IC Voicemail, Driftfleet:

[tothefly]

[There is no recording, just a few clicks and a beep.]

[Leave any IC voice messages or texts for Natasha here.]

Comments

action

[experiencepoints]

[Surprisingly literally no one, after that that thread, Nightingale is waiting on the Iskaulit, near the bars.

She also got there hella early, so there's that.]

action

[tothefly]

[Natasha at least doesn't look at all surprised to see it's Nightingale when she makes her way up the hall. Stopping near her, she motions further down towards the rear of the ship.]

Studio's down that way. Unless you'd rather get a drink.

Re: action

[experiencepoints]

Is 'both' an option? I like the idea of both.

[tothefly]

Both is an option, if you want it to be. I could just buy a bottle from one or the other and we could take it with, if you're more comfortable without an audience.

[experiencepoints]

Please. No audience.

... Except for the one I brought.

[On cute, out from under her cape, one of those tiny foxes crawls up onto her shoulder.]

[tothefly]

[Her eyebrows raise just a little, but honestly she's not entirely surprised.]

Wait here, I'll grab us something.

[It only takes a minute or two, anyway, and she's back with a clear bottle and two glasses, leading the way down the hall.]

Seems like everyone brought home a furry friend. What's his name? Or her.

[experiencepoints]

[Nightingale's age is kind of interesting, when you consider she's physically 22 by her world's standards, 21 by other world's calendars, 23 if you count the time being in other games and technically dead so she doesn't age, and she thinks she's 20 due to the whole amnesiac thing.

So, yeah, not underage, just complicated.

And she's going to be absentmindedly petting its ears while they walk.]

Her name's Stratus. She... reminded me of a little monster we were raising back at my last interdimensional shithole.

[tothefly]

Stratus. It's a good name.

[Not that Officer Snuggles isn't. She will be eternally amused by that one, and at least the fox is good at taking care of the weird little lizard-rats they occasionally find in the ductwork or dead in the middle of the floor.]

Is she yours specifically, or a ship pet?

[experiencepoints]

Mine. I don't know if anyone else on the ship would want one, so...

[at least stratus seems to really, really like being pet.]

We had Cumulo and Nimbus, back at the castle, so I thought it would be nice to try to carry on that theme.

[tothefly]

It's a good theme. Plenty of options, at least. You could get her a mate, name him Cirrus.

[Is fox breeding a thing? It had been on the planet. Might be an option for both distraction and a future source of income, wherever they go after this. With a small motion, she guides Nightingale out of the main hall and into an access corridor, and into another after that. She wasn't kidding when she said small studio, or private. The room they end up with is comfortable enough to give two or three people plenty of personal space, with one wall composed entirely of window and a long bamboo bar affixed to one wall. Natasha leaves her shoes by the door, motions to Nightingale to do the same.]

Shoes by the door, please. Hope this is private enough for you?

[experiencepoints]

Nah, the place I got it from spayed the ones they were selling as pets.

[... shoes by the door is going to be an interesting order, though, considering her normal magical girl uniform costume has thigh-high boots and a very short miniskirt, and for all her other issues, body shame isn't actually on the list. So, she doesn't really care if she accidentally flashes Natasha getting them off. Sorry about that.]

It'll work, as long as no one looks in through that window, but... This won't end the way you want it to. I figure you should know that in advance.

[tothefly]

[If there is a flash or two, it's nothing unusual. Not like Natasha has never seen another woman's underwear before. Besides, these floors are a bitch to wax. Lack of shoes is a necessity.

Natasha nods, moves towards the window, having a seat and setting the glasses up, pouring a small measure of clear liquid into each one.]

I'll try to hold off on the emotional hugging and inspirational orchestral music.

[It isn't sarcastic, exactly, just a little wry. She hadn't come into this with expectations, not really. No more than she'd had when she first responded.]

[experiencepoints]

... That was a joke, right?

[She sounds... genuinely unsure. It's really hard to tell sometimes.

Also, now that her shoes are off, Natasha can easily see a nasty scar over her left knee- it's definitely a bullet wound right through the kneecap, and judging from the scar on the other side, it went all the way through. So, that's nice. And on top of that, it's much easier to see now that she's kind of unhealthily thin.]

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing here, though.

[tothefly]

It was. Sorry.

[She seems uncertain, fragile, not much at all like the Nightingale Natasha's talked to before. This place takes a different kind of toll on everyone, though. So she just gestures to the glass in front of her, taking her own in one hand with a slight shrug.]

Drinking. Maybe talking. It's whatever you need it to be.

[She's always been good at being what people need.]

