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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The noble had to wonder how Anise could say these things with a straight face. Flippancy? Being a child? For his part, Aidou had to bridle his disgust each time he thought on his overall lack of progress, and sometimes he couldn’t hold it all back and it seeped out into his veins like poison. The dark well of his emotions was the biggest reason why the fun he had playing around as Idol felt like a dim memory.

Apparently he’d spoiled Anise, and now the girl didn’t like what she was seeing. Ohhh, how sad. I’m not popular when I’m serious.

"I know," the vampire informed her. "I’m not discouraged." He wasn’t. The mornings were always the hardest, but he’d only let desperation creep over him for a second in the chapel. Among the many things Aidou didn’t know about what was going on and how to get around Landel’s pitfalls, he at least knew faltering would be a mistake. He didn’t need Anise to tell him that.

Lifting his chin, he gave a small, cryptic smile in return.

"Sorry I’m not cheerful, for all that."

Wanting to escape and losing enthusiasm for everything sure sounded like being 'discouraged' to Anise, but fine. She didn't feel like arguing.

"You're weird," she mumbled after a moment, picking up her fork again and eating one of the strawberries. With her dampened mood, the fruit didn't seem to taste as sweet as it had just minutes ago. "But I guess if you're fine with that..." Then there wasn't any way to cheer him up, since he wasn't interested in cheering up. The girl's shoulders sagged a bit, and the disappointment was plainly written on her face. She'd gotten him to smile, but it wasn't a happy smile. She wasn't sure what kind of smile she'd call it, but it clearly wasn't what she was hoping for.

She ate quietly for some time before growing restless with the silence and speaking up again. "So, um... what have you been up to lately? Did you end up making it back to those ruins?"

The noble couldn’t help it: he laughed under his breath. “That hurts,” he said. “Considering the incredibly weird things you’ve no doubt seen here.” Aidou wasn’t exactly humoured by her assessment, but he wasn’t all that insulted by it either. One thing seemed to remain unchanged between the home he knew and the hospital’s unnatural environment, and it was that those who weren’t vampires found a vampire’s way of thinking somewhat hard to grasp. Simple truths, indeed.

Well, that was all right. Almost like he had a secret. An age-old and poorly kept secret, of course, but his source of strength. Vampire pride.

And even if what he did enclose himself in was sheer pride, what was so wrong with that? It might have put a downtrodden expression on a girl’s face, but Aidou thought it was also what was keeping him from becoming the worn out shell Anise had been worried about only a moment ago. It was also, he was coming to think, what was going to help him smash his pitiful track record.

He put a spoonful of soup in his mouth, assuming by her silence that Anise had given up seeking an answer. When she finally veered onto another topic, Aidou’s initial uncertainty about letting her sit eased even more. Ah, this could go somewhere. “I haven’t, no,” he answered, finding it more expedient to answer both questions at once. He didn’t want to go into detail about how little he’d actually been up to. Anise’s adventures, though… Aidou angled his head and gave her a mild look of scrutiny, absently stirring his soup. “On the other hand, somehow I don’t think you took my advice about staying out of trouble. Have you tried to reach them again?”

Edited 2010-06-22 05:09 (UTC)

It didn't surprise Anise when Aidou didn't answer the first part of her question. He never seemed to want to talk about what he did at night. It looked like if she ever wanted to find out what his late night activities were, asking directly would be the least effective method of finding out. Oh well. If she ever got curious enough, there were always indirect methods she could try.

"Oh, you realized? Hee hee." The girl brightened a bit, seemingly pleased with his observation. Anise wasn't the sort to give up on any goal easily, so it was nice that he'd noticed that much about her. "I've taken a couple trips back there. Made it all the way both times, too! So I've covered a lot of ground." That ought to show him for treating her like dead weight. Anise could be plenty productive, given the chance!

Her grin widened, and she took on a somewhat playful tone. "Do you want to hear about it?"

As though her recklessness was a good thing.

Instead of commenting, he continued to eat, listening more intently than his calm mien would suggest. So she was like Senna and had succeeded in mapping out more of the ghost town. And like during his conversation with Senna the day before, his interest was there, sharp and stirring under the surface of his skin.

When it didn’t involve him directly, Aidou couldn’t very well stop Anise from doing (or not doing) dangerous things. That was her choice. The end result, however, might benefit him, and that was what he focused on.

The vampire lifted his gaze from his bowl and fixed it on her. His eyes had gone a deep, deep blue. He didn’t know the girl so well that he could guess whether she’d try to barter for information or not, but dangling her findings with no reason other than to tease would be a bad idea after everything lately. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Without pretence, Aidou said, “Yes. Are you going to tell me?”

Anise might have been willing to offer up the information easily if Aidou had been more friendly, but it wasn't looking like charity was going to be the key to this guy's heart. And in that case, why give away good information for free?

"Maybe! If you have something to tell me in return," Anise replied, still grinning widely. To somewhat justify her terms, she added in a more delicate tone, "After all, with how the bulletin is now, it's harder for news to travel." Information was more valuable than ever now, especially information about hard-to-reach areas of the institute.

"I'm not asking for much, though! Just anything that isn't already common knowledge. And if you can't think of anything, then I'll think of something for you to tell me." There was a mischievous glint in her eyes. Aidou was a pretty mysterious guy, so there were plenty of things she wanted to ask if she could ever expect an answer.

Of course, there was always the chance that this grouch would refuse to go along with her proposition, so she decided to bait him some more. "Or you can say no, if you don't want to hear about the people in that town..." She twirled a lock of her hair with her finger, trying to look nonchalant. Part of her wanted to blab about her progress to show off, but the practical side of Anise knew she should take advantage of her possession of lesser-known information.

Exchanges weren’t new to him, even outside of the Institute. Aristocrats rarely did favours for one another for free. But those were nobles and this was… a little human girl, one who was managing to beam while still frugally managing her advantages. Bargaining with him, was she? Aidou couldn’t help but think that if he had kept up his act around her, perhaps things wouldn’t have come to this point.

But to seem so carefree about it, too… Anise made propositions with more joy than he would. He might have been impressed in another situation. When her playful baiting was directed at him, though, he had to smother a wave of choler.

At the mention of people in the ruins, a frown touched his lips. He set his spoon down. The girl was apparently not adverse to accepting Landel’s-related information, and Aidou was not exactly bereft in that sense. But she was also hinting at some other tidbit. So the question was… was she trying to be cunning or merely cute?

Aidou forced his voice to remain smooth. "Not about to share without getting something in return, hm? I see. Do you have something specific in mind?"

"Information about places that are hard to get to is always good," Anise suggested, tapping her chin with her index finger. "Like the areas outside, or locked rooms, or places with interesting secrets or useful stuff to find. Anything about the radio and the people who talk on it is good, too." Those were plenty of examples, and she was sure a guy who'd been around as long as Aidou must have learned something interesting in his time at the institute.

But, since she was being generous, Anise was giving him an alternative. "And if you don't know anything or don't want to share anything like that, you could always tell me a secret about yourself! Like, say... you could tell me where you were really going that night we met up in the hallway."

That night when she bumped into him, Aidou claimed he was going outside, through the field, but he had just moved south from the patient blocks - the opposite direction. Then, after she ran into him, he tried to brush away her questions and get rid of her at every opportunity. It definitely seemed like Aidou was hiding something.

Despite the accusation in her words, the girl continued to wear a bright smile on her face. At the moment, she was less bothered about having been lied to, and more happy about getting to put someone on the spot like this. For her, this was just her usual nosiness.

“Mmm…” he breathed, letting a moment pass between her answer and his response. His expression was neutral.

Underneath it, however, the vampire was more alert than he had been moments before. Where he’d been really going? So Anise had been wondering what he’d been doing? That was dangerous, not only because he couldn’t classify the human as totally harmless, but because people thinking on him was no longer always a good thing.

Just because she couldn’t possibly know anything didn’t mean she wasn’t still invading his privacy by accusing him. Not asking, but accusing. Where had that worry of hers gone in so short a time? It seemed his presence alone wasn’t enough to keep her satisfied, and now she was starting to rib him with a remarkably lack of conscience. Her “deal” didn’t sit pleasantly with him, and he let her see some of it in the way he stared at her.

“I can tell you what I know about a variety of things, if that’s what you want. I won’t even lie to you like I'm sure some would. But it sounds like what you really want is to accuse me of something.” He hadn’t lost his agreeable demeanor, not yet, but he did wonder how far she was willing to take her teasing with people. He was starting to feel like he was on trial. And he didn‘t like it. “That night I considered meeting someone,” he started, not giving her a chance to reply. “I changed my mind once I realized there was a monster I’ve met before in the same hall. I decided to do something else rather than bring risk to myself. And then you ran into me.” He crossed his arms on the table. “It’s not a secret. Though,” he purred, leaning forward slightly, “if it was bothering you, you could have asked and… gotten it off your chest.” Would having her own words thrown back at her be enough to pass her test? "Or do you distrust me after all?"

