damned_institute | Day 51: Breakfast

Entry tags:

Day 51: Breakfast

Yuffie Kisaragi, indomitable bouncing ball of sunshine and unfathomable ebullience, was tired. It'd been a long night full of gibberish and getting nowhere fast.

"Can't I—"

Plucky, who had been busily loading a plate full of French toast and bacon, tittered. "I'm afraid not, Hanna, darling. A chat over a nice, hearty breakfast would do you a world of good, don't you think?"

"Aaaaactually—"

"Come on, let's find you a seat. Plenty to choose from this morning!"

For a long moment, Yuffie seriously considered doing something—anything—to act out. Punch her nurse, rub jam in an orderly's face, climb a wall and hang off the ceiling, jump on a table and parody Loveless… A ruckus like that would definitely jolt her back into gear, right? Sedation aside. And it'd turn Plucky's good day right on its head, which was always a bonus worth shooting for.

But, by the time she'd reached a decision—and it was an epic decision, a really awesome one; everybody'd appreciate the genius, she was sure—she was already alone. Her breakfast tray had been set down neatly by the nurse, who had left with an infuriatingly winsome smile.

"Wow," Yuffie muttered. Shaking her head, she picked a chair at random and threw herself into it. She kicked back, one arm slung across her eyes, to wait. For what, she wasn't totally sure. Some moron to decide that she looked like good company? That was how it usually went.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, he wanted us to meet each other, so I say it does," Claude brightly replied. At any rate, saying they'd met through the staff didn't sound quite true, even if that was technically the case. Then again, couldn't it be said that none of them would have met each other if it hadn't been for Landel's? It was a thought Claude had considered before. Where did someone draw the line between happenstance and fate? It seemed difficult to believe that so many different people from all walks of life could be drawn to a single place by mere chance, but that was probably because his own involvement colored his perceptions.

When Natalia informed him that she'd been here for three days, he nodded, growing a little more serious. It didn't sound like long on the surface, but Claude knew from firsthand experience how time could drag on in this place. He imagined it was difficult for Natalia, not only being snatched from her home, but also having to deal with the concept of other planets and worlds that were different from her own. It was a lot to swallow, and probably something that took more than three days to come to grips with. At least she was trying to adjust, though.

Her tone made her sound like someone who understood the gravity of the situation, but was not going to let it bring her into despair. Instead, she was looking around and trying to figure out what ought to be done. Claude could already tell she was a strong person.

"It's been the same for me, too," Claude answered. "I've been here about as long as Guy and Anise." Funny, how it felt like way longer than that, but maybe it wasn't so surprising after everything that had happened. "We've been through a lot, but one thing I've learned is that Guy and Anise are really dependable people. I'm glad to know them."

At first, she simply nodded in reply. After a second, she remembered his bandages (as if, seeing them so clearly, she could have forgotten) and added, a little flustered from having been so thoughtless, "I-Indeed. Even if they helped, they did so through our connection to Guy."

Natalia again partook of the "toast". What did French mean? What about the way the bread had been cooked and seasoned made it French? These questions slipped swiftly from her mind as Claude answered. It remained incredible, that Guy, Anise, and now also Claude, had been trapped in the institution for so long. Forcing herself to accept that time moved differently, simply had to, did not make every reminder any easier to swallow.

"I am relieved," she confessed, after sipping the juice. "I hope it doesn't sound unkind, as I don't mean to say that I wish this place on you, but... I can't help but feel better, knowing that while they were here, they were able to rely on someone like you."

Natalia looked down at her hands, even after three days, it still felt strange to see and have them so long bare, without gloves. They had paused beside her tray, palms not quite flat on the table surface, fingers curled against it. We've been through a lot, he said, and Guy had said, it has word me down sometimes. Each new incident is worse than the one that came before it, or so it felt.

Guy had not gone into specifics, and Natalia couldn't blame him, nor did she intend to go behind his back in asking the next (but, if Claude would tell her more, she wanted to know--!): "What... sort of things have happened? Is it common, for accidents like--well, like your eyes, to happen?"

The word accidents said with doubtful disdain.

Claude didn't think it was unkind of Natalia to say that at all, but he wasn't sure how reliable he looked right then. He'd barely touched his food since sitting down, and it would probably be easy for someone who didn't know better to attribute the bandages over his eyes to a lack of competency in combat. Actually, it felt like Natalia was being generous in giving him the benefit of the doubt, especially since sometimes he felt like he wasn't half as helpful to his friends as they were to him. After all, wouldn't he have been able to stop the tragedy in the basement from unfolding if he'd been stronger, faster, better? His tormentor from the other night seemed to believe so...

He quickly shook himself out of that train of thought. No, Claude couldn't let himself sink into that pitfall, even if the seeds of doubt had already been planted. The best he could do was press forward and continue fighting his hardest. It was that approach that had carried him this far, and he wasn't about to slow down now.

