riverview | oo1. ( video - - early hours of october 2nd )

Entry tags:

oo1. ( video - - early hours of october 2nd )

[ The video feed opens to a mostly dark room, a diffused light somewhere in the room providing enough light with which to see Re-L. It’s nearly 3 AM at the time of recording, and yet there she is, lounged on some piece of furniture in her apartment, a small throw rug over her feet, the soft patter of rain in the background.

She leans forward to settle the communicator on a table, pushing a stray piece of bang too short to make her ponytail behind her ear as she straightens again. Many things, of late, have had her thinking. Perhaps a little too much, but it wouldn’t be a day in Re-L’s world without a little over thinking and, perhaps, idle musing. Piling thoughts related to how, maybe, things could have been different in her home world had things aligned different, how exactly she may have landed herself here.. etcetera.

An abandoned book sits beside her, which seems to indicate she’s been up too late reading, thinking a little too much in the rain as a precipitant to this : ]

Does anyone else here ever wonder about how, maybe, things could have turned out differently if only you’d… done things differently? Behaved differently or been.. made a different person?

Perhaps listened to directives instead of blatantly disobeying and following your instincts.. asking fewer questions.. ?

[ Blue eyes narrow slightly as lightning streaks above her, a roll of thunder loud enough to hear over the communicator seeming to distract her for a moment. ]

That’s the problem with questions and finding their answers - - A lie is the truth until you recognize it as a lie, and by then, you can’t take back the question.

That’s the problem with my questions, really, I still haven’t quite figured out how to start taking them back -

[ Re-L stops before completing that thought, a small ‘mrrp!’ sounding as a little kitten with black and brown spots climbs his way up the couch to her, which.. seems to shock her for all of a second before she’s reaching to gently detach him from the sofa material with a tut, the other hand reaching to shut the device off since who knows how long this will take - ]

Atlas, can you not climb every damn thing in this apartment?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Be able to? Yes. Will he? Probably not.

[ Half-smile. ]

And you've managed, it seems.

[ At least from as far as he can tell. He knows that he might have won the gold if he had chosen a different path. But, he also knows a different path could have led him away from Yuri, which isn't something he'd ever want. ]

I'm sure there's no path without its own struggles.

We'll see about that. He's very head strong already... [ Then he's probably chosen the correct person to take care of him, at any rate. Equally hard headed and difficult with one another just for the sake of it. Either way, Re-L seems content enough scratching the purring kitten in her lap for the moment. ]

Mostly... Some days I still feel a bit maladjusted for "normal" life... [ Including air quotes, here. There's no way to make people here understand just how strange Romdeau Dome was unless they experienced it, and Re-L would never go back even if she could choose to. ]

That's the truth. I suppose all of my questioning lies in just how different things could've been... It seems to me that if one or two things had gone differently it could've changed the entire course of the last month of my life on my Earth..

Cats tend to do what they want.

[ Doesn't he know it. He had seven living in his house, and even though Re-L has hers now, another has been added since Yuri moved in. He doesn't mind it, though. Actually - he really loves it. As if on cue, one of the kittens - the small, black one crawls up the back of his chair and peeks over his shoulder at the camera. He reaches one hand over, and gently pets her. ]

Not like it comes easy.

[ Funny this conversation comes so easy with her, he finds. He's never really talked like this with people. She does make him pretty comfortable. ]

Probably would have. Maybe you wouldn't have been here, or where you were before here.

[ He imagines that a large shift at home, could have changed whether or not this place would have been a part of her life. ]

I'll take your word for it, considering how many you've lived with as of late.. [ There's a little smirk there, but not one that's too telling. She likes to tease him when she can, though maybe not for things that he might expect. They were both a bit of a special breed to live with that many capricious animals in the first place so far as she was concerned, anyway. ]

Yes.. I could've done without Eluvio, but I.. might have ended up here anyway.

Romdeau had never been the best fit, for me, despite being my only home for most of my life.

So many. I anticipate the amount I live with shifting a lot.

[ Small smile. ]

And my boyfriend is a cat magnet. I could swear sometime I see cats following him from a distance.

[ He does sound like he's joking a little, but he certainly does sound fond, at least. The fact that Yuri is so good with them is just one of the many things Otabek loves. ]

Why is that?

[ He does sound genuinely curious. ]

Well, be careful not to collect more than you.. adopt, I guess. [ She suspects living with too many four legged animals may not be all that pleasant, honestly, but it's not something that sh can really judge. Her first pet, ever, is Atlas - and at this point she's just fine with having one pet and one pet only. That may change in the future, but for now she's pretty set with him, and Atlas will most likely benefit from the undivided attention at that. ]

If he tends to be precocious they probably see themselves in him. [ Re-L's not met the man for too long, but from what she hears... ]

It... [ She pauses, seems to struggle with the wording, trying to find the best footing ] It found me to be a bit 'too much' with most of.. everything. I know most everyone here would wonder about that, considering I'm.. told I'm a bit cold, but, in the dome I was considered too emotional, too fast to anger, all of that.

Romdeau also never.. felt like home, either. I was always restless to go and do and try new things but grandfather wanted me at heel.

