trans_9 | Far below the rolling tide [Open]

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Far below the rolling tide [Open]

Strangely enough, even after the events of the past few days, Zouichi had not developed an aversion to the ocean. Or axes! Or giant squid! It helped that he, unlike some of the other crew, hadn't been in imminent danger of drowning. He was, however, busying himself with preparing some of the food they'd bought on shore leave, as well as supplies salvaged from the Deepstar 7. No sense letting it go to waste, right?

He'd started work in the early morning, and gotten so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn't quite notice that he was making more than was absolutely necessary. What? Cooking was relaxing. And anyway, he thought as he waited to pull a piece of battered shrimp out of its cooking oil, someone would probably eat it all. For the people living in the inn, he was careful to set aside boxes of prepared food. But there was an increasing amount left over...

Stop by, enjoy your ridiculously overprepared lunch. Or just a simple one, if you're an acquaintance. The front door's open!

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"Huh. Well, I guess things like that can't be helped." Hana shrugged, stuffing another helping of food into his mouth.

"So what did you guys end up doing down there?"

He scratched the purring creature under the chin. "Yeh, I think he's pretty smart."

Zouichi frowned. "Maybe you're right, but that doesn't mean people can't take measures to prevent something like that from happening. Or change. Accepting it as an inevitability means that it'll only happen over and over again." Hana's callous reaction to death was a little troubling in a human, actually. Didn't he care? Even if he didn't know the people who had died personally?

"Our investigation was cut short by the failing structural integrity of the station. We had to escape in the emergency carriage." He looked thoughtfully at Taro. "And you? What have you been up to lately?"

"Yeh. But you can't change what happened, can you? What's done is done. You just gotta learn from that." He picked at the greens complimenting his dish, then smiled. "Things will work out, you just have to remember that."

Hana sighed as Taro rubbed his furred face against the boys palm. "Nothing much really. Everyone's kind of been doing their own thing so I've just sorta been hanging around the ship, doing a bit of training and making sure I don't mess up my leg." He rubbed the back of his leg subconsciously.

Well, they hadn't really worked out for that crewman who'd had an alien brain parasite drill into his brain stem, but maybe it'd work out for Hana. Zouichi dried the pan and set it aside.

"Ah. Is it still not healed fully yet? I suppose you could go to Medical, if you like, and have them speed up the process." Zouichi didn't have a lot of experience with that sort of thing, having never availed himself of the Medical Bay's services. But they had nice coffee! Okay, no, they didn't really.

"Was it from SHODAN's attack?"

"It's fine. There's a bit of a scar but you know, alot of people got worse. 'Sides, Cassandra's been looking after it for me." He gave a bashful smile and finished the food.

"Oh, yeh. I just got... erm... 'blasted', I guess? I don't think it's 'shot' since it burned more than pierced." Hana just shrugged it off.

Zouichi nodded, though he didn't miss the smile. "I guess you're right. But you should still take care of yourself. I have a feeling this war is going to go on for a while yet."

Especially since they didn't have many leads. "Another one of those 'cool scars'?"

He shuffled, looking a little awkward. "Yeh."

"Pretty much. I didn't have a burn before so I think this is kinda cool."

Zouichi gave him a weird look. "You're collecting different scars? What do you get at the end, a prize?"

Seriously, Hana, that was just bizarre.

Hana gave him a baffled look. "Collecting?" He shook his head, snorting in amusement. "No. Why would I do that? That's just weird!"

"I don't know. But I've never heard anyone describe a scar as cool, either." Though to be perfectly honest, he probably wouldn't have even if it were a completely normal colloquial thing to say, having been raised with limited contact with people in general. Let alone kids.

"You seem very blasé about a lot of things that happen on the ship. Why is that?"

"Well, you know, it's just kinda cool. Scars can be cool. I mean, they show that you've got experience, I guess. I dunno. Not all of them are cool but..." He trailed off, unsure how to explain the macho teenage concept of toughness to a futuristic mechanical being.

Taro was now attempting to crawl down Hana's shirt. "Huh? Blazé? What do you mean?"

"Well, a lot of the people here aren't veterans of a war. Or they haven't been in situations where a lot of people have died. Or even if they have, they seem more concerned with the news of someone's death than you do. It's a little unusual."

Experience didn't necessarily equal desensitization, either. Howard had experienced starvation firsthand, and if anything, it seemed to have worsened his feelings of insecurity. But the deaths of others didn't seem to faze Hana at all. Why was that?

Hana suddenly felt himself shrinking away from Zouichi and his questions, feeling as if he were being accused of something.

"It's not like I don't care. I don't want to people to die..."

It seemed that he was being given the image of a bad person and he began shuffling uncomfortably and glancing at the door.

"I didn't say you did." What a curious reaction. "Only that your reactions are... unusual."

He folded his arms. "For example, I've killed people before. And I'm sure in many other people, having been responsible for someone else's death would have been a source of distress. Much greater than it is for me."

At the 'unusual' comment he shuffled even more and seemed ready to dart for the exit. This was what was wrong with his powers, they made things complicated, sometimes too complicated for others to grasp.

"I don't like it when people die but... When it's someone I don't know I just... I dunno. It's hard to explain. Besides, half the time it's not like they've even left anyway."

How could he explain his odd feelings and understanding of death when even he didn't quite know?

"I'd never want someone to die and I'd never want to kill someone but... Death happens."

"That's true." Death did happen. Especially in war. Though that sort of outlook was a little rare in teenagers -- in Zouichi's world, at least.

"Not like they've left? What do you mean?"

A shrug. "I guess I'm just more used to it happening and it being okay than others are."

Hana blinked and looked at Zouichi, confused. Surely he'd...

"Wait... I never told you?"

No. He must have. He remembered clearly...

... Telling him about the 'reviving the dead' thing... Once. On that mission. But he'd not explained it very well.

Heck, he hadn't even told Zouichi what he was let alone what it meant.

Well... This is embarrassing. Really, how could he have forgotten?

Or maybe he hadn't forgotten. Maybe he'd not wanted to tell Zouichi. It's not like he was keeping it a secret on the ship. But in comparison to Zouichis accomplishments and talents, Hana's 'powers' just seemed... Weird.

If he had told Hana, Zouichi had probably just been too busy shooting robots or zombies or whatever to really pay attention.

"Told me what?"

"Well... Erm... What do you think I do, exactly?" Hana couldn't help himself. "I mean, what do you think I am?" He was curious, did Zouichi think he was just a normal boy? A very loud one, yes, but 'normal'? Hana had never had that before.

But wait, Zou had seen him fight, right? Maybe he just thought Hana had grabbed a sword and started swinging it around?

"A human. Used to fighting. You obviously have some sort of ability that would be unusual in my world, but Allenby can jump about thirty feet into the air and shoot energy out of her hands, and she thinks that's perfectly normal."

In other words, it was quite possible Hana could more or less be a normal person. In his own world, anyway.

"Well, I am human. Biologically and all that but I'm not 'normal'. Not even in my world. I mean, there's alot of people like me but we're not the normal ones on our planet."

"You're a transhuman, then?" That was Zouichi defaulting to a scientific explanation. There were espers on his planet, for instance, with abilities far beyond those of a normal human.

...but they were still human.

"I guess you could call it that." He ran his hand through his hair and shrugged, giving a nervous smile. "But, back where I'm from we just call it being a 'Shaman'."

"A shaman." Zouichi blinked. "So... you can talk to nature spirits? Like Alastirra?"

The two of them were so different in appearance, but he supposed he could see some similarities in their manner.

"Yeh, well--Wait? Who? There's someone else on the ship like that?"

Hana leaned back in his chair looking thoughtful. "Huh, I didn't know that."

"But you're kind of right, but only a little."

Far below the rolling tide [Open]

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