second prayer

[prayed]

Characters: Kyoko Sakura, open
Setting: Graveyard -> Cafeteria -> Library
Format: Prose to start, but I'll match you.
Summary: Kyoko pays a visit to the graveyard, then stuffs her face, then reads a motherfucking book (except not.)
Warnings: None.

《 GRAVEYARD 》
Kyoko had only given the graveyard a cursory inspection before, dismissing it as a decorative parlor trick like the rest of the floors, but after hearing that it was a sort of memorial she decided it to be worth another look. Not that she really cared about such things, but it was as good of a way as any to ascertain who was no longer in the tower. The sight of Mami's grave gives her a pause, though she does little more than let out an annoyed "tch" before moving on. She'd already crossed that bridge once and she didn't care to do so again.

So it's not until she stumbles upon a grave bearing her own name that Kyoko gives much of a reaction. Of course, her reaction was to kick it over, littering it with offerings of apple and pear cores. Her gaze bore down upon it for the brief moments that she stood in front of it. That sort of thing was fine if it was your own grave, right? It wasn't like she was going to be using it anytime soon. Crawling into a coffin once wasn't an action she felt any regrets about, but she wouldn't do so again. So, it was nothing less than an insult and a frustration to a person like her who still alive, right at the very top of the food chain.

《 CAFETERIA 》
She made a habit of avoiding to sit down and eat meals at a table like this. It was too slow and too stagnant and perhaps even a bit too lonely for her tastes. Well, being alone came naturally to her--after all, that was just how life worked, right?--, but the emptiness was nonetheless unwanted. It made her feel a sort of emptiness in the pit of her stomach, though food was one of the few pastimes that she truly enjoyed.

Still, some foods were harder to move with than others and so she was sitting alone at the table now.

《 LIBRARY 》
Kyoko wasn't an intellectual nor did she have any interest in becoming one; outside of comics and childish fairy tales where love and justice always prevailed she had always had precious little interest in things like books or school. Why bother with them when she already had a viable career locked in and could just take what she needed, but the end to their short-lived conversation had struck something of a personal chord. Losing your soul, trading it away, how much of a difference was there?

"'Lose your soul in the Tower of Animus,' eh? What a waste of time," the red-headed girl mumbled to herself, just barely audible, as she glanced at the empty history section and and munched on scooped spoonfuls of cranberry jam straight out of the can. She scratched at the back of her calf with the toe of her boot. There was no surprise in it's absence, but something to at least explain the name of this place would've been nice.

Comments

cafeteria

[terreifying]

"Hee~ey. What'cha doin'?"

One thing Kyouko might notice about the girl is the bandages covering her arms and legs. Another thing is the slight heat radiating off her body. The most obvious thing, though, is the paper bag covering her head. It had two holes cut into it for eyes, but otherwise was just a paper bag.

"Is this seat taken?"

[prayed]

Kyoko raised an eyebrow at the various oddities that this new girl presented, but brushed them off with a slight shrug of her shoulders that was directed both at the girl's question and her own.

"Do ya see anyone there? If not, then it's yours." She gestured to the decidedly open chair as she gave her explanation. She won't turn a stranger's company away, but she's not really one to hand out invites either.

[terreifying]

"Thanks."

She pulls out the seat, and then runs off. A second later, she's returning with two large plates of food carried in each hand. Then she runs off again and returns with two more plate.

"Time to eat!"

A pale, slender chin starts peeking out from the opening of the bag, slowly but surely, it stretches down more and more until it is also to Rei's chest. Obviously, the girl's mouth has been distended. Then, with astonishing speed, she starts throwing food into the gigantic hole of a mouth.

[prayed]

It takes a few seconds for Kyoko to recover from the shock of seeing a person's mouth stretch that far. She knew people here had strange abilities, but something like this had an almost cartoon-like quality to it that made it difficult to respond to. She stares unabashedly, face settling into something like disgust.

"...that normal where ya come from?"

