legionworld | In, Out, Up, Down [open]

Entry tags:

In, Out, Up, Down [open]

Who| Miku and You!
What| Miku tries to adapt herself to her new situation, which means meeting her teammates.
Where| Mess Hall and Around!
When| Post Valor Day
Warnings/Notes|

There had been a schedule at home. In the mornings she’d wake up, feed Ruri, make breakfast and lunch. In the afternoons, she and Rei would go over what work needed to be re-shot, sometimes making plans to travel back to those backwood locales. In the evenings, she’d read Rei’s old photography books and tell her brother and mother’s pictures about her day. It was prosaic and normal, (at least, until it hadn’t been) and Miku missed it.

There was a schedule here, too, though Miku felt a little overwhelmed trying to follow it. Learning about the UP’s myriad cultures and planets was interesting, surely! Miku could even say she enjoyed it. But learning how to fight left a kind of sick sensation in her stomach. She’d never been one for it, and it showed in her movements, uncertain as they were. The first time someone threw a punch at her, they’d run smack dab into her telekinetic shield, surprising them both. It had changed how they taught her, focusing on defense more than attack, which she’d been grateful for.

Still, it was important to adapt, especially now that she’d agreed to help the Legion. She was glad they hadn’t dragged her in and then threw her to the proverbial sharks. Plus, Miku was small enough and nondescript enough that she’d been able to go in and out of several places without attracting much notice, so she'd been able to observe some of the others - too shy to actually approach them.

Adaption also meant having to do things she didn't like. Like meeting new people. Miku watched the groups from the relative safety of her ~~hiding spot~~ table in the mess hall, alternating looks between please notice me and please never notice me.

Miku gave her food a poke and pursed her lips. She'd definitely get up and say hello, she would! ...Right after she finished this meal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He'd been a pretty solitary kid back in school (once he'd gotten old enough to recognize that he should probably have been going to school and casually pestered Bro about it, anyway). Kind of the weird kid, but also kind of the "too cool for everyone else" kid. School wasn't really a fun time, but then again not much was genuinely fun back then.

The point being, Dave knew the look of someone sitting alone not necessarily by choice but also sort of on purpose. And for all his general shittiness, he's a fairly empathetic guy. So, nonchalantly, he redirected from his path to his normal seat upon seeing Miku by herself and plopped down next to her with his meal.

"Sup."

Hey, Miku. Have a blond teenager in shades and what looks like red pajamas with a cape.

"Ah!" Miku looked up from her ~~severely abused~~ meal and looked at Dave like a deer caught in headlights.

Is he... wearing his sleepwear? she thought, trying to get something out of her mouth that wasn't a noise of shock or surprise. "Good... good afternoon!" Words, she had to get more words out.

"..." Nothing came.

Jesus, this girl really is struggling. Dave's mouth twitched faintly like he wasn't sure whether to frown or smirk, and he busied himself with his food to avoid settling on either.

Shit. He really isn't great at this sort of thing. But fuck if he won't make an attempt.

"Weird that we designate certain times as parts of the day when we're in space and planet-based designations of time are meaningless, huh?"

An attempt was made.

Miku appreciated the attempt and looked back down at her plate of semi-mangled food. "It is. Trying to sleep when they claimed it was late was... odd."

"Yeah, no such thing as late on a ship like this. The only clocks that actually mean anything here are the biological ones, and I'm not talkin' that instinctive urge to start making babies while you're still young." Dave paused a moment, just to snag a sip of apple juice and a bite of generic space cereal. "Like, shit, arbitrarily assigning Earth-based time systems to a ship full of things besides humans seems pretty fuckin' racist. Am I supposed to believe that all the aliens on board this ship naturally have a sleep-cycle that similar to humans? Hell, I'm mildly offended as a human that had to adapt to a nocturnal species' schedule by virtue of being outnumbered."

He... certainly spoke a lot. Miku tried to think of someone she knew that spoke as quickly and as much as Dave did, but kept coming up blank. She supposed she would have to parse this as quickly as he was.

But it was a little vulgar, wasn't it?

"Is it because they needed a standard way of keeping time, I wonder?" It was a little human-centric, but maybe others had a similar way of keeping time, and that's why things were as they were?

It was a little hard to think about, and beyond Miku's personal experience.

"Probably," Dave agrees, shrugging. "It just figures that even in a universe full of aliens, humans still manage to be the center of everything. Sci-fi movies actually got something right."

Another pause for a sip of that sweet, sweet apple juice, and his eyes cut over to Miku. At least, that's probably where he's looking based on the slight tilting of his face in her direction. The shades make it haed to say for sure.

"You're the hindsight girl, right? Shit, what's the actual word...retrocognition?"

She couldn't help wrinkling her nose a little at the description of her powers, he wasn't wrong, but...

