damned_institute | Day 51: Arts and Crafts [Second Shift]

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Day 51: Arts and Crafts [Second Shift]

They actually listened to some of the suggestions people put in that box? Anise thought the Head Doctor had to be joking when he said that, but she soon heard him mention something that she herself had suggested: sewing supplies. They were really going to get some? Anise could finally get a real needle, so she could make repairs to Tokunaga whenever she needed to. She swiped one of their blunt, plastic needles before, but using that just left big holes in the fabric. Using it on Tokunaga made her feel bad, like she was hurting the poor doll.

"Isn't that nice, Dolores?" The nurse must have caught Anise's hopeful look. "But remember, you'll need to be on your best behavior until then."

"I know, I..." Anise began with her usual dismissive reply, but quickly remembered that the intercom had said 'behavior and attitudes', and instantly changed her tune. "I'll do my very best! Hee hee!" She forced a smile for the old hag.

Unfortunately, the sewing supplies weren't here today, so Anise had to find something else to do for now. Stepping inside the Arts and Crafts room, she quickly found that several tables already had paper craft ('origami,' they called it?) supplies laid out for them, so she guessed she'd just occupy herself with that. The girl sat down at one of the tables, opened up one of the books, and started looking through it.

Cranes, frogs, horses, turtles... There were lots of familiar animals, and a few unfamiliar ones, too. The rabbits looked kind of cute.

[For Ilia!]

Threaded | Flat

The woman sat him down at a table, and slid the box of instruments towards him. There was already paper set in front of him. Kaworu reached into the tangled collection of markers, and came out with an orange one. He had seen it clearly through the plastic wall. It was a color that did not come alone. It carried memories, but before those images would come to him, they would be preceded by emotions. He would see the impact of the events before he could recall details. This color first came to him as familiar, but also dark. He expected to smell blood, and not the sting of alcohol when he removed the cap.

"This can be a very nice way to express yourself," she told him, after having spent several moments quietly watching him. "Just draw whatever comes to your mind. It's not important what it is."

Kaworu smiled up at her. "That isn't true," he corrected.

"Well, not strictly, I guess," she admitted, laughing lightly. "We want to know more about you, and we want you to be able to show us how you feel if you don't think you can talk about it. Give it a shot, okay?"

Her hand found his shoulder for only a second before she drew away, receding from his thoughts. Kaworu let the tip of the marker rest on the paper, and although his hand was poised to respond, his mind emptied. He thought to project an image on to the white surface, as instructed, but there was nothing. Ink bled out onto the page, running between the fibers of the paper in tendrils, creating a pattern beyond his control. The nurse had hoped for images, a window into him, to find the damage they suspected was there. But images didn't manifest. There were only imprints, noises, sensations, and the discomfort that had come to linger too close to him.

He loosened his grip, and the marker rolled out of his hand. As it fell, it had created a small sweep of color. Nothing that had been left behind was Kaworu's own. He wasn't empty. His mind, his heart, they were full, but without words or images to show them to Lilim. Lilim only wished to understand, to be understood, and Kaworu wanted to know them as well. Did he want to be known? When it was offered, the willingness of a Lilim to listen if he spoke, and to try and understand, Kaworu couldn't find words that would comfort them. He couldn't find an explanation that would make them happy. They sought not Kaworu himself, but answers to their pain. Why must this happen. Why must they feel this way. He supposed then that he didn't need to be understood, because he already knew them.

[For Toji!]

Just thinking how someone may have cleaned her body while she was unconscious made Ilia squirm. How could they do something like that to her without asking first? But it didn't help to dwell on it now, not when she had enough already to deal with in this crazed facility. This human zoo, as Leela had called it. Ilia hadn't appreciated how her nurse had led her away from Leela without offering any further explanation than "breakfast is over." She had gained some great information, but she still had questions. She could only hope the next patient she stumbled upon would be just as open and helpful.

Given the choice between either the Sun Room or Arts and Crafts, Ilia had no real opinion. Since it was an institute, she doubted either would be particularly stimulating for a scientist of her caliber. She would just endure it until she found out how to crack this place and get back to Roak. So, she allowed her nurse, who continued to call her Elaine, to pick the activity. Arts and Crafts it was.

