foolishwren | 032. Video

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Current Location: An undisclosed location near Azalea

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032. Video

_{[Beep beep! What's that, Lassie? An incoming message?! Oh, looks like it's coming from one Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich's PokeGear! How lovely. What does the nerd have to say toda-- .... HEY, THAT'S NOT OTACON!]

[The screen blips into life on a face that's bruised, scraped, and... freckled?]

[Once its owner is sure the thing is on, she withdraws-- making herself a little easier to identify. Sheepish smile and all.]

[Behind her appears to be a standard little camp set up in the woods-- nothing... really fancy. But she's not the only one there-- somewhere behind her, there's.... some shirtless guy wandering around and his indistinct bitching about something or other can be heard.]

[The mat-furred, sleepy Growlithe in her lap just looks content to be there, although it's obvious he's had it as rough as his owner.]}

So. Uh.

_{[Her voice is a painful-sounding croak-- hardly more than a shadow of what it is normally.]}

Apparently I'm a wanted criminal.

... Anyone know what I did? ... Was it awesome?

I love that mugshot. It's so majestic.

_{[Yeah, she's making light of it, but her heart's not... really into it. Though it's sort of hard to tell the difference between that and the plain old exhaustion that's obviously leaking into her every movement and word.]

[... Meanwhile, in the background, Liquid has noticed that the camera's on and has started flexing his manly man-muscles at it in true Photobomb fashion. Heather doesn't notice yet.]}

Uh... anyway... I'm not... sure how long I was gone, and my 'Gear is uh... pretty thoroughly broken-- Hal's off in town getting stuff to repair it with, so... if anyone... like, tried to contact me, m'sorry, I probably didn't get it...

I uh... really hope everyone's all right.

_{[She probably doesn't need to clarify that she's talking about that fog. Now that she knows what had happened wasn't real, and that others had experienced their OWN nightmares... well, let's just say she's really hoping she didn't knock anyone's skull in. ... And the question "DID I knock anyone's skull in?" is implied at the end of her statement.]}

......

_{[And around that time, her Heather Senses pick up on Liquid's trolling behind her, so she reaches out to turn the camera off while looking over her shoulder.]}

Liquid, get the fuck out.

_{[End feed.]}

[Locked to Kaito and Rise]

[Another video feed, a little later than the first one, but not by too long. Otacon apparently was able to fix the 'Gear enough that Heather could receive those two messages that had been waiting a good week and a half to be received by this point.]

[And... judging by her hardly-disguised guilty expression, she's more than feeling the weight of guilt for worrying her friends. Especially since she saw Rise just the previous day and hadn't... even known how ... candid a message she'd left days before.]

[After a couple seconds, she breaks into a sheepish, crooked grin.]

Uh... hey, guys...

... I got your messages...

[Locked to Harry, James, and Mary]

_{[This one's in text, because she knows good and well that James at the very least will be freaking out over how she looked in that video feed, and she's not sure she can take his quiet concerned expressions.]

[But she can't avoid sending this-- if she saw Silent Hill in that fog, then she's... pretty sure that they'd have seen something similar. ... Well, she's not sure about Mary, actually, but given the connection... better safe than sorry.]}

are you guys alright

(typing is hard, sorry for no caps)_

-heather

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I'm afraid that'll just have to do.

I'll support you!

I always knew I could count on you!

_{[Heather's grinning, but now she's starting to think about what she'd sort of called to say in the first place. ... Dammit, why does this stuff always have to be so awkward to bring up? ... Especially since she doesn't want to inadvertently bring all the memories of the fog flooding back for Rise. ... But it has to be said somehow!]}

.... Oh yeah. Uh-- ... on a different topic ....

_{[Wow, Heather, way to clumsily shift gears into THAT one...]}

Huh? [ and here is Rise, temporarily oblivious. Only temporarily, though. She'd pick up on it at some point, even if Heather was the subtlest thing ever. ]

Uh--

_{[yeah ok how do I do this whole 'talk to people about important things' thing again.]}

Just... about the stuff you said yesterday... about... y'know, about what you saw...

... [ there's a second of realization and her eyes are darkening, but her voice is steady when she speaks. ]

Yeah...?

I...

... I didn't get a chance to really say so yesterday, but I....

_{[HRRRGN HOW THE HELL DO PEOPLE DO THIS BEING OPEN AND COMFORTING THING, IT'S HARD.]}

... I just wanted to tell you that I sort of... I sort of really understand.

And that you're really brave.

[ If realization widened her eyes, surprise is making Rise resemble an owl for just a minute. Not just because that Heather understands, because she got that indication yesterday, but-- brave? She didn't feel like that at all. The more she thinks about it, the more she feels like she was the furthest thing from it. ]

I don't know about that...

_{[Heather hasn't been 'earnest' in years-- so much of the time, her honesty would still be tinged with sarcasm or self-deprecation-- but... this is the closest she's COME to being earnest at all in a looong time.]}

Hear me out, Rise.

You know I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it.

Edited 2010-10-01 06:49 (UTC)

I-- no, I know you wouldn't. [ because it's Heather. Blunt, sarcastic Heather, who speaks her mind, but also wouldn't say something just for the sake of being nice if she didn't actually believe what she was saying. ]

_{[When Heather's saying something she doesn't mean, you usually KNOW because she's pretty bad at sounding convincing if her heart's not in it.]}

It's... you said that you and your friends... went up against something really powerful. _{[Fog-shrouded.]} And that happened for real. Right?

