Scene #9595: So I Faced East And Started Walking Cont.

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	Ash is stuck on the doorstep. Ash is trapped in purgatory. After fighting for seven and a half subjective days non-stop just to get them to the point of being willing to talk, after being convinced to finally jump the fence and formally put an end to the NAZCA program, and after turning to face east and walking from the west coast of the United States to the Shikoku region of Japan, their quietly sky-high expectations put them at the tearing point between 'abandoning everything that had motivated them for over a year' and 'slink in through the door and abide a pre-orgy social club mostly made of people who hate them'. They cling to every opportunity to delay the conclusion. 'The 4x4s were a nice touch.' "Yeah well. No point if the Alphabet Mafia can just pull it off the dashboards and start NAZCA two This Time It's Personal." says Ash, attention still raptly focused on Petra, and thus forgetting there's a different word for that. 'Was that an UNDERWATER guy or a BUNKER guy?' "You know actually don't worry about it." Ash says, a little sloppy in haste. "It's fuckin' bleak and I don't want to explain it anyways." The appreciation of climbing cool rocks being put in play almost improves their mood. 'Nice Buddhism' takes them further off guard. And yet the future refused to change. And fate can only be forestalled for so long. 'Ah, however... to learn that you are vulnerable to 'menace' is news to me, as well. Perhaps I am less than familiar with that from which you are right to flee.' Ash goes red-faced. It's so easy, and so obvious, and so visually clear. You could grade the exact mixture of anger to humiliation to inward-directed embarrassment at falling for this. 'Extermination robots again...' "Huh?!" Ash pitches even higher. Firmly out of the tenor range, even. 'It ''is'' a secret clubhouse where all the fate of the world shit is happening.' "No it isn't! Don't you try and lie now! Look at it!!" Ash jabs a finger accusingly at the sofa again, where Sakura is clinging to Lilian's arm, who herself is unable to wriggle free from under Nika being dropped on both their laps by Petra vanishing, and who seems pleased as punch about it. Lilian is speechless and red, Sakura looks half-asleep, Nika is getting cozy like a cat. All three are at least a bit tipsy from old-fashioned (harder) plum wine. "Horse shit! That's a pitcher plant if I've ever seen one!" 'I know the type you're thinking of. I put one at the bottom of the Atlantic. She isn't that type.' "Naw old man, she's a different, worse type!" They emphasize the pointing with a harshly reiterated minigesture. "That's a fucking she-beast! I mean, men are one thing, but when it's--"
Lilian Rook	'But I'd appreciate it very much if you gave this a chance, because I like most of these people and respect all of them.' Another step back, making three, fully back out of the door. They hesitate, for a couple of seconds, vividly recalling the exact words they used with Lilian and not getting any less embarrassed for it. "Okay boomer." There's no way that's contemporary. Ash only learned that one because it psychologically harms egotistical men from that exact generation, running a spy agency. "That's nice and all but I'm not giving it no fucking chance after drinking her fucking Bloom roofies or whatever!" 'What happened to Sparks?' maybe isn't an appropriate question to ask right this instant. 'Want it to be in SPACE?' Ash narrows their eyes. "Then it's not a boat," They visibly choose a different word next. "Chucklefuck. If I fuck right off after getting here it's gonna be forever. A houseboat is like having a moat to keep--" They point at Petra again. "Fuckin' pillaging raiders out!" 'Or MINE, I gotta go get something, can't get PETRA back in her STINK ERA. Otherwise she'll do PHEROMONES again like she's always TALKING ABOUT.' Ash spins around on their heel and starts power walking out of the building as fast as physically possible. 'O-oh my god. I'm not-- l-look, they're all here, right?! Come on! You came all this way! At least let me talk about the... Voyager... fuuuuuuuuck....' . . . . . . . . Before Lilian can meaningfully extricate herself, Ash is far down the rough-hewn path to the seaside, storming away in such a foul mood that it performatively shakes the ground when they stomp off; or it could be by accident, but that's almost more embarrassing. A few minutes out, they've already whipped off their heavy jacket and tied it around their waist, likely so as not to let Petra get at it, carrying their bag slung unevenly over one shoulder while they strop off the step-stones into the mixed bamboo and cypress thicket alternating along the cliffside. The bag clatters surprisingly heavily, when it's forced to bounce in that uneven way. Stripped down to just a poorly-translated high-cropped tee, you can see the same scars from behind as well as in front, running all the way down to her opposite hip, where the dull bruise-purple fades to strikingly violet at the tips. They don't even unwrap the clatter-banging length following them, instead marching up to the nearest thicket of bamboo, cracking their knuckles, then stretching as if it were somehow necessary. Then they backhand chop a few poles straight through and hoist them over their shoulder, adding more to the heap until they can saunter off down to the beach with the massive weight slung over one arm like a slutty lumberjack. They're actually serious about the houseboat. Fucking why?
Tamamo	'Did the people here insist on things with you, too?' "Why, yes, though the most important of these, today, was first uttered quite some time ago. Agreeing to a good thing, rightly owed, can draw such long threads into one's future, no?" In-between everything else, Tamamo has an entire secret text conversation. It wouldn't make anything at all better for it to not be secret, and she never discovers a satisfying answer to her question. There's a 'close enough' that will do, for now. At some point, maybe, she'll feel like asking Petra. 'Otherwise she'll do PHEROMONES again like she's always TALKING ABOUT.' Maybe she'll ask about that, too. 'It's fuckin' bleak and I don't want to explain it anyways.' This, somehow, slightly improves Tamamo's impression. The humiliated anger that soon follows doesn't lower it. 'That's a pitcher plant if I've ever seen one!' 'That's a fucking she-beast!' No longer having a need to stand about, Tamamo fills the emptied sofa spot with a flump, casually presses against Sakura's opposite side, and says, "What was meant by this, do you suppose? And... who was meant? That pointing--" which was quite rude, though that's neither here nor there, "--was not at Ms. Soroka, alone." Though it would be easier just to blame Petra, after all. It's certainly her fault that Lilian couldn't get up. 'Men are one thing.' Words to ruminate upon. "Would it have been different...?"
