riverview | un: mystearious

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un: mystearious

[ On camera, Tear can be seen sitting against her bed with the lens from a distance, as if she's asking a question. She's not sure about the etiquette of face-to-face communication, so she looks... too serious. Laughably too serious to be coming on here and sitting with you like she's about to divorce you or is in a face to face interview. ]

Hello. My name is Tear Grants. If anyone should recognize it-- contact me.

[ It almost sounds like she's going to beat the hell out of whoever does. ]

I'm new here. I was in the hospital for a little while and I've been cured of-- an illness. Anyway, I've been assigned to Search and Rescue. I'm... in a communal dorm it seems.

I'm aware of the responsibility of one to take care of their own information-gathering, however--

[ Immediately she sits up when she hears a bark outside the window. Rushing over to the side, past her roommate's empty bed, she opens the curtains and sees a dog from the festival walking down the road in an adorable costume. ]

Oh my gosh....

[ She's forgotten the camera doesn't turn off by itself when you leave it alone, it seems. ]

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[He tilts his head.]

...well, none of them are really mine, except the kittens and Nyanko, I guess. I just care for them.

Ah... I guess that's why I couldn't manage this job. I'd think of all of them as my own.

[He chuffs a sardonic laugh, letting his eyes roll partway back into his skull, though not at Tear.]

've you ever heard the term NEET, Tear? --ah, is it okay if I call you Tear?

[ ... NEET? Like, 'neat'? Different terminology for different places, she supposes. ]

Tear's fine... and no, I haven't. What does it mean?

"No Education, Employment, or Training". Basically a bum.

[He sets the kittens in his hands down on a cat tree, scooping the other out of his pocket and putting it with its siblings, and then turning to face her.]

Not so much anymore, but we all used to be NEETs. So I could never really consider all the strays I fed and looked after "mine". So I'm not really used to the ownership of an animal, truthfully.

... This is a good job to take. To be honest, I'm envious. In a place like this, no one would think to take care of the wellbeing of animals when they're probably thinking of ways to get back home or their own survival.

[ A beat, though she still has a reasonably stoic face. ]

You must be a very kind person.

[He tilts his head in a vague sort of nod, agreeing all up until she decides the previous statements mean he's a kind person. At that point, his entire everything tenses and he draws his shoulders up, hunching further into them like a turtle (again), and shies from her in an anxious coil.]

Mmmmn, I wouldn't go that far, and I was assigned the job when I arrived. What class of animal do you wanna see first...? [Change the subject, nope aggressively out the window.]

Edited 2018-02-21 11:02 (UTC)

[ Immediately, Tear is hit with the sense that if someone called her a kind person she'd kind of turtle up too, because there's No Kindness In War and it's an awkward compliment to accept.

Nonetheless, she means it. ]

Class? ... any, to be honest. Small ones?

[Oh thank God she took the topic change. He relaxes, if only slightly, and shuffles toward a door that leads to a hallway.]

"Small" works. Animals here are ...well, I guess different from where I'm from, for the most part, but I'm not sure if they're Quarantine native or not. Preference between mammals, amphibians or reptiles?

They're all cute...

... reptiles, first. [ That way they can work their way up to mammals. ]

[He pauses and gives her a funny look, but doesn't tease-- he doesn't know her well enough to. He nods, and branches off down another hallway once they're through the first door. The shelter isn't terribly big, as a whole, but it's ample enough to house a bit of most of Quarantine's more common animals.]

[The reptile area is small, and connected to the amphibians, so it won't take them long to get through.]

I... don't actually know a whole lot about the animals, here. Some of them have been designated with names, but a lot of them we just make educated guesses about. A lot of the lizards are pretty friendly, if you wanna hold one.

[ Tear is more tentative in this room, cautious-- what would he think of her if he knew she slew monsters on the regular? But she does eventually let a small snake crawl up her glove and wiggle its way back down into the tank.

It's pouty mouth is really cute. ♥

These lizards, too... so cute!! She kind of looks from tank to tank before nodding to continue. ]

So they're not native to your world.

[He puts a hand into an area covered mostly in foliage, and something like a chameleon crawls out onto it, perching on his wrist and shifting colors. He smooths one thumb just between its eyes in a gesture of praise, and then lets it crawl back into its hiding place.]

Not most of them. There are some that look like what I'm used to, but... I mean I guess this place probably pulls animals from all over just like it does people? Though I'm not sure all animals have the level of sentience required for the general "feeling misplaced" rule.

Some might, you never know.

[ She's met enough monsters to guess. ]

So you take care of... all of them? What about coworkers?

Oh, there's another Animal Handler. His name is... Orion, I think? I don't see him much, but our schedules coordinate to where the place isn't left unattended within the hours of operation.

Good to know. [ Still, two people for... all of this? As they move onto the amphibian room, where Tear mostly just looks--

She wants to know more about this person but doesn't want to pry... what would someone more savvy say? She struggles to fill the silence, but maybe the silence is okay for a bit. ]

Is it hard? Living here.

[In truth the care of animals is something he is both good at and enjoys doing. The actual work part of it only really takes a few hours out of every day-- feeding and cleaning, a rotating schedule of taking each animal out of its habitat for individual attention.]

[He considers the question, chewing on it thoughtfully for a while as they peruse the amphibians, and turns to her surprisingly easily with a frog perched in one palm. He offers it to her.]

...that's kind of a hard question to answer.

You don't have to answer it.

[ She takes it gently, and puts one light finger to the top of its head to pat it. With that, she gives him the assurance that she's not one to pry, at least not beyond what she knows of displacement like this. How it affects you. ]

If any of them ever get injured, tell me, okay? I can heal things.

[He... appreciates that she doesn't, in a way he hadn't expected until the pressing questions he'd anticipated never come. He looks her over while she delicately pats the frog, squinting and tilting his head just slightly, the gesture so slight it's nearly imperceptible. What an interesting girl.]

[He starts when she mentions healing things, and then nods, intrigued but also possibly trying to return the favor of not prying.]

I'll try to remember that.

[A beat later, he looks away at the underbrush of an enclosure and his face creases in thought.]

...it's "harder", because I work and we all have to provide for ourselves. But my life was never hard to begin with, so I take it more as something finally got tired of me being a worthless sack of shit. [He says this with an entirely straight face and no hint of humor in his voice.]

You shouldn't say things like that.

[ Tear glances to the side, almost... stern? ]

Nothing got 'tired' of you being anything. If you can live an easygoing life, you should. If you prefer to work hard, you should. Nothing should dictate what kind of life you want but the things that are important to you.

[ Pot calling the kettle vantablack, Tear!!! You decided to kill your brother when you were twelve because he was going to kill everyone in existence but you and some other people!! ]

Too late.

[His expression goes a little deader, with that, almost forced in its blankness, and he sets his jaw, staring at nothing and everything at the same time. "If you can live an easygoing life, you should.", she says. Wars fought so people like him could live how they wanted, without having to fight.]

[He doesn't realize how tense his shoulders have gone until his arms start to shake, and he starts, curling his hands into fists and then forcing himself to take a deep breath and exhale. He doesn't ever figure out something to say in response, too nauseous to reply when he realizes how long he's stood there without replying. If he said something now, it would just look belated and forced.]

[ She doesn't apologize. She stands by her words. ]

No one ever says you're the only say in that, though. I get that too.

[ She was robbed of everything-- Hod, before she was born, her precious childhood memories tainted by how Van had constantly been in the throes of revenge instead of honoring Falmiliarica Satys Fende and keeping what remained of their family together.

It sucks. When other people, making decisions, being there or not being there, being transported to another world-- chooses that for you. ]

[He snorts another derisive laugh before he can think better of it, and then pretty immediately feels like an asshole for it and looks away, hunching his shoulders and hunkering down into them. His hands drive into his pockets as far as he can make them, and he tries his best to not sneer at his own reflection off the amphibian enclosures.]

I guess it comes with the territory of being a soldier, but... You're really serious.

[His tone is light, not quite chiding but maybe a little bit amused. He figures her reasoning for having such a stalwart opinion on this is probably pretty private, so he doesn't ask, instead trying to lighten the mood enough for them to move on to other animals without it seeming like an escape route.]

Ah--

...

[ She awkwardly looks away at that. ] I suppose.

[ Her heels tap on the floor behind him; the only noise in complacent, mutual silence. She looks into the glass doors where animal enclosures are and feels her mood pick up, the tap-tap of her heels getting a bit faster as they get to the mammals exhibit, and upon the door opening she just

oh

my

god?? ]

[RIP Tear, we knew you not very well at all.]

[He leans in the doorway, propping it open with his hip and just lets her take it all in. She was smart to leave mammals for last-- he had a gut feeling she'd like them best, and clearly she'd known herself well enough to know the same. He looks her over as she tries to soak up all the cute, watching how she moves and how she prioritizes what to react to, and folds his arms over his chest.]

[She was a soldier, that much was certain and obvious. But from what he could tell, she was also young. It was a lot less obvious, but it showed in her simple excitement over things someone in the approximate age bracket he assumed her to be by her appearance should be familiar with. Sure, maybe she just really liked mammals, but it also spoke of someone inexperienced. It wasn't like he was that much moreso, he was only eight years older than her, and she had far more life experience from being a part of the fucking military.]

...These guys are a little harder to just take out of their enclosures, but there's a small courtyard if you want to sit with any of them.

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