Closed | Luggage mix-up

[enthunder]

Who: Renee and Lightning
What: Several passengers return from hiatus at once. The shoving-people-in-suitcases mechanism needs a day off after this.
When: Day 3 of Catfish
Where: luggage car
Rating: probably swearing, definitely violence against luggage

[ Given that her most recent memory is collapsing from fatigue in the middle of a goblin siege, it's not too surprising that Light's initial seconds awake are the worst combination of jolting adrenaline and disorientation yet. What is surprising is that she's not alone. She opens her eyes and squints into the total darkness of what she resignedly supposes is a suitcase, again. Her entire front is overheated, one side of her body pressed flush against ... who is she pressed against? She puts that question aside. It doesn't matter, they just need to get out of the stupid bag.

She can't move her arms, either, one forearm locked behind their neck and the other trapped between their torsos. Her throat is scratchy with disuse, so her first attempt at speaking comes out as a soft rasp, but after a moment, ]

You awake yet?

Comments

[afterburner]

Yeah. Did you get the number of that bus? I'd like to make a complaint... [Renee lets out a groan and twitches--which is when she realizes that she's got just about as much room as the other person in here does. To wit: not much.]

What the fuck? [This is not her cabin or her bunk. She wasn't on the bunk--her last memory is standing up to a group of the Battleship Galactica wannabe Inspectors. This...is not then. But her arms aren't really pinned, even though they're stuck above her head. Is she smelling herself? Ewww. The humiliation...]

I...thought people got suitcased by themselves, the hell is this??

[enthunder]

[ Right, so it's Renee. There aren't so many people on the train that she can't recognise a voice, and knowing who it is drops the situation from completely unbearable to only moderately humiliating. If anyone sees this, she's pretty sure she can rely on Renee to help her threaten them into forgetting everything. ]

Beats me. Can you-- ugh, hold on. [ She's just tried to move the hand behind Renee's head to feel for a catch or a seam, but all that's done is catch her SCA on the other woman's hair. She stills that arm, and slumps in frustration. ]

This is so stupid.

[afterburner]

You're telling me. Ugh, screw this! Duck a little if you can!

[And it's time to flex. Maybe there's a bit of punching involved, as Renee takes her pique out on the luggage they're encased in. It's probably not entirely destroyed, but they can at least get out now. Renee reaches back and just pulls her hair free of Light's SCA...sorry about that.]

Well, at least we can get out now. Damn, I bet the inspectors are gone--if they weren't I'd give them a piece of my mind... [That's a growl, and she certainly doesn't look happy about it.]

[enthunder]

[ Ducking in this situation is more a case of tucking her head into Renee's shoulder, but pragmatism wins out as always and she does so immediately. The container rips above and behind her, and she's glad any expression she might have made is hidden against purple fabric. The moment her wrist is freed, she wriggles out. Ugh. How did they both fit in that thing?

More importantly, 'inspectors'? ]

Can you... fill me in?

[afterburner]

It was the 25th of Bassoon. I remember that much, they announced it. [Renee grimaces at this. She can remember the unsettling aura even now, and if she hadn't been taught by some of the best telepaths of her time on how to resist, she'd have been useless. Not that she hadn't really been useless anyway, in the end.]

They locked us in our rooms, and it was like...sickening expectation? These inspectors--they had an aura that was supposed to intimidate us at the least; it was worse for others than it was for me. We were waiting for them...then I heard my name being called, and the last thing I remember is waking up here. So that's all I know, but I'm sure others can tell you, too.

[enthunder]

Last I remember, I was in a muddy tent with goblin blood on my shirt. Glad I missed'em.

[ She hopes she missed them. Honestly, she still has no clue where she is when she's not on the train, so the inspectors... she cuts off that thought ruthlessly. The stink-eye she gives the ripped suitcase might given a clue to her thoughts, though. ]

What's the point of intimidating us? We're stuck here no matter what.

[afterburner]

"Got no clue. Maybe so we wouldn't jump them when they showed up, but honestly, I didn't think that was my best idea at the time either. I didn't want them to hurt my roommates." Renee didn't give a damn about herself, frankly, but none of the others deserved that.

Though her eyes widened at Lightning. "That long ago? We won there, at least. Goblins didn't overrun everything, we didn't lose anyone." Which constituted a victory in Renee's book, at least.

[enthunder]

"That's... that's good. Not losing anyone," she offered in return. It was, actually; the way the mission had been going, it would only have taken one misstep for it to go terribly wrong.

But if it was 'long ago', then she's missed stations, right? If the train is keeping up its schedule.

"Have we lost anyone?" She started to move over to the ICP, meaning to check.

[afterburner]

Oh. Renee should not have been surprised to have that question asked; then again, it brought up a whole lot she didn't want to think about...

But hey, Lightning deserved an answer. "Manabu. Ash. Uldren...I don't think you knew him at all, though, you were gone by then." So yeah, Light had missed at least one station, but Renee wasn't that good at keeping track of these things--days tended to blur together to her.

"It was more like they got off at stations, though, so...maybe they just went home. It's what I hoped, anyway." Especially for Ash.

[enthunder]

"Yeah, that'd be great."

She doesn't say that with any sarcasm. It would be good if they got to go home; it's what she hoped in the last dimensional war she'd gotten dragged into, as well. Now at the ICP, she tabs to the roster, and scowls at the changes there. "You're right, I didn't know Uldren, but Ash and Manabu..."

The train's less competent without them. "Makes you wonder what the trigger is, to get sent home," she glances at Renee, sardonic, "instead of shoved into the luggage."

[afterburner]

"Well, I'm definitely not a good enough girl to go home..." It's an off the cuff remark, sure, but Renee honestly feels that, so she's quick with that particular comeback.

"Yeah. Ash and Manabu..." Renee didn't count people as friends easily, for sure, but she'd counted them. Both of them, she realizes, to her own surprise. It's probably fueled her sullen anger, even before she'd gotten shoved into a suitcase.

"I don't know what the criteria is, really, but if I did I sure wouldn't keep it to myself. I know most of us want to go home." Even if she could take it or leave it, personally.

[enthunder]

"Guess the train agrees with you," she quips, unsure if Renee meant that in a self-depreciating way, or as a boast. "You know, I don't think I'd be happy going home unless I knew we all got to go."

[afterburner]

Oh, if there's a choice between 'self-deprecating' and 'boastful', bet on the former. Renee's usually not one to boast.

"I'd be fine if the ones who wanted to go got to go," Renee admits. "Not sure I'd want to go back to my home, after all."

As to the why, she's not so forthcoming about that. But that's more than usual. Still, she pulls a face and mutters, "Ugh, I think I can smell myself. Ew."

[enthunder]

Unsure how to approach asking about Renee's home, Light seizes the out that Renee has given with a faint gratitude. She has her own conflicting feelings about leaving - whether she'd go back to Gran Pulse, or the world of battle, for example. But that can wait. As she's pointed out, they're both a little worse for their time in the suitcase.

"Lets just hope the showers are free," she agrees, plucking at her own hoodie. "And then we should make sure no one's done anything too stupid... without us, anyway."

[afterburner]

"I hope not, I'm usually the one doing the stupid shit, to judge by my past. Punching the train, that sort of thing." At least Light knows which one of them gets the 'I'm With Stupid' t-shirt.

"But yeah, I wouldn't think so...still, always a first time. But yeah, I'd like a change of clothing. And scenery. And stench. Ugh. Can always catch up at dinner. You know, split up, see what we've learned and crap."

It made sense to her, at least?

[enthunder]

As someone who only didn't punch the train because someone else did it first, Light had exactly zero grounds on which to judge anyone else. But she did it anyway, with an almost fond roll of her eyes. One day, one of them would get through that wall, and it would be so satisfying.

First, though, Renee had instilled in her a deepening need to get into a new uniform and do something about her hair.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll see you at dinner, we can compare notes." She moved over to the carriage door, hit the button to open it, and glanced back, "And, thanks. It... wasn't bad, not landing back here on my own."

fin

[afterburner]

"Uh. Thanks? Back at ya." That was about the last thing Renee had expected, so she stared dumbly as Light made her exit.

Awk. Ward. But hey, she supposed that she couldn't expect anything else from herself. It went as well as Renee could have expected.

She shrugged, and made her own exit, heading back to her room to gather some things and avail herself of that much-needed shower.