[ The arrival to Oska is a bit shakier than previous, with the communications system down and everyone miming charades at each other. Kida's mind is elsewhere, having re-read the ALASTAIR message on her bracer for what feels like the tenth time, the words swimming together.
She's being sent back; she's needed back where she came from, and ALASTAIR scraped together the required energy. She has twenty-four hours to clear out. It feels impossibly long and yet like hardly enough. Time was less complex, before.
Sieglinde is the first person she goes to, knuckles rapping against the wooden door of her chamber. ]
Sieglinde? I must speak with you. [ Old German is far removed from Adlantisag and as a result Kida's accent thickens, but the language itself is understandable. Her hand falls back to her side, her expression dour. ]
[Even heavily accented, the sound is nice to hear. Familiar. Enough so that it cuts through Sieglinde's focus on the experiment she has running on her desk, half-buried in books and absently going over Japanese vocabulary while she waited for the Zeta-12 springwater to heat. It's enough to make her clamber from her chair, pausing to resituate before she puts her heels to the ground.
She may have unbound them, but her feet were still largely devoid of feeling- the nerves had died off over the years, but as long as she minded the balance, she could do it. Walk to the door carefully, and open it smiling, completely unaware of what dour news might have brought her.]
Kida? Come in, come in- How good it is you Atalanteans can speak many tongues, what a mess things are-
[Swung the door open wide, gesturing for her guest to enter, waving at the sketches of... people? Crudely drawn people on parchment that were slightly stained. Some of those faces might be... ALASTAIR recruits?]
[ She steps inside, her gaze sweeping over the room. It makes a smile bloom on her face, to see how very Sieglinde the place seems. She pauses at all the drawings, tracing the lines of faces she knows. ]
[Did she draw those... she's loathe to claim them, mainly because... they looked much better last night when she was drawing them tipsy on Oska alcohol smuggled from dinner in between texting Loki. Much, much better.
There's... well, it might be Riza? The eyepatch will identify Masamune. The skin and hair Kida... there's Isengrim...]
I am not an artist, so-
[Mainly, she was too much of a perfectionist to want to claim them, but seeing as she still has ink on her hands because she'd been too involved in her experiments to wash them...]
[ She picks up the picture of herself. Sieglinde has methodical hands but the strokes are still the ones of a child, still learning how to ally all that anatomical knowledge with artistry. Kida hardly recognizes the woman in the drawing, and not for the physical attributes; the tattoo, the hair, the skin, it could be no one else. Yet energy crackles off the paper. It occurs to her that this is how Sieglinde must see her, intense and driven. It's not a bad interpretation. ]
Have you made one of yourself?
[ She absently picks through the portraits, seeking. ]
I thought art was one of the disciplines that required a certain natural talent...
[That she did possess... when it came to the anatomical, the analytical... not feet away were a pile of notes she'd taken while watching Laedo replace Evan's eye, and the sketches there were fit for a medical text, exact and realistic depictions of muscle and iris... but "for fun"... she didn't know how to draw for that, and they looked painfully akin to... almost any other child's art.
Nudging a few papers aside with her now normal-sized foot, Sieglinde finally found one- awkwardly trying to bend down and get it.]
Maybe this one...
[It had been intended as a grown-up her, but. That would likely be hard to tell.]
And we only tend to practice that which we believe ourselves skilled at.
[ The great painters and tatoo artists and carvers she knows from Atlantis are those who, by their own admission, had been painting with their fingers as children and then simply...never stopped. Art had become a daily form of expression, and eventually a pleasure.
She crouches, picking up the portrait of Sieglinde; immediately, she smiles, perhaps understanding what the girl was trying to do. The bust is exaggerated, but the eyes, the pale skin and dark hair, even the dress belies her. Warmth floods her chest. ]
May I keep this?
[ It's a selfish request, but she allows it of herself. ]
[She was quite sure she'd have a lovely bosom when she was older, thank you...
But Kida picking up the picture saved Sieglinde from the chore of balancing and trying to do it herself, and she instead straightens up, fluffing out her skirts.]
If you want it, it is yours.
[She flops onto her bed, feet kicking, head cocking.]
But what is it you wished to talk about? Hopefully not my lack of artistic talent- has there been any change in our communication situation?
[ Kida watches Sieglinde fall back on the bed, caught up for a moment in how young she looks sprawled like that. She straightens, looming over the younger girl before leaning over her, reaching to swipe the back of her knuckles across a soft, pale cheek.
It's a moment before her words come, soft and gentle. ]
I have been called away by ALASTAIR, Sieglinde. I am to return to my home.
[ She adjusts her stance until she's sitting next to Sieglinde on the bed, dark skin upon pale linens. ]
I know that we have not always agreed on....many things, [ her voice is wry. ] but I came here to thank you, and to wish you well.
[Sieglinde blinked innocently, unaware of just how serious Kida was about to be, staring up at her. For all that it was true that they'd had their disagreement, (one nasty disagreement, the first time in her life she'd had to wrestle with arguing with someone she cared about), she had long since forgiven any harsh words, not wanting to harbor negative feelings.
The words don't seem to register, they're so far off what she was expecting to hear. Going home... no one went home, did they? They got transferred to other teams, leaving her with sadness and trinkets, and-]
[ Kida's smile turns tight, sad. She could show Sieglinde the message she received, the day before they were set to leave Zeta-12--but she won't. That's not what Sieglinde needs right now. ]
I do not have much time. Come and embrace me, will you?
[ Her arm wraps around the girl's shoulder, pulling her in. ]
[If this were someone else, someone who teased her, like Ban, who tricked her, like Loki, or who liked to fluster her, like Masamune, she could manage to make herself believe Kida was joking. That this was some sort of prank, perhaps, some strange test of her devotion.
But she knows she wouldn't joke like that. The realization crept over her expression like the advance of a paralyzingly tide, turned her eyebrows knit inward, her shock to a frown, despite her desire to present herself more maturely. Going home- that was what most all of them wanted. So she should be happy-
(First Rin, then Saber, then Gilgamesh, now Kida?)
Wordlessly, she threw herself into the older woman's chest, arms wrapping round tight.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
20th aug;
She's being sent back; she's needed back where she came from, and ALASTAIR scraped together the required energy. She has twenty-four hours to clear out. It feels impossibly long and yet like hardly enough. Time was less complex, before.
Sieglinde is the first person she goes to, knuckles rapping against the wooden door of her chamber. ]
Sieglinde? I must speak with you. [ Old German is far removed from Adlantisag and as a result Kida's accent thickens, but the language itself is understandable. Her hand falls back to her side, her expression dour. ]
no subject
She may have unbound them, but her feet were still largely devoid of feeling- the nerves had died off over the years, but as long as she minded the balance, she could do it. Walk to the door carefully, and open it smiling, completely unaware of what dour news might have brought her.]
Kida? Come in, come in- How good it is you Atalanteans can speak many tongues, what a mess things are-
[Swung the door open wide, gesturing for her guest to enter, waving at the sketches of... people? Crudely drawn people on parchment that were slightly stained. Some of those faces might be... ALASTAIR recruits?]
Please do not mind the trash-
no subject
This is not trash. Did you draw all of these?
no subject
[Did she draw those... she's loathe to claim them, mainly because... they looked much better last night when she was drawing them tipsy on Oska alcohol smuggled from dinner in between texting Loki. Much, much better.
There's... well, it might be Riza? The eyepatch will identify Masamune. The skin and hair Kida... there's Isengrim...]
I am not an artist, so-
[Mainly, she was too much of a perfectionist to want to claim them, but seeing as she still has ink on her hands because she'd been too involved in her experiments to wash them...]
no subject
[ She picks up the picture of herself. Sieglinde has methodical hands but the strokes are still the ones of a child, still learning how to ally all that anatomical knowledge with artistry. Kida hardly recognizes the woman in the drawing, and not for the physical attributes; the tattoo, the hair, the skin, it could be no one else. Yet energy crackles off the paper. It occurs to her that this is how Sieglinde must see her, intense and driven. It's not a bad interpretation. ]
Have you made one of yourself?
[ She absently picks through the portraits, seeking. ]
no subject
[That she did possess... when it came to the anatomical, the analytical... not feet away were a pile of notes she'd taken while watching Laedo replace Evan's eye, and the sketches there were fit for a medical text, exact and realistic depictions of muscle and iris... but "for fun"... she didn't know how to draw for that, and they looked painfully akin to... almost any other child's art.
Nudging a few papers aside with her now normal-sized foot, Sieglinde finally found one- awkwardly trying to bend down and get it.]
Maybe this one...
[It had been intended as a grown-up her, but. That would likely be hard to tell.]
no subject
[ The great painters and tatoo artists and carvers she knows from Atlantis are those who, by their own admission, had been painting with their fingers as children and then simply...never stopped. Art had become a daily form of expression, and eventually a pleasure.
She crouches, picking up the portrait of Sieglinde; immediately, she smiles, perhaps understanding what the girl was trying to do. The bust is exaggerated, but the eyes, the pale skin and dark hair, even the dress belies her. Warmth floods her chest. ]
May I keep this?
[ It's a selfish request, but she allows it of herself. ]
no subject
But Kida picking up the picture saved Sieglinde from the chore of balancing and trying to do it herself, and she instead straightens up, fluffing out her skirts.]
If you want it, it is yours.
[She flops onto her bed, feet kicking, head cocking.]
But what is it you wished to talk about? Hopefully not my lack of artistic talent- has there been any change in our communication situation?
no subject
It's a moment before her words come, soft and gentle. ]
I have been called away by ALASTAIR, Sieglinde. I am to return to my home.
[ She adjusts her stance until she's sitting next to Sieglinde on the bed, dark skin upon pale linens. ]
I know that we have not always agreed on....many things, [ her voice is wry. ] but I came here to thank you, and to wish you well.
no subject
The words don't seem to register, they're so far off what she was expecting to hear. Going home... no one went home, did they? They got transferred to other teams, leaving her with sadness and trinkets, and-]
... What?
no subject
I do not have much time. Come and embrace me, will you?
[ Her arm wraps around the girl's shoulder, pulling her in. ]
no subject
But she knows she wouldn't joke like that. The realization crept over her expression like the advance of a paralyzingly tide, turned her eyebrows knit inward, her shock to a frown, despite her desire to present herself more maturely. Going home- that was what most all of them wanted. So she should be happy-
(First Rin, then Saber, then Gilgamesh, now Kida?)
Wordlessly, she threw herself into the older woman's chest, arms wrapping round tight.]