princessences | [IC] Inbox @ deerington

[They're lucky the majority of the people like them -- dreamers, wanderers, whichever they want to call themselves -- seem to be so open to alternative worlds already. Who knows how well this would have gone over, if they only had the townspeople to deal with. Both of them stand out fairly starkly when compared, after all.]

[He means it, though, that maybe they need an outsider's perspective. Maybe it would help them all start questioning this place more easily, more readily. Make it more difficult to fall into too-familiar patterns.]

I think it could help. I really do -- we need to be more careful, more alert. Someone who's never even seen Earth could do that. [His expression softens a bit, bordering on a smile. Some part of him is grateful for her side-stepping the issue, too.]

[Since he doesn't know what to make of it, even now.]

It's all right. It really wasn't that much. [His voice quieter, by a degree. He squeezes her hand, before letting it slip away.] But thank you.

[ Sometimes she is in awe of how someone who has been through so much, seen so much bad in the in the universe can still come out as thoughtful and kind as he is. Even if she feels it's a little placating, she knows his suggestion is honest and she takes it to heart. ]

Then I'll make it a habit to comment on everything I find strange.

[ It's a joke.

She does that a lot already.

He turns down her offer and Allura ~~pouts~~ frowns. Okay, maybe he should be a little more selfish and Allura also wants to feel like she's helping somehow. ]

Well...

[ She snatches the cookie bag. ]

Then why don't you take a seat with us at the table? We could use an extra pair of eyes.

[ And she walks right on over, pulling out a cookie and taking a bite. ]

Or else I may just finish these all by myself.

[Maybe if he hadn't gotten into the hands of the others so fast, things would have been different. Maybe if they hadn't been there to bail him out, keep him grounded, he would have been angrier with the world. But there they were, the four of them, then Allura and Coran -- people who needed him.]

[Then... it was easy.]

Good habit to keep up.

[And maybe he doesn't even realize he's being placating. At least until she frowns and he wonders if he's done something wrong --]

Hey! [Allura those were Oreos do you know how long it's been since Oreos were a thing? But it works. He follows along like she's pulling him on a cookie-shaped leash.] You can't finish all of them!

[Here he comes to drop down at the table with her, mildly alarmed.]

[ Allura has no concept of the significance of Oreos other than the fact that they are tasty. The frosting is her favorite part, though, and she is tempted to just eat that and give the rest fo the mice. But they have plenty of treats as it is.

She's satisfied with the results, though. Once they're both seated she makes a sort of dramatic shrug and then offers him the bag. ]

You did say it wasn't much blood.

[ As long as he's eating, though. Allura will indulge in one cookie by twisting the top off and offering it to the mice, who all immediately scurry over to and up on the table. ]

Can you tell me more about the hospital? If you don't mind.

[ She'd like to get an idea of what to expect in regards to Shiro's condition. Her clippings can wait a few more minutes. ]

[You know what, as soon as he sits back down, he's going to reach for the bag again. Come on, let him have them -- but she solves the issue by holding the bag out for him. Thank goodness for small favors. The tired twenty-something buried deep down inside him is eternally grateful for these cookies.]

[He nods, though, to her statement.] Just enough for a sample.

[Which wasn't nearly as bad as he expected it to be, but old phobias tend to blow up in your head.]

It was all normal until we hit the third floor. We even had to break into the floor itself -- it was all sealed up. And once we did... [He trails off, trying to find the best words to describe it.] It was like the whole place had been taken over by something.

These vines were everywhere. The air was full of what looked like spores... and it was crawling with things that looked like they were supposed to be nurses.

[ Far be it for Allura to deny him his much needed edible reprieve. She just wants to make sure that he takes care of himself, something she's come to realize goes far beyond being busy with space missions. His focus is so outward on the needs of others that there needs to be something to remind him to stop and take a moment for himself. Finding that balance without stepping over her own boundaries as someone who just cares for his well-being is where she worries about her own actions.

She just wants him to be safe and happy. He's earned that much.

For now she just listens, keeping her table manners in mind as she eats the bottom half of her cookie. ]

Vines and spores? Some sort of...invasive species taking root in a building?

[ Then again, they have seen some plant technology. ]

"Supposed to be" leads me to believe they were not.

[Funny, he'd say the same about her. That she deserved just as much, if not more. She's lost more than any of them, and just kept going. She'd lost more, been through more, than anyone ever should. If there were a way to give her some kind of reprieve from it all... he'd love to. Maybe that's why he's going his best to shoulder all the responsibility here.]

[To give her some breathing room. Even in a weird, dream-generated place like this.]

That... could be. I don't know much about plants at all, really. It could even be they're not really plants.

[But he couldn't tell her what they were.]

Their faces were covered. But if they sensed light or motion... they attacked you with anything sharp they could find.

[ It's almost as if it's something they should actually talk about. But dancing around these issues and trying to take on as much as possible is just how they work.