Angela	''Huh?!'' "Arthur was going on and on about extermination robots before." Angela says by explanation. "It is fairly aggravating it has become a recurrent commentary rather than a situational one." ''No it isn't! Don't you try and lie now! Look at it!!'' Angela is an AI that can lie but she didn't think she was. To make sure she wasn't, she turns her head and looks towards Sakura clinging to Lilian, Nika on their laps, and Lilian bright red. Angela watches this passively for a moment. "My mistake." She tells Ash with her iconic near monotonal drone that she has eased up on since the fall of Lobcorp but is now all in on. "My apologies." "Sometimes cuddle piles happen." Hod tries to be supportive. Her eyes slant towards Xion, following her as she mentions cards. "Cards? I have an exceptionally capable pokerface, I'm told, though I have not played with others before." She is not aware of the poker dimension.
Petra Soroka	This is humiliating. This is the fucking worst. Petra snatched the towel that Arthur escaped the room to bring to her, but it barely made a difference. The sticky, wine-colored rivulets down her temples will take more than a quick towel swipe to clear away, and she doesn't have time to go wash up, because Ash is finally here and then they called Petra a she-beast and ran away! She didn't even do anything wrong! And of all the things to accuse Petra of, the sheer magnitude of calling the Dragon's Garden, which Petra wasn't even allowed to enter without supervision for a long time, a fuckboy mansion, is genuinely unhinged. Did their brain get cooked from walking across the entire circumference of the Earth? What did Petra ever do to give them the impression that she's collecting the Blooms?! "How are you still alive?!" Okay, in that case, Ash was looking through the secrets Lilian set up on purpose too-- PHONE: \| or are you gonna cut it off with Rook and come be my bitch PHONE: \| damn either or though? i could at least come hang out first Petra wasn't even on good terms with Lilian at the time! That's-- PHONE: \| mark my words im gonna bruise your pussy one way or the other --Obviously a joke!!! "What can I say? I've got a type." Well, PHONE: \| talking to you feels like a honeypot Petra has no excuses. . . . After Ash has left, Petra sees fit to weakly protest one thing. "... I've never roofied anyone," which very nearly isn't even true. Petra would like to just storm after them, but not only did the barrage of insults and accusations max out her stagger bar, but she has other tasks to attend to. Lilian can manage herself, and Nika is just vibing, but Sakura is too unsteady from the alcohol to make it down the cliffside safely, especially in her unwieldy outfit. Which means helping her up, so that Sakura can lean on Petra's arm for balance when following after Ash at a slower pace.
Petra Soroka	"--was not at Ms. Soroka, alone." "Too much of it was at me." Petra is pink-faced from embarrassment and whiny, with her hair matted down and scruffled up from the sake and towel respectively. "I'm literally innocent." Being the one here who's spoken most to Ash besides Nika and Sakura, and yet also the one responsible for driving them off through her sheer presence, means that Petra has next to no room to complain about anything Ash said. She sighs, unable to settle down, and valiantly tries to regather herself enough to come up with an explanation for their behavior that will make sense to anyone else. "... I think they're just uncomfortable with hanging out and settling in normal-style. It's always gotta be a little bit-- rowdy." That probably won't help much. She sighs again, headed towards the door. "Well, we've gotta go after them." Petra doesn't doubt for a moment that they were serious about the house boat thing. It was too specific to be just a smokescreen for saying they were planning on leaving, so, knowing the way, she just heads straight for the seaside, helping Sakura along as she does. Having to be the one to lead the effort to go after Ash, after all of that, puts her right back into shades of pink when she stomps her way out of the treeline. Approaching from the right, she instinctually pauses and holds her breath until Ash turns to thwack the bamboo so that their left side is towards Petra before she speaks up. "I've never roofied anyone!!!" That again. "And I'm just visiting, by the way! It's Sakura's place, and Nika's! You know that! You've literally been talking with them for a year now!"
Angela	''Well, we've gotta go after them.'' Hod actually wasn't inclined to go after Ash. And Angela certainly wasn't going to go 'after them!' herself. But when Petra gives the call, Hod glances to Angela, who thinks it over. It doesn't seem appropriate to really go chasing after Ash in Angela's mind, but of course it doesn't actually matter to her if it's appropriate, if Petra declares it to be a group activity. She nods to Hod and Hod sort of follows after Petra, her body almost cartoonishly hopping into the air with every ground stomp. "We're also--uh--visiting." Hod says. "Technically I'm not even visiting." Angela on the Angelapad adds. Angela's eyes slant up as if she's trying to look at Hod, impossibly, when Petra claims to not have roofied anyone but Hod doesn't get it.
Xion	Earlier. . . Xion isn't the type to turn someone away as long as she's on time, and with the power to be where she wants when she needs to be, broadly... she's got a lot of time to talk! She's got lines for everything, at least one or two, from a mix of pleasantries about weather observations to rotating witticisms about the day or her adventures or warm comedy about circumstance as necessary. She's smooth at it, and it makes her insistent purchase of snacks get some extras added on. Xion likes these sorts of interactions and had both tried to practice them as a more mercenary hero as much as some of her efforts unexpectedly shared their warmth back with her. Underlying everything about her return of the support of the people is a bashful sort of disbelief that crumbles before managing a deflection. She just... takes the extra bags of treats and smiles with her head low. Like Ten Minutes Ago . . . Threatened to run out of roasted nuts by Lilian's provocations to a class, Xion smirked confidently - she was invincible now, because smoking Arthur in video games (losing repeatedly while not understanding) was far more distracting and the banter tended to be thick. "Oh? Do you think I don't have --" The noirette drumrolled up in tone before producing one baggie of nuts that fans into two with a slide of thumb and roll of knuckle. "-- plenty of nuts for everyone?" 'It is good to see you, as ever.' "It's good to see you too, Tamamo." Xion states, mixing in a smile and bow of the head. "Did the people here insist on things with you, too?" Eventually, though . . . Ash is in the door? They're just chilling there? Xion puts the games down and returns from getting a drink and looks at Ash who is still standing in the doorway, and tracks from their head to shirt. She grins. "Nice shirt, Ash. Do you want to come in? I've got basically every kind of soda, and some special sugarbrews from my dimension where sugar actually tastes right, and we can..." There's a funny smile. "Play cards?" She winces. Maybe not the poker dimension? Was that trauma or fun? "Put on a movie? Is there something you want to do?" Xion would ask all this, blink and smile and carry on, but as her dialogue box carries on and her voice reaches out, the camera turns, and in Ash's place in the doorframe there is a dot outline. Petra's already out the door after them! "Gosh darnit. They must've heard my lame joke about my now merely warm nuts." She jokes, before hopping up and starting to leg it after Ash. "Do you think we should chase?" Xion asks Petra, while chasing. "Maybe they're just not about it. Is that a faux pas to chase someone who's trying to leave a situation?"
James Bond	That's nice and all but I'm not giving it no fucking chance after drinking her fucking Bloom roofies or whatever! It's that, more than 'okay, boomer,' that does harm to him--any egotism he might have to be injured is well below the statistical average and strictly performative when it even shows up. "Sorry, which one of us is British? I'm having a hard time telling, given which one of us is in histrionics over a woman having incited an emotional response." Ash is storming out. Bond sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Would it have been different...? "Yes, it would have," says Bond, lifting out of the self-medicating darkness of his palm. "And regardless of what Ash might think, it would certainly have been worse. It's something to do with the state of the world, and for now it's likely best to leave it at that." He stands from his seat and follows Petra out, because he knows that she's right. I've never roofied anyone!!! "Stop," Bond says, quietly, paternally exasperated. Not 'stop trying,' just 'stop this line of argument.' "I know you the least of any of the Blooms. I don't think it's any secret which I'm the closest friends with. But that doesn't mean you don't also deserve to be in there enjoying yourself, being yourself."
Lilian Rook	'What was meant by this, do you suppose? And... who was meant?' Sakura, who is not quite as tipsy as she appears, keeps her eyes closed and her arms exactly where they are. "Mmm . . . You know, Petra and Ash kept in contact for a while. Warming up to her like a kindred spirit, only to see this . . ." She squeezes a little tighter. "Doesn't that just mean they aren't the voracious type?" "Hey. Sakura. Could you, like--" "Dizzy." "No I mean, just for-- Nika? Can you hold her up?" "How?" "Well, okay, I suppose you need to get up first." "Why? Then I don't have ¶a good view¶." "Sorry but it's important!" "Couldn't you just . . . ?" "That just seems rude somehow?!" "Don't worry. We're all . . . here, hehe~" "Oh fuck you are drunk." "Nuh uh. I'm still winning." 'It is fairly aggravating it has become a recurrent commentary rather than a situational one.' "That's because he never shuts up about anything you let him say once!" Lilian shouts from the sofa, then winces when Nika covers her ears. 'Sometimes cuddle piles happen.' "Don't call it that!!" Louder, this time. Sakura, covers one of hers as well. She drops her voice to a very loud whisper, as if that makes any sense at all. "This is Petra's fault! We didn't cuddle!" '... I've never roofied anyone,' "I'm gonna kill you." Sakura is actuallya bit wobbly on Petra, due to being very small and probably still having opiates in her system, but she seems to be indecisive about whether to thank her or also kill her. . . . . . . . . 'And I'm just visiting, by the way! It's Sakura's place, and Nika's! You know that! You've literally been talking with them for a year now!' "Seven months. Dumb cunt."
Lilian Rook	That's the level the negotiations are at now. Ash, half-topless, wearing a stolen military jacket like flannel, is hauling buouyant lumber down to a scenic beachside and pulling nylon rope out of their dropped pack to start tying a raft by the surf, and all Petra gets is an emphatic middle finger in her direction. "I talked to you for a year. So throw your phone in the ocean before I do." Sakura, who has hobbled down with Petra, stares sideways at her with a sleepy look of 'well okay that's technically correct. Lilian, jogging down the steps behind everyone, calls out "I had Rita hand off the burner phone for here. I figured out when and where from asking Matilda to do a reading." To which Ash looks up, squints, shakes their head, not sure what to make of that, and picks up the tied-up raft square and tosses it on the waves to see it float. "Creep shit. So it wasn't even the she-beast? She was just gonna fucking flirt with me until I got here? That's so grody." 'We're also--uh--visiting.' 'Technically I'm not even visiting.' "Yeah and you can just come and go as you fucking please! That's great! Literally every single one of you in the whole world is concentrated in this one fucking scenic retreat where all your friends fucking hang out! I bet you got foot baths and massages too!" Attempting to disguise a halfway unreasonable level of mald, Ash stalks off to the water's edge and retrieves the raft; they don't have enough rope for the rest of it by far, so after testing if it'll float, they start undoing it again. The seawater flows oddly around their boots, unable to quite touch them, but clings to their bare arms readily. 'I know you the least of any of the Blooms. I don't think it's any secret which I'm the closest friends with. But that doesn't mean you don't also deserve to be in there enjoying yourself, being yourself.' "That's a hot take from a guy who just said I was being hysterical a second ago." Ash says. They spit that particular word with a level of venom far exceeding any amount that even Lilian has ever used for it; which is saying something. "Like, damn, I wonder what you think 'being myself' looks like. Let me fucking consult the literature." They pantomime flipping open a book and putting on glasses for three seconds before tossing the rope into the sand. Sakura attempts to raise her voice, and doesn't get terribly far. "Ash . . . Surely even you believe in unfortunate coincidences, no? I could easily tell you the exact occasion we had been celebrating, and why. It isn't as if any of us could track you. Don't you know that?" It's a pretty weak attempt, but Ash transparently pretends to be examining something just so they can hear better. "Yeah. Well." They pick up two ridiculously long bamboo poles at the bottom, and physically slap them together like rare earth magnets; at which point they seem to fuse of their own accord at the edges. "You know why she showed up." Then they pick up another. Like Lego bricks. "With F-- Lilian's fuckin' wife too. Like a dog sneaking scraps off the table." Nika, watching from the window, evidently, peeks her rumpled blonde head out just to yell "Whoa! Show me the ¶process/trick/tech/inputs¶! Come on! Please?!" She dives back in, and runs to the door, barely slipping on shoes.
Angela	''That's because he never shuts up about anything you let him say once!'' "It is not my fault he has a mouth, but if you'll allow me the opportunity to rectify the matter I can provide the solution anyway." Angela says. 'Don't call it that!!'' "Ah!! Sorry, I just saw--uh--nevermind!" Hod, beet-red, flails her arms from side to side expressively. "Hod Stop Swinging Me" Hod takes the Angelapad into both hands and brings them before her, fingers tensing like she's relying on the Angelapad an anchor to keep her arms from swinging this way and that. ''Yeah and you can just come and go as you fucking please!'' Angela stares at Ash in disbelief. Then clamps her mouth shut. She steps away from her desk and walks away from it, turning the Angelapad so that it's facing the spider again. Harriet the Spyder stares into the camera.
James Bond	That's a hot take from a guy who just said I was being hysterical a second ago. Christ. What is wrong with me? Bond sets his jaw. Like, damn, I wonder what you think 'being myself' looks like. Let me fucking consult the literature. "I deserved that," he says tersely, but not insincerely. "I shouldn't have dismissed how you were feeling. This isn't my forte, and I'm sure you can tell. I'm trying to be better at it." "I never understood Petra very well, and in some regards I still don't. I think she saw everything she hated in me, and I don't think she was necessarily wrong to. After all, there are times even now when I reach for those old tools--'the literature'--and I don't know why. But that isn't your problem." "One thing that I've noticed about Petra--that I noticed even before I really worked with her all that much--is how consistent she is." "She has those moments--little moments of sniffing for scraps. But I just don't think she's capable of doing what you're accusing. It'd go against everything that she is. And she is the way that she is on purpose."
Tamamo	'... I've never roofied anyone,' 'I'm literally innocent.' "It would be pleasant," if unexpected, "if that were not the limits of your protest." 'It's something to do with the state of the world, and for now it's likely best to leave it at that.' "I see," says Tamamo, after thinking on it for a moment. 'It is not my fault he has a mouth, but if you'll allow me the opportunity to rectify the matter I can provide the solution anyway.' "It is easier to not take to heart many of things said by one who claims them to be a form of nonsense, Ms. Angela." Though Tamamo isn't actually too familiar with the exterminator talk. 'Doesn't that just mean they aren't the voracious type?' Tamamo considers this. "I can imagine a few alternatives." A few 'types' and reasons. 'Well, we've gotta go after them.' 'Is that a faux pas to chase someone who's trying to leave a situation?' "That is so, Xion. It would be polite to allow time and space. The only mitigation upon this is that we may be following one who is unconcerned with politeness as a concept." That's not really the reason why Tamamo wasn't getting up to follow on her own, but it is related. "When one chooses disconnection from the world, the 'expectations' that form that layer of unspoken communication also become disconnected. Perhaps we shall find a wholly different expectation, even if the 'needs' of a person remain the same." Almost like it's someone else's problem, which is sort of but mostly not true, "Perhaps." 'She was just gonna fucking flirt with me until I got here? That's so grody.' "Is that what you were doing?" Unclear whether that's to Ash or Petra... or to both. Sakura, who has hobbled down with Petra, stares sideways at her... 'I bet you got foot baths and massages too!' "'Jealousy,' for one," Tamamo says, more quietly. 'With F-- Lilian's fuckin' wife too.' "That--" Tamamo claps her hands together, "--will be on the equinox. Have you given it some thought? There was no mailing address by which you could be reached, or you might have received a card." Brightly. Innocently. Moving on to a topic important enough to take time out of a gathering. 'Like a dog sneaking scraps off the table.' This is not, Tamamo reminds herself, the time to mention Petra's legally regulated pet harness. It would be very mean. 'But I just don't think she's capable of doing what you're accusing.' Tamamo's conflicted. But she can't really attack or defend without knowing... "Just what is the accusation? I thought it clear that the tea was hardly so much as spiced. If Ms. Soroka has misbehaved, I will see the matter handled. Oh, but, to be clear, I have no issue with you retreating to a house boat, Ash." No honorific? Unusual.
Xion	"Well you see," Xion begins as they head down after Ash. Lacking all context and incapable of gaining it through psychic friendship-force, she doesn't know the horrifying truth of Petra's honeytrap involving scary women at the Dragon's Garden. Her intuition is off because of Lilian, and she's more relaxed than usual because the context of this situation is one that she highly associates with time off and rest. She is in a place where she doesn't have to perform, but might have to be. There's purpose, so she's fine. Staying, though, means chasing Ash. Xion explains cards as she speaks. "Well," She speaks to... Angela? Hod? It seemed like Hod said it but it was Angela's voice, so, Xion just carries on talking to both as she can. "Well, I had a few opportunities to do minigames and races but I forced them to battle me in a bunch of minigames that tended to end in cards. Because it's really easy to force things to go one way or the other with cards." She shuffles around a deck of cards between the opening of her hands casually, bridging them through the air before flourishing hands and disappearing the snappy cardstock. "It's not that hard and one of my relatives showed me. Poker is just pushing advantages and being consistently lucky." She pauses. "Actually the skills came in handy a few times. But it's not really my thing, just something I thought of. Do you like cards, or just interacting? I play cards to socialize." Carrying on to Ash doesn't take long, but the venom is hard to approach for a moment. When she does, it's after taking off her shoes to walk barefoot on the beach, carrying them in her hands. "I got a few bags of treats for saving a few of them a while back." She admits, confessional. "But I don't come here often." A pause. "Are you going to leave? I guess I'd have to let you go if you'd wanted to this time. It'd be awful to force you to stay twice, huh." The moment extends. Xion shifts her feet uncertainly. She doesn't have dialogue for legally mandated pet harnesses.
Petra Soroka	"Doesn't that just mean they aren't the voracious type?" Petra looks woundedly at Sakura. "C-come on. That's-- that's not the issue here. That's not even on the table! I wasn't luring anyone! I've always been very clear about my intentions!" "Damn, you almost sound disappointed. Were you expecting me to pretty myself up for you?" Petra buries her face in her hands and muffles a groan until it builds loud enough to hear. "We hung out once! And it was normal!" "This is Petra's fault! We didn't cuddle!" The body warmth of having been, objectively, cuddling, has finally dissipated from Petra's skin, leaving her cold and soggy with sake. She could've gotten away with this for so much longer if Ash didn't show up today. Besides, when Lilian shouts like that, it's because she's frustrated and embarrassed, not because she's really severely angry. So that's good. "I'm gonna kill you." Petra hangs her head, letting herself be loosely supportive for Sakura using her as a cane instead of clinging onto Lilian. She's so bullied. Not even as a joke. She was having such a nice time today. "It would be pleasant, if that were not the limits of your protest." "I just feel like that'd be pathetic," Petra mumbles, pathetically. "Maybe they're just not about it." Petra shakes her head, while carefully picking her way down the path. "No way. You heard their tone before they saw us." Her. Though, 'everyone besides the Blooms' is actually more accurate. "There's no way they would have ever just sat down and kicked their feet up when there was a crowd waiting. That's--" She hesitates. Ash's accusations (again, towards her specifically) actually provide her a useful narrative tool for explaining this. "That's like being absorbed into an undifferentiated crowd. The completion of a journey can't be, uh, 'joining the party', it has to be 'establishing their territory'. They can't not make ripples." "Seven months. Dumb cunt." "Okay. Well. Sorry. I was in space." Petra blows her mussed-up hair out of her face with an upwards puff of air. It's actually been, like, a year and a half, but continuing to argue that point only makes her look annoying and petulant. Everything about this situation is so unfair. "She was just gonna fucking flirt with me until I got here? That's so grody." It's so arguable whether Petra earned this. Sure, maybe, she's been a little bit questionably suggestive with how she talks to people that she's interested in, and sure, it's not like she'd say no, but what's up with this?! Why are Petra's flirting proclivities-- if any!!!!-- the subject of a conversation with everyone! "Ohhh, what, should I have been tracking you?! Come on! I was talking to you at first because I thought it was important to get to know you! And then I kept doing it because I wanted to! What's nefarious about that?!" "And-- why until, anyways? What gave you the impression that I'd stop-- talking, I mean-- after you got here!" Oh god. She's fucking this up. Petra's face is red from frustration, careful not to raise her voice above a strained but normal volume for Sakura's sake right beside her, a little teary-eyed.
Petra Soroka	"I bet you got foot baths and massages too!" Petra flashes back to her visit to the Dragon's Garden with Sakura several weeks ago. "H-how is it a problem that this is a comfortable place to live? Like, that's better than, Sakura sleeping on a bed of nails and Nika being, like, drenched in boiling oil instead of playing video games, right? I thought we resolved the whole, pampering the Blooms, thing." Petra breathes in, then out; then again. The smell of the sanctuary's seaside and the tones of the people's voices around is too positive a sensory environment for her to keep freaking out and bickering, or else risk losing the near-victory that's right in front of her. To steady herself, as Angela turns away to leave the conversation, Petra reaches for the extra time she'd have to think of a different response, giving herself minutes to respond in seconds and hours across minutes. After a few seconds of pinching the bridge of her nose to adjust to the sensory difference, Petra tries to be normal about this. "Okay. So, first of all, it's extremely rare for this crowd to ever be around. Normally the only people who ever come visit casually are me, Tamamo, and Lilian, so this isn't, like, Grand Central Station for fuckup Elites or whatever." "But then also, like, you know where I stand when it comes to the Blooms, and you. Like-- I've been talking to Nika regularly for twice as long as I've known you! I'm, um, pretty well aware that you guys are the most important people in the world. So, like, maybe my actions reflect that a bit, you know?" Having one hundred times as long to stew in everything that's being said around her doesn't make this any easier, for some reason. "So-- like, sure, houseboat, whatever. You can still always turn me into a splatter of- blood, any time I do anything you don't like."
