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 Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:23 pm
Guinevere visited Lorenzo's office at the end of the week.
Vesna floated cautiously near the doorway, remembering that according to hers and Lorenzo's Deal, she was supposed to stay mostly out of the way downstairs where the clients were. Guinevere didn't count as a client, she was pretty sure, but Guinevere was sitting in the waiting room, patiently reading one of Lorenzo's informative pamphlets, which left reasonable doubt.
Thus, instead of barging in and disrupting the three other clients waiting, Vesna tried to catch Guinevere's eye from the stairwell, knocking on the ceiling and coughing. A short while after Guinevere finished with You CAN Teach an Undead Dog New Tricks!, she seemed to take notice, furrowing her brow slightly and searching the room. When her eyes alighted on Vesna, her expression cleared, and she gave the raevan a small wave and a smile, which Vesna eagerly returned.
To Vesna's disappointment, Guinevere didn't actually come over to speak with her. She kept quietly reading, and then when Lorenzo finally finished with his client, she walked into his office. She left very shortly after, but not before giving Vesna another very small wave, which Vesna supposed she would just have to be satisfied with.
No matter how much she negotiated, she had not managed to convince Lorenzo to let her outside yet- only to shorten the amount of time that she would spend inside doing precautionary exercises. She had promised to give it at least until April, but it was agonizing being stuck at home, even with anime to keep her occupied.
"I want a friend," she told Lorenzo as he settled down for an evening of knitting after work.
"You have friends," he pointed out.
"I want another friend to come and visit." She looked at him suspiciously. "Don't you have any friends?"
Lorenzo spluttered. "E-everyone has friends," he said defensively, smoothing out the hem of his cloak. "I actually have friends who used to come over often."
"Used to?" Vesna pried.
"They haven't come over because you're still recuperating. They didn't want to crowd you since they know how it can be."
"How it can- undead friends?" Vesna exclaimed.
"I'd be a pretty strange necromancer if I didn't know any undead people, don't you think?" Lorenzo retorted. "Yes undead people, and good friends- some of them have been friends of the family for generations."
"Well, don't let me stop you from seeing them." Vesna said archly.
"They'll visit again when you're ready and not a moment before." Lorenzo replied. "It's different from a playdate, you know."
"A hangout!" Vesna insisted. "Eden and I don't have playdates."
"You've only hung out once," Lorenzo pointed out, "But I'm glad you've taken such a shine to her. I, too, enjoy hanging out, but I don't see any need to introduce you to so many strangers while you're getting used to your surroundings."
Vesna folded her arms, but she had to concede that meeting Lorenzo's undead pals hardly sounded like the same kind of experience as hanging out with another raevan her age and species.
"But I will be opening the downstairs drawing room after hours again, so maybe every now and then, I'll allow you down there."
"I've been in there," Vesna said. "There's nothing special about it."
"After hours," Lorenzo continued, "Especially after sunset, I allow undead Gaians who feel anxious or threatened in their living situation or maybe just while walking home at night, to use it as a stopping point. Sometimes people just stay for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes they stay the night. I used to use your bedroom for those people." He gestured broadly in the direction of her room.
"I greet everyone who comes in and sit with them for a little bit. Sometimes they need patching up and I'll do that, too. Sometimes they're just undead people who feel estranged from their old social circles and need someone to talk to. I think you could serve that role as well, if you wanted, and," he raised his eyebrows, "If you were tactful about it."
"I am extremely tactful," Vesna assured him unconvincingly.
"Well, if you want to try it, you can sit in with me and get a feel for what it's like before you agree to anything," Lorenzo said. "I'm only reopening my doors like this because you seem to be recovering so fast, but I don't want to push you." He put his knitting aside and reached for a new yarnball. "Anyway, even though my doors are open, people hardly come to me. Gaia's a more accepting place for the undead than it used to be, you know, and anyway, I'm a pretty young necromancer."
"How old are you?" Vesna asked.
"Twenty-five." He looked up and grimaced when she saw her horrified expression. "I'm young for a necromancer." he repeated. "So my office isn't as well known in the undead community as others. Plus I'm still working on my certificate for human resurrection."
"So even if you decide to maybe let me down there, there might not be any visitors anyway." Vesna summarized. "I'm so bored, Dad!"
"You can knit," he offered, pushing his knitting bag over to her.
"I googled that." she said flatly. "It's for old people."
"Vesna, not everything you read on the internet is true," Lorenzo replied a tad huffily. "And knitting is an extremely productive hobby." He paused and added, "Also, there's nothing wrong with being old."
"I've already been extremely productive today." Vesna moaned. "I did all my Russian lessons and I did all my exercises and I updated my instagram and I rearranged my room and I made a Russian-practicing playlist-"
"Wait, have you been buying music with my credit card again?" Lorenzo asked suspiciously.
"Anyway," Vesna continued, "I'm done being productive today and there's no one to hang out with but you, so what are you going to do to amuse me right now?"
Lorenzo tossed the yarnball in his hands up and down for a few moments while he thought. Finally, he offered, "I can teach you how to make a pamphlet."
Vesna considered this. "I can make a pamphlet about anything?" she asked.
"Anything you want," Lorenzo confirmed.
"This will do... for now, then."
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:27 pm
lab 305 spring viewing(many participants!!) vesna is finally allowed to go outside!!! and she makes her debut at a lab cherry blossom viewing party.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:28 pm
team d(cesc, claire, lorenzo, vesna) the spring viewing turns out to be for the birds and one horrible theft later, cesc, claire, lorenzo, and vesna team up to hunt down some fel essences.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:32 pm
actually i think cynny and i were planning a backlogged rp.... i'll save this post for that
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:35 pm
good buddies
(yuri, yves, vesna, and lorenzo)
buddy is gross... but lorenzo and vesna can hire someone to clean him. and maybe along the way they'll make some... GOOD........ BUDDIES . . . . . . . . .
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:40 pm
russian raevan rendezvous
(lorin, claire, lorenzo, and vesna)
vesna meets that one friend you're obliged to be friends with because your parents Already Decided You Would Be Friends and luckily for her, she immediately loves him.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:40 pm
Vesna shook the salt from her hair in the shower the morning after her meeting with Lorin, still grainy from the surf. Wrapping herself in a fluffy towel, which wasn't difficult considering the limited amount of "self" a frei had to wrap, she dried off and wriggled into a t-shirt. Holding out her arms and wriggling her fingers, she declared, "Okay!"
It was summer, it was sunny, and she was well on her way to making ten friends. She grabbed her phone to see if she had any new texts, then, without looking up, she reached for her purse. Opening her bedroom window, she zipped out, and floated down to the first floor, peeking into the window in Lorenzo's office to see if he was busy with a client. She tapped on the glass when she saw he was just sitting at his desk and writing, causing him to jolt, then crumple up the paper regretfully. He looked around, and when he spied her, she grinned brightly, waving at him through the pane.
"Good morning, Vesna," Lorenzo said as he opened the window to let her float in. "Some people knock on the door."
"I don't have any serious business," Vesna said, wrinkling her nose. "I just wanted to ask if I could go shopping." She waved her phone slightly. "I was gonna text Eden and see if she wanted to come, too."
"I'm a little too busy to accompany you today," Lorenzo said apologetically.
"What about Grandpa?" Vesna offered.
"He's got a presentation on road safety at a school."
"Grandma?"
"Work."
"Guinevere??"
"Work with Grandm-- my mother."
"Ian might come," Vesna reached.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he was working, too. It is a weekday."
Vesna sunk into Lorenzo's ergonomic office chair and spun it around rebelliously. "So I'm staying at home today," she surmised.
"Well," Lorenzo began.
"Well?" Vesna leaned forward slightly.
"Well, I was just wondering how you would feel if you had a job of your own?" he asked.
"Like... a necromancing job?" Vesna asked skeptically.
"No, like a... babysitting job?" Lorenzo floundered. "Something easy. Well, not that childcare is easy, but a good first job."
Vesna considered. "By some standards..." she said, "I, too, am a baby."
Lorenzo reflected upon this point. "This is fair," he agreed. "I was just suggesting. If you're bored, you could do it. And then you would have money to spend when you go shopping and such."
"Can't I keep using your money?" Vesna begged.
"If you really need something, I will buy it for you." Lorenzo said, gently shooing her out of his chair and resuming writing the document that Vesna's intrustion had inadvertently caused him to destroy.
"Like what kind of thing could I need?" Vesna asked, resting her elbows on his desk so that he had to look up from his work.
"Like... a present for a birthday party. Or new clothes, that is, when your old ones are too worn or the seasons change. Or a book, if it's educational."
"Oh," Vesna said, floating up towards the ceiling.
"Your disapproval is noted," Lorenzo replied, barely bothering to look up from his work.
"Can I ask for other things?" Vesna asked from above.
"If you can convince me that it's necessary," Lorenzo stipulated. He tilted his head towards the ceiling. "Was there something you needed to buy today?"
"I wanted a 3DS." Vesna said to the ceiling light.
"I hardly think that's necessary. You have plenty of distractions."
"I think it's necessary!" Vesna disagreed. She floated back down towards Lorenzo. "What if I meet someone?"
"You met Lorin yesterday without one," Lorenzo pointed out calmly.
"No, like, a boy."
"Lorin and Rhedefre are both boys."
Vesna waved her hands, as if trying to get ahold of some invisible creature, or a concept just on the tip of her tongue. "Like, a sparkly boy."
"I think you'll find that Rhedef-"
"Cesc is sparkly because that's just his power!" Vesna argued. "And he's kind of old. I meant like someone who sparkles because they're really cool. Like in anime."
"Like a crush?" Lorenzo asked archly.
Vesna's cheeks flushed and she whispered "I guess."
"You could have just said so."
"I feel funny saying it," Vesna admitted. "But in anime it happens all the time, so I thought it might happen to me one day?? Like, I know anime's not real, we've been over that," she said as she saw Lorenzo open his mouth to protest. "But falling in love is real."
"For some people," agreed Lorenzo. "And how does a 3DS factor into this?"
Vesna bit her lip and wrung one of her ponytails in her hands. "I..."
"I don't want to mess up."
Lorenzo furrowed his brows. "Mess up... falling in love?"
"I know," Vesna said, "That I have to do all these undead exercises and stuff, right? To practice stuff that undead people aren't really good at... Or, like, need practice to get used to. But I'm a rusalka, too, and I-I read the book and stuff. I know I probably died because of, you know..."
"Someone sparkly," Lorenzo inferred.
"Or something," Vesna said defensively. "And, like, you can't really do exercises for romance. But I think... I might not be good at it..."
"And?" Lorenzo prompted.
"And I read that there were games you could play that could help you practice," Vesna finished lamely.
"You know that games aren't real either, right, Vesna?" Lorenzo asked.
"I know! I know!" Vesna defended. "I just thought that maybe some practice was better than no practice, and maybe at least, they could make thinking about it less scary."
There was silence as Lorenzo put the finishing flourishes on his document and waved the ink dry. Vesna was watching him, and he was looking out the open window, lost in thought.
"Well?" Vesna demanded.
"I'll look into it," Lorenzo decided. "And then, if I think it might be helpful, we'll find you a game to play on your laptop first. If you want a 3DS, you're going to have to make a stronger case." He saw Vesna's expression and gently added, "I have heard some videogames can be useful in treating patients."
"It'll be useful," Vesna asserted. "You'll see."
"If you get a job," Lorenzo pointed out, "You can buy these things without my approval. That could be useful."
Vesna shook her head reluctantly. "I think I feel even less ready for that."
"Just something to think about," Lorenzo reassured.
"We'll see," said Vesna.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:42 pm
festive weather
(duncan, aina, vesna, lorenzo)
vesna and lorenzo participate in a japanese summer festival and run into duncan and aina just in time to prevent lorenzo from having to eat yet more highly instagrammable food.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:43 pm
"Is it ready yet?" Vesna asked, flitting over to lean on Lorenzo's shoulder.
"We just put it on the burner," Lorenzo replied, brushing her cold, damp hands off his cloak. "Have you heard the saying: 'A watched pot doesn't boil?'"
"This is a kettle," Vesna pointed out.
"Either way, it requires patience," Lorenzo admonished.
From where she sat on the couch, Nicolina laughed. "Come over here, Vesna," she encouraged. "You can look at some of the teas I bought."
"Okaaaay!" Vesna called, and floated straight back into the living room, where she had been arranging her souvenirs from the summer festival moments before. "Thanks for bringing all these, Grandma!"
Lorenzo and Nicolina shared a look from over the counter dividing the small kitchen and the living area. Lorenzo's glance seemed reluctant, but Nicolina looked like a cat with a bowl of cream. It had taken Lorenzo months to admit to his parents that one of his clients was calling him "Dad", but far from the dressing-down he had expected, his mother and father had been delighted.
They had a serious case of grandchild-blindness. He had pointed out that even for an unusual client, this was, perhaps, too much. It was the first time his mother had ever told him to lighten up. His father had come over the next day with wing cozies, -wing cozies-, that he had knitted himself that night. When his father had been recovering from a traumatic death when he was ten, Lorenzo hadn't even been allowed to call him "Father" for a year, lest he cause those memories to resurface unnaturally. His mother had even invited him to Lorenzo's own birthday party as if he was a stranger.
His father now tapped him politely on the shoulder, and Lorenzo snapped to attention.
"I said," Nicolina repeated from the living room, "I'll leave all of these white teas here for Vesna if the experiment is a success. Really, Lorenzo, you could use them, yourself. It'll help you relax a little."
"Yeah, Dad," Vesna parroted gleefully. "Relax."
Lorenzo scowled at them from the kitchen. "Even if it does work, you shouldn't overindulge," he warned, lifting up the kettle as it began to whistle. "You don't know how much tea will make you sick."
"I know, I know, I'll be careful," said Vesna, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "I'm always careful."
"Joke if you must," Lorenzo retorted archly. "But there's plenty of reason for concern. Undead people shouldn't be able to eat or drink in the first place, you know." He glanced back at Emmerich, who was carrying Nicolina's mug and patiently waiting for the water to boil, but noticeably lacked a mug of his own. Back when he was alive, his father had been a coffee man. Now he subsisted strictly on magical energy.
"Tell me how it tastes," he told Vesna gravely. She gave him a dutiful little mock salute.
"See?" she said primly. "I need to use my skills to do research for Grandpa."
Lorenzo opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, the kettle whistled. Vesna floated over, mug in hand, and tea selected, volunteering, "I'll bring them all to the table!"
They were all crowded around the living room table, where there was a small Victoria sponge cake, which mercifully Nicolina did not insist Vesna try. "This one's just for us, I'm afraid," she said, serving Lorenzo a generous piece. "But when you grow, I'll have plenty of cake for you, darling."
"Well, I'll tell Grandpa how the tea tastes, and you can tell me how the cake tastes, and that way we'll have all the bases covered." Vesna suggested. She blew on her tea theatrically, closed her eyes, and leaned in to take a sip.
Lorenzo nearly leapt over the table, as Vesna began to choke, sloshing most of the tea in her mug onto the floor. "It's too much," he fretted, thumping her back. "Spit it out."
Vesna did spit it out into the hand that she had cupped to her mouth. Lorenzo reached for her mug, still partly full of tea, but she pulled it away from him and tried to take another sip. "Vesna," Lorenzo warned. "Vesna, no, give it-"
"No, I can finish it!" Vesna insisted. "I was just surprised, so-"
"Vesna, it's too dangerous. Give me the mug."
"No!"
Vesna quickly lifted the mug to her mouth, and swallowed the remainder of the tea. It was still too hot to gulp, but she glared at Lorenzo through watering eyes and swallowed, keeping it down this time, but grimacing. "See?" she gasped, swiping at her lips. "I can drink it!"
There was a held-breath moment, but nothing happened.
"So you can!" Nicolina gushed to break the awkward silence, clapping her hands together in exaggerated delight. "Well? Did you like it?"
"Mother," Lorenzo said, rising to his feet. "May I speak with you in the hallway?"
"Why?" demanded Vesna. "Are you going to talk about me??"
Emmerich intervened, placing his hand lightly on Vesna's shoulder. "Tell me how you liked the tea," he rumbled. "I am in need of your research."
Vesna looked back at Lorenzo and Nicolina hesitantly, but relented. Lorenzo turned and strode into the hall, Nicolina at his heels.
"Well?" Nicolina demanded.
"I would appreciate it," Lorenzo began diplomatically, "If we all treated Vesna a little less indulgently."
"We were just having a pleasant afternoon," Nicolina rebutted. "I know that she's delicate, but if other raevans can drink tea safely, then there should be no reason Vesna can't."
"There's plenty of reason!" Lorenzo insisted. "Other raevans eat all sorts of things Vesna can't eat- and vice versa. Plus, her soul is undead. A real rusalka could never drink tea. I've researched this, Mother."
"Well, if she wasn't able to drink tea, we would deal with it, but she is, clearly, and she likes it, so I for one don't see the problem here. We're just worrying her by consulting about this in secret."
Lorenzo groaned. "It is not clear that she can drink tea! Or that she likes it! She's clearly forcing herself to drink it because I told her to stop- you don't live with her, Mother. I live with her. I know what she's like, and I think that she needs to learn to listen to me when I'm trying to get her to exercise a little caution, and playing along with her after she causes a scene is not helpful."
Nicolina clicked her tongue. "Vesna wasn't the one who was causing a scene, Lorenzo. You were overreacting to a simple cough. I know you want to raise her right, but you can't expect us to help you discipline her. We're her grandparents. We're allowed to indulge her a little, surely."
"You're not her grandparents! She's my client," Lorenzo seethed. "And you should know that better than anyone!" He ran a hand through his hair, agitated. "And... and-- overreacting? Since when was doing my job for a client overreacting?"
"She's not an ordinary client," defended Nicolina. "Not legally, not magically, and not practically. You're her guardian, not just her necromancer, so you must learn to treat her more casually. She'll never feel comfortable with you otherwise," Nicolina chided.
"Dad wasn't an ordinary client either!" Lorenzo exclaimed.
Nicolina stepped back, stung. "Lorenzo," she ordered, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. "Lower your voice."
Lorenzo's shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry. Look, I know-- I don't begrudge you. But I learned it from you. I know Vesna's different, obviously she knows it too. But you still treated Dad like any other client. And I just, seeing you two acting so informal, and so flippant towards Vesna, after everything that happened back then, I feel like it didn't matter. Why did I pretend my own father was a stranger for so long if in the end protocol and boundaries don't matter?"
