Nodding compliantly, Leysritt followed along with Illya’s march. Of course, so far as it concerned her, the store had swapped everything around since Illya had last come along. How unnecessary! How could they expect customers to find their way around when they moved everything so drastically? It certainly didn’t help the maid out any, not with her limited skills of navigation and intuition.
Regardless, however, the homunculus tagged behind, not overly bothered by the mix up. After all, even if they didn’t know where they were going, she liked to be able to walk past and take in all the sights. The modern, every day setting was so different from the secluded forest castle that made up the majority of Leysritt’s knowledge and basis of her understanding of what life was. It wasn’t all just finely-polished marble and stone, big, empty and forlorn windows and lifeless, spacious hallways- There were bustling store filled with cheap electric lights and a variety of colorful and probably unnecessary items for sale.
It was common, accessible, contemporary- Made for and used by normal humans who didn’t use magic, much less know it existed. Nothing at all like the strictly utilitarian Germany, with it’s uniformity, pure white existence.
Leysritt thought the different, unfamiliar world within Japan wasn’t bad at all.
As they walked, the maid spied a child desperately trying to convince their mother to buy them a plush animal of some sort. Stopping in her tracks, Leys watched intently as she chided the little one to put it back, prompting a mournful walk back to where they’d retrieved the item. Blinking slowly, she looked over to Illya, before quietly breaking away to follow where the unhappy child had gone.
Though she hadn’t entirely known what to expect in following them, the homunculus was rather pleased to find herself in front of a large selection of stuff animals.
“Illya, I-”
She turned, but stopped herself as she processed the fact she’d gone on without Illya. Oh, right. She pondered if she should attempt to go back and find her, or proceed in finding an animals which Illya might like.
Thinking on it for just a moment, Leysritt began investigating the animals around her.
She knew Illyasviel didn’t like cats, so all of those were off the table- But, the downy soft stuffed dog that was even bigger than Illya herself…Would she like that? Well, there’d be no harm in showing it to her, right? Thinking so, the maid removed the animal from the shelf, having no problem keeping a hold of it with her exceptional strength. And so she continued doing, plucking stuffed toys large and small alike until she could no longer hold them, and could barely see past her giant, lumpy haul of plushes.
Surely, her young Mistress would like one of these.
As if unburdened entirely by the collection in-hand, Leysritt made her way out of the aisle, and began a wandering and aimless search for the little lady.
Illya tucked the chocolates under her arm, walking onwards and holding the appearance of having every confidence in knowing where she was going, even if the truth couldn’t be further from the fact. There was more junk food down this aisle, with plenty of chips and crackers and a wide variety of cookies. Briefly, she contemplated getting more food, but also, she needed Leysritt to carry the stuffed animals, too, whenever they found them, so it would be best to stick to just the bag of chocolates.
She wove around a knot of people clustered by the end of the aisle and kept walking, scanning the nearby signs for any sign of stuffed animals. After the junk food, to the left, it looked like it was progressing from food to more games and such, so stuffed animals had to be around there! Unless whoever had designed the layout had put stuffed animals somewhere else, and then she’d start to wonder whether or not someone was just playing a terrible, cruel trick on her. She hadn’t even done anything recently to deserve being deceived, anyways!
The white-haired homunculus turned in place, saying, “Hey, Leysritt, I--Leysritt?” Somewhere between getting out of the last aisle and this one, her maid had disappeared. “...Leysritt?” She circled back, glancing down the aisle she’d just come from, but there was no sign of the familiar Einzbern maid uniform among the groups of Japanese people dressed in a more modern way.
Well--well, maybe Leysritt had seen some stuffed animals somewhere? That was what they were looking for, and it wasn’t like Leysritt to deviate from a goal. So she made her way towards the games, passing by puzzles and board games and a variety of large plastic things that were probably games of some sort that she simply didn’t understand.
When she got to the end of the aisle that did, in fact, have some stuffed animals, at first she thought there was a living pile of stuffed animals coming towards her. It took her a few precious seconds to realize that, no, that was just Leysritt carrying a large pile of plush toys and probably not even noticing the odd looks she was getting from passerby. “Leysritt!” Illya called, to get her attention, mostly because she wasn’t entirely sure the maid could see around the pile. “Which ones did you find?”
