Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

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]

Comments

[revolutionise]

Tartarus seemed to have an eerie similarity to a place Utena already knew way too well. True, neither the dueling arena nor the stairway leading up to it had any monsters lurking around; the enemies there were always human. Still, the description of a mysterious, deliriously tall structure that could only be entered at night was definitely enough to make Utena shiver.

"So that's why you were built, then?" Utena's respect for Aigis was born all over again with that knowledge on the table, but the feeling was accompanied by a major uneasiness settling in her. Her eyes were wide with a mix of awe and horror. Fighting monsters at home probably made dealing with the stuff inside Landel's easier, Utena supposed, but it wasn't a life she would wish on any girl, android or not. Even if Aigis thought her work was noble and necessary, and even if that really was true, the thought of bringing a girl into the world just to fight horrible creatures was starting to make Utena angry. It just didn't sound right, not at all.

Her teeth grit together behind her lips as she watched Aigis just sit there, sipping tea and collecting her thoughts as though all this talk of monsters and dark towers was a routine worry, nothing more. "How can you act so calm about something like that?" she blurted out after a few moments of silence. Her fingers clenched tighter around her utensils and her volume continued to increase as she continued: "That's just sick that someone would try to put you through something like that straight from birth! I mean, yeah, it's a good thing you're doing for people, but they didn't even let you choose if you wanted to do it before you started? That's terrible!"

[no-dont-go.livejournal.com]

Aigis was surprised by the fervor in which Utena responded to her explanation of Tartarus. Of course she was calm. Fighting Shadows was what she did. It was the world she had been born into, and one she had been programmed to accept as fact.

Shaking her head emphatically, Aigis couldn't help the small smile that came to her face. She didn't quite understand why it amused her. "Please do not be upset, Tenjou-san. I am sure if they had asked me for my opinion after my first awakening, I would have said that I wished to fight Shadows."

Her smile faded. She began to cut her tofu into tiny pieces, but she didn't attempt to eat any. "I suppose, if you had even asked me as little as a month ago, I would have chosen the same. A robot is programmed to perform a task, not to interject their own will."