without thinking about it. The perfect campfire moment has her staring right over the crackling fire at the pair of them as fondly as could possibly be, buouying her mood to a persistent baseline by sound and feel and atmospheric vibe alone.

    'Oh come now, surely it's not such a rare concept?'

    "You'd think! You really would!" Lilian enthuses in Lissandra's direction, without turning far away from Petra and Qetra. "But outside of Chuyao He, the 'rivers and lakes' here are desolate! One time I tried to start up a discussion about breathing techniques, and somehow got blank stares from everyone who calls themselves a fighter! Over the most basic of basics!" Though she sounds like she might be exasperating under any other circumstances, Lissandra's interest automatically makes her Temporary Girlbesties in this situation, thus earning excited gesticulation and hobby-gushing toned delivery instead.

    "And how am I going to explain that there's no extrinsic teleological difference between long sharp steel and short blunt wood in the eyes of the arcane when so few of them even use a wand or an array or an incantation anyways! Everyone around here is always offloading the hard work of aligning intent with stable action and outcome! 'My minion does it! My magic book does it! My computer does it! My mutant genes do it! My nanomachines do it! My special weapon does it!' It's-- Okay well that certainly helps with the proliferation of Elites to throw at things, but-- you know?"

    The sheer animatedness Lilian is posesses of on this topic makes her thoughts run intolerably faster than she can speak; one of the only things she can't actually speed up via magical means. "Nobody teaches this stuff properly anymore! Like, we all know we're invoking cosmological principle via the application of the energetic medium to resonant geometry, whether words, designs, material patterns, and so on, and everyone acknowledges that the human body is itself made up of resonant geometry that explains us having the energetic medium in the first place, but the connection is so bafflingly unimportant to them!"

    "Because that's old! That's before we could commit it to a textbook! That's icky rural backwater nonsense where you need a mentor to pass the knowledge on! Human connection and self-reflection! The horror!" Lilian even gasps facetiously. "I mean, I find alchemy engaging enough, and of course I can't help but be passionate about our Tradition, but this is something I'm obsessed with, and I can't even find other examples, much less share anything!"

    Taking a deep breath to recover from all her rambling, Lilian fussily plops her chin down into her palms and rests her elbows on her knees, kicking her feet back and forth while she thinks. "Teaching just the sword part is only half of it, and even that feels like a special little indulgence. I don't know how to make anyone see how deep it really is, much less how uniquely beautiful it is, or how personally impactful. I'm certain that everyone just thinks that I'm putting a pseudointellectual coat of paint on bashing metal together to justify my lowbrow vice for thuggish barbarian nonsense."
Petra Soroka "o/` Your shadow follows me all day // making sure that I'm okay. // And we're here a million miles away, // a million miles away... o/`"

    The song trails off, with Qetra still humming quietly, and Petra strumming chords, while Lilian rehashes the entire argument with Mesmer to her. She's too environmentally soothed to get worked up and visibly frustrated on Lilian's behalf, but interposed with her droopy bobbing are more intentional nods and sounds of agreement or exasperation on cue. There's something she keeps opening her mouth to almost-interject, before stopping herself, but it's still troubling her even when Lilian cools off enough for her to speak again.

    "You know, you'd *think* that having a hereditary arcane skill that sort of guarantees you'll be the best in your field no matter what, would make it *more* important to Mesmer's family that she get, like, a well-rounded education, to maintain status, but I guess she never had any interest in being anything but a tool."

    "But, uh, Lilian..." There's that hesitation again. "... Isn't the lowest, category, in Brave New World, 'Epsilon'?" Qetra meanwhile is tilting her head farther and farther to the side to try and read the cover of Lilian's book upside down.

"Well, I'll play something once she's done if she doesn't mind me using her guitar")]

    Petra looks down at the guitar resting on her thighs. It's an old-looking guitar, the kind that feels like it's been worn down over a decade, even though Petra hasn't been playing it that long herself, warmly scuffed by palm heels and percussive taps until the habits of the guitarist can be divined just from looking at it. There's a sticker on it too, for a taco place in southern California.

    "... Yeah. Alright. No reason I can't trust you with an instrument of all things." She hefts it up, passing it over to Regulus if she comes over to take it. "I gotta cook now, anyways."

    First, Lilian gets passed a sandwich from the cooler, to curb her appetite before dinner's fully ready. Then, Petra pulls out a tin of marinated chicken that puts Matilda's sad chili to shame, sticking the chunks on Silver skewers that levitate over the fire while turning slowly. The morphmetal is similarly deployed to shear open the lid of a can of tomatoes and onions, added onto the skewer along with the chicken, and then a chickpea curry that's poured into a dimpled Silver bubble that acts as a pot to heat it.

