damned_institute | Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

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Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

There were very few activity shifts, Cloud was sure, that could possibly make him feel more like he was being treated like a child. He took a seat at one of the tables and blankly examined the materials set out before him. A pair of the dullest scissors he'd ever seen were labeled 'ages 3 and up'. It was good to know where the patients stood in this.

He wasn't much of an artist, and he ignored most of the paints and other drawing utensils in favor of a few sheets of colored paper and instructions on how to make origami. That sounded vaguely familiar. Didn't Yuffie have throwing weapons made out of paper at some point? It was something to do anyway, and thus Cloud began the process of crafting what ended up being very elaborate paper wads.

Sadly, his attempts to keep from dwelling on the subject of his missing friend failed when he realized this was something Aerith probably would have enjoyed greatly. Tonight, he and Yuffie would go out and try to accomplish... something. It was depressing to think there really might not be anything they could do, that they might all end up the same as the flower girl eventually.

[for a hopefully more optimistic materia thief]

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Matt nodded at the answer, but his mind was whirring as he mentally jotted down the new information; he'd need to take it to Mello later, see what they could come up with together. He never had any idea what it was they were going to be up to that night, but that was the way he liked it; less chance for him to blow their cover, or something similarly heinous.

So patients don't just arrive in the morning, he contemplated in his head, licking his lips and wishing for a cigarette. Which, strangely enough, was the first time he'd done so that day. Not sure if that was a good or bad thing yet, but he wasn't all that willing to figure it out. Or... maybe they do arrive in the morning, but they're heavily sedated enough that they sleep straight through the day? It seemed like the picture was really starting to take shape, and Matt had to hide the slight glow of pride that he could feel starting up when he realized it.

To Ivan, he only nodded passively, uncrossing his arms and reaching forward, running his fingers through the sparkles. "Is it possible that they drugged you?" he asked, unable to see the harm in letting his intention become known; the Russian seemed to be rather forthcoming, for which Matt was grateful. It was the end of the day, and he really didn't feel like putting his Wammy's training to too much use at the moment.

Was he now? Muraki wondered if he worked for the institute. He might be useful if that was the case. Would Landel have bothered to alter the staff's memories? Or simply tell them that he had gone mad?

"Is he the one you're making that lovely bow for?" Muraki asked, a hint of good-natured amusement in his voice.

"You shouldn't sell yourself short, Kagura-chan. Sometimes physical wounds aren't the worst ones. In a place like this, cheering someone up is worth something too, don't you think?" He leaned back in his chair, fingers laced against his stomach. Pain flared briefly and Muraki flinched. Whatever anaesthetic they had given him for the cut was starting to wear off. "I hope my skills will be put to good use as well. If I can help you or your friends, please don't hesitate to ask."

And we're back to perky and excited. Jupiter, wowie! "I'm only from 1943, we haven't even made it into space yet. What's Callisto like? Tell me about it!" He sat forward in his chair, hands pressed together and mouth open in a wide grin. Everything, give him all the things.

Blue Crow was a funny sort of name for a town, but many things were strange in the future. Gren would be well-versed in the use of the bizarre machines that were the Seedy Players, and the hard music in them, and in the movies that played in color.

"1943?" He paused for a moment, trying to dredge up the history lessons he'd had in school. "There was a war, right?" Or had it been over by then? He wasn't too sure of the dates anymore. As a teenager, it had seemed pretty pointless to study it when there wasn't much left of the earth anyway.

"It's... pretty cold there," he replied. "Snows a lot." He didn't think he wanted to get into just how depressing the whole place was, and kill the guy's enthusiasm. "I was born on Mars, though. It's the biggest colony."

Considering those Western features, it was no surprise Gant was apparently not quite familiar with honorifics. "Then it would seem this individual believes he has earned the intimacy to stop using the honorific," Tenzen answered matter-of-fact-ly. Following his comment, however, his lips twisted into a smug smirk, and he continued his explanation with a tone that suggested small amusement he didn't bother to hide. "But as it appears you do not know him for more than 24 hours, then perhaps he was merely being rude."

