[Open] Let's count the seasons

[stopfen]

Who: Mikasa and ??? (Open + closed prompts)
When: Thoughout September
Where: The Haven hospital, Aefenglom
What: Recovering from the Nuckelavee injuries and quests. (an apple a day and under new managment)
Warnings: Will be added as needed. Some talk of injuries and probably AoT spoilers.

Comments

Warning for awkward fictional racism things

[stopfen]

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.]

also warns... and for problematic language

[silentsavant]

[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.

[stopfen]

[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.]

[silentsavant]

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.]