sixthiterationlogs | take time, take all the time you need.

Entry tags:

take time, take all the time you need.

WHO: Brigitte Lindholm
WHERE: Southern village
WHEN: All of March kinda
OPEN TO: OTA, with sections for Seifer & Pepper
WARNINGS: Sads over villager disappearance; otherwise nah

around the village | seifer (early march, post take-two)
The supplies that she and Jane had scraped the desert for had been salamanders. Not a common occurrence in the area around the village itself, though she’d then grown used to stuffing the things into jars, their skin oddly warm to the touch. After dropping them off in the village supplies, she’d secretly squirreled one of them away to become the smithy’s new pet-slash-mascot, just like Seifer had been wistfully wanting for a while. It was a little bit of a silver lining, and it had gone well for a few days.

But then the slippery little bastard got away.

Which is how the pair wound up spending their pre-lunch hour wandering the village, checking under bushes and porches, both of them carrying oversized jars and squinting for that tell-tale glimpse of red.

“I feel like I should be putting up a lost pet poster,” she sighs.

at the forge | pepper (after they realise tony’s gone /handwaves)
Brigitte hadn’t really experienced the disappearance of someone she knew. She’d heard of it happening, of course, whether it was longstanding residents vanishing or Jacob’s sister being whisked away shortly after arrival. But she hadn’t undergone it herself.

Until the morning when she came into the forge and found that, for once, the fires hadn’t been lit. She was so accustomed to Tony’s brand of early-morning workaholicism that it jarred her, sent her immediately wondering: Another kidnapping? Another mysterious teleportation across the island? It almost felt routine by now: logging into the network, going to check around, maybe receive his marching orders from afar like he’d done back in January.

And then nothing, and then nothing.

The days crept on, with that odd uncomfortable lack of resolution — was this what happened ? you just kind of… assumed that they were gone? — and Brigitte trying to come to terms with it. Which is when Pepper Potts finally enters the forge and finds Brigitte sitting there on a barrel, the kiln unfired and the young woman clutching a pile of papers filled with the man’s hurried scrawl of a shorthand. She’s staring down at it, at a loss.

around the village | OTA (anytime march)
In Tony’s absence, Brigitte steps up her presence at the forge even more and is trying to keep the place running in some kind of order. She still lives at the inn and can be found there for communal meals and relaxing in the evenings, though she’s starting to doze off in the common room too now — pot, kettle, black. She’s spending more time in the library, reading up on the local flora, brushing up on her notes from Bev’s first aid classes. Learning all the little things that she never paid much attention to before: the teas which can ease headaches, others which ease cramps or nausea. It’s the little things.

[ WILDCARD: pretty much anywhere’s fair game! she goes jogging in the mornings, and can be sporadically found in the infirmary/dojo too, though less often now. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Seifer had been delighted when Brigitte brought them their very own salamander for the forge. As much as he would have enjoyed an expedition to find one, he'd already been tired out from his own adventure in collecting shadow dust. And the mess from before with the Shrine. Really, this way he could play with one and didn't have to go hiking for days to do it. Maybe next time.

Or not, as now they were faced with the conundrum of their forge mascot and safety protocol had gone missing. Probably because Seifer let it out to play with and didn't notice when it slipped away. This was... probably his fault, and he felt awful.

"It's cold! They like the heat why would it run off?" He was protesting, half complaining and half trying to reason that it didn't make much sense. Close on his heels his crocdog was following along, also protesting the cold.

"Could try askin' the network? See if anyone's found one in their fireplace?"

Normally, Brigitte would have been fawning over Seifer's crocdog, but she was distracted by their search, her head whipping around whenever she thought she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. "Maybe if we don't succeed," she said worriedly, chewing absentmindedly on her lip. "I'm a little embarrassed to make everyone check their own houses, but salamanders are pretty rare, so it's not like it could be mixed up with someone else's--"

It had been such a long trek, a whole week of scrounging up these elusive little amphibians and fighting off other wild animals in the baking desert. She'd felt so damned proud of herself for bringing them all back with Jane. Why would it leave the warmth of the forge?