The ninja merely observed the two older-looking men bicker, wisely choosing not to mingle. Did they need to take this senseless discussion over to his presence? Typical of these elderly, as if they were already growing senile. Hnn, at least the creature living inside of him saved him from the fate of becoming a babbling, senile old fool.

"Other than certain difficulties in communication, it could have been worse." He felt no particular need to tell of his exploring beyond the walls to these two men...just yet. Perhaps if they ended up proving to be useful, he would be a little more lenient with sharing information.

"Alita? But I just--" --saw her the other day, Meche'd been about to say, but she cut herself off quickly. That was how it was here; people disappeared out of nowhere, the way Manny had. Aside from the sleeping, there weren't really any warning signs. They were just gone.

Alita. She'd been a little rough around the edges, but a good young woman. There had been a lot of kindness under all the growling and cursing. Meche knew those spear lessons had already been a huge help to her, even if she wasn't all that good yet--she'd just have to continue practicing on her own. Alita, the monster-fighting princess. Meche realized belatedly that she'd already started thinking of the girl in the past tense, as if she'd died. Boy, wasn't that strange; she was already thinking of death that way again too. As some kind of uncrossable border to a foreign land. Which was what it was supposed to be, she guessed, but--

"Oh, Senna, I'm sorry," she said. "Are you doing all right?" What a stupid question, she thought immediately. Of course not. And they wouldn't be the only ones who were upset, either. She wondered if Hokuto knew already, and if so, how she was coping.

"Mhm," Carter said to the first question, as if it wasn't very important. "I was a soldier in it until I got captured, I was in a POW camp before I got put here. But don't worry, I was an American." Because Americans are the good guys, dontchaknow.

The second subject was far more interesting. "Are there colonies on all the planets and all the moons?" Carter was better with science fiction than astronomy and wasn't aware that some of the planets in the solar system were not suited for people who disliked being crushed into compact pieces of squish by harsh gravity. Science could fix anything!

"Both," Teresa replied. "You are lucky I respect Euphemia as much as I do, even with her gone. Killing you would have made her upset, so I won't. Despite how much you may deserve it for turning your innocent sister into a killer."

She picked up one of the cranes and looked it over. "I understand you lost control of your ability, but anyone with great power knows there will come a time when they will not be able to stop themselves. My kind Awakens and it is the only thing we fear."

Silver shifted back to Lelouch. "You are human. How is it that you have an ability humans should not be able to have?"

Good- Morgan hadn't been offended by his decision to hold back here and there. Presumably he was doing precisely the same thing anyway, which, as troublesome as it might have seemed, also meant that he had the right to lie without crossing a line of some sort-- and you're not a hypocrite, are you, Morgan? But, aside from that, it seemed as though they had fallen into the same scenario that he and L had: empty world, all personal affects restored, and apparently all physical injuries removed. And if there was one thing he knew instinctively (not, not instinct, from experience and evidence) that he could trust the man about above all else, it was the physical injuries.

"Hmm. Well, that's certainly the way it seems so far. Even if you didn't recognise the place you were taken to, it would still have been replicated from memories of your own home world." Replicated. Lunge was careful to use that word, careful to distinguish between reality and what he had already decided was a trick. But more than that, the trauma of that unhappy reunion relied on its believability; rejecting it became therapeutic. "Perhaps whatever it was triggering it- the system behind what happened- was able to recognise those from the world it mimicked." Which, if 'system' was the right word, implied that same uncomfortable level of understanding built into the Institute he'd picked up on all along. They didn't even have to think about what the most effective course of action would be- it was intrinsic. A system designed for the perfect experience. The only place he'd felt it more than in L's tower was in that room on the second floor, leather straps biting into his ski-

No.

