Welcome to Gaia! ::

Madison pushed through the flap of the Triage tent and took a deep breath - the air of the Island seemed clean and fresh, familiar. Like home. The shapes of the buildings were familiar too, a relief after the strangeness of the House and everything they'd seen within it. How long had they spent in there? She really had no idea. It seemed like it had been only an hour... or maybe a month.

But she'd come out here for a reason. Fortunately, Ennea hadn't gotten too far - she could see the pink-haired Hunter just halfway between the tent and the main 'campus'. "Hey! Ennea, wait up!" she called out, forcing her tired muscles into a run - and then dialing down into a slow jog as her legs sent back an unholy protest. Ow.

"Ennea - you're seriously not going to go into the cafeteria like that are you?" she said as she reached the younger girl's side. Neither of them were particularly clean at this point. "C'mon - you should, like, take a shower or something first. I'm going that way too if you want to tag along?"

"I got you all gunky and stuff, too." Madison made a face as she fell in step with the younger Hunter, comparing the goop level of Ennea's clothing to that of her own. Madison herself was just a mess, with her entire front stained black and more of the stuff crusting on her hands and feet. Her shoes were a total loss. "Anyway, uh, I need some help with... with this." She reached up to tap at her hair and winced as her fingertips touched frizzed, burnt hair in huge snarls. "Another, um, set of hands to, like... cut off the burned bits... if that's okay with you, I mean?" she asked, more tentatively.

Stupid stupid winged b***h.

"Yeah, well...." Madison sighed, then wrinkled her nose at the burnt-hair smell. "I gotta get the burned bits out so I can wash it. Ugh, it stinks! I can't walk around smelling like that, y'know?" Oh, man, now that she was really taking stock of the damage, she was starting to feel really gross. Ew, ew, ew.

"Your hair's cute," she added. And unburned. She was kind of jealous right now, honestly. Then again, Ennea hadn't been burned up by that winged b***h... but Ennea had also been smart enough not to tell said b***h to ******** off. Sticks and stones. They were at the front of the dorms right now. "Grab your stuff and I'll meet you in the shower? Ugh, this whole outfit is a total loss. I hope the quartery master or whatever has more awesome shoes," she sighed, wistfully.

Poor shoes.

Madison, for her part, stopped by her room, staring at it as soon as she opened the door. It looked exactly as it had when she left it so long (so short?) ago, which seemed kind of unfair. How could she feel so changed and yet everything else stay the same?

Well, her clothes certainly hadn't stayed the same. She, too, ended up wrapping herself in a towel, regretfully declaring her entire outfit a total loss; even if it weren't for the stains, there were rips and tears everywhere. Nope. No way was she fixing that. She did mourn the shoes though. Her poor, poor awesome shoes.

Everything else was also tended to with ruthless efficiency: she clipped her nails, which were all ragged and chipped to hell by now. She cut as many of the burned chunks out of her hair as she could, though there were still some in the back that she couldn't quite reach; Ennea would have to help her with those. She did not look at herself in the mirror. Better for her sanity that way.

Finally, she grabbed a clean set of off-duty clothes and shower basket before heading down the hall to the shower. "I hope this dorm has a really good water heater," she sighed as she entered the shower. Another good thing to leaving Triage early: more open shower stalls. There wasn't anyone else in here right now.

"C'mon," she said to Ennea with a tired grin, tossing a spare washcloth at the pink-haired Hunter. "Can you cut the other melted bits out of my hair first?" Ugh, ugh, ugh. Her kingdom for a salon.

Madison flinched as Ennea's fingers caught a tangle, pulling her hair, but on the whole any pain was so, so not worth worrying about compared to the way the rest of her body felt. Stupid. Still, any distraction from worrying about her hair was more than welcome, so she latched onto Ennea's question with relief. "Uh. I guess... pink? Yeah, it's pink."

Our favorite color is black. By majority consensus, Kouki put in, interested.

Madison snorted. "Kouki says his is black. Um... what's your favorite food?" she shot back. It really was the smallest of small talk, but the only other thing she could think of was the mission. And she didn't want to talk about the mission right now.

Madison... blanked. When had she last seen a movie in the theater? Oh, she'd gone to the theater plenty of times, but it had largely been paying eight dollars to make out with her boyfriend in the back. And she couldn't tell Ennea that. "Uh. I, um, always liked... Bambi?" she said, lamely.

"Favorite children's book," she retaliated, reaching back to find another clump of burned hair and holding it awkwardly back towards Ennea.

Madison almost shook her head in response to Ennea's question, then realized that would be a very bad plan. "Nah, I'm the only kid in my family. I always wanted a little sister, but... I dunno. Maybe she would've, like, seen shadows too, and I don't want that for anybody. Except us, I guess."

If you could not see them, you would not be with us, Kouki said, cheerfully. And we would be blind and very bored right now.

"Psssh~ some weapon says he'd be bored if, like, we weren't here," Madison added, aloud, for Ennea's benefit. "How's the hair? Is all the smelly melted stuff gone?"

"Oh, thank god," Madison sighed in relief, stretching as she stood and then wincing as the movement reminded her of exactly how sore she was. "Thanks for your help! ... and yeah, let's get clean. It feels like I haven't showered in like sixty years or something."

She quickly grabbed her shower basket again and stepped into the first stall, putting her clean clothes on the dry bench before hanging up her towel and turning on the water. Full-blast, hot as she could get it. It was heaven and hell put together, as the water relaxed her muscles but also stung in her cuts, especially against the blistering burns remaining on her legs. She hissed under her breath. "You sing in the shower?" she called out over the roar of the water.