damned_institute | Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

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While Hime didn't particularly like the carefree mash up of two meals into one, she at least appreciated that the larger selection meant a higher probability of being able to avoid the greasy fried foods the institute seemed intent on feeding them. Or so one would think. In reality, such foods still dominated the vast majority of the menu.

So it was with a bagel and bowl of fruit that Hime cruised through the line then back to a table near the entrance. Sipping at her juice - she really wish they would them have tea - the princess awaited the appearance of her robot ~~vassal~~ partner.

[For Depth Charge]

Hearing from Ratchet had been oddly reassuring, considering he was the kind of guy who came off like he had a permanent case of rust, but maybe that just made them all the more likely to get on. Pot, meet kettle, etc. Though maybe 'get on' was an exaggeration- they could stand each other. That was good enough for Depth Charge.

And speaking of things being good enough he didn't have to looking for long to find the princess herself, waiting patiently near the doors. The Maximal grabbed a tray, filled it up with the first things that caught his eye ("Granola and tacos? How adventurous for you, Mr. Price, well done!") before sidestepping his nurse and sliding into the seat opposite Hime.

Straight away, he made a point of folding his arms and giving her a one of those prized Looks of his- one hundred percent merciless sarcasm distilled into one glance. "This alive enough for you?" Well. Ninety nine percent, in this case, perhaps. She might have had a point, albeit a very, very small one.

Hime watched as Depth Charge got in line before turning back to her meal. She was in the middle of a piece of fruit when he made his way back to her and leveled that look on her. The Royal was, at best, unimpressed - if he wanted to beat her in dry, sarcastic looks, he was going to have to do better than that.

"It'll have to do for now," she replied unenthusiastically. "Though I suppose the fact that you responded to the board at all was proof enough. You still have the communicator we received?" One of a number of good things that had come from last night, though the only physical item that Depth Charge had kept. She assumed he would, but considering how things had ended, who knew what might have been lost.

And... that did about as much good as giving a flower the stink eye. Which, actually, probably wasn't a good idea anyway, if Primal's reports on Earth's plant life were anything to judge by. Those things sounded pretty slagging vicious.

Anyway, something told Depth Charge he wasn't going to be any match for Hime's apathy this morning, so he dropped the look in favour of at least trying to be helpful. "Yep. Put it in my drawer as soon as I woke up." He paused. "You look like you're in one piece, anyway. Didn't get chewed up too badly?" There was a measured quality to his tone, as though he were trying not to sound more than casually interested. Which he wasn't. On either count. Primus, this was Lugnut all over again, only this time he didn't have the excuse of faction conflict to fall back on.

"Not a scratch, luckily," Hime replied with a casual flip of her hair. As much as Depth Charge said not everyone who had been bitten or injured by zombies hadn't been infected, the princess preferred not to take any chances.

"And yourself? I'd prefer not to have to assume the chance you might turn undead on me," she replied with a small smile that might have meant she was joking. It really didn't matter in either case - Hime trusted her reactions and skills of observation to be enough to notice if the man began to turn.

There it was again, that unreadable smile that reminded him yet again that he had about as much of a grip on her as he did on a well-oiled eel. This time Depth Charge chose to take it as genuine enough.

"Couple of scratches is all. Lucky for you." He leaned in at the second part, raising an eyebrow questioningly. "Something tells me if I'd been bitten you'd either run a mile or kick my sorry skidplate to the curb. Wanna elaborate a little, or do the undead just ding your diodes?"

"Running is not usually my favorite choice of tactics," replied the Royal, leaving only one option. Still, the smile faded from her face when the topic of her issue with zombies came up.

"Not all undead," Hime clarified. "Ghouls, ghosts and mummies certainly can be problematic, and of course, vampires are their own issue altogether, but zombies... they're more akin to a natural disaster than a kind of monster." Her face was solemn as she recalled that night, the faces of those loyal blood warriors who she would never see alive again. Because of that man..! "It seems Landel is using a weaker strain of zombie - probably for his own good, I imagine. In my world, a zombie bite is as good as a death sentence - the infection rate is 100%. Every person they attack just becomes yet another zombie added to the horde. They become an nigh unstoppable force, infecting whoever they come in contact with. And even if they are dealt with, if so much as a single zombie manages to escape, it can infect a new population and start the process all over again. It is for this reason that the use of zombies is taboo, strictly forbidden even for the Royal family."

It was a taboo that had been in place for hundreds of years, for the good of all - the risk of unleashing an uncontrolled wave of zombies was just too great no matter what one's ambitions could be. No rational being would use zombies, for fear of not only the Royals but of the zombies themselves. And yet Hime had seen them employed not once, but twice in her lifetime.

"You know I'm a princess, right?" she asked suddenly, seeming like a change of topic. "And a princess would obviously have a kingdom to rule, vassals who served her, those who lived under her protection, correct? Not just a handful of people, but dozens, hundreds of them, yes?"

She let those numbers, if not those faces and names, sink in for Depth Charge.

"I lost all of those when my brother, Fifth Prince Severin, broke the taboo."

From the first note Depth Charge realised that this wasn't going to be as simple as he'd first thought. Hime wasn't smiling anymore, yes, but that was common enough- it was the way her expression seemed to smooth into a mask of calm as she explained herself. Detached. Maybe that was why he'd already started to feel the creep sink in as she spoke.

It was only when she changed the subject, though, when she started talking about people, that was the point where something seemed to fall into place at last. And along with that came the sinking feeling that he knew where this was going: I've heard this song before, just in a different key. One helpless settlement. A couple of irresponsible wastes of scrap with delusions of grandeur. The outcome seemed almost inevitable to him these days. But when Hime reached the crux of her story that familiar ache still managed to ease in, a heaviness he'd become all too intimate with these days. He didn't need to ask for the end. He'd lived through it already.

He knew, vaguely, that his expression had probably changed while he wasn't thinking about it, and he looked away. Though really, what was the point? He'd already given away his position. Might as well go the whole way. "... hurts, huh?"

The words sounded as stiff and uncomfortable out loud as they had in his head, pried out of somewhere he'd long locked himself out of already. He stopped before he spoke again. A breath. This time he looked Hime in the eyes- he owed that much to her. Though that was the trouble with human eyes, they always gave away more than he wanted them too. "What happened to your brother?"

Unlike Depth Charge, Hime's expression betrayed nothing, but perhaps that in and of itself betrayed her emotions. There was none of her usual imperiousness or smirking, just a cold recital of facts and a piercing gaze that watched the robot as she spoke. And in his expression, she could see this wasn't an unfamiliar tale to him.

That gaze flicking away from him was the only reply to his first question. She could still hear their voices, those loyal servants telling her to go, to leave them behind...

His other question brought her eyes back to him, gaze turning somewhat cold.

"I killed him."

For a moment that was all she said, crimson eyes a predator's gaze, but eventually that stare softened and she let out a sigh.

"He really was a despicable man," she said. "He broke the taboo twice, even going so far as to claim it was my fault the second time, he revived one he slew himself to serve as his blood warrior, and gave me that name..." At least here she could be rid of it. Unfortunately, since it was indeed her actual name, it would be the one used in all official capacities. This is why she preferred living outside the Kingdom. "At the trial for 'my' unleashing of the zombies, I challenged him to a duel and won."

Depth Charge found himself wondering how many times she'd told this story- that was the look of someone who'd gotten used to talking about it, flatly, in that detached voice (did I sound like that? around the second or third interrogation maybe, or-)

Had been the look. For the first time he saw the mask crack a little at the first question, and for a moment he couldn't wonder what of the thousands of things he'd gotten used to hitting him in backwash was going through her head at that moment: a face? A moment from the attack? A voice? Trouble with ghosts was, they always knew exactly how to hit you where it hurt.

Then it was gone, and suddenly Hime's eyes were colder than he'd ever seen them before, staring across at him. Through him. He had to wonder what she was seeing, in that brief, piercing moment.

Next thing he knew and she was picking up the song again, and all the notes were lined up in the right order just as before. One man, a lapse in justice... and a restoring of it. "That name...?" he asked, after a moment, but that hadn't been what he'd wanted to ask. He breathed in silently then looked up again properly, facing her head-on. "Did it help?"

In fact, it wasn't one she told often, if at all. Still, it wasn't in her nature to show tears before another, and of course, any of her usual attitude was unsuited to the words she was saying. So she simply showed nothing. At least, as much as she could.

She gave a little sigh when she finished, some of the tension leaving her slender frame. It was in the past now.

"I was given the same name as a cat that he tortured and killed. That's why I prefer to be called Hime," she answered shortly. "And yes, it did. I hope now that their souls can rest a little easier now that they've been avenged."

And then a bit of her usual attitude returned.

"And even if not, it's one less corrupt prince running around."

Something about simply being renamed like that struck the Maximal cold. Twisted slagger. But then, even she'd made her peace now- well, as much as you could in that kind of situation. The corner of Depth Charge's mouth tightened a little as his jaw clenched down. What, then, was he missing? He'd slayed his dragons own already, so why couldn't he just let things lie?

But that train of thought what getting out of hand, and he couldn't stop to think about that now. Last time that had happened here things had gotten pretty ugly, pretty fast. Not to mention he'd been out a flashlight for a couple of days.

"And I think I prefer 'princess'," he answered after a second, giving Hime a crooked smile. "That's one way of looking at it. Can never get rid of too many psychopaths." That was one thing to focus on, at least. X wasn't around anymore. He tilted his head for a moment, thoughtful. "The zombies here don't seen to be too contagious, at least. Looks like they wear off after a couple of days. Small mercies, you know?"

Not even renamed - truly, it was her birth name and one that would follow her wherever she went in the Kingdom, the one sin of Severin that she could never be rid of. What a cruel joke, to name his little sister like that. At least her sisters and her servants didn't use it. And here, well... no one even knew.

"It's the same thing - Hime is just Japanese for 'Princess'. A nickname my sister gave me, since she couldn't bear to have a little sister who wouldn't answer to any name," Hime said with a shrug. But Silvia really was in the minority; even Emil still called her by her birth name.

"Small mercies indeed. It seems Landel's smart enough not to risk a full outbreak," the princess mused. "Then again, considering that there was no sign of them yesterday when we went in town while it was light, who knows if even that much would trouble him."

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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