nicholas d. wolfwood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asipofbride) wrote2013-04-06 05:02 pm
asipofbride) wrote2013-04-06 05:02 pmIC INBOX [kaisou]
username: N.D. WOLFWOOD | ✉ ☏ 📷 |
asipofbride) wrote2013-04-06 05:02 pm
username: N.D. WOLFWOOD | ✉ ☏ 📷 |
:3c
[Eventually if he makes his way outside, he'll find her leaning against the cottage wall, one hand stretched in front of her. Every so often, her hand glows and reforms into a new weapon. Mallet? A bit small with one hand. Morning star? Hmm... Heavy on her arm. Would need a fair bit of momentum. She's currently made a spiky metal gauntlet. Catching sight of Wolfwood, she raises it awkwardly into a wave.]
[It's her daily training time.]
Wolfwood. How are you?
[She doesn't want to spoil the surprise if he didn't see.]
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[ he perks himself up with a cheer he doesn't really feel, but Wolfwood's been lying for most of his life, so what's a little more if it gets him from one end of the conversation to the other without much trouble? he meanders his way over, hands in his pocket--he wants a cigarette, but he tries not to smoke around the kids so much, so he puts his twitchy hands away so he can lean against the cottage wall next to her. ]
So I got your thing. It was tasty, thanks. Y'didn't have to, you know? But I appreciate it.
[ ... there's more to come, but the gratitude can come first. ]
no subject
[Ah, so he did find the surprise! In that case, Eve will let her transformation go, her hand returning its natural state.]
Maybe not. But you did look out for us, so...
[So thanks seemed in order. Even if she hadn't wanted to leave Vergil behind, she didn't want Wolfwood to think she was mad at him forever.]
I wasn't sure what to get, but it was supposed to be apple flavored!
[Like his little apple buddy.]
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[ she thanks him for something that just... comes natural to him, and he gives a little laugh--it's odd, to use what the Eye did to him to work counterintuitive to their mission, but it feels...
good. it feels good to use that power in ways they'd despise. ]
Of course I'm gonna look out for you. It's the least I can do. People like us, we... grow up fast. I'm a young man in an older man's body, all things considered. I think Vergil is too.
[ Wolfwood tries very, very hard not to think about eating Fritter, even though he knows that at least part of Fritter is, indeed, edible. ]
... and I've always tried to, you know. Make it so that people like you don't have to grow up as fast as other people want us to, even if that's a pain in the neck for you. It'd make me happy if you'd tolerate that for a little while.
[ it's probably not the cleanest way to say that he cares about her and wants her to enjoy what childhood she can find, all things considered, but Wolfwood's never been much of a words guy, and yet here he is, an elephant trying to dance a waltz around delicate subjects. ]
... are you happy, Evie? With where you live. How your life's goin'?
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Oh, I won't. Vash would pout.
[It does, doesn't it? Using these skills for something entirely different, it felt great!]
[Eve listens to him, actually really listens. She had some suspicions, like the kind she had when around Train. That Wolfwood was someone like her, somehow. A killer. Maybe even more similar than that.]
[For all the inelegance, somehow that makes the message come through better. Maybe it's the acknowledgement of her youthful frustrations without her having to say a word. Or him relating to her on a level that most adults really can't. But if it'll help, if it'll make him happy...]
I guess... I can try. [She might not like it, and she'll probably grumble a bit from time to time. But Eve can tolerate being treated like a child. It's not like she's getting any closer to her bounty hunter dreams here anyway.]
[Ohhh, he asking the difficult questions. Eve shuffles, staring out at the trees in the distance.]
I don't know.
For a long time, I thought I would only be happy if I was around Sven. The man who rescued me from a dark future. Him and his partner. He said I could keep traveling with them until I found a new kind of happiness.
But then I came here. And Sven never showed up.
I'm not unhappy. At least, not anymore. But I don't know what real happiness looks like without him. Or where to go from here.
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Vash just needs half an excuse to pout and I've got stuff to do with my day, so it can be our little secret.
[ it does feel great, to feel like your blood-stained hands can actually be clean, like you aren't a monster in a man's skin just waiting for the instincts that they beat into your head to take over. Wolfwood exhales as he takes on some of Eve's burden--lets himself be the bearer of her frustrations, the source of its creation; he'd always hated people telling him to be patient, to wait to grow up
and then he'd grown up twice as fast and his childhood had been left a bloody smear in the wake of everything. ]
Thanks. I know it can be a lot--especially when you got stuff to do, but not enough time or power or height to do 'em with. I think it's okay to be a little too little for a little while, but I might be biased, an' I ain't your boss anyhow.
[ because it'd be cruel, to joke about not being Eve's parent--a little lonely child's sore point, just a little too tender to be funny. he tilts his head as Eve answers, swallowing around a dryness in his mouth as she muses, and he listens, eyes closed as he rests a hand on his chin as if he's contemplating the answer to life itself on that moment. ]
It's a lot to think about, ain't it? Hard to play the game when you don't know what the rest of the board looks like--and I ain't in the habit of playing blind myself, so I get it. I get not knowing if you're really happy--hell, I didn't think I knew what happy felt like anymore, compared to what I remembered happy feeling like. I don't think I'll ever feel the same way I did before... everything, back when I was eight and at the orphanage.
... but I think I've got a lot more to try in this time and place, and I think that's better that how I was getting on before. I might not be happy, but I've got a lot more choices that're my own--and I hope you have that too. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's yours to do what you want with it, you know?
Maybe that's happiness if you work it a little.
no subject
Right. Our little secret.
[Eve still doesn't see him as the source, plenty of others having given her differing levels of the same sentiment. Even people she generally likes. 'Let others handle it. You're just a kid.' Irritating most of the time, admittedly. She has goals! Big goals! The idea of waiting a year, let alone two or more to achieve them feels like forever.]
[So while she pouts a little, it's not at Wolfwood specifically.]
Someone once told me I already have power. That I'm just surrounded by exceptional people. [It's the same here, somehow. She breathes out her frustration.] It still doesn't feel like enough.
[One day, when she has more time and experience behind her, Eve will likely be as impressive as Vash. But that's not something that she can just force through, much to her annoyance.]
[The restraint would be appreciated, even if Eve has mostly resolved herself to a parentless life. What else is she supposed to do? At least she's collected some dad figures over time. But... Eve sometimes ponders how unlike other kids, she has no mother. A big hole in her life that marks her as not normal.]
[That Wolfwood bothers to listen, making a whole show of taking her uncertainty seriously, does wonders for keeping her attention. There's still so much Eve doesn't know, even with a year of voracious reading. About life, about emotions especially. Such things weren't encouraged in a weapon. Now she's stuck trying to piece together different stimuli into feelings and what they mean. But happiness is so personal, so nebulous. While she can look back on moments and say, 'yes, I was happy then', how on earth does she replicate that feeling again?]
[She makes a mental note about the orphanage mention. Another hint about Wolfwood, behind the cool exterior.]
Emotions are... complicated. I think I can identify most by now, but what causes them and how they feel seems to fluctuate.
Maybe we can't recapture those feelings again. But... [She grips her shoulders tight, a fortress made of crossed arms.] If I'm free to choose, I still want to see and experience new things. I want to keep learning more about this world and others.
And maybe... find my own happiness along the way.
[She has goals and dreams back home but until then...]
[If Sven wanted her to find a new kind of happiness, then she should try... for him.]