[He didn't expect her to be excited at the prospect of an awkward lunch with him . . . but hungry is hungry. Eh. At least there's a reason for it right there that doesn't involve any personal feelings he'd have to think about!]
Maybe Gareth didn't mention this to you, but she's baking pretty much constantly, so if you're ever hungry and looking for some coffee cake, just ask her what we've got in the kitchen.
[Her! Not him! Her! . . . He's assuming Ritsuka knows they live together by now. If not, awkward way to find out.]
Anyway, I'll meet you in half an hour, if that's good.
[ She knew! She knew, and it was definitely one of those things where it was awkward for someone, and that someone was not her. Still. ]
I can't keep bothering the same people to feed me!! Buuuuuut if someone offers I'm not going to say no ( ˘▽˘)っ
[ That's the last thing she sends before she heads off. It's been a few days since their incredibly awkward previous in-person encounter, and Ritsuka has now had time to... well. "Settle" isn't exactly the right word in this sense--when she shows up, she looks like someone who's just recovering from some kind of nasty cold, somehow more wobbly than when she'd first arrived. Weird. ]
[Dammit, he might have to pass a tip on to Gareth or something . . . or maybe he just won't. Maybe if it comes up naturally. The last thing Kadoc wants to do is get wrapped up in Fujimaru's caretaking, or whatever; she can handle herself. If she couldn't, she wouldn't be alive. But then there are these moments where he has to ask himself whether all of her skill lies in surviving battle, and not surviving everyday life on her own.
He thinks about this as he walks to the cafe, and by the time he gets there, he's got a question for her already in mind—though that gets derailed by seeing what state she's in. Huh.]
He's not wrong, though. Ritsuka has many skills, but surviving is very different from taking care of yourself. In some ways, it's almost a learned helplessness--especially with Mash, the people around her tend to notice when she's flagging in some way before she herself does, and while she's (usually) happy to go along with the fussing... it also tends to mean that she doesn't always pay attention to what's going on with her physically.
In response to his actual question, though, she shrugs. ]
Kind of? It's a long story. It's part of the stuff you wanted to talk about, I think.
So it wasn't something you caught here, but something that happened back in our world.
[And then, after a beat, because he noticed her noticing:]
. . . Hey. To you too.
[Then he turns to hold the door for her. It's just a natural instinct, even when he's bring brusque. This isn't Le Denny's, but it's not a super fancy cafe either—just a little place that has decent food and drinks, which seemed about right for what Kadoc wants. It's small, but not too crowded at this time.]
[ She's still waffling on how much to tell him, exactly--not out of a sense of what he might take back to the rest of the Crypters, if somehow everything in this new Camelot ended tomorrow and they could return home. Some of it just isn't her story to tell, and she doesn't know how close he was with Ophelia. The way Mash talked about Team A, it sounded like they were at least... companionably civil with each other. It'd be a nasty shock no matter what, to hear that someone you'd been teamed up with was dead, right? How does anyone give that news at all?
Never mind the business with Hinako. Or that there's another Anastasia that has taken up residence in Novum Chaldea, who looks exactly like his but acts (as far as Ritsuka knows) completely different. Or--any of it, really.
But she'd promised to talk, and in the end, other than those more personal points, it's not anything she feels any particular need to hold back.
She follows him inside, though she pauses for a moment in the doorway, looking around. Huh. It's been a long time since she's been in a cafe like this... it feels nostalgic in unexpected ways. ]
[He's facing her as he holds the door, and he catches that moment; it's not much, and maybe he wouldn't have noted it at all if it weren't so deeply relatable. At first, he doesn't say anything about it. It feels uncomfortable to relate to her in any way, especially ways like this. But that's a stupid feeling, he knows—because now, for once, they truly are in the same position. They're on the same team, going through the same things. Kadoc hates that on some level, but, like so many things he hates or thinks he hates, he craves it too.
So after an awkward silence as the door swings shut and he begins to lead them to a table, one in the corner, away from the thin crowd:]
. . . It's uncanny, isn't it? It's so normal. I've been here six months, and I'm not used to it yet. This could be any cafe I might've walked into years ago, like I might not sit down at a table, open up the network, and see Merlin making some weird-ass proclamation the way he does sometimes.
