frost_jewel | 16. [voiced]

[It’s been a long few days since the Kin’corrans went “home”; Mia doesn’t remember most of them. Since the 31st she’s been, for the most part, sound asleep in the battledome clinic, trying to recover from…well, everything. Dealing with the fire didn’t help, leaving her spent and dehydrated and coughing. The time she’s spent awake, though, convinced her that things in the village were getting back to normal.

So her first mission of the day, after waking and sorting herself out, is to find something to do that will alleviate this boredom and, just perhaps, help make her case for just going home to lie about there instead.]

I know it has been very difficult and busy in the village just recently. Given the date, it will only stay busy. If it is at all possible, though, I would ask a small favor: would anyone be willing to bring a few books from the library to the battle dome clinic? I promise to return them at the first opportunity. …Once I’m done with them, that is.

While I am thinking about it…well, I would not mind a little company either. I want to hear that everyone is all right.

[Missing out on more than a day always leaves her too disoriented for her liking.]

[[ooc: ~~We interrupt the delicious intro train to bring you~~ If you work in the clinic and would like to have that argument about going home, step right up! She's a patient woman.]]

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[...He's not sure what to make of her teasing. It takes him a moment to respond.]

You must be very bored.

Only a little. Nothing dangerous.

[Was she teasing him?]

If you were dangerously bored, we might have a problem.

[Yes.]

What do you think would happen if I was?

[...Damn it, he is not good at this kind of thing. So let's go with bluntness.]

You would stop talking.

Hmm. Yes, I might do that.

[Aww, she doesn't want to make Walter uncomfortable or anything like that.]

How are you? I saw you once or twice during the week but things were...busy.

[Though he doesn't show it, he's relieved by the change of topic. For all of five seconds.]

I'm fine. It was an irritating week, but it seems like I managed to avoid anything serious. [Just the occasional confrontation with people who were lingering too longer by the house, and that one Ferines...] I was out of the village a good amount of the time, fishing.

Oh, so you weren't hungry. Good. ...Ah, I hope you weren't, I mean. If you're a good fisherman.

I spend a lot of time in the water. It's not difficult to catch fish. [He shrugs, as if those two things are distinctly related.]

You were in the clinic the whole time?

You...swim to catch the fish?

Most of the time, yes. For some reason we kept getting new patients even though we ran out of new injured refugees.

[Hear that? That's what she thinks about street brawls and subterfuge when you could be living with each other for a really long time.]

Of course I swim to catch fish. [Between his speed underwater and teriques usage, catching fish was actually pretty easy.]

For some reason. Hn. [Sorry, Mia, but he certainly didn't help matters with his own attitude.] Too many new people at once, poking into things they shouldn't be poking at.

The only ways I know for catching fish are with a pole or a ship's net.

Oh...did they attack you?

...With a pole seems ridiculously time-consuming.

[Er. Attacking might not be the right word.] They were lingering around the house. I don't know why, but it was aggravating that they couldn't just move on.

It takes a long time. Sometimes you don't catch anything at all.

...So you...attacked them? [She's trying to be careful about what her tone sounds like.]

And then you go hungry for the day. [It was a good thing his method was much more effective.

He pauses at her question, frowning.] Only if they didn't take a hint when I yelled at them.

At least it would give me the chance. I could never catch a fish while in the water with it.

[So. Yes? She can't imagine Walter yelling at people.]

I hope nothing too serious happened.

It takes practice. [And probably the ability to breathe underwater.]

They were fine. [Just a few bruises.] If they weren't trespassing, the whole situation could have been avoided.

There wasn't a lot they could do about trespassing, was there? In theory this entire village is "ours." I do wish we had been better able to learn to share.

Learn to share what? Houses they have no business entering? [He's still cross about Kin'corans being too nosy and wandering into the front and backyards.]

[Walter please. It's just some grass.]

To share the space and resources we did have. To stop thinking about who would get "priority" and arguing about why living here is better than living in their old village and how unfair it is.

[Arguments happened in the clinic on a daily basis.]

So you would absolutely fine with people entering your house without your permission? [Because that's what he's getting from this. Nothing so broad as public resources, but what he considers to be private.]

That isn't what I meant at all, Walter.

[Explaining what she did mean feels a little fruitless now.]

Never mind, though. It's over.

Hn. [Dismissing it like that is something he would do and still be angry about afterwards.

Too bad he's as stubborn as he is. He shuts the book.]

[Well.

Not much she can do about that, is there? Here are two choices:
- Feel utterly confused about what made him upset enough in a suggestion to move on in the conversation to hang up on her.
- Worry that she has somehow hurt him with any of the other things she said.

She'll do both. Quietly, over here.]

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