John performs a bow to thank the faeries. Marie follows, although with some slowness. He got used to the oriental customs of many friends of his. However, they immediately turn when the faeries remark he's able to see them.
"... You too?"
John asks David. Biologically augmented eyesight was one thing to overwhelm his senses. Another was having it augmented by magic. When he wandered around the multiverse, and around Forerunner constructs, the brightness of things bending the laws of reality made it as complicated.
Marie, however, looks concerned at John.
"What do you mean?"
How to answer this...
...
"Broke the 'no-drinking rule' when I finished a mission." He glanced at Yuuko before turning back to Marie. "Then this happened."
Marie Zofie was shorter than John, but she saw fit to grab his collar. "John." She began, with a sweet smile. "You know you shouldn't drink for a reason. Especially supernatural things."
...
"Yeah."
It was power, indeed, but even six years off-world by now, magic and Forerunner things still creep him out sometimes.
Hey, everybody - David-chan should really go take a bath, don't you think?
And some medical nanos might help too, now that I think about it...
[And she hands him a nano syringe, while Neffy sighs a bit, and shows him what it is and how to use it.]
[David stares at it for a moment, and then sticks it in his arm - If they wanted to poison him, they could have done it a long time ago, he was pretty sure. It wasn't like he could fight off even Miss Marie in this state, much less the man in the armor.]
[And then he goes off to the bath, the spirites showing him the way.]
[And then she calls to John.]
...Hey, John-san!
[She whispers.]
What about following him in there, so he doesn't trip and fall or anything like that?
[Yuuko smiles at him, and follows the fate threads, going this way and that way. Things seem to be fine so far...]
A bath. For the goods it does emotionally, especially for soldiers that often miss hot showers, this would be the best for him. Beside the syringes that Yuuko hands to him, John offers a few he bought from time to time in case of emergencies. He lets the sprites guide him.
He turns to Yuuko, nodding in agreement with the petition.
"Think if I should I follow him as well?" Marie asks, at least understanding more the rules of separate showers more than John was used to.
Both Spartans wash themselves, not so much because they wanted to bathe, but to watch over David. John guides David through the motions of oriental baths, having been already accustomed to these. Sumomo's presence, particularly, who had become one of many friends of his in here.
He looks at David, and for a moment waits for him to come outside, until he calls him. His steps are silent as he approaches him, knowing the privacy he would want for this conversation.
[David sighs a bit, wondering how to go about this.]
...When I was in that bloody Prison That Didn't Officially Exist - Everything was quiet, at first. Except for the guards going berserk sometimes, but even that was sort of normal.
[But the inside of his head had been quiet, at least. And then...]
But then, this guy in the next cell started to talk. He was so loud, and...
[David swallowed.]
I must have been depressed or something, now that I think about it...Life just sort of drifted away, and I was just existing from one day to the next.
But then...My next door cellmate was so damn loud, talking about his rich powerful father with connections all the time, and...
I started to dream.
- James had turned into a hundred thousand pixies, and was searching for me
[James is looking for David! The pixies croone, floating from one person to the next.]
[James is looking for David! Please tell James if you know anything about David...]
...And they were drifting closer and closer to the target, which happened to be me.
- I'm not sure when I realized that Rich Guy must be one of James' friends relatives or something...I just got up and knew it, one day.
[James roommate back home, Malcolm, that was his name - He looked like a big fluffy teddy bear, and David had only realized long after he saw him that he looked oddly like a young Big Boss.]
[David sighed, and splashed some water on his head.]
And I knew, someplace deep inside, that it was James who would come for me. Even though that was insane, and made no sense.
And then, the depression got better, little by little, I suppose, because things began to look much more real. And then...
One of the men told me that Rich Guy wasn't in the next cell anymore, and hadn't been there for a while.
...Except I could still hear him ranting, all the fucking time. And the dreams - Did I mention he kept getting into my dreams?
[And David sighed again.]
...And then, a long time after that, I was rescued, sort of, first by some odd people who kept mentioning a Mouser [Who is James, but David doesn't really know that yet] And then Father came marching over and told them he was taking over now, but...
[David sighed.]
Fa - Big Boss hadn't really come for me, he'd come for Rich Guy, and was sort of pissed that James had made his own rescue misson with me as a priority and he'd had to push his plans ahead much earlier then he wanted to, otherwise.
But he wasn't planning to through me to the wolves, anyway.
So things were all right, I think. They told me to wait until James came and got me, and...
[He looks at John.]
So things are going to be all right now. I think. If any of this is real.
...I'm not at sure it is, though, at all.
[And swallowed.]
Is this real at all, Sir? Or am I just going to wake up in that stinking cell, again, with the voice of a man who isn't even in the same wing of the building in my head?
The events become eerily familiar to John when he began to form the link with the supernatural. A frightening experience, to suddenly form links with powers he had already been cautious about. And for Solid, he begins to understand more and more. Especially so in the case of dreams being visited by others.
And the problem was the same as his when he used the MJOLNIR, and when returned to his world in the aftermath of the fight against the Didact: They knew he was different, and they were scared of him. It went all the way to David being saved, but also wondering if any of what was happening was real.
Clad in his black suit as he removed the solid plates of his armor, he takes a deep breath.
"It is real." He speaks. "Can't say what will you return to." Or how long will it pass after this, as he knew, in his case he had to endure the full five years of his absense from his universe. "But everything in this world is real."
Thinking of the power this boy held, he came to think of his own dreams.
"I've gone through the same. And I can try to help you understand those powers."
Zen meditation. What was a tool to understand himself and sharpen his mind, it became even more useful as he ventured deeper and deeper into the supernatural.
[Warm scented water, and the voices in his head were muted as well - Such a luxery, this.]
[He'd always been able to See things, from before he even learned to talk, but then, James...]
[David sighed again. It bothered him a bit - He couldn't really remember what had happened when James had almost died, except that David himself had been there, and sometimes he dreamed of trying to decide what to keep and what to put away because Liquid was much too topheavy and -]
[Liquid.]
[...When had he stopped calling his brother Liquid, even in private, even in just his own mind?]
[When his brother had stopped being Liquid, or even Liquid and James, and had just become James, that's when. James Ver.2, even. Or was it Ver.3? Ver.4?]
[James, James, James. Liquid had been the main trunk of the tree, damanged and sickly though it was, and James had been a small flowerying branch sticking out the sides, nutured by a nurses love, but in the end, he'd cut Liquid away, because the tree had been dying, anyway, and he didn't want to lose his brother entirely, and he'd cut the tree down almost to the roots and grafted the little James branch on top, because...]
[Miracles didn't come cheap. They didn't come cheap at all.]
[And he'd known, in that slow dark night were his brother barely breathed under his own power, in and out, in and out, that he'd have to pay a price if he did that, but he'd done it anyway.]
[Despite and still.]
[David sighed.]
[And the price had been...]
[David looks up at John.]
...I think...I did something to James. When he almost died.
I'm not entirely sure what I did, though it was clear as day at the time.
And then he stopped dying, and started to recover, and everybody said it was a miracle, but ... He wasn't the same afterward. It was OK, he was still my brother, well, once he learned to talk again, anyway, but it was like half my brother was gone and I was talking to the other half, but that was all right because James loved me.
...It's simpler with James, you know. If you're important to him, he lets you know it all the time.
- Liquid wasn't like that, which was why he always used to leave most of the small talk and getting to know you bits to James. I think.
[But then, Liquid was gone, and there was only James left, even though he was a slightly different James with bits of Liquid incoporated into him, and...]
[He hadn't even really recongnized what was happening till - Just right now.]
[Because he hadn't really let himself precieve it. Not really, not truly.]
- So I lost a brother anyway, and I didn't even grieve for him properly, because...James was still there, you know? And I...I...
Luxuries. For someone that lived in spartan manners, pardon the expression, hot showers were a luxury as they were. He came to think how quick did he get used to these commodities.
In spite of lacking most of the powers of the supernatural, he understood body language. He could read that something bothered Solid, even as he found himself almost cloyed by the place. When he turned, John knelt to listen... and old words return to him, of the person he loved the most throughout these universes.
The same existential question.
For a second he doesn't know what to answer. Even if he had gotten to save her, would the process to restore Cortana had done the same?
As he looks at Solid, however, and sees his own fears in him, he comes to understand one thing. He fears that even if it would have changed Cortana, he would have preferred having her to live, having her happy, even if her feelings and memories with him would change, instead of suffering a slow death to rampancy.
"You saved him." He mutters. If Solid is good as picking tones, he'd realize the way he replies is cold, almost sad. "No one returns the same after coming close to death. But you saved his life. Your duty, and his, is to make it count."
[David looked at John, a flash of something going through his mind - An image of a face, emotions running through machine interfaces, The lady in the machine - ]
["“They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research. Watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw, but me. Can you guess...? Luck."]
...I supposed I did.
[David smiles, and slowly gets out of the bath.]
[He wipes himself off, and puts on the blue male yukata that Sumomo left for them.]
- Thank you, Master Chief.
[He then looks up at the older man, sadly.]
...You were important to her, too. Sir.
[Perhaps more then anything.]
- Who was she? If it's all right to ask, that is...
Behind his visor, John was not sure what was the boy looking at him for, what did he spot, almost as if Solid got to see his eyes through the polarized visor.
He removed his helmet, and was about to don away his undersuit, when he stops cold when the young man mentions her. For a moment, John stops moving, realizing that Solid had been able to see through his emotions.
And that he saw her. The image David may get of the blue woman, spreading her arms, smiling sadly as she faded away, is the last one he gets before John tries to clear his mind, control his emotions with mixed success.
"Cortana." He answers in the same voice. Cold. "My A.I. when I served in my universe."
[And that is when Sumomo came over, wrinkling her little kitty nose for some reason.]
...Dinner is ready, but...
[She sighed. Why, Yuuko, whyyyyy?]
- Yuuko made it, and... Um...
[And that is when David sniffed at the air. Sniff, sniff, sniff!]
[And then he grinned, though he still looked a bit sad.]
- Oh, Miss Kitty, that's no problem for me, though I don't know about the other people -
[And then he smiled, and picked Sumomo up. She looked up at him, goggle-eyed.]
...I love kimuchi and natto with meat!
[Yuuko has indeed made dinner today, and it's rice cooked with natto, kimuchi and meat and fl with Japanese- Korean style barbeque sauces. There is also a nice miso soup with lots of vegetables and a nice salad on the table.]
[Sumomo blinks, and grins halfheartedly.]
...Really?
[Kimuchi and natto is not a combination you serve to people without checking their preferences first, as a general rule, Sumomo thinks...]
As soon as Sumomo arrives, John's senses sharpen again to smell what was troubling her, more tolerant to it. By how she suffered, he figured Solid would as well... but he didn't seem bothered by it. Perhaps familiarity? It is a subject perhaps more related to his own past, his own bright spots in his life.
It makes him glad to see him befriending Sumomo quickly. Whatever happened in his life did not scar him to lose the way to befriend others. It was part of John's own humanity that he had to recover in his journeys after the Fall of Reach.
"Will get used to it."
Marie would have a harder time, he knew, more by her rebirth and her being the daughter of Elizabeta. While John himself and every Spartan got used to eating anything that could be found on the field. Even alien animals as long as they were edible.
As he enters, soon enough, John gets to see Marie in a yukata holding her nose.
"Too strong..."
Much in the way of an older brother, he puts a hand above her blond head.
Sorry - Most humans I've talked to see to like kimuchi and natto pretty well once they get used to it, but getting used to it takes some time, it seems...
[David, on the other hand, does not seem to be bothered by the smells of the natto or kimuchi at all.]
[He looks at the chopsticks next to the plate, tries to pick it up, and puts it down when he discovers his fingers are shaking. He looks around the table, and picks up a spoon instead.]
...Wow, this looks good, Ms Ichihara. Thank you so much!
[Yuuko grins at him, pretending not to see his hands shaking.]
Thank you soo much, David-kun!
[And then she looks at his plates.]
Your potions are a bit smaller then John-san's, though - I don't think overeating now would be a good idea...
[Indeed, the size of David's potions of food are about half of John's. David smiles at her again.]
- Oh, right. It wouldn't be a problem, Ma'am!
[And then - ]
Itadakima-su!
[She says, and starts to eat. David says itadakimasu along with the rest of the people who did, and starts to dig in, enthusiastically eating the rice cooked with beef, natto and kimuchi.]
[Yuuko looks at Marie, a bit apologetically.]
Sorry, Marie-chan - You don't have to force yourself to eat it if you don't want to, you know. I'm sure I can find something else for you to eat, if you want...
[She'd wanted to make David something he would like, this time, but.]
Being a smell John is not too bothered by, he immediately takes notice how Solid isn't the slightest bit bothered the closer he came in -- actually, truly happy. He has to nod Marie down to sit, however, but is grateful when Yuuko understands this wouldn't be her kind of meal.
He bows in thanks, and before eating... he notices Solid's portions are second biggest to him. Him. His physiology needed more calories and a defined diet, and it was something Marie Zofie was quick to remind friends of them that wanted to cook for him.
As Marie gladly comes to ask for cooked rice with egg sauce, John turns to him, asking lowly.
"You've eaten this before?"
He could understand if he was a soldier, and like him, he was adapted to eat anything on the field. But this food brought him joy. Happiness. Much in the way she and Marie eat the Moa that had only been found in here.
[Aand Sumomo gets up, and gives Yuuko a "I told you so" grin at that, and goes to warm up some plain white rice for Marie. She gets some egg sauce for her, and also some tofu with ground meat sauce too - Variety was the spice of life, she felt.]
[And then she set both in front of Marie with a florish.]
- Oagariyo!
[Yuuko snickiered - Which foodie manga had Sumomo been reading now, anyway?]
[And then she turned her attention back to David and the rest of them.]
[David, in the meanwhile, was wondering how to explain this.]
When I was 13 going on 14, two big things happened in my life - James came to live with us, and we were downsized for the last time.
[Technically speaking, the part that had been downsized had been Dr Jane Clark's part of the Les Infants Terrible project, and she'd had plenty of other things she'd been dipping her toes into even at that time, but never mind that.]
- So we moved again, and all of a sudden, we had less the 60 people living in the same building, including all the guards and the research assistants and the janitorial staff.
...And then, the other problems started - There was something wrong with the food HQ was sending us, for whatever reason, and Dr Clark said that she wasn't going to waste her time trying to eat unedible food, and that we should go to the supermarket and buy the food we needed to the problem cleared up.
[David smiled again, remembering the first time he'd gone to one of those mega sized supermarkets, a wide eyed James at his side.]
[So. Much. Stuff.]
...And then Sergent Kim wanted to make kimuchi, and Sergent Watanabe said that if Sargent Kim was allowed to make kimuchi he should be allowed to go buy some natto, and then Mrs Thaksin said that she would take over part of the cooking since she'd had some experience, but she was a Thai curry lover as it turns out -
And all of a sudden, the our everyday food became much more international. Not to mention... interesting.
[So many different kinds of food and so many sauces to go with them.]
[David smiled, then, remembering something else.]
- I wasn't allowed to eat the same stuff the rest of the people were eating at first -
["At least I don't have to keep track of his diet"
The research assistant had sighed, looking at James standing in line at the cafeteria.
"They decide what they're cooking right on the same day, can you imagine?"]
But then they caught James giving me some of his food, and Dr Clark decided that I should be allowed to eat with the rest of them, even if it made my diet hard to keep track of.
- And the problems with HQ cleared up after a while, but Dr Clark decided that we should just keep buying our food, since we had much less people they we used to anyway.
[David's smile faltered a little, then. When had he realized that James probably wasn't even mentioned in their budget at all anymore? That everything that James needed was probably being paid out of Dr Clark and Commander Zero's pocket money?]
[Their own little personal project.]
[And then he smiled again, a bit artificially.]
...And that's how we both learned how to love kimuchi, natto, and also Thai curries. Oh, and bean stews too. Lots of rice dishes. Hamburgers. Japanese food, korean food...Oh, chinese food, too.
- We're not picky, as long as it's good, I assure you...
Marie blinked, and bowed with a smile. "Thank you, Sumomo." She still knew a little japanese, mostly over her world having had entire continents occupied not just with hungarian colonizers, but of the hundreds of cultures of Earth.
And while she was in good company, she took the big bowl with meat and tofu nicely on the side, and ate happily, if a little not too fast for someone her size and age.
As she ate, John turned to Solid, his own portion mostly untouched, as he listened to him, coming to remember the similar case that was with Spartan training. In his case, food like that was a reward, something to make them do better -- but they never got a chance to select their own food, only when it was found during their wilderness training missions. Some Spartans kept their sense of wonder about food, still loving the things that weren't MREs. For him, food was nourishment, and even food like this had been a privilege for him after he began wandering through universes.
But then again, he felt the same towards Moa meat.
When he realizes he had left his meal untouched, he calmly eats some of it, to not let it turn cold just yet. The taste didn't bother John, and in fact it reminded him of some greasier animals he had hunter from time to time. Upon swallowing, he notices the faltering smile in Solid. He comes to remember how James had to be saved.
"You two were still soldiers." He began on the first thing he noticed. "But there were too many budget cuts." Too many, in the way he notices, how even their lives were disposable.
[Short, scrawny, much to good at connecting the dots James. If there was ever a utter opposite of a poster child of any supersoldier project...]
- And then - Dr Peter Clark was most insistent that his Projects were worth much more funding then the projects of the lady who he used to be married to, who happened to me our Dr Clark - Dr Jane Clark, that is.
And there were other factors, but...
[David smiled, then.]
I did recall thinking it was rather odd that my life became so much more...fun after all the downsizing.
James was there, and we even got to go outside the grounds to someplace that wasn't the local amusement park.
- My training was rather haphazord, compared to the what had been first planned, I think, but still - Things were so much more interesting, after that.
James. He was deemed weak by those above him. Disposed of. Almost abandoned. After he discovered the SPARTAN-IV, he also realized they wanted to replace him. Much unknown to many in Infinity, one of his bigger fears, and reasons he looks after both Snakes.
But for the two of them, it meant a more normal life. While he was comforted to know they wouldn't be as scarred as Spartans, he hoped they would become as capable.
"Interesting how?"
Under Chief Mendez's instructions, 'interesting' meant 'there is always a trap. Always.' And under budget cuts, in spite of their freedoms, some trainers knew how to get by.
I had a couple of trainers, on and off, but one day, Dr Clark came and introduced me to Master Miller.
I don't think he was sure whether I was worth training at first, but he took me on anyway, part-time, because Dr Clark asked him to, I guess.
He was terribly strict, but a very good trainer.
[Unlike Father. Who apparently didn't have any trouble at all training anybody who wasn't a product of the Les Infants Terrible project, but that was Big Boss for you.]
But one day - He had a very odd training mission for me.
He said he'd asked my brother to run some errands for him, and my mission was to figure out where he was, and bring him to him from the hints he gave me.
[David sniggered, then.]
...I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew exactly where James was at that certain moment - He was looking at us from about 200 meters away, on top of a local supermarket. With binoculars, though he didn't really need them to figure out where I was, I think.
Terribly strict, but a very good trainer. It was the way trainers were supposed to be. And every Spartan held enormous respect towards Mendez because of it: For all the hell he put them through, he prepared them for a worse one.
And this mission... sounds just as much from Mendez'. Training with a trick. In this case, a classic one, information that is intentionally false.
And just as well, a nigh-telepathic instinct among teammates that just happened. One born before he dabbled into other worlds and into the supernatural.
Marie finished eating her first bowl, but her red eyes had already turned to David as he told the story, picking the last pieces of rice from her bowl. She is the one that asks, more in a concerned tone, like a mother hearing of a danger she already had seen her children in.
And so he gave me some hints. I figured out most of them were rubbish from the get-go, but I pretended to believe him, and I spent about an hour of a half running about before "managing to find James at long last" and bringing him to Master Miller.
And he smiled, and said I'd done well, but later that day...
[David's expression became a bit wistful, then.]
He came up to me, and told me that...I shouldn't be too dependent on it.
[Not that he'd mentioned what "it" was actually supposed to be, but.]
- That there were ways to block things, and ways to feed one misinformation, and people could do lots of things if they were stronger then I was in that aspect.
...I pretended not to understand what he was saying, but I did get the point.
- I think.
[And anyway, he could "track" James if he wasn't too far away, somehow, but it didn't go the other way around, he thought...]
There were times in which Spartans would hide their own efficiency. He understood that well. Frederic himself intentionally put himself in second place in almost every competition... and, most likely, he was the reason John himself became Squadron Leader - even Fred came to depend on him.
But even Mendez would know when that happened. And this trainer was not different with Solid.
His head turns to his side... how could he have realized about Solid's ability? Could he have known, or just suspected? However... he did bring a good point.
"... He is right." He mutters. "Never rely just on a single ability."
It became the reason he tried to master every known skill -- not above Frederic's abilities with melee, Kelly's speed, or Linda's accuracy -- but balancing all of them to fulfill anything his team couldn't.
"David...?" Marie uses his real name. She notices his hands vanishing, she is not sure if John did so, but his reaction was much less active. The way he looked, almost as if he knew this was inevitable.
John put a hand over Marie. He turned to Solid.
"James is waiting for you."
In this world, and his own. If he did not return to him.
[...And Yuuko came over and grabbed John and Marie's hands, Sumomo clinging to her shoulder -]
[And this is what they all saw next.]
[It was a dark place, cool and senere, but somehow, filled with the currents of life.]
[And floating in the middle of it...]
[A purple egg rocked, and started to crack from the inside.]
[Chip chip chiiirp!]
[And from far away, riding a current...]
[A strange critter that once had looked a bit like a small dog with wings but was now covered with eyestalks and tentecles swam, heading straight for the egg, and what was hatching out of it.]
- Pyaaaa!
(Daviiiid!)
[And that was when a dark purple Eastern dragon pup cracked the egg at long last, and started to push it's snot out of the egg...]
[And James's spirit animal reached out with it's tentacles, hugged it close.]
Many here returned to their worlds the very second they left. After all these years, John couldn't imagine returning to his very place, second, and moment where he began. Like he said James, the moment you get too close to death, you become a different person. He had already changed so much.
He blinks when Yuuko holds him, and Marie as well, until the calculated glow she emits through her hands makes him understand. He quiets his mind for meditation, letting her thoughts come in...
The essences are familiar. Energies that are known to him.
[Yuuko nodded, and grabbed their hands more tightly.]
[And in the dark space, James's spirit animal critter slowly took one of David's dragon claws in it's hand, and blew a lighter sized burst of fire his way, happily.]
...Pyaaaa~!!!
(...Let's go, Brother! I'll show you the way home...)
[David's eastern dragon nuzzled him and hissed his way, too, affectinately.]
- Hiissss!
[And so the dragon uncurled inself, and the critter spread it's tentecles, and they both began to float, pushed by the dark current...]
[James hugged his brother, sleeping on the bed. David was back with him, at long last, and it felt like years and years and years since he'd last seen him - Much longer then the 2 years or so it actually had been.]
[And then he sniffed, and patted David's cheek.]
...Is it just me, or do you smell of kimuchi and natto, a little? ...And soap?
[It had to be just him, James was pretty sure - Who would bring along kimuchi and natto in that kind of mission, anyway? The smell would give them away if one was unlucky enough...]
[And so he hugged his sleeping brother, and curled up next to him.]
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-09-10 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-10 05:08 am (UTC)[Neffy giggles, and so they all go in a group to Yuuko's shop.]
[The spirites come and flutter around them when they come in -]
Oh, hello, John-san, Marie-san!
[And then they look at David.]
...Ohhh! He can See us!
[And David sighes a bit, wondering how anybody can see anything with all those swirling colors.]
[What in the world were they supposed to be, anyway?]
no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 06:04 am (UTC)"... You too?"
John asks David. Biologically augmented eyesight was one thing to overwhelm his senses. Another was having it augmented by magic. When he wandered around the multiverse, and around Forerunner constructs, the brightness of things bending the laws of reality made it as complicated.
Marie, however, looks concerned at John.
"What do you mean?"
How to answer this...
...
"Broke the 'no-drinking rule' when I finished a mission." He glanced at Yuuko before turning back to Marie. "Then this happened."
Marie Zofie was shorter than John, but she saw fit to grab his collar. "John." She began, with a sweet smile. "You know you shouldn't drink for a reason. Especially supernatural things."
...
"Yeah."
It was power, indeed, but even six years off-world by now, magic and Forerunner things still creep him out sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 04:14 am (UTC)Hey, everybody - David-chan should really go take a bath, don't you think?
And some medical nanos might help too, now that I think about it...
[And she hands him a nano syringe, while Neffy sighs a bit, and shows him what it is and how to use it.]
[David stares at it for a moment, and then sticks it in his arm - If they wanted to poison him, they could have done it a long time ago, he was pretty sure. It wasn't like he could fight off even Miss Marie in this state, much less the man in the armor.]
[And then he goes off to the bath, the spirites showing him the way.]
[And then she calls to John.]
...Hey, John-san!
[She whispers.]
What about following him in there, so he doesn't trip and fall or anything like that?
[Yuuko smiles at him, and follows the fate threads, going this way and that way. Things seem to be fine so far...]
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 06:43 am (UTC)He turns to Yuuko, nodding in agreement with the petition.
"Think if I should I follow him as well?" Marie asks, at least understanding more the rules of separate showers more than John was used to.
John nods to her.
"We'll have to watch for him, until he recovers."
no subject
Date: 2013-09-22 07:22 am (UTC)[He's still much too thin, but his bruises are fading even as he checks them, as the medical nanos work on them.]
[He carefully washes the grime off in the showers - And then stares at he catches sight of something.]
[Is that actually an...outdoors bath, right out in a japanese garden?]
[And that is when Sumomo comes his way, holding a big male yukata and several towels.]
You can wear this when you're finished, David-san! And you can use any bath you like, too, as long as you've washed properly first.
[David blinks at her, and nods, smiling.]
...Thanks, little kitty miss.
[And so he goes to the big outdoor bath, and sinks into it with a sigh.]
[Bliss. He looks up at the stars, and blinks - No, this isn't really earth, is it, even if it's very similar in some ways...]
[And then looks at where he's pretty sure John is.]
...Can I...Talk to you about something?
no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 05:19 am (UTC)He looks at David, and for a moment waits for him to come outside, until he calls him. His steps are silent as he approaches him, knowing the privacy he would want for this conversation.
"What is it?"
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Date: 2013-09-24 06:28 am (UTC)...When I was in that bloody Prison That Didn't Officially Exist - Everything was quiet, at first. Except for the guards going berserk sometimes, but even that was sort of normal.
[But the inside of his head had been quiet, at least. And then...]
But then, this guy in the next cell started to talk. He was so loud, and...
[David swallowed.]
I must have been depressed or something, now that I think about it...Life just sort of drifted away, and I was just existing from one day to the next.
But then...My next door cellmate was so damn loud, talking about his rich powerful father with connections all the time, and...
I started to dream.
- James had turned into a hundred thousand pixies, and was searching for me
[James is looking for David! The pixies croone, floating from one person to the next.]
[James is looking for David! Please tell James if you know anything about David...]
...And they were drifting closer and closer to the target, which happened to be me.
- I'm not sure when I realized that Rich Guy must be one of James' friends relatives or something...I just got up and knew it, one day.
[James roommate back home, Malcolm, that was his name - He looked like a big fluffy teddy bear, and David had only realized long after he saw him that he looked oddly like a young Big Boss.]
[David sighed, and splashed some water on his head.]
And I knew, someplace deep inside, that it was James who would come for me. Even though that was insane, and made no sense.
And then, the depression got better, little by little, I suppose, because things began to look much more real. And then...
One of the men told me that Rich Guy wasn't in the next cell anymore, and hadn't been there for a while.
...Except I could still hear him ranting, all the fucking time. And the dreams - Did I mention he kept getting into my dreams?
[And David sighed again.]
...And then, a long time after that, I was rescued, sort of, first by some odd people who kept mentioning a Mouser [Who is James, but David doesn't really know that yet] And then Father came marching over and told them he was taking over now, but...
[David sighed.]
Fa - Big Boss hadn't really come for me, he'd come for Rich Guy, and was sort of pissed that James had made his own rescue misson with me as a priority and he'd had to push his plans ahead much earlier then he wanted to, otherwise.
But he wasn't planning to through me to the wolves, anyway.
So things were all right, I think. They told me to wait until James came and got me, and...
[He looks at John.]
So things are going to be all right now. I think. If any of this is real.
...I'm not at sure it is, though, at all.
[And swallowed.]
Is this real at all, Sir? Or am I just going to wake up in that stinking cell, again, with the voice of a man who isn't even in the same wing of the building in my head?
no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 07:34 am (UTC)And the problem was the same as his when he used the MJOLNIR, and when returned to his world in the aftermath of the fight against the Didact: They knew he was different, and they were scared of him. It went all the way to David being saved, but also wondering if any of what was happening was real.
Clad in his black suit as he removed the solid plates of his armor, he takes a deep breath.
"It is real." He speaks. "Can't say what will you return to." Or how long will it pass after this, as he knew, in his case he had to endure the full five years of his absense from his universe. "But everything in this world is real."
Thinking of the power this boy held, he came to think of his own dreams.
"I've gone through the same. And I can try to help you understand those powers."
Zen meditation. What was a tool to understand himself and sharpen his mind, it became even more useful as he ventured deeper and deeper into the supernatural.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 06:35 am (UTC)...I see, Sir. I think. ...Thank you.
[Warm scented water, and the voices in his head were muted as well - Such a luxery, this.]
[He'd always been able to See things, from before he even learned to talk, but then, James...]
[David sighed again. It bothered him a bit - He couldn't really remember what had happened when James had almost died, except that David himself had been there, and sometimes he dreamed of trying to decide what to keep and what to put away because Liquid was much too topheavy and -]
[Liquid.]
[...When had he stopped calling his brother Liquid, even in private, even in just his own mind?]
[When his brother had stopped being Liquid, or even Liquid and James, and had just become James, that's when. James Ver.2, even. Or was it Ver.3? Ver.4?]
[James, James, James. Liquid had been the main trunk of the tree, damanged and sickly though it was, and James had been a small flowerying branch sticking out the sides, nutured by a nurses love, but in the end, he'd cut Liquid away, because the tree had been dying, anyway, and he didn't want to lose his brother entirely, and he'd cut the tree down almost to the roots and grafted the little James branch on top, because...]
[Miracles didn't come cheap. They didn't come cheap at all.]
[And he'd known, in that slow dark night were his brother barely breathed under his own power, in and out, in and out, that he'd have to pay a price if he did that, but he'd done it anyway.]
[Despite and still.]
[David sighed.]
[And the price had been...]
[David looks up at John.]
...I think...I did something to James. When he almost died.
I'm not entirely sure what I did, though it was clear as day at the time.
And then he stopped dying, and started to recover, and everybody said it was a miracle, but ... He wasn't the same afterward. It was OK, he was still my brother, well, once he learned to talk again, anyway, but it was like half my brother was gone and I was talking to the other half, but that was all right because James loved me.
...It's simpler with James, you know. If you're important to him, he lets you know it all the time.
- Liquid wasn't like that, which was why he always used to leave most of the small talk and getting to know you bits to James. I think.
[But then, Liquid was gone, and there was only James left, even though he was a slightly different James with bits of Liquid incoporated into him, and...]
[He hadn't even really recongnized what was happening till - Just right now.]
[Because he hadn't really let himself precieve it. Not really, not truly.]
- So I lost a brother anyway, and I didn't even grieve for him properly, because...James was still there, you know? And I...I...
no subject
Date: 2013-09-27 07:13 am (UTC)In spite of lacking most of the powers of the supernatural, he understood body language. He could read that something bothered Solid, even as he found himself almost cloyed by the place. When he turned, John knelt to listen... and old words return to him, of the person he loved the most throughout these universes.
The same existential question.
For a second he doesn't know what to answer. Even if he had gotten to save her, would the process to restore Cortana had done the same?
As he looks at Solid, however, and sees his own fears in him, he comes to understand one thing. He fears that even if it would have changed Cortana, he would have preferred having her to live, having her happy, even if her feelings and memories with him would change, instead of suffering a slow death to rampancy.
"You saved him." He mutters. If Solid is good as picking tones, he'd realize the way he replies is cold, almost sad. "No one returns the same after coming close to death. But you saved his life. Your duty, and his, is to make it count."
To hope it could be for the better.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-29 05:50 am (UTC)["“They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research. Watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw, but me. Can you guess...? Luck."]
...I supposed I did.
[David smiles, and slowly gets out of the bath.]
[He wipes himself off, and puts on the blue male yukata that Sumomo left for them.]
- Thank you, Master Chief.
[He then looks up at the older man, sadly.]
...You were important to her, too. Sir.
[Perhaps more then anything.]
- Who was she? If it's all right to ask, that is...
no subject
Date: 2013-09-30 04:50 am (UTC)He removed his helmet, and was about to don away his undersuit, when he stops cold when the young man mentions her. For a moment, John stops moving, realizing that Solid had been able to see through his emotions.
And that he saw her. The image David may get of the blue woman, spreading her arms, smiling sadly as she faded away, is the last one he gets before John tries to clear his mind, control his emotions with mixed success.
"Cortana." He answers in the same voice. Cold. "My A.I. when I served in my universe."
His closest friend.
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Date: 2013-09-30 05:16 am (UTC)...It's good to have friends, Sir. I think.
[He looked at John - So he was a human being after all, under all that armor...]
[Well, he'd known that already, but it felt a bit different like this, actually seeing his face.]
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Date: 2013-09-30 05:17 am (UTC)...Dinner is ready, but...
[She sighed. Why, Yuuko, whyyyyy?]
- Yuuko made it, and... Um...
[And that is when David sniffed at the air. Sniff, sniff, sniff!]
[And then he grinned, though he still looked a bit sad.]
- Oh, Miss Kitty, that's no problem for me, though I don't know about the other people -
[And then he smiled, and picked Sumomo up. She looked up at him, goggle-eyed.]
...I love kimuchi and natto with meat!
[Yuuko has indeed made dinner today, and it's rice cooked with natto, kimuchi and meat and fl with Japanese- Korean style barbeque sauces. There is also a nice miso soup with lots of vegetables and a nice salad on the table.]
[Sumomo blinks, and grins halfheartedly.]
...Really?
[Kimuchi and natto is not a combination you serve to people without checking their preferences first, as a general rule, Sumomo thinks...]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-01 05:23 am (UTC)It makes him glad to see him befriending Sumomo quickly. Whatever happened in his life did not scar him to lose the way to befriend others. It was part of John's own humanity that he had to recover in his journeys after the Fall of Reach.
"Will get used to it."
Marie would have a harder time, he knew, more by her rebirth and her being the daughter of Elizabeta. While John himself and every Spartan got used to eating anything that could be found on the field. Even alien animals as long as they were edible.
As he enters, soon enough, John gets to see Marie in a yukata holding her nose.
"Too strong..."
Much in the way of an older brother, he puts a hand above her blond head.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-01 05:56 am (UTC)Sorry - Most humans I've talked to see to like kimuchi and natto pretty well once they get used to it, but getting used to it takes some time, it seems...
[David, on the other hand, does not seem to be bothered by the smells of the natto or kimuchi at all.]
[He looks at the chopsticks next to the plate, tries to pick it up, and puts it down when he discovers his fingers are shaking. He looks around the table, and picks up a spoon instead.]
