bombshelled | Vestige inbox

[ Gilia pauses a moment, wondering if she has said something dreadfully silly again. ]

Your fast? Have you eaten this morning?

[ ....... ]

[ Finally, it registers. ]

Ohhh! Break...fast... I get it. Uh, no, I haven't eaten anything.

[ Gilia nods, just as confused about the confusion, but doing her best to carry along with it as well she can. ]

I thought perhaps not. Here -

[ Do you want to know what really goes on in ridiculous medieval gowns?

Pockets. Pockets is what happens. Gilia reaches inside of her gowns folds and withdraws the small - what appears to be muffin that she has wrapped in a cloth, to pass to her companion. ] A small thing, to help for the walk.

[ Wow, how many fucking pockets does she have hiding in that dress of hers? But hey, free muffin! Lana grins, reaching out to take it. ]

Oh my gosh, sweet! Thank you. [ She pulls off a chunk of muffin and stuffs it in her mouth, only belatedly thinking to ask, ] Do you want to split it?

[ Maybe Gilia hasn't broken her fast either. ]

[ So many pockets. Fear women who make their own clothes, they will not be stopped with a lack of pockets.

Which is to say, Gilia shakes her head. ]

I shall not eat until after second prayers, though I thank you for the thought. But it is all yours, I am glad you like it.

[ She genuinely does seem glad, her expression content that she's happy to just take a bite. But with it sorted, she steps back, smoothing her hand down her dress to flatten it with a gesture outwards. ] Shall we?

[ Thankfully, Lana has a bite of muffin occupying her mouth just then, otherwise she would have asked some dumb question like, "why the fuck do you pray twice?" As it is, she just hesitates in her chewing slightly, then swallows and moves on. ]

Uh, yeah. Sure. Let's go!

[ It's a nice morning by the lake, complete with bird song and the sun reflecting off the rippling waters. Twigs and leaves crunch under Lana's sneakered feet as she walks on, feeling slightly awkward, unable to keep from thinking about just how little she has in common with her walking companion.

Still, Gilia seems nice enough, for someone who doesn't know shit about anything modern. ]

So... Tell me about where you came from? It's probably way different from this place, right?

[ There is of course, nothing exactly sprightly to the walk. That is not how a lady walks about a garden path.

But that said - Gilia is tall. Her stride is longer, as much as she doesn't deliberately walk too fast. Rather she is a woman of - structured position. Her hands are clasped in front of her, her head raised up to walk with a straight back and lowered shoulders. An effort to seem effortless. ]

It is, that, yes. The isle St. Loe is often described as a the edge of all lands. Though the forest has... something of the same kind that you see here. But far more rugged, in landscape. We... have nothing like houses like this, rooms like this, items like this.

Yeah, I bet. You seem pretty good at picking up on all the new stuff, though. You figured out texting by yourself... Sort of.

[ Still got to work on loosening up her vocabulary and grammar, but then Lana thinks that might be an uphill battle, and really, proper texting etiquette is not the hill she wants to die on, so she'll give up on that pipe dream.

She walks a lot more casually, arms crossed over her chest, sneaker-ed feet scuffing along the ground as they go, head on a swivel to look pretty much everywhere but straight ahead. ]

For what it's worth, this kind of quaint forest area is new to me, too. I come from Queens. Uh, it's part of the biggest city in the country, where I come from. I had never even left the New York greater metropolitan area before until recently. [ Though really, does hitchhiking aboard a stolen helicarrier all the way to the airspace over Latveria even count? It's not like she went through customs or even bought a postcard to commemorate her trip. ]

Yes... I do wonder. It is very slow. I am sure it is only my inexperience talking. But to constantly have to start again when you make a mistake is... very tiresome. I cannot even cross out a wrong letter.

[ She sighs, gentle and exhausted at the thought of writing another missive to someone on the device. ]

Quaint... I have not ever thought of a forest as quaint but... I suppose it could be so? Though you must be very brave. Most I know are rather always concerned with bandits and wolves, hiding away in it.

[ She finds nature as beautiful as any. But there is no wild freedom to the world in between the trees, not in her experience, or those around her. All know you must fear the unaccounted for spaces between villages. ] A very big city? I could hardly imagine it.

I mean... Has anyone showed you the backspace button yet? It's not super hard to delete something you've written. I could show you how.

[ Lana is of the mind that texting is WAY easier than writing out an actual letter. But then, she's been texting for a lot longer than Gilia has/ ]

Oh, yeah. I'm not afraid of robbers or wolves or whatever. I can defend myself pretty well.

[ She knows how to throw a punch, and in a pinch she can just blow them the fuck up. NBD. ]

The biggest. Like... I don't even know how to describe it to you. Queens is only one of the five boroughs. So really, it's like five cities in one.

[ She picks up at that. A way not to suffer painstakingly through writing out every letter? ]

I would like that, if it is at all possible and is no great trouble to you. [ Though her voice softens, a little nervous. Any kind of fighter makes her nervous. ] Are you a soldier? I suppose... with a city so large... it must be necessary to have them?

Yeah, it's NBD, I'll show you later. [ A pause, then she clarifies. ] "NBD" stands for "no big deal."

