2023-05-16: The Brightest Star
- Cast: Anser Vulpecula, Shelby Korts
- Where: Fujinomiya City - Photon Power Lab - Bunkroom
- Date: U.C. 0097 05 16
- Summary: [Content Warning: Anxiety, Bullying, Depression, allusions of Disassociation and Eating Disorders, Hugs] An exhausted Anser Vulpecula struggles to stay upright through her overwork. A visit from Shelby Korts disrupts her plans for a quiet evening, but may just be exactly what she needed. For Shelby, it means weathering a deluge of Anser's psychological damage.
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
It's gone.
From the outside, nothing's really changed with Anser. She'd met the news of Phenex's departure with an owlish blink, gathered her tools, and dragged them back to the main hangar, setting up her primary base of operations with the rest of the mobile suits, her more specialized materials deposited near where Unicorn typically docks. She'd simply gotten back to work, and went on about her business as though nothing had changed.
But it's not okay.
Weeks of effort, so much sleep lost, so close to completion. So close to understanding. Working directly on an effectively inert, broken machine is an entirely different experience from working on one that's already in fighting form. When there's nothing to repair, there's only rote diagnostics. Poring over the same basic, dull reports from the Psychoframe. Psycommu connections nominal. No errors.
Nothing to do. Nothing specialized. Nothing that...
Unicorn is more a black box in that respect than the opportunity to work on Phenex had been, even with the physical toll. The only thing more frightening than an overworked mechanic is one with too much free time on her hands. Sure, it means everything's in working order, but it also lends itself quite easily to agitation.
Because she's unapproachable by nature, she's mostly kept to herself in her time at the PPL, except to deliver the occasional perfunctory status report, explain her reasoning, or less-than-politely delve into a scathing condemnation of scientific theories that she deems as unfounded. In other words, she's not exactly helping her case when it comes to attempting to be more sociable. Understandably, given she's making no such effort in earnest.
Perhaps worse is the fact that her very presence seems to be... unsettling in ways that most people can't seem to put their finger on. Her oft-dull affect, only broken through by blandly delivered annoyance isn't even the culprit - just by being in the same room as her, most people tend to agree that they feel uncomfortable. Like the air is heavier. Often, they find themselves jumping at shadows, only to notice there's
Something
nothing there, at all. Perhaps most troubling of all is the frequency with which these claims are circulating. Not in earshot of the small mechanic, or at least... if she has heard such rumors, they don't seem to have impacted her behavior. And besides her work is exemplary. And in the end, that seems to be enough not to let rumors be anything but rumors. She's too useful to have around to suggest anything otherwise.
She can't be found in the hangar. Her shift's just ended - but anyone asking after her can quite easily be directed toward her quarters by those who saw her depart.
Anser swipes her badge to disengage the manual lock on the door that she's thrown in, overriding the biometrics identifiers that tend to govern these devices. The door to her quarters closes behind her with a near-soundless, well-oiled swish of brushed metal sweeping past brushed metal, and a near-soundless click. The lights are supposed to raise when she enters, but she's long since overridden that function. She moves with practiced precision in the dark and strikes a manual switch, bringing up dimmed lights that are little more than a particularly muted nightlight, and she goes about the business of cleaning herself up.
Coveralls are removed. Casual clothing takes their place - a loose tee, jogging shorts. She washes her hands, washes her face. Stares into the pristine, factory-new mirror that looks like it's only recently been installed to replace what she defined as a 'defect' in the previous mirror, her hands resting on the porcelain of the sink. She ties her hair up.
[Missing Scene]
Everything's a little bit easier, now. She moves fluidly throughout the room, brightens the lights a few notches, sets coffee to brewing, and settles into the depths of a cozy chair, pulling out a thin tablet that she swipes a few times, pokes at, and then settles in to read, a thin blanket resting over her lap to keep the cool air at bay, her hand only poking out of the blankets so she can keep the pages advancing.
It's almost cozy now. Almost.
Almost normal now. Almost.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Back and forth, up and down, and a bit of a spin around.
Shelby's been everywhere, it seems, rather than the places she'd actually like to be.