"I especially do not wish any hungry bear nor meddlesome carbuncle to stray near to where I am sleeping!"

    "Meddlesome huh?" Petra hasn't heard of carbuncles before. "You're saying that like it's an animal's name. I guess pretty much every animal but humans're warned off by the same kind of things, though."
Petra Soroka "Properly-prepared buerre m'maître d'hôtel, ah, a well-seasoned cast iron pan..?"

    "Yeah? Do you think I don't?" Petra gestures at her own morphic cooking implements. It's better than cast iron! Because Petra can feel how hot it is, personally! "You can show off your skill without eating any, you know. You were *so* excited to prove how well you could cook..."

    But, the idea of an actual little dinner party with Matilda is a much more appealing prospect than just bullying her about failing to do one. "That *would* be cute, actually... hey, hey, you do seem like that type, right? Wanting to show off your culinary skills to impress people? Maybe a certain person too, right?"

"... It has been some time since I played music, come to think. I used to use it as a way to practice with my attribute, but I ended up learning more from the multitasking than I did from trying to modify the sound itself."

    "Oh? Wait, how's that work? Like that sort of, practicing piano and ballet to improve your kinesthetic sense type thing, or...? I thought you did healing stuff." Petra hums cheerfully, setting a whole bunch of kebabs on morphmetal plates to pass over to Lilian, along with a helping of curry for an extremely protein-heavy meal. Her own is made up of the opposite ratios, but she's got one kebab for the spirit of it.
Lilian Rook     'but I guess she never had any interest in being anything but a tool.'

    "That's or they never had any." Lilian sighs. The laid back nature of the whole camp, or rather, between the fire and the stars and the scent of smoke and the fading reverberations of Petra's last few chords, the cozy and strangely intimate atmosphere of it sets Lilian into a mindstate where she can be charitable, almost objective, to even Mesmer Junior. "The Mesmer family is hardly like the kind where I come from. They aren't artisanally producing perfect heirs to propel the Tradition forward and push the family to new heights. They're massive. They have branch families all over the globe. The Mesmer last name is synonymous with an almost corporate level of interest." Lilian, for an instant, begins to wonder if she should perhaps ask Mesmer some very important questions.

    '... Isn't the lowest, category, in Brave New World, 'Epsilon'?'

    But the future refused to change.

    "Huh?" Lilian blinks out her empathetic reverie, turning her gaze upright to look at Petra searchingly. "No? What? The last letter of the alphabet is--" There it is. The sudden interruption and cheek-first eye-narrowing that means she just started thinking consciously about something, with the speed at which only Lilian does. Her lips move silently as she recites the entire decanting section by her best memory, then she scrunches her eyes shut and heaves out her secondhand embarrassment with a tense wheeze. "Oh whatever! You knew exactly what I meant, didn't you? And it's not as if anyone else ever read the thing." she pouts.

    Then she jerks her book back away from Qetra's prowling gaze, and holds it against her side with a wary little glare, then shuffles it away into her bag when Petra gets up to cook. She'll need her hands free to eat, after all.

    'That *would* be cute, actually...'

    Lilian, having ravenously demolished her sandwich by now, goes straight on to opining "Fuuuuck that smells goood . . ." in mildly whiny anticipation, getting her wiggles out by hopping to her feet and pacing around the area, stretching her arms and then her individual fingers as she goes. "I actually haven't thought to ask Sonetto what she thinks of Trídéag's menu." she says next, only just slightly seeming unrelated. "Matilda makes her preferences well-known, so perhaps it'd be wise to prompt Sonetto a little more directly for hers. I hardly ever see her around the cafeteria. She seems like the type of girl who'd be too polite to admit to not liking something."

    'Oh? Wait, how's that work? Like that sort of, practicing piano and ballet to improve your kinesthetic sense type thing, or...?'

    "I'm curious as well." says Lilian. "I had to practice dancing for ages before Aobheil would teach me a single thing. It's 'traditional' and all."
Lissandra      "Well, I cannot say I enjoy teaching stupid people." Lissandra all but agrees with Lilian on the spot, before dropping the ever-so-persuasive line, "Oh trust me, I do know. I was a child once as well you know?" Still seated on the ground, she draws her legs up, tucks her knees in, and plops her head down on them cheek first with a little sigh. "I don't think I'd have enjoyed teaching me, either."

     Lilian's ongoing excitement is so obvious as she gets to effuse about an unfulfilled interest that Lissandra genuinely can't help but start smiling in her smirky-smug way again, her eyes narrowing to a nearly-devious look. "Are you sure you aren't the strange one after all? That's so much *overthinking*..." She puts enough stink on that one word that she must have heard something like that once before herself, and immediately drops the bit afterward. "Not even breathing, though? I'm sure some can get by without paying it any extraordinary attention, but... To be prompted, and not even have a hindsight-driven impression of why you would bring it up? That is kind of astounding. I thought running was a standard element of physical schooling on Earth? That feels so bleak..."

     After thinking on it further and lingering there, Lissandra's expression seems to be torn between the smiling good cheer of the campsite mood, and the mirth-draining implications of the subject. "Really... It seems as though far too many people have been driven, or decided, to take up the first proverbial knife they could find and rush out into the world to find something to plunge it into. I suppose desperation and a taste of power tend to go that way when mixed, more often than not. I wasn't above that either, but..." No, she's getting a bit wilty, it's better to try and latch back onto Lilian's enthusiasm, rather than just commisserate with her.

     "In any case, I have only a smattering of knowledge in armed combat, but all of my impressions lean toward you being quite accomplished. Certainly more than the knights I've encountered previously." 'Encountered' certainly lends the statement an implication of its own. "What would you say frustrates you more? The inability to learn from your colleagues, or the inability to find community in sharing and contextualizing those concepts? I could see it go either way, really. Personally, it does seem like a bit of a waste of all the different cultures that have unified, if all of their representatives in your field don't bother to carry any of it with them." Almost like an afterthought, Lissandra realizes and stream-of-consciousness remarks, "Oh, were you hoping you would find someone else with an interest in teaching as well..? I suppose it does sound lonely to have several unsharable interests..."
Lissandra      By the end of Petra's song, Lissandra does at least give her and Qetra a quiet round of applause. "Lovely work. Do you and... Qetra, have to practice your duets? Or do they come naturally? I've heard some things about twins, but reports are always mixed." Then more as a passing thought, a reminder to herself if anything, Lissandra reacts to mention of carbuncles by humming fondly. "They were a little cute, weren't they? A little rambunctious, but... Okay, I might still prefer opossums, as far as pests go."

     As for the question Petra asked, Lissandra makes an almost wistful sound, though maybe that's because she's staring at the curry. She stops looking quite so wistful on her next bite of her meal-bar and may in fact be recreating the flavor with magic surreptitiously based on the aroma. "I suppose I have already undermined my own subtlety in public conversations... Very well. My own attribute has nothing to do with my medical practice, at least not in a traditional sense, Petra. My natural magic concerns the alteration of sensory information, so... To train it, I've dabbled in plenty of little hobbies and projects. I learned music to train my auditory recreation, for which I practiced with a flute. Mostly, it doesn't apply to my work... But it helps, here and there." Lilian has already talked approvingly about how Lissandra *does* apply her 'Phantasm' attribute to surgery, but it always feels a bit tasteless to repeat someone else's praise in one's own favor.
Regulus ''Can you play the guitar Regulus?''

"What kind of self respecting radio pirate ''doesn't'' know the guitar?" Regulus asks, somehow managing to make it sound like an accusation herself despite not accusing anybody of anything. "I don't have any records out yet because my biggest goal back then was to embolden the rock and roll spirit in all the peoples." She frowns. "And I guess right now my big goal is to help Vertin out as her first mate." She taps her captain's hat with her index finger like she's giving Riku a salute. "She's really smart, of course, and has a mission I believe in! But--"

She trails off, and then decides she doesn't actually want to talk about that.

''Peto Paradox''

Regulus would never argue that statiscians, even British ones, aren't annoying. Her opinion barely matters, it'd be so insane for her to do that.

"But why is that?" Regulus asks.

''She's broke anyways.''

"I have some cash..." Regulus says, but sort of in the background with a tiny speech bubble accompanying it. When Lilian mentions how often she's been sick and injured, Regulus manages a, "I'm sorry...?"

Regulus receives 1x guitar! She looks at the sticker for a while as she performs some experimental chords to get a feel for the tuning. The guitar, itself, is clearly well handled. Of course, she thinks, she should be able to trust in anyone with a guitar like this. It doesn't really matter what Petra does, she won't stop believing in the music.

