2022-05-01: Music
- Log: Music
- Cast: Nidaime, Anti
- Where: Tsutsujidai
- Date: 2022-05-01 (0096)
- Summary: Anti comes across Nidaime in the park. She teaches him more about music, hugs, and Gridman.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime had a real rough time in the Renais fight. Somehow the resultant talk with Akane about Renais was even more difficlut because the woman would not, at the least, agree to stop doing murders and expressed a certain kind of devotion to Alexis Kerib whom she definitely does not trust or care for.
But she doesn't dwell in negative emotions for long. She always has someone (usually her mother, sometimes her father) to reassure her so she has returned to the park, layed out a towel, and is laying down on top of it, kicking her legs up and down as she holds her ipod close to her chest and hums along with whatever melody she's hearing.
Her shopping cart is nearby and filled with a bag of coins and some meat bun sandwiches that she got for the day. One has already been consumed by Nidaime judging from there being an empty wrapper.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
A 'certain kind' of devotion, all for someone who hurts you...
Anti's in the park, too. He was not at Renais's purification; Akane specifically wanted him to fetch something, around that time, and he was far too intent on his snipe hunt to realise that horrors were unfolding far away. He'll figure it out, though. He's a smart kid!
He doesn't have a task right now, though -- except, perhaps, to find something to eat. Making his way from one park trash-can to the next, he spies a familiar shopping cart off the way, and decides that something else matters at least as much as scrounging for scraps.
(It's an entirely logical decision; that girl usually gives him food, anyway. But is this really a logical world? Or...)
Anti comes to a stop a few paces from Nidaime's towel, watching her legs merrily kick along to what must be the prosidy in her ears. That's what the little buds do.
As for interrupting her...
He just kind of stands there, staring, unmoving and stern.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime sings suddenly, "Uptown girl! She's been living in her uptown world! I bet she's never had a backstreet guy, I bet her momma never told her why! I'm gonna tryfor an uptown girl! She's been living in her white bread world As long as anyone with hot blood can--And now she's looking for a downtown man! That's what I am!"
Nidaime's Mom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCuMWrfXG4E&ab_channel=billyjoelVEVO
She starts wiggling from side to side while lying on her floor until she catches a whiff and--
Her eyes snap open. She pulls one (1) bud out of her ear and says, "Anti!" with a big smile, as she rolls onto her stomach so she can see him properly. "Did you want more sandwiches?"
She is now kicking her legs the other way as she looks up at Anti from that position. She has, if nothing else, recognized a pattern. "Have as many as you want!"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti doesn't really understand what Up Town and Down Town are. He lives in Tsutsujidai, which is not particularly Up or Down, as far as he knows. There's a sky. He can confidently say that much. Does that mean they're 'Down', cosmologically speaking?
Anti dwells on what's Up Town for some time, until Nidaime notices him. "The Second." His head dips just so, and he grunts, in affirmation. He does want more sandwiches, actually.
So he steps over to her shopping cart, and unwraps a sandwich, and mashes it into his face. GNOMPH GNOMPH GNOMPH, toothy as anything, he utterly devours the cheese and lettuce and tomato. There are a few tomato-seeds still stuck to his cheek when he looks up, and a scrap of cheese on his scarf. Which might explain the smell.
Of course, Anti is a kaiju, so infection doesn't bother him. It means cleanliness is irrelevant, really.
This done, he goes back to staring at Nidaime. He's silent for a span of time just long enough to stop being natural and enter into comedy.
"... you're listening to her," he settles on, eventually.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
With one of the earbuds out, Anti can sort of hear the music pumping out of the freed up earbud. Earbuds are, after all, essentially tiny speakers.
Nidaime might have commented on Renais but she's distracted from talking about that subject by the matter of mom, which is a far easier topic even if it's more and less complicated.
"Uh huh!" Nidaime says. "Mom's always nearby. Even when I don't have my earbuds in, I can usually hear her nearby." She beams. "It's not the same as holding my hand or hugs but it's almost as good and sometimes a song is what I need anyway. It's hard work being a Sound Spirit but she makes a lot of people happy."
She twists her body around again, shifting to shitting in a crosslegged position.
"Did you want to listen to her again?" Her eyes, positively sparkling.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Tiny speakers! Anti doesn't have much experience with normal-sized speakers, either, but this is fine.
"A Sound Spirit..." Anti says, slowly, with his usual gravel-gruffness. "Are they like kaiju?" He's not familiar with the idea of spirits, but -- if she's music, she's certainly not human.
He looks down, at Nidaime all criss-crossed on her towel. He doesn't ask if it's okay, because Nidaime already offered. Even so, he's slow to move -- though he does, eventually, step forward and crouch beside her.
"... yeah."
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
"In some ways, but a lot of things are like kaiju in some ways." Nidaime says. "I'd say that they're different enough to be their own thing. Sound spirits live in music and they encourage the freedom and beauty of music. That's their job!" She pauses a bit and adds, "I know I say my 'mom became music' but it's actually that she was always music and she sort of took the form of a human for a while to save my dad because Gridman didn't know he was being controlled by a bad guy so she needed to step in and warn him--and help break free of the bad guy control. If she hadn't done that, I wouldn't be here." And maybe Gridman wouldn't be either because of all the times Anopapa helped out!
But she does smile at Anti. "So she had to go back to being music after making me with Anopapa... but she's still with me, so long as there's a world where people can listen to and enjoy music. So she's not really gone until the music stops."
She offers Anti the earbud.
"That's why I always have my music player with me so she knows she can sing to me whenever she wants."
Nidaime's Mom has switched to a new song! It's still Billy Joel because it's sort of the middle of the Billy Joel playlist--
MOM BGM:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_XgQhMPeEQ&ab_channel=billyjoelVEVO
"But you know..." Nidaime pulls her other earbud free and guides it to Anti's other ear. "It's even better with both in...!"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
"Gridman --" the angry edge in Anti's voice is immediate, but he manages to strangle it down, with a moment's pause. Gridman... didn't know he was being controlled by a bad guy..?
Anti scowls, deeply, looking down for a moment. (To himself.) He turns that same gesture into a nod. He understands.
Gridman can be manipulated, too.
Is that the way of the world, then..?
He reaches out, to take the earbud. "... and if the music stops?" He asks, still scowling. (Perhaps more thoughtful than embittered, now. There are degrees of scowling.)
Anti puts the earbud in. Something about long times... and an awful lot of harmonising. His scowl softens up, listening to that. When Nidaime pulls her other earbud out, he blinks, looking from it to her and back again.
He won't be able to hear anything else if he's just listening to her mother. Those little speakers are surprisingly loud, when they're right by his ears. But...
After that moment's hesitation, he takes the other earbud and tucks that one into his other ear.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime isn't very good at not being honest. She can withhold details, but she's happy to be talking to Anti so she's honestly sharing more than she had with really anyone.
Then again, Anti is the first to ask.
The song switchse again--surprisingly, perhaps, it's switching midtrack and Nidaime didn't touch a button at all. Perhaps there is something to what she said about her mom being in there.
Nidaime's mom is singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmyGZ64J9yg&ab_channel=lonestarsound
Peppiness aside, it's...a sad song. Though whether Anti recognizes that is a mystery to Nidaime at least.
But she's not really paying attention to the music--she can't hear it right now anyway, since Anti has both earbuds. She gets this uncomfortable look in her eye as Anti asks something that she never considered as being a possibility. At her age, sometimes you think your parents will be around forever. And that goes for music too.
"Well," She says haltingly, as if she never thought of it before, and is worried to say it out loud. "I guess...if the music stopped..."
"...Mama would cease to exist," She says quietly. "Probably..."
She pulls her legs in and gives them a hug as she tries to push the thought of it out of mind.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
The music answers, first. Anti is extremely credulous about Nidaime's claims; he's young enough that he simply accepts, on its face, that the music is indeed animated by Nidaime's mother.
He sees Nidaime beginning to speak, though, so he looses one of those earbuds so he can hear her properly. Perhaps the strains of song can be heard, from that tiny speaker.
Anti frowns, as he listens to Nidaime posit what would happen, if the music stopped. So, it's... important to her. If there's no music in the world, then Nidaime's mother isn't with her, any more.
He has a feeling of discomfort, watching her compress like that. It's not particularly cold, right now, so she can't be trying to warm herself up. Actually, she only started behaving that way after he asked a question like that. It's strange.
But, her mother can sing to her...
Anti plucks the other earbud out of his ears, and holds them out, to the Second, with the same intensity he always carries. He's just returning something of hers.
"It's better with both in."