...Wow, this looks good, Ms Ichihara. Thank you so much!
[Yuuko grins at him, pretending not to see his hands shaking.]
Thank you soo much, David-kun!
[And then she looks at his plates.]
Your potions are a bit smaller then John-san's, though - I don't think overeating now would be a good idea...
[Indeed, the size of David's potions of food are about half of John's. David smiles at her again.]
- Oh, right. It wouldn't be a problem, Ma'am!
[And then - ]
Itadakima-su!
[She says, and starts to eat. David says itadakimasu along with the rest of the people who did, and starts to dig in, enthusiastically eating the rice cooked with beef, natto and kimuchi.]
[Yuuko looks at Marie, a bit apologetically.]
Sorry, Marie-chan - You don't have to force yourself to eat it if you don't want to, you know. I'm sure I can find something else for you to eat, if you want...
[She'd wanted to make David something he would like, this time, but.]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 05:00 am (UTC)He bows in thanks, and before eating... he notices Solid's portions are second biggest to him. Him. His physiology needed more calories and a defined diet, and it was something Marie Zofie was quick to remind friends of them that wanted to cook for him.
As Marie gladly comes to ask for cooked rice with egg sauce, John turns to him, asking lowly.
"You've eaten this before?"
He could understand if he was a soldier, and like him, he was adapted to eat anything on the field. But this food brought him joy. Happiness. Much in the way she and Marie eat the Moa that had only been found in here.
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Date: 2013-10-03 06:17 am (UTC)[And then she set both in front of Marie with a florish.]
- Oagariyo!
[Yuuko snickiered - Which foodie manga had Sumomo been reading now, anyway?]
[And then she turned her attention back to David and the rest of them.]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 06:20 am (UTC)When I was 13 going on 14, two big things happened in my life - James came to live with us, and we were downsized for the last time.
[Technically speaking, the part that had been downsized had been Dr Jane Clark's part of the Les Infants Terrible project, and she'd had plenty of other things she'd been dipping her toes into even at that time, but never mind that.]
- So we moved again, and all of a sudden, we had less the 60 people living in the same building, including all the guards and the research assistants and the janitorial staff.
...And then, the other problems started - There was something wrong with the food HQ was sending us, for whatever reason, and Dr Clark said that she wasn't going to waste her time trying to eat unedible food, and that we should go to the supermarket and buy the food we needed to the problem cleared up.
[David smiled again, remembering the first time he'd gone to one of those mega sized supermarkets, a wide eyed James at his side.]
[So. Much. Stuff.]
...And then Sergent Kim wanted to make kimuchi, and Sergent Watanabe said that if Sargent Kim was allowed to make kimuchi he should be allowed to go buy some natto, and then Mrs Thaksin said that she would take over part of the cooking since she'd had some experience, but she was a Thai curry lover as it turns out -
And all of a sudden, the our everyday food became much more international. Not to mention... interesting.
[So many different kinds of food and so many sauces to go with them.]
[David smiled, then, remembering something else.]
- I wasn't allowed to eat the same stuff the rest of the people were eating at first -
["At least I don't have to keep track of his diet"
The research assistant had sighed, looking at James standing in line at the cafeteria.
"They decide what they're cooking right on the same day, can you imagine?"]
But then they caught James giving me some of his food, and Dr Clark decided that I should be allowed to eat with the rest of them, even if it made my diet hard to keep track of.
- And the problems with HQ cleared up after a while, but Dr Clark decided that we should just keep buying our food, since we had much less people they we used to anyway.
[David's smile faltered a little, then. When had he realized that James probably wasn't even mentioned in their budget at all anymore? That everything that James needed was probably being paid out of Dr Clark and Commander Zero's pocket money?]
[Their own little personal project.]
[And then he smiled again, a bit artificially.]
...And that's how we both learned how to love kimuchi, natto, and also Thai curries. Oh, and bean stews too. Lots of rice dishes. Hamburgers. Japanese food, korean food...Oh, chinese food, too.
- We're not picky, as long as it's good, I assure you...
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 05:47 am (UTC)And while she was in good company, she took the big bowl with meat and tofu nicely on the side, and ate happily, if a little not too fast for someone her size and age.
As she ate, John turned to Solid, his own portion mostly untouched, as he listened to him, coming to remember the similar case that was with Spartan training. In his case, food like that was a reward, something to make them do better -- but they never got a chance to select their own food, only when it was found during their wilderness training missions. Some Spartans kept their sense of wonder about food, still loving the things that weren't MREs. For him, food was nourishment, and even food like this had been a privilege for him after he began wandering through universes.
But then again, he felt the same towards Moa meat.
When he realizes he had left his meal untouched, he calmly eats some of it, to not let it turn cold just yet. The taste didn't bother John, and in fact it reminded him of some greasier animals he had hunter from time to time. Upon swallowing, he notices the faltering smile in Solid. He comes to remember how James had to be saved.
"You two were still soldiers." He began on the first thing he noticed. "But there were too many budget cuts." Too many, in the way he notices, how even their lives were disposable.
Like the SPARTAN-III.
"... What happened?"
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 06:03 am (UTC)...James happened, mostly.
[Short, scrawny, much to good at connecting the dots James. If there was ever a utter opposite of a poster child of any supersoldier project...]
- And then - Dr Peter Clark was most insistent that his Projects were worth much more funding then the projects of the lady who he used to be married to, who happened to me our Dr Clark - Dr Jane Clark, that is.
And there were other factors, but...
[David smiled, then.]
I did recall thinking it was rather odd that my life became so much more...fun after all the downsizing.
James was there, and we even got to go outside the grounds to someplace that wasn't the local amusement park.
- My training was rather haphazord, compared to the what had been first planned, I think, but still - Things were so much more interesting, after that.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 07:11 am (UTC)But for the two of them, it meant a more normal life. While he was comforted to know they wouldn't be as scarred as Spartans, he hoped they would become as capable.
"Interesting how?"
