don&#x27;t believe me just watch

[ And this is Nicca (last name last name last name elle à déjà pensé de ca, elle le sait) Homewood, eyes open and entire body still before she levers herself up, taking in yet another new face. ]

Ouai, m'appele Nicca. You're..? [ he's already confirmed that he is, so she brushes that aside, and continues with the next question that comes to mind. ] You live here too?

#earthboundaries

metuere-now-exspiritment

[No more spoon feeding out here, I’m afraid, but if Spirit cared enough about this reflexive copy cat to help her out a bit, she’d only have one word: lie. One word repeated a ridiculous amount of times, just to be sure that Nicca understood it’s importance.]

[Although she does wonder if this is what it’s like when she’s been with the ghosties for so long and it’s hard to put normal English word’s together because she’s been speaking in static and mindless bullshit for so long and her brain was missing too many things to speak right, anyways. Probably. The lab looks like it fucked her up something fierce, and this is coming from a girl whose known a selective mute and a lobotomized dreamwalker who made it out of that place.]

That’s nice. [The pleasantness doesn’t even go skin deep. That kind of forced apathy pushed out into real world conversations took her more effort that attempting (equally forced) sincerity, I think.] My nom? [The sneer’s still there—her mouth is starting to up—and now her eyebrow, just one, raises to complete the look.] Cassandra. [Okay, well. Maybe the types of lies that are just reactive don’t count as the ones that make her sick.] Which one are you from?

chalkdustprophets-archive

[ Which is a shame, because if you ignore all of the cons to Nicca's prior life in the lab, she'd in essence been fed with the golden spoon since longer than she would have been able to remember if she could remember much of anything at all.

She's still looking standoffish, but she nods when Spirit gives her the name Cassandra - she wouldn't be able to think of a reason Spirit might have for lying to her even if she suspected Spirit of lying. For someone who's escaped from the lab she's awful damn trusting. Maybe because Spirit's in the know, maybe because Rebecca seriously did set her at ease - who's to know, really. ]

I'm CH5. [ And then, because she really is curious- ] You? [ Not, you know, that she'd really even have the faintest clue what the answer meant, but! Information is power and information is hers to gather and she's known this since before she could even know things, and she's never ever going to stop searching for it. ]

#metuere

Mostly, yes. I have to take him to his brother! Or sister. I am not, actually sure how to measure relative cat genders, mostly I just call them all boys.

But. It is, also nice to be meeting you I think. I’m called Honey!

It is tres gentille de vous reconnaitre, Honey- I'm Nicca. Has he been missing a very long time from his sibling?

#sighttouched

What? I - shit. Hold that thought.

{ They’ve reached the front without realizing it, and Becca leans over the counter to order a truly upsetting amount of chicken. Hopefully Nicca won’t mind. }

#timeir #[[accidentally writes an epic my b]]

[ Honestly, Nicca's a bit busy absorbing the mechanics of ordering chicken to think about the quantity that Becca's ordering.

And I think that the smells of the place are reminding her that she does in fact have a stomach, and it has in fact been somewhere around a week and a half (maybe, she thinks, possibly a bit longer) since she ate something more substantial than scraps gleaned when no one was around.

The too long didn't read of the situation is I think she's focused on it with all the intensity that an entire life of learning under pressure can lend, and doing a terrible job of hiding it.

Her eyes might bug out a bit when she sees how much chicken they're getting, though. Might. ]

#omfg okay I gotta sleep holy shit #fancy OOC tag

I don’t know enough words to fit them together.

{ She squints at Nicca (! she finally fucking got her name, too) and nods. }

What type?

T'es toujours capable of changer ce fait? [ As her headache encroaches her grip on keeping to English recedes, whoops. ] And, um, codes, mostly? But. Rubix cubes, too, and - [ Shuffling forwards in line, she shrugs again. ] I like working things out.

{ Becca slides into the queue like she’s been buying KFC all her life, and sighs. }

{ I’m not talking spoiled teenager sigh, either. She sounds like she’s eighty. }

Nobody ever does. What do you like?

Language. [ Rote response if ever there was one, she's even got a spiel to go with it. ] Words have règles y lógico, they make sense the way they fit together, if you think about them long enough.

[ But her tone hasn't changed, and she really doesn't look that excited at all. ] And puzzles? [ That one has a hint of an Actual Emotion to it, although it's mostly just caution. ]

{ Becca pats her on the shoulder in what is literally The Clumsiest attempt at consolation you’ll ever fucking see, and holds the door open for Si - Nicca. Nicca! Fuck’s sake. }

{ Thankfully, the queue is only four people long. }

So. Do you -

{ uh }

- like robots?

[ Nicca manages not to dart through the door, too, and I'd like a gold star for that even if she's about to insist that she can adapt to any situation, thank you, no matter what the truth of the matter is.

She's busy studying the posture of the other people in the queue, and I'm afraid that's a rather blank look she's shooting your way for that question. ]

Do I like robots? [ She knows about them, potentially? I'm not sure she knows about liking things, though. ]

shortforflamethrower-blog

Youuuu got it, homie dog!

[Somehow, his entire grin brightens as he bounces eagerly from side to side. Goddamn, kid, take a chill pill. These things unsettle some people.]

Trays gentle is right! This is gonna be fuckin’ incredible, man, gettin’ up to hoodrat shit with shortass strangers, goin’ on spiritual adventures in candy shops, tryin’ that new flavor of taffy or whatever the fuck when nobody’s lookin’—

[Aw, damn, he just can’t help himself; Burns grabs Nicca’s hand and they’re racing down the street and he’s laughing, just as unconstrained as it is unsettling, and hopefully he’ll stop in time to keep from burning the poor girl’s hand from sheer excitement or—even worse—missing the candy shop.]

Nicca- [ Not that he's listening, judging from the impressive barrage of verbiage there. Or you know, the way he's got her hand and is running and fuck - she can run too, and even without much trouble can keep up with him.

Maybe she'll stop being so reactive after a while, but honestly I'm not banking on it happening any time soon. He's laughing and she's fairly sure that it's not the sort of laughter she needs to be wary of but it's making the metaphorical hair on the back of her neck stand up anyway, so she - ] I can distract while you..? [ Nicca I don't even know if he's listening to you. ]

#shortforflamethrower

You’ll see.

{ It’s pretty ominous, she knows, but. }

{ Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine. }

You can wait outside if you don’t want to come in with me. The doors are glass so you can see me in the line without having to, like. People. I’ve got some games on my phone you can play.

[ Quick, everybody watch Nicca's decision making process.

It looks a lot like worrying at the hem of her t-shirt with her left hand for a moment and then shaking her head. ]

I signed up for this à l'exprès. I can come in, with you? [ It's posed as a question, but she's shoving down the distrust, marginally at least, and going for the door, so. ]

shortforflamethrower-blog

[Guess who’s got two thumbs (two hands, if you want to get technical) capable of filling with fire at any given moment? This guy! So it’s for the best, probably, that Nicca doesn’t know how to attempt to incapacitate him.]

Well—yuh-ah! [He snorts, and, still grinning, rolls his eyes, like that was the dumbest question anybody could have possibly asked.] But I gotta use the buddy system, you feel? And I bet you would looooove some candy justabout now, brothaman.

The buddy system.

[ This narrator would like to point out that Nicca is very clearly not asking a question. She's just. Repeating a thing.

But she does also shrug. ] Candy seems like a tres gentille idea. [ Going with the flow seems to be the best idea for now, even ignorant of the fact that he's got two hands capable of filling with fire at any given moment! So it's pretty great that we don't have to worry about that, right. ]

#shortforflamethrower

Oh. Is it another word for chicken? I didn’t know that.

{ Becca brushes it off with the same casual apology that tints her conversations with Flare. She’s used to being the stupid one. }

We’ve been here for a pretty long time. We weren’t going to, but there’s an older escapee who let us use his attic. He’s… Really nice.

{ Instead of answering, she waits until they round the corner and simply points. }

One of those.

[ Now I'm not saying that Nicca looks distinctly unimpressed by this KFC, but - she looks distinctly unimpressed by this KFC.

Unimpressed, and slightly distrustful. ]

And so we just, entre la-dedans, and then..? [ She'll not mind if she doesn't get an answer, though question asking is in her nature, has been encouraged in her since before she can remember (as long as she asked only the right sort of questions, at least). As it is in her nature, she's thoroughly accustomed to not being answered. ]

fossorem

Ah— haha I have no idea what that means. Sure.

shortforflamethrower-blog

I'm Nicca, I brought the chicken? From KFC, avec- with Rebecca. [ She sounds out the acronym like it might bite her, staring up at him warily, bites off the French the moment she realizes it's not English. The two have a mildly different feel to them, one she can figure if she tries, but one that gives her a wicked headache feeling for. ]

#fossorem

[Is grinning like an unhinged maniac acceptable ‘cos—]

[There’s no need to finish the statement, but it is worth mentioning that Burns has also decided to get all up in Nicca’s personal space (only to back up real fast like because she smells like unwashed blankets and trash cans).]

Heyyyyy, brothaman! [Fuck knows who he’s been listening to recently.] You want some candy? ‘Cuz I sure as shit want some candy, and I don’t have nothin’! Isn’t that theeeee worst?

[ Thank God he's backed up because if you want to know how to make Nicca really wish she knew how to incapacitate people all you have to know is that Burns just managed to make her wish very heartily she did.

Give her time, she'll get less jumpy. Maybe. ] Can you get some? [ This is clearly the best way to deal with him. Ask questions, gain information, ascertain what to do with it. ]

#shortforflamethrower

I don’t know what that is, but we can get it once we’ve got the chicken, okay?

{ She waves for Six - shit, no. Nicca. Nicca. To follow her, and takes care to walk slow. }

It is chicken! That's exactly what I sai- [ She cuts herself off, mostly because if there's one lesson she learned and learned well it was that when things were going okay you didn't argue. Following Rebecca, she chews on her lip for a moment before deciding to essay a question. ] So have you been here for long? And what's a KFC?

[ Don't look at her okay she couched the real question behind another it can be forgotten if it's really dumb. ]