...Trust me, the Merlin from our world would definitely do stuff like that. You'd just never know it was him.
[ She follows him without hesitation, though her steps are still hesitant--like a dreamer afraid of waking up too soon. It is so normal. If she closes her eyes, she could imagine one of her school friends barreling in through the door. Ritsukaaaaaa, have you heard? Have you heard?! or something about the latest celebrity gossip.
She's also careful about sitting at their table, though that's less out of hesitance and more out of how stiff her body still feels. Ugh. Now that she knows about how this place cuts off any access to the magic they had at home, she's not so surprised--mostly, she just worries about Mash. Is she okay? Will she make it here? If she does, is she going to be upset that Ritsuka is bouncing back this slowly? Things to worry about later. ]
[He sits across from her, watching all that. What the hell had happened to her? Not that it's a shock, considering; he knows how she operates on the battlefield. He knows she's probably been through hell, however many Lostbelts she's been through, and not from a safe distance. She would have gone through that hell on the front lines and then been whisked away here without any time to recover. Hell, he himself had arrived here literally right after being stabbed, and had possibly only escaped similar consequences because that priest had done at least some healing up of the wound in order to wake him from his coma.
So he watches her like a hawk, but without surprise. It galls him a little, inside himself, that he can't quite turn off his concern even for her—but he's never been good at that. It's always hurt when he's had to force it, which has been frequently enough these days, before Camelot.]
I'm pretty sure this one pulls that kinda crap too. Photos showing up on his social media of places he was never actually seen at and all that. It's insane, having to actually think about things like stalking Merlin's insta.
[Finally, he has to bring it up again:]
You're seriously in pain. You haven't found a healer yet?
[ That gets a little smile out of her, fleeting and slightly wry, before she shrugs. ]
And, no. Not yet.
[ She says it simply, without complaint. For Ritsuka, it's just one of those things that she just accepts and tanks; like with food or sleep, it's mostly the people around her who keep an eye on things and notice before she really has time to start feeling it too hard. Some of those people are even in Camelot, but that's the trick to Ritsuka. If left to her own devices, for her own personal health, she just does her best without thinking to ask. This is how she lived, pre-Chaldea, small and unassuming and content to drift through things without trying to make much of an impression.
It actually worries her a little, to be backsliding into that, but at least she knows why. It helps to be healthy when you're trying to establish yourself, okay. ]
I mean, for one thing, I really don't have any money yet. I've been spending most of my days here sleeping, so far? That's not really great for things like... you know, going out, finding some way to earn a living, whatever.
[ Or eating. Thank goodness for Kipposhi offering to spot her. ]
Pretty shortly before you got here, some grade school kid asked the network if someone would give them a knife for free because theirs was so busted up. . . . What I'm saying is that you could be a lot more shameless than throwing up a post asking someone to take a look at you and explaining you just got here and you're broke.
[It's so easy to say this kind of thing when he's on the outside of the situation. It's logic, and he follows it in a completely straightforward way. There is help out there for Ritsuka, and it's not hard to obtain, and there's no reason she shouldn't make an effort to obtain it. Easy.
. . . Would he do the same thing himself? That's another question. And not relevant here! Ha! Kadoc can be a hypocrite all he wants; he can understand why Fujimaru wouldn't jump to "I should just ask my brand new neighbors if anyone can heal me for free" on a personal level and still needle her about how it's exactly what she should do. Because it is, if she's feeling this rough.
He perches on the edge of his seat, ready to rise again; one of them has to go actually order. And it's going to be him, even if she complains about it, which he hopes she's not dumb enough to do. He can only handle so much promotion of self-care in one day.]
Tell me what you want when you decide, by the way. I'll go put in for it.
[There are little menus on the table, but it's the type of place you go up to the counter at when you're ready.]
[ That's really the most she can say to that. "Huh." Most of the people she's met here have been kind, but there's that, and then there's just taking advantage of someone's generosity.
It's not even that she can't see the point in what he's saying. He knows the pulse of the society here; if he does, in fact, read every post that goes up on the network (that seems like so much work? Kadoc, you really are a workaholic, aren't you...), then he's probably the best resource she has for getting to know what the (social) lay of the land is. If he says people are prone to generosity, then she can believe that.
