- RP Date
- YE 45.8
- RP Location
- Resurgence
YSS Resurgence
It had been more than a handful of minutes since Erika had telepathically commed in to Mineko as the analyst had left the crew gathering. Mineko had been keen to keep the jumble of thoughts in her head and not spilling out, though, so it took some time for her to reply.
"I-I'm fine," came the telecomm to Erika. "I'm going to be in the VR room dancing." It was more of a statement on the surface, but the underlying invitation was certainly there.
Erika was sitting across the SOFT team extracted from her salvage. She had set them up in the ward room and had gotten them each a bowl of Hokkien Noodles. "Give me five minutes to wrap up here and I'll join you." The operative said.
Their leader noticed Erika spacing out slightly dropped his chopsticks and looked up at her. "Something the matter?" He asked.
"Maybe." Erika said thoughtfully before continuing with a warm smile "Nothing to do with your team sir. You fine if I leave you for a bit?" she asked.
"Sure, I suppose. You have a bunk for us while we await... orders I guess?" If Erika didn't know better she'd have thought the Special Operative was out of his element.
When she considered gaps in time, her first thoughts turned to STs and times of a few hours, days at most. She thought she was alone in being uncomfortable with that, but maybe even legendary SOFT members could be daunted by gaps in time if the scale was large enough.
"Not as of yet, but I might be able to get you an assignment while I'm gone." Erika replied with a smile "Once you're done I suggest heading to medical to get a full work up and an ST backup compiled. The Res isn't a big ship, think you can find your way around until I get back?"
"We maybe a few years out of the loop, but our pathfinding skills shouldn't have dulled." The operative said with a sigh "And Fujis were in service before we were frozen."
"Alright." Erika nodded. "Well, just a reminder, Medical is on deck 4. I'll give you limited credentials to the MEGAMI system for navigation, but nothing more than that until you're cleared for duty again I'm afraid sir. Stay away from sensitive areas as well until then please."
"Understandable." The special operative said "Go do what you need to do. We'll be fine." He smiled
With that Erika nodded and sauntered off the VR room.
In the VR room, Mineko was on a low stage surrounded on all sides. The soft wooden floors under her were like those in the ship's dojo, but had less spring due to being figments of the ship's imagination. So was the crowd, distorted and unreal if the SAINT agent were to gaze into them too long. Even the heavily layered kimono that swished at her ankles as she made delicate, slight movements was unreal.
Being back in her element felt all too real to the Mineko. She let herself get carried away, as if the ship's imagination and hers were blended together as she moved her arms across her chest and below her waist. The movement created a specific fold in her long sleeves with the practiced movement but also was part of the larger conveyed feeling of the dance.
To any other crew member, Mineko would have hidden away this part of herself. But from Erika's first day on the ship, she had treated Erika as if she had read the most earnest and invasive file on Mineko. Whether it was right or wrong, it made Mineko feel like she could trust Erika implicitly, as she had needed to do in the past.
Ashamed of nothing because of that, Mineko was aware that if Erika decided to come to the VR room, she might see Mineko performing the odori with her whole heart on display without seeing her enter or in the crowd. But eventually the last string of the shamisen was plucked and the song ended hauntingly moments after a lowering of her forearm and a turn of her wrist that resulted in her entire legs sweeping lower in a seiza position. Her hands swept forward as her head lowered to a hand's length from the floor and she rested there a moment in her bow before standing, ready to resume her dance to another one as she skeptically scanned the crowd for the white haired head of her comrade.
As the haunting notes of the shamisen hung in the air, the room took on an air of serenity. The virtual crowd had fallen into a hushed silence, moved by the beauty of the performance. Each individual, though not real, seemed to hold their breath, feeling the weight of the emotion in the dance.
The sound of one person clapping could then be heard reverberating around virtual surfaces. The silver haired operative pushed past the holographic phantoms to the front of the crowd, smiling and cheering. The holograms joined her, beginning a rapturous applause. Erika seemed to empathically know, even without a psychic link active, that Minkeo was letting the operative in to a hidden part of her life at a time when she was feeling low, and Erika would be nothing but supportive.
