[ "She's young," thought Damian, a mere year older.
Well, not that either of them know how old the other one is, and she's admittedly more than a little surprised that someone who doesn't seem much older is so stern and competent. He'd already realized she came from the well, and tried to reassure her about his dog (which is great, she'll want to pet him).
But there's one problem, and that's with his suggestion.
She may have looked distressed before, but now Kisa looks flat-out scared, quickly shaking her head and waving her hands in front of her. She can't climb on his back. She absolutely can't.
(He's being so nice, and if he realizes she's a monster, he'll hate her and leave her down here to rot, and more than anything, she doesn't want to see disgust and hatred anymore--) ]
[The distress causes him to suddenly freeze. He stares at her, visibly shocked. Is... is she serious? (Also SHUT UP HE'S OLD...er!)]
What do you mean, no? Don't be an idiot, girl. Do you want to stay here in this hole for the rest of the night?
The sun has already set! The forest is full of mutated creatures that would love to eat you for dinner.
[Pretty much, he regrets this scare tactic as soon as he's said it. She's just a girl, and she's already scared. His father wouldn't have done such a thing ever. Ugh... Maybe she simply doesn't want to touch him, no trust.
He heaves out a sigh and looks away, thinking, and then he rises to his feet.] Fine. Come here. [From beneath the folds of the cloth belt on the inside of the layered shirt, Damian pulls out the batgrapple.
He aims it up at the mouth of the hole and fires, letting the grapple careen past the top and land, digging in the flat of the ground above. He tugs on it to test the sturdiness, and then he turns to her, holding it out.] Take this.
It'll pull you up when you press the button on the side. Don't hold it down or it'll yank you up too fast. Press it over and over to go up a little at a time.
[ Don't worry, Damian, she wouldn't have wanted Batman to piggyback her either. But at least he's done a bang-up job of scaring the crap out of her!
... More.
Not that it takes much, but she was already drained and terrified, and while she flinches at just how annoyed he sounds, her shoulders have slumped as though she's definitely heard that much before.
Of course she has.
Still, the second method is one she can follow, and even if she's now afraid to meet his eyes, she studies the object he's offered her and commits the instructions to memory. Press the button, but don't hold it down.
Good. [He's terrified her. He hates this. Even when he's trying to be relatively compassionate, he screws it up. Turning away from her, he squats down to pull the stone arrowhead dagger he made from his boot, making sure not to wield it in her direction and spook her more.] Now go.
[The dagger he stabs into the dirt of the hole's wall, higher up, and he begins scaling to the top with the easy and practice of--weird--someone who does this quite often.
Sure, he could have ridden the grapple with her, but he only assumed she wasn't fond of contact, so this is the next best thing.
He at least seems capable of getting up the wall without issue which is a relief.]
[ You'll get it sooner or later, Damian. For now, Kisa concentrates on just getting herself pulled out of there-- with a few jerky rough starts until she gets the hang of it.
It's not the most graceful sight in the world, but it does the job, and she's out and landing beside Ace with a soft thump.
... And promptly collapsing to her knees. She's not as cool as the other kid here. ]
[Sometime after, Damian comes up over the edge of the hole with nothing more than a light sweat. He wipes the dagger on the leg of his pants and then slides it back into his boot.
Ace has already immediately taken an interest in Kisa. The dog is careful and bowed-head when approaching, whining softly, tail mid-way and wagging. Kisa's head gets a sniff and then a gentle bump.]
Ace, stop that. Give her room. She doesn't want you in her face.
[As expected, Ace's tail curls back up and begins wagging when Kisa becomes more certain about petting. Damian heaves a small, exasperated sigh and stands so he can come up beside them.]
Do you think you can walk?
[He extends his hand to try to help her up to her feet. She didn't want to be carried, so... he'll just have to let Ace be a support.] We should get back to town. Someone made that hole. I don't know who did yet, but I'll find them when we get there.
Ace can help you if you hold onto his back near his neck. [He shows her were to rest her hand.] What's your name? Do you--
[He raises his hands, forming the last of the signs, --know sign language? Strangely, people can somehow understand Dextera, he's found. He doesn't know if this works with everyone.]
[ She reaches up to take his hand, stumbling only slightly as she gets her balance back. Both knees are scraped, a little bloody, and she moves a tad gingerly, but it's doable.
But before she rests a hand on Ace, Kisa points to Damian's hand and gestures towards herself. She can't use sign language, but maybe there's another way to tell him her name. ]
[Tail still wagging slowly, Ace glances back and forth between them, tongue out.
