The Wolf You Feed

Haru has not been particularly social the last few weeks. When he has been social it was not for the sake of connecting and bonding. For seeing people as they are and getting to know them better. It seemed formal or with an agenda. At the First Light festival it was more like a noble's responsibility to speak to and encourage guests. Duels seemed about getting stronger. Alliance conversations have been about organizing a disorganized group into mobilizing against an invasion force. It has not been /personal/ and he has done it so well that no one questioned. No one noticed. For life is a stage and we are all but the epicenter of our actor's own journey. This includes Haru. So he gives Uta a chim while she is still experimenting with means of pain and healing. It almost seems to... fit.

The tavern in choice is little more than a dive bar with four tables. There is bread on the table by the time Uta would arrive. Cheese to snack on with it is sliced there. A bottle of a dark rye whiskey is on one side along with a whiskey glass. Haru's normal drink is a stout, also dark, but not as strong. Yet the Artificer is not drunk. He is sipping and savoring his drink, not chugging it. The human raises it to Uta once in view to do so, "This brings back memories. Last time we got a chance to really sit down and talk it was." He tries to remember, "It was a while ago." Even now he has that suave social mask of a smile on, despite what burns beneath it.

People who have known Uta for a while will realize she is not the type to normally wear a mask, mostly by virtue of not even knowing where her mask is, and when pointed out, being startled and asking, "Wait, I have a mask? Since when?"

It is not normal, but not impossible -- for instance, people might be surprised at how, once on hospital or clinic duty, she puts on the best professional facade: dealing with patients is fifty percent medicine, fifty percent etiquette, fifty percent paperwork, and fifty percent overtime.

Lately, however, gone is even that mask. Uta is a walking mess of tattered clothes, a cookie-cutter menu-crafted nurse's uniform like one sees on the most unremarkable of Landers; any attempt at Appraisal would reveal its durability to be solidly in the yellow, but one could also judge that by its frayed appearance. It is, however, spotless and immaculate, befitting the amount of hygiene a Pharmaceutical Strange Mood demands.

Indeed, she is not wearing a costume yet, despite the Shadow Festival having begun already.

She staggers in with bags under her eyes, sifting through papers held together on a clipboard. Again, spotless and maniacal organization, the sheets fit together as if they were aligned with a level. It takes Haru's greeting to interrupt her mumbling and look up. "What? Uh? Oh. Hi. Indeed, last time. It was..." She squints, looking far closer to the 'in need of a good rest' end of the spectrum rather than 'exausted to the point of collapse'. "...Ants. We hurt all those ants, yes. We hurt them good," Uta says. No mention of Fukaziroh and what happened after that, which is probably what Regular Uta would have focused on the most in different circumstances.

The worn out nurse staggers towards the table, and sits down, placing down the papers and starting to flick through them again. Food or drink seems not to quite register for the time being. "So, uh, remind me please, why did I invite you here again?"

No, despite Uta's statement, this is not a CGI remake. Haru chimmed first.

"Blurry eyes, distant ears," Haru says as he holds his whiskey glass. The dark amber liquid swishes around as he holds it, looking at Uta with one blue eye and letting some internal conversation play out behind the scenes. A slow blink ends that mental conversation as he drags his focus back to the here and now. "Ants," the well dressed human replies. It is true that was one of the last times they talked. Presents were given out. Confessions were made. It was a high point of excitement and tension.

Currently Haru is not in any costume. His normal Navy jacket is slung over the back of his chair. It leaves a neatly kept button up shirt on. A businessman drinking at a dive bar that looks two paygrades too low for someone that shiny and clean. "Also of your degree. Of Doctors and Nurses," the young human continues on, eye looking down to the glass. "I've always trusted you based off of your firm character. But back then, I started seeing you as more than a combination of preferable attributes. A person. Like a sister." The dark amber liquid swirls in the glass. "So I invited you for a meal," he corrects the who-invited-who, "one to make sure you are eatting. Two, to be selfish and speak about what I did not back then."

His one blue eye wanders, "In your current state, I understand your focus will be low. I don't expect you to remember any of this later on." There is another group two tables down. They are laughing and having a good time. Other adventurers that make it look so effortless. "But it needs to be said and made real, if only under such unrealistic conditions."

Uta freezes as soon as the subject of degrees, Doctors and Nurses is mentioned: eyes wide as a small mammal caught in the headlights, pupils as tiny as a dot. If one cannot see the shiver streaking down her back, those dark wings do an excellent job at magnifying the vibrations affecting her spine. It seems that leading that way has sorted the, if not desired, at least desirable effect of yanking Uta away from her pile of numbers, ingredients, and test reports, and giving Haru an unexpected amount of attention.

For now.

"I'm... I just...", she stutters, attempting to reply to the last sentence, and failing. Eyes look down. Oh, hey, there's food. As her brain is busy processing that thought, her stomach roars its dissatisfaction with its upstairs neighbour, prodding the latter into action. "Oh, the cheese is for me, right?", asks Uta, her words hard to understand due to her chewing cheese as she speaks.

"Character? Person? Selfish?", Uta asks, as if trying to sew together the thread of the conversation again, lids narrowing in an attempt to focus harder. "What do you mean? You don't seem the selfish type to me." She doesn't seem to reply to the "Sister" comment, yet, but she did show an emotional reaction on its being spoken. Perhaps it will come up later, as it is wont to happen with Uta.

Normally it would be Haru's Modus Operandi to not skirt a conversation into unpleasant territory. The Doctor and Nurse topic is one of them and he just ran through it like it was cruising through an aisle in a grocery store. The luster in his blue eye isn't quite there today. It is not the ocean at first light. It is the ocean at midnight. The same waters as morning light but a completely different feeling to them. "The cheese is for you," Haru confirms with a slow nod of the head, "as well as the bread. The staff here is quite rough so you'll have to shout if you would like a meal or a drink." A tap on the whiskey bottle is given. His solution was bottle service instead of reliance on wait staff to refill his glass.

"I don't seem selfish, huh," Haru sounds rather sad about that. Like the one thing he is very good at is deceiving the people that he trusts the most. "Thats because I lie, Uta." The first truth. But everyone lies. It is part of what makes people who they are. Even for the right reasons it could be viewed as the better course of action! "Or, perhaps," he doesn't press further, either unable or unwilling yet, "it is better to say that how I present myself is not who I am. The gap is wide." Two hands come together in a muted clap. They begin to separate apart until they are shoulder length apart. "Many people do this. I am not unique there. And so there is a lie to one's self that it is 'ok' somehow," he isn't accepting or condemning it. Making a point after all that seems hazy. So he takes a drink.

"I doubt I will construct a linear narrative tonight. Let me ask you this, then. What is it you think of me? My qualities and my flaws. What do you think of this costume I have put on since we've met?" Notably he is not wearing a costume. His normal clothes.

Uta thinks for a moment. "You can think of someone as your sister," she says after swallowing. "That's sweet. So you can't be a complete jerk. You are searching yourself. It doesn't matter where you are. You're on a journey. As opposed to a ride. You actively drive towards improvement." Silence. "And the costume... uh..." Head swims. Focus. Focus. Rub those temples. "...I need cheese."

She picks up a slice of bread, places a slice of cheese on it, and muches pensively, sloshing the bitten slice in her hand the way someone else might slosh their whiskey. "Manners suave and debonair. Approchably aloof. You strike me as a nice person." A pause as another sip of bred and cheese is bitten off. Chew, chew.

Stiffen up in surprise. "Sister? You think of me as a sister?", she asks, as if she just realized that.

Told you it was coming.