But that acknowledged... there's still a kind of disconnect going on in her head. Of course it's nice that people are that generous! It's nice that this Camelot has a friendly and helpful (ish? enough) society! But applying it to herself just doesn't click.
Kadoc probably knows that about her. Ritsuka shrugs a little, as if she'd said anything more, and reaches for the menu herself. ]
Maybe the soup of the day... and a sandwich? I feel like I'd want a ham sandwich.
[What a reaction. Kadoc lets out a huff of breath, equal parts amused and annoyed, which is honestly more amused than he might have expected in reaction to Fujimaru. He's primed to pick on her, to notice every little quirk and flaw and amplify it in his head, and he knows that. He's a self-aware man. And along with being equal parts amused and annoyed, he's also equal parts exasperated with himself for being an asshole, and tempted to childishly cling to his pettiness, because it feels good. Like all pettiness, it feels awesome and shitty at the same time.
That's a lot of mixed feelings to go through just for someone asking for a ham sandwich. Get over it, Zemlupus.
He offered, and he's going to get it for her. With a nod, he pushes back from the table.]
I'll be back. In the meantime, skim the network. That's your homework. Not just to look for that specific post, but to get a feel for the way people operate here. Saying this makes me feel like some kinda motivational employee Powerpoint or some crap, but: we're all in this together. Everyone knows that. And people help each other out with less serious issues than yours, just because they know it.
I'm a little surprised you even know what Powerpoint is...
[ He knows why. She's spent enough time going between the two halves of Chaldea's staff--mages and non-mages alike, and while most of the former could rattle off all sorts of complicated equations that went right over her head... she still remembers the first time she had to show someone how to close out of a program by hitting the X in the upper right corner. Technology and mages only uneasily coexist at the best of times, he surely knows that.
But she's usually good at doing what she's told, so whenever he returns, she's on her phone, her chin on one hand and the thumb of the other idly scrolling.
Without looking up, she says: ]
I dunno, I still don't think I'd wanna just throw it out there, "hey, I'm recovering from a really specific rare thing, who wants to experiment with me and find out if they can help"? I can't put out like that on a first date.
[The trip up to the counter and brief wait for the food gives him a little time to clear his head, so he's feeling relatively settled by the time he reappears with a tray: two soups, one with a sandwich and one in a bread bowl, and two coffees with accompaniments. Kadoc sets that down and is moving to sit again when Fujimaru comes out with that crack, which gets a little scoff out of him that isn't quite a laugh, but is at least related to a laugh, distantly. A third cousin. He refuses to smile at her crude joke!]
It's your loss. But I'll point out I've got no idea what this "really specific rare thing" is. I didn't think it was gonna be anything so beyond the pale that you couldn't even explain it to a healer. I'm pretty sure the healers don't need to know the exact mechanism behind anything they heal, or else it'd be a useless skill for a layman.
...Between Da Vinci and Holmes, the only solution we had was going to the Chinese Lostbelt.
[ That can give him at least some idea of where they are right now, with Chaldea, though that has some obvious gaps. The Scandinavian Lostbelt had been just as hard as the other two, but--in the end, the grief for that feels more like something that belongs to Mash, not her. She hasn't asked too much about the relationship between Mash and Ophelia--maybe someday, but not yet. ]
It's not like we were operating with full resources, but if those two couldn't synthesize it, I'm not sure I'd trust a random healer, you know? It's not like my life is in danger anymore. I'm just recovering.
[ He probably doesn't know about the poison immunity she has--had--from Mash. Did he get anything like that from Anastasia? Hell, it's worth asking. ]
...When you were--working in your Lostbelt, did you get any kind of... I dunno. Bonus stats? Something that worked in your personal safety's favor?
[Kadoc rests his chin on his hand, elbow on the table, grabbing his spoon in his free hand—but he listens to this rather than start to eat. Geez. Fujimaru is just the worst about leaving gaps in what she comes out with; he's getting that about her by now, as he slowly learns what kind of person she actually is to talk to. Synthesize it? Synthesize what? She just left that part out. But he can tell she must mean a cure, though he can't be sure whether it was an antidote, a medication, or something else. And he definitely can't tell how it relates to whatever she's getting at with the last question.]
I'm gonna make you go back to that to explain it like a normal person in just a minute. But before that, what kinda thing do you have in mind here? You've obviously got something you're basing that question on. You mean something from the Alien God? From Animusphere? Or something else?
