Unusual Moods

Not all that long ago, Xander had threatened that if Kita didn't leave her quarters at Scale Emblem Headquarters, that he was going to drag her out, kicking and screaming. So... she hasn't been back there. Instead, the Imp seems to have set up 'shop' right smack in the center of Tolbana. There is scaffolding built around one of the central fountains. Stone blocks are lined up, ready to be hoisted into place.

At the moment, the Imp is dressed in ratty clothing, very unlike her normal fashionable attire. She is knee-deep in fountain water, using a chizel to work on outlining what look to be buildings forming at odd angles. For anyone who has heard rumor of Ezzo, it looks as if she is trying to capture the chaos there. As a few of the Scale Emblem guards pass by, they murmur to themselves about how she hasn't moved from that spot for an entire day.

It's hard to tell if the girl has been eating, or sleeping, or doing anything else other than carving stone while kneeling in cold water.

    Uta wanders into view, staff resting against her shoulder like those sticks cartoon hobos used to carry their handkerchief-wrapped bundle in 1930s American cartoons. There is a look of fondness in her eyes, as she observes the architecture of Tolbana, and her smile creeps a bit wider at each Spriggan she encounters on the street. Some greet her, and she cheerfully greets back.

    Everything changes when she notices Kita. She freezes. She gapes. Her eyebrows knit in worry.

    "...Kita..."

    She closes her mouth and rushes over to her friend. She doesn't call out to her, yet, she just rushes close. To take a better look at what she's doing. And to see if Kita will notice Uta umprompted.

Under normal circumstances, Kita might not be the most observant when she is abosrbed into an art project. However, usually she still responds to her own name. There isn't even a hint of acknowledgement from the Imp girl. Her hair is toussled, her clothing is wrinkled and looks as if she's worn it for a few days, and there is a decent layer of stone dust coating her glasses and her shoulders.

She stops, looks at the piece of rock, then starts to carve a bit more, making an audible 'chink chink chink' sound as she evens out the edge of a building.

As Uta gets closer, it likely becomes obvious that /someone/ has been trying to help her at some point or another. There is a tray with some food set on it, but it looks to be untouched and many hours old. However, no such person is present at the moment. In fact, other than giving a passing glance at the Imp, most people seem to just accept her as if she were a background NPC.

    Uta makes a flicking gesture, and her index finger dances in the air, the way it does when an adventurer operates the menu.

    A final jab coincides with a concerned look up at Kita, and then staring back at what to Kita will look like thin air.

    Uta sucks in her lips. Stays like that for a second.

    "...I knew it," she says, and lowers her head, her eyes closed.

    Then, something happens.

    As Uta straightens up, she straightens up in a different way. Not carefree, not easy-going as she usually is. She's relaxed, but alert. Attentive, focused, determined. The disaster that Uta usually is, even manages to have a hint of... solemnity? But in an approchable way.

    She tugs at the hem of her jacket, breathes in.

    "Kita...", she calls out again, loud enough to be heard, but soft enough to sound tactful, and gentle in attitue. Uta goes as far as extending a hand to attempt and touch her friend, in a way to attract attention through contact, but in the most discreet way possible. "Kita. We need to talk. It's important." She says this with a smile, with an intonation that does not betray whether what she has to say is good or bad. Just that it is something she cares a lot about, because she cares about her interlocutor.

Kita is oblivious to Uta's machinations at first, her brows furrowed. She wipes a bit of sweat with one sleeve, but quickly sets back to the task at hand. Once again, she doesn't respond to her name when it is first called. In fact, it isn't until that hand reaches out and touches her shoulder that she blinks, looking up through dust-coated glasses.

"Huh?" She blinks, then takes off her glasses, wipes them on her shirt, then puts them back on her nose, "Oh, Uta. Sorry. What did you need?" She sits back from the sculpture, if only momentarily. Then, some rock dust catches her nose and she sneezes. It's high-itched and cute, but it also sends dust flying into the air around her. "Sorry." Kita appologizes, again.

    Uta retracts her hand, her reassuring smile never fading. "Kita. Have you heard the words 'Fey Mood' before?" she looks around, and finds a suitable place, either on the rim of the fountain if applicable, or a bench or downright on the ground if not. "Because if not... I think you need to sit down befoer we speak." She pats the sitting spot next to her, to invite Kita to join her.

    That posture, that etiquette, that carrying herself...

    ...she is behaving like the doctor she is. Breaking news to a patient. A patient who is also her friend.

"Fey... what?" Kita replies, looking more than a little confused at the question. "No. I have no idea what you're talking about, Uta." She sighs to herself, her stormy blue-gray eyes looking tired, and yet... they keep flicking back to the statue. "Listen, I have a lot of work to do."

The Imp is obviously gearing up to go back to what she was doing, but as Uta pats the spot next to her, Kita furrows her brows again, sighing as she pushes herself up to her feet. Her trousers are soaked, but she doesn't seem to notice, nor care.

"Listen, I don't need another person on my case right now. Jurou's constantly badgering me, Xander's threatening me, I don't really need anyone else making my life harder than it is, right now."

"It will not be more than a few minutes, I promise. I will not badger, threaten, or otherwise hinder you," Uta says as Kita leaves her spot. The Spriggan's voice is slow, soothing, reassuring. And she's smiling.

