Well, we try. [ They do. Their time on the ViViD level was the longest they'd ever been apart. ] What question did you want answered? Oh, by the way--
[ She nods, her eyes hovering at a point just over his shoulder. The vendor is standing behind them looking furious at the fact that they've been holding up the other fairgoers and, as if that weren't enough, making a mockery of the game by standing about after Hiro's been set free.
The tentacles rise threateningly. ]
--Oh. Yeah, I guess - I guess we were being pretty rude, huh?
Never mind. [He thinks he gets it now that he's talked it out. He's about to ask her something else, but the vendor's pissed and Hiro's not in the mood to fight with him (or be strung up again), so he nods even as he glares.]
More like he was being rude first. Come on, let's get out of here and continue this somewhere else. [He sticks his tongue out at the vendor and a tentacle lashes forward, causing Hiro to yelp and dart away. Baymax and Rapunzel will just have to follow.
When they get far enough away and start moving toward the main part of the carnival, he looks back to her again.] ...so. You were starting to say something else back there. What was it?
Was I? [ Her nonchalance makes it impossible to tell whether she's truly forgotten or if her yawn, sleepy smile, and clasping of hands behind her back is all an act. ] Hm. Well, I don't remember whatever it was now, so-- Hiro!
[He looks a little like a deer in the headlights at that question.]
Whaaat exactly do you wanna know? [He can do that word elongating game too!!!] You know I have an older brother and my best friend's a robot and we're superheroes. I'm good at inventing stuff...I've been here for a little over three months...[He shrugs.] I'm not really sure what is and isn't boring to you.
[He doesn't particularly care if someone's bored with him, except for the part where he's not sure he wants Rapunzel bored with him. He's too curious about her.]
I think you'll find I'm a pretty captive audience. [ She throws him a sidelong glance that's meant to be reassuring, but which likely just... ups the pressure because her laid-back attitude has it coming off as heavy with expectation. ] What kind of hero work have you been doing lately? People keep mentioning the need for it, but other than what I saw in ViViD...
You want the whole list, or just the stuff me and Baymax have been doing for the last month? [But it seems like a rhetorical question seeing how he continues to talk after that.] A lot of things have happened here since before you guys showed up. Bad things. People keep saying we need heroes here because sometimes things come through in the colony or we get sent to the middle of nowhere and have to fight to survive.
Sent where? Come through from where? I... I thought the area outside Cerealia was uninhabitable. [ To be fair to Rapunzel, she's only been on this investigation track as hard as she has for about a day. Naturally there are gaping holes in her preliminary research. ]
...we've got a lot to catch you up on. [Where to even start...] Has anybody told you anything about the jungle at all since you've been here? That's the first place we should start.
Actually, Hiro, could we... do this somewhere else. Like. Anywhere else? Heh. Jungle sounds like a good place to start but I want to see the rest of the carnival too.
What? [He seems genuinely surprised but he shakes his head then.] Oh, right. Sorry. [He's used to being in work-mode, excuse him.] We can talk about it all later.
Yes, but... no. [ She's grinning because she likes to be in work-mode too and this kid is fucking awesome. Adorable and awesome. She just-- ] I want you to pay me what you owe me as your saviour. [ said snootily ] But I... definitely also want to talk about what you know about Cerealia! [ said all in one breath ]
[...girls are so confusing sometimes. He looks up at Baymax like he's hoping for an explanation and he's definitely not getting one, so he rolls his eyes instead.]
I guess you shouldn't have to choose. If you can have it all, you should take it all. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. [He rubs the back of his neck.] It's just that sometimes people don't walk to talk about the bad things around here while they're trying to enjoy themselves.
Hm. [ It's no overstatement to say her eyes go cool and wistful here, but she doesn't want to seem like a boring, stuffy adult so she trims her melancholy to just: ] I don't know. Isn't that what most people do on a daily basis? Deal with the horrible while juggling the wonderful?
I don't know. Don't listen to me. Are you hungry at all after all that - hanging?
["Some of us are still learning to juggle." He doesn't say anything out loud, lifting his eyebrows in an almost playful manner even as he shakes his head.]
Sure. [It's both an answer to her question and also the idea of food.] I saw a cart not too far from here that sells cupcakes the size of your face. Wanna split one?
I'm pretty sure that's like the opposite of splitting but yeah, okay. Two giant cupcakes. [And in the back of his head he's actually pretty relieved. There's really only one person he wants to share a cupcake with. Maybe he'll buy a third just to split with Ruby later. Strawberry frosting. She'd like that.
But for now it's him and it's Rapunzel and they're off on a search for cupcakes.] They probably have some weird flavors, too. It'll be awesome.
[But he doesn't want to be a Persona protag :( He notices that she's looking at everything and he's laughing to himself at her obvious curiosity.]
There's this one shop here that sells raspberry and mint milkshakes. It was pretty weird but not too bad. And knowing the aliens they probably have ones that tastes like...I dunno, pork rinds or burnt toast or something. Don't get those.
[He's still watching her carefully.] You don't get out much, do you?
No. [ She's glad he can't see her face, walking as she is a few feet ahead of him; her clipped tone already reveals more than she'd intended. ] Ah, no, I... My world wasn't like this. That's all.
[He's not great with reading expressions or social cues, really, but he's getting better. He's learning how to deal with people and how to be a better person and hearing Rapunzel's response is enough to make him really consider what he's going to say.]
Our world was sort of similar to this, but there's a lot of things I've found here that I never thought I'd see. This place is pretty unusual for all of us. I don't understand all of it, but that just means there's more questions to ask and answers to find, right?
Ah. Well. That is certainly how I've been treating it. [ she chuckles softly ] So... what's this about a jungle? I'm guessing that's one of the answers you found, huh?
