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[fujimaru]

It's Ritsuka! I've either fallen asleep or couldn't find my phone in time, so leave a message.

[ text / action / etc]

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[fanstheflames]

[ And Tsuruno trots after her, head tilted. ]

That kind of sounds like a movie-style training montage.

[fujimaru]

It kind of was? You don't know intense till you get to know tea people.

[ She's selecting a milk oolong, holding the bag out for Tsuruno to sniff and approve/disapprove. ]

Though I guess Li-sensei is just kind of intense period.

[fanstheflames]

Sensei? Did he also train you how to fight, along with tea-brewing?

[ With a thumbs' up once she's sniffed the bag. ]

[fujimaru]

Actually, no. I've asked, but he always refused.

[ She gets the tea brewing, though her expression is thoughtful. ]

"You can barely hold a spear, let alone kill with it." That's what he told me.

[fanstheflames]

...

I can't tell if he was saying it because you have noodle arms or if it was meant to be deeper.

1/2

[fujimaru]

Oh no, he'd make much more explicit fun of me if it was that.

[fujimaru]

[ Deadpan joke aside, she goes solemn again. ]

...Li-sensei once told me that he only knows how to kill. If he takes up a weapon, or if the weapon is just his hands, he goes in with that intent. So he's always refused to teach me how to fight.

Tea, though, tea is fair game.

[fanstheflames]

Tea's more fun than killing any day.

[ A very sage nod, though her expression's also lapsed into something more pensive. ]

I guess technically that's something all of us Magical Girls have to agree to, too. Even if we didn't quite understand at the time.

[fujimaru]

One of those "deal with the devil" kind of things?

[ She might not be familiar with meguca in general, because she was much more of a robot and mech girl than magical girls, but she's not not familiar with the genre. ]

I don't suppose you guys could unionize?

[fanstheflames]

Unfortunately, Kyubey's kind of impossible.

[ Just. Impossible. But she nods, purposely keeping her tone light. She's done this so much that it honestly comes as second nature. ]

"Fight Witches, beings who spread curses and threaten humanity, in exchange for having your wish granted." Looking back on it, no sensible person would agree to that, with all the stuff they say about wishes, but...

[fujimaru]

Aren't most magical girls like... fourteen, in media? I wouldn't trust fourteen-year-old me to make a smart decision.

...On the other hand, fourteen-year-old me would have definitely thought she knew what she was doing.

[ Ritsuka, you were fifteen when you decided to call a number on a beat-up flyer in the subway,,,, ]

[fanstheflames]

I was fifteen. We're kind of varied, from eleven to eighteen mostly... oh, but Yachiyo contracted when she was twelve and she survived all the way to nineteen! She's a veteran!

[ She's so proud of this. ]

You've got a point, though. From what I can tell, Kyubey also makes the offer when you're at your lowest or most desperate.

[fujimaru]

Wow. Throw him out a window.

[ SHE MEANS IT, ]

Is he, what, your representative talking mascot character? I'm so glad Fou can't talk...

[fanstheflames]

Oh yeah, that's exactly what he is! He's small and white and fluffy and looks like a cat... bunny... thing.

[ Fou's distant cousin. ]

[fujimaru]

[ That is in fact exactly what she's thinking: that sounds like Fou?? ]

Is... is he really fluffy...? Does he sometimes say things like, "Die, Merlin!!"?

[fanstheflames]

M-Merlin...?

[ ???? ]

He's kind of fluffier just in the tail, and the baby one we've been looking after doesn't actually talk, it just says things like "kyuuuuuu" and "mokyuuu!" Iroha-chan understands it somehow.

[ complete with higher pitch. ]

The bigger one has never told anyone to die. I think.

[fujimaru]

That's the kind of thing that Fou does... I wish I had my phone. My real phone.

[ She has SO many pictures of Fou on it, like any good pet owner, even if she's not his owner and Fou isn't really a pet. ]

He's more attached to my best friend, but he'll hang out with me sometimes, too.

[fanstheflames]

I know what you mean... I keep thinking I should ask for mine and the charger from the box so I can show people things, but if it's not little things... [ like clothes and the balls ] ... there's something else I have to continuously ask for.

But maybe next time I can try! Fou sounds pretty cute, though!

[fujimaru]

I've mostly been asking for practical stuff. Like my uniforms and stuff.

[ She tugs briefly on her jacket; it's the arctic mystic code again today. ]

...and also balls for the pit. I'm thinking about putting something up on the bulletin board, after people have had some time to, you know.

Recover.

[fanstheflames]

... Right. [ No wincing, no wincing. ]

People are resilient, at least... but it's been hard on a lot of people this time. In a lot of different ways.

[fujimaru]

They are.

[ She's smiling as she says it, though it's a little tired, mostly sad. ]

Even when things are really, really awful, people can still pick themselves up and keep moving on. Almost everyone I've seen has been choosing kindness.

...Except that one guy, but spiders basilisk is an outlier who doesn't count.

[fanstheflames]

[ spiders basilisk... ]

Mm, I've noticed that too. We got a couple of visitors and I got the chance to visit some teams and... I think for the most part, like you said, we're all trying to move past it and show that we can't let ourselves lose to a task like that.

It doesn't feel like I'm doing enough, yet. But I kind of think maybe that's just how I am-- I won't feel like it's ever enough.

[fujimaru]

[ Spiders Basilisk is an outlier who should not be counted, Ritsuka says, on the vast authority of the fact that she likes two Basilisks a lot, personally, and has been given tacit permission to be a little shit to another one by his dad. ]

Maybe it won't. But it's still your life, you know? No matter how much the Warden is trying to play with life and death here... dying isn't something you can just take back.

So doing everything you can is good, but you've also gotta know when it's just--enough. Dwelling only seems to hurt people.

[fanstheflames]

[ Ritsuka is valid, as Tsuruno would ride and die for Sprezzatura anytime.

And Tsuruno's shoulders slump a little now. ]

Yeah... I know. I don't think I know when it is enough, but it's not like I want to worry anyone, either. More than I already did.

[fujimaru]

People are always going to worry, if they care about you.

[ Spoken like someone who both worries a lot and has also caused a lot of worry, and is (mostly) unrepentant that she will do so again in the future.

By now the water is probably boiling, so she's tending to that to get the tea steeping. ]

I think it's one of those things you have to decide for yourself, but also something you can't determine alone? My best friend is usually the one who tells me if she sees me overdoing it, and I trust her to notice the things I won't. If there's one thing I've learned about people, we're really bad at knowing our own shortcomings.

[ Either you think you have none, or you think you have too many. Both bad! ]