damned_institute | Day 28; Bus 3

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Day 28; Bus 3

There was, Naomi decided, some sort of cosmic irony in all of this. Not that she was trapped in a deranged and possibly other-worldly asylum with a man she'd idolized for years and a boy who was being investigated for - among other things - the murder of her fiance. No, at this point, those were perfectly normal occurrences. Rather it was the soft, pretty, feminine pink sweater dress she'd been stuffed into in the morning. A chance to wear normal clothes, and she looked like a soccer mom. The white blazer and white boots only made her look like a soccer mom who maybe hadn't given up gogo boots.

It was humiliating. Why couldn't she have jeans and a sweater? And sneakers? Something she would conceivably wear? Not this damned pink monstrosity. And her nurse kept saying how pretty she was.

She didn't care if she looked pretty.

Grumbling to herself, and taking it out on her muffin, Naomi was shoved onto an empty bus and told to 'sit tight'. Oh, she'd sit tight alright....

At least she was relatively certain L was alright. She'd spent the whole night with him, and other than falling on his ass, nothing had happened to him. And hopefully nothing would happen to him in town, either....

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Raine woke up late, still with a severe headache; if she'd been treated in some way for the concussion, it wasn't doing any good. Her right arm was in a proper sling rather than the makeshift one Kratos had put on her, though. Sitting up didn't make her feel any better, and she was hit with a wave of dizziness (and slight nausea) when she did.

Almost worse than that was the discovery that everything was blurred--great. She could still see that Reinforce was gone, which did not make her happy; she'd wanted a few minutes to explain what had happened in privacy, so her friend didn't get the chance to worry much. Oh, well, she'd find her in the cafeteria... she put a hand to her forehead, wondering if asking for painkiller would get her anywhere.

A few moments later, a nurse came in--with a set of somewhat normal clothes for her. Oh, yes... the field trip. Raine shut her eyes for a moment, but got up without further prompting. Her balance was better, at least.

"Do you need help, Jeanne?" the nurse asked, as seemingly concerned as they always were.

"I'm fine," she snapped. She honestly didn't know if the staff's compassion was genuine, but she didn't really care, either. The top she was given, a blouse, buttoned up, so putting it on wasn't as painful an experience as it could have been; she even did it without needing help--or whimpering. Getting the sling back on was easier, but that managed to hurt even more. The pants were something thick and blue she didn't recognize, but again, she wasn't terribly concerned with her clothing, and at least she could get those on with just her left hand.

"Are you ready to go?" the nurse asked, back to being cheerful, after Raine had taken a few moments to get her breath back.

"In a minute." Her eyes still weren't focusing as well as they should; she really didn't like the idea of going around half-blind, especially now, and she'd seen a few patients wearing glasses. Where would they be kept--? She tried her desk drawer, for lack of better ideas, and opened what she'd dismissed as a pencil case. Sure enough... inside was a pair of glasses, much like the pair she had at home (and only wore when she couldn't avoid it). They didn't look like they would actually work, the lenses were too thin, but they'd be better than nothing. She fumbled them open, put them on, and blinked in surprise when she saw the difference--these might well be better than the ones she had at home. Light, so far comfortable, the same half-moon style she'd chosen a few years ago... maybe she would keep these on for a while.

"There, doesn't that feel better?" the nurse asked, opening the door to lead Raine out. "You wouldn't have that headache if you kept your glasses on, you know."

At least she pretended not to hear Raine's muttered response to that.

On any other day, she would have been interested to see an Earth transportation device, but considering how much she was hurting, she settled on merely glancing around before curling up alone in a seat. She wasn't sure she was up for real food, so she took out the juice box and occupied herself with figuring out how to open it.

Reinforce was spending her morning worried. She'd blacked out just as she'd cast her spell in the courtyard the night before, so she had no way of knowing whether the night had ended or the effort of casting itself had knocked her out. She appeared to be in perfect condition, but she didn't know whether Riddick had been so fortunate.

Her preoccupation meant she paid little attention to the process of getting ready for the institute-wide trip they were embarking on, and barely even noticed the new clothing she was left to change into, though in a better state of mind she might have applied Hayate's fashion sense to them.

But if she was dazed then, it was nothing compared to getting on her assigned bus and spotting the injured Raine. Not quite a crashing down of the world around her, but the sudden formation of a dangerous expanse of spiderweb cracks. She hadn't even thought about Raine. A few meters of hall alone...

Had been a few too many. One she'd promised to protect, she'd not been there for. Failure in a cause she'd taken up in her name the name of her master...

"What..." She advanced a bit unsteadily on Raine, looking every bit some sort of forlorn spirit. "...what happened...?"

She didn't even know why she was asking. She knew what had happened. She had failed her.

Raine winced slightly; she'd realized there was likely no way to avoid explaining this in public... and the look on Reinforce's face made her wish she'd given more thought as to what to say. Abandoning the attempt to figure out the juice box, she stood long enough to grab Rein's hand and pull her to sit down. "I'm all right," she said quickly. She didn't have any bandages on her head, so hopefully she could pass the arm injury off as her only one.

"I was attacked by a patient who didn't quite understand where exactly she was being held," she began--fortunately unaware said patient was on the same bus they were. "It happened too fast for me to fight back. I'm fine, though--my arm was just dislocated. After I got to M35, Kratos put it back in place; it hurts, but there's no real damage."

She added, a little dryly, "And if you're wondering about the glasses, a nurse tried to claim I wouldn't be in so much pain if I'd been wearing them."

She didn't want Reinforce upset at her for lying again, but she also didn't want her friend to feel too worried or guilty, either. She should be able to keep quiet about the concussion... provided she didn't get motionsick on the trip.

Rein allowed herself to be drawn to the seat. As if there was anywhere else she could be now. "Another patient..." She wasn't sure what to think about that. She was angry, of course, that anyone would just ambush someone like Raine. Confused or not she couldn't see any excuse for attacking another prisoner. It was intolerable that they turn against each other. Intolerable... how could they not see that? They would have to be made to understand.

Raine's explanation otherwise didn't do much to calm her. She already knew the girl had come through the night well enough to be here now. It was her own actions that were in question.

"...I won't leave your side again." She whispered, grip on Raine's hand suddenly quite inescapable. There were no amends to make, no more than there had been when she'd come here. There was only... the future to be spent righteously. As Hayate had intended.

Raine had absolutely no idea what to say to that... she squeezed Rein's hand in return and tried to think of an answer. Colette would have had a good one... after she finished apologizing, at least. "It's not your fault," she said, quietly but firmly. "I didn't think to watch for anything but monsters." She would have at home, but here it hadn't even crossed her mind. She'd met people she knew weren't trustworthy, people that definitely gave her a bad feeling, but she hadn't expected one to attack her unprovoked. It was her own mistake, and one she wouldn't make again.

They were friends, and so Raine did want to stay with Reinforce--but they were all under enough stress. The woman didn't need the weight of unwarranted guilt added to whatever burdens she was already carrying.

"It would not have happened if I had been there." This was fact, as far as she was concerned. She felt the same as Raine- that while some of the other prisoners were untrustworthy, most could be counted on not to attack the others- and would not have been much warier of Raine's attacker, but if they had dared attack the both of them the result would have been different.

She had little else to say. It was not her way to apologize profusely or heap endless recrimination on herself. If she started she would never finish, so many were her past transgressions. It was enough that she be in Raine's presence. As she had just promised, as her protector...

It was hard to argue with that statement... Raine honestly didn't blame anyone but her attacker for what had happened, but that didn't make her head or shoulder hurt any less. "I've had a lot worse," she pointed out. Even if her ego had taken a blow too--she wasn't the best fighter, but she'd been left unable to fight back physically or magically with a single hit that simply pinned her to the wall.

"So, I hope your night went well, at least." Changing the subject was a good thing. She'd wait until later (if ever) to mention the experience of having to trust Kratos to cut her shirt off without cutting her...

"I was able to heal that boy, at least, but the rest wasn't..." Wasn't worth this. Statesman's group had turned out to have more experienced members, and she hadn't been able to help the man in the courtyard. She should have stayed by Raine's side. Even if she'd spent the night in M35 they could have helped Ginji together later.

She closed her eyes. She just wanted to be here right now. Be doing what she'd just said she'd do. She had no master here, but that didn't stop her from having someone to watch over. To be able to feel devotion without overwhelming sense of doom that had attended it in all her previous lives was something new and welcome to her, and she was not unwilling to extend it to one who was not quite so worthy as Hayate had been.

Raine wondered what had happened in Reinforce's past to make her react like this; knowing that her friend had at least started out as a magical construct of some kind helped, but beyond that she really didn't have enough information to guess. She just squeezed her hand again.

Before she could think of anything to say, the bus started up; she gave a startled jump when it made a sound awfully like a roar to her ears, and didn't exactly settle down when the bus started shaking afterwards. She'd been on trains before, but they generally ran smoother than this. "I assume this is normal?" she said after a long pause. At least the Altamira trains were open-top, possibly in case of anything going wrong... even if the tracks did go over water.

She relaxed a little more when the bus started moving--it seemed to be running smoothly enough. More than that, she'd finally get a better look at this world.

Rein smiled comfortingly. "Yes. The design is primitive but there's no inherent danger." Though the driver might pose his own risks. She'd never actually ridden on a bus, or any kind of Earth vehicle before, though... ground transportation was another area where Rein had plenty of received knowledge but no experience of her own. "Your world has nothing similar?"

"Mostly carriages and boats," Raine admitted. After the initial surprise, she was calmer. Seeing the gates in front of them open had her curious, as well. "Though Tethe'alla has trains; I've ridden a few. It was probably about as smooth as this... though I wish the tracks hadn't been submerged." She couldn't help wince a little at the memory; the time she'd stood up too fast and nearly fallen because the train jerked as a bad time... well, her phobia of water hadn't gotten any better since she got it when she was eleven.

"Why?" Reinforce had yet to hear about Raine's hydrophobia. She was also left wondering how deeply-submerged the tracks had been... too much, and the increased drag and added buoyancy would be a major impediment.

"It was reasonably shallow in most areas, and the tracks themselves weren't underwater where the wheels touched, but... it was hard not to picture how rusted the underside of the train and tracks must have been." She'd gotten over it by pulling out a book every time they had to ride it again, and fortunately managed not to let on why she didn't like that train... at least enough so Zelos didn't figure it out.

This was different, though; she was focused on the view outside the window, wanting to see what was out there. Most of it was plain academic curiosity; this was the third time she'd found herself on an unfamiliar world in eleven years, and she was curious.

Of course, she also wished they could find a way to escape, but she knew it wasn't likely. Still...

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Day 28; Bus 3

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