More than that, much of Yamatai's cultural traditions were alien to the operative. Despite being a product of the empire, much of it were still just entries in an encyclopedia to her. She wanted to experience it all eventually, and that she got to experience some of that through a friend was simply, very special. She felt the sudden urge to have an ST back up image created immediately, something she had never felt before, if only to preserve the memory in perpetuity.
Erika put her fingers in her mouth and blew a whistle "Minkeo-chan! Ganbatte!"
Hearing her own name, Mineko responded simply with her friend's, "Erika!" She lifted herself up from her position and happily approached the operative. "Ganbarimasu! I just finished that dance but if there's another, I'll take your words of encouragement to heart. Speaking of, a bit of my heart was on my sleeve there." She looked down at the long furisode that dangled from her wrists and reflected.
"The odori is a good way to express what is a bit harder to talk about. Even if my audience isn't real," Mineko laughed, but not with her full chest. "How much of it did you see tonight? I can't say I'm embarrassed, but maybe with anyone else I would be. It's like I'm back on Yamatai to have a living audience member and not just the ship MEGAMI at best."
Erika approached, her boots creating a soft echo on the digital floor. "Only the tail end I'm sad to say, enough to get the idea," she replied, eyes scanning Mineko's attire with admiration. She then lowered her head and chuckled "Well, just the start of the idea. Its very pretty, I can see you were trying to express something, but I don't quite what you're trying to say, if that makes sense."
The operative's eyes shifted from Mineko's clothing to the analyst's face. The story facial expressions told was something she was more familiar with, though using her forensic psychology skills on a friend made Erika a little uncomfortable, but without reading too deeply into them she could tell her cheerleading had the desired effect, with the analysis being in much higher spirits.
"I can certainly tell you're going through something though," Erika tilted her head, "just not what. I'm here if you need, either to get it off your chest or" she shrugged with a smirk "Offer up some distraction."
"I think this was the distraction." Mineko said with a sigh as she flapped her arms again, this time as if in defeat. "MEGAMI, can you outfit Erika-san in a furisode as well? Something seasonal, please." She sat again, but this time at a low table where she had to kneel and she invited Erika to do the same.
The operative looked down at her body as the type 35 body suit she was wearing was covered in holographic light. The details of the kimono began to come into focus. Its base was a deep gold, similar to the color of sky around the setting sun as twilight encroached, and it was adorned depictions of red maple leaves. The sash around her waist was a deep crimson.
Erika was a little shocked, and grimaced slightly. Having a change of clothes forced upon her felt like a violation of her autonomy, but she'd swallow it for a moment, perhaps bring it up later. Certainly helped that the MEGAMI had selected something nice. Instead she gracefully knelt down across the table from Mineko.
"Different kamon or motifs are used throughout the year. In the fall like now, we'll see mostly chrysanthemums and maple leaves. But there are also all season motifs like water —which is still usually orange in colder months like now— which can be peaceful rivers or churning water which represents change. Flowing water does, after all, change the landscape."
"I'm going through a bit of that myself, right now. It's so silly. But it's what I'm going through." Mineko said, red and blue eyes looking far away. A waitress came in a simpler casual kimono and poured a tea into their cups. She was careful about a few different things and Mineko looked to Erika when she was gone, "It's virtual, but it's from the mountains above Pagoda no Uesu. The tea should have a nice clean texture and a fresh taste as just the buds are picked. It's— wait, listen to me changing the subject."
Mineko's stoic face cracked into a smile and said, "You don't need to offer up a distraction, I'm a pro at it! Okay, okay. What did you get for your salvage? I promise, not a distraction. It's actually what's going on with me."