"I'll be good to it." She promises as

Once she feels she has a good sense for the weight and the strings she starts playing Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind. Even if overall Regulus is a soft putty person, her fingers are well callused.

"How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?"

Since she's singing along, it pretty solidly keeps her from jumping into the conversation, but--

''I used to use it as a way to practice with my attribute.''

Regulus quirks her head, wordlessly questioning--was the music really just for the magic?

"The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind."

She really wants some tacos, she thinks, she has been thinking about tacos ever since she saw that sticker. Be brave, Regulus, she tells herself. APPLe pipes in with the lyrics as Regulus heads into the second verse, as Regulus closes her eyes and bobs her head along and taps her foot.
Lilian Rook     'Are you sure you aren't the strange one after all? That's so much *overthinking*...'

    Lilian makes a cheerfully agonized sound; the sort of playfully fake screech you let off at someone teasingly reminding you of something they know drives you crazy. "They're martial artists too! 'Heroes' allegedly! Some of them come from the breathing planet where breath is a capital letter noun and it's magic and they use it for everything!" Lilian fussywails, throwing her fists up and down at her sides. "It's like 'quality' is a dead concept! They're either clobbering some poor sod they outnumber eight to one or getting clobbered by someone one to eight! But I start talking about the character of their breathing tempo and now I'm weird and pretentious!"

    'In any case, I have only a smattering of knowledge in armed combat, but all of my impressions lean toward you being quite accomplished.'

    "That's right. Admire my splatter-zone all you like." Lilian huffs, folding her arms and tilting up her chin. Then she glances sideways very suddenly. "But-- maybe use a different word? Someone could-- Never mind." she shakes her head, already bored of being self-conscious. "The latter. Definitely the latter. Not having a broader pool to learn from is obviously a problem; it's the single best way to improve at anything, hence Chuyao's colourful 'rivers and lakes' analogy, but I can fix that by pushing harder. Trying everything to see what works, consulting with various different experts to compound an aggregate understanding, push my limits in the field."

    "But keeping it all to myself is just so dreary! You can't synthesize romance, you know?! It's like I'm making art in shrimp colours! There's so so so much I could talk about, tell people about, tell them about themselves; just so many ways to learn and interact with people through the physical expression of intent, through magic or otherwise, and it's all just--- Nnn! It's stuck in my head and nobody gets it! And then they want to spar or duel or whatever and it's just like, 'Hello? You want me to fuck what?'!"

    'Oh, were you hoping you would find someone else with an interest in teaching as well..?'

    Lilian stops dead in the middle of her extremely long sequence of increasingly abstract verbal shortcuts to snap her attention back to Lissandra's face. "I mean, at this rate I'd honestly love just to observe those people."

    'Mostly, it doesn't apply to my work... But it helps, here and there.'

    "Oh come now. Any surgeon would kill for what you've done with illusion-based anaesthesia alone." Lilian saves Lissandra the effort by re-glazing her anyways.

    'But why is that?'

    "Hm?" Lilian blinks, clearly so caught up in explaining it that she forgot who she even posed the question too. "We don't actually know. Otherwise calling it a paradox would be even sillier than it always is. The point is--" Wait. What was the point again? "You're not cured of the cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene by not even being born with it, right?"

    'I'm sorry...?'

    "Wha--?" A second look around, followed by a third; a full-campsite doubletake. "What's with everyone randomly apologizing at me lately?" Lilian conspiratorially murmurs. She presses her hand to the bottom half of her face, turning her eyes down into the fire, focused and thoughtful. "Vertin didn't when I explained the whole tattoo thing, so it's not as if it's . . . No no, that one was definitely too stupid to be catty on purpose. The hell did I do then?"

    Before she gets very far contemplating it, Lilian gravitates right back to her seat, soothed by the automatic effect of Bob Dylan songs by a campfire.
Lissandra      Lissandra looks completely disbelieving when Lilian brings up literal breathing magic, and somehow the only words she can find before she gathers herself are "Oh no... I'm so sorry."

     Getting into the rest, Lissandra *thinks* she can keep up at first even post-euphemism, but soon finds herself underequipped to understand the deepest layers Lilian has dug into.

"It's not as if there was long to admire it, with how quickly it was over."

"Fair enough, though. Whether it's brainstorming, comisserating, venting, sharing advancements, or whatever else... It is a lot to be deprived of in a setting that should reasonably support those kinds of connections, isn't it?"

"I get the feeling that you've tried to explain these ideas to people before, and recieved unimpressive returns on the effort."