[ She says it as clinically as possible. There's no way for her to know how fresh that is, for him; no matter what he might say or do, she'd been there. She'd watched the Lostbelt Anastasia fade in his arms, and the immediate fallout from that. In spite of all the awkward things between them, she doesn't actually want to pour salt in the wound, no matter how close to healed it is. ]
Like... because of my bond with Mash, I was usually immune to poison. Or, at least, I could function pretty well until it got cleared out of my system properly.
[ That's another clue right there, isn't it? She isn't aware of the gaps she's leaving--for her, these are just The Things That Have Happened, and it's hard to remember where more context is needed. But he knows more than most, and he can surely put more of the pieces together. ]
[That is definitely another clue. He has to pick up these puzzle pieces, but he can, as she scatters them about, and slot them into the complete picture. Kadoc watches her from across the table, grabbing his coffee now with his free hand, eyeing her keenly through his bangs.]
So you're recovering from poison. Kyrielight isn't here, so the last of it hit you harder than you're used to. But you're not actively poisoned anymore, just working it out of your system. Am I on the right track?
[He hadn't answered her question, and he knows it. Part of him wonders if she even really wants to know, or if it'd just been a way of getting to the point. But after a beat, he shrugs; maybe she really was curious.]
. . . And yeah. I could handle the cold in Russia better than I would've been able to without my contract. It wasn't the difference between life or death, but it was there.
[ That would be the most useful thing for him, wouldn't it? Just like being shielded (ha!) from status effects was useful for her. She tears off a piece of her sandwich, nibbling on that as she considers. ]
And, yeah. Koyanskaya had one in, and she shot her shot. Didn't really work, as you can see, but... yeah. It wasn't something that Da Vinci could fix on her own, even with Holmes helping her, which meant we had to go for the raw ingredients.
So--if a universal genius and the world's greatest detective couldn't do anything... I dunno, call me superstitious, but I don't know how much anyone here would be able to help me on that.
[He nods minutely to himself as he sips his coffee. There's an aspect of this that's an intellectual exercise too; in a way, that's easier to focus on than actually worrying about Fujimaru. They're tied up together, but one side of it doesn't come with complicated feelings, and it's the side where he gets to think about magic.
Besides, she should actually get this information eventually.]
I get where you're coming from. But take my advice and forget everything you think you know about magecraft from home. . . . For you, that shouldn't be much of a challenge. I'm just saying that nothing about this world's system works the same way. We can't draw correlations between how difficult something is in our world and how difficult it might be here. I've been trying, and they don't exist.
. . . But even with that aside, what I'm suggesting isn't an antidote for the poison. You've already got that, I gather. I take it you managed to take down Akuta in the process. I'm suggesting treating the symptoms, since they're nothing but holdovers from a status you've already cured.
[ She shrugs. It's not even her belief in the magic system where they came from versus this place, it's more--maybe there's a part of her that doesn't want to believe that people could do something Da Vinci couldn't. Especially with how tenuous her existence is right now. ]
I'll think about it, at least. And I'm already feeling better, so it might not even be necessary. --The food is definitely helping, though.
[ Another piece of her sandwich gets carefully torn off and nibbled on. ]
Hinako is... uh. I think this is the kind of thing that I shouldn't actually tell you about? But if you're going to come back to Chaldea someday, then...
[Mmmmmm, all right. Good enough. Kadoc can tell something's going on there; he can't guess at what it is, but it at least seems more complicated than just her being weird about getting help anymore, and he's not going to pry any deeper than that. It's her decision in the end. It was weird of him to even push it this far! Like he gives a shit!
. . . But, eugh, Koyanskaya. He'd let that little tidbit of information roll off him initially, but now it's stuck in his mental shoe. Whatever he may feel about Fujimaru, he is not terribly conflicted about feeling relief that she didn't die thanks to Koyansyaka of all people poisoning her to death. Koyanskaya failing at anything, especially something Kadoc had also failed at, brings a little smile to his heart. Thank fuck she hadn't gotten away with it!
That's an aside. He doesn't say anything about it, at least not yet. Instead he sets his coffee aside with a frown and grabs his spoon again without eating.]