Erika looked away to the side thoughtfully as she wrapped her hands around the tea. "Nothing that impressive. I think I got shafted to be honest." The operative gave a wry grin. "A broken speaker, a processor, some massive bags of rice. There's this thing called a Mass Messher which..." There was a pause as Erika consulted the MEGAMI's data base "Masks gravitational disturbances by linking them to local large bodies?" She came back to reality with a confused expression which she quickly shook. "Anyway, The most interesting was an escape pod with four SOFT operators. All alive, thankfully. I should be happy with the ending to that story, we both know a SOFT team going MIA leads to interesting and often tragic ones. But I can't say I'm not jealous of those who got an off road vehicles or shuttles." She huffed and lifted the cup to her lips "Always next year I suppose. At least I didn't get a corpse in some state of dismemberment."
"Oh Ayame, Kitsurugi Yui, and all the spirits of the fallen," Mineko said in an exasperated huff as she let her face fall. Her hands reached up and held her cheeks as if trying to keep her expression from slumping into any more of a look of despair. "That makes it so much worse what I'm about to say. I got a whole house, Erika. A whole, I don't know, castle house. In disrepair but there! In the South of Yamatai like I'm some rich noble with a second home! Can you— can I believe it? And you got some actual people to deal with tragic backstories..."
The mention of tragic backstories in her diatribe made Mineko lean back and sip the tea in front of her. Her own words had cut short her tirade and made her somberly contemplative. The lights above glittered down on her kanzashi that wrapped up her dark hair. With her bangs swept away from her her forehead, her face was an open book but comparatively blank of emotions in contrast to the moments preceding.
Erika let out a deep hum, thinning her lips. "Can't say I'm not a little jealous." She looked up with a brightened expression "Still I'm happy for you! That's huge! And it's not like you're not going to leave your friend Erika out in the cold when you have a spare room and a futon." The operative said, poking out her tongue.
Erika then tilted her head as her mind detected a miss match between the news and Mineko's behaviour. "But you're not in high spirits about it..." She observed out loud, her eyes darting over the analyst's face, her mind calculating. "I suppose it's hard to react to any life changing news when it comes out of the blue, even good stuff." Erika then lent back, and let out a sigh. "Fortune is fickle and fond of irony."
"That's a good way to put it," Mineko said, amusement reflecting on the lift of her voice but not her face. "You know that my parent died at Nataria and I grew up in Tsubomi- orphanage central. I couldn't live there forever and they kicked me out when I wasn't a kid anymore. Same thing with my first apartment in Kyoto; couldn't live there forever," Mineko said. "Nowhere was ever stable. Even the Resurgence with its maintenance and almost getting blown apart every month. I didn't even realize it but I never expected to have a home."
She lifted a finger to wipe away a tear that had been teetering and about to drop, but it didn't seem usefuleye to do so what with the other eye leaking now, too. She sniffed and smiled, looking back up at Erika. "I've been jealous of you before, you know?! I think it's cool to be jealous but happy for someone. It means you're really friends if you can feel both things at once!"
"You're always welcome," Mineko told her. "That feels weird to say still. Like I'm some rich Kyoto homeowner with nice rugs and, I don't know, pretty vases I don't use, they're just for decoration. I know that's not the case, but it's how I feel. I feel like I have so much now... For free. Just like that. But it's not live-able yet, I think I'd have to put in some work before it is! Kind of nice to know I still have to work a little for what I'm given," she said this with a laugh, even though it wasn't necessarily funny. "But I'm not letting your SOFT guys stay there. The crew of the Resurgence—yes. Some gnarly dudes from an escape pod, no way!" Mineko stuck out her tongue between a smile, mirroring Erika just a bit earlier.
"How do you think I feel? They were in my salvage!" Erika replied laughing. "I've contacted Department of Personnel, hopefully they'll be sent back to their families soon enough."
Erika then took a big sigh and gave a sympathetic smile as her shoulders slumped "I don't know Mineko. I don't think I'm fully equiped for this conversation. I'm vat grown. I have my batch sisters, but the only memories i have with them are from socialisation. I've never really had close connections. Not until-" She caught her words in her mouth, her cheeks flushing after a moment. "I don't have a lot of them. I can't imagine how I'd react if I lost them."
The operative then looked off in the distance for a moment, a thoughtful smile upon her face. "What I can say is that you've always struck me as the kind of person who enjoys, maybe not city, but community life. I don't think you'll be comfortable in a castle far removed from society." She refocused on Minkeko's features. "Not saying you can't build that with this land, I'm not trying to diminish its importance, I'm saying..." Erika trailed off thoughtfully as she searched for the expression "I think, for you, to be at home, you'll need more than a bit of land, four walls and a ceiling. And what you're missing is not than 4 turrets and 10 foot high walls, you follow?"
Though she did follow, Mineko hadn't really considered these parts of herself and to have Erika lay them out so plainly was rather eye opening. Whether it was by virtue of who she was inherently or the path she had since birth, the person she was now liked community. Whoever had ideas that all saint agents were lone wolves hadn't yet met Mineko.
"Then you live with me," Mineko said easily and with a smile. "Unless what you need are some ten foot high walls and turrets, too. Then I'll see about adding that. I'm good at reading something and making sense of it, but I don't think I'm as good with people. When I first met you i thought you were a tanky warrior type, but it turns out you're a big softie." The analsyt moved her mouth around as if confused about where to go with this, but then the confused expression relaxed and her face dropped to a placid smile. She scooted on the ground to be closer to Erika and bumped the operative's kimono-clad shoulder gingerly with her own.
"Every home needs one of those, right?" Mineko said in her warm voice.
"You'll make me blush." Erika replied all too late as her cheeks went flush. A moment passed as the silver haired neko composed herself. She inhaled and extended an arm around Mineko and gave her a friendly squeeze. "Sure, I'll go for that. At least until I get a better offer." The operative said playfully.
Mineko took a big breath in and out, feeling content and looking forward to the future—quite the opposite feelings than when she had entered the VR room alone. She let her head fall back so she could look up and squeeze the happy tears back in her eyes. She put a hand up to pat then hold the arm of Erika's holographic kimono in a sort of return squeeze.
"See? You are a big softie," Mineko teased. "Even if you do take a better offer."
= = =
OOC: JP by Sunny D and Ametheliana
It had been more than a handful of minutes since Erika had telepathically commed in to Mineko as the analyst had left the crew gathering. Mineko had been keen to keep the jumble of thoughts in her head and not spilling out, though, so it took some time for her to reply.
"I-I'm fine," came the telecomm to Erika. "I'm going to be in the VR room dancing." It was more of a statement on the surface, but the underlying invitation was certainly there.
Erika was sitting across the SOFT team extracted from her salvage. She had set them up in the ward room and had gotten them each a bowl of Hokkien Noodles. "Give me five minutes to wrap up here and I'll join you." The operative said.
Their leader noticed Erika spacing out slightly dropped his chopsticks and looked up at her. "Something the matter?" He asked.
"Maybe." Erika said thoughtfully before continuing with a warm smile "Nothing to do with your team sir. You fine if I leave you for a bit?" she asked.
"Sure, I suppose. You have a bunk for us while we await... orders I guess?" If Erika didn't know better she'd have thought the Special Operative was out of his element.
When she considered gaps in time, her first thoughts turned to STs and times of a few hours, days at most. She thought she was alone in being uncomfortable with that, but maybe even legendary SOFT members could be daunted by gaps in time if the scale was large enough.
"Not as of yet, but I might be able to get you an assignment while I'm gone." Erika replied with a smile "Once you're done I suggest heading to medical to get a full work up and an ST backup compiled. The Res isn't a big ship, think you can find your way around until I get back?"
"We maybe a few years out of the loop, but our pathfinding skills shouldn't have dulled." The operative said with a sigh "And Fujis were in service before we were frozen."
"Alright." Erika nodded. "Well, just a reminder, Medical is on deck 4. I'll give you limited credentials to the MEGAMI system for navigation, but nothing more than that until you're cleared for duty again I'm afraid sir. Stay away from sensitive areas as well until then please."
"Understandable." The special operative said "Go do what you need to do. We'll be fine." He smiled
With that Erika nodded and sauntered off the VR room.
In the VR room, Mineko was on a low stage surrounded on all sides. The soft wooden floors under her were like those in the ship's dojo, but had less spring due to being figments of the ship's imagination. So was the crowd, distorted and unreal if the SAINT agent were to gaze into them too long. Even the heavily layered kimono that swished at her ankles as she made delicate, slight movements was unreal.
Being back in her element felt all too real to the Mineko. She let herself get carried away, as if the ship's imagination and hers were blended together as she moved her arms across her chest and below her waist. The movement created a specific fold in her long sleeves with the practiced movement but also was part of the larger conveyed feeling of the dance.
To any other crew member, Mineko would have hidden away this part of herself. But from Erika's first day on the ship, she had treated Erika as if she had read the most earnest and invasive file on Mineko. Whether it was right or wrong, it made Mineko feel like she could trust Erika implicitly, as she had needed to do in the past.
Ashamed of nothing because of that, Mineko was aware that if Erika decided to come to the VR room, she might see Mineko performing the odori with her whole heart on display without seeing her enter or in the crowd. But eventually the last string of the shamisen was plucked and the song ended hauntingly moments after a lowering of her forearm and a turn of her wrist that resulted in her entire legs sweeping lower in a seiza position. Her hands swept forward as her head lowered to a hand's length from the floor and she rested there a moment in her bow before standing, ready to resume her dance to another one as she skeptically scanned the crowd for the white haired head of her comrade.
As the haunting notes of the shamisen hung in the air, the room took on an air of serenity. The virtual crowd had fallen into a hushed silence, moved by the beauty of the performance. Each individual, though not real, seemed to hold their breath, feeling the weight of the emotion in the dance.
The sound of one person clapping could then be heard reverberating around virtual surfaces. The silver haired operative pushed past the holographic phantoms to the front of the crowd, smiling and cheering. The holograms joined her, beginning a rapturous applause. Erika seemed to empathically know, even without a psychic link active, that Minkeo was letting the operative in to a hidden part of her life at a time when she was feeling low, and Erika would be nothing but supportive.
More than that, much of Yamatai's cultural traditions were alien to the operative. Despite being a product of the empire, much of it were still just entries in an encyclopedia to her. She wanted to experience it all eventually, and that she got to experience some of that through a friend was simply, very special. She felt the sudden urge to have an ST back up image created immediately, something she had never felt before, if only to preserve the memory in perpetuity.
Erika put her fingers in her mouth and blew a whistle "Minkeo-chan! Ganbatte!"
Hearing her own name, Mineko responded simply with her friend's, "Erika!" She lifted herself up from her position and happily approached the operative. "Ganbarimasu! I just finished that dance but if there's another, I'll take your words of encouragement to heart. Speaking of, a bit of my heart was on my sleeve there." She looked down at the long furisode that dangled from her wrists and reflected.
"The odori is a good way to express what is a bit harder to talk about. Even if my audience isn't real," Mineko laughed, but not with her full chest. "How much of it did you see tonight? I can't say I'm embarrassed, but maybe with anyone else I would be. It's like I'm back on Yamatai to have a living audience member and not just the ship MEGAMI at best."
Erika approached, her boots creating a soft echo on the digital floor. "Only the tail end I'm sad to say, enough to get the idea," she replied, eyes scanning Mineko's attire with admiration. She then lowered her head and chuckled "Well, just the start of the idea. Its very pretty, I can see you were trying to express something, but I don't quite what you're trying to say, if that makes sense."
The operative's eyes shifted from Mineko's clothing to the analyst's face. The story facial expressions told was something she was more familiar with, though using her forensic psychology skills on a friend made Erika a little uncomfortable, but without reading too deeply into them she could tell her cheerleading had the desired effect, with the analysis being in much higher spirits.
"I can certainly tell you're going through something though," Erika tilted her head, "just not what. I'm here if you need, either to get it off your chest or" she shrugged with a smirk "Offer up some distraction."