Returning to Japan took a little longer than she wanted; flights divert or get rerouted, military activity causes delays... and, ultimately, Shelby Korts more or less legally does not exist. It causes her to have to be a little more deliberate and careful with how and where she moves with which documentation. Doing things a little more formally and above board is useful, but wastes a lot of time.
And when she arrives, she does take the time to pause outside the mechanic's door and then knock all the same.
When she enters, Shelby looks ... tired. Not combat-weary, really, but the kind of exhaustion that settles in from being on the road for quite awhile; pink hair held down under a dark baseball cap and fingers clutching the strap of her satchel. Unshouldering the bag and taking off her backpack, the young woman sits down-- by putting her back to a wall and sliding down until her butt hits the floor. The exaggeration of her hand lifting up to pull the baseball cap off and drop it onto the floor is a little noticeable.
"Hey."
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
She's supposed to be the quiet one. The one who Shelby can rely on not to be overly chatty when it comes to the leak of her thoughts and feelings - she so often radiates the emotional equivalent of white noise that it's likely to be relaxing to anyone who's got as high a level of sensitivity as Shelby, but there are those moments where even she can be stressed. It's been happening more and more. Or... maybe that's skewed, because they've been meeting face to face less and less with her extended business at the PPL, and Shelby's jet-setting to wheresoever her piloting skills are needed most.
For better or worse, there's often very little cause for Anser's skill set on the battlefield - and that just means that the two haven't really had much contact outside of the occasional Vertex conversation. Conspicuously, Anser's been more and more quiet even on that, her overprotective and near obsessive check-ins to make sure that Shelby's doing alright have tapered off to a couple times a week. It's abnormal for her, someone who sticks to such a rigid schedule, to let these sorts of things slip through the cracks. Yet here we are.
As for being quiet in the sense that only someone with Shelby's acuity can notice?
The sense of the room is that the space is... thick. There's silence for now, but it's not a comfortable one. It's like the uncomfortable space between notes, stretched out. Like the next chord could leap up at any moment. It's not the usual casual whisper of white noise, with the leak of an occasional thought. It's silence. And it's disquieting.
It probably isn't the most comforting environment to enter into when already as weary as she is.
Anser, for her part, looks tense. Like someone who'd both not expected a knock and... the blanket subtly shifts as the hand that dove beneath it relaxes. There's the sound of leather sliding, and a quiet little snap as the young woman slides her small sidearm back into the compact thigh holster that rides beneath her baggy clothing. She breathes out slowly, composing herself, and the barest frayed threads of a smile work its way onto her features. That... fades away, when Shelby all but collapses in a tired heap. Anser stands, setting her tablet with what she's reading down on the table, and crouching low.
"Hey." Her own voice is hoarse. Like she hasn't been using it much.
Accurate.
Still, it's companionable enough. She's not unfriendly, or neutral. Something a bit warmer than that, but a bit cooler than most would be around their friends. Distant. But for Anser? About as warm as she ever gets.
"...You look like you're feeling like shit. You've been overdoing it again?" There's a gentle reproach in her tone. Like she's one to talk.
That eerie stillness in the room remains. A carefully enforced, artificial calm.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
It's too quiet.
She doesn't notice it at first: Her mind tired and most of the Noise coming together in something of a slurry, paradoxically hard and easy to ignore all at once in the vastness of a city.
Shelby's head lifts, pushing her glasses up and letting her head thump lightly against the wall behind her where she is seated. "Just traveling," she says, then lifting her hand a little. "Work travel, I mean. Making arrangements. Seeing people about ... stuff, and things. I've never been good. At. ... At making the quiet stuff. The dealings." By the time she gets the whole sentence out, her hand has gone to wheeling around in a nebulous gesture, before her forearm falls across a drawn-up thigh.
"I'm sorry I was gone for so long."
She lifts her gaze now, looking up at Anser finally. As ever, it's like her eyes can just see straight through someone, especially when she's too tired to hide it. "Are you okay? You didn't get hurt when...?"
When the Banshee... when Rita...
When did it get so quiet...?
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
A soft breath, heard with near-crystal clear quality in the space of the oddly silent room.