If this kept up, getting her story about the ruins would almost be too much trouble. So much for his sympathetic little fan. It looked like they were both missing the other’s play-acting.

Edited 2010-06-25 00:14 (UTC)

Aidou's gaze and the rising tension in the air made Anise's heart beat faster, but she did her best to keep any nervousness from showing on her face. "Of course I trust you!" Anise practically sang in reply, her smile never wavering. "And I did ask! Just now. You didn't seem like you were in a chatty mood then, so I waited." Hmph. Would Aidou really have answered if she'd asked him that night? He was being cold and dismissive the entire time.

"Hmm... but is that really all it was? That's kind of boring." She tilted her head a little as she mused to herself. "I thought it might be something exciting, like a secret mission or a secret lover... but I guess I'm glad it wasn't the latter." The answer had still been pretty vague (who was he going to meet?) and there was no way to know if it was the truth or not, but if Anise wanted to convince Aidou that she trusted him, she'd have to accept it.

"Well, anyway!" The girl clapped her hands together as she dismissed the topic. "You did answer my question, so I guess I'll have to tell you what I found. It's a pretty ugly mental image, though, so don't say I didn't warn you." Anise wasn't sure how well Aidou could handle gruesome details, but if he was bad with them, this was his cue to push his food tray away. Anise made sure to do so with her own, which was nearly empty at this point anyway. There was no way she'd be able to continue eating after remembering that excursion.

Boring was better than interesting in this case. Interesting might have meant walking a fine line between showing displeasure to a girl and warning off a girl, and the latter would’ve officially put their lunch time conversation on a different track.

As it was, he hadn’t seriously been bringing his own trustworthiness into question, but at her buoyant reassurance, he knew at once she was lying, or at least didn’t believe in her words as strongly as she spoke them. So then, Anise held him in question in some way. That gave the noble a small pause. It wasn’t precisely a surprise, yet… had she always been the type of person to do so, or had it been his behavior that‘d brought her to it? Either way, she still carried on with him like nothing was amiss. Why was that?

Aidou snorted at her ‘secret activity’ scenarios (how could he have raised up a lover here in so short a time?) before putting his chin into his hand. “Yes,” he said tiredly, following her change in tune, “let’s give this ‘truth or dare’ atmosphere a rest. It’s bringing me down.” There, he’d been honest. He was playing enough games with his captor and other prisoners, he didn’t need to fight for information and manage his words with Anise, too. Che. He was going to have to be more careful with her, obviously.

“It’s okay. Tell me whatever you remember.”

If he was able to wring something that simple out of her at all, he’d be content.

Edited 2010-06-26 05:25 (UTC)

Ack. Did she just put him in an even worse mood? There just wasn't any pleasing this guy, was there?

"Okay, so..." Taking on a more solemn attitude, since there really wasn't any way to act cheerful while talking about this, Anise leaned forward with her arms folded on the table and began explaining. "There's this church in the ruins, and it didn't look as damaged as the other buildings, so we tried going inside... It was a little chapel, with one big room for services." She still remembered the uncomfortable feeling that came over her when she entered, as if she'd just walked in on a stranger's funeral.

"...The whole room was full of bodies."

The phrase itself felt almost heavy in a way, and she let it linger in the air for a few seconds before going on. "They were like skeletons, and they looked like they just died where they were sitting." At some point, the girl's gaze had fallen to the surface of the table. The memory was still fresh, and still very disturbing. It was one thing to see dead bodies on a battlefield, but in a place where people should have been safe? It was horrible.

The vampire was more than ready to turn his attention onto the ruins, and he did nothing to interrupt her as she began. Her warning about ugly images was heeded, but unnecessary. Carnage was written into his blood. And in regards to blood, Aidou already knew about the old blood that dotted what was left of the town, naturally, and had spent his time since his first and only trip there building theories about what the rest of the town could hold.

The church he’d heard about, too, though briefly and from the bulletin…

His expression was still as Anise described what was inside, his only reaction a glitter in eyes that had grown intent. A normal child as he thought of them would’ve been far less calm about walking into a tomb--however real or unreal--and in that moment, Aidou was glad that Anise defied her age in the many ways she did. A church full of old bones… it stuck out like a high note in his head, pulling at the memories of reading about similar discoveries. It seemed the town, too, was an area frozen in time. Night after night, the same holocaust.