"Mmhmm," the white haired man says in a humming approval as he looks at his drink. Haru is normally more direct like a chirpy 'Yep!' or at least an affirmative 'Yes'. "I never had any sisters," he begins, "though my mother always did want one. It was an agreement that my father and mother had when they were brought to union." Not married. Not in love. Union. Like what nobles might do for political reasons. "Two sons so that the Himekawa name could move forward. Heir and Spare. As many daughters inbetween that would make it possible," he says as he sips his whiskey. "So I was a disappointment from birth for both of them." His mother wanted more children. His father only needed him as a backup. He explains while holding up the number two, "I have one older brother. Spitting image of my father. Like I'm one to talk."

A deep breath. Even this amount of talking about him self looks like poison in his lungs. Such an alient concept. Haru draws it back, "If I had a sister, I imagine she would be like you. Someone who is a good listener. Not perfect, in such a way that makes them easy to talk to and trust. Good at keeping secrets. Capable of seeing other people, even when they are so far down a dark well that only the shimmering blue surface is there to hide it." A tap of his finger on the wooden table. A blue eye half lidded. "And honestly I don't deserve it, so I never sought it. I am not going for a gold medal in the trauma Olympics here, but would you still think I am a 'nice person' if I orchestrated the deletion of all your educational records? Or had a hand in it? Knowing that its not only a personal attack on you, a person I didnt know before now, but it was done at scale to hundreds and thousands of people?" He shakes his head at that, refreshing his glass, "No. A well adjusted and reasonable person has no means for that kind of forgiveness no more than forgiving a loan on a house or business. It is toxic karmic equity that you live with."

Just as Uta had begun the process of slipping back to her clinical data, the bomb is dropped. Pointy ears perk up. Eyes widen and stare.

The conflict is palpable: not only between Uta's own usual positive attitude and the implications of Haru's words. It also involves a third, powerful contender in this urge to finish this work (so close, so close!), and... something else? A glimmer of unusual focus, and some sort of realization that sends a second shiver down her spine. "...is that why..."

Uta's internal struggle, possibly due to three out of four contenders incapacitating and tying down the fourth, no matter how powerful it is, seems to reach the conclusion that this is a unique moment: seize the day!

Uta looks down, silent. The hands on her knees tighten and open a couple of times. Then one figer raises slow, and rests along her lips. Some time passes. "A big question," Uta finally states. It is not a yes. It is not a no. It is an "I am thinking" kind of reply.

"If you were offered the oppurtunity," she begins, her words slow, careful, weighted, "through effort and commitment and slow, hard work, to fix the damage you have caused to just one of this one hundred and thousand people, just one person... Would you do it?"

It is easy to jump to a response to that. Yes would be the answer people would want to hear. Even if it is true, 'Yes' doesnt qualify it. Haru runs his finger along the rim of the whiskey glass, "Everyone came to Elder Tales for a reason." Not exactly an answer. He continues, "Some people were gamers and it is part of their culture. Some just wanted entertainment in action or story. Some wanted an escape from a world that kept them from being more than what they could be in a fantasy setting. Where people can be free."

The Artificer's finger runs over the glass, "I escaped here after a fight with my father. The reason? A grown man playing with dolls." There is a pause. That is too harsh, even he knows that. "Angels, specifically. Those small dolls that were used to fight in arenas. Ah," he raises his glass and sips on it, "I suppose that doesn't truly add to the answer in the end. I got into a fight. I came here. The Night Wolf isn't want to run away from problems. The Day Wolf seeks peace. I longed for that kind of peace, Uta."

A hand gestures to the slime pin that the Kung Fu nurse has, "So I took a different path." Haru blinks that blue eye slowly as if it were made of lead, "I made things that would make people happy in hope that it would pay down the debt. You can't defeat darkness with more darkness." He isn't so sure anymore. Everyone else seems to think its the right way to go about it. "I didn't turn a profit, and I could. I was groomed to understand business well. Had I wished it, I would be more akin to a banker like Yeowang. But the currency I track is not a coin. It is a debt on my family's name." A tap on his glass as he hasn't been giving Uta eye contact during this time. "It is not kindness. It is duty. No less greedy than those seeking a coin. Only my account didn't start at zero." Like a student loan from hell. "Yes, Uta, I am spending a lifetime repaying what one generation can of that debt, knowing it would take three, maybe four more lifetimes to come close to it. I cannot consider forgiveness until then, and the Night wolf feeds on it."

