towerofanimus | Hunger pains

Entry tags:

Hunger pains

Characters: Puru Two and YOU
Setting: Floor 19
Format: Prose for starters, but I'll match you.
Summary: Puru Two reads while starving; not a good combo
Warnings: possible swearing, maybe a fight depending on how she is approached.

While everyone had been panicking and fighting, Puru Two had been taking some alone time for herself, again. Books were the only thing she could really delve into now, thinking there might be something to help recharge the funnels. The energy reserves were damn near depleted, maybe able to keep up for another day at best, which she doubted. There had to be something on this, somewhere. No one was helping her with this problem, and she had to do it on her own.

Many problems were present. One was the large stack of books she had, and the thickness they carried with each page. Even worse, the contents were mostly gone in some books, leaving methods and such gone, and her throwing the book off to the side in frustration. However, the main problem was the growling of her stomach, the lack of food finally getting to her. Soon enough, she sighs and slams her head into a book.

"....This place....hate it...."

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Siira leans against the doorway, watching Puru two from where she was. After finding the bread and a few empty bottles, Siira had packed it all up in a bag and slung it over her shoulder for when she ran into anyone that needed it. And rather than wearing her usual suit, she was dressed in shorts and a tank top.

She walked over to where Puru Two was sitting after a moment, sliding into a chair across from her.

"This place does kinda suck. You okay?"

Puru Two lifts her head at the sound of a familiar voice. Well, least someone around here could change clothes. Puru Two still had that pilot outfit from before, and the only other change in clothes was the Zeon uniform, and she was still uncomfortable wearing that, less some AEUG or Earth Federation troops spot her. Yes, there was peace, but those guys were quick to the trigger.

"Hungry and frustrated..." She rubbed a hand through her hair. "You?"

"Bored. Getting a little stir-crazy. There's plenty to do but nothing like back home. No actual work here."

Siira took her bag and set it on the table in front of them, opening it up and pulling out some water and a few slices of bread. She pushed them over to the other woman, not saying much beyond what their conversation entailed.

Eyeing the food, the young girl immediately grabs them; no way she wasn't going to not take that invitation. Her hunger was too great, as seen as she devoured some of the slices of the bread, then drank some of the water. Normally, she'd have been more cautious, but even hunger could weaken her mind a bit.

She stares at Siira, then glances off to the side. "...Thanks."

At least Siira was the type that would never offer something unless she was sure it was safe. Taking risks on her own was another thing entirely, though. She sometimes wondered if it was a Turk thing but no, they weren't reckless exactly. Siira wouldn't say they were, anyway.

"No problem. We're all in this together, after all."

Some of his armor seemed to be missing - his left shoulder was now bare - but otherwise he seemed to be doing all right, as evidenced by the cooked rabbit carcass he was picking meat from as he walked. There was a patch of singed fur that he'd missed in cleaning, but he had food and he was properly exploring the tower now.

As he comes down onto the nineteenth floor, in the process of picking away another strip of rabbit meat away from the rest, he hears a voice he thinks he recognizes and approaches. On seeing it was the woman who tried to help him before, he sits down at a nearby chair.

"Are you all right?"

"You've certainly gotten nicer." She puts another slice in her mouth, chewing on it. "Appreciated, but why? I nearly shot you six times."

Twelve if the funnels were all deployed, maybe more since the math was kind of wrong there. Still, Puru Two can't help but feel a tad bit cautious; it was in her nature after all.

Puru Two picks up her head, ruffling a hand through her hair. Enoch huh? Not too surprising, though she does raise an eyebrow at the cooked carcass he was holding up. She blinked; were she more innocent, she might have been scarred from seeing the sight. But she wasn't, and hunger overpowered any of those feelings.

"Starving."

"Nearly but you didn't. That's the entire point. And I could have turned you into little more than a block of ice, but I didn't."