"Maybe it's an explorer. It wants to see new places." She huffed a laugh, exasperated with herself, with the situation.

If things weren't so dire he'd think there was something wrong with Brig for not fawning on the crocdog, as it was it only made sense. They had far too much to be concerned about chasing an elusive amphibian through the village. Wait, were these salamanders amphibians? Somehow he didn't think they'd like water. "Unless someone's got a stockpile they weren't telling us about," It was an outlandish idea. He still said it anyway.

"Maybe your taking it out of the desert gave it wanderlust." Oh Hyne, maybe her taking it out of the desert made it want to try to go home? But the forge was so nice and warm, he didn't understand. "Wanna try the fireplace at the inn?"

She laughed again at that idea. "We should name him Marco Polo. Orrrr Leif Eriksson, that's even better. You probably don't have any of those people in your world, huh?"

Then, upon his suggesting the inn, Brig perked up. "Oh, that's a good idea!" It was, typically, the warmest place outside of the forge (which was why she drifted there so often for her meals, cozily warming her feet by the fire). Even body heat kept it going, too, with so many people crammed into one space. The inn was a hub, the closest thing to community in the village.

So she started hustling, striding towards her home like an unstoppable bulldozer, only slowing for the crocdog to catch up. She glanced down then, with a wry smile. "Have you named that one?"

"Sure don't, but I think I like the sound of Leif Eriksson. Guessin' they were explorers of some kind?" Easy enough assumption to reach, given the subject at hand. Of course they didn't share people across their worlds, very different places after all, even if they did share a few similar concepts here and there.

With that agreement made Seifer shook himself free of a thorny bush he was digging in having thought he spied a bright skin. It was only a dried leaf. "Great, I could use a warm up anyway." It's cold out there, alright? Might as well have a check. Maybe they could grab lunch while they were there as well, check under the stove, that sort of thing.

And before he knew it Brig was off like a shot, Seifer having to trot to catch back up. Then slow, because the crocdog for all his diligence was a little guy, and it was a bit cold out there for him. He grinned. "Yeah! Finally came up with somethin' better than 'Dog'. He's Eos."

Speaking of similar concepts -- "Eos," she repeats approvingly, as she glances down at the little animal. The name sparks a bit of familiarity, and so she adds, "Greek goddess of the dawn. At least, in my world. Does it mean anything in yours?"

They've settled into a more comfortable pace now that they know where they're going, and Eos is patiently keeping up with them despite his squat, stubby legs. Brig still reaches the doorway of the inn first, and gallantly holds it open for the blond and the crocdog alike. The crocdog saunters in as if it owns the place, and she can't help but laugh a little as she follows them in. "Where did you even find one of these?"

"Yeah! Well, not Greek, dunno what Greek is. It's Centran from back home." Very similar concepts still, old mythologies that had inspired him in a lot of ways. Seifer was secretly a huge nerd for ancient mythologies. "'Course they might have ties to Guardian Force there, dunno if you guys have anything like that?" Odin, for example, was a very real and physical being.

Until Seifer sliced him in half. Whoops.

Seifer can't help but grin at his antics. Easily as at home within the human settlement as along the riverbanks. "Followed the river down until we found some, then it was just a matter of tossin' fish until one came over to say hi. They're pretty friendly." As she can clearly see.

"I should go out to the river and get one of my own. Except I-- do not really have the time for a pet," plus she'd lost her first one!! "and living in the inn isn't the best place for keeping one anyway. But still."

As they enter the inn, she casts a gaze around the room -- it's not as bustling as usual, which is good, since it makes it easier to search for the salamander without supplanting people from their meals.

"I don't know what guardian forces are? But if they are like our gods and goddesses, then they are like... old, very powerful beings, with special powers or strength or magical items. Thor from the smithy, actually, he is sort of like a guardian force from my world, I guess you could say. That was hard to wrap my mind around at first."

