A First For Everything

A First For Everything
Date of Scene:	23 May 2013
Location:	Eastern Continent - Rabanastre - Inn
Synopsis:	After beating the daylights out of Aschere, Akari totes her to Rabanastre for some much needed rest. Somehow, this ends on friendly terms.
Cast of Characters:	Akari Seran, Aschere Childs

---

Akari Seran has posed:
The city of Rabanastre is something of an oddity. Despite being square in the center of the largest desert in all of the Ivalician continent, a barren wasteland barely capable of supporting life beyond the occasional monster and roaming scavengers, its walls are home to a rather staggering population. In addition to this unusual situation the city seems to thrive on trade despite the hostile lands which must be traversed to bring goods to its sizable markets and bazaar.

Akari had been quite taken aback to find such a massive settlement after her punishing trek across the Westersands. She had wandered in through its wide gates alongside the caravans of chocobo-drawn carts and traveling merchants, though her cargo was of a different sort.

Still wrapped up in her cloak to shield her from the sun, Aschere remained unconscious for the duration of the trip, which was just fine for her self-appointed warden. Akari had resolved to see her impromptu sparring partner into the hands of someone capable of nursing her back to health at the very least. Beyond that, her recovery would depend entirely on her own willpower.

Unfortunately, she underestimated the sheer difficulty in navigating the thick crowd of bodies that filtered through the wide streets. Attempts to get information that might lead her to an apothecary or hospital were difficult as everyone seemed to be too busy going about their business to stop and chat. It had taken her the better part of an hour just to find the inn and by then the last of the daylight had disappeared and shops closed up. They would have to wait until the morrow.

Akari sighs as she leans back on the lone bed in their small room. There is not much in the way of decorations on the flat stone walls, not that she could have really appreciated them, but the furniture was atleast comfortable enough for the price she'd forked over to rent it. Below the subtle din of conversation leaks through the floorboards from the sizable pub. It is not an unpleasant sound. She might even call it relaxing.

The young girl whom had fought valiantly enough to wound her rests at her side, taking up her half of the bed. Aschere has been stripped down to her small-clothes and tucked into the sheets for her own modesty - not that she has to worry about such things when her only company is a blind woman. Bandages are tied in effective but crude knots around the few injuries that needed immediate tending. A foul but clinical odour persists in the air from the medication Akari had purchased to clean the sand and ichor from her body. The smell is acceptable. Good medicine always smells bad.

Akari tucks her hand behind her head, allowing her eyes to slide shut. Up here away from the ground, she's lost contact with her wellspring of strength and the fatigue of her journey starts to catch up with her. It shouldn't be a problem for her to take a little nap. Her charge isn't going to be getting up any time soon.

She'll just... rest... for awhile...

Aschere Childs has posed:
This is a familiar situation for �schere. Waking, from the sleep of death, into the world of pain. She doesn't know how she came to this room, or who put her to bed, or tended her wounds, but aches and the reek of medicine are practically nostalgic for her.

Maybe she is home. Maybe it was a dream, these months, and the doctor will be in to see her, and in a few weeks she'll return to school. But, she stirs, and finds that she shares her bed. The sheets are too coarse, the walls are hewn stone, she's

...she sighs about half a sigh, and winces, beginning a practiced stock-taking and function check, as it were. Painstakingly, quite literally, but quickly, because she has not yet resolved who she's sharing a bed with.

She levers herself up, with a fair amount of effort, and looks Akari over. Her attacker, yes. Who absorbed everything �schere had, and still struck her down. Ash doesn't want to search for a reason that she's alive, not right now, and her arm is getting tired, besides. She drops back heavily onto the mattress. "Ow."

Akari Seran has posed:
The sudden thump resonates through the mattress. To a normal person such minor shifting of the cushions probably wouldn't even register in their mind. For Akari, it's like the ocean just rippled along her back.

The young woman bolts upright in bed, her eyes snapping open despite their lack of functionality. It is an artifact of unconscious behavior, an old habit learned that never quite stopped happening. She spends a moment staring straight ahead, trying to gather her bearings just as Aschere had done. Without the earth to provide her sight she has to rely on the wind and the stagnant air in this small room is a piss-poor substitute.

Eventually, she tilts her head to the side peer at her bunk-mate, more for the benefit of letting Aschere know that she's remembered her presence than her own need to face the small girl. She does not smile but nor does she give her one of her menacing scowls. Akari's expression is relaxed and nonchalant, as if they had bumped into each other by complete coincidence.

"Oh... you're awake."