Siira lifts her wrist, showing the bangle and then tapping the materia placed in it. She could equip the materia with her gloves but the bangle was more comfortable for it.

"That drop in temperature, remember it? My Ice materia was being triggered, just waiting for me to will a spell into being cast."

Enoch looks at the rabbit in his hand. Because the meat was so tough, only about half of it was gone despite him picking away at it for the entire walk down here. He was lucky to catch it barehanded as it was, and luckier still to find a sharp enough rock to clean it with. Base instinct screamed at him to keep it, he finally had substantial food after five days of mushrooms and dandelion leaves.

But as tempting as it was to keep it all to himself, he couldn't in good conscience let anyone starve. So he holds out his hand, offering the remaining half of the rabbit to her.

Edited (Way to tense-slip, self) 2012-06-20 02:55 (UTC)

Puru Two raised an eyebrow. Magic? She hadn't seen much of it used, having only heard of other's talents. Still hard to believe, but hey, she was alive now; that had to be some form of magic.

"So you use magic?"

She blinks again at the rabbit. She was more used to seasoned foods and such, so something like this was completely new for her. Hesitantly, she took the creature from Enoch, face turning the lightest shade of pink. Even for someone like her, she could seem innocent...

Right before chomping right into the meat, tearing it viciously with her teeth out of sheer hunger. Too hungry she was, unable to even be calm as she chewed and devoured the meat in her hands.

Edited 2012-06-21 00:42 (UTC)

Enoch smiles faintly at her voraciousness. It's proof enough that she desperately needed to eat. Needless to say, he doesn't have any more qualms about giving up his meal. Something will work out, and for some reason he isn't terribly afraid of the alternative.

"Yeah. My world has materia, which is..." A pause as she tried to remember how it was first explained to her. She'd always know how to use it, that it worked but Veld explained it to her after she'd joined the Turks.

"It's crystallized Mako. Hard to believe some really powerful magic can come from a small little ball like this." She unclipped her Ice materia from her bangle and gave it an underhanded toss to Puru Two.

Foolish to just toss something that could be used as a weapon, but whatever. Puru Two wasn't an enemy after all, and she was more surprised at how cold it felt. It as if holding a giant cube of ice, and yet the surface didn't feel anything like it. Needless to say, she was surprised by it.

"So with this, anyone can use magic?"

Eventually, she isn't finished, but is definitely almost done. Usually, she was more reserved, and yet hunger diminished anything taught to her by Glemy. If she cared about herself more, she might have been more embarrassed. However, as she looks up to Enoch, she kinda is at seeing his smile, eyes glancing off to the side.

"Um....thanks."

"As long as they know how to use materia, and can direct the spells, yeah. Pretty much, yeah."

Siira hadn't had any trouble learning how to use materia, but that was back when she was a kid, toying around with the ones her dad had kept back in Icicle. Some people had trouble with materia but it wasn't all that common.

Nobody could fault a starving woman for forgetting table manners - table manners themselves being vastly different things from nation to nation.

"It's nothing. You needed to eat, and I had food."

That taken care of, she proceeds to devour the rest with the utmost of ease. Mouth covered in small bits of meat, she uses the sleeve of her suit to wipe it off of her. She did at least want to maintain a mature presence.

"Though what are you gonna do without it?"

Puru Two carefully examined the sphere, doing her best to analyze it. Maybe if they were in a lab, she could do better assessment of this thing, but thus far it was cold and light. Not one used to magic, of course she was unable to use the abilities.

At any rate, she tosses it back at Siira. If she didn't know how to use it, she sensed bad things coming her away. "Then I'll avoid freezing my arm."

Enoch had lived on very little before. It wasn't pleasant, but things always managed to work out, somehow. So he shook his head.

"I'll be fine."

Siira fixed the materia back into her bangle, twisting it until a comfortable position. Years without it and now she was wearing it daily, it felt foreign.

"It won't freeze your arm unless you cast Ice on yourself. And you'd have to intend to freeze your own arm to do that, which I've never seen anyone try. Unless they were drunk."

An idea suddenly popped into her head. If ice could be used as magic like in fictional tales and such, surely other elements could be used. A warrior wouldn't be foolish to not have a secondary defense for everything, like the beam rifle/swords her Qubeley had, though that machine was now gone.

"Don't suppose you can manipulate electricity as well, can you?" She points at the machine on the table, the one she had kept on her back. The funnels that flew days ago were on it, with more spread out. "The battery is nearly dead and needs to be recharged."

"...What do you want from me?"

She asked the question before even thinking. Still, while she was able to let some people near her, extremely few, but she couldn't help but be suspicious. And from what she sensed of Enoch, she was completely unsure of what to think; Glemy fooled her once, and she didn't want to repeat.

"I don't have a Lightning materia on me. I know someone who would though, one of the other Turks here in the tower. Wears sunglasses, a suit and has a shiny bald head. He smiles like this." And Siira just linefaces and then goes on.

"He's really hard to miss. I can find him and get it from him otherwise. The Turks are all keeping in touch with each other pretty well."

Enoch stared at her for a moment in surprise.

"Nothing..." he said slowly, as if not sure why he even has to say that.

"...Sorry."

Again, the word had come out without much prompt, save for the way Enoch stared at her. She shook her head, resting her free hand on her forehead.

"I'm just not used to this, alright?"

The face nearly earned a chuckle, though Puru Two was not so easily fooled into a laugh; she had an appearance to keep up, even if it was ruined by some moments. At any rate, the idea of more of these Turks around with something she needed was a positive sign.

"Good. I don't like walking around this place without a way to fight. Though honestly, just how many of those guys are here?"

"Understandable. Everyone should have some way of defending themselves here. As for how many Turks here are... Hmm, about five of us, in total. There are others from Gaia here but I haven't kept track of them just yet."

Which, she probably should. Especially if Sephiroth and a Remnant were both in the tower. That didn't bode well for anyone.

"I assume you all have the same goals, trying to find out what is really happening with this tower, right?"

She still wasn't believing world destruction. Kidnapping, magic, cloning, nearly anything else she was willing to believe. Such a thing was impossible. That's what she wanted to believe at any rate.

Not used to...kindness? Or kindness without ulterior motive? "Others have taken advantage of your need?"

In his time, communities survived by neighbors helping one another. Not to say it was idyllic by any means, or that there weren't bad neighbors, but in an environment like a desert, without the sort of technology people have to keep them comfortable...

Siira was equally skeptical. Sadly, not all of her companions shared that skepticism and she couldn't convince them otherwise without telling them something she refused to ever admit out loud.

"Most of us do. A couple of them believe the letters." Reno trying to humor her when she had just arrived scratched at her nerves now. That was then though, not now.

She resisted doing a facepalm, but narrowed her eyes, as if staring at the people who believed. Honestly, someone like the Turks actually believed this crap? Well, only a few, but still, this was something she could not accept herself.

"And considering the rumors I have heard, those that believe that note are stupid," she spoke, not bothering to hide her disgust. "Have you heard of those that work here?"

"....Yeah."

Eyes glanced down at the book on the table, and she sighed. That was not a memory she wanted to relive, but she couldn't help but think about it.

"I wasn't born naturally."

"I wouldn't say my co-workers are stupid but they sure are gullible." She nods her head at the question though, a moment later. "Heard about 'em but that's it. Can't determine what's true and what's not without hearin' from them myself."

Siira liked to judge situations for herself. Call it a character flaw, Veld dealt with it somehow.

"I'm sorry." For which, he never said. They both sounded like things nobody had to go through. He doesn't really know what she meant when she said she wasn't born naturally, and he'll take her lack of aggression or innate hatred towards him to mean she's not talking about some kind of demonic influence.

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Hunger pains

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