damned_institute | Day 43: Courtyard, Third Shift

Once again, Endrance's nurse interfered with his plans. He had been planning to look around the Game Room, but the moment he began to move towards the Sun Room, she had taken him by the arm. "Your family has asked that we make sure you get as much fresh air and sunshine has possible, and you won't get that by staying inside playing video games all day."

He had thought for a moment about protesting, but decided against it. After all, if what had happened to Haseo was punishment for having spoken too strongly the day before, he didn't want to make that worse somehow. So, when given the choice of going out to the recreational field or the courtyard, he chose the latter.

There were a few reasons behind the decision, the most salient being that he wanted to see what the area looked like for a second time - this time without the threat of a brainwashed patient surprising him. The second reason was just as strong as the first, and it had to do with the presence of a second former Demon Palace Emperor. As energetic as she was normally in The World, he couldn't imagine Alkaid not wanting to spend some time outside.

Just as before, he sat down under a tree by the side of the pond, keeping one eye on the door.

[closed to Alkaid]

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The moment the nurse suggested getting some sunshine, Kirk jumped at the chance. He hadn't seen a familiar face in some time— well, okay, technically he had, but he hadn't seen anyone— oh, forget it. Maybe he really did need some sunshine.

He noticed the walls first, tall and thick enough to pen them all in, but covered in strong-looking vines that would probably only take him a few seconds to scale. He might've been tempted to try it, if he didn't know that at least one member of his crew was trapped in this place as well.

Kirk looked around for Chekov, catching sight of a similarly built dark-haired figure a short distance away. "Hey—!" The figure turned out to be a teenage girl rather than a teenage boy once he'd come close enough, but as long as he was there anyway, Kirk figured he might as well say hello. Never know who else might be here... "Hi there," he greeted. "You... wouldn't happen to be an ensign aboard a starship, would you?"

Uh... Hokuto blinked a few times. Even here, that was unexpected... it would have been mean to tell him "Yes, I was recently assigned to the space battleship Yamamoto," but she was very briefly tempted.

"I'm... afraid not," she said with a slight giggle. "I guess you're new here?" She had a feeling she was about to give the Welcome to Hell speech again, but the greeting was so incredibly random that she couldn't help getting some amusement out of it.

Kirk grinned at her reaction, glad that he was entertaining even if he was still feeling incredibly out of depth here. "It was worth a shot," he said, and plopped down on the grass beside the girl. His instincts protests against idleness at a time like this, but he'd just spent at least an hour wandering around this place and had still come up empty. He could use the rest.

"New last night," he confirmed, and shot the girl a smile. "I figured I should start getting to know my fellow inmates. It's Jim, Jim Kirk." He held out a hand to her.

Hokuto smiled back as she shook his hand. "I'm Hokuto Sumeragi." She figured it was better to use the same name order he did, just to avoid confusion.

"So, I'm guessing you're from several centuries ahead of most of us. Have you studied enough history to get by?" she winked. If he was from far enough ahead of this place, he might be nearly as lost as some of the people used to much lower technology levels.

It was strange how casual a lot of these people were with time travel. But not a bad strange. Hokuto's attitude reminded him of the women of Starfleet, smart and friendly and sure of themselves.

Kirk folded his hands behind his head and looked up at the clear sky, and wondered idly what the stars looked like at night. "I took a bit of Earth history at the Academy. It was a good way to fill up my program starting out, seeing out how I didn't actually qualify for a lot of classes," he admitted. He glanced back at Hokuto. "Please don't tell me you predate space travel."

Edited 2009-08-22 18:55 (UTC)

"Well... we've been to the moon," Hokuto said cheerfully. "At least, some countries have." To the best of her knowledge, Japan was still working on it. "But we're still a long way away from anything like being able to take vacations on Mars." Not that she cared much, honestly, unless aliens came down and revolutionized everyday technology.

"So how did you get into this Academy but not qualify for a lot of the classes?" Truthfully, she wanted to know partly because she could so see it happening at the Academy she was aiming for.

"Oh well," said Kirk, unable to suppress a grin. "I just drove into the shipyard and hopped onto the cadet shuttle." While the memory amused him now, he remembered the anxiety he'd felt while waiting around for Captain Pike to argue his case to the admissions office. He still didn't know how Pike had managed it. Cashing in on George Kirk's name, maybe. "I'd done the aptitude tests, but I hadn't actually put in an application or... any of the other thousand things you needed to do, but it worked out in the end."

He leaned in a little closer to Hokuto, as if imparting a secret.

"As it turns out, if you're good enough to get into Starfleet despite not being qualified for any programs, you can still go on the command track. You don't really have to know anything to be in charge of everything." Kirk laughed. "So what do you do, Hokuto?"

Hokuto laughed and shook her head. "Wow. That's kind of scary."

And then he asked the question she really didn't know how to answer... oh boy. "Nothing special," she said. "Until recently I was a normal high-school girl who knew a little magic. Here, I'm just another Arts & Crafts recruit. I have a black belt in karate and I'm still just a clueless newbie." She grinned, but it was a little less sincere than before. "I'm not the only one who's drastically out of my league, but that doesn't make me feel any better when I'm humiliating myself in front of my commander again."

Day 43: Courtyard, Third Shift

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