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Today, she decides to spend a bit of time exploring. It's important, Homura thinks, to get her bearings straight. To familiarize herself with the passageways of this place, the ins and outs, to feel comfortable under the swell of Stacy breathing. It makes her feel small and trapped to be inside a being so huge, but it's okay. She just needs some time to adjust.

The first thing she does is head towards the city level. Once there, she dives down streets and alleyways and figures out how the place is set up. Observing the online network of this place has given her a map, which she follows. You might have noticed her there, walking around. Wandering isn't the word to use for what she does-- nothing Homura does is without purpose.

Moving through the city and figuring out the general size of it takes most of the day. She has yet to explore every nook and cranny, but that will come to her with time.

So she heads to another place that she'd heard of in passing, read on a map.

The main armory.

Weaponry was a practicality as well as something she held some interest in; bombs, rifles, handguns. At one point they'd frightened her, considering how illegal they are in her home country. But no longer. She instead takes some comfort in the familiar weight of a gun. It's something that never changes between timelines; a bullet is always so strong, a bomb made with this ratio of materials has this much firepower. It's good, to have some consistencies.

The technology here however is far beyond her wildest imagination. The weaponry is no different. Flipping through the holographic display, she finds things that are familiar to her and then things that are not. She looks through it all appearing at first rather stoic, but she's really quite interested-- and that's obvious in the way her eyes scan over each weapon that appears before going to the next. There's fondness too, as she sees something she recognizes. Something she's handled. It's something hard to really see, but it's there.

But isn't it a little odd to see a girl who looks only around fourteen years old so familiar and at home with weapons?

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There's someone else in here, but he hadn't noticed you yet, because you're much too quiet.

He has no idea how to run holomowhatever displays and has no idea how to make anything work and doesn't want to learn and has been spending his time with his face plastered to the glass, looking at what looks like an infinite number of weapons, desperately trying to look for a spiked deathball that he's missing.

And then things start moving around when you start moving them around. And this is both helpful and confusing, as he gets to see new things but he wasn't done looking at some of that stuff before it moved away and out of sight.

"Come back," he says, futilely, his face pressed into the glass, "I ain't done lookin' at that bit yet."

He still has no idea that you're in here, too.

Slowly, Homura flips back one. She tilts her head just slightly, watching him. Odd. She hadn't taken much time to figure out the display-- it was fairly intuitive, for her at least-- and wonders if he's looking for something. Or maybe like her he's just looking through out of curiosity. She doesn't say anything yet, just keeps the display still and waits for him to say something more.

Wakka is sort of surprised that it came back.

"Why'd that happen," he said. He didn't understand. Unless... unless... the machina could hear him.

"... hey machina. You. You listening, ya?" he asked, his face still pressed to the glass, still looking at the rows and rows and rows of weaponry.

"I'm controlling it," she says quietly, meaning to dispel the illusion. She doesn't want to outright trick this person; she flicks forwards on the display. "It doesn't hear you."

"It's talkin'!" said Wakka, thinking that the machina was now talking to him. "Who don't hear me, machina?"

"Over here," she murmurs, shifting her position to maybe catch his attention.

Nope. Wakka is still standing there with his face pressed to the glass, looking in. "Who's over here?" he asks. What a strange name that is.

She's... amused by this point. Not enough to smile-- not much makes her smile anymore-- but enough to tilt her head and look something other than stone cold for a second. Homura approaches him and taps him on the shoulder.

"The machine isn't alive," she says softly.

THE MACHINA WAS TAPPING HIM ON HIS SHOULDER.

Wakka whirls around to look at... a little girl.

Oh.

"Oh, you ain't a machina, you're a girl."

She's a girl. Not a machina.

"That's right," she replies. "Are you looking for something?"

"My blitzball," said Wakka. "It's missin' ya."

This man is clearly already clutching a slightly lumpy, blue-and-white ball to his chest.

She assumes what he's holding is not the thing he's after, and also assumes it's a weapon if he's looking for it here.

"If you are unsure of how to use this, I could help you. And also, my name is Homura Akemi. What is yours?"

"Name's Wakka. You mean how to get it to move the stuff around?" Wakka asked.

"It's good to meet you," she says. "Yes. That's right. You just touch this, and it moves."

"Touch what?" said Wakka. "That machina thing?" he said, looking at it suspiciously.

"Yes," she gestures to it, touches it, and with such a small movement the display changes. "I've never seen anything similar to this outside of fiction. But it isn't too difficult."

"Don't like machina," replied Wakka.

Wakka, if he knew the term, would consider himself to be a Luddite.

She wonders why, but doesn't ask. It doesn't matter. Instead, she says: "I see."

Because he spent his entire life, up until about a week ago, believing that machines were the entire reason why the bane of his world came into being.

"Maybe you can do it for me. I'm lookin' for a blitzball."

Ouch. If Homura knew, you'd have her sympathies-- machines are beautiful, helpful things.

"I don't know what that looks like. I'll flip through and you tell me when to stop."

And flip through she does.

Machines got his brother killed.

"It's round and it's got blades all round the sides, ya," said Wakka. "It's called the World Champion, ya."

Hei had just come to the main armory the other day to look at what weapons were available. Today? Today, he'd come to actually get a few more knives. No, he hadn't broken or lost any just yet, but Hei felt that it would be smarter to have a few already easily accessible instead of having to come back to the armory every single time he needed a new one.

In any case, when he entered and spotted the girl standing there looking so interested in the weapons, Hei wasn't so much surprised so much as a little unhappy with that. It reminded him all too well of his own past--namely his little sister.

He silently walked over to the window to watch as the racks shifted and moved. Hei was patient; he'd wait his turn.

She notices him right away, and watches him from the corner of her eyes. She stops at something futuristic, something that looked like it was straight out of one of the video games she used to like so much. And intrigued by this thing, she takes it out carefully. It's not completely unfamiliar-- she can recognize the safety, the trigger, the barrel... Whatever it shoots, it's huge, easily the size of her fist.

She steps to the side, allowing him access, examining the weapon carefully.

Watching her take out a rather fancy-looking weapon, Hei crooked a brow. He wasn't a big fan of guns--or really any weapon that had too many parts--but to each their own. Who knows? Maybe she grew up with things like that.

Stepping up to the display, he pulled up the double-bladed knives he had found the other day. Hei lifted his eyes to watch the racks move and shift before coming over and plucking one of the knives out. He held it in his hand, checking the balance, and then tossed it, catching it by the tip of one blade.

It was well-made, he had to admit.

"You like firearms?" he asked, as he took out several more knives and tested them out in turn. Hei kept his voice low--speaking any louder would seem strange in the otherwise silent room.

Homura watches him from the corner of her eyes. A knife-- he handles it in a way that is obviously practiced, obviously familiar. She stores this information away.

"I suppose," she says, continuing to look it over. Her voice is, as well, rather hushed. "I do have an interest, but it is one born of necessity."

"Necessity?"

He quirked a brow. As normal as she appeared to be--interest in weapons aside--Hei had a feeling that there was something different about this girl. How she was different, he didn't know, possibly would never know, but it put him on edge a little.

Not that his expression, actions, or demeanor changed in the slightest.

"Yes," she says, and does not elaborate. "Necessity."

She doesn't react to his quirked brow, just looks his way for a brief moment before setting the weapon back inside. She then goes to flip through the display once more. As she does it, she looks to him and asks: "And yourself? You know how to use a knife, it seems."

"A multipurpose device," he answered. "It works just as well in combat as out of it."

Hei quietly sheathed the knives he had been looking at; they should be enough to last him a little while, especially if he wasn't doing much fighting on board the ship.

"Yes, I can agree on that, though I've never learned to use one myself," she replies.

"If you have any interest, I would recommend it." The knives disappeared somewhere within his coat. "Even as secondary weapons, they are highly useful."

"I've been meaning to," she says. "It's just a matter of finding someone willing to teach."

"And if you found someone?" Hei wasn't looking at her when he spoke, but his eyes flicked over to her briefly. In all honesty, he disapproved of teaching a kid something like this, but if she was already handling guns and the like, it didn't look like he'd be adding to the harm all that much.

"I'd learn," she says simply. She wonders if he's considering teaching her; they're strangers, but she wouldn't ever refuse to learn a skill that could end up very handy.

"I've got time," he replied. Hei didn't bother to say it outright, but that was about as much of an invitation as she was getting. If nothing else, teaching someone would help him keep his own skills sharp, especially if he wasn't putting them to use on a regular basis.

"Then I would very much appreciate your tutelage." His offer is good, and he obviously knows what he's doing. She really would appreciate it-- knives have never been her thing, but they are incredibly useful. It'd be good to rely less on her ranged weapons.

"Your name?"

If they were going to be working together, they might as well get the formalities out of the way. There was a moment's pause before he offered up his own name. "Hei."

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sorry for the late!

Re: sorry for the late!

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sorry for the lateness!

<3!

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