Seventeenth Firefly - [Action] - backdated to the 5th

[presumablyalone]

[When little Seto first wakes up, he finds himself staring off into the white covered distance, his purple eyes barely open, nose and cheeks red and small hands reflexively curled up into fists to keep his already stinging finger tips off the snow. He lets out a long exhale, his breath clouding out in front of him before disappearing into the cold air. There's a long minute of silence as he slowly wakes up, watching his breath blearily, before he finally blinks and moves to at least lift his head off the snowy ground, his entire body aching from the cold.

…Outside. Why is he outside? And in the snow?!

Seto can feel his heart beat rapidly as he quickly makes his way to his feet, dusting the snow off his legs and arms as fast as he can before grabbing his arms. There’s only one winter that he can remember in the short time he spent with his grandpa and it wasn't kind.

What plants his grandfather normally fed them died, leaving them with barely anything, it was always freezing cold and drafts would find their way into the observatory through cracks in the walls and doors and he nor his grandfather never had much in terms of ways to keep themselves warm with clothes. When winter came, his grandfather told him to never go outside or bad things would happen, especially in the snow that fell and covered everything.

He didn't understand it... how something like this could be so scary.

As he moves to step back, looking around in a panic to find the observatory, his heel hits something behind him and he trips and falls backwards over whatever it was with a yelp. He quickly tries to scuttle away but looks back to see what it was he tripped on and…

…A person. Another person.

There's a moment as he stares in surprise. But... he thought there were no other people. His grandfather told him so--didn't he? It's always just been him and his grandfather. He’s afraid that if he touches this person, he’ll disappear… but if he tripped over him, he must be real, right? He's hesitant but slowly turns around in the snow and he puts his hands on the other boy’s chest and starts to shake him.]

M-Mm… w-wake up… [His voice is small and shaking as he shivers, but he’s trying]

ACTION

[Today, the people of Luceti may come across a rather curious duo. Normally, seeing Crow and Seto together is not strange at all--in fact, it's practically the norm, but after a week or so of being gone, when they return, they are noticeably different.

Seto has clearly been affected by his "mallynap", as he's now a little boy instead of a young adult. Unlike the Seto we all know and love, this Seto has yet to experience large crowds of people, or even seeing so many people in general, so there's a lot of wide-eyed staring as he looks around as well as looking back to make sure he's not too far away from his odd companion.

Crow, on the other hand, appears almost exactly the same as before he was taken in for experimentation too...except for some odd differences. His bright green eyes are now a dull, lifeless grey, and he's quieter than usual, barely saying a word, and when he does, there's very little emotion put into it. For now, he's sort of aimlessly following along behind Seto, or occasionally stopping to stare at people or things.

Well, hopefully this will wear off soon, but otherwise they're both lost and confused at the moment. Would you like to offer a helping hand?

(ooc: Seto and Crow have been de-aged as their mallynap effect upon their return. Both of them will be replying per thread, unless specified otherwise.)]

Comments

[tomodachi]

Two hours, fifty-seven minutes, and twenty-five seconds. [A pause.] ...I think.

[He's not sure if his internal clock is very accurate right now, most of his attempts to check cause it to act a little buggy at the moment.]

[solesoul]

[Seto can agree with you readily on that, young lady.] I-I don't want to get sick... [It's dangerous to get sick in a world where there's no medicine or much to help you, he knows this all to well. Or at least his old man's made a point of it to him before. So he takes the jacket with his small hands and tries to put it on. It's obviously a little big for him (especially being so skinny and frail in the first place) but even as it hangs on him, he beams at her and bows a little]

T-Thank you very m-much. [Then he looks to Crow]

[disastergirl]

[Her gaze snapped over to Crow when he spoke up. It wasn't so much the "how" that bothered her, but the "why" was another story. Even so... With Seto standing right there she felt the need to put on a smile.

That bow was pretty adorable, though.]

You're welcome. Now let's all go inside and warm up properly, okay?

[tomodachi]

[Huh? She wants them to go inside? Rather than speaking, he kind of looks around them a little in response--he clearly doesn't seem to recognize where exactly he is right now. There's a lot of buildings here, is there one that they're supposed to specifically go inside of right now?]

[solesoul]

O-Okay! [Yes please take him somewhere warm. Being so excited about all of the people and this place has made all of the possible dangers in his mind vanish. Usually he'd be paranoid about being in such cold weather.

But he grabs Crow's hand] W-Where are we going to g-go?