Morgan wasn't the only one feeling the inexplicable (ha) tug of the next matter. "Spaces? There's more than one?" Lunge's expression fell into a faint frown for a moment. That complicated matters. "Then there must be multiple items to collect." And if there was a shield, he now didn't doubt for a second that there would also be a sword to go with it- the hero's weapons of choice. "The Sphinx called the item we were given the 'Coliseum shield', so I would suggest that they lead to a Coliseum. Though," he added suddenly, frown falling more deeply into thought, "a 'coliseum' is a theatre of sorts. Who, then, would be the audience, I wonder?" Again, he let his eyes fall steadily and unfalteringly onto Morgan's: take one guess.

... Respect. Interesting coincidence, considering the fact that most if not all of Lelouch's respect for Teresa was dwindling by the second. Did she always go flapping her mouth about secret and highly personal (not to mention dangerous) matters? Did she understand the meaning of discretion at all?

"This is not the place to have this conversation," he said after a long pause, frowning at her. The fact that he needed to point it out to begin with... perhaps there was someone better suited to guarding Nunnally alongside Suzaku. "I will be busy tonight, unfortunately, but I may be willing to meet with you tomorrow night if you keep this information to yourself."

"I've know about this for a while now and I never said anything. Why would I start now?" Teresa reached up to rub her left shoulder, irritated at the way it itched. She was going to have to stay in tonight unless the nightfall brought about increased regeneration.

"I have no desire to tell anyone about anything I don't understand."

He just sends her another look at that. The same reasons she was speaking up now, perhaps? Euphy was gone, and while Teresa's respect for her may have been what was keeping her from snapping Lelouch's neck, there was no guarantee that it would keep her from opening her big mouth again.

"Good. Contact me tomorrow and we'll work out the rest of the details of this meeting. There's no need to do so now." That and if anyone had been eavesdropping (doubtful, but he liked to cover his tracks if necessary), they wouldn't know where to go to hear the rest.

Again, it wasn't anything the man said that wasn't spot on, but Donna could not help the image that came to mind at the mention of a lizard, or the fit of giggles it brought on as well. "More like a skinny rat!" she howled as she thumped the table.

That spaceman. Somewhere between being a rat and a lizard while at the same time being a three year old. Donna was half-tempted to put the image on paper (since they were in the craft room) and paste it up on the bulletin - no captions to speak of. She'd just give it flippy hair and see if he managed to put two and two together!

She could guess the rest of her sentence. But I just saw her. Yeah, the girl thought miserably. Me, too. Hadn't the last time Senna saw her been when Senna had fled preemptively? When Senna was being useless and hiding from her friends. Yeah, great last impression, huh. Just add it to the list of things that she would never say.

She poked the clay habitually, an indent growing in the center. "I'm... I'm okay. I'll be okay, you know?" She would be. A little less and a little heavier but she wasn't the type to give up like that. And how would Falis feel, to know that Senna just stopped fighting because she was gone? She'd probably smack her for that. "Hokuto was really messed up about it though." And for good reason.

"Really? I served in the army for awhile." That was probably the best way to put it. He'd fought, he'd gone home, and everything after that didn't particularly matter, so far as this conversation went. "Sorry to hear you got captured, though." He did sort of wonder which was worse, a POW camp or this place?

"Not on all of them. There are still some people who live on Earth, and there are large colonies on Mars, Venus, Europa, and Ganymede. Callisto's pretty small population wise. Titan, too. That's were I fought. There are a few asteroids that have a population, but it's mainly mining." He wondered if that was too much information for someone from a time without so much as a space program.

Kenshin was silent for several seconds, processing what he had just heard. It was possible that whoever had taken revenge for Shito's death had missed, merely left the woman for dead, but the rurouni found that unlikely. Someone had exacted vengeance, and yet she still lived.

Or, rather, she lived again.

He knew very well that Landel possessed the ability to bring the dead back to life--something he'd thought was impossible until presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Still, he'd only heard of it in cases where the person was brought back to life before coming here, not for patients who had been killed by their fellow inmates. It hadn't even occurred to him.

"So you're alive again. Why are you bothering this one? What do you hope to gain?" If she thought she could scare him, she was mistaken.