"... 'Want me to fuck what'- what..? *Oh*, psh, I see." She has to try pretty hard to keep it to a well-meaning scoff and a handwave, but she comes damn close to a tiny snort when comprehension hits about a second too late. "Sadly I cannot exactly help there, I'm hardly in any position to matchmake you with an appropriate partner one way or another." She knows what she's doing.

"There are other forms of magical anaesthesia that don't happen to require such a rigorous understanding of pain oneself, you know?" Lissandra tries to lightly downplay the glazing, but bouys it back up again just a little bit to a level that she feels is reasonable. "I *am* proud to have made use of what I have, even if it began as little more than an act of ego. It just happens not to have been the most direct way to contribute to my goals, on account of being... Nearly irreproducible, without a specific variety of practitioner."
Lilian Rook     'It's not as if there was long to admire it, with how quickly it was over.'

    "Watch it." Lilian play-pouts.

    'It is a lot to be deprived of in a setting that should reasonably support those kinds of connections, isn't it?'

    "Well, of course, but . . ." she looks over at Lissandra from corner-eye. "Look who's talking. A whole world full of magic and everyone is hellbent on not allowing it, much less having anything to say."

    'I get the feeling that you've tried to explain these ideas to people before, and recieved unimpressive returns on the effort.'

    "That or I get called a pervert." Lilian sighs. "Or an elitist snob."

    '*Oh*, psh, I see.'

    "Killing people is fucked up," Lilian says, somewhat unconvincingly, "But fighting is a fundamentally human thing. We channel it into sports, games, inventions, stories, debates, competitions; everything where it's allowed to smash your force of will into something and conjure up that feeling of struggle and catharsis, and the elements of innovation and execution."

    She stretches her arms out over her head, arching her back until it pops, then lets out a floppy exhale. "I'd think that when they're picking up a weapon anyways, they'd at least gain something from getting deeper in touch with that intimately personal element of 'fighting'. Like, it's them against the world, and they've made up their mind to do it, and anything goes, so they can explore that vast conceptual space without limit, right? They're not part of an army; they're individuals, relying on themselves. I'd understand if they were all just getting scared off quick, but it's like they don't feel anything at all. Force is force is force, and good enough is good enough, and if my big beam won out over your big beam then what else is there to talk about?"

    Finally wrapping back around to what she meant to elaborate on in the first place, Lilian side-eyes Lissandra and says, "There's so little humanity in it that goes straight down the uncanny valley. Fighting for honour or pleasure with people like that is perverted. You may as well be fucking a corpse."

    'I'm hardly in any position to matchmake you with an appropriate partner one way or another.'

    Lilian reclines just for show. It's so she can be a bit slutty with it when she holds up a thump and pinky finger to her ear and says, "Well, if you come across someone, call me."
Foundation Scions 'It's, you know, scattered little itty bits.'

    With great distaste, "Like papercuts," Matilda wrinkles her nose up at that, and gives a sympathetic head-shake.

'I suppose if your divinations are quite draining, it must be hard to use them for your own interests and leisure'

    Matilda's face gets a little odd here, like the choice between nodding or shaking her head suddenly has weight to it, for some reason. She settles on the too-fast spoken, "Amenable conditions are not so rare, and, I take great care to properly outfit my surroundings to be suitable! Still, er, it is tiresome-enough that the fees I request for divinatory readings, are, in fact, quite an economical deal!" Is she nervous-defaulting to advertising? She's said nothing about leisure.

    "And, and I would hardly be the excellent diviner I so obviously am, if I did not have excellent stamina for activity! At, not-just arcanum, but many things, like running, or jumping, or setting-up of safety shelters such as this-one!" Still nothing on leisure!

'When they praise me specifically, of course.'

    Matilda nods at this sentiment, because it makes sense, Matilda likes praise for both, so anyone should do the same, and Matilda trusts people who praise her, so anyone else would do the same. Lilian is just speaking to a completely true phenomenon: "People who praise are trustworthy!"

'You're saying that like it's an animal's name.'

    "Carbuncles are a type of critter," Matilda says, with full seriousness. "They are, in some ways, quite charming, but, I would not like them to steal my shelter's structure!" Critters may not actually exist here, of course. This isn't Matilda's earth. She seems to have forgotten that, a bit; it's not often she spends significant time elsewhere!
Foundation Scions 'Wanting to show off your culinary skills to impress people? Maybe a certain person too, right?'

