Day 61: Recreational Field [Third Shift]

[earthling]

Claude was glad to get his sack lunch and practically inhaled his food the second he received it from his nurse. Maybe he should have paced himself a little better, but the meal itself hadn't been that big, and he'd left a little bit of his breakfast on his plate this morning.

Once he was finished, he once again braved the cold and considered doing some laps around the field. If he hoped to make anymore progress with Guy and Anise, Claude knew he needed to be prepared for anything, which meant staying in shape. While he'd done a fair amount of fighting in Landel's, it wasn't as much as he was used to. Generally, he wasn't the sort who trained or exercised simply for the sake of doing so (he didn't have the patience for it), but that didn't mean he didn't at least try to make the effort from time to time.

But first, he should probably relax his muscles. It had been awhile since he'd taken the time to do something like that, and he could probably use the extra time to properly digest his food. With that in mind, Claude began to run through a series of stretches that he'd learned in school a long time ago.

[For Utena]

Comments

[revolutionise]

Utena had opted to stay in the greenhouse to eat her lunch. She much preferred the warmed glass building and all of its flowers being the backdrop for her meal, rather than the cafeteria or anywhere else. Seemed there really wasn't much the scent of roses couldn't make better. Once she was finished with her food, however, Utena found herself getting a little restless. Lunch had given her something to do with her hands after she'd finished watering the roses, and once she was done with that, she hadn't really been sure what to do with herself.

So out to the Rec Field she was going. It was still cold outside, but for a girl who was used to going around in little more than bike shorts, she was pretty sure she could take it. The fresh air would be more than worth it, and so would the activity.

There was only one other person out with her, it seemed. Kind of weird to see, Utena thought; she was used to being out here with half the Institute most days. The area looked so... empty. The cold probably added to that feeling.

"Well, no reason I can't add fill some of that empty space myself," Utena said to herself, heading for the activities shed and fetching herself a soccer ball. With that in hand (or foot, as it were), she dribbled for a little while, kicking around the field until she stopped and started juggling the ball with her feet. Every now and again, she would look up from what she was doing, catching sight of the blond guy doing laps. She had seen him around for a while, hadn't she? She was pretty sure they'd never spoken, but there were definitely a few faces around the Institute that had stayed the same since her arrival, and his seemed like one of them.

After a while of this, she couldn't help herself. She was curious to know more about this guy if he really had been around for as long as she had. Besides, she could never turn down company. "Hey, want to make it two over here?" she called out, still juggling the ball back and forth off her feet and knees. "A one-girl game of soccer can get kind of dull after a while!"

[earthling]

Claude slowed down his pace when he heard someone call out to him. He'd been so engrossed in what he was doing that he almost hadn't noticed the pink-haired girl playing with the ball out in the field. Come to think of it, they were the only ones out here, weren't they? When he thought about it that way, ignoring each other seemed kind of silly.

"Sure!" he said with a friendly laugh before jogging over to the girl. Now that he could get a closer look at her, he realized she was probably around Anise's age. It was a shame to see people so young trapped here, but Claude knew she was probably pretty tough. He'd seen her in passing before, after all, and anyone who managed to stick around for more than a few days had to have a lot of willpower.

"My name's Claude, by the way," he added. "What's yours?"

[forsworn]

It really was a mystery how his energy could fluctuate so. For several days, he would be perfectly fine, and then all of a sudden, he would sleep in until the afternoon, even though he had done nothing out of the ordinary the night before. Perhaps irregular sleeping patterns had always been a part of the human experience, though, and he had simply forgotten.

Human experience or not, Kratos disliked it. He preferred his life to bear some semblance of structure, and one would expect that at least the biological clock could adhere to this. But, apparently not so.

His nurse protested when he told her that he wished to go outside. Lunch would be far more enjoyable indoors, or so she argued, and he had to admit that she did speak some truth. But the day was almost half over, and he wanted to get some fresh air, having stayed inside for the last two or three days, before the temperature dropped any further. So, in the end, he yielded and ate everything as quickly as he could in his room before heading out to the field.

It was cloudy, dismal, and freezing outside, but the air was clean and the field relatively empty. Kratos closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Without several conversations' worth of noise, it was easier to hear himself think out here--exactly what he needed after all the "excitement" of the past few days. Though certainly thought-provoking, those days had never given him much of a chance to reflect and assess everything that had happened, filled as they were with either frivolity (origami mustaches...honestly) or some new source of anxiety.