"...Yeah," Anser murmurs, "I get that way about travel sometimes. Meeting new people. It's neither of our strong suits. I mean, it took... what, three years to thaw out around the Sweetwater crew. Imagine it's a bit worse for you. The headaches, fatigue, social anxiety, and such." She stops well short of the mind-reading. It's one of the few things she has some empirical evidence for after spending long enough watching Nanai and Shelby hold strange, zoned-out staring contests, but she dislikes mentioning it.
She quietly standing and smoothing her shirt down, moving over to the bathroom and filling a glass kettle full of water. Her abandoned tablet glows tantalizingly in the low-light environment from where it sits on the table. Probably just Psycommu research. Probably. Anser's taking her time. Slow tap water only fills a 6 cup vessel so quickly.
She eventually returns, moving the water on to corresponding boiler. Electric kettles are convenient.
"...Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate? Granted, the powdered stuff and water's pretty thin. But you know that."
Dehydrated food and drink? Why, it's almost a Sweetwater tradition for Nanai Miguel and her associates.
She leans her back quietly against one of the dressers that would ordinarily host a resident's clothing, and which currently only holds a few sparing articles of attire. Every component that might make up an outfit only has perhaps two spares other than what she's wearing. Economical? Sure. A bit unhygienic? Yes. At least she makes twice-weekly laundry runs. Usually. Little gremlin.
The question gets a quiet exhale from Anser. "...Yeah. I'm okay. Not hurt. Very nearly slept through it. If anything, I'm just..."
A shrug of her shoulder.
"Doesn't matter. Things haven't changed. I came here to service Unicorn. So I'm back to servicing Unicorn." Her placid tone and posture make it feel like the truth, even as her body positively drips with signs of fatigue. The deep set shadows under her eyes, the way her hands are gently shaking. The way her posture is shifting slightly. Like she's barely holding her balance.
The silence wavers, then comes back even more cloyingly.
She's closed.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
"Hot chocolate, please." she replies. "No caffeine right now. I'll probably wake up in another dimension again."
Another di--again?
Shrugging out of her hoodie while Anser starts preparing water, Shelby fishes her sleeves out of her bag, tugging the tight black fabric off her arms, thumbs digging against old scars and stripping the muscle from the crook of her elbow to her wrists. Wearing two tanktops, her scars-- some faded, some not so much-- are on display, more than she normally feels comfortable showing with most people.
Most of them are definitely surgical.
More importantly, something just feels ... wrong. She seems so guarded, so very... what's going on? There's no fox. There's no strange feeling, there's no ... nothing.
Shelby looks up at Anser while she shuffles around, her brow creasing. "You don't... have to close up around me, you know. Are you okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
"Two watery, weirdly sour hot chocolates, comin' right up." Anser waves the back of her hand without turning around to face Shelby, just yet. She's focusing on retrieving the mugs. On shaking the packets to that she doesn't end up sprayed with a puff of hot chocolate damn-near-immediately. Gently ripping the packets open and tapping them into the mugs.
Another dimension? That prompts an owlish blink, and a slight lift of her head, turning to half-look over her shoulder.
"Haven't heard that figure of speech before, but yeah. I'm pretty sure I'd vibrate right into another dimension if I had any caffeine right now. Too awake to sleep. Too sleepy to be awake. You know how it goes."
She lifts the kettle and pours a cup of hot chocolate. There's one cup. She lifts it again and moves to fill her own mug.
Are you okay?
Anser's fingers twitch. Her shoulders subtly hunch, and she pauses for an overly long moment, holding the kettle in her hand, poised to pour.
"Just tired. That's all."
From beyond the silence, those words seem to reverberate in Shelby's skull. Like they slipped past those defenses, and now have nowhere to go. So they reverberate.
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
ThAt'S AlL. thAt'S aLl. THat'S AlL. thAt'S aLL. ThAt'S aLL. tHAt'S AlL. tHaT's AlL. ThAT'S aLl. tHats aLl tHatS AlL ThAtS alL tHats aLL ThaTs aLl ThATs AlL. ThaT'saLLtHat'SAlltHat'SalLTHat'SAlltHat'SALLtHat'SallThat'SaLL.