"I am, yes." Miku nodded and poked at something that she was sure was probably a space green bean. It was hard to tell, having poked at it something like seventy-five times before Dave sat down. "It's not that fun, though."

Fuck. This girl's whole body language was anxious and dreary. Dave missed his friends from home. Any of them would have been better at cheering up a sad self-pitying girl better than him, even Rose. But he'd gotten her to actually talk back properly, so it could be worse, right?

"C'mon, it can't be that bad," he tried. "I can think of like twenty fun ways to use something like that just off the top of my head. Touch a spacefuture TV and find out what kind of embarassing soap operas and whatnot people have been watching on it. Grab some wild future tech and get the rundown on how that shit is made. Lay hands on a couch in one of the lounge area and see what the others get up to in there when no one else is around."

Dave paused, thinking that through for a moment, and grimaces.

"Actually, scratch that last one. I wouldn't want a good couch ruined for me by the knowledge of what some of these assholes might have used it for."

Miku shrugged, "It's... it's something. Sometimes I have a little trouble recognizing what's happening in the present and what's happening in the past. The past is a bit... monochromatic, so it helps, but not always." She couldn't help her anxious dreariness. It was part and parcel, along with soul-crushing guilt for being alive.

One learned to live with it.

"I'll be sure to absolutely inform you if someone's ruined a couch. You'll be the first one. I'll seek you out immediately." She smiled, just a little bit.

Jesus, was she trying to be helpful or was she messing with him? He was kind of hoping for the latter because hey, teasing implies some level of levity, but still.

"No, fuck you, don't tell me anything." Dave frowned intensely at his sandwich and shook his head at the very thought of it. "Let me live in blissful ignorance of which couches might have been defiled and by who. I wanna be able to sit my ass down confidently in any and every available seat without that knowledge haunting me, forever kept at the front of my mind by the fear that I'll forget and sit where I shouldn't and realize only when the deed's already done. If I might be chilling in the aftermath of someone's private funtimes then let me do it unknowingly and without fear, dammit. I wanna remain as naively blind to the bitter realities of the world as Princess Giselle."

"Princess Giselle?" Miku questioned, one eyebrow raised. Was that something from where he lived?

And not for the first time, she realized that he cursed an awful lot. Her smile widened just a bit, "I'll spare you if you stop cursing every third word."

(Joke's on you, Miku. He's already been getting plenty of practice not cursing around Kubo's mom, because you gotta listen when moms tell you not to curse, it's just a rule of the universe and even he as a kid who never had a mom knows that.)

"You drive a hard bargain," Dave said, tone and voice very serious. "God, how will I communicate without profanity? Clearly it makes up the vast majority of my obviously limited vocabulary, this'll be an intense struggle. Anyway, do you really not have Disney movies whete you're from? Do I gotta make Wash show Enchanted next movie night?"

Was he upset? Miku frowned a little. But then he seemed less annoyed, "I think the last movie I saw in theaters was..." Miku trailed off a little, in thought. "Castle in the Sky." It had only been a couple of years ago, but it felt like a lifetime away at the moment. She just hadn't had time to go since before Mafuyu had...

Well, since back then. "I have no idea what Enchanted is at all."

"Shit," Dave said, eyebrows arching above the rim of his glasses. "We definitelu gotta have another Disney night. Specifically Enchanted though, Wash made the mistake of showing a bunch of these assholes The Lion King and made some kids cry."

"I haven't seen that, either." Miku shook her head. Maybe he was just making up titles to toy with her. "Just assume anything beyond 1986 is beyond me. It will be easier that way," she explained.

Parker didn't make a habit of talking on the comm systems unless she really had to, but she read everything on it. Especially the introductory posts, and Miku's was both relatively new and had contained some information that might be potentially useful for what Parker is currently thinking of as the Past-Time Job. Retrocognition could make the whole thing a lot easier, and their time table means that she doesn't have a lot of time to watch Miku from the vents and try and figure out if she's emotionally and mentally suited to semi-legal enterprises. Which means that Parker actually has to talk to her, which is...not her strong suit.

So when Miku next looked up from her food, she'd find a blond woman staring at her from across the table, a disconcertingly measuring look in her eye.

"Hi."

Edited 2017-01-03 04:40 (UTC)

Alright, maybe she wasn't going to go and introduce herself this time. There were other meals! She could try it at dinner. Or midnight snack... or something... Ready to give up the ghost, Miku looked up, just in time for Parker to say hello.

Parker, whom Miku had not heard approach, nevermind see her sit down. She shrieked in terror and nearly jumped out of her skin, the table jerking forward where her telekinectic shield contacted it and pushing girl and chair backward.

Oh. She wasn't in danger. Miku turned a brilliant pink color and swallowed, "H-hello..."

Parker has startled people before -- including her hitter, that one time at the cowboy bar -- but she's never gotten quite so loud a scream before. She's a bit concerned that someone might come over to investigate, but Miku seems to be calming down and no one who's looking over at them seems to feel compelled to get up and bother them.

"Hi," she says again. "I'm Parker. I saw you on the comms."

"O-Oh?" Miku wanted to sink into the floor and die, or get spirited away just at that moment. "It's nice to meet you, I'm sorry about before..." she made a vague handwaving motion around.

"You startled me a bit." And water was a bit wet.

Parker shrugs, waving off the apology. "It's fine, I startle a lot of people."

Of course, if Miku is the kind of person who can be easily startled into shrieking, she's probably not suited to the kind of work Parker wants her to do.

"Are you not a very sneaky person?" she asks, because it's probably nicer than asking if she always screams that loudly.

"Well, I don't really think of myself that way; Rei -- a friend of mine always seemed to get startled by me at home. I was... just a bit lost in thought when you came up." To put it mildly.

Between Hamada's warning about the sneaky picture people and absorbing everything else, it wasn't a huge surprise. "You seem to be much better at startling others than I am, though." She smiled.

"Side-effect of my job," Parker says with another shrug. "It's not hard, I can teach you if you're interested."

'Not shrieking' is an important part of sneaking. Even if Miku is a naturally shriek-y person, she can learn to not do it if she wants it enough.

"I'd like that." There were plenty of things to inwardly flail about. It would be nice to someday perhaps not outwardly flail.

"What is it that you do, then? I mean... vocationally?"

"Cool. We'll make plans once you settle in more."

Parker props her chin on her hand.

"I'm a thief," she explains. "One of the best." Then, because Miku seems like one of those honest people, she elaborates: "we pick up where the law leaves off. Because there are people out there who use their money and power to make regular people just...go away. We make sure they get justice."

See? She's a thief, but she's a good guy thief.

Gwen was making her way through the mess hall, her earbuds in and playing music. She was actually about to leave before she locked eyes with someone. It was the kind of awkward stare where the two of them looked at each other but neither one had actually said anything.

And neither one kept saying anything, which made it even more awkward as the seconds ticked by.

Finally, Gwen took out her earbuds and broke that awkward stare.

"What's... up?"

Miku looked down quickly at her lap, "I'm sorry, I... I didn't mean to stare, I just thought that I'd say hello..."

Her voice seemed to get smaller and smaller the more she spoke. "I'm really terrible at this."

"Hey, don't worry about it. Between you and me, it's actually really easy to say hello to someone." And what better way to show her point then sitting on the same table as her and demonstrating?

"Hello. Don't think I've seen you around before. Name's Gwen."

"Hina-- Miku." It was weird how foreigners just threw out their given names like that. But Miku had been called by her first name enough now. "I'm new... well, I've been here for a little while, maybe... ten days." She wasn't sure exactly. Long enough to try and get used to how her world had changed. But not quite long enough for it to rest easily on her shoulders.

It was like being fourteen again. Only somehow with more people in spandex. "It's nice to meet you, Gwen..." There was a -san quietly added in the back of her mind. It made her feel a little better.

"Yeah, sure thing." She gave Miku a wave, letting both her arms rest on the table. "Ten days huh, means you pretty much know the story by now." Near-death experience, get saved by the people on this ship, swear in to The Legion, find out that they were all up against a monster that was looking to put an end to existence to literally all of time and space...

The whole five-star treatment.

"How you handling it?"

"It could be worse. I... I didn't leave my room for the first few days, of course. Everyone here is so..."

Miku motioned over her head, "Tall. ...It makes it a bit easy to get flustered looking up all the time." There were people taller than her, then there were people taller than her. Like the gentleman in green armor. "So I've been slowly acclimating myself to it."

"Yeah, I get you. First time can be... rough." Of course by now, Gwen was largely used to it. And before that, she was able to travel between dimensions and see all kinds of... things. Maybe not directly along the lines of actual aliens on different planets but close enough.

Maybe?

Different Earths probably counted, anyways.

"Can you believe that some people here will actually make fun of you for having only two arms and eyes? And for showering with actual water? Like, what the hell, man!"

Edited 2017-02-23 18:21 (UTC)

"That's weird... what... what do they expect us to do? Vibrate ourselves clean?" Miku furrowed her brow. "...Actually, they probably do." She wrinkled her nose. "But... they seem to be mostly nice here, at least from what I've seen."

Mostly, until she wandered past a room or a hallway with memories just spilling out of it... It was almost like her old ability... with less malevolent ghosts. Miku poked at her meal. "Where are you from?"

"Sonic showers. It's weird and an affront to all actual 21st century showers I tell you! That and something about other self-aware species living in water so it's like... I don't know."

She felt very strongly about this subject.

"Me? I'm from regular New York. Nothing fancy there. How about you?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In, Out, Up, Down [open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

[[WAUGH, HOW DID I MISS THIS??]]

no subject

no subject

no subject