More like it found us. A couple of months ago, a couple of people in the colony broke into the CERES research tower to free this entity called The Bridge. [Maybe someday he'll tell Rapunzel that the someone was him. Him and Korra.] She's like the queen of the elemental spirits around here, you'll probably hear about them sometime soon...anyway so to thank them for freeing her, she decided to return the favor and took all of us out of the colony and dumped us into the jungle for 10 days.
[A beat.] It was pretty bad toward the end. None of us had been outside of the colony before and toward the end a lot of my friends told me it was getting harder for them to breathe. People died out there, the place was crawling with monsters, and at one point we were all split into four groups and sent with one of the other spirits. I ended up on a mountain. Tadashi went to another part of the jungle, some of my friends went to the ocean and some other friends went into a volcano.
But we did find out a lot after that. Especially after some of us went back a second time.
The Bridge, huh... [ Darkness falls across her face at the sound of this grand "adventure." ] Looks like CERES was telling the truth about the planet being inhospitable.
[ She runs a hand through her hair, sighing and glancing around. There's no way she'll be able to focus on the carnival now, but that doesn't matter; this, what he's telling her about their world, ought to be her first priority right now. Fun can come later. ]
Other than that, though? Wow. Why would she do something like that if she was trying to thank you? This Bridge. And - who are these... these elemental spirits you're talking about? ...I hadn't heard anything about spirits or magic. Mosley didn't mention them when he talked about the planet itself. I thought everything on Tellus was all about technology.
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[ She nods, her eyes hovering at a point just over his shoulder. The vendor is standing behind them looking furious at the fact that they've been holding up the other fairgoers and, as if that weren't enough, making a mockery of the game by standing about after Hiro's been set free.
The tentacles rise threateningly. ]
--Oh. Yeah, I guess - I guess we were being pretty rude, huh?
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More like he was being rude first. Come on, let's get out of here and continue this somewhere else. [He sticks his tongue out at the vendor and a tentacle lashes forward, causing Hiro to yelp and dart away. Baymax and Rapunzel will just have to follow.
When they get far enough away and start moving toward the main part of the carnival, he looks back to her again.] ...so. You were starting to say something else back there. What was it?
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[ g r i n ]
Teeeeeell me about yourself...
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Whaaat exactly do you wanna know? [He can do that word elongating game too!!!] You know I have an older brother and my best friend's a robot and we're superheroes. I'm good at inventing stuff...I've been here for a little over three months...[He shrugs.] I'm not really sure what is and isn't boring to you.
[He doesn't particularly care if someone's bored with him, except for the part where he's not sure he wants Rapunzel bored with him. He's too curious about her.]
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You want the whole list, or just the stuff me and Baymax have been doing for the last month? [But it seems like a rhetorical question seeing how he continues to talk after that.] A lot of things have happened here since before you guys showed up. Bad things. People keep saying we need heroes here because sometimes things come through in the colony or we get sent to the middle of nowhere and have to fight to survive.
Do you believe in ghosts?
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[ Close enough. ]
Sent where? Come through from where? I... I thought the area outside Cerealia was uninhabitable. [ To be fair to Rapunzel, she's only been on this investigation track as hard as she has for about a day. Naturally there are gaping holes in her preliminary research. ]
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[ She looks around. ]
Actually, Hiro, could we... do this somewhere else. Like. Anywhere else? Heh. Jungle sounds like a good place to start but I want to see the rest of the carnival too.
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...I owe you something for rescuing me, don't I?
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Why choose, right? Heh.
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I guess you shouldn't have to choose. If you can have it all, you should take it all. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. [He rubs the back of his neck.] It's just that sometimes people don't walk to talk about the bad things around here while they're trying to enjoy themselves.
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I don't know. Don't listen to me. Are you hungry at all after all that - hanging?
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Sure. [It's both an answer to her question and also the idea of food.] I saw a cart not too far from here that sells cupcakes the size of your face. Wanna split one?
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[ Seriously cupcakes? No way she's going halfsies on a cupcake. If anything, cupcakes are a call for seconds and take away!! ]
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But for now it's him and it's Rapunzel and they're off on a search for cupcakes.] They probably have some weird flavors, too. It'll be awesome.
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haremprotagonist's dilemma's when Rapunzel wants to share an ice cream cone.BOTTOMLESS STOMACH. Also bottomless eyes? She can't stop looking around, even now. ] Really? Like what?
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There's this one shop here that sells raspberry and mint milkshakes. It was pretty weird but not too bad. And knowing the aliens they probably have ones that tastes like...I dunno, pork rinds or burnt toast or something. Don't get those.
[He's still watching her carefully.] You don't get out much, do you?
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Our world was sort of similar to this, but there's a lot of things I've found here that I never thought I'd see. This place is pretty unusual for all of us. I don't understand all of it, but that just means there's more questions to ask and answers to find, right?
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[A beat.] It was pretty bad toward the end. None of us had been outside of the colony before and toward the end a lot of my friends told me it was getting harder for them to breathe. People died out there, the place was crawling with monsters, and at one point we were all split into four groups and sent with one of the other spirits. I ended up on a mountain. Tadashi went to another part of the jungle, some of my friends went to the ocean and some other friends went into a volcano.
But we did find out a lot after that. Especially after some of us went back a second time.
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[ She runs a hand through her hair, sighing and glancing around. There's no way she'll be able to focus on the carnival now, but that doesn't matter; this, what he's telling her about their world, ought to be her first priority right now. Fun can come later. ]
Other than that, though? Wow. Why would she do something like that if she was trying to thank you? This Bridge. And - who are these... these elemental spirits you're talking about? ...I hadn't heard anything about spirits or magic. Mosley didn't mention them when he talked about the planet itself. I thought everything on Tellus was all about technology.
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