Under Chief Mendez's instructions, 'interesting' meant 'there is always a trap. Always.' And under budget cuts, in spite of their freedoms, some trainers knew how to get by.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 04:59 am (UTC)[David thinks about this.]
I had a couple of trainers, on and off, but one day, Dr Clark came and introduced me to Master Miller.
I don't think he was sure whether I was worth training at first, but he took me on anyway, part-time, because Dr Clark asked him to, I guess.
He was terribly strict, but a very good trainer.
[Unlike Father. Who apparently didn't have any trouble at all training anybody who wasn't a product of the Les Infants Terrible project, but that was Big Boss for you.]
But one day - He had a very odd training mission for me.
He said he'd asked my brother to run some errands for him, and my mission was to figure out where he was, and bring him to him from the hints he gave me.
[David sniggered, then.]
...I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew exactly where James was at that certain moment - He was looking at us from about 200 meters away, on top of a local supermarket. With binoculars, though he didn't really need them to figure out where I was, I think.
And then...
no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 06:58 am (UTC)And this mission... sounds just as much from Mendez'. Training with a trick. In this case, a classic one, information that is intentionally false.
And just as well, a nigh-telepathic instinct among teammates that just happened. One born before he dabbled into other worlds and into the supernatural.
Marie finished eating her first bowl, but her red eyes had already turned to David as he told the story, picking the last pieces of rice from her bowl. She is the one that asks, more in a concerned tone, like a mother hearing of a danger she already had seen her children in.
"And then what?"
no subject
Date: 2013-10-08 05:49 am (UTC)And so he gave me some hints. I figured out most of them were rubbish from the get-go, but I pretended to believe him, and I spent about an hour of a half running about before "managing to find James at long last" and bringing him to Master Miller.
And he smiled, and said I'd done well, but later that day...
[David's expression became a bit wistful, then.]
He came up to me, and told me that...I shouldn't be too dependent on it.
[Not that he'd mentioned what "it" was actually supposed to be, but.]
- That there were ways to block things, and ways to feed one misinformation, and people could do lots of things if they were stronger then I was in that aspect.
...I pretended not to understand what he was saying, but I did get the point.
- I think.
[And anyway, he could "track" James if he wasn't too far away, somehow, but it didn't go the other way around, he thought...]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 05:07 am (UTC)But even Mendez would know when that happened. And this trainer was not different with Solid.
His head turns to his side... how could he have realized about Solid's ability? Could he have known, or just suspected? However... he did bring a good point.
"... He is right." He mutters. "Never rely just on a single ability."
It became the reason he tried to master every known skill -- not above Frederic's abilities with melee, Kelly's speed, or Linda's accuracy -- but balancing all of them to fulfill anything his team couldn't.
"Learn all you can. So you are never disarmed."
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 05:59 am (UTC)Oh, yes - Master Miller was right about a lot of things.
[Not everything, though, David thinks.]
[Not by a long shot. He's not quite sure just what happened between his old trainer and Father, but - ]
[And that is when he blinked, and put his spoon down.]
[His hands were starting to go half transparent.]
...Ms Ichihara, Miss Kitty, Marie...
[And he takes a deep breath, and looks at John.]
- Master Chief John.
...I...
......I think I'm going to go back, now.
[Not go home, though - David isn't going to be really going home yet, he thinks.]
[Not until James comes and gets him.]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 06:37 am (UTC)John put a hand over Marie. He turned to Solid.
"James is waiting for you."
In this world, and his own. If he did not return to him.
"... I'll tell him you said 'hi'."
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Date: 2013-10-09 07:15 am (UTC)Thanks. For everything.
[And then he smiled.]
And I'll tell him you folks said "hi", too - If I remember anything, that is...
[And if this wasn't a really strange dream after all.]
[But no - If this was just a dream...]
[...His whole life was just a dream, too.]
[David almost giggled, then.]
[ - But whose?]
[And then, he flickered out of sight -]
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Date: 2013-10-09 07:17 am (UTC)[And this is what they all saw next.]
[It was a dark place, cool and senere, but somehow, filled with the currents of life.]
[And floating in the middle of it...]
[A purple egg rocked, and started to crack from the inside.]
[Chip chip chiiirp!]
[And from far away, riding a current...]
[A strange critter that once had looked a bit like a small dog with wings but was now covered with eyestalks and tentecles swam, heading straight for the egg, and what was hatching out of it.]
- Pyaaaa!
(Daviiiid!)
[And that was when a dark purple Eastern dragon pup cracked the egg at long last, and started to push it's snot out of the egg...]
[And James's spirit animal reached out with it's tentacles, hugged it close.]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 08:00 am (UTC)Many here returned to their worlds the very second they left. After all these years, John couldn't imagine returning to his very place, second, and moment where he began. Like he said James, the moment you get too close to death, you become a different person. He had already changed so much.
He blinks when Yuuko holds him, and Marie as well, until the calculated glow she emits through her hands makes him understand. He quiets his mind for meditation, letting her thoughts come in...
The essences are familiar. Energies that are known to him.
"It's the two of them."
He mutters.
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Date: 2013-10-11 04:05 am (UTC)[And in the dark space, James's spirit animal critter slowly took one of David's dragon claws in it's hand, and blew a lighter sized burst of fire his way, happily.]
...Pyaaaa~!!!
(...Let's go, Brother! I'll show you the way home...)
[David's eastern dragon nuzzled him and hissed his way, too, affectinately.]
- Hiissss!
[And so the dragon uncurled inself, and the critter spread it's tentecles, and they both began to float, pushed by the dark current...]
2/2
Date: 2013-10-11 04:06 am (UTC)[James hugged his brother, sleeping on the bed. David was back with him, at long last, and it felt like years and years and years since he'd last seen him - Much longer then the 2 years or so it actually had been.]
[And then he sniffed, and patted David's cheek.]
...Is it just me, or do you smell of kimuchi and natto, a little? ...And soap?
[It had to be just him, James was pretty sure - Who would bring along kimuchi and natto in that kind of mission, anyway? The smell would give them away if one was unlucky enough...]
[And so he hugged his sleeping brother, and curled up next to him.]
[They were going home.]