A pause, "But we were talking hypotheticals, so 'Yes' is the answer." A very quiet, direct answer.

"I think that, by now, it is obvious that I am not really the one who needs that answer," Uta says, still looking down at the hands she's clasping and unclasping on her knees. "One thing I have to say: I admire you. You knew you were jeopardizing something with such admission. And went through anyway." She inhales. She holds her breath in.

"I will not insult your intelligence by elaborating on the sincerity of your regret. You can probably work things out by yourself." She inhales, and states, distant, "About the other question you might have at this point... after this kind of admission, I am not sure how to feel about you on a personal level. I suppose the thing to do here would be to ask for some time alone. Some time to reflect. It's a lot to take in. I wish I could say I forgive you right away, but there's someone who did something very similar to me, and still hasn't been forgiven after all these years."

Her eyes still transfix the back of her hands, balled up on her knees.

"That is what I would have said were not for one detail. One apparently irrelevant, but very, very important detail." Uta deres glance up, for the briefest moment: "I am your sister now." Her eyes drop immediately. "That bit changes everything. I will be here for you as soon as- I must- I gotta-"

She fidgets, and rushes to grab her data again, flicking through her notes and marking specific bits in pencil. "-process the pain. But we can work on this together in a bit, okay?"

Strange mood finally taking over her mind again?

"Thanks, sis," Haru humors the new honorary title. "I knew asking to speak to you in your current state would be a stress on your ability to focus. It is a lot to wrangle what I did tonight, having taken the journey once in Moonlight Goldsmithing." A holds the glass in one hand and takes a deep sip. "There are going to be some changes and not all of them for the better. I wanted you to know it wasn't because of something you or Fuka did. Its a struggle of my own I must address." He lets a short laugh out, "Maybe it falls into your research. Can't think of anything more painful than what has already been done." No, he wasn't involved with Pluto's Kiss. Even his admission has a degree of separation from the truth, but it is as close as he can get to it right now.

"I read this story once," Haru says, relaxing from the more serious topic as he sees the Strange Mood taking hold, "it involves wolves and pain, so worth a listen. You may have even heard it before yourself. An old grandfather was teaching his grandsom about life. 'A fight is going on inside me,' he said to the boy. 'It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil, for he is anger, envy, sorrow, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.' He continued, 'The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humilty, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you-- and every other person, too." The latter point settles on Uta. Everyone has their demons. "The grandson thought about this lesson for a moment and asked his grandfather, 'Which wolf will win?' To which the grandfather simply replied, 'The one you feed.'" With that he pushes the bread towards Uta as the obsession takes hold, "Eat, Uta."

Uta looks stunned at the dish. Up to Haru. Down to the dish. "Medicine cannot take away some kinds of pain, no matter what other people might say," she remarks, as she digs in. "You got me good there." Mouthfuls are stuffed into her mouth, her notes, if not forgotten (as the constant obsessive glances cast that way prove), at least temporarily put aside. "And another moral of the story, I suppose," she comments with her mouth full, "...is that sometimes it is hard to tell one wolf from the other at face value. Morality is sometimes hard to discern at a first glance, so it is important to look at your wolves in the eyes and ask, 'Who's a good boy?'"

She looks up from stuffing her face, and suddenly blinks. "...are you telling me I'm a good wolf?"

