2022-05-13: Sunshine and Rough Diamonds

• Log: 2022-5-13 - Sunshine and Rough Diamonds
• Cast: Renais Cardiff, Nidaime
• Where: Nouvelle Tokyo
• OOC - IC Date: May 13, 0096
• Summary: A kaiju and a cyborg give, and receive, much-needed support.

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<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Nouvelle Tokyo is a city Renais never got to know particularly well before GGG's fleet left for the other universe, a few joint operations aside. And for fairly obvious reasons, the last few months have had a different sort of tint to them--so she's almost exploring the city with new eyes.

She takes a glance down at her cell phone, making a quiet 'hm' sound. She could've sworn the shop she was looking for was on this street--seems she took a turn two blocks too early.

That's the trouble with planned cities like this, she thinks--the grid occasionally makes it easier to get lost. Things look the same, you lose track of the street numbers...

Leaving aside that navigating the old cities of Europe sometimes seems to require a sort of deep, chthonic Knowledge, incomprehensible to outsiders.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

That's the problem of mysterious worlds that are strangely connected and strangely not connected to one another, isn't it?

Renais might get the feeling that she's being watched in the strange fugue of having taken a wrong turn. Peeking around a corner at Renais is the familiar form of an unwashed teen girl in a hoodie wearing earbuds. She doesn't say anything for a while. Instead the loud thrumbing of music pounds from her earbuds and she just stares at her, upright because it's easier to peek around a corner like that.

NIDAIME MOM BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbm6GXllBiw&ab_channel=GunsNRosesVEVO

If Renais spots her, she pokes her head back again, then back out again. She's clearly intent on watching poor Renais.

She has something on her mind. She doesn't vocalize it, fingers tensing across the corner of the building.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais look up from her phone, eyes meeting with Nidaime's as the little kaiju ducks back behind the corner. A small smirk crosses her lips, and her phone drops back into her pocket. Nonchalant, like she doesn't actually see her, Renais approaches the street corner, stopping just out of view.

After a long moment of silence, she speaks, her Japanese accented with French. "I've been wondering something since we last met... 'Nidaime' means 'second'. Who's the first?"

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"Anopapa is the first." Nidaime says. "I'm the Second." Nidaime and The Second are essentially the same just different languages. "I am Anosillus the Second." The full name here.

"Are you going to break stuff again?" She asks. She pushes her head back out and adds, "Do you still think..."

It wasn't really a strange concept to her, how it was put to her. "Is your heart still infected with a need to kill everything?"

She had been told that the reason for everything was so that Renais wouldn't have to feel that way anymore. She's not sure she understands how it helps but she understands that kind of disease existing within others. It isn't entirely an alien concept.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais shakes her head, shoulders slumping just slightly. There's a sad smile on her face. "No. Not anymore, Nidaime." She's speaking gently, a little carefully, the way she might to a child. She sighs just a little, softly. "I'm... sorry if I scared you, or made you sad." That doesn't feel like enough. An apology isn't likely to ever feel like enough.

"Sayla told me you protected me, after, ah... he put me down. Made sure he couldn't get close or try anything else." She looks down at Nidaime, her smile becoming just a little brighter. "Thank you. I'm just... I'm sorry you had to meet me first in that state."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Nidaime steps out from behind her cover. She's relieved, and it shows. That kind of storm is hard to weather. She sees the smile and that gets Nidaime to laugh a bit, "EhehehehehheHEH...." She giggles, body shaking. Maybe not just a little bit. "That's good! Papa was once made to do bad stuff so I'm glad you're not being made to do bad stuff now."

In many important ways this is a child, but in some ways--mostly in the eyes--she doesn't quite come across as human. The beastial fang and the strange eyes lend a faint inhuman quality to her appearance. This up close it's hard to miss.

And getting this close, Nidaime's breath reeks, it's not a pleasant smell--like someone who hasn't brushed their teeth in their entire life.

"I'm glad you're okay." She wiggles. "...Did Auntie Sayla say that?"

Like a child who feels they did something wrong, there is a mild current of anxious fear. Love too, of course, she loves Sayla dearly and she definitely doesn't want to dissapoint her. But she feels like she has.

"It's okay. The important thing is that you're okay now." She pushes that sensation away for the moment. "It means we did our job!"

A faint pause, and then-- "Are your hands okay?"

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais tries her best not to show a reaction, but it's... not easy. She doesn't quite manage it, and her sincerity looks a little bit undercut by the sour look underneath. Mental note: Ask Sayla about that.

Renais nods. "She did. You're not in trouble or anything... I thought it was sweet, honestly." She chuckles a little, and pulls her hands out of her pockets. She turns them over for Nidaime, one in a fingerless glove, the other a gold cybernetic gauntlet. "Yes, they're fine, see? They, ah... told you about what I tried, then, didn't they. What Hell and Heaven was doing to me?" She leans on the wall, finger stroking along one of the facet edges of her G-Stone. It keens softly, a 'G' appearing in a flickering flash for a few moments. "Seems this little guy nearly cracked."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Nidaime relaxes visibly. "Auntie Sayla has been through so much and she's so strong and smart..." She clearly looks up to her, if nothing else. That fear isn't exactly a fear born from dislike, disgust, or disappreciation. Rather it might be the other way around. "She looked after me when mom became music. She's a truly great person." She wiggles back and forth on her feet. "I hope I can be a little like her someday." Or at least like the way she envisioos her.