[heartfeltfancy]

[ ALONE

WHAT'S THE MEANING OF ALONE

Madoka can sense the atmosphere all too well, so she makes it a point to approach. With Amy perching on her shoulder like a bird. ]

Nnn, hello, Kyouko-chan...

[prayed]

Yo.

[She smiles a little at the sight of Madoka. This girl, at least, is one of the few people that she really gets along with.]

Long time no see. Where ya been hiding?

[heartfeltfancy]

Ehe, right...

[ She gives a bit of a wave, and goes to sit down in the seat opposite. She sounds a little sheepish. ]

I've...actually been in my dorm room a lot. [ UWOOOOO ]

Um, have you been alright lately? [ As alright as one can be in a place like this, she means. ]

[prayed]

'Course. This place gets pretty annoying after awhile, but y'know, compared to fighting witches every day it's like a walk in the park.

[She grins.]

Library

[tohko_amano]

Tohko was cleaning a few shelves and organizing a few book piles, thinking about what she should eat for lunch when she saw a girl with red hair staring at the history section, eating some cranberry jam. She would have left the girl alone, but she heard what the girl said and just couldn't help but pipe up.

"Actually..it's an interesting clue, as well as a play on words. If I remember correctly, 'Animus' is an old Roman concept meaning 'soul'. So, the sentence could read as 'Lose your soul in the Tower of Souls.'."

Normally, Tohko wouldn't have known that either, but after her few run-ins with Wilhelm and finding out that Anima had another meaning, she was curious to see if Animus had one as well, so she had looked it up earlier.

[prayed]

"'Tower of souls,' huh? Guess it would suck to lose your soul in a place like that." Kyoko turned her head to look at Tohko as she took another spoonful of jam. She could accept the idea of this place having a name like that. It made sense, too, for someone to pray to keep their soul in that kinda place. "Where'd ya hear that? Were ya brushing up on Roman history or something?"

[tohko_amano]

"Not to mention dangerous. If you lost your soul in a tower full of them, your soul would get mixed in with the rest of the lost ones, never to return. It'd be a weird soul soup."

Tohko then scratched her head, trying to think of how she could phrase the answer to the next question.

"An..acquaintance of mine brought up the terms Anima and Animus while we were talking. The Anima I was thinking of didn't match the Anima he was talking about, so I looked up the term Animus to see if it had any alternate meanings as well. Apparently, it does."

Graveyard

[rewindingly]

Homura frequented the graveyard often. It was a part of her self-assigned rounds, after all, and a place to be warey of. She checked daily, making sure the names of her recent acquaintances hadn't found their own tombstone.

This was also the sort of place she worried about finding Madoka or Sayaka... With Mami's headstone here and all of the grief Sayaka had been forced through, it wouldn't be a surprise. What was a surprise was seeing Kyoko. Homura even blinked a few times to clear the shock from her expression. Pity, at first, as she wondered who Kyoko had to mourn... then wiping away that feeling, which was useless and unproductive.

"You shouldn't be here." She started approaching, "It is a waste of your time."

[prayed]

"Maybe. There's no one here worth morning, y'know," Kyoko polished off another apple, letting the core fall to the ground, but nodded in what might have been an agreement. Well, maybe there was Mami, but Kyoko preferred to steer clear of that subject. Not like there was any surprise in it when that girl had dropped dead back home too.

"I wasn't expecting them to make a grave with my name on it." She grinds her heel into it, glaring, willing it to disappear, before she looked back to Homura. Probably, this shouldn't have been as frustrating as it was, but she wouldn't take the time to consider it. "I'm still here, y'know? Well, even if I wasn't, I wouldn't want this place's charity."

graveyard!

[nohardfeelings]

It's... a bit surreal, seeing your own name labeled onto a tombstone. Seiko understands this pretty well, though she certainly didn't kick over her own tombstone and throw garbage at it. Her initial reaction had been shock and dread, but she simply accepted it. She's already gotten used to the idea of being dead. It's only to be expected.

