mental contortions.
Of pure umbrage does the Knight King bristle— irritation evident upon comely features whilst she meanders through the drudgery of what one would call ‘daily life’ in a venue that is nonetheless contemptuous to a degree. With the ire of a thousand suns do beryl eyes burn, the once collected King of Knights dreadfully aware of mundane workings of life. She was summoned to the modern world for a reason— the reason was to fight for a war between others of her kind, not to… live her life as a subject for crazed ruffians who otherwise controlled every aspect of this metropolis with the wave of a hand.
Ah, but woe was the King of Knights who tragically finds herself yet again in the stream of endless wanderers, unable to find much to do despite the various activities one can possibly immerse themselves with. That is not what Saber seeked— it is the lack of vigour that irritates her. Through the throng of unfamiliar faces does she traipse, gracefully, skillful enough to avoid contact with those she wishes not to interact with. In a world where the majority of her prowess is sealed and limited— one can only do so much.
It is then that there is a chance of pace when ears hearken words from an individual she has yet to become acquainted with. Appearances alone are not enough for her to gouge one’s mien, but his words are enough for her to ascertain certain aspects pertaining to this person alone. Eyebrow quirked, the youth listens to his woes, finding herself no better a situation than he is whilst they perambulate past the congregation of citizens, nodding once or twice with his every word.
“Not at all," comes her careful reply, her gaze now settling upon the horizon that falls beyond, the skies darkening in their hues to a palette of pastel colours— like a beautiful painting so artfully mastered. She could understand herself— a knight so used to the vim of war and contentions; having to settle for something… bucolic in nature can only be demeaning for someone with such a fiery soul. “What you feel is not weird at all. I would call it the norm,” carefully, she returns his gaze, her petite stature forcing her to gaze upward to the taller male, finally assaying him in finality. A forlorn look covets his face, and she cannot help but sympathise.
“I can sympathise. I have been here well over a year and it does not seem to get any better," a small frown eases its way across her visage. “Despite the many activities one can immerse themselves with in this venue, there is something missing— something that cannot be filled or remedied no matter how hard one attempts to replace it." Vocables muse about lips as she halts her steps before a red light, pondering her life’s worth in Hive City.
“But one must do with what they have. Would you not agree?" Proffering a small smile, she waits her turn before the light turns green, and resumes her walk, assuming the male would follow suit. “Pardon my intrusion, if you do not mind my asking— are you perhaps new to this venue?”
Considering his life's been a perpetual rendition of drama in the making, it's a little disconcerting that he only ever reached a tedium after getting himself embroiled in enough interpersonal stigmas and a concussion that fried any chances at higher thinking and a hefty portion of his cerebrum in what amounted to months of rehabilitation. Mizuki had briefly seen Aoba in the frazzling horror show of his psyche attempting to reel him back to reality, but his figurative limbs had all the potential kinetic energy of mud clumps and he'd crumpled flat on the ground, knees bent, tears steaming out of bloodshot eyes, snatching erratically at his head and tearing his hair out like a schizophrenic ahead of the bell curve. Psychosis curling into psychosis curling into guilt, a hatefully venomous guilt that embedded itself into his throat and made him dry-retch into whatever passed as autonomy in the delusion he'd trapped himself in.
What a pathetic loser he was.
Tonelessly, he exhales once, keeping his eyes pinned on a fountain some ways away like he'd be able to detract himself from paying his dues if he kept some off-center perspective on his own culpability. "Yeah. I've — probably done worse than most of these guys stuck here, but I can't really think of a reason why I was taken here in particular. Makes me wonder why they'd lump the good with the bad like this. I've been wracking my brain for ages, but nothing's adding up. It didn't help my case when I tried yelling at that television they'd set up in the room when I arrived, haha." Maybe there was truth to being haunted, in the odds and ends of shit luck and truth like a broken bone, fracture lines crisscrossing willful deception and active denial as if the omission of one fact could be anything other than a lie. "That long? Staying here this long when you've got important things to do elsewhere must be torture."
The entire internalized confrontation he'd dealt upon himself (with copious help from the Rib team Morphine) was surreally lurid in a manner he never wanted to dredge up, running his mouth off like a man possessed (addled by a medley of narcotics and fully ensnared by thought control, he might as well have been the flesh suit for any malevolent entity looking for kicks). It was nightmare fuel for the cynical and standard fare for the selfish boss who betrayed the team he'd sworn to protect, who saw him as his friends. He'd kept his eyes on the sun so long that he hadn't realized they'd all been flayed out of their skin and forced to eschew their ties to each other. "I bet it'd be a real laugh for them if the people in charge did take something from us just to see what'd happen without letting us ever catch on." He reciprocates her sympathy with a forcibly lopsided grin.
"... Sorry. Bad joke."
It's so futile, holding a pity party for one like he has so far, as if that'll change anything now, goddamn, goddamn; Mizuki keeps his fingers knotted around scraps of bread and tears and tears until he's left with nothing but a fistful of crumbs and petulant, scattering birds with their wings drawn taut at their sides and talons exposed, swiping away at the ground in fitfully peckish bursts. "Right. It'd help if I knew where to start. They forgot to provide a help manual, you know? Jeez, and they call themselves scientists." Veiling his poorly-made attempt at humor with an awkward laugh that doesn't fit right on his mouth, he lowers his head in a slightly inclined bow. "Not at all. I'm as new as they come. You probably get questions from duds like me all the time, so thanks for not brushing me off right from the get-go." Raising he gaze, he manages a half-hearted chuckle. "Oh. The name's Mizuki, by the way. I should've started with that first, but I've been a little out-of-it lately." Claiming involuntary spaciness was a whole lot more than an understatement, but lately he'd found that his god-awful excuses for horrible decisions were just par for the course.