She nods a few times upon seeing the glove. "They shouldn't crack! If a turtle shell cracks it's real bad."

She eases back, wiggling stops.

"I was wondering something." She says. "Do you think a kaiju can be like Auntie Sayla?" She doesn't know if she knows the Chibodee Gals so she leaves it at that. "She smells nice and heals people like mom and Gridman."

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais nods. "She's certainly something. Without her, I... don't think I'd be here right now." There's a pause, and... a stare. A long stare, as Nidaime says her mom 'became music'. "You'll, uh. You'll have to tell me more about that sometime," she says with a smile.

"Oh, this would have been worse than a turtle's shell cracking! It's... part of what keeps me alive," she says with a small smile. "It's like if my heart stopped working." (It's probably best not to question why something so vital is so vulnerable.)

That's. A hard question. And... not one she's equipped to answer. But-- how can she not, here? Quietly, she lets out a "Hm."

She thinks a long moment, decides, and squats down on Nidaime's level. "Yes. You might be a kaiju, Nidaime, but... you're a person, too. And I think you can do anything a person can." She smiles. "I look at you now... and I see a girl who can grow up into a beautiful woman, one who can help people just like Auntie Sayla can."

After a beat, she adds, "And if you work at it, you can smell just as beautiful as you'll look." It's a little too dire not to mention, really...

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"Turtle shells also keep turtles alive." Nidaime points out. Though it might not be as QUICK and perhaps there could be treatment. And well, probably admittedly--yeah--less deadly than a turtle's heart being ripped out.

"Oh well my mom was always music actually, but she took a physical form for a little while but then she had to go back to being music after." She pulls her earbud out and adds, "You can listen if you want."

She's a little less inclined to pull free both earbuds at the moment but once she's ready again--she's a little clingy to her mom right now.

"You're really nice aren't you? Do you think the same about yourself now?"

She sniffs experimentally.

"You smell okay to me. And you are very pretty."

It's just a matter of fact for her.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais looks... *more* confused with the explanation, blinking slowly. But she takes one of the earbuds, and listens. "Ooh. Wow... old-fashioned, but... that's... really nice. Is she all music? Like a..." She pauses a second to think of the word. "Like a kami?"

The questions... she sighs, and looks aside. Kids ask such difficult questions. "I suppose I do. It's... I can't..." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. It's complicated. Difficult for me to talk about. But... thank you." A slight flush comes to her cheeks at the compliment.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

At this point, the music has changed from Paradise City to an unfamiliar piano melody. "Um, I don't think it's a one or the other thing. Like me she isn't a native of your world. She's not a kaiju either but she made me. She's the Sound of our world."

She giggles again as Renais says 'it's complicated'. She seems to be recovering from whatever hesitancy she had before, that laugh is closer to her true self.

"When you push your face real close to something it's hard to see." She says. "And music sounds complicated but it's actually just math dancing."

Her smile is the proverbial diamond in the rough.

"Even I get worried about things, but when kind people like you try to reassure me, it is really simple in their eyes. IT's the same for you. You decide what Renais is."

"I'm just a kid so I try to forget that it's simple because making it complicated is how you figure stuff out. Kids are supposed to think simple stuff is complicated." When did this become Nidaime trying to reassure Renais rather than the other way around.

"But simple doesn't mean easy either. I know that too. So half right I think. Simple but difficult."

She reaches forward to give Renais a pat. "It's okay," She says.

"I know you're doing your best." Pat pat.

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais smiles a little. Whatever Nidaime is... she's not just a kid, or just a kaiju. Renais is sure of that. There's a lot of wisdom there. She sighs softly... and closes her eyes, leaning into the pat.

In response, she tugs Nidaime's hood up over her head and gives her a headpat in return. "... Thanks, Nidaime," she says, a smile on her lips. "You're something else. And I feel even more confident in saying you're going to grow up to be something wonderful, because you already are."

Quietly, half to herself, she murmurs, "Just math dancing... hm..."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Nidaime is this weird ??? space but she is always pretty clear that she's a kaiju. She knows that for certain. Other things are less clear.

The Nidaime Mom track shifts again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JCLY0Rlx6Q&ab_channel=WalkTheMoonVEVO

The Second taps her foot to the beat. She still has one earbud in her ear after all. "You'll grow up big and strong too." Nidaime says even though Renais is a full grown woman. "That makes me..." She spreads her arms wide. "This happy! There's someone you want to help grow up here too right?" She considers. Immature deities are really dangerous.

"Eeeeeh you're making me blush!" Nidaime places her hands on her cheeks bashfully or at least a playful show of it.

"Mmhmm. Mom is math too. So she has a lot of dancing to do."