AlLAlLAlLaLlaLlaLLaLlAlLaLlAlLAlLAlLaLLaLLalLAlLAlLaLlAlLaLLAlLaLlAlLaLLAllallALLALLALLaLLaLLaLlAllaLLaLlaLLAllaLLaLLaLLAllaLLallALLaLLALLaLLAllAllAllall.
THAT'S ALL.
It stops, like a stream dammed off all at once.
Anser shakily pours the second mug, and sets the kettle back down on its base.
"...You know me. Just haven't gotten enough sleep. Maybe in another dimension as we speak." A smile. Forced. Unnatural.
She's lying. And Shelby is uniquely equipped to know it, in spite of that flat affect, in spite of the rare smile that's meant to disarm. She looks back and picks up a coffee stirrer, quietly incorporating the powder into the heated water. The gentle sound of metal on porcelain.
Tink, tink, tink, tink.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
As Anser half-looks back, Shelby shrugs her shoulders somewhat helplessly. "Tsutsujidai," she says, as if it explains everything: The anomaly space that has certainly been brought up in at least a few Shuffle papers and reports.
'Just tired, that's all.'
And then, the echoes hit sharply, rebounding and doubling on itself, quadrupling, octupling--
"Ghh--" Shelby says with a sharp click of her tongue, her hand lifting up to hold the side of her head as the jackhammer of a single thought viciously slams around inside her own mind-- loud enough, and fierce enough to drown out the buzz of a city.
"I'm sorry if I scared you, with the whole ... well, everything. Everything. My abilities being weird, and the disappearing, and... learning about Rita, and all of it. I know it's not easy to look at all of this and just take my word for it. But you know if you need to talk, I'm here, okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
Tsutsujidai. Another of the things that Anser doesn't have any concrete explanation for. Several reports detailing a similar phenomenon, days apart from one another, all with striking similarities. Too many similarities.
Then Shelby flinches.
To Anser, of course, it only looks like what she's seen of Shelby on numerous occasions. Those fierce headaches she's always complained about. From the engineer's side, she... well, doesn't know the sort of baggage that she's lugging around, and how it impacts the receptive around her. A healthy distrust of the fact that emotions can be read outside of a Psychoframe still seems to bother her from a scientific perspective, for one.
She hasn't quite turned around yet. She politely turns her had back when Shelby starts to grimace and groan. Or... maybe it's more awkwardness than polite. She's not nurturing by nature, outside of the occasional outlier.
"...You should tell me about Tsutsujidai. I've read some of the briefs and reports, but y'know. I'd rather hear it from someone who I have reason to trust."
She stares at the mugs of hot chocolate, bothered by the fact that one seems to have more in it than the other, and casually lifts the kettle again, topping off the mug so that she and Shelby both have an equal amount of mediocre hot chocolate to work with. She sets the kettle down on the corner of the dresser and stirs again, listening to Shelby's apologies.
Tink, tink, tink, tink.
Tink, tink, tink, tink.
"...I appreciate the thought. And I'm... glad that you're back in contact. I really hated seeing those messages not even show up as 'read'." She glances down. Still facing away. "...But other than that, I don't know what you're expecting me to say. Your abilities have never frightened me. Rita makes sense to me. Even her actions with the Phenex make sense, from a frustratingly logical point of view. Heh. Figures I'd understand that, all things being equal."
She dips her head in a brief little nod.
There's a tension in the air again. The silence. Like a dam waiting to break. Like someone holding on for dear life above the brink.
"I don't know what you think I might need to talk about." She says, uncertainly, turning with both mugs of hot chocolate. She presses one into Shelby's waiting hands, and takes a few steps back toward the dresser again, cradling her own close to her. Waiting for it to cool.
Cloying. Awful, this atmosphere.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
"It was nice, the two times I was there. Warm weather. Like ... good, colony weather, almost. Big weird monster things all over the city just standing there like statues. I don't remember how I got there, or how I actually got ... out. The first time was on the train, the reports say that was the common route out. The second was more ..."
A flash of a Cheshire smile. C.C., lounging across a sofa.
"... complicated...? Like ... I know dimension stuff is a whole ... thing, but it's way beyond me. Outside of..." her hands make the nebulous, wrist rolling gestures again, trying to find her words. "Outside of like. Movies. Stuff where they make it make sense. To watch."
