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[VIDEO]; UN: [USERNAME NOT SET]

((ooc: CW for a brief mention of recreational drugs.))

[For two months, more or less, she's been in mourning. She hasn't shown her face much. And there's been a lot of crying.

But sentimental though Ariadne can be, she's also practical. Which means she recognizes when it's time to try moving forward.

So behold. Not Padmé, not Jane. Just a sad Ariadne, her hair in a loose braid, with a few tendrils curling around her face.]

I've decided it's time to clean through the rubble that was the Winchester cottage. The ground needs to be cleared so someone else can build there. And I'm sure a few things survived the fire which need to be sorted and placed.

I guess...I mean, I'll do it myself. But if anyone would like to help I would...appreciate it. I can pay you in fruit or herbs from the orchard.

[Her face is like porcelain. She's not letting a single crack show, even though it still hurts.]

I'll be there for the next week or so. Please let me know if you'd be willing to join me. At the very least, I think some of his--some of Dean's--marijuana plants survived. I'd like to try to replant them in my garden.

I can pay you with that, if you like.

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[ There's a faint pause, but then a soft noise of realisation. ]

You mean.. corruption, right? [ Or, well, occasionally it's other effects Trench is throwing at them, or the Pthumerians themselves doing it. But this is the more general one, and also-- ] I've heard about it before. Though.. I think it has never happened to me. I've never noticed that I started acting off, anyway..

Me neither. But knowing that it's possible...

I guess it explains a lot. And gives you something to look out for.

As long as we can look out for it..

[ That sounds a little pessimistic though, and Chizuru seems to realise as much after she voices it. It's why she shakes her head to herself and tries again. ]

I mean--! If we've already changed, then it might be hard to tell we've changed, maybe..? Since your mind changes along with you.. [ .. that's using the 'change' word many times, but it feels hard to make her point in any other way, Chizuru thinks. ] It might take someone else telling you that you seem to be acting off, I mean.

Maybe...

[It's not really Ariadne's area of expertise. But if she thinks about it, she does know that she's changed since Deerington.

Part of may just be growing up, though.]

Well, if I never notice you change, I'll say something. How does that sound?

[ She nods. ]

Okay. That sounds good to me. [ Better for someone to notice it early than to be too late to do anything about it, right?

.. though Chizuru realises something. Only a moment too late, right after she agrees. A part of her is worried that it'll be too awkward to bring it up now, especially since it's supposed to be a secret, but the realisation brings worry along with it. ]

Oh, there.. might be a problem with that though.

What kind of problem?

[She pauses. Perhaps that's too personal a question?

After all, they've only spoken a few times.]

I mean, if you want to say.

Ah, well..

[ Chizuru starts, but then hesitates again. It's so hard to say. Some people have taken to it alright in this place, but considering how bad her experiences back home were.. they're pretty hard to forget.

Still, the girl does her best to speak on, even though her tone is sounding more and more discouraged by the moment as she speaks. ]

Actually, miss Airy.. I'm worried that you might think less of me if I told you. That's why it's kind of hard to say..

[She's quiet a moment.

Is this what she was like as a girl? The kind of fear of rejection that she demonstrated in school?

Maybe...

All the more reason to shake her head slightly.]

What if I promise I won't?

[ She shifts a little, seeming to consider it to herself. ]

.. are you sure that's something you can promise?

[ Chizuru doesn't sound like she doesn't believe that at all, at the very least. It's just that she's still a little.. concerned. ]

What if it's more surprising than you're imagining? Or worse than you're imagining? Then you'd just feel bad if you promised me something like that first.

Chizuru, you're going to have to trust me.

[She shrugs.]

But if you're not comfortable with that, just say so. I won't mind.

No, I..

[ Granted, she is a little uncomfortable talking about this.

But she also doesn't want to give the other the impression that Chizuru doesn't trust her. So after another moment of thinking about it to herself, Chizuru has to enlist the help of her Omen to make this conversation set to private, just to make sure at least no one else hears it.

And even then she has to suck in a deep breath before she can say it in the first place. ]

W-Well, actually, miss Airy.. I'm.. not really human. So there are times where I might look different than I usually do without it being corruption, you know..?

[She smiles.]

I think I know something about that.

[And she lets herself change.

It looks a little like heat rising off of a hot pavement, rippling and bending the air around her. Watercolor bleeds take over. And when the shimmer dies down, Airy's on screen as before, only different. Her skin is green as the underside of a maple leaf, hair blue like candy floss, and her lips lavender.]

I know a lot about that.

[ Chizuru lets out an audible gasp when she sees the change. It's not like it's the first time she's seen it, between the demons and the furies back home, but the other's transformation is certainly different from those, seeming to go even further on the colour scale.