Aschere Childs has posed:
Chera is staring up at Akari, briefly, while she again attempts to haul herself into a sitting position. She more or less succeeds, dragging most of the thin sheet with her. "I am... it seems so." Her voice is smaller even than normal; she searches Akari's pearl-white eyes, learning little, one expects. "You...you...you.."

She'll try again. Forgive her if she's a bit short. "Thank you." A few more breaths. "Why?"

Akari Seran has posed:
Akari leans to the side as her companion fumbles for the words she's looking for. Her hand digs around in a pocket and produces a small crumpled package from which she withdraws a long slender white cylinder of paper. The crude cigarette appears to have been rolled by hand, small tufts of crushed leaves protruding from it's open end. She pops it into her mouth, cupping both hands around it. There is a spark and the smell of burning tobacco quickly fills the air.

She inhales deeply, tucking the package away from sight once more. Akari looks thoughtful for a moment. Her hand rubs against the back of her neck as she breathes in the thick smoke, exhaling it through her nostrils like a brooding dragon for several seconds before she responds.

"Hmm. Don't hear people say that very often."

She glances back down at Aschere then spins in place on her side of the bed, legs crossed as she turns to face her properly. Akari takes another drag from her smoke, puffing at it casually, clearly taking her time with each snippet of conversation.

"Are you referring to my reasoning for lugging you here...?"

Aschere Childs has posed:
�schere will attempt to convince you that she's looking frustrated at her inability to put more than three words together. Yes. Little of that frustration makes it out audibly; "Yeah, I... you weren't going to, to leave me to die, you'd just have killed me. I don't know. I don't know." She blinks at the cigarette; not something she'd seen here, though here travels have been limited.

Well, that's a small thing to wonder about now. "My name is �sch..." Ash. "�schere. Fighting people on the road isn't my normal business. I'm sorry I provoked you."

Akari Seran has posed:
The brawler seems mildly amused by Aschere's difficulty. She seemed more than capable of talking during their first encounter. Had she actually cowed this girl so much that she was afraid to risk provoking her again or were her injuries at fault here? Ultimately, it didn't really matter.

"Don't worry about it."

Akari taps the glowing embers from the tip of her cigarette into her lap. The rugged cloth of her pants seems to absorb the heat without bursting into flames, something that it's quite used to doing if the sporadic patches of black are any indication. She doesn't bother to put forward the notion that their confrontation was entirely her own fault. Her temper is something she's just learned to live with. The impact it has on other people isn't really her problem.

"Have to say though, you put up a pretty good fight... for a squirt."

Akari doesn't smile at her own joke. It's not terribly funny. The wound from where Aschere's lance pierced her shoulder has practically disappeared in the short span of time it's taken them to travel to Rabanastre. Oddly, now that attention is drawn to this fact, she doesn't have very many scars at all visible on her smooth skin despite wearing nothing more than some tightly wound gauze on her entire torso. The only noticeable injury is the stump of her right arm.

"You can call me Akari. And don't worry. I have no intention of attacking you again, unless ofcourse you're up for a rematch...?" The questioning tone in her voice is equally mixed with amusement. She already knows the answer. Very few people /choose/ to engage in battle with her. It's one of the reasons she has to go looking for them herself.

Aschere Childs has posed:
"Hah." Ash winces, clutching at her ribs. "In a month maybe." That squirt comment, again... "On a boat." She can't even argue with it, she's definitely a squirt. "You do it for fun. I used to know people like that." Mostly she stayed out of their way, because "I don't have the luxury." She gives Akari a look for a moment, and then shrugs, dropping the sheet to her lap. What's the harm? She's a girl.

The trouble isn't that the beating was bad, though it was, it's that she won't recover from it. "I have no choice," Chera admonishes herself, though, quietly. "Akari, so." She tries the name out, and pauses. No, it wouldn't be. "What intent do you have?"

Akari Seran has posed:
Again the scratching at the back of her neck. Akari almost looks out of place in a casual conversation such as this. Even now she seems wound up like a spring, ready to explode into action at a moment's notice. It's been a long time since anyone talked to her. Usually there was lots of shouting, angry or terrified, but not much talking.

"Yeah, I guess, I do."

She doesn't try to deny that fact. For as long as she can remember, Akari has been on her own as she trekked across the various plates of Galianda. Monsters weren't nearly as abundant there as they are in this new world but they were still fierce and deadly enough to challenge a preteen girl on her own. Eventually, she got so strong that this stopped being true. It became less of a fight for survival and more of sport to her and for some reason nothing else has managed to rush she gets from clashing with a worthy opponent. Sadly, there are precious few of those left.

Akari notices the sheet fall but doesn't comment on it. She can't really oogle even if she wanted to, atleast, not in a way that Aschere would notice. Unlike the small girl's naive viewpoint, however, there is something to be gained from enjoying the contours of her frail body for the brawler. She keeps that to herself though. She's come to find most people don't share her rather open stance on physical relationships. Maybe she'll broach the subject when she's got a few less bruises to nurse.

"My intent, huh." Akari taps more ash away, having burned through half of the cigarette already. A small cloud of wispy grey vapor floats around her head but the smell carries with it a hint of herbs or some other mixture, almost like incense. Still, it's an acquired taste.

"Well... I just wanted to see that you got back on your feet. Was gonna leave you with a doctor but this place is pretty huge. Ended up running out of time for the day so... here we are."

Aschere Childs has posed:
Naive is probably right, or distracted. "I'm not sure even where a doctor is here. I didn't find one when I looked before." �schere had the same problems with Rabanastre that Akari had; too big, too busy. Also she was broke, but that's a side issue.

"If you mean to put me back on my feet, it'll be a while..."

Chera certainly appreciates the stoneshaper's, ah, /strength/. She wouldn't know from beauty except that that definitely isn't the outfit she'd choose for Akari. "Where are you going from here?"

Akari Seran has posed:
Akari shrugs. The last quarter of her cigarette is ground into the rough surface of her heel, crumpling into a small wad of ash and paper. She doesn't seem to feel the heat of the last few glowing embers as they are snuffed out on her calloused skin, the pads of her feet nearly thickened to the quality of leather from never having shoes to protect them.

"I have time. This place is new to me. Figured I'd wander around a bit, check out the local sites. I'm something of a roaming spirit, I guess you could say."

The shirtless brawler turns and dusts the ash off her pants to the floor now that its cooled down. Wouldn't want to start a fire but she's got no problems making a mess. Akari hops onto the floor afterwards and stretches, bending in various different directions which sends a myriad of crackling pops as her bones readjust from the long period of inactivity. Having her feet on a solid surface makes her more comfortable, even if's wood. Almost as good as earth.

"You're welcome to stay with me," she adds over her shoulder after a moment. "If you like."

Aschere Childs has posed:
Chera is, perhaps, too quick to trust someone she's known for hours, some of which were spent flattening her, but what do you want? She's money on spear work, but paranoia not so much. She smiles, faintly. "I think I do like." Whatever that might sound like.

"There was nowhere I was going anyways, not really. A trader had said that he might've heard of someone in, aa, in Fluorgis?"

Akari Seran has posed:
That simple comment makes Akari smile as well though she hides it by turning her face towards the far wall. Having some company for a change could be nice. She's never traveled with anyone before. She hopes her temper doesn't cause too many problems for this girl.

"Unfortunately, I might as well have crawled out from under a rock as far as geography goes around here. Seems I'm from a different world, if you can believe that. Only managed to find this place by following the road."

She gestures idly at the air then rests her hand on her hip, thinking quietly for several seconds. "Not to worry though. I'm sure we can find someone around here who knows what's what."

Aschere Childs has posed:
~Wow, me too~ she would be hopping around and exclaiming if Chera were capable of either. "I'll..." No, whatever it was, she won't. "In the morning, maybe. I don't mean to be a drag, but you're..." She is searching for the word, this time, actually. "Thorough," she decides. Yes. That'll do.

Just flopping back down would be unpleasant, so �schere lowers herself gingerly back onto the bed, and fetches up the sheet after a moment. She's careful to leave room, though that's easy, she's so tiny. "I'll get some more rest, I think."

She probably isn't off to sleep that quickly, but she seems like she'd really like to be.

Akari Seran has posed:
Akari nods back at her and heads for the door. "I think... I'm going to stretch my legs a bit."

She can tell the other girl is tired. So is she but her incredible constitution is much more suited to a little discomfort. Plus she didn't get the daylights pummeled out of her. The little squirt's earned some gentle rest without Akari tossing and turning all over her. She tends to hog the bed.

The light-globe dims to a barely perceptible glow as she twists the control knob, stepping out into the hallway. For a moment the ruckus of the pub, still rather lively for the late hour, drifts in through the crack but as the door swings shut it quickly fades to nothing.

It is a couple hours before Akari drifts back into the small room as silently as she can. She flops down on the floor beside the bed, resting her head on the thin carpet stretched out for decoration. She's used to sleeping on rocks; she's had worse. It only takes a few moments for her to drift off and, as usual, her sleep is thankfully dreamless.