[disastergirl]

Anywhere's fine, as long as it's inside. [Hmm... Maybe Celsius Tear would be best?] There's a tea shop not that far from here. We can sit in there for a while and get something warm to drink!

...And you're coming too. [Yup, she's taking your hand too Crow, although the exact reasoning was left unspoken.]

[tomodachi]

[He blinks a little at that, before he looks down at his hands that they're holding onto, head tilted curiously. Why are you guys holding his hands now is that something humans do for some reason...]

[solesoul]

[Tea shops?? There are such things as tea shops?? ...Not that Seto knows what a shop is per se but whatever it is it sounds interesting for sure! He knows what tea is at least, though only the simpler tea like green tea since his grandfather could actually find the leaves for it.]

O-Okay!! I'd really love some tea... b-but what's a 'shop'? [LEAD THE WAY JANE and you and Seto can pull Crow along]

[disastergirl]

[Hell yeah dragging pulling! It was still weird to remember that Celsius Tear was on the second floor of the Welcome Centre of all places, but oh well.]

Well... A shop is a place where you can buy things! But since there's no money here, they're just places where you can get the things you need.

[And that was something she could never bring herself to complain about.]

[tomodachi]

[It may not look like it, since Crow is sort of aimlessly following along since they've been pulling on his hands, but he is actually paying attention to the conversation, for the most part. Probably trying to make sure he remembers anything that gets said here for later in case it turns out to be important, though some of what they're saying does start raising questions out of him--for example:]

Money? [What is that]

[solesoul]

[He listens very carefully as she explains, taking in everything he can though some parts he still doesn't get. And since Crow asked about money, he follows up with;]

Buying? [Forgive them Jane, they are seriously deprived of everything. The life of a post-apocalyptic born child]

[disastergirl]

You guys don't know what money is or about buying things? [Oh. Well. She had never had to explain this sort of thing before, but she had to give it a shot. It took a few long moments of thinking, though.]

Let's say that I have a red ball and you guys have a yellow ball. If I wanted a yellow ball and you wanted a red one, then we could just trade, right? But if I didn't want a yellow ball and I only wanted to trade for a green one, no one gets anything. That's where money comes in! You could give me money, and then I would give you my red ball. After that, I could use that money to get a green ball from someone else.

And when you give someone money and get the thing you want in return, that's called buying something! Does that make sense?

[tomodachi]

[Unfortunately, Crow doesn't give any response to that, still giving the same emotionless expression as before.

Uh...how about you Seto, did you understand any of that?]

[solesoul]

[Seto listens carefully when she does her best to explain it, trying his best to understand it.]

I-I think so... [He doesn't sound as unsure as he could, at least. It's still a little confusing and hard to wrap his head around since it's an idea or thing he's never seen done. But if its like trading things for things he can kinda get it... ] Do people a-always do that?

[disastergirl]

[She glanced at Crow with a worried look before answering.]

I don't know about all the time. [But she sure wasn't going to talk about theft or anything like that. Thankfully they were close enough to Celsius Tear for her to gloss that over.]

Like I said, it's not something we have to worry about here.

[tomodachi]

[Oh, okay then. Crow gives the smallest of nods, indicating that he seems to have been paying attention. Still, he does file this information away somewhere in his memory, just in case it does turn out to be helpful later.

For now though, he's looking up at Celsius Tear. Was this the place that she had wanted to take them to?]

[solesoul]

O-Oh... okay! [He's still kinda curious about it but it's probably a good thing since he doesn't have any of this money stuff or anything to trade for things...

But Seto looks at his friend then up at the building he's staring at with big eyes. He's only seen the village for a few hours but he still isn't used to the sight of how the buildings look. They're so tall and clean and amazing unlike the ones near the observatory!!] Is this the tea s-shop?

[disastergirl]

Yeah, this is the place! It's on the second floor of this building, so you'll be able to get a good view from the window too.

[Not to mention that it was warmer in there. She was already visibly shivering from the cold and all, and the last thing she wanted to do was catch something.]

[tomodachi]

[Crow's still not saying much, but he does seem curious as he looks up towards the indicated window. He's probably not going to have too many objections with going inside...except that, perhaps subconsciously, he actually grips Seto's hand a little tighter for a second to keep him from being the first to immediately go inside--as his "friend", it should be either him or the girl that goes inside first just to make sure that there's nothing suspicious inside that could bring harm to the younger boy.

...Not that there should be anything suspicious about a tea shop, but given what kind of world he and Seto were from, you could never be too careful about wild animals that had taken residence inside some of the buildings they came across...]