"Well, we're all in this together, right?" Claude finally said with a small smile. "So it's important that we're there for each other when the going gets tough."

When Natalia asked for details about some of their trials, Claude hesitated. How much could he say without betraying anyone's trust? And how much would he or anyone else want to burden Natalia over things that couldn't be changed now? On the other hand, it would probably be insulting to sugar coat things when she was directly asking him for details, and could someday find herself on the other end of some of the threats in the institute.

"More common than they should be," he replied after a moment, his tone growing more quiet as he spoke. "I don't know if you've heard about the experiments and brainwashing that go on at night, but there have been a lot of people here who've...had to go through it." Claude shifted a little in his seat, frowning a little. "Other stuff has happened on top of that, though -- sometimes we take field trips to the nearby town and aren't brought back before sunset. And sometimes potential clues for escape turn out to be traps."

There was a common theme of senseless violence and suffering among the patients here, and Martin Landel was at the center of it all. What had happened to him was terrible, but there were a lot more people who'd undergone torture themselves, and without friends to help them through the aftermath.

"What happened to my eyes was just..." Claude took in a small breath, trying to find the words. "...you know, one of those things that go on here at night." He didn't sound quite as confident and sure of himself as he'd wanted, but he squared his shoulders anyway. "That's why it's important that we find a way to stop Landel."

Bandages and not eating; these things were irrelevant to Natalia. Though she was unaware of his doubts, had she known, she would have attempted to assuage them. It was not a matter of the benefit of the doubt, but, if anything, a willingness to trust completely Guy's judgment. It didn't hurt his case that he said the things he did.

With no small amount of passion, she agreed: "Absolutely. It is my hope that every patient here feels that way... though, I'm afraid that I'm not too optimistic."

After all, Sync was here.

At the talk of experiments, Natalia listened intently, even leaning a little forward. He, too, wasn't very specific; she resigned herself against prying. Anise had told her about them, not in great detail, but enough that she had first experienced a surge of anger so intense, it hadn't yet faded, insofar as it acted as a barrier against the depression to which she might have otherwise been inclined. She paid careful attention to both his words and his body language; Natalia wasn't the most observant person. It was a skill she had tried to develop late, one that suffered from years spent inclined and encouraged to self-absorption.

Even with that handicap, she could well enough discern his changing tone, his discomfort, the breath and hesitation, his shoulders firming.

"I apologize," she began, once he'd finished, "for drawing attention to them. Anise told me that, at times, patients are brainwashed or experimented on... and Guy did warn me that clues, often on the radio, could be traps." A pause turned into a stretching silence, almost a minute, as she picked her next words with care, attempting to reign in her fury with Landel.

"I-I despise him," she finally said, blurted really, despite her care, "it's unforgivable! All of it, everything, stealing us from our homes, trying to undermine our minds and spirits, throwing us into danger and pain, experimenting on us! If time truly has stopped for Kimlasca, then I swear, on my kingdom and its beloved people, that I won't leave this place until he has met justice, and everyone returned home!"

Her eyes burned, her hands clenched into fists. She had spoken similar words to Anise, had repeated them as she'd navigated the halls the night before; Natalia found a kind of strength in repeating them now. She tossed back her head, shaking back her hair and leaving her chin high. Then, the attitude eased, softened, as she looked across at him.

"Anything that I can do, I will do. I've not yet had the occasion to test it, but I can still feel the fonons at night... I believe, or I hope, that I might be able to help you, Claude."

"No need to apologize," Claude assured her. Asking was within her right when it was something that could potentially affect her later on. Not to mention she'd been much more tactful about asking than Mason had been, which was something he appreciated a lot. It made talking to her about it, albeit in vague terms, a bit easier to handle despite the fact they'd just met. Either way, it sounded like Guy and Anise had filled her in on a lot of the atrocities that went on in Landel's. Somehow, he doubted they'd told her about the basement -- or that they'd even been able to in the first place. Claude hoped that they'd at least be able to prevent Natalia from falling into the same trap and becoming a victim herself.

Natalia's outburst startled him, and he jumped in his seat a little. Her voice was thick with indignation and hate for Landel -- all of it was perfectly justified, and only seemed to fuel the princess's desire to set everything right again. That was something Claude could definitely respect. It was no good to sit around and expect things to happen. No, you had to be willing to step up to the plate and put any doubts to the side long enough to get things done. This was apparently something Natalia understood, which was only fitting for someone who held a leadership position of her caliber.

Claude could only imagine the expression on her face right now. If it was half as passionate as her words, no doubt her eyes were shining with intensity. Sometimes it was hard not having those sorts of visual cues, but in this case Natalia made her position on the issue more than clear with words alone. It was hard not to feel a little moved by it.

