Chewing On More Than The Meal - OTA

[najaran]

Who: Najaran, open
Where: Garden Car
When: Every day starting from the first day of the mission until the day before platform.
What: Having discovered she can't go onto this mission, Najaran has a lot to think about, and is throwing herself into chores while she does.
Warnings: Angst, trauma mentions, probably violence mentions, emotionally heavy topics possible.



Najaran had been warned before other missions - and then kept off of them - when the world was hostile without her SCA. This time she had tried to avoid everyone who might have stopped her and...

it was bad.

She made it back to the train and laid down a while to recover, but then she had a lot to think about. And she wasn't used to sitting still and brooding. So while she thought she threw herself into chores, so the people on the mission would come back to clean clothes and fresh food.

The way she saw it there were two main issues.

One was that she refused to be pulled away when she could still help, when people still needed her. But like this, she wasn't able to help anyone at all.

But she realized that... that wasn't the only issue. Because even if she wore the SCA... on a world like this, she was still less than useless, she was a liability.


Because even if the SCA protected her... that didn't guarantee it would protect her friends. She wouldn't let them suffer just so she could go out and...

And what?

Could she value her friends over strangers? Could she value strangers over her friends?

It would kill her if Thunderbeak or Knight or one of the others died because the world itself was hostile to them and she insisted on being there to help. But if she went to help with the SCA and didn't summon her friends.... What then? What skills did she actually have that could help anyone other than being a Cepter?

None.

She would just be someone the others had to protect.

She couldn't even bring Goligan for his wisdom, he had been as bad off as she'd been, practically. Without her cards, without Goligan, she was just a teenaged girl. She could do chores, but what was she going to do? Scrub windows at the monsters?

A tear rolled down her face as she cut the vegetables for the stew she was making. She would blame the onions. And yes, she was still cooking in the Garden Car over an open fire.

After Kigi had died, Najaran hadn't quite minded becoming a virtual slave for a few days, because the chores helped keep her mind off of having lost her friend.

But that was the sort of thing time could heal, could ease. Time spent with Gargoyle and Wall Of Stone, listening to their stories about Kigi. Time spent telling her friends here about what Kigi did, what her people did, to save the world.

But there was nothing time or talking could do about the fact that without her cards she was a klutzy glutton. Sure she could fight with a sword, and she could use a shield, if she had to. But not for long. She just didn't have the upper body strength. Or the coordination. She wasn't Joaquin, she couldn't make potions and elixirs for any problem. She wasn't clever Atla with strategies and courage and fire arm skills. She wasn't Ganz who could swing an axe as large as he was and throw people around like rag dolls. She wasn't Kigi, able to shoot a bow and arrows. She didn't even know if you said shoot a bow or shoot arrows. Ad even if she did, she didn't have a bow. Or arrows.

She had spell cards, but she was forbidden to use those. Because she messed things up whenever she tried.

Because she was useless as anything other than either a Cepter or a servant.

After the first day, Goligan had stopped arguing with her, because what was the point? She wasn't listening. The man-headed cane rested against the huge suit of armor that was helping to peel and cut and otherwise prepare from his seated position in the corner. Naja's smaller creatures stayed close to her whenever they weren't running and fetching for her. Except Woodfolk who was hiding in the soil.

Najaran hardly noticed when people came and went, hardly realized when the days changed over, just got up and went back to chores and brooding. She was still careful with the fire, and to not cut herself or burn herself but otherwise, she was working mechanically, more focused inward than outward.

She didn't even notice when people had come back...

Comments

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link had been doing a lot of thinking. Mostly about where he fit in here on the train, about his adoptive father, his brother/great-grandson, and his princess. If it was his fate to be left alone eventually, to be forgotten, back home in Hyrule.

He was more than a little engrossed into this brooding, and almost tripped over Najaran, who seemed just as distracted.

"Oh! Sorry!"

[motherofresistance]

Leia had likely passed by Naja once or twice while helping to organize the supplies the Sali had provided and getting the food safely into storage. But now that everyone had mostly settled back in, Leia was heading to the library with a cup of tea to unwind a bit with a good book, and stopped to watch Naja cooking for a moment. She couldn't decide if it was more stubbornness or uncertainty with technology that had the girl cooking like this instead of using the kitchens, but whatever the reason, she was glad that the train had a good ventilation system.

"Hello, Naja," she said. "I missed you on the mission." She'd seen what had happened when Naja had tried to exit the train sans SCA, so she knew very well why she'd sat this one out. But on a mission where every pair of hands was useful, she was still missed.