[experiencepoints]

[She sighs, pouring the drinks.]

I have no idea what I need it to be. I was kind of hoping you had an idea, since you seemed confident about that in that post.

[No point in pretending now.]

... But drinking and talking sounds nice.

[tothefly]

This kind of thing should be a conversation, not an interrogation.

[She doesn't much see the point in anonymous public posts, at this date. But people cope how they have to.]

You could tell me about where you're from. The people you spent time with there. Whatever comes to mind.

[experiencepoints]

[She takes a deep breath, looking at her drink but not drinking from it yet.]

... My home world? Or my last interdimensional shithole?

[tothefly]

[Natasha takes a sip of her own (decent vodka, or a close enough substitute--some things you never quite leave behind), shrugging again.]

Why not start with home? It's what you were missing earlier, right?

[experiencepoints]

...

[She takes a slow drink, and then a deep breath. She might be stalling, honestly, but soon she manages to talk.]

I was born and raised in Delwight, the capital of Ashvara. It's... a big city. Skyscrapers, big light signs, probably the strongest wards ever discovered around the city to keep the monsters out.

... People keep telling me my world is a video game. We have things called save points- If you get killed, you resurrect there, a little weaker but not really any worse off. We have magic, I think I've shown you that. Monsters roam outside the city.

We... I keep forgetting it's not normal to other worlds, but we have more people than just humans. Elves- They look like humans, but with long pointy ears, and much better vision. Beast Tribe, people with various animalistic features. And merfolk, amphibious people who live in the ocean.

To be honest, I was always kind of a shut-in. Or... I guess, I was forced to be one.

[tothefly]

[A video game sounds about right, with save points and magic and elves and mermaids. But then, she's met people from all kinds of worlds here, and doubting this would hardly get her anywhere. So she lets Nightingale build her world, nodding when appropriate, and waits until she's done to ask the next leading question.]

Why were you forced?

[experiencepoints]

... It sounds pathetic when I say it.

[This time, she just turns the glass up, intending to drain it all in one go before she continues.]

My parents are adventurers. My mother is an archmage, as far as I know one of the youngest to ever make that. My father's a Steelwall... Think a knight. Heavy armor, giant shields. Incredibly strong defense. His job is to protect the other fighters so they can attack properly.

That job pays really well, and they have other jobs on top of it. My mother helps maintain and strengthen the wards around the city, and my father takes jobs culling any monsters that get too close to the city. We were rich, to be blunt. Well-respected, upper-class. Attended social high-class parties, tried to make networks with other snobs, the works. My teammate back at the castle saw some of my memories... She thought I was a damn princess.

[She actually gives a dry laugh at that.]

But, that's beside the point. They were generally amazing people. They could do anything they put their mind to. I don't know if they've ever struggled with anything. They're probably some of the strongest people in the world, without exaggeration. They never made mistakes, and they never failed at anything. Anything they ever did was done perfectly, without any flaws or mistakes.

[She's taking a short pause to refill her glass, so if Natasha has anything to say, now's the time to say it.]

[tothefly]

[Natasha's perfectly fine taking her time with her own drink. Nightingale's the one who needs help getting through this. And apparently, 'this' is more than just being in the fleet itself. Talented, high-ranking parents. It's not a new story, regardless of the actual content, the application of magic.]

I'm guessing there were certain expectations of their firstborn. Only child?

[She does seem like the type.]

[experiencepoints]

Yeah. Only child.

They wanted a perfect little trophy child. Smart, pretty, talented at everything, polite and charming, everything. Someone they could use to hold themselves up higher, by having a child just as good as they were. They got me.

Anything or anyone not perfect is worthless, as far as they're concerned. And they made sure I knew that.

I graduated high school in second place, out of thousands of students. That made me a disappointment.

[tothefly]

Parents can be difficult. Parents with expectations are worse. It must have been a lot of pressure on you.

[Natasha never really had parents of her own. Her birth parents died when she was very young, and her surrogate father was only just that. Once she began training, there was no such thing as a parent. There was just the cause. Her instructors were the closest she got. But she understands the pressure to be perfect. Maybe even better than Nightingale. After all, there was always the threat of death if she got anything wrong.]

Were you disappointed?

[experiencepoints]

... It was just another step in a long chain of failure.

Eventually, I just shut down. Lost the ability to feel things, entirely. Dropped out of college, knocked my parents out and ran away from home, started freeloading off of my best friend. Started sleeping with her, not sure if it was using her to try to feel again, or trying to pay her back with the only thing I could. It seems like once they were out of my life, I had started to recover somewhat.

And then the world ended.