"You're absolutely right," he told her with an earnest nod. "We can't let this go on. It's wrong for him to tamper with other worlds as if he owns the universe or something." Claude leaned forward in his seat a little. "We'll have to work together and keep doing our best to put an end to it no matter how hard it gets." Really, he was glad to know they'd probably be working together in some capacity in the future. She sounded like someone people could really depend on in a pinch.

When she offered her help, Claude wasn't entirely sure what she was alluding to. Guy had mentioned fonons to him before, of course. That was the energy source that powered their arts and technology, right? "Help me?" he echoed. But then he remembered being told that Natalia was a healer, and suddenly Claude grew still. "Y-you mean...?" He brought a hand to the bandages that covered his eyes, but didn't dare finish his sentence in case he'd somehow misunderstood or jumped to conclusions.

Noting his jump, Natalia regretted having surprised him, regretted her outburst, if not entirely. It wasn't as if vehemence and violent emotions served a purpose, not in the long run; she must be composed, and not exhaust herself with turbulence. She focused on inhaling in a long, slow pull, on filling her chest and easing back her shoulders, then relaxing her fingers as she exhaled.

She felt better about it when he agreed, though assent in itself was not surprising; Natalia expected that on some level or another, all of the patients had such feelings. If nothing else, then a disgust for Martin Landel. Her next question was as to what he had been doing so far, if the patients had discovered something, anything of use in the night. But, she prioritized his eyes for the moment.

Nodding, but this time out of reflex, Natalia hesitated. "I don't want to give you false hope. I don't know what they did to you, and if my artes will be able to mend your eyes. But, in Auldrant, I was a capable Seventh Fonist! That is to say, well-versed in the healing artes." Her voice took on a tone of pride. Though she had learned through the journey that she still had much to learn, she did feel secure in what she could do. And if she could sense fonons, then surely... "Please, allow me to try."

That said, she remembered her meal. Keeping her strength up was advisable, and she lifted a forkful of the toast to her mouth. Before partaking, her eyes fell on Claude's untouched plate.

With a gentle smile, "Of course, it would be helpful if you were as strong as possible. Unless, is the food not to your tastes?"

Claude remembered hearing about Natalia's healing abilities before he'd even lost his vision. While healers seemed to be able to use some of their powers in Landel's, he wondered if it was the same for Natalia. It sounded like she hadn't had a chance to try them out for herself -- probably because the need for it hadn't come up, he realized. There was no telling whether any efforts on her part would be successful, or if she'd only wind up wasting her time trying to help him out. At least she was upfront about the possibility it wouldn't work. Yet she still seemed willing to give it a shot.

"I don't know," Claude slowly said, uncertain of whether Natalia truly understood what she was offering him. "You might find that your stamina here isn't what it was back on Auldrant. Just trying to heal my eyes might make you really tired or weak for the rest of the night. And if it doesn't work, then..." That would mean Natalia would have wasted her energy for nothing. Claude didn't finish that train of that, but the implication was probably obvious.

When she quietly called attention to his uneaten food, Claude offered a sheepish smile. He didn't like worrying people about stuff like this. If it was as simple as finding the heart to eat, he would have tried to make a show of stuffing his food down, not unlike the way he'd had to inhale his lunch when that strange girl had acted as though she was going to eat it. On the other hand, if he lied and told Natalia he didn't like the food, it'd probably make him sound like he was some kind of wasteful brat who couldn't appreciate the few good things this place gave them.

"No, I...actually normally like French toast," Claude admitted after a moment. "I just haven't been able to eat much since my eyes got injured, that's all. I think it must be a side effect from the other stuff that went on." Smiling a little broader for her, he quickly added, "But I'm sure it'll clear up soon!" She was right about it being better to keep up his strength, of course, but the thought of eating something so sweet just didn't sit well with his stomach right then.

Not having received any kind of a run-down regarding ability limitation, Natalia did not, in fact, understand what she offered. Her awareness of her fonons had felt muddled, and she understood instinctively that there were limitations. She had no idea that a few spells could potentially exhaust her. Yet, even if she knew, it wouldn't have mattered. Understanding began to dawn, slowly, when he spoke of stamina -- but Natalia laughed.

"You don't know? If it does work, isn't it worth it? If I think so, that's what matters, right? Also, I've always had superior stamina. Simply because I am a princess, does not mean that I am fragile. I know, of course, that you weren't suggesting that."

The last said sincerely; she'd felt the need to clarify, but not because of his caution. If she did become exhausted as a result, it would only be unfortunate if it came with a failure. Losing a night would be regrettable, as she was learning that if anything would be accomplished, it would be at night -- but, if Guy had been there for twenty days, surely one night wouldn't be a huge loss. Not that she intended to write it off - Natalia took another bite of french toast, and another, determined to be at her best come lights out.

