middaeg | Intro Log: July, Overflow

[ he seems... a little more at ease, now, the longer she talks — whether it is because she seems wholly unthreatening, or because it's easy for him to focus on her words, it doesn't matter. what matters is that it's helping. ]

Mm, barracks don't seem very fun... sometimes you can live in a place, but it doesn't mean it's the same as home.

[ she thinks of arlong park, of all the places she stayed at over the years when she was gathering the money to buy her village's freedom... none of them came even close. ]

I'm sure we'll find some small houses! I wonder if they look the same, here... you know, my sister still lives in my old home. I'm glad she's there, taking care of our mother's tangerine grove.

[ she's started walking to where she heard the less extravagant houses were, and hopes that onni follows along. ]

Barracks is what I'm used to.

[It's not a disagreement, judging by the inflection of his voice when he says it, but he can't let himself think too much about living in a place that is a home. He hasn't really felt like he had a home since he was a child, after all. Home, to Onni, means family as much as it does a place to live, and his family is not what it was when he last thought of a place as home.

For a moment, he profoundly misses his sister, her hugs and her soft voice and the way she'd been looking out for him until he came here. Misses Lalli too.]

There will probably be small houses. I can't imagine everyone lives in a home like this.

[He gestures vaguely at the massive houses they're passing.]

What's a tangerine grove?

Right? You'd have to pay so much to live in one on your own... or live with others to split the bills.

[ she makes a face at that; not at the thought of splitting bills, but rather having to live with strangers. she'd much rather have a small place of her own. ]

Oh! [ the question makes her smile widely, a nostalgic tinge to it. ]

A tangerine is a citrus fruit, and a grove is a place where you grow many of them at once. My mother used to sell them...

I'm not even sure how they'd build that sort of house. Machinery, probably.

[A shrug. Not a particularly interesting topic to him. The most he's ever done with construction is help with a few barns and helping to raise a sauna. He knows the basics, but it isn't exactly a calling or anything. It's more interesting to hear what she means by a tangerine grove.]

I've heard of citrus fruits, but I've never tried them. Your home must be very different from mine, because if you sold citrus fruits where I come from, you'd be rich.

[ she shrugs; frankly, she's not too interested, either. machinery is one of those things she's perfectly content to leave to others. ]

Mm... I suppose it must be! They're very common where I come from! But — you've never really had them...?

[ she points at him, as though having just made a decision. ] Alright, that settles it! After we've found houses for both of us... I'll find some tangerines here and get them for you! I'm sure they must have some, or something similar! Then you'll get to try them.

I've never tried one, no.

[A shrug. There are a lot of things that just aren't available in Finland, things that they definitely have in Iceland and probably have in Sweden, but Finland is still a lot less advanced than those places. They barely have refined sugar, let alone citrus fruits that would need to be grown in greenhouses.]

Oh. I wouldn't mind trying one. There's a lot of things here that I haven't seen before, or haven't tried. I saw some cakes.

Hmm, cakes?

[ she can't help the grin — she doesn't know fully what kind of a place he's coming from, to have not tasted citrus fruits or cakes before... but at least that can be fixed, here.

and because she's a tactile person, she reaches for his hand, gives it a squeeze before letting go. ]

I promise I'll get both for you, then! So make sure to tell me which house you choose, alright?

Yes. I've tried one kind of cake, but there seem to be a lot of types here.

[Besides, the one type of cake was also in a dream, so he's not entirely sure if they taste that good in real life.

The squeeze to his hand catches him a little off guard. He doesn't jump, but he blinks and looks over at her, his eyes a little wide. It's been a long time since someone did that...probably since the last time he saw Tuuri. Lalli isn't exactly big on being touched, and he doesn't know anyone else who is either.]

Hm, well, if you're going to do that, I should find something to get for you too. Is there anything you've seen here that you've never tried?

[ ah..... welcome to nami's "will hug just about everyone she considers a friend impulsively" ways....

if possible, her smile brightens at that — not because she'd be so excited to try anything, really, but because he's offering, and that's sweet. ]

I haven't really looked around that much, yet! But we can make a deal — I'll get you some cakes and citrus fruit now, and later, when I come across something I haven't tried... I'll let you know, and we'll go eat whatever it is together!

[It'll take some getting used to, but...eventually he'll probably like it. A little.]

Alright. That's a deal.

[A nod, and he takes a breath, holds it for a second before releasing it. A lot of the anxiety and fear and loneliness has settled in him. It's strange, that just some normal conversation with someone could take that much of it away. Of course, it's still a sort of low-key hum in him, as it almost always is (though maybe a little more, in a new world), but it isn't overwhelming.

So it's no trouble to stay with her, while they look at the houses, conversing about the positives and negatives of them, their yards, their gardens...by the time they part ways, Onni almost feels normal.

Nami. She'll definitely be someone he speaks to again.]

Intro Log: July, Overflow

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