Pensive, Aidou curled his fingers in and pressed his lips to the back of them. “I’d heard a little of that place before,” he eventually said. “And that there were remains in the town.” There was more he wanted to say, but he glanced at Anise first, gauging her. After the mentality she’d displayed just during lunch, would she balk at thinking deeply about a perceived slaughter? Or had she already? “Did you notice anything else?” he asked. “About the church, the skeletons?”

The memory of the horrific discovery was still too fresh for Anise to feel completely comfortable talking about it, but the girl knew, both now and then, that she wouldn't gain anything by turning her eyes away from the truth. Besides, she'd seen plenty of horrors before then, too. She couldn't quite say she was okay with blood and gore, but she'd seen enough to learn to deal with it.

Anyway, Anise was the one who offered the information, so she couldn't exactly quit in the middle of her explanation, just because it was scary to think about.

"We looked around for clues, to see if we could find out what happened, but there wasn't much there. Just a holy text, some old clothes, and some wine. Oh, and money." Anise and Tenzen had been pretty thorough about searching the church's back room, so it was safe to say that there wasn't anything more to find there. However, there was still one thing they found that really stood out. "There was writing on the wall, though... it might have been a message from the victims."

She hesitated just a moment, then recited what she'd seen. "It said, 'you will both burn.' I... think they wrote it in blood." Anise looked up and made eye contact with Aidou once again, but she soon began fidgeting with her fingers. It wasn't exactly normal to talk about things like this over the breakfast table.

Aidou weighed her words silently, consigning the finer details to memory while he considered the larger implications of what the church’s place was in the overall scheme of the town.

“Did you take anything?” Text was revealing in and of itself, but if she or whoever she’d been with had grabbed something like the currency, it could also be revealing. The flag he’d come across in the school building came to mind. But writing yet? The vampire could easily picture the scene in his head, and literal writing on the wall was right at home in the Institute’s overly dramatic atmosphere.

A promise in blood. “You will both burn.”

Those words… Those words could refer to a lot of things, if the state of the town was to be believed. Alec Doyle and Martin Landel? The pieces weren’t aligning together perfectly, however. When Aidou had been there, the dried blood had been human to his senses, and it was logical to theorize that it’d come from the human remains left scattered about. But then why would the bodies be posed so naturally? And who would have been left behind to leave a message? Would it really have been the victims, as Anise suggested?

Where Anise was concerned, she was clearly uncomfortable, but so long as she continued to answer, he’d ask. “About the bones… you didn’t see any signs of violence at all? Nothing that would hint at how they’d died?” If he could have, he would’ve picked Anise’s brain--what he wanted to know could only be best understood if he’d stood over the remains himself. Bald facts. The girl wasn’t someone close to him, and she’d proved herself to have thorns as well as petals, but there was no need for pointless insensitivity with her. His phrasing was kinder than it could have been.

"U-um..." For a few seconds, Anise considered whether or not she should lie. She did take one thing: a wad of bills from the chapel's collection plate. It wasn't like the dead were going to use it! But coming out and saying that would sound really, really bad. She didn't want to say something that would make Aidou's opinion of her drop!

Her initial reaction probably already revealed that she had taken something, so Anise tried to think fast as she finally answered. "I, er... might have taken a bit of the money." The girl scratched her cheek as she explained. "Y-you know, since we don't have paper money where I'm from, so I was curious."

Right. Earth money was just a novelty to her, that's all!

When asked about the bones, Anise shook her head. "Most of them were sitting in rows in the pews, so it didn't look like there was a struggle. Some of them looked like they were huddled together, though... like they knew something horrible was coming. But there weren't any wounds I could see." Not that she'd given the bodies a close examination, but she figured it would be more obvious if they had been killed with weapons or brute force.

Until Anise hesitated, the vampire hadn’t stopped to consider the ethical side of things. Where Landel’s was concerned, principles were an option rather than a hard and fast rule, and raiding was pretty tame. He blinked, then realized right away why she might not want to be too forthcoming.

“I doubt it’ll be missed. It probably regenerates each night like most things, and it’s hard to disrespect the dead when we can’t know the ruins weren’t just elaborately staged,” he said lightly, as though he were merely making a comment. He shifted his chin and hoped his next request wasn’t going to start off another round of teasing ploys. Enough of that. “Ne, what would you say to showing me some of it sometime? If it’s recognizable, that could help put a timeframe to it.” Aidou didn’t exactly want to get into a discussion of paper money and its history, but he especially didn’t want her to start thinking weird things, like he was going to steal it from her, or was using it as an excuse for something else.