Kagura's blush deepened and she shook her head quickly at the insinuation. Even if he was kidding, she should have been clearer in her explanation. "Ah- That's- No, um! I have a big family Muraki-sensei so- just one of them is here now. Hatori-san is a doctor, but... but the ribbon is for Rit-chan. I think... Rit-chan misses home as much as I do, so... it might help."

She was careful not to use any specific pronouns when talking about her cross-dressing cousin. Which one would offend him more? Did he want to be called he? or she? Honestly, she couldn't say she knew him well enough to know for sure. Well, it was fine if Muraki assumed... Ritsu didn't usually argue or tell people otherwise when they guessed wrong.

"You're nice to say so. Ah- then if Muraki-sensei and his friends need any cheering up, please count on me too," she offered, nodding and sending him a hopeful smile.

Twist. And off came the head. He smushed it into the table next to the lumpy headless clay body, vague smile never leaving his lips. Mason asked a lot of questions it seemed, and answered very little of himself. Expecting answers, even though he was just a child. That was the fastest way to end up unhappy. The less he knew, the happier he'd be.

"If they did, it is not one I am familiar with," was all he said. There'd been no grogginess, no hangover like a late night of heavy drinking. And it wasn't like any of the poisons people had tried to slip into his food or water or other things.

"Why does the getting in matter?" he asked, straight to the point. "Everyone wants out, da?"

Howl enjoyed Arts and Crafts. Sadly, the staff didn't care for his preferred form of art, which was to practice. Even in the absence of his true power, he couldn't get rusty, and it was a nice distraction to mindlessly move through charts and circles and spells. His mind would be wrapped up in the magic, and he could forget what his life had become. Apparently, the nurses had taken note of his tendency towards occupying his time thusly, and he was receiving an earnest lecture about how magic did not exist and he need not allow it to limit him so. This was a new nurse, and she was pretty enough, so Howl put on a face that was the picture of pained conflict. The whole walk over, she held his hand and encouraged him to release himself from these limitations.

She seemed to be under the impression that she had gotten him to promise he'd try. It was suggested he draw his family, or something that expressed how he felt. How he felt was angry and abused, entirely disrespected and insulted, and he figured that creating a new spell for how to tear apart this silly little world by the roots would be a proper expression of his feelings. Then, of course, he wouldn't be unable to use it, and would then feel more depressed and downtrodden than anything else. With solid, undeniable proof that Sophie was here, all of these feelings multiplied. She was too much to deal with, and simultaneously, he was terrified of what she would get herself into. What could happen to her. He wouldn't be her babysitter, but every moment she was left alone was an opportunity for her to stick her nose where it didn't belong.

The nurse gathered him up some paper and a handful of crayons, and ushered him over to a table. Someone was already seated there, but Howl and his nurse seemed equally unconcerned. At least, Howl was unconcerned until he got a good look at the man. He had long, white hair that completely obscured his face. It wasn't simply in his face, but someone seemed to have intentionally styled it so that no one could see even a hint of his features. Howl assumed that there had to be a good reason for hiding them, and winced slightly. It was hardly as if the man was going to see him. Furthermore, there was an odd blue eye printed on it.

"I don't know how you expect to create a masterpiece with that... attitude," Howl commented lightly, and with little attempt at seriousness. His fingers immediately set to recreating the symbol the stranger wore so proudly.

"Yeah. I know," Meche said. And she did.

It didn't surprise her to hear that Hokuto was upset. She knew about that from experience, too. "Well, let's try to look out for her, okay? Even if she doesn't feel like company right now, we can at least make sure she's all right," was all she could really say. She wondered if it was how routine the disappearances were that made it so hard for everyone to talk about them. It's hard to say that you're grieving when most of the people around you are in the same state. Like a heart monitor, Meche thought--sometimes the feeling spiked, then went back down to a dull ache, but it never really went away.