Is that what you think's gonna happen? There's a lot standing in the way of that right now. Our situation here is only the tip of the iceberg.
[ That is one of Ritsuka's secrets to success: that she does believe, wholeheartedly, in living through her trials and coming through them. Maybe it's stupidity, or maybe it's to spite people who believe otherwise... but even when she understands and respects the stakes, she commits to success as hard as she can.
In the end, that was part of why he'd come so close to breaking her--and why Paxti's words had snapped her out of it, in the end. ]
Like what's going on at home is that simple? Maybe it wasn't like, dozens of different universes or whatever, but it's not like Chaldea's mission was simple even at the beginning.
It's because of the combined complication of here and our world that it's hard for me to even imagine the road from A to B. I'm not saying this to put you off. I'm just thinking about it realistically.
[Another sip of coffee. Does he want to put her off? Well . . . no. He's committed to surviving this too, even if he doesn't have Fujimaru's faith that things will work out that way. All he has is his will that he'll make it so for as long as he possibly can. But Kadoc knows well that he's only alive because he's been allowed that luxury—not just once, but at least three times over, at this point. And more will have to come if he's going to make it through this.
Knowing that, defecting to Chaldea is the most realistically safe option for him, but that doesn't make it an easy plan to execute.]
Not only do we have to see this calamity through to success—and I dunno how good the odds are of that—even if that happens as planned, it's not like I can just get out from under the thumb of the Crypters. They have good reason to want me alive, and it's not because we're comrades.
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fujimaru
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Date: 2021-08-17 03:35 am (UTC)Maybe Gareth didn't mention this to you, but she's baking pretty much constantly, so if you're ever hungry and looking for some coffee cake, just ask her what we've got in the kitchen.
[Her! Not him! Her! . . . He's assuming Ritsuka knows they live together by now. If not, awkward way to find out.]
Anyway, I'll meet you in half an hour, if that's good.
[He gives her an address to a little cafe.]
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Date: 2021-08-17 04:02 am (UTC)I can't keep bothering the same people to feed me!!
Buuuuuut if someone offers
I'm not going to say no ( ˘▽˘)っ
[ That's the last thing she sends before she heads off. It's been a few days since their incredibly awkward previous in-person encounter, and Ritsuka has now had time to... well. "Settle" isn't exactly the right word in this sense--when she shows up, she looks like someone who's just recovering from some kind of nasty cold, somehow more wobbly than when she'd first arrived. Weird. ]
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Date: 2021-08-17 04:14 am (UTC)He thinks about this as he walks to the cafe, and by the time he gets there, he's got a question for her already in mind—though that gets derailed by seeing what state she's in. Huh.]
. . . Were you sick?
[He doesn't bother with a hello.]
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Date: 2021-08-17 04:19 am (UTC)[ She noticed that, mister.
He's not wrong, though. Ritsuka has many skills, but surviving is very different from taking care of yourself. In some ways, it's almost a learned helplessness--especially with Mash, the people around her tend to notice when she's flagging in some way before she herself does, and while she's (usually) happy to go along with the fussing... it also tends to mean that she doesn't always pay attention to what's going on with her physically.
In response to his actual question, though, she shrugs. ]
Kind of? It's a long story. It's part of the stuff you wanted to talk about, I think.
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Date: 2021-08-19 03:41 am (UTC)[And then, after a beat, because he noticed her noticing:]
. . . Hey. To you too.
[Then he turns to hold the door for her. It's just a natural instinct, even when he's bring brusque. This isn't Le Denny's, but it's not a super fancy cafe either—just a little place that has decent food and drinks, which seemed about right for what Kadoc wants. It's small, but not too crowded at this time.]
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Date: 2021-08-19 04:08 am (UTC)[ She's still waffling on how much to tell him, exactly--not out of a sense of what he might take back to the rest of the Crypters, if somehow everything in this new Camelot ended tomorrow and they could return home. Some of it just isn't her story to tell, and she doesn't know how close he was with Ophelia. The way Mash talked about Team A, it sounded like they were at least... companionably civil with each other. It'd be a nasty shock no matter what, to hear that someone you'd been teamed up with was dead, right? How does anyone give that news at all?
Never mind the business with Hinako. Or that there's another Anastasia that has taken up residence in Novum Chaldea, who looks exactly like his but acts (as far as Ritsuka knows) completely different. Or--any of it, really.
