2022-10-22: Shopworn
- Log: 2022-10-22- Shopworn
- Cast: Qivi, Akane Shinjo
- Where: ?????
- OOC - IC Date: ?????
- Summary: Akane makes a friend.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi is sometimes hard to find in a physical sense. She doesn't have a set address these days, so it's mostly a matter of letting her make herself known; whether that's by showing up on Shuffle business or because she's got a date at the arena, she'll pop up *eventually*.
For the last couple days, she's been on Huffman Island. Freedom City on the OCU side, where she has a mechanic contact who owns a wanzer garage (unbeknown to pretty much everyone, this is also a Shuffle safehouse), and Rupidis on the Britannian side. Qivi prefers the OCU side these days, but in Rupidis she's a known figure. She gets paid more in the arena battling. And that's important too.
The Britannian side of Huffman often brings up bad memories, and that makes it an opportunity.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Fort Monus
UC 0092
Fort Monus, despite the name, isn't *all* military. It's a commercial hotspot too because it's important for shipping; it's wealthy for its size (about 600 thousand souls). There is a lot of business and a lot of people. It's easy to fit in no matter who you are.
Well, almost.
The location, specifically, is Monus Preparatory Cadet Academy, a Federation-aligned military high school somewhat outside city boundaries. A regular high school in some ways, but with military discipline (theoretically) and military training. Officially, it's a 'military-inspired' high school rather than an onboarding for the Britannia, or the Federation's, always hungry military; a place for teenagers to learn discipline (and obedience), a bevy of useful skills, responsibility and maturity.
That's the official story, anyway.
One of the three houses, officially Wagner House, is for girls. It has barracks-style bunking, and because it's the middle of the goddamn night Qivi should really be in it. But instead she is not; she is on the roof, in the one place on it where the lights on campus don't silhouette her. There's enough room for only a couple people there, on a ledge you have to climb to. It overlooks the lights of the city, in the distance.
It's summer, at least, so it's not cold, even at night; Huffman is about even with Brazil. Qivi knows she'll get in trouble if she gets spotted up here, so she's stayed quiet, legs drawn up toward her chest. She looks slightly different than Akane saw her before, though sitting down in that position the most obvious differences are her hair, which is shorter and pulled back into a (rather thick) purple braid, and her pointed ears.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
France has been on Akane's mind lately; how that went is really gnawing at her. Fortunately, how it went isn't going to matter all that much longer, anyway; she has plenty of tools to solve that. Eventually that'll be a distant memory for all of them.
Just like Akane herself.
Qivi's not alone on the rooftop, after a moment or two; someone makes the quick hop up to the roof of the preparatory academy, seemingly having the same idea as Qivi herself. Despite the late hour, she doesn't seem surprised to see someone else slipping out.
"Hey," she starts, very quietly. "I thought I was the only one who would sneak up here... it's a little difficult for me to make it up." No surprise there: she's short. Climbing is not her strong suit. (It's a miracle that she didn't make a ton of noise, with the amount of honest-to-goodness jumping she'd no doubt have to do.)
Looking Qivi over briefly in the dark, Akane seems to be weighing something for just a second. She decides not to voice whatever it was, though, in favor of a hushed, "... Are you thinking of ditching?"
Parents who just kind of dump you off in the middle of nowhere and get right back to whatever more interesting thing they were doing, huh... another of the Universal Century's boring little tragedies.
Akane shifts from side to side on the construction crane, a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi is only a few inches taller than Akane, but a few inches make a big difference. She's also athletic in a way Akane isn't, and always has been. She's not muscular, but she's fit, even if it doesn't really show.
And she has good reactions, because when someone else ends up on the roof, her first instinctive response is to half-raise, fist balling as if to fight but her legs tensed as if she was going to run. Not that there's a lot of room to run up here, if she doesn't want to either get silhouetted against another building or swing herself down into a window.
Qivi lets out a breath when she sees who it is. "Oh," she more breathes out than says, dropping back down. She focuses on Akane - Akane may be hard to see from the ground, but up here she can make her out pretty well. "Figured you wouldn't come up here. I already get in trouble. Not much more they can do for something this small. But you, I figured you'd stay out of their sight."
Qivi is not exactly great at keeping her voice down. She tries, but she always gives the impression that she really wants to be louder than she is. Honestly, it's a wonder she's managed to sneak as much as she has; sneaking just doesn't seem to fit her.
"...I dunno," is what she says, after a while. "This place sucks. All they see is a dumb troublemaker or a military brat. You want one?" 'One' turns out to be a chocolate-filled hard mint, which Qivi had in her pocket. She is absolutely not supposed to have candy in here.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Hehehe, this was my hiding spot the first month I was here," Akane says, waving it off a bit. "I love places people don't hassle you. To tell you the truth, I can think of better spots, but..." She waves it off dismissively, before saying, "I like this one. High places are always kinda nice."
She looks at the mint thoughtfully for a moment -- and then nods, popping it into her mouth. She doesn't bite down; she just rolls it around in her mouth a little bit before continuing to talk. "Yeah. You're someone else's problem that's been turned into their problem," Akane agrees. "I get it. Kinda same here."
She considers volunteering a little extra -- and in the end, she goes for it; in a context like this, the question of whether it's even true will never matter that much. "My parents just kinda threw me in here. My dad's off working as a consultant for some police thing in the AEU, and my mom is busy doing salvage work. I think she's in the OAC?"
It's a bit of a sidebar, anyway. She moves past it. "... Betcha we could sneak out right now," comes her eventual pitch. "I've been figuring out a route for a little while now! There's one risky part right before we make it to the edge of campus, but like... once we're off campus their hands are kinda tied? They can make it suck but they can't drag us back."
Akane stares off into the middle distance. Why does everything have to feel this on-the-nose?
... it doesn't matter. The disanalogies are significant enough.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi passes Akane a mint before retrieving one of her own. She also does not bite it. It's better if it lasts longer.
She snorts, loud enough to carry. Fortunately, nobody seems to have noticed. "Yeah, their little problem. Because Mom gave up trying to figure out what to do with me. She's off flying for the Federation again." Qivi waves her hand in a general 'up' direction. "Guess she figured I might settle down if I ended up somewhere like this." Qivi the troublemaker; if Akane can read the memory it's there, but it may as well be written on Qivi's face. She has no poker face at all.
'Betcha we could sneak out right now...'
Qivi gives Akane a look. A longer one, almost thoughtful. Then: "Why ask me? Not that I don't wanna go, but we're not exactly close friends - and I'm way worse at sneaking around than you are. You'd probably do better by yourself." There's something in her voice: she wants... something. It's almost wistful. Without thinking about it, she tucks some hair back, behind her pointed ear. "I'm just a big lug, remember? And, okay, I'm not *that* big, or that clumsy," she adds, almost defensively. "But you'd be better by yourself."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Haha, yeah. I think mine just got tired of the phone calls," Akane replies, with a vague wave of her hands. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter right now, even still -- it's a plausible enough reason for her to be here, so into the churn of the dream it goes. It'll matter even less soon, so she may as well feed it into the dream.
Qivi insists that this would be easier for Akane if she went by herself, and Akane shrugs. "I mean... I get that, but like -- if you follow me, you don't need to be great at sneaking. I can choose the route. I'm good at spotting gaps in the lights!" It comes out a bit louder than she meant it -- but just like for Qivi, no one seems to notice.
"... As for why you, I guess 'cuz you're here and I'm here and I don't really wanna spend another hour here?" With a smile on her face, she says, "Every time I run away from something I get a little better at it. It's a skill! And when you get really good at it you can teach it to other people."
... yeah, that sounds about right.
"... and if you're worried about what comes after ditching, don't worry," she says, scooting a few inches closer. "I can take care of that, too. If you're so sure you're not good at making plans, you can always leave the plan-making to someone else...~"
Akane glances back to her constant companion, almost always just a few feet behind her at the construction crane.
They don't exchange any words this time.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
At least in the dream, Qivi takes Akane's statement as fact. It seems reasonable enough... and of course, Qivi tends to be pretty trusting in general when she doesn't have a reason not to be.
"I thought if I ran away I'd go and... I dunno. Maybe be a wanzer battler? I know how to do that. Even if I'm not good at much else I'm good at fighting." Her tone is self-depreciating more than anything else when she balls a fist again, lets it slacken. "But it's not like I've got a wanzer, and I'm sixteen."
In reality - in history - Qivi had waited another six months or so and left at seventeen, and she had indeed become an arena battler; it's hardly secret, as she'd gotten famous in Rupidis and Freedom City and the other bigger arenas on Huffman Island.
Here and now, though, waiting seems harder than ever. Qivi likes to act, and she doesn't like to plan. Akane read that right, at least. Nobody has ever called her clever. Rather the opposite, in fact; Akane doesn't need to be sensitive to read Qivi's expression, even in the dark. She's down on herself, even angry with herself -
'Because you're here and I'm here...' Until Akane scoots closer, which causes Qivi to freeze up for a moment. Is she hitting on me? Qivi thinks to herself, because she's not used to it; it's rare at all at the Academy, and nobody's ever done it with *her* except once, not after she expressed her disinterest in him pretty aggressively.
Qivi swallows. No, she couldn't be. Not me. But it's still distracting as all hell. "You think?" she asks, after that tension releases. "Because I don't - I don't know what to do, here. Feel like they'd probably be happier if I bailed except for my mother getting involved."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Hmmm... I can see that," Akane says, tapping her chin as Qivi pitches a possibility. "That's a difficult job, though! And it's not the kind of thing you can handle alone. You're going to need someone to manage repairs, handle the money -- all the boring stuff. Don't worry. I can do that! It's nice and simple for me."
If she's flirting, she doesn't follow up on it just yet -- though she does seem to be scooting closer still. "I mean... if she doesn't track you down," Akane points out, "that's their problem and her problem, not yours. And like, the freakout will be loud, sure, but once it blows over it really won't be a big deal! People move on. They always do."
Glancing down from the roof, Akane suggests, "So I think the best shot we have is down the rain gutters, then over behind the cafeteria, then straight south. If we can make it about two miles out, we're good to go. Once you slip a little bit away, it gets a lot easier to get the rest of the way out."
Her lip quirks up just a tiny bit. "What do you say? I can take care of the stuff you don't think you're good at. We'd make an okay team. I bet we can get you somewhere less difficult real fast~"
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
It *isn't* something Qivi can handle alone, and she's thought about that. The hard part would be getting the wanzer, anyway, and she doesn't yet have a plan for that... she can talk all she wants about it but it seems like it's doomed to failure no matter what she does.
Akane scoots closer, and Qivi... well, she's a slightly repressed, hormonal teen; she responds well to physical closeness. Her cheeks and ears pinken slightly, thankfully nearly invisible in the dark. She doesn't slide closer, but she doesn't pull away either.
And what Akane is doing appeals to Qivi. It feels right to just rush into things - that's what she does. She sees a problem, she deals with it. Waiting might have been the right call, but if she's got Akane on her side... well, does she need to?
"Deal," Qivi says, holding up one hand - and trying to grasp Akane's with it, squeezing once. "Let's go, then." Before one of them loses their nerve. "Once we get to Fort Monus, I can get us somewhere..." That's Qivi, too. Generous to a fault, she wants to help others, to protect them; even with Akane on her side, well, maybe Akane could use some protecting while they find a place.
She's never had anyone on her side before. Maybe it would be nice to have *someone* who thinks you belong.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Perfect," Akane says, with a nod. She scoots toward the edge of the roof -- hooks a hand under the drain -- and says, "Let's get moving. I don't know how long we have here before it's too light out for us to pull this off."
... The dream unwinds itself, in moments. It was a nice dream, wasn't it? Easier to move in. Safer than reality. Just a little bit better, a little bit faster, the agonizing parts a little shorter and less lonely.
This one is different. It's a dark void, cut through by wires and traces in red and green and yellow. It's... something feels not-quite-right. It's not a bad not-quite-right by any stretch, though -- for someone who doubts in her thoughts, the mildly anesthetized quality of things here might not be unpleasant.