Rita comes up again. Shelby frowns, looking down. "I'm not happy how that all went down." Her gaze lifts, apologetic. "I actually ... went to talk to the lady from Luio. That was why I had to leave this last time. She agreed to give me time to talk to Rita about. ... things. Big lot of good that did."
The mug presses into her hands. The warmth is immediate in her cold hands, and she spends more time looking at the surface of the hot chocolate for answers than anything else, even as the tops of the lenses take on a slight fog.
What could Anser need to talk about? The smallest of frowns tugs briefly at the corners of Shelby Korts' mouth, and her fingers shift a little on the hot cup.
"I ... I dunno. You just seem ... tense. Like ... you need to relax."
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
She listens, and the slow, methodical stir of powdered hot chocolate gradually comes to an end.
Anser turns, and quietly leans against the small countertop - or being propped up by it, more accurately. Still, she's able to keep herself upright, keep her expression measured. She holds the mug in both hands, waiting for it to cool.
"If you're concerned that this is one of those things I might turn my nose up about, it's not," She explains, "...there's plenty of scientific theory supporting multiple dimensions - I'm curious how it's being pulled off on such a seemingly small scale. The papers I've read, the people who've been there, they all describe a city that only extends to its borders. Some sort of... closed space."
Her eyes close for a moment, then another. They stay closed, resting.
"...I wish I understood how it might work. Do you remember anything about how you got there, or... how you left?"
Rita. Regrets. Anser lifts the mug to her lips, takes a scalding sip, and lowers it again.
You need to relax.
"I've always been uptight. Now's not any different. No batting cages to work off my energy, I guess."
The air feels heavy. There's no sign of a wayward fox looming out of any of the corners, or otherwise making itself known. It's like being in a high pressure system, the clouds rolling above, threatening a downpour at any moment, the anticipation and anxiety of a storm rolling ever nearer.
Anser takes another slow sip, reaching in to her pocket for her pack of cigarettes.
Her hand tremors.
The mug tremors.
She quickly adjusts her grip. Scalding hot chocolate, insidious and weaponized spills out over her wrist. "Ow! F--" She sets the mug down behind her and gives her hand a firm shake, reaching over with her opposing hand to brush any remaining fluid off. Her brows knit in irritation. Her scalded hand is trembling still.
A... muffled song. Voices uplifted. It's deep, droning. Barely a song. But it's too distant yet to hear.
POUND.
Her hand slams against the countertop behind her, and she leans her head forward.
The barest thoughts start to leak through. Unbidden, as always. Quiet, comparatively, but given how guarded Anser is about her thoughts, it's still... more. Not the song. Her thoughts.
Keep running, keep running, keep running, keep running. Don't stop. Don't stop. Don't stop. Don't stop.
"...I'm tired. Sorry."
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
"Ah, no, I mean--" Shelby's head cants to look up to Anser, then her cheeks color a shade before her eyes drift back down to the all-seeing mug. "-- I mean it's ... really complicated. And I don't really know how to explain it. The longest that I ever went to school in my life was the training course when I enlisted, and they were so hungry for pilots and my abilities fast-tracked me to the Newtype Corps, and ..."
Shelby draws in a breath. "The first time I was there, I was asleep. And... I wasn't dreaming it. I just kind of ... was there. The girl that knew what was going on-- I've talked to Nanai about her-- she, like. She sent me to a train that got me out of town, right? But then I fell asleep on the train and then woke back up in my apartment. But I woke up propped against the door to my apartment." The notoriously sticky door.
"The second time, I was ... I was doing some recon work, and I wasn't in my mobile suit. And someone said I got pulled in there. Like some kind of ..." Her head tilts side to side. "Beacon? I don't know. I'm sorry, I really don't..."
The mug spills, and Anser--
Something's heavy. Something's wrong.
Anser's--
Shelby stands up, setting her mug aside and walking over to the engineer. Sneaky thoughts leaking through draw her attention, then a slight frown and a creased brow. Easing into position next to Anser, she leans forward, one hand supporting her weight while the other reaches to touch the engineer's shoulder. "You don't have anything to be sorry for, Anser."