But she'd promised to talk, and in the end, other than those more personal points, it's not anything she feels any particular need to hold back.
She follows him inside, though she pauses for a moment in the doorway, looking around. Huh. It's been a long time since she's been in a cafe like this... it feels nostalgic in unexpected ways. ]
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Date: 2021-08-20 03:13 am (UTC)So after an awkward silence as the door swings shut and he begins to lead them to a table, one in the corner, away from the thin crowd:]
. . . It's uncanny, isn't it? It's so normal. I've been here six months, and I'm not used to it yet. This could be any cafe I might've walked into years ago, like I might not sit down at a table, open up the network, and see Merlin making some weird-ass proclamation the way he does sometimes.
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Date: 2021-08-20 03:21 am (UTC)[ She follows him without hesitation, though her steps are still hesitant--like a dreamer afraid of waking up too soon. It is so normal. If she closes her eyes, she could imagine one of her school friends barreling in through the door. Ritsukaaaaaa, have you heard? Have you heard?! or something about the latest celebrity gossip.
She's also careful about sitting at their table, though that's less out of hesitance and more out of how stiff her body still feels. Ugh. Now that she knows about how this place cuts off any access to the magic they had at home, she's not so surprised--mostly, she just worries about Mash. Is she okay? Will she make it here? If she does, is she going to be upset that Ritsuka is bouncing back this slowly? Things to worry about later. ]
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Date: 2021-08-20 05:06 am (UTC)So he watches her like a hawk, but without surprise. It galls him a little, inside himself, that he can't quite turn off his concern even for her—but he's never been good at that. It's always hurt when he's had to force it, which has been frequently enough these days, before Camelot.]
I'm pretty sure this one pulls that kinda crap too. Photos showing up on his social media of places he was never actually seen at and all that. It's insane, having to actually think about things like stalking Merlin's insta.
[Finally, he has to bring it up again:]
You're seriously in pain. You haven't found a healer yet?
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Date: 2021-08-20 05:20 am (UTC)[ That gets a little smile out of her, fleeting and slightly wry, before she shrugs. ]
And, no. Not yet.
[ She says it simply, without complaint. For Ritsuka, it's just one of those things that she just accepts and tanks; like with food or sleep, it's mostly the people around her who keep an eye on things and notice before she really has time to start feeling it too hard. Some of those people are even in Camelot, but that's the trick to Ritsuka. If left to her own devices, for her own personal health, she just does her best without thinking to ask. This is how she lived, pre-Chaldea, small and unassuming and content to drift through things without trying to make much of an impression.
It actually worries her a little, to be backsliding into that, but at least she knows why. It helps to be healthy when you're trying to establish yourself, okay. ]
I mean, for one thing, I really don't have any money yet. I've been spending most of my days here sleeping, so far? That's not really great for things like... you know, going out, finding some way to earn a living, whatever.
[ Or eating. Thank goodness for Kipposhi offering to spot her. ]
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Date: 2021-08-31 03:23 am (UTC)[It's so easy to say this kind of thing when he's on the outside of the situation. It's logic, and he follows it in a completely straightforward way. There is help out there for Ritsuka, and it's not hard to obtain, and there's no reason she shouldn't make an effort to obtain it. Easy.
. . . Would he do the same thing himself? That's another question. And not relevant here! Ha! Kadoc can be a hypocrite all he wants; he can understand why Fujimaru wouldn't jump to "I should just ask my brand new neighbors if anyone can heal me for free" on a personal level and still needle her about how it's exactly what she should do. Because it is, if she's feeling this rough.
He perches on the edge of his seat, ready to rise again; one of them has to go actually order. And it's going to be him, even if she complains about it, which he hopes she's not dumb enough to do. He can only handle so much promotion of self-care in one day.]
Tell me what you want when you decide, by the way. I'll go put in for it.
[There are little menus on the table, but it's the type of place you go up to the counter at when you're ready.]
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Date: 2021-08-31 03:41 am (UTC)[ That's really the most she can say to that. "Huh." Most of the people she's met here have been kind, but there's that, and then there's just taking advantage of someone's generosity.
