The peaceful times are over. Moloch von Zinzer was murdered, and Nine was sentenced as his murderer. Everyone in Cartesio knows that.
Although life goes on, it seems the town of Cartesio isn't going to forget the tourists' transgressions. Not only they commited larceny in the cinema, they also murdered and executed in their town! It's no surprise their hospitality towards the visitors has cooled down considerably.
Not only they're maintaining a tense cordiality with them, they also have started talking behind the visitors' backs. All kinds of rumors are starting to sprout, yet nobody seems to be willing to say it to the tourists' faces. Talking directly to most passerby makes them distrustful, and nobody seems to want to be in close quarters alone with them.
It's only matter of time before the relationship between tourists and Cartesio starts degrading even further.
In the lobby of the motel there's a few more brochures, and
the maps have been updated once again.
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cartesianism2018-10-14 10:52 am
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...He was supposed to go home, Keith. He was supposed to be okay.
[That's been one of the things holding her together, after all. That if she went missing, everyone back home would at least hold together. They could always hold together, if Rean were there.
But.]
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Figures the guy lied about that too.
[He breathes out, scowling.]
I'm not gonna tell you that it's okay. We'll have to make it okay and that means we have to stay sharp. Shiro -- someone from back home keeps telling me patience yields focus.
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She appreciates it more than she can probably put into words.
She gets back to work with what she was doing, although it's gentler this time. She's just quiet for a long moment, steadying her breathing.]
...hey, Keith. [Still working and not looking at him.] Tell me about him. Shiro?
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He pauses, glancing over at Milium at the question, then drops his gaze back down.
There's nothing complicated about Shiro. Or rather, everything is complicated about Shiro, but Keith refuses to let it be complicated because at the end of the day, Shiro is always going to be his brother -- someone he'll go to hell and back to be there for. So talking about Shiro -- it shouldn't hurt, but it just... kind of does.]
Shiro's a great guy. A real leader. [Not like me.] He knows how to get people to work together and he never gives up on his team. He never gave up on me when I was a kid, even when everyone else wrote me off as hopeless.
[There's a sigh as he stands back up, gun in hand.]
He really helped turn my life around. I'd probably be dead if it weren't for him.
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...He sounds a lot like Rean. I kinda figured he might, if that's the kinda thing you remember him saying...
[She turns out toward the targets, taking aim again.]
So... I'm really glad he's not here.
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Heh.
[Humorless. Flat. Keith hasn't raised his gun yet, intent on watching Miium practice first. His eyes stay on the target.]
I'm not so sure about that.
[Which probably sounds ridiculous out of context and Keith's not entirely sure he wants to give that comment any context, but... eventually.]
Last I saw him, he got blasted with some kind of energy from space. Whatever it was it made it so that he couldn't move or react to anything. It was like he got frozen.
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...I'm sure he'll be okay.
[It gets more natural once she starts.]
Believe in him, just like he believes in you. And maybe... maybe I just gotta do that for Rean, too. He's been through crazier than this and made it out okay, so...
I guess we can just... try to keep believing together? Even though it's prolly really hard for you, too.
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Reaching down, he gives Milium's head a pat. It's a little awkward because physical contact is just.. not his jam, but he appreciates it.]
I'll never give up on Shiro. No matter what.
[He smiles in earnest.]
And you're gonna do the same for Rean. It's a solid plan.
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Rean does this, too, the head-patting. Although Keith's personality is more like Jusis, she thinks...
Well, it's not bad either way, is it? To have someone who reminds her of what might happen if someone smashed together the two people she loves most.]
Yeah. Best one we've got right now, right?
[She nestles into that hand a little, but then pulls back.]
C'mon. We both have practice to get in, don't we? So we can eventually enact the other good plan of kicking Sarge's ass.
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Keith isn't a pessimist, no. But he's certainly not an optimist by nature. It's part of the core reason why he's always moving, always working on some kind of project or a plan -- a complete and utter unwillingness to let the worst come to pass, even if that means he gets roughed up in the process.
Keith draws his hand back, grinning.]
We do.
[He looks towards the targets again, raising the gun.]
Deserves worse than a quick death by bullet though.
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It's not as if this is the first hardship she's faced in her life. It's impossible to put the civil war out of her mind, after all, but at least then, the people around her understood her, at least as best as they could. And even when things looked bleak, they could always pull themselves back together by reminding one another who they were as a group.
This group, though; it's too disparate, too chaotic to allow that same strength that Class VII had. And even if she tries to rally herself around people that give her those same feelings, she finds herself hurting them more often than not. She doesn't know how to explain to them that she literally doesn't understand why.
Really, she has no choice but to keep smiling. Anything else is too confusing, too much to try to piece together on top of everything else when she still only vaguely understands this thing people call "sadness."
Keith hears none of this, of course. Instead, he just gets a cheery laugh, followed by a little grin.]
Well, obviously. Please, you think I'm gonna shoot 'im to kill 'im? No~ way. Just to disable~. Then we can have real fun, y'know what I'm sayin'?
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I usually prefer quick and clean.
[Less drawn out, less potential for unexpected complications or interruptions. Gun aimed, he fires a bullet that goes through a little right of cemter on the target.]
Exceptions can always be made.
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I mean, for most people, if they gotta go, yeah. [Not that she's ever been in charge of taking people out, but she knows these things can happen. Especially here.] But with somebody like Sarge, it's better to go an eye for an eye, don'cha think?
[She'll raise her gun as well, taking a moment to aim before firing.
A little left of center, farther off than Keith, but still not horrible.]
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Have you ever killed before?
[Not a judgmental question, just... curious.]
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[It's not the act of killing that's hard, after all. It's more the mentality leading up, during and after the act that can be more difficult to manage.]
It's easier than people think it would be.
[He takes aim at the target again. And again, he's off center by a bit. This time to the right.]
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[Bang. Slightly too high.]
But I mean... it's like I said, it depends on the person? I didn't really feel much of anything when I found Moloch or Lovepon's bodies, or when I saw Sarge take out Mira. But...
[But she felt something for Nine. Felt something so much she couldn't watch.]
...mm. What I mean is, if it's someone I don't really know that well, I don't really think I'd have a problem with it. A mission's a mission.
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[Which he's... not necessarily surprised by, considering the whole "spy" thing on her profile. Either way, it's not a judgmental comment. That's what Keith himself is, after all. Or was.]
I wasn't very good at that.
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You've got choices outside o' bein' a soldier, though, right? So it's not as big a deal if you're not great at it.
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[He takes aim again at the target. He's still not quite hitting the center.]
Being a paladin means I'm one of six people that can pilot a Voltron lion. [There's a bit of a laugh -- not humorless, but a little on the dry side.] Plus I'm the leader of the paladins. I'm the last person who's allowed to stop being a soldier.
[What's probably worse is that Keith really has no idea what he'd be doing if there wasn't a war. Fighting has just... become part of who he is.]
What's an Ironblood?
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...Still. Jeez... the way you talk, there... I think you n' Rean would have a lot to talk about.
[Because she knows Rean hates what his life has become. Emotions may be a black box to her, but there's no missing that there's a darkness in his eyes now that wasn't there before Osborne showed his face again and forced Rean under his heel.]
We're Gramps' inner circle, basically. He's the Chancellor of Erebonia – people call 'im the "Blood and Iron" Chancellor, so that's where the name's from.
He tells us what he wants, we make it happen. In my division, that means keepin' an eye on our enemies so we can get them before they get us, and in my case specifically, that means breakin' in and taking their intel for our own use.
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Maybe. Rean's probably still mad about that machine at the refinery though.
The Voltron lions are spaceships that look like lions. Warships. There are five of them -- the Black lion, Red lion, Blue lion, Green lion and Yellow lion. They can come together and form a powerful robot called Voltron. I fly Black.
[Despite the fact that his paladin armor is just... unmistakably red.]
This Gramps of yours sounds like a nightmare to work under. Why's he using kids like you to do his dirty work?
[Not that he's too surprised? Again Pidge is definitely on his mind and Milium's not much younger than she is.]
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[The dude forgave a terrorist and murderer without a second thought, what's one wrench in a machine?
She listens to the explanation, but there's certainly an amused little smile creeping onto her lips, too.]
Haha... even down to piloting something like that? Jeez. [She knows Keith won't understand what she means, so she continues.] Rean— he's the pilot of Valimar, the divine knight. Big ol' robot, looks kinda like a big blocky person.
[it's a gundam
As for "Gramps"]
Eh, it's not that bad. He gets me presents n' stuff. [Millium, that's not the point?] He needs me 'cause I can link up with Lammy. Al's the same way with Sammy. And buildin' us all small like this, when we can phase Sammy n' Lammy in and out whenever we want to, it means we can get into lots of places that big people like you can't.
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[Now that has him intrigued. What an oddly specific thing to have in common with someone else from another universe. Keith's not sure if he's amused or baffled by the existence of more super robots.]
Was Valimar also made by Alteans?
[Seems unlikely somehow, even though he's met Alteans from an alternate universe. He starts frowning again at that "it's not bad cuz I get presents" bit, because yeah wow that really is NOT the point, Milium?? Then he's shaking his head because to a degree she does have a point about natural advantages (again, reminded of Pidge here)... but only to a certain extent.]
Sounds like he owed you more than a few presents from time to time.
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[She says that cheerily enough.]
Umm... I dunno what Alteans are, so I'm gonna guess that's a no? They're like, super ancient, though. We thought the legends were all just stories 'til we ran into 'em for ourselves.
I think they were a witch n' gnome project? But we're talkin' way before recorded history, so outside o' what I've overheard from Emma, it's real hard to say.
[it's a MYSTERY gundam
And to that next part, more seriously, she falters. Her usual smile fades, and there's a flicker of something across her face that makes it seem almost like the next words will be something like "I know," and yet...]
...Why?
I mean, he bought me, n' I belong to him. Seems t'me I should feel lucky to get anything at all.