damned_institute | 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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Origami, huh?

Kenshin was familiar with the basics of paper-folding, but that was about it and he was at least a decade out of practice. Still, it was a pleasant (and quiet) enough way to pass the afternoon, and after several failed attempts he had created a passable, if slightly lop-sided, crane. The poor creature had been folded and re-folded so many times that it was covered in odd creases and one wing didn't quite stand up properly, but at least it was vaguely recognizable as a bird. Maybe.

The next attempt was slightly more successful. There were fewer creases and misfolds and the rurouni felt absurdly pleased with himself. Folding paper was a relaxing, semi-mindless task, just like folding clothing.

[for she-who-throws-rurouni-off-of-balconies]

Edited 2010-08-21 00:00 (UTC)

Of all the mindless nonsense to put their captives through... And that's what they all were: captives. Callisto would accept none of this 'patient' nonsense. She wasn't, for one thing. (Patient, that is.) And if they were being treated for anything it was their own sanity and not the lack of it. Those that ran this house of nonsense seemed to be making it their goal to do the opposite of what the Institution claimed to be doing in the first place. Perhaps it was lucky for them that the former warlord was already lacking in anything resembling a sound mind.

The blond scowled as she was led into the room. Despite all the supplies laid out for their use, there was really very little she cared to do here. One could only paint blood-spattered stick figures with their fingers so long before it became dull. She needed to look for someone who'd provide for amusing conversation.

Then her eyes fell on a familiar red-haired girly-man and her lips curled upward in a sinister sort of smirk. She'd like to sit with that one, she informed her nurse who was all-too-willing to sit her down and be rid of her.

"Well," she greeted once she was situated and the nurse was walking away, "isn't this a pleasant surprise."

"You."

Kenshin stopped his folding, stopped his smiling, stopped everything. The absent-minded rurouni completely vanished and a warrior sat in his place, sharp and suspicious and ready to act if given motivation. It was the madwoman from that night, the one who had thrown Kenshin off of the second-floor balcony to dispose of him and then killed his young companion, Shito, in cold blood. Kenshin's fists clenched underneath the table. One more that he hadn't been able to save, and the murderess--the stark reminder of his failure--sitting right in front of him. Sneering.

"What do you want?" he asked, deceptively calm (though lacking his usual politeness). "You've been quiet these last few days. This one had thought that we were finally rid of a killer, but apparently that is not the case."

Callisto leaned forward slightly, the grin taking over her face and the giggle that went with it being almost childlike in nature. "Oh, but that's what's so wonderful about this little reunion. You were rid of me."

She reached up, slowly, and pulled back the collar of her shirt just enough that Kenshin would be able to see the scar on the side of her neck left from Homura's blade. "Some friends of your friend thought I'd crossed a line." Releasing the shirt, she gave a helpless shrug. "And yet - here I am again, just a few days later. Woke back up in my bed as if nothing had happened." The woman laughed again, eyes turned up toward the ceiling before they lowered to meet Kenshin's again.

"So you see, my dear... It looks like our sweet Doctor Landel still wants to keep me around. Truly a shame. You could have had a little more peace around here, hm?" Then she leaned back again, still laughing under her breath. Poor little red head. They were never grateful to have been left in one piece.

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.

"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...

Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

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