It's not even that she can't see the point in what he's saying. He knows the pulse of the society here; if he does, in fact, read every post that goes up on the network (that seems like so much work? Kadoc, you really are a workaholic, aren't you...), then he's probably the best resource she has for getting to know what the (social) lay of the land is. If he says people are prone to generosity, then she can believe that.
But that acknowledged... there's still a kind of disconnect going on in her head. Of course it's nice that people are that generous! It's nice that this Camelot has a friendly and helpful (ish? enough) society! But applying it to herself just doesn't click.
Kadoc probably knows that about her. Ritsuka shrugs a little, as if she'd said anything more, and reaches for the menu herself. ]
Maybe the soup of the day... and a sandwich? I feel like I'd want a ham sandwich.
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Date: 2021-09-06 03:29 am (UTC)That's a lot of mixed feelings to go through just for someone asking for a ham sandwich. Get over it, Zemlupus.
He offered, and he's going to get it for her. With a nod, he pushes back from the table.]
I'll be back. In the meantime, skim the network. That's your homework. Not just to look for that specific post, but to get a feel for the way people operate here. Saying this makes me feel like some kinda motivational employee Powerpoint or some crap, but: we're all in this together. Everyone knows that. And people help each other out with less serious issues than yours, just because they know it.
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Date: 2021-09-06 03:54 am (UTC)[ He knows why. She's spent enough time going between the two halves of Chaldea's staff--mages and non-mages alike, and while most of the former could rattle off all sorts of complicated equations that went right over her head... she still remembers the first time she had to show someone how to close out of a program by hitting the X in the upper right corner. Technology and mages only uneasily coexist at the best of times, he surely knows that.
But she's usually good at doing what she's told, so whenever he returns, she's on her phone, her chin on one hand and the thumb of the other idly scrolling.
Without looking up, she says: ]
I dunno, I still don't think I'd wanna just throw it out there, "hey, I'm recovering from a really specific rare thing, who wants to experiment with me and find out if they can help"? I can't put out like that on a first date.
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Date: 2021-09-06 10:25 pm (UTC)It's your loss. But I'll point out I've got no idea what this "really specific rare thing" is. I didn't think it was gonna be anything so beyond the pale that you couldn't even explain it to a healer. I'm pretty sure the healers don't need to know the exact mechanism behind anything they heal, or else it'd be a useless skill for a layman.
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Date: 2021-09-06 10:34 pm (UTC)[ That can give him at least some idea of where they are right now, with Chaldea, though that has some obvious gaps. The Scandinavian Lostbelt had been just as hard as the other two, but--in the end, the grief for that feels more like something that belongs to Mash, not her. She hasn't asked too much about the relationship between Mash and Ophelia--maybe someday, but not yet. ]
It's not like we were operating with full resources, but if those two couldn't synthesize it, I'm not sure I'd trust a random healer, you know? It's not like my life is in danger anymore. I'm just recovering.
[ He probably doesn't know about the poison immunity she has--had--from Mash. Did he get anything like that from Anastasia? Hell, it's worth asking. ]
...When you were--working in your Lostbelt, did you get any kind of... I dunno. Bonus stats? Something that worked in your personal safety's favor?
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Date: 2021-09-07 04:49 am (UTC)I'm gonna make you go back to that to explain it like a normal person in just a minute. But before that, what kinda thing do you have in mind here? You've obviously got something you're basing that question on. You mean something from the Alien God? From Animusphere? Or something else?
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Date: 2021-09-07 04:56 am (UTC)[ She says it as clinically as possible. There's no way for her to know how fresh that is, for him; no matter what he might say or do, she'd been there. She'd watched the Lostbelt Anastasia fade in his arms, and the immediate fallout from that. In spite of all the awkward things between them, she doesn't actually want to pour salt in the wound, no matter how close to healed it is. ]
Like... because of my bond with Mash, I was usually immune to poison. Or, at least, I could function pretty well until it got cleared out of my system properly.
[ That's another clue right there, isn't it? She isn't aware of the gaps she's leaving--for her, these are just The Things That Have Happened, and it's hard to remember where more context is needed. But he knows more than most, and he can surely put more of the pieces together. ]
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Date: 2021-09-09 03:18 am (UTC)So you're recovering from poison. Kyrielight isn't here, so the last of it hit you harder than you're used to. But you're not actively poisoned anymore, just working it out of your system. Am I on the right track?