However, this does not mean she's completely numb. She notices Kyoko from a good length away. This would normally be the part where Seiko surprises Kyoko, but she skips that. She didn't see what the tombstone said, and it never occurs to her to check. She just slowly sidesteps closer to her.

"Kyoko," she says, tilting her head. She smiles sadly. "Aren'cha supposed to pay tribute to the dead?"

[prayed]

"Sure, but that only works when they're actually dead. It's just annoying when they're not, y'know, so a thing like this is unnecessary." Kyoko nudges the tombstone with the toe of her boot. She doesn't look to Seiko until she's finished speaking, biting down on an apple. She wasn't so disrespectful as to desecrate the graves of other residents; it was only her own that she would treat as she pleased.

[nohardfeelings]

It... honestly took her this long to look over. Seiko feels embarrassed.

"That's your name?" she pouts. "Playing such an awful prank... That's despicable."

Her anger does not last that long though, and soon she's looking back at the tombstone. She lets out a sigh. What the heck should she tell her...?

"Well. If it makes yah feel any better, the caskets are empty. They're just for show." She smiles wryly. "Just in case you were thinking your doppelgänger was in there."

graveyard

[keybearer]

[Even after his initial shock in the graveyard room, even after it stirred up unpleasant thoughts and feelings, he still found himself visiting it fairly frequently.

Today is no exception. For whatever reason, he's stumbled down the steps and back into this dismal "memorial". If you could even call it that. The rows of names both familiar and non no longer phase him as much, however, and he only gives them a few short glances.

It's when he spots Kyoko kicking her grave that he slides to a stop, raising an eyebrow at her.]

And what'd that grave ever do to you?

Re: graveyard

[prayed]

It's my tombstone, y'know. It's got my name on it and everything.

[Kyoko only gives Riku a brief glance. She presses her foot against the dubiously balanced tombstone. If it bore anyone's name but her own she wouldn't bother it, but as it is...]

So like, that means that I can do whatever I want to it.

[keybearer]

Your tombstone, huh?

[Well, that's just awkward. But, on the upside, it serves as further confirmation that the people named here aren't actually dead.]

Okay, now I see why you're doing this. Heck, I'd probably do something similar myself.

Cafeteria

[yougotthatwrong]

[Like always, the cafeteria is full of people, and at times, being alone really doesn't work that well when you're meeting someone with some sort of awkward and hesitant look as he eyed the only remaining seat available.

The one right across Kyoko's.

There's an awkward cough as a boy tried to get her attention.]

[prayed]

[Kyoko eyes flick up to Makoto, blinking a couple times, eyes flicking to the seat that he's eyeballing.]

If ya wanna sit there, go ahead. I'm not gonna stop ya, y'know.

[She is, however, going to stare at him. Boy, this guy sure does look familiar.]

[yougotthatwrong]

O-oh, thanks!

[While the awkwardness didn't completely dissipate after that offer, at the very least the boy felt comfortable enough to place his platter of food across her and sat down. It took him a little bit longer to start work on his food, though.]

Cafeteria

[scorchedchivalry]

[Saber was walking by with some drinks when she saw the girl sitting alone. One should never eat alone in her opinion and she was a generous king, so she stopped by the girl.]

A lady should never dine alone. Will you join me?

[She gestured to her own table where there was food waiting that clearly didn't look like anything the tower workers provided. It was good to have a personal chef.]

[prayed]

[She blinks at the honestly unexpected offer before nodding. Kyoko offers table a look as she pushes the seat back and lifts her plate and cup. She's not a picky eater, but man, that looks a lot better than what the tower provides]

Sure. Your table looks a lot nicer than this one. [She grins.] Ah, don't tell me those guys in the kitchen been holding out on me all this time.

[It's mostly a joke. The drones don't seem like they're capable of being that crafty.]

[scorchedchivalry]

[Saber shakes her head as she leads the way over to her table, pulling a chair out for the girl.]

My vassal is quite the culinary expert. She can take the resources the Tower kitchen here offers and create far superior meals than what we are offered.