Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rasali was feeling fidgety. She wasn’t feeling bad per say. This was easily the most… nice she’d seen the Phoenix Initiative in a long time. There were more remaining members than she’d thought, and even some new recruits! It felt a little bit like a party! Sure she was shoveling dirt and pushing rocks around, but what good party didn’t involve getting a bit of mud on your face? Still, she couldn’t help but admit it felt kind of weird to not be in some sort of mortal peril whilst hanging out with this ragtag bunch of misfits.

Rasali finished stacking the last of some odd-sized boxes that had been scavenged from several different rooms deemed unfit for storage. It was a nice pile, she decided. It was a pile deserving of a quick break.

The working caverns were pretty full. There was no getting around that with everyone moving about through the main passageways. Even the emptiest of corners still appeared to be occupied. Still, Rasali felt it was a better place to hang around than directly in front of the other trolls still moving cargo. Rasali strode over and leaned against the wall next to the young redblood.

Rasali made no attempt to hide her obvious staring as she rubbernecked over Aerona’s shoulder. “Hey, that’s pretty good!” she commented. Rasali spared a wry smile at the portrayal of Maneki. “Pretty good likeness.”

Rasali hadn’t dealt with Maneki much at all, but from what she knew of his upbringing, he seemed like a pretty good kid. The fact he was as pleasant and normal as he seemed was about as much of a miracle as his blood color.

Rasali took another moment to eye Aerona. She looked familiar, which was certainly something considering how few children Rasali knew personally. Still, she didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. “Is this your first rebel gathering?” She asked, “I think I was about your age when I first started coming to these things.”

Rasali had anticipated the startle and grinned cheekily. Thankfully Aerona didn’t seem to take offense to Rasali’s looming and seemed to adapt to her quite easily. Rasali snorted at the “Gramps” comment. Zeffer honestly still frightened Rasali, but seeing him interact with Maneki helped calm her nerves somewhat. She still didn’t want to be anywhere near him, but at least she knew he was an okay person. At a distance.

Rasali eagerly took Aerona’s hand and shook it with two firm flicks of her wrist. ”Rasali Panaka! Ah!” Rasali’s eyes widened, ”I knew I recognized you! Gosh you’re so much taller! And pointier!” Rasali looked Aerona up and down, nodding in approval at Aerona’s teeth and horns. ”You were the one with the little orangeblood kid, right? The squirrely one?”

Rasali lit up at the mention of her skate team. ”Yeah! The Skate Queen Slayers!” Her smile was sharp, but genuine. ”You gotta stop by some time. We still got slushies!”

Aerona seemed pretty cool.

Rasali nodded eagerly. Aerona seemed like the perfect type of troll for her roller derby team. Aggressive—but fun!

Rasali’s enthusiasm mellowed somewhat as Aerona asked about her past rebel experiences. She should have seen that coming, honestly. Rasali leaned her head back against the cave wall and blew a long puff of air. ”Phooooo… Well I don’t think as long as Odette, but long enough, that’s for sure. I was just a kid with my lusus when I ended up in Old Hemisect.” Rasali turned to look at Aerona. ”Very, very shortly before it became Civisect.” It wasn’t hard to catch Rasali’s drift. As far as she was concerned, the media talk about “rowdy neighbors” or whatever had been concocted to serve as the battle’s cover story was absolutely ludicrous. There were bombs.

Rasali straightened her neck out to look upon the other trolls in the room. Her eyelids lowered in thought. ”Bad stuff has gone down here more recently, though. I’m sure you can tell with the state of the base. It’s supposed to be much larger for more trolls.” Rasali sighed.

There was a moment of silence between the women. Workers carried on around them cleaning and reorganizing what was left of the base. The cave system the Phoenix Initiative occupied really was something else to have survived the beating it had taken. Rasali wondered how old the caverns really were. Did the Initiative dig them out themselves, or did they capitalize on an existing series of tunnels? Either would have been impressive. It was a shame that even this fortress had proved insubstantial in preventing loss of life. Rasali’s mouth dropped in a loose frown.

”Mm,” was all Rasali could manage in response to Aerona’s condolences. Instead she latched onto Aerona’s question. It was something with a correct answer.

”Occasionally. The recruitment practices will undoubtedly become stricter in the future. In my case I was contacted as part of a recruitment mailing list. I suppose I and the others of my ‘generation’ were scouted ahead of time. I was met deep in the woods and lead to an undisclosed location. Sponsorships are probably going to be added to the whole rigmarole, especially since there are so few of us left.”

Rasali drummed her index knuckle against her lip thoughtfully before turning to smile at Aerona. ”I’m specialized in recruiting. Did a lot of group organizing in Old Hemisect.” Rasali felt both proud and disappointed. Old Hemisect was a disaster, but she had done well at her job. It was twice the shame in that she no longer had the opportunity to work on such a large scale again. C’est la vie, unfortunately.

For a moment, Rasali was afraid she’s accidentally said too much. She had become accustomed to the strife of being an operative of the Phoenix Initiative. It was something of a coping mechanism for her to talk about the horrors in a conversational manner. Their group wasn’t exactly in any position to be frightening off new members. ”Some recruiter you are, Ras.”

Thankfully Aerona returned to the conversation as bright as ever. Rasali embraced the relief and followed Aerona away from the cave wall. ”Of course! I volunteer at the Skate Queen all the time so it’s not hard to run into me. We’ll have to exchange contact info when we’re not being all shady and secretive and stuff.” Rasali laughed

”I’ll give you the grand tour—of the caves and the rink. There’s been a lot of remodeling going on down here. (Unlike the Skate Queen which hasn’t been redecorated since, like, the Glub.) So like, it’s all pretty new to me too, but it’s waaay smaller now so it shouldn’t be a problem for either of us.”

Rasali continued to ramble as the two girls meandered down the dusty tunnels.

”And don’t worry. There’s no shortage of a**-kicking around here. Not when I’m around.” Rasali winked.