"These guys are easy you can take 'em with you!" Which has been what Seifer's been doing. Eos has been at his side since he found the creature, so it made training and care infinitely easier. Just stop for a meal here and there, make sure there's a water dish any place they're going to be for a while. No problems whatsoever. It had been working out well enough for them so far.

"I guess you could kinda compare 'em to that, yeah. They're spirit beings, more or less, dunno how old they are or even really where they come from. You can stick 'em in your head and with their help use magic. Either directly or to greatly enhance certain abilities. Stamina, speed, how many hits you can take, reaction time. Stuff like that." Which probably sounded incredibly weird, he knew. "Yeah! It's crazy to think of Thor being like that, seemed like a pretty normal guy to me." Enjoyable to work around. Fascinating that he was effectively a god. He chuckled. "Yeah, I bet. I'm still havin' a hard time with it. The ones from my world don't look that human usually."

Stick them in your head. That bit is new; she supposed some people believed in demonic possessions or channeling the gods back home, but the way Seifer discusses it, he sounds matter-of-fact. Like describing a bit of commonplace physics, rather than something mythical and unsubstantiated.

So Brigitte shoots Seifer a curious look, temporarily distracted from where she’d been peering into the fire and half-crawling under tables.

“Wait. Did you have a god in your head?”

Possession was also a thing in his world, though it usually came in the form of Sorceresses. Much different, and yet still so horrifyingly real. On the subject of Guardian Force, however, Seifer did indeed sound very matter-of-fact, almost bored. Like he was merely talking about a workplace policy. Which in a lot of ways was true.

"'Course, it's Balamb Garden's big thing. Galbadia didn't practice it, Trabia did but they weren't big enough to host field exams so Trabian SeeD candidates would transfer to Balamb," He explained, gently shifting burning logs with a fire poker to try to get a look underneath. "I didn't use 'em as much as some of the others. Thought it was a crutch. Oh, we called the process Junctioning. So you pop 'em in your head, then using them alongside collected Paramagic you could enhance certain aspects of yourself depending on the GF's specialization."

Sometimes Seifer didn't realize just how insane it all sounded until people were looking at him funny.

She wondered if this was what people felt like when she launched into her own engineering jargon and technobabble: hopelessly adrift, out of their depth, assailed by a swarm of unfamiliar terminology. (That's what you get, Brigitte!!)

But crawling out from under the table and dusting off her knees, she tried to focus right past all the terminology. Honed in on the more relevant detail, though he seemed so nonchalant about it: "What was it like, to junction one of those? What did it feel like?"

Because oh my god she just has to know, now.

Yes, a little, Seifer often forgets that these things make absolutely no sense to anyone else. All these weird worlds not covered in monsters. He'll be happy to clarify any terms. She's lucky she got him talking about home at all, honestly.

"At first? Kinda fuzzy, like your head was full of static and a little too full. Eventually you get used to it and it stops bein' so distracting. The rest of the Junctioning process makes you feel powerful. Faster, stronger, more alert. You can even summon the GF you have Junctioned to fight for a time. That's always impressive." He grinned over at her, gesturing grandly.

Oh it was cool Brig he does wish he could better describe it.

By no definition has Pepper Potts been handling things exceptionally well, and that's typically her brand, if she were to ever actually call it a brand. It wouldn't be the first time an abrupt upheaval in her life came without so much as a phone call, it wouldn't be the first time she's stared at a dead quiet workspace and wanted to throw up or cry, it wouldn't even be the first time she's woken to find the bed empty. She did awake to an empty bed again, but it wasn't because Tony had wandered off to deal with insomnia. She did stare at a dead quiet workspace again, feeling the sickest she's potentially ever felt, because Tony hadn't come to the forge early. And she did have an abrupt upheaval, but greater than those before, because the world she has been left in without Tony Stark - an entire universe away, not a city or a globe - is not hers and Rhodey, one of the steadiest and loved constants in her life, isn't here when she faces Tony's loss.

