exsiliumlogs | A Fun Day With A Friend

Entry tags:

A Fun Day With A Friend

Date & Time: February 14th
Location: A video shop, then Unit 509
Characters: Asuka and Kanaya
Summary: Two girls watch a romantic movie on a romantic date.
Warnings: Mild interspecies relationship themes.

Kanaya entered the store with a few drops of rain still clinging to her winter coat, and the door chimed as it closed behind her. "Hey," she said to Asuka. It was great to be with her on another more extended excursion.

"So... here we are. I suppose this should be the part where Earth film selection criteria are learnt." She was looking to Asuka for guidance in this venture. Her human friend would know what to do here better than Kanaya herself.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A Fun Day With A Friend

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject