Evasion and Chores - OTA

[najaran]

Who: Naja, her Cards, and whoever she can't avoid.
What: Doing her chores while trying to avoid everyone. Which... is just not going to work.
Where: Mostly the Garden Car and kitchen, but all over the place as she gathers laundry and scrubs.
When: After the train AMA till end of month
Warnings: Angst. Angst. Angst. Possible violence/war/PTSD mentions. Death mentions. Possible suicide mentions.




Najaran had a routine, and she could only hide from everyone for so long. Her excuses for not practicing more were the cramped quarters of the train, and her chores. So she had to get back to chores or Goligan and Glorfindel might find creative ways for her to practice somehow without endangering the train. But she really didn't want to see anyone, so she started working super early some days and super late at night other days, trying to avoid anyone who might be looking for her during the day.

She gathered dirty clothes with the help of Eidolon and Gremlin. She had sitting all crunched up in the corner of the Garden Car sorting clothes with Eidolon as Gremlin fetched kindling and scraps for the fire and she grabbed the biggest pot from the kitchen, filling it with water before she left. As she always did. Then she set up her stand over the fire and set the pot on the stand and lit the small fire. Because she kept it small it took forever to heat the water enough, but that was fine. She did the things that should be washed in cold first, using poor Goligan to stir. As usual. Then she hung the first load on the strings she tied up between the far wall and Knight before starting on the next load while that load dried.

Once all the wash was hanging to dry, she left her creatures to watch the fire as she went to the kitchen, scrubbed and refilled the pot then brought it back. She knew more or less how to use the range now, but still preferred to cook in the garden car because Knight didn't have enough room in the Kitchen and besides, this let her be productive while the washing dried. so she tended to the fire and the pot, sending Gremlin and Ediolon to fetch the ingredients and knives and cutting boards and such. She settled into work again when they returned, Knight peeling potatoes, Gremlin cutting the small vegetables that didn't need peeling, Ediolon doing small tasks as he could, and her doing the larger cutting and prep work. She tried to make soup at least twice a week, and enough of it at that for leftovers to last till the next pot, making due with whatever meat she could find in the kitchen, and whatever vegetables. Where she could she tried to make each soup different than the last unless the leftovers went fast.

Once the soup was all packaged up and the cooking scraps fed to whoever wanted them, she and her cards ate, then she took down the wash and folded it. She called Knight back into his card and started returning the clothes to the rooms they belonged to, then set about scrubbing.

Maybe she was working a little harder than usual, but the more she scrubbed... the less time she had to think about the fact that everyone here hated her now...

Comments

[najaran]

She glanced over. Since he wasn't yelling at her, she tried not to tense up. "My friend said he was going to show me, but we keep getting distracted," she said with a shrug. "Besides, I'm not so good with machine things."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"You and a good number of other people on board, apparently," Lea said. "But washing machines are pretty basic. I can show you if you want."

"Though what're you doing laundry this late for anyway? Most people are either in bed already or winding down for the night."

[najaran]

She shrugged. "Got tired of being yelled at, so I figured I'd do it after most people were asleep."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"You mean about the thing at the meeting?", Lea said. He'd witnessed the discussion turned argument- it had been pretty hard to miss-, but as he hadn't been involved with the mission that was the cause of the contention, he'd stayed out of it. "That was a couple days ago. People are still yelling at you about that?"

[najaran]

"Look at where we are? Not like there is a ton else for people to do."

"Plus Lady Najaran has been avoiding people since the train welcomed questions," Goligan put in.

"Doesn't stop him from lecturing me," she muttered, nodding at her cane.

[hotheadwarmheart]

...And now her stick was talking. OK.

"So basically, you don't know and are just assuming people are mad at you," Lea said. "Look, you may not have noticed, but avoiding people is kinda impossible on this train. You'd probably be a lot better off sitting down and talking with the people you think are mad at you one on one. Clear the air, you know?"

[najaran]

"Considering one of them wanted me to fight? No thanks."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"So? Don't fight then if you don't want to," Lea said with a shrug. "Not like she can make you."

"But you can't just avoid your problems and hope they go away. Trust me, I have a friend who pretty much exclusively does that and it's the complete opposite of helpful. It solves nothing and just leads to worrying yourself into a tizzy over stuff that a lot of the time would be easily solved just by talking to people."

[najaran]

Najaran leaned back. "Maybe. But usually the kinds of people who insist on fighting me don't care who else gets hurt in the process. I can't fight back on the train without risking hurting people," she said. "So talking will have to wait till another vacation world or something where no one else will get dragged into it if they ambush me," she said with a sigh. She rested her head against the wall. "I thought the one good thing about being kidnapped away from home when they needed me, besides being able to help people, and trying new foods... was that without other Cepters people would stop wanting to fight all the time."

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea couldn't help a slight laugh at that. "'Ambush you'? Seriously?", he said. "The odds of anyone being able to ambush someone like that on the train are worse than the odds of my friend Isa willingly showing up somewhere in one of those racy bunny outfits. Besides, people who ask you politely to fight them because they want to make sure you can handle yourself aren't usually the ambushing type."

"And anyway, if you're concerned about that, then that's all the more reason to talk to her. Just say something like 'look, if you insist on having a fight, let's set aside some time during the next mission for it' or something. Then you can stop worrying about ambushes, and eventually get things settled. Or you can say 'look, I'd rather not fight about this, how about we just talk?' and then do that. Seriously, the vast majority of the people on the train would probably be willing to talk things out if you are."

[najaran]

Najaran looked confused a moment at the thought of racing rabbits and having no clue what that had to do with clothes, but Goligan spoke cutting into her thoughts. Which was probably for the best for all involved.

"It would help if Najaran were the sort to pay attention to her surroundings," the cane said dryly.

The huge Knight in the corner laughed slightly.

Najaran huffed and sulked. 'I'm not supposed to fight anyone who isn't a Cepter at all." She did it to save her own skin and on missions, but she went for minimal injuries...

... when she could keep her temper in check. She was getting better at that, though.

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea chuckled as well. Clearly Najaran's lack of attentiveness was something of a longstanding joke in this group. "Anyway, like I said, if you don't want to fight her, then don't," he said. "She didn't seem like she was about to force the issue if you'd rather talk it out. She was just worried about you. I think everybody was."

[najaran]

"No," she said, flatly. "They were worried about everyone else." She sagged a bit. "And I can kinda see it, I guess. But still." She shook her head.

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Everyone including you then," Lea said. "Trust me, having once been part of a group that didn't care whether its members lived or died? If they weren't worried about you, they'd have been fine with you throwing yourself in front of a metaphorical bus if you wanted. After all, if you died because of it and didn't come back, it'd be a real easy way to convince people not to do the same thing you did."

[najaran]

"Not sure what a bus is, but I guess you're right... but still. I can't just stay safe and protect my own skin when other people need help. I can't. My father wouldn't have, my Master never has. Kigi didn't. I may not be as strong or as brave as any of them, but they've shown me the person I want to be," she said softly. "Not for them, but for the people who need my help and.."

She swallowed hard.

"It hurt so much.... coming back like that. Abandoning those people, that whole world..." tears ran down her face.

Thunderbeak could have gotten her back, Knight was fast too. And they could have grabbed people on the way...

[hotheadwarmheart]

"You didn't abandon anyone," Lea said solemnly. "You were rescued from being killed or worse right along with them. Something like that happens, it's not something you're going to be able to fight by sticking around on the world itself. We wanna stop those shadow things, we'll likely need to do it at the source." Wherever and whatever that was. "And the only way we do that is by surviving long enough to find it and kick its butt."

[najaran]

"If the train had called us back rather than stealing us back, we could have dragged some people with us," she pointed out. "Some of us could have bought time to get more refugees aboard."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"You sure about that?", Lea said. "Sure enough to not just bet your life on it, but everyone else's too?" It was mostly a rhetorical question. As passionately as she'd argued, none of them had a way to be sure of much of anything on this trip.

"I mean it might have worked, yeah, but if you're ever gonna convince most of the rest of the train that it's a viable option if something like that ever happened again, you're gonna need to have more than a hunch. You're gonna need some pretty solid evidence to back up your case. Some kind of records or something that shows that it at least can be done without royally screwing everyone over, you know?"

[najaran]

"I'm not telling anyone else to take the risk. I'm sure enough to risk my own life. But no one here will trust me to make my own choices and judge my own risks," she snapped.

Slight HTML fail there; only 'can' should've been italics at the end

[hotheadwarmheart]

"No, you're not telling anyone else to take the risk," Lea agreed. "But you might make them take it anyway without meaning to. Tell me, honestly; if it came down to it, if there was another emergency where everybody had to be pulled out right now, do you think the train would leave without you on it if you weren't pulled back with the others?"

That makes more sense, lol

[najaran]

"If I don't have my SCA, then yes," she said, flatly.

[hotheadwarmheart]

"And what if it won't?", Lea said. "Do you have a plan for what you'd do in that situation if the train isn't willing to abandon you? You might be willing to sacrifice yourself, but what if the train won't or can't leave one of its own behind?"

[najaran]

"Then that is its choice, just as this is my choice, and if you are going to keep lecturing me, you can leave. I've heard it all and I'm done."

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea wanted to continue arguing with her. But she sounded too much like he'd sounded right before Roxas left the Organization. She was so certain that she was right. No matter what argument he tried to make, she wouldn't listen.

"I'm not trying to lecture you," he said. "Just... make sure you have a plan, OK? If you're really determined to do this, then make sure you have an actual plan. Which might sound weird coming from me, cause I'm not big on planning at all, but for this kinda thing, if you don't have one, you'll regret it, one way or another." In other words, Naja, please don't be like him, act on impulse, and make everything so much worse.

"And for the record? I do trust you. I know you're doing what you think is right. It's the universe I don't trust."

[najaran]

She hesitated then took a breath. "None of us know enough about any of this to actually plan," she pointed out. "But I work with my cards. They move faster than anyone gives them credit for. And stronger."

She rubbed the back of her head. "At least someone here trusts me," she muttered, but she didn't believe him fully anyway. "But I'm still tired of hearing it. I am tired of being forbidden to go on missions or being challenged to pointless fights."