Akane's here too, of course -- but in her usual parka hoodie, blouse, and skirt. She trots over to Qivi at an even clip. "See? This is what I was trying to get out in France," she says. "The dream's not a bad thing. You can do a lot better than this crappy, lonely world, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
The dream unwinds.
Qivi is adult again - twenty-ish, hair long and untamed, ears covered by the headband that she seems to prefer these days. She has her hands in the pockets of her bomber-style jacket, the icon she uses for Sarangay on its back - a snorting bull, surrounded by a ring of seven gems in a rainbow of colours.
The anesthized nature of things doesn't feel right. For Qivi, who has intense emotions, the numbing feels wrong and unsettling in a way she can't easily put words to. She shifts, awkward in place.
"...yeah, I guess. Nobody ever said anything like that to me before." She'd had to do it alone, and it had been hard. Her 'alone' had worked well enough for years despite that, but she was lonely after all. Even with the Shuffles, she didn't have many friends. Just a collection of friendly acquaintances. And there, all she had was force, as Akane had reminded her in France.
And you can't solve everything with force.
"I just don't like giving up," Qivi says. "But, doing something else..." Somewhere where people like her. Where she's *accepted*, not just some half-human muscle. That's not a bad dream, is it...?
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"That's fine. You don't have to think of it as giving up," Akane says, drawing ever closer. "Doing something else is fine too! You just need a break from the fighting and stuff to clear out your head a little."
Akane looks up toward Qivi -- man, everyone is so much taller that it's actually kind of a pain, she reflects -- and slips in close, carefully taking Qivi's hands out of her pockets. "I think this is a little overdressed for summer, though," she says. She doesn't need to tear it apart -- it's not a symbol of quite the same type of resolve as one she'd cut apart. The dream made that very clear to her -- Sarangay was a little bit about running away too.
... buuuut...
Akane swiftly unzips it, and starts -- yeah, she's removing it. This is a fairly careful removal. "We can hang this up for a bit. And it's just fine if you decide you never want to get back to it," she affirms. "I think a gentler world will be good for you! And we can figure out the rest..."
Her lips quirk up again. "... all the rest..."
... back to playful, back to getting that little bit of a remove as she slings the jacket over her shoulder. "... later. How's that sound?"
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Sarangay was more than a bit about running away. She left the Cadet Academy, sure, but more importantly she left her mother's chosen career path for her. Even then she wasn't interested in working with the Federation, though her political leanings wouldn't be entirely set until she was a little older. Like, well, now.
Akane does have a point, though. She's changed careers once; tried to reinvent herself in the Shuffles. And it didn't work. She hadn't done much useful, as far as she can tell - at least, as far as she can tell here and now. Why not change again? Why not try something else?
Why shouldn't she be happy...?
Qivi's jacket is easier to remove than it could be; she tends to leave it hanging open rather than zipped up, and she doesn't resist having her hands removed from the pockets. Under it, she has a simple tank top, nothing fancy. She reacts a little less to having Akane's hands on or at least near her than she did when she thought they were the same age, in the dream, instead of four-ish years older.
Though, she can't help but say, "Think that one's a little big for you," as Akane tosses it over her shoulder. Not wearing it, but, still. "...yeah. Let's figure it out, later. You've probably got ideas. Something I can do."
Something she can actually succeed at.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
<poem> "Perfect," Akane enthuses, starting to lead Qivi off, as the dream and the waking world overtake one another.
Akane breathes out slowly, turning off her tablet and lying back on the crane platform. It's hard for her to feel like this was a good or fair thing to do, by any stretch of the imagination -- but on the other hand, what else was there for her to do? She's already committed to this strategy. People are already figuring it out. They probably already hate her for it.
There's nothing really to do except continue pressing it for whatever advantages it can offer, now.
She looks up toward Alexis, the exhaustion apparent on her face -- and visible to her, her own reflection cast in red and gold.
"Is this okay?" she asks, dully.
Alexis offers nothing. Her trajectory is set either way; why push something already rolling down the hill?
"... guess so," Akane answers, not sure whether she's answering her own question or Alexis's silence.