exsiliumlogs | A Fun Day With A Friend

Technically, it was Valentine's, but Asuka was incredibly single and wasn't likely to respond well to any "secret admirer" cards anyway. So instead she was spending part of her day with on the of the few people she actually called a "friend". Even if said friend was a glowing alien vampire. Come on, she'd worked alongside a creepy robo-girl, this was nothing. She ducked through the door and shook a bit of rainwater off on the mat and took a look around the store.

Like most of the stores here it was cramped and smelled a bit musty. It smelled old. Which wasn't surprising, since this place dealt in older relics of pre-war times. Most importantly, it dealt in visual entertainment media, which was really what they were after. She shoved her hands into her pockets and shot Kanaya an amused look, "It's not that difficult. Stop acting like it's trying to learn quantum mechanics or something."

"Says you," she muttered, a little hurt but mostly just exaggerating her reaction for effect. Asuka was just a little abrasive; Kanaya had long ago resigned herself to this being her "type", in friends as much as lovers. Maybe quantum mechanics could explain that infernal tendency of hers.

"So..." Kanaya took off her gloves and put them into her pockets, drying her hands off on her lapels as she looked around. "I'm going to assume we just find a device designed to show one of your 'DVDs', and then just a suitable DVD." She could be casual about this. The format didn't seem that different, Alternian aesthetics aside, with what she knew from home.

"Yeah, pretty simple. You know, if they have anything that works..." Privately, Asuka doubted that they did. What would the odds be of electronics surviving this long? Still, it was better than spending another night in her room, trying not to think too hard about herself. She idly shifts through some junk in one of the bins, not all that concerned about being speedy. Either unaware or just ignoring Kanaya's discomfort, she pressed on.

"I mean, the odds of us finding a good movie that's managed to survive this long are already pretty low."

"Well, if they have a store in the first place then they're either supplying something that would work or running a very effective scam."

Her search consisted mostly of one rectangular object off the shelf, wiping off the accrued layer of dust, and replacing it with another. They seemed to be films, rather similar to troll ones in makeup in case design beyond the short titles. Some cases were just dented or empty. That was a derelict post-apocalyptic planet for you.

Then she came across an extremely dented, almost rusty, but also particularly large rectangular object. Since it seemed suspiciously unlikely to actually be a DVD case and preliminary tests did not allow it to open this way, she picked it up with both hands and turned to her companion with a curious look on her face.

"Asuka, why does your civilization associate this form of media with kinship?"

"Wouldn't surprise me if it was a scam," Asuka muttered, "What better way to make money off of idiots?"

She sounded a bit rueful - she didn't particularly want to get scammed out of her money. At the same time, it wasn't like the Initiative was just going to cut her salary out from under her, either. She dug through another bin, tossing empty or battered DVD cases out of the way to get at a frayed power cable that looks like it would probably set the apartment on fire if it was plugged into anything. She held it at arm's length for a moment with a dejected (and over the top) sigh. Kanaya's question made her look up.

"I don't know. It's just fun to watch movies with your friends. It's not really about talking, I guess - well, sometimes it is - it's mostly about enjoying company. I think."

Asuka wasn't the most social soul prior to this.

"Oh, of course that -- they played a similar culture role in my culture, that's not really what my question meant."

It takes a few moments for her to move her arms around the DVD player so she can point at the label on it.

"What I mean is, I do not really get the 'Son' label."

Asuka glanced up from her search and eyed the player for a long moment. She finally burst out laughing, not bothering to hide her amusement. It took her a few moments to recover, braced against the bin she'd been searching for.

"...it's not 'Son', Maryam! The 'Y' has probably just worn off - Sony was a manufacturer!"

She looks down at the label and then up at Asuka again. "Ohhhhhh!" Her humor is contagious, but its manifestation in Kanaya is muffled by shock.

Extending her arms to lessen the distance between Asuka and the device, she asks, "So you think this might work then."

Asuka eyed the player dubiously, "...maybe. I dunno. I'm not an electronics expert - depends on how long it's been sitting."

She reached over to give it a rap with her knuckles. Well, they could hope, but they might also lug it all the way back to the housing project for nothing. And that - that would be irritating. Still, spending time with Kanaya was one of the few genuinely social activities she actually bothered with. Maybe it would still be worth a try.

