damned_institute | Day 63: T&M Electronics (Late Afternoon)

Having the chance to share a meal with Claude and just relax in a setting that was more interesting than that cafeteria back at the institute had been refreshing. Guy couldn't shake his worries about Claude, but he tried to push it from his mind, knowing that his friend would speak up if there was anything serious going on.

After their meal they parted ways to do some last minute shopping, although Guy was reluctant to leave the Twin Pines with the way that the wind was only increasing in strength. Still, he didn't want to be holed up there for the rest of the day, and so he endured it, heading across town as quick as he could for the electronics store.

While he had been thinking earlier about how he'd been there so many times already and wanted to see something new, Guy had a practical reason for returning, which was to stock up on fresh batteries. The last thing he wanted was for his flashlight to go out when he and his friends were in the middle of exploring those caverns, after all.

He took a moment to arrange his hair and clothing after escaping from the wind, and then went about searching the store. While he knew where the batteries were by now, he couldn't stop himself from getting distracted from the various gadgets as he made his way to that particular shelf. There was nothing wrong with that, was there?

[For Leanne.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

While Leanne was following him, she wasn't close enough that it was making him nervous. So long as she didn't try to move any further into his personal space, things would probably be fine. That was a relief, at least.

The comment she made was strange, though. Why would any of the patients know about the town? It wasn't like they lived here, after all. But as he thought on it a little further, Guy was hit with a realization. Leanne was pretty new still, so was it possible that she didn't know about the idea of different worlds yet? What she said about "normal towns" made it sound as if she was sheltered somehow. Like Luke, maybe?

"Well, hold on a second," he said, pausing and turning back toward her so that he could explain. "There's a reason we don't know much. This place... it's not the world I come from at all. Most patients here are from different places, so this whole world is foreign to us. It's probably the same for you." He blinked and tilted his head at her. "Did you not know?" He didn't want to make her feel bad, but this really did need to be cleared up before he addressed anything else.

Leanne frowned, silent for several moments. Renamon had said something like that, though she hadn't quite understood it then. All this talk of different worlds, it was almost beyond her. In the end, she was outside Basel. Absolutely anything outside it was a foreign world, as far as anyone living there was concerned.

But if this area was unfamiliar even to people like Guy and Renamon, if even they couldn't understand it.. Maybe...

She huffed, shaking her head. This kind of complicated thing had never been her forte. She wouldn't even know where to begin to make sense of it all. "It's just kinda' weird, I guess," she said at length. How could she possibly explain this to Guy? "Where I'm from... We're inside and everything else is outside. So I kind of thought..." Leanne shrugged. "It's like everything's a different world to us."

So what was how it was? Guy didn't quite get what Leanne meant, but either way it seemed that his instinct that she seemed sheltered had been right. Of course, it wasn't that surprising that he was able to recognize it, seeing how he'd spent a good chunk of his life taking care of Luke.

"So you have no way of getting outside where you live? How big is the place you're from, then?" Was she talking about a single city or a whole kingdom? Leanne hadn't struck him as particularly naive -- most of her uncertainty could be chalked up to the fact that she was still relatively new here -- but now Guy had to wonder if she was just good at hiding it.

They'd reached the shelf with the batteries on it and Guy started looking around, trying to figure out which pack would be the best to get. He could probably never have enough batteries and he could always pass out extras to his friends, right?

"Really big! I mean... It was practically the whole world for us!" And wouldn't that have sounded like a strange way to put it to anyone from the outside? But what other way could she possibly put it? Growing up, all Leanne had ever known about the Outside World was that it was impossible to go there, impossible to live outside of Basel's walls. "Till I got here, I didn't know people could even live outside of Basel."

"But I guess it's gotta sound really weird to you, huh?" she said slowly, her gaze straying to the shelf that had captured Guy's attention. What were those... Batteries? Those could come in handy, couldn't they? She wasn't exactly sure what they'd need them for, but she couldn't exactly see any of the nurses just handing some over.

The whole world...? Guy tried to think of being confined to one area, never able to see what else was out there. While he'd lived on an island as a child, his whole life had opened up as soon as his family had been slaughtered. And while it had opened in a bad way at first, obviously, Guy had still become very worldly as a result.

Not that his knowledge about Auldrant helped even the slightest bit while he was stuck here. In fact, he was behind people like Claude who understood more of the technologies here. Still, he'd been getting by well enough, and he was sure Leanne would too.

"It sounds a little weird, yeah, but not as much as you'd think," he said as he picked up a 20-pack of batteries, wondering if he could afford it. He wasn't sure how much this stuff cost. "My best friend, he wasn't allowed to leave his father's manor until he was seventeen." Of course, there was way more to it than that, but Guy didn't need to be telling people Luke's secrets.

His father's manor, huh? Leanne could almost relate to that, thoughts of Aetersyl rushing back. But regardless of how everything had ended there, she'd been... happy, had lived a perfectly happy life in Aetersyl. Not being allowed to leave your father's home though, what could have possibly led to that? "But he now he doesn't have to be in there if he doesn't want to, right?" she asked, voice tentative.

It could have easily been nothing serious, nothing more than an overprotective father, but she knew well enough what kind of other reasons there could be for that, just what kind of people could be behind it. (Though even she could tell it was unlikely her particular situation would be repeated.)

"Maybe some of us just come from worlds that are a little weird, huh?" she added after a moment, her eyes still on the shelf. Just from speaking to other people, it hadn't taken Leanne long to realize that Basel wasn't exactly a normal place, not when compared to some other worlds.

"Oh, yeah, that all ended a few years back." Although Guy had to wonder -- if it hadn't been for Tear, how long would Luke have gone on with that before he'd finally gotten sick of it and left? Would he have waited until he was twenty-one, or would something else have forced him out? The Score had predicted certain things, but Guy didn't want to believe in something like that.

While he was surprised that Leanne didn't ask more about the whole situation than that, Guy had to admit that it was probably for the best. He shouldn't be revealing too much about Luke, even to someone who was a complete stranger with no connection to Auldrant.

"I think that anyone's world that isn't your own is going to seems kind of weird," he remarked with a shrug. "Ahh, but..." It looked like they were going to have to head back to the buses soon, and Guy still wanted to buy these batteries. "I need to pay for this, so I should probably head off. It was nice talking, though." He sent her a winning smile.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said with a smile and a slight shrug of her shoulders. "It almost sounds like all of our worlds are way different. I don't know if I could get used to a lot of them. But it's still kinda nice to be out of Basel..." The last Leanne said almost to herself, not sure she really wanted to get into that particular topic. This world, Basel, the Outside World... It was enough to make her head spin.

The moment Guy mentioned leaving however, she stood up straighter, casting a glance around them. Right, of course. She didn't know when exactly it would be, but the nurses would probably not appreciate them hanging around the town after a certain hour. It was hardly an appealing thought, but they'd have to go back soon. "Yeah, you too!" she answered, raising her left hand in a small wave. "See you around!"

Day 63: T&M Electronics (Late Afternoon)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject