Out with the old....

[sundead]

Who: Everyone
What: New Year's.
When: Dec. 31st, New Year's Eve, to Jan 1st, New Year's Day.
Where: Everywhere
Summary: It's New Year's, and the people of Luceti have a lot to reflect upon, and to look forward to. And on a more meta level, new journal names.
Rating: We'll see...

New Year's brings images of crowds, and songs, and fireworks; staying up til midnight and watching balls or bells being rung. But Luceti is a different time and place. Whether you're partying with friends or watching the sunrise, what are you doing today?

Comments

[daisy023]

[After Daisy lowers her head to cross through the door, the statement makes her guess a few things about Robert's world. The smells directs her instinctively towards where the pizza should be.]

Why, sir? ... Resources? Couldn't animals be raised for that?

[semper_cogitans]

[... And Robert looks a little horrified for a moment, before he clarifies this particular point.]

... Domestic animals are... essentially nonexistent on Terra, and... [Awkwardly:] ... b-before Luceti, all meat was... well... ... derived from c-cell cultures.

...

I had... never even thought they would... truly kill animals...

[daisy023]

[Part of Terra's culture... She's heard of synthetic meat existing in her world, but it never compares to the taste of an actual animal. The Food industry would have never thrived so much without farms of Moa.

A part of her thinks it makes sense they'd develop the market for synthetic meat... But it would mean the dive of many food-processing companies.]

There's the survival instinct.

[She has eaten scorpions and crickets before without even flinching. It's necessary survival methodology.]

[semper_cogitans]

[It's a lot different when you're not used to having to exercise this survival instinct... which is mostly dead in Terrans, being so accustomed to everything being comfortable.]

... I... I suppose that is t-true, but... it still came as a shock, to me...

[He looks a little ashamed, almost, that it never occurred to him before then.]

... Doctor Robotnik had to... inform me otherwise...

[daisy023]

... It's just necessary.

[It's all she has to say. Beside living animals continuing to be used, every survival measure dictates for it to be done, lest one dies not by the battle, but by the field.

She eyes the ingredients to be added to a pizza, but turns to Robert. Daisy was going to add everything in the menu, but for him...]

[semper_cogitans]

[Well, he won't stop her. But it's difficult to imagine doing so now...]

... I... I kn-know other worlds are... different...

[He hesitates, though, looking up at her.]

It... must be... s-strange, sometimes. For you. To... listen...

[daisy023]

[Ah, of course. Listening to the animals.

Disturbingly enough, just as she could hear the voices of Covenant Grunts and Jackals pleading for mercy, eating talking animals does little to faze her either.]

... I just cope.

[Instead, she makes two pizzas. One with everything, and another for Robert.]

[semper_cogitans]

[He doesn't know how he could deal with that. The idea of harming something that couldn't respond is disturbing enough - it's even worse picturing something that would vocalize zir distress.

Robert is quiet a moment, while he ponders his own pizza.

Finally:]

... Do... do you s-sometimes... wonder what it would be like, if you had come from somewhere else...?

[daisy023]

[Daisy stops moving. She stands still for a long moment.

Then, she continues.]

I do it sometimes.

[More than Robert would imagine. More than she'd like to.]

We are all products of where we come from.

[semper_cogitans]

[Slowly:] In... in s-some ways, I feel as if... as if I would have... l-lost something, had I come from somewhere else...

...

And yet... I... I m-might have... gained some things, too.

I... I gained things here, after all.

[And Luceti is so different from Terra as to be almost dizzying.]

[daisy023]

We all did while in here.

[Long ago, a friend insisted Daisy instead gained more out of her second chance. She wonders how to explain this.]

I come from a difficult universe, Robert. I was someone needed where I'm from. For a long time, all I knew was how to win and survive.

When I first arrived, I literally didn't know what to do.

[semper_cogitans]

...

[That sounds far too much like him.]

On Terra, I... I h-had a job. A s-structured life. A... a place in my society...

... I had e-expected roles of me, and nothing more. [No connection with people outside of the bare minimum required.] ... I...

... I did not know what to do here, either...

[daisy023]

[She puts the pizzas in the ovens. A process someone of Daisy's body and taste can hardly wait.]

Sounds like me when I was ripped away from the UNSC. My world's human military.

[A girl sitting alone in the Welcome Center. Too confused by the way the normal world worked, too alien to the way the supernatural ruled this place, and too naive to know what should she do in a world not ruled by military nor warfare laws.

A weapon with all of her senses overwhelmed and everything she thought she knew challenged in her very first hours. Too terrified to even know how to act. Worst of all, she doesn't even have enough knowledge on civilian lifestyle to even compare herself to Robert.]

In a way, it's just like survival. You just learn how to live and adapt. Few here were prepared for this world.

[semper_cogitans]

[Robert did have the advantage of knowing what a civilian lifestyle was like before Luceti, true. But one thing he was never used to - and still isn't - is the recreational parts of a civilian life - the fact remains that he often doesn't know what to do with himself if he's not working on something, and Robert is the type to absorb himself in various activities just to dull the ache.

... Needless to say, that meant he was very lost in Luceti at first. To say nothing of the fact he had no idea how to react to the supernatural forces in Luceti with anything other than scorn - until Helios showed him his magical fire.]

... That is true. The first reaction of most New Feathers is... panic...

... H-Helplessness is common, and... and I understand that w-well.

[daisy023]

[But eventually, everyone adapts. And Spartans, even those that were never meant to settle in, can also do it. Whenever if it's a testament to what she was as a soldier, or as a girl that missed her old life, Daisy never truly understood over her year in Luceti.

She picks the pizzas from the oven. Hers is larger - very much so. While the meals are just out of the oven when they are set on the table, Daisy makes a few soft waves of her hand -- sending waves of wind to cool them down. Daisy only stops upon realizing what she may have thought of as bizarre twelve months ago.]

[semper_cogitans]

[It's not too bizarre - though Robert takes a moment to figure out what she's actually doing, because he just hasn't learned to identify magic at a glance yet.]

... It is... fascinating, when... m-magic becomes so... mundane to us...

[daisy023]

[Once she recovers from the sudden thought, she resumes sending spectral waves of strong air to the pizzas.]

Alternate laws of reality. Some people weren't even used to seeing only humans.

[Once Daisy believes they may have cooled down enough, she takes a huge portion of her pizza.]

[semper_cogitans]

[Meanwhile, Robert studies his pizza, waiting it to be an almost exactly even temperature, before he begins to primly cut it into an almost perfect eighth.

And then he uses a knife and fork, to actually cut that slice...]

... Indeed. I can... only imagine how that must have f-felt...

[daisy023]

[Having never eaten pizza before, Daisy does not see anything strange in Robert's use of utensils with the food.

For her part, the size of the pizza was enough as a small meal. But she eats calmly, and in silence, as she watches the fireworks outside.]

[semper_cogitans]

[To be fair, the mun has seen people eat pizza that way even now.

A few minutes pass this way, with them both ruminating on their food and enjoying the sight of the coloured lights dancing across the utensils...

Finally, though, Robert breaks the silence.]

... Thank you, for... for coming with me, here.

[daisy023]

[From her big plate, she smiles to him.]

No, Robert. Thank you.