[open] oh lamia please try to help me

[tothemetal]

Who: Styx & OPEN
When: All through Noveuer
Where: Various
What: Catch-all for the month! Quests and other various activities around Aefenglom. Starters in the comments!
Warnings: I'm also doing the sex pollen quest, you know how this is gonna go.


if you'd like to do something else or want a closed starter, hmu! PMs or phantomblood ouo

Comments

[stopfen]

[This conversation was going some strange places. Even to Mikasa who knew very little about these things. Most of her knowledge was second hand. The few cars she'd seen had been antiques by the standards of most.]

Wouldn't a ramp that high take too many supplies? [But his comment makes her think of something else.] Why would they make a car go over a ramp, wouldn't that break the wheels?

[Horse carts had to be on relatively smooth land. What is suspension.]

[tothemetal]

[strange places? definitely. but Styx's reactions have always been delayed, and since coming to this world he's allowed himself to accept and even broader number of things that he really shouldn't. case in point, he's just shaking his head slightly at Mikasa's question.]

Nah, nah, they don't got wheels! 's all cushion, you know? Kinda perfect for jumping if you think about it...

[huh.]

[stopfen]

[There was a small 'oh' as Mikasa turned. Scraping up some leftover cake up and eating that. Thinking. Not understanding at all. She didn't turn back when she voiced her musing.]

... I thought they could fly, like a bird. I wonder if I'll ever see one.

[tothemetal]

Nah, [Styx says casually, unknowingly arriving at the crux of this issue at fucking last.] that's planes. Uh, but you know. Without the flapping 'nd stuff.

[stopfen]

[That's just getting a frown.] Isn't that just another word for a flying boat? [Like how there was dock, port and harbor. All places boats went, there was just multiple words for some reason. She didn't know, she'd only seen one for the first time three years ago.]

[tothemetal]

[there it is. there it is!! the opportunity for this whole misunderstanding to be sorted out and both of them to have a good laugh over cultural differences. all Styx has to do is open his mouth and -]

No, uh, boats got sails? Real big billowy ones. Probably even more important if you're gonna make it fly somehow.

[god fucking dammit.]

[stopfen]

[You'd have thought that would have been the end of it. But sailboats? Those involved large amounts of water. And by the time Mikasa had made it to the ocean the rest of the world had gotten past the need for sails and had a lovely thing known as engines.

She'd seen rowboats though and-]

Do they? The barges that were on the river where I'm from used a pulley...

[Because they had a set route, up and down the river. That and the walls were probably a pretty good windbreak.]

[tothemetal]

That's just a raft, though, isn't it? Like the kind you go on jungle trips in.

[there's a lot of variation out in the nautical world, isn't there? so many different names and types of vessels that could take you out across the water. yes indeed...and for all that, Styx's knowledge of them wasn't much better than his companion's despite having lived on a fucking island his entire life.

what about the fucking ferries to the mainland or the nature preserves, you gigantic idiot? why did you just jump straight to the shit you saw in movies???]

[stopfen]

[Paradis too, was an island. Though none of it's inhabitants had known that. They'd been trapped that long that they didn't even know the sea was a thing. It'd been a mythical thing, beyond the titans, beyond the walls.

Once again Mikasa was at a loss. Brow lightly furrowed as she thought.]

...Maybe? I don't know what a jungle is.

[She didn't know many things]

[tothemetal]

[to be fair...that looks like like a dude in a rubber horsehead mask than any okapi I've ever seen. I think Mikasa might get a pass on that one.]

Oh, no? Don't think there's really too many of them around anymore, so don't blame you.

[???? Styx? there's like a million jungles on earth what are you saying.]

It's the place that gorillas live.

[stopfen]

[Bless you.

Though unfortunately. Mikasa's stare remained blank.]

What's a gorilla?

[THEY'RE REALLY GOOD AT THIS?]

[tothemetal]

[they're amazing. fantastic. at this rate they should just team up and start an educational radio show and help the children of Aefenglom improve themselves through fun and learning.

meanwhile, in the part of reality where no one has realized how blazingly off the rails things have gotten, Styx points cheerfully to himself.]

They're an animal! Kinda look like me but with way more fur.

[he hums then, thoughtful.]

Wonder if maybe somebody's a turnskin of one so you could see for real sometime.

[stopfen]

[Styx, her eyebrows lowered at that. Lips thinning as she stared at him. Then, firmly.]

You don't look like an animal.

[And that was it. That was the only thing she said, coupled with that unblinking stare. Not moving the topic on or changing it. She was the best at pep talks. You are not animal Styx, you are a human bean. A good bean.]

[tothemetal]

[that actually...kind of surprises Styx, and it reads clearly on his face. the days of being called a gorilla and other apelike epithets on a regular basis had left when he'd departed middle school, but the drummer has always been aware that there's something rather subhuman about his appearance. it was part of that hulking nature of his, the same promise of a strength that contained no rationality.]

Um, thanks! But you don't gotta say that or nothing. Don't bother me none...uh, they're pretty cute, honest.

[stopfen]

[She was still giving him that firm, unmoving frown. Her arms crossing. A person better with words might have pointed out that Styx was calling himself cute there. Sadly, it went over Mikasa's head.]

I said the same about people calling me a beast... [Didn't care, it was just a word in the end. The same went with Styx being called an animal.] Every time I mentioned it, they got outraged. So...

[Probably shouldn't say it. And that was with Mikasa skipping the part where they'd wanted to cut her open.]

[tothemetal]

[even more confusing than Mikasa feeling the need to defend him was the idea that anyone would consider her a beast. she looked...pretty normal to him, under the bug parts which were native to this world. cute, even! but nothing eve remotely bestial in her features or bearing.

maybe people just didn't like that some girls worked out? but that sounded pretty stupid, even to Styx's mind.]

Well, mean...be even worse if you just agreed to agree though, yeah? If it wasn't what you actually felt.

[easy for you to say when it's not about you, huh Styx.]

[stopfen]

[It hadn't been for a while... Not really. That said she'd been here for so long now that her sense of time was starting to slip. There had been the attack on Libero not long before she'd arrived but... They'd been fighting. That hadn't been personal against her. Just Eldians in general...]

I got her back for saying it...

[A soft sigh. She'd not liked Annie, but had respected her. Now she wasn't sure how to feel. Other than there was the odd sensation of...feeling sorry for her. But she shrugs it off.]

...Why did you agree when you got called it then?

[Though she did peer up over his shoulder when something caught her eye. The rain, it was slowing to a drizzle.]

[tothemetal]

[it really did look like the skies were clearing up, didn't it? Styx doesn't notice yet, of course, facing the wrong direction for it as he was, but the faint tapping of his fingers against the counter moved unconsciously to soften along with the lessening rainfall.]

Uh, well, 'cause I didn't really think they were wrong? 'm probably dumber than a gorilla anyway, so it's kinda like an upgrade if you think about it like that.

[he shrugs, the motion one-sided and crooked.]

People usually know better about pretty much everything than I do, so if I think something else 's probably the wrong thing. That's all!

[stopfen]

[The skies were clearing, her plate had nearly been cleared and Tater was waking up from his nap at the foot of her stool. Ready to go back to his walk. Even if Mikasa still had to finish her drink.]

Just because they know better, they wouldn't know everything... [Mikasa had always put her faith in Armin being right. Because Armin always had an answer, but he'd been wrong. It was impossible for one person to know everything.] And even if they're right, they shouldn't say things like that.

[Being cruel just for the sake of it.]