"But I ... my complication is, in my head, I feel bad because I asked for help from someone and now he's probably in trouble. I shouldn't have whispered his name... There's someone we have to help here. I'm trying but...helping people is hard. People don't usuall want to be helped, they want to... Be what they feel. So that's why I'm worried that I messed up maybe."

She smiles. "She's really nice, Sayla, but sometimes she gets a bit scowly..."

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais bounces a little too, bobbing her head to the music a bit. She can't help grinning at Nidaime, and... almost hugs her. She doesn't. Hugs from Renais might be dangerous...

"Well... whoever it is, I hope he's not in too much trouble. But how much did he help you--did he help you with your homework? Save your life?" Do kaiju have homework? ... Probably not. She's having trouble imagining Anti doing homework.

"As for helping others... it's hard." She sighs softly. "It's easy to drown in your feelings, because when you're over your head in emotion, it's... really hard to imagine that anything else exists, that the future can be anything except the lake you're drowning in."

"Some people don't want to be helped. But sometimes they just need more help than you can give alone, and... if youworry that you messed up, or that you can't do it on your own, it's okay for *you* to ask for help."

She thinks about scowly Sayla, and her lips twitch upward a moment as she thinks back. Their talk on the orbital elevator... Triple Zero, what Renais was then... it unsettled her. And...

"It's because she cares," Renais concludes. "Who is it you want to help here?" ... Maybe she can help.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"He is a boy." Nidaime says. "And he is a boy named Anti."

A kaiju like her, she doesn't say.

What she does say though is this: "He protected a concert. He likes music too, but I asked for his helpp and--he helped. And it probably got him in trouble."

Nidaime kicks her foot across the ground. "I didn't want to get him in trouble but I was scared for my mom. Of...silence."

"I couldn't think about how it could hurt him at the time." Nidaime admits. "I don't want to be like that. Auntie Sayla wouldn't be scared like that."

Like that, that is, she doesn't exactly think she's immune to fear but she certainly feels like someone who can handle her own business.

"Maybe you're right and I should ask her. She won't be...too dissapointed in me, do you think?"

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais furrows her brow a bit at the mention of Anti. She remembers who he is--another kaiju, but in human form. Not too far off from Nidaime in that way. But... certain things are fuzzy. Threads she can't follow all the way.

"I've met him," she nods. She can remember one thing-- "He needs help, too, doesn't he? And... I think if he helped you save a concert full of people, you did the right thing asking him." She smiles a little. "And trust me. Adults get scared, too. When I was gone, before my heart got infected... I fought to save everyone here. If we lost, I'm pretty sure the world would have ended."

"I was scared. I think we all were. We were scared of how strong the enemy was, and we were scared of what would happen if we failed. We were scared we'd die."

She smiles wide, like a sunbeam on a perfect day in late spring, and puts a hand on Nidaime's shoulder. "You know courage involves doing the right thing even if you're scared, but... we wouldn't have won if we didn't fight together. Courage is asking for help when you need it, and accepting it when it's offered, too."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Does Anti need help?

"I think so." Nidaime admits of Anti. "I think he could really use some help. But he's really smart, he learns fast so..." She seems to be talking herself into this. "Maybe he'll be okay." Depending on what he learns. As ever, believing in yourself and forgiving yourself is always more difficult than believing in others and forgiving them.

"BBut I don't think he's the one who needs the most help." She seems pretty confident in that, despite where her heart is in the matter. Anti needs help but there's someone who needs help even more. And she's not sure how to provide it. If only Gridman--

She's not sure what he's up to. But she does add, "Even when you're scared..."

She brightens. "Yeah... That sounds right. Thank you Renais. I think I know what I gotta do now."

She has to talk to Sayla of course. "I'll try to be brave like you."

<Pose Tracker> Renais Cardiff has posed.

Renais makes a thoughtful sound. "Mm. I hope so." Anti's resilient, but... fending for himself the way he does... ugh. If she could just remember who he's fighting for...

She nods to the Second's second statement, too, but doesn't say anything--she would, if she weren't distracted by these gaps in her memory...

Another small nod, reinforcing Nidaime as she talks herself into doing what she knows she should. "Good," she says with a grin. "And if you need more help-- well, ah..." She glances around. "It seems you know how to find me already, non?"

After giving the kaiju another pat on the head, she stands, slipping her hands into her pockets. "And thank you. I... it seems you have a talent for making me smile. I think I needed that."

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Something's wrong with her memory, Nidaime thinks. SHe wishes she could just....

Fix

It. ANd part of her thinks, maybe she even can! But would she 'fix' that curse back into her if she tried?

Maybe that's the mom in her speaking. The dad in her speaking. She doesn't know how far her reach could touch and when it comes to stuff like that, maybe bravery isn't really the answer.

It's her job to fix this situation. It's her job to support Gridman. If Renais finds her way in that direction that's fine but she shouldn't drag her, no. And maybe she can't--she never tried before.

"Ehehehe!" She giggles. "If you ever need more smiles, I'll be here." She promises.

Wherever 'here' is.