Which, again, brought to mind her concern for Claude's plate.

"I understand," she nodded, "of course. I expect forcing yourself may do more harm than good." Natalia could see for whose benefit he smiled, and how token were his last words. For that, she almost kept herself from pestering further. Almost.

"At least drink a lot of water! Perhaps some fruit? Or a slice of plain bread, some simple..."

Edited 2010-08-15 00:02 (UTC)

While it was true that the decision of whether to use her healing skills to try to fix his vision was ultimately Natalia's choice, Claude felt bad at the idea of her wearing herself out on his behalf. Especially if it all turned out to be for nothing. But even after hearing that her energy levels would probably take a hit just from making an attempt, Natalia was still willing to offer her help.

"N-no, I didn't mean anything like that," Claude assured her. "I mean, I'm not doubting your abilities or anything. I've just seen healers here get really tired after using their powers, and it's a little worrisome, is all." He rubbed the back of his neck a little, trying to pick his words carefully. "But if you're still willing to try despite that, then I'd...well, I'd be really grateful."

And that was nothing short of the truth. After all, Claude knew he'd only be a burden on his friends so long as he was in this state. As bad as he felt letting a healer tend to him like this, he'd just be shooting himself (and everyone associated with him) in the foot by not getting any help.

It sounded like Natalia understood about the food, which was a relief. Claude didn't like drawing more attention to all that than necessary. "You're right," he said after a moment. "I'll try to get at least a little something down." He wouldn't be of any use if he didn't keep up his strength, right? As if to prove his point, he gently felt around the tray for his cup of water, grasped it, and then brought it to his lips. He had to admit that the water felt good to his throat, at least.

Edited 2010-08-19 18:26 (UTC)

[ooc: please feel free to ignore this! neurotic need to ... get the reply in]

From what he said, Natalia could deduce it a common thing, healers tiring after casting artes. While she could have attributed it to a desire of his to protect, she could not imagine it to a degree where he would weigh the well-being of a near-stranger (even a friend of Guy's) against the possible recovery of his eyes. Not unless the effects were common and severe.

"Of course I am," she said with ease, perhaps only because she didn't, couldn't understand the full meaning of his warning until she'd experienced it for herself. She could not fathom not trying, no matter how serious the possible side-effects. "Let us believe that it will work, all right? Not to get our hopes up, but so that we don't defeat ourselves before beginning."

That decided, Natalia resumed picking at her own meal. Though she would have liked to see him put something solid in his mouth, the water was a good start, and she bobbed her head with approval. A movement he could not see, but then, he ought to do it for himself, and not for her reaction. (Not that she wouldn't accept any motivation whose product met her end goal).

Once finished with her french toast, she dabbed at her mouth with the napkin and clapped her hands together. "So! Shall I go to your room tonight? I think that makes the most sense."

The way she easily agreed to help him like that made an impression on Claude, though he still wasn't sure whether she truly understood what her limitations were in this place. He was worried for her, but if she was going to insist on helping him, then Claude had already decided that it was probably for the best that he accept the offer. Natalia had a point that they shouldn't be self-defeating about everything, but he didn't want to go in with unrealistic expectations, either. For now the best course of action was probably to try to maintain a delicate balance about the whole thing -- not to assume that it would absolutely work, but not to tell himself it wouldn't work, either.

"Right," Claude agreed. "That's the attitude needed for a lot of things in this place, really."

When the princess asked for his room number, Claude briefly paused. As much as he hated having to trouble her so much, he realized it wasn't very realistic for him to go to her unless he could secure help from someone else. It was frustrating, finding himself so limited, but maybe after tonight his sight wouldn't hinder him anymore.

"If you think that would be best," he conceded after a moment as he put down his empty water glass. "I'm in room M44, so it's pretty easy to remember."

Natalia could not make any claim at having a talent for reading people. The princess, by virtue of her position and upbringing, had a tendency (one with which she fought, when sufficiently aware of it) toward being self-centered, and consequently less capable of noticing the less than obvious with others.

Yet, she tried, and did so now, possibly more attentive due to not having his eyes to also go by. Natalia had an impression of a kind of humility, an unwillingness to be a bother at any point -- that he would hesitate to accept her help, that he conceded to take of his water at her request.

Noting as much, it seemed significant that he agreed to her suggestion that they meet at his room. "Absolutely," she insisted, and attempted also to put a different, less catering spin on it, "it will help me to further familiarize myself with the Institute."

Though breakfast was likely near over, Natalia saw his now empty glass and asked, "Would you like more water?"

... Which, perhaps, would be seen as just the sort of catering she'd meant to avoid. But, if all he would ingest was water, she did want to encourage as much of that as she could.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 51: Breakfast

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject