vatheon | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Dr. Stein and you!
Where: The plaza
When: Right after his arrival! (Tuesday, Jan 29)
Status: Open

[There are some people who don't mind getting soaked to the skin. There are some people who do mind it. Stein is one of those people who acts a bit like a wet cat, removing his lab coat and shaking it out, carding his hands through his hair and trying to flick out the water, and making an annoyed expression at the general wetness involved in arriving in Vatheon.

This does mean that the tall, scarred man with the metal bolt stuck through his head is not exactly looking where he's going.]

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[Oh hey, there's a familiar face.

Now how long is she going to see this familiar face is the question.

It's sort of an awkward moment where she was going to the coral anyway to refresh herself and just...runs into him. Hi, Stein, here's a bitty (well, less bitty than he'd remember but anybody is bitty compared to him) student looking up at you.]

...Hello, Professor.

[Maka if you're literally running into him he's gonna drop that lab coat on your head.]

Hello, Maka.

[YEAH WELL

she'll take it and neatly fold it. Shut up.]

Welcome to Vatheon, or I guess I should say "welcome back" but I doubt you remember being here.

[It's dripping wet. How pleasant.]

Unfortunately, I don't. Is this a common occurrence?

[The first day that Kid noticed there were more people gathered in the Plaza looking lost and soaked to the bone marked the week that the young grim reaper visited each and every day wandering through the crowd, occasionally to help the Welcoming Committee pass out dry towels and brochures.

Something to do, really, while he scoured through the faces in the crowd, hoping to find someone.

Two someones, actually.

Although he ended each day disappointed, not enough to keep him from trying again. Which leads to now, when there's a certain shinigami skateboarding leisurely through the plaza, until he comes to a gradual halt mere feet from a familiar face.

This certainly beats that puzzle he had to solve just to get out of his own bedroom.]

...Professor.

[Stein is busy wringing out his coat, but he looks up with a (somewhat fake, as usual) smile.]

Kid. What a surprise.

Likewise.

[Other students might be swayed (for or against) by that smile. Not Kid, who has regarded Stein with the same endlessly receptive sobriety whether he was visibly sane or not.]

You've just arrived, I assume, so this may come in handy.

[TAKE YOUR DAMN TOWEL.]

[Thank Death for that towel. Literally, in this case.]

Thank you.

[And he'll just towel off his hair.]

Mind briefing me on the situation?

Of course.

[He'll get straight to it.]

You've arrived in Vatheon, and I'm afraid this brochure will do a better job summarizing our circumstances in fewer words.

[That brochure? Is getting handed over as soon as he finishes toweling off his hair.]

[Precise and exact, just as expected from Kid.

He'll look through the brochure, get the necessary information on the bubble city.

There's far too much detail for this to be a hallucination.]

Is there anyone else here from Shibusen?

Very common.

[K, Professa, let's head on over here so she can get some towels for you.]

I'm guessing you haven't gotten the rundown yet? This is Vatheon, it's a city in a bubble under the ocean, we're all trapped here until further notice and everything is free to us.

[A beat before she turns back, holding a stack of towels out to him.]

Ah, and your lab is here, but somebody else is occupying it.

[Too complex to be a joke, either; part of the reason Kid provides the brochure is brevity, but also as evidence.]

Maka Albarn and her Weapon, Soul Eater, although he has been asleep for about a month.

A troll by the name of Karkat informed me that this phenomenon of uninterrupted sleep can last for months without any harm coming to them. The same occurred to Black☆Star, who arrived around the time that Soul did, but he vanished from Vatheon shortly afterward.

[Concluding with:]

Of us, Maka has been here the longest.

[Too complex to be a joke, and most jokes played on Stein had a certain red-headed scythe hiding in a corner somewhere, doubled over with silent laughter and forgetting his former meister had soul perception. There's no sign of Deathscythe, and thus, the idea of a joke had been discarded the instant it passed through Stein's mind.

No one else is stupid enough to try and prank Shibusen's most unhinged meister.]

How long has Maka been here?

[There's lots of information here to remember, tuck away for future reference, sort into mental file folders awaiting connections.]

[Wow Maka way to derail him from towels and questions. 1. His lab is here. 2. There's someone else living in it.]

How did that happen?

[ Feferi hadn't seen him, not looking where she was going either as she seemed utterly absorbed in reading something on her SFC. The collision of creepy small alien girl and even more creepy human man was inevitable, and she makes an indignant sound when she bounces right off them.

Oh, now is clearly a great time for excellent troll social skills. ]

Oh my glub, watch where you're-- [ Wait, indignation needs set off to the side. ] You have a screw in your head!

[ Because he couldn't possibly have known that. ]

Simply because you were gone and some other scientist types discovered it, Professor.

[It's not like it was an epic story or something.]

A year and three-quarters, at least.

[His delivery may be stoic, but there's displeasure in his vague frown; she's spent so long here without her friends from home.]

[That is a long stretch of time. Too long.]

Well, I'll have to get caught up with her.

[Some other scientist types took over his lab.]

I'll have to go talk to them.

["Talk."]

How have you been?

If you'd like, I can take you to the villa, where we live.

[Unless Stein needs to wait until he's drip dried a little more. Trust him! He wouldn't blame him in the least!

But then, he did stand there for hours, himself.]

[... ... Stein looks down at the troll girl and smiles.]

I do. It helps me think.

Fine.

[...Well that was an awfully terse answer to come from Miss Albarn over here.]

I'm living my life here as best I can.

[His soul perception activates, drags along Maka's in curiosity. The Grigori aspect is getting stronger, wings becoming more obvious. But there are other changes, differences to personality that seem less positive. The lingering sense of Death's wavelength, like a noose, like a collar around the neck of a rabid dog, like

He cranks his bolt backwards, ratcheting until it clicks.]

I'm sure you are.

[A whole villa. Impressive, but not unexpected from the spoiled rotten son of Death.]

I would appreciate that.

[He tugs the lab coat back on, keeps toweling off. Being wet annoys him, and he dislikes being annoyed.]

Huh.

[ That's pretty impressive! She grins right back up at him and laughs. ]

You'd think more humans would do that!

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