"I think this was the distraction." Mineko said with a sigh as she flapped her arms again, this time as if in defeat. "MEGAMI, can you outfit Erika-san in a furisode as well? Something seasonal, please." She sat again, but this time at a low table where she had to kneel and she invited Erika to do the same.
The operative looked down at her body as the type 35 body suit she was wearing was covered in holographic light. The details of the kimono began to come into focus. Its base was a deep gold, similar to the color of sky around the setting sun as twilight encroached, and it was adorned depictions of red maple leaves. The sash around her waist was a deep crimson.
Erika was a little shocked, and grimaced slightly. Having a change of clothes forced upon her felt like a violation of her autonomy, but she'd swallow it for a moment, perhaps bring it up later. Certainly helped that the MEGAMI had selected something nice. Instead she gracefully knelt down across the table from Mineko.
"Different kamon or motifs are used throughout the year. In the fall like now, we'll see mostly chrysanthemums and maple leaves. But there are also all season motifs like water —which is still usually orange in colder months like now— which can be peaceful rivers or churning water which represents change. Flowing water does, after all, change the landscape."
"I'm going through a bit of that myself, right now. It's so silly. But it's what I'm going through." Mineko said, red and blue eyes looking far away. A waitress came in a simpler casual kimono and poured a tea into their cups. She was careful about a few different things and Mineko looked to Erika when she was gone, "It's virtual, but it's from the mountains above Pagoda no Uesu. The tea should have a nice clean texture and a fresh taste as just the buds are picked. It's— wait, listen to me changing the subject."
Mineko's stoic face cracked into a smile and said, "You don't need to offer up a distraction, I'm a pro at it! Okay, okay. What did you get for your salvage? I promise, not a distraction. It's actually what's going on with me."
Erika looked away to the side thoughtfully as she wrapped her hands around the tea. "Nothing that impressive. I think I got shafted to be honest." The operative gave a wry grin. "A broken speaker, a processor, some massive bags of rice. There's this thing called a Mass Messher which..." There was a pause as Erika consulted the MEGAMI's data base "Masks gravitational disturbances by linking them to local large bodies?" She came back to reality with a confused expression which she quickly shook. "Anyway, The most interesting was an escape pod with four SOFT operators. All alive, thankfully. I should be happy with the ending to that story, we both know a SOFT team going MIA leads to interesting and often tragic ones. But I can't say I'm not jealous of those who got an off road vehicles or shuttles." She huffed and lifted the cup to her lips "Always next year I suppose. At least I didn't get a corpse in some state of dismemberment."
"Oh Ayame, Kitsurugi Yui, and all the spirits of the fallen," Mineko said in an exasperated huff as she let her face fall. Her hands reached up and held her cheeks as if trying to keep her expression from slumping into any more of a look of despair. "That makes it so much worse what I'm about to say. I got a whole house, Erika. A whole, I don't know, castle house. In disrepair but there! In the South of Yamatai like I'm some rich noble with a second home! Can you— can I believe it? And you got some actual people to deal with tragic backstories..."
The mention of tragic backstories in her diatribe made Mineko lean back and sip the tea in front of her. Her own words had cut short her tirade and made her somberly contemplative. The lights above glittered down on her kanzashi that wrapped up her dark hair. With her bangs swept away from her her forehead, her face was an open book but comparatively blank of emotions in contrast to the moments preceding.
Erika let out a deep hum, thinning her lips. "Can't say I'm not a little jealous." She looked up with a brightened expression "Still I'm happy for you! That's huge! And it's not like you're not going to leave your friend Erika out in the cold when you have a spare room and a futon." The operative said, poking out her tongue.
Erika then tilted her head as her mind detected a miss match between the news and Mineko's behaviour. "But you're not in high spirits about it..." She observed out loud, her eyes darting over the analyst's face, her mind calculating. "I suppose it's hard to react to any life changing news when it comes out of the blue, even good stuff." Erika then lent back, and let out a sigh. "Fortune is fickle and fond of irony."