"If it's that bad, we could probably take it to my friend Sollux. I'm not entirely certain he couldn't get a three-dimensional projection to come out of the cable you're holding."

She starts to shrug but stops mid-motion not wanting to drop what she's holding.

"So... If you don't see anything else, this will probably be as close to acceptable as we attain, and with your cable we will have reached the third step of film selection. My plan was that we should split the price of whatever we buy here."

"And burn half the building down," Asuka commented dryly. She tucked the cable under her arm anyway, since she hand't found anything better. They had duct tape back at the apartment, right? Right. Anyway.

"Sounds good to me. Not like I spend my money on anything else - or that there's anything worth buying."

Asuka scoffed, mostly to herself. She still didn't think all that highly of the people who lived here or their living conditions. The fact that she lived in relative comfort and on someone else's (metaphorical) dime didn't seem to occur to her.

"Anything worth watching over there?"

Edited 2013-02-15 22:19 (UTC)

She turned to look at the selections through which she'd pawed. "Well... there's..." Truth be told, not much had caught her eye. "I'm going to assume the documentaries are all out of the question. They seem insufferable." Nonfiction never particularly excited Kanaya, and that was even more true on Earth. "So something with a semblance of a storyline..." Hmmmmmm.

"Documentaries can be interesting, but I doubt they'd mean anything to you," Asuka murmured, one finger tapping her chin. The selection is, to put it mildly, terrible. Plus there's the fact that they're not even assured that any of these will work. She rolls her eyes after another moment and then plucks something at random off of the shelf.

"Whatever. Let's just try out luck with this one."

"I'm not sure if I should bother trying to change that or not..." Her knowledge of Earth is such a hodgepodge. She's given up on being able to really draw meaningful conclusions about their culture, let alone history.

She nods in acquiescence to Asuka's selection. "That seems as good a choice as any." With this she begins to migrate, player in hand, to the register, as much as a register can be called that when it's money being placed by hand into a nearly termite-ridden drawer.

"I have no idea what it is," Asuka shrugged, "Hopefully it'll be something halfway decent...."

She slapped the case onto the counter and then dug into her pocket for a handful of coins.

"Can't be any worse than staring at the wall, though."

Kanaya shook her head in agreement. "Nothing's worse than that."

With the player put on the counter, she retrieved her half of the payment. The worker took both girls' money silently.

The transaction complete, Asuka didn't give the shopkeeper a second glance. Instead, she tugged her hood back up and stepped back out into the constant drizzle. As usual, she expected Kanaya to keep up.

"Give you too much time to think," she mused, almost to herself, "And who wants to do nothing but be stuck with their own thoughts?"

Kanaya kept pace, following along out the shop with her coat and gloves still on, but just as Asuka muses to herself, Kanaya is to an extent tilted in the opposite direction. "An unshared thought is a parasite in the thought sponge," she agreed, and then corrected herself, "I mean brain.

"That's why you have to find someone with whom to share your emotions, though I suppose you wouldn't see the full appeal of that." Every little reminder of the psychological damage she'd undergone was another fiber of force added to the deep pull that her planet's institution of moirallegiance had on her as much as any other troll. Emotional openness. Now that would be something.

Asuka scoffed, "Why do I need someone to share with? I just want something to do. Staring at the wall is boring."

She adroitly side-stepped a puddle as she continued, "I don't need any one. I just hate being bored."

Maybe if she kept telling herself that, it would become true.

Kanaya crossed over the same puddle with a quick burst of supernatural speed.

"Everyone needs someone," she continued smoothly, "Most people - just don't realize it." Her sentence has an odd kilter as she seriously considered making this the explicit commentary on Earth's society that it is in her private mind. "So we settle for ordinary, more distant acquaintance and call it good enough."

Which she'd had to do for months and probably would continue to throughout her undeath. Such was her doom.

"I don't-" Asuka began and then cut herself off with a little huff. She was doing it again. Falling into familiar patterns because they helped her now. The idea of having to rely on others or go to them for help still seemed terrible to her - it made a little voice in her head whisper that she was weak and worthless for doing so. She mulled in silence.

"...I still think it's stupid," she finally grumbled. Not quite giving in, but it was better than stringent denials.

She recognized the pattern: the Alternian "troll tsundere" in her natural habitat, not that she'd ever learned that particular word for the condition. "In that case I think you're a tragic form of typical."