Haru leans forward to ruffle Uta's hair. "No. You're a good Spriggan. Who's a good Spriggan? You're a good Spriggan!" Yes, he is speaking to Uta like she is a puppy. Could not resist. There is a grin on his face when he goes to sitting back down. "I've thought about that little story a lot lately, especially when I am feeling insecure or angry," he says with a bit more color in his voice. "It made Fuka and I go on a 'break' until I can sort myself out more. Focus on that and getting the Alliance more coordinated. Those are more goals than feelings," he says, breaking off some break for himself and munching on it. A swallow. "I've been thinking that both wolves are a part of us. I've been trying so hard to deny the Night Wolf, because it is 'evil', that I think I missed a part of the story. Both of them are part of you." He directs a part of bread to Uta, "And exactly what you said. Which is 'good' and which is 'evil' anyway? So maybe I'll come off as a bit more aggressive, lord knows I've snapped at Setsuna some six times already for being a troll. And been pissy with Fuka for being a flirt." He laughs, "But in the end, the only person I think I can really open up to is my sister here. Its a start." His blue eyes darken just a bit as he says with a chilly seriousness, "And if someone tried to hurt you I would destroy them." Dot. Dot. Dot. A whistle, "Not that I'd ever need to, you are one of the stronger people I know. Training with you is a constant reminder to keep my horizons open if I plan to be a Master Artificer one day and really repay my debts. By making: A robot." Yeah, not realistic.

Uta reciprocates the ruffling of her hair with an expression of humorous huff. Not that her hair is in a great shape anyway. Strange moods are terrible hair stylists. "Yin and yang," she comments. "And sometimes it's easy to confuse Good and Evil with Order and Chaos. Absolutely not the same thing." No, no previous experience of D&D. "It... they... the..." Focusing on advanced topics that are not related to her research is proving too daunting a task, so she simply sighs. "I... will have to get back to this at another time," she says, switching to the far easier task of consuming food.

After some further culling of the cheese population, she reprises, "Opening up is a start. A long journey has to begin somewhere."

Uta just looks at Haru with surprise when he says he would destroy people who hurt her, and at the comment about Uta being one of the strongest people Haru knows, the Spriggan looks perplexed for a moment, then mumbles, "You need to meet more people," heyes kept down.

"...A robot? Like... a large one? One that can be piloted?" She leans over. "Will it have slime cannons for hands?" She rubs her chin. "No, wait, that's silly. It needs to be able to manipulate objects-"

Look back up. "Will it have syringes for hands?"

"No, I don't think so," Haru challenges about Uta's strength, "who spent the time to help me understand the nuances of Elder Tale's fighting styles? You. Who spend the time to train with me? You. Who is constantly adapting? You. Who is never giving up and I can see all the new techniques you develop every time we spar? You." He points a bit of cheese at Uta, "If you admire me for any of those qualities, then its the same for you. I've seen Shiruba, Yeowang, Mikage, Schneider, and Fuka fight. They are also strong. Even now you are -holding a conversation- with me against an obsession." He puts the cheese down onto a plate like he was dosing a cigarette. Turn turn. Smudge smudge. Ruining good cheese here. "Plus your kicks hurt like hell. I feel confident when the Palace Landers come after me, they have a fight for their life ahead of them!" Not if. When. Now that he can remove crowns its just a matter of time before the opposition will want to 'disarm' that capability.

"What about," Haru goes onto the roboto idea, "we get a really big slime vat. Ok? Enchanted glass style. Put holes in it so the Slimes can ooze out like an exoskeleton. RoboSlime."

Poor cheese.

"I still need to train harder," Uta mumbles. "You remember our last battle against Shiyang? We were all this close to being dead. Stalemate." Chomp, chomp, chomp.

"I spent my first weeks as traumatized clueless weakling sticking to root cities, too terrified to venture anywhere with anything dangerous. Mostly helping in the impromptu camp hospitals we set up to deal with the ensuing chaos." Uta has a startled gasp of sorts, and digs back into her data. It takes some time for her to gather enough strength to tear herself away, and even then, it's merely a partial separation, allowing her voice to say something while her eyes and pencil-holding hand are still ensnared in the web of Pharmacy: "Then Xander started teaching me: this world is trying to kill us all. It's either be strong enough to fight back or die. It's what we should all be doing until we can go back home."

"...Tell me more about that robot."