For a moment, Damian peers at his hand, and then he peers at the girl. He's not sure, so he holds his hand out in case she wants to take it or something.]
His hand just hangs there; he's not entirely sure what to do with it while she's holding it because he's never really had to navigate these kinds of social etiquettes.
Kisa. The sentiments are, as weird as it feels, received. Somehow.] You... don't have to worry about it. No one should be stuck in a hole. Anyone would have helped you out.
[Um, hopefully.]
Did you find the place you were supposed to be staying yet? The one where your laptop was? I can walk you back.
[Damian is okay with this, sure. He would let her ride Ace's back, but Ace isn't a doberman like Titus and, therefore, not quite that big. Even someone as small as Kisa probably wouldn't be able to ride him.
But he's a helpful dog. Ace is glad to cart her along at whatever pace is easiest.
Damian, on the other hand, isn't sure what to do still. She's--mute? Talking is cumbersome between them while they're walking, he thinks. She's tired. It's likely not the right time to pry.
So he kind of just... continues on in silence, focused ahead of them but walking on the opposite side of Ace as they go, his face pensively thoughtful. He looks so serious for a thirteen year old.
The direction toward Flavo reminds him: Bruce stays in Flavo. He can swing by after dropping Kisa off to tell the man to keep an eye on her.]
[ He looks so serious?? And she's sure by now that he's either around her age or some kind of adult stuck in a kid's body, but obviously she's not about to ask.
Kisa will keep glancing in his direction, though, because she's very curious. How does he know so much? Does he think she's strange? There's no real way to tell, and she's too tired and hungry to dedicate much thought to it now.
[A lovely walk between two tweens. The best walk they could have.
He spends a lot of time in his head, okay. Something he gets from his dad, thinking about everything, planning, making arrangements. He has to take care of Kisa first, then tell Bruce what happened, then try to figure out who built that damn hole someone could fall into.
He can't believe she didn't get hurt. What if he had found her with a broken arm? leg? neck? The most he can be thankful for is the hole hadn't been armed with something lethal. It wasn't a killing trap, only a capturing one.
Suddenly, he focuses, remembering he's literally walking along beside Ace and a strange girl all the while not saying a word. He cuts a look at her and then quickly looks away when she looks back.]
[It's been long enough. He's about ready to speak up when she just White Girls it and trips over her own feet. Doing so startles both him and Ace.]
Watch out!
[And they pretty much both react at the same time. Ace shoots forward to try to block the fall, and Damian leaps to try to catch her from behind before she gets hurt. He thinks it's less she tripped and more she's so exhausted she may have fainted or her legs have given out.
Catching her arm at the elbow, the only thing he can really think to do to make sure she isn't face first on the ground is to pull her against himself and wrap the other arm around her shoulders.]
[ Kisa's already trying to reel back, as though this will prevent her from hitting the ground/the dog (the more important thing to avoid), but she wasn't expecting Damian's stupidly fast reflexes.
It's shock when he catches her arm, but when he pulls her against him, the shock turns to dread and terror, except by then she can't pull away. His arm wraps around her shoulders, and that's trigger enough.
The clouds of smoke seem to appear out of literally nowhere, more like actual clouds than the sting of smoke, but much thicker. The weight of a small twelve-year-old girl seems to have diminished incredibly as well, and if Damian is observant (of course he is, goddammit), he'll notice he seems to be grasping something much smaller in shape and weight.
And furrier.
Regardless of whether he waits for the smoke to clear or waves it away himself, well. There's a dress on the ground by his feet and there's a tiger cub now dangling a tad awkwardly in his arms.
Honest to God, this is one of the wildest things to happen to him, but not necessarily the worst. The smoke is worrying, and he's quick to wave it away with the hand now strangely free from a girl's small elbow.
???????
Fuzzy... Smaller...
He starts when the smoke clears and a tiger child is now in the place of where a girl was just moments before. He glances around, looks back at her, exchanges a look with Ace, looks back at her again. The fur is the same color her hair had been? The girl is gone.]
You...
[Ace tilts his head to one side, breathing paused. It dawns on him quickly. He doesn't think she's a girl at all. Maybe the girl was some kind of corporal form for a tiger god. That explains the muteness, right? That explains--why she didn't want to be touched.]
[ For once, the question surprises her enough that she doesn't immediately try and sink her teeth into his arm or lash out with her claws.
Well. That, and he'd just saved her from spending literally the whole day trapped inside of a pit, and she should probably not give her savior bite marks as a show of gratitude.
But she's never been called a deity before, and she's never witnessed this bizarre kind of reaction where it's not immediate shrieking or yelping or some other manner of fright or horror.
Not until this place, anyway.
All she can really do, stuck as she is, is shake her head once. ]
[Wow, not only is it a girl(?)--or tiger(?)--who can transform, but it has verbal coherency too. Holy shit.
Damian exchanges another look with Ace, and, slowly, the dog's tail lifts and begins wagging. Damian--doesn't know what to do? Why has he, of all people, genius as he is, been stupified by this one simple girl from the moment he's met her? It makes no sense. She's... an anomaly clearly. He did not prepare for this.]
Alright, not a deity. [Carefully, he puts her down on the ground. Just because she's a tiger doesn't mean she suddenly wants to be touched.] A splicer? Did the town do this? I--
[He's talking to a tiger. Fuck.]
--Nevermind. We'll deal with this later. Let's just find the house where you belong. You can still go, right?
[ He's really okay with this? He's really okay with this??
Okay, maybe not that okay, with how bewildered he appears, but he didn't immediately fling her back into the pit and he seems to be trying to understand what's going on with her.
... Which really just makes her miss any one of her cousins who could have explained it a lot better. Even if she's not entirely sure how well Damian would take to talking animals.
For now, in response, Kisa carefully pads over to her dress and picks it up in her mouth. She can't exactly carry it without it dragging a bit, but it's not exactly something she can leave behind. There's a long, considering look at Damian but she ultimately decides to think about it later-- as he said.
And she'll set off, still moving gingerly, but faster than she was as a girl. ]
Literally, he just stands there for several long seconds as she takes off, Ace hurriedly following after. Now he has to tell his dad he found a girl in a pit who also turns into a tiger for some reason.
Finally, he also takes off after her and the dog. Ace is excited, if anything. The dog hops playfully up and down as he gets closer to Kisa, but then seems shy or maybe mischievous as he bounces away. Ahead, Ace will run only to stop and wait for them to catch up, tail wagging.] It's getting dirty.
Here, give it to me. [Damian picks up his speed so he can bend to take the dress, keeping it from being dragged the whole way through the dirt.] There's other clothes, but we'll have to tailor them.
I don't know where you're from, but Chroma probably isn't like any place you've been.
[He still thinks she's possibly some kind of deity. Listen.]
[ You just saw her trip over pretty much nothing! Damian!! Deities aren't like that!!
At least Ace seems to be having fun, and if she was anything other than tired and aching and distinctly uncomfortable, Kisa might pounce or playfully bat at him. But nope, just trotting for now, tail flicking in acknowledgment when Damian takes the dress from her.
The tail flicks again.
It's true that Chroma isn't anything like home. Or if it is, it's a part of Japan she hasn't seen before. A lot of her life was centered around the estate, and this is definitely a far cry. The colors being highly lacking... that's odd, too.
It makes her ears go flat, briefly. This... isn't home. It's a sad, dull place with random pits and no one who knows her. ]
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Well, not that either of them know how old the other one is, and she's admittedly more than a little surprised that someone who doesn't seem much older is so stern and competent. He'd already realized she came from the well, and tried to reassure her about his dog (which is great, she'll want to pet him).
But there's one problem, and that's with his suggestion.
She may have looked distressed before, but now Kisa looks flat-out scared, quickly shaking her head and waving her hands in front of her. She can't climb on his back. She absolutely can't.
(He's being so nice, and if he realizes she's a monster, he'll hate her and leave her down here to rot, and more than anything, she doesn't want to see disgust and hatred anymore--) ]
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What do you mean, no? Don't be an idiot, girl. Do you want to stay here in this hole for the rest of the night?
The sun has already set! The forest is full of mutated creatures that would love to eat you for dinner.
[Pretty much, he regrets this scare tactic as soon as he's said it. She's just a girl, and she's already scared. His father wouldn't have done such a thing ever. Ugh... Maybe she simply doesn't want to touch him, no trust.
He heaves out a sigh and looks away, thinking, and then he rises to his feet.] Fine. Come here. [From beneath the folds of the cloth belt on the inside of the layered shirt, Damian pulls out the batgrapple.
He aims it up at the mouth of the hole and fires, letting the grapple careen past the top and land, digging in the flat of the ground above. He tugs on it to test the sturdiness, and then he turns to her, holding it out.] Take this.
It'll pull you up when you press the button on the side. Don't hold it down or it'll yank you up too fast. Press it over and over to go up a little at a time.
Do you understand?
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... More.
Not that it takes much, but she was already drained and terrified, and while she flinches at just how annoyed he sounds, her shoulders have slumped as though she's definitely heard that much before.
Of course she has.
Still, the second method is one she can follow, and even if she's now afraid to meet his eyes, she studies the object he's offered her and commits the instructions to memory. Press the button, but don't hold it down.
A nod. ]
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[The dagger he stabs into the dirt of the hole's wall, higher up, and he begins scaling to the top with the easy and practice of--weird--someone who does this quite often.
Sure, he could have ridden the grapple with her, but he only assumed she wasn't fond of contact, so this is the next best thing.
He at least seems capable of getting up the wall without issue which is a relief.]
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It's not the most graceful sight in the world, but it does the job, and she's out and landing beside Ace with a soft thump.
... And promptly collapsing to her knees. She's not as cool as the other kid here. ]
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Ace has already immediately taken an interest in Kisa. The dog is careful and bowed-head when approaching, whining softly, tail mid-way and wagging. Kisa's head gets a sniff and then a gentle bump.]
Ace, stop that. Give her room. She doesn't want you in her face.
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So slowly, she shifts into a picture-perfect seiza posture and offers Ace her hand before she'll reach out to pet him properly.
She's frazzled, yes, but this helps. ]
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Do you think you can walk?
[He extends his hand to try to help her up to her feet. She didn't want to be carried, so... he'll just have to let Ace be a support.] We should get back to town. Someone made that hole. I don't know who did yet, but I'll find them when we get there.
Ace can help you if you hold onto his back near his neck. [He shows her were to rest her hand.] What's your name? Do you--
[He raises his hands, forming the last of the signs, --know sign language? Strangely, people can somehow understand Dextera, he's found. He doesn't know if this works with everyone.]
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But before she rests a hand on Ace, Kisa points to Damian's hand and gestures towards herself. She can't use sign language, but maybe there's another way to tell him her name. ]
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For a moment, Damian peers at his hand, and then he peers at the girl. He's not sure, so he holds his hand out in case she wants to take it or something.]
I can read lips, too, if it's easier.
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Her lips move, forming her first name--
And then she grasps his hand in both of hers and lowers her head a bit, squeezing carefully.
"I'm sorry" and "Thank you." Not spoken, not mouthed, but hopefully still conveyed. ]
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His hand just hangs there; he's not entirely sure what to do with it while she's holding it because he's never really had to navigate these kinds of social etiquettes.
Kisa. The sentiments are, as weird as it feels, received. Somehow.] You... don't have to worry about it. No one should be stuck in a hole. Anyone would have helped you out.
[Um, hopefully.]
Did you find the place you were supposed to be staying yet? The one where your laptop was? I can walk you back.
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Maybe a little slowly, though, if Damian is fine with that. ]
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But he's a helpful dog. Ace is glad to cart her along at whatever pace is easiest.
Damian, on the other hand, isn't sure what to do still. She's--mute? Talking is cumbersome between them while they're walking, he thinks. She's tired. It's likely not the right time to pry.
So he kind of just... continues on in silence, focused ahead of them but walking on the opposite side of Ace as they go, his face pensively thoughtful. He looks so serious for a thirteen year old.
The direction toward Flavo reminds him: Bruce stays in Flavo. He can swing by after dropping Kisa off to tell the man to keep an eye on her.]
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Kisa will keep glancing in his direction, though, because she's very curious. How does he know so much? Does he think she's strange? There's no real way to tell, and she's too tired and hungry to dedicate much thought to it now.
What a nice walk. ]
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He spends a lot of time in his head, okay. Something he gets from his dad, thinking about everything, planning, making arrangements. He has to take care of Kisa first, then tell Bruce what happened, then try to figure out who built that damn hole someone could fall into.
He can't believe she didn't get hurt. What if he had found her with a broken arm? leg? neck? The most he can be thankful for is the hole hadn't been armed with something lethal. It wasn't a killing trap, only a capturing one.
Suddenly, he focuses, remembering he's literally walking along beside Ace and a strange girl all the while not saying a word. He cuts a look at her and then quickly looks away when she looks back.]
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Because she'd been looking at him? Had she stared too long, or had some sort of strange expression? Had her eyes unnerved him?
("Why are your eyes so orange, Sohma-san? They match your hair perfectly. Contacts? Do you dye?"
"That can't be natural, right? Isn't that weird?"
"It's freaking me out. Stop staring at me, already!")
She can't control her hair or her eyes. But Kisa also looks away, a little desolate, but if he doesn't want her to look at him--
She'll just trip over a loose pebble or something in her path instead, and topple forward. ]
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Watch out!
[And they pretty much both react at the same time. Ace shoots forward to try to block the fall, and Damian leaps to try to catch her from behind before she gets hurt. He thinks it's less she tripped and more she's so exhausted she may have fainted or her legs have given out.
Catching her arm at the elbow, the only thing he can really think to do to make sure she isn't face first on the ground is to pull her against himself and wrap the other arm around her shoulders.]
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It's shock when he catches her arm, but when he pulls her against him, the shock turns to dread and terror, except by then she can't pull away. His arm wraps around her shoulders, and that's trigger enough.
The clouds of smoke seem to appear out of literally nowhere, more like actual clouds than the sting of smoke, but much thicker. The weight of a small twelve-year-old girl seems to have diminished incredibly as well, and if Damian is observant (of course he is, goddammit), he'll notice he seems to be grasping something much smaller in shape and weight.
And furrier.
Regardless of whether he waits for the smoke to clear or waves it away himself, well. There's a dress on the ground by his feet and there's a tiger cub now dangling a tad awkwardly in his arms.
Said cub appears a bit shell-shocked. ]
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Honest to God, this is one of the wildest things to happen to him, but not necessarily the worst. The smoke is worrying, and he's quick to wave it away with the hand now strangely free from a girl's small elbow.
???????
Fuzzy... Smaller...
He starts when the smoke clears and a tiger child is now in the place of where a girl was just moments before. He glances around, looks back at her, exchanges a look with Ace, looks back at her again. The fur is the same color her hair had been? The girl is gone.]
You...
[Ace tilts his head to one side, breathing paused. It dawns on him quickly. He doesn't think she's a girl at all. Maybe the girl was some kind of corporal form for a tiger god. That explains the muteness, right? That explains--why she didn't want to be touched.]
Are you... a tiger deity...?
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Well. That, and he'd just saved her from spending literally the whole day trapped inside of a pit, and she should probably not give her savior bite marks as a show of gratitude.
But she's never been called a deity before, and she's never witnessed this bizarre kind of reaction where it's not immediate shrieking or yelping or some other manner of fright or horror.
Not until this place, anyway.
All she can really do, stuck as she is, is shake her head once. ]
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Damian exchanges another look with Ace, and, slowly, the dog's tail lifts and begins wagging. Damian--doesn't know what to do? Why has he, of all people, genius as he is, been stupified by this one simple girl from the moment he's met her? It makes no sense. She's... an anomaly clearly. He did not prepare for this.]
Alright, not a deity. [Carefully, he puts her down on the ground. Just because she's a tiger doesn't mean she suddenly wants to be touched.] A splicer? Did the town do this? I--
[He's talking to a tiger. Fuck.]
--Nevermind. We'll deal with this later. Let's just find the house where you belong. You can still go, right?
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Okay, maybe not that okay, with how bewildered he appears, but he didn't immediately fling her back into the pit and he seems to be trying to understand what's going on with her.
... Which really just makes her miss any one of her cousins who could have explained it a lot better. Even if she's not entirely sure how well Damian would take to talking animals.
For now, in response, Kisa carefully pads over to her dress and picks it up in her mouth. She can't exactly carry it without it dragging a bit, but it's not exactly something she can leave behind. There's a long, considering look at Damian but she ultimately decides to think about it later-- as he said.
And she'll set off, still moving gingerly, but faster than she was as a girl. ]
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Literally, he just stands there for several long seconds as she takes off, Ace hurriedly following after. Now he has to tell his dad he found a girl in a pit who also turns into a tiger for some reason.
Finally, he also takes off after her and the dog. Ace is excited, if anything. The dog hops playfully up and down as he gets closer to Kisa, but then seems shy or maybe mischievous as he bounces away. Ahead, Ace will run only to stop and wait for them to catch up, tail wagging.] It's getting dirty.
Here, give it to me. [Damian picks up his speed so he can bend to take the dress, keeping it from being dragged the whole way through the dirt.] There's other clothes, but we'll have to tailor them.
I don't know where you're from, but Chroma probably isn't like any place you've been.
[He still thinks she's possibly some kind of deity. Listen.]
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At least Ace seems to be having fun, and if she was anything other than tired and aching and distinctly uncomfortable, Kisa might pounce or playfully bat at him. But nope, just trotting for now, tail flicking in acknowledgment when Damian takes the dress from her.
The tail flicks again.
It's true that Chroma isn't anything like home. Or if it is, it's a part of Japan she hasn't seen before. A lot of her life was centered around the estate, and this is definitely a far cry. The colors being highly lacking... that's odd, too.
It makes her ears go flat, briefly. This... isn't home. It's a sad, dull place with random pits and no one who knows her. ]
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