damned_institute | Day 46: Lunch

The mere fact that she'd been susceptible to whatever hold the Institute had had on her yesterday was sufficient to leave Ayumu both upset and angry - no, not angry, downright furious, both at herself and whoever was responsible for that. But there was also the fact that because of it, she'd lost out on an entire day of work, and in several ways had ruined some of what she'd done already. That little conversation with Himura the day before, for instance, was something she'd sincerely prefer not to remember if she'd had any choice in the matter.

Unless the man was a complete moron, which, unfortunately, was one thing she couldn't believe of him, he had to have realized just who her brother was. After all the effort to keep that fact quiet (not exactly a secret, but certainly not advertised; half the Shinsengumi probably never even realized it because there was no reason to) she'd gone and chatted about it with him. Told him all about it, practically painted a bright target around a weakness that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

She'd spent the shift in the Sun Room pretending to sleep, while in truth forcing herself into calm. After years of practice she could shunt away the useless and distracting emotions, focusing only on what was important and needed to be at the forefront of her mind, and by the time the intercom signaled the lunch period she was feeling considerably calmer. The time to silently observe others had, as well, alerted her to something she probably should have noticed earlier: Mello was back. Would her previous objective be reinstated now? He seemed to have far less of a bulletin presence this time, so perhaps not. Still, though, it bore investigating.

None of her thoughts were visible, of course, as she moved through the line, examining the lunch selection somewhat dubiously. Now with the benefit of Yuuko's memories she might recognize the food, but she certainly didn't share the enthusiasm for it that her imaginary self apparently had. Ayumu skipped past that part and settled for the salad bar and some bread, then positioned herself in a place where she could watch both the door and the rest of the room, setting her journal open in front of herself as though planning to write something. There was far too much that she'd missed, too much work to do now.

[for Okita]

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Well, he'd been about to say something to her before she went ahead and spoke first, and she was used to carefully blank expressions and if he wasn't a new arrival, it really shouldn't be all that surprising about the night, but if he insisted.

"Was it really dangerous?" she asked, continuing that grilling-others-about-the-monsters-to-avoid-getting-caught-off-guard idea she'd totally stolen from Violet. And considering she hadn't remembered shifting to jujin form at all last night, it was secretly a how-do-you-tell-if-your-enemies-are-human question in disguise, but she'd get to that.

She was also vaguely remembering a third floor—but that was Airi's memory, so it was stupid to rely on her, considering Airi was utterly delusional. ...But Airi had still, in some odd way, been her, and Airi had definitely counted them—

Those thoughts were going to get her nowhere and they were losing thoughts and who knew, might even be thoughts Landel had planted because apparently he could get at people's brains. Dammit. Mele plucked her pen from her pocket and started twirling it around her fingers.

On one hand, she was prying, and prying an Animorph was not good ever. On the other, he couldn't blame her-- this place was pretty damn dangerous-- and relented, "They brainwashed me to attack people trying to get out. I don't really want to talk about it."

"So it was dangerous, huh?"

One one hand, Mele hadn't eaten much that morning and she was kind of hungry now. On the other hand...she didn't want to eat anything right now. Back to the first hand, not having any energy meant she was basically a sitting duck come lights-out. She reached for the food, but her pen was in her hand.

The twirling...somewhere along the way, Mele realized, it'd become a nervous habit. She forced herself to stop twirling and put the pen down.

"He does that a lot," she continued the thread of conversation with a sigh, picking up that corner of the...pizza thing or whatever again. "At least it wasn't—" Waitaminute. "...Did you think you were someone else yesterday? ...Yesterday morning, I mean."

"Yeah, it was," he said, flatly, and dug into his pizza again. He could feel the dull noise of his tail blade hitting that pale-haired kid, feel the impact down his spine again... god, at least when a person had a Yeerk in their head, they could fight it.

"Dodged that bullet, but thanks for asking." His tone was edging towards unfriendly, for probably the first time since he'd gotten here; she was still prying, even after he said he didn't want to talk about it, and it was not a comfortable feeling.

Oh yeah, there was that thing, what was it? About being sensitive to other people's feelings. It'd been a while, but Mele remembered how to do that. "Happened to me too, if it makes you feel any better."

...Eventually.

Well, if he didn't want to figure out how Landel had gotten into his head. "How many ways do you think Landel is being imagined getting killed by now?" Mele picked up her pen, then put it down again. "Must be hundreds, hm?" Her glance flickered to the other prisoners arrayed all around the room.

"I'm sure it's happened to a lot of people." All kinds of things happened to lots of people, like nearly getting tortured to death or having to kill people or nearly getting eaten by a raccoon-- well, okay, maybe not that one-- or being raised by people who didn't care about you. That didn't make those things suck any less. "And probably more. I know I'm gonna start a list."

"Really? I only know two—" ...Okay, right, they weren't talking about that. Maybe she could bother him later or something.

"A list? In case the first couple of methods don't work?" Mele asked without sarcasm or irony, leaning against the table even while she finished looking around—Landel had said there were new people, but it hadn't occurred to her until now—nope, no Rio. Swallowing her disappointment (relief?), Mele turned back, "How many do you have so far?"

Right, she'd dropped it, finally.

... And had taken that literally. Not that Tobias hadn't killed before-- he'd killed more than he cared to think about, from the intimate killing of biting through someone's throat to the time he'd caused the extinction of the dinosaurs-- but... never another human, not when he wasn't in the middle of fighting for his life.

But if it had been Visser 3 up there, laughing at them, would he hesitate?

"... I hadn't really thought about it," he said, quietly, "but I can think of at least three or four ways off the top of my head." Wait, he'd been in Andalite morph last night, hadn't he? He'd just assumed he could only morph back to human, at night, but he'd have to see if he could do it again. If so, that was another way to kill the bastard: tailblade decapitation. "More, if I can get my hands on weapons."

Maybe she should ask more people that question; it was...kind of hilarious. Not that she thought Lo—Landel could be killed just by wishing for it, though.

"Weapons is a problem, isn't it?" she said idly, poking at the...thing. Pizza, Airi's memory supplied.

...Why did she still have Airi's memory.

Later. She'd think about that later.

"How many is it if weapons aren't a problem?" Not paying too much attention to what she'd said, Mele tried to pick up the pizza again. There was a way to eat this without it getting on her hands, she just had to remember it and she really missed her gloves. "I'm Mele, by the way," she added, peeking over at him to see how he was managing to hold the blasted food.

Day 46: Lunch

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