Day 72: Sun Room (3rd Shift)

[dividedby]

Finally, it was lunchtime. Second shift had gone by way too slowly for Zero's liking, although spending his time sitting and waiting impatiently for the shift to be over didn't help him any. Having a staring contest with his nurse probably helped even less...but it did give him something to do that wasn't sitting or staring at the board, at least.

But that was then, this was now. Another awkward intercom broadcast aside, Zero was very much ready for the next shift to start - and he was welcoming it by standing from the couch he'd been restlessly sitting on for who knew how long and staring at the prisoners leaving the Arts and Crafts room. Ciel had to be one of them. He hadn't seen her come out of the showers at all, and the nurse had prevented him from going into that room for a reason, right? So she had to be there. Had to be.

She better be...

[Ciel-chaaaans]

Comments

[rebonding]

"Yeah, my roommate got one! I missed the chance, though." She began pulling her food out of her bag, thinking briefly of the last time she and Ryusei had been together.

She probably had some apologizing to do for that too, didn't she?

"Why? Did you grab one?"

[asteroidbelt]

"My roommate has one. I just heard from someone else that they might be important." Though 'important' was stretching it, probably. "'Odd' might be a better way to describe it."

Then again, it wasn't much more than conjecture. But as long as he'd brought up oddities.... "Speaking of odd," he said, then hesitated. There were ramifications to being perceived as rude in this case that wouldn't be present in another; he didn't relish the thought of having to dodge an ability like that, just... in case. But if she were willing to do it, he didn't think she'd still be stuck here, unless the nurses had some manner of recourse. Then again, this was a place where ghosts existed apparently.

"Do you know how we escaped from the ghost?" he settled on saying instead.

[rebonding]

Korra froze as she dug through her lunch. With what had happened last night, she had let that encounter slip from her mind.

"No clue. But my attacks sure didn't have anything to do with it." She paused, glaring at her lunchbag before looking back over to Ryusei. "Sorry 'bout that."

And she meant it. Her screwups could have cost them their lives.

[asteroidbelt]

Someone like Korra would have noticed if the ghost had knocked her out somehow, wouldn't she? A fighter would have. As Ryusei didn't remember anything like that, either, then it couldn't have been the ghost that had done it. Then again, it was a ghost. "I don't think anything we could've done would have worked."

Lucky that they'd escaped when they had, but if it was the work of the institute (and Ryusei had no reason not to assume so), then he doubted it was for some altruistic reason. What was that thought he'd had once? A battle royale? No, that didn't make sense.

"Your attacks.... How do you do it?"

[rebonding]

"Yeah." Dejected and with a bit of anger, Korra threw her feet up on an ottoman. Her stormy gaze eased when Ryusei asked about her bending.

"It's bending. Apparently we've only got it where I'm from, but..." She shrugged. It had been fun, at first, explaining to people what it was. But now it was just annoying, especially since she couldn't even use it properly here.

Down right humiliating, for an Avatar.

[asteroidbelt]

If Korra was being this nonchalant about it, it must not be a special thing where she was from. That still left the question of why she didn't do it, right now for example, but he didn't think it was unreasonable to assume she couldn't; depending on the limits of one's abilities, getting outnumbered despite individual advantages was certainly a possibility. And if he took her unnecessary apology to him at face value, she probably didn't want anyone to get hurt, so burning down the building probably wouldn't have been an option. Not that he would have been in favor of doing that.

"'But'?" he asked. That didn't sound like something someone would say, in his experience, if the things he'd thought of just now were a factor.

[rebonding]

She shrugged again.

"This Landel freak-" she gestured vaguely at the intercom "-did sometime to it. It doesn't work right here." Except for last night. She opted not to mention that.

"There was a guy who could take bending away back home, but it wasn't like this. I get it back every night." Korra held back a shudder at the thought of Amon. "According to someone else, he's got some sort of power limiter that blocks my chi during the day, or... something."

She didn't know how to explain it herself. A temporary block of her abilities? How was that even possible? Especially without her even noticing?