She sat down at the nearest table, which was already occupied by a little girl looking through one of the origami instruction books. It tugged at Ilia's tender heart seeing such a young girl forced to stay under observation in a place like this. She must miss her family and feel so lost and alone. Smiling her gentlest smile, Ilia turned to her and spoke in a soft, comforting voice. "Hello. My name is Ilia. What's yours?"

Following Riku's advice from the previous day, Rita had posted a note on the bulletin board, asking for maps in a somewhat vague (though fairly obvious) way. When she returned from breakfast, someone had replied. It looked like this method of acquiring information was effective after all.

...Though perhaps it was still too early to say that. She'd know for sure after she met with that 'Hayes' person and got what information she could out of him.

Meanwhile, her nurse was giving her a lecture of some sort. Apparently, she was still going on about that little incident at breakfast. "If you want something from someone, Paige, you need to use your words. Some people don't like being touched - and around here especially, there are many people who are sensitive to that sort of thing... Understand?"

Rita shrugged. She was only half-listening.

The nurse eventually gave up and led the mage to the Arts and Crafts room in silence. There, Rita seated herself at a table far from the center of the room, where she could hopefully go the whole shift without any nurses trying to make her participate in 'origami' - whatever that was.

She opened her journal to a blank page, and picked up a few colored pencils from a cup in the center of the table. Rita had finished making notes about the place she explored the previous night, and she supposed it might be helpful to draw up a small map of what she saw. The snow-covered mountains, the wide, icy lake, and the fisherman's hut at the mouth of the river... It wasn't much, but perhaps if she showed it to someone familiar with the surrounding area, they could tell her where, in relation to the institute, she had gone to.

The routine of the intercom announcements prompting the supposed patients on to their next activity was starting to become a familiar one, and Nunnally usually found little of interest in what Dr. Landel had to say. The nurses would insist upon whatever activity had been chosen, and she would go, and in the meantime wish that she had more choice in the matter or, even better, could return home. She made no protest, of course, and often was praised by the staff for how cooperative she was, but... the fact that she was patient and disliked confrontation hardly meant that she enjoyed the routine.

Today, however, at this announcement she visibly brightened and almost even outpaced her nurse on the way to the Arts and Crafts room. Today's activity was origami? And with instruction on how to create figures that she didn't know? Now that she could see the various origami figures with her eyes rather than her fingers she especially wished to try it for herself, and see what she could make other than a simple crane.

The nurse seemed delighted at her enthusiasm and led the girl to a table with both supplies and instruction books. Nunnally politely refused any assistance and drew one of the books closer, turning the pages with obvious interest and examining the pictures and diagrams as she tried to decide what she could make. They all looked fascinating -- perhaps if she started at the beginning, she try to fold as many as she could before the shift ended.

[for Lunge]

According to the bulletin board, Sakura would be in the Arts and Crafts room. Naruto wasn't sure why there even was an Arts and Crafts room. Seriously, who was going to just sit around and paint or something? Didn't everyone want to get out of here?

What a weird place this was!

Well, either way, here he was now. He couldn't just do nothing, either, since the nurse was looking at him. He found some origami paper on the table and sat down, flashing the nurse a smile.

As she left, he stared down at the paper and realized he had no idea what to do with it. Great.

He looked around the room, but there was no sign of Sakura yet. Maybe if he just sat here for a few minutes, she'd show up. He sure hoped so.

[Sakura]

Suggestions box? There had been a suggestions box? Since when? Roxas was trying to imagine how he'd missed it yesterday while his nurse led him to the room. This particular room was one he'd never been in, and he wasn't sure what to expect - arts and crafts? Was that like... drawing? He wasn't a big artist himself. In fact, he'd never tried to draw anything before. When it was revealed that the room was stocked with more than paper and pencils, the Nobody had to take a moment to absorb it all. Claw, pencils, markers, sheets of paper of varied sizes, and even a whole table dedicated to squares of colored papers that were all the same size. Some books were strewn around the table as well, with an assortment of nurses standing nearby.

Was this the origami?

Taking a seat at that plastic table, Roxas picked up one of the books - "Origami And You: How-Tos!" - reading up on the history of origami first at the front of the book. Though he didn't know what Japan was, his curiousity was caught by this "art of paperfolding". The book had detailed pictures, explicitly stating how to create creatures and shapes from a simple square of paper. Some of the shapes were familiar, like the crane - though that didn't look particularly like any bird he'd seen - and some were not, and those were the more interesting ones to him.

He picked a square of blue pattered with clouds, folding the first step of the dragon.

The heck was this, third grade?

Kay scowled at her nurse, pulled away from the well-okay-not-that-productive conversation with Beelzewatchum, and grudgingly let herself be deposited at a table. "Why don't you draw something, Alice?" the nurse suggested, brightly, and Kay scowled darker.

"My name isn't Alice," she insisted, again, and nursey-lady patted her head, with a way-too-cheerful smile.

"Don't worry, dear, we'll make sure you get better," Nursey-lady said, and left Kay to her own devices.

Well, fine! If they were just going to leave her here, she was going to do something useful with all this kiddy craft stuff, so there! With a toss of her head, Kay went to the cupboards, ransacking them for stuff what she could use for Justice!

[Kaito! :D]

After eating and trading responses with that one, Rei was led to a new room. Arts and crafts. It offered outlets for creativity, but Rei couldn't really consider an activity to choose. She sat at a table filled with paper and paints, pencils, and crayons. If anything, perhaps, she would choose to draw. Perhaps to paint. But that was so intimate a notion, the outcome could give away too much of herself to another to pour over and take apart to use for their own. To be misinterpreted. Manipulated. Skewed. She had no want for it.

The construction paper closest to her was as blue as deep water. She reached to touch it, the material somewhat rough under her fingertips. It was a loss, she thought idly. To lose the sensation of floating.

[open]

The scene from breakfast was sobering, too much of reminder of time that had already passed. Hokuto's brokenness only reminding Senna of Momo, in all too different ways. There was loss here, constant and overwhelming, and no matter if she wanted to ignore it, it was all around them. It touched too close to her. Falis was gone. Just like the people that had left before her. Just like....

She was uncharacteristically quiet when led to the arts and crafts room, and the name seemed too ironic with another loss. The girl shoved a hand through her bangs and sighed loudly. This wasn't something so easily escaped. This was hard. And she couldn't yet figure out how to move and start being Senna again. As if she knew who that was. Someone that was her, huh? Well. That wasn't so clear a thing sometimes. The girl stood off to the side near the door, as if contemplating which craft to try.

It was close enough.

[Peter Parker!~]

Edited 2010-08-11 02:15 (UTC)

Leon was annoyed that he'd missed breakfast, but at least he'd gotten that extra bit of sleep. He was just going to have to go hungry through arts and crafts until the next shift, which wasn't so bad considering he was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. One thing he could count on this place to do was keep its patients fed.

He'd forgotten to leave a note for the next person on his alchemy list, and he mentally berated himself as the nurse led him over to an empty table with sheets of multi-colored paper and glitter. Once he'd had a chance to wake up more, he'd get right on that. He had to make sure they had time to get a response back to him. If he was going to put it up fourth shift he might as well not put it up at all, and that would make him look entirely unprofessional.

The young mage took a long look at the incredibly dull scissors he'd been provided and sighed. These wouldn't cut clean lines and shouldn't be anywhere near proper artwork. It was good thing this was nothing more than a means of wasting time, then. He picked out a sheet of purple paper for himself and began creating intricate symbols on its surface with the glue.

[Haseo]

After breakfast Aigis made a quick stop at the bulletin before following her nurse into the Arts and Crafts room. It shocked her to the core to see a note claiming Yukari had been released the night before when she had seen her friend as recently as the previous night. It chilled her and left her feeling numb. As a result, the notes she wrote were left even a little more clipped than usual.

