dappledleaves | CICONIA: WHEN THEY CRY

[ Oria holds his hand and gets up. He's sure the workers will clean up after them, so he doesn't hesitate on leaving the plates behind. ]

I know just the place for that.

[ He smiles and runs off with him. Yes, Oria paid already for the meals. Don't worry about it. ]

Ah--

[Sinclair yelps, laughing]

Hey, where are we going?

[ Once the two are out of earshot...

"He has sharp senses."

"As expected of someone like him." ]

Only the best candy store in this entire place!

[ When Oria says that, it must be the only store that still sells Peeps.

Because it definitely is.

Thankfully, the stares are no longer there so Sinclair can rest easy for now. ]

[(fear) but Sinclair relaxes the moment the feeling fades. Better...]

Oh? They have peeps then?

[the one world they are united in this]

Yup! It's the only store that sells them now, because the other store closed down.

[ Their peeps... Oria is finally glad to have a comrade in his favoritism of sugary baby birds. ]

And I really need to restock them. The sugar crash I feel after a gauntlet session is seriously no joke.

You know, being a gauntlet knight is the only job I can think of where we can eat as much sugar as we want without being scolded.

[He understands though. Some days the fatigue is a lot and he can barely move...sugary baby birds from hell are the only things that can save him]

Right? And we're fit anyway, so they can't say anything either.

[ Super child soldiers! Oria opens the door and they are basically in Candyland. ]

I wonder if they have some new flavor taffies!

[ So he goes over to the taffy section while dragging Sinclair because he forgot that he's still doing that. ]

[Sinclair doesn't mind being dragged along even as he peers at the shelves]

I hoped they restocked on gummy bears...

[haribos how he had missed you ]

Oh, oh! Look!

[ Oria is so much more like his age in this verse due to tremendously less political pressure than others, but some things about him stays the same.

He points to an entire shelf full of various haribo gummy bears. ]

Oh my god, that one is like a meter tall.

[ that is

a big gummy bear]

...could anyone actually eat that?

Duh! Me!

[ meanwhile, me, haki, would probably barf from attempting ]

... would you really want to?

[It's so big??? Oria's stomach might be a black hole but even so]

What happens when you take a bite and it gets sticky after?

I can just wash away the stickiness!

[ Sinclair is right though. Oria still hates the sticky and slimy things. ]

And if I felt desperate for sugar, maybe.

[ He plucks a bag of strawberry taffy and holds it out to Sinclair. ]

Yours.

For me?

[ Sinclair brightens when he sees it. His favourite flavor.]

Yeah! As for me, I'll get... this!

[ He plucks watermelon flavor taffy bag off the rack. ]

Perfect. Now to look for the peeps!

[ Sinclair gets dragged yet again... but he'll feel someone staring at him again--the same kind as before, coming from somewhere beyond the glass walls of the candy store. ]

[...

this time, Sinclair doesn't look around actively but he uses the mirrors at the top of the store to see if he can notice anything.]

Ah, they're on that back shelf I think.

[ Brb using parallel processing power to look up if selcom ais can work out if someone is spying on you]

[ Selcom AIs can find your friends nearby, but not much else unless Sinclair has hacking skills. When looking at the mirror, Sinclair will just see who walk past the store normally and some very young children putting their faces up against the glass wall to look at the candy on the display. None of them are staring at Sinclair.

"Mama! I want that one! Pleeeease?"

It must be a ciconia-born that presses their hand up against the glass and looking over at their mother, begging her for some candy. How does it feel to be a ciconia-born and not having to strive to be a gauntlet knight? Perhaps it's just something neither Sinclair nor Oria would know in their lives. ]

Found them! I dare you to try the hot tamale flavor one!

[ Oria laughs, plucking a blueberry icee flavor from the back shelf.

Meanwhile, the direction of the stare no longer seems to be coming from outside the store. This time, it feels like it comes from Sinclair himself. ]

I don't feel like dying from my tongue catching on fire.

[Sinclair simply cannot be dared over things like that. And unfortunately, hacking was not in Sinclair's training and he'd need electrodes to connect to another person anyway but...

Charon scan for any viruses and intruders. Reinforce firewalls. Isolate it.

Sinclair's gaze falls on the ciconia born child outside. The family must have been wealthy, he thinks. And there's a tug of longing.]

[ Oria was about to respond, but he sees Sinclair watching the child outside with their parents. He's quiet for a while but then wraps an arm around his shoulders. ]

Hey.

