Shopping Trip

[redheadcarrier]

Date & Time: Afternoon on January 08, 2013
Location: The Market
Characters: Asuka; OPEN
Summary: Doing some shopping in the new year. And morbid thoughts because, hey, it's Evangelion.
Warnings: Asuka's a brat and suffers from severe psychological issues. That's about it.

Asuka thought she was going to go nuts if she had to deal with rain for more day. Of course, given that it was always raining here, there wasn't much to do but grin and bear it. With a shiver, she wrapped her coat a bit tighter around her and peered out into the sodden street, watching as refugees and transports (mostly refugees; transports tended to stand out) mill past. Maybe this was what parts of Earth had looked like after Third Impact - ragged communities trying to hold themselves together and endure hunger and hard times.

Not that she was very hungry. The Initiative kept her fed and she could buy food, but she also got special treatment. She was supposed to help them save the world. Or something. She honestly still didn't know what she was supposed to do, but at least the vague objective gave her something to hold onto. She was adjusting, anyway. Life had developed an odd rhythm, where she woke up every morning and went down to the training hall. Then she usually tried to find people to poke over their fake internet. That was entertaining. Usually.

It wasn't much of a life, but it was a life.

Or had been until Shinji had showed up out of nowhere. Why had those idiots had to bring him here? And the Fifth, to boot? She would've been just fine without them to remind her of everything she'd left behind (even if she still kind of wanted Shinji to pay attention to her). Whatever. She dismissed the thoughts with a snort and stepped out into the flow of humanity, elbowing her way through the crowd to a stall selling soap. It wasn't exactly top-of-the-line stuff (really, it was handmade), but Asuka liked being clean. She hunched her shoulders against the steady downpour and toyed with one of the bars. Probably made out of animal fat or something. Eck.

Asuka pulled a face and then fished for her card. Better than being filthy most of the time. Now if only she could find some hair product. Well, maybe she could ask someone. She turned away from the booth, looking for someone who didn't like quite as downtrodden as the rest of them.

Comments

[speakveryclearly]

Kanaya's appearance under a nearby overhang was eerily sudden, like her too-quick movements at critical moments in the elevator. With her elite transport status relative to the poor exiles rather than revilement as a freak, she was confident in publicly abusing her speed powers to avoid the rain, only getting her hair somewhat damp. But she couldn't escape the cold or the dark. She wore her default outfit constantly these days.

Her arrival here was actually a deviation from her intended way home; she'd come from a perpendicular street, a beauty housed on the third floor of a repurposed apartment building or something. (In compliance with the classic laws of imponderability, a dance studio was on the second floor.) Post-apocalyptic Earth sure was weird, but it could offer quality comparable to a developed world's products if you looked hard enough, albeit at somewhat hiked up prices.

She held a translucent off-white reusable shopping purse, two-thirds full with an assortment of products; but seeing her recently made friend's striking red hair led her to cross onto this street and speed over to underneath this overhang instead of heading straight back.

"Shopping, Asuka?"

[redheadcarrier]

Asuka jumped. Just a little bit. She wasn't used to people who could move faster than the eye could follow (and do so rather quietly, too). For a moment she was ready to just unload all of her frustrations - well right until she remembered it was Kanaya and she sort of kind of got along with her.

Mostly.

"Don't sneak up on people like that!" Asuka snaped irritably. It wasn't a yell, but it was something of a admonishment. "And yes. I'm trying to find out if they have anything I can use for my hair..."

[speakveryclearly]

"Sorry." Kanaya was quickly subdued by Asuka's admonition. Roxy had already told her once she shouldn't do that; she really had to stop. But it was just so useful... and she really hated the rain, which she'd barely properly had to live with pre-Exsilium. A desert upbringing did that to a troll.

But Asuka's question caught her interest. "Really? Your hair?" She was cautiously intrigued. This looked a lot like an opportunity to make herself useful to the pilot girl. With one hand she raised her basket at an angle, tilting it so the upper halves of some hygienic items inside stuck out.

[redheadcarrier]

At least Kanaya's glow made the gloominess a bit more bearable out here. In enclosed spaces it could get a bit much, but out of doors? Well, Asuka didn't mind all that much. She shook rain water off of her sleeves and eased back under the awning. Boo, rain. Then her attention was caught by Kanaya's little gesture and she peered closer, "...where'd you find all of that?"

[speakveryclearly]

"There's this little place around the corner..." With her free arm Kanaya pointed backwards along the street where she'd come. "The goods are more expensive than they should be, but the owners have preserved some manufacturing methods pretty well. I don't know how else I'd survive."

She thought about it a little more, flickering once before returning to her steady glow. From her friendship with Vriska and other girls, she'd acquainted herself with the proper care of long hair; she found it an attractive trait and one that merited cultivation. A physical representation of femininity more daring and demanding than she chose for herself... now she just had to phrase her proposal casually.