She sighed heavily as she sat down at an empty table, the pressure around her eyes building once more. She thought it had loosened during her talk with Heat, he always made things seem so much better, but the feeling was back with a vengeance. She could practically feel something hot stinging her eyes from within her skull.

Taking a shallow breath, Aigis picked up one of the colored pieces of paper in front of her. Origami, the Head Doctor had said. The Japanese art of folding paper into intricate yet delicate shapes. One of the books on the table had been opened by the nurse who had placed it there to the most iconic of origami structures, the crane. Forcing herself to read the instructions, Aigis began to bend the red paper for the first crease. Her hands, shaking with the effort to perform the nimble task and also from something else entirely, only managed to rip the thin sheet. Seeing her mistake, she didn't even try to fix the problem and continued to rip the piece into two separate parts. And then she ripped those pieces into four parts, and those into eight.

Aigis let the pieces fall from her hands to the table. Staring down at the shreds before her, Aigis let herself succumb to the numb feeling.

Ah. Arts and Crafts, yet again.

By this point, Artemis had at least given up trying to persuade his nurse to excuse him from the 'age appropriate activities' after three weeks. He was in a giving mood, too. Apparently a result of talking to Nunnally, who seemed to have infinite patience for Artemis' social ineptitude, around females especially. So he humored his nurse and let her guide him to the Arts and Crafts room, where she showered him with every supply in the room. Apparently pretending to be interested in glitter and glue had paid off. That is, if he were interested in glitter and glue as bargaining chips.

He sighed and pulled a piece of blue construction paper over to the workspace in front of him. Selecting a plain glue, he began squeezing lines onto the page.

...except that the glue was coming out in a tiny, tiny string, probably due to blockage in the cap. Artemis watched the unfruitful results of his labor and sighed, agitated.

When he was an evil overlord, he would make certain his prisoners had glue bottles that functioned as glue bottles instead of stress balls.

[For Nigredo!]

The talk with Greta was... nice. Acceptable was maybe the word Rolo was looking for. He wasn't too sure why she spoke about it when it didn't involve her, but Rolo couldn't exactly say having someone agree with him was unpleasant. It calmed him down a lot to think rationally, at the very least, so he was a lot less moodier to his nurse when she came to collect him.

Arts and Crafts. That wasn't what made Rolo angry walk into the room, it was the unwelcome sight of her in the very same room, sitting at a table with some paper. What was she doing? Rolo was very interested, though when he made a move to sit with her, there was a hand on his arm and someone was pulling him away. Away? He resisted, of course, until that hand was put on his shoulder in a warning gesture. Rolo knew that one well, which was the only reason why he stopped.

"Spike, maybe you'd like to sit here? There's plenty of space for everyone and we don't want you to overtax yourself. Here, sit here."

"I'm fine," Rolo muttered curtly, but the nurse seemed adamant in making him sit away from her, shifting his injured arm slightly so it was resting on the table. Since he was injured like this, apparently the nurse took it as a sign that he was too weak to collect his own "craft" supplies and before he knew it, an array of construction paper, gluesticks, glitter and scissors were laid out for him.

So, even the nurse thought he was weak too.

Rolo grabbed the scissors with frightening speed, unhinging them so they were wide open, one side pointing down, and he stabbed. He stabbed at the paper, not even leaving the smallest cut, the blades digging harmlessly into his skin. Of course. It didn't deter him from continuing to slam down on the paper, not caring if anyone was looking. Damnit. Damnit all.

Obviously, whatever good mood he had gained from breakfast had vanished in an instant. Brother. He had to find his brother and report. Now.

[ HAY ALBEDO I GOT HIM ALL NICE AND CRAZY FOR YOU. ]

Edited 2010-08-11 04:28 (UTC)

His conversation with Claire was interrupted by the now-familiar voice of the man who'd made the announcements he'd heard this morning and the previous night. Doctor Landel, a nurse explained to him as she tsked over his barely touched breakfast, but proceeded to usher him out of the cafeteria anyway to the next shift activities. All around him, Stefan saw grey-clad patients also being herded in the same direction, some of whom got up and left without the urging of an escort. This was the routine here.

Stefan followed without fuss, his mind absorbed with what the girl had told him about Landel's Institute. On the surface, this place appeared to be a mental asylum, but was actually a prison. He'd been kidnapped (how? how could no one know how they'd ended up here?), apparently so they could call him by a different name and make him believe that he'd imagined his whole life up until now. Stefan scoffed. If only he were so lucky.

So he'd told Claire that he trusted her, but if he were being honest, her claims of a faceless, omnipotent They were a little hard to swallow. On the other hand, was it any less believable than the idea that the Founders Council had somehow grabbed him from (during? after?) the fiery building and not killed him?

When the nurse asked if he'd be fine doing origami, Stefan nodded, then turned his head slightly when he noticed her join another nurse on her way out of Arts and Crafts. He followed them with his hearing, listening to them talk about "new kids" and "good behaviour" and— and then, suddenly, their voices muted, blending with the rest of the low, indistinct conversation in the room. Stefan turned the rest of the way to confirm: the two women hadn't even left yet, and were still well within his normal hearing range.

This wasn't vervain. Maybe vervain had been used to knock him out and bring him here (but then what about everyone else?), but whatever it was that affected him now, it wasn't vervain. Was this part of the "delusion"? It wasn't as if he could mistake his present weakness for being human, and what he was was the single craziest part of his life. So if he hadn't deluded himself into thinking he was vampire, then he probably hadn't imagined all he'd set into motion in 1864, which in turn meant he hadn't imagined about everything which had happened in the last year, which meant he hadn't imagined... Elena.

With a sigh, Stefan moved to shove his hands into his pockets before realizing that he had none, and so awkwardly crossed his arms instead. He remained standing as he watched people do origami, idly musing to himself that Damon would probably have a few Damon-witty remarks about his little brother as a psych patient.

[8(]

Naruto was here. Of all things, somehow this remained prominent. Being removed from the larger room, he was escorted to another, that was off of another large area. That--if he remembered Minato's details--was the main one that they were in during the day. His eyes moved upward to note the railing they had stood against the night before. Hm. He was carefully memorizing the details afforded to him of the layout so far. The two levels seemed like they would expand. Searching out the details, if they were trapped here, would be a logical step. Were there other levels, sub-levels? A place to trap others was not as straightforward as first glance would assume.

As proved opposite with the place he had been led in. It took his mind a minute to catch up with the seemingly sudden shift in surrounding. The woman with him smiled and gestured to a table, and he wondered why she insisted on that particular one. Still, he was taking in information, and would acquiesce. And so, the Suna-nin found himself seated before construction paper. And glue. And colored glitter. He stared at it for a moment, willing some sense to appear in the situation.

[sister!~]

Back at home, Aunt Jenna had accepted after just a few weeks of living with Elena that some mornings, she was just not up for getting out of bed early before school. It was something Elena had come to love about her aunt, the way she somehow just knew not to bug the hell out of her certain mornings to get up and start her day. This was absolutely not the case for whoever the nurse was that came barging into her room that morning. Late morning, as far as Elena could tell, because the nurse had gone on and on about how she should not have missed breakfast, how she needed to 'follow the schedule' and 'keep to the rules' as she was lead down different hallways.

What the nurse didn't seem to understand was that Elena still had no idea where she was, or how she got there, or why she had a good couple weeks worth of memories missing for no reason whatsoever. 'Following the rules' was quite literally the last thing she cared about!

As she was lead to Arts and Crafts -- Arts and Crafts? Seriously? Whoever the voice on the intercom belonged to needed to get a life. Or a clue, because she was seventeen not seven -- she stayed silent, her expression stoney and annoyed. Why was the nurse acting like everything was normal? The more she thought about everything that Damon had told her the night before, the more she wanted to try and make a break for it, just to get away from the cheery nurse.

According to Damon she met her mother. Her birth mother, Isobel. But she couldn't remember it, and certainly couldn't remember any details. And then her Uncle John had tried to kill her boyfriend along with all the other vampires in Mystic Falls, but Damon and Stefan both managed to escape that fate. Apparently. Seeing as Damon was trapped in this place too, and Stefan- Well, Elena really only had Damon's word to go off of on that. Which made her feel sick. And frustrated. And a number of other unpleasant things that made her want nothing to do with Arts and Crafts.