As for plants, she is learning, but she is hardly an expert. He could give her the details and she would have no idea what it was beyond "not a rose or carnation". ]

Is this where the doctors believe this contamination might have come from?

[ She just wants to be prepared for whatever results he gets back. ]

...That sounds terrifying. You were forced to explore in the darkness?

[There are... a lot of things they should probably talk about. But this place takes priority, he feels.]

That's what they make it sound like. I tried to be careful, but -- you know how it goes.

[She knows how he is. If someone else needed his helmet, he'd give it to them.]

Wasn't too bad. I always had a flashlight handy. [He waggles his metal fingers at her.] But, for the most part, yes. Whenever they showed up, we had to go dark.

[ It does.

The mission always comes first. ]

Mmm.

[ Allura can't really fault him for that. While Shiro may take some risks, they are rarely uncalculated.

She manages a small snort of amusement at his fingers, but covers it up as she clears her throat before taking another cookie. ]

I'm glad you made it out, clearly. That does make one wonder what sort of nightmare manifests itself in such a way... That is what these are, aren't they? Nightmares we are forced to experience?

That... could be what they are, there's no doubt about that.

[A few other people have thought the same thing. Asked the same thing. It's not out of the realm of possibility, since this place is supposedly built on dreams or something like that.]

[One more cookie, but this one toyed with in his fingers.]

But whose nightmares are they?

[ Allura feels horribly unequipped to deal with this world, and not just because that it's Earth and a different culture and lifestyle than she's used to. The sort of lofty reality of dreams is far beyond her areas of expertise, so she's left with "what ifs" and musings that have little concrete to them. It bothers her a little.

So she gives a single-shouldered shrug, a motion uncommon to her general demeanor. Painfully casual, though she seems to be more so when they're in the apartment. ]

Sodder's? Or the locals, perhaps? If we are truly asleep then they may be as well. Considering that we are more cognizant of the changes around us, then it might be their dreams that we're experiencing.

You know... maybe.

[She might be onto something there. With the locals. He hasn't heard enough about this "Sodder" to make a call on whatever it is they've got to do with this place, specifically. But the locals are another story.]

[He idly twists the cookie in his fingers.]

It would explain why they're always unaffected by what happens. Why they just seem like they don't care. If they're dreaming, then why would they?

[ Allura nods, feeling a little emboldened now that he's tagged on to her line of thinking. But they usually fed off one another intellectually, or they had done so well before. ]

Yes, that's exactly what I asked myself. My experience here may be limited, but each time something has gone...off, it's been very apparent.

[ Well. Except the whole swan ride. Or rather, the part that had been off hadn't been what was expected until it was too late. And yet locals still piled on without a care. ]

It's very easy to accept all happenings as logical outcomes when you're dreaming, isn't it? A faceless figure can stand in place of a loved one or a friend without question.

Yeah. And at the masquerade... when everything went haywire, not a single person from the town reacted. If they were even there at all.

[His memories were hazy too. Mostly, he remembered trying to keep Will alive in the middle of a snowstorm.]

Even when it's a nightmare... you think it's normal. Because it's a dream.

[Agreeing with her, and puzzling out the mystery at the same time. It's a huge relief, to finally have someone to work things out with. Someone you already know and trust like this. There's no second-guessing here.

Precisely!

[ Whether the theory has merit or not, it is nice to feel as if she's not going out on a limb.

She does the very ladylike motion of scraping off the frosting of her Oreo and eating that on its own. ]

I'm not sure how plausible it would be to test this, though.

[Allura if you're not going to eat the cookie, let him have it...]

I don't think we even can. If they're not outright glowering at us, they tend to act like we're not even here.

[The townsfolk are... interesting, to say the least.]

[ She sets down the cookie portion, then. Your move, Shiro. ]

Is there no way to get their attention? Perhaps that could be what might wake them up?

[Just going to casually... sneak his hand out to grab that cookie.]

I don't know, honestly. They never seem to want to say much of anything to me. Even when I was working at the school.

[ Is this a thing now? Because she's going for another untouched cookie and, yes, takes the top off. Frosting is clearly the best part. ]

That must make it difficult to do your job.

[This is now a thing, and Shiro is super fine with it. He'll just help himself to the cookie top again.]

A bit. But... honestly, it might be for the best. I'm not exactly teaching flight sims anymore.

So?

[ She's not sure if she sees the connection there. But she will eat her bit of frosting before continuing. ]

Though I'm not surprised to hear that you were an instructor. But teaching itself is still a skillset, regardless of the subject.

So being a classroom teacher for human kids is... different than what I did. It's a lot different.

I'm bad at biology, for starters. [He twists the top off another oreo, trying to scrape the cream toward her.] And the other day I tried to kill a spider with a burner and hairspray.

[ Oh that's kind of you, Shiro. She's reaching out to take it but has to pause. ]

You what??

...

I killed a spider?

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