[He hadn't answered her question, and he knows it. Part of him wonders if she even really wants to know, or if it'd just been a way of getting to the point. But after a beat, he shrugs; maybe she really was curious.]
. . . And yeah. I could handle the cold in Russia better than I would've been able to without my contract. It wasn't the difference between life or death, but it was there.
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Date: 2021-09-09 03:26 am (UTC)[ That would be the most useful thing for him, wouldn't it? Just like being shielded (ha!) from status effects was useful for her. She tears off a piece of her sandwich, nibbling on that as she considers. ]
And, yeah. Koyanskaya had one in, and she shot her shot. Didn't really work, as you can see, but... yeah. It wasn't something that Da Vinci could fix on her own, even with Holmes helping her, which meant we had to go for the raw ingredients.
So--if a universal genius and the world's greatest detective couldn't do anything... I dunno, call me superstitious, but I don't know how much anyone here would be able to help me on that.
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Date: 2021-09-09 03:40 am (UTC)Besides, she should actually get this information eventually.]
I get where you're coming from. But take my advice and forget everything you think you know about magecraft from home. . . . For you, that shouldn't be much of a challenge. I'm just saying that nothing about this world's system works the same way. We can't draw correlations between how difficult something is in our world and how difficult it might be here. I've been trying, and they don't exist.
. . . But even with that aside, what I'm suggesting isn't an antidote for the poison. You've already got that, I gather. I take it you managed to take down Akuta in the process. I'm suggesting treating the symptoms, since they're nothing but holdovers from a status you've already cured.
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Date: 2021-09-09 03:49 am (UTC)[ She shrugs. It's not even her belief in the magic system where they came from versus this place, it's more--maybe there's a part of her that doesn't want to believe that people could do something Da Vinci couldn't. Especially with how tenuous her existence is right now. ]
I'll think about it, at least. And I'm already feeling better, so it might not even be necessary. --The food is definitely helping, though.
[ Another piece of her sandwich gets carefully torn off and nibbled on. ]
Hinako is... uh. I think this is the kind of thing that I shouldn't actually tell you about? But if you're going to come back to Chaldea someday, then...
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Date: 2021-09-09 04:35 am (UTC). . . But, eugh, Koyanskaya. He'd let that little tidbit of information roll off him initially, but now it's stuck in his mental shoe. Whatever he may feel about Fujimaru, he is not terribly conflicted about feeling relief that she didn't die thanks to Koyansyaka of all people poisoning her to death. Koyanskaya failing at anything, especially something Kadoc had also failed at, brings a little smile to his heart. Thank fuck she hadn't gotten away with it!
That's an aside. He doesn't say anything about it, at least not yet. Instead he sets his coffee aside with a frown and grabs his spoon again without eating.]
Is that what you think's gonna happen? There's a lot standing in the way of that right now. Our situation here is only the tip of the iceberg.
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Date: 2021-09-09 04:49 am (UTC)[ That is one of Ritsuka's secrets to success: that she does believe, wholeheartedly, in living through her trials and coming through them. Maybe it's stupidity, or maybe it's to spite people who believe otherwise... but even when she understands and respects the stakes, she commits to success as hard as she can.
In the end, that was part of why he'd come so close to breaking her--and why Paxti's words had snapped her out of it, in the end. ]
Like what's going on at home is that simple? Maybe it wasn't like, dozens of different universes or whatever, but it's not like Chaldea's mission was simple even at the beginning.
And this place is nice, but it's not home.
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Date: 2021-09-10 03:09 am (UTC)[Another sip of coffee. Does he want to put her off? Well . . . no. He's committed to surviving this too, even if he doesn't have Fujimaru's faith that things will work out that way. All he has is his will that he'll make it so for as long as he possibly can. But Kadoc knows well that he's only alive because he's been allowed that luxury—not just once, but at least three times over, at this point. And more will have to come if he's going to make it through this.
Knowing that, defecting to Chaldea is the most realistically safe option for him, but that doesn't make it an easy plan to execute.]
Not only do we have to see this calamity through to success—and I dunno how good the odds are of that—even if that happens as planned, it's not like I can just get out from under the thumb of the Crypters. They have good reason to want me alive, and it's not because we're comrades.
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