exsiliumlogs | greetings!

Entry tags:

greetings!

Date & Time: June 29
Location: Unit 305
Characters: Monica Campanella and Alisha Bailey

aphrodisiacs
Summary: Roommate bonding! Monica was making some bread and she decides to share with her roomie.
Warnings: n/a!

Cooking was a good pastime. Working at the bakery back home had been a nice, comfortable experience with a good employer who provided her with food and a warm place to live. A good-hearted, motherly adult that she was blessed to be in the care of. So it's that woman whom she thinks about as she stares with fascination, crouched by the oven she's using at the apartment, a recipe book she purchased at the market open in her lap as she eyes the displayed temperature to make sure she's doing it correctly.

But she's not so immersed in her activity that she doesn't notice when her roommate enters right as the timer goes off, indicating that the bread she was baking should be ready. As she rises to her feet and pulls the oven door open, Monica turns to smile at the other girl and greets her, "Hi! I hope you didn't need to use the kitchen. I'm almost done though."

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Alisha's completely bored. There's only so much she can do on the network until it becomes repetitive and boring, and while speaking to people hasn't exactly endangered her, her eyes are going square just looking at the communicator. Sometimes, she forgets, that there's a real world out there that exists beyond that active communication device.

It's why she ventures out into the flat and into the kitchen. She needs a drink. Maybe a snack. She honestly doesn't know. She doesn't like that this flat is smaller, with a ceiling that isn't made up of a panel of lights, and with no elevator parked in the very middle of it. The space of Simon's self-proclaimed Batcave had always felt like too much for Alisha, but now she misses how easily she could move within it.

She honestly hadn't been expecting to see anyone in the kitchen. Her timing has always been good - or rat shit, if it's looked at in another way - when it comes to bumping into them. The timing makes her pause in her steps, halting immediately as if caught red handed. "Heya," she says, a little awkwardly. "I just wanted to get a drink."

Taking another step or two into the kitchen, her brows pinch together slightly. "What are you making?"

"Oh, if that's the case, then I think the refrigerator has some things in there. It's really amazing that we can store things in here like this, don't you think? Food doesn't go bad as easily!" Short rambling over, Monica immediately spins around to take a glass out of the cabinet behind her, all smiles as she comes back to approach her roommate with it, holding it out to her like a dog fetching something for its master.

She hasn't talked to her roommate much. The plague and the bombings had kept Monica occupied, and even without them she was busy finding out more about the city outside than the small world inside this white apartment. But now that things are starting to calm down, so is she, indulging herself in activities like this that she once used to think were pointless. Like baking.

"I'm just making some bread. I used to work at a bakery where I'm from, so it calms me down to do something familiar. Would you like to try some? They should be better than the first batches from when I was still getting used to this oven."

She's talking about refrigerators as if she's never seen one before. And while Alisha looks at Monica as if she isn't quite sure she's even human, the offer of bread snaps her out of it. While a part of her wants to decline the offer and retreat back into her room, the other part, the one that uses sense, makes sure roots curl around her feet and keep her anchored to this spot. She knows there's no way she'll be getting home soon. And this girl seems nice; she'd be a real idiot to not try and make some sort of connection with her.

Besides, she's hungrier than she originally thought.

She smiles, though, it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. Never really had home-baked bread before. Not many people from home even know how to do toast properly."

"Oh, really? Well, if you'd like I can show you how sometime so you can make yourself some bread whenever you want." Stretching her smile into a wider grin, she turns her attention back the oven she'd opened. The bread is read, nicely colored and extremely hot to the touch, but even with the kitchen she wasn't used to because of its advanced (to her) technology, it looked the way she remembered it was supposed to look.

"You look tired. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she smiles. "Just not really used to all of this," she says, gesturing around to the kitchen. Alisha means everything; from Exsilium and it's weird rules and universal constructs to the smallest thing like sharing a kitchen with someone who isn't Simon.

And while she wants to retreat back into her room, pull up those walls, and lock herself inside, the idea of that bread, which she can just get a glimpse of, makes her mouth water just the tiniest bit. Homemade things are some of her favourite foods to eat, and this girl is being very kind to her. It's weird, everyone being really nice in the strangest of worlds. "I'm Alisha," she says. "Guess we're roommates, yeah?"

"I guess so, "she replies with a smile over her shoulder. "I'm Monica. It's nice to meet you, and I hope we get along. But--!"

She lets a dramatic pause fall in there, turning around to put the tray of baked goods on the counter, careful not to burn Alisha with it if she's close by.

"I hope you'll be okay if I don't understand a lot of things. Apparently, there are a lot of people here who can understand things like the technology here, but I'm new to everything!"

Alisha moves out of the way when Monica has the hot tray of baked goods in her hands. Even if she's a safe distance away, she still moves. Monica's movements are new to Alisha; she doesn't know her habits, or where she prefers to stand, or what she likes to do, so she finds herself a little jumpy, a little too eager to move to the left when she should be swaying to the right.

Some part of Alisha honestly hopes they get along. While she wants to pretend this place is a nightmare, the people in it are proving to be a challenge to that desired perception.

"You're new? What do you mean you're new to everything?" she cocks her brow as she asks, a small smile on her face. Monica knows how to use an oven; Alisha takes that little display of capability for granted. She's met people from different versions of Earth, but none have ever been too foreign to the things or words or ideas thrown around them.

Monica is quick on her feet and moves without much trouble despite the long, almost restricting-looking dress. Her eyes catch Alisha's little movements and she matches them so they don't collide, the smile still on her face.

Alisha. Her roommate. Someone she'll be sharing space with. So far, she didn't seem like a threat or even a problem. Just a little nervous, like most people likely are around strange people they're forced to live with. Monica gives a little, friendly and cheerful laugh as she takes out a plate and places a pice of bread on it, sliding it across the counter toward the woman she should try to befriend.

"Well, how should I put this... not a lot of people who came here from 'Earth' are from as long ago as I am, compared to this world?" She taps her chin with her finger, thoughtfully, looking for the right words to use. "Well, to put it shortly, the last year I remember is 1710, so the year here is really in the future for me, and it's hard to recognize almost anything here."

Alisha's waiting for that punchline. The one where Monica says she's kidding, that perhaps 1710 is some weird way of saying 1990 or 2000. But she's making no move to do so, despite the seconds Alisha waits for her to correct herself.

Time travel isn't exactly a new concept for her. Simon's come from the future, possibly a few months, maybe a year, into a past that is a little similar to his own environment. She's met a few people here from the 1990s, which is a little unsettling, either way it's put, but it's not exactly like a fish being completely out of water. But to meet someone who is so far behind?

She stares, her eyes moving so quickly to the bread only to return to Monica's face. "You're serious," she says, rather than asks.

History isn't Alisha's most successful subject, nor is any, come to think of it, but she knows the basics, as much as she can, anyway, and tries to understand this new concept Monica has slid on the table alongside her newly baked bread. Someone from the past, not quite in the know with technology, and while Monica has gently slid the discussion on the table, Alisha is still taken by surprise. "That means you're … You know the horse and carriages, yeah? None of this car and telephone bullshit?"

"Well, horses and carriages were for the nobles but we did have those. I've never heard of cars or -- telephones?" She cleaned the kitchen as she worked so the countertop is clean. With no need to move around the kitchen, she leans her elbows on the counter, willing to keep up the conversation.

"I didn't know what electricity was until I got here, and... well, almost everything. Even back then the town I grew up in was isolated from the rest of the territory. We didn't even have newspapers!"

"You didn't have newspapers," she parrots. "Seriously?" If those eyebrows of hers weren't already in her hairline … "I've never met someone who is from so far back. People here are missing a few years or a decade or something, but not …"

She shakes her head. This is, honestly, something for Simon to deal with, not her. But she glances at the bread. Monica had made that using an appliance, according to her, she isn't familiar with. "But you know how to use an oven, yeah? You've been here long, then?"

She nods her head, amused by the incredulousness she's being faced with a little. "Well, they were being used in other places but we didn't use them."

With a little laugh, she looks back at the oven she'd just been using. "Um, not that long? I got here at the beginning of this month, but I tried really hard to learn how to use the kitchen since I don't to spend so much money going outside to buy meals."

"You seem like you know how to use it," she says with a small smile. Her gaze flickers back to the oven as she continues, "Probably better than us who live with them."

While Alisha isn't the world's best oven user - and thus cannot say very much on Monica's level of skill - she knows that for someone who hasn't taken the existence of an oven for granted, Monica's definitely got a knack for picking up the technology. Especially - and she returns her gaze to the bread - if her baked goods are anything to go by.

"I'm a fast learner if I put my mind to it. Besides, once I figured out how the measurements of those books corresponded with the kitchen utensils the lady at the store showed me, it wasn't so difficult. All the buttons on this oven are labeled, too." Blindly following the numeric instructions is the way to go, apparently.

"Would you like to give it a try?"

"Maybe sometime later," Alisha says, amused. She can cook, you know, toast, make a few things herself from following a recipe book, but baking seems way too fiddly for someone who has little talent in the kitchen. She'd rather keep the flat with four walls rather than see it burn down to the ground because she's overcooked dough or something of the sort. "I don't quite know how to bake. Figure you'd want to eat your bread while it's still hot."

"Oh, that's what I was offering. Would you like to try one? I'm pretty confident, you know."

She gestures to her bread again, her smile widening. Alisha doesn't seem bad. Perhaps they're both the same. If they're going to be stuck living together, they should be civil, maybe even friendly. She can do friendly.

"Yeah, that'd be nice," Alisha says. Turning down the offer is like turning away an olive branch. While Alisha likes to delude herself into thinking she'll be out of here in no time, she knows she shouldn't pass up the opportunity to form some friendships. She could use some friends. At least, some who are better than Chloe.

She makes a move towards the table before hesitating. She's not quite sure what to do with her hands, which are now outstretched. Then, she laughs. "Just not sure what to do with my hands, yeah? I know it's not proper to dig at bread with your fingers. And I'm not really good at cutting things evenly."

"Oh, do you want me to cut it for you? It would be easier to eat if it was smaller, huh?"

She hums and moves around the kitchen some more, looking for a knife and bringing herself around to the table so she can cut it for her roommate.

"I'm not that picky about things like that, though."

"You just see people cutting it a certain way on the telly, you know?" Alisha realises that she sounds very, very stupid as she says it, what with knowing next to nothing about something as simple as cutting bread, but she's never quite been confronted with a freshly baked loaf.

She watches Monica as she gets to work on the bread. She finds herself speaking before she can even think it over, "You bake anything else?"

"A telly? What's that?" She talks while she cuts, placing a couple slices of the bread onto the plate and sliding it across to Alisha with a "go on, eat!" before getting herself a slice as well.

"I can't say I know everything the missus did, but I know plenty!" And so she lists them, folding down her fingers as she does.

Alisha picks at her bread, eating it in the smallest of pieces. Maybe it's a part of her that wants to prolong this. This is nice, if a little odd, and it's only a little odd because of the circumstances that have brought them together. But she doesn't particularly feel like analysing it. She listens to Monica, quite enjoying her company, even though Alisha isn't the type to want to enjoy anyone's company when she's sulking. It's a nice change of pace, and is one that she most likely can get used to if she's open to it.

"You could see all of that on the telly," she says with a grin. "You never heard of a television? Big box that shows moving pictures. Sort of like photographs but it's as if you're watching the stuff in the photograph take place."

"I've got to admit, we don't even have photographs back where I'm from. We've got the printing press, you know? For a few centuries now. But we don't even print newspapers in my town unlike in some cities elsewhere. We've got one notice board in the center of town and we follow the news in the city there."

She smiles brightly, leaning forward against the counter and shrugging her shoulders. "I learned about the photograph after coming here, though. And the television -- if they're moving pictures, are they like the 'videos' we see on the machines the Initiative gave us?"

Edited 2013-09-21 08:50 (UTC)

Meeting someone who isn't from her own century isn't something Alisha's had experience with ever. She's not quite sure how to take it. But she certainly tries to keep her jaw from dropping to the table or her eyes popping out of her head.

She can't help the kind laugh, though. "Yeah, they're like … If you use your communicator, that's basically the telly. If you ignore the lack of narrative and characters and unbelievable bullshit." Although, Exsilium did have quite an interesting narrative, if a little disjointed. "Do you use it a lot?"

"I do. Reading and baking is nice enough, but I do find it interesting how the technology here works, and it helps to know what people are up to in case there's something I should really know about."

Like the arrival of certain somebodies that she hopes for and dreads at the same time but you know.

"What about you?"

Alisha cocks an eyebrow. "Use my phone?" If only Monica had known Alisha back home, she wouldn't need to even ask that question. She'd been attached to it, at first, during community service. No one would see Alisha without it. It was her way of keeping in touch with her 'friends', the ones who didn't really matter, the ones who didn't ask her how everything was going. Over the weeks, she eventually stopped using her phone to communicate with her friends, considering they were always standing right in front of her.

"I use it sometimes, yeah," she shrugs. "I used to be on it all the time. The one I had back home. Now I kind of just use it whenever. Seems like there's a lot of shit going down on that network. Sometimes I just don't want to hear about it, you know?"

"Oh, certainly. I feel like there's no getting away with something like this, you know? No matter where in the city you are, as long as you've got this you can talk to anyone, anytime. It sounds very convenient, but at the same time, you're right. Sometimes you don't want to hear about it.

"But -- I hope you keep it on you, at least! You're my roommate; I'd like to be able to make sure you can reach me any time you need me."

Alisha can't help but smile. Monica's genuine nature doesn't remind her of anyone she knows in particular. It's not something she's used to being on the receiving end of. "You too, yeah? Never really had a roommate before. Where I'm from, I doubt I'd get one as nice as you." Or one who baked such nice bread, either. She takes another bite, too, as if to emphasise her point.

She smiles rather proudly, humming a tune cheerfully.

"That's nice of you to say, Alisha. I've never had a roommate, really, either, just the lady from the bakery. But I'm very glad that you're my roommate here, too! If you need any help, please just tell me, all right?"

"Yeah," she says, smiling. "You too, yeah? And if you make more bread, leave me some." She seems a little shy when she pays her the compliment, "You're really good at it."

"Oh, thank you, and certainly of course! It's a token of our acquaintance -- I'll leave them in a basket in the kitchen, so you're always free to take them as you wish." She doesn't mind the compliment at all. She likes this girl. A warm, kind person to meet that she never got to run in to back home.

"If there's any sort of bread you'd like, you can tell me and I can try to make it for you too."

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greetings!

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ugh, sorry that it took me so long to reply back.

no problem at all!

♥♥♥

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