She's never really adapted to this entire kidnapping scenario, she's just survived, and been damned convincing at making it look like she's handling it all with pragmatism and good humor. For all that work, it's been too easy to try and cut out as much of the metaphorical noise of this strange life as possible. It's not healthy. It's not helping. She knows if she doesn't face the next step forward now, the pain is going to finally win out over what she knows she needs to do.

So Pepper goes to the forge with her best game face on, because she's powered through so many things, she can do this.

She almost retreats just over the threshold.

Somehow it's more painful to be in this space with Tony gone than it ever was to enter his workshop when nearly everyone but her believed him to be dead in Afghanistan, and she wouldn't say she somehow loved him less then and it made it easier. No, this place has meant more than just 'Tony's space' to her. It's been a place of security in this mad world they inhabit (the routine of the day and the people bound to be around feel all the more real after events like unexpected relocations and wilderness survival), a place of discovery of new facts about herself (she enjoys helping with the work here, even if she's far, far better at keeping things somewhat organized and moving forward), a place of camaraderie (this family Tony built, because he's an engineer of those too), and yes, a place that has just as much of his sweat and tears and genius as places back home.

What stops her retreat is that the space is inactive, but not empty, because there sits Brigitte, looking as lost as Pepper feels. Pepper recognizes the papers the young woman's clutching and something shifts within her, that mixture of giving and selfish that recognizes something Pepper can do for someone else and in the process, shove back some of her pain. Of course she knew she wasn't the only one reeling from this loss, and she hasn't turned anyone away who sought her out, but in the silence of the house she had shared with Tony and Rhodey, she's looked only inward, not outward in the direction of the 'forge family.'

When she reaches Brigitte, Pepper's touch is gentle but firm as she pries the papers out of the young woman's hands. She carefully, painfully, sets them aside, and fills the now-paperless space with her own pale fingers, squeezing Brigitte's hands gently.

The forge had been a new home, a steady base to retreat to, a humming hub of activity to keep Brigitte moving, keep her active, and give her purpose. Sitting here now, she's realising that she never even got the chance to tell him how much she appreciated it. How much it meant, his trust in her and the way he folded this makeshift family under his wing. She'd even recognised her name in some of these notes: little reminders to himself and ideas for projects he could shunt over to her, get off his own plate. It was oddly disorienting: a little lens into that furiously industrious mind that kept ticking and ticking and ticking, and a reminder that she existed, too.

Someone's taking the papers out of her hands. It jars her out of her fugue, Pepper's hands folding over hers, and Brigitte looks up and meets her eye, startled. Normally she'd have been so wary and watchful, but she'd been lost in the papers. Feeling that void and that silence more than ever.

"I can't always read his handwriting," she blurts out.

It might sound like a pragmatic consideration, but it's reeling, the first thing she could think of to say. Because Tony had always been here to decipher his own Tonyisms, to translate that staccato abbreviated shorthand into intelligible instructions. Into meaningfulness. But now Brig's gone ahead and blurted it out to this woman, who she doesn't know well enough, but knew enough that Pepper was the tempering maternal influence around the smithy.

She has no right to be sitting here untethered and at such a loss when this woman has lost her fiancé.

"I'm so, so sorry."

Pepper shrugs off the apology with another gentle squeeze of fingers and an attempt at a Tony Stark Special, turning someone's apology into dry humor to try and divert feelings. "Don't be, his handwriting is horrific."

But she's not Tony, she's Pepper, and the attempt is so hollow, she could strike it and use it like a dinner bell. So she goes with what she knows, practical reassurance that silently acknowledges the deeper meanings of a seemingly simple statement. This is about so much more than just Tony's penmanship.

"He can't always read his own handwriting," she says, refusing to think of him in any past-tense ways because he's not dead. Pepper doesn't know that, not for certain. She knows he survived Thanos eliminating half of the universe. She knows he's alive on a distant planet. The rest is just hope, and also fear, the kind that will jump to the most outrageous outcomes and call them possible because the alternative is unthinkable.

"Fortunately, making sense of it is something I used to get paid to do, so there was significant motivation to figure it out when he wasn't there." Even though her eyes are ringed in pink, her gaze is steady as she bends slightly to catch Brigitte's gaze, if she can. "I can help you, if you want?"

He wasn't there, I know this pain. Pepper does know a rough outline of at least part of what she suspects is behind Brigitte's words, because she had sat at a desk, with Tony missing - and by many presumed dead - in Afghanistan, with screen after screen of digitally-rendered notes that didn't all make sense. She had looked upon pieces of him left behind, and while she had refused to believe he was dead, she had also numbly acknowledged that if he never came back, there were things on those screens that would go unrealized, things that would become unanswerable questions and unsolvable mysteries.

I can help you, you don't have to do it alone. She'd had Rhodey then, someone who understood and shared the core of her pain, love, even though his was love for his best friend and hers was love for her boss in not-professional ways. Rhodey's also one of her dearest friends, so their connection is strong independently of Tony. Pepper doesn't have the same independent connection to Brigitte, but it doesn't matter. If she wants it, Brigitte can have Pepper with her to know and understand the core of their shared pain, who recognizes that Brigitte's love is love for her father-figure, and Pepper's is love for her chosen life partner.

I can help you, if you want?

"Please," Brigitte says, automatically and unhesitatingly, with audible relief. No stubborn macho pride here: Brigitte has always been trained to ask for help and supply it in return, to acknowledge her weaknesses. (And right now, she feels like she's all weakness.) Seifer and Thor are her big-hearted blond boys, but they're not engineers, and it was a shock to look around the forge and all its helpers and realise that, of all of them, she was the best-positioned to fill the man's shoes. The most experienced, somehow, when it had always been so easy to take refuge behind Tony and, back home, behind Torbjörn Lindholm. Behind everyone.

She rises numbly, heads over to the stacks of paperwork she's already organised, and shows Pepper what she's been working on. One stack for in-progress projects, another for ones that haven't even started yet, and a third which is all question marks. Until she'd started clearing everything away, the smithy had looked like he'd just stepped out for lunch. Would be back any moment. The wall still has some of his jokes and smudges from his thumb.

Then, after a moment, she asks: "You were paid to work with him? He mentioned you ran his company, back home." Which she'd always assumed was a partner thing, a soon-to-be-husband-and-wife thing, with no idea of Pepper's rise from such humble origins.

Ever since Brigitte pulled her out of the fountain and she discovered she has new memories, Aqua has been trying to settle back into life here. It's hard to do, when her mind is on everything that happened and all of the people she'd gotten back. Brigitte has been wonderful, but Aqua misses Ven and Terra even more now, probably because she'd only just gotten them back.

So she's been trying to spend more time with other people if possible. Her house is great, but she didn't realize how lonely living by herself would be when she first chose it. That's why she's been trying to hang out at the inn more often than not and how she manages to spot Brigitte dozing off at one point. Unwilling to wake her friend, she waits until Brigitte wakes up before she approaches.

"Is everything okay?" she asks kindly, recognizing the difference in her friend's habits. If something isn't right, Aqua would like to try to help fix it, if she can.

Brigitte jolts awake, startled that she'd let herself nod off right here, in public -- then again, it's the warmth of that fireplace and the comforting buzz of voices that lulls her so effectively. After getting some hot food in her, it's so very easy to sink into that dull, blurry exhaustion. Still. It's embarrassing. She'd chided Jacob for this exact thing and told him to get more sleep, and now she's doing the same damn thing.

"I'm just-- tired," Brig says, blinking. A beat. Tired. That's one word for it: that feeling of being frayed around the edges, wrung-thin and out of her depth.