It's not like she's shocked though. Not in a way where she's scared, or disgusted.

No, she's just.. surprised. Chizuru didn't think that there were people like her here, let alone someone she had already been talking to. ]

M-Miss Airy..! You're not human either..?

[Ariadne laughs. Not unkindly.]

No, I'm afraid I'm not. But I look like one, sometimes.

I'm an Alastrian. I...

[She shrugs.]

It's not really a secret. I just like my Human form.

.. oh.

[ That case is a little bit different from her own then, Chizuru thinks, considering her own true nature is very much a secret.. And she thinks that the other has seemed far too nice until now to lie about something like this at this moment.

She needs a tiny moment to try and process that, and for the surprise to calm down a little, but then she carefully asks: ]

What.. exactly is an Alastrian, miss Airy..? [ It's not a word she's ever heard before. ] I-If that's not too rude of a question to ask..

[ It's what the other is, after all! Maybe it's rude to not know, even though Chizuru is pretty sure people with that name just don't exist where she comes from. ]

[Ariadne frowns slightly, a little furrow forming between her eyes.]

I...I'm not sure how to answer that, exactly.

An Alastrian is a species of my realm. We're known as "demonoids," but that's just kind of a broad term for any species born with more than the two arms, two legs, and one head of a humanoid. Like a Human or an Elf.

[She shrugs.]

Most Alastrians look like me. But some can look like a Human. We're good with languages. Music. Mathematics. We're nomadic and travel in packs. Our males give birth to litters of twenty or so...

[A pause.]

That always startles the men here, when I tell them that.

[ Honestly, that fact probably ought to be more startling to Chizuru than it ends up being in the moment too, given how unused she is to such an idea. But she's come across so many odd things in this place already, and she's so caught up in the surprise of the fact that she was waffling so much about telling the other when Ariadne herself wasn't human either, that the pregnancy thing doesn't even bother her.

Instead she's quiet for a moment, trying to take it all in. It's a lot. ]

That's.. so different from humans. [ Chizuru gets it. She nods slowly. ] Is that why you usually look like a human here? So you.. don't stand out as much..?

No, it's not that...exactly.

[How to explain? She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly.]

Back home in Valeria--where I come from--people are...sometimes afraid of Alastrians. Just because there are stories about us that aren't true. Scary stories. And when I was a little girl, my mother taught me that it was important to look like a Human so no one would...

[Try to kill her.]

Make some kind of mistake. And I just grew up blending in. I figured I would have to here. But the people are pretty understanding. No one's ever given me a hard time about what I am. I made it public a year ago and hardly anyone cared.

...

[ This time the silence is surprise.

After all - it's not like Chizuru expected to find her own story reflected back at her in another person's life story. And yet.. here she is, listening to the words out of Ariadne's mouth, the same that could have come out of her own. ]

My father.. always kept me hidden too. He tried to let me live as a normal human, so people wouldn't ostracize us... But it was hard sometimes, especially when my powers would play up without me realising it.

[Well, that explains quite a bit.

The color around Ariadne ripples, as she goes back to looking Human again. A very serious Human with sympathetic eyes. She nods slightly.]

And you keep doing it now.

Yes.

[ Chizuru confirms slowly, nodding to herself. ]

Because, it's..

[ .. technically she knows she shouldn't have any reason to hide here. Stranger things than her exist in this place. Technically even Ariadne's kind of people seem to be further away from humans than Chizuru's kind of people are.

And yet it's hard. ]

Whenever other people found out about my power back home, they.. got really turned off. No one wanted anything to do with me anymore once they realised something about me was wrong. Inhuman. So, I'm-- I keep worrying that that will happen again..

I understand.

[More than words can say, really. Which means Ariadne herself isn't going to change Chizuru's mind.

It's the kind of thing she needs to decide for herself.]

I won't tell anyone. If that's what you're asking. But...there's nothing wrong with you. We're all born some way or another.

.. I don't know.

[ Her voice is soft.

It's not even that she disagrees with Ariadne, because she does think that about the other. That there's nothing wrong with Ariadne. That she's a person like any other.

But when Chizuru tries to think that about herself, it's a lot harder. ]

Back home, I'm.. one of the last few of my kind. Almost all of us have been killed by humans because they depised us so much.. That must mean there has to be something wrong with me too, right?

If that's so, then there's something wrong with me as well.

[She sighs softly.]

Sometimes, people spread terrible stories. Lies. In order to trick people into hating other people.

That's what happened to my kind. But none of the stories are true. Not really.

[ Terrible stories.

Chizuru thinks of Kazama. Not all those terrible stories might be so untrue, right..? ]

Why would they do that though..? [ That's the question she instead ends up asking out loud. ] Why would they want to make people hate other people..?

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