Getting to Know You(r Roommates) [BACKDATED to 16-18th Domino]

[unfavorableinstigation]

Who: The occupants of Cabin 4-B
What: Mutual introductions (well, not counting one Network thread...); miscellaneous chores and other housekeeping duties.
Where/When: See above!


Nita didn't know much about either of her roommates as of yet - she'd only just gotten here, after all! - but she'd gotten to know a little more about the train, and what it meant now that she was on it.

Of course, it'd be a whole lot easier to find the next-level answers if she knew she could at least get along with the people she'd be sharing a room with! Namine was one part of the equation, but their other roommate was still almost entirely a mystery.

Plus, knowing their backstory wasn't the same thing as knowing who made their own bed, who snored, who went to bed with late-night snacks prepared...

There was a lot of ground to cover, was Nita's point. She'd just have to take it as it came.

[OOC: There's no thread order here! This is like a more fleshed-out version of the Handwaved-CR meme.]

Comments

[really_sketchy]

Naminé was relatively silent throughout the nights and either drawing or gone through the days. She tried to stay out of the way and has been very careful to keep her things tidy and out of the way. This was her first time having roommates and she didn't want to make anyone upset.

It was all very new.

Most of the time she was in the room she was sleeping, trying to sleep or drawing. In this instance she was laying on one of the bottom bunks and drawing something that looked like a snow bear but with shades of blue over top of the pencil and pens colors.

She was very good at keeping to herself but she smiled at anyone in the cabin and was welcome to pause and talk. Naminé was naturally shy.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita was restless, especially at 'night', but for the most part she stuck to her yoga routines and walking the train.

Sometimes, she'd talk - about home, about where they might be going, the things they might yet see... but sometimes the conversations would be about nothing in particular.

Right now, though, Naminé's drawing had caught her attention again, and so she curled up on the bed across from the girl, curious.

"Was that from the last world you visited?" she asked, leaning her cheek against her hand.

"Or somewhere else?"

[really_sketchy]

"It's from the last world we visited. There was a snow bear there... we became friends, of sorts." She didn't really know how to explain it, even if Nita knew more about her powers and her time in the Castle than most on the train. There were still parts she didn't talk about.

"I don't want to forget anything so I draw it out."

She looked up and paused in her work. "What about you? Do you like to draw?"

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita's smile is a fond sort, now; making friends on all the worlds along the way... that she finds familiar.

"I can see why you'd want to remember them."

As to the second question, she shakes her head.

"I'm not all that good at it - but some of the things I get in visions I have to record visuals for, so I had to learn a little skill in self-defense."

The peridexis can't store all of the imagery for her!

[really_sketchy]

"Self-defense?" Naminé looked up at Nita confused. She wasn't sure what drawing had to do with self-defense. It felt like there was something she was missing. It was a common feeling but there was a lot about Nita that confused her.

Somethings she might never truly understand.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita chuckled, though she tried to stop quickly in case it bothered her new friend.

"Meant that as a figure of speech, sorry. I mean that I had to substitute required practice for natural talent."

She glanced back down at the bear. "And from what I know of you already, you've got loads of both in your favor."

[really_sketchy]

"Oh. I don't know about that." She didn't think she had any natural talents nor has she spent a lot of time practicing. She was still figuring things out. "But thank you."

"I just... don't want these creatures to be forgotten."

[unfavorableinstigation]

"No one deserves to be."

All the people she'd met on her own adventures... Nita couldn't imagine forgetting them.

(She still remembered fragments of the dream, where she came close... But she'd gotten through, in the end, and gotten them back.

That was important, too.)

"So, apart from the bears, what else did you see? Who did you meet?"

Though maybe she should let Naminé finish this drawing first.

[really_sketchy]

"I think so too."

Memories were very important...

"Not very much. It was snowing and I was trying to help the people in the caves. I did my best but I didn't see too much. It was the first time I saw snow. It was beautiful. I keep imagining it with blue shadows."

[unfavorableinstigation]

"Were they evacuating? Or were you all just there to help them stay calm?"

The ideal of snow creeps up on her own memories.

"I can see why you would; blue and white just seem to go together."

[really_sketchy]

"They were evacuating into the caves. Some of the younger members were helping them stay calm while others were guiding people to safety." It varied depending but everyone had a job to do.

She nodded her head in agreement. "They do."

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita resettled herself where she sat.

"It works as well for stars as it does for winter weather; I'm not sure why."

She'd explain if Naminé wanted.

[really_sketchy]

"Maybe because they're both white?"

Stars are white... right?

[unfavorableinstigation]

"The hottest stars can be blue, too," Nita replied.

"Stars can be all sorts of colors! Gold is actually the most common."

She'd draw some herself, but there was a lack of proper colored pencils here...

[really_sketchy]

Really? I've never seen stars like that. The stars, where I'm from are worlds and they go out when the worlds light goes out."

It didn't make sense but it was the truth as far as Naminé knew it.

[unfavorableinstigation]

That's... it's a metaphor Nita has heard before, certainly, but mostly as a metaphor.

"Well, we may get to see some red stars while we visit the worlds out here. Just for comparision."

[really_sketchy]

It wasn't a metaphor for Naminé or her world but then, she didn't know that.

"Red stars?" Her brow furrowed. "I don't think I have seen red stars. They're always white light. What world is a red star?"

[unfavorableinstigation]

"It's a stage in a star's life cycle," Nita explained.

"Red stars are cooler than yellow, white, or blue. ... The worlds you're familiar with don't change color naturally, do they?"

[really_sketchy]

"But I don't understand. If stars are worlds, how do they change color? Worlds aren't supposed to die..."

She really had no context to what Nita was trying to explain.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita sighed. "That's entropy for you. Those stars don't usually have life living on them back home, I'll give you that..."

Naminé was probably going to learn a lot from Tony's science classes, even if most of it didn't apply to her world.

[really_sketchy]

"Huh? So where you're from Stars are just dots of light? Not worlds?" That was very confusing but after a short pause she accepted it as fact.

"That's... strange."

[unfavorableinstigation]

"... More complex than just dots, but, yes."

Nita really was going to have to dig out some diagrams for this, wasn't she? Though the visuals in the Manual might be overkill on this matter.

"They have their own voices, too, if you know how to listen."

[really_sketchy]

"Voices?"

She blinked and looked even more confused.

"What do they say?"

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita paused - then laughed, embarrassed.

"It's a consequence of knowing the Speech; we can talk to everything, that way. All kind of beings, of matter and energy and beyond...

"Stars usually talk about the business of emitting light and heat, how their solar systems are doing, stuff like that. I'm no star specialist, though; that's more my sister's department."

[really_sketchy]

"The speech?" She repeated the word as if it was spoken in another language.

It was completely foreign to her and while she understood the general concept, it was a difficult thing for her to grasp in its entirety.

"Light and heat? I really don't understand. Your stars are different but where are the worlds? Can you see them in the sky with your stars?" In Naminés home, stars were entire worlds. They didn't admit heat though they admitted light... in a way.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita nodded. "The language in which the worlds were built, they say. Enacture's a gift from the Powers, but people can still speak it whether or not they have that.

"And worlds tend to orbit stars. Like this!"

Quickly ducking out to grab her own journal (not her Manual, just her train-provided equipment this time), she sketched out a rudimentary solar system.

"You can see other planets in Earth's sky at night, though. They reflect the Sun's light too!"

[really_sketchy]

Naminé leaned forward and looked at the sketch. "That's the sun. Not a star... at least not where I am from." It was troubling that the same words had different and yet similar definition between the realities.

"I don't know who made the worlds."

[unfavorableinstigation]

"That's the thing about the terminology," Nita pointed out.

"All suns are stars where I'm from, and vice-versa."

As for the other matter...

"They get mistaken for gods a lot, but They're not the same thing."

And the influence of the Powers on different worlds was, uh, variable. Not even accounting for the worlds not made by Them in the first place.