"I understand," said Nicolina gently. "Lorenzo, I did what I believed was best for your father. I made those choices because he was not in the physical or mental condition to make those decisions. But Vesna is not your father. And she is not a client who can't speak her own mind properly yet. She knows what she wants."
"No, she doesn't," Lorenzo insisted, less forcefully this time. "She just thinks she does-"
"She thinks she does," Nicolina agreed, "And it's your job to help her define the kind of life she wants and work towards it. That's recovery, Lorenzo. But it's also parenting, and you're partly her parent now. Not just on paper, but because that's what she wants you to be. So be patient with her. Every child wants things that their parents think might hurt them. Your job isn't to stop them from trying to have those things, your job is to help them if those things do hurt."
Lorenzo took a deep breath. "It's just complicated," he complained. "I'm not ready for it."
"Nobody is," Nicolina said flatly. "But you have us, dear. No matter how old you are, or whose parent you are, we're still your parents, too. We'll always be there to help." She patted his arm gently. "Now, are we done here?"
"We're done here," Lorenzo relented. He let Nicolina twine her arm around his and lead him back into the living room.
"Sorry Dad," Vesna muttered when he came back into the room, looking resolutely not at him, but slightly past him, at the wall.
"I'm sorry, too," Lorenzo countered, sitting himself next to her. "Have you told Grandpa your research results, yet?"
A small smile crept onto Vesna's face. "Yes," she announced primly. "I informed him that it tasted gross."
"Well then, it sounds like it's time for blend number two," Lorenzo observed archly.
"That's the spirit," Nicolina encouraged. "And I'll put the kettle on."
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:44 pm
Buddy liked when Vesna played the ukelele.
Lorenzo had offered it to her before she was allowed to go out, as part of her exercises when it started to become clear that she had outgrown the exercises typically prescribed by his books. It was common, he had informed her back then, for undead people who had advanced in their therapy to pick up an instrument. It helped develop their cognition and their fine motor skills in a way which wasn't as tedious as endless repetitive exercising. He had allowed Vesna to choose her own instrument, or at least the kind of instrument he would go out and buy for her. She had heard the cute ukelele covers on Youtube. The choice was simple.
Since she had been let out for the first time, she had barely touched her ukelele. Being able to leave the house made practicing way less interesting in comparison to all the other things she could be doing, and even if she could play basic songs now, she was nowhere near good enough to feel like showing off. Not, she reflected, that she could make her own Youtube channel. You couldn't share what you couldn't film, after all.
That made Buddy her audience of one, except on the rare occasions that Lorenzo made time to join her for a duet, which was never terribly fun for her- the violin always got the parts of the song that sounded most, well, like the song in the duets they tried. Plus Lorenzo was way more precise than her. Vesna didn't always remember all the notes, and tended to improvise as it suited her. Lorenzo minded this a fair deal more than Buddy did- Buddy didn't mind what Vesna's ukelele sounded like, so long as he got to bat at her hand as she strummed it.
"I think I've got it now," she said, chewing her lip thoughtfully. She strummed a few notes and paused, shaking her head. "Almost, but not quite."
Buddy batted at her hand, trying to get it to move again. Vesna pushed his face gently away. Reaching past him, she grabbed a notebook, and scribbled a hasty note on it. "So it's like... Dear Dad- I know I ask for a lot, that the charms that I bought, with your credit card, went a little too far..."
She squinted, and strummed at the ukelele again, singing, "But a... videogame... Would be good for my brain?" experimentally. She made a note of that in her book as well.
"And I'm a little bit scared- I feel unprepared, you say rusalki are great, but they really can't date, and I want to try, but if I meet a guy... Or maybe a girl...??"
"If I meet a guy... or maybe a girl..." she trailed off thoughtfully. As much as she tried, she couldn't imagine it happening in any way that didn't seem like an anime screenshot. She could imagine Eden dating a really cool guy, and Eden seemed really into that stuff, like, IRL. On the other hand, Lorenzo had never dated anybody- she had heard Grandma complaining about it when she was telling him how glad she was to have some kind of grandchild.
"Maybe I'll never care," she sang hesitantly, leaning a little on her ukelele, "But if someone's out there, I want to prepare..."
She bit her lip thoughtfully. "And if fictional guys, with anime eyes, can make me feel brave, on an IRL date, that'd be great..."
Buddy rolled over as she stopped singing for a moment, meowing insistently for her to keep moving her hand in a funny way. His meow had the same kind of quality as her grandpa's voice had- it sounded a little echo-y, like it wasn't coming from his throat, exactly, but from some place that was nearby and far away at the same time, somehow. All the undead people she'd met sounded a bit like that. Lorenzo had said that back in the bad old days, necromancers hadn't needed the undead to speak at all, and hadn't bothered trying unless they needed them for divination, in which case, they, ugh, spit into the corpse's mouth to grant it temporary speech. It wasn't until necromancy began to be reformed that the kinds of spells that granted speech to the undead were developed in earnest.
She didn't sound like that at all, as far as she could tell. And she could drink tea, and one day, supposedly, she'd be able to eat human food. There were so many ways that she was different from Buddy and Emmerich. She didn't feel undead. But... If she went on a date...
She imagined the picture of the blue haired rusalka in the marsh, and her grip on the ukelele tightened slightly. She couldn't imagine dating IRL yet. But a tiny little part of her could imagine being that. Suddenly being some kind of...
"Monster." she sang, strumming a discordant note.
She shook her head, crumpling up the notebook page. "This is dumb," she told Buddy, and threw it, watching him chase after it, bottlebrush tail in the air. She watched him go, and closed the door when he left, sinking quietly down to the floor. Taking a moment to collect herself, she tugged at a ponytail anxiously and got up, trying again.
"When I play songs with you, it's all at your pace..." she tried.
"I start losing my place, I get flushed in the face, and Dad, I just wanna try, to deal with talking to guys, with a stupid ploy, maybe I can enjoy..."
She stopped. "I'm just goofing off, huh?" she asked the air, and picked up her ukelele, putting it back in its case. Floating over to her desk, she started googling studies on the positive benefits of videogames.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:44 pm
Lorenzo hovered anxiously over her the whole day after they came home from buying her 3DS, so Vesna studiously pretended to forget that she even owned one, spending her free time reading one of the YA novels that had slowly begun gaining a toehold in Lorenzo's bookshelves. She was not interested in giving Lorenzo her opinion on how playing a videogame for the first time affected her mental state as a rusalka: she had already had to practically turn in a research paper just to convince him to buy her one in the first place.
When night finally fell, she took the 3DS out from its box and slotted in the game cartridge she had bought used with it. She plugged in her headphones and turned it on, expecting to play right away, but ended up needing the next ten minutes to set it up, which entailed going out into his study and asking Lorenzo What's the wi-fi password again??
So much for being discreet.
She managed to get back into her bedroom without anything more than a slightly-too-casual Are you trying your game now, then? from Lorenzo. Shutting her door, she sank to the floor and laughed.
"I made it!" she said to no one in particular, picking up the 3DS, her 3DS and selecting the game's icon on the home screen. The screen went black, and then soft music began to play as the intro loaded. It was the same as an anime opening, so far as Vesna could tell, maybe a little less professional looking, but something felt different. The game segued into the start screen, and Vesna felt her stomach flipflop. She could meet all those characters. Sort of.
She pressed start and "new file", silently apologizing to "Koko" as she overwrote the old save data. The game loaded up a character creation screen, and she paused, glancing upwards to the mirror Lorenzo insisted she keep in her room in case she needed to feed at night.
She didn't need to see her reflection to know what she thought she might look like. She could see part of her body, after all, and that was one of the big reasons she decided to name herself Vesna, but, well...
No one had ever really let her choose what she wanted to look like. She had learned to settle with something she could learn to accept.
So what did she want to look like?
She made a quick mental list of all her favorite anime heroines, of her friends, who all looked so cool and, enviably, knew it, of the YA protagonists in the hand me down books with the skinny, modest frames, and the plucky can do attitudes. And she borrowed. Just like she had that very first day, flipping through Zeke's books to draw what she Probably Thought Lorenzo Would Look Like. She wasn't much good at making things up out of thin air. But borrowing suited her, and it made her feel good to look at the girl on the screen afterwards and see the parts of her that reminded her of things she loved.
She hit "confirm" and it took her to a screen that asked her to enter her name. She typed in "Vesna", but backtracked when it asked her to confirm, a niggling doubt in the pit of her stomach. She didn't want to saddle the character she made with her name. Lorenzo said names were important. It felt wrong to spend so long on a character, even a character that was supposed to be her, and then just stick a name on them that didn't quite fit. This Vesna wasn't really her, as much as she'd like to believe that underneath all the layers of magical glamour, she was a girl who looked like all the things she thought were pretty. In real life, she didn't get to choose. She didn't even get to choose how people saw her. This Vesna was more like a vacation from all that, she guessed. She didn't have to think so hard about it. She got to choose, and that was how it was.
She typed in a name and confirmed this time, moving on to the opening sequence.
The screen was black, but then a dialogue box popped up.
"Wake up..."
"Wake up..."
"Minako, please wake up!"
It wasn't everything she expected it to be, Vesna thought, after a few hours of playing. All of the dialogue options were preset, and she had already rotated once through all of the characters' daily default dialogue. But, as she got ready for bed, brushing her teeth facing an empty bathroom mirror, tying up her pigtails behind her head, and slipping on her pajama top, she thought about Minako and the pajamas she bought that perfectly matched her pink hair.
She chose those pajamas herself.
And she thought, even if it wasn't exactly what she had hoped for, that she really liked videogames.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:46 pm
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:47 pm
im literally going to write a solo about her playing videogames i guess
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:48 pm
close encounters
(solo, raz, vesna, and lorenzo)
vesna and lorenzo lock themselves in a room with strangers in the name of fun.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:51 pm
The longer Vesna lived with Lorenzo, the more she developed a grasp on the typical schedule of a practical necromancer, and it orbited around a horrible truism, that being that the more time people had on their hands, the more trouble they would get into.
Lorenzo’s office hours were rigid, but the emergency calls he took to practice necromancy on human subjects could not be scheduled, and so took place whenever an emergency occurred. It meant a few late nights every month, but on some holidays, Vesna might never see him. Summer meant that people were tempted out more often by the warm weather, and all the accidents that could entail meant that the couple of monthly calls had increased to maybe one or two a week. Humans, reflected Vesna, were awfully fragile, and she was glad that she wasn’t one. It wasn’t just the death thing- their bodies had such strange requirements, and she was glad to be spared so many of them.
For instance, perhaps unfairly, she needed far less sleep than Lorenzo, even though he was the one who had to pull all-nighters for crises and paperwork and necromancy, and now, after a particularly late night, he was asleep, but not before unceremoniously throwing up in the bathroom, citing that he was “feeling woozy”, and practically passing out before he even reached his bed. He was normally at least a little sturdier, but this was the second all-nighter in a row, and he couldn’t convert energy by looking into a mirror. Vesna had examined the vomiting with idle interest, helped carry him to bed, and spent the rest of her morning watching cartoons.
There was a knock on the door at around eleven, and Vesna floated cautiously over to it, calling “Who is it?” with her hand on the knob. Whoever it was had a copy of the key to the building, as the office was locked right now.
“It’s Guinevere!” replied the visitor, and Vesna opened the door eagerly. Her grandmother’s prim and proper legal secretary did indeed stand on the other side, balancing some grocery bags in both arms. “I heard Lorenzo wasn’t feeling well,” she explained.
“Did Grandma send you?” asked Vesna.
Guinevere shook her head. “She just told me he had been pulling all nighters lately. I like to stop in and check on my friends.”
Guinevere did not act like a girl who had too many friends, so Vesna supposed she had to take extra care of all of them. She helped carry the grocery bags into the kitchen, and Guinevere ‘tsk’ed at the sight of the nearly empty fridge. “He’s so bad at this.” she complained to Vesna. “You’d think now that he has a ward at least- although, you don’t eat, do you?”
“Not yet,” Vesna admitted reluctantly. “I can drink tea, though!”
“Well then,” said Guinevere. “I’ll make breakfast for myself and Lorenzo, and we can put the kettle on.”
“Dad’s asleep,” Vesna offered.
“We’ll put it in his room,” Guinevere insisted. “He has to eat.”
Over tea, and, in Guinevere’s case, soft and fluffy pancakes, Vesna and Guinevere chatted. The television provided a cheerful background noise- Guinevere had insisted that Vesna should still watch her cartoons if she wanted, which Vesna thought was very kind of her.
“Are you getting along all right?” Guinevere asked solicitously, and Vesna nodded.
“Mmm! I’m having a pretty good summer. And I made a lot of friends, and I gave a few of them phone charms like you gave to me.” She beamed. “And I got a 3DS and I’ve been watching more anime! Do you watch it?”
Guinevere shook her head. “I mean, I’ve seen some, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. Most of that stuff comes from my friends. Growing up, I liked period dramas and such.” She blushed. “Your grandmother and I are alike in that respect, I suppose. That’s how we started getting to know each other outside the office.”
“Do you have a gentleman?” asked Vesna, thinking of Ethiriel. Guinevere choked on her tea.
“I wouldn’t call him a gentleman, but I do have a significant other. It’s nothing dramatic or serious- just a close and amicable relationship, I’d say. He’s a bit older, and then there’s the fact that though I look like I’m in my twenties, I’m maybe only ten.”
Vesna frowned. She thought that Cesc was old, and he didn’t even look twenty. She couldn’t imagine being with someone as old as all that. “He’s a human?” she asked. “Aren’t you afraid of that?”
“Of… humans?” asked Guinevere politely. “Not particularly.”
“I mean, like,” Vesna glanced towards Lorenzo’s bedroom. “They’re always dying and stuff, you know? And they’re kinda fragile. Like, wouldn’t you be sad if something happened to him?”
Guinevere laughed. “Well, I can’t say I don’t see what you mean,” she said. “But you must keep in mind that since you live with a necromancer, you hear about rather more death than the average person would. Humans aren’t so fragile as all that.” She traced a circle around the rim of her tea saucer and added, “My mother died young though, so I suppose I’m one to talk. No, I do think about it, but…”
She leaned in and changed the subject suddenly, asking, “Lorenzo says you like mythology?”
Vesna nodded. “I mean, I read a lot about it at first, because those books were the only interesting ones he has, but I still like it! I don’t think I like being mythological, though.” She scrunched up her face. “It sounds a lot more exciting than it is.”
Guinevere smiled wanly. “A good way to put it, I think. I enjoy mythology as well, but I don’t really enjoy being mythological. You see, Heralds are all born with special powers, just like raevans. It depends on what their guardian sacrifices to them. In these kinds of rebirthing programs, that’s a common feature, I suppose. Now, my friends have very useful powers, but my sacrifice was, as you put it, a little too mythological. Have you heard of the Moirae?”
Vesna frowned. “The Fates?”
Guinevere nodded encouragingly. “Well, my power is sort of like that. My sacrifice was scissors with a ribbon wrapped ‘round them, plunged right into my back. All of which is a roundabout way to answer your first question- my one and only power is to predict the deaths of people I know.” She pursed her lips, adding, “Depending on how well I know them, I can do it up to… a week in advance? But it’s only happened once or twice. My second guardian was a death god, himself, so I thought it would be a good idea to work for Nicolina and try to understand all that better, and I’d say it’s made things easier to cope with, but it hasn’t given me any more control over my abilities.” She took a sip of her tea. “Usually I don’t like to mention it, but Lorenzo mentioned that you were a bit frustrated with your own abilities.”
“But that’s--” awful. Vesna thought, cutting herself off before she could hurt Guinevere’s feelings. Her face must have shown it plain as day, because Guinevere reached over and gently touched her shoulder. “It has its uses. If my power had been something else, I daresay I’d never have met you.”
Vesna thought about all the friends she made, and what she would do if getting close to them meant being more likely to one day know they were going to die. “Well, it’s good you work for Grandma, then!!” she insisted. “Because Lorenzo can bring them all back for you!”
Guinevere waved a hand. “Out of the question! I can’t afford all those resurrections. It doesn’t come cheap, you know!”
“He’d have to do it for free, because you’re like family,” insisted Vesna. “Plus he owes you for all the breakfast.”
“That’s what Nicolina said when she tried to get us to date,” Guinevere laughed. “Are you sure you’re not really related?”
“Well,” Vesna said, “Of course anyone’d want to help out if your powers make you upset!”
“Not anymore they don’t,” Guinevere reassured. “Though it’s sweet.”
“I guess that’s good, then,” said Vesna, and, feeling sheepish after her outburst, she spent a few minutes pretending to check her phone. Guinevere got up and put her plate in the sink, washing it by hand, which was something Vesna had never seen Lorenzo do, and watched out of the corner of her eye.
Guinevere sat back down. “I think I’ll check on your guardian soon, Miss Vesna,” she said.
“Mmmm. Hey Guinevere?”
“Yes?”
“How did you learn to be ok with your powers? Like, you still can’t control them or anything, right? So what did you do?”
Guinevere pursed her lips. “It’s hard to say, really. I don’t think there was anything I did that made me feel like things were ever any different. I just had to live with the facts, and over time, I sort of… got used to it.”
“Oh. That’s cool, I guess.”
Guinevere looked apologetic. “Not the answer you were hoping for?”
“No- I mean, it’s cool, and all, I just don’t really think I’ll ever get used to all this.” Vesna gestured up and down at her body. “Like, every time I think I’m used to it, one of my friends wants to take a picture or something, or I’ll be, like, at a party or a festival and I’ll think about all the tourist photos I’m ruining just by being there. I mean, at least you can just… not tell someone that they’re gonna die? But I can’t do anything to control things, and it just kind of frustrates me a little. Uh. Or maybe a lot.”
Guinevere tutted sympathetically. “It’s not your fault,” she reassured. “And I’m sure you’re more important to your friends than a picture or two.”
“Mmmmm,” Vesna said noncommittally.
“If you ever get frustrated and you need to talk, you can always call me,” Guinevere insisted. “But there’ll come a day when you hardly think about these things, too. You just have to wait.”
A noise came from Lorenzo’s bedroom, and Guinevere got up to check. Vesna watched her go, then went back to the couch to catch the last of the Saturday morning cartoons. She believed Guinevere, because Guinevere radiated maturity, and was dating an adult, and knew all about everything from phone charms to powers, but she was not Guinevere, and she a tiny part of her thought that even if she lived to see seven million Saturdays, she’d never learn to be okay with all the things that made being a little too mythological messy.
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