[possibly realizing how uncomfortable that is, he responds with just a bit more pep.]
Don't worry! It's nothing terrible! I'll be right over.
[Well, "terrible" is relative, but given the immediate danger is over, it's just a courtesy discussion. Everyone else he feels no strong desire to admit his newfound handicap, but he owes Sieglinde more than that.
[URAHARA YOU NORMALLY ARE ONLY THAT SUCCINT IN BATTLE... and sometimes not even then tbh.
But it gets Sieglinde out of bed and into clothing, (what is time? they’re on a spaceship she can do research all night and sleep all day if she wants too!), just in time... to answer the door.
There's nothing visibly different about him, which he sees as both a miracle of modern convenience and the fact that his haori sleeve covers some of the remaining scarring on his arm from the fight. He was more worried about his face- for both practical reasons and a tiny bit of vanity. The lack of fucking depth perception is only for him.
Still, he lifts a hand to the back of his neck, sympathetic that he woke her up. He's been there multiple times.] Ah... I didn't realize you were napping. Sorry about that- I'll try to keep it short.
[He steps inside and only when she's closed the door does he let his shoulders slump a bit. It's hard not having many people you can be genuinely... well, not so much vulnerable as weary around (though that was true back home) on his own terms. Most people have to force him to feel his real feelings.] I only just got back from my home, you see.
[Bedhead she can fix. Belatedly, but. She smooths her thigh-length black hair awkwardly as she lets him in, leaning back against the door for a moment as she looks him over.
Tries to understand what he just said.]
... you returned to your home?
[Had she not just seen him... she did lose track of time during these down periods, when she could fully lose herself in the work that built up during their missions, but. It had just been the other day had it not?]
I don't think much time passed while I was gone. At least not here. [He drops his hand back to his side.] It was almost two years back there.
[It's probably more polite to ask for an invitation first, but this is a "sitting down" conversation to some extent, and he needs to collect himself anyway, so he goes to perch on the edge of the bed.] I chose to come back here at a rather inconvenient time, but I'm sure Hathaway will find a way to adjust accordingly, considering I picked up right where I left off.
[And as much as she knew that the flow of time was strange, that ALASTAIR and Hathaway both had a mysterious grasp of it... it was still shocking to hear, and even though Urahara sits... she remains standing by the door yet, somewhat stunned.]
In two years time, so much must have happened...
[Were he human, she might say he still looked young as ever... but.]
[He chuckles, the sound very weary.] I have to admit- they impress even me with their skill at time displacement. That sort of power is difficult and even forbidden where I'm from, but that's hardly the point.
[What is the point really? Perhaps start with something positive. Something that might even give her hope.] I ended up solving the problem I stayed with ALASTAIR and Hathaway to figure out. I don't know how much I remembered over my time here, but I'd like to think inspiration struck, even if I wasn't sure of the source.
[What he says is... in a word, terrifying. Since her recruitment, Sieglinde has always wrestled with the fear that when she is returned to her world she might not be able to remember what she has experienced. More importantly... what she had learned.
And though she knows it is selfish, that she should ask first about what he went through in his world, the problem he encountered...]
How... how vague were your memories of that time... ?
[That is the opposite of hopeful, and he realizes that the second he sees her expression. For the incentive to not be given- to just return home and maybe never return...
That would be cruel. He knows it's not the case, at least as far as he's been assured, and he has no reason to doubt them just yet. Perhaps he should have started with that.] I can't be certain. It's strange being here and remembering everything, while trying to recall being there and remembering nothing, but I was assured it was just a blip when I arrived. That were I to decide to go home, I would remember everything.
I could choose to go right back home now if I wanted to, and I'd suddenly have memories of this place mixed with the old.
Of course. It wasn’t like she couldn’t believe it. The timeline, all these worlds and all these absences and all these events... even though she’d dedicated a good deal of her first year to attempting to understand it, she still couldn’t. It was beyond her training, her mind, her experiences with the harder sciences disguised as magic.
But even though a blip was still terrifying to her, for all its chaotic and unpredictable potential... she tries to swallow it. This isn’t about that-]
Then... how was your trip home?
[As if it were a vacation, a jaunt. As if she didn’t know that it could not have been, if he’d come here like this.]
I wish I could tell you it was all pleasant, but things aren't so great there. War is a very ugly thing, Sieglinde-san, but I hardly need to tell you that.
It would have been more responsible to insist I be sent back, but I thought I could figure out a way to turn the tides if I had more time. [And that was his excuse for moving on with Hathaway too. There's always an excuse. Always a problem to be solved.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
text; un: urahara
[no games. no preamble. something must be up.]
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Of course.
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Don't worry! It's nothing terrible! I'll be right over.
[Well, "terrible" is relative, but given the immediate danger is over, it's just a courtesy discussion. Everyone else he feels no strong desire to admit his newfound handicap, but he owes Sieglinde more than that.
the point is KNOCK KNOCK, SIEG.]
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But it gets Sieglinde out of bed and into clothing, (what is time? they’re on a spaceship she can do research all night and sleep all day if she wants too!), just in time... to answer the door.
With awful bedhead, but.]
Urahara, do come in.
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There's nothing visibly different about him, which he sees as both a miracle of modern convenience and the fact that his haori sleeve covers some of the remaining scarring on his arm from the fight. He was more worried about his face- for both practical reasons and a tiny bit of vanity. The lack of fucking depth perception is only for him.
Still, he lifts a hand to the back of his neck, sympathetic that he woke her up. He's been there multiple times.] Ah... I didn't realize you were napping. Sorry about that- I'll try to keep it short.
[He steps inside and only when she's closed the door does he let his shoulders slump a bit. It's hard not having many people you can be genuinely... well, not so much vulnerable as weary around (though that was true back home) on his own terms. Most people have to force him to feel his real feelings.] I only just got back from my home, you see.
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Tries to understand what he just said.]
... you returned to your home?
[Had she not just seen him... she did lose track of time during these down periods, when she could fully lose herself in the work that built up during their missions, but. It had just been the other day had it not?]
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[It's probably more polite to ask for an invitation first, but this is a "sitting down" conversation to some extent, and he needs to collect himself anyway, so he goes to perch on the edge of the bed.] I chose to come back here at a rather inconvenient time, but I'm sure Hathaway will find a way to adjust accordingly, considering I picked up right where I left off.
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It cannot have been more than two days, here- !
[And as much as she knew that the flow of time was strange, that ALASTAIR and Hathaway both had a mysterious grasp of it... it was still shocking to hear, and even though Urahara sits... she remains standing by the door yet, somewhat stunned.]
In two years time, so much must have happened...
[Were he human, she might say he still looked young as ever... but.]
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[What is the point really? Perhaps start with something positive. Something that might even give her hope.] I ended up solving the problem I stayed with ALASTAIR and Hathaway to figure out. I don't know how much I remembered over my time here, but I'd like to think inspiration struck, even if I wasn't sure of the source.
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And though she knows it is selfish, that she should ask first about what he went through in his world, the problem he encountered...]
How... how vague were your memories of that time... ?
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That would be cruel. He knows it's not the case, at least as far as he's been assured, and he has no reason to doubt them just yet. Perhaps he should have started with that.] I can't be certain. It's strange being here and remembering everything, while trying to recall being there and remembering nothing, but I was assured it was just a blip when I arrived. That were I to decide to go home, I would remember everything.
I could choose to go right back home now if I wanted to, and I'd suddenly have memories of this place mixed with the old.
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Of course. It wasn’t like she couldn’t believe it. The timeline, all these worlds and all these absences and all these events... even though she’d dedicated a good deal of her first year to attempting to understand it, she still couldn’t. It was beyond her training, her mind, her experiences with the harder sciences disguised as magic.
But even though a blip was still terrifying to her, for all its chaotic and unpredictable potential... she tries to swallow it. This isn’t about that-]
Then... how was your trip home?
[As if it were a vacation, a jaunt. As if she didn’t know that it could not have been, if he’d come here like this.]
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It would have been more responsible to insist I be sent back, but I thought I could figure out a way to turn the tides if I had more time. [And that was his excuse for moving on with Hathaway too. There's always an excuse. Always a problem to be solved.]