"Just ... don't run away from me, talk to me."
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
She doesn't have the ability to respond to Shelby's explanation of the curious closed space because too much, clearly, goes wrong before she's able to weigh in. She heard it all, of course, but things become entirely more complicated. It's clear that her thoughts on it will have to wait.
Shelby's approach has her leaning slightly away, but the hand on her shoulder - even if for now it's just Shelby's fingertips, seems to root her in place.
She looks up, "...I just haven't been sleeping. It's nothing to worry about. I just need to catch a few hours, and I'll be alright, okay?" Her expression is almost comforting. Her words are close to convincing.
Then, the intrusive spillover. Easier to catch now that Shelby is closer.
If I stop, if I rest, they might think I don't know what I'm doing. That I don't know anything. That people easier to get along with are around, every bit as smart.
Just like always. Work harder. Work longer. Don't stop. More. Harder. Don't stop. Keep running. I can't go back.
I don't want to go back home. I can't. I can't.
She turns to look at Shelby, "...I appreciate it. Really. There's nothing more or less to it. I'm just--
So tired I could cry. So tired I could drop. Nobody's stopping me. Why isn't anyone stopping me? Don't they see? Don't they look? Do I look okay? Do I look fine?
"Tired. That's all."
A school. No, an academy. Students bustling about, all in regimented uniforms. Tall. They're all so much taller. They look down with amusement. With curiosity. With scorn.
All rise.
That droning song. Distant, still.
"Didn't mean to startle you, Ko-- Shelby. It's fine. Really."
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Is she trying to keep her thoughts closed off? Hidden? Is it really just exhaustion? Of course her own mind is sprinting a mile a minute the second that she starts to feel -- hear -- Anser's spillover thoughts; the pink-haired young woman clasping her whole hand on the mechanic's shoulder.
"You know we all rely on you, right? We all trust you."
'I don't want to go back home. I can't.'
"I'm not going to--"
While Anser's words are spoken, Shelby's mind-- vision-- becomes clouded with visions of a school, and uniforms. Ones that simultaneously are and are not familiar. Her eyes unfocus.
"A-Anser, I--"
All rise--
She flinches slightly, the moment blinking in and out of her head with twice the ferocity of how quickly it set into her vision; Shelby's face tics in a way that the mechanic is very familiar with-- but then her hand gives a squeeze to the smaller young woman's shoulder.
"Anser. You've ... been working so hard. For me, for Rita, for ... for everyone. All of us. Okay? I'm gonna put you in this bed, and I'm going to make sure you do not leave this room until you've gotten a full eight hours of sleep, minimum. This is non-negotiable. And then we're gonna go to get breakfast, and you are going to take a day off."
Shelby's voice is firm in a way it rarely is. "Am I understood?"
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
She doesn't shy away. The hand on her shoulder is a steadying presence. A rare thing.
When's the last time someone comforted me? People probably think I'll slap their hand away.
And maybe she would. But right now? She doesn't. She looks down, and chews at her lip. Outside of her professional facade, she really... doesn't look so much different than any other girl her age. Well. Except shorter than most. But that's not terribly hard to imagine.
Her eyes lift, and she blinks. And continues to blink. She recognizes that look on Shelby's face.
Oh. Oh no, no, no.
Still, she... can't help but take that compliment to heart. It is, after all, something she's been longing to hear. Even if it's a bit unfair of Shelby to be able to dredge it right out of the young woman's psyche. It's like cheating. Not that Shelby can help it.
"I..." She begins, and then she's cut off just as quickly by Shelby being forceful, prompting a look of shock to cross over the mechanic's expression. She shuts her mouth. Her eyes look distant, and then close.
"...Yes, ma'am."
"Yes, ma'am." Her voice is cold. She's new. So is Shelby, but Shelby technically outranks her. Barely sixteen. The Rewloola is--
The memory is discarded. But it doesn't stop.
"Yes, ma'am!" A hand flailing in the air lowers, and she pops up to her feet, "...Each Area is given a number to correspond with the order of their occupation."