It didn't take long before she was being escorted to a seat at one of the tables in the room, a stack of colored paper and some instruction sheets placed in front of her. The Intercom Guy wasn't kidding about origami, apparently. She looked around, half-hoping to find someone she knew in there with her, but came up with nothing. Of course Damon wasn't forced to make birds out of paper with her, of course. Elena took the top sheet of folding paper off of the top of the pile and set it down flat on the table, immediately folding the corners in.

Origami? Whatever. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the skill to make a paper crane or a frog, but her first creation was nothing of the sort. About a minute later she was sliding her fingers into the slots of the neat little fortune teller she just made. Sure things really sucked right now, but she wasn't about to cause a scene if all they were forcing her to do was make things out of paper. For now she would sit and plan her eventual escape. And fold. And write little fortunes in this thing if she could only find a pencil...

[For Claire]

Edited 2010-08-11 06:17 (UTC)

Kurt felt better after talking to Logan, and found himself looking forward to the mission despite how dangerous it was bound to be. A mission was a mission, and it beat the heck out of watching the cafeteria looking for Terry.

If only Terry would come back. They'd have a perfect team, then.

But all he could do right now was hold onto Terry's suit and keep it safe for him. Terry wouldn't have wanted him to mope around, doing nothing but waiting. At least, Kurt thought he wouldn't. He was pretty big on the 'doing stuff' front.

So, X-Men accounted for, Kurt turned to the other important thing: Minako. Who he was undeniably developing a crush on--not surprising though. How many non-mutant girls had seen him and not freaked out? Amanda, Orihime, Seiya, and Minako. Four. He could count that on one normal-hand.

So she was a big deal, obviously. He wanted to thank her. Sitting down at one of the tables, he sifted through the origami paper until he'd picked out a variety of shades and some patterns. He didn't know what color she'd like, so he just picked a bunch. Okay, he had the paper, now what to make with it...? He pulled over a book and started flipping through it, wincing as he went. A lot of this seemed a little complicated, and Kurt had never had to maneuver four fingers before...

"Well now," the nurse began, standing behind him as the intercom clicked off, "that sounds nice, doesn't it? You came just in time, Gerard; ah, you do like to sew, don't you? So"

and she went on, went on as he cleaned up the breakfast tray, went on as they walked through the Sun Room, went on as she ushered him through the door to the Arts and Crafts Room. Detaching himself from the garrulous wart, Uryuu moved to examine the sewing supplies they did have. They weren't promising. In fact, they didn't deserve to be called sewing supplies; they hardly qualified as for-toddler designed substitutes. Features pinched with displeasure -- as if, really, sewing was a priority! but, if forced to take part in insipid activities, might as well -- he sat himself at a table with origami supplies.

It had not only been a sewing club, back in Karakura. Uryuu had been the president of the Handicrafts club; origami didn't quite apply, but he still knew how to fold some shapes without looking. It had been a nice, quiet activity, relatively mess free, for a boy to do when silence was not only a virtue, but a commandment.

As he thought over the migraine inducing information given to him during breakfast, Uryuu's hands moved, as if on their own accord. When mind and fingers stilled for a brief interlude, he noticed that he'd folded a crane. Even the West knew, these days: 1000 cranes, and one's wish came true. With alterations as to what, exactly, the reward was. He didn't believe in wishes, in luck or chance or any of it. His lips twisted into a wry, skeptical mockery of a smile at the thought of it. People wasting time folding hundreds and hundreds of cranes, rather than working. But--

Surely, only because Inoue-san had also been a member of the Handicrafts Club. She'd wish for something ridiculous, like for every period to be lunch, or for it to rain jam and breadcrumbs (the smile, lingering, changed)~~, or for Kuros~~. Uryuu resumed folding, a second crane materializing.

It wasn't a wish, of course. Merely his best behavior, should he still be trapped tomorrow. Orange and blue; he took and creased a green sheet.

[for kairi!]

Threaded | Flat

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