Nina/Rhaetia - Treed
Occurs after Rhaetia's entry last night, after she is beset upon by a herd of amorous Metalring~
Nina
Rhaetia
After scribbling as much as she could on the Magijournal to Rhaetia, Nina crammed the journal into her pouch which was slung over her back. If she didn't hurry fast enough, Rhaetia's laundry would be impossible to clean! They'd have to spend hours and hours cleaning it! What a waste of time, Nina though, but more so than not, that was really considerate of Rhaetia to go after a few of them for her.
Nina ran far enough that she came to an area where there seemed to be an influx-- no, perhaps six? Six or some number like that-- of Metalrings! ...how cute!!!! All though it didn't show on her face, she definitely was very happy to see them! ...and Rhaetia too, of course, who was stuck in the tree.
The gunslinger decided she only needed one-- besides, they seemed entirely mechanical that perhaps that Nina could even rebuild them. The thought of that was exciting for Nina, as she whipped out her pistols and shot each of them until there was one left.
She walked up the the remaining one and looked up at the tree, seeming not to acknowledge it was still after Rhaetia. Nina smiled. "...hello," she said in a very quiet voice.
The metalring still hopped and hopped, but it just couldn't hop high enough!
Rhaetia was, for once, really quite unsure of what she should be doing.
Oh, she certainly could have taken the easy way out and just fried the little buggers to crisps, but... They were kinda cute, and she'd always had an affinity for porings (which seemed to extend to their more metallic variety) anyways, and besides, Nina had expressed an interest in wanting one... But my! She hadn't expected the damn things to be so - frisky.
At least the tree was there, even though her poor possessions had to be forgotten on the ground. There she waited among the boughs, warily watching the horde of metalrings, clutching both the trailing bits of her robe and her MagiJournal to herself, for Nina to appear.
And when she finally did, Rhaetia allowed herself a sigh of relief, and unclutched the overhanging tree branch enough to wave sheepishly at her (well, she assumed it was her, anyways) - and then stared, quite surprised, as Nina promptly filled almost all of them full of bullets. "...Well! If I knew you were going to just kill them all, I would've saved you the trouble of coming out here and zapped them all," she said after a moment or two, returning her hand to the tree. "Er, hello - and thank you, that is?" Her eyes trailed to the remaining metalring, still seemingly fixated on her, and she tightened her grip on her robes. "...Um, what of that last one...?"
I can fix them later, Nina thought. Not that Rhaetia could read her mind. Her head travelled down as she looked at the last one. Looking back up at Rhaetia, she just moved her hand and whacked the remaining one.
The metalring hopped around, looking like it was dizzy from the blow. After hopping wildly in one direction, it appeared to come to its senses, and noticed all the scrap metal around! It was so happy! Its eyes lit up as it collected each. and. every. piece. of the other metalrings that had ceased to exist.
"...I shot... so... fix later..." Who could actually understand what Nina meant? She implied that if Rhaetia had fried them all, she couldn't have saved the pieces. But did Rhaetia understand that?
After the last metalring finished up eating up the rest of the pieces, Nina picked it up. She looked back up at Rhaetia, and nodded, smiling. "...thank you."
She couldn't help but crack a grin as the metalring stumbled off, dizzily - well! Who knew that machines could get dizzy? They were halfways living, she supposed, but still...! The wizardess did have to wonder why the thing was cannibalizing its brothers - sisters - friends? Whatever they were. Maybe it ate metal, like those steel bugs - ick! - did.
"...You can fix them? But..." Rhaetia paused, letting her robe unfurl itself, and carefully slid down from the tree. She (only?) managed to get caught on branches a few times, and irritatedly snapped them out of the way, finally touching down on the ground again. Sweet ground - she would never knock the earth studies ever again! Well, perhaps not today, anyways. Trees weren't quite the loveliest perch to ever have existed, and it was nice to have the solidness under her feet again.
"They looked like they were, ah, fairly in pieces there. Won't they be missing parts from where you shot them, too?" she inquired, brushing the newly-acquired dust and bark pieces off of her robe, and picking a few leaves from her hair. Her grin reappeared at Nina's thanks, and she shook her head. "Ah, nonono, dearie, it should be me thanking you! I don't quite know what a bunch of amorous metal porings are capable of, but I probably wouldn't have liked the result very much!"
Nina hugged the metalring while listening to everything Rhaetia said. When the wizard said "missing parts," she shook her head. Still smiling, she carefully put her pistols back without dropping the metalring.
It was still "wild" in some senses, but Nina didn't care. After a few sessions at her repair shop, it ought to be pretty tame. Not that poring type pets were too hard to keep, anyway. Nina knew exactly where to shoot-- it might have damaged it just slightly, but a single bullet in the right spot could cause minimal damage to the full effect.
After looking at Rhaetia for a few moments, it occured to her that she had brought something. Holding on to the metalring with one arm, she took out a towel from her pouch and handed it to Rhaetia, still -- yes -- smiling. Her smile was simple, even though it wasn't very wide. Nina's smiles always seemed like they had words spoken from them, even though she made no effort to form words.
The remaining metalring was still quite the object of suspicion, so Rhaetia - fully justified, she thought! - ignored it - except for one thing. "Isn't it heavy, now that it, er, swallowed the others?" she asked, giving it a slight sideways glance as she continued to brush the last bits of dust from her sleeves. She took Nina's head-shake as granted - fires, she had no idea how the things worked. Technology was one thing she would be perfectly happy never to deal with.
Except for perhaps these gun things. They were intriguing, particularly the explosive ones.
Rhaetia really had no problem trying to understand Nina's wordlessness, almost strangely - while she wasn't exactly an expert at reading peoples' minds, she was a fair hand at observing (even though she was usually more likely to ignore what she observed for the sake of curiosity or carelessness). It even extended to the woman's comments on the journalthings - reading between the lines wasn't that difficult, often, and usually just needed a little prompting if it was too difficult to figure out what was meant.
It seemed to be one of those times-of-prompting, however, as Nina handed her the towel. She took it, a quizzical expression crossing her face, looking it over before returning her gaze to the other lass. "...Hm? What's this for?"
Again, that smile. "Oil." Nina had thought that since the oil had helped itself onto Rhaetia's Magijournal that it might even have gotten onto Rhaetia. She didn't want Rhaetia to walk all the way with oil all over her. That is, if she had any.
Thinking about it some more, she looked down at the metalring. It didn't seem heavy to Nina. She thought about maybe Rhaetia should give it a try to see if it was heavy or not. She held out the metalring, and shook her head. Nina motioned with her head that Rhaetia ought to see how heavy it was for herself. She set the metalring down, and it just seemed to lull in that single place. It oddly liked Nina, or maybe it oddly liked Rhaetia instead...
A hand came up to Nina's face. "...hmm..." She looked really thoughtful.
"...Oil, dearie?" Rhaetia looked vaguely puzzled for a moment, before - aha! The clouds cleared, and she chuckled airily, shaking her head. "Oh, no, that was just ink. They halfways spoiled my pen-nib when they got climbing on top of me and knocked it out of my hand, you see. I don't think I got any of it on me..." Thus proceeded a hasty search of her robes just to make sure, and she patted herself over to help find any offending ink-spots. Nope, nope, nope - oh! One zeny-sized splotch, there on the edge of her cloak, where it had been piled in her lap as she had written. It looked almost dry now, though, and probably wouldn't be removed just with a towel... But it was fairly dissolvable stuff, her ink - had to be, for she couldn't carry it around with her clothes elsewise!
She tossed her MagiJournal over to her belongings, transferred the towel to one hand, raised the other hand in the air, and sketched out a small sigil, muttering a word or two under her breath. Something vaguely tingled, in the air - she wasn't sure if Nina would sense it - and a small wisp of raincloud formed at knee-height. Rhaetia cheerfully bent down, then, shoving the offending section of cloak underneath of it just as the tiny cloud's load of rain began to dispense (and just as quickly taper), and proceeded to scrub at the now-wet ink blotch with the towel. Lo and behold! No more ink~! "My thanks, dearie. Couldn't have stains, could I? My poor wardrobe, I treat it far too badly as is," she laughed, straightening back upright again, wringing out the towel. It was subsequently stashed in her travel-bag - it could stay there 'til they got to a place to dry it out more properly.
She was afraid that she'd burn it to a crisp if she tried anything quicker than air-drying. Fire did seem to burst itself out of control far too easily under her command.
Her attention turned to the metalring, then, and she gave it an appraising glance. "I don't quite know... They, ah, weren't that heavy by themselves, but..." Truth be told, Rhaetia was just apprehensive of picking it up. Bad things had happened the last time she had touched one, after all. After a few moments of thought - and staring at the metalring to see if it would pull anything fishy (no suck luck!) - she bent over, and tugged experimentally on it. Hrm. A little heavier than it had been previously - perhaps double or triple. It was still fairly easy for even her to carry, although it was a little perplexing as to where the extra weight had vanished. "...What, dearie?" she inquired, at Nina's hum.
Nina continued to stand there, in thought.
And stand.
Shited her weight to the other leg. Stand some more.
She shook her head, and turned to Rhaetia.
The gunslinger no longer smiled as widely as she did earlier-- rather, it was a different smile. Maybe slightly disappointed.
"...name," she said. It wasn't exactly quiet, but it was definitely not loud. She took out a coin, and flipped it. Tails. Flipped it again. Tails. Flipped it again. Tails. She shook her head.
Nina looked at the metalring and just poked it a few times. It didn't really react to her. It seemed to have calmed down for some reason or another. She smiled again-- the kind of smile that she gave earlier looking the metalring. It must have been the happy smile. She thought it was so cute, and they in fact were-- if you didn't pay any attention to the fact they they were machinery that could jump around and move on their own as if they had souls!
Rhaetia watched, silently, as the wheels in Nina's head turned. At least, that was what she thought they were doing. She hoped. Maybe?
Just before she came to the conclusion that Nina's head must have broken somehow, the gunslinger moved once more, and Rhaetia relaxed - well, as best as she was able to still holding the metalporingthing. That smile, though, wasn't very... She shifted the metalring around in her arms to take some of the strain off, and opened her mouth to inquire - but whatever the inquiry was lost, as the coin appeared. How odd!
She quirked her head, just a little, to the side, and appeared to fall into though, putting together pieces as the lass poked at the strangely-still metalthing. "...What was that all about, dearie?" she finally asked, as her brows furrowed themselves. Something about a name, but... What?
She was so confused!
"..." Nina turned around really quick, her back facing Rhaetia. "Help me think of a name," she said, almost as if she had always spoken that way. It was probably the most she had said this entire time.
She flipped the coin once more. Heads. Smiling, Nina knew that's what it wanted. The coin decided that Rhaetia would pick the name. Turning around once more, she continued smiling at Rhaetia. A slight nod.
Eh?
Nina had spoken a full sentence?
Now that was almost as confusing as her prior actions!
Rhaetia decided that it was just best forgotten about, though. Those words were perfectly understandable. Yes. Best not to shove away moments of opportunity. "A name? For...?" She looked down at the metalring, looked back at Nina, and quirked one of her eyebrows. "Huh." Her arms finally decided that they'd had enough of holding onto the thing, though, and she stooped over, gently plopping it onto the ground. "I don't really quite know what you'd name a machine, though, dearie... Hrrrm..." She folded her arms under her chest, spinning around in a slow circle. "...How abooooout... Sparks? Or... well, it seemed to eat those other pieces up pretty well, so we could call it Magnet, or..."
She finally shook her head, ceasing her spinning. "Pft, no. It needs something pretty! Or disarming. Disarming is good," she concluded, beginning to pace, scratching at her chin. "Pretty and disarming. Chaotic. Hrm. Hrrrrrm..."
"...Maya. That's it." She stopped her pacing, and whirled around to face Nina, grinning quite madly. "Imagine! Could call to it, and everyone would think immediately of that giant - bugwomanthing," she explained, her face crinkling up a bit at the mention of the creature, "And skitter off to get away from it, and then... Here comes this little metal-poring~!" She nodded quite briskly, quite sure that that would be an excellent idea. Oh my, yes!
Nina smiled. "Maya." She liked a lot. She liked it tons. Somehow, it seemed really familiar too, even though it wasn't the giant-bug woman thing she was thinking of. Not being able to pinpoint exactly why the name seemed familiar, Nina bent down to the metalring. "...Maya." The metalring's eyes lit up just slightly, wondering what Nina was trying to do. Realizing that Nina wasn't a danger, it jumped around away from her, for a few moments.
"...Maya?" The metalring bounced over to Rhaetia, then bounced back to Nina. Nina shrugged it off, and figured it would be time to go back. They had to, anyway.
She looked over to Rhaetia, said nothing, and turned to walk off. Oddly, "Maya" hopped after Nina as Nina started walking off. Hopefully that was Rhaetia's cue to follow.
Rhaetia's grin probably couldn't have got much wider. Yay! The thing had a name, and she had apparently made something of a good choice. Rhaetia wins again!
"Good-good, then! Now..." She turned away for a second to look towards the city, and looked back - to the sight of Nina and 'Maya' already making their way off. "H-hey!" she protested, darting off to catch up her journal and bag, before jogging to catch up to the lass. "No fair, Nina-dearie, trying to leave me behind!" she laughed, as she fell into step beside the gunslinger.
Nina's eyes moved, following Rhaetia as soon as she was in sight. Still smiling, just feeling-- just knowing that Maya was following right behind her, and Rhaetia next to her, made today really interesting! It was more interesting than usual. It was more active than usual, too. And she spent so much time outside! It was so nice. The last time she spent time outside was when she went to see Nadia. That was pretty active. At least her guns had some action, even though it was short.
Nina flipped her coin again. Heads. Rocking. The rest of the day seemed pretty positive, too. Smile.
"...food? ...laundry...?" Either way, later it'll be lots of fun. Afterall, Nina's got a ton of scrap metal to play with!
Maya looked neither happy or sad-- but its eyes did light up now and then, still bouncing after them. Whatever Nina did, how fast it was, Maya already was following her around as if she'd never left. And it certainly looked that way. Maya was a machine anyway. Machines can't have feelings, can they?
Rhaetia kershuffled her bag around a bit, stuffing the journal into it - there would be no writing on this leg of the journey, she didn't think! - and slinging it back over her shoulder, where it properly belonged. "Hm? Oh... It has been a while since I last ate, dearie. My laundry can wait for a little. There's nothing truly stained here, just dusty." She peered in through the open hole of the stuffed satchel, and poked a finger through, as if to reassure herself of the fact. "Hmph. The one day I don't wear pants, I get stuck in a tree. God must hate me. I wonder what I did?"
It never helped, of course, that the 'robe' part of her guild uniform was as short as it was. Alas, it was the fates of wizards and magicians to wear clothing designed by horny old men. Sigh. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but it made for more exposed skin to get scratched up by tree branches and the like.
Ah well. It was a nice enough day, at least, and she had Nina's company - and that of a metalporing, too - and new things to explore once they arrived at Lighthalzen. Life was good, even if there was a lack of pants~
Nina
Rhaetia
After scribbling as much as she could on the Magijournal to Rhaetia, Nina crammed the journal into her pouch which was slung over her back. If she didn't hurry fast enough, Rhaetia's laundry would be impossible to clean! They'd have to spend hours and hours cleaning it! What a waste of time, Nina though, but more so than not, that was really considerate of Rhaetia to go after a few of them for her.
Nina ran far enough that she came to an area where there seemed to be an influx-- no, perhaps six? Six or some number like that-- of Metalrings! ...how cute!!!! All though it didn't show on her face, she definitely was very happy to see them! ...and Rhaetia too, of course, who was stuck in the tree.
The gunslinger decided she only needed one-- besides, they seemed entirely mechanical that perhaps that Nina could even rebuild them. The thought of that was exciting for Nina, as she whipped out her pistols and shot each of them until there was one left.
She walked up the the remaining one and looked up at the tree, seeming not to acknowledge it was still after Rhaetia. Nina smiled. "...hello," she said in a very quiet voice.
The metalring still hopped and hopped, but it just couldn't hop high enough!
Rhaetia was, for once, really quite unsure of what she should be doing.
Oh, she certainly could have taken the easy way out and just fried the little buggers to crisps, but... They were kinda cute, and she'd always had an affinity for porings (which seemed to extend to their more metallic variety) anyways, and besides, Nina had expressed an interest in wanting one... But my! She hadn't expected the damn things to be so - frisky.
At least the tree was there, even though her poor possessions had to be forgotten on the ground. There she waited among the boughs, warily watching the horde of metalrings, clutching both the trailing bits of her robe and her MagiJournal to herself, for Nina to appear.
And when she finally did, Rhaetia allowed herself a sigh of relief, and unclutched the overhanging tree branch enough to wave sheepishly at her (well, she assumed it was her, anyways) - and then stared, quite surprised, as Nina promptly filled almost all of them full of bullets. "...Well! If I knew you were going to just kill them all, I would've saved you the trouble of coming out here and zapped them all," she said after a moment or two, returning her hand to the tree. "Er, hello - and thank you, that is?" Her eyes trailed to the remaining metalring, still seemingly fixated on her, and she tightened her grip on her robes. "...Um, what of that last one...?"
I can fix them later, Nina thought. Not that Rhaetia could read her mind. Her head travelled down as she looked at the last one. Looking back up at Rhaetia, she just moved her hand and whacked the remaining one.
The metalring hopped around, looking like it was dizzy from the blow. After hopping wildly in one direction, it appeared to come to its senses, and noticed all the scrap metal around! It was so happy! Its eyes lit up as it collected each. and. every. piece. of the other metalrings that had ceased to exist.
"...I shot... so... fix later..." Who could actually understand what Nina meant? She implied that if Rhaetia had fried them all, she couldn't have saved the pieces. But did Rhaetia understand that?
After the last metalring finished up eating up the rest of the pieces, Nina picked it up. She looked back up at Rhaetia, and nodded, smiling. "...thank you."
She couldn't help but crack a grin as the metalring stumbled off, dizzily - well! Who knew that machines could get dizzy? They were halfways living, she supposed, but still...! The wizardess did have to wonder why the thing was cannibalizing its brothers - sisters - friends? Whatever they were. Maybe it ate metal, like those steel bugs - ick! - did.
"...You can fix them? But..." Rhaetia paused, letting her robe unfurl itself, and carefully slid down from the tree. She (only?) managed to get caught on branches a few times, and irritatedly snapped them out of the way, finally touching down on the ground again. Sweet ground - she would never knock the earth studies ever again! Well, perhaps not today, anyways. Trees weren't quite the loveliest perch to ever have existed, and it was nice to have the solidness under her feet again.
"They looked like they were, ah, fairly in pieces there. Won't they be missing parts from where you shot them, too?" she inquired, brushing the newly-acquired dust and bark pieces off of her robe, and picking a few leaves from her hair. Her grin reappeared at Nina's thanks, and she shook her head. "Ah, nonono, dearie, it should be me thanking you! I don't quite know what a bunch of amorous metal porings are capable of, but I probably wouldn't have liked the result very much!"
Nina hugged the metalring while listening to everything Rhaetia said. When the wizard said "missing parts," she shook her head. Still smiling, she carefully put her pistols back without dropping the metalring.
It was still "wild" in some senses, but Nina didn't care. After a few sessions at her repair shop, it ought to be pretty tame. Not that poring type pets were too hard to keep, anyway. Nina knew exactly where to shoot-- it might have damaged it just slightly, but a single bullet in the right spot could cause minimal damage to the full effect.
After looking at Rhaetia for a few moments, it occured to her that she had brought something. Holding on to the metalring with one arm, she took out a towel from her pouch and handed it to Rhaetia, still -- yes -- smiling. Her smile was simple, even though it wasn't very wide. Nina's smiles always seemed like they had words spoken from them, even though she made no effort to form words.
The remaining metalring was still quite the object of suspicion, so Rhaetia - fully justified, she thought! - ignored it - except for one thing. "Isn't it heavy, now that it, er, swallowed the others?" she asked, giving it a slight sideways glance as she continued to brush the last bits of dust from her sleeves. She took Nina's head-shake as granted - fires, she had no idea how the things worked. Technology was one thing she would be perfectly happy never to deal with.
Except for perhaps these gun things. They were intriguing, particularly the explosive ones.
Rhaetia really had no problem trying to understand Nina's wordlessness, almost strangely - while she wasn't exactly an expert at reading peoples' minds, she was a fair hand at observing (even though she was usually more likely to ignore what she observed for the sake of curiosity or carelessness). It even extended to the woman's comments on the journalthings - reading between the lines wasn't that difficult, often, and usually just needed a little prompting if it was too difficult to figure out what was meant.
It seemed to be one of those times-of-prompting, however, as Nina handed her the towel. She took it, a quizzical expression crossing her face, looking it over before returning her gaze to the other lass. "...Hm? What's this for?"
Again, that smile. "Oil." Nina had thought that since the oil had helped itself onto Rhaetia's Magijournal that it might even have gotten onto Rhaetia. She didn't want Rhaetia to walk all the way with oil all over her. That is, if she had any.
Thinking about it some more, she looked down at the metalring. It didn't seem heavy to Nina. She thought about maybe Rhaetia should give it a try to see if it was heavy or not. She held out the metalring, and shook her head. Nina motioned with her head that Rhaetia ought to see how heavy it was for herself. She set the metalring down, and it just seemed to lull in that single place. It oddly liked Nina, or maybe it oddly liked Rhaetia instead...
A hand came up to Nina's face. "...hmm..." She looked really thoughtful.
"...Oil, dearie?" Rhaetia looked vaguely puzzled for a moment, before - aha! The clouds cleared, and she chuckled airily, shaking her head. "Oh, no, that was just ink. They halfways spoiled my pen-nib when they got climbing on top of me and knocked it out of my hand, you see. I don't think I got any of it on me..." Thus proceeded a hasty search of her robes just to make sure, and she patted herself over to help find any offending ink-spots. Nope, nope, nope - oh! One zeny-sized splotch, there on the edge of her cloak, where it had been piled in her lap as she had written. It looked almost dry now, though, and probably wouldn't be removed just with a towel... But it was fairly dissolvable stuff, her ink - had to be, for she couldn't carry it around with her clothes elsewise!
She tossed her MagiJournal over to her belongings, transferred the towel to one hand, raised the other hand in the air, and sketched out a small sigil, muttering a word or two under her breath. Something vaguely tingled, in the air - she wasn't sure if Nina would sense it - and a small wisp of raincloud formed at knee-height. Rhaetia cheerfully bent down, then, shoving the offending section of cloak underneath of it just as the tiny cloud's load of rain began to dispense (and just as quickly taper), and proceeded to scrub at the now-wet ink blotch with the towel. Lo and behold! No more ink~! "My thanks, dearie. Couldn't have stains, could I? My poor wardrobe, I treat it far too badly as is," she laughed, straightening back upright again, wringing out the towel. It was subsequently stashed in her travel-bag - it could stay there 'til they got to a place to dry it out more properly.
She was afraid that she'd burn it to a crisp if she tried anything quicker than air-drying. Fire did seem to burst itself out of control far too easily under her command.
Her attention turned to the metalring, then, and she gave it an appraising glance. "I don't quite know... They, ah, weren't that heavy by themselves, but..." Truth be told, Rhaetia was just apprehensive of picking it up. Bad things had happened the last time she had touched one, after all. After a few moments of thought - and staring at the metalring to see if it would pull anything fishy (no suck luck!) - she bent over, and tugged experimentally on it. Hrm. A little heavier than it had been previously - perhaps double or triple. It was still fairly easy for even her to carry, although it was a little perplexing as to where the extra weight had vanished. "...What, dearie?" she inquired, at Nina's hum.
Nina continued to stand there, in thought.
And stand.
Shited her weight to the other leg. Stand some more.
She shook her head, and turned to Rhaetia.
The gunslinger no longer smiled as widely as she did earlier-- rather, it was a different smile. Maybe slightly disappointed.
"...name," she said. It wasn't exactly quiet, but it was definitely not loud. She took out a coin, and flipped it. Tails. Flipped it again. Tails. Flipped it again. Tails. She shook her head.
Nina looked at the metalring and just poked it a few times. It didn't really react to her. It seemed to have calmed down for some reason or another. She smiled again-- the kind of smile that she gave earlier looking the metalring. It must have been the happy smile. She thought it was so cute, and they in fact were-- if you didn't pay any attention to the fact they they were machinery that could jump around and move on their own as if they had souls!
Rhaetia watched, silently, as the wheels in Nina's head turned. At least, that was what she thought they were doing. She hoped. Maybe?
Just before she came to the conclusion that Nina's head must have broken somehow, the gunslinger moved once more, and Rhaetia relaxed - well, as best as she was able to still holding the metalporingthing. That smile, though, wasn't very... She shifted the metalring around in her arms to take some of the strain off, and opened her mouth to inquire - but whatever the inquiry was lost, as the coin appeared. How odd!
She quirked her head, just a little, to the side, and appeared to fall into though, putting together pieces as the lass poked at the strangely-still metalthing. "...What was that all about, dearie?" she finally asked, as her brows furrowed themselves. Something about a name, but... What?
She was so confused!
"..." Nina turned around really quick, her back facing Rhaetia. "Help me think of a name," she said, almost as if she had always spoken that way. It was probably the most she had said this entire time.
She flipped the coin once more. Heads. Smiling, Nina knew that's what it wanted. The coin decided that Rhaetia would pick the name. Turning around once more, she continued smiling at Rhaetia. A slight nod.
Eh?
Nina had spoken a full sentence?
Now that was almost as confusing as her prior actions!
Rhaetia decided that it was just best forgotten about, though. Those words were perfectly understandable. Yes. Best not to shove away moments of opportunity. "A name? For...?" She looked down at the metalring, looked back at Nina, and quirked one of her eyebrows. "Huh." Her arms finally decided that they'd had enough of holding onto the thing, though, and she stooped over, gently plopping it onto the ground. "I don't really quite know what you'd name a machine, though, dearie... Hrrrm..." She folded her arms under her chest, spinning around in a slow circle. "...How abooooout... Sparks? Or... well, it seemed to eat those other pieces up pretty well, so we could call it Magnet, or..."
She finally shook her head, ceasing her spinning. "Pft, no. It needs something pretty! Or disarming. Disarming is good," she concluded, beginning to pace, scratching at her chin. "Pretty and disarming. Chaotic. Hrm. Hrrrrrm..."
"...Maya. That's it." She stopped her pacing, and whirled around to face Nina, grinning quite madly. "Imagine! Could call to it, and everyone would think immediately of that giant - bugwomanthing," she explained, her face crinkling up a bit at the mention of the creature, "And skitter off to get away from it, and then... Here comes this little metal-poring~!" She nodded quite briskly, quite sure that that would be an excellent idea. Oh my, yes!
Nina smiled. "Maya." She liked a lot. She liked it tons. Somehow, it seemed really familiar too, even though it wasn't the giant-bug woman thing she was thinking of. Not being able to pinpoint exactly why the name seemed familiar, Nina bent down to the metalring. "...Maya." The metalring's eyes lit up just slightly, wondering what Nina was trying to do. Realizing that Nina wasn't a danger, it jumped around away from her, for a few moments.
"...Maya?" The metalring bounced over to Rhaetia, then bounced back to Nina. Nina shrugged it off, and figured it would be time to go back. They had to, anyway.
She looked over to Rhaetia, said nothing, and turned to walk off. Oddly, "Maya" hopped after Nina as Nina started walking off. Hopefully that was Rhaetia's cue to follow.
Rhaetia's grin probably couldn't have got much wider. Yay! The thing had a name, and she had apparently made something of a good choice. Rhaetia wins again!
"Good-good, then! Now..." She turned away for a second to look towards the city, and looked back - to the sight of Nina and 'Maya' already making their way off. "H-hey!" she protested, darting off to catch up her journal and bag, before jogging to catch up to the lass. "No fair, Nina-dearie, trying to leave me behind!" she laughed, as she fell into step beside the gunslinger.
Nina's eyes moved, following Rhaetia as soon as she was in sight. Still smiling, just feeling-- just knowing that Maya was following right behind her, and Rhaetia next to her, made today really interesting! It was more interesting than usual. It was more active than usual, too. And she spent so much time outside! It was so nice. The last time she spent time outside was when she went to see Nadia. That was pretty active. At least her guns had some action, even though it was short.
Nina flipped her coin again. Heads. Rocking. The rest of the day seemed pretty positive, too. Smile.
"...food? ...laundry...?" Either way, later it'll be lots of fun. Afterall, Nina's got a ton of scrap metal to play with!
Maya looked neither happy or sad-- but its eyes did light up now and then, still bouncing after them. Whatever Nina did, how fast it was, Maya already was following her around as if she'd never left. And it certainly looked that way. Maya was a machine anyway. Machines can't have feelings, can they?
Rhaetia kershuffled her bag around a bit, stuffing the journal into it - there would be no writing on this leg of the journey, she didn't think! - and slinging it back over her shoulder, where it properly belonged. "Hm? Oh... It has been a while since I last ate, dearie. My laundry can wait for a little. There's nothing truly stained here, just dusty." She peered in through the open hole of the stuffed satchel, and poked a finger through, as if to reassure herself of the fact. "Hmph. The one day I don't wear pants, I get stuck in a tree. God must hate me. I wonder what I did?"
It never helped, of course, that the 'robe' part of her guild uniform was as short as it was. Alas, it was the fates of wizards and magicians to wear clothing designed by horny old men. Sigh. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but it made for more exposed skin to get scratched up by tree branches and the like.
Ah well. It was a nice enough day, at least, and she had Nina's company - and that of a metalporing, too - and new things to explore once they arrived at Lighthalzen. Life was good, even if there was a lack of pants~