BGM: National Anthem of the Holy Britannian Empire https://youtu.be/6GbiKwpTlZE
"Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Iceland, South America..."
Truth and hope in our Fatherland!
And death to every foe!
Our soldiers shall not pause to rest
We vow our loyalty.
"Japan,"
Old traditions they will abide
Arise young heroes!
Our past inspires noble deeds
All Hail Britannia!
Anser looks distracted, just as Shelby clearly is, but... past that, there's gratitude writ plain on her features. "...You're understood. I... don't think there's much left to do, anyhow. Unless you tear up the Jagd Doga again. Shelby? Thanks. I'm glad you're my..."
"I'm so glad we're friends!" A chirpy voice tells one of the other students. The look on her face is amused. They're not friends. But she doesn't know that yet.
It won't... stop.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
An Ensign in the Newtype Corps, assigned to the Rewloola. Mid-back red hair with large waves and curls in it, often styled over one shoulder and with messy bangs covering the scars on her forehead. Freckles, no glasses but contact lenses. A familiar lack of sleep; she hadn't yet discovered things that helped her reach a state that she actually could sleep more comfortably.
Ride the wave? Not necessarily. This is one of those moments where she takes Anser's past advice, the newtype planting her feet. The memories wash over her; the sights and the sounds and the smells. It isn't just a vision; it's something that Shelby Korts has struggled with for years-- wandering so close to someone's thoughts or heart that she starts seeing the world through their memories. Feeling them, almost like they were her own.
Shelby... feels it. Britannian schools-- she probably went to one, but she can't remember. Is... this what it was like for Sophia? She's heard the anthem a few times, at least, while traveling. Usually, it was met with scorn or rolled eyes before she kept moving along...
"Well, I mean, that's. I try to not, but," Shelby says with a small laugh, her other hand lifting in a vague, loose gesture.
'I'm so glad we're friends!'
No, that won't do. That's not enough.
The pink-haired young woman's mouth bends in a smile. "Family. A big, weird family."
"C'mon. We both need some sleep."
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
It washes over Shelby. It helps that none of it's particularly overwhelming, at face value. It's just... Anser. Whatever part of Anser existed before they met on the Rewloola.
It contextualizes some things, undoubtedly. Her feelings about Sophia, perhaps. The way she'd sulked. Ate Shelby's pudding in quiet retaliation.
She was... worried.
It looks so very much like Shelby's going to get through to her. To pull her out of those pent-up thoughts and circular emotions.
Family.
There's no warning, this time. No pitter patter, no dread, it's just there. Immediately. Directly in front of Shelby's face, blotting out her view of Anser. It's not the size of a fox. It's the size of a bear. Angry, dark, full of vitriol. It smells overwhelmingly of smoke, ozone. Its eyes are ablaze. And it doesn't meekly shy away.
"No," The fox states, its voice thick and rattling. "Not. Family."
Anser, in the meantime, looks flabbergasted, and her cheeks subtly color. "...Y-yeah. Something like that." She nods her head and rubs at the back of her neck, "Sleep... sounds so, so, good. I just hope I can get a good rest. So much coffee, you know?"
A small smile.
One the fox does not share. It's baring its teeth, growling low.
It's... a disconnect. Anser seems perfectly pleased. The fox? Oh, the fox is furious, but it hops away, seated on Anser's bed, staring daggers at Shelby.
"I'll... see you in the morning?" Anser ventures, uncertain about whether she's supposed to be following Shelby, or... what.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Fwoosh.
Face to face with the gigantic fox in an instant, the apparition bearing it's full anger and fury. Her breaths shudder, her eyes go unfocused. Her hands -- always cold -- tremble a little, with the one clutching Anser's shoulder. It coincides perfectly with that moment; that split-second reaction of the smaller mechanic stammering.
'Not. Family.'
Shelby's eyes close, and she takes a deep breath. She can smell anger and fury, feel the hot breath and the rumble of it's growl echoing in her ears. It reverberates in her skull, in her chest, a force so strong and direct that it's near-actually affecting her as much as the panic starting to swell inside her.
'Y-yeah. Something like that.' The words seem to echo for a second shy of eternity.