He opened his eyes and, while going mindlessly through some arm stretches, suddenly remembered that he had now been in this place for almost five weeks. Had a week really passed that quickly? What a depressing thought.

[for Riku]

[inherited]

To his great fortune, it wasn't difficult to find Kratos heading to the Recreational Field after his talk with Rei. The luck he had was based on the fact that he finally needed a change of location, and that milling around inside of the institute wasn't working out in his favor. Riku didn't join up with him immediately, choosing to hang back as long as he could so that it didn't look like he was gunning for him. On the off chance that he was spotted on his way to this meeting, he didn't want to seem like he was particularly focused.

He admitted to himself that he didn't know what to expect from this meeting. The odds were that it could go well. But it could go badly, too. Riku wasn't always great with these things, but his brief encounter with Kratos told him that the man respected Sora. He didn't bother with the same treatment that could've come from being with two teenagers. That mattered to him.

(Or perhaps it was just that Riku liked having his power respected. It was difficult to say.)

The fact that it was mostly empty out here was a relief, and he trotted toward Kratos slowly. "Not gonna eat?" he began. There was no point in beating around the bush with reintroducing themselves to each other. Kratos seemed like the type who didn't forget easily. Along with that, Riku was on a mission; anything else would've gotten him off track (and his opener was just meant to get Kratos' attention anyway).

[forsworn]

His first thought was to dismiss the comment as directed elsewhere, but that had only been wishful thinking; so much for his solitude. Kratos' arms dropped slowly back to his sides. "I ate quickly." Probably faster than he should have, but he was not the sort of person who cared all that much about the mere experience of eating. It was simply a routine that was now necessary.

He turned and nodded in greeting. "What can I do for you?" It was unlikely that Riku had approached him with small talk on his mind; unlike Sora, who liked checking in on people even when he barely knew them, he hadn't seemed the type.

That in turn begged the question of what he needed or wanted to talk about. They had only worked together once, if it could have even be called that, and Kratos doubted that Riku would consult him first for anything if an issue came up. Had he been directed to him by another? Sora seemed a reasonable guess.

...He sincerely hoped this wasn't some attempt on the boy's part to get him to make friends within the club. It was a ridiculous, silly idea, but for some reason, he wouldn't have put it past Sora at all.

[inherited]

If Kratos' thought about Sora making friends was said out loud, he would've agreed with him. It was a good thing this wasn't that Sora of arrangement.

"I'm delivering a message, but we're just being careful," Riku said, deciding not to mince any words. "Last night I spent some time with a guy named Lingormr. Sora's gonna assign you to him tonight. He was boasting. Confident. But he said a few things that alarmed me. We'd like you to let us know what you think about him."

After his bit was said, Riku paused to give him a good look. If anything, he realized that Kratos was a good choice for this purpose. The guy looked like he had enough experience to see through someone's bravado, and that was what was important. A part of him wanted to add more, but it was really up to Kratos to decide what he made of Lingormr. That was what truly mattered in the end.

[forsworn]

Kratos frowned as he listened to Riku's message. It didn't seem right at all, turning his energies toward investigating a fellow patient instead of trying to make progress against the institute, but trouble needed to be nipped in the bud; if this "Lingormr" fellow was going to be a nuisance, then they needed to deal with him as soon as possible.

"I see." Sora had requested this of him, so even if he disliked the task he had been given, he needed to honor that trust. (Actually, it didn't seem too bad; the way Riku described him, Lingormr sounded vaguely like Yuan, and he knew how to deal with Yuan.) "Can you tell me what he said that alarmed you, exactly?"

Even if he was meant to be forming his own opinion, Kratos still considered it important that he be aware of what Riku felt thus far, if only for the purpose of comparison. He was not one to be easily swayed by others' opinions, but that didn't mean that he didn't consider them.

[seekingmystrength]

If it meant having his lunch in a mild bit of peace, Kurogane had no problems with the cold temperature of the day. It wasn't what he was used to, but that was fine. He had been to enough worlds now that climate had little affect on him anyway.

Taking a seat near to a tree, he ignored any other activity, little that there was, and started on his meal, wondering if he might even be able to rest out here if no one bothered him.