[ She's really going to have to start from scratch here, huh. Not that it's a problem, she's got fuck all else to do in this shit hole, but it's gonna be a learning curve for the both of them. ]

A soldier? Ah, no. Not anything formal like that. Uh... The world I come from, we have different levels of people who fight crime and help people. Countries have a military— armies, navies, air force, shit like that. Then cities have police and fire departments. But cops are bastards most of the time and can't fucking get shit done on their own, 'cause of all the red tape they have to work through. So then there's another layer: the superheroes. Like me. People with special powers who use their abilities to help stop other people with special powers from hurting people.

[ It's - a rather lot of words that mean nothing to her, but that has been most people so far, so she doesn't think very much about it. ]

We don't have any of those things, on my isle. No army, no military, or navy, no 'cops'... even very bad ones like you say. What powers do you have?

Oh, I blow things up.

[ Did they have explosions in the fucking twelfth century or whatever the fuck? Bombs, fireworks, probably not but shit explodes in like... nature, right? ]

I could show you, if you want. But it's pretty loud.

[ Gilia looks -

Horrified. Just. Utterly terrified. ]

Why?

[ Oh. Uh. Okay. Not going to do a presentation, then, I guess. ]

Um... Because an evil corporation experimented on my mom when she was pregnant with me?

[ She's never been asked why she had her powers before. How, sure. But not why. ]

[ She doesn't understand, as usual, what all the words mean in the sentence.

But she understands 'evil' and 'experiment' and 'pregant'.

She can do only the simple thing, in the face of so dreadful a thing. Her horror growing, as it dawns. How could someone? How could anyone? To an unborn babe, a gift to the world it would come into. That yes, her people gave their children to their spirits, but it was done in mutual benefit, in love, in the want for equal parts to be stronger together.

Gilia steps forward and wraps her arms around her, tightly as she dared. It is a cool thing, that faint scent of the sea lingers on her, no matter where or how she is presented. ]

Your poor mother, your poor, poor mother. I cannot imagine such pain, such fear.

[ O-oh. They're hugging now. It catches Lana off guard and she stands frozen for a long moment until she finally allows herself to loosen up and wrap an arm around Gilia in return.

The sympathy is appreciated, but tarnished somewhat by her mom's more recent actions. ]

...Don't feel too bad for her. She didn't exactly use her powers for good.

[ And she didn't raise Lana to, either. There's a reason her original username was former.bank.robber ]

[ She thinks only of her own mother. Hard, unforgiving. The Cliff, they called her. The Cliff on the Sea's Edge. She bowed to the sea, only, and never another in her presence, lest all other mortal men forget that there were things more terrifying than their own will.

And loving, so loving. She would cut her own hands off lest a hair go astray on her children's head.

.... Almost. Was Godfinn even her child anymore, in her mind? ]

But you do? You said there were - these heroes. These protectors. You are one of them? [ Said as she pulled back, thankfully not a hug that goes on too long. ]

[ The hug feels nice, and Lana almost misses it when it's over, for all that she wasn't expecting it in the first place.

But when Gilia withdraws, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, minimizing the feeling. ]

I mean, yeah. I try to be, anyway. I'm not always the greatest at it.

[ Way too many people around her die for her to feel confident in her hero skills. And then she got her ass handed to her by Hammerhead. That really knocked her down a peg. ]

[ There she shakes her head, she feels there is one clarification that matters in this, in the face of her worry. ]

Good virtue is not inherit, our souls are formless, and have within them all capacities. It is acts that define such states, it is us who must choose to seek out to be a hero. That you seek to do so, already says much.

[ Which when she puts it like that, Gilia tilts her head a moment, as if trying to think it through. ] Are you perhaps like a Knight Errant then?

[ It's... nice. That Gilia has so much faith in her. Reminds Lana of Miles, in a way. Good, brave, and smart. And always seeing the best in people. Jess, too.

Man, Lana misses Jess so much.

Gilia's question snaps her back to the present, all thoughts of friends long gone pushed aside. ]

...That depends. What's a Knight Errant do?

[ She considers how to put it a moment, briefly looking out over the country side. ]

Knight Errants travel the country side, look to come to the aide of those that need it. They serve a singular spirit that has no family, and perhaps in time they seek to found their own lineage, but I would hardly say that is their goal. Mostly they seek to uphold the knightly values and do good acts for the helpless, as it is their sworn duty. Their position is a protected one, in the accords and creeds of all isles, in so far as some people it seems, are prone to wickedness.

[ Huh. The More You Know™. ]

I guess that's pretty similar. Except the whole serving a spirit part. And the traveling part. Most heroes stick to their home turf for the most part. Like, I don't really leave New York all that often.

[ The only time she ever did, really, was when she and the Champions stowed away on the stolen helicarrier and rode it all the way to Latveria. ]

[ She nods along in understanding. It makes sense to her, if she thinks about everything else Lana has said. ]

Well if you live in such big cities, I cannot imagine the need to travel far. Besides, our evils are on the roads. What most people need guarding against is the wolves and bandits on the road. Forests can hide such wicked things in them.

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