She wanted to talk about something else. And now she remembered what she'd meant to say to Senna anyway--even if this wasn't the best time, they had to discuss Arts and Crafts so she'd know what to say to Sora on the bulletin board. "Listen," she began, "I know things are tough right now, but I needed to talk to you about what's going on with Arts and Crafts. How do you feel about Sora's message today?"

It was replicated that struck Mello. It had been obvious from Matt's reaction how accurately the empty stage had been set, and though he'd managed to convince himself, while they were there, that they'd managed to get one step closer to escape, he'd known all along that real progress would never have been that easy or unlooked-for. He'd known it was another trick, a construction designed for maximum impact. Presumably, Lunge's companion had suffered a comparable emotional blow, thanks to whatever place the Institute had seen fit to throw them into. Just as it wasn't for Mello to say that Matt had been taken back to the scene of his death, he fully recognized Lunge wouldn't be forthcoming with any details about his partner from that night.

"That's a massive amount of information." That it was about them, about him, he quickly pushed from his mind. "It has to be organized, and stored, which is to say accessible... somewhere." The place couldn't just pluck it from their minds, could it? He should have considered this before, he thought, irritated with himself; and would need to devote more thought to it before he came up with anything he could act on.

"There were two spaces." Lunge's rhetorical question got a quiet huff in response. "Would anyone ever get a thumbs-up in that coliseum, I wonder." He could see Landel liking that idea: himself as the emperor, holding the power of life and death over his prisoners, watching them struggle in a contest that was rigged. The only way to win would be to refuse to play at all.

Two nights ago, so they had wound up there by chance, in the middle of what sounded like a quest right out of a fairytale, or some shit, in a part of the place Mello hadn't even guessed existed until that same night. A part that had felt older than the rest of the Institute, at least to him. "What's it doing down there? The style's inconsistent, to say the least."

Having been told once again that she didn't need a shower, Knives found herself led to the arts and crafts room by a nurse, who insisted some creativity would help her 'get better'. What a crock.

"I am better," muttered Knives, rubbing her arms and walking deeper into the room. She looked around at the room full of unfamiliar faces, biting her lip. They could have at least let her keep her scarf; she would be more comfortable with something from home. Definitely. But nooo, they took away everything. She already hated the gray uniform she was wearing and the day hadn't even finished yet. How the heck was working with art stuff going to get her out of here?

[OOC: Sob this is so late.]

"This one, this one, this one..." Callisto repeated his choice of phrasing in a sing-song fashion, waggling a finger in time. "I'm bothering this one, because that one," the same finger pointed toward another patient at random, "was otherwise engaged."

Then she laughed again. What reason did she have for doing anything nowadays outside of momentary whims and fancies? She'd seen him and recognized him and found him to be an easy target. Now that she'd gone and told him, showed him, that she'd already come back from the dead once, he might think twice about attempting to kill her himself - if that was something he was even capable of. 'This one' wasn't like Homura. He had a different sense of honor, and that much she could tell just from speaking with him.

"I hoped to gain a little bit of amusement out of an otherwise boring activity, and you just happened to be available to provide." He was doing such a fine job of it too. Look at his serious little face...

Leela noticed the uncomfortable-looking girl, and waved at her. Maybe she was feeling out of sorts in a new body? Even if she wasn't, Leela often felt protective toward the younger women here. It was one thing for them to kidnap Leela. It was still wrong, but she could handle it. Taking kids away from their homes and families just wasn't nice.

"Some therapeutic clay work happening here," she said, mostly for the girl's nurse's benefit, and gave the girl herself a wink. It was kind of fun to be able to do that without having to specify that she wasn't blinking normally. Leela still preferred her real looks, but there were distinct benefits to having two working eyes.

Satisfied, the nurse told Knives to express herself before leaving. Looking relieved, Knives sat across from Leela, pulling some of hair behind her ears. "Thanks," she said with a slightly nervous smile, "I really hate being mother henned by creepy kidnapping nurses."

She looked at the clay ship Leela had made. "That's pretty good," she said with a nod, "I always made like, kittens and stuff when I took art classes."

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Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

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