Interaction Post: Voidtrecker

[knifewithnoname]

A space for any interactions that are too small for an actual log or whatever!

Comments

gift! giving!

[weifinder]

( look the passenger roster is great for sad reasons, but also good ones, and here's one:

Buttercup has a plush hedgehog wearing a little aquafir logo shirt resting outside her cabin door the day after they've left aquafir, her name on it and signed with wei wuxian's name and a smile. for my friend! he says, on the note, while he's clearly out ninjaing along getting this done. )

[knifewithnoname]

[If he's attentive over the next couple of days he will notice he is being stalked, not incessantly. But there is a certain little girl just on the edge of his vision, watching him. A lot.

Often she has the hedgehog in her hand. A couple of times she looks like she might approach him, but never quite does.]

[weifinder]

( now, he's not a great cook. the problem with his cooking being simple: he likes spice, too much of it, and he gets distracted, so dishes that can't take a little extra time in heat don't do well for him. the modern kitchen? helps, surprisingly, but he's a man who tends to have too much going through his head, so it's more surprising he's managed this.

congee. rice, it's great, and he's topped it off with whatever leftovers were there from the night before, and, well, sets out two bowls. calls out to his small shadow: )

What are your thoughts on congee?

( not sure she'll take the bait or not, but leaving it open for her to do so without having to commit to more than an answer. )

[knifewithnoname]

I do no be knowing what that is. [Caught. Of course. She should be used to the fact people pay a lot more attention to her hear than back in her world. Back when she could be one small girl in a crowd, now people know her, name her, speak to her.

It's exhausting. But he gave her a hedgehog and is giving her food. Friends they are but still... It's a lot.

She did get closer though and reached to poke the food. Rice, with things in it. She will try anything honestly.]

[weifinder]

( He's a lifetime away from being the street orphan who trusted few and ran from the dogs, who scrounged from the vegetable scraps, the ones the dogs haunted last, and ate what he could in fistfuls and tucked away moments, glad for the warmth. glad for anything not yet rotten, that filled the pit in his stomach to fuel the escape, yet again, from the dogs.

he can remember being small only as that, and the day it ended, with a fresh, hot bun in hand and scarfed down so fast he doesn't recall anything about what it tasted like, only the heat. jiang fengmian, for all his faults, was also a man of many strengths and kindnesses. just... not enough to offset the harm visited to his family, his lack of clarity that... well.

speak not ill of the dead. honour them, as they should be honoured. )

It's rice, mostly, and anything else you feel like adding. Some chicken? From the curry, I think, and some sliced scallion.

( work with me here it now exists for at least this one thread laksdjf

he nudges the bowl closer to her, along with a spoon, and chopsticks. )

Fingers work too, ( said offhand, one more way to consume ) but the heat can be a bother.

[knifewithnoname]

[Rice with anything he felt like adding. Chicken, scallion. It looks good. It doesn't explain why he is giving it to her but friends. On this train. This was how things were. She clambered up onto a seat, putting the hedgehod on the table next to her and pulling the bowl towards her.]

I do be knowing how to be using them.

[Sure back home she hate ate with her hands and sometimes a spoon but a year on the train means she knows how to use forks, knives for eating (rather than stabbing) and the chopsticks.]

I do be thanking you. [She began to eat, wrinkling her nose a little at the spice but it's not too hot, not bad enough to complain about. Not when he gave it to her.]

[weifinder]

( He beams, something that only grows wider when she eats without more than the wrinkling of her nose. He knows his tendencies with spice, but his version of light is not strictly light enough for anyone not from Yunmeng: Jiang Cheng, where are you to drag into a taste of home? )

Makes you better versed than this old man is. Tell me, think you can show me how those tined utensils work? These are so much easier for me to use.

( He sighs, indicating his chopsticks, and the ... soup spoon. Forks are a mystery of why people think stabbing food is an easier way to eat anything. )

You're welcome! If you like it, I can make more for you in the mornings, though we can't use the singing machine. Leaves it too dry for congee. Great for everything else.

( Said with a happy sigh. Rice is... okay, plain. But it's consistent, and it's familiar, and he'll take that over so much else. )

[knifewithnoname]

They do all be being weird. [She sighed. He will probably notice that her chopstick use is... It's clear she hasn't actually been taught how to use them, she just watched other people and copied them. It's functional, it wouldn't pass in polite company.

Nor would be knife and fork use. Honestly.] Where I do be coming from we do be having bread. But no bread like here. It do be being thin and big. [Holding her arms out to show just how big, ignoring the rice that goes flying from the chopstick as she does so.] We do be using that to eat. No of these things. [Just another obstacle between her and food, annoying things. But people here expected it.

She tilted her head.]

The singing machine do be being weird but it can be making lots of rice so that do be being useful and it do no even be getting all stuck and messy. You do no be needing to scrub it for hours.

[weifinder]

Oh? Big flatbreads? We have one that you add scallions to, ( he says, using his chopsticks to pick out one of the sliced ones in his bowl to show her; ) sesame seeds too if you like. Makes it easy to sop things up with, but I like your way even more. Have you convinced anyone to try and make it here?

( Popping the scallion into his mouth, he chews and swallows, struck by another idea. )

Can you make it, do you think?

( Wei Wuxian, willing to try bread-eating to eat everything when it sounds like a great, sensible, no-utensil needing way to handle some meals around here. )

Ah, yes, all this is true. I haven't used it much myself yet, it's fairly new, right? Or was it here the whole time and I just missed it until it started serenading me.

( He looks like he's seriously pondering this, but no, for months there's been no sign of anything like it, so he rather doubts that's the case. )

[knifewithnoname]

[Scallions would be good on flatbread. It was true. She nodded at him and then tilted her head.]

