Gizmo
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Red buzzed a short tut-tut of dismissal at the compliment but flew in a pleased little loop nonetheless. She lifted the three segmented legs on her right side then lowered them one at a time in a countdown before going live with the camera installed behind the black dot at the front centre of her elytra. As Neko spoke she banked gracefully through the air over the heads of the crowd, angling for the most flattering angle and most interesting backgrounds. The Robug had been raring to get to work since Ryder had introduced her to Neko and Red was approaching the convention livestream with all the enthusiasm of a new sheepdog. One of those background shots captured a young man with thick, brick red dreadlocks and wearing a silk suit in an impossibly loud floral pattern and a thick gold necklace under the jacket in place of a shirt. He stood with his back to Neko and her camera, next to a much taller woman with the sleeves of a golden-yellow dress shirt rolled up to prodigious biceps and the buttons only done up to just below her ribcage. The shorter of the two was shaking his head in irritation as he indicated a life-sized cardboard standee of what was clearly himself, topless and wearing an ornate, folded skirt, winking and giving the passing crowds a pair of enthusiastic thumbs up. "Behold and despair, oh Mistress of Slaughter! Such feeble idolatry that should fail to capture the divine truth of my chiselled musculature! My jawline most cutting! Lips so exemplifying the platonic ideal of fullness as to inspire nothing platonic whatsoever!" "Tis inks upon thickened parchment," his companion pointed out, sounding incredibly bored by the conversation and distractedly sniffing the air as Neko passed. "Sculpture may be printed thrice across dimensions by machines, Sekhmet! Or better still, the venue might have commissioned one of those statues made of multitudinous children's blocks!"
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"Ha! That sounds like a good way for the winner to get their butt kicked by Nat for being a possessive creep. But y'know, I like flowers. I like colours, I like pollinators." Ryder lifted the flap of his bag and multiple bright objects burst forth. The bounding robotic bush cricket, roughly palm-sized, launched the furthest, landing on the desk near Koshchei. Cyan bounced up and down on his light blue and silver back legs and chirped in cheerful greeting before hopping away to explore the space. A praying mantis cast is saturated pink and glossy white landed read Ryder's feet then scuttled forward toward their host, completely unafraid. Magenta raised her curved forelimbs toward Natalia's grandfather and held them parallel, slowly sliding them further apart. It took a moment to realize that she was trying to gauge the size of his prodigious biceps, triangular head tilting to one side in disbelief. With a muted hum of vibrating wings a little wasp shaped robot followed, hovering uncertainly in the air around her creator's head. Yellow rubbed her front legs together in an approximation of wringing hands while zigzagging about, stopping every few moments and choosing a new direction, trying to decide whether to stay where she was or risk finding somewhere new but out of the way. Well after his siblings had exited a black and gunmetal grey beetle trundled out of the bag, across Ryder's arm and down his torso and leg, in no rush to drop down to the floor. Black nodded the long protruding horn on the front his head toward Koshchei in a polite bow then sauntered over to where Natalia was seated, waiting patiently at her feet to be picked up, quietly unimpressed by their surroundings. "Sir, meet the Robugs! That's Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Don't worry, they're used to being around, well, volatile equipment but if there's somewhere you want them to stay away from just say!" Ryder closed the bag again and raised his arm like a falconer for Yellow to set down atop.
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Ryder was silent for a beat, not in hesitation but in respectful consideration of Koshchei's words. "Intense!" he decided finally, nodding amicably. "Normally it's like pulling teeth to get folks to articulate their personal philosophies and mantras, y'know? You ask somebody what their dream is, like capital 'D' dream and they go, 'whatever man, I just want to sell super science laser guns to kids,' and I'm all that cannot possibly be the sum total of your life's ambitions, that's so sad. If you're going for power or respect or something mind numbingly basic like that fine, at least then we can start working out a way to get you there without being a massive tool but I'm going to need a drop of introspection and self-examination, right?" He thew his hands up with the air of someone who had voiced this exact frustration more than once before. "I was thinking more like, 'buy her flowers sometimes for no particular occasion,' or 'she hates banjo, never learn to play the banjo,' but heck yeah, 'commit to your passions,' I can get behind that." He looked down to his bag as something jostled within. "Oh! Uh, do you mind if my guys look around while we talk? Getting a little antsy which is funny when you realize none of them are ants." He gestured to the front flap of the saddlebag as though that provided context for his question.
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Ryder bit the corner of his mouth to stop himself from laughing at Natalia's grumbling but allowed himself to give her a look with raised eyebrows when her grandfather revealed that she had talked about him. "I have a big personality," he suggested to Koshchei, "and I'm more of a, y'know, 'provides the distraction' type than a 'not draw attention' type." The teen gestured to the room as a whole. "At least there's nothing in here you'd be all that upset about catching on fire or exploding or turning itself inside out, right? Learned the hard way to prioritize that in a workspace, ha!" He was curious about the gauntlets but it seemed gauche to be too obvious about it. "Any advice on being good enough on a longer timeline?"
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"Sir," Ryder greeted with a hand raised an unhurried suggestion of a wave, giving an easygoing and friendly smile to the serious faced man. "Glad to meet you and I appreciate you taking the time. I know it can be crazy tough finding a chunk of unclaimed workshop space in this city, right? Matches up with that industrial, utilitarian aesthetic too, so that's a plus." He laced his fingers behind his head and took a few steps further into the room, looking around curiously to see what infrastructure had already been there and what it looked like Koshchei had set up since his arrival. "I had a chance to check out one of your older designs, actually and I was hoping to pick your brain a bit about it but you probably want to do sort of an interrogation slash cold read thing on me first?" He tilted his head to one side and gave Natalia's grandfather a broader, dimpled grin. "Ask away!"
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"You're doing the thing where you establish a rule then immediately show it doesn't apply to you." It didn't sound remotely like a criticism but Ryder did give her a small frown and he peered into the darkness of the abandoned building, shielding his eyes from the sun overhead with one hand. "Is this a psyching yourself up thing? If you want to bail, we can tell him it's my fault and go find some rubble for you to smash and crush until you feel better." He snapped his fingers then brought both raised forefingers in front of his chest as a different interpretation occurred to him. "Oh! Or were you saying that I would be allowed to use pet names if it weren't for other people? Aw! That's sweet." He straightened up a bit and grinned, buoyed by the thought.
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"Managing to keep things from you seems pretty optimistic," Ryder observed, putting one scuffed up, rainbow laced sneaker directly in front of the other to walk solely on what was left of the raised edge of the curb as though it were a tightrope. He'd worn the jeans that only had a few small motor oil stains and remained paint splatter free, along with a long sleeved henley with a relatively tame colour block pattern that included a pink close enough to his strawberry blond dyed hair to make the latter look a bit more cohesive. Maybe. At least like an effort had been made, hopefully, which was really more the point. He hadn't mentioned any particular worries about how he ought to dress out loud but Natalia had noticed he'd brought along his messenger bag, the one big enough to conceal all of the Robugs at once. She knew Ryder well enough to recognize that as just the same sort of nervous decision paralysis. "Is there stuff I should, like, not mention around him? Lie of omission style?" He dropped one hand to rest meaningfully on the oversized belt buckle hidden behind the bottom of his shirt. He tended toward forthrightness in just about all things but this was Nat's family which he figured meant playing by her rules.
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"No fawning," Ryder recited, miming taking notes with a phantom pen on an imaginary pad of paper, "parenthesis yet question mark close parenthesis. See, this is good, actionable feedback already. But also, uh, y'know. Thanks." A little colour rose in his own cheeks when Neko whistled and he gave her a little half-wave and a dimpled smile back. "Ha, literal catcall. Gotta see if she'll teach me to do that finger whistle thing, that's classic." He glanced back toward Nat then off toward one of the better preserved paintings in the church, lowering his voice enough that it wouldn't carry so well to the other teenagers. "Not knowing what I'm doing generally doesn't worry me on account of that handsome willpower stuff you said but messing anything up with you is weirdly way scarier than just breaking another limb or whatever so you'll tell me if I'm being, like, a lot or just oblivious, right?"
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Ryder hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his overalls and let out a long breath, almost a whistle. "I mean obviously we agree that I'd be a fool to say no. By any reasonable estimation you're catastrophically out of my league," he estimated with a serious tone that might have been interpreted as a teasing impression of Natalia's cool appraisal. "But are you sure you're up for it? Like, I'm probably going to end up saying some pretty genuine and heartfelt stuff about how your outfits are all fantastic and how I really admire your commitment to your personal principles and how you're incredibly fun to spend time with. And I'm probably going to take the opportunity to get to know you on a deeper, more meaningful level, the better to support and cherish you." He shook his head and gave her an exaggerated grimace. "I may even try to hold your hand at some point. People might get the impression we like each other. It's a pretty dangerous proposition."
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"Might get Tori's opinion first," Ryder suggested on the topic of mystical authorities. "She'd be more clued in about magic people with, like, pedigree or credentials or whatever. Ouroboros seems like a good place to start to me, though!" He made a point to encourage both Neko and Owain's singing above and beyond even his usual baseline enthusiasm and asked the Robugs to check in on El and the Bernadettes periodically to make sure everyone had whatever they needed. There was still so much to get done and he wanted to pull his own weight while also making sure everyone was organized and supported. His sister caught him as he'd finished filling another bag with debris and was looking around for his next task. "I know you like to get lost in a project but it's not like you to stall," Jenny observed, reaching over to pluck the push broom from Ryder's hands before he could object. The younger Fujioka opened his mouth to feign confusion then slowly closed it again, running a hand through his tousled strawberry blond hair and letting out a slow breath. "...any advice?" Jenny considered for a moment then shrugged. "Don't @#$% up, I guess." Ryder pursed his lips and leaned backward with exaggerated exasperation, far enough that his torso was parallel with the floor and he was staring up at one of Friend's paintings on a curved section of the ceiling. "Great. Awesome. Very helpful." Straightening back up he stuck his tongue out at her before his attempt at annoyance dissolved into an amused grin and he returned the shrug. Jogging across the length of the old church he waved a hand over his head. "Hey, Nat! You wanted to talk about something, yeah?"
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"Totally, big fan of looping in folks with expertise and specialized knowledge," Ryder agreed, using both hands to give Natalia and Owain thumbs ups simultaneously. "Just, y'know, let's also make sure one of us is around for that because I also low-key distrust establishment figures where community spaces and real estate are concerned, yeah?" That admission of suspicion didn't seem to diminish his upbeat positivity in the slightest and from the doorway his sister nodded sagely in silent agreement. He snapped his fingers and pointed in Neko's direction enthusiastically as he saw what she was writing, jubilantly repeating, "Graffiti! Oh, do I ever know some people for that. Friend, we can go wall-to-wall with the art! I'm seeing, like, reclamation of religious iconography for body positivity, self expression, that sort of thing and obviously I go in for those high contrast sprays but you have to give people choices--" Ryder clapped his hands over his head and literally jumped in excitement. His grin widened as an idea took shape. "Oh, oh yeah. This room, add some baffling, curtains, refit the electrics. We'll have to work out a way for you to curate a song list, Friend because I'm gonna build you a karaoke machine with just an obscene sound system."
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"Oh, that's pretty clever," Jenny observed quietly from the doorway to the daycare, watching the proceedings with interest but staying back and out of the way of the teenagers, content to be an observer so long as there didn't appear to be any immediate danger to her brother or his friends. "Wuloovhernwuh?" Ryder tried to sound out the jumble of letters. "Wait, you've only got one of each letter, sure! Upsidedown 'M' gives you a second 'W' but still... 'Will you live here now?' Is that right?" He looked up to the yellowing picture for confirmation a moment before his eyes went wide with larger comprehension. "Oh! Oh! Duh, it's not about 'offerings' it's like how people like to eat in groups and at restaurants and stuff because the community and the conversation is part of what makes the food a, y'know, a meal." The young man brought both hands to his chest to illustrate what he was getting at to his classmates, his words gradually picking up speed as his excitement grew. "So if you needed music and art and people and maybe belief, like that was your 'food' then a church would be the perfect home, yeah?" He turned back to the wall and his expression fell, the vibrating energy leaving him as quickly as it had built up. "But when the congregation left you couldn't go with them?"
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ic The Light of Better Days (IC)
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Rivers, Lakes and Oceans
"In related news, the sky has come out as blue," Jill quipped, making a shooing motion to her brother that was much less subtle than Talya's suggestion they step away momentarily. "But seriously, I'm glad you did. You seem a lot less pissed off at life in general than you did in high school. Could say that about a lot of people, I guess. Do the Lor have high school? There's a depressing thought." Once Jack had moved into the kitchenette to rummage for some combination of tea, cups, ice, sweetener and straws the younger Espadas folded her arms and lowered her voice to a quieter, more serious tone. "Alright, I do actually want to see Infinity's 'most likely to go down on an Earth girl' yearbook photos but while Mr. Inflexible is out of earshot I'm going to need some clarification on that last thing Copycat said that you're not interstellar ICE, 'cause that would be a bad look." She raised an arched eyebrow over her bandanna mask and shifted her gaze toward her former classmate. "Benefit of the doubt considering your whole... everything, obviously. Just, you get why I have to ask." -
Erik felt the muscles in his calves tense at Owain took the first swing, instinct telling him to dash forward and stop the fight. He narrowed his eyes instead, leaning into his metamagi senses. He watched students spar all the time and he trusted both teenagers to stow enough control to avoid any serious injuries but adding magic into the mix still gave him pause. Utsuwa's sword sounded like fingernails scraping dried blood off red hot steel, filling Erik's nostrils with dark and bitter colours. By contrast, the flash as Owain summoned his shield was summer sun through the leaves of a green forest canopy, bright and cheerful and utterly without mercy. The older swordsman had run into enough fae to recognize the taste of poison berries at the back of his throat. Maybe that was why he was on edge: two different, deadly threats, both of which would have been more than happy to egg the boys on despite their better judgement. Once again being the responsible adult in the room is exhausting, he sighed inwardly, refocusing on the actual swordplay on display. Maybe I'm worrying over nothing but still has to be better that they make any mistakes they're going to make here than in an actual fight. He flicked his eyes briefly in Neko's direction. Then again I might be worried about the wrong teenager entirely.
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"<You're welcome,>" Jenny replied to Neko in Japanese that was significantly better than Ryder's if still heavily accented before following the teens' attention upward. "Huh. Painting ghost," she hummed to Natalia, putting her hands on her hips and squinting slightly. "Oh sure, her you believe." Ryder made sure everyone in their group had taken care of themselves once food arrived then placed a litre bottle of pop and a slice of pizza on a paper plate on the lectern under the wall where they'd first noticed the moving painting. Only then did he grab anything for himself. He stuck his tongue out at his sister while walking back toward the middle of the church and opening a canned drink. Jenny nodded, unbothered. "Sure. Nat would have come up with a way better lie than that." The younger sibling accepted that logic with a bemused shrug before returning to the situation. "Step one 'food' is check! We could definitely try some different music but they seem kinda skittish? I'd say, like, gospel music but they were head banging pretty hard to Eira's playlist." He set his drink down on a damaged pew and set to tapping away at his phone with both hands. "Lemme see if I can find some heavy metal with choir vocals! Y'know, some real goth stuff."
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Ryder gave Jessie his rapt attention as she described the incident with her counterparts, the sort of active listening some people found flattering and others intimidating. He mulled over her advise while nodding. "That is actually really helps to hear, Miss Jessie. Thank you!" He let out a short laugh, visibly relaxing. "Utsuwa's right about there being all kinds of wild stuff out there but it's a different thing entirely to be all, 'yeah, thirty mes showed up and I got thrown in jail but I dealt with it, no big deal,' like it's just, y'know, whatever. That's pretty bad ass." He picked up his pace briefly to catch up to Aquaria and their guide, not wanting to be rude while the latter was trying to do his job. "I didn't even hear about this exhibit being in town, go figure huh?" He looked back to his roommate who had a better grasp on Japanese history and general culture than he did to see his reaction.
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ic The Light of Better Days (IC)
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Rivers, Lakes and Oceans
"Hah, see? You were angling to adopt little baby thieves way before you got mixed up with mi hermano," Jill teased Talya quietly, looking up at the painting and briefly trying to imagine how one would begin trying to move it out of the room undetected. Putting it out of her mind she turned to give their 'guests' a casual wave. "We're definitely people to know, at least. I mostly just wanted an excuse to meet the space girlfriend." "We don't, like, live like this," Jack asserted with a bit more defensiveness than was probably necessary off of Infinity's expression as she looked around the home. "Uh. I mean." He gave Talya a sheepish shrug before continuing, "The Lor Republic, yeah, sure. Bunch of years ago I helped the gang on the Flarerider rescue a kid who got abducted by a squid pirate guy. Iana? I mean, she wouldn't be a kid anymore, obviously. Got to punch that dumbass right in his tentacle face, that was a good day." "I got abducted by the Curator," Jill chimed in with exaggerated cheer. "Less of a good day, more of a very bad couple months. A few Lor soldiers showed up, helped us save everybody on the ringworld. Helped Shepherd-07 a couple years later. They were looking for this chucklehead-" She indicated her elder sibling. "-messed up with the teleporter, it all worked out." Jack scratched his bearded chin, trying to think of anything else immediately relevant. "We were in the deep end when the Gorgon came to Earth 'cause of our wife," he offered, encompassing himself and Talya with a quick turn of his wrist, "but that's not really a Lor thing so much as a Preserver thing? General extraterrestrial thing? I'm probably forgetting something else, we keep pretty busy." -
Erik made room for the teenagers in the middle of the mats and took up a position leaning against the wall near several of the illusory cats. "I don't think either of them would mind if you wanted to come down and watch in person," he noted quietly to a longhaired feline without looking down, eyes on Utsuwa and Owain. He didn't make a fuss about it but he'd not coincidentally chosen a spot near the dojo's first aid kid and remained within a short dash to the boys. They'd both shown a lot of control for their age or he'd have been more cautious about letting them spar but Utsuwa had had some pretty brutal reflexes drilled into him and Erik knew enough about hiding behind a broad grin to want to watch Owain closely once the adrenaline got pumping. Outwardly he didn't seem much more than casually interested in the whole thing. "Whenever you're ready, gents. I'll give you my notes afterward."
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ic The Light of Better Days (IC)
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Rivers, Lakes and Oceans
The door opened almost immediately, revealing a masked man in a deep blue suit. "Hey, how you doing? C'mon in," he greeted them with a lopsided smile that seemed a little chagrinned with the whole situation. Stepping out of their way he continued, mostly for Fa'Rua's benefit, "I'm Jack of all Blades, obviously just call me Jack. Otherwise this would be weird." He quirked an eyebrow to emphasize the wry punchline - either the result of spending a lot of time talking to young children or just having dramatic body language. "Now, mi hermanita didn't say; which one of you is Copycat?" He immediately raised both hands to forestall a reply. "Wait! Don't tell me, I can use my famed powers of deduction." The swordsman made a show of looking between Ashley's clearly cat themed mask and her Lor partner's visor as if in deep thought. -
"That's probably a good attitude to take," Ryder agreed with Jessie, having already downloaded the museum's app on his phone on handed before their guide could ready himself. The Robugs had secreted themselves away in the high schooler's shoulder bag, the more excitable among them intermittently trying to sneak peeks from under the flap while their more reserved siblings pulled them back out of sight. Ryder himself sounded a little less exuberant as he mulled over Singularity's words. "It's weird though, right? Like, a future-me or alternate-me still has a bunch in common with me-me. So I start thinking about what intrinsically makes me a unique individual and if somebody already has all those elements what does that even mean? It's heavy."
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'Jill' gave an amused snort and shook her head. "No, I'm a grappling hook gal. Walking's fine with me." She gestured for Rosalind to lead the way; she knew the spot the teenager was referring to but figured it was best to let the girl set the pace herself. "You're pretty local, right? Settling in to the campus alright or still getting used to being away from home?" She was more getting the vibe that Rosalind was still getting used to being in her own skin let alone anything else. That seemed like a topic to work up to, however.
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ic The Light of Better Days (IC)
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Rivers, Lakes and Oceans
Part of supporting the community and being a resource of experience and expertise meant that Erik needed to make himself accessible. That wasn't at all compatible with the carefully guarded anonymity of a secret identity. While he liked to think that he'd mellowed somewhat in the last ten years - not that he liked thinking about his life in blocks of ten years because that meant he was getting old - he absolutely had more to lose now than he had at the beginning of his career. He'd expressed those concerns to his partners on more than one occasion; Min had put things into perspective by describing in vivid detail what she would do to anyone foolish enough to endanger their children. Talya's advice had come in the form of her specific brand of spy craft, which was how Jack of all Blades exited the stairwell out onto the building's rooftop in a sharp navy blue blazer, cut with a collar that referenced his costume's greatcoat. The jacket was reversible, with an opposite side that matched his slate grey slacks with a subtle herringbone pattern. The black dress shirt he wore undone to the middle of his chest was better tailored than anything he would have gotten for himself while the belt buckle in the shape of a filigree spade was more tasteful than it had any right to be. He'd put on his bandana mask and a version of his costume'd persona's wig Talya had designed, with the long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. "We should do this sort of thing more often." His sister was already waiting for him, leaning against one of the rooftop garden's trellises in a similar outfit, her own jacket a deep crimson with a dramatic flared bottom that echoed the wider cuffs of her pants. She twirled a grappling hook launcher idly around one finger, a stronger and more compact design than the models they'd once used, curtesy of her own wife. "What, socialize as a family?" "Things that involve Talya buying me clothes, but sure. Your thing, too." -
ic The Light of Better Days (IC)
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Rivers, Lakes and Oceans
"I'm just saying it's weird they want to meet me for this," Erik expressed for the umpteenth time in the past few days. He refilled a glass of orange juice from the pitcher in one hand and slid an omelette onto a plate with the spatula in the other. Breakfast was a busy affair at the Espadas household between the number of mouths to feed and remembering who'd decided they were a picky eater that morning. Navigating the crowded kitchen as deftly as a battlefield he swapped out the container of juice for a steaming pot of coffee and filled a mug. "Tu hermanita asks you to do a favour for one of her school friends and suddenly you've got an attack of what? Modesty?" Gina fixed her son with a flat look and a raised eyebrow as she accepted the mug. Technically Min was more than capable of corralling the kids on her own while Erik and Talya were occupied, pregnant or not but Raina was busy with plans of her own and Neko and Owain were at Claremont and Gina didn't need much of an excuse to spend time with her grandchildren and daughter-in-law. Erik made a scoffing noise and made a gesture of protesting innocence with the pot. "I said I'd go, I'm gonna go! But this is the sort of thing people go to, like, Stesha for. Or honestly Martel and her bunch in the castle if you're a space lesbian." Gina took a long sip and leaned back in her wheelchair, making no attempt to hide her amusement. "Sounds like you need to accept you've become a respected community elder." She received only offended sputtering in response. -
"Going good, Hedgehog?" Erik greeted Utsuwa as the teenager entered, stooping to pick up a toy car that had somehow made its way downstairs to the training mats. The instructor wore a plain white t-shirt and light grey sweatpants, his feet bare as he exchanged the toy for a practice sword of his own on a nearby shelf, noting the white furred housecoat that appeared to be reclining there. He gave the feline a look with a raised eyebrow as though to ask who it thought it was fooling before turning back to the stretching student. "I'd ask if you'd been practicing in the meantime but that seems like a foregone conclusion. You remember the footwork we were working on last time?" When Owain appeared he paused, not surprised so much as trying to gauge the reaction of the two young men to each other. He looked to the various cats around the room to see if he could read anything from them, too but quickly decided that he wasn't going to waste his time trying to read the body language of cats that weren't actually cats. "Good work. That's up to Utsuwa, though. I know he had stuff he wanted to work on specifically." He raised his hands with the palms upward and looked to Utsuwa with a neutral expression.
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Erik didn't pretend to be particularly convinced by either of their assurances but decided the best way to show them respect was to take them at their word for the time being. "Offer stays on the table," he told Neko in particular with a level look. "If it ends of being too weird we can move it elsewhere next time. That said, I think that's probably a good attitude." He nodded in approval to Owain. "None of us get to pick our crappy relatives." He hadn't been pushing the young man to talk about the Green Knight but between what Talya had told him and what he'd inferred from Neko and Owain's own accounts he'd developed some opinions. "If you want to talk to Utsuwa about it but want to have an adult around, let me know, yeah? Not trying to get in your business, so no pressure." He pulled a face and placed a thumb and knuckle against his forehead as though beset by a sudden migraine. "Neither of you are going to get why it's embarrassing that I sound like I'm trying to be a 'cool dad', huh? 'If you're going to be experimenting with magic swords we'd rather you did it in the house where we know you're being safe!' Dios." Trying to reconcile how old he felt with the knowledge that his wives were both immortals and the young teens upstairs were World War II veterans Erik headed downstairs to prepare the space for the training session.