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime knows Anti didn't mean to get her thinking about it. The odds of 'music dying' in the short term is pretty unlikely. Who would wage a war against MUSIC? But outside of the logic and the truth of things, the feeling of it remains. No matter how often she tells herself it's not going to go like that, the imagination does wonders. She looks up a little when she hears the little bits of music coming from the earbud--
--and then all the way with the other. He offers them back. Nidaime wasn't crying. It wasn't that kind of emotional reaction. More like the abyss you look into late at night when nobody is around but you and your thoughts.
She carefully takes the earbuds back and puts both back into her ears.
"Thank you." She says, still quiet.
NIDAIME'S MOM THAT'S RIGHT A NEW ONE FOR EVERY POSE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDwiaPa2TfI&list=PLCDA2F90D5E29389A&index=9&ab_channel=disneysoundtrack89
Does Nidaime hear the music as presented? Or does she hear something withing hte melodies just for her? Regardless of the truth, it does seem to put her at ease.
She just sits like that for a moment, listening to mom before adding, "Anti...?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
It's the kind of question, being fair, most people wouldn't ask. The concept of music dying is strange on its face; it would take quite an odd person to even pose it as a possibility.
Or someone who doesn't know any better.
Here's Anti, crouched on the Second's towel. One hand presses down to the ground to steady himself on three points, while the other curls, in front of him, and now Nidaime's taken her earbuds back it lowers.
He's not sure what to do with himself, but he doesn't think to leave, either. He just stays there, without much movement to him, until Nidaime trails his name to a question.
"What is it." It's a question without rising tone, but it's not -- well, not any more unfriendly than Anti typically sounds. He's always got that burning-ember gruffness to him, like a banked fire just waiting for fuel. It is his nature.
He asks; he waits.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Nidaime relies a lot on what Chibodee told her about boys. IT wasn't much, but so far it's worked out. She's had as many as three conversations with Anti now! Perhaps conversation is a little overstating it some but they exchanged words and ate food together and even listened to music. This is a pretty big deal as far as Nidaime is concerned.
Nidaime doesn't know any talking kaiju, let alone any that look as human as Anti does. Actually, as she thinks about it, Anti is probably more human than she is. He was born from a human heart, after all. There wasn't a human involved in Nidaime's creation at all!
Though well all of Akane's kaiju come from a human heart, does that mean they're more human? Well, they're not very talkative. Nidaime thinks abotu this stuff a lot because she hasn't really figured out how to ground herself in reality. She knows what she is, mostly, mas much as anyone can really know what they are but she doesn't really have a strong sense of self. She moves according to instinct, whims, and teachings more than anything.
So though she is probably a lot better at wearing a human's clothes, so to speak, she looks at Anti, to an extent, to know what it is to be a kaiju. She already knows plenty about what it is to be a sound spirit.
Perhaps the first time Anti returned headphones, maybe that was just him being himself, but it's impossible to mistake the return of those headphones as anything but a kind gesture.
Anti can disagree of course, but that's how the Second has translated it! And so when Anti asks 'what'--
--she immediately gives him a hug! She isn't very strong so he can probably break free pretty easy, but--
"Thanks." She express gratitude again, though somehow it reads different the second time.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti has said quite a few words to Nidaime, by his standards; he's just a boy with a dearth of conversation.
There is certainly... a quality, to Akane's kaiju. To Anti. He is an empty vessel, filled each day by the raindrops, drip... drip... drip.
Because, he was born from...
He doesn't know to think about that, yet.
He asks what, and gets an answer, in a sense. He doesn't overtopple, from the sudden shift in his balance, though the hand by the ground does shift to press behind him instead of by his side. His eyes widen; his loose hand tenses, for a moment, determining whether he needs to pull a weapon from himself.
Be fair: Anti doesn't know what a hug is. He also doesn't know what gratitude is!
But she doesn't seem to be using her present proximity to gain an advantage or attack; she's just kind of got her arms around him. Maybe she is cold, and she thinks he's any warmer. She... seems happy enough about it..?
He looks entirely nonplussed by this entire situation. Baffled, even. But if she isn't trying to hurt him, he'll let her latch onto him, if it makes her any happier. He supposes it is warmer, this way.
Anti doesn't really know what to do in this situation, though, so he just stays still.