No. I do no be knowing how... [It was likely difficult. The baker started work so early after all. Often it would be the only window lit, when she was coming back from a mission.]

It do be being new. Only this last platform, that's when it did be coming.

[weifinder]

Hmm...

( Setting his chopsticks to the side, he picks up the spoon with its flat bottom. After slurping up a good serving of congee, he nods, more to himself than otherwise. )

Can't say I'll be able to manage the bread you know, but the scallion pancakes, that I should. Feel like enduring however that goes?

( He slides her a look, a lift of his lips at the corner. He will, whatever the end result, and to degrees of understanding, he thinks she will too. )

Right, right, so barely any time at all. A good addition, considering the number of us fond of rice here, and having it be regularly in the stores.

[knifewithnoname]

Yes. I will be trying. [Even if they tasted terrible, she is always up for experimentation and it sounded like he would enjoy it too.]

We did no be having such things where I do be coming from. We did be making rice in a pan.

[weifinder]

Good! Good, then I'll make that for our next platform. I was thinking of having a little picnic out on a blanket, though if it's trying to have weather for us, we might need to tuck underneath something rooflike.

( Here he is, planning for a theoretical rainy day. )

Rice in pans...! Very efficient. We usually had this big woks, like pans, or steamed it all in bamboo rounds with a top.

( He uses his hands to gesture, roughly building out a bamboo steamer as something circular and raised high some degree, with a rounded top over it. )

Place that in the wok, with water in it, and keep it hot. Eventually, rice! Or anything else you had in the bamboo steamer. My shijie...

( Trailing off for a moment, taking a spoonful of the congee. Swallowing. )

She was really good at cooking. I can manage the rice, some simple things. Not the real tasty stuff, but ah, we all have strengths, right?

For Devero. Month of Quicksand. Before misison

[knifewithnoname]

The new month had only just begun. It was a strange time, between the platform and finding out what mission they would be going on. Too much time. Too much thinking.

She had a lot to think about. Gauig, Sanzo's death, returning to the train. Other Sanzo being here. She'd rather do other things. The cinema carriage had had people in it so she had found a seat in the standard carriage, or rather she had sat on one of the tables, back against the window and knees to her chest, hood up, book in hand.

She's reading In this House You May Scream again. Hopefully no one else ever wanted to read it because she hadn't put it back in the library since she had first taken it out months ago.

[subcircuits]

It's not that Devero's been actively looking for Buttercup, since they all got back to the train following the tethering disaster, but he has been looking for an opportunity. And when he spots her on her own in standard, he realizes this this may just be that opportunity.

He retreats back out of the carriage quietly, but only to hit up the nearest shop terminal. With a bribe offering gift in hand, he tries to approach nonchalantly.

"Hey, kiddo. Got a minute?"

[knifewithnoname]

She's aware of him looking in but when he vanishes again she doesn't think too much of it. Still she's not too surprised when he reappears and walks towards her.

She nods with a small smile and puts her book down, shifting slightly to make room on the table, though really Devero is likely to sit in one of the seats to either side, he's a little bit to be perching on tables.

"Yes, I do be having lots of minutes."

[subcircuits]

He's a lot big too be perching on tables, especially compact little tables in cramped train cars. So he does slide into the seat, grinning crookedly at her as he does. "Well, can I take up a few of them?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Of course you can be being."

She likes spending time with him. So she doesn't have any complaints about him taking up her minutes, her book can wait. She knows it off by heart anyways.

[subcircuits]

"Thank you." He smiles at her, but it fades a little after a moment. "I wanted to see how you were feeling after... everything."

[knifewithnoname]

She sighed. "It did all be being... Stupid." She waved a hand. "But how do you be being?"

After all he's... Not like her or Sanzo. His feelings are big and many and he doesn't seem to have any meditation or emptiness tricks to keep them out.

The whole situation must have been so much more worse for him.

[subcircuits]

He can't help but chuckle, if only briefly, at her typically succinct summary. "It was awful," he says, leaning back in the seat and looking away from her. "I'm still having nightmares about it."

In other words, he's not doing great.

[knifewithnoname]

"Nightmares do be being stupid." She commiserated and wrinkled her nose. "I do be hoping you can be banishing them from your head soon."

She had had nightmares too, but she isn't admitting it. Dark servants don't have nightmares.

[subcircuits]

"Thanks, kiddo," he says softly. He stares out the window at her back, watching the colors of the Void wheel and swirl for a moment. When he returns his gaze to her, he says, "One of the things I've been having nightmares about is you-- things happening to you, that-- that other Sanzo getting his hands or his sutra on you--"

He shivers a little, then laces his fingers together on the table top so he can stare down at his fingers. "Made me realize that the thought of something happening to you scares the hell out of me," he admits. "More than just for Koumyou's sake."

[knifewithnoname]

She watched him while he watched the void, not interrupting, sensing he was thinking. There's a lot of thinking to be done.

When he does talk it is her turn to be thoughtful. He had had nightmares about her? She would like to say she could have taken that other Sanzo. But she knows it wasn't true and she won't say it. Not just for the lie but it would be disrespectful to Sanzo. Their Sanzo. Who had died to protect them.

That feeling was still very strange. She tilted her head. "I would no be wanting anything to be happening to you either." It was true. She didn't like that idea at all. "And no only because Sanzo would be being sad."

More than sad. Destroyed.

[subcircuits]

Devero bobs his head, hesitating for a moment more before deciding to just lay it out with his usual forthrightness:

"You and Koumyou decided to be family, and that alone would be enough for me to want to look after you, but I think I-- I mean, I want you to know I--"

(Forthright, but not terribly eloquent.)

He recollects himself and tries again. "You're important to me, Buttercup. I was wondering if you'd like to have me as a dad as well?"