She changes the topic. "So that film's title really is only a few words, huh. Your planet's cinema is so young."

"I am the furthest thing from typical you're ever going to find!" Asuka snapped. Fortunately, an escalated argument was avoided when Kanaya's comment derailed her train of thought. Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"...what does title length have to do with anything?"

Pacification gambit successful. (Okay, so it was a little bit of a similar pattern to her relationship with Vriska. ...but different. Because it was.)

"It was just different on Alternia because our civilization had been developing films for so much longer and violation of troll copyright law was illegal. So you end up with things like 'Rainbow Drinker Cannot Use Supernatural Psychic Abilities On Troll Maiden And Without Ability To Enter His Cocoon Begins To Observe Her In Her Respiteblock Eventually Giving In And Drinking Her Beautiful Blue Blood' - that's just the first clause, you don't want to hear more."

Asuka actually stopped walking so she could stare at Kanaya for a very long moment in the dim light, ignoring the rain spattering off of her hood. She really had no idea what to say to that.

"...that's the stupidest way to name movies I've ever heard of. What are you people, creatively bankrupt?"

"Yes, that's a pejorative way to put it." Kanaya stoutly considered to walk. "You could say we spent all our creative capital over the centuries. 'Troll Serendipity' was done before. And that's how we obtained 'In Which A Pair Of Matesprits Obtain Troll Serendipity' et cetera cetera cetera."

"Remind me never to try troll television..." Asuka muttered and then hurried to catch up again.

"Why couldn't they just, I don't know, reuse names? Or come up with something? It's not like human media doesn't reuse stuff!"

"Troll television didn't have the same characteristics, actually." She skipped over a second puddle and used that as a pretense for slowing down a moment. "It was a relatively new medium."

"Oh, well, that's a relief," Asuka retorted, "I don't even want to know how they'd bother titling their episodes..."

The walk back isn't long, but they are burdened with a battered DVD player. That will hopefully work (hopefully).

Kanaya kept that thing to herself, leaving the cable and DVD themselves to Asuka. She didn't mind the weight much. It was mostly cumbersome in keeping up both her arms - and not being able to run with it, but that was a condition of hanging out with Asuka (or basically anyone) anyway.

"I take it Earth television follows the same terse conventions of your cinema then."

"Well, yeah. Who would want to sit through an opening title that's longer than a line or two?" Asuka turns the corner toward the resident building. Almost home (if home could ever describe this place). She was starting to get used to this place, as terrifying as that thought was. Even this was an indicator of how she'd fallen into familiar patterns. Kanaya was a crutch for her, true, but doing something as normal as a movie night seemed to indicate that she really was adjusting to Exsilium.

"Do you ever think about going back to where ever it is you came from?"

The question sounded careless. A bit too casual.

"Oh, I wish I could go back to my home planet on an embarrassingly regular basis, but I try not to concentrate on that because it's an impossibility. You remember our discussion about the appropriation of the term 'apocalypse'." That gets Kanaya down, dimming a little in the already dim Exsilium weather. But they're almost home, which is how Kanaya pretty much describes this place. It's not perfect but it's not a space station.

"Riiiight. Everything's dead back home, right?" Asuka sounded casual. Her world was dead, so it didn't much surprise her that someone else's was too. Weird coincidence that it happened to be one of her friends, but considering who the Initiative tended to pull in, maybe it wasn't that surprising. Asuka tugged the door to the lobby open, holding it for Kanaya.

"After you."

"Meteors, psychic waves... pretty much the works." There was restrained regret behind those words.

"It's beyond help now, of course. You have no reason to worry. But unless anything changes in the future my intention is to remain in Exsilium, even after the war, if possible."

With a nod and minor "Thanks", she went through.

Asuka trailed after her, expression thoughtful, "You too, huh? Nothing for me to go back to, so I guess I'm staying here. Better than being stuck in a slightly less hospitable apocalyptic wasteland..."

Next came the stairs, which really weren't all that hard. It was just a bit of a climb.

"If the war ever ends - how are we supposed to beat these guys again?"

Kanaya took some time to get her balance walking with the DVD player up the stairs. Soon enough she got the hang of it. It helped to disguise how she was privately pleased by the notion that Asuka would also not want to leave.

"During the battles in the past, when the enemy is weak compared to our strong individual soldiers, we beat them fairly handily, which gives us an advantage in the present."

A Fun Day With A Friend

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