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Good day, everyone. Forgive me for taking up some of your time.

[ .. it's hard to see who's speaking though. It seems that the person has set down their Omni in front of them, which means that the camera is just filming.. someone's knees as they're kneeling on the ground. ]

My name is Chizuru, Chizuru Yukimura. I have a few questions about this place. Of course I mean to repay anyone for sharing their advice and time with me. I.. um, I could cook something for you, or I could try to see if I could help you with a different favour.. [ The voice momentarily trails off, like the person is thinking, before she speaks on. ]

I-In any case. My first question has to do with the food here. I've already found a lot of different sorts of food I'm not used to, and I would really appreciate it if someone could help me with figuring out some of them, like.. what they taste like, or how they are supposed to be used in dishes..

Secondly.. I'm looking for the Shinsengumi. [ Something dips in the tone as that's being said, a hint of sadness sneaking in. ] I know that the chance they have found themselves here is very low, but if they are here, or if anyone has heard of them, I would like to know.

[ Maybe she could use some technological help too, given.. you know. The obviously unintended pants-view. There's even shadows moving around, like she's moving her hands off screen since she thinks the device is filming all of her. ]

Aside from that.. I would honestly appreciate any and all advice on living here. I have to admit I've found myself.. um.. feeling a little overwhelmed, I suppose you could say.. [ Now there's some fluster in the tone. ] For example..

[ She pauses.

It's a long, awkward pause, and her voice is a little softer when she speaks on. ]

This method of communication.. is not just meant to find people to, um-- to get.. involved with, is it? [ Someone saw Obi-Wan's post, apparently. ] In that case.. I-I'm sorry, but that wasn't my intention..!

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[ Look at Lys, being all Considerate here - especially when Chizuru was more than willing to take everything up on her own shoulders. Which might not have been the best idea, given the fact that she's still new and doesn't own very much, so it would have been hard to gather food..

So maybe it's for the better that Lys is offering here. She's protecting Chizuru from herself, perhaps even without realising it. ]

Is that really okay..?

[ She sounds a little shy as she says it. ]

I mean, you're new here, so you probably don't have much to go around.. [ Said as if Chizuru isn't literally in the same position. Girl. Please. ]

Oh, don't worry about that!

[No, by all means, worry about it...the conversational brightness in her voice is all the more untrustworthy for how casual it sounds, as though Lys had the equivalent of fifty thousand dollars burning a hole in her pocket. She doesn't, of course—has been dirt poor for almost her whole life, really—but why let a little thing like the truth bring the mood down? Especially when she has a 100% rock-solid plan ("plan") for scraping up funds.]

I did some looking around and it seems like the people here—the local people, I mean—they like to trade for what they need. Crystals, fossils, shiny rocks...anything that sparkles, they'll take it. I've already had like three people asking what I'd want for my guild ring.

Your guild ring?

[ Chizuru pauses, seeming to contemplate the concept of one for a moment. It's not something she's ever heard of back home, but rings often are heirlooms or symbols of something, so she can imagine that it must be something that's rather important to Lys.. ]

You didn't really trade it away though, did you? [ Look, Chizuru is ready to feel so bad if Lys traded away something important to her just to get by in this place.

Even though she technically has nothing to do with it on a personal level.. But she'd feel bad anyway. She's just too empathetic. ]

[She laughs a little, the way you do when you want to reassure someone that everything's fine and nothing is wrong. Usually the sound was at least half a lie, a calculated attempt to smooth over rough edges and keep the peace; it felt strange to actually mean it, to have no greater stakes at play beyond setting an acquaintance at ease.]

I thought about it, but...I guess I'm not ready to part with it just yet. I've had it for a long time, you know?

[She shrugs, brushing all of that aside.]

Anyway, I'm just sharing what I know. And since I also heard about a good place to find shiny rocks and stuff...why don't I go scavenge some and let you handle the shopping? We'd have to meet up a little earlier so I can give them to you, but that way we're splitting the work, too.

[Honestly, she'd push to handle everything herself if she thought there was a chance she'd get away with it. Relentlessly angling to go Dutch (ha ha) is a step up.]

[ At least Lys is learning a lot here about how to navigate Chizuru. Because, indeed, there's no way Chizuru would let the other do all the work by herself - but splitting it up is something she apparently seems to be so much more in favour of. It's something she's willing to accept.

So even though Chizuru is slowly nodding to herself, coupled with an: ]

Okay..

[ It's not the only thing she says. She may agree with that part of Lys' plan, but there's something else she has to say.

And when she does say it, she sounds a weird mix of determined and shy, all at the same time. ]

.. don't ever trade away your ring though.

[ Even if she doesn't know its full significance.. If it's something Lys has had for so long, if it may be one of the few reminders of home for the other, then-- ]

Unless you really want to, I mean. But.. I don't think you should, if you've had it for so long. You shouldn't lose things that might be important to you. [ Even if it's for food.

And even though food is kind of something you need to live. Still. ]

O-Oh, well...

[She leaves the rest dangling between them for a moment, unspoken, caught off-guard by Chizuru giving that much of a damn. Not just about something so (relatively) trivial, but in general. It's another strange feeling, and like a child learning to overcome a disgust of lizards by cradling one in their hands, she's still getting used to the idea of allowing it any mental house room.

After all, whatever Josephine and Nicolas might say, there was a certain lonely comfort—a bittersweet sense of security—in assuming that concern and kindness from strangers was only a joke, a trick, a polite gesture as shallow as it was perfunctory. That way, you never had to risk feeling truly vulnerable.]

...It's just a little pewter ring. It doesn't even have a crest, let alone any enchantments. What if you needed medicine or something and I didn't have anything else to trade for it?

It's okay. I'd be fine.

[ .. that's perhaps something that shouldn't be said so casually, and yet.. and yet, that's exactly what's happening here. There's so little hesitance in the way Chizuru says it that it's almost disturbing, like the girl really considers someone else's important - or maybe not-so-important - possession to be more valuable than her own life.

Granted, there is the fact that she's pretty sure she can't get sick as easily in the regular human way since she's a demon and so she wouldn't really need medicine - but still. That's besides the point. ]

I don't think it'd ever feel right to me to make you give up something of yours just for my sake.

...nobody thinks you'd be "making" me do anything except you.

[Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the most self-sacrificing one of all? It's like looking into the surface of a still pond and seeing her reflection staring back, except distorted and wrong, wrong, wrong. Someone like Chizuru—someone who wasn't Lys—shouldn't be saying those kinds of things; as though her life, too, was a cosmic joke.]

My guild is supposed to help people. [The half-truth tastes bitter, like unripe fruit.] If I cared more about a piece of shiny metal than about you, I wouldn't have any right to wear their ring at all.

[ This is the part where Chizuru really wishes that she could tell the other that she'd be fine. That she at least has some reason to say it, since it's not like she's human. Things that might easily kill humans won't get to her as easily.

But.. it's hard. She can't bring herself to do it. Lys has been so kind to her all this time. Would she still be doing the same if she knew Chizuru was a monster?

.. it's selfish, and she knows it, but she'd like for Lys to think kindly of her for a little bit more, if she can have that at all. ]

It.. sounds like you and your guildmates are very kind people, to look after others like that. [ A little like the Shinsengumi, she thinks, with a pang of nostalgia and longing in her chest. ] I guess I can't really refuse the help then without being rude, huh..

[She lets the compliment pass without comment, allowing Chizuru to continue believing yet another half-truth. If helping others served two purposes, could it truly be called "kindness"? When your very existence was an abomination, was it even possible for good deeds to ever be more than a desperate attempt to make up for the sin of being alive? She's tried to mentally put aside questions like those, to at least make peace with the answers her heart already knew to be true—but even after four years of guild training and guild instruction and guild conditioning, she can't seem to manage either. Like picking at a wound, there was an ugly catharsis to digging up those well-chewed philosophical bones again and again, gnawing on them out of habit alone.

A shadow of the old despair falls over her heart, but she only laughs softly, trying to break the tension.]

Nope, you can't. And there's nothing to be done about it, so...don't worry! Just leave everything to me, at least for a little while.

[Let's pretend by mutual consent that she's hasn't been given extremely similar advice before, all to no avail.]

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