So what if he hadn’t always lavished her with attention, he hadn’t done anything suspicious for her to honestly think he was a creep, right? Anise’s two-facedness made it hard to tell sometimes.

On top of the money, there were the bones to think about. He would have to examine the church himself, when or if he found himself there. Not to mention there was the whole rest of the town yet. “Is the church the only place you’ve visited?”

"Right, right! You totally get it," Anise hastily agreed with a nod. It looked like Aidou wasn't going to judge her for what she did, which was good news.

When he mentioned what could be learned from the money, Anise stopped leaning on the table and pulled Tokunaga off of her back, holding it in her lap. "Actually... I have it with me." She dug her fingertips into the doll's torso, feeling around between the large stitches. All of this was done discreetly, with the doll still on her lap. Money was something that patients weren't supposed to have, so she didn't want the nurses to see it.

While she pulled at them, she answered Aidou's other question. "Yeah. A friend I talked to said she went inside a schoolhouse there, though. She said she found a flag of 'America' there. I guess it's supposed to be the country we're in."

Since the bills weren't stuffed too deeply inside the doll, it wasn't long before she pulled the rolled up money out. The girl then took one of the bills from the small bundle, and shoved the rest back where she got them.

For a moment, she studied the bill herself, noting the picture in the center, the stamp to the side, and the writing all over the paper. 'United States Note,' 'One Dollar,' 'Washington D.C.,' 'Series of 1923'... and a bunch of numbers. Most of it didn't mean anything to Anise, but maybe Aidou, being from Earth, could make sense out of it.

Anise rolled it back up and hid it in her hand, then reached across to drop it into Aidou's hand. "Tell me what you can get out of this, okay?" She winked, just to be cute.

… She had it with her? In the doll?

Aidou was so engrossed watching her dig around inside the deformed lump that it took a second for mention of the schoolhouse flag to register. Schoolhouse and church, huh. Of the rest, he had yet to learn.

As the girl finished rooting, he lifted his head, wide-awake at the sight of the money. Way to go, Anise! And here he’d thought it was just a strange-looking toy. Even better was that she seemed to have kept the nurses unaware of its dual function. If they were, there was no way they’d let her keep it with her during the day.

He held his hand out, equally mindful of watchful eyes. "Nice one. This saves a lot of time," the noble declared. It really was American currency, too… Holding the delicate paper in the shadow of the table edge, he examined it like Anise had. It made more sense to him. "That flag was definitely American, and so is this. But I notice nothing that’s really identifiable as American is up-to-date here--1923 was a year long in the past. The style and architecture of the town are old like this bill, too." Aidou found himself much more talkative with a new piece of evidence in his hands; his impressions slipped out without hesitation. And Doyleton, Doyleton had a similar rustic feel to it.

Anise beamed, clearly pleased with the praise. And now, with Aidou's knowledge of Earth, she could learn a little more about what she found! Finally, the conversation was moving in a good direction (for her).

"So it's really old?" Anise cocked her head to the side, thinking. "I guess it did look a little different from Doyleton, but... it's pretty hard to judge when those are the only Earth towns I've ever seen." There was a part of Anise that was curious about what the rest of Earth was like, outside of the tiny part she'd been exposed to, but there was a chance that she'd never get to see before she returned to Auldrant.

The intercom buzzed to life then, and the nurses began escorting patients away from their seats.

"Ah! Quick, give it back. We'll have to go soon," Anise urged the noble, holding out her hand.

Aidou didn’t answer at first. There were still vital things he didn’t like to bring into question unless there was absolutely no way he could deny the alternatives, such as Anise speaking about Earth as though it was a piece of curious fiction. But he didn’t have to--the beginning of a new activity shift prevented further talk.

In the midst of clattering trays and the scrape of chair legs on the floor, the vampire turned his hand over with the delicate paper held against his palm and passed it back. Having seen the specimen once was enough.

Lunch coming to a close when he hadn’t yet finished eating was a shame, but this time he had at least learned something new. Picking up a pear with his now free hand, the noble leaned back and said, “Thanks for that.” Even if he wasn’t thankful for everything she’d done while sitting with him. Still… “I’m sure… I’ll be seeing you.”

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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