    "It is only natural that one very-skilled would want to show off!" Matilda Bouanich has never been introduced to the concept of pride being a negative quality. "I, have, on occasion, invited, er, a certain person, to what would-be evenings of extraordinary cuisine, prepared by none-other than me," But everyone knows how that's always gone.

    Matilda, thinking, likely, of the cost that preparing (overly) fancy food for a Group will require, mutters out the strange-to-say statement of "Ah, je devrais vendre plus de sang...." 'I've gotta sell more blood'.

'She seems like the type of girl who'd be too polite to admit to not liking something.'

    Matilda, nearly grimacing, mentions out, "To the best of my knowledge, which, is quite good, Investigator Sonetto..." A sigh, like 'I know I have bad taste,' "Enjoys, the food served by the St. Pavlov Foundation cafeterias, as she did the SPDM's."

'If something won't work because she's an arcanist then by definition a doctor won't do.'

    Lilian can watch in real time Matilda's expression of disappointment shift down to hurt. Of course she notices the goal-post moving, but that's always an indicator of just how little saying more can do. "Yes, you did specify that, but, but!" A little pout, dropping to a less-direct advisement, "It is a matter of easy miscommunication, if that is what you meant by it."

    Still a little hurt-pouty, Matilda holds her silly chili can, and excuses herself from continuing that conversation thread by eating, sitting down under the rim of her shelter.

'You really worry over Vertin, huh?'

    Not that she'd stop talking while eating, though. With a sporkful of chili still in her mouth, "Hah? Of coursh I do! She needsh more to do sho," A pause, no longer through food, "And, I am quite good at worrying!"

'And I guess right now my big goal is to help Vertin out as her first mate.'

    Matilda is smart. Matilda knows what 'first mate' means. Matilda is, however, also an idiot, and thinks down a funny line on this phrasing to somehow arrive at the result of quelling a small worry of hers she's never voiced.

. . .

    Finished with food, cleaning up, Matilda scuttles around to collect-up what ought go in the bear-bag, coming back from that task to sit around the group, as it becomes just 'sing around the campfire and look at the sky'. Matilda likes that, very-much. Enough, in fact, to add in gaps of silence, light-pleased, "Back, long-ago in the day, there were times that classmates of mine at the SPDM, would go out to quaint clearings in the woods, to do things like sing. It is a very special sort of ambiance, I think!"

    Giggly, "Ah-hah, I wonder if singing will be permitted during the eventual survival-test date! I do not think so. Ah, but, maybe the stars will be just as bright!"
Regulus ''What's with everyone randomly apologizing at me lately?''

"I mean it sucks you have to take so many injuries." Regulus says after she wraps her song. "Maybe I'm just not used to it yet?" She frowns, not quite liking the idea of getting used to it, but she's definitely been thrown around, shot, and pummeled way more than she's accustomed to, actually. Normally, Reguluses don't get shot at all, least of all do the ghosts inside the Regulus get pulled out and shot that way either. She doesn't really want to dwell on it all with all that love and peace stuff. If Vertin and Schneider have been meeting, maybe she should check in on Schneider herself.

Oggghh...but what if Schneider changes her mind about shooting Reguluses? Sure, back then she WAS trying to stop her from murders and if Schneider is not actively shooting people, maybe they could get along? They seemed to get along okay when they were trapped in Flamel's Fun(damentally Horrifying) House.

''People who praise are trustworthy!''

"But I talk you you up all the time." Regulus says, as if this is a counterargument, though she's grinning about it so maybe she's just trying to get her goat.

''She needsh more to do sho ... And I'm quite good at worrrying!''

Regulus knew, of course, that Sonetto did worry over Vertin but it's nice to hear it from Matilda, especially considering what she's heard. Maybe this means it's actually a bit superfluous for Regulus to be worrying after them when she's a free spirit who gets into enough trouble that maybe she is the wrong person to be fretting over them since she's not really accustomed to responsibilities, but ... well even Matilda says she needs ''more'' to do so, right? "You're even excellent at worrying huh? Maybe I should ask you for tips. I don't have a lot of life practice, but I'm doing my best."

But despite her quipping around like she's not taking anything all that seriously, she watches Matilda carefully as she speaks of the days of SPDM like she's gathering intel. "Woah woah, how's Vertin as a singer?" Her eyes widen. "How's ''Sonetto''?" She blurts that out before she remembers she's asking Matilda.

''Singing during the survival-test...''

"I don't see why it wouldn't be, singing is important to survival! Think about it, if you couldn't sing, you'd be so miserable you could just die!"