    "I just want to tell you a couple of very important things, and then I will leave you be."

    She will wait for Kita to be settled (or long enough if she doesn't), "Kita, as you may know, I'm a nurse in this world. This means I have access to medical-level inspection."

    "You scan as having a <Fey Mood>. Before you ask, yes, I have researched as much as I could, but could not find anything beyond what the inspection tells me: you are 'Resonating with the Primordial Song of this world'. Her intonation and the selective reverence in her pronunciation makes it obvious which words should be capitalized. "That sounds wonderful, Kita. Congratulations."

With the reassurances, Kita settles herself down next to Uta, though her whole posture looks unsettled. It's the look of someone who would rather be anywhere else. It doesn't help that her whole outer appearance doesn't look normal for her. Her makeup isn't done, her hair is disheveled, her clothing seems to be whatever happened to be lying around. There is just a certain lack of care to it all.

"Okay, I'm listening." Her fingers still twitch, though, as if she wanted to get back to what she was doing.

As Uta begins her explination, though, Kita's expression just grows a bit more confused. It's not that her mind can't grasp what Uta is saying, but that she doesn't quite understand the connotation of it all. "You make it sound like I'm pregnant or something." Kita stares, "I'm not. Jurou is a girl, it doesn't work that way. And this is a video game. I mean, I know you /can/ do that kind of thing, but I can promise you she doesn't have the right bits for that kind of thing."

    Uta doesn't stop smiling, she even gets a bit more cheerful. She points at Kita's work in progress, "I think you're pregnant with that," Uta quips. "Congratulations, it's a masterpiece!"

    "Kita, I've inspected Gwen. She behaves just like you. And has exactly the same status effect. I'm sure it's the same thing that happened to Att Syne. You'll be fine, and something wonderful will be done with it. I just want to say I'm in awe of what you're accomplishing, and..." She twists her mouth a bit. She thinks. "...I'm proud of you. I'm proud of what you are accomplishing, and you should be proud too."

    She moves to stand up. "That said... if you are to finish that magnum opus properly, you'd better eat, drink and wash." She points at Kita's chisel. "At the cost of sounding cliche, I'll point out that just like you have to periodically maintain your chisel, sharpen your pencils, replenish your palette with paint, and wash your brushes when you're done, you must not forget to eat, drink, and wash yourself." She starts the next the sentence without even the slightest pause before the former one, to allow no room for Kita to cut in (Uta isn't sure if Kita would cut in or not, but she's not taking any chances). "Don't think of it as indulging into activities that distract you from your work. Think of it of what it actually is: taking proper care of the most crucial tool needed for the completion of your work: the artist."

    "...and yes. I've totally just called you a tool."

    With the last sentence, full-on nurse Uta crumbles, and the off-the-clock careless young woman everyone is used to returns in the blink of an eye and the smirk of a mouth.

Kita looks from Uta, to the statue, and then back again. "It's a bunch of half-finished rock sculpture, right now." She replies, reaching up to brush a few strands of white hair out of her eyes. "Though, I guess that's better than the alternative."

Though everything Uta says makes perfect sense, it's obvious that Kita is having trouble following one thought to the next. Her mouth opens, as if she were trying to find words to grasp at various things, but Uta just keeps on going, and that just derails her thought process even more.

In the end, Kita just sits there, "I... think I understand what you're saying." She probably doesn't, at least not fully. Her brain just isn't operating on that type of wavelength right now. "I guess Jurou did want me to come home for a couple of hours." She seems to look around, then, as if taking in her surroundings for the first time, "I wonder if she left without me..." There is likely a hint of disappointment there, but who could blame Jurou. Her girlfriend has been a space case for the better part of a week.

"Would you mind coming with me? Maybe you can explain all this to her." Her brows furrow, "Maybe she won't be as upset with me..." Jurou is likely more worried than not, but Kita is sensitive enough to misinterpret it.

    Uta says, "I could come without problems, but I feel like adding a catch." She points at the tray of food, "I'm blackmailing you. I'm coming only if you stuff some of that in your mouth, right now," she jokes in that ha-ha-only-serious kind of tone. "And, seriously, you're sculpting while standing in a fountain. Menu-bathing is as easy as flicking a menu. You don't even have to move."

"Fine, fine." Kita reaches down and grabs what looks to be a set of onigiri. She shoves one into her mouth unceremoniously. It's still a departure from her usual good manners, but it's better than nothing. "Hwwppy nww?" She asks, cheeks puffed up as she chews.

Then, she looks from the fountain, To Uta, and back again, as if she had never thought of the fact that she could just... use the menu bathing option in the fountain. Swallowing the huge mouthfull of food, she mutters, "I should have thought of that. Why didn't I think of that?" She groans, then shoves the other onigiri into her mouth, before starting to wander off towards her quarters.

    Uta frowns at Kita's shenanigans. "...Resonating with the Primordial Song of this world sounds an awful lot like being me...", she murmurs under her breath, surprised. As Kita starts towards her quarters, Uta hurries to catch up with her. "I don't think I've ever met Jurou... I've heard so much about her, but never met her. I really need to ask about the popcorn golem and the fire magic..."