"I... think I run the forge now?" She speaks it like a question, almost like she's asking the universe for confirmation. (Of course, there's no one and nothing to officially confirm, to tell her what to do.) "Like. I think it is mine. Tony's gone. It's a lot of work."

An understatement. She's very good at understatements.

It looks to Aqua like it's more than just being a little tired. It's the kind of tired that can run a person into the ground, wearing on their energy and soul as much as their body. Something happened and Aqua would be a terrible friend if she didn't try to help. So she settles into a nearby chair, moving it close enough that they can still talk.

"You don't have other people to help you?" she asks curiously. She doesn't go to the forge much, but she remembers there were a couple of other people there the one day she did wander in.

"There are, but they're more like, if I point them at something and tell them what work to do, of course they'll do it. But I still need to figure out what work there is remaining, what status all the projects were at. Pepper's helping, though. She's totally invaluable for figuring out his notes and records. But..." But she's also the man's fiancée, and hurting even worse, and so Brig feels guilty piling any weight on that woman's shoulders. Even if they're doing it together (and thank god for it), one hand helping the other.

And then again. Work can help keep them moving, keep them functional, give them a reason to get up in the morning.

"Have you known anyone here who vanished?" she asks, suddenly, looking over at Aqua. "Not like you did, just for a few days, but. Permanently."

That would be a hard situation to inherit. Aqua might not know Pepper, they haven't met yet, but she can tell that Pepper must have been close with Tony. Either way, Brigitte is hurting and so Aqua does the only thing she can.

"I may not know a lot about forge work-" Brigitte knows that from their first meeting. "-but I might be able to help you divide up the work and keep track of what still needs to be done." It's the least she can do, especially since she really doesn't have much of a job here herself yet.

The following question gets gentle shake of Aqua's head. She hasn't seen a couple of people since their initial meetings, but she doesn't know for sure of anyone who has disappeared permanently. "Not that I know of," she says softly. She has been lucky in that regard. "But I really haven't been a resident of this world long enough to make many friends." Brigitte is definitely one of her closest friends here and Aqua would probably do just about anything for her at this point.

"Me either, until now. This is the first time it's someone I actually knew well," Brigitte admits. "And you and I are both so new, I thought it just..."

She trails off. It had seemed so much the luck of the draw; she would've thought the disappearance and the moving-on only happened once you'd been here for ages, but then she'd heard what had happened to Jacob's sister, the first time around. So it really was just... hopelessly random. With no way to stop it, or predict who might be next.

More than the teleportation, more than being whisked across the island on the whims of some unseen observers to jump through hoops and deliver supplies for god knows what reason — more than any of that, these disappearances frighten her now.

"And... you know, that would be appreciated. Or even if it's just, coming by at the end of the day to help put out the fires and tidy things up and close up shop for the night? I tend to work too late on my own projects too, so I forget and stay there too long." If the others at the forge had already left, there was no one to nudge her at the end of the day, remind her to get her ass back to the inn and sleep.

Aqua feels the tug of loneliness in her heart just by watching her friend and hearing Brigitte's words. Remembering how Brigitte had comforted her when she dragged Aqua out of the fountain, Aqua hesitantly reaches across the space between them to rest a hand on her friend's shoulder. Coming from a person who isn't as tactile as a lot of people here, even that touch means a lot.

"I can come by in the evenings," she says firmly. Aqua is the type of person who always needs to stay busy, to help people as much as she can. Doing these small things to help Brigitte will keep her occupied, too. It's the least she can do.

"I'll do whatever you need me to do. Even if that's just reminding you to go to bed." She smiles at that, thinking of how she used to wake Ven up, rather than put him to bed. "Will you be okay?" she asks next, knowing that any kind of loss can wound a person deeply. If Brigitte needs Aqua to push her off to bed now or distract her or just be a comforting presence, Aqua would be happy to oblige.

They both have those habits, these two: keeping themselves busy, picking up additional tasks, never letting themselves lapse into too much stillness.

"I think so?" Brigitte admits after a pause. "I mean, I'll have to be. Others have lost worse. It's just... another job. A bigger job. I can do it." Her hand catches her friend's where it rests on her shoulder; squeezes once, accepting the comfort that was offered.

Then, self-deprecating and a little bemused: "This probably sounds like the laziest thing, but sometimes it feels like the rooms are just sooooo far away even though I know they're just upstairs. But the warmth down here is just... nice. I like being around the people. Does that make sense?"

Aqua nods at the question. It does make sense and she thinks if Ven were here, he would feel the same. But it makes her wonder about some things and she tilts her head curiously.

"Do you have a roommate who could help you get back easier?" If Brigitte is completely alone in her room, Aqua imagines that would make it harder. "I have a spare room in the house I found. I've been trying to think of ways to stay around people for more hours of the day than I'm alone. Maybe we could help each other."

Of all people here, Brigitte should understand why Aqua wouldn't want to be alone anymore. She's had far too long being completely alone.

She liked the inn so much, but living here had been inconvenient at times: not having a full space in which to sprawl, just a tiny one-room spot to call her own. And the thought had occurred to her before that if she had a house, she could have a place for friends to crash, and she could've shoved Jacob at the sofa when he needed somewhere safe to sleep. And yet, until now, she hadn't fully considered moving out. She'd latched onto the inn as such a comfort blanket, a crutch to keep herself surrounded by people. But it sounds like Aqua is in the same boat.

Neither of them want to be alone.

So maybe they could be not-alone, together.

Brigitte has perked up, looking more alert and awake than she had been just a minute ago. "I don't have a roommate, I'm just by myself," she says. Then: "Are you sure? You wouldn't mind? Because that. Would be lovely, I think."

A place to actually be home; to slump around in her PJs on days she's not working; to doze off on the sofa, surrounded by her notes and designs, rather than in a public space like this. Living with a friend. Someone like her. It sounds... good, actually.

A smile blossoms across Aqua's face at Brigitte's response. Pushing herself to her feet, she offers a hand to her friend. She wouldn't have offered if she minded, though she isn't the type to point that out. Instead she just nods.

"I don't mind," she assures her friend. "I think I'd rather have a friend for a housemate anyway. And that way, neither of us ever has to worry about being alone. Or too tired to make it back. I can stop by the forge in the evenings and bring you back to the house."

As far as Aqua is concerned, this is a win-win situation for both of them. Now they just need to get Brigitte's stuff from her room in the Inn back to the house. Between the two of them, that shouldn't be hard at all.

It’s just like Aqua — just like both of them, really — to jump right into action once she’s made up her mind, without wasting a moment. There’s no time like the present, after all, and there’s literally no reason to put it off: Brig’s room is still mostly bare, since all of her clunkier equipment and notes are down at Tony’s forge now. (Her forge. Her smithy.)

So she catches her friend’s hand and surges to her feet, re-energised filled with a second wind from the decision. She’d been so picky about who she might live with, but this? This works.

“I don’t even own that many things — it’s mostly my clothes and a couple notebooks I got from Reeve. I could go right now.”

So she leads the way, bounding up the steps to room eleven, and they start ransacking it together: stuffing things into their standard-issue backpacks, stripping the linen to leave the room neat and empty for the next occupant. It feels like a sleepover, like a slumber party; she’s suddenly giddy at the prospect. “Just so you know, I’m not a very good chef,” Brigitte warns while they fold up her blanket, “but I’m learning.”

Aqua has never been the type to put anything off if she can get it done right now. Something like moving her friend into the spare room at her house is even better than anything else she might want to do. Naturally, they both want to get Brigitte moved as soon as possible.

"We'll learn together," she says with a smile as she helps gather and carry her friend's belongings outside. "I'm an okay cook, but it wasn't something we spent a lot of time on."

