softly, with grace [open]

[thewildflower]

Who| Rebecca & OPEN
What| After adjusting to culture shock, Rebecca is released to the world at large! Surprise, she's still overwhelmed.
Where| Around the tower!
When| Her first day or thereabouts, sometime after TTHS!
Warnings/Notes| None!

[Crew Quarters, generally around]

It’s just her luck to finish fighting one dragon and end up in some bizarre otherworld before she’s even made it back to the ship home.

...Actually, it isn’t, she thinks to herself. Normally her luck is pretty good, and she can’t imagine what she’s done in her life to deserve waking up in a death void and then finding herself surrounded by steel magic. But she’s over it! She’s definitely over it. It's been enough time that she's accepted this, and how could she not? She has people to help...people who aren't even here, but even people who are here. Rebecca never thought her soldier life would bring her to this point, but...you don't need a reason to help people, not when she's in such a position to do so. Becoming a Legionnaire had been the right thing to do, she's sure of it.

She’s inside the ship (or miniature planet, whatever, adjusting), she has her room and everything. Crew quarters aren’t much different than a tent (, she lies to herself)...and Legionnaires aren’t much different than fellow soldiers, and...

No, no, it’s all completely different, but she's going to get used to it! Just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad. Well, it's not good, she'll just figure it out! She settles on leaving her bow and arrow in her room and heading out on a walk to familiarize herself with everything. If anyone so much at looks at her for more than a half-second, she’ll greet them with a slightly hesitant, but still smiley:

"Excuse me...if you’re free, might I have a moment of your time?"

[Mess Hall]

The first thing Rebecca does in this new place is load up her tray with vegetables that look familiar to the ones she knew from back home. Well, or the ones that looked mostly similar. She’s not about to take her chances on that melon(?) with polka dots or the fruit she’d assumed was an orange until someone cut into it and revealed it was blue inside. What a ...wonderful place.

She’s ready to make her way to a seat, admiring how quiet the mess hall seems to be at this hour, when she notices that the ground is coated in some sort of slimy gelatin paste that someone had spilled previously. Just from looking at it, she knows it’s going to make a gross mess if she slips in it...and it’s too late to stop walking, her eyes going wide as she realizes she’s about to walk right into mess she’ll have to clean off of herself. Eyes on the wall, she just thinks at the last millisecond that she needs to get away, and—just like that, she vanishes in a flash of flame that disappears as quickly as it came.

The new problem is that she finishes putting her foot down as soon as she reappears, and the only thing in front of her is a wall. She immediately walks into it, hitting her head, and stumbles back. To everyone else, it probably looks like she burst into flame and then walked into a wall, but there was a very unfortunate chain of events there, and she looks mortified. The tray of vegetables she'd been holding onto just drops onto the ground with a clatter, and she hurriedly scoops them back on. Rebecca miraculously manages to say a few words before taking the quickest exit—hopefully someone will come and say something before she walks out, everything is the worst.

"Oh...oh, you idiot!"

Either way, she still needs to eat, and later she can be found standing next to a vending machine and eating whatever’s available inside of it. She looks exhausted and in need of a proper meal, but she will persevere. She can't afford not to.

Comments

crew quarters!!

[sofresh]

Anyone who stopped Superboy to ask for help was more than likely to receive it. Sure, he might fuss a little at first, but he's pretty big on helping people, too, especially considering that's the whole reason that he exists and everything. But when the voice stopping him belongs to a cute girl, well...

"Oh, I got all the time in the world for you, babe," he said with a smirk. "What's up?"

Why is he like this... She should've just asked someone else!!

[thewildflower]

So he's going to be like that, is he?

Rebecca should respect him, she thinks, given he's a senior member by default. But how long has it been since she'd been called babe? Or, worse, "beauteous vision of delight"? She's gone from trying to be polite to completely unimpressed in the span of a few seconds.

"Do you want to try that again? I'll give you one more try."

From her tone and expression, she's clearly not in the mood for that.

[sofresh]

"Uh..." he starts, a little awkwardly. "'Sup?"

Not particularly smooth, but in his short lifetime, his existence was so prone to startling people that they usually didn't have much of a chance to respond, positively or negatively. In other words, he's not too used to that kind of response.

But it's fine. Despite his fleeting awkwardness, he's not really bothered by it. After all, there's a whole galaxy of cute sentients out there for him to pursue (at least until he eventually gets over his thirst phase).

[thewildflower]

Well, at least they've moved on from 'babe,' but there's a word Rebecca isn't used to. 'Sup. She has to think about it for a second.

"Huh?"

But then she has a flash of understanding. Hadn't one of the hospital workers spoken like that? Great. Not only has she come across as cold, but she then spent several seconds staring at him like he'd been speaking an alien language.

"Right, um, 'sup." She just can't win, can she? But she tries to look a little more confident. "I just moved in, sir, I was hoping I might spend time with someone who's been here longer than me."

