damned_institute | Day 44: breakfast

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

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So this was one of the people Hokuto had been with during the zombiefest.

"She had to have left since she found me and we holed up for the rest of the night." But why did he not know Hokuto had left?

"You get drunk? That why you don't remember her leaving?" Her girl had to have gotten the rum from somewhere.

"Uh...well..." Porky said, looking down and tapping the table with his finger, "Uh, the whole night's a little hazy, to be honest. Hokuto had to...knock me out. See, I was infected by a zombie. Hokuto had to throw a bottle at my head so I wouldn't attack either of 'em. D-Don't worry! I didn't hurt Hokuto or anything!"

"And I certainly didn't get drunk," Porky said, a look of disgust on his face, "Can't stand the stuff. I think she left after the crows attack. I was getting pecked at a lot, so I can't really remember it too well."

It was a good thing Al added on that he hadn't hurt Hokuto as Falis was already half out of her seat, a look of murder in her eyes. She stopped and then sat back down with a sigh.

"Good," she said, running her hands through her hair. The motion caused her sleeves to ride up, revealing the fading evidence of her own bite mark on her upper arm. "Sorry 'bout that. Kind of... on edge. And shit."

"Ah..." Porky said quietly, leaning over to get a better look at the bite mark on Alita's arm, "Did you get bitten, too? Well, obviously you did, but...did you get infected?"

"And you ought to calm down a little, eh?" Porky said, "Nothing good ever comes from worrying. I doubt that Hokuto'll get into any serious trouble. Not with you hanging around with her, at least. You make it sound like you could take out a tank barehanded!"

Porky snickered a little. It was pretty obvious who wore the pants in Hokuto and Alita's relationship.

"Anyway, just take a chill pill, 'kay?" Porky said, grinning, "No point in getting all riled up over nothing."

Falis didn't answer the question about her infection, the look more than enough to confirm that she was infected. She was going to change the subject, but then Al started using words she didn't know.

"What the fuck is a tank?" She cocked her head, looking confused. "And a 'chill pill'? I don't need to eat something to lower my body temperature."

"...You don't know what a tank is?" Porky repeated, a little confused, "But I thought that all this stuff...modern stuff, I mean, was ancient technology in your world! Eh, whatever. Lemme try to explain...a tank is...it's like a...big metal box with wheels. Bigger than a horse. Probably bigger than two or three horses, but that really depends on the size of the horses, I suppose...but that's not the point! The point is, tanks are absolutely deadly on the battlefield. They're almost impervious to normal weapons because of their thick armor and then they have a cannon attached to them. The rounds they fire explode, even!"

"What I'm trying to say, Alita," Porky said eventually, "Is that you're tough. Tough enough to protect Hokuto. You shouldn't worry so much about her getting into trouble. And 'take a chill pill' just means calm down."

Once Al explained what a tank was, realization dawned on the hunter's face. "Oh. One of those. I didn't know that's what they were called. The ruins aren't always in good enough condition to fucking read everything."

She then smirked. "And yeah, I can rip one of those apart. So, if take a chill pill means to calm down, why say that instead of just calm down?" Slang of this type was lost on Falis. Now insults... those she got.

"It must be pretty weird..." Porky sighed, "Living in the past when you have future technology all around you, I mean. I can't understand why anyone would willingly go back to ancient technology...stuff like tanks and guns are just so much better, y'know? I suppose it's not my position to judge, though."

"As for the slang," Porky began, "Sometimes a phrase like that just gets so common that it's almost stranger to say 'calm down' instead 'take a chill pill.' I dunno why. It just kinda happens, I guess."

"There's a reason all that technology was forbidden," Falis stated. "I, for one, kind of like the world sticking around. Without it, I have no fucking clue where I'd put all my stuff."

"That musta been some messed up technology," Porky sighed, "I mean, were they only weapons or something?"

"Weapons, weapons in combination with magic, technology that fucked with time and shit, reality altering technology," Falis stated. "You name it, it probably existed. I'm fucking glad the old ancient geezers decided to seal that shit away."

Too bad it all didn't stay sealed away.

Day 44: breakfast

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