[ He smiles as he leans into Sinclair a little. It can't be helped with their current position. ]

You ever want a family?

[ Meanwhile, the intruder has been identified, but catching it seems significantly harder. Multiple attempts of Charon ramming Mephi into it had some close calls, but ultimately, the problem isn't solved. In fact, the little hacking avatar, a rook, attempts to turn security against Sinclair instead, like how an immune system attacks itself under certain circumstances. ]

[ Sinclair blinks, leaning back into Oria. He picks out the strawberry peeps]

... yeah. I always thought it would be a nice thing to have a real home with parents to help you learn things. I know it's not always perfect or easy or even nice, but the stories always made it seem so comfortable.

[Sinclair's memories are distorted, strange and unpleasant. He doesn't have a single sibling for Sibling day and for a factory born child, that as good as saying he'd never belong anywhere. So he had retreated into books he could touch, films he could see with his own two eyes and..

Charon, it seems like we have something that doesn't belong here. He needs to be free from it. A young voices echoes out and soon the intruder rook will find themselves backed into a corner with a devastatingly strong mental grip]

... Yeah.

[ Oria doesn't say much, because he feels that he has the experience. They say that the grass is greener on the other side, but is it really? Oria had learned to make do with what he has. He swallows his feelings, because to him, this is much more important than a romantic relationship. ]

I'm sure Aria always saw you as a younger brother that she could get along with. She treasured you so much. Remember that one time when she brought food for a makeshift picnic when you were transferred to the squad for the first time? When she was making the food at home, she was always fussing about you liking her food. She was so nervous about it, especially those potato dumplings. You know how many mistakes I ate that night? It was nuts. She wanted them to be perfect.

[ The rook is gripped like the ratshaking emote, but it doesn't flail nor does it attempt to escape. In fact, perhaps he can identify it, but the longer it's here, the worse it gets. It seems to be an information gathering type that relays info right away. ]

Ahaha...I remember that.

[ He wont ever the warmth Aria and Oria shown him that day. It had been the first time he had been with people, not just carted around on an operating table, thrown into impossible training simulations again and again.

There had been time to relax and to talk and to enjoy food that was made with his tastes in mind. The Sinclair back then had been a wary, creature waiting for the another shoe to drop while craving any sense of real human connection he could get]

... that was my first time on a picnic, eating with other people. I didn't realise...

[it still hurts when he thinks about Aria's absence, a lingering shadow that haunted their every step]

...she was a good sister. A good person...but I hope you didn't get too sick eating all those dumplings.

[ Demian looks down at the rook. He can identify it if course, but he wont chase it back to the source.

"Leave. Only we're allowed to exist in this place." And the rook is crushed, every element gathered up and isolated. The fire walls rise up higher, twisting with fire and blood. It must be a strange mindscape to see, brilliant easy fields to navigate on one end; a broken wreckage on the other]

I didn't! But luckily, I felt hungry that night, so I had no problems. It was her persistence that was crazy. She was sooooo much nicer to you than me!

[ He sounds jealous, but he really isn't. Oria doesn't like being doted upon, so that was perfectly fine with him. There's a solemn look in his eyes for a moment as he smiles a little. ]

... I know that it's not like me to bring up past experiences and memories, but someone once told me that it's better to remember Aria has someone you had positive experiences with instead of as a memory that hurts.

[ With how he still gets nightmares about the missile exploding on Aria, it's what he tells himself at the very least.

The hacker avatar disappears, crushed into nothing. Its presence has now disappeared from Sinclair, but for a moment--just a fleeting second, Sinclair will feel the emotions that he feels when Aria smiles warmly at him.

But it's a phantom, nothing more. ]

That's because you liked bullying her as her younger brother. [Automatic, amused but Sinclair takes those words to heart]

...yeah. Remember them as how they were, right?

[Sinclair hesitates for a moment, wishing he could hug Oria and help him feel better too.

But then, there's that strange odd warmth and Sinclair blinks. Oh. Huh? What? Oria might notice Sinclair's eyes are suddenly damp. Sinclair looks down hastily wiping at them. What was that? He's not sure if it's warm or painful]

Yeah--

[ Oria turns his head to look at Sinclair's face and his attention is tuned into Sinclair wiping his eyes. ]

... It's okay to cry about it, you know. I'm here.

CICONIA: WHEN THEY CRY

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