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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"Oh!" Oops--it would really be nice if she could know peoples' names just by looking at them or something. "You're on my list, but there's kind of a lot of people ahead of you." She wasn't entirely sure what people did for makeshift weapons, but if he still needed one he probably knew something about it. She'd seen people with closet rods, for example, even if she personally sure wouldn't want to try fighting with one.

He frowned, unable to stop himself. "How many people?" he asked. "Is there anything I can do to get higher up on the list? I already have the materials." He wasn't very hopeful about the situation, but it never hurt to try. The meat cleaver was all right, and the pipe was something he could handle, but there was nothing like an actual sword.

"Um..." Skuld mentally counted, although it was difficult when not everyone was sure they would even need her services or not. "About ten, but there's usually cancellations--people get given or find their own weapons, or disappear before their turn comes up."

Still, it would be a while before she got to him, and there wasn't much she could do about that. "I don't usually move the list around unless people just want something small that I can do along with someone else's weapon. If you just ask for a short sword, then maybe."

Asch sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "So it's still a week wait?" he asked. He wondered, internally, if there was anyone else here who could make a weapon. There had to be something he could do. He already had the damn materials after all!

He knew it wasn't exactly Skuld's fault. She couldn't help how long it took, or whatever else. But he was still annoyed; he couldn't help that.

"Somewhere around there." Skuld could understand where he was coming from; she would have been mad if she had to wait, too. "You can ask the other alchemists if they have slots open sooner."

She wondered how badly would it go over if she mentioned that she was starting to require people on her list to do their favors before she made them anything...

"Yeah, maybe I'll post on the board about it," he said. He wasn't sure who the 'other' alchemists were, or if they were reliable. Not that he really knew if Skuld was reliable, either, but that wasn't the point right now. "You know how many other alchemists there are?" The word still felt funny on his tongue; it wasn't one he was familiar with. He'd heard it a few times now, but he wasn't entirely sure what it meant. Making pipes into swords somehow, but that made no actual sense. He just had to go along with it.

He noticed the nurse coming and glared in her general direction. He was sick of feeling like he was constantly being followed by a babysitter or something. The whole thing was ridiculous.

"Hey, if there's any chance of progressing on that list of yours, let me know?" he asked, trying to sound hopeful. He wasn't very good at hopeful.

Skuld shook her head; she could name a few of them, but probably not all. "I'll let you know when it's your turn." It wasn't much, but she couldn't help that. I'd make everybody's at once, right now, if I could.

She could tell he wasn't happy, but she wasn't either. At least he didn't dare snap at her for it.

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he managed to shut his mouth. There wasn't really much else to say; he'd have to check the bulletin board for leads, or post there to the other alchemists.

He hated waiting, but what choice did he have?

The nurse came and collected him to take him off to the showers. Luckily, she didn't call him Luke in front of anyone this time.

Day 44: breakfast

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