aterat | [Open] Headache And A Half

Who; Nida, Open
What; A New Voice In His Head and Chocobo Wrangling
Where; Scientia Household, Markets, Near Chocobo Ranch
When; September
Warnings; Discussion and depictions of talking to voices in your head.

I. The Statue | Scientia Home

It arrives at the door of the house, and just looking at the small statue, Nida knows it's for him. No doubt another one of those little finds that Raimon is good at, something on a list of them that Nida had prepared but never gotten around to coming back for. But he knows it's for him, because he recognizes it from home. Not this little piece, smaller than either of their pets specifically, was exactly like the ones he'd seen at home in pictures, but it was still something of home.

"Now if only I could figure out why you're here," Nida says as he picks the thing up and heads to the kitchen for his morning coffee. He puts the statue on the table to consider where it was almost immediately met by Julia leaping up and nuzzling against it.

"No accounting for your taste, Jules," he tells the feline before sipping at his coffee. What could this be? What could it mean? Why did every bit of his magical senses gifted by Siren scream that it was important?

"Why do you seem so familiar?" he asks after a sip of coffee. Then he reaches out for the thing once more and...

The mug breaks on the floor when he falls. Not that Nida, currently passed out on the floor, really notices.

II. The Arguments | Markets

Nida was learning a lot recently. Like how even a simple walk through the markets on his patrol shift was going to be a headache if he didn't know how to make peace in his own mind.

Oh! Grapes! We should have grapes. You like Grapes!

YOU like Grapes. He doesn't like grapes. There should be no grapes. Raisins instead I think.

Raisins are just boring grapes with wrinkles. Oh, that's why you like them. They're wrinkly. Like you.

And you clearly prefer grapes because they are bloated and much better crushed and fermented like-

"Will you shut up? I'm getting apples and that's final," Nida hissed under his breath, hoping no one else heard him. Which, given his luck, seemed pretty unlikely.

III. The Chase | Near Chocobo Ranch

"Kweh."

"I don't think I can argue with that," Nida said in response to the vocalization of the red chocobo underneath him. The chocobo shied one way and then the other, as if distressed, and Nida of course reached forward to pat her neck gently.

"I know," he says, his voice soft. "I know it's scary. You can smell them too. But I promise, we're here to help the other chocobos. And I won't let any wolves get you. I just need you to do me a favor and help get the other chocobos safe, okay?"

If it gets dangerous, I can shield you!

"That's not a helpful observation, Carbuncle, because she doesn't even know you're here," Nida noted as he nudged the chocobo into motion toward a blur of yellow in the distance. "Maybe save your protectiveness for someone who can understand the words when I relay a message."

And from the looks of it, there might be someone up ahead, astride that other chocobo. Nida raises a hand in greeting to the distant form.

"Well met! You helping out here too?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It would," Nida agrees.

He's forgotten important stuff. He knows that. A lot of it he had done willfully. Maybe it was best not to think about it, because the look of emotional pain that flashes over his face is... deep.

"Forgive me, Mono. You know I try not to avoid topics with you. But this one grows painful. Can we... can we move on?"

“Oh, I’m sorry…” The boy mumbled, knowing that he probably wouldn’t want to dwell on some topics for long himself. “But yeah, we can talk about other stuff instead.” He confirmed, trying to think of another topic the man might be interested in.

Or at least something to take his mind off the current one. “Is the coffee okay?” He added, for a start, while he tried to think of something better. Mono was, of course, not always the best at thinking of what to talk about.

(ooc: Should we wrap this one?)

"Wonderful. The coffee is wonderful," he promises. It wasn't great, but Nida wasn't really as married to it as his husband was, not anymore.

"But come. Tell me about your work. I wanna know how it's going for you."

That was enough to make the boy feel better about his attempt at coffee, so he was taking Nida at his word. The request to tell him about work was also a pretty good distraction from the prior line of conversation.

Mono didn’t take much prompting to launch into the interesting people he met while delivering things, or talking about his really cool boss, or about the bigger location they were moving into.

[Open] Headache And A Half

no subject

no subject

yeah that sounds about right

Then we shall wrap