maskormenace | 004 ♍ video ♍ mid-morning

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004 ♍ video ♍ mid-morning

[ kanaya, wearing a brown leather apron, sits on a stool in her garage, full of tools and some boxes in absence of a car. on the bench next to her, she has two long gloves, a wielding mask, and a grinder. she seems to be finished with them already, working a rag over a metal stave. the outline of a fist, middle finger extended, is carved on its head. the smiths can be heard droning on in the background. ]

I suppose two weeks is long enough.

You can all remove your earplugs now. Whatever concerns you had over an emotional outburst ending with your lightbulbs burst are no longer needed.

Jenny Quantum has returned home.

[ she pauses, dropping the rag and just focusing on the stave for a few moments, meditating on its dull, yet polished, surface. she sets it on the table, but the writing along its face isn't readable at that angle. replacing it in her hand is a green box of menthols, and she gives the camera a humorless smile as she pulls one out. ]

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em.

[ she lights her cigarette, maybe the only better memorial she could give jenny than the grave marker, as the feed cuts. ]

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[ Gil is perplexed by the gloves, wielding mask, etc., so he's distracted for a moment as he processes Kanaya's announcement.

... that middle finger is a little vulgar, however. ]

... I see. [ He masks most of his disappointment, but remnants of it can be heard. ] I'm sorry to hear.

[ there are so few ways to capture jenny's essence in a simple image, this is as close as she could get. if it weren't a little vulgar, it would be too poor a tribute. ]

She was brash, and at times obnoxious, but she was my friend all the same. It's hard to take the news without some degree of sorrow. [ at least assuming a connection between the two concepts. a little linguistic leap. ]

She had been an imPort long enough that I would hope there would be fewer celebrating than mourning.

[ He mulls over something before he responds. ]

She could be that, right. [ A light snort. ] In some ways it was admirable. Ah, she could have been less blunt, but...

[ Jenny had a tendency to stick by her guns. He could respect that. ]

She's probably better off back home anyway with her family.

[ kanaya isn't entirely convinced of that. sure, she'd be back with her dads, and that would mean a lot to her, but the way she'd always spoken of her duty as the century child, the weight it put on her shoulders... jenny had always been certain she only had certain doom and failure waiting for her, that's why that whole business in southwest phoenicia had occurred.

it was a feeling kanaya could understand, even if their methods were entirely divergent.

she doesn't want to publicize that, though. better for gilbert to think her life will be easy. she ashes her cigarette in a ceramic tray on her work table, a sad smile pulling at the corners of her lips. ]

If she weren't blunt, she wouldn't be Jenny. When you want something sharp, you use a sword.

Jenny was a hammer.

[ He was never that close to her, but he did care enough about her to feel the weight of her departure. ]

A hammer seems about right. [ A short and soft, airy laugh escapes him. ] I presume you were both very close.

[ Quickly, his eyes focus on the cigarette. This girl can't be any older than sixteen or seventeen, so a brief lecture on the hazards of smoking lays at the tip of his tongue. ]

[ the cigarettes were jenny's fault to begin with, though they've become a lot more regular coming to heropa. a vain effort to fight back against rising stress levels.

and today, well, she'd smoke a whole pack in one sitting. not for the stress alone as for the tribute, lighting a funeral pyre in her own lungs. ]

I had known her for two years. She was not always an easy friend to keep, but she was my friend nonetheless.

I cared about her deeply. [ in ways a human may not fully grasp. more than once, she'd been tempted to pursue jenny in both of those quadrants she's barred herself from involving them in. ] And I'll miss her.

That long, huh. Then I'm even more sorry.

[ He pauses, initially reluctant to admit this. ]

... I'll miss her, too. I didn't know her that well, unfortunately.

[ Which makes it even more disappointing, since he'll never have the opportunity now. Maybe. ]

These things happen. We just have to take them as they do, there's little option otherwise.

[ no less disappointing for it, but she knew it had to come some day. much as she might prepare, she still wasn't ready when it came. ]

But for someone like her, I doubt it's possible for her absence not to be felt.

I know.

[ A reminder he needs to hear, though it's often difficult for him to accept. He's always afraid of losing another precious person.

He clears his throat awkwardly, trying to broach the other subject: ]

... you shouldn't be doing that.

[ she doesn't even think about what he might actually mean, she just keeps on going. ]

Mourning? [ she pauses to take a drag because she entirely missed the point. ]

Maybe not. It's meant to be a somewhat alien concept, but I'm afraid I just can't help it.

[ He wrinkles his nose. ]

Sorry, I mean that. [ And he tries to point on the screen to indicate her cigarette. ] It's no good for you.

[ ... says the chain smoker. ]

[ she pulls a face, then takes another drag. ]

Even if I lacked regenerative abilities, I highly doubt I'll live long enough for it to matter.

Of course it matters. There are too many health risks to consider. Heart disease, respiratory problems, strokes, and it affects your overall health!

[ ... again, says the chain smoker. ]

And again, even if I anticipated I will live to see thirty, I have a regenerative physiology, no damage keeps for long. Which isn't even to mention that my heart doesn't act quite the way yours does, [ since it doubles as a stomach almost, it's weird having your circulatory system assume the job of the digestive system ] and I don't even need to breathe.

Hazardous as it may be to humans, it doesn't really apply the same way to me. Health is for the living, and I'm three years dead already.

You don't know that for sure when you consider the Port —

[ He stumbles over his own words as he processes the last bit of her sentence.

Gil is wide-eyed at first and he quickly shuts his mouth before the surprise is replaced with guilt. ]

... oh.

[ He bites his bottom lip uneasily, avoiding Kanaya's gaze. ]

... sorry.

[ she doesn't quite catch on to what he might be assuming. it's not uncommon that the dead are revived on arrival, she's known enough people that was true for. she hasn't said anything to clarify her resurrection as happening before that. ]

The only thing you're guilty of is the same that most humans are, underestimating me. That you wouldn't know me as well as I do is inevitable.

But that will be the case with most imPorts, I think.

You're right. I shouldn't have. That was rude of me, wasn't it?

... I'm sorry.

[ He honestly has to wonder how it is he keeps meeting dead women after dead women. ]

It doesn't affect you at all?

Of course it does, what would be the point if it didn't? But the adverse effects, like any physical damage, doesn't remain. Every wound heals, that's how it works.

Well, it still... it has an unpleasant smell, doesn't it?

[ The more he talks about it, the more he's tempted for his own cigarette. ]

[ join her, gilbert. do it for jenny! ]

You get used to it after a time. As long as it can be discouraged from lingering, and there's always perfume for that.

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004 ♍ video ♍ mid-morning

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