[ sometimes, it still feels like a dream, but Rise could never overlook Kanzeon's presence, not when the Persona was a part of her. And she can't look back at all they went through as a team and call any of it her imagination. If their bonds hadn't been strong enough... ]

It was all real. I don't think I could make something like that up, even if I tried.

_{[Heather nods a little. She knew Rise wouldn't have lied about something like that. Something that big. ... Admittedly, it had been a bit of a shock to find out that... Rise of all people had gone through ... that back where she came from. The more time Heather spent here, the more she was coming to realize that almost everyone had a story to tell. Something they'd done.][She pauses for a moment.]}

... Something similar happened to me.

Back in my world.

_{[It felt so eerie. Considering the Otherworld a part of her own. But she couldn't say it was something different, really, could she? It was so tightly woven into that town... even the normal-world side of that town...]}

--?! Wh-- seriously?? [ no, Rise, she's obviously lying. ] I mean-- not seriously, but-- what happened?

[ it couldn't have been the same, could it? After meeting Shinji, she can't say for sure that there aren't other Persona users out there, but she has the feeling this is a wee bit different. ]

_{[A sort of odd, wry smile snakes across her face, her brows creased upwards.]}

Seriously.

It's... it's a really long story, and I'm sure it's... y'know, different than yours, but...

_{[She's not sure she wants to give the younger girl too many details. Because it's... not something you really shared with people. It wasn't a tale of grand adventure, it was something almost subhuman in its sickness. All of it. But-- she had a point! She totally had a point to impart. ... If she could just find a way to say it.]}

It's just... um...

When it happened to me, it was... just me.

I didn't have a team.

_{['Team' was something of a foreign concept. The last time she'd had that, it had been for track in high school. Which seemed like a lifetime away, even though it had only been a year.]}

So you were... all by yourself?

[ Rise only experienced that once, just until Souji came back, but she can't even begin to imagine how hard fighting on your own must be. Especially when it's not something like bullies, because as hard as that was, that was life. Something powerful and dangerous? Without support from anyone else?

... Oh Heather, her heart hurts for you. ]

... Yeah.

_{[It seemed both so faraway and so close all at once. She supposed a lot of things like that did.]}

But-- ... the thing is, I think... that's the only reason I could do it.

In the end, the only person I had to take care of was myself, and... well, it wasn't like anyone'd be around to yell at me if I failed, right?

_{[A hollow, sort of forced laugh that doesn't last very long before she coughs and looks solemn again.]}

Rise... I could never have done what you did.

If anyone else I'd cared about had been there... I'dve...

The only reason I was able to do what I did was because I just didn't care anymore. The fact that you were able to keep going even though you thought your friends were gonna die...

You're fucking strong, Rise.

I don't... think I could have done that.

[ She's NEVER heard that before, except from Ven, but the way Heather is explaining it has Rise more or less completely stunned. Especially because, out of all the people she's met here, she's always thought of the older girl as incredibly strong. That feeling hasn't changed, but she had no idea Heather saw her like that. ]

It's because they were fighting-- because people like you were fighting with all they had, even if they knew they were up against something much stronger. If I'd been by myself, I think I wouldn't have been able to keep going-- because I can't fight like everyone else can. I don't have that type of strength. But you...

You were by yourself, and you could keep going, to stay alive. Me... I had to keep believing that as long as everyone was still fighting, as long as I could do something, it'd be okay. Even if it looked totally hopeless, I couldn't lose faith until we completely lost.

Heather... if I'm strong, that's because I get it from you guys.

_{[Well, Heather's a little on the soul-baring side tonight, apparently. And while her confidence is anything but a sham, it's not quite as... straightforward or all-encompassing as she tends to make it seem.]

[The funny thing was, she hadn't seen Rise like that until... well, just YESTERDAY, actually. Because heck, as much as she liked the idol, she hadn't known about... WELL, ALL THAT.]

[Heather smiled a little.]}

That's somethin' kinda special, then...

I went on because I thought I didn't have anything else to lose.

It takes something a little different to keep going when you do.

_{[Obviously she'll never know exactly what she'd do in Rise's situation, but knowing what she DID know about what she herself had gone through... she's honest when she says she's not sure she could do it. The one reason she had to really care about what happened to her had died back in their shoddy little apartment, and after that, she'd had no reason not to be reckless. Not to spit in the face of her so-called 'destiny' and do something totally stupid, which was what she'd had to do.]}

Anyway...

_{[She sounds a little sheepish.]}

I just... wanted to tell you that.

'Cause it sounded like you needed to hear it.

[ She did. She really did. It's just taking her a minute to reply, because once again, she's tearing up-- because that is what she does. Not crocodile tears or full-out bawling, and she's certainly not breaking down into sobs this time, but it's just a bit of quiet sniffling. ]

... Thank you.

Hey, no problem.

S'not like I have to go out of my way to say it.

Still... [ okay, this is getting depressing. ] How're you healing up? I know Hal had to do a lot of doctoring.

_{[HEATHER SUPPORTS THIS CHANGE OF TOPIC.]}

Eh, still got a lot of aches and pains, but it's not bad, y'know?

Just having them patched up does wonders.

Once you got past all the yelping, anyway.

Wh-- aw, come on, I didn't make that much of a fuss!

_{[Except that you totally did.]}

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