Angela	''It is easier to not take to heart many of things said by one who claims them to be a form of nonense, Ms. Angela.'' Off-camera, Angela says, "Has anybody ever actually believed what they themselves said was nonsense?" ''I had a few opportunities to do minigames and races.'' Angela thinks of Bowser and feels true despair. Maybe they went too far, she thinks, maybe they thought too much about narrative and genre and the way media is built and how it connects to the real world and now everybody is talking about minigames and the like. Is Poker a minigame? It's hard to feel that way when a single poker tournament can go for hours. Is that really mini? She likes Xion, though, and owes her a debt even so she's glad she's offcamera so she can take her time to compose herself rather than think about how. ''Do you like cards, or just interacting? I play cards to socialize.'' Angela feels immense relief but doesn't move back on camera just yet. "I would also play cards to socialize. Playing cards to make money is a gambling addiction. The chips should be present, but as an incentive to try instead of play wildly."
Xion	Xion may be exactly the type of person to get incredibly brainrotted about terminology, but also was the type of person to subject various people to a week of things like go-kart races and obstacle courses and Struggle matches and each a bite sized chunk of an experience with cards as an anchor. She uses the term intentionally! Not that that comes through at all. A few hands of poker was 'mini'. A whole game, stacks of chips, morbidly drawn out shuffles and deals... "The chips are important to keep score, but shouldn't change for anything. I understand. That seems wise, I agree!" Xion asides, before returning to the Matter At Hand: Petra. But there's nothing to say. 'Okay. I'll leave.' was just being viciously scorched earth about things, and -- was she wrong? She had started to open her heart to the thought that maybe parties and relaxing could be about nothing, when it turned out how awful a mistake that was and she didn't want that to be the lesson, it needed to not be, but if it was the fact of things... She had a hard time facing that. "I'd rather be driven through terrain." Xion admits, but then they're talking to Ash, and... Xion just doesn't know what to say.
Lilian Rook	'I deserved that. I shouldn't have dismissed how you were feeling.' "Deserved a little more too, but men like you never get it." Ash says. It'd be so easy to make it sound commiserative, and yet the precise angle of dry tone flips it into something quietly, shockingly hateful. 'After all, there are times even now when I reach for those old tools--'the literature'--and I don't know why. But that isn't your problem.' "Yeah. It's not." Ash punctuates it with yet another chunk of bamboo being slammed into place. A tiny blacklight seam can be seen from the right angle, momentarily. "It's good that you're woke and all, but my problem is you had a second where you coulda picked 'histrionics' or 'blowing up' and I know damn fucking well you didn't even think about it." Unfortunately, it's Bond's own words in motion. His own focus in microcosm, delivered again by the same person, in a callous, unthinkingly cruel way, that is nevertheless frustratingly justifiable. 'She has those moments--little moments of sniffing for scraps. But I just don't think she's capable of doing what you're accusing. It'd go against everything that she is. And she is the way that she is on purpose.' "Yeah. She's good at making you think that. Kinda why I thought she was maybe a little cool." 'It would be pleasant if that were not the limits of your protest.' Lilian isn't going to tell Tamamo about the road trip, because she does want her beloved wife to get along with her complicated situationship, but she narrows her eyes at Petra for long enough to convey that she did think about it. 'I can imagine a few alternatives.' "You're so exciting." Sakura woozygiggles. 'Is that what you were doing?' "I was telling her to kill herself." Ash says, proudly. "Mood." says Lilian, and the two reflexively avoid eye contact for a second. 'That will be on the equinox. Have you given it some thought? There was no mailing address by which you could be reached, or you might have received a card.' Having stacked up what could conservatively be considered half a barricade wall, Ash looks over their shoulder so fast that every eclectic tchotchke holding back their hair jangles at once. They stare at Tamamo with the air of-- frankly, supervillain Lilian watching one of her experimental heroes just charge right into the death trap like it was his ingenius idea. Then, comprehending if they go silent they 'lose', somehow, in some unwritten way, they say "Congratulations." is muttered, a little more sulky, but less sarcastic. Lilian makes a noise that involves all the air in her lungs, but says, "Thank you all the same. If you don't want to come, I won't mind you watching." 'Oh, but, to be clear, I have no issue with you retreating to a house boat, Ash.' Ash makes an irritable little huff, but seems less bothered rather than more. By something. "Well it's not like any of you could stop me if you did. So that's convenient."
Lilian Rook	Nika has, at last, managed to hustle her way down the entire pathway, having thrown on her baby blue windbreaker without having checked the weather at all. Either oblivious or uncaring about the atmosphere, she trots forward as if she's totally exempt, performing an examination circuit around the barricade and saying "That's the ¶pontoon/foundation/snap grid¶ right?" Ash, head down, busy, says "Got it one, champ." Nika, thusly encouraged, says "Can I sleep over some times?" and Ash sighs and says "Well obviously." 'I got a few bags of treats for saving a few of them a while back.' 'Are you going to leave?' Haggled down, Ash responds to the second most Gamer person they know, whose entire experience has been the Magic Circle and Conversations With The Buddha. "You can too then, but you gotta pay the treat tax. That's my international borders. Maritime law or whatever." 'It'd be awful to force you to stay twice, huh.' "Nobody forced me to stay." they say, bitterly. 'Okay. Well. Sorry. I was in space.' "I can send you back if you need. Give you a good fucking throw." The tone coruscates with the shadow of the word 'yeet', if only they knew it. 'I was talking to you at first because I thought it was important to get to know you!' "Stop talking about your process." Disgusted, now. Working themselves up into the bit. "I don't wanna hear how you fucking stalk your mark or whatever! Fuck off!" 'So-- like, sure, houseboat, whatever. You can still always turn me into a splatter of- blood, any time I do anything you don't like.' Ash stays deeply, grudgingly, simmeringly silent through everything Petra says to explain herself. They keep assembling their project as if she isn't saying anything at all; or as if it's just like hitting the road to drive the anger off. Perhaps a gym is easier to imagine, looking at them. The words 'blood splatter', for some darkly mysterious reason, cause them to snort-laugh, cut it off in one syllable, then spit a pissed off invective. Standing up, they lift the entire 'houseboat foundation', briefly casting its shadow over everyone assembled, and then throw it all the way into the water, clapping off their hands after. "Huh? Isn't it gonna be way harder to build the house on it over there?" "--Fuck!"
Xion	Xion has a little moment, in her head, trying to be normal about hitting a despair horizon and teetering on the edge, a cliff of black nothingness, a barren defile over which she lapsed and wobbled, windy in her loneliness, a-- 'You can too then, but you gotta pay the treat tax.' Xion blinks once and looks up from her dissociating into the middle distance slight downlook of thinking too hard about something she should not, recovering with a breath. "Oh? That's a relief, I'm glad to hear it." Xion admits now to Ash, the moment letting her stress slacken as she makes the steps towards the house-boat-construction. "When it comes to snacks I'm a volume importer." Passing Nika a pouch of nuts as she inspects the 'snap grid', Xion offers the curious Bloom a smile. "To ease your tax burdens." She suggests, before looking to Ash. There's a real pause, a considering look, and then... Xion produces a glass bottle soda that looks comically under-dressed for a soda bottle, too unbrandedly generic to be real, which depicts a strawberry on the label with a dark redness to the liquid inside. The taste is... Xion comes from a dimension where sugar is different, as an entire taste-experience. The sweet is a lifechanging fizzy experiential effervescence, ambrosia-light and fluttering within for a few moments like soft butterfly wingbeats before pleasantly leaving the body as harmless energy. This is the kind of sugar that makes cartoon characters have their eyes pop out of their skulls and telescope out while they say 'awooga' kind of next level. It's in a strawberry soda, in a glass twist cap bottle. "I hope you like it, for my taxes." Xion offers, holding out the bottle to Ash. She had offered a drink all the way back, so now it felt right to complete the circle by handing out the taxes.
Petra Soroka	"She's good at making you think that. Kinda why I thought she was maybe a little cool." Petra has a really high tolerance for being berated and humiliated, because of how often it happens. If she couldn't cry and pout a bit and then struggle back up to her feet after being called a serial predator and a freak and a pervert and everything else, then she wouldn't have lasted a week around Lilian. This, starts to feel like it's hitting vitals. Petra opens her mouth, and then closes it and swallows instead of speaking when a sharp pain twinges through her chest. She swallows again, and turns her face away to hide it, trying to keep her breathing from hitching. "I was telling her to kill herself." "Mood." Petra's become acutely aware, ever since they made up after the one week war, how much of a social crutch Sarracenia fucking Sundew serves as between Lilian and Petra. Anytime they really, really fight, there always has to be someone worse, someone mutually repulsive, who harms both of them through their sheer sickening radiation, that they can bitch about together in order to start talking again, or even the first time they started talking properly, back in jail. After the war, Petra had resolved to not need to do that anymore; to find some stabler way to exist, in one of many ways, like Lilian had asked her. She likes to think that she's succeeded. In the past almost-year, she could probably count the number of times she's seriously considered killing herself. But that's basically what this is, isn't it? Is Petra a higher tier of creep to be sacrificially scorned for a higher tier of relationship? The Petra of a year ago accepted that as the most she could hope for, but isn't that a side effect of becoming more of a person? "I don't wanna hear how you fucking stalk your mark or whatever! Fuck off!" Petra flinches. It's not fair. It's not fair at all. Thirty minutes ago, she was as relaxed as she's ever been, happy enough to be near-delirious, in the midst of a genuinely peaceful and pleasant moment where, not only was she finally not doing anything wrong, but she was being rewarded for doing things correctly. Every time she ever, ever, ever, gets a relationship, or an environment, or even just one singular instant, where she lets down her guard, some fucking thing happens that poisons it forever, making sure it never happens again and every memory is bitter. It doesn't even matter how much time she's given herself to think anymore. A shiver runs down her spine and lingers in her hands, and her arms wrap around herself instinctually before she pries them back to her side. There's no hiding anymore that there's tears building up in her eyes, of a different kind than the embarrassed ones that she blinked back earlier. "Fuck off!" Petra stomps up to Ash, and before even thinking about what she's doing, slaps them across the face. She averts her eyes, glaring down at the sand rather than at anyone in particular. Her fists ball at her sides, with tears knocked free from her eyes to roll down her cheeks. She mumbles, to Lilian, Sakura, Nika, Tamamo, or maybe even Xion, with different meanings to each, "Sorry." Then she swivels around and storms off back up the path. Along the way, she spits, "And fuck you," at Bond, without stopping.
James Bond	It's good that you're woke and all, but my problem is you had a second where you coulda picked 'histrionics' or 'blowing up' and I know damn fucking well you didn't even think about it. It is justifiable. But Bond can't bring himself to be frustrated with Ash in the way that he was before. If there's frustration, it's directed entirely at the gnawingly accurate accusation that he didn't think about it. He didn't-- "I didn't." --like a dog that bites without knowing why. Another frustration is that he has enough experience in these settings not to go off and sulk, which would be personally preferable to the excruciating embarrassment he feels right now, yet which would put his feelings forward for anyone but the most socially blind to see. The sole saving grace is that Petra explained, and Ash seems to have cofirmed, that the reaction, much like the impetus, isn't what it looks like. But even that's something that he's spilt blood on. And fuck you. What do you want me to do? Is that supposed to make me angry? Am I supposed to defend myself? This is indefensible. If I had thought for even a second this wouldn't be happening. "This wasn't supposed to happen," he says powerlessly.
Lilian Rook	'I hope you like it, for my taxes.' Ash is not expecting mush of strawberry soda. Soda is what Ash drinks when they want to drink anything, because you aren't supposed to drink it. They take it from Xion as if it were an apple conveniently falling from a tree into their outstretched hand. They move to crack it open on the spot, then consider the pack, and file it away in their decorated backpack instead. "I mean even if it's shit that's kinda not the point of taxes is it?" they say. "But I'm kinda curious what tastes good enough for you to wanna drink it, so consider it paid." Do they really have to be so roundabout? It's not even subtle; Nika clicks into attentiveness as if being explained the rules of a game. "You can have any of mine you want." "Yeah? What kind?" "Lots. They're all ¶inside/in the fold¶." ". . . Can't you just pick some?" "No. I might get one you don't like. I want you to have ones you like." '' 'I didn't.' "Yeah. Nobody does." says Ash. They clearly struggle to go any further with that thought. Bond isn't attempting to act clever, but they're swinging at air with his galling lack of resistance. "Nobody does, because nobody thinks about anything, and I said it all before when I was whipping your ass in Nimue." They don't even think about the fact that they memorized the name of the fake 'level' about Caelton. "Just went a year with barely any of it, so I forgot. Call it fucking decompression sickness." They're busy staring at the raft and fuming about not thinking of building it on land first when Petra storms up behind them. The total opposite of Lilian, who hypervigilantly reacts to everything, Ash dosn't seem to perceive her existence at all until she gets in front of them, at which point they barely look down and-- Petra's slap hurts. Physically, it exclusively hurts Petra, feeling like she'd slapped a slab of metal for being jarringly robbed of all momentum fast enough that the difference is inconsequential. The fingerprints are scattered individually into the sand around them, like shrapnel. Psychologically, though, Ash is the one who took the damage. At first they look at Petra with the kind of shock typically reserved for seeing a pet mouse eat her own young. Then the expression contorts under a wave of self-consciousness that, however slight it really is, feels like swallowing arsenic. It's purged by the following contortion of anger, but even the anger is only the drums in the background of badly rattled humiliation.
Lilian Rook	Petra is a curiosity. A pen-pal they weren't ever really planning on meeting. An online friend to vent to and ghost when convenient. Petra is someone they were looking forward to seeing anyways, and who was supposed to take all their bullshit in stride, and be 'the cool one' they could use as a translator, or go-between, with the girls. No matter what, Petra was supposed to be in their corner, and at some point they crossed the line where even that wasn't the case anymore, and sitting with that feeling is too unbearable to let her walk away from it. So they grit their teeth, hold back the stinging in their throat, shout raw-voiced "You think you get to walk away bitch?!", and throw their clenched fist at the reason. "What the fuck?!" "Ash why?!" "Hey! ¶Sit down¶!" Lilian turns Ash's arm to the side and bruises her knuckles on their face, twice as hard and backhanded. Nika's urgency causes the air to displace downwards with a bone-rattling subsonic thud, marbling solid on Ash's shoulders. Sakura grabs Petra on her way up the steps and turns her back to Ash, physically blocking them, wide awake and glowering over her shoulder and holding Petra's hand as the pain becomes a memory that she soon forgets. "You think you're calling the shots here?! Because you're sorely fucking mistaken! She isn't yours just because you text! Trying to see things from your perspective apparently gave you the wrong idea , so I'll spell it out for you, because now I don't give a fuck if I sound like everyone else! You don't matter more than all of us!" "Please. Of all the things you can do, I'll accept any of them but making it like this. I know that nothing until now has ever been good and it's hard to feel like anything can ever be good again, but this can't happen. Not now. Not after all this. Every single thing you've done, everything you've been through, is too important." "Hey. I'm not ¶stupid/twelve years old¶. I'm not gonna ignore you being like that to my friends. And don't say it's about ¶rocking the boat¶ because it's not and you know it's not. She can't even ¶damage¶ you and you were going to hurt her really really badly, so you're the asshole. Even if we're the same in some ways, Blooms can be shitty too." The overwhelming consensus is, for the first time ever, entirely too much. 'Fenrir', 'Hel', 'Garmr', were once hypothetical names that were only as real as glowing text on a screen, and yet Ash has undoubtedly never felt any reason to persist even a fraction as strongly in their life. 'Lilian', 'Sakura', 'Oreshnika', are the names of people, with faces and voices, and thus have the terrifying ability to approve and deny; to decide what's within their circle. And for the first time in years, Ash perceives the idea that 'all of them' might not be it. "I'm taking a break." says Ash. Hoarse, they swallow, and pretend to shade their eyes from the sun. "Was a stupid fucking idea to go straight from all that travel to a whole new project." The jacket is dragged up from their waist and shucked up back over their arms, then zipped. "Mentally exhausted." is uttered without any of the prelude. Their hands are stuffed into their pockets. "You know how it is." leads into turning around and trudging down the beach.