"If you want I could show you the way just so you know where it is for your own reference. It's hard to give directions in a city as drab as this."

[redheadcarrier]

"Great," Asuka muttered, "At least it's the beginning of the month..."

Budgeting was for losers, anyway. She rolled a a few coins in her hand as she considered, only half paying attention to Kanaya. She snapped back to her after a moment with a blink.

"Huh? Well, yeah. They don't even have street names. Sure, go ahead and show me."

[speakveryclearly]

"I know. It's so fortunate they have payday right after Christmas. My finances were becoming dire."

With this she began walking in that direction, knowing Asuka would follow and keeping a normal pace. Agh. Rain. Maybe she would invest in a coat some time if she had more money later... "Wouldn't it be nice if we earned street names someday? That's what the missions do, you know, cause retroactive changes in the timeline."

[redheadcarrier]

"It'd be nice if we ever had sunshine..." Asuka muttered, "Why can't we change the weather or something? Or at least make this place less of a total dump?"

Asuka tends to complain. A lot. But she follows Kanaya, shivering against the chill.

[speakveryclearly]

"It would be nice. There was a post gathering a couple of transports to go on environmentally oriented missions. I'm not sure how successful they were. Um..." She tries to think back. "If I find it again, I'll link it to you later."

Around this time they turn the corner. It's two more blocks to their destination.

[redheadcarrier]

"That'd be nice. Anything for some damn sunlight at this point..." Asuka mutters and tugs her hood a bit lower over her eyes. Going from eternal summer to this mess was not an easy adjustment. She stay in stride with Kanaya, although she's more interested in watching the rather sodden street as they walk past.

"So, do we basically just wait for the Initiative to give us a call or something?"

[speakveryclearly]

"Yeah, that's about all that can be done with regards to missions," she says a little apologetic with a tiny shrug. "We're gathered with rather short notice. So on the bright side, you thereby never know whether today might be the day."

[redheadcarrier]

"That's the bright side? What if I'm in the shower or something?"

That's kind of a joke and kind of serious. It's not really a major objection, since she's used to being on call 24/7.

[speakveryclearly]

Heheh. She gets that, kind of. "Not that short, fortunately. About an hour."

They're pretty close to the place now.

[redheadcarrier]

Asuka rolls her eyes good-naturedly and glances down the street. There's still steady traffic, but it's slackening as they move away from the central market. No one gives them much of a second glance. Well, not right now anyway.

"Good. A girl needs to keep herself clean. Especially in a muck hole like this."

[speakveryclearly]

That makes Kanaya frown as she thinks about what a muck hole Exsilium kind of is. "I know. Is it just my limited experience, or is everything on this planet either filthy or nauseatingly sterile?" Extremes - that's Maryam's Earth.

[redheadcarrier]

"That's the post-apocalypse for you!" Asuka puts her hands behind her head with a shrug, "It was like that back home - outside the cities the U.N. rebuilt, things were pretty bad. So everything was either really modern or total crap."

She glances up at the store front as they approach, "This it...?"

[speakveryclearly]

"Yes," she says, as she opens the door. "...well, it is on the third floor, but this is the building. Refurbishment..." If only Earth had carpenter droids.

[redheadcarrier]

"Yeah," Asuka says dryly, "Talk about a real fixer-upper."

She pauses to kick at a crack in the wall - well, more like nudge it with a foot.

"I feel like half of these damn things are gonna fall in on me. Where are the stairs, anyway?"

[speakveryclearly]

"Over here," she says, leading Asuka to a door which leads to a stairwell. It is one of those rather awful ones where the walls are plaster and the stairs themselves are pretty much metal. But they go up.

[redheadcarrier]

Asuka grimaces, but starts clambering up the stairs. The exercise is good for her, right?

"At least shampoo isn't that heavy," she says dryly. Hey, she's trying to have a sense of humor about htis.

[speakveryclearly]

"Nope," Kanaya agrees, continuing to set an even pace. She's still... got her bag of goods with her, after all. "If it really were I would carry it for you if you wanted." Such weights don't really bother her at all as a glowpire, and she likes the idea of her condition being helpful instead of a source of confusion for her friends.

[redheadcarrier]

"No, I can carry my own bags," Asuka says, "I don't look like a total weakling, do I?"

Sheesh, she knows she's a bit scrawny, but she always thought she was an attractive young woman! As if to emphasize her point she doesn't bother pausing on the way up. They're just stairs! And she is in fairly good shape, so it's not like it's an issue.

[speakveryclearly]

"Not at all. It was just an offer."

She does trust in Asuka's athleticism from what she's seen of her. At least in theory... humans can be a toss-up with that trait. Silencing a little, she continues up the stairs.