"That's a good way to put it," Mineko said, amusement reflecting on the lift of her voice but not her face. "You know that my parent died at Nataria and I grew up in Tsubomi- orphanage central. I couldn't live there forever and they kicked me out when I wasn't a kid anymore. Same thing with my first apartment in Kyoto; couldn't live there forever," Mineko said. "Nowhere was ever stable. Even the Resurgence with its maintenance and almost getting blown apart every month. I didn't even realize it but I never expected to have a home."
She lifted a finger to wipe away a tear that had been teetering and about to drop, but it didn't seem usefuleye to do so what with the other eye leaking now, too. She sniffed and smiled, looking back up at Erika. "I've been jealous of you before, you know?! I think it's cool to be jealous but happy for someone. It means you're really friends if you can feel both things at once!"
"You're always welcome," Mineko told her. "That feels weird to say still. Like I'm some rich Kyoto homeowner with nice rugs and, I don't know, pretty vases I don't use, they're just for decoration. I know that's not the case, but it's how I feel. I feel like I have so much now... For free. Just like that. But it's not live-able yet, I think I'd have to put in some work before it is! Kind of nice to know I still have to work a little for what I'm given," she said this with a laugh, even though it wasn't necessarily funny. "But I'm not letting your SOFT guys stay there. The crew of the Resurgence—yes. Some gnarly dudes from an escape pod, no way!" Mineko stuck out her tongue between a smile, mirroring Erika just a bit earlier.
"How do you think I feel? They were in my salvage!" Erika replied laughing. "I've contacted Department of Personnel, hopefully they'll be sent back to their families soon enough."
Erika then took a big sigh and gave a sympathetic smile as her shoulders slumped "I don't know Mineko. I don't think I'm fully equiped for this conversation. I'm vat grown. I have my batch sisters, but the only memories i have with them are from socialisation. I've never really had close connections. Not until-" She caught her words in her mouth, her cheeks flushing after a moment. "I don't have a lot of them. I can't imagine how I'd react if I lost them."
The operative then looked off in the distance for a moment, a thoughtful smile upon her face. "What I can say is that you've always struck me as the kind of person who enjoys, maybe not city, but community life. I don't think you'll be comfortable in a castle far removed from society." She refocused on Minkeko's features. "Not saying you can't build that with this land, I'm not trying to diminish its importance, I'm saying..." Erika trailed off thoughtfully as she searched for the expression "I think, for you, to be at home, you'll need more than a bit of land, four walls and a ceiling. And what you're missing is not than 4 turrets and 10 foot high walls, you follow?"
Though she did follow, Mineko hadn't really considered these parts of herself and to have Erika lay them out so plainly was rather eye opening. Whether it was by virtue of who she was inherently or the path she had since birth, the person she was now liked community. Whoever had ideas that all saint agents were lone wolves hadn't yet met Mineko.
"Then you live with me," Mineko said easily and with a smile. "Unless what you need are some ten foot high walls and turrets, too. Then I'll see about adding that. I'm good at reading something and making sense of it, but I don't think I'm as good with people. When I first met you i thought you were a tanky warrior type, but it turns out you're a big softie." The analsyt moved her mouth around as if confused about where to go with this, but then the confused expression relaxed and her face dropped to a placid smile. She scooted on the ground to be closer to Erika and bumped the operative's kimono-clad shoulder gingerly with her own.
"Every home needs one of those, right?" Mineko said in her warm voice.
"You'll make me blush." Erika replied all too late as her cheeks went flush. A moment passed as the silver haired neko composed herself. She inhaled and extended an arm around Mineko and gave her a friendly squeeze. "Sure, I'll go for that. At least until I get a better offer." The operative said playfully.
Mineko took a big breath in and out, feeling content and looking forward to the future—quite the opposite feelings than when she had entered the VR room alone. She let her head fall back so she could look up and squeeze the happy tears back in her eyes. She put a hand up to pat then hold the arm of Erika's holographic kimono in a sort of return squeeze.
"See? You are a big softie," Mineko teased. "Even if you do take a better offer."
= = =
OOC: JP by Sunny D and Ametheliana