But that is something they can work on later. Right now, they have a move to make. They can worry about cooking when they've figured out the rest of the details. Aqua feels good about this. At least she knows they get along very well and they trust each other. This is a much better option than being alone.

The house is quiet. Frankly it's driving Reeve a little mad, especially with the reduced mobility he's been suffering under after his second undesired field trip. Sure, Steph checked in on him from time to time, in part to make sure he didn't go crazy, but there was only so much they could do. Which meant these frequent stops by the inn, including sitting by the fire. Sitting by the fire in a comfortable chair after a long day.

What? It's not his fault he's starting to fall asleep.

Edited 2019-03-29 20:54 (UTC)

This time, when she's headed back home and spots someone she knows dozing off in front of the fire, she knows she can't even give him a well-intentioned lecture about it -- considering she's started doing the exact same thing now, lately. And Brigitte understands the appeal of it: exhausted after a day of work, filled with a hot meal from the communal kitchen, the warmth of the inn fire, drifting off. Plus he's still hobbling around besides. So instead she huffs a laugh to herself, goes over and gently nudges Reeve's shoulder.

"Hey, Reeve," she says aloud, enough to stir him. "How's the leg?" Nodding towards his injury.

The touch does less to rouse Reeve than the voice. That gets him opening his eyes slowly, and soon he's smiling up at Brigitte. He still looks tired, but he does have a fond smile he can spare her.

"Hello my dear. It's healing up as quickly as one might imagine. It's driving me mad of course. I want my magic back."

"You could go punch the vending machine until it gives you some more," Brigitte points out, a little wryly; knowing he's already been coasting along with some powers, here and there. She still hasn't tried it herself, for some reason. She's not sure why, except that she prefers her own natural capabilities more. Prefers knowing exactly what she can and cannot do.

"There isn't anything that works the way that my healing magic did, and I'm not willing to take something that will absolutely affect my body," Reeve countered, but he had a small smile. He had no shame in his fire magic, it was something that had saved his life. "I was a mage, Brigitte, lacking it is unnatural to me. But I might have to figure it out some later. But the doctor is helping me, and Anne gave me some peaches which are supposed to help."

"Have you tried the healing springs at all? I haven't been there myself, but I have heard that they're to the southeast. And might speed that up a little," she adds, nodding to his leg. Wrapping her mind around the concept of healing water hadn't been as hard as it might've been, once upon a time. You learned to expand your mind in this village.

"I have been before and they are delightful. But they are also a very long way out of the way. Further than I can handle walking at this time," Reeve admits, shrugging a little. This much itself has been too much, his leg already feeling a bit sore. Yes, he's healing up, but not as fast or as well as he would like to be.

"Understandable," Brigitte acknowledges. Then, considering what he'd just admitted, his difficulty in walking -- and knowing how hard even she finds it to stir from the inn after a late night...

"Do you need some help walking back to your house? It's already dark outside. It can't be a comfortable walk after dinner."

"I make do most nights, but an escort would be welcomed," he offers with a soft smile. "Thank you very much, Brigitte. When you feel like you could use a walk, let me know."

"No time like the present. At least before you fall asleep again." It's teasing, gentle. And so Brigitte rises to her feet, offers an arm to help the man hobble to his own, and to escort him through the chaotic jumble of chairs-and-tables towards the front door and the village roads.

It's a little echo of a new year's party, perhaps, and when Reeve walked her around the manor gardens of a simulation, except this time she's leading him -- but they still walk, and talk, and the night slides away.

[ they warmed my heart sfm, thank YOU for them ♥ ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

take time, take all the time you need.

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sisters are doin' it for themselves.

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inn

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AN ATTEMPT @ ROOMIE SEGUE

/zooms with it!

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could poss wrap on your next w them heading back? THEYRE TOO CUTE

that's a wrap! \o/

Sleeping By The Inn Fire

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short-but-sweet, closed? ♥

Works for me. Thanks for the Brigitte interactions. Loved her and Reeve being all friendly

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