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
Perhaps as Akane said, it was a happy ending with Renais. As happy as endings can get in a world where most business is conducted by super robots warring with one another though, in truth, even minus super robots there is a certain chaos to life, randomness, that really has no explanation at all--at least not to anyone within it and even a hyperspace agent is 'in it' enough as far as Nidaime reckons.
Nidaime's emotional moment doesn't really have much room for respecting Anti's lack of knowledge on these topics. Frankly, Nidaime doesn't even seem interested in instructing Anti on these matters. Maybe when Nidaime is a little older, a little wiser, she can feel comfortable enough to help Anti out with the basic niceties of human interaction but as it stands, shouldn't he figure it out from his surroundings? From people far more adept at understanding these things than Nidaime? Sometimes, Nidaime LIKES being a weird monster girl. Sure, there's some pain in being different but it's not all bad. Sometimes you get to hop from table to table yelling about ice cream sundaes and nobody will stop you.
Nidaime's eyes are a little--only a little--watery affter all this though it isn't really clear until she pulls back, smiling again. Whatever Anti did, it turns out it reverted Nidaime back to her natural state. Mostly, at least.
She wonders if she should get Anti a music player too. But maybe that'd be selfish?
She sets aside the thoguht for now. "Do you like it?" She asks.
"Music." She clarifies.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Nidaime's eyes are leaking, but she's smiling again, so that's -- probably fine? It's probably fine, since she seems normal enough again.
If he doesn't know to ask the question, and she doesn't care to answer, isn't that fine, too? After all... they're kaiju. It doesn't always make sense, from a human perspective.
Even if they know more about that one than most of their bretheren, they're still outsiders.
But there's something to that, isn't it?
Being on the outside with someone else.
He doesn't move terribly much, even when she does, though his free hand does come to rest on his knee. He never pulled that saw out, in the end. There wasn't a need for it.
He regards her question silently, for a moment. He thinks of the Evangelion pilot, and he thinks of Nidaime's mother.
"Yeah," he answers, finally.
Entirely apart from Akane's will and whims, he says: "I like it."
But Anti, the auto-intelligence kaiju, realises what he's said. Something he enjoys outside of Gridman's destruction... Akane never spoke to him about songs or Sound Spirits. It's a pressure, on his heart. Uncomfortable.
He translates force from his arms to the ground, pushing against it, lifting up on his legs. "... I'd better go," he says, a touch more soft.
He stares, a moment, longer.
And then he turns. He stalks away.
Something Akane never gave him...
<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.
The more time Nidaime spends with Anti, she's finding, the more she doesn't mind being on 'the outside'. She never really needed a crowd. But the more Nidaime thinks she's okay with being on the outside, the more she worries about Anti dying in battle. She has enough faith in Gridman's ability to do what Gridman's made for that it is, alas, difficult for her to imagine Anti truly winning that matchup. It isn't because he's weak, Nidaime would say if pressed, it's just how these stories go.
Except for one time.
She can imagine her mother's abscence, but it's even easier to imagine Anti not showing up to the park one day and--then--never again. Music can continue in a world without Anti, that's also a sad truth. There's more songs about loss than anything else.
She didn't really think of what kind of dangerous question that might be even as she asked it because as hard as it is to imagine her mother being gone without someone specifically inquiring about it, it's far easier to imagine a world where Anosillus the First was never saved.
She knows what her mother would do. She'd say 'This kaiju isn't evil!', but unlike Anopapa--the fact of the matter is is that, so far, Anti is acting of his own accord. There's no mystical musical pattern causing him to act the way he acts, only what he was given coming into this world, and what he's experienced since. And that's all most people get.
And could she even talk to Gridman about it? She has yet to even find him. But she can imagine Gridman saying 'hey! We know yuo're not so bad because Nidaime so and soed' and that strangely, despite everything, feels like a kind of betrayal. She doesn't think she could betray Anti like that. Surely, Gridman can see it?
But the good news is that she seems to remember how to fix people and she's not sure Gridman does. Gridman's being weird, but maybe this is really a job for Nidaime? Patch the guy up if she finds him hurt? She can do that.
But what if she's not around..?
More to fret about, perhaps, but before she can think all this through--Anti says he better go.
"Ah--" Did she say something wrong? Or is Akane calling for him?
She senses she shouldn't stop him so instead she say,s "Okay. Tanks for coming by, Anti...!"
She waves after him. "Bye bye!" The smile is real.
The uncertainty of the future is still quiet.