Day 48: Courtyard

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

"I could tell you some stories," Yuffie suggested brightly, "of unquestionable legality." Illegality, that was. Petty little things like the law didn't usually mean very much to her, except for the times when she had to uphold it. Always fun for the breaking, though, the law, and messy for the clean-up. Just the way she liked it.

Her nurse looked like she wanted to rub her temples. With sandpaper. "No, thank you," she said instead. "Why don't you run along, now?" Please!, was the unspoken request. Before I spontaneously combust. Or commit various acts of violence that would have me arrested, or placed in a loony bin. Like this one. Yuffie had quite a bit of fun filling in the blanks other people left. Sometimes she did it outloud, just to see the reaction; sometimes she kept it to herself. It really, really depended.

"Don't mind if I do!"

She took off, bolting out into the Courtyard. The weather was dour, overcast and threatening rain, but Yuffie didn't care. She'd refused a coat on principle, and had found herself bargaining: Fine, fine, Plucky had conced she could go without a coat, but unless she had at least a sweatshirt on, there'd be no outside-time for her. She ran a little ways down the dirt path, then toppled herself into a series of cartwheels. Straighten, run. Cartwheel. Straighten, run, just for the sheer sake of movement, and the whip of the wind. She laughed a little giddily, checking her gait down to a jog. Gawd, Leviathan, she'd needed this. Right from the get-go, she'd needed this. Every day she spent cooped up in side, the more nervous energy she had.

Nanaki had helped, she realized. Sort of. He'd…helped. In a way. His presence and everything that was wrong with it weighed on her, for sure, but he was still Nanaki. He didn't deserve to be here, didn't deserve to be stuck in a body that he hated and couldn't use, but all the same, she found herself glad to have him.

Yuffie started to hum, as she jogged leisurely around the Courtyard. A cheery little tune, one of her favorites; no, it was her favorite. A Wutaian walking song, with the roughly translated title of Pathway After the Rain. The pace stayed even but the tune picked up, and she found herself half-singing snatches of the lyrics to herself. It felt like ages since she'd last said anything in her native tongue, at least outloud; she wrote in it all the time.

[The Doctor]

Comments

[idolism]

Ah, yes, one variable always involved in picking teams were temperaments. And the fact that Zack seemed the type to accept some things as they came without distracting Aidou with a bunch of pointless questions or outbursts or other mental fits was fine by him. He eyed the human, assigning a few more ‘like’ points to him. The basement had been chalk full of messy and somewhat rough plans from the beginning, Aidou knew this, but the lack of proper preparation would be much easier if the people he had to work with could just deal with things instead of getting on the noble’s nerves.

A part of this was the willingness to follow Aidou’s words without second-guessing him, but that went without saying.

“Someone I’ve been cooperating with regarding the basement for a while. His name is Sasuke and he‘s already in,” Aidou answered. He didn’t hold prejudice against females, either, considering the balanced scales of the vampire world, but most of the women he’d had dealings with in the Institute were all deficient for the job in some way. Anise was the latest example of that. If Aidou happened to be hurt again in front of someone like her…

Well, he couldn’t necessarily trust Zack in that regard, either. He’d just have to ensure there was no reason to reveal his nature if it came down to working together.

[zack-fair.livejournal.com]

So Aidou already had someone else in mind, huh? It looked like he would be the third piece of the puzzle, then. Zack was going to feel even worse if he had to decline, in that case. It sounded like Aidou was more or less ready to put his plan into action, and Zack would be holding him back if he had to devote his time to something else.

As for having to work with a third person who he didn't know, that wasn't something that concerned Zack much. He didn't have issues when it came to teaming up with strangers, since it didn't take long for them to not be strangers anymore. He was sure he'd get along with this Sasuke guy just fine.

"If not tonight, then tomorrow night for sure," he said decidedly. Zack was sure he could coordinate that with his friends. While he would have liked to work together with them as well (Cloud specifically), he was sure they'd have all sorts of time for that. He felt bad about ZEX, too, but he'd technically made this promise to Aidou first -- not to mention he got the feeling that Aidou's issue was a bit more urgent than ZEX's.

Then, the intercom went off and Zack paused in his walking. He glanced over toward the doors that led back into the building and watched as more nurses piled out to come round them all up. "Guess our time's up," he said with a small shrug. "I'll get a hold of you over that board, okay?"

[idolism]

That would work. If Sasuke had his other business to attend to then, well, Aidou would figure something else out to round out a three-person group. Almost any other fighter-type would be preferable to cooperating with an ex-human again; if he looked at things that way, he had a hell of a lot more choices. There was always the option of helping Sasuke in order for Sasuke to be free later…

Outwardly, Aidou just nodded and gave an acknowledging, “Okay,” while inwardly suppressing a scowl at Landel’s routine interruption. It was exceptionally infuriating that afternoon, though. Ugh, that fool! What he wouldn’t give to end that life once and for all.

At least his morning hadn’t been a total waste. This’d been something resembling progress.