[sofresh]

He doesn't think too much of the way she responds. Either he's used to it or he just didn't notice at all... But he does seem to consider what she says, at least.

"Well, I've been here most of my life," Kon says, thoughtfully. "So I guess I'm sorta qualified."

Technically, that wasn't wrong, but 'most of my life' usually implies a long period of time... Anyway.

"What can I do to help?"

mess hall!

[headinjuries]

Sam winces when he sees the (new?) girl walk into a wall, because he's definitely had a lot of similarly smooth moves of his own in the school cafeteria and usually when someone (read: girls) is watching.

So before he really has time to think anything other than ooh, that's gotta hurt, he's pushing his own tray (shitty vegan pizza, he eats an awful lot of shitty vegan pizza) aside and getting to his feet to come help her with the mess.

"Uh. You okay?"

[thewildflower]

Don't even get her started on the vegan situation—she's a hunter, what a ridiculous thing to think about.

"Ohh...I was okay until I realized someone had seen it."

She sounds expaserated, defeated, but not quite angry. She's not going to shoo away anyone coming to her assistance, that's for sure, especially since some of the fruit she'd dropped is now gunk that has to be spooned back onto her tray.

"I don't suppose you can pretend you never saw that?"

[headinjuries]

"Saw what?" Sam asks innocently, glancing around for the nearest table and snatching up a few napkins. He kneels down next to her and started wiping up the mess.

[thewildflower]

That elicits a small, appreciative laugh from her. Her first day could be going better, but at least someone is cooperative.

"Right! There was nothing to see." Once they've scooped up enough of the gunk, Rebecca will stand, setting it down on a nearby table before continuing to speak. She can recycle it in a moment, someone will just have to tell her what that means first.

"But..." And she still looks a little flustered, even if her smile is back. "...if you did see something, it might be because I haven't really done that very often yet."

Quarters / Around

[deafleppard]

Gwen was, unsurprisingly, listening to some music via her earbuds. She didn't really pick up on what the girl had said. Just that she was looking at her and talking. So out came the buds, and their hearing was good, they could probably pick up the loud music that was coming out of them.

Loud enough to be heard while being close by.

"Sorry. Say that again?"

[thewildflower]

Rebecca feels like shrinking! She'd asked a question, and as Gwen moved by, she realized that she wasn't even heard. That isn't upsetting—she's still getting used to how music is played everywhere, but she knows what headphones are. Back home, the only music she'd hear came from Nils' flute or the bands and performers that traveled through her village.

She just feels a little embarrassed that she didn't realize she was talking to someone listening to music. The future, it's a difficult place.

"Oh! I was just wondering if you had a moment...I didn't mean to interrupt your song." Is that even a big deal here, she wonders? Interrupting a concert would ruin the night of everyone in town, but where music is so freely available...it still feels a little rude. "I was just hoping I might talk to someone who's been here a while."

[deafleppard]

"You're fine. I've already heard this one dozens of times already." Gwen would stick to the music she had on her phone rather than trying out some of music that actually made in this part of the multiverse. She just hadn't really taken the time to really try out the local tunes.

"Been here a while? That's pretty much me. What's on your mind?"

[thewildflower]

Dozens of times...that's so cool. If she could listen to a band from her town so often that her response to missing them could be "Oh, no big deal," she'd...well, Rebecca would feel like a city-dweller. She dreams big.

"Ah...I'm glad to hear that! I'm new, so I was hoping someone might be able to show me around, or at least tell me what they think I should know...things like that!"

She has questions, but sometimes it's easier to ask for tips first and ask questions later.

Crew Quarters

[unrecovered]

Wash is heading back to quarters after a stint in the training room. Eventually, he's going to figure out the holograms well enough to recreate some of the training sims FILSS ran on the Mother of Invention (or he'd just swallow his pride and ask for a tutorial); for now, the punching bag is a good substitute. He's got gym clothes on and a towel around his neck, casually reading faces as he goes, and- huh. She looks new.

And she's talking to him. Okay, then.

He stops and turns back to her. "Sure. What's up?"

[thewildflower]

Finally, it's a normal response! She has a chance not to say something embarrassing or get confused. It's still disorienting, even if she'd been held an extra few days to have the "future in a nutshell" explained to her. This man seems like he might be in a hurry to her, but she'll take when she can get.

"Oh, it's nothing urgent," she prefaces, just in case he is indeed busy. "I'm new here, and I'm trying to introduce myself and see what's here."

[unrecovered]

It's nothing urgent, says the young-looking girl who just arrived and asked a complete stranger for help. It's nothing urgent. Uh-huh.

"How about this: give me five minutes to clean up, and then I'll answer what I can. Sound good?"

[thewildflower]

Oh. Maybe she is interrupting his day, then? But he says it's fine, so she'll take him at his word. She isn't so meek to assume she's being an inconvenience if he says she isn't.

"Ah...alright! I'd really appreciate that, sir...?" She'll wait for his name or the inevitable refusal of the title. "Where would you like for me to wait?"

Either way, she appears a bit brighter than she had before.

Mess hall

[justicecoulduseanap]

Ana had seen the young girl and her incident in the mess hall, but wasn't quite able to catch up with her before she bolted out the door. It wasn't until a little bit later that she caught up with her again, seeing her next to the vending machine.

Much as Ana had expected, it looked like Rebecca hadn't had a decent meal in a while. Thankfully, she'd anticipated as much, and so there she was carrying two carry-out boxes from the mess hall.

"Falafel?" she asks, offering one of the boxes to the young girl. "It's not quite like the way they make it back home, but it's pretty decent."

Ana wasn't much of a vegan herself, but she adapts well.

[thewildflower]

Rebecca can safely say she's never walked into a wall before. She's not a generally clumsy person. She's been described as adroit, coordinated. It's not very befitting of an archer to be continually careless. She'd have been even more mortified if any of her comrades from back home had seen her do it, but it's not like teleporting into a wall in front of strangers is much better.

She'll just have to learn to live.

She'd managed to get something familiar out of the vending machine. At least, it looked familiar, but carrot chips are not very similar to carrots at all, she's realizing. When she looks up at Ana, she's a little embarrassed to realize she'd been followed, but...wow, she's really lovely, it's like talking to Dame Isadora or Lady Louise.

"Oh...falafel? I don't think I've had one of these before." She doesn't sound unfamiliar with the name, though, it's just not cuisine native to Pherae. She's happy to eat anything by this point and, while veganism sort of offends her as a hunter, she'll take the box offered to her. "I'm really sorry you had to see that. I'm not normally like that, I promise."

[justicecoulduseanap]

"Don't worry about it dear," Ana laughed. "A friend of mine back home had...well, not the same abilities, but somewhat similar. I can't tell you how many times that happened to her when she was just getting used to them."

Poor Tracer. It took her a while to master her Blink ability.

Ana sat down on a nearby bench, and motioned to Rebecca to follow her. It was much easier to eat and talk when you weren't standing.

"I'm Ana, by the way," she added with a warm smile.

[thewildflower]

"Really?! You know someone who can teleport, too?" That's a relief in some ways; Rebecca's never heard of anyone who can teleport like she can, so it feels like a weird ability to have in some cases. "Back home, only trained clerics and druids can teleport, but it's definitely not anything I've done."

There was that one time Archsage Athos teleported the entire army across a continent, but that's a different level of power altogether.

Rebecca followed and sat down herself, opening up the box to reveal the falafel inside. She doesn't start eating yet, but it looks...well, better than carrot chips, honestly.

"I'm Rebecca. It's very nice to meet you, Lady Ana." How could she not use a title? Ana certainly seems regal in her own right. "It's probably obvious, but this is my first time visiting the, um, ship. I'm a little lost even if I know where I am."

Mess Hall!!

[bleventeen]

On this blessed day of meeting new people and making life-long friendships, Mabel just so happened to be in the mess hall, halfway through her meal (which consisted of a tray full of little ice cream filled cups, and one only slightly gross vegan pizza with extra sauce). And of course, from her seat she saw the whole thing. Rebecca's fire and subsequent wall slam. Did that girl disappear for a second or two?? Mabel's not sure.

But, the whole thing does bring up a pretty nostalgic feeling. The kind she used to get whenever Dipper would go fleeing from a room to sulk somewhere. For a moment, she just frowns down at her tray. Until she gets an idea, that is. She loads up as much ice cream as she can carry, and starts sprinting after the girl, grabbing another spoon along the way.

"HEY!!! Wait a second! You forgot something!"

[thewildflower]

Stupid, stupid, stupid! She's pacing away as quickly as she can without running, but eventually she comes to an intersection and she's not even sure which way she should go. She figures any of these paths is as good as the other, she only really knows how to get back to her room from an elevator.


"Ah!"

Rebecca jumps, interrupted while making a decision, and quickly turns around to see the cause of the interruption. She immediately checks herself before she can realize she hasn't dropped anything. She sounds flustered and apologetic; hasn't she already made enough of a mess out of today?

"I didn't mean to drop anything...I'm sorry."

[bleventeen]

"What? No! You're totally fine." Mabel shakes her head, then offers up one of the cups of brightly colored ice cream. "You forgot this! WINK."

There's a huge goofy wink there for emphasis, obviously.

"It's like, the best thing to eat here, so you probably want to enjoy it. Right?" And look, she has her own, and they can definitely eat together. Though, that's implied. For now.

[thewildflower]

Rebecca blinks in response, trying to catch up. She's normally not a slow person, but today just hasn't been her day.

"No, I don't think this is mine...oh. Aha, I see what you mean."

She smiles apologetically and takes the cup, though she doesn't do anything other than hold it in her hands. Her eyebrow lifts as she looks down at it.

"Oh! It's cold!" She shifts her hands around the cup, looking both surprised and a little worried. "I don't think I've ever had anything like this before. What is it?"