She twists, in that moment, and puts both hands on Anser's shoulders. When her eyes open, they're a little wet at the corners. Her face is a little red. She's nervous, and sad, and tired, and--
And then a surprise hug?!
"Look. I don't know if. That's the word you wanted to hear. And I'm still not. I'm not good at. A lot of things. But I care about you, Anser. A lot. I know we all came from somewhere but I'm still figuring out, like. ... Who I am. And where I came from. You are irreplaceable in my life. Okay? And I d-don't ... I don't have a lot of people like that. And I ... just don't have a better word for it."
'I would tear down the sky for the people I care about,' she once said.
"I'll stay here tonight if you want me to."
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
Anser, as so many who aren't attuned, doesn't have the faintest idea of the sort of nonsense that her thoughts are inflicting on Shelby. All she has to go by are the pink-haired pilot's words, her earnest expression. So far, that's meant that she's mostly just seen and heard Shelby looking tired, and a bit frantic, but saying the words that she needed to hear the most. She's handily winning in friendship points.
The growling begins to abate as distance is put between that word that the fox seemingly hated the implication of. It's glaring, still, but... it's also getting smaller. Slowly.
The mechanic blinks when the second hand lands on her other shoulder, and--
The hug takes her off guard. That much is plainly obvious by the fact that she all but squeaks when it happens, but she's really in no position to flee from it. Neither emotionally (she's a wreck), nor physically (she's got her back against a countertop). She's dragged in and enclosed. Even with Shelby being shorter than average, Anser is... considerably shorter than average. Especially given the impact of her time on Sweetwater and the relative belt-tightening that occurred there, she's relatively easy to pull about.
Actually, yikes, she hardly feels like she weighs anything.
She's left pressed warmly in Shelby's arms, her own down at her side because... well, she wasn't expecting to be hugged. Her arms dangle, and she just... stands there. Flabbergasted.
Things don't quiet down. They seem unwilling to let up, in fact. A cascade of female voices, their tone mocking.
"Don't bother. She hardly even talks to anyone."
"She thinks she's so much better than--"
"--out of the last grade, so she'll probably just--"
"Looks like a gradeschooler, and acts l--"
"You thought we were friends? That's adorable. Don't you feel lighter now? Snip snip.""Pff--hahaha! She totally looks like a boy."
"What happened to her hair? So gross."
Then, a gentler voice. Masculine.
"That's you, little fox. The brightest star in our constellation."
Her fingertips twitch, and she lowers her head against Shelby. Fwump.
One hand lifts, and her thumb and forefinger take the fabric of Shelby's attire into grip. It's not a return hug. But it somehow feels... more important than one.
"...I'm still... I'm still figuring it out, too. I don't know all the answers. B-but I..." Her voice is swollen with emotion. Hugged as she is, Shelby can feel how badly she's been trembling. Like she could drop at any moment. She's been forcing herself upright.
"...I'd sleep easier if you did."
There's plenty of bunks. It's not like it's a private room, even though she's been monopolizing it.
The fox is gone.
<Pose Tracker> Shelby Korts has posed.
Memories start to slam into her; words, speech-- things that happen and warp and shape around her perspective. It starts to become a lot: The taunting, the hate, the way her hair was cut. And then at the end, one more voice that feels far more important than the others; a voice that comes from a place of love?
The thumb and forefinger catch her t-shirt. She's felt it before, and while the gesture was not recognized at first, it feels ... important, now.
The pink-haired newtype stays strong to the trembling; a reliable pillar to keep the mechanic upright while giving her a faint, unseen smile.
"Okay."
Shelby will lead the small mechanic back to the bed and wait for her to get settled before gathering her things to get to the adjacent bunk. She travels light, most of the time.
"I'll see you in the morning, Anser."
<Pose Tracker> Anser Vulpecula has posed.
It really doesn't take long. Anser curls up under the blankets and is out like a light.
The voices, finally, are silent. And she finally didn't set an alarm to boot her awake within the next few hours.
In the morning, she's still soundly sleeping by the time Shelby's up and about. And well after Shelby starts her day. Who knows how long she sleeps - but the expression on her face is serene, a contented smile that Shelby's never seen her wearing.
A signifier of a job well done.