[ There's the smallest chuckle at that. A rare one, for sure. He enjoys having the cats around him. Though he imagines, without Yuri's influence, he probably wouldn't adopt near as many as he does now, nor would he consider adopting more than he has. It isn't for everyone, though. He reaches and gently pets his kitten, who has shifted to the top of his head, and seems to comfortably nestle herself in his hair. ]

A bit. More than that, though.

[ It almost sounds wistful. Yuri's different with the kittens than people, too. He's softer, sweeter, Otabek notices it. But, he knows his boyfriend would probably hate him saying that to someone he didn't really know, so he leaves his comment at that. ]

I don't think you're cold.

[ Maybe it's that he's also seen that way at home. He's seen as unapproachable and almost unfriendly, he's been told. If only because of his preference for keeping his privacy is a thing. Still, he listens. He can't necessarily understand the fact that she couldn't really roam the way he did. ]

It sounds restricting. Really restricting. And limiting.

[ It's funny, listening to people so clearly enthused with their significant other. She's... well, she's learning about that, maybe. Or had been, with Vincent. A strange kind of magnetism had kept her lingering in the same spaces even when she didn't know why, but now it's a bit irrelevant. He's still in their version of Earth, frozen in the spot in time where she stepped away so far as she understood it, while she lived a more comfortable life, here, for now. She knew eventually she'd have to go back, would want to go back, but for now it's a bit of an escape that she's going to selfishly stay here for.

Anyway, it's good to see Otabek in such a way. Everyone deserves that, after all. ]

Oh? No wonder they like him so much, then... [ Says the one who's just as capricious as a cat, but, anyway - ]

You're a minority. [ She doesn't mind either way, if she's honest. Re-L's demeanor is of course a product of many years of hearing how she needed to control herself, and even now that those who always told her, and even the place, is gone, there's still a part of her that very much feels the need to follow that along anyway. Perhaps it feels a little too much of a part of her at this rate. ]

Yes. A bit of a gilded cage, really. All the privileges I could've ever hoped for as the regent's granddaughter but nothing I actually wanted. Nineteen years in it chafed a little too much and I decided I was going to seek things out instead of waiting as I usually did.

Over all a great bit of self discovery just.. the results weren't at all what I was expecting.

[ Otabek is happy. He's never really felt like that before, so he's still figuring out what it means. He's learning, too. It's just another thing that this place has given him the opportunity for that he may not have gotten at home. At least not like this. And at least not with the chance to have Yuri living with him. Especially after dating for so little time. ]

It doesn't surprise me.

[ And it doesn't surprise him that a cat that liked Re-L's company seems to be...a little feisty. He's still learning about her, too, but he isn't clueless.

He knows that it's hard to have any expectations when you go into things blindly. He knows his own experiences are nothing like hers, though. His was traveling a world he was already familiar with. Easy access to finding things out helped him, too. Thank goodness for the internet. ]

Was that a bad thing?

[ Since they're up late talking, he might as well ask questions like this. It's a nice chance to get to know her a little. He's sure she won't answer if she doesn't want to anyway. ]

[ Re-L gives a pensive noise, a little hum rising from the back of her throat as she debates what to tell him. It's late, and she's sure she'll be a little more loose lipped than usual, but on the same coin... she doesn't want to go around blabbing every bit of her strange history. If there's a single way to make every single person in this quarantine think she's absolutely bizarre it's definitely rooted in the way she ended out in the world in the first place, out and about and available for stealing. She does wonder, though, why this place chose to pluck her up when she'd had much more deeply rooted feelings of not belonging and wanting out whilst in the Dome - ]

Depends on who you talk to. I'm sure those that fell with the Dome or died otherwise would say no. I... had been outside before, so I had already been vaccinated and had a better chance than others..

I just didn't expect for the home I'd known to be rubble and my life now to be a small ship with one other sentient human being and two autoreivs. [ She pauses, and then feels the need to amend: ]

They - Vincent, Pino, Kristeeva - aren't bad, just the.. destruction, I'm sure you understand.

Edited 2017-10-16 01:56 (UTC)

[ He understands, sure. As much as he possibly can. His world, he's learned, is shockingly normal compared to so many others. There's nothing like Domes or Androids or non-humans living on his earth. It's just earth as standard as one would expect. And even though compared to others here, his life is pretty normal, it's pretty extraordinary back home. Not many get to compete and travel the way he does. Not many people get to spend time with athletic icons from other countries. ]

I do.

[ At least logically. ]

At least good things came out of it.

[ He's referring to the names she mentions, of course. Something good has to come out of all the bad, he thinks. ]

You miss them?

[ He knows he misses friends and family from home from time to time. And it makes him all the more grateful and glad to have Yuri's presence. ]

Good is relative, in this case, but, yes. [ Good on her terms, but she's sure they weren't great for everything living left behind in the rubble of the Dome. She doesn't spare it much thought - the idea in itself is horrifying. Any organic being left would become ill and slowly drown in their own lungs as she almost had before being treated for it, and it's all a bit too much to think about when it comes to more than few of her fellow citizens being included in that grouping.

Sure, they hadn't been the most welcoming group of people, to her, but.. they were still other people. She got to survive and move on with a few other living, talking beings. ]

Sometimes, yes... Some more than others.

[ Missing Pino is kind of hard to do except in times of extreme boredom. ]

I tend not to miss the perpetually four-year-old autoreiv, but, at times, her comic relief wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to happen to me, either.

[ He doesn't even think about it, and what comes out is almost reflexive. ]

Aw. Four?

[ Wow. He's trying to imagine Re-L with a four year old and that's just...an entirely new thing. In fact, if she hadn't straight told him about it, he probably wouldn't have believed it was true. ]

Children can be great for that.

Yes. And will never grow more mature. It's her programming. [ Pino.. had her merits, sure. But that child like personality was what annoyed the shit out of her more than anything else in the world. Granted, children were not all that common in Romdeau, so it wasn't as though she would have had much experience with them even if she'd liked children. ]

I tend to prefer Kristeeva's company when possible, but Pino has the ability to accurately gauge spacial distance, so.. it's nice to know just how far away something is when you're trying to figure out the logistics of getting there.

... Or when Vincent wanders too far, where the hell he's gotten, exactly.

[ Programming. Oh. For a moment, he misses 2B. She was the first stranger here he befriended, and she's gone. It's weird to him that she is, too. But he had known for awhile that she was intended to leave. Despite the way Re-L talks, Otabek thinks there's something to it. He's not quite figured out all of her cues yet, though, so he knows he can test the waters. ]

They sound troublesome.

[ Only not. He is trying to figure out what she'll say to that. Test it. See what she'll say. Surely, she can't think that people's time spent with her is only valuable based on their merits. ]

Not entirely. Like I said, sometimes it's a good... release of tension. Distraction from .. everything. [ Considering everything was survival in her version of Earth, it isn't really hard to guess what she needs or wants distraction from. She sighs, looking away from the camera for a moment as she watches Atlas scrabble off to play with some thing or another. It's a good distraction to pull out of the subject of 'home' -

Since she's promptly diving down to pull him back in to her lap. ]

Really, the carpet now? I have all kinds of things for you!

[ The corner of his mouth twitches into a slight smirk. That's probably more like he was expecting to hear in response. He's glad, though. Glad that there are people like that for her at home. Everyone needs someone like that in their life, he thinks. He's always been grateful for his friendships away from work. He's grateful for distractions, and he's happy to have who he does in his life. ]

They say you buy cats a ton of toys, and they'l chose to play with the bag you brought them home in.

[ he's found his will play with just about anything. ]

[ Pino was a bit of a blessing and a curse. She helped to keep Vincent distracted with play time and trying whatever hair brained scheme they'd come up with now. Sometimes, she wore on her last nerve, but most times it all kind of evened out where it counted. She was useful for things, after all, just.. less than Kristeeva presumably. Re-L does tend to be a bit harsh with her, at any rate -

The little autoreiv wore on her nerves more quickly than her pride was willing to admit. ]

I'd say whoever this 'they' is they're correct. Thankfully the bag was paper instead of plastic... it's actually still on the floor in my living room because he seems to like it so much.

... I may have to go back and get one of those cave like beds if he keeps up liking it. Give him a place to hide.

Mine have played with plastic bags a few times. Aiman likes to put it on like a cape and run around.

[ Sigh. It's kind of hilarious to watch, actually. He pretty much watches them do all sorts of goofy things like that. They're really kind of adorable. He sighs happily when he hears something in the background. A kitten working it's way up to the counter. He gets up for a moment to move her, returning with Aiman, the little black kitten, in tow. ]

Cave beds are great. They like it. I have a couple and the kittens used to pile on each other inside.

... Are you sure the cat is liking it? I mean, aren't they prone to getting stuck in those things and then scaring themselves?

[ She's been shown cat videos, Otabek... enough of them to know these things happen. Just don't ask the context in which she was shown these things because she definitely won't answer. ]

Atlas seems to like small spaces like that so.. I'll have to grab one on the way back from my grocery shop tomorrow. Provided those.. spirits aren't still lurking around too closely..

They seem to. At least Aiman does. She seems to be less easily frightened and less clever than the others.

[ He loves her, though. Clearly. She heard her name and comes prancing over from play. ]

Ah...yeah. Those. They're troublesome.

[ He almost forgot about it. ]

Less clever, hm? [ That seems like a shot at the little cat, Otabek, but she's not going to call him on it. Instead she turns to watch what Atlas is up to off camera, apparently finding it to be acceptable as she turns back to the screen. Watching small animals was pretty much like treating them like children, so far as she can tell.

.. The circumstances just happen to be that she has little to no experience with either. ]

Yes, very much so. I've been... staying inside as much as possible, lately.

[ He loves her all the same - arguably, she's his favorite of the kittens. It's okay that she's not the most clever and gets into the most trouble right now. ]

She finds herself in much more trouble than the others.

[ Half-smile when he says it. ]

I've been trying to avoid them. I can't stay in as much as I'd like to avoid them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

oo1. ( video - - early hours of october 2nd )

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject