itami

“Truly…” He picked up his hands and stood near Juzo, with a soft composure. He stood with perfect posture and had his doe like eyes now fixated on the other boy.

“Are you one to enjoy alcohol?” Jotaro swayed in place, looking to exploit his energy somehow. “Oh, you remind me of someone who likes energy drinks!” He made an O shape with his mouth before chuckling. “Now I gotta know! What liquids do you prefer?”

“Nice…perhaps the architecture. But I would think one would not like the situation were in.”

The contrast between Jotaro’s light gaze and Juzo’s natural near-glare were pretty apparent, made even moreso by the height difference. While Jotaro’s posture was exceptional, Juzo’s was a lot more sloppy, really added to a more delinquent look. 

Wording it as liquids was a weird way to put it, but it was a good question. Juzo never thought of it much, being labelled as an energy drink person probably seemed correct on the surface, imagining Juzo downing Monster at 3am was probably pretty easy. He didn’t actually like them, though. Too sweet. He hummed softly. “Coffee. Black.” bitter coffee was a good thing to live by. Thinking about it, he realised he hadn’t had a hot drink since they came to the castle. It’d be nice to have one. “You?” Probably something sweet. He wouldn’t be surprised to hear something like orange juice be the answer.

It was hard to tell whether or not Juzo liked something. With only a portion of his face shown, it made him nervous on what he said or did. The boy curled a small section of hair with his finger, trying to calm his own rising nerves, “I didn’t mean that in a bad way, you just are instinctual- uh, you…know what your doing.” He was usually so good with words!

“It would be a good distraction from what goes on around here.” He traced the part of the barrel with his fingers, continuing to drum them because oh gosh was that noise satisfying. “But..usually, emotions are amplified when drunk, unless you hold your liquor well, which, is none of my business.” What did it even taste like? Why did people like rum again?

“Oh, I suppose not! Never been in a place so peculiar is all.

This happened a lot. Juzo seemed to make people unnecessarily anxious just by being there. It was the lack of emoting that lead to it, definitely. He wasn’t going to start being more animated solely because it made people nervous, but he did feel a little bad for it. He nodded, not furthering that branch of conversation for the now. 

Drowning your sorrows in alcohol... might be mildly tempting. He watched as Jotaro drummed away, Juzo would personally not want to deal with a load of drunk teens. The attack of the man eating plants in the last castle was as close as they’d need. He hummed. “Depends on the person.” he closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. He knew people that had gotten completely wasted, they all reacted differently. He himself had never been intoxicated... as far as he could remember, at least. Maybe it was for the better. 

Or because Juzo was the only soul who gave just small piece a shit about protecting the smaller ones. 

“Were you going to drink some yourself?” He asked.”Oh dear, it’s not polite to ask is it?” He sheepishly chuckles. “Never been around this kind of drink. Papa usually locked the wine cabinet, and g-d knows I’d never intrude.” 

He taps on a barrel to hear the sound it made. 

He shrugs at the comment, he didn’t care if it was rude to ask. “Probably.” he’d tasted wine during family occasions, hard to believe with that mask, I know. “It’s... unique.” knowing this castle, this stuff had probably been ageing for far longer than normal, but it didn’t seem like anything had gone mouldy. It was rather clean, really. 

@pleasantpandemic

Wandering the wine cellar, Jotaro happened upon a familiar face. Huh. Looked like Alice was with someone else. He had wondered if those two were a pair, but he supposed not. He ran over to Juzo and excitedly hopped in his spot.

The sound of Jotaro. One Juzo was not as used to. This kid’s mood tended to be... really childish, even moreso than Alice. It was a bit of a handful just listening to him, if Juzo was honest with himself. Energetic types weren’t up his alley, perhaps that’s why he didn’t get alone with a certain clown.

Katsuo could feel the mutual dislike, what had he done to him anyways?! first time they met he only was curious about something he found! but Juzo responded with annoyance when all he wanted to do was look at it closer, nothing more than that.

He had never felt towards anyone before, until he met Juzo, that man just knew the best ways to make him mad. Fighting wasn’t something he was interested in, or even causing any kind of problems… but damn, changing his mind wouldn’t be a bad idea, letting off some steam would feel great at that moment.

“Ya know, with this whole change of layout, i thought it would be a good idea to check every room once more and memorize the new locations.” How in the world was it even possible to completely change every room, even adding more than before?! magic demonstrations had already been made, and many monsters had shown themselves, but seems like they weren’t the weirdest things to worry about, had he known this would happen, taking everything he used to have would had been the priority, the mistake of not grabbing them costed the lost of some objects.

“What i am wondering is what are YOU doing here? maybe i would had believed you if exploring was your excuse for being here, but i saw you using those things as a throne! that’s freaking weird, even for you, can you even explain what the hell was all that?!.” Rivalry or not, Katsuo would had asked that same question anyways, sitting in between so many plushes without any kind of movement, those actions looked strange.

In Katsuo’s eyes, Juzo’s dislike of him may have been unjustified, but clamouring around someone the moment you meet them, that’s exhausting, and was one of the few things Juzo didn’t have the patience for. Noisy people were fine, as long as they didn’t get in his way, but Katsuo just kept doing just that, what a pain.

As a matter of fact, Juzo was indeed exploring, but it looked like that wouldn’t fly here. Damn. Comparing the pile of plushes to a throne was hilarious though, and a stifled snicker escaped Juzo. This was stupid. He picked up one of the plushes, a yellow bear, and gave it a squeeze. Soft. He looked back up at Katsuo, “They’re soft.” Yeah, that explains it all. He shrugged, throwing the bear at him. Not forcefully, more as to pass it to him. “I was tired.” 

This whole place was like a maze to him, after the whole change of the castle, getting lost was easy to him, it was finally time for Katsuo to explore the place once more and memorize every location.

The whole trial had left him exhausted, not only did he had to witness a corpse in the fountain, but also had to see one of the closer people to him in the castle get punished in such a horrible and painful way. Even so, staying broken on his room wouldn’t do any good, so all of those feelings had to be kept for himself, and show everyone that energetic personality they knew.

Just finding the dorms was enough of a challenge, and now a new room was near them, so upon opening the door, he found himself in a creepy atmosphere, being surrounded by the dolls made him shiver, maybe if they looked normal Katsuo would be fine, but those looked like they were taking straight up from a horror movie.

“What could be worse than this?” he thought to himself, until he finally noticed the man that was in the room… Juzo.

“Oh… is you.” The disappointment on his voice could be easily noticed, out of all the people, of course it was him. 

“What are you doing here Shadow the edge-hog? playing with dolls? i would tell you to leave that to Alice, but you are a softie after all.” Katsuo wasn’t a fan of Juzo, his whole personality tired him, and they had some problems even before and during the trial, not the best of friends.

This clown. The moment Juzo heard the voice, he snapped back to reality with a jolt, causing him to inch into the plush vortex. He let out a sigh of defeat as he pushed himself off the pile, catching sight of the person the voice belonged to. He narrowed his eyes, standing tall and silently staring down the ski racer. He wasn’t going to get riled up over this kid, no way. I say kid but these two are both 19. Juzo is 3 months older and WILL use this to his advantage to call Katsuo a kid. 

Edgehog? Low blow, Katsuo, low blow. He didn’t want to resort to violence, but damn, it would feel good to knock this dude down a peg or two. He crossed his arms defensively, it was also partially to stop himself from lashing out. He tilted his head forward, shade covering his eyes even further, dead, red eyes staring up at the other. Intimidation tactics. 

“Shut. Up.” Right to the point. He really couldn’t stand this dude from the moment he met him. He hated smartasses like him that think everyone is their friends from the get-go. People who go straight to nicknames, tropes, the like. It got on his nerves more than almost anything else. 

Okay, sure, nobody was really stopping him from actually complaining. If anything, Matthew was only ever stopping himself. Certainly, Matthew was allowed to complain. He knew that, already. But being allowed to didn’t necessarily mean others wanted him to. He returned with a half-hearted shrug of his own. “S-sure, th-thanks, but… I-I dunno! I’m just, um, sorry…! Yeah!”

And, yeah, he dug himself into an even deeper pit of embarrassment with the incessant rambling and conversation starting, and… Ugh. Matthew wished he had just never said anything at all. He just made a total fool of himself.

It felt like he had a tendency to do that.

Still, honesty was key, so when the last unnecessary conversation starter left his mouth, he immediately went right to apologising and explaining himself. “Um! S-sorry, I-I just didn’t want to, um, stand around in awkward silence—!!”   

His mouth gaped open when Juzo started using ice magic. S-sure, Matthew was feeling hot, but that’s only because of all the sweating and flushing he was doing as a result of the many botched social interactions that have happened recently. And now Juzo was expending energy or mana or hearts or whatever because of Matthew blurting things out completely arbitrarily. 

“O-oh.” He was feeling even more embarrassed, but, at this point, the only polite thing to do would be to thank the helpful individual, right? He bowed his head. “Um! Th-thank you!! I-I guess! I, um, i-it sure is feeling much cooler, n-now!” Matthew raised his head swiftly and took to fiddling with his scarf. “Th-that was cool..! Y-you g-got, um, an ice tome, h-huh? F-from Dominique? Th-that’s cool! H-haha,” he choked on his own forced laughter. As he recovered from being a spluttering mess, he smiled self-deprecatingly. “Um, l-literally. H-haha…”

The tarot card reader raised an eyebrow. He read the apology as more of the kind one gave to a passerby on the street that one accidentally bumps into. An apology for inconvenience, but Matthew wasn’t an inconvenience. Nobody here really was, to a notable extent. Sure, there were people that felt like minor bothers but nobody Juzo would go out of his way to avoid. 

“...Yeah, okay.” his eyes wandered off to the sides of the room, it felt like insincere acceptance, likely because that was, partially, the case.  He didn’t accept it because it didn’t mean anything to him, there was no need for it. But he still attempted to accept it to spare at least some of Matthew’s feelings. He wasn’t doing a good job of that, I’m sure. 

Ah. So the other felt the silence was awkward. Whoops. Juzo felt kind of bad for leaving so much silence, but that was just how he worked. Then he had to go off and cast that spell. It wasn’t as tiring as it could have been, thankfully, due to the small scale. He, himself was starting to feel a little embarrassed, having performed such a flashy affair over ... well, simple sentence starters. 

Matthew was definitely the type of person to get the Absolute Wrong impression from stoic individuals, and, well, Juzo almost felt like the epitome of ‘scary and intimidating unfeeling individual.’ Still, even if he hated the long silences, Matthew definitely didn’t want to be the rude one and end the conversation. Not that it was necessarily rude to end conversations, but, well, Matthew had a lot of ideas in his head about social interactions that were less than correct. So he fidgeted in place as he waited for a response from Juzo.

Still… An older individual, wearing a cool mask, seemingly unfazed by everything… That was definitely super cool, even if he was still very much intimidated. There… seemed to be a lot of people Matthew found himself admiring in this castle.

The castle itself, though? There was nothing he liked about it. So, he was quite glad to hear that Juzo agreed with him. “I-I’m happy to hear that you think s-so, too!” He really was, since if someone as cool and imperturbable also thought that this whole situation was bad, maybe he wasn’t overreacting! 

But… Maybe he was still being a little unnecessary. Like, he was whining and complaining about how gross it was that the only food was in the walls, but at least there was food. And Juzo wasn’t complaining about his wound or the food (at least, not specifically), and… Matthew sighed and pouted. “Sorry, m-maybe I shouldn’t be complaining so much…” 

Then he went ahead and did something so embarrassing… He was just pointing out the obvious when he said that Juzo looked cool! When he noticed that Juzo was bringing a hand up to his face, Matthew immediately thought he was going for a facepalm, and opened his mouth to apologize, but then he heard… what was it? A laugh? The shock Matthew felt was palpable. 

Ah. So he still ended up embarrassing himself, anyway. Matthew wanted to melt away into a garbage puddle. Despite that, he couldn’t help but to feel relief. That probably at least meant Juzo didn’t hate him, right? He even ended up saying ‘thanks’! Matthew took this as an invite to unload a bunch of random sentence starters on him, which was definitely embarrassing.

“S-so! Um! The weather’s nice, today! A-and have you heard about that red skeleton? J-just won’t die, ha ha! Um! And, boy oh boy, erm, sure is hot in here…!”

Complaining was normal, Juzo thought. Matthew’s form of complaining wasn’t bothersome, in fact, it was kind of welcomed in Juzo’s eyes. He was used to people getting... very heated when they complained. Crazy how mad people got over a card reading. He lifted his hand up slightly, above his waist, with a half-shrug. “You’re allowed to.” 

He’d be more surprised if people weren’t  complaining about the place. Even he had complaints, but he just wasn’t the kind of person to put them out there. His personal complaints didn’t really matter in the whole grand scheme of things, so it was easier to stay quiet. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. 

Oh... oops. Did he do something wrong? The kid was a complete mess. Juzo lowered his hand, just a little stunned,placing it on his hip. He wasn’t too sure how he should be feeling but at least the kid didn’t seem afraid, just very anxious. Though there’s a thin line between the two, admittedly. 

Was it hot in there? For whatever reason, Juzo picked up on that the most. Perhaps because it... well it wasn’t hot in there. Or well, at least he didn’t feel the heat. Maybe it was because he’d be touting an ice tome for a while. Would he figure out that it was just Matthew feeling that way, probably from embarrassment? Not soon enough. 

You see, Juzo thought maybe a good idea would be to bring some cold air in here. So he took out his tome, focusing his energy on the knife rack over head, lazily raising his hand and... casting a thin coat of ice on the rack, seeping down cold air. Now that’s what I call cool. And stupid. 

Perhaps the tension was entirely in Matthew’s head. He had a tendency to be paranoid, and it was quite often that he would envision an aura of ‘this is awful and I hate this guy’ surrounding anyone he was talking to. Matthew huffed out a rough laugh, bit at his nails, and glanced almost despondently to the side. “I’m always trying, aren’t I?” He said, disappointment (definitely with himself) apparent in his tone. 

Even if silences in the midst of conversation or in the presence of other people didn’t bother Juzo, they definitely bothered Matthew. It gave him a sense of people watching him, judging him. And, well, there was a lot to judge about Matthew. The silence gave others a gateway into thinking about him and hating him and…

“O-oh, you too?” He stopped his train of thought once he heard Juzo speak up. Then, he pouted when no food showed up. “Y-yeah, it, um, just makes sense, right? L-looking for food in the kitchen…” He grimaced. “E-even though there’s food all over the place, in the walls… Th-this place sorta sucks…” 

Matthew perked up at the sight of Juzo’s bandage. “O-oh, y-you… You got bandages…! That’s great!” He took a few steps closer to get a look. “I-it’s good to know there are even bandages here at all, s-since… Um… W-well, fighting monsters, y’know..?” He shrugged, his shoulders weighed heavily with awkwardness. “A-and now y-you’re saying you’re fine, huh..? Even after that n-nasty-looking attack…” 

He paused, and glanced down to the floor as he fiddled with his scarf. Then, he stared right up at Juzo, eyes almost shining. “Y’know… Um! Y-you’re really c-cool!”

In Matthew’s defence, that kind of feeling was probably pretty easy to get off of Juzo, dead lookin’ eyes, blunt and flat way of speaking, being almost completely unreadable at any time, it was enough to drive the best of people away. Apart from the people it didn’t, which always came as a pleasant surprise when that was the case. Although back to the matter at hand, Juzo’s eyebrows curved down, unsure of what to say or do, really, And as such, didn’t say or do anything. 

Sometimes the best option is silence, and while it was certainly not the best option, it was the only viable one for him.

He nodded. “It’s... bad.” his eyes drifted off and locked on the crumbled wall. This really sucked big time. But it also wasn’t terrible so far, it was a weird fantasy getaway that was, just, actually real. He wasn’t convinced that it’d go away quickly, but it couldn’t get much worse than a giant skeleton trying to maul a group of five teens. Which was kind of bad but really, could be worse. Could be two giant skeletons. 

The bandages were pretty fresh, nice and tightly wound around his hand, but he was still able to move his fingers alright. He was pretty thankful for them, because otherwise there would’ve been... a substantial amount of blood on his clothes. In the end, he was feeling fine, if not a little wiped. It’d probably hurt worse in the morning, like the day after a pretty brutal gym class. He hummed softly, as he reflected on the fight. Yeah. He was fine. 

Matthew immediately looked up and away at a random corner of the ceiling, as if trying to avoid the other person’s gaze. He rubbed the back of his head frantically, and let out a short and forced laugh. “Ha! N-nothing bothers you, r-right? O-or, it’s like, like I’m nothing! Heh!” 

Matthew’s attempts at comedy to smooth over any tension that may or may not have been there were… awful, to say the least. He moved his gaze over to the floor, and immediately bowed. “Sorry! That was, um, awful!” 

After a more-than-brief period of time with his face down, he whipped his head back up, and fake-casually knocked on a nearby wall. “A-anyway, I was just, like, um, looking around for, like, food?” He tapped his chin, and continued knocking on the same wall out of an inability to figure out Good Things to do with his body while conversing. “I-it’s sorta gross here, b-but…” He shrugged halfheartedly. “E-everywhere kinda is… A-and since it’s a kitchen…”

Oh. He just had a realization. His eyes widened and he made a sound of worry. “W-wait, a-are you feeling okay? A-any better..!? I… Wh-when we went to the Save Room, we… Th-there wasn’t anything that could help, sorry… A-are you alright, now?” 

You tried Matthew, and we love you for trying. Really, Juzo didn’t feel any tension in the air, maybe it was just a lack of awareness, but he did feel Matthew’s anxiety in the air. He shrugged off the attempt at a joke. “You tried.” He didn’t really what else to say, comforting words weren’t exactly his kinda thing. 

Large silences never phased Juzo, Hell, he was usually the cause of them, so this wasn’t a bother. Kind of put him at a weird sense of ease. Maybe weird was the wrong word, but whatever. Well, they had a common goal. “Yeah, me too.” He just watched the spirit medium kick the wall, that’s how it is sometimes. 

Ah! So it WAS the hearts… Though they were useful for magic, as well, hm? Still, uh…. bubblegum. Not the most apt embodiment of a holy blessing. Kaoru placed the key back on her soundboard carefully with a small pop. Replacements were expensive, even if she could afford it alright. In actuality, this was the more favorable outcome.

Gum, huh? … Tempting. But it seemed kind of sad to take someone else’s blessing. Though it was a WHOLE pack, so maybe like… a little bit?

“… I’ll take one piece. If you could tuck it into Shayler’s back pocket for me… I believe the pocket with the hearts she should be able to reach herself just fine. Truly, a talented goddess.”

Shayler reached around and grabbed four of her collected hearts, dropping them on the altar. Sleeping pills, an…. Electric guitar. A whole electric guitar. Wow. Some contact lenses, and some grape gummies. None of these were blessing-like at ALL.  

“Ah… the Goddess of this room surely has eclectic tastes. Would any of these interest you?”

The only thing here that Kaoru was mildly interested in was the gummies, really.

In-person only. Jeez, so it was just going to be like that. Sighs. Well…. there were occasions where she’d leave it was just…. really uncomfortable. Like REALLY uncomfortable. Urgh… At least it was generally of her own will and not being teleported into a big courtyard.

“I…. Allow me to consider the fact. Prepare myself for any potentials… Per chance I will… go on out and… receive your guidance. Just… give me some time.”

Oh, looked like the pack even fooled Kaoru. Fair enough, the look was pretty convincing, and probably more do behind a camera. Well, one way to settle this and it was, of course, to kneel down and show that it was in fact, a squishy toy pretending to be chewing gum. Weird squishies were made all the time nowadays, and there was that weird depressed egg one... Juzo never understood that one.

He gave the thing a squish, it was pretty malleable. Soft of stress ball-esque consistency. 

“...she can play with it.” 

This super edgy boy was just giving a dog a new chew toy. What an image.

He eyed up all the things that the dog got from the statue... nothing was particularly interesting to him. He stared at the items for an extended period of time, just mulling over how all of this really worked. It wasn’t often you got something back for an offering. Eventually he just shook his head in refusal. Not for him. 

Yeah, this was fair. People were like that. Juzo nodded in understanding, he wasn’t going to rush the procedure, as long as it was in person, he didn’t mind the actual when of the situation. It could be 4am and he’d be happy to do a reading. It was kind of exciting for him too, it was his way of knowing someone.

@pleasantpandemic

So. Matthew’s been having a bit of a rough time in this castle of chaos. Monsters? Bad. Really bad. Wall food? Tasted fine, but kind of super gross. Learning that magic was real was maybe one good thing. It was cool. Fun. Interesting. Almost… reassuring, in some ways. Maybe his talent wasn’t as fake as he thought it was…

Well. No time to dwell on it now. Actually, there was plenty of time to deliberate on this particular matter, but Matthew wasn’t exactly feeling up to thinking himself into sadness.

And, anyway, there was that one other good thing. He actually did something useful… That felt pretty nice. He wasn’t going to accept any compliments or anything about it, though! But, still. Maybe he could further distract himself from the onset of his despair with a visit back to the kitchen. They never ended up checking those particular walls to see if they had better food, anyway, so… That was the reason.

Definitely. Matthew didn’t want to feel good about himself, or anything! So, he headed down to the kitchen, sneaking by any monsters that were around. Maybe he shouldn’t have headed out alone. With no weapon. Too late! He arrived at the kitchen, only to spot someone else. 

Here’s the part where I mention he was probably looking for somewhere to just hide away and be alone for a while but it is thwarted, but I’ve run that joke into the ground.This time he was just hungry. Sometimes one forgets to eat. Sometimes one puts their aesthetic before their diet. Like this idiot.

Despite that, and the asskicking, Juzo was kind of enjoying his time in the castle. It had a wonderful air that he just really admired, and it was.. very good from a visual standpoint too. The kitchen was somewhere he didn’t really have the chance to admire, considering it was filled with Giant Skeleton before. It was nice. Dank and grimey. But nice. He stood with his back to the door, just taking it in.

Oh, he knew that voice. And that anxiety. He turned around, giving Matthew a nod of greeting. 

Good job, Kaoru, ya scared the boy. Granted, Kaoru was not good enough at humans to really catch onto that, so in her eyes this was a pretty nice conversation so far. Very good, yes, someone else of a dark concept that she could have a hearty conversation of darkness with.

Kaoru, no.

Haven’t tried yet? Hmmmmm…. HMMM… Well there was certainly an adventure to be had in the idea, then. Though the doggy treat had received a response last time, it hadn’t yet this time. Thus it probably wasn’t going to take that one again. Worth a shot, holy goddess treat. With a small tap, Shayler reached forward and ate the thing with a munch. (rusty bucket bay theme plays)

“Perhaps we should offer things we think the goddess would take to kindly? Hair, money, findings within the walls? The goddess Shayler could step outside and break a wall to find something of worth! Alternatively… while there are things I cannot part with due to the state of affairs, there might be something else I don’t presently need.”

Hrmm…. what did Kaoru NOT need? She stared at her equipment and put on a thinking face. Maybe the key for that button? That was a command for Kaysing, and could be replaced when she got home. …. She squinted and popped off the top of it. Kaysing would be fine.

And sighed with disappointment. Of COURSE she had to be there in person. She started sweating. Well, she wanted the reading for a long time, but like… Things always had to be complicated like that. Everything here already seemed to revolve around being in person, versus the simplistic system she had developed back in her town. Sigh.

“For now, then, I shall pass. I do not reveal my visage to just anyone. Odds are, the viewer will be stuck with a heinous curse. I do not wish to leave you with such a burden. Maybe we can create another medium of sorts to communicate with.”

There goes the dog... what an icon. While the dog went for a munch, Juzo got to his feet, dusting himself off lightly. taking in a deeeeep breath. Kneeling can really crush your lungs. He thought about what could be offered, because, in the end, he did want to pay his respects somehow. It just felt like the right thing to do. He fished around in his coat - some hearts, a knife, a tome... that was it, really. Bare minimum. Mainly because he hadn’t had much luck finding items. 

Well, the only thing he could really bear to part with was a heart, and he put the rest of his stuff back, placing one (1) heart in front of the statue. He clapped his hands together and leaned his head forward as a sign of respect. Lights came down from the ceiling, surrounding the heart and... replacing it with a pack of bubblegum. Nice.

Juzo went to pick it up, and immediately realised that it was a squishy toy in the shape of a pack of bubblegum. His head flopped downwards, extremely disappointed. It worked, at least. He just kind of wanted actual chewing gum. He turned around and showed it to Shayler.

“Want it?”

The reality of the reading was that Juzo wasn’t going to do it at all unless it was in person. Bad vibes, bad feelings. Lots of mixed energy can interfere. Especially in here. There was a very strong spiritual presence wherever he went. Or at least, the air was thicker. Sometimes those two are hard to distinguish, especially in a brand new place like this castle. 

He raised his eyebrow. A curse? That’s a laugh. He crossed his arms loosely, as to not come off as angry or anything. Even if it was true, it wasn’t like Juzo would fall to something like that. He’d been taught a lot of spiritual cleansing methods and such, that’s what happens when spiritualism runs in the family. 

At this point in time, Luna had come to the conclusion that she didn’t quite trust the quality of wall food and would very much prefer to keep her mind off of how exactly that worked. Physiological needs hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind up until now, it was amusing how she had to revert to a more basic state of being wherein scavenging for food and shelter became urgent. Though one of the two requirements had already been provided for her, the other was, a problem she would attend to when her personal situation became slightly more dire. A better use of thought processing time, for now, was exploring the likes of the library Dominique had been ever so protective of. 

While she perused the endless shelves of ink filled pages, Luna delicately pulled several of the lighter ones out for further exploration. With three thin books resting against her thighs in a relaxed grip, Luna’s eyes wandered from the shelve’s contents to survey the architecture in the grand room. She craned her neck to better follow the curves of the ornately carved shelves and pillars, part of her wondered what this place would have looked like during its prime and what it would look like when the structures failed and everything came tumbling down. Hmm, a macabre thought fit for a macabre situation she mused. 

He had wandered into the library for a chance to perhaps read up on some more tomes... and return the one he’d borrowed from Dominique. Nice guy, all things considered. For the meanwhile, he’d taken to a more secluded area just to ready though the book he had. Ice magic. It felt fitting. And it came to him surprisingly easily. He always was able to control his spiritual energy pretty well, perhaps it transferred to magic too? He could only hope so, it felt important in a place like this. 

As he found a place to sit, before hearing the voice behind them. He didn’t hear anyone approach, but slowly looked over his shoulder to see who the voice belonged to. He’d seen this person before, when the initial panic happened, but now that there was less panic in the air, there was actual space for conversation and such. As usual, when talking to this boy, a pause stung in the air before any response.

“Minor things.”