middaeg | [Open] Let's count the seasons

[ They'd hide the wrinkles? Huh. That's an interesting way to arrive at that conclusion.

He wonders briefly why she expects that she would never reach twenty, but the potential reasons that stick out immediately are her military background, poor living conditions, or the potential for some terminal illness to take her under, but the former two, especially combined, seem far more probable. ]

Some do, depending on their race. You can divide the people of my world into two main races: beorc or laguz. Beorc are, for the most part, like the humans here, expected lifespans and all. Laguz resemble monsters more, down to the animal parts and the ability to transform. Depending on which animal tribe they come from, they can expect to live anywhere from a few hundred years to over a thousand.

[Winkles are what made people look old! And grey hair... Though Mikasa had only met about three people who'd made it to old enough to have that. But even she had slight eyebags, showing her age over the fifteen-year-old babies that were just signing up.

She stands, waiting on her crutches. She should probably get a move on. Next up was dog kibbles then both types of animals would be fed. She should probably get to plant feed as well before the more snappy plants got grouchy, but...

She had to pay attention. This was a lot of new words, and it seemed important.] So you were one of these... Laguz. [He got another stare, an owlish blink. Then a small nod.]

Back when I first got here. I saw a few cat people come through the mirrors. [Yeah, she could see him as a cat.]

[ Soren almost laughs at her observations. The closest he gets is a sharp puff of air through his nose, but the corner of his lip turns up briefly. ]

I'm actually not a laguz, though I can see why you'd think that. [ He'll get to that part in a bit, if she's interested. ] I am also not a cat and never have been. However, at least one of those 'cat people' you've seen come through the mirrors is, in fact, a real laguz, so there's that.

[ He turns his head and looks back at her as if to signal that they should keep moving and removes himself from any possible footpath she could take, but he's not a mind-reader, so he's not sure which direction he should be heading. Steer the party, fearless leader. You have dog kibbles to buy. ]

Really, the one I spoke to didn't mention that. I forgot what he called himself though...It was a long time ago. He thought I was going to skin him... [And that had been her first ever experience with a non-human outside of the dream. An age ago now.]

[It's the slowest RPG to have ever adventured. But they're already near the animal food, they just had to go a bit further in. Away from the farm animal things and to the more...domestic pets. Some of the things were normal. Then there was the strange things, like pellets for the fruit birds.

She's just going to ignore that and this time, instead of trying to lift the smaller bag. She just balanced on her crutches and tapped at it with her good foot.]

What are you then if you're not one of these? [There's a pause.] Are you just a normal guy then? [If he wasn't laguz, and there was only beorc and laguz.]

[Skin... him? That gets a bit of an odd look. What did she do to make him think that? He tags along and decides that her toe-pointing is her giving him directions, so he stoops to lift it up and arrange it into his growing bag collection.

Another baffled look is directed at her when she decides that the outlying category between beorc and laguz is 'normal guy'. It's just so absurd; his mouth falls open and he can't help but utter a huff in disbelief as he gropes for a way to respond to that.]

Normal... guy? [Then, his lips form a wry smile.] Hah... [He shakes his head.] To the beorc and laguz, I'm the strange one. There is one other known race, but they are incredibly few and far between and tend to live in the shadows so that no one finds out what they really are. Branded; Parentless. A child of the mark. In other words, the blood of both beorc and laguz runs in my veins.

[He watches her reaction to this avidly, silently daring her to condemn him while basking in the notion that in all likelihood, she might not care like any beorc or laguz would, and he can speak plainly about this in broad daylight to anyone. Lurking beneath that, of course, is the nagging sense that witches and monsters might find something objectionable about a forbidden chimera of two if allowed to understand just what he was born of better, but Mirrorbound? Why should it matter?]

[She'd do nothing! She's just walked up behind this guy and spooked him so hard. Still, she murmurs a small thanks as he lifted the bag. ]

You didn't say that when you mentioned laguz... [But she shuts up to listen. Remaining silent as he explained. She didn't get the parentless part because...Logic said that there had to be a parent or else no child. But the rest of that sounded familiar.

So instead of anything even remotely like pity or disgust, there was just a soft look. Knowing.] You're like me then.

[Though in her case, both her parents were outcasts. Two who'd somehow met and dug out their own little place in a world that wanted one dead and the other sold. Where they'd stayed in isolation for years.

She'd had a mark too, one that had been lost as chitin grown and covered it. But she wasn't sure what he meant by that. ]

[She states that observation so plainly, so casually and with the faint sympathy of recognition that it catches Soren by surprise. He wasn't expecting her to relate. He softens some, too, curiosity twinkling in his gaze.]

Like you?

Yeah... [It's followed by an awkward nod. It wasn't really a secret that her parents were dead. But the reason, that was something only Eren and her knew. All the others who knew were dead. Even if the police had announced that they'd killed a group of traffickers as children, the reason why Mikasa and her family had been targeted hadn't been mentioned.]

Yeah. [She stops looking at him then. Thinking back, wincing slightly as that headache started to surface.] Not purebred... [That was the words those men had been used. Talking as though she was an animal and not a person.

There was other things too. Ones that weren't noticeable here. How she looked different to everyone back home, how Jean had 'never seen anyone like her'. That had been the very reason she'd not seen another person other than her parents for the first half of her life. Well she had supposedly seen Doctor Jaeger when she was little, but she'd been too small to remember that.]

It always feels like something different. [Not that it mattered now with Eren doing the Rumbling. But she'd been the one who'd been offered safety off of Paradis. Miss Kiyomi referring to the girl as one of Hizuru's own, as though she hadn't spent her whole life of Paradis.]

[Nobody ever told Soren he wasn't 'purebred'... but after being remarked that his was filthy, that he was a beast and a plague upon society, the word smacks the same. He identifies with her past, and the recognition of this is reflected in his eyes filled with a thirst to grasp more of her picture. The way she carries herself suddenly makes all the more sense to him. He can see it in her, the way she's circumspect with outwardly expressing her feelings, a particular inscrutable depth lurking within.

He'd met other children of the mark before. The first time, he had been in fierce and foolish denial of the lonely fate of an outcast that awaited him, and as such, shut him out. The second time around, she was Ike's enemy, and there was no sense in even trying to sympathize with someone he was trying to kill.

Then, the inquisitiveness darkens. Not in retroactive anger, but a bitter acceptance of the fate "half-breeds" like them share. He has no context to base his assumptions of her hardships on, but speaking from his own experience:]

It's not an easy life.

[His comment got a small scoff. That made it sound simple, like that was the sole reason things were complicated, for her it wasn't just that. There was so many complications in life.

Though it did make her wonder. If her father's family hadn't been on the run. If her mother had been Eldian. But she couldn't picture it fully, them not being outcasts. The ones who lived on a farm out in the woods, away from it all. Only her father had been able to travel to the nearest town to get things they couldn't grow and that was because his appearance didn't draw attention.

But even if she hadn't been so isolated, she couldn't picture a life without hardship.]

It never is... [She kept her head down, short hair shadowing her face.] The man who said that. [Because he hadn't told. Her parents had never brought it up, only that her mother was from a clan with different traditions. Traditions that she'd never learn beyond the mark that had been on her wrist.]

For the longest time. Everyone thought I was the only one... [Wasn't she still? In a way? While Kiyomi had said she'd be welcomed in Hizuru because she was of their blood, it didn't change that she didn't know how to be Hizuru. That Paradis had always been her home, that their customs, food, their everything would always be alien to her. Back in Paradis... Her reputation as a strong fighter had overtaken her appearance. But she wouldn't forget the times when people looked, even though it was just a glance because she looked different.

Nor would she forget the comments she'd overheard when they'd met Kiyomi. The slight reverence that Mikasa could be used to help relations with the foreign dignitary.

With those thoughts she shuffled on her crutches again. Chicken feed, dog food, that was the heaviest things she needed. The ones that would cause the most trouble. But she would need food for herself, though that wouldn't be as difficult to move. It wouldn't be in a store that catered to livestock either. So she shrugs slightly at the helpful dragon.]

I hope you're ready to carry that quite a distance. [Deflecting? Yes, but also she did need to get these chores done and this wasn't the place to be talking about feelings.]

I have been.

[Ready from the start, that is. He follows her along dutifully at an easy pace, their topic brewing in his mind. However similar their experiences to one another, it's never easy to just breach.

'It's not an easy life' was his own way of deflecting the sheer brunt of the topic's weight, oversimplifying their unique brand of suffering and the trials that accompany it, but it had also been an invitation for her to elaborate, to permit him to understand. Nothing but vague and disconnected replies are forthcoming from her, and with her body language, it spells that she's not ready or capable of going into detail with him. Soren is too respectful of these boundaries to encroach upon them uninvited, for he knows how delicate the matter can be when prodded. It's deeply private and personal, Pandora's box of inner demons opened and shared. They're hers, not his, and she'd rather keep it that way.

So he stops delving into the ways their pasts run parallel. Quite a bit is already silently understood.]

[Open] Let's count the seasons

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Warning for awkward fictional racism things

also warns... and for problematic language

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